We are about to be inundated with books and programmes to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War. There is a danger that these commemorations will paint a picture of a heroic struggle, but the fact is it was far from heroic and we need to be careful we do not glorify the slaughter.
In his study of the causes of the Great War, AJP Taylor concluded that it was just as likely to be that the driver took a wrong turning, driving his carriage and Archduke Ferdinand straight into the path of a would-be assassin. An assassination attempt had already been made earlier that day, but the archduke had escaped and later travelled to the hospital to sympathise with the wounded. But his driver took a wrong turn to bring him face to face with the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip and a political assassination that shaped the world for the next 50 years.
It’s an entertaining suggestion that had the driver had a decent map, then millions would not have died; but it is fanciful, to say the least. What was really at the root of Europe’s problems was a series of outmoded treaties that tied nations to support their treaty partner in the event of invasion or hostility.
The treaties belonged to another era but remained intact on that fateful day in June 1914 when Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were murdered on the street of Sarajevo. Within months, Europe was descending into a disastrous spiral that would engulf the world in a horrific conflict.
There is already a wealth of books on the First World War. Indeed, there are probably more books on this war than any other. The crucial question is whether this one adds anything to the sum of knowledge already on the library shelves. Arguably, it does.
The outcome of the conflict, as Alan Mallison carefully documents, was sown in the first month of fighting. The strategy was ill-conceived from the start. It was catastrophic, if not bizarre, that Britain should have even considered going to war following the assassination of an archduke of whom few had heard, in a place nobody knew anything about, over a treaty that was “old, obscure and imprecise”.
The military thought the war would be over by Christmas and foolishly ordered the British Expeditionary Force into battle alongside the
French without carefully considering all the options.
Only Winston Churchill had any misgivings, later noting that “the war was decided in the first 20 days of fighting”. Intelligence was imprecise, politicians ignorant and the generals confused and squabbling.
The decision was based on two assumptions. First, that British forces would mobilise simultaneously with the French and, second, that the German army did not have sufficient strength to make any major incursion across Belgium. Both assumptions were wrong. The BEF fought battles at Mons and Le Cateau which were entirely avoidable, but which left it severely depleted, demoralised and in retreat. The shape of the war was set.
Four years later, more than nine million had died and the map of Europe had been redrawn, leaving it vulnerable to further conflict.
The tragedy is that the Tommies were “lions being led by donkeys”. And that’s what we must not forget.