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The Guns of August
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The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman (2014 Reading Challenge)
I've just finished the first chapter of this. I forget who mentioned it seemed like a good book to start with, and I agreed, so I am. So far I'm enjoying it. Has anyone else started this?
Thanks BronwynIt's getting republished in the UK in July so I'll probably wait til then.
Great to hear it's started well. Please keep us informed as you work through it.
I'm starting it today or tomorrow. I'm excited to get to it; I have another book by Tuchman and she's a great writer!
And it was me that thought it was a great book to start with, but I got side tracked with Hemingway, the poems, and some library books. I'm not a good multi tasker!
Sorry! I totally blanked on who mentioned it. I've never read anything by her before. It's pretty easy to read.
For some reason I started it thinking it was a novel (no idea where I got that idea...) so I may start one of the novels too. I could use some fiction at the moment; I've been reading so much non-fiction lately.
I am three chapters in and completely loving this - she has an amazing turn of phrase and the first chapter with its evocative description of the funeral was a gripping opening. Looking forward to the rest of it!
^ I'm really getting excited about reading this one now. It sounds as though we have chosen wisely with this particular selection. There's a UK kindle edition available for £7 coming out in June 2014...
...I'll be getting once it's available.
This is a great book, and formed a perfect introduction to the WWI reading challenge. Tuchman has an excellent turn of phrase, and I frequently found myself reading bits out aloud to passing family members. I felt that containing the book to the first weeks of the war helped to keep the human scale in what is a gigantic and momentous historical episode. I will admit that I found the middle section of chapters on individual battles hard going. I struggled at times to remember which was the fifth army and what their original role and strategic importance was vs the sixth army, and to be honest most of the French generals morphed together in my mind. As a side note I also found it confusing that everyone appeared to be a General - how do you know who's in charge? Isn't the clarity of rank supposed to be a key element in armies? These minor quibbles aside (which say more about my comprehension than the book) this was an exceptional, clear book, with an outsiders unflinching view of how things went so wrong so quickly. I wondered if it wasn't due to Tuchman's position as a woman outside of the defence and defence studies universe that allowed her the freedom to write such an honest account of the foibles and failings of powerful men which led to such horrors?
In summary, I always think the marker of a truly great book is how many friends you earnestly press it upon, insisting they must, MUST read this. And on that score, this has been a blazing success!
Thanks Erin. That sounds like a great book. From what you say it sounds as though the marvellous three part BBC series 37 Days, that is currently showing every night in the UK would be the perfect companion piece. Part three is on tonight...
37 Days on iPlayer
The first, "One Month in Summer", is here...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/...
The British Foreign Office, led by foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey, receives news of an assassination in the Balkans.
In Berlin, the kaiser thinks he can exploit it for his own advantage.
Here's a review of part one from the Guardian newspaper...
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-rad...
There's no doubting where this is going to end up then, at the conclusion of part three on Saturday night. Which you might think would kill off any tension. But not at all, it gives enormous significance to everything going on.
Catch it whilst you can - it's another great addition to our challenge, and our understanding of the conflict.
I've just watched the third and final instalment of 37 Days.It's wonderful - based on what Erin says above, I think it would work brilliant as an accompaniment to this book.
37 Days is a perfect example of how a good dramatisation can really bring history vividly to life. Wonderful cast. Superb production values. Great script and, despite knowing how it was all going to end, genuinely tense and very poignant.
The dialogue and nuances did an excellent job of conveying both the prevalent political mood and the diplomatic subtleties.
Here's a couple of things I learned:
Archduke Ferdinand's visit to Sarajevo on 28 June was the Balkans equivalent of "an English king going in battle dress to Dublin on St Patrick's Day"
The ambassadors in London for Austria, Russia and Germany were all cousins (and you'll know that the royal families of Britain, Russia and Germany were all blood relations).
Superb - I can't recommend it highly enough. You really should watch it.
I wish I could watch those; they sound great. :)I'm going to be getting back to this today now that I've finished this month's non-fiction read and the last book in a friend's YA series. I'm looking forward to getting back to this. I even picked up a new copy since the one I had I was afraid to open due to worry it would fall apart!
I'm slowly making my way through this, reading a chapter here and there. Almost halfway done. It's really great and informative, but like Erin I am having trouble keeping the generals and different armies straight sometimes. Tuchman is doing a great job bringing personalities to all the different leaders during the war, humanizing them so they aren't just names I learned in school. And sometimes it adds some much appreciated humor as well.
Nigeyb, that series sounds so fantastic. Hopefully it'll be released in the US.
^ Thanks Amanda. That sounds really promising. I am looking forward to this.37 Days is distributed by BBC Worldwide so they might well show it, or release it, in the USA. Here's hoping. It's brilliant.
Yeah, all the generals and whatnot are pretty confusing. I'm still only in the 'Plans' chapters because I feel like I have no idea what's going on. I'm hoping it'll pick up after that. I really enjoyed the first chapter on the funeral, but not so much anymore... I will persevere though.
This is now being reissued in the UK in early June 2014, and I notice my library service have four copies on order. Not too long to wait until I can read it. Very excited about getting hold of this book.
I have started this and both the language and level of information seem about right. I don't think Barbara W. Tuchman is going to trivialise the subject or include a load of irrelevant, unimportant trivia.I do think it is slightly unfair of her to call Franz Ferdinand the 'agent of tragedy', surely more of the blame should rest on the assassin than the assassinated (and on elderly bereaved Dad for over-reacting). It is a minor point, and she may explain her reasons for saying it later.
She is a little unclear on the difference between Prussia and Germany, referring to Germany as a single country in 1839 and 1870. This is potentially important and confusing, they are not interchangeable, although many of the leadership of the later unified Germany were Prussian.
The explanations of the military strategy for each country is very well done, with enough clear information for anyone not a military historian to understand the conditions of the time. The author tries to show each general's way of thinking.
I gave this book four stars because I think it covers its subject well, but it was not what I was hoping for.The book is about the military strategies for each country, their development and aims and how they were implemented in the first month of the war. It covers the diplomatic and political brinkmanship in the weeks leading up to the war. It has almost nothing about the causes, the politics and history away from the military colleges, and what it does have is confusing.
^ Thanks Val. Disappointed to read there's nothing about the causes, the politics and history away from the military colleges, and what it does have is confusing. I was hoping in a book this long it would cover that as well.
I've got to say military strategies for each country sounds a bit on the dull side, but given your four star rating I assume it's more interesting than it might first appear?
Nigeyb wrote: "I've got to say military strategies for each country sounds a bit on the dull side, but given your four star rating I assume it's more interesting than it might first appear? "It is if you are interested in it Nigey. I thought it was explained well.
There is a lot of detail, which explains the length.
^ Hmmm.Of all the various aspects of WW1 that interest me, military strategy is pretty low down in the pecking order. Still it's all part of developing an overall understanding and Erin is very fulsome too, so I suspect I'll enjoy it when the time comes.
I haven't yet started my re-read of this. I read it a quarter century ago and thought it was fantastic. It caused me to read Tuchman's Proud Tower, Zimmermann Telegram, and Distant Mirror. I thought her writing was wonderful. I'll be interested in seeing if I still think so. Will report back here when I get to it.
^ Hurrah. Thanks Barbara. I look forward to it.
Finally finished this! The middle section was by far the hardest to get through, probably because it was not set up as narrative-like as the beginning and end.Overall I think it was well worth the read. Definitely gives a lot of insight into how a war is fought and how decisions are made by the higher ups. I know I could never live with all the pressure all these generals/commanders/etc were under. Every small decision had huge impacts on their armies.
For all my knowledge of WW1, the specific military maneuvers that open the war escaped me...until I finished this. I now feel so much better informed about the start of the war. Major insights include just how close to defeat the allies were in this opening month and contextualized how important the Miracle of the Marne was in shaping the course of history and world politics for the next, well century really.
Also surprised at how long the British waffled in coming into the war, I honestly didn't realize how long that took.
I would have liked to hear more about what the Ottoman empire was doing, but I suppose that will need to be found in another source.
^ Thanks Amy. That's an interesting and encouraging review. I am really looking forward to reading this book. Just waiting for new edition to turn up at my library. According to Amazon UK it will be released on 5 June 2014, so hopefully the library will have it soon after that date.
I finally finished this last week. It got to be a struggle I admit. I'm not really into military stuff, and really struggled keeping everything straight and figuring out how it all fit together. I could use at least one reread to understand it better, but that'll be another time at this point. (I think if I'd read the book it might've helped; it has maps, and just listening to the audiobook deprived me of that.)
I read this book a couple of weeks ago after avoiding it for years. It is indeed a lot of military strategy -- those who are looking for causes, run-ups, conditions should read the companion The Proud Tower or one of the bewildering number of memoirs and commentaries -- I re-read Graves's Goodbye to All That just recently for that, and would like also to re-read Blaise Cendrars's La Main coupée for a really excellent view from Paris at this time.The thing about the military strategy, I found, was that it wasn't just that. The rigid commitment to pre-made plans by all three armies, the contrasting behavior of the Belgians, the interplay between the politicians and the situation on the ground, the nail-biting outcome of the first offensive and the end of the war of movement -- none of this could be properly understood without the details of the fighting. To write at such length so interestingly about this is part of the achievement.
Tuchman spends less time on the Eastern front. I think Solzhenitsyn's August 1914 is a very good complement.
^ Thanks Charles. That's very encouraging. I will finally be reading this myself in the next few weeks. I'll report back.
Reading and loving this book now, but it's a chapter a day book for me, no faster. That's all I can absorb at a time.
I finally listened to it on MP3. I still have my paperback so I may review some of that but I was having trouble with the print and the binding.
This was my second reading of the book and it was every bit as good the second time around. I found the writing to be extremely interesting. Tuchman made the various military leaders come to life, with their pride, ambition, failings, strong points. Her descriptions of locales meant a lot to me. I have passed through most of that country on trains and could easily imagine the places. Even though I knew the outcome of the various battles, I found myself swept up in the writing, eagerly turning page after page to see how it would all turn out.Tuchman wrote a book (which I have not yet read) entitled The March of Folly, and that could certainly have been the title of this book. Over and over again she described failures due to human folly. Both the French and the Germans had their big plans for the conduct of the war--both largely ignoring what the other side might do. Often, the generals would refuse to listen to advice/evidence because it would require them change their plans. Adherence to a piece of paper was more important than flexibility. Vain ideas of glory, the grand offensive, elan often took the place of well-considered action. Often the armies would be in advance of their supply lines and had to battle on empty stomachs, while their horses also went unfed. They had weapons capable of firing many rounds per minute, but lacked ammunition. Several of the generals refused to cooperate with their allies or refused to follow the orders of their own superiors. Even the victories seemed to be caused more by luck than by good strategies. By the end of the book, when the "Miracle of the Marne" was described, I had to think that the eventual allied victory was itself a miracle. The Germans also sounded like their leadership was pretty inept.
All in all a fascinating account. It deserves its reputation as a classic.
^ What a wonderful review. Thanks Barbara. I have a copy now and really look forward to reading it.
I'm finally able to read The Guns of August. It's not what I was expecting but it's undeniably very accessible, pacy and well written.
I'm glad I've got a reasonable understanding of the political situation because that seems to be assumed, or at the very least not covered in any depth. I wonder how readers without this knowledge get on with the book.
To be quite honest, it's far more detailed than I need or want - I'd prefer a book of this length to be a more general book. Still, it's clearly a heck of an achievement and was a worthy winner of the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction back in 1962 when it was first published.
By the by, when I've finished this book I've finished our 2014 WW1 challenge. Hurrah.
Maybe it works better if we have read The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 first. I have it on my shelf so I need to get to it, I guess.
I loved The Proud Tower and think it does give a bit more background to the times. I've often thought of nominating it for a group read, but it covers 1890-1914, so starts a bit before our time period.
^ Yes, perhaps The Proud Tower would have made a more appropriate choice. There's no shortage of general histories though. The book that came second in the poll, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, might also have been a more apt choice in retrospect.I'm not sure how this book got nominated under the category "Causes and run-up to the war". It is a fascinating book,but about a different aspect of the conflict: the first month of the war and the military history of the main combatants.
I think overall that our selections for the WWI challenge were great. We did, however, make a couple of missteps. I agree that Sleepwalkers would probably have been a better choice. Guns of August should have gone into History, not causes. I think we might have done better choosing something other than Elsie and Mairi and the Great Silence--but how do we know until we read them? There were so many great nominations. Personally, I've set myself an 18 book challenge, because there are just too many great possibilities out there to limit myself to 12. I'll probably do my own challenge for the whole 4 years of the centenary. But well, I'm a nerd....
Barbara wrote: "I'll probably do my own challenge for the whole 4 years of the centenary. But well, I'm a nerd.... "You're my kind of nerd Barbara. A four year challenge? Now you're talking.
I agree that the choices were generally splendid, and - as you so wisely point out - the only way to really find out about a book is to read it.
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 is very difficult to get hold of in the UK, but as it is a collection of essays and magazine pieces, it might be possible to find some of the individual pieces, if someone who can get hold of a copy lets us know where they were published.
I was going to say that I didn't know how easy it is to get here but I found it used at Powell's and at Amazon and it is also on Kindle. I found mine at a used book sale.
Finished!I have little else to add to my comments above. I can understand how it was a best seller when it was first published in 1962, and how it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. That said, I found the level of detail too much and I realise a more general history of the causes and run-up to the war would have been more appropriate for my needs.
I've discovered a documentary based on this book on YouTube...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4zPg...
I've not watched it - has anyone else? I'll give it a go when I have some time.
While I really enjoyed this (though appreciate that the level of battle detail I like may be far too much for others) I agree that it is not really a book about the causes and run up to the war, and that a more general political/social view may have been more apt. On the other hand, the causes of many incidents and events during the war appeared to be the military history and personalities involved - it may have been a different war entirely but for some of these, which is what I found so illuminating.
Jan C wrote: "Maybe it works better if we have read The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 first. I have it on my shelf so I need to get to it, I guess."I tried, but it didn't hold my attention. In any case, the info in The Proud Tower may have taken place first, but Barbara Tuchman wrote it second. I suppose it was all the stuff she found out in research but couldn't include in The Guns of August .
I assume everyone in this thread knows that The Guns of August influenced JFK's peace-seeking policy in the Cuban Missile Crisis? See links at:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/article...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
I certainly didn't! Thank you for these articles. Once I've finished one of my other books I might start Guns of August next.
I've given up on this book, I must confess - a pity, since it means I will only read 11 books for the challenge rather than the full 12, but I was finding this impossible to take in and not at all what I was hoping for.Still, I've loved most of the other books we chose, and we can't all like everything!
Well done Judy. Personally, I would say if you sincerely try with a book and then abandon it you can include it as part of a challenge. I certainly agree with your comments, and I must confess I did not diligently read every single word. Like you, it was far too detailed for my level of interest.
Thanks, Nigeyb, that's kind of you. I'll admit I didn't get very far - I was having to read every page several times and it just seemed pointless to go on.
^ Yep, I know that feeling. At least you gave it a try. Perhaps something light now as a palate cleanser?
Bright Young Things
Books mentioned in this topic
A Distant Mirror (other topics)The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 (other topics)
The Guns of August (other topics)
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 (other topics)
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Barbara W. Tuchman (other topics)Barbara W. Tuchman (other topics)
2014 will mark 100 years since the start of the First World War. Here at BYT we plan to mark the war and its consequences by reading 12 books that should give anyone who reads them a better understanding of the First World War.
The First World War was a turning point in world history. It claimed the lives of over 16 million people across the globe and had a huge impact on those who experienced it. The war and its consequences shaped much of the twentieth century, and the impact of it can still be felt today.
The BYT 2014 Reading Challenge will be our way of helping to remember those who lived, fought and served during the years 1914-18.
There's a thread for each of the 12 books.
Welcome to the thread for...
The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
(Category: Causes and run-up to the war)
You can read the books in any order. Whilst you're reading them, or after you've finished, come and share your thoughts and feelings, ask questions, and generally get involved. The more we all participate, the richer and more fulfilling the discussions will be for us all. Here's to a stimulating, informative, and enjoyable BYT 2014 Reading Challenge.