World War I Irrupts

The centennial of the origins of the Great War has already produced an avalanche of new books, with more to come. Two of the best that have appeared are Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 and now Max Hastings’s study of the July crisis and the war in Europe in the last months of 1914. A newspaper editor and prolific author of books on military history, Hastings has written, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best study ever of the military operations as they unfolded in each of the sectors: France and Belgium, the Eastern Front, and the usually neglected Habsburg failures against the Serbs. While his work might not supplant for many Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, it is actually far more comprehensive than her effort and far shrewder, if often caustic, in its assessments of the military leadership.

Hastings is, however, less sure in his descriptions of the unfolding of the July crisis. He duly notes changes in historical opinion about the crisis, putting more stress on all of the great powers, though Germany remains the chief culprit. Still he concedes that Vienna saw the murders as a “heaven-sent excuse” to deal with Serbia. And he is blunt in saying “At the very least, Russia was irresponsible in failing to insist upon a halt to Serbian subversion in the Habsburg Empire as the price for its military backing.” He also notes that Russian military measures were far in advance of those of Germany, provoking legitimate worry in Berlin. Further Hastings describes the role played by General Henry Wilson in pressing the Liberal government to go to war and then agree to send the British Expeditionary Force to France. On the other hand, without a German invasion of Belgium, Hastings thinks that Britain would have delayed entry into the war.

After a sober assessment of popular reactions to the coming of the war, which were far more muted than many earlier accounts suggest, the narrative turns to the military efforts. The dismal failures of General Oskar Potiorek in the initial campaign against Serbia provide a painful reminder of the total inadequacy of Vienna’s preparations for war. General Franz Conrad von Hotzendörf argued constantly for war, but when it came, he and his generals were hapless and cavalier as they wasted Habsburg manpower. Not only does Hastings make the Habsburg campaign woes clear, his wonderful maps throughout the volume enable the reader to track the actual developments with relative ease.

The German attack in the west, the atrocities committed, and the initial French mistakes with Plan xvii receive extensive, often refreshing scrutiny, reflecting Hastings’ great ability to write military history. Sprinkled throughout the account are details that make the personalities come alive, if not always more attractive. Of French General Joseph Joffre, he writes: “Most British generals took pride in their personal appearance, but Joffre’s often verged on the slovenly.” Later he concedes that Joffre recognized his early strategic errors and shifted French forces westward, while creating new armies, thus stunning the Germans as they moved closer to Paris. Thanks to his moves, the Schlieffen-Moltke plan ground to a halt at the Marne.

Hastings is far less charitable to General Sir John French, the British commander, whom he regards as incompetent. But his savage assessment of the British generals goes deeper than that. Describing the personal relations among the British high command as “poisonous,” he writes, “intrigue became endemic.” He continues: “Henry Wilson, for instance, once told [John] French that [Lord] Kitchener [secretary of state for war] was as much the enemy of the bef as [Helmuth von Moltke, the German commander] or [Eric von] Falkenhayn [Prussian minister of war]. The only band of brothers to which the Britain’s generals might be likened was that of Cain and Abel.”

In the east, meanwhile, France’s Russian ally soon met disaster at Tannenberg. Good German generalship, Russian incompetence, and “a dusting of luck” all helped blunt the Russian attack. “The...