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

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.