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John Keegan

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The definitive account of the Great War from one of our most eminent military historians. "Elegantly written, clear, detailed, and omniscient.... Keegan is...perhaps the best military historian of our day." —The New York Times Book Review

The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the twentieth century as mechanized warfare and mass death. It also helped to usher in the ideas that have shaped our times—modernism in the arts, new approaches to psychology and medicine, radical thoughts about economics and society—and in so doing shattered the faith in rationalism and liberalism that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment.

The First World War probes the mystery of how a civilization at the height of its achievement could have propelled itself into such a ruinous conflict and takes us behind the scenes of the negotiations among Europe's crowned heads (all of them related to one another by blood) and ministers, and their doomed efforts to defuse the crisis. Keegan reveals how, by an astonishing failure of diplomacy and communication, a bilateral dispute grew to engulf an entire continent.

But the heart of Keegan's superb narrative is, of course, his analysis of the military conflict. With unequalled authority and insight, he recreates the nightmarish engagements whose names have become legend—Verdun, the Somme and Gallipoli among them—and sheds new light on the strategies and tactics employed, particularly the contributions of geography and technology. No less central to Keegan's account is the human aspect. He acquaints us with the thoughts of the intriguing personalities who oversaw the tragically unnecessary catastrophe—from heads of state like Russia's hapless tsar, Nicholas II, to renowned warmakers such as Haig, Hindenburg and Joffre. But Keegan reserves his most affecting personal sympathy for those whose individual efforts history has not recorded—"the anonymous millions, indistinguishably drab, undifferentially deprived of any scrap of the glories that by tradition made the life of the man-at-arms tolerable."

By the end of the war, three great empires—the Austro-Hungarian, the Russian and the Ottoman—had collapsed. But as Keegan shows, the devastation ex-tended over the entirety of Europe, and still profoundly informs the politics and culture of the continent today. His brilliant, panoramic account of this vast and terrible conflict is destined to take its place among the classics of world history.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Despite the avalanche of books written about the First World War in recent years, there have been comparatively few books that deliver a comprehensive account of the war and its campaigns from start to finish. The First World War fills the gap superbly. As readers familiar with Keegan's previous books (including The Second World War and Six Armies in Normandy) know, he's a historian of the old school. He has no earth-shattering new theories to challenge the status quo, no first-person accounts to tug on the emotions--what he does have, though, is a gift for talking the lay person through the twists and turns of a complex narrative in a way that is never less than accessible or engaging.

Keegan never tries to ram his learning down your throat. Where other authors have struggled to explain how Britain could ever allow itself to be dragged into such a war in 1914, Keegan keeps his account practical. The level of communications that we enjoy today just didn't exist then, and so it was much harder to keep track of what was going on. By the time a message had finally reached the person in question, the situation may have changed out of all recognition. Keegan applies this same "cock-up" theory of history to the rest of the war, principally the three great disasters at Gallipoli, the Somme, and Passchendaele. The generals didn't send all those troops to their deaths deliberately, Keegan argues; they did it out of incompetence and ineptitude, and because they had no idea of what was actually going on at the front.

While The First World War is not afraid to point the finger at those generals who deserve it, even Keegan has to admit he doesn't have all the answers. If it all seems so obviously futile and such a massive waste of life now, he asks, how could it have seemed worthwhile back then? Why did so many people carry on, knowing they would die? Why, indeed. --John Crace, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

In a riveting narrative that puts diaries, letters and action reports to good use, British military historian Keegan (The Face of Battle, etc.) delivers a stunningly vivid history of the Great War. He is equally at easeAand equally generous and sympatheticAprobing the hearts and minds of lowly soldiers in the trenches or examining the thoughts and motivations of leaders (such as Joffre, Haig and Hindenburg) who directed the maelstrom. In the end, Keegan leaves us with a brilliant, panoramic portrait of an epic struggle that was at once noble and futile, world-shaking and pathetic. The war was unnecessary, Keegan writes, because the train of events that led to it could have been derailed at any time, "had prudence or common goodwill found a voice." And it was tragic, consigning 10 million to their graves, destroying "the benevolent and optimistic culture" of Europe and sowing the seeds of WWII. While Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War (Forecasts, Mar. 8) offers a revisionist, economic interpretation of the causes of WWI, Keegan stands impressively mute before the unanswerable question he poses: "Why did a prosperous continent, at the height of its success as a source and agent of global wealth and power and at one of the peaks of its intellectual and cultural achievement, choose to risk all it had won for itself and all it offered to the world in the lottery of a vicious and local internecine conflict?" Photos not seen by PW. 75,000-copy first printing; simultaneous Random House audio. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up-John Keegan's account of the Great War for our generation.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A noted historian's definitive account.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

In this sterling account of the tragic and unnecessary conflict that inaugurated a century of horror, British military historian Keegan (Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America, 1996, etc.) ranges from Olympian assessments of leaders to searing depictions of suffering common soldiers. The shattering effects of the war to end all wars have been depicted unforgettably by novelists and poets such as Hemingway, Remarque, Owen, and Brooke, but seldom so memorably by historians. Keegan remedies that with a traditional strategy-and-tactics study that is also informed by deep personal feeling for the subject (his father, two uncles, and father-in-law all served and survived). He consistently underscores the wars body blow to civilization, noting not only its staggering casualty rates (e.g., two out of every nine French soldiers who went to war never came home) but the chaos that gave rise to totalitarianism afterward. Keegans versatility is evident on every page. He excels equally in explaining how the best-laid strategies went awry, in measuring commanders strengths and weaknesses, and in discussing how technology had not yet developed enough to enable effective communications between the front and the rear in battle. He points out the unusual tragedies resulting from the war, such as secluded rural establishments where disfigured veterans could take holidays together, as well as its numerous ironic consequences. He renders all of this in somber prose that often rises to eloquence. Here he dispatches British general Douglas Haig: On the Somme he had sent the flower of British youth to death or mutilation; at Passchendaele he had tipped the survivors into the slough of despond. A narrative that yields insight at every turn on this near-endless stalemate, as well as serving as an object lesson on the dark mysteries that await even those best-prepared for war. (24 pages b&w photos, not seen; 15 maps) (First printing of 75,000) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

"Eloquent.... Mr. Keegan captures the anamolous, even surreal quality of the war." —The New York Times

"The best one-volume account there is." —Civilization

"Elegantly written, clear, detailed, and omniscient.... Keegan is ...perhaps the best military historian of our day." —The New York Times Book Review

"Undoubtedly the world's most accessible and popular military historian." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Magisterial.... A miracle of concision." —The Weekly Standard

"An epic tale.... Makes us keenly aware of how battles are fought, won, and lost." —Fortune

From the Inside Flap

The highest praise greeted the hardcover publication of this engrossing, brilliant book - THE definitive story of the Great War, the war that created the modern world, unleashing the terrors of mechanized warfare and mass death, and establishing the political fault lines that imperil European stability to this day.

Keegan takes us behind the scenes of the doomed diplomatic efforts to avert the catastrophe; he probes the haunting question of how a civilization at the height of its cultural achievement and prosperity could propel itself toward ruin with so little provocation; his panoramic narrative brings to life the nightmarish engagements whose names have become legend - Verdun, the Somme, Gallipoli - as with profound sympathy, he explores the minds of Joffe, Haig and Hindenburg, the famed generals who directed the cataclysm.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

At once the most readable and the most original of living military historians."--The New York Times

It takes a disciplined and enormously well-read scholar to bring order and meaning to the complexity of the Great War. It takes the artistry of a gifted storyteller to craft such technical detail into a page-turner. Mr Keegan does exactly that." -The Wall Street Journal

One of the foremost military thinkers today.-- Must reading for the Department of National Defence, politicians and anyone concerned about the future and the inherent nature of the human species." -Ottawa Sun

From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author

JOHN KEEGAN was for many years senior lecturer in military history at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and has been a fellow at Princeton University and a visiting professor of history at Vassar College. He is the author of twenty books, including the acclaimed The Face of Battle and The Second World War. He lived in Wiltshire, England until his death in 2012.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Chapter One: A European Tragedy

The First World War was a tragic and unnecessary conflict. Unnecessary because the train of events that led to its outbreak might have been broken at any point during the five weeks of crisis that preceded the first clash of arms, had prudence or common goodwill found a voice; tragic because the consequences of the first clash ended the lives of ten million human beings, tortured the emotional lives of millions more, destroyed the benevolent and optimistic culture of the European continent and left, when the guns at last fell silent four years later, a legacy of political rancour and racial hatred so intense that no explanation of the causes of the Second World War can stand without reference to those roots. The Second World War, five times more destructive of human life and incalculably more costly in material terms, was the direct outcome of the First. On 18 September 1922, Adolf Hitler, the demobilised front fighter, threw down a challenge to defeated Germany that he would realise seventeen years later: "It cannot be that two million Germans should have fallen in vain . . . No, we do not pardon, we demand--vengeance!"

The monuments to the vengeance he took stand throughout the continent he devastated, in the reconstructed centres of his own German cities, flattened by the strategic bombing campaign that he provoked, and of those--Leningrad, Stalingrad, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London--that he himself laid waste. The derelict fortifications of the Atlantic Wall, built in the vain hope of holding his enemies at bay, are monuments to his desire for vengeance; so, too, are the decaying hutments of Auschwitz and the remnants of the obliterated extermination camps at Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka. A child's shoe in the Polish dust, a scrap of rusting barbed wire, a residue of pulverised bone near the spot where the gas chambers worked, these are as much relics of the First as of the Second World War. They have their antecedents in the scraps of barbed wire that litter the fields where the trenches ran, filling the French air with the smell of rust on a damp morning, in the mildewed military leather a visitor finds under a hedgerow, in the verdigrised brass of a badge or button, corroded clips of ammunition and pockmarked shards of shell. They have their antecedents also in the anonymous remains still upturned today by farmers ploughing the bloodsoaked soil of the Somme--"I stop work at once. I have a great respect for your English dead"--just as the barely viewable film of bodies being heaped into the mass graves at Belsen in 1945 has its antecedents in the blurred footage of French soldiers stacking the cordwood of their dead comrades after the Second Battle of Champagne in 1915. The First World War inaugurated the manufacture of mass death that the Second brought to a pitiless consummation.

There are more ceremonial monuments. Few French and British communities lack a memorial to the dead of the Second World War. There is one in my West Country village, a list of names carved at the foot of the funerary crucifix that stands at the crossroads. It is, however, an addition and an afterthought. The cross itself was raised to commemorate the young men who did not return from the First World War and their number is twice that of those killed in the Second. From a population of two hundred in 1914, W. Gray, A. Lapham, W. Newton, A. Norris, C. Penn, L. Penn and W. J. White, perhaps one in four of the village's men of military age, did not come back from the front. Theirs are names found in the church registers that go back to the sixteenth century. They survive in the village today. It is not difficult to see from the evidence that the Great War brought heartbreak on a scale never known since the settlement was established by the Anglo-Saxons before the Norman Conquest and, thankfully, has not been known since. The memorial cross is, the church apart, the only public monument the village possesses. It has its counterpart in every neighbouring village, in the county's towns, where the names multiply many times, and in the cathedral of the diocese at Salisbury. It has its counterpart, too, in every cathedral in France, in each of which will be seen a tablet bearing the inscription, "To the Glory of God and in memory of one million men of the British Empire who died in the Great War and of whom the greater number rest in France."

Nearby, certainly, will stand a memorial to the locality's own dead, itself replicated in every surrounding town and village. France lost nearly two million in the Great War, two out of every nine men who marched away. They are often symbolised by the statue of a poilu, defiant in horizon blue, levelling a bayonet eastward at the German frontier. The list of names on the plinth is heartrendingly long, all the more heartrending because repetition of the same name testifies to more than one death, often several, in the same family. There are similar lists to be seen graven in stone in the towns and cities of most combatant nations of the Great War. Particularly poignant, I find, is the restrained classicism of the memorial to the cavalry division of the Veneto that stands beside the cathedral of Murano in the lagoon of Venice, bearing row after row of names of young men from the lowlands of the River Po who died in the harsh uplands of the Julian Alps. I am touched by the same emotion in the churches of Vienna where severe stone tablets recall the sacrifice of historic Habsburg regiments now almost forgotten to history.

The Germans, who cannot decently mourn their four million dead of the Second World War, compromised as the Wehrmacht was by the atrocities of the Nazi state, found a materially, if not morally equivalent difficulty in arranging an appropriately symbolic expression of grief for their fallen of the First, since so many lay on foreign soil. The battlefields of the east were closed to them by the Bolshevik revolution, those of the west made at best grudgingly accessible for the retrieval and reburial of bodies. The French and the Belgians found little room in their hearts or in the national soil for the creation of German war cemeteries.

From AudioFile

Before WWI becomes something that happened "at the beginning of the last century," it's time to remind ourselves just how shocking, how mysterious, how devastating the war was. It was the war that exploded out of nowhere and that even now fascinates scholars. This audiobook is a must-have for history buffs. Prebble, whose voice will be familiar to fans of British television, narrates as though he were performing a one-man dramatic show. Audiobooks have no index, of course, so there's no easy way to go back and listen again to some important passage. But this is only a minor annoyance. In an exceedingly well executed production Prebble uses vocal cues to let us know which things we particularly need to remember. D.L.P. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B009Y4I744
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage (November 21, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 21, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 14.8 MB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 516 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #77,412 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #18 in World War I History (Kindle Store)
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John Keegan

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John Keegan's books include The Iraq War, Intelligence in War, The First World War, The Battle for History, The Face of Battle, War and Our World, The Masks of Command, Fields of Battle, and A History of Warfare. He is the defense editor of The Daily Telegraph (London). He lives in Wiltshire, England.

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Customers find the book provides a huge amount of information about World War I and appreciate how it relates the course of the conflict. The readability receives mixed feedback - while some find it masterfully written, others say it has too much detail for the average reader. The narrative quality also receives criticism, with one customer noting the lack of context and another mentioning the absence of engaging stories.

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Customers praise the book's comprehensive coverage of World War I, with one customer noting its detailed reporting.

"...There is mention to the different armies (in alphabetical order: American, British, French) of the Western Front but it is not always clear how much..." Read more

"...This, then, is an interesting, well-documented, absorbing, and worthwhile book and is definitely one any serious student of modern war and the..." Read more

"...It is fascinating to read how military strategy preempted political reality, and misguided belief in the quick decisive victory, sent millions to..." Read more

"...He describes the military, political, and socio-economic climate in perceptive detail, and does this for all the combatents...." Read more

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Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as fantastic and brilliant, with one customer noting it's a great place to start reading.

"...All in all, a very good book, masterfully written. But I would complement it with other works that emphasize the role of the different belligerents...." Read more

"...This, then, is an interesting, well-documented, absorbing, and worthwhile book and is definitely one any serious student of modern war and the..." Read more

"...It is fascinating to read how military strategy preempted political reality, and misguided belief in the quick decisive victory, sent millions to..." Read more

"...The last of the WWI veterans are leaving us. Keegan's is a worthwhile read, lest we forget." Read more

103 customers mention "Readable"55 positive48 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the readability of the book, with some finding it masterfully written and concise, while others note that it contains too much detail for the average reader and is not an easy read.

"...All in all, a very good book, masterfully written. But I would complement it with other works that emphasize the role of the different belligerents...." Read more

"...the complex causes leading up to World War I. His writing style is difficult for me to read and I think assumes the reader is fairly knowledgable..." Read more

"The most wonderful aspect of John Keegan's impeccable writing style is that it is always used in service to the telling the story at hand, in this..." Read more

"...narrative separating the descripions of the battles is also somewhat repetitive, resulting in a sometimes tedious read...." Read more

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Customers find the narrative quality of the book unsatisfactory, with one customer noting it lacks context and another mentioning the absence of exciting missions or engaging stories.

"...The story suffers from relative abrupt treatment of the armistice and nothing substantial on the Treaty of Versailles...." Read more

"...put, it's not an exciting war to read about; there are no daring missions or engaging stories...just mass slaughter at the hands of inept generals..." Read more

"...A formidable and dispiriting subject but a terrific read for anyone interested in military history, geopolitics and how the world got into the mess..." Read more

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Daniel R. Pinto
Slightly anglocentric, but a masterpiece all the same
Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2023
Verified Purchase

The late John Keegan was a master stylist and a historian in full command of his subject. He has the gift of making complex subjects understandable and presenting them in a readable, even thrilling narrative.

I knew his gifts from his history of the Second World War. His ability to provide telling details without ever losing sight of the big picture. So, this is a very good place to start reading on World War I (as the Americans call it), or the First World War (the British), or the Great War (as it used to be known before there was an even more tragic one).

The causes of the war, to the extent that they are understandable, are well recapitulated, the fighting plans of the great powers are shown for what they are, theoretical castles in the air that make a lot of sense on paper but do not stand the test of reality.

The start of the war, the machinery that led Europe from one of the most pleasant and peaceful summers ever to unprecedented battefield deaths in a matter of weeks is explained in an inexorable manner. It is one of the highlights of the book.

Keegan calls our attention also to the role of technology. Until 1917, it favored the defense, contributing to the stalemate that almost led to the breakdown of entire societies. Then, in 1918, technological developments boosted the offensive and brought back the war of movement, leading to the final defeat of the Central Powers.

The author is right to stress the importance of naval warfare, and the key role of the naval blockade in subduing Germany and Austria-Hungary. He also gives the necessary space for us to understand the secondary theaters of the war, Africa, the Pacific and China, the Middle East and Mesopotamia. And, in Europe, both the Western and Eastern fronts are well covered, as is the Italian front. Keegan is a master and always makes the necessary interconnections, so we understand how a decision or a result in one front affects all the others.

Two minor caveats: Keegan is not entirely free from national bias and gives more attention to the British (and Imperial and Commonwealth) army than to any other. He is very good on the others as well, but in more than one occasion, we would have liked to know more about the planning and the thinking of the other armies in an operation where the British took part. The French, although fewer in number, played an important role during the Battle of the Somme and had even better results than the British. Also: is it really true that the French army remained immobile for almost a year after the 1917 mutinies? The book itself makes us think that this was not so, and yet this seems to be Keegan’s verdict.

I would have wanted a little more detail about 1918. There is mention to the different armies (in alphabetical order: American, British, French) of the Western Front but it is not always clear how much each of them contributed to the different successes. And there is a lot more that could be said about the successful Macedonian campaign led by French general Franchet d’Espérey, which led to the collapse of the Southern Front and contributed to the German acceptance of an armistice.

As I said, Keegan is slightly anglocentric. This does not mean he fails to respect valor. At times we can feel his emotion when describing some heroic action, as with the resistance of Sylvain Eugène Raynal, commander of the Fort Vaux during the battle of Verdun, who only surrendered when there was no more water left. The commander of the German forces, Crown Prince Wilhelm, met him in person and gave him a sword to replace the one he had lost during the battle.

For all this focus on Britain, Keegan tries to be fair. He acknowledges qualities in almost all major commanders (Luigi Cadorna excluded) of any army.

Maps are good, but few. I found it very useful to read this book with Martin Gilbert’s Atlas of the First World War close at hand.

All in all, a very good book, masterfully written. But I would complement it with other works that emphasize the role of the different belligerents. For France, perhaps the works of Michel Goya, or Robert A. Doughty, and for Germany and Austria-Hungary, Holger H. Herwig. There are also good works available in English about the role Italy played. I wish I knew histories of the Great War from the Russian and Turkish viewpoints, but I don’t.

Another very minor caveat. As in his History of the Second World War, John Keegan can get some minor details wrong. They don’t really distort the narrative but they are distracting. A good editor could get rid of these for future editions.

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Charlie Mac
Historial Time Line from The First World War
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2015
Verified Purchase
John Keegan's book expounds on the complex causes leading up to World War I. His writing style is difficult for me to read and I think assumes the reader is fairly knowledgable about the history of European and Balkan history. After reading Chapter 3, The Crisis of 1914 I had to put the following time line and summary to help me understand what happend. I do not claim everything is completely accurate, but I did the best I could to verify this information.

World War I Historical
Time Line

1878 Austro-Hungarian Empire – 5 major religions, a dozen languages. Serbia won independence from the Muslim Ottoman Empire, but a large minority were Austrians from the Habsburgs.

1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War occurred.

1905 Franco-German North Africa War I occurred.

1911 Franco-German Moroccan Crisis occurred.

1912-1913 Balkan Wars occurred.

1914 June 25, Habsburg Army was on summer maneuvers in Bosnia, part of the former Ottoman Empire occupied by Austria in 1878, annexed in 1908.

1914 June 27, Franz Ferdinand and his wife drove to Sarajevo, Bosnia.

1914 June 28, was the anniversary of the Turks’ defeat of Serbia in 1389. 5 Serbians and 1 Bosnian Muslim killed Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo.

Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary feared the possibility of war. 3 great European Empires were German, Austrian and Russia. Slavs are Austro-Hungarians. Austria-Hungary were dominated by German and Magyars or Hungarians, but populated by a majority of Slav people.

1914 July 2, Serbs confessed to killing. Count Berchtold, Austro-Hungary Foreign Minister prepared diplomatic measures against Serbia to persuade Germany to support Austria in an alliance with Bulgaria and Turkey.

1914 July 4, Berchtold modified request to Germany to recognize irreconcilable differences between Austria and Serbia

1914 July 5, Count Hoyos, Berchtold’s emissary arrived in Berlin and delivered Berchtold memorandum to the Kaiser. Wilhelm II authorized Hoyos to tell Emperor Franz Josef that Austria could rely on Germany’s full support. The offer seemed to imply support for the alliance with Bulgaria and action against Serbia. Hoyos discussions with the Kaiser’s ministers and military advisors General von Falkenhayn, Germany’s Minister of War ask if preparatory measures should be taken and was told not. Bethmann-Hollweg, the Chancellor, had been independently advised by his Foreign Office that Britain would not be involved.

1914 July 6, Kaiser told military officers that Russia and France would not be involved and precautionary measures were not necessary.

1914 July 7, Imperial Council of Ministers met, Berchtold proposed military action. Tisza held out, he insisted that taking military measures should be held off until the issue of a note of demands.

1914 July 9, Franz Josef agreed the any ultimatum be preceded by the note of demands, as Kalman Tisza, Hungarian Prime Minister wanted. Berchtold did not want to hear that and his position steadily hardened towards Field Marshal Conrad , who’s position was war from the outset.

1914 July 12, Tisza agreed to a note of demands to be followed by an ultimatum if necessary.

1914 July 14, Tisza and Berchtold met again. Tisza won his case against an ultimatum, but the ultimatum would be drafted within 48 hours with a date to be approved at the ministerial meeting on 1914 July 19.

1914 July 16, Raymond Poincare, French President left to visit Russia to return July 25. The delivery of an Austrian note to Serbia in the days when Russian and French heads of state would be in intimate contact would likely throw them into diplomatic and strategic conclave. Because of the delays, hope of localize the dispute and of isolating Serbia were diminished.

1914 July 19, Tisza objected to any demands that might increase the number of Slavs in Hungary, so it contained no threat of annexation or dismemberment as Conrad desired. The note required all the Serbian government newspaper publish on its front page a condemnation of all propaganda for the separation of any portion of imperial territory, a condemnation to be repeated by the Serbian King in an order of the day to the Serbian army. 10 number demands, of which 5 were elaboration of the propaganda.

The Austrian note listed 10 demands, 5 of which elaborated the prohibition of propaganda or subversion:

(1) To suppress any publication which incites to hatred and contempt of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the general tendency of which is directed against its territorial integrity;
(2) To dissolve immediately the society styled "Narodna Odbrana," to confiscate all its means of propaganda, and to proceed in the same manner against other societies and their branches in Serbia which engage in propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The Royal Government shall take the necessary measures to prevent the societies dissolved from continuing their activity under another name and form;
(3) To eliminate without delay from public instruction in Serbia, both as regards the teaching body and also as regards the methods of instruction, everything that serves, or might serve, to foment the propaganda against Austria-Hungary;
(4) To remove from the military service, and from the administration in general, all officers and functionaries guilty of propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy whose names and deeds the Austro-Hungarian Government reserve to themselves the right of communicating to the Royal Government;
(5) To accept the collaboration in Serbia of representatives of the Austro-Hungarian Government for the suppression of the subversive movement directed against the territorial integrity of the Monarchy;
(6) To take judicial proceedings against accessories to the plot of the 28th of June who are on Serbian territory; delegates of the Austro-Hungarian Government will take part in the investigation relating thereto;
(7) To proceed without delay to the arrest of Major Voija Tankositch and of the individual named Milan Ciganovitch, a Serbian State employee, who have been compromised by the results of the magisterial inquiry at Serajevo;
(8) To prevent by effective measures the cooperation of the Serbian authorities in the illicit traffic in arms and explosives across the frontier, to dismiss and punish severely the officials of the frontier service at Shabatz Loznica guilty of having assisted the perpetrators of the Serajevo crime by facilitating their passage across the frontier;
(9) To furnish the Imperial and Royal Government with explanations regarding the unjustifiable utterances of high Serbian officials, both in Serbia and abroad, who, notwithstanding their official position, have not hesitated since the crime of the 28th of June to express themselves in interviews in terms of hostility to the Austro-Hungarian Government; and, finally,
(10) To notify the Imperial and Royal Government without delay of the execution of the measures comprised under the preceding heads.
The Austro-Hungarian Government expect the reply of the Royal Government at the latest by 5 o'clock on Saturday evening the 25th of July.

1914 July 25 the Note reached Belgrade.

1914 July 26-27 the Serbia army mobilised. Russia recalled the youngest reservists.

1914 July 28 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

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Bücher-Zebra
Er kann es!!
Reviewed in Germany on September 9, 2010
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Wer in einem Band den 1. WK verstehen will, interessante Details, scharfe Analysen, flotte Wechsel zwischen der Feldherren- und Landser-Perspektive schätzt und bekannte Geschichte spannend erzählt haben will, der kommt an dem Buch NICHT vorbei.

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Divyamsh
Good read
Reviewed in India on October 1, 2024
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Book was in good condition. Read 50pgs so far. Good read even for a person like me who have negligible knowledge about WW1.

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Apiana
Wonderful!
Reviewed in Canada on February 16, 2025
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Purchased as an accompaniment for a history class.
Highly suggest!

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J. Duducu
A must buy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 15, 2010
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I first discovered John Keegan by reading his underrated book on the American Civil War. It then occurred to me that I had never read a book that covered the whole of World War 1 and sought out a book that could do justice to such a huge topic.

Well here it is. John Keegan is a master at summarising complex situations and explaining them in a very accessible way. His chapter on how war broke out and all the points it could have been averted reads like a thriller. Unlike other books I have read on the great war focus on one event or one front which always lurch into intolerably dry lists of divisions and daily movements of troops. Keegan has to round up what happened, to whom and why and always does so without you thinking you have been short changed in depth. This is an amazing feat considering what he has to get through in a little over 400 pages.

The writing is effortless and opinion neutral. All sides have victories, all sides have failures and brutality is highlighted when it is warranted. The only revisionist part is where Keegan addresses the controversy surrounding the Western military leaders, pointing out how many anachronisms have been heaped on them. That's not to say that this is a love letter to Haig but more a realistic assessment of his flaws and strengths.

My personal opinion is that World War 1 is the most misunderstood event in history. In that most people have heard about it but then after than the popular view is all gas, trenches, inflexible generals and poetry. Keegan shows how wrong this view is, while never diminishing the horrors of the Western (and Eastern) front he shows there was a lot more going on than men sitting in trenches, being shelled and writing powerful verse.

In short this is an essential book on World War 1.

If you liked this there's more historical debate and fun at @HistoryGems on Facebook and Twitter

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abc
Magnifique, mais manque de cartes !
Reviewed in France on August 1, 2022
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Bien illustre, et on apprend beaucoup. Mais incroyable de n'avoir aucune carte dans un livre de cette taille.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Slightly anglocentric, but a masterpiece all the same

4.0 out of 5 stars Historial Time Line from The First World War

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5.0 out of 5 stars Er kann es!!

5.0 out of 5 stars Good read

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful!

5.0 out of 5 stars A must buy

4.0 out of 5 stars Magnifique, mais manque de cartes !

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Slightly anglocentric, but a masterpiece all the same

Historial Time Line from The First World War

Er kann es!!

Good read

Wonderful!

A must buy

Magnifique, mais manque de cartes !