Product Details

Publishers Weekly

In recounting the events of WWI with skill and clarity, Neiberg does not break new ground for serious students of the conflict but achieves a fine balance of narrative and analyses-no easy feat in a one-volume study. And Neiberg also goes considerably further afield than do many one-volume accounts. A larger-than-usual share of responsibility is laid on the Germans, particularly for their diplomacy before the war and in its opening stages. Neiberg's analyses of military incompetence do not bog down (along with the armies) on the Western Front-the Italian campaign is noted, where the Italian army distinguished itself in spite of being nearly extinguished. Even in the battle narratives, one finds choice revelations, such as how the French African troops' khaki uniforms (which were designed for warfare in dusty Africa) helped the French to abandon their conspicuous prewar garb. The illustrations (89 duotones and 10 maps) are particularly well chosen. Compare this book with Hew Strachan's The First World War; it ranks above entries by Martin Gilbert and John Keegan in readability and value for a wider audience. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Neiberg (history, U.S. Air Force Acad.; Warfare and Society in Europe: 1898 to the Present) melds an analysis of the strategic issues facing belligerents during World War I with an understanding of the tactical challenges of conducting war in a modern industrial world. He thus abandons the standard narrative about unfeeling "brass hats," a euphemism for idiotic staff officers, to show the learning curve that officers faced in order to win on the battlefield. While not denying that some officers were inept, Neiberg provides a clear assessment of who was truly incompetent (e.g., Italy's Cardona), who was slow to engage the learning curve (e.g., Britain's Sir Douglas Haig), and who learned how to fight a modern war (e.g., Australia's Gen. John Monash). By including appraisals of the other fronts Neiberg also shows why the western front was the crucible of victory and defeat. Although occasionally repetitive and light on diplomacy and politics, this book reflects the remarkable development of the historiography of World War I that has occurred over the past decade. Recommended for all libraries.-Frederic Krome, Jacob Rader Marcus Ctr. of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A searching study of the war to end all wars. World War I was inevitable, given the complex rivalries that existed among England, France, Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the other players in the struggle. But, writes Neiberg (History/US Air Force Academy), it was not inevitable just because an unfortunate Austro-Hungarian nobleman was assassinated: "The archduke's political views were unpopular in the Viennese court, and the royals of Europe had often snubbed Franz Ferdinand because he had married a woman of inferior social status." It took months after the assassination for the Allied and Central Powers to decide that the time was right for bloodletting. Many another poor assumption and bad decision followed. The Germans discounted the British army, even though it was probably the best-trained and most effective in Europe at the time; the German army, further, settled on a policy of Schrecklichkeit, or "frightfulness," in Belgium, "a policy that had been approved by leaders of both the army and the government" but that succeeded largely in uniting the Allied citizenry against the savage Hun; the Russians relied on cavalry against machine guns, the French on forts against heavy artillery, the British on incompetent leaders, and so on, all at terrible cost. The rate of butchery was established early on, as Neiberg shows: in the first few weeks of the war, the French army lost 200,000 men and a full tenth of its officer corps "in an attempt to recover Alsace and Lorraine, only to discover that the real threat lay elsewhere." And things were no better on the fringes of the war, in places like Bulgaria and Cameroon, where the fighting looked only a little more modern than the wars ofthe 18th century. Even the peace was confused, with "Bolshevism, authoritarianism, the beginnings of fascism, and fragile democracies" in the place of the old empires and dynasties. A very worthy addition to the historical literature, complementing Hew Strachan's The First World War (2004), Robert Massie's Castles of Steel (2003), and other recent studies of the war.

What People Are Saying

This superbly well organized book provides a highly readable and reliable general history of a war that continues to command our attention.

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents