- Tuchman, Barbara W.
The Guns of August.
New York: Presidio Press, [1962, 1988, 1994] 2004.
ISBN 978-0-345-47609-8.
-
One hundred years ago the world was on the brink of a cataclysmic
confrontation which would cause casualties numbered in the tens of
millions, destroy the pre-existing international order, depose
royalty and dissolve empires, and plant the seeds for tyrannical
regimes and future conflicts with an even more horrific toll in
human suffering. It is not exaggeration to speak of World War I
as the pivotal event of the 20th century, since so much that
followed can be viewed as sequelæ which can be traced directly
to that conflict.
It is thus important to understand how that war came to be, and how
in the first month after its outbreak the expectations of all parties
to the conflict, arrived at through the most exhaustive study by
military and political élites, were proven completely wrong
and what was expected to be a short, conclusive war turned instead into
a protracted blood-letting which would continue for more than four
years of largely static warfare. This magnificent book, which covers
the events leading to the war and the first month after its outbreak,
provides a highly readable narrative history of the period with
insight into both the grand folly of war plans drawn up in isolation
and mechanically followed even after abundant evidence of their
faults have caused tragedy, but also how contingency—chance,
and the decisions of fallible human beings in positions of authority
can tilt the balance of history.
The author is not an academic historian, and she writes for a
popular audience. This has caused some to sniff at her work, but as
she noted, Herodotus, Thucydides, Gibbon, and MacCauley did not have Ph.D.s.
She immerses the reader in the world before the war, beginning with the
1910 funeral in London of Edward VII where nine monarchs rode in the
cortège, most of whose nations would be at war four years hence. The
system of alliances is described in detail, as is the mobilisation plans
of the future combatants, all of which would contribute to fatal
instability of the system to a small perturbation.
Germany, France, Russia, and Austria-Hungary had all drawn up detailed
mobilisation plans for assembling, deploying, and operating their
conscript armies in the event of war. (Britain, with an all-volunteer
regular army which was tiny by continental standards, had no
pre-defined mobilisation plan.) As you might expect, Germany's plan
was the most detailed, specifying railroad schedules and the
composition of individual trains. Now, the important thing to keep
in mind about these plans is that, together, they created a powerful
first-mover advantage. If Russia began to mobilise, and Germany
hesitated in its own mobilisation in the hope of defusing the conflict,
it might be at a great disadvantage if Russia had only a few days of
advance in assembling its forces. This means that there was a powerful
incentive in issuing the mobilisation order first, and a compelling reason
for an adversary to begin his own mobilisation order once news of it
became known.
Compounding this instability were alliances which compelled parties to
them to come to the assistance of others. France had no direct interest
in the conflict between Germany and Austria-Hungary and Russia in
the Balkans, but it had an alliance with Russia, and was pulled into
the conflict. When France began to mobilise, Germany activated its own
mobilisation and the
Schlieffen plan
to invade France through Belgium. Once the Germans violated the neutrality
of Belgium, Britain's guarantee of that neutrality required (after the
customary ambiguity and dithering) a declaration of war against Germany,
and the stage was set for a general war in Europe.
The focus here is on the initial phase of the war: where Germany, France,
and Russia were all following their pre-war plans, all initially
expecting a swift conquest of their opponents—the
Battle of the Frontiers,
which occupied most of the month of August 1914. An afterword covers the
First Battle of the Marne
where the German offensive on the Western front was halted and the stage set
for the static trench warfare which was to ensue. At the conclusion of that
battle, all of the shining pre-war plans were in tatters, many commanders
were disgraced or cashiered, and lessons learned through the tragedy
“by which God teaches the law to kings” (p. 275).
A century later, the lessons of the outbreak of World War I could not be more
relevant. On the eve of the war, many believed that the interconnection of
the soon-to-be belligerents through trade was such that war was unthinkable,
as it would quickly impoverish them. Today, the world is even more connected
and yet there are conflicts all around the margins, with alliances spanning the
globe. Unlike 1914, when the world was largely dominated by great powers, now
there are rogue states, non-state actors, movements dominated by religion,
and neo-barbarism and piracy loose upon the stage, and some of these may lay
their hands on weapons whose destructive power dwarf those of 1914–1918.
This book, published more than fifty years ago, about a conflict a century
old, could not be more timely.
July 2014 