Rating: 
Summary: Killing became an end in itself.
Review: Ferguson's courageous history of the first world war explains how sadistic, relentless killing quickly became an end in itself. And WWI led directly to worse barbarity and terror, so that in 1999 the world faces virtually the same problem in the Balkans which existed in 1914. In explaing how the first great war came about Ferguson stands head and shoulders above the "victor's historians" who fill the textbooks and befuddle political leaders. He finds much to blame conservative British leadership for. And nothing kind to say about America's role. Unfortunately - and this is not Ferguson's fault - he cannot explain how the pointless savagery could have been avoided or cut short. Senseless murder may simply be an instinct; if so, it's time for all of us to face up to that. Forget heroics; war, like all murder, is failure. There are no "good wars." The value of Ferguson's effort cannot be overstated, but it is only a beginning.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Many Topics
Review: For all the effort, emotion and analysis put in it, this book is a bad read and Ferguson has tried to accomplish too much for a sigle volume.To begin with, the book has at least two books in it. The first one being the analysis of causes, inevitibility and economics of the Great War. The second is a hapazardly collected, very subjective ideas on why men fight. The style is too cumbersome and some of the analysis was circular. Some points are repeated over and over. The economic data was very through and interesting but maybe overdone. He has done a good job analyzing the very beginning of the war and all the possible exits that various parties, mainly UK missed before the conflict got very much out of hand. Ferguson has made a very good argument about how Britain did not have a compelling reason to enter the war in the way she did and exploded the conflict into catastrophic proportions. Britain did not have to waste so many of his young for so little gain. Kaiser was no Hitler. He has done great disservice to his thesis by limiting his scope only to continental Europe. After all, Britain's designs on the spoils of the "sick man of Europe", Ottoman Empire was a major factor in Britain's policy at the time. With this vital piece of the puzzle missing, the conclusions about Britain's ability or willingness to prevent a World War is doomed to be inaccurate. Middle East was the prize Churchill was after and his policies left no choice for the Young Turks but to join up with Kaiser. The carnage of the Great War is well quantified and highlights how inapt the generals were and their Napoleonic tactics combined with modern weapons contributed to incredible loss rates in the field. Ferguson fails to give the book a character and a consistent theme. There is also his personal involvement with the topic that surfaces occasionally and awkwardly. His analysis and conclusions are not crisp, most of it buried in lengthy arguments and conter-arguments with himself. Especially in the second half of the book, he is well out of his depth and expertise while he tries to expand into the topic of war and fighting at a personal level. I would only recommend this book only for the very hard-core World War I buffs.
Rating:
Summary: Fine contrarian history
Review: From the History Channel to Barbara Tuchman every account of World War I describes the ecstatic patriotic fervor that swept England, France, Russia, and Germany in August 1914. In fact, writes Ferguson, almost everyone was depressed by the outbreak of war - and he assembles contemporary newspaper accounts and memoirs to support this. Why did soldiers continue fighting, year after year, under awful conditions with no hope of victory and little hope of surviving? Because they loved it, Ferguson claims, and he points to evidence. He agrees the treaty of Versailles led directly to World War II but not because it was so vengeful. It was too generous, he maintains. It humiliated the Germans without punishing them. They paid little of the reparations (after their victory in 1870 Germany forced huge reparations on the French - and collected). This is contrarian history of the best type: topsy-turvy interpretations by a brilliant writer who makes a genuine attempt to back them up. Experts quarrel with most of his points, but experts have read a great deal of history. Don't read this without doing the same.
Rating:
Summary: Fine contrarian history
Review: From the History Channel to Barbara Tuchman every account of World War I describes the ecstatic patriotic fervor that swept England, France, Russia, and Germany in August 1914. In fact, writes Ferguson, almost everyone was depressed by the outbreak of war - and he assembles contemporary newspaper accounts and memoirs to support this. Why did soldiers continue fighting, year after year, under awful conditions with no hope of victory and little hope of surviving? Because they loved it, Ferguson claims, and he points to evidence. He agrees the treaty of Versailles led directly to World War II but not because it was so vengeful. It was too generous, he maintains. It humiliated the Germans without punishing them. They paid little of the reparations (after their victory in 1870 Germany forced huge reparations on the French - and collected). This is contrarian history of the best type: topsy-turvy interpretations by a brilliant writer who makes a genuine attempt to back them up. Experts quarrel with most of his points, but experts have read a great deal of history. Don't read this without doing the same.
Rating:
Summary: Great History!
Review: From the same author I had already red "The Cash Nexus" and had been very favourably impressed both for the readability and the argument (usually a mix of history and economics, not just economic history).
Well, about the content, this is not the usual history of First World War.
It is an attempt to look behind the stage of historical events, to try to evaluate the actual outcome of the events on the light of the choices available to the "actors". Looking at what might have happened (and did not happen) can help to cast new light on the meaning of actual events.
The question "what... if" from which the inquiry starts, is a great stimulus for the reader not just to enjoy the book but also to evaluate the conclusions of the author.
I greatly enjoyed this book even if I do not agree with some of Ferguson theses.
In particular the critic to the common idea that a culture favourable to the world arise in the last decades of XIX century is a bit excessive (on the light of the thought and following of thinkers like Wagner, Nietzsche, Darwinism with the survival of the fittest,... not to speak about Futurism and the like).
I was also a bit unsettled by the allegations about the role of Keynes as a fifth German column in the discussions of war reparations: it may well be, but I believe the arguments used are a bit too personal (the alleged "possible" love affair with dr. Melchior) or overstated (this influence on British public opinion and government in the aftermath of the war).
Then, as a "continental" European I've been really upset by the argument that, after all, it would have been better if the Germans won the blitzkrieg and formed a kind of proto-common European Market... Right, it would have cost less in terms of lives. Right, the Greater Reich wouldn't be in competition with the British Empire... and right... we would probably have avoided II WW, but in what kind of world we would live today?
Rating:
Summary: What about that 2-1 British naval superiority????
Review: I already wrote a review for Amazon giving this book a 3 star rating. I am now reducing that rating. Why? Because of a significant gap in the logic one of one the central arguments of Dr. Ferguson's book. A gap I had not previously noted. That argument is that because the British won their pre-World War I warship building race against the Germans by a 2 to 1 margin, Germany was never a serious threat to the British Empire, and - at least implicitly - would not have been a naval threat afterwards. Dr. Ferguson doesn't mention that that 2 to 1 superiority was achieved in the _North Sea_ by withdrawing naval forces from parts of the world where the British Empire had traditional and still important interests. The Western Atlantic was effectively ceded to the United States. The Far East was turned over to the Japanese who were bound to Britain by an alliance. And the Mediterranean was turned over to the French as part of the entente between those two nations before WWI. Now consider a world were Germany and Austria-Hungary had been victorious in the 1914 war, and had effectively disarmed France by means of a massive war indemnity. In that world - assuming Germany doesn't start building a lot more battleships - the British Empire would have been forced to give up its 2 to 1 margin in the North Sea as the home fleet was reduced in size to re-establish a significant presence in the Mediterranean (to watch out for both Italy and Austria-Hungary) and the Far East. On the other hand, if the Germans re-started a major naval building program, the British would have had to engage in another massive naval arms race, to keep a significant superiority in home waters and support their overseas commitments. Or, simply give up forever being a world power. And I am doubtful that the British could have kept out-building a Germany suddenly freed of the cost of a massive army (active plus reserves), and almost certainly with access to industrial capacity in a Belgium in some way dominated by Germany. So what? Why should the British bother keeping ahead of the German navy in the North Sea? Well, because without that lead, all those pre-war scenarios where the Germans manage to land an army in Southern England in a surprise attack supported by a fleet which defeats or at least holds off the British home fleet become much more realistic. Now, Germany has access to naval bases in Belgium and possibly even in Northern France, and could rather casually start training 2 or 3 divisions in naval assault tactics. Does anyone reading this review believe that Germany would have been more trusted after its unpunished violation of Belgian neutrality in 1914?
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but perverse
Review: I found some of Ferguson's arguments interesting but the whole thing was spoiled for me because I can't accept the underlying premise: that Britain would have been better off by avoiding war with Germany in 1914. Germany was hardly a more tolerant nation in 1914 than they came to be in 1939. I don't see how it could have been in Britain's interest to have stood by while Germany--an intolerant and illiberal society in 1914--conquered continental Europe. I also reject the idea that the British are somehow to blame for the rise of Nazis or Bolsheviks. Germans and Russians were responsible for the horrors that they committed this century and, while we may forgive them for their crimes, we should never forget that it was they who committed them. Thanks to the resolution of the western democracies--and, foremost, Britain, France, and the U.S.--the world is better than it would have been if 1914 Germany had come to triumph in Europe. Ferguson may know much more about the facts and figures of WWI than most of us, but his conclusions are perverse, to say the least.
Rating: 
Summary: "A refreshing variant on an otherwise sterile debate"
Review: I was not expecting to like this book. In fact, I very nearly avoided it altogether based on the overwhelmingly negative reviews by some of the leading scholars of strategic studies. In a fascinating exchange on Slate.com in June 1999, Eliot Cohen (my academic advisor, mentor and good friend) and Paul Fussell competed with one another over which one disliked Ferguson's history more, describing his work alternatively as "smarty," "pedantic," "inane," and "irritating." In the Summer 2001 issue of National Interest, Michael Howard, the doyen of war studies, was decidedly cool to the conclusions in The Pity of War, although not hostile to Ferguson' alternative approach, which he called "a refreshing variant on an otherwise sterile debate." In a separate 2001 interview Michael Howard claimed that the biggest breakthrough in the field of military history in his lifetime had been the "study of 'total history'; history studied in real depth and width." It seems to me this is precisely what Ferguson's work provides and why it should be recommended. This is a book on war filled with charts and graphs showing the movement of bond prices, not battle maps showing the movement of divisions. If this book were written by a lesser talent, it would have been an embarrassing failure. But Ferguson writes extremely well and (perhaps more importantly given the recondite subject matter) his chapters are neatly laid out and his main points are clearly elucidated. Clearly elucidated -- and outlandish. The book reads as if it were ghost-written by Alfred von Wegerer, the head of Germany's Center for the Study of the Causes of the War, a quasi-think tank offshoot of the War Guilt Section of the German Foreign Ministry in the 1920s and 30s whose sole mission was to spin the history of World War I in Germany's favor. First, he blames his native Britain for just about everything: diplomatic blundering that led to the start of the war; entry into the war that made it a global conflict; and a contribution to the war that made it stretch on for four long, miserable years. Second, he claims that a German victory would have just led to a benign, EU-like arrangment on the continent. Again, I say: It is the heterodox approach and perspective of this book that makes it well worth reading, not its iconoclastic message. In closing, if you are looking for one book to read on the First World War, this is not the one to get. If, however, you are familiar with the subject and are looking for a book that will challenge your assumptions and perhaps make you rethink your understanding the seminal conflict of the twentieth century, The Pity of the War may be well-worth your time.
Rating: 
Summary: A Few (Only A Few!) Trenchant Observations
Review: I went into this book with high expectations. Unfortunately, these expectations were not met. If this material is considered controversial and revolutionary I cannot understand why. Mr. Ferguson devotes hugh chunks of this book to attempting to prove things that are either obvious or not all that important or that will never be proven one way or another. He states Germany wasn't as militaristic as historians have usually made her out to be. He tries to prove this several ways. He gives statistics to show that on the eve of war the allies were much more prepared in terms of military hardware. But this wasn't for lack of trying on Germany's part! There was an arms race and Germany was not able to keep up. Mr. Ferguson also quotes German novelists and poets who were anti-war before the war. Would you expect artistic people to be pro-war? He quotes German politicians and military men and even the Kaiser to show that they had doubts about waging war. Unfortunately, the main reason they had their doubts was that they weren't sure that they could win! They weren't pacifists. Mr. Ferguson seems to think that most people thought the war was inevitable and he goes to a lot of trouble proving the war did not have to happen and that up until the last moment England was undecided about entering. I think very few people thought the war was inevitable. War is seldom inevitable and that is the true pity of war.... A large portion of the book is a rehash of other material showing what it was like to be a soldier at the front. Mr. Ferguson asks why did the soldiers fight on and on year after year and gives several answers: to seek revenge for their comrades who had been killed; because they had a "death wish"; because they enjoyed killing, etc. I'm sorry but I do not find any of this to be novel information. One of the few interesting sections of the book presents Mr. Ferguson's thesis that the reparations demanded from Germany were not outrageous and were not responsible for the hyperinflation that developed in Germany in the early 1920's. The author presents some solid information that Germany's own internal economic policy (intentional inflation to allow depreciation of the mark and hence cheap exports, too high social spending, etc) was responsible for the hyperinflation. The closing chapter of this book has caused all the brouhaha as this is where Mr. Ferguson states that if England stayed out of the war she would not have ruined her economy and become a second rate power;Germany would have won the war and created a unified Europe with herself at the center;Hitler would not have come to power and hence we would have had no WWII. This is all interesting and plausible and even logical. Why are people calling it controversial? Unfortunately, you have to get through over 400 pages of dubious and not so creative actual historical analysis before you get to some interesting counter-factual speculation!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent uncovering of painfull truths
Review: I'm glad this book came out. Unfortunately history is often too clouded in a shround of emotion and partisanship to gain a proper understanding of what really went on. Ferguson does us a favour by concentrating on the hard facts, mainly economic, to show what was really going on rather than wallowing in an emotional fit while pointing the finger at the usual suspects.
For example
Myth: Britain was antogonised into joining with France and Russia by German militarism and naval ambitions.
Fact: German pre-war, GDP spending on military was equivalent to Britains and even lower than France and Russias. Germany had lost the naval race 2 years before and in fact had only half the naval strength of Britain. Hardly good preparation for a pre-meditated war of conquest.
And he goes on, one by one to take apart some of the most commonly held myths of the "Great War". How as early as 1905, the British had been formulating plans for a surprise attack on Germany, some of which would have incidently violated Belgian neutrality. He also brings up intesreting idea about how the jingoism of the press contrasted sharply with the real world of trench warfare, and how the men, while hating their homefronts, grew used to bloodshed and killing, which became normafied for them.
In the final analyses, we all know that the governments of France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Russia and Britain are equally guilty of the conflict which caused over 10 million deaths and Europe to fall from being the centre of civilisation to being a back water.From that point of view there was only one winner, and the was the US, the only blameless combatant. Britains part in all this is usually always downplayed, however, it seems certain that British duplicity(thanks to Sir Edward Grey) in the June 1914 crisis had a lot to do in convincing the Germans and Austrians that the conflict would remain localised. Had Britain given a clear message as to her intentions war might have been averted. It seems in fact that every effort was made in order calm the fears of the central powers, which makes one wonder if Britain was really looking for peace in Europe. Or perhaps it was just plain incompetence. Anyway I think thats almost a subject for a sequel.
|
