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The Ends of Greatness: Haig, Petain, Rathenau, and Eden: Victims of History
Offers profiles of four political and military leaders who became victims of the Great War and its aftermath
243 pages, Hardcover
First published May 26, 1990
About the author
Gene Smith
38 books10 followersEugene Owen Smith was born in Manhattan on May 9, 1929, to Sara and Julius Smith. His father was a lawyer. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in history, he attended law school (at his father’s insistence) for six months.
After dropping out, he was drafted into the Army and served in Germany in the early 1950s. Returning to New York, Mr. Smith got a job as a clerk at Newsweek and by 1956 was a reporter at The Newark Star-Ledger
.
He joined The New York Post a year later and left in 1960 to write his first book, “The Life and Death of Serge Rubinstein” (1962), about the still-unsolved 1955 murder of an unscrupulous Wall Street millionaire.
Among Mr. Smith’s other books are “When the Cheering Stopped: The Last Years of Woodrow Wilson,” (1964); “High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson” (1977); “Lee and Grant: A Dual Biography” (1984); and “Until the Last Trumpet Sounds: The Life of General of the Armies John J. Pershing” (1998), a study of the commander of the American Expeditionary Force of World War I.
Shortly before his death, Mr. Smith wrote a brief obituary of himself, in third-person singular. It says, “He used to muse that if there was an afterlife — granted a long shot, he said — he’d love it for the opportunities offered to interview people he studied in life.”
Mr. Smith died from bone cancer; he was eighty-three at the time of his death.
After dropping out, he was drafted into the Army and served in Germany in the early 1950s. Returning to New York, Mr. Smith got a job as a clerk at Newsweek and by 1956 was a reporter at The Newark Star-Ledger
.
He joined The New York Post a year later and left in 1960 to write his first book, “The Life and Death of Serge Rubinstein” (1962), about the still-unsolved 1955 murder of an unscrupulous Wall Street millionaire.
Among Mr. Smith’s other books are “When the Cheering Stopped: The Last Years of Woodrow Wilson,” (1964); “High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson” (1977); “Lee and Grant: A Dual Biography” (1984); and “Until the Last Trumpet Sounds: The Life of General of the Armies John J. Pershing” (1998), a study of the commander of the American Expeditionary Force of World War I.
Shortly before his death, Mr. Smith wrote a brief obituary of himself, in third-person singular. It says, “He used to muse that if there was an afterlife — granted a long shot, he said — he’d love it for the opportunities offered to interview people he studied in life.”
Mr. Smith died from bone cancer; he was eighty-three at the time of his death.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 6, 2016
Please note the ambiguous title of this excellent account of four leaders during the Great War: The Ends of Greatness. These individuals were great, but each in his own way crashed. Their greatness came to some sort of end.
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When I read Page viii of Smith's preface, I was inclined to quit, return the book to the library system. In his preface, he describes the disillusionment of Europeans at the end of the war: the world got worse, drabness overcame culture, and some folk went wild. I'm glad I continued reading, as I got to learn much more about that era a hundred years ago, and I got to respect four individual leaders who had calamitous final years.
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The author calls them Victims of History: Philippe Petain (1856-1951), Douglas Haig (1861-1928), Walther Rathenau (1867-assassinated 1922), and Anthony Eden (born two months before my Dad in 1897, died later than he in 1977). Gene Smith's writing skills are most helpful. He gets us to know the background of the person and his early years, ending a chapter with a pithy observance. The next chapter, of a different person but almost at the same time, offers more illumination.
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As I did not study this era until the centennial of June 28, 1914, I learned much, and there were at least a few surprises. That Walter Rathenau was honored by throngs of Germans upon his tragic death was unexpected. I feared that the slanders and abuse would hold. Apparently, Douglas Haig did nothing to rebut his foul repute as a man who cared not a whit for the ranks. I was gladdened to learn that La Marseillaise could be sung by crowds during the Occupation. As for Anthony Eden, I was so fixated on Budapest in late 1956 that I hardly noticed the Suez crisis. So the book taught me a lot. And it is well written, a book hard to put down.
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When I read Page viii of Smith's preface, I was inclined to quit, return the book to the library system. In his preface, he describes the disillusionment of Europeans at the end of the war: the world got worse, drabness overcame culture, and some folk went wild. I'm glad I continued reading, as I got to learn much more about that era a hundred years ago, and I got to respect four individual leaders who had calamitous final years.
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The author calls them Victims of History: Philippe Petain (1856-1951), Douglas Haig (1861-1928), Walther Rathenau (1867-assassinated 1922), and Anthony Eden (born two months before my Dad in 1897, died later than he in 1977). Gene Smith's writing skills are most helpful. He gets us to know the background of the person and his early years, ending a chapter with a pithy observance. The next chapter, of a different person but almost at the same time, offers more illumination.
---
As I did not study this era until the centennial of June 28, 1914, I learned much, and there were at least a few surprises. That Walter Rathenau was honored by throngs of Germans upon his tragic death was unexpected. I feared that the slanders and abuse would hold. Apparently, Douglas Haig did nothing to rebut his foul repute as a man who cared not a whit for the ranks. I was gladdened to learn that La Marseillaise could be sung by crowds during the Occupation. As for Anthony Eden, I was so fixated on Budapest in late 1956 that I hardly noticed the Suez crisis. So the book taught me a lot. And it is well written, a book hard to put down.
January 16, 2020
This was an interesting book. It was about 30 years old when I read it. It's a little dry, but the material is well worth the read. It chronicles how 4 very talented and heroic men were caught doing what they believed was right by changing times that turned circumstances against them. The author did a very fair job of showing the different viewpoints of others and how tragic their stories are. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews