Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War

by Steven E. Miller (Editor), Sean M. Lynn-Jones (Editor), Stephen Van Evera (Editor)

This revised and expanded edition includes nine essays from the journal 'International Security' that analyze the outbreak of the First World War. They consider how offensive military strategies helped to trigger the Great War, whether the war was inadvertent or not, and the lasting effects of the conflict.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Steven E. Miller is director of the International Security Program at the Belfer Center.

Reviews

[Katypies]

Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War by Steven E. Miller (1991)

[Alan Carlson]

There are nine essays in this anthology. The first four are from the first edition, and do in fact address the question of whether military strategy - specifically the "Cult of the Offensive" affected the outbreak of the First World War. Generally, the essays conclude that yes, it did, by overweighting the value of getting in the first blow. The remaining five essays are rebuttals submitted after the first essays ran in 1984, and pretty much miss the point, answering questions that weren't raised but which the authors feel are important.

The first four essays, especially Men Against Fire: Expectations of War in 1914, are useful. The others: not so much.

[Vicki NewMath]

A bit of a dry read, more of several scholarly journals and theses on World War I. But now I know more about WWI than I did before.

[Anusar]

Absolutely the best anthology on the origins of the Great War.