"The Great War" by Peter Hart

Above: "The Great War." Peter Hart - 476 pages.

The most important chapter (for me, anyway) is the last one, where Hart writes about the war's effect on the world and its future.

I completed reading this book today.

The Economist named "The Great War" one of the Ten Best Books of 2013.

The book is a combat history of WWI, which lasted, four years, four months, from August 1914 to November 1918.

I loved the way the book was organized. Nineteen chapters. The book is chronological by chapter for the Western Front eg. 1914: one chapter. 1915: one chapter... and so on. The eastern front is treated the same way. A chapter for each year.

But, want to know about the Italian Front? Chapter 16 deals with the Italian front from 1915 through the end of the war. There is a separate chapter on Gallipoli... a chapter on the Sea War... and so on.

Other WWI books are written in pure chronological fashion, so you have to jump from chapter to chapter to find out what was going on in, say, The Sinai and Palestinian campaigns.

The author frequently quotes the personal diaries of war participants from both sides to make his points, including from commanders and political leaders as well as sergeants.

We get a good survey of the "big picture." The author surveys each of the belligerent nations and cites their strengths and weaknesses.

Russia, for example, was obsessed with securing an exit from the Black Sea, while France - having lost to Prussia in 1871, before Germany united - constructed a network of defensive alliances, even as it held a grudge over the loss of Alsace-Lorraine.

The most important chapter (for me, anyway) is the last one, where Hart writes about the war's effect on the world and its future.

I summarize:

Loss of life. Almost 10 million soldiers were killed in the war. 21 million soldiers were injured and while many went on with their lives, millions suffered for the rest of their lives with what we now know as "post traumatic stress syndrome. One million civilians died from direct military action and, shockingly, almost six million civilians died from the impact of war-related famine and disease.

Per Hart, Germany started the war. Her ambitions could not be restrained within the status quo of 1914. Germany staked all on a gamble that the superbly trained and disciplined German Army could swiftly defeat France and then move its armies rapidly to the eastern front to take out Russia before her ponderous system could mobilize.

Hart notes that Germany's defeat at the August 1914 Battle of the Marne, within 25 miles of Paris, sealed her doom. The authors of the plan to capture Paris, Moltke the Elder and Schlieffen, said from the start that without a rapid, surprise victory over France, Germany could not prevail in the end. The addition of the Brits, and later the Americans to the list of Germany's enemies further sealed German doom.

The allies were not blameless. France had Russia had their own motives for going to war and did little to sidestep it.

The French Army was most important to the allies in the first two years of the war. They stemmed the German onslaught at Marne in 1914 and led the fight tirelessly through 1915 before the Brits had a chance to effectively build up troop strength.

In 1916, French troops withstood the ultimate German challenge at Verdun where they suffered 700 thousand casualties. The French fought on in 1916, helping the Brits, at Somme. But, the failure of the Nivelle offensive in April of 1917 triggered widespread French mutinies and morale decay.

Though their punch became secondary to that of the Brits, the French made solid contributions during the Third Battle of Ypres later in 1917, and helped prop up the British line during the German Spring offensives of 1918. Though weakened in 1917, the French continued to fight hard and were critical to allied success through the end of the war.

Their role is often downplayed, nevertheless, the Russians fought hard, rebounding from defeat (Masurian Lakes, for one) to defeat to bludgeon the Austrians (Brusilov Offensive in 1916). Russian aggression forced the Germans to deploy troops to the Eastern Front when they were much needed in the West.

The ultimate Russian collapse in 1917 came from internal problems in the Russian State. Russian defeat happened too late in the war for the Germans to really capitalize on it by diverting their entire war effort back to the Western Front.

The Italians entered the war on the side of the allies late hoping to make territorial gains that victory would bring. But, despite questionable motives, they fought hard and, in the end, completed the demolition of the Austrians begun by Russia.

The Americans arrived late, but had an enormous impact. American presence left the Germans with no realistic hopes of victory, forcing the failed last gamble of the 1918 Spring offensives before American troop strength could build.

The British role in the war was key. The Germans had gambled that Britain would stay out of the war. But, German violation of Belgian neutrality in their August 1914 sweep to gain Paris forced Britain's hand. By 1917, the Brits had over 2 million soldiers in the war and despite remaining under the overall command of the French they became a resilient force as French morale flagged.

After the Armistice was signed in November of 1918, the German state fell apart. Nominally a republic, its Army had almost ceased to exist, the units fragmenting once they had crossed the German border.

German army fragmentation left a dangerous power vacuum. The political factions of the left soon broke apart and when the communists took to the streets in an uprising in 1919, they were countered with devastating brutality by unofficial Freikorps made up of ex servicemen, bound together by their military past and unswerving adherence to right-wing politics. It is out of one of these groups that Adolf Hitler rose to "fame."

The German economy was in freefall with most of the stringent provisions of the Allied blockade still in place.

In Russia, the tyranny of the Tsars had been usurped by the Bolsheviks and the advent of the Communist state. After the war several of the Allies intervened to assist the counter-revolutionary forces. The Soviets became afflicted by a defensive and repressive outlook which corrupted any lingering hopes of a more democratic future for the Russian people. The damage done would endure for the best part of the twentieth century.

The emerging countries, such as Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovaka, Yugoslavia and the defeated countries, such as Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria; and the newly triumphant Italy, Rumania and Greece - all found themselves in a state of flux surrounded by powerful enemies and often still containing aggrieved nationalistic minorities within their borders. The Balkans remained the powder keg that it was before the war.

The remnants of the Ottoman Empire witnessed a feeding frenzy from the colonial empires. After the war the web of conflicting agreements led to almost everyone being disappointed and many bitter accusations of bad faith.

In essence, the British and French cynically continued to pursue their own long term colonial aims, freed from competiton from Russia. The result was the birth of many of the Middle East problems that exist to this very day, not just over the question of Jewish or Arab control of Palestine/Israel, but also over the arbitray nature of the borders drawn for Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

So, seemingly the British and French finished the war in an impregnable position, whereby they appeared to have it all. Their main enemy, Germany, had been stamped down, while the old enemy, Russia, was in a state of turbulent flux.

The allies eventually won on the battlefields because of a massive superiority in numbers and resources.

But, WWI was not a "war to end all wars" as many had hoped.

The Nazis rose to pre-eminence in Germany on the strength of a highly skilled orator's appeal to German nationalism and the "unfair" way Germany was treated in the aftermath of the war.

The Russians, ruled by the Bolsheviks, would later pose a threat to the entire world as they worked to export their socialist ideology throughout the world.

Hart's is a well written book dealing in well organized fashion with all phases, on and off battlefield, of World War I. Hart's survey of the war's aftermath illuminates the post war path leading to the geo political issues we experience today. In fact, it is difficult to understand today's global issues without a good understanding of WWI. Hart's book is a good place to start to gain this understanding.