I have read several monographs about world war one and some one book overviews. This is probably the best one book history of the Great War. Not an easy subject to tackle in depth within 500 pages but Keegan has done it brilliantly. I have noticed that teachers of various regional universities (Ottawa, Montréal, du Québec, McGill) are using this book as their main reference for their courses covering the war , using the original version or a french translation. A few weeks ago I read the book by Lawrence Sondhaus focusing on the consequences of the 14-18 conflict; I would suggest to read this one first and then follow up with the Sondhaus book. This last author has also written a very good book about sea warfare during the first world war. Of course both Margareth MacMillan books (the road to 1914 and Paris 1919) are now reference works for the period. The Sleepwalkers by Clark has also become indispensable for understanding how we stumbled into a world conflict focusing on the balkan wars as a prelude to general war.

4.5 stars. Its difficult to imagine how a one volume history of this topic could be better.

Once I misplaced this book and lost my way with it I've been unable to get back into it. I'll try again another time.

Keegan offers a wide ranging assessment of the War. At times his analyses feel dated (ascribing major advantages in fighting ability to some units by dint of their race or culture). On the other hand Keegan offers a frank but fair assessment of the war’s various commanders. Keegan takes the broad view rather than extrapolation from soldiers’ personal experience (think Peter Hart).

It's taken me a couple of months to read this book. I've had it for several years now, and it has been challenging me to read it. My first attempt failed when I became confused as to which line was where, which front was retreating, which advancing, and I was just plain lost without a map. My second attempt, just a few months ago, was much more successful as I allowed myself to take it slowly, and absorb the detail that Keegan provided. I'm pretty much a typical American in that my sense of geography is pretty bad, but Keegan did a thorough job of taking the reader through the war plans, successes and failures and the horrible losses suffered by so many. Recommended.

As an introductory text to WWI, I cannot recommend Keegan's work. Drowned in superfluous details of regiments, divisions, and the minutiae of (mostly) Western Front battles, the overarching picture of the war itself is lost. There are interesting sections analyzing methods of military planning, especially the Schlieffen/Moltke paradigm on the side of the Germans, as well as all-too-brief discussions of technological innovations made during and because of the war: tanks, naval vessels, poisonous gas, etc. The Eastern Front and the fighting in the Middle East and Central Asia are given some space here, though relegated to secondary status to that of the Western Front. The political machinations are largely ignored and only mentioned as they came to play in the battles themselves. Finally, the author seems to be quite the Anglophile, with the Turks, Serbians, and other non-unwhities brought across as barbarians and uncivilized.

An engagingly written top-down history of the First World War, crammed (somewhat incredibly) into slightly less than 460 pages of text. Very definitely of the grand strategy position, but it does give a good sense of the movement of the armies and their activities, providing scope for further reading and shining a light into some of the less well known aspects of the war, such as the Serbian front, the African campaigns and the German "activities" in Belgium (not quite the propaganda excuse for British intervention I'd been led to believe in my youth). It's a nice overview of the war, leaving out little and providing enough food for thought for a lot of further reading.

After many times of picking this book up and then putting it down and not finishing it, I finally read it all the way through and was glad I did. While reading this, I debated on what rating I would give it, but after finally finishing it, I realized it was 5-star worthy for me. I guess one lesson I learned from this was to never debate on rating the book until after you've read it.

John Keegan truly wrote a masterpiece here, and it is no doubt a great work today. I think in todays world, we are so focused on the Second World War, and not many people realize how much of an impact the First World War had on our society. It is astonishing and sad how millions of young men died in such a short amount of time, and how many communities perished. Behind each and every soldier was a mother who was praying for his safe return, but many would find out he had died on the battlefield.

There's a lot I could summarize, but I'd rather the reader of this review pick up the book and read the book, because it is worth spending time on.

To add, I think the last paragraph of this book is worth quoting as it was what made me give it a five-star rating:

"Consequences, of course, cannot be foreseen. Experience can, by
contrast, all too easily be projected into the future. The experience of
the early warriors of 1914-18-the probability of wounds or death, in
circumstances of squalor and misery-swiftly acquired inevitability.
There is mystery in that also. How did the anonymous millions, indistinguishably
drab, undifferentially deprived of any scrap of the glories
that by tradition made the life of the man-at-arms tolerable, find the
resolution to sustain the struggle and to believe in its purpose? That
they did is one of the undeniabilities of the Great War. Comradeship
flourished in the earthwork cities of the Western and Eastern Fronts,
bound strangers into the closest brotherhood, elevated the loyalties created
within the ethos of temporary regimentality to the status of life and-
death blood ties. Men whom the trenches cast into intimacy
entered into bonds of mutual dependency and sacrifice of self stronger
than any of the friendships made in peace and better times. That is the
ultimate mystery of the First World War. If we could understand its
loves, as well as its hates, we would be nearer understanding the mystery
of human life." (pg.426-427 The First World War By John Keegan)


I have a story that ties into this: Each year, I like to pay tribute to the 36th Ulster Volunteers, a division that played a big role in the battle of the Somme. I am half-Irish (also many other European nationalities), and one of the things in Ireland that is such a hot button issue is religion. I have ancestors from the Protestant North and the Catholic south, however, most of my family immigrated to the US around the 1700s. I have no family that served in this unit, but there's a song I listen to, that explains the 36th Ulster's deeds, and to me I feel that because we share the same ancestry, that I feel like I have some reason to pay tribute to them. (link to the song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuuYW... *note, I know this song is considered a pro-loyalist song, and I am not supporting any side in the Irish conflict, but this song to me is about the 36th volunteers not about the Irish conflict.)

I think one of the reasons that books like these are interesting to me in a deeper sense is that in it, I see people who were in my age bracket who were shown war and despair. I also see in some way, a sense of camaraderie that they displayed that I don't see today.

This book was overall phenomenal, and I was glad to have read it.

The incredible thing about Keegan’s writing style is that it really puts you in the trenches - by that I don’t mean he manages to vividly portray the brutality of the Western and Eastern fronts through his evocative prose.... far from it.

Instead the torturous way he writes, the frequent tedium, what at times feels like a pointless onslaught (i.e. XX, IX, IV and VI battalion made a frontal western sweep...) made me feel more in touch with what a soldier went through a century ago than any other account I’ve read or seen. Keegan keeps everything very lean and cursory, providing useless maps and having an almost total focus on military tactics over anything else. But it gets the job done I suppose, although the Horrible Histories book I read on the First World War at 8 years old (with those glorious drawings of trench melee weapons, the MP-18, Stielhandgranate etc. etc.) trumps this in almost way. I’d skip this one if I were you, I’m certain there’s better out there.

What draws me to history books is to get a feel for what it was like to live in the moments described. What would it have been like to cross the Rubicon with Caesar or to march into Russia with Napoleon? The trenches of WWI are possibly one of the worst places in history to find yourself. While Keegan does a good job of telling the story of the Great War, he seemed to focus more on names and dates then on getting down in the dirt. So the book offers a great history, from beginning to end, of the war, but I didn't feel like I was there.

Most of the time when Keegan describes a battle, he takes pains to say which armies were there. So we hear that it was the French such and such divisions with help from this and that brigade opposed by German armies 18, 20 and 21. It got to be kind of like reading statistics - you get that this is big, for the numbers of armies and bombs and such are large. But after a while the affect wears off and it starts to mean little.

The best parts of the book then are when he does offer quotes from soldiers in the trenches, or insights into the characters of the people fighting the war. But those tend to be lost in the details of everything else. Maybe in a book this size, covering what it covered, doing more was impossible. Which is why it is a great volume to get into the ins and outs of the Great War. But if you want to feel it, you have got to listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast on the War!

Keegan opens with a personal connection but quickly moves into a straightforward military overview. The running theme could not help but be the absolutely senseless slaughter of human bodies, all to simply gain a few miles, in practically every battle. The more I read about it, the more difficult it is to wrap my mind around the gluttonous sacrifice made on the altar of the pride of powerful men.

Lot’s of great information but not that readable. It could benefit from more interesting stories from the war rather than a list of facts. Nonetheless if you can plow through this book you will certainly learn many new things so it is worth reading.