The First World War (Opus) | Date: 28 April 2011, 02:35
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The First World War (Opus)
By Keith Robbins
* Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
* Number Of Pages: 200
* Publication Date: 2002-08-22
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0192803182
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780192803184
Product Description:
The tragic slaughter of the trenches is imprinted on modern memory; but it is more difficult to grasp the wider extent and significance of the First World War. This book gives a clear chronological account of the campaigns on the Western and Eastern Fronts and then moves on to investigate areas that many studies ignore - the war poets, the diplomacy of war aims and peace moves, logistics, and 'the experience of the war'. It was soon seen that 'war has nothing to do with chivalry any more', but it was harder to say what the First World War was fought for, or what the combatants gained. Professor Robbins approaches this problem from two angles: he analyses the complex political and diplomatic background to the alliances between the Great Powers; he also explores the mood of Europe between 1914 and 1918 by examining the experience of war from the different standpoints of the nations and individuals caught up in it.
Summary: Good book for the socio-political and methods of war in WWI
Rating: 3
Professor Robbins has written perhaps the smallest book on the War to End All Wars, but his provides a excellent introduction not just to the aspects of the military fronts, but also to the social and political forces that helped shape the war and its eventual outcome. His introduction (like many other general histories of WWI) does go over the causes of the war: the complicated allainces on the European comntinent, Britain and Germany's rivarly over the seas and the naval arms race, etc. But what I found particullary interesting was how society and the churches viewed the war. In 1914, many socialists and pacifists in Germany and France thought that one could not abandon patriotism and the war would bring together the different classes of society. British pacifists even argued that the war would bring to an end the existing "international anarchy" (the alliances, the autocracies of Russia and Germany)
and invoke a new era of peace! Young men all over Europe saw the war as an opportunity of escaping a bourgeois existence of the monotanous labour of the fathers' world. One fascinating aspect is how the Churches of Europe became involved. Priests extolled the new soldiers to "slay the unworthy",as one Berlin priest put it.
Chapter Two tries to cover all the military campaigns of the war in under 50 pages and amazingly enough, Robbins does a good job, although all those global campaigns in a nutshell can be confusing to any newcomer of WWI history (also, only two 1914 military maps are included). I would recommend the newcomer to take a look a the bibliography of Ch. 2 and see if he or she can get their hands on some of the military books recommend there. Yet, overall this chapter is decsent if not great, but it does explore other theaters other than the Western Front; generally the most overcovered aspect of the two world wars researeched in the English-speaking world.
In the next chapter, Robbins points out the important fact that combined arms was never really fully used in the Great War to the extent that they could have bene used and were used in the Second World War. The Gallipoli campaign, vigourously supported by Winston Churchill, is an example of how little coordination there was between the landing parties and the naval guns off the coast. Yet, this was the first major mechanised war in which long range artillery and machine guns came into their own. Neither one could be more important than the other, as Robbins explains, because both caused so much damage. Even early tanks were stopped by simple heavy machine guns and barrages of one million shells on some days not only broke men physically, but pschologically.
Finally, another important aspect that the good professor talks about is the relationship between,general,politician, and emperor. Neither side really had a coordinated strategy between themselves at the beginning of the war and only the Allies would gain some of this towards 1917-1918. British prime Mininster, Lloyd-George had difficulty even with the his own chief of the general staff and chief commander on the Western Front(in 1916) Sir Douglas Haig. Both saw it as the only front of the war and Llyod George thought that there just had to be other ways to dismantle the Central Powers. He thought that policy made by civilians should be the rule and only the military/tactical aspects of the fighting should be left to the generals. As for the autocratic powers of Germany, Russia and the Hapsburg empires, their own weakness really lay within the lack of command that their own monarchs (Wilhehlm II, Nicholas, and Franz Joseph). The parliaments had some say in these countries, but it was really the monarchy and its military that had the power. All of these monarchs were either feeble minded or too old, like Frnaz Joseph. The Tsar totlaly mismanged the war and the Kaiser was too much under advise of his Generals, were
ultimalty theones who said that it was time for surrender when Germany still had vast lands that were occupied.
Anyone who is starting to come into WWI should first really read a general hisotryof thewar (in other words a bigger book) like John Keegan's. But those of you who have never really studied anything other than the battles and stratiegies of the war should really take a look at this book. War is not about just the armies, but the ideals and civilians that shape it as well.
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