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Summary
Summary
In The Lost History of 1914 , Jack Beatty offers a highly original view of World War I, testing against fresh evidence the long-dominant assumption that it was inevitable. "Most books set in 1914 map the path leading to war," Beatty writes. "This one maps the multiple paths that led away from it."
Chronicling largely forgotten events faced by each of the belligerent countries in the months before the war started in August, Beatty shows how any one of them-a possible military coup in Germany; an imminent civil war in Britain; the murder trial of the wife of the likely next premier of France, who sought d#65533;tente with Germany-might have derailed the war or brought it to a different end. In Beatty's hands, these stories open into epiphanies of national character, and offer dramatic portraits of the year's major actors-Kaiser Wilhelm, Tsar Nicholas II , Woodrow Wilson, along with forgotten or overlooked characters such as Pancho Villa, Rasputin, and Herbert Hoover. Europe's ruling classes, Beatty shows, were so haunted by fear of those below that they mistook democratization for revolution, and were tempted to "escape forward" into war to head it off. Beatty's powerful rendering of the combat between August 1914 and January 1915 which killed more than one million men, restores lost history, revealing how trench warfare, long depicted as death's victory, was actually a life-saving strategy.
Beatty's deeply insightful book-as elegantly written as it is thought-provoking and probing-lights a lost world about to blow itself up in what George Kennan called "the seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century." It also arms readers against narratives of historical inevitability in today's world.
Author Notes
Jack Beatty is a senior editor at "The Atlantic Monthly," & the author of "The Rascal King," a biography of the legendary Irish-American politician James Michael Curley, & "The World According to Peter Drucker," a biography of the influential thinker. He lives in Boston.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Many historians consider WWI to have been inevitable. Not so, maintains Beatty, a news analyst on NPR's On Point (Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900), in this delightfully contrarian account. If one of any number of events had turned out differently, the war might not have been launched. Had war been delayed a month, for instance, civil war over the bitter Irish Home Rule controversy might have embroiled Britain. Russian leaders agreed that war would provoke revolution, as it had in 1905. Yet in 1914, all mysteriously and disastrously changed their minds. With far less reason, says Beatty, Germany's leaders also feared revolution; many urged a military coup that would have preoccupied the army. Every European belligerent disliked President Wilson's quirky support of Mexican rebels under Pancho Villa (he later reversed himself). This led to Germany's January 1917 Zimmermann telegram (which was intercepted by the British) promising Mexico's dictator U.S. territory in exchange for invading its northern neighbor. Beatty maintains that this, not Germany's announcement of unrestricted submarine warfare, tipped the balance in America in favor of war. Readers may find some arguments more convincing than others, but they will thoroughly enjoy Beatty's thoughtful, often discomforting opinions. 86 b&w illus.; 4 maps. Agent: Rafe Sagalyn. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
On Point news analyst Beatty (Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900, 2007, etc.) in this intermittently illuminating but deeply frustrating new history. What happened is well known. After Serbian terrorist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, pieces locked in place that engaged the major powers in a catastrophic war. Austria, backed by Germany, declared war on Serbia, which was backed by Russia; soon, Russia's ally France entered the fray, as did Britain. After years of trying to stay out of it, the United States was pulled in when it looked as if Mexico was going to try to reclaim parts of Texas. Things could have easily been different, writes Beatty, as the countries involved were all locked in internal struggles that could have taken different outcomes, and Princip's bullet could have easily missed and struck another target--if it had, the living Ferdinand would not have argued for war. Not only that, but he would have acceded to the throne following Austria-Hungary's Emperor Franz Joseph's death in 1916, and would likely have been too embroiled in civil strife to deal with a war with Serbia. Once war was engaged, it was kept alive by press censorship in the countries involved. The French, English and Germans did not know the scale of suffering endured by their soldiers, and may not have wanted to. By the time the U.S. joined in 1917, it only prolonged the struggle. A post-Armistice food blockade starved Germany, and the children of that war would unite under the father figure of Adolf Hitler. The author provides a well-researched, compelling thesis, but the narrative lacks strong portraiture, the motivations aren't always made clear and the drama, except in rare instances, remains on a simmer. This may prove to be an important book for students of "counterfactual" history, but only occasionally does this story about a world going up in flames ever ignite.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Augmenting the literature on the origins of WWI, Beatty dwells on domestic political situations in the initial belligerents, plus the U.S. According to him, but for those particular arrangements and specific events, war might not have erupted in August 1914. In France, the murder of Le Figaro's editor by the wife of Joseph Caillaux destroyed the latter's possibility of becoming prime minister, in which post, Beatty infers, he would have resisted war. Likewise in Austria-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand, he posits, might have counseled peace despite the Serbian assassination of another official. Britain's absorption in a prospective civil war in Ireland might have emboldened Germany, where the Junker caste held the upper hand over its liberal and socialist opposition after a political fracas in Alsace. As for Russia, Beatty covers the ascendance of ministers less worried by revolution than by German influence at Constantinople. A provocative discussion concerning internal affairs, though with limited linkage to the diplomatic contexts that actually detonated the war, Beatty's work will appeal to readers attracted by history regarded from counterfactual perspectives.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2010 Booklist
Choice Review
The Great War centenary will produce a spate of books, but none will be more entertaining than NPR broadcaster Beatty's The Lost History, which offers an enthusiastic endorsement of the role of the individual in the unfolding of the 1914 catastrophe. In examining Germany's "Zabern Affair," the collapsing Russian autocracy, Britain's "Curragh Mutiny," Uncle Sam's tangled relations with Pancho Villa, Franz Ferdinand's assassination, and the amours of German-detente-seeking French politico Joseph Caillaux, the author insists that a different outcome for any of these episodes would have made war impossible or, in the case of the US-Mexico imbroglio, altered its outcome. The volume's endnotes offer a satisfying glimpse of much of the modern secondary literature that fuels the narrative. Was there a conspiracy of the elites to maintain the "Old Regime," even at the risk of a general war? Is the Schlieffen Plan itself a myth? In tackling these and other questions, the volume will invite specialist critiques; much of the narrative, inevitably, is well-trodden ground. Still, the text remains a profitable read for undergraduates and general readers. An attractive addition to modern European collections. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. G. P. Cox Gordon College
