Thursday, April 10, 2014

The First World War: An Illustrated History by A J P Taylor

A quick entry for a quick book.  I decided to read another single-volume overview to shake up my "road to war" readings.

Taylor's book is the first I ever read on WW1, quite a few years ago.  It's a fairly short book, with as much space given to illustrations (a lot of great ones) as to text; it is quick and easy to read.  Taylor provides a general, chronological overview of the war focused on the Western Front, though he does discuss other theaters in brief.  Also, he devotes more text to politics than simply recounting battle after battle.  Given the brevity, he does come off as somewhat breathless, but given the scope covered by a small volume, this is to be expected.  Throughout, he maintains a dry, very English, wit to some of his comments (biting and acerbic at times, perhaps).

Taylor certainly provides a heaping helping of criticism to military leadership on both sides and in each country, especially the French, English and Germans.  he does not have much positive to say, though he is certainly in the "but what else could they do" camp.  Politicians, however, come in for quite a bit of abuse from Taylor.  He hammers them left and right, from Wilson's naivete, to hapless Germans like Bethmann and Zimmerman, to Briand and others.  Lloyd George seems to get a bit of praise, though, as Taylor highlight's his demands for convoys and in other recommendations in the face of British military opposition; in fact, he seems a tad enamored with the man.  I am not terribly knowledgeable about Taylor, but given the time the book was written (late 60s, early 70s) I have to wonder if some of the Vietnam era thinking slips into his thought processes.

So, that one was quick.  Back to "origins of the war" reading.  Lucky for me, I found a large cache of them in the Pentagon library!


2 comments:

  1. Mind you, Lloyd-George's small-minded, politically-driven behavior toward Haig in 1918 nearly ensured the collapse of the Commonwealth portion of the Western front, thanks to L-G's witholding of reinforcements and replacements.

    Taylor is also part of the "WWI as an accident" school, which was common enough at the time but is a conclusion absent any real meaning (aren't all wars accidents to one degree or another? Unless you're Germany...)

    He's also in love with the whole "War by Timetable" approach to the war (I think he actually wrote a book or an article with that title.) But I completely agree with you, this is not the worst introduction to the Great War--but it should not be the only book a newbie should read.

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  2. Agreed. He certainly falls into the whole "timetables made it inevitable; it just took some accidental trigger" camp. it will be interesting to read Hamilton and Herwig for the opposite viewpoint (which I just started). It's a good, quick overview, but there are some flaws, to be sure.

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