The Marne 1914 The opening of World War I and the battle that changed the world

Review by Booklist Review

This fine history of World War I's opening battle argues persuasively that it was decisive in setting the pattern for the war, a pattern that made World War II inevitable. The narrative extends back to the war's opening days and includes frank assessments of performance (the Germans weren't nearly as good as they thought they were, the Belgians rather better than expected). Throughout, numerous myths in the historiography of the battle (such as the taxis of the Marne ) are politely analyzed and, where necessary, debunked. Herwig's research has been exhaustive, including of archives long since thought destroyed that help him fill in a great many details about the German side. Finally, Herwig constantly uses What if? to remind us that none of the outcomes of the campaigns or battles here were foreordained. As fine an addition to scholarly World War I literature as has been seen in some time.--Green, Roland Copyright 2009 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Herwig's engrossing narrative of the first battle of the Marne in 1914, really a history of the first six weeks of fighting on the western front, treats the clash as a study in best-laid plans gone awry. The chaos and miscalculation that derailed both the German and French armies' meticulously wrought strategies owed much, Herwig shows, to a new and ghastly style of warfare in which machine guns and heavy artillery rendered courage irrelevant. But his account is also an analysis of generalship, pitting the German commander, Helmuth von Moltke, a weak leader who lost his grip on his armies in the midst of dazzling successes, and French Gen. Joseph Joffre, who imperturbably slapped together new defenses amid disastrous defeats. Herwig combines colorful evocations of the horrors of the fighting with a lucid operational history of the campaign. An immense bloodbath that was supposed to be climactic but proved only a prelude to worse carnage, the Marne becomes, in Herwig's telling, an apt microcosm of the war to end all wars. 16 pages of b&w photos; maps. (Dec. 1) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

This is the story of the opening gambit in World War I told from the perspective of those who started it: the Central Powers. Herwig (history, Univ. of Calgary; The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914-1918) claims that the Battle of the Marne was the most decisive in Europe since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In numbers alone of troops engaged-over two million-this would be the case; that Germany failed there in its onslaught, thus determining the course of a long and brutal war, reinforces Herwig's claim for the Marne's crucial role. That there was no "German" army but different armies still identified by the state each came from, e.g., Bavaria, Saxony, etc., is something that has not always been properly discussed. Herwig offers many new insights and a perspective that makes his book a welcome addition to the literature of the Marne and of the Great War. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 8/09.] (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

An exhaustively documented account of the Battle of the Marne, the outcome of which would define the course of World War I. Leading up to this disastrous encounter, German officials believed that invading neutral Belgium would allow them to quickly surround the French army and attack Paris from the rear. The reality proved otherwise, as the Belgian army put up a strong fight, exhausting the German troops prior to reaching France. The Marne was a devastating loss for Germany and a galvanizing victory for France, as a French loss would have meant the fall of Paris and subsequent exit from the war. While Herwig (History/Univ. of Calgary; co-editor: War Memory and Popular Culture: Essays on Modes of Remembrance and Commemoration, 2009, etc.) acknowledges the larger implications of the Marne to European history after 1917, he attempts to debunk the commonly held perception that the Germans choked at a key moment and that the French rallied to a dramatic and decisive victory. With an incredibly detailed retelling of the battle, the author proves a more complex truth: The Germans were worn down by repeated failures of communication and a crisis of leadership as compared to the relatively cool-headed French effort headed by commander Joseph Joffre. Yet Joffre by no means ran a flawless campaign, and his failure to drive the Germans completely out of France at the end of the battle enabled them to regroup along what became the Western Front. Herwig's painstaking reconstruction of the events subverts any deeper analysis of the complex interplay between the multitude of German, French and Belgian forces. That information is relegated to the epilogue, leaving readers to wrestle with the facts and figures and their larger implications on their own. Like the war itself, a tough slog, but Herwig's long-overdue revision of the history of the Marne will interest WWI enthusiasts. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Chapter One War: "Now or Never" War is . . . an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.--carl von clausewitz Since i have been at the foreign office," arthur nicolson noted at Whitehall in May 1914, "I have not seen such calm waters."1 Europe had, in fact, refused to tear itself to pieces over troubles in faraway lands: Morocco in 1905-06 and in 1911; Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908-09; Libya in 1911-12; and the Balkans in 1912-13. The Anglo- German naval arms race had subsided, as had the fears about the Berlin- to-Baghdad Railway, since Berlin had run out of money for such gargantuan enterprises. Russia had overcome its war with Japan (1904-05), albeit at a heavy price in terms of men and ships lost and domestic discontent. Few desolate strips of African or Asian lands remained to be contested, and Berlin and London were preparing to negotiate a "settlement" of the Portuguese colonies. France and Germany had not been at war for forty-three years and Britain and Russia for fifty-eight. Partition of the Continent by 1907 into two nearly equal camps-the Triple Alliance of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy, and the Triple Entente of Britain, France, and Russia-seemed to militate against metropolitan Europe being dragged into petty wars on its periphery. Kurt Riezler, foreign-policy adviser to German chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, cagily argued that given this model of great-power balance, future wars "would no longer be fought but calculated."2 Guns would no longer fire, "but have a voice in the negotiations." In other words, no power would risk escalating minor conflicts into a continental war; instead, each would "bluff" the adversary up the escalatory ladder, stopping just short of war in favor of diplomatic settlement. Peace seemed assured. Domestically, for most well-off and law-abiding Europeans, the period prior to 1914 was a golden age of prosperity and decency. The "red specter" of Socialism had lost much of its threat. Real wages had shot up almost 50 percent between 1890 and 1913. Trade unions had largely won the right to collective bargaining, if not to striking, and their leaders sat in parliaments. Many workers had embraced social imperialism, believing that overseas trade and naval building translated into high-paying jobs at home. Germany had paved the path toward social welfare with state-sponsored health insurance, accident insurance, and old-age pensions. Others followed. Women were on the march for the vote. To be sure, there was trouble over Ireland, but then official London hardly viewed Ireland as a European matter. Paris, as usual, was the exception. The capital had been seething with political excitement since January 1914, when Gaston Calmette, editor of Le Figaro, had launched a public campaign to discredit Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux-ostensibly over a new taxation bill.3 When Calmette published several letters from Caillaux's personal correspondence, Henriette Caillaux became alarmed. First, that correspondence could make public her husband's pacifist stance vis-à- vis Germany during the Second Moroccan Crisis in 1911; second, she knew that it included love letters from her to Joseph that showed she had conducted an affair with him at a time when he was still married. The elegant Madame Caillaux took matters into her own hands: On 16 March she walked into Calmette's office, drew a revolver from her muff, and shot the editor four times at point-blank range. Her trial on charges of murder dominated Paris in the summer of 1914. Two shots fired by a Serbian youth at Sarajevo on 28 June paled in comparison. Gavrilo Princip's murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Habsburg throne, and his morganatic wife, Sophie Chotek, caused no immediate crisis in the major capitals. The dog days of summer were upon Europe. There ens Excerpted from The Marne 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World by Holger H. Herwig All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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