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John KeeganThe First World War
Nonfiction | Reference/Text Book | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Crisis of 1914”
Chapter 3, “The Crisis of 1914,” recounts the events that ultimately led to the outbreak of war. Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, traveled to Bosnia to attend military maneuvers. Ferdinand ignored warnings that his presence would anger Serbian nationalists seeking to free their ethnic brethren from Austrian rule, and when his driver took a wrong turn, they were ambushed by a young Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip, who shot and killed the archduke and his wife. Princip and his comrades had operated across the Serbian border, feeding suspicions the Serbian government was complicit in the plot. The Austro-Hungarian empire was profoundly concerned with unrest in its Slav provinces, and Serbia had long sought to promote that unrest for its own benefit. Austrian diplomats informed their ally Germany that Vienna would issue an ultimatum to Serbia with the threat of force, and they wanted German support. Had Austria acted alone, it may not have precipitated a continental war, but Austria feared acting alone would leave it vulnerable to Russian pressure. By bringing in Germany against Russia, France was then compelled to act against Germany.
The Austrian emperor and Hungarian prime minister were reluctant to go to war, as even success could further destabilize their fragile multinational empire. The kaiser offered support for Austria and then went on a three-week cruise in the North Sea. Austria waited several days before deciding to issue an ultimatum to Serbia, a list of demands that would result in war if they were not fulfilled. Even after making this decision, they waited further to deliver the note, since the French president was visiting Russia at that time and the Austrians feared a move against Serbia during that time would drive the French and Russians closer together. The ultimatum to Serbia demanded the government condemn any attempt to separate territory from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and that imperial officers be allowed into Serbia to help with the investigation of the assassination. The Serbian government did not receive the note until July 24, nearly four weeks after the assassination.
At that moment, Serbia happened to be lacking diplomatic personnel from several key European powers, and they struggled over the decision of how to respond to the Austrians. Initially leaning toward capitulation, the Serbs grew bolder after learning the tsar would support them. Serbia mobilized, and Russia began to call up reservists. There were some diplomats who understood the gravity of the problem, but the governments struggled to coordinate information in a timely fashion, and they tended to fill the gaps in their knowledge with worst-case scenarios. Several governments offered various formats for mediation, but these plans reflected competing national interests as much as any desire to keep the peace, and Austria declared war on Serbia on July 28. Having delayed so long already, it had to mobilize its forces against Serbia or else it would be vulnerable to Russia, which appeared ready to mobilize at any moment.
Russia in turn saw mobilization as necessary to deter an Austrian attack on Serbia while acknowledging that doing so would pit them against both Austria and Germany. To mitigate the Austrian danger while still signaling a commitment to Serbia, the tsar ordered a partial mobilization on July 29. Germany viewed this move as no less dangerous than a full mobilization, especially with the bulk of Austrian forces concentrated against Serbia. Moltke demanded Austria fully mobilize to counter Russia, promising a German mobilization in support. Russia already reversed its decision and proceeded with general mobilization on July 31. Germany demanded that Russia reverse the move, and, anticipating war between Germany and Russia, France commenced with its mobilization on August 2, one hour before Germany declared its own mobilization. The following day, Germany demanded access to Belgium and declared war on France. Britain sent its own ultimatum to Germany and, upon its expiration on August 4, declared war.
Chapter 4 Summary: “The Battle of the Frontier and the Marne”
Chapter 4, “The Battle of the Frontier and the Marne,” contrasts the dread of European statesmen upon the outbreak of war with the enthusiasm of publics across the continent. Young men reported for duty and climbed aboard trains as crowds cheered them on. French and Austrian soldiers donned uniforms evocative of the Napoleonic era, while the British deployed in modern khaki, and the Germans mixed the new and the old with field-grey uniforms and their distinctive spiked helmets. Infantrymen carried a minimum of 60 pounds worth of gear, with an expected march of 20 miles per day. Every division had 5,000 horses requiring feed, shoes, and proper rest. The Germans faced the most daunting march, beginning with the impressive Belgian forts at Liège and Namur, which would require heavy artillery of which the Germans had only a limited supply. Taking these forts was absolutely necessary to secure passage across the Meuse River, and they assumed the Belgians would either surrender or offer meager resistance. Instead, the Belgians fought fiercely, their neutrality having engendered a spirit of martial self-reliance and dedication to preserving themselves against their larger neighbors.
They aimed to limit fighting to the smallest possible corridor of Belgian territory, which would prove difficult given the expansiveness of German war aims. When the Germans attacked Liège to find the bridges blown and Belgian cavalry fighting back, they lashed out against local civilians based on the belief they were serving as illegal partisans. Atrocities against Belgians shocked the conscience of the world, “particularly in the United States, where the reputations of the Kaiser and his government were blackened” (82). Matters grew even worse with the destruction of nearly a quarter million volumes at Louvain University, contributing to a narrative of Germans as barbarians waging war against civilization itself. With the Schlieffen Plan’s timetable in peril, the Germans pressed on and suffered heavy losses, but the tide began to turn when bold actions by General Erich Ludendorff pressed close enough to Belgian general Gérard Leman that the latter shifted his forces westward, admitting the Germans into the circle of fortifications. Ludendorff built on his successes with a daring thrust to the very gates of Liège, where he dramatically pounded his sword pommel and demanded the city’s surrender. The heavier artillery then arrived to pound at the other remaining forts until they surrendered.
Around that same time, the French sent five armies into Alsace-Lorraine to carry out Plan XVII. The plan was a good one on paper but hit initial snags that Joffre responded to with relentless turnover among his senior officers. The French and German armies prepared to confront one another in formations and on territory strongly resembling the 1870 war. The French commenced their offensive, convinced the Germans could not hold territory they had annexed only decades before, but the Germans lured the French in while wearing them down with artillery before delivering a counteroffensive. The French right flank withstood ferocious German attacks, consisting of forces drawn away from the Schlieffen Plan, while further north French armies met with disaster in attempting an offensive on the harsh territory of the Ardennes Forest and ultimately retreated behind the Meuse River. German forces were able to cross the nearby Sambre river because the French general Lanrezac miscounted the number of bridges they needed to defend. Ludendorff was again at the tip of the spear, and Lanrezac responded with a counterattack that gave up his high ground, and they were mauled by German machine-gun fire. On Lanrezac’s left flank, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) prepared to meet the brunt of the German attack, Schlieffen’s famous right flank. The only major power with an all-regular army, the British army was professional and highly experienced. They immediately dug trenches and directed punishing fire on the Germans with their higher rate of fire, but they were nonetheless ordered to retreat that evening in order to prevent Germany exploiting the gap between the British and French armies. The Germans were pressing ahead fast, while French and British forces conducted a fighting retreat and squabbled with one another, but there was an unavoidable problem in the German plan. They could circle around Paris, pulling the right flank far from the left and leaving it exposed or turn south to put Paris behind them and place themselves right in front of a French counteroffensive.
Indecision ran through the German army, with Chief of Staff von Moltke infamously deciding to pull two corps from the campaign and sending them eastward to face the Russians, along with another corps sent to pen in remaining Belgian forces. Moltke also ordered the First Army west of Paris, but its commander, Alexander von Kluck, instead moved southeast to cut the French armies off from Paris. As men marched past the point of exhaustion, the French worked furiously to field a reserve army based in Paris and link it with the BEF.
On the 35th day of war, long regarded within the Schlieffen Plan as the moment of decision, the German right flank was in fact outnumbered, and Joffre moved to encircle it. This proved difficult amidst the network of tributaries around the Marne River, and French attacks were sporadic enough to give the Germans time to arrange proper defenses. The Germans now operated on a tactical defensive, at the moment when they were supposed to be delivering the decisive blow. Furthermore, the gap was widening between the two main German armies, and the BEF rushed to fill the gap. With German forces divided, the French army pressed forward, but the marshy landscape slowed them down and left them vulnerable to a German repulse.
While the French were able to plug the gaps in their line, the situation on the ground seemed to hold out the potential for a decisive German victory. Suddenly, a call came from headquarters to call off the entire offensive, ending the Schlieffen Plan in failure. A junior staff officer named Richard Hentsch was dispatched by von Moltke to investigate and found the German armies were too overstretched and distant from one another to run the risk of an offensive. German forces accordingly withdrew back to the far banks of the Aisne River, and von Moltke was fired and replaced by Erich von Falkenhayn. British and French forces arrived to find the Germans deeply entrenched across the Aisne. Both sides raced to find a gap between and the Atlantic Ocean through which they could turn the other’s flank while the Germans pounded Antwerp into surrender. The two sides eventually collided near the old city of Ypres in Belgium, with the remains of the Belgian army taking position on the Yser River alongside a newly reinforced BEF.
The Belgian King ordered the area flooded, making it impassable, while the Germans summoned up reserves and volunteers, including a young Adolf Hitler. Both sides launched offensives in different areas of the theater, the British advantage in rifle-use compensating for their disadvantage in heavy artillery. Hopes for one last German breakthrough ended with the death of more than 25,000 student volunteers, going down in German history as the Kindermord (slaughter of the innocents). Still, Falkenhayn pressed the offensive as British forces rushed to plug any gaps that opened, until both sides settled into lines that would remain largely unchanged for most of the war. This marked the end of the first phase on the Western Front, and France endured a staggering toll of over 300,000 lives. Germany lost nearly a quarter million, while British losses were around 30,000. Hopes of an offensive gave way to the reality of opposing trenches.
Chapters 3-4 Analysis
The July Crisis of 1914 is one of the most hotly debated events in world history. The killing of two people ultimately led to the slaughter of millions, and the month in between is a rich text for seeing why things turned out the way they did and how they could have been different. Why, for example, did Germany offer seemingly unconditional support to their Austrian allies, which not only emboldened them but also by their intervention helped to turn a regional squabble into a continental crisis? How complicit was Serbia in the murder of the archduke and his wife, and were there any circumstances where they could accept Austria’s demand to conduct investigations on their own territory? Why did the tsar ultimately call for a general mobilization, when the recent loss to Japan should have counseled restraint? Other crises, such as the 1905-1906 Moroccan Crisis between Germany and France, were resolved by an international conference. The amount of time that passed without action from the Austrians should have created room for cooler heads to prevail. The chapters also hint at The Predominance of Military Over Political Judgment, as in these countries, the militaries, which often held significant influence over their respective governments, undermined diplomatic efforts and often displayed a more hawkish outlook, thus hindering peaceful resolution of these issues.
Otto von Bismarck, the great chancellor and architect of German imperial unity, famously declared that the Balkans were not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. In Keegan’s view, primary responsibility appears to lay with Austria-Hungary, in the sense not that they were villainous or wanted a wider war but that their position dragged them into a situation over which they would soon lose control. The assassination of the Crown Prince was a direct attack upon their status as a Great Power, especially with the emperor at the end of his life with no son. They needed to act, and as Keegan points out, “it was Austria’s unwillingness to act unilaterally that transformed a local into a general European crisis” (52). To mobilize, even against a relatively small state like Serbia, was an irreversible act that would commit a substantial portion of forces in a fixed direction, and to mobilize first was thus to render one’s self vulnerable to whoever mobilized second, who would then in turn be vulnerable to whomever mobilized third. German support was thus a necessary precondition against the possibility of Russian mobilization, which then required the support of France in light of Germany’s response. Keegan shows how there were some exit ramps up until the very end, and so the war was certainly not completely inevitable, but it is difficult to see in his description the likelihood of a different outcome. This again speaks to The Composition of Armies, as these armies were designed to mobilize quickly, allowing them to preempt an attack from another country. The scale and quickness of these forces, however, created problems, sparking a domino effect in which each country began to mobilize in anticipation of other countries doing the same.
If the July Crisis is at least suggestive of possibility, the early battles unfold with a grim determinism. The flaws of the Schlieffen Plan, which its authors recognized and then ignored, came true, as Germany could not attempt an encirclement of the French army without separating its armies and subjecting them to counterattack in detail. The French attacks, which the Germans had considered too bad of an idea to even plan for, had predictably ruinous consequences, becoming the first of many instances where the French army would suffer terrible losses for little or no apparent gain. The British Expeditionary Force showed the superiority of experienced regulars to conscripts, but the scale of the fighting was too grand to sustain, and soon they would rely on the services of volunteers who joined with the promise of serving with their local friends. This would prove ruinous to many villages and neighborhoods who lost a substantial portion of their young men based on their place in the line. A new reality set in that would remain largely unchanged until the end of the war, the main difference being the number of corpses and unexploded shells, and a landscape that would be gradually pummeled into craters and ringed with barbed wire. These details highlight the pervasive incompetence among the military brass, as leaders failed to plan appropriately for what would ultimately occur.
