George_Chabot's Full Review: Barbara W. Tuchman - Guns of August
The Guns of August
By Barbara Tuchman
Little could anyone foresee that the opening of hostilities in 1914 would embroil the world in such a vast conflict. The unimaginable size and horrendous cost of the First World War, both in human and economic terms brought on suffering that had not been known in modern times.
August 1914 is the setting of The Guns of August: what happened from the beginning to the end of that fatal month was to set the tone for four long years of indecisive trench warfare.
Prior to the outbreak of war, however, the author points out the pompous ways of the European nobility, how nine kings rode in the funeral of British King Edward VII a scant four years earlier. How the three most powerful kings, Kaiser William of Germany, Czar Nicholas of Russia, and King George V, the new English monarch, were all related by blood, being grandchildren of Queen Victoria.
While history books blame the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists the cause of the War to End All Wars, it was really only a pretext for the armed camps of Europe to come into conflict, something they had long been expecting and even seeking. Using the assasination as a pretext, the Austro-Hungarian Empire resolved to absorb Serbia into its domain, just as it had Bosnia and Herzegovina earlier in 1909. The Kaiser quickly drew his sword to stand beside his Austrian allies. Similarly, the Czar stood up for his fellow Slavs, the Serbs.
In the meantime, the real goal of the Germans was to conquer France. Since 1870 both the German and French high commands had planned for such a war. The obvious invasion path was through the lowlands of Belgium and a great wheeling movement through Belgium into Northern France capturing Paris was the German "Schlieffen Plan" . The key to the Schlieffen Plan was a heavy right wing that would sweep through Belgium into France like a wheel, with the heavy rim enveloping Paris and winning the war.
On August 1 the Kaiser declared war on Russia and gave France an eighteen-hour ultimatum not to come to the aid of Russia. France ignored this and ordered a general mobilization. On August 3 the Germans entered neutral Belgium, and Britain declared war on Germany on August 4. The Belgians put up an unexpected resistance and incurred the wrath of the German commanders who shot what they called terrorists out of hand. This brutality was met with condemnation in the world press. George Bernard Shaw's comment was typical; "the Germans are a people with contempt for common sense."
The French plan, on the other hand was to attack, attack, attack. The French high command, under General Joffre, emphasized cran (guts) over everything else. They quickly found that cran and élan was not enough to repel German steel.
The Germans set out to reduce the ring of forts that surrounded the Belgian cities of Liege, Antwerp, Brussels, and Namur. By August 20 all towns had been captured except Namur. In the meantime, the French attacked the Germans in Lorraine, but were severely beaten. However, the Germans commander von Moltke made the mistake of diverting forces from his heavy right wing to support the battle along the frontier. At the same time, General von Kluck (planning a double envelopment of the French army) decided to turn his army inland, West of Paris, instead of "sweeping the channel with his sleeve" as called for in the Schlieffen Plan. These mistakes combined to lessen the right wing sweep of Belgium and France and set the stage for the wicked battle of the Marne, which was to halt the German offensive and bog down the opposing armies into four more years of brutal trench warfare.
Barbara Tuchman gives a riveting, readable account of all the events and players in this grand tale of the seeds and outcomes of the opening month of the First World War. Her writing is stripped down and straightforward with each paragraph urging the reader to continue on to another one.
My personal copy is a leather bound edition published by the Easton Press, and makes a beautiful addition to my library. In my opinion The Guns of August should be read by all people, historians and laymen alike, because it is remarkable how shallow are the reasons that powerful men will use as a pretext to go to war. As George Santayana said, "They who forget history are condemned to repeat it."
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The acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the first month of World War I is now in mass market paperback. Fascinating . . . One of the finest wo...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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