First Sentences:
The city had never seen such a a parade.
Nearly 50,000 brilliantly uniformed troops converged on St. Paul's Cathedral in two great columns. One was led by the country's most beloved military hero, the mild-mannered Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar, a mere five feet two inches in height, astride a while Arabian horse like those he had ridden during more than 40 years of routing assorted Afghans, Indians, and Burmese who had the temerity to rebel against British rule. Mounted at the head of the other column, at six feet eight inches, was the tallest man in the army. Captain Oswald Ames of the Life Guards, wearing his regiment's traditional breastplate, which, with the sunlight glinting off it, seemed as if it might deflect an enemy's lance by its dazzling gleam alone.
Description:
A friend whose opinions about books I respect, recommended this World War I historical account as the best book she had read in 2012, so I jumped on it. Turns out she was spot on. To End All Wars by Adam Hochschild is a sprawling account of the Great War, recounted primarily from people and resources from Great Britain.
Using diaries, newspaper accounts, military reports, love letters, speeches, and other primary sources, To End All Wars focuses on the deeply-rooted causes that led up to the global war and which then continued to stoke the war engine with money and millions of lives. Hochschild focuses on the individuals and their culture as the true culprits - the greed, colonialism, nationalism, pride, and over-confidence of men (and women) seeking to obtain or hold onto power.
Readers are first introduced to the fully colonized world of the early 1900's. Imperialistic nations like Great Britain, Germany, and France had to seek new means to demonstrate their might and expand their empires. To this end, for example, British armies battled the South African Boers simply to take the diamond-rich land for themselves. Hochschild shares a report from Morning Post correspondent Winston Churchill who watched British troops armed with the new Maxim machine gun mow down tens of thousands of Sudanese troops in one battle. In a few years this weapon would be used against English and French troops to deadly effect.
Using diaries, newspaper accounts, military reports, love letters, speeches, and other primary sources, To End All Wars focuses on the deeply-rooted causes that led up to the global war and which then continued to stoke the war engine with money and millions of lives. Hochschild focuses on the individuals and their culture as the true culprits - the greed, colonialism, nationalism, pride, and over-confidence of men (and women) seeking to obtain or hold onto power.
Readers are first introduced to the fully colonized world of the early 1900's. Imperialistic nations like Great Britain, Germany, and France had to seek new means to demonstrate their might and expand their empires. To this end, for example, British armies battled the South African Boers simply to take the diamond-rich land for themselves. Hochschild shares a report from Morning Post correspondent Winston Churchill who watched British troops armed with the new Maxim machine gun mow down tens of thousands of Sudanese troops in one battle. In a few years this weapon would be used against English and French troops to deadly effect.
Hochschild carries readers step by step through key events throughout the world which lead to the major international conflict. At that time, Great Britain, Russia, and Germany were facing serious internal conflicts
at home as their citizens demanded better pay
and working conditions, and even votes for women. Once war was declared, however, almost immediately these individual issues were dropped and the people and rulers united behind their country's war effort.
The book details Britain dreams of revisiting its greatest conquests of the past, using military strategies and weapons that had proved successful in previous wars. But Hochschild points out these British leaders failed to grasp that the days of glorious cavalry charges were over. Repeatedly, the book documents battles where German troops, firmly settled in catacombs of underground trenches behind miles of barbed wire, repulsed the thousands of French and British troops charging on foot or horseback and brandishing lances. Records show that British military leaders considered the German use of trench warfare, barbed wire, machine guns, and mustard gas unsportsmanlike, eliminating the bravery of hand-to-hand combat.
Major people and international historical events are woven throughout the book, including the rise of Socialism, the suffrage movement, and the overthrow of the Russian monarchy. Influential men such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, and Winston Churchill, all play roles in the war, as do the royal houses of England, France, Germany, and Russia, many who at that time were related by marriage. The book also offers romantic escapades between military leaders, nobility, and commoners to
counter-balance the fighting and death from battle
scenes.
Hochschild is a master researcher and storyteller, someone able to present a clear picture of major characters and national forces to depict one of the bloodiest and often most idiotically-conducted wars of human history. This book is so well-written, so thorough in its research, so involving in its portrayal of the people that this historical account simply soars.
This is a challenging and heart-breaking book in its depiction of bloodshed and needless loss of life driven forward by proud military and national leaders. But it is also a riveting piece of thorough research which documents the story of mankind in this era and the forces that lead the world into conflict.
Happy reading.
This is a challenging and heart-breaking book in its depiction of bloodshed and needless loss of life driven forward by proud military and national leaders. But it is also a riveting piece of thorough research which documents the story of mankind in this era and the forces that lead the world into conflict.
Happy reading.
Fred
Hillenbrand, Laura. Unbroken
Absolutely first rate biography of an Olympic runner who is shot down during World War II, survives an arduous voyage in a life raft, only to be picked up by the Japanese and thrown into a POW camp with all its horrors. Extremely well-written and gripping for its details of this hero and what he endured, it is a story of triumph on many levels.
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