The WW1 Book/Article/Online Resources Thread

[Landlubber]

Let's use this thread for book, article, and online resource recommendations.

I'll kick it off:

If you're looking for a good one-volume book on the general history of the war, I recommend G. J. Meyer's A World Undone.  It's well written, somewhat humorous at times, and provides good background information on some of the war's causes and personalities.

Ok, at Ruckdog's request, we'll keep the book list up here in the first post.  Titles are arranged alphabetically by author's last name; click the book title to see the book on Amazon.  Feel free to continue discussing below.    Recommend that we limit discussions to books we have read, are reading, or want to read, in order to keep this thing manageable.

Coffman, Edward M.  The War to End All Wars

Ecksteins, Modris.  The Rites of Spring. 

Ellis, John.  Eye Deep in Hell.

Herwig, Holger. The Marne, 1914.

Howarth, David Armine.  The Dreadnoughts.

Massie, Robert K.  Dreadnought.

Massie, Robert K.  Castles of Steel.

Meyer, G. J.  A World Undone

McMeekin, Sean.  The Russian Origins of the First World War

McMeekin, Sean. The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power

Paice, Edward. World War I, The African Front: An Imperial War on the African Continent

Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August

Van der Vat, Dan. The Dardanelles Disaster: Winston Churchill's Greatest Failure

[MajorMcNicol]

My favorite monograph of the pre- and post-war and the war itself is Modris Eksteins's The Rites of Spring.  I highly recommend it!

As was mentioned in another post, Robert K. Massie's Dreadnought and Castles of Steel are both WWI focused, the former focused more on politics and diplomacy before the war, the latter showing a naval bent.  I'm only about halfway through the giant Dreadnought, but it was enough to order Castles of Steel and keep it on my list.

My undergraduate history thesis was titled, "The Creation of the Image of the Scottish Highlander and the Army of the British Empire (1745-1918)," and ended up pulling a lot of WWI sources together.  It used to be published online in an undergraduate historical journal, but I can no longer find it online.  SO if anyone is interested in the thesis or the sources I used, I am happy to e-mail a copy! 

[Ruckdog]

One of my favorites is Eye Deep in Hell by John Ellis. I read it for one of my academy history classes, and it has stuck with me to this day. This is not some discussion of great power political intrigue; it is a dirty, gritty, vivid, and horrifying account of what it was like to live, fight, and die in the trenches:

http://www.amazon.com/Eye-Deep-Hell-Trench-Warfare-World/dp/0801839475

On the naval side, I would recommend The Dreadnoughts from the old Time-Life Seafarers
Series. This was one of the first books on the subject I read, and is an excellent primer on the Anglo-German naval race. It is a bit basic, but it is well illustrated and I think it would be great for someone who is just starting to study the subject. Plus, you can snag a copy for less than $10:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0809427133/ref=cm_wl_huc_continue

[Ruckdog]

Oh, one more thing: I've stickied this topic. It might be a good idea to make a summary list in the first post if we get a lot of suggestions

[Landlubber]

All good stuff!  While I do like the broader, over-arching histories, eye-witness accounts are also fascinating--especially since no WW1 veterans are alive anymore.

Ruckdog, I started keeping a list in the first post in this thread, per your suggestion.

Keep 'em coming, folks.  And please continue to discuss; I'll keep the list up to date in the first post.

[Landlubber]

Added Coffman's The War to End All Wars to the list.  Interesting look at how America joined WW1.  The book doesn't start off in 1914, it starts in 1917 right before President Wilson declares war on Germany.  The first half of the book discusses how America "spun up" to fight, and the second half describes how/where the American units fought.

Apparently, it was a massive undertaking to get the U.S. into the war.  The president made his declaration, and everyone basically cheered, and the next morning started scratching their heads about how to get the U.S. military a) on to a wartime footing, and b) over to Europe.  Lots of logistics.  Pretty good read.

[Landlubber]

The book I'm reading right now--The Russian Origins of the First World War, by Sean McMeekin--has a whole chapter devoted to the July Crisis.  It can be a bit confusing, as there were a bunch of people involved in several countries; I found this website useful in keeping them all separate:

http://cnparm.home.texas.net/Wars/JulyCrisis/JulyCrisis06.htm

[Landlubber]

Ok, so I just finished The Russian Origins of the First World War.  I'll add it to the list at the top.

This was an interesting book, although I think the author assumed his readers would have a pretty firm grasp of the conflict, especially the Eastern Front and the Middle Eastern theater.  I really don't, so I was a bit lost during some parts of the book--had to keep the iPad handy to look up places, people, and events.

It's not a very long book, but I got a little bogged down in the middle--there was quite a bit of detail.

However, his final analysis made sense, and was quite a damning conclusion towards the Russians.  He contends, basically, that Russia moved forward into the conflict in August 1914--and indeed, was just as much of a driver as Germany was--due to her desire to take Constantinople and the Straits.  All well and good, but with the communist revolution in 1917 and Russia's exit from the war (after signing a peace treaty with the Central Powers), Russia did not get one square inch of former Ottoman territory when the Allies won and carved the empire up.  All those lives lost, and all that treasure spent...for nothing.

I would definitely recommend it, but unless you have a good grasp of that side of WW1, keep a good reference handy.

[Ruckdog]

Thanks to all the driving ive been doing for my move, I've been listening to Massie's Castles of Steel on Audible. I'm about 11 hours in, and just finished listening to the portion about the battle of Coronell. I'm really liking it so far! The narrator is great; he intones different accents for the various historical figures, including a very convincing Churchill impression.

[Landlubber]

Just finished Tuchman's The Guns of August. Every bit as good as I'd heard. I had planned to finish it before the centenary of the Marne, but real life got in the way. Plus, I do a lot of reading at work, so getting through it was sometimes a bit of a chore.

The title says it all--this book covers the lead up to hostilities, and the first month of combat itself, as the German right wing swoops down through Belgium into France.  I wasn't aware of the atrocities committed by German soldiers, especially in Belgium--but apparently they were a frequent occurrence. Tuchman's prose is outstanding, and you really get a feel for what was happening in that first month, especially on the Western Front.

I would recommend this book for anyone wishing to learn more about the opening moves of WW1. It must be noted, however, that some books published since The Guns of August dispute (although not directly) some of Tuchman's claims. Specifically, McMeekin's Russian Origins of the First World War casts the Russians in a far different light.

Even somewhat dated, however, the book is still a masterpiece of historical writing, and is deserving of a place on your bookshelf.

[Landlubber]

Been slacking in my WWI reading and study. The Guns of August took me far longer than it should have, and I think that kind of killed my reading and studying momentum.

After finishing the last Gaunt's Ghosts book earlier in March, I decided it was time to jump back into the First World War. I took a look at the WWI timeline to see what was going on in March of 1915, and discovered we were about to hit the centenary of the failed Allied (mostly British) attempt to force the Dardanelles Strait and open a new front in the war, this one against Turkey. It just so happened that I have a book on my shelf about this very incident, so in I jumped!

In The Dardanelles Disaster: Winston Churchill's Greatest Failure, author Dan Van der Vat describes the Allied attempt to force the Dardanelles Strait, from the events leading up to the decision to launch the attack through the aftermath of said attack. This book can really be divided up into three sections, I think:

1) The events that lead to the Admiralty's (read: Winston Churchill's) decision to force the Strait. Van der Vat covers in detail the flight of the Goeben and Breslau, the two German ships whose journey through the Mediterranean and ultimately to Constantinople put shame to both the British and French fleets. This action served to bring the Ottoman Empire into the war on Germany and Austria's side, which effectively cut the Russians off from their only relevant warm-water access to the rest of the world. After the failures on the Western Front and the subsequent entrenchment of forces there, coupled with the need to help relieve pressure on Russia, the plan to force the Strait was born. (Interestingly, in Sean McMeekin's The Russian Origins of the First World War, McMeekin describes the Dardanelles operation as an attack to relieve the pressure on the Russians as well--but it was an operation the Russians led the Allies into, and never really lifted a finger to help).

2) The attack itself, very well-described by Van der Vat and full of interesting detail about British ships of the day. There is also a chapter discussing the Gallipoli campaign in brief, as it was a tragic epilogue to the failed naval operation in the Strait.

3) The consequences of the failed attack, from the more immediate (prolonging of WWI) to the more distant (fall of the Ottoman Empire, creation of Turkey, and the state of the modern Middle East in general).

On the whole, I though this was a good book. It got off to a bit of a slow start with a detailed description of how the Goeben and Breslau eluded the British and French forces in the Mediterranean, and the subsequent planning of the operation in the Dardanelles. Van der Vat takes great pains to point out that British military doctrine over the entire 19th Century was that the only way to force the Dardanelles was through a combined land and sea attack, involving troops (LOTS of troops) on the Gallipoli Peninsula supported by naval forces in the Strait. The Dardanelles was just too well-defended by emplaced forts on the European and Asian sides, as well as mobile artillery batteries (which wreaked havoc on the British ships), mines, and land-based torpedo tubes. On top of this, Horatio Nelson had once said it was folly to allow ships to attack land-based defensive installations. The venerable Herbert Kitchener, who was damn near a god in the British military, declared no troops could be spared for the Dardanelles operation due to the heavy requirements of the Western Front. Despite all of the above evidence, Churchill got it in his mind that the British Navy would be able to force the Strait and conduct a "naval cavalry charge" across the Sea of Marmara, level their guns at Constantinople, and get the Ottoman Empire to capitulate.

The result was a disaster. The operation was poorly planned, poorly led, and poorly executed, although there were some bright spots of tactical genius and personal bravery under fire.

Where the book starts to come off the rails, I think, is in the discussion of the events after the failed attack. While it is interesting to see the near-term effects of the failure--Churchill's fall from grace, the tragedy of Gallipoli, and the effect on the overall course of the war--some of the author's further conclusions are a bit of a stretch. Undoubtedly, WWI had profound effect on the shape of the modern Middle East, but how much of that stemmed from the British failure at the Dardanelles is questionable. To be sure, that failed operation led to the failed Gallipoli invasion, where a Turkish lieutenant colonel named Mustafa Kemal made a name for himself in defending Turkish soil from the invaders. Kemal would go on to become Atat

[Ruckdog]

Great run-down on the book! I will give it a look. Castles of Steel had some discussion of these events, but it sounds like this book digs in a little deeper. There was an article on this battle in the latest Naval History magazine, too.

[Landlubber]

My WW1 research has been slacking off over the past few months. Trying to sell a house on the other side of the country, plus work shenanigans, plus some new game releases have conspired to knock my studies off course.

I just finished The Marne, 1914, by Holger Herwig. I had meant to read it last year, on the hundredth anniversary of the battle itself (early September), but I just now got around to finishing it. Ah well. Best-laid plans and all that.

Overall, it is a pretty good book, especially if you are interested in all the maneuvering executed by the German, French, and British forces prior to the Western Front becoming a stalemate. While the book does go far into the weeds when describing unit movement (down to the division- and sometimes even brigade-level), Herwig does a decent job of summing up what all these movements meant, and you get a sense as the story moves along of the logistical and communications challenges of effectively commanding that many fighting men spread out over that large of an area using early 20th century technology.

Of what importance was the fighting at the Marne River in early September 1914? In a nutshell, it was the defeat of the Schlieffen Plan, which on paper had Germany knocking France out of the fight within the first six weeks of mobilization, so that Germany could focus all her fighting efforts against Russia. The French counterattacks in the vicinity of the Marne finally halted the (seemingly) inexorable march of the German army into France. The line that the Germans fell back to, in Herwig's words, basically formed the basis of the German trench lines that would become the hallmark of combat on the Western Front for the next few years.

The book provides an interesting look at how large units covered ground, maintained contact, and conducted combat operations (the basics of any ground force--shooting, moving, and communicating). There was a LOT of troop movement in the first 6-7 weeks of hostilities, mostly on the part of the Germans as they had to march out of Germany and into France (by way of Belgium). In this book, you can see where individual decisions--seemingly insignificant at that time--on the part of some German or French commanders changed the course of things and ultimately the course of the conflict itself.

I do recommend it, however be prepared to skip over a lot of unit designations and commander's names, unless you're really into that.

[Landlubber]

Next book in my on-going study of the First World War: World War I, the African Front: An Imperial War on the African Continent, by Edward Paice.

This is an excellent book detailing the conflict between Germany and Britain (with the Belgians and Portugese playing supporting roles) in East Africa. While there was combat connected to World War I in other parts of Africa, the main show was campaign against the German East African forces in what is now Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.

This was a campaign utterly unlike anything on the Western Front. To begin with, the distances involved were staggering--one British column marched over 1,600 miles in a single month in pursuit of a retreating German force towards the end of the campaign. In his memoirs, the German field commander remarked that, due to the terrain, weather, and other factors, the logistics involved in moving an infantry company in East Africa were almost the equivalent of moving an infantry division in Germany. Also, in addition to dealing with the enemy, both sides had to contend with rampant disease (I think just about everyone contracted malaria at some point), debilitating weather, inhospitable terrain (remember, in WWI, movement of equipment was still largely accomplished using horses and mules), and the local wildlife (it was not uncommon for soldiers and porters to be attacked by lions and hippos). The casualty figures certainly do not compare with those encountered on the Western Front, but the total numbers of combatants in the East Africa campaign were considerably smaller.

The book itself is very well-written and concise; the author breaks the campaign up into each year of the conflict, 1914-1918. He also put several excellent maps at the beginning of the book--maps of Africa during this period. Included with the maps is also a table that explains what those territories equate to today (for example, British East Africa is today's Kenya). There is also a glossary of terms used, as the author uses several African words to describe terrain features and locations. And finally there is a list of characters, quite necessary in a campaign of this scope.

A few things I learned about the war in Africa that I had no idea about prior to reading this book:

-the British fired their first shots in anger in WWI not in France, but in Germany's West African colony of Togoland

-there were small-scale naval engagements on Lake Tanganyika

-Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the commander in chief of German forces in East Africa, was the only German commander to occupy British territory in the entire First World War

I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking to study the Great War outside the confines of the Western Front.

[Landlubber]

Bumping this. Didn't do much reading in 2016 and not much of it was WW1-related, but I did also read The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power, by Sean McMeekin.

This book explores the relationship between Germany and the Ottoman Empire, which began even before WW1 began. The Kaiser wished to build a railroad all the way from Berlin to Baghdad, no small feat of engineering during that period and given the terrain that would have to be conquered. The book also delves into the Germans' efforts to create a Muslim rebellion/holy war against the British in the Middle East during WW1, which they hoped would spread to British India. Pretty good read, and a nice change from the normal Western Front theater.