The First World War A Complete History Characters ☆ 0

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World War ePUB #10003 It was to be the war to end all wars and it began at on the morning of Junein an outpost of The First PDF the Austro Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo It would end officially almost five years later Unofficially it has never First World War A Complete PDF or ended the horrors we live with today were born First World War MOBI #242 in the First World WarIt left millions civilians and soldier. I believe that this is as definitive a history as you can get of the First World War Though some may complain that it does not focus on this or that aspect such as the battles and military fortunes of the war itself or of the political and diplomatic side or that it focuses too much on the British perspective I believe that there are few books as through a history of the First World WarMartin Gilbert is the greatest living historian on Twentieth Century historyThe subject on the prelude to war describes the political struggles just prior to the war and puts the most of the blame on Austria Hungary and Germany Serbia could not accept the conditions demanded by Austria for peace after the assassination by Gavrilo Principe of Archduke Franz FerdinandThe author describes the human dimension of the conflict and that of many British soldiers and their memoirs and poetry are speciality of this volumealso painfully apparent is the Armenian genocide the first great genocide of the 20th century in which over a million Armenian men women and children were barbarously slaughtered in a Ottoman attempt to end the movement for self determination of that nationGilbert covers the First World War careers of people who later became the giants of the Second World War such as Hitler Mussolini and Winston ChurchillWe discover that the officer who recommended Hitler for the Iron Cross was in fact Jewish and that far from the Nazi claims of the Jews stabbing Germany in the back 100s of thousands of Jews served in the German army during the war and 10 000 Jews died in German uniform Jewish industrialist and leader Walter Rathenau a moderate and opponents of radical Socialism later assassinated by the Nazis played a leading role in putting Germany's economy on a war footing enabling wartime Germany to continue its war effort for years despite the serious shortages of labor and raw materials that were caused by an ever tightening naval blockadeWhile there were unfortunately a significant amount of Jewish Communists it is eually significant that the German Imperial Government during the First world War financed and helped build up the Bolshevik movement and injected Lenin like a bacillus into Russia in order to neutralize Russia's effectiveness in the war and succeeded only too wellFocusing on the middle Eastern theatre the book illustrates how the national aspirations of Jews for a re established homeland in the Holy Land and of the Arabs for a pan Arab superstate were given momentum by the events of the First world WarThe book focuses on the aftermath of the war and of the harsh Treaty of Versailles in which Germany was bitterly punished laying the seeds for the rise of Nazism and extremism in Germany and allowing a demagogue like Hitler to take advantage of massive disenchantmentThe book does however neglect the war in Africa in which Germany lost her African empireUltimately another monumental and thorough history by Martin Gilbert as always focusing on the human side

Review The First World War A Complete History

The First World War A Complete HistoryS maimed or dead And it left us with new technologies of death tanks planes and submarines reliable First World War A Complete PDF or rapid fire machine guns and field artillery poison gas and chemical warfare It introduced us to U boat packs and strategic bombing to unrestricted war on civilians and mistreatment of prisoners Most of all it changed our world In its wake empires toppled monarchies fell whole po. Historians come in many flavours There are those who expound on the big picture who create masterful theories that appear to explain a lot and some who dive into the detail of personalities and events Martin Gilbert was a well respected historian with the public his plentiful output sold well Yet he was coolly assessed by reviewers and other historians Paul Addison described one of his volumes on Winston Churchill as like a compilation of source materials and Richard Overy described his Second World War history as so perversely at odds with the conventions of modern history writing that the least we might expect is some guidance Yet there is a place for the chronicler History isn't just about grand narratives and theories of causation events are important The historian's own purpose and point of view don't have to be centre stage as long as they aren't surreptitiously distorting the tale David Kynaston is writing a much hailed history of post war Britain which echos Gilbert's style The historians own voice and point of view is subtle the sources and characters speaking for themselves Kynaston roams back and forward through popular culture and specific individuals before centring on his core topic in each chapterGilbert's history of World War 1 certainly is light on grand strategy and the big picture It isn't really a military history and doesn't spend a great deal of time on politics It does jump from place to place although I didn't find it particularly difficult to follow What it is superb at is giving the human view of war Through letters diaries and poetry we get a vivid portrait of most of the theatres of war and of what it was like for the individuals The real delight is in following particular characters often to sad conclusions and reading the footnotes about the legacy of individuals The up close and personal point of view does allow appreciation of the suffering as well as a sense of living through the drama of the war itself The many military and diplomatic coups of the central powers lead to nail biting moments right up until mid 1918 even knowing the outcomeMartin Gilbert was a British Jew This does show through in his perspective to some extent German atrocities are highlighted while British ones are not and he does point out Jews with particular interest eg Walter Rathenau in a way other authors might not The book is lighter on the perspective of Central Powers participants but not overly so The main omission is of Turkish perspectives however this probably reflects when the book was written 1994This book isn't the last word in explaining the First World War however it contributes a lot to understanding what the war was about the nature of it and its impact on individuals As Martin Gilbert himself states All wars end up being reduced to statistics strategies debates about their origins and results These debates about war are important but not important than the human story of those who fought in them This book is a powerful exposition of that story

Martin Gilbert æ 0 Summary

The First World War A Complete History Characters ☆ 0 ↠ [Ebook] ➩ The First World War A Complete History ➨ Martin Gilbert – It was to be the war to end all wars and it began at 1115 on the morning of June 28 1914 in an outpost of the Austro Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo It would end offPulations lost their national identities as political systems and geographic boundaries were realigned Instabilities were institutionalized enmities enshrined And the social order shifted seismically Manners s codes of behavior literature and the arts education and class distinctions all underwent a vast sea change And in all these ways the twentieth century can be said to have been born on the morning of June. This very long work is essentially a chronology of the war from the rapid escalation of tension before August 1914 to the problems of armistice in 1918 and how they affected state relations in the 1930s Gilbert the official biographer of Churchill brings home at many points the reality of the 9 million military dead of WWI through use of poems uotes and letters written home by the men who died as well as graphic recollections by nurses who served at the front one image that stays with me is the room full of amputated limbsIt’s fascinating reading and broad in scope but it does have its problems First the endless litany style does grate after a while Second Gilbert is intensely pro Anglo American Thus he ignores all the fighting out of Europe and while he mentions Japan once fails to dwell on why Japan entered the war how her people felt about it what her success or losses were etc Thus too he dwells on German “atrocities” during the war but mentions several instances which make it uite clear that barbarism and selfishness were aspects of both sides Finally while arguing that superior Allied force was the deciding factor in the German capitulation he fails to convince that internal revolution played a small part Despite these flaws an impressive and engaging book