One down, 99 (or so) to go!
As an introductory overview to the Great War,
Stokesbury proved to be an excellent choice (full disclosure: I read this one 10
or 15 years ago, though my poor abused memory didn't really remember much about
it). Stokesbury does an excellent job of presenting an overview of the entire
war, managing to hit most all of the big highlights, theaters, campaigns,
personalities, technologies and the like. He does this with a dry sense of
humor, and notably without the bitterness and condescension that can be found in
other Great War histories. There is a hint of cynicism here and there, but it
was coupled with a definite feeling that he could understand how the war could
grind on like it did, and his cynicism seems more the result of the feelings of
inevitability, frustration, and hopelessness at how the war unfolded. Given the constant striving to break out somewhere, anywhere;
the pyrrhic victories; the supremacy of the defense and the lack of technology
that would favor movement, this seems justified.
Stokesbury follows a
fairly straight-forward, linear approach to his history. He does an admirable job of looking at every region touched by the war; from
Africa, to the Middle East, and even manages to mention the relatively minor
events in the Pacific. Still, his focus always returns to the Western Front, as
it inevitably must. Although a "short history," he pulls this off well. One
can quibble with what he leaves out, but that's the price of keeping it short
but comprehensive. I will, however, quibble, because I can! The one thing he
explicitly pays little heed to during the course of the war is politics, aside
from in Russia where it was so utterly critical. He calls the war the "soldier's
act" (followed by the "politician's act" when it ends). Being a Clausewitz fan,
this might be a little too neat of a division, but hardly a fatal flaw in this
particular book.
Speaking of coverage, one area I thought he seemed to
hit inordinately often was the Italian campaign. I did not go back and do a
page count or anything, but it seemed to come up more often than might be
expected -- perhaps I'm just thinking that because of the news story recently
about discovering frozen soldiers and positions from the war still intact from
those battles. Given that this theater does not get much attention in most
histories, I suppose I can't fault him.
Melting glaciers in northern Italy reveal corpses of WW1 soldiers
The Short History of World War I
came out in 1981; the publisher's blurb says it was the first general history of
the war in 20 years. I don't know how accurate that statement is, but given how
this war was overshadowed for so long by World War 2, it seems plausible. In
fact, one of the things that Stokesbury says is that many older histories of the
Great War were inaccurate or skewed, and it was high time for a revisiting. At the same time he seems to hit on
many of the common explanations for why the war started, and how it was fought.
For example, he uses terms like "blind leadership," mentions that "wisdom was
not a dominant quality" among leaders, and so on. Ultimately, his root causes boil down to a "dangerous political imbalance," with population growth
as the most profound driver of it. He adds that nationalism and
Darwinism led to militarism.
My only other criticism of the book is that
it did not have enough maps! There were a few serviceable ones, but they were
all wide area, and not terribly helpful in following the action, especially on
the Western Front during some of the key campaigns and battles. I'm a map
fiend, so I could not let this pass unsaid!
So, bottom line, Stokesbury
is an excellent guide and intro to the war from the 10,000 foot level. Next up
will be Dreadnought by Robert K. Massie. Perhaps "Massive" would be more
accurate, as this one is 1000 pages, give or take. I'm not quite a hundred in,
so it might be a bit before I can post on it!
I've read a couple of books by Stokesbury, although I can't remember which ones. I liked his writing style for the same reasons you did. He's entertaining to read.
ReplyDeleteStokesbury hits on a lot of my favorite issue areas and at the time he wrote his book, it was pretty much one of the newer survey histories. That said, he still lapses a bit too much into the "stupid old men" explanation of war at times (strictly my own impression). While this could certainly be said of numerous politicians among the belligerents, the issue of presentism in history has distorted much WWI history.
ReplyDeleteWhat do I mean? Because post war (especially in the 1960s) historians decided the war was futile and stupid, much historiography has been looked at through a distorted lens that makes decisions made at the time look silly and/or out of touch. Certainly there was incompetence. But there was also malicious, deliberate decision-making going on, especially on the part of the Germans and Austro-Hungarian foreign offices & general staffs.
As far as the focus of the war, the other fronts still tend to get short shrift, even though the actions there often had decisive effects on what was going on in the west. For example, in 1914 the early Russian successes in East Prussia caused a near panic with the German High Command and a corps+ worth of troops were immediately sent east.
Similarly, General Brusilov's near-decisive breakthrough in June 1916 against the Austrians effectively shut down German operations against Verdun as some 12 divisions plus air and artillery were drawn off to backstop the collapsing Hapsburgs.
But overall I agree--there are worse places to start than Stokesbury, especially if one is trying to just get a basic overview of the war.
Stokesbury is pretty decent at noting the effects that the other theaters had on supplying forces to to the Western Front, though he doesn't really do any analysis on whether or not it made any difference (the exception being the collapse of Russia and the influx of German forces from the East for the 1918 offensives).
ReplyDeleteWhile the "stupid old men" talk is present, I think it is mitigated by his impression that there really was nothing anyone was going to do to change the strategic situation. Once the Schlieffen Plan and the other big movements fizzled, just about every breakthrough on every front led to...nothing much. The main source of real mobility in WW1 was by train. When that infrastructure is jacked up by fighting, it becomes impossible to move large amounts of men and materiel with any degree of speed. Thus, every breakthrough outruns its supply at some point. It would take motorized transport to fix that in WW2. So, no amount of brilliant strategic or tactical acumen was going to fix that, and the war became one of grinding attrition.
You make a great point--staff planners had about 60 years worth of wars upon which to base their operations. Just about every war from the 1850s on had lasted no more than a year, maybe 2 at the most. In more dramatic cases, they lasted 6 weeks (when Prussia drubbed Austria in 1866) or months (1859 Franco-Italian campaign against the Austrians in Italy).
ReplyDeleteSo it was logical (at least by contemporary standards) that the war would be over very quickly, not because these guys were all stupid, but because that was what the experience had been up to that point. The drawn out Napoleonic Wars, which might have been a better template, was ancient history by then and all the new modern weapons and technology would just make things get resolved faster, right?
It made things more intense, but not necessarily faster, as all found out pretty quickly.
I would argue, however, that once the Entente began launching their counter-offensives in 1918 that the Commonwealth made great strides retaking most of Belgium and kicking the crap out of the German army. The US was stuck with some of the worst terrain (running perpendicular to major rail lines) but even with that, by October/November the logistical strain of running supplies from France, across the old front line and it's devestated infrastructure, began to have major effects on operations--and ended up being one of the reasons the armistice was agreed to when it was.
A big mistake, in my opinion...but that's another topic!
What's next?
Good points, Doctor S. I just read an article today, matter o' fact, talking about how the Pax Brittanica of 1815-1914...wasn't so much. There were countless wars, but they tended to be small in scale and duration. Even the "Great Power" conflict of the Crimean War was relatively short. No one expected WW1 to be so long, and that's somewhatr esanoable given the previous century.
ReplyDeleteI look at Allied gains in 1918 as a symptom of Germany's finally crumbling under the sheer intensity of the attrition it suffered militarily, socially and economically.
I'm very much looking froward to reading more on U.S. operations in the war, as that's a relative soft spot of mine (the whole war is one big soft spot, of course, hence this whole exercise). However, I am going to continue to read pre August 1914 stuff for a bit to set the satge. Thus far, Dreadnought has been quite good at covering the eprsonalities in the UK and Germany in the run-up to war.
Stokesbury is a good read. But there are other single volume histories on the list that should address some of your interest in such things as causes/effects and the interplay of political, military and other considerations.
ReplyDeleteOne of the other things I would suggest you keep in mind is the comparative advantages and disadvantages of both sides. For example, one of the advantages of the Central Powers that has long been recognized (and overemphasized in their own pre-war planning) was their interior lines of communication. This allowed Germany, in particular, to rapidly shift sizable formations between fronts. Indeed, that's what Germany's final plan in 1917-1918 was all about, the assumption that they could shift enough forces West in time to break the Anglo-French armies before large quantities of American troops went into action. However, less well recognized is the success the Entente Powers experienced in strategic movement (example of the rapid and efficient shift of Anglo-British forces to save the Italian Front in 1917-1918) and in theater level offensive planning. It would be a stretch to call the latter well-coordinated. But there were numerous occasions when coordination did in fact occur and with devastating short- and long-term consequences for Germany. Dr. Strangelove mentioned one such example. Anglo-French attacks at various points along the Western Front and at various times, performed exactly the same function for the Russians, easing the strain on their forces at a critical time. It is true that with better high-level coordination, the Entente Powers could have achieved much more. But they actually didn't make such a hash at cooperation as is often portrayed.
Thanks, Joe! A good point-- interior lines are nice, but if you have more or less unimpeded movement by sea, that makes up for quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteThe point on Allied coordination is interesting, given how late it came and how bumpy it was even then. I wonder if that is why you see the Combined Chiefs of Staff form up so quickly and effectively in WW2.
One more thing....the ACW lasted from 1861-65 and many of the lessons that could have been learned for WWI were first experienced there. But despite the fixation some European General Staffs had on studying Jackson's Valley campaign and other such engagements, they really missed the big picture as far as how long two belligerents could fight each other while expending massive amounts of blood and treasure.
ReplyDeleteI believe Moltke dismissed the ACW as "a war between mobs." That cost them.
Joe also makes some excellent points. Another constant issue to remember is that despite the Central Powers' interior lines, all of Germany's allies were sub-standard performers (to put it midly). Austria-Hungary was referred to by somebody on the German General staff as being "chained to a corpse."
To use a Colin-ism, Austria bungle-f*cked their initial mobilization and campaigns in 1914 and nearly went under--this was offset to a degree by the German victory at Tannenberg, but not by much.
Turkey was similarly in dire straits, not much help to the Central Powers beyond tying up limited Commonwealth assets and (the big one) corking up the Black Sea.
Really makes you wonder what German planners were thinking when they figured they cut prevent any ships carrying US troops from reaching France with a relatively small number of U-boats.
Yeah, germany was pretty seriously hamstrung by having as its two key allies a pair of empires that were crumbling well before the war started. Of course, to Rumsfeldize this, you go to the war with the allies you have, not the ones you want.
ReplyDelete