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Hew Strachan: The First World War

sparkchaser

Administrator and Stuntman
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“Vienna, not Berlin, was to initiate the crisis that led to war. It did so with full deliberation, but the war it had in mind was a war in the Balkans, not a war for the world.”

Aside from deciding upon the scope, I suppose one of the hardest things to do when writing a book on World War One is organizing it. Do you organize it chronologically and then jump from theater to theater, do you organize it by theater and then proceed to cover the whole war within that scope, or do you do something else? In The First World War, military historian Sir Hew Strachan takes the approach of presenting the war theater by theater, with the added inclusion of the homefront and politics.

After spending a few pages discussing the cause and outbreak of the war, Strachan jumps into the Western Front and covers the major events until about 1916, then jumps to the Eastern Front, Turkey, the oceans, Africa, the U.S. as The Great Neutral , back to the Western Front, the homefront, the U.S. entry, and the war’s end. This was a bit confusing to me because he would cover a theater up to 1917 then start back in the Autumn of 1914 in a different part of the world.

I found several aspects of the book very interesting, especially the following theaters/battles:

    • The Africa Theater, including the quasi-guerrilla style campaign by the Germans in East Africa,
    • The Mesopotamia Theater,
    • The Battle of the Falkland Islands,
    • The Battle of Jutland.
I guess that means I need to pick up some books specifically about those theaters and battles.

Now, either due to an old-age memory fault or not paying attention in class 25-30 years ago, I was shocked to learn from Strachan that Germany was pretty much 100% responsible for putting Lenin into power. I am sure Germany has deeply regretted that particular move.

In March 1917, despite the obvious paradox and equally obvious dangers in Imperial Germany sponsoring Marxism, Arthur Zimmermann convinced the Kaiser and the army that the Bolsheviks’ leader, Lenin, who was living in exile in Switzerland, should be smuggled back into Russia. On 16 April 1917 Lenin arrived in Petrograd at the Finland station, having crossed Germany in a ‘sealed’ train. This was one revolutionary effort which reaped spectacular returns, albeit in a situation where spontaneous revolution had already occurred. On 15 July 1917 the Provisional Government in Russia collapsed, and the Bolsheviks tried to seize power in Petrograd Street fighting peaks on 17 July Kerensky took charge and Lenin went into hiding -for the moment.

Strachan does not have the gift for prose that Barbara Tuchman has but his style is readable. Overall, I enjoyed the book. The biggest criticism I have for the book is that he talks a lot, and I mean A LOT, about the British and the Germans. So much so that the book should have been called The UK and Germans in World War One.

A secondary criticism is that the images and maps in the book do not render well on the kindle. As with The Guns of August, this is more of a complaint with the kindle than the book itself, although I suspect that the editors may be at least partially culpable in this matter.

All in all, I recommend it and give it
stars3.gif~original
 
“Vienna, not Berlin, was to initiate the crisis that led to war. It did so with full deliberation, but the war it had in mind was a war in the Balkans, not a war for the world.”
HI Sparky,
That was a nice review. Especially your inclusion of that first quote about Vienna and Berlin. I have more and more become interested in how wars begin, rather than how they are fought. Especially after Germany suffering so disastrously in two wars in which they were at the focus.
 
Read Strachan's history of WW I for my thesis. He does focus a lot on the British army vs. the German army, plus British politics influencing where the British army was to move next.
I used it for background reading as my Ph.D is in literature, not in history, but I may look into it further at some point. The Tuchman books sound interesting.


Got a hard copy from the library so didn't have any bother with the photo insets.

It's a good book for an overview of the war, albeit rather UK-focused.
 
He's from the UK so it's hard not to be UK-centric and the book was probably written for a UK audience so I can forgive him for that.

Based on three other books I have read, I also feel that he views the BEF through rose-colored glasses.
 
Almost done with this one as well. I was very interested in the East Africa campaigns as prior to this reading I had no idea there was any such component to the war. Good stuff.

What is next?

With regard to the Falklands, I read a book some years back which covered its history in depth that I would recommend if I could remember the author. I believe it was unimaginatively titled A History of the Falkland Islands.

Alzheimer's, I fear.
 
I think I may have mentioned this to Sparkchaser at some time in the past but thought I'd post it here for anyone else who may be interested. The following links are to a website which presents the actual day-to-day memoirs of two flying aces of WW I - Eddie Rickenbacker (American), and Manfred von Richthofen (aka - The Red Baron - German).

Rickenbacker
http://www.richthofen.com/rickenbacker/

Richthofen
http://www.richthofen.com

I especially liked the Rickenbacker memoir. For one thing it is longer, and also, it is so well written that one finds oneself seeping right into the setting. In both texts it takes a bit of patience to read the opening chapters which serve to set up the memoirs but the payoff is well worth the wait.
 
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