"World War One - A Short History" by Norman Stone

Above: "World War One - A Short History" - Norman Stone - 190 pages.

A reader of this book will be reminded that good times are not inevitable.

Above: "World War One - A Short History" - Norman Stone - 190 pages.

I completed reading this book today.

Last week I "attended" a Zoom presentation by William Rhodes a well-known Citi banker charged with working Citi out of its crippling Third World debt problems in the 1990's. Rhodes has since been a player in various forums and councils that deal with global indebtedness. The presentation was sponsored by Old Asian Hands (OAH), a group of ex bankers who worked in Asia during the 70's, 80's, and 90's.

In the Q and A I posed Rhodes this question: "What is the likelihood, in your opinion, of the US and China being caught in a Thucydides Trap and ending up fighting a kinetic war?" Rhodes responded that just a week previously he had been in a conversation with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger where he had asked him just that question. Rhodes reported Kissinger's response. "I fear we may be entering a repeat of one hundred years ago where European statesmen were in a process of "sleepwalking" into a gigantic war."

In his short history of WWI, Stone recounts the July 1914 downward spiral into war. A Serb political dissident living in Bosnia guns down an Austrian dignitary in Sarajevo. Indignant Austria threatens Serbia with war. Slavic Serbia seeks reaffirmation of its alliance with Slavic Russia. Germanic Austria seeks reaffirmation of its alliance from Germany. Russia is allied in an entente with France and the UK. Austria, after making impossible demands of Serbia, and with Germany's approbation, attacks Serbia. Obligated by the entente to support Russia as it mobilizes against Austria and Germany, France and UK mobilize. Germany launches a preemptive attack on France and violates Belgian neutrality. The UK and France rush to defend France. Russia attacks Germany. Weak, flaccid European leaders had "sleepwalked" into World War I during a time of global prosperity when there was no good reason for any of the parties to go to war.

Not to equate myself with Henry Kissinger, I will say this: If we don't lend the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat them. Just as was the case one hundred years ago, today's European leaders are weak. There is a real danger, that because of their ineptitude, the world could be led into another world war with enemies (Russia, China, and Iran) who are, by contrast, led by clever, cunning, ruthless tyrants. During WWI, the US was there to bail out the allies in the end... and also, in WWII. Today, the US, having its weakest political and military leadership in my lifetime, is part of the problem... one of the potential sleepwalkers. Think Biden in Afghanistan.

But I digress. One of the most interesting things about this book was that its first chapter was about the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The treaty was a separate peace treaty signed on 03 March 1918, between the new Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers that ended Russia's participation in WWI. The treaty was agreed upon by the Russians to stop further German invasion. As a result of the treaty, Soviet Russia defaulted on all of Imperial Russia's commitments to the Allies and eleven nations became independent in eastern Europe and western Asia. Russia lost nearly all of Ukraine, and the three Baltic republics were ceded to Germany. After WWII, the Bolsheviks (Soviets) did get the Baltics and the Ukraine back, but they were lost once again with the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989. Putin's restiveness about the need for his neighbors to be in the Russian orbit is better understood with this understanding of the role of Brest-Litovsk.

Russia's backing out of the war was, of course, seen to be a boon for Germany who could redirect fifty divisions of troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front. Germany's one last, hopeful offensive in the Spring of 1918 regained much ground lost in 1916 and 1917. But it was a Pyrrhic Victory. German troops outstripped their supply lines and large numbers of fresh American troops had arrived to thwart German intentions of final victory. The Germans were finished. They signed an armistice with the allies at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.

Sometimes, when reading the longer tomes, a reader sees trees but gets lost in the forest. So, this is a good book to complement more comprehensive studies of World War I. A reader of this book will be reminded that good times are not inevitable.