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

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.