Catastrophe 1914, Hastings - B

                                          After reading  'Sleepwalkers' last year, I had concluded that I was up to date on 1914 and was prepared to put the topic to rest for a while. But I have twice seen Sir Max speak at the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago, and because of his wit, charm and superb prior books,  I concluded that I might as well give this a whirl.  Like Tuchman's masterpiece 'Guns Of August' from half a century ago, and unlike 'Sleepwalkers', this book reviews the opening campaigns and takes us through year-end. Hastings makes clear in his introduction, as he did in his presentation in Chicago, that he is sticking to the traditional conclusion - that the causus belli remains Germany and its policies.  I have always thought that the militaristic, lightweight and incredibly insecure Kaiser was someone the world would have been better off without.  He also points out that the younger von Moltke was but a shadow of his uncle and blindly committed to war as the means for Germany to rise on the world stage. He takes to task the Austrian Chief of Staff, Hotzendorf, who thought that by prevailing at war he could win the heart of his amore. The Austrians wanted war with the Serbs and the author claims that many were quite happy to use the Sarajevo assassinations as a pretext. Within two weeks of the Austrian ultimatum, thanks to the treaties, the mobilizations, and the hubris of the continent, Europe plunged into war. "The various participants in what soon would become the Great War had very different motives for belligerence, and objectives with little in common."
                                             Although the Austrians and Serbs were engaged in bloody, vicious combat before the major powers even mobilized, it is the clash of the Germans with French and British  that has captured the imagination of historians for a century.  The implementation of the von Schlieffen Plan ("Let the last man on the right brush his sleeve on the Channel") was the first great massive modern attempt at envelopment that the Germans would perfect a generation later.  They marched through Belgium with twice as many men as the Allies had in opposition. The Belgians, British and French fell before them. As August turned to September, the Germans were confident that they would soon be in Paris again.  For hundreds of miles, the British, and more importantly, the French, kept retreating before the teutonic onslaught.  But, slowly, the tide turned as the German General Staff lost control of their armies, the French stiffened, and by mid- September, it was over. The Germans were stopped.  Men started to dig in, and create the trenches and the hell that defined the western front for the next four years.  All that remained was the battles of October and November, particularly First Ypres, extending the lines to the Channel.
                                           In the east, Germany whipped the  Russians so emphatically at Tannenberg that the Russian commanding officer, Samsonov, walked off into the woods and shot himself.  Further south in the vast reaches of Galicia, the Russians and Austrians stumbled into each other, and managed despite their respective institutional incompetencies, to inflict unconscionable slaughter on each other.  German reinforcements allowed the Central Powers to stabilize the eastern front.
                                            Hastings' concluding comments emphasize his feeling that the Germans bore the brunt of responsibility for the Great War and that pursuing it to the bitter end was the only choice the Allies had.  He states that the only way to avoid a German occupation and domination of Belgium and eastern France was to beat them. They would not relent until pushed back to their own borders. He acknowledges the horrible suffering, the incompetent generalship, the futility of the war. But, he points out that no one has ever suggested a methodology that could have ended it - other than fighting the Germans for as long as it took.