Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War by Max Hastings

Hastings is an old favorite of mine, though in hindsight I've only read a few of his many works (my favorite is, without doubt, The Battle for the Falklands, one of the first real history books I ever bought). Hastings has generally been more associated with his Second World War writings, and this is his first long work on WW1 that I'm aware of.  Still, he is a superb writer and keeps the attention quite well.

Most books on the opening of the Great War tend to focus on either the political-diplomatic aspects, or the military aspects of that time; Hastings tries to do both, and largely succeeds.  However, he does admit that there will likely never be a "definitive" account of the opening of the war, nor does he try to claim such for himself.  His scope is fairly clear - 1914 from start to finish, with only limited mentions of a few events just before, and a few after, but covering as much of that as is manageable.  Although he proceeds generally chronologically, he divides his chapters up between both the Western Front, which he acknowledges as key to the war's course, and spends several chapters covering Eastern Fronts not often covered in any depth (probably most notable being the Galician and Serbian Fronts).  There is no real discussion of events outside of Europe.

In framing the outbreak of the war, Hastings explicitly rejects the notion that this war was morally different than the Second World War.  Despite the writings of Sassoon and others, he does not see the war as being morally ambiguous or unclear.  He firmly assigns the lion share of the blame for the war to Germany and Austria (with Russia as, perhaps, an honorable mention).  But, he is quite clear in believing that, had Germany conquered in 1914 as they did in 1940, Europe would've been a far darker place than many realize, and he quotes from numerous sources to support that conclusion, primarily German.  As part of this discussion, he delves a great deal into atrocities, real, imagined and feigned.  The worst were, unsurprisingly in Serbia, where Austrian and Slavic hatreds ran deep.  But he is quick to point out a good many German ones, as well, primarily in Belgium but also in France and Russia.  Surprisingly to me, he portrays the Russians as quite chivalrous in their conduct, at least in 1914.  His statistics are interesting -- for example, there were over 6000 documented civilian executions by the Germans in August 1914 alone; the Germans claimed the Russians killed around 100 over both August and September combined.

Hastings saves a lot of his ire for specific individuals.  The Kaiser, for instance, "displayed many of the characteristics of a uniformed version of Kenneth Graham's Mister Toad."  Or, "Conrad (Austro-Hungary's military leader) retained a boundless capacity for promoting disaster."  However, his continuing ire is most reserved for Britain's field commander, Sir John French, a "poltroon" who he manages to berate at every turn, with a great deal of merit, I might add.  Indeed, Hastings covers the British Expeditionary Force's activities in great detail, even while constantly reminding the reader that the French and Russians were fighting much larger battles, with tremendous losses (he points out that the deadliest day in WW1 was not at the Somme, but in 1914).  He does not paint the British Army in a very positive light, at least in its effectiveness, though at the same time he heaps praise on the common soldiers and junior officers.  The accounts of the BEF retreat from Mons, consolidation near Paris, the race to the sea, and the desperate defense of Ypres was quite engrossing.

What Hastings does most brilliantly, however, is to personalize his account using the words of those that lived through the war (and many that did not).  Every page drips with personal anecdotes and stories, taken from journals, letters, and the like.  From senior political and military leaders and their circles, down to common soldiers, peasants, and the like, he has a thousand personal details that really help to bring home the war and its effect on Europeans of all stripes.  I could not possibly begin to do this part of the book justice, as the details are countless. (OK, I will include one:  I did not realize that a single territorial unit of the British Army, the London Scottish Regiment, included the actors Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall, Cedric Hardwicke, and Ronald Colman.)
 
So, next up is a slight departure with The Riddle of the Sands, by Erskine Childers.  The novel has been mentioned in several of the books I've read thus far; the author has been mentioned as well, both for his book and the rather colorful life that he led during this time.

The Lions of July: Prelude to War, 1914 by William Jannen Jr.

Jannen presents another what I would call "personality-focused" look at the immediate run-up to the start of the war.  Unlike Massie, he focuses very closely on the period of late June through the first few days of August, 1914.  Given the tight focus, he's able to examine events during this time in a very detailed manner.

Jannen examines the interplay of diplomacy during the crucial month of July, tracing the interactions of key diplomats (primarily ambassadors and foreign secretaries) as the crisis rapidly builds from an assassination in Sarajevo to world war.  Though focused on the diplomats, he does not neglect the influences of political and military leaders, especially with regards to Germany, where both proved to have an inordinate influence on how the crisis spun out of control.

Jannen is pretty clear in his discussion that he felt that no one really wanted a general war.  Austria wanted to pummel Serbia, which had been goading them (and supporting terrorists) for years.  Russia felt themselves as the guarantors of the southern Slavs.  Germany foolishly encouraged the Austrians before they realized what such recklessness would mean for them.  The French were locked into their entente with Russia, and in any case never had a real choice once Germany opted for war.  Britain found herself obligated to Belgium and, to a lesser extent, to France, and in any case had no great desire to see a continent dominated by the German Empire.  Tragedy certainly; far too tragic to call it a farce.

The author does a good job at demonstrating just how cumbersome and slow the machinery was at the time for dealing with international crises.  Although the telephone and telegraph were in use, they were hardly as efficient as might be thought. Radio, too, proved unreliable, as witnessed by the inability of the French Prime Minster and President to receive information while at sea for a crucial few days of the growing crisis.  Add to all this that every country had an ambassador in every capital, thus creating multiple channels of communication and information, often out of synch, dated, and just plain wrong.  Coupled with the personal agendas of all these men and you end up with one great, confusing mess.

But, Jannen settles on fear as the real underlying problem.  In 1914, Europe was in the throes of change.  The monarchies were slowly giving way to more democratic principles.  Some states were growing in power (Germany, Serbia) while others were in decline (Austria-Hungary). Technology, economics, culture and many other aspects of European life were in flux, which fed a feeling of uncertainty and fear.  With the underpinning of fear, a haze of confusion, and overlapping impacts of personality, what follows seems less incomprehensible.  There was no rush to war – most every leader knew this was going to be an utter disaster, but no one knew how to stop it, though many tried desperately to do so.

Much of the current writing on the impending 100^th anniversary as focused on blame.  Jannen does not directly address this, though I would think his opinion on the matter is fairly clear – Germany and Austria-Hungary deserve the lion share of it, given Austria’s almost monomaniacal fixation on Serbia and Germany’s “blank cheque” policy of urging Austria on, plus it’s utter reliance on the Schlieffen Plan which guaranteed that any war involving Germany was going to involve France, Russia, Austria, Germany, and probably Britain and even Italy, among others.  I think Serbia looks culpable to a degree, as well.  By bearding the Austrians repeatedly, supporting terrorists and secessionists, and the like, they were certainly guilty of goading the Austrians.  Last, I’d add Russia for being the first to go to general mobilization, which certainly weighted heavily on the Germans.  But, at the end of the day, with such a complex confluence of events it is hard to point to a single cause or party to blame, and that is perhaps why Jannen avoids anything overly explicit along these lines.

Jannen provides good insight into the gory details of the last days of diplomacy before the war erupted.  Thankfully, he also provides a list of all the players – it was quite confusing at times.  Adding to the confusion, and probably a good indicator of what Europe was like in 1914, is that many of the players’ names did not match what might be expected of their nationality.  So, the German ambassador to Russia had a French-sounding name, the British ambassador to Vienna had a French name,  the French undersecretary for foreign affairs had an English name, several key Russians had Germanic names, some Austrians had Italian names, the Austrian ambassador to London had a compound French-German name, and so on.  The author does not mention this, but it is indicative of a much more integrated, confused Europe, where borders certainly did not match the locations of national groups.  I’m sure a lot more could be said of this, and what it meant for subsequent history.

So, book number three is down.  Up next is Max Hastings (a favorite author of mine) and Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War.