Race to the Front: The Materiel Foundations of Coalition Strategy in the Great War (review)

Kevin Stubbs's Race to the Front is an interesting and useful book examining the impact of material mobilization on World War I. Stubbs asserts that the coalition strategies of the belligerent powers cannot be fully understood without a detailed appraisal of the mobilization of material assets. In his view, the war revolved around this issue as the combatant nations had not taken sufficient steps in prewar years to harness their resources for a protracted conflict. Their subsequent efforts to do so were the key feature governing both coalition strategy in World War I and the war's outcome. His argument concludes that the manpower and industrial strength of the United States were responsible for Entente victory.

The work is divided into two parts. The first of these is comprised of three sections dealing with manpower, material, and transport. In each of these areas, Stubbs uses data that clearly reveal the efforts of the principal belligerents and analyze their results. The second part utilizes this information to prove that material considerations governed grand strategy.

Stubbs's book has numerous strengths that commend it to both scholars of World War I and the general reader. The author has compiled a substantial amount of statistical data documenting the magnitude of efforts to garner resources in the era of total war. Significantly, this information includes data on powers such as Turkey, Italy, Bulgaria, and Romania that are sometimes under-emphasized.

The inclusion of these nations is responsible for another strength of the work. Stubbs uses the data to highlight the impact of eastern European powers on coalition strategy. Historical works concerning World War I that focus primarily on grand strategy in the Western theater do not adequately portray the intricacies of coalition strategy in the war as the Eastern Front and the Balkans had a large impact on the conflict as a whole.

The usefulness of material assessment as the primary determinant behind coalition strategy pales somewhat in Stubbs's account of American participation. The author maintains, quite correctly, that the Entente powers attempted to marginalize American involvement in the conflict to offset U.S. dominance, through its industrial might, of the postwar world. Material assessment, however, is only one part of a much wider picture that includes issues of foreign policy and diplomacy. Stubbs apparently recognizes this fact to some degree, but uses scant diplomatic sources to aid his assertion.

Nevertheless, Stubbs's view of European reaction to American power serves as a basis for future discussion while his statistical data certainly help to explain the actions of coalitions.