Keegan's conservative politics shine through occasionally here, and he's pretty unconcerned with imperialism/colonialism, but overall this was a readable overview of the whole war, which was what I was looking for.

Ha nem értek valamit valamilyen háborúból, azt szeretném John Keegan-től megkérdezni. Kiválóan ír, közel tudja hozni a felek emberi szenvedését, és még humora is van. Leginkább viszont az bámulom benne, ahogy a történelem sorsdöntő pillanatait mintegy kimerevítve megjeleníti, érzékeltetve, hogy na most figyeljetek, itt szúrtak el/itt mentettek meg mindent. Van érzéke a drámaisághoz. Az meg külön öröm, hogy az első világháborúról megjelenő hihetetlenül kevés (magyarul megjelent) könyv egyikét ő írta.

Az egyébként világos, miért preferálják jobban a második világháborút: olyan, mintha a legmenőbb hollywood-i forgatókönyvírók írták volna. Van a nagyon gonosz*, aki már majdnem megnyer mindent, a jók bukása szinte bizonyos, de egyszeriben fordul a kocka, és jön az úthenger. (Én speciel Sztálingrádnál mindig szívdobogást kapok.). Dinamika, pörgés, bosszú. Ezzel szemben az első vh. lényegesen statikusabb: a nyugati fronton az a sárdagasztás helyenként merő unalom, keleten a háború emlékét háttérbe szorította némiképp, ami utána történt (Trianon, kommunizmus), Európán kívül meg csak piszlicsáré ügyek zajlottak. A ki a bűnös? kérdés sem olyan egyértelmű, a civil áldozatok száma alacsony, és nincsenek még azok a fasza szerkentyűk (T-34, Tigris tank és társaik), amik után a modellezők sóvároghatnak.

Pedig az első ismerete nélkül a másodikat sem érthetjük meg. Ebben a konfliktusban tanult meg mindent Európa, amit évtizedek múlva olyan magától értetődően alkalmaz. A mozgósítás, a logisztikai problémák kezelése, az új fegyverrendszerek, és mindenekelőtt: az a képesség, hogy az államok saját lakosságuk tömegeiben felkeltsék a gyilkos ösztönt más államok, más „fajok” ellen. Keegan mindezt nagyszerűen prezentálja, keze alatt az első világháború nem a második mostohagyermekévé, de öregapjává alakul, az eseménnyé, amelynek következtében Európa csaknem elpusztult, és a sebeket a mai napig érezhetjük.

* Persze bizonyos aspektusból Sztálin is van olyan gonosz, mint Hitler, és a szövetségesek se bibliai idézeteket szórtak a bombázóikról, de ez csak pikánsabbá teszi az ügyet.

Well, I want to understand WWI, but I am more interested in the people and the politics than the mechanistics of the war. This has been mechanistics for 80 pages now, and I don’t see it lessening. Any recommendations for something less military-focused?

The book focuses on the military history of the Great War. The author only explains the political and personal environment at the beginning and end of the time period. It's a good overview for its length, but is heavily centered around tactics and strategies.

I enjoyed this. For a one-volume history of a massive event, Keegan did a good job. He balanced the big picture with actual events quite nicely. He included all aspects of the war, military tech, diplomacy, economics, politics, strategy, tactics, personality conflicts, etc. While at times I struggled to keep my attention, that was more rare than not. I do not feel like he over-simplified or over-complicated any aspect of it. He did not have a particular hobby-horse he rode; he just wrote the history of the war. At the end, he tied it all quite nicely into WWII, as is necessary.

Not a great book, but a good one, surely. Nicely done.

Really good book about how Europe was before the war, the causes and systems that led to it, and its entire unfolding in a way you rarely get.

A bit of a long, dry slog, but still worth reading. This was my first book about the entire war.

Pros:

The beginning focused on the lead-up to the war. At the end of the book, the post-war wrap-up was brief but informative and explained how the Ottoman Empire shrunk and the Austria-Hungary Empire broke up, redrawing maps that were closer to today's.

Cons:

The ebook had a handful of maps but, unlike my enlarged text, they stayed small, required a magnifying glass, and could not be referenced later. I love maps. So a large, hardback book with clear maps would have been better for this story.

Some of the sentences were so long and convoluted I had to back up and read them again.

The descriptions were dry and unemotional. Battles are important to me if their outcome changes the war, and can also be engaging with maps. But I didn't care for the lists of divisions, etc., during the battles, which were meaningless as I didn't understand what the numbers meant, and didn't care, and often didn't know which side the divisions were on. And it was hard to remember the leaders' names and countries and I had to guess by the names, e.g., French names, Russian, British, German? (The leader named French was British.) It would have helped to add, for example, the word "British" to a Division instead of a bunch of numbers that meant nothing to this reader.

The author mentioned the 1918 influenza once, noting only that the Germans were dying from the flu at the end of the war, and that it originated in South Africa. According to "The Great Influenza" by John M. Barry, which I just finished, all the soldiers were dying of the flu, not just German, plus civilians worldwide. And the evidence points to the origin as Haskell County, Kansas, U.S.A. That book also explains that President Wilson got influenza and it affected his brain, which was not an uncommon symptom. And that's why he abandoned his strict refusal to impose severe reparations on Germany, a plan that France and England were insisting on. In his illness, Wilson suddenly changed course and agreed with the reparations, thus leading to WWII. It could be argued that WWII was caused, in part, by the influenza in Wilson's brain.

Next, I'll read some WWI novels to put flesh on the bare bones of this book.

Great single-volume description of the Great War. Suffers from the problem typical for most war or battle descriptions - a severe paucity of maps sufficient to follow the text.

John Keegan’s The First World War couldn't be better as an introduction to the theme. Yes, it was my first book about World War I. I have to confess that I was practically ignorant beforehand.

Only now, two years after reading Keegan's book, I got to write its review. My interest on the theme was revived after I read the excellent The Last Lion 1: Visions of Glory 1874-1932, and since I joined the World War Two Group.

My knowledge was limited to dates and broad circuntances, not the intricacies of the alliances that helped push for the conflict and set in a motion a destruction machine that was virtually unstoppable and lasted four years killing roughly 20 million people! Its repercussions extended to WWII and the present.

5-stars and highly recommended.

Audible.com 18 hours 31 min. Narrated by James Langton (A)

I can't say that I enjoyed listening to the horror of the history of World War One, but James Langton was the perfect reader to make it both bearable and interesting. I cannot understand any real reason for the great nations of Europe going into war other than national vanity and covetness for land not their own. Neither Britain or Russia should have been involved at all because they were not directly provoked. If their naive leadership hadn't given their "word of honor" to support France, the war would not have cost the lives of millions of men from their countries. This was a war wanted by one country Germany who wanted the rich lands of France and their ports on the Atlantic. Instead the war involved almost all of Europe and large parts of the middle east and even a few countries in Africa and then, the United States.
After four years, it was the fatigue of war by those in the trenches doing the actual fighting, and then the complete lack of new recruits available to continue resupplying the cheap lives of men which with to fight that brought the war to an end. Once the boundless supply of more young men from America arrived in France, the people of Germany already starving and war weary were ready for peace. Only the Kaiser was willing to continue the war even if it meant fighting his own subjects whom he felt disloyal for giving up. The terms of peace didn't settle any of the underlying reasons for the was;indeed, they only exasperated them and left hot ashes that fueled the fires of the Second World War.

I have not read a great deal about WW1, so I embarked upon this one with some enthusiasm. I found the initial portions of the book, concerning the origins and causes of the war to be very interesting and well explained. It bogged down about in outlining the mobilization processes or each country, and then, once the war itself was underway, bogged down even more. The war and the book worked in parallel-no movement in the trenches, and little in the book. Some things that I really wanted to know more about were covered in a very short space. Gallipoli for example was dealt with in a few pages; Vimy ridge was dealt with in a couple of sentences.

So, interesting, but not exciting.

I think Keegan’s book is a great overview of the Great War. Though I am guilty of making this judgment without many other reference points, I think he struck a good balance between detail and brevity. The scope is not western front-centric, so the reader gets a nice overview of events in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa, Italy and naval activities. Keegan’s style is appealing and the book provides a great jumping off point for further reading.