Piers Brendon salutes complementary histories of a descent into the abyss, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. . The War That Ended Peace opens with a detailed description of early twentieth-century European countries. Read honest and unbiased product reviews … Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for The War That Ended Peace: The Road To 1914 at Amazon.com. Lisez des commentaires honnêtes et non biaisés sur les produits de la part nos utilisateurs. In 1914 such visible offensives produced a staggering butcher's bill: on 22 August, 27,000 Frenchmen were killed, a much greater loss than that suffered by British troops on the first day of the Somme. Hastings is shorter on nuances than MacMillan. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Book Review: The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 by Margaret MacMillan. Taking this line, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo wasn’t merely an event that uncorked pent up tensions, but an important cause of the war in its own right. Hastings calls the first British commander-in-chief on the western front, General French, "a poltroon". It also While this world of the Entente Cordiale and Agadir will hardly be unfamiliar to those with a passing interest in modern history, the book is effective in providing the reader with a sense of some of the complexities of topics less frequently visited by Anglophone historiography, such as the inner workings of Austria-Hungary. . . Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. . At any rate, by chapter 17 MacMillan is arguing that, for all that had preceded it, most Europeans didn’t feel that conflict between the great powers was any more likely than it had been for the previous decade. Your community and guide to relationship advice, the latest in celebrity news, culture, style, travel, home, finances, shopping deals, career and more. By SAUL DAVID All this is familiar territory and it must be said that MacMillan's volume, in particular, contains no real surprises – apart from her assertion that the battle of Omdurman saw the defeat of the army of the Mahdi, who was actually long dead. A short summary of this paper. In her introduction, MacMillan is keen to stress that the war wasn’t inevitable, but that a host of forces were in fact working towards the maintenance of peace, from labour movements and key individuals to an enduring confidence in the capacity of Europe to avoid conflict. Max Hastings focuses on the year 1914 itself, describing the transition from peace to a war of movement that finally bogged down in the mud and blood of the trenches. While MacMillan takes the common stance that the July crisis was ‘initially created by the recklessness of Serbia, the vengefulness of Austria-Hungary and the blank cheque from Germany’, she is careful not to rest the blame solely on such shoulders. Military alliances and preparedness, it was felt, were actually deterrents, much like the better-known Mutually Assured Destruction of the Cold War. Book Review: 'The War That Ended Peace,' by Margaret MacMillan Bismarck likened preventive war to killing oneself from fear of death. The War That Ended Peace, by Margaret MacMillan. Download Full PDF Package. These epic events, brilliantly described by one of our era’s most talented historians, warn of the dangers that arise when we fail to anticipate the consequences of our actions. The War That Ended Peace brings vividly to life the military leaders, politicians, diplomats, bankers, and the extended, interrelated family of crowned headsacross Europe who failed to stop the descent into war: in Germany, the mercurial Kaiser Wilhelm II and the chief of the German general staff, Von Moltke the Younger; in Austria-Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph, a man who tried, through sheer … Piers Brendon salutes complementary histories of a descent into the abyss . The war that ended peace: The road to 1914 – was named one of the best books of the year by Bloomberg Businessweek, the New York Times Book Review, the Christian Science Monitor, the Economist and the Globe and Mail. 37 Full PDFs related to this paper. Book Review: ‘The War That Ended Peace’ by Margaret MacMillan. Posted on September 6, 2019 by nathanalbright. However, the War that Ended Peace serves as a timely, cautionary tale about governments and peoples who delude themselves about the nature of the world, and civilian leaderships that fail to assert control over their militaries. Christopher Prior finds this book effective in providing the reader with a sense of some of the complexities of topics less frequently visited by Anglophone historiography. New York: Random House. The War That Ended Peace will certainly rank among the best books of the centennial crop.”— There is plenty of evidence to show that the German leaders were willing to go to war in 1914, says Hastings, in the hope of winning a speedy victory before military conditions turned against them. Here advancing men felt that they were entering "the jaws of hell" while those retreating looked like "ghosts in Hades expiating by their fearful endless march the sins of the world". Lessons in bravery, and lessons in cowardice. Download PDF. The British thought their survival as a great power depended on ruling the waves. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Découvrez des commentaires utiles de client et des classements de commentaires pour The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned peace for the First World War sur Amazon.fr. 2013. And he agreed to the violation of Belgian neutrality, without which Britain might have not have fought at all. If reading about the way that Europe stumbled through the beginning of the 20th century and finally found itself involved in the horrors of World War I is a melancholy task, as indeed it … That it feels curious to use the word ‘romp’ about a work that clocks in at over 600 pages is only further testament to MacMillan’s achievement in this regard. Some have suggested that The War That Ended Peace is for specialists only, but the present reviewer would argue otherwise. But Hastings is at his best on the battlefield itself. The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 By Margaret MacMillan Allen Lane 416 pp; $38. Margaret MacMillan provides a big picture of Europe between 1900 and 1914, a time of increasing international tension that was also, in Stefan Zweig's phrase, a "Golden Age of Security". Author: Margaret MacMillan. WINNER of the International Affairs Book of the Year at the Political Book Awards 2014Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2013 The First World War followed a period of sustained peace in Europe during which people talked with confidence of prosperity, progress and hope. Piers Brendon's most recent book, 'Eminent Elizabethans', is published by Vintage, Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. To find out more about cookies and change your preferences, visit our, LSE Review of Books – Reading List: World War One, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales. 2013. In a year when commentators and Cabinet ministers will continue to offer two-dimensional explanations for the start of the First World War, a book on the topic by someone with a proven track record of delivering popular works about complex narratives is in order. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned peace for the First World War at Amazon.com. But naval rivalry was the crux of Anglo-German antagonism. The Entente Cordiale was a calculated defensive measure and not, as royalist historians like to imagine, an initiative inspired by Edward VII. The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 I typically read a book about World War I (the Great War) by beginning at the back with the bibliography. If any of the key European statesmen of that era had been asked whether they thought a major European conflagration was likely in the near future, they would all have replied that a major war had, in fact, been getting less likely in the past two years. MacMillan is as willing to lay emphasis upon uncertainties and crossed wires as she is upon finely honed offensive strategies, and highlights where imprecision within the historical record sometimes make certainties hard to come by. This month, which sees the centenary anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, is a time of reflection and remembrance for Europe. To be sure, MacMillan does give over some pages to pacifists and critics of jingoism but, for instance, she suggests that the voices for reconciliation between Britain and Germany were ‘drowned out’ by hostility, the majority hyped up with a bravado that masked profound anxiety as to the state of a supposedly decadent, degenerate Western modernity. (Photo: Book Cover) By Jim Miles On a recent hiking trip I took along Margaret MacMillan’s pre World War I history, “The War That Ended Peace – The Road to 1914” (Penguin Canada, 2013). One of the strengths of The War That Ended Peace is MacMillan’s ability to evoke the world at the beginning of the twentieth century. Read more reviews by Christopher. Grand-Admiral Tirpitz believed that Germany was engaged in a life-or-death struggle for a place in the sun, which could only be won by a powerful fleet. These epic events, brilliantly described by one our era’s most talented historians, warn of the dangers that arise when we fail to anticipate the consequences of our actions. The War That Ended Peace takes a long view of the origins of the war. The War That Ended Peace, by Margaret MacMillan. We use cookies on this site to understand how you use our content, and to give you the best browsing experience. Margaret MacMillan. Utterly riveting, deeply moving, and impeccably researched, MacMillan's latest opus will become the definitive account of old Europe's final years.” He sees things clearly and articulates them without hesitation, reservation or deviation. Canadian edition: The War That Ended Peace: The Road To 1914. Découvrez des commentaires utiles de client et des classements de commentaires pour The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 sur Amazon.fr. What caused the war and how it should have been fought, if at all, are questions that cannot finally be resolved. ISBN 9780670064045. “Magnificent . It is therefore an appropriate time for Politics in Spires to review Professor MacMillan’s recent book on this origins of the First World War, The War that Ended Peace. "I was talking recently to two other writers," says MacMillan. MacMillan’s focus is predominantly upon Europe’s military and political leaders (although there is also space for broader, though briefer, discussions of European culture and society), and she delivers a clear account of the roles of these leaders at the heart of the gradual coalescence of the Triple Alliance of Austria-Hungary, Italy and Germany on one hand, and the Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia on the other. By contrast, Ballin left feeling that Britain wouldn’t intervene as long as Germany went easy on France in the event of any invasion. The War that Ended Peace:How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War. MacMillan notes how Haldane later recalled that he and Grey had warned Ballin that Britain could not be relied upon to remain neutral in the event that Germany attacked France. In The War That Ended Peace, Margaret MacMillan, the author of the much-admired Peacemakers (2001), has delivered an enjoyable romp through a decade and a half of European history. Lessons in bravery, and lessons in cowardice. Christopher Clark’s review of The War That Ended Peace by Margaret MacMillan and July 1914: Countdown to War by Sean McMeekin, like The Sleepwalkers, his own book on the origins of the First World War, slyly attempts to obscure or minimise evidence that contradicts his own thesis, which attributes equal blame, malice and lack of vision to all the major European powers (LRB, 29 August).