** Tidy Narrative **
Few books can make any claim to have stopped nuclear war. But as JFK famously read Tuchman’s Guns of August, his understanding of the real possibilities surround unintentional escalation kept him from heeding to the cacophony of war hawks pushing for all out invasion of Cuba during the missile crisis. Half a century later, is this book still the the premier book to understand this era? I would say, no.
Sandwiching Guns of August between A World Undone and All Quiet on the Western Front, Tuchman’s narrative ends up the weakest of the pack. Fundamentally, I think she botches the most important narrative: why did the war start? Tuchman skips domestic politics and glosses over considerations stemming both from the Franco-Prussian war and contemporary flare-ups in the balkans. She ends up stating that in the end * The chiefs of state attempted to back away, but the pull of military schedules dragged them forward. * Multiple nearly sarcastic references to the tyranny of schedules and plans, as if these were Chekov’s gun flattens the legitimate considerations of individuals in these organizations and game theory that came from alliance politics. This is simplification to the point of incorrectness. Even All Quiet on the Western Front gets closer to the mark in allegory: * “When in terror we fall upon one another, then I must be first […] I do not think at all. I make no decision, I strike madly at home and feel only how the body convulses, becomes limp, and collapses.” *
Tuchman’s narrative genius still comes through, hand her description of Tannenberg or French-English cooperation in the West have probably still not been surpassed by more modern authors. Yet some larks seem unnecessary, like the naval chase towards towards Turkey, and by focusing only on 1914 Tuchman misses so much of what was important about WWI. In sum, it’s a worthwhile read, but not Tuchan’s best, nor the best you can find on the Great War.
** 4th book of 2023 **