Kate's Reviews > A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918

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.