Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War

This is a well written book on how the First World War started by a noted historian of the Second World War. While alot of us are familiar with World War II, many are not familiar with the war before it. Without an understanding of what occurred then, it is hard to understand the reluctance of those nations trying to stop Hitler and others to resort to war without trying all other avenues first. European nations paid an astronomical cost in the first few months of this war and this book details this in great detail without going to into too much battle description in the grand sense instead keeping the view from the participants to make it more personal. This book also takes the reader away from the battlefields to show how the peoples of the nations involved in the war reacted over the 5 months discussed and how perspectives changed over the course of the victories and defeats that each nation dealt with. The author shows us the members of goverment along with their subjects dealing with changes imposed by the war always with the (hopeful) optimism that it will be over soon and all of the sufferring and loss will be justied by the outcome. As the reality of the duration of conflict starts to dawn on them, it is recognized as a battle of endurance for the nations involved. His concluding chapter is one that I think all those who think they 'know everything' about this period of time should read. With over a century having occurred since the events depicted in this book, there is a tendency for modern readers to think that they could have just stopped. The author looks at this prospect from the view of all of the major combatants as well as giving some foreshadowing of what was to come for the participants in the years both during and after the war. In this last chapter, he shows the governments of the nations involved looking if there is a way to end the fighting, but none of them willing to end it except with an advantage that justifies the cost inflicted. Since this was never going to happen, the fighting will continue. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of Max Hasting's books on World War II. He has lost none of his talent for relating these stories even with a change of wars being considered. Also, I would recommend this any readers of Barbara Tuchman's "Guns Of August". Her book written back in the 1960's was an eye-opening introduction to the same themes that are discussed in this book. This is a 50 year later successor to her book and belongs right beside it in any library of World War I.

Perhaps because Max Hastings has spent a career as a professional journalist, instead of as an academic historian, he writes history books to which people will voluntarily devote their time and money. Hastings is an often incisive, always entertaining, writer of history. Hastings embodies what Herodotus demonstrated millenia ago, that good history consists of two elements: First, an accurate account of what happened (the facts), and second, a persuasive analysis of why it happened and what else might have happened had humans acted differently (the historian's opinion). It is in the second element that Hastings is always provocative and entertaining. Two of the best books about World War II are his "Inferno" and "Retribution," both of which are written from a British perspective, but offer pungent criticism where it is due to Churchill and the British military elites, as well as others (he is properly brutal towards Douglas MacArthur). Given my deep respect for Hastings from earlier books, I looked forward to his take on the events of 1914, in which Europe suffered a catastrophe from which it has never truly recovered. I was disappointed. This book is largely a lawyer's brief in which Hastings seeks to convict Germany as the primary perpetrator of World War I, while simultaneously exonerating Czarist Russia, revanchist France, and especially imperialist Britain. Hastings, without explicitly naming names, clearly aims to rebut two contemporary English-speaking historians who have published "revisionist" histories about 1914. Niall Ferguson, in "The Pity of War," asserts that Britain's decision to enter the war because of Germany's invasion of Belgium was both hypocritical (Britain and France were both prepared to enter Belgium out of military necessity, the same reason for Germany's incursion), but even worse, it was a horrible blunder. More recently, Christopher Clark, in "The Sleepwalkers," provides overwhelmingly persuasive evidence that none of the major powers (including Germany) really wanted war, but they stumbled into it more through negligence and incompetence than intent. Clark also demonstrates that Russia (egged on by revanchist France) was the first to mobilize, an act of war, and the first to invade another soil (Germany's), giving the German leadership no choice but to mobilize as well, which set in motion irreversible events. Hastings' major theme is that Ferguson and Clark are wrong, that Germany was primarily to blame, that Russia, France and Britain essentially "did the right thing" and those who question that are wrong or deluded. What Hastings never effectively explains or even addresses is this core question: Given the catastrophic consequences of the events of 1914 (millions dead, Europe destroyed, the rise of Nazism, the rise of Marxist-Leninist Russia, a second even more catastrophic world war, followed by the Cold War), how can Hastings or anyone argue that British neutrality in 1914 would not have been preferable? British neutrality in 1914 would have almost certainly have meant German domination of the continent for years to come. Ferguson is perhaps too flippant about that prospect, dismissing it as just an earlier version of the European Union, but Hastings argues that outcome would have been intolerable. But compared to what? Worse than what actually did happen to Europe and the world over the 20th century? Hastings is not persuasive. And he certainly does not rebut Clark's "The Sleepwalkers," the best one-volume account of the events of the summer of 1914 I have ever read. I gave Hastings' book 4 stars rather than his usual 5 because he allows his pro-British bias to mar an otherwise brilliant, well-researched and (as usual) entertaining book.

This is an excellent history of the first year of the First World War—though probably more accurate to say the first five months. It is very good at showing that the leaders who took their nations to war were not uniquely stupid or naive but were pursuing particular goals for particular reasons that ended up leading to tragic consequences. I especially appreciated the way in which Hastings made it clear that this war had a purpose—the prevention of German domination of Europe—which was not all that different from that of the Second World War’s.

This book is excellent! This book is a rare thing. It really does cast a new light on an old subject. This book is typical Max Hastings. This book is very well researched. He mixes raw statistics in with personal accounts of the battle from first hand accounts. He covers both western and eastern theaters in the book. Most books tend to forget the conflict in the east. The accounts of conflict in the Serbia is really eye opening. You get a new feel for those bloody months of 1914 from August to December. Previous books on 1914 focus on the assassination and the resulting politics. People tend to forget the mess from the clashes of the Armies after the politicians failed. Max Hastings creates that time in this book. As you read it you will be shocked. It is almost like it is new information. The huge casualties started almost instantly in the first weeks of August. The volume of the casualties is mind boggling. The velocity of conflict is also something to behold when you remember most of the people walked to war. You can see how the errors of the early months of the war set the stage for the following part of the war. The average reader will gain a new appreciation of those five months.

This is a recent volume published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the start of World War I. The author covers the period from July to Christmas of 1914. It is a good companion to Margaret McMillan's The Road That Ended Peace. The book was interesting and informative. I think it was more thorough than Guns of August but in my opinion Tuchman was a better writer. The author provides a great deal of detail and makes excellent use of primary sources. The primary sources include not only the writings of politicians and generals but also letters and journal entries from the soldiers in the trenches. In addition to the narrative sections the author provides extensive analysis laced with criticism of the decisions made by the leadership. Hastings has many opinions which stand out in contrast to the general wisdom regarding the events of the war. A good example is his analysis of the start of the war. While Archduke Ferdinand was not popular with the leadership of Austria-Hungary they decided to use his assassination as an excuse to assert themselves and punish Serbia. When they turned to Germany for support they received a "blank check" to proceed against Serbia. From that point on there was going to be a war and the only question was who was going to be involved. The interlaced system of alliances between the European powers brought in Russia, France and Germany. Germany's decision to invade Belgium finalized England's decision to declare war on the side of France and Russia. The speech of Edward Grey to Parliament in favor of the declaration of war is a highlight of the book. The author places great emphasis on the difference between the first months of the war and the trench warfare associated with World War I. The first months were a war of maneuver which had battles whose casualties were greater than the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The details of the early battles read like a fantastic horror story. Hundreds of thousands of men marching and fighting and marching some more. Human and animal corpses litter the landscape interspersed with wounded men. Artillery ruled the battlefield and caused greater numbers of casualties during this war than bullets for the first and only time. While the Western Front is fairly well known the author's descriptions of the fighting between Austria-Hungary and Serbia and Russia are even more horrific. The Austro-Hungarian army was poorly equipped and full of units where the officers did not speak the same language as the troops. The troops were always short of ammunition and rations and surrendered in droves. Twice they invaded Serbia and twice they were pushed back into Bosnia. The author states that 62% of Serbians of military age were killed in the war. Reading about the "gentlemen" in their elaborate offices make the decisions that started the war and then reading the results of those decisions was for me the true horror of the war. Industrialized warfare brought a new level of destruction and suffering that only a very few could even imagine.

As I was reading it, I kept comparing this book to Sleepwalkers. While the latter is more comprehensive in many ways, I enjoyed this retelling as well. Don’t expect a complete analysis of 1914, but rather more data points that one can assimilate into their personal analysis of that year.

On the good side, Hastings' skill in telling a story is on display here. Where a reader may have any doubt about what a part of the story means he provides his own judgments, usually fairly conventional, in authoritative tones. There is a rich array of incident and personality, and where the record fails to reveal the thoughts and motives of participants Hastings fills the gap. The style is rather overblown, to my taste -- but it is a matter of taste and some no doubt will be glad to read all 566 pages (whose actual substance could well have been presented in less than 450, I would judge). As to the responsibility for the war no doubt is allowed that it was all Germany's fault. In Hastings' mind it is a verity beyond need of evidence or proof. In essence he simply announces it as a sort of fortieth article of religion. He declaims about "vast amounts" of documentary evidence without pointing us to anything in it that actually links the bellicose rhetoric that was circulating in Germany to any specific act in 1914. Hastings dismisses the work of those who have looked for a connection and failed to find it. Hastings refers obliquely to Schlieffen's planning, and to Moltke's and Joffre's too, but appears to know essentially nothing of any of them. He has not read Schlieffen's "Great Memorandum," to judge by his bibliography and notes, nor any of the modern analyses of it. There are several analyses of French planning, but he has not read any of them. He has read one book on Moltke, a recycled PhD dissertation from 1997 (before the most critical modern analysis of German planning had been published) which focused on his personality and political views. His neglect of the planning deprives his story of coherent shape, reducing it to a flow of events. The maps in the book, which are mostly redrawn from Arthur Banks, A Military Atlas of the First World War , are generally clear, if often too small to be read without magnification. Like Banks' they are somewhat too British oriented to give a clear view of the overall action on the Western Front, and somewhat questionable in their interpretations of some details. Overall, however, they are better than those of most general histories. Finally I should say a word about the Kindle version. I initially bought it but after a few days returned it for a refund, the first time I've ever done so with a Kindle book. The problem is in its formatting, which makes it too hard to navigate through it. I replaced it with a used paperback at a similar price.

Hastings has written a very readable though thoroughly scary chronicle of the first year of WWI. I had to take a break from reading about the mayhem and stupidity and the overwhelming casualties that characterized 1914. I had read "Retribution" and "Armageddon", about the Pacific theater and European theater after D-Day, respectively, and just had to read this. His technique is to describe the battles with personalized accounts as well as an overview of strategies. The only drawback, and it is minor, is that it is sometimes hard to find the places described in the narrative on the maps, but this in no way detracts from this masterpiece. With the centennial of WWI just around the corner this book is timely and insightful. We are still living in the shadow of WWI - technology outstripped every human expectation - we didn't even know enough to fear the catastrophically dreadful consequences of modern warfare. Hastings makes this point over and over again.

It is an absorbing account of what happened during those fateful years and like all Max Hastings books it is superb.

Great book about a period in the Great War that is typically overlooked in this country (Australia), where Gallipoli dominates the narrative. Hastings weaves individual stories into the historical account in a way that brings the story to life and makes for a very entertaining read. A tragic story. The tale of unanticipated consequences resonates today. Recommended.

Excelente relato de la Gran Guerra con contenido riguroso en lo histórico y con prosa amena y de fácil lectura, incluso para el lector cuya lengua materna no sea el inglés. No es una historia de la Primera Guerra Mundial al uso, sino más bien de cómo se llegó a ese drama, la causas políticas, la guerra en sí y los dramas y calamidades de los que en ella combatieron o que la vivieron como civiles. Totalmente recomdable.

Al solito molto ben scritto e interessante, solo un po' sbilanciato sulle "imprese" degli inglesi, ma essendo lui inglese la cosa si capisce.

This is a magnificent account of the run up to and first five months of the First World War. The author recounts in detail the sequence of events leading up to war from the point of view of all the major participants (including the Serbs). Once war breaks out, he also covers events on all the major European fronts, again including Serbia, whose fight for survival involved the whole nation in a ferocious way that astonished the numerically far superior, but showy and complacent Austro-Hungarian army. This is a timely reminder that the war in Europe was not just about trenches in Belgium and northern France, though these, are of course, given due coverage. The author's headline conclusion is that, while there was incompetence, naivety and self-aggrandisement to varying degrees in all countries' leaderships, Germany bears by far the heaviest burden of guilt for having underwritten through its "blank cheque" Austria-Hungary's desire for a limited war to crush Serbia and being careless about the probability of such a war spreading more widely; and German war leaders had plans to develop German domination of the continent that could not reasonably be tolerated by other countries. It should not be forgotten that Germany was effectively a military dictatorship at this time, with the socialist-dominated Reichstag having little real power and no influence over defence or foreign policy, whereas Britain and France, for all their many faults, were functioning democracies. In fact, I think, of all countries, Austria-Hungary bears the most responsibility, on the principle that the country that first provoked the war through its ultimatum to Serbia that was designed to be rejected, and then bombed Belgrade, is the first guilty party; though in the West, the revival of the Schlieffen Plan and the violation of Belgian neutrality point to German guilt, exacerbated by an overmighty military leadership and a vainglorious and possibly clinically insane Kaiser. Other countries, it might be argued, could have done more to try to stem the tide of events, though it is clear that once war became inevitable, British neutrality was not a viable option. I learnt a great deal from this book and could write a very long review. Hastings is a superb writer of military history, giving equal coverage to the political and military dimensions, and also to the human perspective of the ordinary soldier and civilian (while pointing out that the human perspective of the sufferings in the trenches has often tended to cloud judgements about the war's aims and objectives). The maps are excellent, very detailed but clear, and there are some interesting photographs. Thoroughly recommended.