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The First World War: A Brief History with Documents
Explore the unprecedented nature of modern Total War as First World War outlines the origins, experiences, and legacies of World War I throughout and beyond Europe and the West.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 27, 2012
11 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
Susan R. Grayzel
9 books6 followersSusan R. Grayzel is Professor of History at Utah State University.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 30, 2022
The book opens with this note – “Forty years before the start of World War I, the shape of Europe and, as a result, the globe, altered. New nation-states in central and southern Europe came into being, changing the dynamics of political power on the continent. Nationalism — the notion of belonging to an “imagined community” that could compel loyalty to a geographic entity larger than a locality, to the leaders of this larger nation, and to the symbols that embodied it (a flag, an anthem, a uniform) — grew throughout the nineteenth century.”
Truth be told, it used to be that history textbooks about Europe described the interlude between 1815 and 1914 as an era of tranquility.
The First World War was a social and political cataclysm. Nine million soldiers died and millions more suffered mental and physical injuries. The war cost billions of dollars, not only in military expenses but also in damage to property.
The war emboldened democrats and feminists as well as communists and fascists. During the war, four major empires collapsed. Afterwards, the peace settlements changed boundaries all around the world.
All these things were exceedingly momentous for world history. But the thing that most charms readers about the First World War is that it seems, in hindsight, to have been preventable.
The war originated in a minute conflict in Eastern Europe that snowballed into a much larger conflict. This happened because of disagreements between two groups of allied countries that were committed to rigid military plans.
At the beginning they took steps that were too violent, since none of the participants predicted the war’s dreadfulness.
It is true that during that time period the most powerful countries in Europe tended not to fight with each other.
This calm contrasted strongly with the era of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789–1815), when large numbers of Europeans fought and died for the sake of their nations and empires.
By comparison, the period from 1815 to 1914 does seem comparatively serene. The relative absence of warfare between nations allowed for a major burst in industrialization and technological development, which resulted in disruptions, to be sure, even as the overall standard of living rose in most places.
Yet this epoch cannot candidly be described as an age of absolute tranquility.
In the middle of the century, major conflicts were associated with the unification of the German and Italian nations. In response to the forces of nationalism, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire fought to stave off disintegration.
Meanwhile, Britain and France—and to a lesser degree Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, and the United States—expanded their empires overseas.
For the most part, their colonies were obtained by shedding the blood of the native inhabitants and, to a lesser extent, the blood of their own soldiers.
This volume is divided into two parts –
*Part One, the introduction, is divided into three sections.
1) The first section provides a picture of Europe and its empires in the years prior to the war, detailing not only the war’s instantaneous origins (the rise of Europe’s “armed camps” and the “alliance system” of the early 20th century) but also the cultural, social, and political developments of 19th - and early-20th -century Europe that fostered an atmosphere conducive to the outbreak of war on that continent in 1914.
2) The second section fully places the European experiences of the war in a global context, detailing key events and their effects on those who lived through them. As the introduction’s largest section, it covers the spacious chronological, and much of the global, range of the war.
3) Finally, the third section explores the instant consequences of the war, addressing not only the treaties that brought the fighting to an end and redrew the map of Europe and outside, but also some of the social and cultural responses to this clash.
Each of the introduction’s three sections is supported by an equivalent set of documents in Part Two; these documents form the foundation of this book.
The documents come from men and women, combatants and noncombatants, Europeans and non-Europeans, and they illustrate both the historical events that defined the conflict and how people who lived during the war years reflected on its meaning at the time or in its aftermath.
Treaties, agreements, news items, and diplomatic dispatches are presented alongside cherished diary entries, letters, essays, poems, and prose to give students an opportunity to explore the far-reaching effects of the Great War.
The main lesson of the book?
Simply this that do not charge into a war, it might be worse than you think!!
In those days, it seemed that the alliance systems led by the United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war and that smaller conflicts in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East might rocket into a global holocaust.
Many observers were astounded to see the Cold War standoff end rather hurriedly in the late 1980s.
Authors proclaimed an end to history.
It appeared that liberalism and globalization had triumphed. The unbending communist bloc had disintegrated, but globalization made it feasible for local conflicts to escalate into worldwide warfare.
The Middle East remained a hot spot where interstate quarrel was exacerbated by groups of stateless terrorists.
On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaida employed the technologies of globalization to launch attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. The United States replied by invading Afghanistan in an effort to destroy Al-Qaida and the Taliban.
One year later, the United States and its allies began to deliberate whether or not it was necessary to attack Iraq and what the results of such an attack might be.
As it turned out, the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have ushered in many involuntary consequences.
The First World War became pertinent again by the eve of its hundredth anniversary.
Truth be told, it used to be that history textbooks about Europe described the interlude between 1815 and 1914 as an era of tranquility.
The First World War was a social and political cataclysm. Nine million soldiers died and millions more suffered mental and physical injuries. The war cost billions of dollars, not only in military expenses but also in damage to property.
The war emboldened democrats and feminists as well as communists and fascists. During the war, four major empires collapsed. Afterwards, the peace settlements changed boundaries all around the world.
All these things were exceedingly momentous for world history. But the thing that most charms readers about the First World War is that it seems, in hindsight, to have been preventable.
The war originated in a minute conflict in Eastern Europe that snowballed into a much larger conflict. This happened because of disagreements between two groups of allied countries that were committed to rigid military plans.
At the beginning they took steps that were too violent, since none of the participants predicted the war’s dreadfulness.
It is true that during that time period the most powerful countries in Europe tended not to fight with each other.
This calm contrasted strongly with the era of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789–1815), when large numbers of Europeans fought and died for the sake of their nations and empires.
By comparison, the period from 1815 to 1914 does seem comparatively serene. The relative absence of warfare between nations allowed for a major burst in industrialization and technological development, which resulted in disruptions, to be sure, even as the overall standard of living rose in most places.
Yet this epoch cannot candidly be described as an age of absolute tranquility.
In the middle of the century, major conflicts were associated with the unification of the German and Italian nations. In response to the forces of nationalism, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire fought to stave off disintegration.
Meanwhile, Britain and France—and to a lesser degree Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, and the United States—expanded their empires overseas.
For the most part, their colonies were obtained by shedding the blood of the native inhabitants and, to a lesser extent, the blood of their own soldiers.
This volume is divided into two parts –
*Part One, the introduction, is divided into three sections.
1) The first section provides a picture of Europe and its empires in the years prior to the war, detailing not only the war’s instantaneous origins (the rise of Europe’s “armed camps” and the “alliance system” of the early 20th century) but also the cultural, social, and political developments of 19th - and early-20th -century Europe that fostered an atmosphere conducive to the outbreak of war on that continent in 1914.
2) The second section fully places the European experiences of the war in a global context, detailing key events and their effects on those who lived through them. As the introduction’s largest section, it covers the spacious chronological, and much of the global, range of the war.
3) Finally, the third section explores the instant consequences of the war, addressing not only the treaties that brought the fighting to an end and redrew the map of Europe and outside, but also some of the social and cultural responses to this clash.
Each of the introduction’s three sections is supported by an equivalent set of documents in Part Two; these documents form the foundation of this book.
The documents come from men and women, combatants and noncombatants, Europeans and non-Europeans, and they illustrate both the historical events that defined the conflict and how people who lived during the war years reflected on its meaning at the time or in its aftermath.
Treaties, agreements, news items, and diplomatic dispatches are presented alongside cherished diary entries, letters, essays, poems, and prose to give students an opportunity to explore the far-reaching effects of the Great War.
The main lesson of the book?
Simply this that do not charge into a war, it might be worse than you think!!
In those days, it seemed that the alliance systems led by the United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war and that smaller conflicts in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East might rocket into a global holocaust.
Many observers were astounded to see the Cold War standoff end rather hurriedly in the late 1980s.
Authors proclaimed an end to history.
It appeared that liberalism and globalization had triumphed. The unbending communist bloc had disintegrated, but globalization made it feasible for local conflicts to escalate into worldwide warfare.
The Middle East remained a hot spot where interstate quarrel was exacerbated by groups of stateless terrorists.
On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaida employed the technologies of globalization to launch attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. The United States replied by invading Afghanistan in an effort to destroy Al-Qaida and the Taliban.
One year later, the United States and its allies began to deliberate whether or not it was necessary to attack Iraq and what the results of such an attack might be.
As it turned out, the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have ushered in many involuntary consequences.
The First World War became pertinent again by the eve of its hundredth anniversary.
November 3, 2024
It is incredibly difficult to sum up the buildup to the war, the war years, and the aftermath in a handful of pages, but Grayzel manages to do so excellently in the introduction. The selection of documents are relevant and introduced with good context. Great content for such a small volume.
October 4, 2023
Not nearly as egregious as Lafore. Thanks Grayzel for making this bearable.
April 14, 2025
nice selection of primary sources
June 7, 2015
Read as background for WWI book group at my public library.
October 2, 2023
I read it for one of my classes but I found it very interesting and I read it really fast.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews