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A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918
The First World War is one of history's greatest tragedies. In this remarkable and intimate account, author G. J. Meyer draws on exhaustive research to bring to life the story of how the Great War reduced Europe’s mightiest empires to rubble, killed twenty million people, and cracked the foundations of the world we live in today.
704 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
About the author
G.J. Meyer
8 books213 followersG. J. Meyer is a former Woodrow Wilson Fellow with an M.A. in English literature from the University of Minnesota, a onetime journalist, and holder of Harvard University’s Neiman Fellowship in Journalism. He has taught at colleges and universities in Des Moines, St. Louis, and New York. His books include A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, Executive Blues, and The Memphis Murders, winner of an Edgar Award for nonfiction from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives in Goring-on-Thames, England. (source)
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April 26, 2016
My wife and I are expecting a baby any day now. Any moment, really. And I thought about that as I finished this book: how it might be the last book I ever read. Ever. At least the last book that doesn’t involve talking bears or talking cows or talking bean-pods or whatever talking creature populates the books that babies read these days.
Lately, I’ve been obsessed with World War I. A few weeks ago, while at Barnes & Noble, I was looking for a good book on World War I, fully acknowledging that World War I might be the last frivolous historical obsession I ever have. Ever. Other than an obsession with the last years of my carefree youth.
So there I was, in the book aisle, facing my reality, pondering my last historical obsession, and the last book with which to indulge it.
I chose G.J. Meyer’s A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918.
At first glance, it doesn’t have a lot to recommend it. For one, I’d never heard of it before, in any mention of single-volume histories of the war (well-known entries include books by John Keegan, SLA Marshall, and Martin Gilbert). The author, too, was mysterious to me, an enigma veiled by initials.
Furthermore, one of the cover blurbs proudly states that this book is a top-choice of the “resident historian” of the History Channel. I’m not even sure what that’s supposed to mean. What exactly does the resident historian do? Does he find the ice roads for each season of Ice Road Truckers? The last time I tried to watch the History Channel, they served up an all-day marathon of Pawn Stars, which not only has nothing to do with history, but actually works against it (pawn shops are to history what Wal-Mart developments are to Civil War Battlefields).
In short, I was about to put the book down and go about my merry way. But then, obviously, I bought it instead. The story behind that isn’t important (in short: it involves me talking my wife out of a B&N gift card in exchange for cleaning the bathtub).
It was a fortunate choice. I do not want this to be the last book I read on World War I. I do not want this to be the last book I read on any subject. However, it is a great first book to read on World War I. I should know, since this is my second one-volume history of WWI in a row, and it is far more enjoyable than the first. (No offense, John Keegan).
Being on Goodreads, I’ve gotten some really good recommendations on WWI books. Books that cover everything from battlefields to economics to cultural repercussions. Many of them, though, seem really intimidating. And the thing about the Great War is that it’s already an intimidating subject. It’s easy to get turned off before you get started, and move on to the relatively simpler milieu of World War II: Germans = bad; Americans = good; and Russians = shrug.
A World Undone is a book for the masses. It is expansive, yet accessible; detailed, but clear; and entertaining as hell. It doesn’t come with Keegan’s pedigree. It does not bog down in detailed analyses. If you already know a lot about the subject, you probably don’t need to read this book; it does not require heavy mental lifting. It is, first and foremost, a narrative rooted in humanity.
A major appeal to this book is its structure. Any one-volume history of World War I must deal with a crucial calculation: scope verses space. A great many things happened during the war, to a great many people, in places all over the globe and under the sea. Moreover, many of these things were happening simultaneously. An author facing such a calculation usually chooses between two options: maintaining a chronological narrative; or compartmentalizing the narrative (e.g., a chapter on the Western Front, a chapter on naval battles, etc.).
Meyer utilizes a hybrid approach. For the most part, he tells the story of World War I, from Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s murder to the Armistice of November, 11, 1918, in chronological fashion. While this could potentially be confusing, he pays incredibly close attention to shifting smoothly from theater to theater. By doing this, he is able to draw important connections between the Western Front and Eastern Front, and how the distribution of manpower and materiel dictated strategy. The war formed a huge web, and pulling on one strand inevitably caused all other strands to tremble. (It also helps that Meyer mostly ignores lesser theaters, such as the battles in Africa. The areas of concentration are the Western and Eastern Fronts, and the Dardanelles, which is how it should be in a book for the vox populi).
After each narrative chapter, Meyer inserts a Background chapter, complete with its own font (sans-serif). These sections cover topics that can’t easily be inserted into the main narrative, or that add depth and dimension to the overall story. There are Background sections on the Serbs, the Junkers, the Ottoman Empire, war poetry, airplanes and tanks, Lawrence of Arabia, and the Armenian Genocide. These short chapters tended to be among the most fascinating and lively in the book. For instance, in writing about the Ottoman Turks, Meyer relates how Prince Mustafa, son of Suleiman the Magnificent, was executed by five assassins “whose tongues had been slit and eardrums broken so that they would hear no secrets and could never speak of what they saw.” (Though one wonders how they were given their commands to kill).
Meyer did not set out to break new ground. He does not attempt to reinterpret World War I. He has no particular axe to grind. He is not like John Mosier, arguing that the Americans won the war, or like Niall Ferguson, arguing that the British started it. To the contrary, he stays on the beaten path. Further, this is not a scholarly work. If you look in the notes, you will see a heavy reliance on secondary sources.
This is not a criticism. In his introduction, Meyer’s stated intent to is write a user-friendly history of the war. He accomplishes this.
His writing style is not elegant, yet it is admirably clean and readable, especially after all the trouble I had with Keegan’s clause-ridden, stuttering sentences. He does a good job segueing between the god’s-eye-view and the recollections of the common soldiers (though I wish he’d used block-quotes when excerpting long passages; I’ve always been a believer that three or more excerpted sentences deserve a block-quote).
In describing battles, Meyer avoids getting drowned in the Roman numeral soup of Armies and Corps and Divisions. For the most part, with some important exceptions, he doesn’t try to detail the individual movements of particular armed bodies of troops. Instead, he takes a macro approach, describing the cumulative effect of a particular offensive, rather than attempting to parse its component parts.
When reading Keegan, I decried the lack of maps. Here, there are even less maps, and they are only nominally more helpful. But since Meyer doesn’t base his narrative on exhaustive recitations of the order of battle, more and better maps aren’t really required. In a book like this, for example, a competent presentation of the purpose of the Somme offensive (its strategic value; its tactical value; its psychological value) is far more important than a meticulous recounting of which regiment attacked across which farmer’s field.
I’m wary of overselling this book, simply because it came to me out of the blue, and since it enters a literary field studded with famous titles.
On the other hand, I don’t want to undersell it either.
A World Undone isn’t exactly Trench Warfare for Dummies. And even though I admittedly don’t know a whole lot about World War I, I do read a whole lot of history. This is a great primer on the subject. Most people can get through life without reading any books on the First World War. But if you want to read just one, and you want that experience to be painless, nay, to be enjoyable, I present to you this book, which comes with the completely worthless imprimatur of me, and the more worthless imprimatur of the History Channel.
Further, if you are one of those people who have had an awakening – if you have, like me, woken up and said to yourself, I must know everything about World War I – then this is a wonderful place to start, a book to help you get your footing. Having read this, and yes, John Keegan’s book as well, I feel like I have the roadmap to journey deeper into the cataclysm of the Great War.
That is, if I ever have the time, which I probably won’t. The only journey I’ll be taking will be into the cataclysm of diapers and not sleeping, but that is beside the point, and in no way is meant to compare babies to world wars.
Lately, I’ve been obsessed with World War I. A few weeks ago, while at Barnes & Noble, I was looking for a good book on World War I, fully acknowledging that World War I might be the last frivolous historical obsession I ever have. Ever. Other than an obsession with the last years of my carefree youth.
So there I was, in the book aisle, facing my reality, pondering my last historical obsession, and the last book with which to indulge it.
I chose G.J. Meyer’s A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918.
At first glance, it doesn’t have a lot to recommend it. For one, I’d never heard of it before, in any mention of single-volume histories of the war (well-known entries include books by John Keegan, SLA Marshall, and Martin Gilbert). The author, too, was mysterious to me, an enigma veiled by initials.
Furthermore, one of the cover blurbs proudly states that this book is a top-choice of the “resident historian” of the History Channel. I’m not even sure what that’s supposed to mean. What exactly does the resident historian do? Does he find the ice roads for each season of Ice Road Truckers? The last time I tried to watch the History Channel, they served up an all-day marathon of Pawn Stars, which not only has nothing to do with history, but actually works against it (pawn shops are to history what Wal-Mart developments are to Civil War Battlefields).
In short, I was about to put the book down and go about my merry way. But then, obviously, I bought it instead. The story behind that isn’t important (in short: it involves me talking my wife out of a B&N gift card in exchange for cleaning the bathtub).
It was a fortunate choice. I do not want this to be the last book I read on World War I. I do not want this to be the last book I read on any subject. However, it is a great first book to read on World War I. I should know, since this is my second one-volume history of WWI in a row, and it is far more enjoyable than the first. (No offense, John Keegan).
Being on Goodreads, I’ve gotten some really good recommendations on WWI books. Books that cover everything from battlefields to economics to cultural repercussions. Many of them, though, seem really intimidating. And the thing about the Great War is that it’s already an intimidating subject. It’s easy to get turned off before you get started, and move on to the relatively simpler milieu of World War II: Germans = bad; Americans = good; and Russians = shrug.
A World Undone is a book for the masses. It is expansive, yet accessible; detailed, but clear; and entertaining as hell. It doesn’t come with Keegan’s pedigree. It does not bog down in detailed analyses. If you already know a lot about the subject, you probably don’t need to read this book; it does not require heavy mental lifting. It is, first and foremost, a narrative rooted in humanity.
A major appeal to this book is its structure. Any one-volume history of World War I must deal with a crucial calculation: scope verses space. A great many things happened during the war, to a great many people, in places all over the globe and under the sea. Moreover, many of these things were happening simultaneously. An author facing such a calculation usually chooses between two options: maintaining a chronological narrative; or compartmentalizing the narrative (e.g., a chapter on the Western Front, a chapter on naval battles, etc.).
Meyer utilizes a hybrid approach. For the most part, he tells the story of World War I, from Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s murder to the Armistice of November, 11, 1918, in chronological fashion. While this could potentially be confusing, he pays incredibly close attention to shifting smoothly from theater to theater. By doing this, he is able to draw important connections between the Western Front and Eastern Front, and how the distribution of manpower and materiel dictated strategy. The war formed a huge web, and pulling on one strand inevitably caused all other strands to tremble. (It also helps that Meyer mostly ignores lesser theaters, such as the battles in Africa. The areas of concentration are the Western and Eastern Fronts, and the Dardanelles, which is how it should be in a book for the vox populi).
After each narrative chapter, Meyer inserts a Background chapter, complete with its own font (sans-serif). These sections cover topics that can’t easily be inserted into the main narrative, or that add depth and dimension to the overall story. There are Background sections on the Serbs, the Junkers, the Ottoman Empire, war poetry, airplanes and tanks, Lawrence of Arabia, and the Armenian Genocide. These short chapters tended to be among the most fascinating and lively in the book. For instance, in writing about the Ottoman Turks, Meyer relates how Prince Mustafa, son of Suleiman the Magnificent, was executed by five assassins “whose tongues had been slit and eardrums broken so that they would hear no secrets and could never speak of what they saw.” (Though one wonders how they were given their commands to kill).
Meyer did not set out to break new ground. He does not attempt to reinterpret World War I. He has no particular axe to grind. He is not like John Mosier, arguing that the Americans won the war, or like Niall Ferguson, arguing that the British started it. To the contrary, he stays on the beaten path. Further, this is not a scholarly work. If you look in the notes, you will see a heavy reliance on secondary sources.
This is not a criticism. In his introduction, Meyer’s stated intent to is write a user-friendly history of the war. He accomplishes this.
His writing style is not elegant, yet it is admirably clean and readable, especially after all the trouble I had with Keegan’s clause-ridden, stuttering sentences. He does a good job segueing between the god’s-eye-view and the recollections of the common soldiers (though I wish he’d used block-quotes when excerpting long passages; I’ve always been a believer that three or more excerpted sentences deserve a block-quote).
In describing battles, Meyer avoids getting drowned in the Roman numeral soup of Armies and Corps and Divisions. For the most part, with some important exceptions, he doesn’t try to detail the individual movements of particular armed bodies of troops. Instead, he takes a macro approach, describing the cumulative effect of a particular offensive, rather than attempting to parse its component parts.
When reading Keegan, I decried the lack of maps. Here, there are even less maps, and they are only nominally more helpful. But since Meyer doesn’t base his narrative on exhaustive recitations of the order of battle, more and better maps aren’t really required. In a book like this, for example, a competent presentation of the purpose of the Somme offensive (its strategic value; its tactical value; its psychological value) is far more important than a meticulous recounting of which regiment attacked across which farmer’s field.
I’m wary of overselling this book, simply because it came to me out of the blue, and since it enters a literary field studded with famous titles.
On the other hand, I don’t want to undersell it either.
A World Undone isn’t exactly Trench Warfare for Dummies. And even though I admittedly don’t know a whole lot about World War I, I do read a whole lot of history. This is a great primer on the subject. Most people can get through life without reading any books on the First World War. But if you want to read just one, and you want that experience to be painless, nay, to be enjoyable, I present to you this book, which comes with the completely worthless imprimatur of me, and the more worthless imprimatur of the History Channel.
Further, if you are one of those people who have had an awakening – if you have, like me, woken up and said to yourself, I must know everything about World War I – then this is a wonderful place to start, a book to help you get your footing. Having read this, and yes, John Keegan’s book as well, I feel like I have the roadmap to journey deeper into the cataclysm of the Great War.
That is, if I ever have the time, which I probably won’t. The only journey I’ll be taking will be into the cataclysm of diapers and not sleeping, but that is beside the point, and in no way is meant to compare babies to world wars.
May 9, 2014
I keep reading WWI books, not necessarily to learn anything new but to get the perspective of the authors....and of course because I love them. This book jumps to the top of my list as a direct, unbiased look at the war and all that made it so horrific. And the author uses a device which I found quite novel. At the beginning of each chapter he places a "background" of two or three pages to discuss issues that would not usually get much attention in an overall history of the Great War. They range from the Serbs to the development of artillery to the Junkers to War and Poetry. All these things apply to the war but are somewhat sidelights to the bigger picture.
He takes us from the assassination of Franz Ferdinand to the Versailles fiasco and although he covers the major battles, he keeps the narrative moving without intricate plans of how each battle was fought. He is not shy about pointing fingers at the huge errors made by the military leadership on both sides but also praises those who needed praise. I felt that he was fair in his assessments; some extremely obvious (utilizing mounted cavalry against machine guns) and some are more subtle (the initial refusal to make modifications to the Schlieffen Plan). This is a well researched book which will hold your attention throughout. Very highly recommended.
He takes us from the assassination of Franz Ferdinand to the Versailles fiasco and although he covers the major battles, he keeps the narrative moving without intricate plans of how each battle was fought. He is not shy about pointing fingers at the huge errors made by the military leadership on both sides but also praises those who needed praise. I felt that he was fair in his assessments; some extremely obvious (utilizing mounted cavalry against machine guns) and some are more subtle (the initial refusal to make modifications to the Schlieffen Plan). This is a well researched book which will hold your attention throughout. Very highly recommended.
December 22, 2022
The author of this book stated that it was a "labor of love" inspired by his reading of Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front." That novel is the quintessential depiction of World War I from the standpoint of the men who fought it.
Meyer's book, in my opinion, is the quintessential history of The Great War aimed at the general reader. You finish this book feeling you've learned everything anyone needs to know about the cataclysm that was World War I.
Very highly recommended.
Meyer's book, in my opinion, is the quintessential history of The Great War aimed at the general reader. You finish this book feeling you've learned everything anyone needs to know about the cataclysm that was World War I.
Very highly recommended.
February 24, 2024
“The war is unique in the number of questions about it that remain unsettled. Who caused it—if it can be said that anyone did? Should Germany have won it in 1914—and need Germany have lost it in 1918? Could it have ended earlier if only a few things had gone just a little differently at Gallipoli, or on the Marne, or at Ypres? Was Douglas Haig—or Erich Ludendorff, or Conrad von Hötzendorf—a great commander, or a disastrously bad one, or something in between? Could the conflict have been brought to a negotiated conclusion before it did so much damage to so much of the world? After ninety years, scholars remain divided on such questions. It seems likely that they always will.”
— A World Undone
One of the great difficulties I faced in reading about World War I is that I didn’t know where to start. I remember the first book that I encountered was Tuchman’s The Guns of August which you can easily find when you’re looking for a book on the subject. It is one of the few books on the Great War that has been translated to Persian and you can find it in most libraries in my country (I'd first seen it in my grandfather’s library and the hardcover along with the title caught my eye immediately but I have yet to read it back-to-back). The translation is good but Tuchman’s prose and style is difficult to capture in translation. But aside from the inevitable loss of clarity in translation, the thing that put me off the book was that I knew close to nothing about the war and Tuchman’s book deals only with the starting month of the war. I looked for a more comprehensive work but didn’t find anything to my liking.
Years passed and I only managed to see a few documentaries about the war. I searched online, read encyclopedias but only to the extent that I needed for World War II. What I’m trying to say is that it’s hard enough to get a good sense of the labyrinthine nature of the Great War even when you have a good book, let alone when you don’t know where and when to start.
G. J. Meyer has finally mitigated that problem for me. I’ve read A World Undone once, listened to it a few times and now I have more than a few paragraphs to bore people with if they ask me about the origins and the results of the war.
In terms of accessibility and abundance of background information, A World Undone is probably the best book that there is on this savage global conflict. Imperial powers of Europe clashed on a titanic scale, the destructiveness and ferocity of which shocked and reshaped the modern world.
Why did the conflict start? That’s the hardest question to answer because there is no simple and clear explanation. Causes were multitudinous and had to do with imperial vanity and the struggle for superiority over the continent (like the naval arms race between Germany and Britain). It had to do with Balkan nationalism, which Serbia was usually at its center. The tsarist Russia’s claim of being the protector of the Slavic population in the Balkans played a part in transforming a possible regional conflict into a continental one. And it has been said that even though none of the belligerents desired war, they preferred war to the disgrace that came with ‘looking weak’. Fear of losing status and being destroyed by a two front war also set the German leaders’ psyche so that they felt they had to attack first and fast if they were to avoid being crushed by Russia and France. And of course, it wasn’t inevitable. The assassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary by a Bosnian fanatic hit the fuse and the reactions and counteractions that followed, detonated the powder keg and the nations started to tear each other apart using the devastating powers of modern arms at their disposal.
Meyer addresses all of these in a straightforward way. I feel that he sometimes oversimplifies but the causes are so entangled that this simplification is necessary for an introductory work. Being a layman, I benefited a lot.
Meyer nearly covers all the actions and fronts. There are good descriptions of the war on the Eastern Front and the famous battle of Tannenberg. The confused situation on the Western side is somewhat demystified by good maps with just enough detail. Tactical and strategic calculations are analyzed alongside short biographies of the decision makers.
At the end of each chapter, there is a background section which gives more information about the prewar status of the powers and these parts are especially beneficial if you’re like me and don’t know much about that period of history.
There wasn’t much progress on the battles of the Western Front and the overall situation that predominated there can be described as a terrible deadlock (not unlike the way heavy-weight wrestling matches usually turn out to be). Nothing decisive took place but the killing didn’t stop. France, Britain and Germany bled themselves dry without having much to show for it and it continued for far too long. Being a soldier (or a civilian) on that front has to count as one of the worst places to be on earth during the entirety of the twentieth century.
After more than four years of bloodshed and destruction, Russian armies were destroyed and the tsarist regime tumbled to its death. Austria-Hungary was gutted. Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and the modern Middle East began to take shape. Americans entered the war on the side of France and Britain and started to pound on the German west until the German government surrendered. Italy also played a ridiculous part and despite gaining a lot in the Treaty of Versailles, it didn’t fare well and succumbed to the rule of Benito Mussolini and his fascist followers. Meyer has you covered in all these, though I felt the quality of the book declined a bit towards the end.
The most fateful consequence (in hindsight naturally) is the peace that befell the German Nation. Germany lost its imperial status and its overseas colonies and the Kaiser abdicated. An unsure democracy supplanted the ruling military junta that was under the control of Erich Ludendorff during the latter stages of the war. The new democratic Weimar Republic soon became unhinged and it didn’t survive the onslaught of ultranationalists. The stage was set for the Nazis and the bad-tempered corporal of the Great War to take the lead.
— A World Undone
One of the great difficulties I faced in reading about World War I is that I didn’t know where to start. I remember the first book that I encountered was Tuchman’s The Guns of August which you can easily find when you’re looking for a book on the subject. It is one of the few books on the Great War that has been translated to Persian and you can find it in most libraries in my country (I'd first seen it in my grandfather’s library and the hardcover along with the title caught my eye immediately but I have yet to read it back-to-back). The translation is good but Tuchman’s prose and style is difficult to capture in translation. But aside from the inevitable loss of clarity in translation, the thing that put me off the book was that I knew close to nothing about the war and Tuchman’s book deals only with the starting month of the war. I looked for a more comprehensive work but didn’t find anything to my liking.
Years passed and I only managed to see a few documentaries about the war. I searched online, read encyclopedias but only to the extent that I needed for World War II. What I’m trying to say is that it’s hard enough to get a good sense of the labyrinthine nature of the Great War even when you have a good book, let alone when you don’t know where and when to start.
G. J. Meyer has finally mitigated that problem for me. I’ve read A World Undone once, listened to it a few times and now I have more than a few paragraphs to bore people with if they ask me about the origins and the results of the war.
In terms of accessibility and abundance of background information, A World Undone is probably the best book that there is on this savage global conflict. Imperial powers of Europe clashed on a titanic scale, the destructiveness and ferocity of which shocked and reshaped the modern world.
Why did the conflict start? That’s the hardest question to answer because there is no simple and clear explanation. Causes were multitudinous and had to do with imperial vanity and the struggle for superiority over the continent (like the naval arms race between Germany and Britain). It had to do with Balkan nationalism, which Serbia was usually at its center. The tsarist Russia’s claim of being the protector of the Slavic population in the Balkans played a part in transforming a possible regional conflict into a continental one. And it has been said that even though none of the belligerents desired war, they preferred war to the disgrace that came with ‘looking weak’. Fear of losing status and being destroyed by a two front war also set the German leaders’ psyche so that they felt they had to attack first and fast if they were to avoid being crushed by Russia and France. And of course, it wasn’t inevitable. The assassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary by a Bosnian fanatic hit the fuse and the reactions and counteractions that followed, detonated the powder keg and the nations started to tear each other apart using the devastating powers of modern arms at their disposal.
Meyer addresses all of these in a straightforward way. I feel that he sometimes oversimplifies but the causes are so entangled that this simplification is necessary for an introductory work. Being a layman, I benefited a lot.
From the start my objective was to weave together all of the story’s most compelling elements—the strange way in which it began more than a month after the assassination that supposedly was its cause; the mysterious way in which the successes and failures of both sides balanced so perfectly as to produce years of bloody deadlock; the leading personalities; the astonishing extent to which the leadership of every belligerent nation was divided against itself; the appalling blunders; the incredible (and now largely forgotten) carnage—while at the same time filling in as much as possible of the historical background.
It has long seemed to me that practically all popular histories of the Great War assume too much, expect too much of the reader, and therefore leave too much unexplained.
Meyer nearly covers all the actions and fronts. There are good descriptions of the war on the Eastern Front and the famous battle of Tannenberg. The confused situation on the Western side is somewhat demystified by good maps with just enough detail. Tactical and strategic calculations are analyzed alongside short biographies of the decision makers.
At the end of each chapter, there is a background section which gives more information about the prewar status of the powers and these parts are especially beneficial if you’re like me and don’t know much about that period of history.
There wasn’t much progress on the battles of the Western Front and the overall situation that predominated there can be described as a terrible deadlock (not unlike the way heavy-weight wrestling matches usually turn out to be). Nothing decisive took place but the killing didn’t stop. France, Britain and Germany bled themselves dry without having much to show for it and it continued for far too long. Being a soldier (or a civilian) on that front has to count as one of the worst places to be on earth during the entirety of the twentieth century.
After more than four years of bloodshed and destruction, Russian armies were destroyed and the tsarist regime tumbled to its death. Austria-Hungary was gutted. Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and the modern Middle East began to take shape. Americans entered the war on the side of France and Britain and started to pound on the German west until the German government surrendered. Italy also played a ridiculous part and despite gaining a lot in the Treaty of Versailles, it didn’t fare well and succumbed to the rule of Benito Mussolini and his fascist followers. Meyer has you covered in all these, though I felt the quality of the book declined a bit towards the end.
Whatever else it did, the armistice did not end the killing. Life in Europe had become too deranged, too many things remained unsettled, and too many young men who knew nothing but war found that there was nothing for them to go home to, for that to be possible.
Russia proceeded almost seamlessly to an enormous civil war that would go on for years, kill more of its people than the Great War, draw in troops from western Europe and the United States, and end with the Communists in firm control. Just weeks after the armistice, an uprising aimed at establishing something like a Bolshevik regime in Germany erupted in Berlin and was bloodily suppressed not by the civil authorities but by rough paramilitary “Free Corps” made up of demobilized German soldiers unwilling to lay down their arms.
The most fateful consequence (in hindsight naturally) is the peace that befell the German Nation. Germany lost its imperial status and its overseas colonies and the Kaiser abdicated. An unsure democracy supplanted the ruling military junta that was under the control of Erich Ludendorff during the latter stages of the war. The new democratic Weimar Republic soon became unhinged and it didn’t survive the onslaught of ultranationalists. The stage was set for the Nazis and the bad-tempered corporal of the Great War to take the lead.
March 14, 2022
I typically prefer books that are written about a single battle or campaign and I tend to gravitate towards the ones written from the soldier’s point of view. For a World Undone, I’ll make an exception. This is probably the finest comprehensive book that I have ever read about any war. Maybe it was the perfect book for my level of understanding and I am sure the timing was ripe. You see, I was inspired by a recent visit to Ypres where I witnessed the playing of the Last Post at the Menin Gate. I futilely tried to read all the names of the missing inscribed on that gate which of course was impossible. I was moved by the personal story of Pte. George W. Short who died there at age 18 and 2 months. I was moved and at the same time enthralled and I threw myself into learning about The Great War during the year of the 100th anniversary of the armistice. This was the perfect book for me to tie everything together and I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed Shelby Foote’s masterpiece, The Civil War; McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom, Samuel Eliot Morison’s Two Ocean War, and the first two books of Ian Toll’s Trilogy of the Pacific War. I found it far more entertaining and insightful than John Keegan’s The First World War and the preamble of a World Undone was far more effective and less drawn out than The War that Ended Peace.
This book is different. Meyers is able to effectively blend the lead up to war, the strategy, the battles, issues on the home front while leaving plenty of room for enough of the gory details that give the reader the flavor of trench warfare. Meyer likens trench warfare to a great siege extending across Western Europe. Throughout the book Meyer strategically scatters small chapters he calls background chapters. These short chapters are fascinating and usually tie into the subsequent chapter. I found this formula unique and very entertaining. There are short background chapters on the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, the Romanovs, and WWI weaponry,etc. For example, I especially liked the background chapter about the Ottoman Empire. I had no idea that the Sultan would sit on a wall with a rifle and indiscriminately shoot passers-by just because he could. Meyer claims that the roots of the downfall of the great Ottoman Empire can be traced back to a red-headed harem girl of Polish origin who was able to manipulate the Sultan to murder his own son and rightful heir so that their drunken slovenly son could become the new heir which would lead to the slow implosion of the empire.
Meyer's argues that the whole-scale slaughter could have been stopped at several times throughout the war. Oh, how the world could have could have used a man like Otto Von Bismarck. This kind of man didn’t exist in Germany. As in the war that followed, Germany would produce one dimensional leaders like Ludendorff: Masterful tacticians that really didn’t understand grand strategy. Meyer argues that the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was punitive and required the Germans to occupy and garrison territory. This robbed the Western Front of 1.5 MM German soldiers.
I also was able to admire some of the capable commanders such as France’s Petain, Australia’s Monash and Russia’s Alexi Brusilov. These were men that understood the necessity to change tactics and employ more appropriate strategies that were a much better match for the deadly weaponry of the 20th century. Men like Ludendorff were early adopters and understood that tactics and strategies needed to be modified. In contrast, there were men like Foch, Haig and Joffre that did not completely grasp the killing power of the contemporary technologies fast enough. At first, too many French officers clung to the cult of the offensive. "French infantry couldn’t crawl on the ground like worms." This is one of the reasons that France suffered so much during the war. Haig dreamed of a breakthrough that would make possible a dashing cavalry charge that would finally break the siege. Men like Foch continued to cram front line trenches with infantry and would have the secondary line to close to the front line and in reach of the enemies guns. This would cause too much wastage due to the pummeling of artillery which was responsible for upwards of 70% of all WWI fatalities.
There is all kinds of interesting and useful information included in the audio book. For example, antisemitism was prevalent throughout Europe and nowhere were the Jews as persecuted as they were in Russia. Also, the author presents some of the events that would later be used to rationalize for the victimization of the Jews during WW2. I was also stunned by how many parallels that could be drawn between WWI and WWII. The Michael offensive on the Western front created a huge Salient that would be cut off and encircled reminded me of the Battle of the Bulge. Czarist Russia issued an order very similar to Stalin's order 270. The Poles and the Jews of suffered nearly as bad as they did in WWII. Yes, history repeats itself.
I think that you need to read one book to tie everything together. For WWI, this is the book.
In the final month of the 100th anniversary of the first war to end all wars, make this your last read for 2018. Pay homage to the men in the trenches that suffered so much in what the author describes as siege warfare on a grand scale.
This book is different. Meyers is able to effectively blend the lead up to war, the strategy, the battles, issues on the home front while leaving plenty of room for enough of the gory details that give the reader the flavor of trench warfare. Meyer likens trench warfare to a great siege extending across Western Europe. Throughout the book Meyer strategically scatters small chapters he calls background chapters. These short chapters are fascinating and usually tie into the subsequent chapter. I found this formula unique and very entertaining. There are short background chapters on the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, the Romanovs, and WWI weaponry,etc. For example, I especially liked the background chapter about the Ottoman Empire. I had no idea that the Sultan would sit on a wall with a rifle and indiscriminately shoot passers-by just because he could. Meyer claims that the roots of the downfall of the great Ottoman Empire can be traced back to a red-headed harem girl of Polish origin who was able to manipulate the Sultan to murder his own son and rightful heir so that their drunken slovenly son could become the new heir which would lead to the slow implosion of the empire.
Meyer's argues that the whole-scale slaughter could have been stopped at several times throughout the war. Oh, how the world could have could have used a man like Otto Von Bismarck. This kind of man didn’t exist in Germany. As in the war that followed, Germany would produce one dimensional leaders like Ludendorff: Masterful tacticians that really didn’t understand grand strategy. Meyer argues that the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was punitive and required the Germans to occupy and garrison territory. This robbed the Western Front of 1.5 MM German soldiers.
I also was able to admire some of the capable commanders such as France’s Petain, Australia’s Monash and Russia’s Alexi Brusilov. These were men that understood the necessity to change tactics and employ more appropriate strategies that were a much better match for the deadly weaponry of the 20th century. Men like Ludendorff were early adopters and understood that tactics and strategies needed to be modified. In contrast, there were men like Foch, Haig and Joffre that did not completely grasp the killing power of the contemporary technologies fast enough. At first, too many French officers clung to the cult of the offensive. "French infantry couldn’t crawl on the ground like worms." This is one of the reasons that France suffered so much during the war. Haig dreamed of a breakthrough that would make possible a dashing cavalry charge that would finally break the siege. Men like Foch continued to cram front line trenches with infantry and would have the secondary line to close to the front line and in reach of the enemies guns. This would cause too much wastage due to the pummeling of artillery which was responsible for upwards of 70% of all WWI fatalities.
There is all kinds of interesting and useful information included in the audio book. For example, antisemitism was prevalent throughout Europe and nowhere were the Jews as persecuted as they were in Russia. Also, the author presents some of the events that would later be used to rationalize for the victimization of the Jews during WW2. I was also stunned by how many parallels that could be drawn between WWI and WWII. The Michael offensive on the Western front created a huge Salient that would be cut off and encircled reminded me of the Battle of the Bulge. Czarist Russia issued an order very similar to Stalin's order 270. The Poles and the Jews of suffered nearly as bad as they did in WWII. Yes, history repeats itself.
I think that you need to read one book to tie everything together. For WWI, this is the book.
In the final month of the 100th anniversary of the first war to end all wars, make this your last read for 2018. Pay homage to the men in the trenches that suffered so much in what the author describes as siege warfare on a grand scale.
August 27, 2023
The one hundred year anniversary of the end of World War I recently occurred, and I decided if I didn’t tackle this book at this time I never would. I’ve had my eyes on it for some time while dreading the investment of time required to get through it. It’s worth the time and is well written with a narrative that provides an easily understood description of a complicated series of events. Chapters dedicated to background information are interspersed throughout the book which provide frequent relief from the other chapters filled with accounts of unbelievable suffering and death. I also found these “background” chapters to be the most interesting parts of the book. Most of the excerpts included at the end of this review are taken from these chapters.
The irony of WWI is that it was unnecessary but yet inevitable. It was made inevitable by a combination of personalities of those in power, an arms race utilizing new technology, dissatisfaction with recent negotiated settlements, multinational mutual defense treaties, and complicated mobilization plans. The traditional initiating cause of the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The real cause (IMHO) was the ultimatum issued by the Austro-Hungarian government to Serbia in response to the assassination. The impossible nature of the ultimatum was prompted by their fear of losing parts of their empire in the Balkans. The failure of Germany to restrain the Austro-Hungarian government at that point can be traced to Kaiser Wilhelm’s immature bluster. Then the tangled combination of mutual defense treaties converted the local Balkan conflict into a world war. Many other factors made the magnitude of death and destruction worse than anyone anticipated.
The first three military mobilizations were by Austro-Hungary, Russia, and Germany. It's interesting to note that in all three instances the possibility of a limited mobilization was explored, but in all three cases the military officials insisted that narrowing the focus of military action was impossible. In Austro-Hungary the possibility of advancing to Belgrade and no further was explored. The Russian Czar wanted to mobilize for war against Austro-Hungary but not Germany. And the German Kaiser Wilhelm wanted to mobilize against Russia but not France. Military officers in all three cases and in three different nations said that it could not be done. The Chief of the German General Staff said, “If his majesty insisted on leading the army eastwards, he would have a confused mass of disorderly armed men.” The Schlieffen Plan called for mobilization against both Russia and France—there was no alternative.
It is hard to understand how some generals maintained their optimistic belief that their next offensive would achieve a "break through" even after trying the same tactics over and over and failing to achieve meaningful results. One could make the case that some evil spirit must have caused various people to make stupid blunders and mistakes such that it was impossible for either side to achieve victory for four years assuring that maximum slaughter would occur. And then when the war did end, conditions were such that WWII happened twenty years later.
The following are some excerpts from the book that I found interesting. Before each excerpt I've included my introductory comments:
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is famous in history as being the cause of WWI. This book provides a personal story about Franz which carries with it a bit romance. Franz had married for love, against the preference of his uncle the Emperor, and consequently his wife had to live in humiliating disregard from others in the royal court. But the couple were looking forward to their trip to Bosnia because they were free of the royal court and could be seen in public together:
The following is a link to some more quotations from this book:
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes...
The irony of WWI is that it was unnecessary but yet inevitable. It was made inevitable by a combination of personalities of those in power, an arms race utilizing new technology, dissatisfaction with recent negotiated settlements, multinational mutual defense treaties, and complicated mobilization plans. The traditional initiating cause of the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The real cause (IMHO) was the ultimatum issued by the Austro-Hungarian government to Serbia in response to the assassination. The impossible nature of the ultimatum was prompted by their fear of losing parts of their empire in the Balkans. The failure of Germany to restrain the Austro-Hungarian government at that point can be traced to Kaiser Wilhelm’s immature bluster. Then the tangled combination of mutual defense treaties converted the local Balkan conflict into a world war. Many other factors made the magnitude of death and destruction worse than anyone anticipated.
The first three military mobilizations were by Austro-Hungary, Russia, and Germany. It's interesting to note that in all three instances the possibility of a limited mobilization was explored, but in all three cases the military officials insisted that narrowing the focus of military action was impossible. In Austro-Hungary the possibility of advancing to Belgrade and no further was explored. The Russian Czar wanted to mobilize for war against Austro-Hungary but not Germany. And the German Kaiser Wilhelm wanted to mobilize against Russia but not France. Military officers in all three cases and in three different nations said that it could not be done. The Chief of the German General Staff said, “If his majesty insisted on leading the army eastwards, he would have a confused mass of disorderly armed men.” The Schlieffen Plan called for mobilization against both Russia and France—there was no alternative.
It is hard to understand how some generals maintained their optimistic belief that their next offensive would achieve a "break through" even after trying the same tactics over and over and failing to achieve meaningful results. One could make the case that some evil spirit must have caused various people to make stupid blunders and mistakes such that it was impossible for either side to achieve victory for four years assuring that maximum slaughter would occur. And then when the war did end, conditions were such that WWII happened twenty years later.
The following are some excerpts from the book that I found interesting. Before each excerpt I've included my introductory comments:
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is famous in history as being the cause of WWI. This book provides a personal story about Franz which carries with it a bit romance. Franz had married for love, against the preference of his uncle the Emperor, and consequently his wife had to live in humiliating disregard from others in the royal court. But the couple were looking forward to their trip to Bosnia because they were free of the royal court and could be seen in public together:
"[Franz Ferdinand] was also the eldest nephew of the Hapsburg emperor Franz Joseph and therefore—the emperor's only son having committed suicide—heir to the imperial crown. He had come to Bosnia in his capacity as inspector general of the Austro-Hungarian armies, to observe the summer military exercises, and he had brought his wife, Sophie, with him. The two would be observing their fourteenth wedding anniversary later in the week, and Franz Ferdinand was using this visit to put Sophie at the center of things, to give her a little of the recognition she was usually denied.The size of the mobilization for war exceeded anything that had happened before in history:
"Back in the Hapsburg capital of Vienna, Sophie was, for the wife of a prospective emperor, improbably close to being a non-person. At the turn of the century the emperor had forbidden Franz Ferdinand to marry her. She was not of royal lineage, was in fact a mere countess, the daughter of a noble but impoverished Czech family. As a young woman, she had been reduced by financial need to accepting employment as lady-in-waiting to an Austrian archduchess who entertained hopes of marrying her own daughter to Franz Ferdinand. All these things made Sophie, according to the rigid protocols of the Hapsburg court, unworthy to be an emperor's consort or a progenitor of future rulers.
"The accidental discovery that she and Franz Ferdinand were conducting a secret if chaste romance—that he had been regularly visiting the archduchess's palace not to court her daughter but to see a lowly and thirtyish member of the household staff—sparked outrage, and Sophie had to leave her post. But Franz Ferdinand continued to pursue her. In his youth he had had a long struggle with tuberculosis, and perhaps his survival had left him determined to live his private on his own terms. Uninterested in any of the young women who possessed the credentials to become his bride, he had remained single into his late thirties. The last two years of his bachelorhood turned into a battle of wills with his uncle the emperor over the subject of Sophie Chotek.
"Franz Joseph finally tired of the deadlock and gave his consent. What he consented to, however, was a morganatic marriage, one that would exclude Sophie's descendants from the succession. And so on June 28, 1900, fourteen years to the day before his visit to Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand appeared as ordered in the Hapsburg monarchy's Secret Council Chamber. In the presence of the emperor, the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, the Primate of Hungary, all the government's principal ministers, and all the other Hapsburg archdukes, he solemnly renounced the Austro-Hungarian throne on behalf of any children that he and Sophie might have and any descendants of those children. (Sophie was thirty-two, which in those days made her an all but hopeless spinster.)
"When the wedding took place three days later, only Franz Ferdinand's mother and sister, out of the whole huge Hapsburg family, attended. Even Franz Ferdinand's brothers, the eldest of whom was a notorious libertine, self-righteously stayed away. The marriage turned out to be a happy one all the same, in short order producing a daughter and two sons whom the usually stiff Franz Ferdinand loved so unreservedly that he would play with them on the floor in the presence of astonished visitors. But at court Sophie was relentlessly snubbed. She was not permitted to ride with her husband in royal processions or to sit near him at state dinners. She could not even join him in his box at the opera. When he, as heir, led the procession at court balls, she was kept far back, behind the lowest ranking of the truly royal ladies.
"But here in Bosnia, a turbulent border province, the rules of Vienna could be set aside. Here in Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie could appear together in public as royal husband and wife." (pg 3-5)
"Russia's general mobilization ... called up the Russian reserves — a staggering total of four million men, enough to frighten any nation on earth. ...The guns were also bigger than anything the world had previously seen:
(pg 74)
"This was war on a truly new scale; the army with which Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo had totaled sixty thousand men. ...
(pg 77)
"The Germans ... hauled into Belgium ... two new kinds of monster artillery: 305 Skoda siege mortars ... plus an almost unimaginably huge 420 howitzer ... produced by Germany's Krupp steelworks, [that] weighed seventy-five tons and had to be transported by rail in five sections and set in concrete before going into action.Early in the war many were enthusiastic. The young Winston Churchill is a prime example.
(pg 127)
"Among the holders of high office, one man at least did not share the sense of glum foreboding: the ebullient ... young Winston Churchill ... he wrote to Prime Minister Asquith's wife ... 'I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment, and yet — I can't help it — I enjoy every second of it.' "War may be hell, but trench warfare surely must be hell on steroids. The conventional image that comes to mind about WWI is one of machine guns cutting down waves of charging soldiers. But in terms of numbers killed, the machine gun was NOT the most devastating weapon used in WWI.
(pg 133)
But in fact it was artillery that dominated the battlefields. World War I was the first major war, and it would also be the last, in which more men were killed by artillery than by small arms or aerial bombardment or any other method of destruction. Until late in the war artillery was the only weapon that, when used to maximum advantage, could neutralize the machine gun. It was the one weapon without which infantry, both when attacking and when defending, had almost no chance.The stress of anticipation of incoming artillery while hunkered down in the trenches probably caused the prevalence of a condition given the name of “shell shock.” Now we call it PTSD. It was a condition that apparently hadn’t been observed in previous wars.
(pg 273)
"By 1916, the armies of Britain, France, and Germany were being diminished not just by the numbers of men killed and wounded but by something so new to human experience that the English had to coin a name for it: shell shock. By the thousands and then the tens of thousands, soldiers on the Western Front were being turned into zombies and freaks without suffering physical injuries of any kind.On the subject of despair induced by war, it's interesting to note times when a leader begins to crack under its pressure. During the final years of World War I, Erich Ludendorff, a protege of Otto von Bismarck himself, was the commanding general of all German armies. He had presided over ten million casualties, and in 1918 his forces had begun to rapidly disintegrate. His staff begin to notice unusual behavior on his part:
"The phenomenon appeared in 1914, and at first no one knew what to make of it. The medical services on both sides found themselves confronted with bizarre symptoms: men in a trancelike state, men shaking uncontrollably, men frozen in weird postures, or partly paralyzed, or (though unwounded) unable to see or hear or speak. By December British doctors were reporting that between three and four percent of the British Expeditionary Force's enlisted men and up to ten percent of its officers were displaying symptoms of this kind. Their German counterparts would record almost twelve thousand such cases in the first year of the war.
"The victims got little sympathy. Career officers were accustomed to separating soldiers into four groups: the healthy, the sick, the wounded, and the cowards. They were predisposed to put men with nervous and mental disorders into the last category, to order them back to duty and to mete out harsh punishment to any who failed to obey. But the number of men who failed to obey became too big to be ignored or to be put in front of firing squads; it has been estimated that twenty four thousand had been sent home to Britain by 1916.
"... Gradually, it became clear that ... the troops were cracking because they could not absorb what was happening to them, because they knew themselves to be utterly powerless (bravery had little survival value when one was on the receiving end of a bombardment), and because they had no confidence that the generals who had put them in danger knew what they were doing. Men whose courage was beyond challenge could and did break down if subjected to enough strain of this kind."
(pg 339-342)
"Things had never gone so badly for Eric Ludendorff, or gone badly in so many ways over such a long period, as they did in 1918. As his problems mounted, he grew visibly fragile.
"All his life he had displayed an insatiable appetite for work, but now his staff noticed him slipping away from headquarters without explanation. A member of the medical staff, writing of Ludendorff, would recall that at this juncture 'there were reports of occasional crying episodes.'
"Everyone was on pins and needles the day Hocheimer arrived, wondering how he was going to approach Ludendorff and how the general was going to react. Ludendorff was a stiff, distant man with no visible sense of humor and firm control over all emotion except the rage that could break out in moments of intense stress. An ugly explosion was by no means out of the question. What happened was more unexpected than that. It revealed the depth of Ludendorff's neediness.
"He was predictably impatient at being interrupted but consented to see the doctor. 'I talked earnestly, urgently and warmly, and said that I had noticed with great sadness that for years he had given no consideration to one matter — his own spirit,' Hocheimer recalled afterward. 'Always only work, worry, straining his body and mind. No recreation, no joy, rushing his food, not breathing, not laughing, not seeing anything of nature and art, not hearing the rustle of the forest nor the splashing of the brook.'
"Ludendorff sat for a long time without answering. 'You're right in everything,' he said at last. 'I've felt it for a long time. But what shall I do?'
"Hocheimer urged a move from Ludendorff's cramped quarters at Avesnes back to the more pleasant accommodations at Spa in Belgium. He recommended walks, breathing exercises, and a change in routine calculated to induce relaxation and the ability to sleep. Ludendorff followed these instructions conscientiously, even eagerly. As long as he continued to do so, his torments eased. He and Hocheimer continued to confer. The doctor's ultimate diagnosis: 'The man is utterly lonely.' ...
"Ludendorff was especially close to the youngest of his stepsons, who happened to share his first name. In March 1918 he received word that young Erich, still a teenager, had been shot down behind British lines, his fate uncertain. Not long afterward, with German troops advancing across France in the Michael offensive, Ludendorff was told of the discovery of a fresh grave. Its marker said, in English, 'Here rest two German pilots.' He went to the grave and had the bodies dug up. One was Erich's. It was temporarily reburied at Avesnes while arrangements were made for its transfer to Berlin.
"That was where Ludendorff was going when he began to disappear from headquarters: to brood at Erich's grave. That was when an army doctor heard 'reports of occasional crying.' Nothing could ever be the same. [His wife] Margarethe was broken, permanently in the grip of depression, grief, and fear. Ludendorff, in his own words, felt that the war had taken everything."
(pg 644-648)
The following is a link to some more quotations from this book:
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes...
December 28, 2017
G. J. Meyer set out to write this book to fill a gap in the available literature on the First World War: a popular, holistic account that covered every phase and every front, without presupposing much knowledge from the reader. In this, he was undeniably successful. A World Undone begins at the beginning, with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, and ends at the end, with the Treaty of Versailles—signed five years to the day of the assassination of the infamous archduke.
Meyer’s scheme is simple but effective: interspersing “background” chapters between his main, military account of the war. These background chapters were inevitably more interesting for me, and provided much-needed relief from the seemingly endless string of battles, divisions, battalions, generals, troop movements, and so on that composed the military history. In these auxiliary sections, Meyer introduces us to war literature, major personalities, political traditions, economic crises, military technology, shell shock, and much else. The wealth of both historical backdrop and military history makes this book an ideal, if somewhat long, introduction to the “Great War.”
Meyer himself is an able and diligent writer, who steers a middle course between rhetorical excess and crass simplicity, keeping his prose lean and tasteful. He has the quintessential skills of the popularizer: the ability to compress information into a tight space, and to explain complex phenomenon without overwhelming the reader. He also wisely avoids speculation himself, leaving the analysis to the reader or the historian, keeping his eye focused on the surface-level events—which is desirable in an introductory text, I believe.
Even with a guide as competent as Meyer, however, the Great War is depressing and deadening. Meyer’s account, perhaps unintentionally, confirmed many stereotypes I had previously imbibed. In his telling, the beginning of the war was due to a combination of poor planning and reckless and incompetent advisors. That Germany could not mobilize its forces without invading Belgium, for example, or that Russia could not choose to mobilize only half of its troops, thus unintentionally threatening Germany—consequences of carefully-drawn plans, an arrangement that virtually guaranteed war—is difficult to believe or forgive.
As for the fighting, the impression one is left with is of remarkably courageous troops heedlessly wasted by monomaniacal generals. Offensive after ineffective offensive, with general after general trying the same tactics and achieving the same failures—leading to endless butchery. One quickly draws the conclusion that the leaders of Europe in this epoch were dim and shortsighted men.
It is this dreary and dreadful aspect that partially accounts for the First World War being overshadowed by its younger brother. The conflict was strikingly non-ideological. There are no Nazis, no Communists, no Fascists, no racial purges (except in Armenia), no freedom fighters, no Resistance—only obsolete Empires fighting for spheres of influence. The fighting, too, has none of the cinematic drama of the Second World War: only interminable shelling campaigns, repeated advances and retreats through no-man’s land, stagnant stalemates and antiquated tactics—there is nothing even vaguely romantic about the bloodshed, despite what Ernst Jünger may have thought.
But even if it is less compelling to learn about than the Second World War, the First World War arguably has even more valuable lessons to teach us. The logic of naked power confrontation is, after all, more historically common than ideological conflict. The comparatively colorless, and often incompetent, quality of the war’s leadership invites us to see the conflict in all its bare, barbaric brutality, without the distorting effects of charismatic chiefs. The manufactured hatred of whole populaces for one another—engineered through strict censorship, outright lies, and strident propaganda—is a case-study in how patriotism can be exploited for deeply cynical ends.
And most important, unlike the Second World War—a sad story that at least ends with the defeat of a genocidal maniac—the First World War has no silver lining, no comforting achievement to offset the millions of lives lost. As the vindictiveness of the victors proved, the winning side wasn’t on a clearly higher moral level than the losers; and in any case, the war didn’t even achieve a resolution to the conflicts brewing within Europe, only a partial deferment. In sum, the First World War is worth learning about because it was a calamitous, unnecessary tragedy that stubbornly resists romanticization or justification—and that is war.
Meyer’s scheme is simple but effective: interspersing “background” chapters between his main, military account of the war. These background chapters were inevitably more interesting for me, and provided much-needed relief from the seemingly endless string of battles, divisions, battalions, generals, troop movements, and so on that composed the military history. In these auxiliary sections, Meyer introduces us to war literature, major personalities, political traditions, economic crises, military technology, shell shock, and much else. The wealth of both historical backdrop and military history makes this book an ideal, if somewhat long, introduction to the “Great War.”
Meyer himself is an able and diligent writer, who steers a middle course between rhetorical excess and crass simplicity, keeping his prose lean and tasteful. He has the quintessential skills of the popularizer: the ability to compress information into a tight space, and to explain complex phenomenon without overwhelming the reader. He also wisely avoids speculation himself, leaving the analysis to the reader or the historian, keeping his eye focused on the surface-level events—which is desirable in an introductory text, I believe.
Even with a guide as competent as Meyer, however, the Great War is depressing and deadening. Meyer’s account, perhaps unintentionally, confirmed many stereotypes I had previously imbibed. In his telling, the beginning of the war was due to a combination of poor planning and reckless and incompetent advisors. That Germany could not mobilize its forces without invading Belgium, for example, or that Russia could not choose to mobilize only half of its troops, thus unintentionally threatening Germany—consequences of carefully-drawn plans, an arrangement that virtually guaranteed war—is difficult to believe or forgive.
As for the fighting, the impression one is left with is of remarkably courageous troops heedlessly wasted by monomaniacal generals. Offensive after ineffective offensive, with general after general trying the same tactics and achieving the same failures—leading to endless butchery. One quickly draws the conclusion that the leaders of Europe in this epoch were dim and shortsighted men.
It is this dreary and dreadful aspect that partially accounts for the First World War being overshadowed by its younger brother. The conflict was strikingly non-ideological. There are no Nazis, no Communists, no Fascists, no racial purges (except in Armenia), no freedom fighters, no Resistance—only obsolete Empires fighting for spheres of influence. The fighting, too, has none of the cinematic drama of the Second World War: only interminable shelling campaigns, repeated advances and retreats through no-man’s land, stagnant stalemates and antiquated tactics—there is nothing even vaguely romantic about the bloodshed, despite what Ernst Jünger may have thought.
But even if it is less compelling to learn about than the Second World War, the First World War arguably has even more valuable lessons to teach us. The logic of naked power confrontation is, after all, more historically common than ideological conflict. The comparatively colorless, and often incompetent, quality of the war’s leadership invites us to see the conflict in all its bare, barbaric brutality, without the distorting effects of charismatic chiefs. The manufactured hatred of whole populaces for one another—engineered through strict censorship, outright lies, and strident propaganda—is a case-study in how patriotism can be exploited for deeply cynical ends.
And most important, unlike the Second World War—a sad story that at least ends with the defeat of a genocidal maniac—the First World War has no silver lining, no comforting achievement to offset the millions of lives lost. As the vindictiveness of the victors proved, the winning side wasn’t on a clearly higher moral level than the losers; and in any case, the war didn’t even achieve a resolution to the conflicts brewing within Europe, only a partial deferment. In sum, the First World War is worth learning about because it was a calamitous, unnecessary tragedy that stubbornly resists romanticization or justification—and that is war.
January 23, 2021
Straight forward, very readable summary of WW1, focusing on the big picture. The author handles it all well, seamlessly switching between theatres without it all getting too confusing. Every other chapter is a short background section covering topics that might otherwise get overlooked - the royal families, new technology, poetry, women in the war, etc. which I thought worked really well. The evolution of infantry tactics is also well explained. This would probably make a good first book on WW1.
I really wanted to love this book. But for me though there just wasn't enough detail (major battles are dealt with in a few pages, Jutland in a few paragraphs) or enough eye witness accounts to give a sense of what life was like. (Yes, it may be unfair to criticise a single volume history for not being detailed enough - but it's my review so I can do what I want.) And it really would benefit from a few more maps.
3.5 stars, rounded up.
I really wanted to love this book. But for me though there just wasn't enough detail (major battles are dealt with in a few pages, Jutland in a few paragraphs) or enough eye witness accounts to give a sense of what life was like. (Yes, it may be unfair to criticise a single volume history for not being detailed enough - but it's my review so I can do what I want.) And it really would benefit from a few more maps.
3.5 stars, rounded up.
June 29, 2021
Anyone inclined to believe that some dark force beyond human comprehension intervened again and again to make the Great War long and ruinous would have no difficulty in finding evidence to support such a thesis. There is no better example than the Battle of Verdun, which in its length and cost and brutality and finally in its sheer pointlessness has always and rightly been seen as a perfect microcosm of the war itself.
G.J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 (Page 328)
This is an incredible book of the history of World War I. There are no doubt better books on the military campaigns during this war, but this books focuses on the politics, the intrigue, and the leaders, both political and military. That is where my interest lies, and this book hits a 5 on all these counts.
The author alternates chapters of virtually sequential reporting of the events of this war with background chapters. These background chapters give a brief history of families, like the Romanovs and Hapsburgs, of the social events during the summer of 1914 in cities such as Paris and London while the fever of war swept Europe, of the principal characters directing the war effort for most of the countries involved, of important locations and their history, a description of various weapons introduced in this war, and a brief history of the Cossacks to mention a few.
This author, more than any other author I have read or can think of, gives an accounting of the fatalities after almost every battle. The toll is horrendous. It is difficult to imagine the slaughter on this level. He writes of battle after battle where soldiers were sent marching into the face of machine guns, which didn’t even have to aim — they just kept reloading and firing. The descriptions of the living conditions that this created, and the author does describe many, are beyond comprehension.
Many of the military leaders at this time were old men. The tactics and strategy of war that they knew did not work against armies equipped with the most current weapons and technology. To understand this war there is a background chapter on Louis Loyzeau de Grandmaison. It was his theories about “the cult of the offensive” that led to much of the insanity. It was a belief in an all-out, nothing-held-back aggressiveness that had many generals sending their troops in a bayonet charge against enemy machine guns and artillery. There is even mention of the use of horse-borne cavalry.
However, this toll eventually led to some open rebellion and mutinies. It eventually led to some military leaders becoming more respectful of their troops.
As the population became largely urban, after migrating from the country, it became more educated. This led to the popularity of newspapers, which greatly increased the influence and effectiveness of propaganda. One of the background chapters tells of many great, respected authors who lent their talents to writing letters praising the war effort and the cause. As this propaganda continued it failed to reflect the experiences of the men in the battles or the burden on their families. For them there was nothing noble about dying for one’s country. A letter from a young officer to his fiancee, after receiving a volume of poems in this vein, said:
“Let him who thinks that War is a glorious golden thing, who loves to roll forth stirring words of exhortation, invoking Honor and Praise and Valor and Love of Country with as thoughtless and fervid a faith as inspired the priests of Baal to call on their own slumbering deity, … let him look at a little pile of sodden grey rags that cover half a skull and a shin bone and what might have been ribs, or at this skeleton lying on its side, resting half-crouching as it fell, supported on one arm, perfect but that is headless, and with the tattered clothing still draped around it; and let him realize how grand & glorious a thing it is to have distilled all Youth and Joy and Life into a foetid (sp?) heap of hideous putrescence. Who is there who has known and seen who can say that Victory is worth the death of even one of these?” (Page 471)
The Great War was a tragedy from start to finish. The book chronicles the mind-boggling efforts that led to this war, both the proponents of a war and those seeking to avoid an unnecessary war. During the war itself we see the failure of military leaders to adopt strategies needed against the new technologies available to the fighting forces. And as the author states:
Whatever it was that followed the Armistice of November 11, 1911, it was not peace. (Page 609)
There are more than a few people who believe the Twentieth Century had only one World War that started in 1914 and ended in 1945 with an intermission for a worldwide economic depression. The last chapter of this book serves as an excellent essay supporting that theory. The Armistice and the Treaty of Versailles did not end the conflicts in Europe. The Japanese who played a small part in the Great War were left with their ambitions nourished. The Italians left the peace conference in a tantrum that continued for a couple of decades. The United States decided to isolate itself from anymore of the ridiculousness of the European countries to its lasting lament. And then there is Germany. The Allies wanted to keep Germany as a buffer between them and the Communists of Russia. The Armistice left them embittered, but whole, where conditions were allowed to fester such to give birth to a fascism that personifies evil. Many of these unresolved problems were predictable and even foreseen.
But that is another story.
September 15, 2018
The passage of time has, for most of us, petrified our knowledge of World War I into an amalgam of abstractions. First there are the memorial markers standing as solemn tributes, the centerpiece, perhaps, of annual ceremonies commemorating this or that horrific battle. The result is at best a kind of static communion between observer and marker. It is impossible to process the multiple perspectives and emotional tenor that fueled the dynamic of World War I. Even the questions which seek to affix blame for the start of the war, the catastrophic losses, the missed opportunities to halt the war, and the strategic blunders have a disconnected feel from the actual events.
Meyer avoids the over-simplifications that are often proposed to address these questions. He fills in a historical context that includes Bismark's balancing act, both domestically and abroad, and the gradual dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires which precipitated a succession of geopolitical crises. Meyer sustains his narrative of connectedness in his account of the battles and troop movements that occurred on several fronts. His writing invokes the insecurities, paranoia, greed, jealousy, resentment and fear that predisposed the decisions of political and military leaders of the time.
Meyer brings many of the key figures to life. Of Count Leopold von Berchtold, the Austro-Hungarian Empire's foreign minister he says, “He had become, in short, dangerous: a weak man determined to appear strong.” (p.17) Of Maurice Paléologue, France's ambassador to Russia, he states: “Thanks to the scheming of Ambassador Paléologue, Paris had only limited knowledge of what was happeining in St. Petersburg, and the Russians had no reason to think that the French government was not enthusiastic about their mobilization.” (p.104) Russia and Germany were nominally ruled by autocrats. It was therefore shocking for me to learn how little both the Tsar and the Kaiser knew about their own military plans. Meyer describes Kaiser Wilhelm II: “Not surprisingly, many of the men who were sworn to serve him regarded him not just as immature but as mentally unstable.” (p.39) Of Tsar Nicholas II, he writes: “What neither Sazonov [Russia's foreign minister] nor Nicholas understood was that Russia's mobilization would arouse in Germany's generals a panic indistinguishable from the fears driving the Russians.” (p.65) Against a background of frantic but futile “Nicky/Willie” correspondence, the generals were taking over.
Meyer emphacizes the logistic burden that dogged all troop movements in this war. “A mass of infantry on the move is like nothing else in the world, but it may usefully be thought of as an immensely long and cumbersome caterpillar with the head of a near-sighted tiger....An advancing army's worst vulnerability lies in the long caterpillar body behind the head.” (p.115)
The bulk of Meyer's book is concerned with the many catastrophic battles that occurred between 1914 and 1917. It is impossible to process the statistics Meyer includes. The carnage was appalling. By the end of the 1914 section, it was difficult for me to read this book except in small sections. By the Battle of the Somme I had become numb to the mounting casualty figures. By the end of the war, civilian deaths from starvation and disease and infant mortality figures further assault the mind.
However, Meyer intersperses fascinating sketches as background and these interludes are the real strength of the book. Geopolitical calculations determined Turkey and Italy's involvement in the war as well as their alliances. America had a significant economic stake in the fortunes of the Entente. Anti-Semitism was pervasive throughout Europe, despite the significant number of Jews inducted into all of the armies. The rush to meet munitions quotas caused significant quality control problems in British factories. These digressions illuminate the profound dysfunction that both prolonged the war and structured an aftermath that continues to haunt us.
This was a thought-provoking book based on a convincing quantity of scholarship. I recommend it to everyone. It is an antidote to any complacency about the so-called lessons we have learned from World War I, particularly as commemorative events marking the war's centennial are staged.
NOTES:
Photographs of many of the commemorative monuments to World War I: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel...
Meyer avoids the over-simplifications that are often proposed to address these questions. He fills in a historical context that includes Bismark's balancing act, both domestically and abroad, and the gradual dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires which precipitated a succession of geopolitical crises. Meyer sustains his narrative of connectedness in his account of the battles and troop movements that occurred on several fronts. His writing invokes the insecurities, paranoia, greed, jealousy, resentment and fear that predisposed the decisions of political and military leaders of the time.
Meyer brings many of the key figures to life. Of Count Leopold von Berchtold, the Austro-Hungarian Empire's foreign minister he says, “He had become, in short, dangerous: a weak man determined to appear strong.” (p.17) Of Maurice Paléologue, France's ambassador to Russia, he states: “Thanks to the scheming of Ambassador Paléologue, Paris had only limited knowledge of what was happeining in St. Petersburg, and the Russians had no reason to think that the French government was not enthusiastic about their mobilization.” (p.104) Russia and Germany were nominally ruled by autocrats. It was therefore shocking for me to learn how little both the Tsar and the Kaiser knew about their own military plans. Meyer describes Kaiser Wilhelm II: “Not surprisingly, many of the men who were sworn to serve him regarded him not just as immature but as mentally unstable.” (p.39) Of Tsar Nicholas II, he writes: “What neither Sazonov [Russia's foreign minister] nor Nicholas understood was that Russia's mobilization would arouse in Germany's generals a panic indistinguishable from the fears driving the Russians.” (p.65) Against a background of frantic but futile “Nicky/Willie” correspondence, the generals were taking over.
Meyer emphacizes the logistic burden that dogged all troop movements in this war. “A mass of infantry on the move is like nothing else in the world, but it may usefully be thought of as an immensely long and cumbersome caterpillar with the head of a near-sighted tiger....An advancing army's worst vulnerability lies in the long caterpillar body behind the head.” (p.115)
The bulk of Meyer's book is concerned with the many catastrophic battles that occurred between 1914 and 1917. It is impossible to process the statistics Meyer includes. The carnage was appalling. By the end of the 1914 section, it was difficult for me to read this book except in small sections. By the Battle of the Somme I had become numb to the mounting casualty figures. By the end of the war, civilian deaths from starvation and disease and infant mortality figures further assault the mind.
However, Meyer intersperses fascinating sketches as background and these interludes are the real strength of the book. Geopolitical calculations determined Turkey and Italy's involvement in the war as well as their alliances. America had a significant economic stake in the fortunes of the Entente. Anti-Semitism was pervasive throughout Europe, despite the significant number of Jews inducted into all of the armies. The rush to meet munitions quotas caused significant quality control problems in British factories. These digressions illuminate the profound dysfunction that both prolonged the war and structured an aftermath that continues to haunt us.
This was a thought-provoking book based on a convincing quantity of scholarship. I recommend it to everyone. It is an antidote to any complacency about the so-called lessons we have learned from World War I, particularly as commemorative events marking the war's centennial are staged.
NOTES:
Photographs of many of the commemorative monuments to World War I: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel...
December 4, 2021
If you're looking for an excellent history of The Great War or simply a great non-fiction/history book you've found it. In a nutshell what makes this book work is its balance, not necessarily in its handling of events and personalities - the author has no problem critiquing policies, people and decisions - but in the flow of the narrative. Meyer does an excellent job jockeying among the battlefields, world capitals, politicians, civilians, soldiers and generals, economies, technologies and much more with excellent writing, using long and short chapters, (the latter used almost as footnotes to elucidate a point), without becoming bogged down in details or losing track of the narrative. (Just trying to describe how well the author succeeds in doing this is proving difficult.)
Without getting too carried away I found the writing and this book very Catton-esque.
Highly recommended.
Without getting too carried away I found the writing and this book very Catton-esque.
Highly recommended.
November 11, 2022
What a great book to get an intro to World War 1. In one 700 page book, Meyer manages to survey the entire scope of World War I.
The only caveat I would have is that the battle descriptions are sometimes hard to follow, especially if you are unfamiliar with the place names and need to constantly refer to maps (that often don’t have the detail you are looking for). And even when you do have a map, some of it is still challenging to picture.
Putting together such a compelling summary in one volume must have been incredibly challenging. If WW1 was a football game, it would be a 3-0 slog, a “field position” game where no team got any big scores, and eventually one team just got more worn out than the other team. It was so depressing to read about the battles from 1914 to 1917. How so many of them didn’t result in anything decisive that moved the timeline of the war forward. Some of the battles seemed like meat grinders just meant to kill tens or hundreds of thousands of men, for purposes that are hard to fathom.
The book is great for giving you an idea of what the key strategic decisions were, who made them, and some critical analysis of the decision making. The descriptions of the infighting amongst the generals and political leaders in Britain, France, and Germany stand out as a highlight.
Every other chapter in the book is labeled a “background” chapter, where Meyer would take a step back and give a short summary of a relevant topic. Examples: “The Hapsburgs”, “The Ottoman Turks”, “The Jews of Germany”, “The Cossacks”, “War and Poetry”… These background chapters were my favorite parts of the book. If I decide to read this book again, I might just re-read these “background” chapters. They were very elegantly written to be interesting and insightful, while also being very concise. For instance, the “War and Poetry” chapter was memorable for descriptions of how so many famous writers became involved in supporting the war effort.
Overall, I feel like I came away with about as good of a general understanding of the War as I could have expected from one book.
The only caveat I would have is that the battle descriptions are sometimes hard to follow, especially if you are unfamiliar with the place names and need to constantly refer to maps (that often don’t have the detail you are looking for). And even when you do have a map, some of it is still challenging to picture.
Putting together such a compelling summary in one volume must have been incredibly challenging. If WW1 was a football game, it would be a 3-0 slog, a “field position” game where no team got any big scores, and eventually one team just got more worn out than the other team. It was so depressing to read about the battles from 1914 to 1917. How so many of them didn’t result in anything decisive that moved the timeline of the war forward. Some of the battles seemed like meat grinders just meant to kill tens or hundreds of thousands of men, for purposes that are hard to fathom.
The book is great for giving you an idea of what the key strategic decisions were, who made them, and some critical analysis of the decision making. The descriptions of the infighting amongst the generals and political leaders in Britain, France, and Germany stand out as a highlight.
Every other chapter in the book is labeled a “background” chapter, where Meyer would take a step back and give a short summary of a relevant topic. Examples: “The Hapsburgs”, “The Ottoman Turks”, “The Jews of Germany”, “The Cossacks”, “War and Poetry”… These background chapters were my favorite parts of the book. If I decide to read this book again, I might just re-read these “background” chapters. They were very elegantly written to be interesting and insightful, while also being very concise. For instance, the “War and Poetry” chapter was memorable for descriptions of how so many famous writers became involved in supporting the war effort.
Overall, I feel like I came away with about as good of a general understanding of the War as I could have expected from one book.
January 19, 2015
I admittedly read very little non-fiction, I unfortunately get bogged down in the detail and lack of story and thus restrict myself to specific subjects that I find fascinating. WWI is one of those.
I didn't realize that I knew so little about WWI until I read this book.
It seems impossible to understand WWII without knowing this war and the politics that started and ended it.
For a war that had and has so many repercussions for Europe, it amazes me that I didn't know more.
The author did a fantastic job of creating an overall history of WWI. While I'm sure the history of this war could only be fully and comprehensively told in a minimum 6 volume set of 800 page books, this one is a very good option for a shorter version.
I didn't realize that I knew so little about WWI until I read this book.
It seems impossible to understand WWII without knowing this war and the politics that started and ended it.
For a war that had and has so many repercussions for Europe, it amazes me that I didn't know more.
The author did a fantastic job of creating an overall history of WWI. While I'm sure the history of this war could only be fully and comprehensively told in a minimum 6 volume set of 800 page books, this one is a very good option for a shorter version.
June 6, 2021
I highly recommend A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 by G.J. Meyer. It is comprehensive and concise at the very same time. Every aspect of the war is covered. No part of it feels long, drawn out or unnecessary. Every bit of information is presented in a clear, concise and interesting manner.
The telling proceeds in chronological order with chapters of background information inserted in-between. The strategical battle information is in this way paced so you do not get tired or bored. I usually dislike reading about battle maneuvers. Here, all is so clearly explained, I never lost interest.
The author presents the information in a balanced manner. He is not out to criticize one country or person over another. He points out weaknesses and strengths every step of the way. Background information adds a personal connection to the telling--biographical, military, political, sociological and cultural elements are interwoven. Always in just the right amount.
Robin Sachs narrates the audiobook. The narration fits the book perfectly. He speaks clearly. His pronunciation of French and German words is good. He speaks calmly, which is important in a book devoted to such a grim topic. Had he overdramatized, I would not have been able to listen to this book. The audio does not have a PDF file with accompanying maps. I did not find this to be a problem—adequate maps are easily accessible on the web.
No other book I have read has given me such a comprehensive view of the war and kept my interest from start to finish. It’s when you don’t understand that a person loses interest. I envy this author who has all this information neatly stored in his head. Those who really understand a subject are the best teachers; they have the ability to express themselves simply. G.J. Meyer does that here.
*************************
*A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 by G.J. Meyer 5 stars
*All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 5 stars
*The Backwash of War: The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an American Hospital Nurse by Ellen N. La Motte 5 stars
*Wilson by A. Scott Berg 5 stars
*Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie 5 stars
*A Soldier's Diary by Ralph Scott 4 stars
*George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I by Miranda Carter 4 stars
*Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain 4 stars
*The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman 4 stars
For more books, look through my WW1 shelf here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
The telling proceeds in chronological order with chapters of background information inserted in-between. The strategical battle information is in this way paced so you do not get tired or bored. I usually dislike reading about battle maneuvers. Here, all is so clearly explained, I never lost interest.
The author presents the information in a balanced manner. He is not out to criticize one country or person over another. He points out weaknesses and strengths every step of the way. Background information adds a personal connection to the telling--biographical, military, political, sociological and cultural elements are interwoven. Always in just the right amount.
Robin Sachs narrates the audiobook. The narration fits the book perfectly. He speaks clearly. His pronunciation of French and German words is good. He speaks calmly, which is important in a book devoted to such a grim topic. Had he overdramatized, I would not have been able to listen to this book. The audio does not have a PDF file with accompanying maps. I did not find this to be a problem—adequate maps are easily accessible on the web.
No other book I have read has given me such a comprehensive view of the war and kept my interest from start to finish. It’s when you don’t understand that a person loses interest. I envy this author who has all this information neatly stored in his head. Those who really understand a subject are the best teachers; they have the ability to express themselves simply. G.J. Meyer does that here.
*************************
*A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 by G.J. Meyer 5 stars
*All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 5 stars
*The Backwash of War: The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an American Hospital Nurse by Ellen N. La Motte 5 stars
*Wilson by A. Scott Berg 5 stars
*Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie 5 stars
*A Soldier's Diary by Ralph Scott 4 stars
*George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I by Miranda Carter 4 stars
*Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain 4 stars
*The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman 4 stars
For more books, look through my WW1 shelf here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
October 17, 2013
Why read about WWI? It is amazingly complex and deeply disturbing. WWI transformed the world into the one we recognize today, but perhaps even more relevant is the way it exposed self-serving failed leadership that fed political, religious and national divisions; tactics and behavior that we also recognize today. Apparently while the map changed greatly with new boundaries and new countries, not much has changed with the human race and its leaders in the 100 years since.
In 1914, the world’s volatile mix exploded into an inferno with little warning due to brinkmanship, miscalculation and unfortunate twists of fate. Stubbornness, arrogance, ignorance and an imperative to “win” at all costs made sure the fire burned until almost nothing was left. All these elements still exist. For example, as I write this similar brinksmanship is being used by some in the US Congress to shut down the federal government and threaten default to settle an unrelated dispute. As long as politicians and leaders keep the world on edge we will always be no more than a step away from catastrophe. Miscalculation and unforeseen events will inevitably tip some of these confrontations in unexpected ways. Looking at today’s world through the prism of WWI is enlightening and A World Undone is an excellent place to start.
A World Undone is complex history made accessible to the casual reader. I particularly enjoyed the chronological approach that showed all events simultaneously. Many books will describe one event then move onto another. Meyer cuts back and forth between events as they occurred so you feel the impact of everything that was going on at the same time, the way it really happened. He strikes a good balance supplying enough detail to be meaningful without bogging the reader down in tedium. The book is written in a journalistic style that creates interest and feels like a story, albeit a very sad one. He adds depth by interspersing brief background sections. A World Undone is recommended highly both as a way to understand history and to understand the present.
In 1914, the world’s volatile mix exploded into an inferno with little warning due to brinkmanship, miscalculation and unfortunate twists of fate. Stubbornness, arrogance, ignorance and an imperative to “win” at all costs made sure the fire burned until almost nothing was left. All these elements still exist. For example, as I write this similar brinksmanship is being used by some in the US Congress to shut down the federal government and threaten default to settle an unrelated dispute. As long as politicians and leaders keep the world on edge we will always be no more than a step away from catastrophe. Miscalculation and unforeseen events will inevitably tip some of these confrontations in unexpected ways. Looking at today’s world through the prism of WWI is enlightening and A World Undone is an excellent place to start.
A World Undone is complex history made accessible to the casual reader. I particularly enjoyed the chronological approach that showed all events simultaneously. Many books will describe one event then move onto another. Meyer cuts back and forth between events as they occurred so you feel the impact of everything that was going on at the same time, the way it really happened. He strikes a good balance supplying enough detail to be meaningful without bogging the reader down in tedium. The book is written in a journalistic style that creates interest and feels like a story, albeit a very sad one. He adds depth by interspersing brief background sections. A World Undone is recommended highly both as a way to understand history and to understand the present.
June 3, 2020
"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time." - sir Edward Grey.
No matter how many books you read about the Great War, it will always perplexe you with its utter and sheer monstrosity. In addition to this, you also become aware of how vital the four years it lasted were to shaping the course of modern history. That is part of what makes it so fascinating. Even today, more than a hundred years later, historians are still discussing and analyzing its causes and aftermath. How could a war that the Germans calculated would last no more than a few months go on for four whole years, each year dragging the world deeper into darkness?
A World Undone is a straight-forward, detailed and very accessible one-volume history of the Great War. Structured quite uniquely, it covers all sides of this terrible war of attrition. Each chapter is preceded by a shorter 'background' chapter that provides further context on various interesting subjects that do not fit into the main narrative (this ranges from chapters on royal dynasties to war poetry to the political climate in major cities at the outbreak of the war). G.J Meyer balances battle, politics and personal experiences from the people involved and does this without any bias. All fronts and all major battles are covered and the overall narrative flows nicely and while being detailed, doesn't get dry or too heavy.
A great book both for the beginner and the more seasoned history buff, it manages to illustrate the dreadful conditions not only of the soldiers but also society in general as these great nations pumped out every last penny into the war machine.
Overall, I loved this book and thought it was a very compelling, well-written and well-structured overview of WWI and I very much enjoyed the discussions about the tactics of different generals (Haig who continuously insisted on using cavalry against heavy artillery, certain French generals' reluctance to abandon the offensive à l'outrance etc), the background chapters and the politics of war. G.J. Meyer makes it very clear that the Great War symbolized the fall of the Old World and the entry of the New. It was the war where the first tanks were introduced and these were four years that would forever change modern warfare, and the course of history.
No matter how many books you read about the Great War, it will always perplexe you with its utter and sheer monstrosity. In addition to this, you also become aware of how vital the four years it lasted were to shaping the course of modern history. That is part of what makes it so fascinating. Even today, more than a hundred years later, historians are still discussing and analyzing its causes and aftermath. How could a war that the Germans calculated would last no more than a few months go on for four whole years, each year dragging the world deeper into darkness?
A World Undone is a straight-forward, detailed and very accessible one-volume history of the Great War. Structured quite uniquely, it covers all sides of this terrible war of attrition. Each chapter is preceded by a shorter 'background' chapter that provides further context on various interesting subjects that do not fit into the main narrative (this ranges from chapters on royal dynasties to war poetry to the political climate in major cities at the outbreak of the war). G.J Meyer balances battle, politics and personal experiences from the people involved and does this without any bias. All fronts and all major battles are covered and the overall narrative flows nicely and while being detailed, doesn't get dry or too heavy.
A great book both for the beginner and the more seasoned history buff, it manages to illustrate the dreadful conditions not only of the soldiers but also society in general as these great nations pumped out every last penny into the war machine.
Overall, I loved this book and thought it was a very compelling, well-written and well-structured overview of WWI and I very much enjoyed the discussions about the tactics of different generals (Haig who continuously insisted on using cavalry against heavy artillery, certain French generals' reluctance to abandon the offensive à l'outrance etc), the background chapters and the politics of war. G.J. Meyer makes it very clear that the Great War symbolized the fall of the Old World and the entry of the New. It was the war where the first tanks were introduced and these were four years that would forever change modern warfare, and the course of history.
August 23, 2014
This is a great one volume history of The Great War. The author takes the time to fill in the background and uses quotes from soldiers on both sides that tell what life was really like in the trenches. If War is Hell, then this war, World War One, is the biggest hell of the mall. It started as a dysfunctional royal family feud and ended with millions dead.
As I listened to the numbers on the butcher's bill I remembered Carl Sandburg's "The Grass."
The Grass
by Carl Sandburg
"Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
I remember hearing this poem and reading it. I never understoos where all of these places were and wondered at the odd sounds of Ypres and Verdun. Now I know how horrible these battles were. Not battles that were over in a day, but battles that took weeks to end, with a death toll in the hundreds of thousands.
I had never realized how savage no man's land was and the battlefield at Antwerp after the rains. There was a role for everyone in the war and Meyer tells everyones part. The deception behind the scenes, betrayal and murder that starts the war. Amazing stories of heroism both senseless in it's cost and miraculous in the results, and always a story of wasted blood and guts. Meyer paints the story in blood and numbers.
Anyone who studies war, or writes about it, either in fiction or truth should read a book like this. Meyer tells the tragic tails on both sides, supported by actual excerpts from letters and diaries. He shares the people's stories, the politician's stories, the soldiers stories and the thousands of women who serve as nurses in field surgical units that rivaled the gates of hell in their decor of bones and severed limbs.
We learn about the tens of thousands who suffered PTSD, called shell shocked who were simply allowed to return to combat with their unit or be called a deserter. One of the more touching stories, that adds to a tableau of madness is stories from the German side of the front where the German General turned dictator is heard crying in his tent by his officers in 1918. Later they learned that the tent had been built close to the grave of his youngest son, a flyer who was shot down and killed.
It is likely that kingdom or country has ever seen the likes of death and destruction such as this, since the Roman 2nd Legions defeated Boudicca's army of 50,000 celts. Yet even those are small numbers in comparison.
If you are going to write about war, or want a theme in your sci-fi-space-opera of technology outstretching our good sense to use it, this is a good book for you.
Five Stars
He may not tell every story, but he doesn't miss many, and for a one book volume of this era, this book is very good.
As I listened to the numbers on the butcher's bill I remembered Carl Sandburg's "The Grass."
The Grass
by Carl Sandburg
"Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
I remember hearing this poem and reading it. I never understoos where all of these places were and wondered at the odd sounds of Ypres and Verdun. Now I know how horrible these battles were. Not battles that were over in a day, but battles that took weeks to end, with a death toll in the hundreds of thousands.
I had never realized how savage no man's land was and the battlefield at Antwerp after the rains. There was a role for everyone in the war and Meyer tells everyones part. The deception behind the scenes, betrayal and murder that starts the war. Amazing stories of heroism both senseless in it's cost and miraculous in the results, and always a story of wasted blood and guts. Meyer paints the story in blood and numbers.
Anyone who studies war, or writes about it, either in fiction or truth should read a book like this. Meyer tells the tragic tails on both sides, supported by actual excerpts from letters and diaries. He shares the people's stories, the politician's stories, the soldiers stories and the thousands of women who serve as nurses in field surgical units that rivaled the gates of hell in their decor of bones and severed limbs.
We learn about the tens of thousands who suffered PTSD, called shell shocked who were simply allowed to return to combat with their unit or be called a deserter. One of the more touching stories, that adds to a tableau of madness is stories from the German side of the front where the German General turned dictator is heard crying in his tent by his officers in 1918. Later they learned that the tent had been built close to the grave of his youngest son, a flyer who was shot down and killed.
It is likely that kingdom or country has ever seen the likes of death and destruction such as this, since the Roman 2nd Legions defeated Boudicca's army of 50,000 celts. Yet even those are small numbers in comparison.
If you are going to write about war, or want a theme in your sci-fi-space-opera of technology outstretching our good sense to use it, this is a good book for you.
Five Stars
He may not tell every story, but he doesn't miss many, and for a one book volume of this era, this book is very good.
October 29, 2011
Doing research for the sequel to my novel I started reading a number of histories of World War I. This is simply put: an amazing single volume history of the war, its causes, and course of events (but not the post-treaty fallout). I've read hundreds (or more) of history books, and as single volume war histories go -- this is excellent. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the world we live in, because the modern political arena was forged in World War I (far more than WWII). The often autocratic (or at least Imperialist) regiems of Europe were not prepared for what it really meant to bring the full might of post industrial powers into conflict. The last real shakeup of Europe had been a hundred years earlier with the Napoleonic wars, but the 19th century had remade the economies of the world. The clash, cataclysmic in terms of everything, ended the old world order. All of the big old autocratic states collapsed (Prussia, Russia, the Hapsburgs, the Ottomans) and even the winners were left unable to hold onto their empires. Meyer does a great job introducing the players gradually so as to not overburden the story of the war's origins with background. It reads like a taut horror novel -- and that's pretty much what it is.
July 31, 2022
Over the last few years I have consumed as many documentaries on the First World War as I could get my hands on. I read Margaret MacMillan's magnum opus Paris 1919. A World Undone aims to cover the entire history of World War I , from its origins to its final settlement. It discusses in detail the main battles on all fronts, the weapons, the casualties, the military and political leaders and the primary issues. If you are seeking to learn the minutiae of World War I and gain an expertise of knowledge on this time period then this book is a must read. It is not a book you can read over a weekend, or even a week, it is a treatise on a 5 year period of world turmoil that helped shape our modern world. I would rate it 4.5 stars.
April 3, 2017
Excellent and very readable overview of World War I. I came in to this book with only bits and pieces of knowledge about the war which I had picked up from various other books such as biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and world history classes from many years ago. This was the perfect book to begin filling in those gaps. I think it lays a great foundation to build on in learning more about the war. Meyer has a very nice style of writing that made reading the book a pleasure. I highly recommend it.
January 31, 2019
The best general one-volume history of WWI that I have read. It is more Euro-centric, but Meyer does delve into battle fronts in the Middle East and the east. I love his background segments at the end of each chapter that drills down on a particular topic.
The book stays on strategy and when he gets into battles, it hits the right tone as Meyer doesn't get bogged down in long battle details. You really get a sense of the vast tragedy and waste this war placed on the earth. Highly recommend.
The book stays on strategy and when he gets into battles, it hits the right tone as Meyer doesn't get bogged down in long battle details. You really get a sense of the vast tragedy and waste this war placed on the earth. Highly recommend.
May 6, 2019
I knew very little about this crazy, complex, tragic war before reading this book. Meyer clearly explains it with the narrative skills of a gifted storyteller, as well as an accomplished and objective historian.
June 1, 2017
World War I, keeps drawing readers back to texts and stories that cover this period, because it could have been easily prevented if only Europe hadn't bee ruled by so many unsuited, disengaged and self serving rulers trying desperately to keep hold of of a world view when the the entire world had already shifted. This was an excellent read because of the scope of the undertaking and the efforts to tell the backstory of not only the history of the countries and those who ruled them, but the backstories of the military men who waged a war of such unspeakable carnage.
Militaries are flawed always, in as much as most general staff are made up of the men who are the most adept politically, not those who are the best commanders in the field, the most adaptable to shifts in the enemies tactics...and they are generally those men who had some success in a previous war and are over confident in their theories and themselves.
Meyer paints very clearly the stubborn way that the Entente commanders clung to theories that each battle disproved, and were filled with so much hubris and confidence that no amount of reality on the ground, no number of failures could dissuade them from their belief. The commander who epitomized this the most was General Haig, who planned the same assault over and over and over, tweaking slightly the amount of and duration of the bombardment prior to sending his infantry over the the lip of the trench into no-man's land. After the first offensive he didn't notice that the German defenses were so well designed that his bombardments never accomplished what he intended them to accomplish, so his men walked and ran into heavy machine gun fire and were mowed down, and with total optimism he would plan his next assault to be exactly like the last just with longer bombardment and more soldiers. He also loved his Calvary, believed deep within his soul that machine guns could be subdued by a Calvary charge following an infantry assault. He tried this several times and each time the German machine guns cut down horse and rider alike, but that reality couldn't persuade him of his folly.
The French were no better at the War College they bought into a theory of Grandmaison's known as the cult of the offensive, a belief that men wielding bayonets could overcome anything. Not yet embracing the lethal power of artillery, not yet understanding that the machine gun would always win over men with bayonets. The real tragedy of this war is that young men were fed into its maw to gain nothing but for a few yards of meaningless territory.
With every book I pick up I find the unexpected heroes, those who rose in the ranks much to the dismay of all of their fellow officers who felt they were far beneath them, who made adjustments to what experience was teaching them and were willing to discard failed theories. So in this book I came to know something of General Monash an Australian who was the first Australian to lead Anzac troops and Lt.General Sir Arthur Currie the first Canadian to lead Canadian troops. These rarely covered men succeeded where everyone else had failed, who always managed to take their objective and to hold it in spite of all odds. They were so extraordinary compared to their peers, and willing to adjust their tactics while other clung to failed theory.
G.J. Meyer has a writing style that carries you along though most battles, and while if you have read a lot about this war, you are aware of the outcome, you keep reading in some strange hope that that battle will no be as disastrous as you know it was. I was glad that I came to this war through other books, who dealt with specific battles, and individuals before I picked up this book. I definitely recommend it as an excellent read.
Militaries are flawed always, in as much as most general staff are made up of the men who are the most adept politically, not those who are the best commanders in the field, the most adaptable to shifts in the enemies tactics...and they are generally those men who had some success in a previous war and are over confident in their theories and themselves.
Meyer paints very clearly the stubborn way that the Entente commanders clung to theories that each battle disproved, and were filled with so much hubris and confidence that no amount of reality on the ground, no number of failures could dissuade them from their belief. The commander who epitomized this the most was General Haig, who planned the same assault over and over and over, tweaking slightly the amount of and duration of the bombardment prior to sending his infantry over the the lip of the trench into no-man's land. After the first offensive he didn't notice that the German defenses were so well designed that his bombardments never accomplished what he intended them to accomplish, so his men walked and ran into heavy machine gun fire and were mowed down, and with total optimism he would plan his next assault to be exactly like the last just with longer bombardment and more soldiers. He also loved his Calvary, believed deep within his soul that machine guns could be subdued by a Calvary charge following an infantry assault. He tried this several times and each time the German machine guns cut down horse and rider alike, but that reality couldn't persuade him of his folly.
The French were no better at the War College they bought into a theory of Grandmaison's known as the cult of the offensive, a belief that men wielding bayonets could overcome anything. Not yet embracing the lethal power of artillery, not yet understanding that the machine gun would always win over men with bayonets. The real tragedy of this war is that young men were fed into its maw to gain nothing but for a few yards of meaningless territory.
With every book I pick up I find the unexpected heroes, those who rose in the ranks much to the dismay of all of their fellow officers who felt they were far beneath them, who made adjustments to what experience was teaching them and were willing to discard failed theories. So in this book I came to know something of General Monash an Australian who was the first Australian to lead Anzac troops and Lt.General Sir Arthur Currie the first Canadian to lead Canadian troops. These rarely covered men succeeded where everyone else had failed, who always managed to take their objective and to hold it in spite of all odds. They were so extraordinary compared to their peers, and willing to adjust their tactics while other clung to failed theory.
G.J. Meyer has a writing style that carries you along though most battles, and while if you have read a lot about this war, you are aware of the outcome, you keep reading in some strange hope that that battle will no be as disastrous as you know it was. I was glad that I came to this war through other books, who dealt with specific battles, and individuals before I picked up this book. I definitely recommend it as an excellent read.
February 19, 2023
Writing an engaging book on one of the largest, most complicated events of the 20th century is no easy task, and I was impressed that G.J. Meyer was able to pull it off. After reading this, it's very easy to see why World War One was nicknamed the War to End All Wars.
The author doesn't get into the nitty-gritty details of military strategy and which battalion moved where at what time. Zooming in that much can bog down the writing and lose focus on the big picture. Thankfully, instead of doing this, Meyer describes battles through why they happened, what happened, and what the effects were. Of course tiny details are going to be valuable to some readers, but the majority of people picking this up aren't going to be historians interested in the technicalities of creeping barrages, they're going to be normal people wanting an understandable overview of World War One. In that regard especially, "A World Undone" definitely delivers.
Despite the book coming in at a hefty 715 pages, World War One was so massive that things will inevitably be skipped over. To mitigate this problem, Meyer created "Background" sections at the end of every chapter. These sections are devoted to topics that don't merit a full chapter and/or can't easily be integrated into the main chapters, but are important nonetheless. Some of the topics he covers are the often-overlooked roles of women, how industry changed warfare, the political machinations going on in each country, European anti-Semitism, and the war's effect on literature and poetry. These sections are really helpful in getting are more complete understanding of World War One and 1900s Europe, and are also just interesting to read about.
Like I said, though, some things got skipped over. I'm not really criticizing Meyer for excluding certain aspects, because there's such a thing as a book that's too long, but there are parts of the war I would've liked to read about. For example, he mostly skips over the Spanish Influenza and how the war and aviation affected each other. (To be fair, there's a background section on airships, but I felt it could have been a lot more comprehensive.) It would have been interesting to read about war heroes and influential people who weren't politicians or generals—Alvin York, Manfred von Richthofen, and Eddie Rickenbacker, to name a few. My guess is that those stories were cut to keep the book at a reasonable length, which is fair.
One thing Meyer does well is paying attention to the perspectives of individual soldiers. A lot of books covering wars are focused solely on the top commanders. Meyer also spends a lot of time inside the heads of those men. However, when it's possible, he throws in the words of ordinary people whose lives were destroyed by World War One and pays attention to how the mostly-ignored civilians and infantry felt about things. Wars aren't overly complicated games of chess, they are real conflicts that kill real people. Other books I've read on wars tend to forget about that, or use the words of ordinary soldiers for shock value or drama. Meyer doesn't completely avoid this, but "A World Undone" is a much more empathetic book than a lot of others. His discussion of the lives and personalities of the great commanders also help the book feel very human and understandable.
Overall, this is an excellent, well-written overview of a very heavy topic. It can get a bit difficult to read at times, but that's more due to the complexity of events than lack of skill on G.J. Meyer's part. I would absolutely recommend this to anyone interested in learning about World War One, 20th century history, or European history.
The author doesn't get into the nitty-gritty details of military strategy and which battalion moved where at what time. Zooming in that much can bog down the writing and lose focus on the big picture. Thankfully, instead of doing this, Meyer describes battles through why they happened, what happened, and what the effects were. Of course tiny details are going to be valuable to some readers, but the majority of people picking this up aren't going to be historians interested in the technicalities of creeping barrages, they're going to be normal people wanting an understandable overview of World War One. In that regard especially, "A World Undone" definitely delivers.
Despite the book coming in at a hefty 715 pages, World War One was so massive that things will inevitably be skipped over. To mitigate this problem, Meyer created "Background" sections at the end of every chapter. These sections are devoted to topics that don't merit a full chapter and/or can't easily be integrated into the main chapters, but are important nonetheless. Some of the topics he covers are the often-overlooked roles of women, how industry changed warfare, the political machinations going on in each country, European anti-Semitism, and the war's effect on literature and poetry. These sections are really helpful in getting are more complete understanding of World War One and 1900s Europe, and are also just interesting to read about.
Like I said, though, some things got skipped over. I'm not really criticizing Meyer for excluding certain aspects, because there's such a thing as a book that's too long, but there are parts of the war I would've liked to read about. For example, he mostly skips over the Spanish Influenza and how the war and aviation affected each other. (To be fair, there's a background section on airships, but I felt it could have been a lot more comprehensive.) It would have been interesting to read about war heroes and influential people who weren't politicians or generals—Alvin York, Manfred von Richthofen, and Eddie Rickenbacker, to name a few. My guess is that those stories were cut to keep the book at a reasonable length, which is fair.
One thing Meyer does well is paying attention to the perspectives of individual soldiers. A lot of books covering wars are focused solely on the top commanders. Meyer also spends a lot of time inside the heads of those men. However, when it's possible, he throws in the words of ordinary people whose lives were destroyed by World War One and pays attention to how the mostly-ignored civilians and infantry felt about things. Wars aren't overly complicated games of chess, they are real conflicts that kill real people. Other books I've read on wars tend to forget about that, or use the words of ordinary soldiers for shock value or drama. Meyer doesn't completely avoid this, but "A World Undone" is a much more empathetic book than a lot of others. His discussion of the lives and personalities of the great commanders also help the book feel very human and understandable.
Overall, this is an excellent, well-written overview of a very heavy topic. It can get a bit difficult to read at times, but that's more due to the complexity of events than lack of skill on G.J. Meyer's part. I would absolutely recommend this to anyone interested in learning about World War One, 20th century history, or European history.
April 12, 2015
My wife and I drove the Western Front last fall - a trip I heartily recommend. To prepare, we read a lot about the Great War. The past few years have offered a rich feast of books about the war and while I have made great progress, I still have a few to go. After reading a lot, I have become very impressed when I run across exceptional one volume treatments of the war in its entirety. This was not only a hugely complex chain of events, but also a seminal event that seems to have influenced nearly everything that came afterwards. One only need look at today's top crises to see WW1's continuing influence - Greece, Russia-Ukraine, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Israel, and even the European Union. How can one expect an author to do this in one volume that non graduate students can get their hands around?
G.J. Meyer has done this to produce a really good book. It covers the required territory and avoids wading into scholarly disputes or the findings from the latest exhaustive review of diplomatic dispatches. He clearly is aware of the research but is gifted at communicating this complex story. He does this a number of ways. First, when he is telling the story, he keeps in touch with what is going on is other theatres of war and in various countries. This way, it is not necessary to overuse your chronology of world events - although such volumes are helpful if you have them. Meyer also focuses on the narrative of decision making in the different parts of the war. How did various strategies develop? Who were the key players and what did they contribute? When did a given process reach a critical point? This helps to make sense out of the crazy multilevel diplomatic circus that led to the war, as well as the chaos of fighting battles with multiple competing commanders and armies - even on the same side. Third, Meyer is judicious in how and when he breaks to provide background information and allow the reader to digest what is going on.
If you haven't worked through a one volume history, this is a good one to start with. If you have, you still might find something valuable out of this one.
G.J. Meyer has done this to produce a really good book. It covers the required territory and avoids wading into scholarly disputes or the findings from the latest exhaustive review of diplomatic dispatches. He clearly is aware of the research but is gifted at communicating this complex story. He does this a number of ways. First, when he is telling the story, he keeps in touch with what is going on is other theatres of war and in various countries. This way, it is not necessary to overuse your chronology of world events - although such volumes are helpful if you have them. Meyer also focuses on the narrative of decision making in the different parts of the war. How did various strategies develop? Who were the key players and what did they contribute? When did a given process reach a critical point? This helps to make sense out of the crazy multilevel diplomatic circus that led to the war, as well as the chaos of fighting battles with multiple competing commanders and armies - even on the same side. Third, Meyer is judicious in how and when he breaks to provide background information and allow the reader to digest what is going on.
If you haven't worked through a one volume history, this is a good one to start with. If you have, you still might find something valuable out of this one.
April 19, 2018
A long time ago I went on a road trip around Holland and Belgium. In the time before GPS, we took the itineraries of the Dutch Automobile Association (or something like that, forgive me, I forget) and one of them was passing through all the major battlefields of WWI. Thus, the photo below, a french cemetery (among the 170 total cemeteries found at Ypres). It is an understatement to say that the whole region is a cemetery. I knew little about WWI then. I remember driving speechless and music-less for kilometers, feeling upset and depressed at the end of that day. I felt the same while reading this book (and after).
It is an excellent book that combines all the aspects of the history of WWI in one tome, written with the average reader in mind. This doesn't mean that it is oversimplified, but that it assumes you are not a historian and every time it presents new data (places, events, people), it takes the time to give you some background, so you don't get lost. It has a background chapter in front of each chapter so that you get basic information for what's to come and elaborates in a variety of themes (from Hapsburg family history to women in the war to Lawrence of Arabia). It keeps a great balance between describing battles and tactics, politics, social-economic results and down to earth historic excerpts from diaries, poems, first-person narratives. Required reading to understand a historical event that its aftermath affects us still.
It is an excellent book that combines all the aspects of the history of WWI in one tome, written with the average reader in mind. This doesn't mean that it is oversimplified, but that it assumes you are not a historian and every time it presents new data (places, events, people), it takes the time to give you some background, so you don't get lost. It has a background chapter in front of each chapter so that you get basic information for what's to come and elaborates in a variety of themes (from Hapsburg family history to women in the war to Lawrence of Arabia). It keeps a great balance between describing battles and tactics, politics, social-economic results and down to earth historic excerpts from diaries, poems, first-person narratives. Required reading to understand a historical event that its aftermath affects us still.
March 21, 2016
בלתי אפשרי לסכם את הספר במספר שורות, אבל זה הספר השני של מאייר שאני קוראת והוא מעולה. מלווה במחקר מקיף ובכישרון חסר תקדים לארגן את המידע, הפרטים והרקע כך שהקורא יקרא את ההיסטוריה כתעלומה שמאייר מציג לה פתרון. לולאי חוסר הידע שלי בנושא אני חושבת שהספר היה מקבל 5 כוכבים, אבל בהעדר ידע מקיף וממצה, ההחלטה להכניס לכרך אחד את כל שנות המלחמה היא בעוכרי הספר במידה מסויימת כי בסופו זכרתי פרטים כאלה ואחרים אבל רק כאלה שקשורים לרקע ולא למהלכי מלחמה.
בכלל מלחמת העולם ה 1 לא זוכה לאור הזרקורים שזוכה לו מלחמת העולם השניה למרות היקף ההרוגים הפנומנלי. זה היה מרחץ דמים בלי מווסת ונדהמתי מהמספרים שעליהם דובר. נדהמתי.
מאייר מצייר את מלחמה כסידרה של החלטות פוליטיות מטופשות של גברים שמתחרים בשאלה מי משתין רחוק יותר ואסטרטגיות צבאיות שנכשלו. מלחמה שמהאפר שלה עלתה אירופה של מלחמת העולם ה 2. מהספר ברורה המוטיבציה של הגרמנים לנצח במלחמה השניה.
הם יכלו לנצח בראשונה אבל האגו לא איפשר להם להגיע להסכם. הם גם יכלו לנצח בשניה. ולשמחתנו הם לא.
מאזן הכוחות לאחר המלחמה שינה את פני אירופה לדורות הבאים וערך את הכלים למלחמה הבאה.
זה ספר חובה לא רק לקריאה ראשונה, אלא גם לקריאה שניה ושלישית.
בכלל מלחמת העולם ה 1 לא זוכה לאור הזרקורים שזוכה לו מלחמת העולם השניה למרות היקף ההרוגים הפנומנלי. זה היה מרחץ דמים בלי מווסת ונדהמתי מהמספרים שעליהם דובר. נדהמתי.
מאייר מצייר את מלחמה כסידרה של החלטות פוליטיות מטופשות של גברים שמתחרים בשאלה מי משתין רחוק יותר ואסטרטגיות צבאיות שנכשלו. מלחמה שמהאפר שלה עלתה אירופה של מלחמת העולם ה 2. מהספר ברורה המוטיבציה של הגרמנים לנצח במלחמה השניה.
הם יכלו לנצח בראשונה אבל האגו לא איפשר להם להגיע להסכם. הם גם יכלו לנצח בשניה. ולשמחתנו הם לא.
מאזן הכוחות לאחר המלחמה שינה את פני אירופה לדורות הבאים וערך את הכלים למלחמה הבאה.
זה ספר חובה לא רק לקריאה ראשונה, אלא גם לקריאה שניה ושלישית.
January 11, 2020
If one is looking for a detailed, yet concise and easy to understand book on World War I, look no further than G.J. Meyer’s comprehensive account. I use the word ‘concise’ with a bit of apprehension. This book is over 800 pages. Yet World War I was a long, brutal war with many tales to be told – the who, the why, the what, etc. So yes, it’s a thick detailed book, but very easy to read and appreciate. I’ve read many history books, and many authors might be experts on their subject matter, but simply don’t know how to hold a reader’s attention for a lengthy amount of time. You’ve experienced this as well I’m sure; maybe you had a college professor that was brilliant but never knew when to shut up when lecturing in the classroom.
So, yes, in many ways you could argue that this is a ‘Cliffs Notes’ account of the first world war, but there’s plenty here to keep you enthralled. Notice I said ‘enthralled’ and not ‘enjoyed’. You’d have to be quite sadistic to ‘enjoy’ a book about an event with so much senseless carnage. But if learning history is your thing, this is a great introduction to what was then called, “The War to End All Wars”.
Part of the appeal of this book is that the author does tell a strict linear account of the entire conflict, yet most of the chapters have an ‘extra section’ tacked on to the end that talks about the different elements that educate the reader on “how” and “why” the world got into such a tumultuous turmoil in the first place. These extra sections include everything from the backgrounds of each of the major countries involved to the introduction of chemical weapons. From newfangled gadgets called ‘airplanes’ to the role of women in the war. From the doomed Romanov family to Lawrence of Arabia. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here, and it’s all quite fascinating and educational.
Anytime I read a book about a war that gives details of battles, generals, political players, troop movements, and military jargon, I confess that it’s easy for me to get lost and tune out at times. When I read so many descriptions of ‘armies flanking west’ and ‘General Whosis who took the 4th army’s 6th division and counterattacked through some unpronounceable town etc.’ I simply get overwhelmed and lost. I never felt this way reading this book. Again, give the author credit. I felt as though he was purposely telling us a story (as the subtitle implies) rather than simply piling on fact after fact after fact.
That’s not to say that this volume is 100% comprehensive. No, not even a ‘brief’ account of 800 pages can cover everything. We rarely read about the minor countries. (Side note: Did you know Japan fought in WWI also? Do you know who’s side they fought on?) I was hoping to read about (future U.S. President) Herbert Hoover’s philanthropic leadership providing aid towards the savaged nation of neutral Belgium, but as I recall, there’s nothing in here about those events. This isn’t a complaint, merely an observation. So if there are certain events of the first world war that you’re vaguely familiar with and want to learn more about, you might not find them here. But all of the major stuff is included.
In conclusion, if you’re an astute student of World War I, I’m guessing there might not be that much that’s new for you here, but for the majority, this is a great book if you love to learn about the history. Even if it’s arguably the worst time in the history of the civilized world.
So, yes, in many ways you could argue that this is a ‘Cliffs Notes’ account of the first world war, but there’s plenty here to keep you enthralled. Notice I said ‘enthralled’ and not ‘enjoyed’. You’d have to be quite sadistic to ‘enjoy’ a book about an event with so much senseless carnage. But if learning history is your thing, this is a great introduction to what was then called, “The War to End All Wars”.
Part of the appeal of this book is that the author does tell a strict linear account of the entire conflict, yet most of the chapters have an ‘extra section’ tacked on to the end that talks about the different elements that educate the reader on “how” and “why” the world got into such a tumultuous turmoil in the first place. These extra sections include everything from the backgrounds of each of the major countries involved to the introduction of chemical weapons. From newfangled gadgets called ‘airplanes’ to the role of women in the war. From the doomed Romanov family to Lawrence of Arabia. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here, and it’s all quite fascinating and educational.
Anytime I read a book about a war that gives details of battles, generals, political players, troop movements, and military jargon, I confess that it’s easy for me to get lost and tune out at times. When I read so many descriptions of ‘armies flanking west’ and ‘General Whosis who took the 4th army’s 6th division and counterattacked through some unpronounceable town etc.’ I simply get overwhelmed and lost. I never felt this way reading this book. Again, give the author credit. I felt as though he was purposely telling us a story (as the subtitle implies) rather than simply piling on fact after fact after fact.
That’s not to say that this volume is 100% comprehensive. No, not even a ‘brief’ account of 800 pages can cover everything. We rarely read about the minor countries. (Side note: Did you know Japan fought in WWI also? Do you know who’s side they fought on?) I was hoping to read about (future U.S. President) Herbert Hoover’s philanthropic leadership providing aid towards the savaged nation of neutral Belgium, but as I recall, there’s nothing in here about those events. This isn’t a complaint, merely an observation. So if there are certain events of the first world war that you’re vaguely familiar with and want to learn more about, you might not find them here. But all of the major stuff is included.
In conclusion, if you’re an astute student of World War I, I’m guessing there might not be that much that’s new for you here, but for the majority, this is a great book if you love to learn about the history. Even if it’s arguably the worst time in the history of the civilized world.
August 25, 2018
Wow. This took me almost two months to finish. Yes, it was long -- over 700 pages, and it was very detailed and complex in telling a very intricate and complex story, and, yes, I had a lot going on in the way of vacations and travels over the past two months. But the main reason it took me so long to finish was because the story was fascinating and I really wanted to be reasonably well-informed about the Great War upon completion of this book.
Like probably most Americans, my knowledge of World War I was limited to a few depictions in movies and TV shows with a WWI setting. I don't believe I ever learned a single thing about it in all my schooling. The little that I had read about it (like the novels "Johnny Got His Gun" and "All Quiet on the Western Front") left me bewildered. What in hell were they fighting about that was worth the destruction and devastation of the lives of so many millions of young men and their families, along with the devastation and disruption of entire societies and civilizations and even the landscape?
I am so glad I read this book to help answer these questions for me. It still boggles my mind that this war was fought with such intensity by so many factions. A big thanks to my Goodreads friend, David Eppenstein, who recommended it to me. I'm now looking forward to reading a follow-up book, "The World Remade", by the same author and even more highly recommended by Mr. Eppenstein.
Like probably most Americans, my knowledge of World War I was limited to a few depictions in movies and TV shows with a WWI setting. I don't believe I ever learned a single thing about it in all my schooling. The little that I had read about it (like the novels "Johnny Got His Gun" and "All Quiet on the Western Front") left me bewildered. What in hell were they fighting about that was worth the destruction and devastation of the lives of so many millions of young men and their families, along with the devastation and disruption of entire societies and civilizations and even the landscape?
I am so glad I read this book to help answer these questions for me. It still boggles my mind that this war was fought with such intensity by so many factions. A big thanks to my Goodreads friend, David Eppenstein, who recommended it to me. I'm now looking forward to reading a follow-up book, "The World Remade", by the same author and even more highly recommended by Mr. Eppenstein.
December 14, 2014
This August will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI. I expect we will be hearing a lot about that war as the anniversary draws near. If you were to desire preparing for the event I can think of no better book to read than this one. This is the second book by G.J. Meyer that I have read in the last few months. The first book was a biography of the Borgias that I found remarkably refreshing in its approach to the subject and its challenges to accepted beliefs. In this book Meyer takes a very complex war and makes it understandable. Where most historians would bog themselves and their readers down with unnecessary details, facts, and figures Meyer uses only enough to illustrate his point and convey the scope of the events. The statistics from WWI are astounding and are certainly difficult to avoid but they can also bog down and dull a reader's interest. Meyer uses what is necessary and has made the history understandable and readable and I will be looking for more books by this talented author.
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