Widely considered one of the finest analyses on WW1. You won’t find many quotes or first hand accounts of the soldiers here. But what you will find are excellent summaries and insights on the panoply of events that unfolded over the five years of the Great War.

Here are some of my favorite topics and insights.

1. Battle of Jutland. Discussion around how the battle was actually a victory for the Allies even though their casualties and sunken ships were larger in number than Germany. Germany though had far more damaged ships and weren’t left with enough operational dreadnoughts after the battle and resorted to increased u-boat production.

2. The Czech corps and their effect on Russia during the Russian Revolution. I have yet to find a great book on this topic. There were about fifteen riveting pages of this war within a war. Less of an effect on the war’s outcome but certainly played a role in the Russian revolution.

3. America’s entry into the war. Superb analyses the arrival of 100,000 fresh troops a month in the summer of 1918 along the Western front. The German high command knew by the end of summer that they had lost the war. They were losing nearly every single battle/skirmish on the Western front and lost all their gains made in the Spring offensives and had little ability to replenish losses. Although Germany’s strategic retreats could inflict heavy losses on the advancing Allies it no longer mattered with such large troop mismatches.

4. War Plans. Excellent section on how military academies in Germany and to a lesser degree in the Allied nations forever changed warfare. War became more abstract as militaries become well versed in the use of train transport and advanced logistics (food, armaments). This allowed the movement of millions of troops in the matter of days at speeds 10x more rapidly than in past wars. This knowledge contributed to millions of troops and advanced armaments thrown together in close proximity and led to the advent of trench warfare and stalemates as vulnerable spots along the front could be reinforced more rapidly.

4.5 stars. Highly recommended.

This was a difficult book to read, it's quite boring, quite horrible, and very sad. The First World War was a terrible mistake, Keegan analyses what went wrong, how all the wrong assumptions were made, and how the tragedy started rolling to its inevitable conclusion with 20 million dead. John Keegan has written an amazingly compact book, it doesn’t need to be longer, because there’s nothing more to say, most of the battles played out in the same way. There is a lot of interesting stuff about logistics, this was a railway war, the new technologies came too late to make much difference, aviation hardly gets a mention, which is correct in a way, but would have added some interest.
A good book about a subject that doesn’t make a good book.

The author's intention for this book was to write a comprehensive one-volume history of WWI. The book is well and competently written, insofar as it goes, but the subject simply is too large for a single volume.

Keegan's history of the First World War opens, unexpectedly, by talking about Adolf Hitler, and what I liked about this book was the way it presented 1914–18 as just the opening convulsions in a longer twentieth-century cataclysm to which it remains intimately connected.

A child's shoe in the Polish dust, a scrap of rusting barbed wire, a residue of pulverized bone near the spot where the gas chambers worked, these are as much relics of the First as of the Second World War.

This is the kind of ruminative, slightly vague history writing that I really enjoy. Unfortunately there is rather little of it in the rest of the book, which too often becomes fixated on unnecessary military detail:

By 5 September the Sixth Army consisted, besides Sordet's Cavalry Corps and the 45th (Algerian) Division, of the VII Corps, brought from Alsace, and the 55th and 56th Reserve Divisions from Lorraine; the IV Corps was en route from Fourth Army. The Ninth Army, originally constituted as the Foch Detachment, comprised the IX and XI Corps transferred from Fourth Army, together with the 52nd and 60th Reserve Divisions and 9th Cavalry Division, the 42nd from Third Army and the 18th Division from Third Army.

…So?

Although Keegan does try to balance strategic explanations of the war with journals and other first-hand accounts, there is not nearly enough – for my tastes anyway – about the conditions soldiers served in, what they talked about, how they lived, what kind of social effects obtained in these countries during the war, how women and families coped while all the men in Europe were off shooting each other. It is quite a narrowly military approach.

There are also moments where you sense Keegan's own biases behind the facts; he seems a little too willing to get excited about the heroic Brits and it made me cautious of accepting some of his conclusions (‘Jutland was not a German victory’). Lazy comments about the ‘naturally warlike’ Serbs also eroded confidence.

Still, as a one-volume summary of things it does provide a pretty useful overview and it did help me contextualise the other reading I've done this year. The way the failure of the Shlieffen Plan created the trench lines of the Western Front, which barely moved in four years, is explained well. There is a decent look at the Eastern and Italian Fronts, as well as a lightning summary of Africa, although the situation in Turkey and the Middle East still feels a little underdeveloped. I though he was quite strong on the dovetailing of the First World War into civil war in Russia as well.

Keegan tries to be fair-minded to the generals, pointing out that contemporary strategy gave them very limited options. Douglas Haig still comes across as a borderline psychopath though, devoted to fundamentalist religious belief and utterly unmoved by human suffering, who ‘compensated for his aloofness with nothing whatsoever of the human touch’.

In no way – appearances, attitude, spoken pronouncement, written legacy – do [the generals] commend themselves to modern opinion or emotion. The impassive expressions that stare back at us from contemporary photographs do not speak of consciences or feelings troubled by the slaughter over which these men presided, nor do the circumstances in which they chose to live: the distant chateau, the well-polished entourage, the glittering motor cars, the cavalry escorts, the regular routine, the heavy dinners, the uninterrupted hours of sleep.

Again, when Keegan pulls back a little and reflects in this way, he is very good. He doesn't do it very often though. But despite the very military focus, most chapters here, and many single paragraphs, leave you wanting more and the bibliography has some good ideas for further exploration. For a broad account like this, that is crucial.

More than most wars, the First World War remains out of reach for those not touched immediately by its horrors, its losses, its destruction, almost all of which has retreated into the mists of time and memory. The Second World War burns today with its lingering geopolitical influences and inhumane horrors; the American Civil War casts its pall over the present with its unredeemed righteousness; and the wars of Napoleon, of Alexander, of Frederick the Great flicker on as remembrances of a lost world and code amongst men, peoples, and fledgling nations and empires. The First World War, though, remains shrouded in mystery, understood only superficially, but not appreciated for its depth.

John Keegan brings some light to the mystery through this tidy military summation of the Great War. For those looking for a beginning leap into WWI military history, Keegan delivers a refreshingly concise and animated portrait of the ebb and flow of the Eastern and Western Fronts, as well as the battlefields beyond. Little attention is paid to the biographies of the main political actors - Wilhelm II, Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Wilson - but battles and generals are dealt with admirably and relayed in supremely deft detail.

While Keegan's book is worthy to stand on its own, it is best read and appreciated in a larger context, particularly with Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August," or, as for this reader, with a more intellectual history such as Jorn Leonhard's "Pandora's Box."

What is most surprising upon reading Keegan's telling of the war is the "why" of it all. Verdun; the Somme; Gallipolli; Gorlice-Tarnow - why did the nations of Europe decide, seemingly so easily, to cast off the flower of their youth into the maw of war, a war that promised little territorial gains or permanent geopolitical re-balancing (as the Second World War showed with the rise, again, of Germany).

One can only imagine how futile it must have felt for the young men from London, Gloucester, Paris, Amiens, Berlin, Munich, and so many more locales that faced anonymous death in the trenches, by suffocation by gas, machine gun fire, disease, or loss of all faith in continuing onward as a living being.

Keegan can tell us the facts; it is up to readers of the 21st Century to take the lessons of the trenches to heart.

Author John Keegan gives the impression late in this very good book that he held the Kaiser partially responsible for the Great War as he embarked on a pointless attempt to match Britain’s maritime strength that “….in all possibility, might have been the (cause of the) neurotic climate of suspicion and insecurity from which the First World War was born.” Based on this book being very much written from a British point of view it is easy to understand why Keegan is of this opinion. In the end though I have still no idea and will read further into this subject in the coming years.

As to the book it strangely gave depictions of battles in that the author’s coverage was written with a sense of tedium. Thousands died in pointless campaigns that all seemed the same from east to west to north to south. Events such as the African theatre and Gallipoli were so rare as to be almost startlingly different. Keegan says as much, one point calling “The chronicles of its battles..” the “… dreariest literature in military history”

If I can think of one thing that this book lacked was coverage of US involvement. Late as it was the fresh troops made a considerable difference to the final outcome I would suggest. But with that there is not much new I can add to an already saturated subject other than say that this is a very good one volume history and is to be recommended to anyone looking for an Anglocentric point of view.

I am not a big fan of military histories. They tend to be much too detailed for my taste. They require a familiarity with the geography they cover and often do not provide good maps of the area being written about. They often do not provide the author's opinion of the events being covered.

This book meets none of the above criteria. While it is detailed, nevertheless the details are usually necessary to understand the nature of the battle being described. The details also help the reader understand, fully, the horrors this conflict visited upon the average soldier.

The geography covered in this account is immense. It was after all a World War. However, the maps provided managed to keep me connected to the events I was reading about.

Keegan interjects his opinion whenever he thinks it's called for. Usually at an appropriate point in the narrative. He also ends the book with a well stated soliloquy that does a good job of summarizing why this war was unnecessary, why WW II was just an extension of WW I and shares his perplexity with why these nations went war in the first place while also questioning the concept of "National Pride" by equating it with "National Arrogance".

I think for the first time in my life, I have a picture of the entire War as well as its major battles and its geopolitical underpinnings.

Keegan is a renowned Author and after reading this book, I understand why.

Excellent history

DNF
Read up to page 200.

Sorry to say this book was dry as a desert. Monotonous, full of facts and information, dates and numbers, without being engaging and capturing the imagination.
If anyone knows of a non-boring book about the World War I, recommendations will be appreciated.

This is not a review. This is a thank you, Mr. Keegan.

I already have the Dutch paperback...
Will you read, re-read and treasure it ? So go ahead, son. Buy it in English, with illustrations and a hardback

A seminal dialogue in september 2009 between job student me & an archivist.

John Keegan's overview was my first serious WW1 book together with the Guns of August and the Price of Glory , which were affordably re-published in translation in the mid-2000s & have subsequently received the same upgrade.

John Keegan was an incredible military historian who was also blessed with the ability to write in a clear, engaging style. His book on World War I is excellent, but as can be expected, is very much centered on Great Britain in the war. Experiences such as the Armenian genocide are skimmed over in a few paragraphs, and American involvement in the war, particularly in the last months of 1918, is not presented in much depth and is minimized, to say the least. There is also endless apologia for the crude butchery of Haig and the other marginally competent British generals. Nonetheless, you will learn a great deal about World War I reading this book, and it does not bog down as many World War I books do on field maneuevers and the like. The pace is fast enough to keep the reader engaged yet precise enough to provide a great amount of important and engrossing detail. There is a good explanation of politics, warfare, geography and international relations. My only quibble with the book was after doing so well throughout the war, the end of the war is not covered in much detail and feels like the author rushed in writing the last chapter. Maybe the tragedy of the war exhausted him or he was working on other projects but if you want a good depiction of the last months of the war and the immediate aftermath you will not find it in this book. Nonetheless this book is an excellent overview of World War One by one of the greatest modern military historians.

n  

An agricultural labourer, who has

A wife and four children, receives 20s a week.

3/4 buys food, and the members of the family

Have three meals a day.

How much is that per person per meal?


***


. . . The table printed below gives the number

Of paupers in the United Kingdom, and

The total cost of poor relief.

Find the average number

Of paupers per ten thousand people.


***


...Out of an army of 28,000 men,

15% were

Killed, 25% were

Wounded. Calculate

How many men were there left to fight?


~ From Pitman’s Common Sense Arithmetic, 1917

n

n  THE TEMPTATIONS OF HISTORYn

What are some of the toughest temptations for the historian to resist?

n  

1. Looking for Concrete Causes

2. Looking for Dramatic Turning-points

3. Looking for Direct Consequences

n
Keegan’s history is dry and that is precisely why it is so good.

Keegan tries hard to fall into these traps. He knows that he cannot afford to keep his history dry. He knows that these traps are exactly the ones which can juice it up. But luckily, he does not (or could not) juice it up.

Keegan’s strength is his military analysis and command of the tactical decisions that punctuated the war the war. He tries to dress up the book beyond this by talking about ‘the mystery of why a continent at the high of its powers went to war’ & ‘the Second world war was a continuation of the First’ & ‘the race for naval supremacy perhaps started the process’ occasionally, but except for lip service at the beginning and the end of the book, these are left as mysteries.

Looking for Concrete Causes

Keegan does not easily take sides. He does not show one side as good and one side as bad. There is No Demonizing involved. He does not blame any one country for precipitating the war (well, at least not in his actual account - as you will see, I discount certain parts of the book).  He does not even condemn specific war practices or instances (except book burning — he does hate the Germans in those few pages. Well who wouldn’t? Book burning is just BAD), instead he shows us how desperate all sides were and how willing to push any sort of limits to escape from this war that had become a hell beyond what they could have imagined.

Keegan’s war is not a grand Good vs Evil, or a Defense of Democracy/Civilization, or whatever else.

It is a bunch of misguided leaders bringing destruction upon millions. At the same time, the leaders are not crucified either.

In the end, Keegan maintains a very balanced approach that never tries to apportion blame for causing the war.

Instead he leaves it as a Mystery #1. Good.

Looking for Dramatic Turning-points

A good story teller cannot lack for ‘turning points’ in war, as evidenced by many titles that talks of the battle that changed the war (insert Somme, Marne, etc. here).

But the most common temptation is to cite the American entry as turning point. And conversely to show the U-boat mishap as the big-stupid-decision. But was it really?



Without Germany’s precipitous surrender and without Austria and Ottoman’s ethnic dissolution that followed this, it might not have mattered as much. I am not denying that it did not affect the mood of the army, but Keegan’a account shows clearly that it is not just the Army’s mood that matters. The atmosphere back home matters as much.

The long British blockade of trade into Germany, which forced them to resort to U-Boats again which in turn brought Americans to turn the screw even more... You see where we are going? The ‘turning point’ was a screw that was truing and tightening all along.

Technology: Keegan does slip a bit at times and tries to show the influence of communication technology (esp radio) and military technology (esp tanks) but again, hedges it by showing us how contingent that too is. The British were ahead of the Germans in tank-tech, but it was purely fortuitous.  Neither were using radio tech on the ground. Again, this was not rally a technological limitation. Consider how within two years radio was everywhere, so were tanks.



This teaches us an important lesson: Modern wars are not about strategy, technology or leadership anymore. It is about how long a country manages to keep its people in illusion. The longer they can, the better their shot at winning.

This leads us to another trope to push: to say that ‘Democracy was the secret weapon.’ 

After all, if popular sentiment was so crucial and if the non-democracies were the ones who couldn’t handle a long war, that is the logical conclusion? We can take for example the Russian revolution, the German civil unrest and the Austrian ethnic strife - samples from both Allied and Central forces - what unites them? Lack of Democracy! Bingo.

But we do this only by conveniently ignoring that it could easily have been France that fell prey to  civil unrest, or Italy. Or even Britain for that matter. They did all revolt at some point after all — both their armies and their peoples. So it couldn’t have been democracy alone then?

The overall sense Keegan’s narrative conveys is one of a Precarious Balance of Power discovered by powers who thought war all too easy, perhaps deluded by the easy victories they were accustomed to in their colonial possessions.



None of the countries involved were prepared for a long war (or even for a short one). And accordingly, hardly any army had made real progress in 4 years. The war was conducted mostly in stalemate. Where progress was made it (what little of it) was more due to one army folding up from exhaustion, moral or material.



These tended to be reversed almost immediately. Any ‘turning points’ were just the winds of war, of morale - just as in The Iliad when war seems to turn at the urging of the gods giving morale to the men. What seemed decisive at the moment soon turned out to be just another exercise in stalemate. Nothing on the field seemed to decide how this stalemate could be broken. The really major shifts in fortune were usually due to events far from the battle-filed.

The lack of clear turning points in the narrative means that until the last few pages, the reader can hardly believe that the war was headed towards any specific conclusion. And when it is over, there is a sense of disbelief. After all that, it was just over? Just like that?

We can well believe what the world too must have felt… it must have felt incomplete.

We can well understand why Hitler found it so hard to believe that it was conclusive and resorted to conspiracy theories soon.

Mystery #2. Good.

Looking for Direct Consequences

That thought, along with the details of the harsh treaty forced on the vanquished, leads us to the final thread Keegan tries to explore in his unfulfilled quest to spring one of the historiographic traps — The unity of the two wars & thus the origins of World War II.

Luckily, he does it in what must now be recognized as his standard modus operandi — by setting it out in the introduction, leaving off during the actual narrative and picking it up again in the conclusion. Deft move, eh? After all, if this is his thesis, this too is not supported by the actual account of the war.

Mystery #3. Great!

So why did I feel the book was so great?

In fact, the five stars you see above are a direct consequence of the modus operandi I described above. The five stars are for the entire book minus the introduction and the conclusion, which are the only places where Keegan tries to alleviate the dryness of his narrative with juicy historiography. Yes, the dryness gets him full marks.