The First World War

by Hew Strachan

“This serious, compact survey of the war’s history stands out as the most well-informed, accessible work available.” ( Los Angeles Times )

Nearly a century has passed since the outbreak of World War I, yet as military historian Hew Strachan argues in this brilliant and authoritative new book, the legacy of the “war to end all wars” is with us still. The First World War was a truly global conflict from the start, with many of the most decisive battles fought in or directly affecting the Balkans, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. Even more than World War II, the First World War continues to shape the politics and international relations of our world, especially in hot spots like the Middle East and the Balkans.

Strachan has done a masterful job of reexamining the causes, the major campaigns, and the consequences of the First World War, compressing a lifetime of knowledge into a single definitive volume tailored for the general reader. Written in crisp, compelling prose and enlivened with extraordinarily vivid photographs and detailed maps, The First World War re-creates this world-altering conflict both on and off the battlefield—the clash of ideologies between the colonial powers at the center of the war, the social and economic unrest that swept Europe both before and after, the military strategies employed with stunning success and tragic failure in the various theaters of war, the terms of peace and why it didn’t last.

Drawing on material culled from many countries, Strachan offers a fresh, clear-sighted perspective on how the war not only redrew the map of the world but also set in motion the most dangerous conflicts of today. Deeply learned, powerfully written, and soon to be released with a new introduction that commemorates the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the war, The First World War remains a landmark of contemporary history.
 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War I, War, Military History, Military Fiction, World History

400 pages, Paperback

First published September 11, 2003

About the author

Hew Strachan was born and brought up in Edinburgh, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 2003 and awarded an Hon. D.Univ., (Paisley) 2005. He is also Life Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was successively Research Fellow, Admissions Tutor and Senior Tutor, 1975-92. From 1992 to 2001 he was Professor of Modern History at the University of Glasgow, and from 1996 to 2001 Director of the Scottish Centre for War Studies.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the centennial of the onset of World War 1 upon us, I sought and found in this 2004 book a good choice for a one-volume history of the whole shebang. It is highly compressed into 340 pages, but is not wanting for covering the war in its world-wide aspect. With such a scope, we lose out on in-depth character assessment of major figures, but there are too many of them anyway. What we get instead is an effective framework of interpretation for hanging a lot of the facts and factions and sites of conflict. Each of ten chapters covers a theme, and in the process the reader is led to the perspective that for many of the participants the war was meaningful and worked to achieve the aims of big ideas.

I appreciated that his credentials are sound as an Oxford historian involved in work in a massive trilogy on the war, the first volume of which “To Arms” came out in 2001. This more accessible synthesis created as a companion to a TV documentary, which I was pleasantly surprised to be available on YouTube(Intro; Chapt. 1). I was also reassured with a favorable reaction to the book in a New Yorker piece by Adam Gopnik:

Strachan is no drudge; he has a point to make and a message to deliver. His desire is to take the cliché image of the war, particularly the English one—the war as Monty Python massacre, with idiot Graham Chapman generals sending gormless Michael Palin soldiers to a senseless death—and replace it with something more like the image that Americans have of our Civil War: a horrible, hard slog, certainly, but fought that way because no other was available, and fought for a cause in itself essentially good.

I was drawn in the first paragraph of Strachan’s preface:
In Britain popular interest in the First World War runs at levels that surprise almost all other nations, with the possible exception of France. The concluding series of Blackadder, the enormously successful BBC satirization of the history of England, has its heroes in the trenches. Its humor assumed an audience familiar with chateau-bound generals, goofy staff officers and cynical but long-suffering infantrymen. The notion that British soldiers were ‘lions led by donkeys’ continues to provoke a debate that has not lost its passion, even if it is now devoid of originality. For a war that was global, it is a massively restricted vision: a conflict measured in years of mud along a narrow corridor of Flanders and northern France. It knows nothing of the Italian Alps or of the Masurian lakes; it bypasses the continents of Africa and Asia; it forgets the war’s other participants—diplomats and sailors, politicians and laborers, women and children.

I am glad to get a broader foundation, even if it tarnishes my impulse to judge that war is never worth its cost. I have long been under the sway of the image of the total waste and futility of the war as dominated by the story of the slaughter of the Somme, Verdun, and Passchendaele and led to hate the cold blindness of generals like Douglas Haig. This has been reinforced by accounts written in the 20’s such as Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” and Robert Grave’s memoir “Goodbye to All That”, as well Faulks’ recent novel “Birdsong”. The dreadful defensive stalemate at the trenches was unfortunately what the generals faced, and the decisions to risk so many lives on a breakout against machine guns were transformed to the war of attrition and industrial exhaustion. Though Strachan doesn’t spend much time second guessing the generals, he doesn’t go quite as far as Gopnik in excusing them: “If a steering committee of Grant, Montgomery, Napoleon, and Agamemnon had been convened to lead the allies, the result would have been about the same.”

With such losses, why weren’t there more voices to say “It’s not worth it; compromise in a negotiated peace”? Some seemed to think and believe that the massive loss of human life demanded total defeat of the enemy to make their loss worth something. Others would point to German and French intransigence over Alsace-Lorraine as the key barrier to Wilson’s 14 points for peace. Still others consider perpetuation of the war as bound to early visions of key leaders like Churchill on the spoils of empires that later got divided so richly in the Treaty of Versaille. I don’t get a clear answer on this question from Strachan, or else no dominant reason stands up as responsible for the tragic duration of four long years. He does make a point that only because the enough soldiers believed in the war and did not to mutiny was the war able to continue as long as it did.

Strachan does put a dent in my comfort in the notion of inevitability of this war through reading that stopped on Tuchman’s “Guns of August” (1962). She implanted in my brain a picture of bumbling but warmongering empires which were so trapped by their nest of unstable alliances that of the assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo represented effectively a random spark to start the conflagration. Yes, a lot of leaders were already planning for war, but Strachan emphasizes how the war the Germans and Austrians wanted in 1914 was a restricted one to settle the fate of Serbia and that they were genuinely surprised over Russia’s mobilization in response. And the apparent roll-out of the invasion of France according to the 1905 Schlieffen Plan was not significant as an inflexible script for the Germans in Strachan’s view.

Strachan also dispels the notion that the onset of the war was driven in a meaningful way by imperial ambitions of Germany, Britain, and France. However, for many of the other participants brought in through the extended conflicts of the Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empires, the territorial integrity as nations and motivations for expansion did serve as a prime motivator. I was able to learn a lot more about the fates in the war of Serbia, Poland, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, and Greece and come to understand some of the causes and consequences of fighting taking place in Turkey, in Mesopotamia and Palestine in the Middle East, and at multiple sites in Africa. Obviously, just broad strokes, but vivid nonetheless.

No matter how foolish the concept that this as “the war to end all wars”, the prospects for significant consequences did indeed lead to meaningful consequences:
This is of course the biggest paradox in our understanding of the war. On the one had it was an unnecessary war fought in a manner that defied common sense, but on the other it was the war that shaped the world in which we still live. …
The First World War broke the empires of Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungry, and Turkey. It triggered the Russian Revolution and provided the bedrock for the Soviet Union; it forced a reluctant United States on to the world stage and revivified liberalism. On Europe’s edge, it provided a temporary but not a long-term solution to the ambitions of the Balkan nations. Outside Europe it laid the seeds for the conflict in the Middle East. In short it shaped not just Europe but the world in the twentieth century. It was emphatically not a war without meaning or purpose.
…
Within Europe, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Finland, and Lithuania had all achieved independence and a measure of definition before Woodrow Wilson even landed at Brest. …In Central and Eastern Europe war had effected change, and for those who sought such changes it continued to do so. Indeed, the United States’ own decision to intervene was confirmation of the same point. War could work.

In a 2013 interview, Strachan warned planners of the centennial events that the commemoration was in danger of becoming sterile and boring. He calls for more than pity over a meaningless tragedy, and promotes discussion and education on a broader scope about the war.

Strachan gets his wish on more debate about the Great War when the first broadside of this centennial year was fired by British Education Secretary Michael Gove in the The Daily Mail in January 2014. Titles alone tell a lot:
--Gove: Why does the Left insist on belittling true British heroes?”
--Editor: Michael Gove blasts 'Blackadder myths' about the First World War spread by television sit-coms and left-wing academics
• Education Secretary says war is represented as a 'misbegotten shambles'
• But he claims that it was in fact a 'just war' to combat German aggression”

--Actor (in The Guardian): Sir Tony Robinson hits back at Michael Gove's first world war comments”
• Actor who played Baldrick says Gove is irresponsible for saying Blackadder is leftwing and paints war as 'misbegotten shambles'
--Blogger (in History Extra): Is Blackadder bad for First World War history?
--Columnist (in Huffington Post): Michael Gove attacked For 'Blackadder' comments on 'Left-wing' whitewash of WW1 history

You can see for yourself the punch and affront and antidote to insanity in the parodies referred to:
--Blackadder: Good Luck Everyone
--Monty Python: Ypres 1914 skit

[Peiman E iran · Rating 3 out of 5]

‎دوستانِ گرانقدر، در این ریویو میخواهم چکیده ای از چگونگیِ شکل گیریِ جنگِ جهانیِ اول را برایتان بنویسم.. شاید برایِ بسیاری از دوستان این پرسش پیش آمده باشد که به راستی دلیلِ این جنگ و این همه کشتار چه بوده است! و جنگ از کجا و چگونه آغاز گشته است
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‎جنگ جهانی اول، در سالِ 1914 آغاز شد و نزدیک به پنج سال به طول انجامید.. در جنگِ جهانیِ اول، 27 کشور در حالِ نبرد بودند و نزدیک به 16میلیون تن، در این نبردِ خونین جان باختند، که تلفاتِ روسیه، بیش از دیگر کشورها بود
‎لازم است بدانید، پیشرفتِ دانش و پدید آمدنِ پلهایِ ارتباطی در پایانِ سدهٔ هجدهم و رفت و آمد دانشجویان و استادان به دیگر کشورها، سبب شده بود تا جوی از صلح و آرامش در سراسرِ اروپایِ غربی و آمریکا ایجاد شود و کمتر کسی تصور میکرد، این آرامشِ پیش از طوفان باشد
‎پس از سالِ 1905، انگلستان، فرانسه و روسیه، از یکسو .. و آلمان و اتریشِ بزرگ و ایتالیا، از سویِ دیگر، با یکدیگر متحد شدند
‎کشورهایِ بزرگ، نگران این بودند، که در این آرامش ممکن است هریک ساختِ سلاح و تجهیز کردنِ کشورِ خویش را آغاز کرده باشند، بنابراین به شکلی جنون آمیز به فکرِ ساختِ سلاح های مختلف و ایجاد اتحاد و تیمهایِ گوناگون افتادند
‎فرانسه، به سببِ سیاستهایِ اشتباهِ بیسمارک در نبردِ با پروس، که به شکستِ فرانسه منجر شده بود، مدتِ بیست سال بود که تنها و وامانده از همه جا، از بازی سیاستِ بزرگانِ دنیا، دور مانده بود.. بنابراین اتحاد با انگلستان و روسیه، برایش نوید بخشِ بازگشت به قدرت بود
‎اختلافِ زبانها و نژادها در اتریش و کشورهایِ بالکان، اغتشاشی بزرگ به وجود آورد.. یونان، صربستان، بلغارستان و رومانی، با یکدیگر جنگ و درگیری هایِ زیادی پیدا کردند.. در این شرایط بود که حزبی به اصطلاح ناسیونالیستی و عجیب، به نامِ "پان-اسلاویسم" در کشورهایِ بالکان که تابعِ اتریش بودند، به راه افتاد... در این میان، روسها نیز دست به دستِ اسلاوها داده و از آنها پشتیبانی کردند تا به اهدافِ شومِ استعمارگرانهٔ خویش دست یابند.. این حزبِ پان-اسلاویسم، در همه جا بر علیهِ نژادِ "توتُن" تبلیغ میکرد و در مردم، حسِ نژادپرستیِ ناآگاهانه ایجاد کرده بود و سیستمداران و اندیشمندانِ آلمانی نیز سعی بر این داشتند تا مردم را نسبت به خطرِ پان-اسلاویسم، آگاه کنند.. خلاصه اختلافاتِ بالکان یکی از دلایلِ اصلی برایِ آغازِ جنگ جهانی اول بود... در سالِ 1909 میلادی، بوسنی و هرزگوین، ضمیمهٔ کشورِ اتریش شد و این موضوع سببِ ایجادِ خشم در صربها گردید، چراکه آنها برایِ تشکیلِ صربستانی بزرگ، نیازِ به تمامیِ ایالتها همچون بوسنی و هرزگوین داشتند... در سالِ 1914 <آرشیدوک فرانسیس> ولیعهدِ اتریش و همسرش، در سارایوو، مرکزِ بوسنی، به دستِ یک صربستانیِ متعصب و بیخرد، به قتل رسیدند... و این جرقه ای بود برایِ شعله ور شدنِ آتشِ جنگی جهانی و سوزاننده
‎اتریش، برایِ انتقام به صربستان اعلامِ جنگ کرد.. از سویِ دیگر، روسیه که نه سرِ پیاز بود و نه تهِ پیاز، برایِ حمایت از اسلاوها و از ترسِ آنکه مبادا اتریش بیش از این نیرومند شود، نیروهایش را به سویِ صربستان رهسپار کرد و تزار، بسیجِ عمومی اعلام کرد و روسها را برایِ جنگی بزرگ آماده ساخت.. این کار سبب شد تا آلمان نیز برایِ حمایت از متحدِ خویش، یعنی اتریش، واردِ عمل شود... آلمان برایِ مقابله با روسیه، تصمیم گرفت تا به فرانسه حمله کند ، تا با شکستِ فرانسه، راهش به سویِ روسیه بازگردد.. برایِ رسیدن به فرانسه، سپاه آلمان باید از بلژیک گذر میکرد و گذر از بلژیک، یعنی شکستِ توافق میانِ آلمان و انگلستان... بنابراین، بریتانیا نیز علیهِ آلمانها اعلام جنگ نمود و اینگونه عملاً جنگِ جهانی که بی سابقه بود، آغاز گشته بود و این تازه اولِ کار بود
‎در جبههٔ غربی، آلمانها، فرانسویان را تار و مار کرده بودند و فرانسه در محاصره مانده بود، ولی آنقدر محاصره طولانی شد تا آلمان کمی عقب کشید.. جنگِ اصلی با توپخانه ها، تانکها و مسلسلهایِ درون سنگرها انجام میگرفت
‎در جبههٔ شرقی، روسها تا لهستان و پروسِ شرقی پیش روی کردند، ولی در برابرِ سپاهِ منظمِ آلمانها، به سختی شکست خوردند ... در اتریش، روسها پیش رویِ زیادی داشتند، ولی پیش از پیروزی، به یکباره آلمان به یاری اتریش شتافت و بیش از یک میلیون سربازِ روسی توسطِ آلمانها و اتریشی ها تار و مار شدند.. اینگونه روسیه دیگر تهدیدِ جدی برایِ آنها به شمار نمی آمد
‎در این میان، نبردِ میانِ اتریش و صربستان به درازا کشید و مقاومتِ صربها زیاد بود.. بنابراین آلمان با تورکانِ عثمانی وارد مذاکره شد و تورکها نیز واردِ جنگ شدند و برایِ کمک به اتریشی ها، به سویِ صربستان لشکرکشی کردند.. بلغارستان نیز با آلمان متحد شد و همگی به سویِ صربها یورش بردند و آنجا را تسخیر نمودند
‎ایتالیا با آنکه در آغاز با کشورهایِ مرکزی یا همان متحدین بود، ولی برایِ وعده ای که بابتِ پیوستنِ "ایتالیا ایوردانتا" یا همان ایالتهایِ ایتالیایی زبان، به سرزمینش، از متفقین گرفت، با متفقین متحد شد و ورودش به جنگ را اعلام کرد.. ولی از آنجایی که ایتالیا سپاهِ نیرومندی نداشت، تأثیری بر جنگِ جهانی نگذاشت، جز آنکه سبب شد تا برخی از سپاهیانِ اتریشی به هوایِ آنها، مشغولِ مراقبت از مرزِ ایتالیا شده و اینگونه از جنگ خارج شدند
‎ناوگانِ دریاییِ انگلستان بسیار نیرومند بود و توانست ناوگانِ آلمان را از کار بیاندازد.. ولی آلمانها بیکار ننشسته و زیردریایی هایِ پیشرفتهٔ خود را واردِ کارزار کردند و کشتی های بسیاری از متفقین را نابود ساختند و راهِ رسیدنِ کالا و موادِ غذایی به انگلستان را نیز مسدود ساختند
‎دیگر همه چیز برایِ متفقین از دست رفته بود.. انگلستان با هزینه های تبلیغاتیِ بسیار در آمریکا، تلاش نمود تا ذهنِ مردم و دولتِ آمریکا را بر ضدِ آلمانی ها بشوراند.. و البته در اینکار و تحریفِ اخبار، پیروز شد و آمریکا نیز بر علیهِ آلمان اعلامِ جنگ نمود .. ورودِ آمریکا به جنگِ یعنی تزریقِ سلاح و سربازانِ تازه نفس به جنگِ جهانی
‎در سالِ 1917 به اندازه ای جنگ بر روسها و اقتصادِ آنها فشار آورد که مردمِ تحملشان تمام شد و انقلاب کردند و دولتِ تزار، برکنار گردید... لنین و تروتسکی که از حزب بلشویکها بودند، رهبری روسیه را بر عهده گرفتند و با آلمانها صلح کرده و از جنگ کناره گیری نمودند... این فرصت سبب شد تا آلمان، تمامِ نیرویش را متمرکز بر جنگ با انگلستان و فرانسه و آمریکا نماید.. این حملات از سویِ آلمان سبب شد تا در مدتِ کوتاهی، یک میلیون سرباز از متفقین کشته شوند و البته خسارتهای مالی و جانی بسیاری متوجهِ آلمان و اتریش و مجارستان شد
‎شکستِ تورکهایِ عثمانی و بی کفایت، سبب شد تا از هر سو راه برایِ یورش به آلمان و مجارستان و اتریش باز باشد.. البته آلمانی ها همچنان مقاومت میکردند.. جنگِ جهانی اول، جنگی فرسایشی بود که تنها کُشت و کشتارِ انسانها را در بر داشت و هیچیک از طرفین نتوانست خاکِ طرفِ دیگر را اشغال کند... فشارِ جنگ و گرانی و نبودِ کالا و موادِ غذایی، نارضایتیِ مردمِ دنیا را در بر داشت و در سالِ 1918 متفقین و کشورهایِ مرکزی، تصمیم گرفتند تا جنگ را به پایان برسانند... دوستانِ من، جنگِ جهانی اول، نه تنها نقشهٔ این کرهٔ خاکی و نامِ کشورها و مرزهای آنها را تغییر داد، بلکه تغییراتِ اجتماعی و سیاسیِ فراوانی به وجود آورد... پس از جنگ جهانی، بسیاری از کشورهایی که دارایِ نظامِ پادشاهی بودند، به یکباره سیستمِ حکومتیِ آنها از هم پاشید و بسیاری از این حکومتها تبدیل به جمهوری شد... روسیه، آلمان، اتریش، یوگوسلاوی، لهستان، مجارستان، چکوسلواکی، ترکیه و چندین کشور دیگر، نظام پادشاهی و امپراطوری خود را از دست دادند و دارای مجلس و سیستمِ جمهوری شدند
‎پس از جلساتِ بسیار و نشستهای اتحادیه هایِ اروپایی و آمریکایی، متفقین تصمیم گرفتند تا غرامتهایِ سنگینِ چند بیلیون دلاری از آلمان بگیرند و صنعت و اقتصادِ آلمان را تکه تکه کردند و انگلیس و فرانسه و آمریکا، هریک همچون کفتار تکه ای از آلمان را جدا کردند.. با آنکه با توضیحاتی که دادم، در جنگِ جهانی اول، همهٔ کشورها نقش داشتند و نباید کاسه کوزه ها بر سرِ آلمان خراب میشد.. مردمِ یک سرزمین نباید تاوانِ تصمیمهایِ شخصی به نامِ قیصرِ آلمان را بدهند... مالیاتهای سنگین بر مردم گذاشته شد تا جریمهٔ جنگی را از جیبِ مردمِ آلمانی و بیچاره درآورند.. آن هم جریمه هایی که نامحدود بود... این آغازی بود برایِ ظهورِ هیتلر و نجاتِ آلمان از دستِ استعمارگران و البته سردمدارانِ مذهبیِ کاتولیک و یهود، که تصمیم گیرندهٔ آلمان شده بودند و این سبب شد تا آلمانی ها بارِ دیگر با هم متحد شوند تا کشورشان را از تجزیه شدن و نابودی نجات دهند
‎عزیزانم، سعی میکنم در ریویوهایِ دیگر، در موردِ جنگِ جهانی دوم نیز برایتان بنویسم
---------------------------------------------
‎امیدوارم این ریویو در جهتِ آشنایی شما عزیزان با فاجعهٔ جنگِ جهانی اول، مفید بوده باشه
‎<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>

[Callum's Column · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Hew Strachan provides a succinct overview of World War I. Although detail is lost, it makes the history of this conflict easily accessible to the average reader. It is primarily an aggregation of scholarly literature that was published in the century proceeding the signing of the Armistice. However, it does not directly tackle various scholarly debates about this war—e.g., was Germany totally to blame for its onset, or should Britain have ignored its guarantee for Belgian neutrality which was its reason for joining the war against the Central Powers.

Strachan dispels apparent myths about this conflict throughout the book. For example, he delineates that the nine million deaths attributed to the war are overstated because millions died from diseases that were present during peace time. Strachan also argues that female employment only rose marginally and did little to enhance their political rights as is often claimed. This assertion, however, ignores the economic liberty of war time employment, where women were able to work beyond the confines of the household. Women used this development to fight for their ongoing liberation post-war.

It is popularly maintained that the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh and directly contributed to the rise of Nazism. Strachan pushes back against this claim. A victorious Germany would likely have imposed a more austere treaty with the Allies as evinced by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Russia. Germany desired European hegemony pre- and post-war. This notion was allowed to fester with unauthoritative enforcement of the peace by the Entente powers. Moreover, the Allies should have invaded Germany post-armistice and pre-treaty, thereby eliminating the myth that the latter was 'stabbed in the back'.

[zed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had seen the TV series that this book was based on and had to admit to myself that that was all I had to offer in terms of knowledge on the subject. So the book was going to be hopefully a more than useful beginner’s guide and it has turned out to be so. Each chapter was full of subject matter that made me realise I need to dig deeper into the Great War. The book itself covers mostly the political events and the major battles with the cultural events hardly covered. Fair enough I suppose. 330 pages cannot be enough to cover such a momentous event, an event that has had consequences even now, one hundred years later.

As I beginner I found myself realising that from an English speaking perspective and living in Australia the vast majority of what little I did know was British and ANZAC. This book makes me want to expand to the eastern front and look further into the Russian Revolution. The French took a hideous smashing on the western front and that to needs further reading. I think that war weariness played a huge part in how they approached WW2.

With that, anyone with deep knowledge of the subject may find this a bit too beginner friendly so I would not recommend it to the well-read. I also found a couple of indexing errors that should not have occurred and there is no bibliography though the footnotes do cover that area fairly well. A solid though not spectacular read and glad to have read it. I now understand the lure of the Great War to those that have immersed themselves into its dense written history.

[Sean Chick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could rate this higher for what it does right, in particular Strachan's emphasis on events outside of the Western Front. However, his detached and judgmental style is grating. He likes to poke holes in "misconceptions" with such glee that he often fails to explain why the accepted view is wrong. This also makes it a rather poor introduction to the war, for it often assumes ample prior knowledge. The most intriguing assertion is that the rejection of the First World War's "true" meaning is what made World War II possible. I have issues with this, for he fails to acknowledge that the First World War was a tragedy due to the loss of life and political turmoil it wrought (20th century extremism was born in its wake). His weakest argument is that Germany did not have an agenda of conquest before 1914 despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

So even when you agree with him you'll wish someone else had said it. He could have written a classic, instead we get a half-baked book with bold but poorly argued assertions. The work is undermined by the very things that often limit British historians: a quietly arrogant prose style and an over commitment to turning "conventional" notions on their head. It is not an awful book, and I agree with most of his assertions. It just fails to be something more and it constantly seems to pester its reader with its general smugness.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book does one thing worth praising: it expands the traditionally Eurocentric narrative about WWI, largely to discuss Africa and Asia, more thoroughly than any other I've read on the subject has tried to do. It does basically everything else poorly.

Strachan's stiff and ponderous academic writing limps along so lifelessly that-- no hyperbole-- I started criticizing the choppy, inept translation. (I checked Wikipedia because I couldn't believe that English is the original language.) This unimaginatively-titled "First World War" has all the dull density of John Keegan's book of the same name, but heaps more condescending authorial smugness. Worse, Strachan actively delights in alienating any possible audience, simultaneously requiring significant background knowledge (the basic chronology isn't easy to follow without it, much less his myriad historiographical beefs) and mocking Conventional Wisdom so snidely that anyone who is acquainted with the historiography starts to wonder whether she was a fool for believing what pleasanter histories have said.

Some of Strachan's challenges to said Conventional Wisdom are so strange and so lightly cited that I very seriously questioned his judgment. He struggles to describe a single event or topic without throwing out some bold hot take, typically without remotely enough substantiation. Some examples: No one really cared about the Schlieffen Plan (because they ultimately didn't make the right wing strong enough)! The Australians weren't really brave (because a random person from another country complained about their training)! Woodrow Wilson is naive and racist and little more than a British dupe, though it hardly matters because you could forget the U.S. existed for a hundred pages at a time! Germany was not to blame for the war (which was possibly the fault of phony British liberalism? not clear, but only "pacifists and radicals" blamed Germany)! The Treaty of Versailles had nothing to do with WWII (and don't let any multi-volume painstakingly researched book like this tell you differently), except that if the phony liberals had the guts to enforce it, then WWII wouldn't have happened!

Most of these struck me as petty or simply contrary, the claims of a man more interested in getting attention for himself than getting to anything like truth. One that stuck out in particular was when Strachan argued there was no Armenian genocide. Strachan admits that there were "massacres," and: "In terms of scale of loss such a word [i.e., 'genocide'] may be appropriate: estimates approaching a million deaths are probably not wide of the mark." But he criticizes "Armenians and others [who] use the word 'genocide'" (a word literally coined to describe this historical event), because Armenians as a group weren't "loyal" to the Ottoman Empire: "The best that could be said of the Armenians' loyalty to the Ottoman Empire was that it was conditional. The responses of their community leaders in 1914 were characterized by attentisme, and the possibility of a rising in the Turkish rear was one which the Russians were ready to exploit." And so "[t]he violence of war against the enemy without enabled, and was even seen to justify, extreme measures against the enemy within," he blandly observes. I won't quote the whole 2-3 page passage here, but a principled application of Strachan's reasoning presumably rules out calling just about anything a "genocide." He sure seems to suggest that if you marginalize an ethnic group, it's reasonable to expect that group may try to escape or undermine you, which in turn makes it reasonable for you to violently and preemptively put down their "insurrection." Again, as elsewhere, he seems more interested in blazing his own trail than in thinking about where that trail is or should go.

I enjoy reading military history, and there are plenty of ways to do it well. Barbara Tuchman highlights the personalities of the main players. Ian Kershaw focuses on surrounding social forces. Rick Atkinson leans heavily on wartime letters. Svetlana Alexievich has her incomparable "oral history." I find it hard to understand why, with the wealth of material that WWI presents, Strachan couldn't even hold my interest as well as Eamon Duffy could with an old church ledger. His superior tone and bald rejections of any idea attributable to someone else made him a fairly unpleasant companion, and I'd approach anything else he's written warily, to say the least.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

An outstanding single-volume history and a remarkable feat of distillation and synthesis. When the 340 pages are finished, you're almost left feeling like it was too short.

Serious students of history will be a little annoyed at the light sourcing, particularly when it comes to Strachan's confident dismissals of the conventional wisdom. A few of the conclusions seem a little too trite and one or two observations even flatly ludicrous, as here: "given that the United States was itself a community made up predominantly of immigrants, Wilson's presumption against multi-ethnic empires was arrogant and naive" (333).

But the strengths -- not least among them the plentiful photographs and especially the remarkable color plates -- very much outweigh the weaknesses of this compact book. Strachan's narrative force and analytic confidence are the drivers of this book, not his careful scholarship, but the latter is easily found among his many other works. Highly recommended.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

World War I is my favorite war: poison gas, flamethrowers, nun beating--everything I cherish in life came into use for the first time as a method of warfare and terror-inducing. The first mechanized war! The first clumsy, bomb-dropping airships! Moustaches! Trench mouth! And this is easily the best single volume history I've read of it
Tackling as broad a subject as World War I and confining it into one, readable volume might seem nigh impossible, but I'd say Strachan managed to pull it off here. This book, a companion piece to the British historical series on the war that Strachan helped create, goes out of its way to present the War in a much different way. The war is explored as a global war, with bits on the naval war in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, Japan's attack on Germany in China, the East African campaigns, with less focus on the Western Front. Russia's role is highlighted, as is, concomitant to that, the role of emerging leftist political ideologies. This is not a military history, not exclusively anyway, but as all-inclusive as you can be under 400 pages.

[Jason Herrington · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not the easiest to follow. It was hard to keep up with all the names of military leaders as well as the places where battles were happening. But I still learned plenty about WWI. Reading a paper copy might have made it easier to follow along than listening to the audio version.

[Mommalibrarian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strachan spent years researching and writing this book labeled Volume I: To Arms. I gave up at page 382 of 1139. I felt like I was interrupting the author and reading his notes over his shoulder. It seemed like every discussion by every office-bound was detailed; every turn of every unit of the multitude of armies was mentioned by commander and cardinal direction. You cannot even tell which country the units represent when in the Russian-German front the commanders of two groups on the same side are named Francois and Mackensen. The information to understand these details are never given. I did not know, before starting, the sizes of all the subdivisions of armed forces in all the countries involved and the author does say they differ by country. What was I to make of statements like this: "Germany's success was defensive; the Russian army, despite the loss of 310,000 men in the opening six weeks, had not suffered a crippling blow." That is the total explanation given by the author. The introduction is the best part because there is some summarisation and analysis not just a core dump of details.

The overall impression left by the author is that everything was chaos and incompetence on the field and at home. "The soldiers who took part in it [battles around Marne] only knew its outcome from the direction in which they marched when they had ceased fighting." Briefly mentioned are the reasons field telegraphs were not effective, implementation of telephones still incomplete, radios not held by all groups in the field. Motor cars were occasionally used but the armies were much more dependent on railroads, horses and walking. I was and am really interested in the topic but in the end there were just too many pages of randomly named strangers leading groups of unknown size in different directions every day occasionally encountering other similarly detailed groups from the other side.

[Hilmi Isa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buku ini merupakan sebuah buku sejarah satu jilid (volume) mengenai Perang Dunia Pertama (1914 - 1918). Perang ini turut dikenali sebagai The Great War,yang bermula pada 28 Julai 1914 sehingga 11 November 1918. Walaupun bermula di benua Eropah dan memainkan peranan utama,skala peperangan melangkaui benua tersebut. Malah,peperangan ini turut melibatkan benua-benua yang lain seperti di Asia dan Afrika.

Saya berpandangan bahawa buku ini merupakan sebuah buku ilmiah yang baik untuk dibaca. Terutamanya kepada mereka yang mahukan sebuah buku 'pengenalan' mengenai Perang Dunia Pertama yang mungkin semakin dilupakan,terutamanya oleh generasi kini. Pada tahun 2014 yang lalu,usia peperangan besar ini telah mencapai 100 tahun! Berani saya katakan,tiada pendedahan baharu yang didedahkan penulis. Seperti hanya sebuah ringkasan dari kajian-kajian terdahulu. Namun demikian,maklumat yang dipaparkan di dalam buku ini masih bermanfaat untuk dibaca terutamanya kepada mereka yang kurang arif.

Skop perbincangan juga tidak hanya terhad membincangkan punca,perjalanan dan penamat Perang Dunia Pertama semata-mata sahaja. Turut disentuh beberapa aspek yang berkaitan,tetapi,mungkin agak kurang diberikan perhatian sebelum ini. Sebagai contoh,penulis mendebatkan bahawa Perang Dunia Pertama memberikan cabaran yang sangat hebat kepada ideologi Liberalisme dan Sosialisme. Penulis juga menyimpulkan penulisannya bahawa Perang Dunia Pertama bukanlah suatu konflik yang sia-sia sahaja. Terdapat hikmahnya di sebalik peperangan tersebut.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There is a faraway moan that grows to a scream, then a roar like a train, followed by a ground-shaking smash and a diabolical red light... Everybody simply shakes and crawls... A hunching of the shoulders and then another comes, and the thought - How long, how long? There is nothing to do. Whether you get through or not is just sheer chance and nothing more."

- Hervey Allen

Hew Strachan is sniffy. He's sniffy towards fellow academics. He's sniffy towards the conduct of certain WW1 operations. He's sniffy towards early 20th century liberalism. He's outright incandescent at those who believe the Great War was fought without purpose or meaning.

His book packs a huge amount of information for a <400 page book, and works well both as an overview for the first world war for either the enthusiast or the academic. Dry at parts due to vast quantities of information on everything possible to document and dissect, when ruminating on the overarching legacy of (and reasons for) the war his writing is painstakingly beautiful. In the interests of full disclosure, Professor Strachan is my tutor. Regardless of my link, this is a book that anyone with an interest in the subject needs to read.

[Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strachan's one-volume history of the war is simultaneously a complete view of the war, a relatively traditional telling of the chronology, and a very compelling argument for specific interpretations of the major continuing controversies. By choosing to give us a one-volume summary, Strachan, the widely-acknowledged top authority on the Great War, provides a digestible, scholarly-defensible, insight into the war for the general reader, and one that might provide surprises for many of them.

If Strachan has a theme, it is that this was never a 'meaningless, preventable catastrophe' -- not to the combatant countries or soldiers, not to the countries right after the war, not in it's impact on the history since the war -- despite the strong dominance in the the 1930s of "disillusionment" as a key element in describing the generation that fought in the war. Strachan makes his case well, but I'll admit that is an easy sell to someone like me who thinks that we live very much in the world and ideas established by the War of 1914-18.

The book treats all the things you'd expect a military historian to address: the July crisis, the battles of motion in the first few months, the trenches and the offensives that didn't work, the evolution of technology and tactics as breakthroughs were sought, and how 1918 came to be different on the Western front. He also gives, I think, a pretty good, well-chosen, discussion of how the war in other parts of the world played out, and what impact that had on both the conduct of the war in Europe and on the post-war world. And he devotes more time than most to assessing the role of the British maritime blockade, the evolution of the home front and munitions manufacture, and the reactions of national culture to the events of the war and the end of the war.

In a single-volume work, Strachan does take positions on what happened, often without telling the reader much about the volumes of ink that have been used on a subject like the role of Lt. Col. Richard Hentsch in the German order to retreat at the Marne. (Hentsch gets one sentence in this book.) Strachan just gives you his interpretation of the subject, and counts on you to either not care about historian's controversies, or to know the arguments and what evidence he has prioritized. This is a good approach for the general reader, and, as someone who knows these controversies well, it was a good approach for me. But I wonder if someone who had recently read The Pity of War: Explaining World War I wouldn't be wondering why Strachan's conclusions are so different from Niall Ferguson.

The book moves at a good pace. While there is the usual overemphasis, in terms of pages-per-day, on the opening of the war in Europe during July-September 1914, I never felt like he skipped anything of importance. Every major development, in my opinion, was adequately covered. In that sense it is a great introduction to further reading. But it is also one of the most definitive analyses of why and how the war was fought, and I think it will be widely referenced for a long time.

[AskHistorians]

Offers a remarkably international view of the conflict, and in a compact single volume at that. This was meant as a companion piece to the (also quite good) television documentary series of the same name which he oversaw. Still, if you want more, look to his much larger The First World War - Vol. I: To Arms (2003) -- the first of a projected three volumes and absolutely staggering in its depth. This first volume alone runs to 1250 pages.

[Jeremiah Gumm · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and balanced summary of World War I

[Jarrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic telling of the events of WW1. It's very much an overview and gives a broad account of events, but it is thorough to an extent. The leading up and spark that provided the calls to war are explained. How it truly came to be a world war and the remnants are felt today. The decisions at Gallipoli and many other battles are given in overview: The Somme, Passchendaele, Ypres (there's actually a lot of material here), and Verdun are the major coverages.

The book flows well and is a great introduction to the subject.

[PJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dit boek behandelt alle grote gebeurtenissen en hoofdlijnen van de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Vooral in de eerste helft van het boek haalt de auteur personen en gebeurtenissen aan zonder dat daar context bij wordt gegeven. Dat zorgt ervoor dat het geheel niet altijd goed te volgen is.

[Ruthie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great photographs.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent, but dense, book. While only 340 pages (far fewer than the average World War I history), it is so packed with information that I had to read slowly and often reread, just to get the gist of it. In fact, 130 or so pages in, I saw some handwritten notes I had made in the margins: I had read this book before, but hadn't realized it until that moment! Whether the cause is the density of the writing or my own faulty memory, who's to say?

But what I liked best about this book is that the author clearly has an understanding of the motives behind the decisions, the reasons for the actions, and the underlying reasons for the conditions. This is not a litany of facts, but a keen analysis of the causes, the developments and the results of the war.

Two sentences, selected at random, support this: "Kitchener, the British secretary of state for war, was inclined to agree: for him the purpose of the Salonika expedition was less to help the Serbs than to provoke the Greeks to do so." And, "The Bolsheviks published the secret agreements on war aims reached between the Entente powers: Britain, France and Italy stood convicted, it seemed, of annexationist ambitions comparable with those of the monster which they were pledged to extirpate, German militarism." Nearly every page contains this kind of commentary and insight.

It took me two months to read this book, and I actually started and read two shorter books in the meantime, but it was worth the effort. I bought a book about the sinking of the Lusitania at a used book sale that I'm going to start on next. And, who knows? I may read this one again sometime. Maybe I'll remember some of it before I get to my notes.

[Cool_guy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A serviceable overview of the war. If you know absolutely nothing about the topic, I'd recommend you start here. It really shines with its explanations of the causes of the conflict. Like many books on WWI, it understates the connection between the destruction of the German economy and the rise of specifically Communist movements in bringing the Germans to the negotiating table.
I did find it interesting that the much vaunted Prussian bureaucracy was able to impose much discipline at all on German industry, whereas the British, in a nation with a shockingly sparse administrative state, was able to conjure up a fully coordinated war economy.

[Ron Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good one-volume summary of the First World War. The photos are engaging and plentiful. For many, any mention of WWI immediately evokes the trenches in France. The emphasis Strachan gives to places like Africa (e.g., French Senegal), Turkey, Iraq, India, Vietnam, and Japan is different and thought-provoking. His book combines war history and geopolitical history. Strachan emphasizes that the Central Powers didn’t have the kind of common strategic approach that the Allies did and that German efforts were badly coordinated with those of Austria and Turkey in particular.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Catching up on some of my off and on reading. This book was available for Nook download not long ago at $5, so I opted to try.

I would say that along with John Keegan's The First World War, one of the better one volume histories of the war. The writing is clearly better than Keegan's. The narrative is more lively and in the moment.

Although I enjoyed the book, I still have not found a better book on World War 1 than Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory. For me, that book is the gold standard for understanding the war and its impact.

Still, for a person interested in the war from a military and strategic perspective, this book I can recommend.

[Joshua Dew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being written by a military historian, one might anticipate an emphasis on the tactical aspects of battle. However, Strachan's history offers a balanced look into the political, military, and social machinations in Europe and abroad during the First World War without becoming bogged down with tactics and statistics. Even if you already have a general knowledge of the war, you'll come away having learned something new from this book.

[Dvd (#) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tanto per cambiare, eccessivamente anglocentrico.

Certamente interessante, anche ben scritto, ma troppo orientato solo e soltanto sul fronte occidentale (senza dubbio il fronte più importante) o laddove hanno combattuto gli inglesi.

Scarsi (troppo, veramente troppo) i riferimenti al fronte italiano o a quello orientale.

[Donald Hardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fuck nationalism.

This was a tough read for me because I know so little about WWI and because as I realized in reading the book, the world was changed by WWI more than any war in the 20th century.

[Reagan Kuennen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like 2.5. I read this for class and although I learned stuff, I hated his writing and it was so confusing and slow at times.

[Maggi LeDuc · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, compelling summary of a long ans complex conflict. This book taught me a lot, especially about war outside the western front.

[S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

a low 4/5 but still a 4/5. efficient, gets the job done, and comprehensive, but no fireworks per se. competence marks Strachan's work rather than supremacy.

[Red · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hew Strachan does a good job of addressing why World War 1 proceeds as it does and how it all happened. The author also makes sure to identify the persons and places involved. However, he sometimes is a little unclear as to the location and dates of certain events. (I found myself going to Wikipedia to identify the year of the battle of Dogger Bank, for example.) Having the dates and place names written in subheadings within the chapters could alleviate this problem.

That said, I totally recommend this book for anyone wanting a concise yet in-depth overview of the war, especially since it is written by one of the foremost experts of World War 1. This results in the reader learning lots of new stuff about the war, which will probably transform his understanding of the conflict.

The Why
Why does the Great War begin in the first place? Strachan shows us the answer instead of telling us: the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, the German empire's assurance to its ally that it would protect its flank when attacking Serbia, the Russian empire's desire to defend Serbia so as to defend Russian hegemony of the region and the Austro-Hungarian empire's underestimation on just how quickly Russia could mobilize.

Most surprising of all, German officials are so sure war will not come that many officials go on vacations just as the conflict is about to break out.

What is missing from here, however, is a deeper investigation of the rivalry between Great Britain and Germany. This is especially poignant since British defense of its global empire correlates with later moves during the war, such as how some British officials hope to keep the majority of its troops out of the war until 1917, allowing Germany and France to wear themselves out, thus allowing the British to come in late and overrun Germany, giving Great Britain the credit for winning the war. (See the "Breaking the Deadlock" chapter for more information.)

Other interesting why questions, though certainly not all of them, that get answered are:

- Why the rivalry between Britain and Germany, manufacturing competition. ("Under the Eagle")

- Why imperial Japan joins the Entente war effort, a parliamentarian tries to head off militarists and Japanese elders from taking power. ("Global War")

- Why the Ottoman empire goes east instead of south in regaining its empire, nationalism moves them to abandon the empire in favor of gaining traditional territory of Turkish speakers. ("Global War")

- Why the Germans abandon offensive action on the Western Front in 1915, Falkenhayn wants to gain allies in the Balkans and Italy and so he tries to take Serbia. ("Shackled to a Corpse")

There are lots more interesting why questions, but the book is so in-depth that it would be pointless to write them all down here.

The How
So how does the Entente beat the Central Powers? Mainly through a war of attrition, a war which many Entente commanders try to avoid as they seek breakthrough. (Read, "Breaking the Deadlock".)

Such a breakthrough is impossible as it quickly becomes apparent to the Entente that it lacks the guns and artillery to break through the German lines with, and in the early years of the war they lack the manufacturing capability to produce such material. In the meantime, they and the Germans through intermediary buyers rely on the Americans to provide them with material, which greatly enriches the American stock market and which results in the Entente buying up the material so as to keep it from the Germans. This, of course, leads to U-boat warfare by the Germans, yet that also risks getting the Americans directly involved in the war, which leads to the Germans backing off for a time, which also leads to the British cheekily playing unfair when they pretend to be neutral shipping, only to massacre the Germans when they reveal themselves and demand that the supposedly neutral ship open itself to be boarded. (See the Baralong incident in the "Blockade" chapter.)

Two of the more interesting aspects of the how aspect of the war regards the naval tactics of the Germans and British, as well as the role of ideology.

The British try to defeat the Germans from a distance, while the Kaiser's navy attempts to defeat its foe piecemeal. Much larger than the German navy, the Royal Navy is able to blockade the North Sea from a distance as it bases itself at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. This negates the German attempt to neutralize the British via mines and coastal guns. So the Germans then try to lure portions of the British fleet into the high seas so they could defeat them separately. This almost works after a 1914 raid the British unknowingly send 10 ships against a German fleet of 24. Fortunately for the British, the German admiral decides to run. The greatest example of this luring them out in a piecemeal approach is the Battle of Jutland in which the British lose about twice as many men, while maintaining their strategic objectives. In short, the British lose the battle but win the war.

But the most interesting portion of the book for me is how ideology shapes the war: Western liberalism (American conservatism) versus Prussian absolutism. What's even more interesting, though, is how the British, French and Italians take on Prussian absolutism as they seek to win the war:

- The French civilian leaders are beholden to their military generals;

- The Italian general Cadorna brutally implements imperial Roman decimation to increase discipline, then after losing thousands of men in an ill-planned campaign, Cadorna refuses to resign after both king and parliament tell him to;

- The central government is Britain, in American-9/11 fashion, takes on a lot more powers and even increases taxes on all in the name of winning the war.

The big exception to this is Russia, where after the riots in Petrograd the people rise up and overthrow the conservative government of the Tsar.

Notes
Another thing that really interests me is how the Germans implement the Kaiser's dream of a German-dominated European marketplace in the Balkans and eastern Europe. This is the conquest that the Germans are aiming for in the war. It's not surprising since before the war Kaiser Wilhelm so many times tries to create a European Union of sorts, dominated by Germany's infantry and the British navy. This makes me wonder if the Germans are just as much to blame for the war as the British since the British may have had intelligence telling them that this was Germany's plan all along. (Only I doubt the Germans would have reciprocally shared their economic domination of Europe with the British.)

Also, the battle between German western front generals and eastern front ones is really tragic. Guys like Falkenhayn, who having served in China had a better grasp of geopolitics, knew that the conservative governments of the Tsar's Russia and the Kaiser's Germany were just killing each other off as the liberal governments of Britain and France watched. So he wanted peace with Russia and not conquest. Everyone else, especially Hindenburg and above all Ludendorf, are against this. In fact, those two guys still believe that breakthrough is possible on the western front due to their many successes on the eastern front. (Never mind that it wasn't them who planned the victory of Tannenburg but rather the officers who developed the plan shortly before they were given their commands.) Falkenhayn tries to sideline these two firebrands by using other generals - Mackensen and Seeckt - to lead his combined German and Austro-Hungarian offensive against Russia and Serbia. However, Falkenhayn changes the plan due to the campaign's extreme success and goes after a Ludendorf-style campaign against Russia, only to find that the Russians while beaten will not break. Later Falkenhayn re-implements his Serbian-focused campaign, thus gaining Bulgaria as an ally and almost completely taking the Balkans: only Greece and Romania remains. However, Falkenhayn leaves Entente-occupied Greece to the Entente, thinking the Austro-Hungarians and Bulgaria could deal with it. This all comes back to bite him when after trying to finally break through the western front at Verdun, the Russians attack the Austro-Hungarians, requiring German troops. Later, the Kaiser replaces Falkenhayn with Hindenburg and Ludendorf after the last-remaining neutral Balkan power (Romania) joins the Entente.

Falkenhayn has the right idea of how to win the war, but he makes the mistake of going after Russia instead of Serbia as he originally planned. And he should've focused on wrapping up the Balkans in Greece and Romania before implementing his offensive at Verdun.

In the end, the war becomes a battle of attrition so much so that after the Nivelle offensive, the French troops refuse to fight offensive actions anymore. It takes a new, conciliatory French general to rebuild morale. The Italians also are shattered in 1917 when after their failed invasion, they are broken and much Italian territory is taken by the Germans and Austro-Hungarians. This all comes in the light of the fall of the Tsar and, due to German shennanigans, the surrender of Russia. As a result, the Entente powers wait for the Americans to come and fix things.

Ludendorf, the brains of the Hindenburg duo, then implements his plan for a long-sought for break through. While the Germans do break through, they do so at differing points, which doesn't allow for them to build a solid line of trenches to retain long-term gains. Also, the crack troops of Germany get killed, and the Americans are coming.

A strictly defensive effort at the western front doesn't work, however, since by 1916 or 1917 the Entente via improved artillery efforts had made it so that defenders would suffer just as many casualties as the invaders, something that isn't true in 1914 and 1915.

In conclusion, the Germans may have won if the Americans didn't get involved. But due to the pressures of war, the Germans implemented two strategies that doomed them: unrestricted U-boat warfare and foreign interventionism, such as the Zimmerman note. Had it came to light that the Germans were behind a major terrorist attack in New York (I get this from other readings), the American intervention may have come sooner. But the Germans just couldn't help themselves.

[Logan Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

World War 1 is too complex and multifaceted of a subject to be covered in a single 300-400 page book. However, Hew Strachan does an outstanding job covering it with as much depth as possible in such a short span. It is a useful and easy to read summary of events and trends, and includes a surprising number of first-hand accounts to balance it all out.

Instead of weaving everything together into one single concept, Strachan treats each aspect of the war as a story unto itself. It makes me want to read about the war from different angles, which I suspect would be the best way to understand it.

I strongly recommend this as an orientation to World War 1.