Storey - The First World War: a concise global history

The First World War

Exploring World History

Series Editors

John McNeill, Georgetown University

Jerry Bentley, University of Hawai`i

As the world grows ever more closely linked, students and general readers alike are appreciating the need to become internationally aware. World history offers the crucial connection to understanding past global links and how they influence the present. The series will expand that awareness by offering clear, concise supplemental texts for the undergraduate classroom as well as trade books that advance world history scholarship.

The series will be open to books taking a thematic approachexploring commodities such as sugar, cotton, and petroleum; technologies; diseases; and the like; or regionalfor example, Islam in Southeast Asia or east Africa, the Indian Ocean, or the Ottoman Empire. The series sees regions not simply as fixed geographical entities but as evolving spatial frameworks that have reflected and shaped the movement of people, ideas, goods, capital, institutions, and information. Thus, regional books would move beyond traditional borders to consider the flows that have characterized the global system.

Edited by two of the leading historians in the field, this series will work to synthesize world history for students, engage general readers, and expand the boundaries for scholars.

The First World War: A Concise Global History

by William Kelleher Storey

Insatiable Appetite: The United States and the Ecological Degradation of the Tropical World

by Richard P. Tucker

Smuggling: Contraband and Corruption in World History

by Alan L. Karras

The First World War

A Concise Global History

William Kelleher Storey

Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com

Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom

Copyright 2009 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

First paperback edition 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

The hardback edition of this book was previously cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows:

Storey, William Kelleher.

The First World War : a concise global history / by William Kelleher Storey.

p. cm. (Exploring world history)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. World War, 19141918. 2. World War, 19141918Environmental aspects.

3. World War, 19141918Technology. I. Title.

D523.S745 2009

940.3dc22

2009015229

ISBN 978-0-7425-4145-0 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-7425-4146-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-7425-6724-5 (electronic)

` The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For Robin W. Kilson (19532009), humanista semper
oppugnans bella imperiaque .

Qua tibi lucem arte morer? Virgil, Aeneid , XII.873

v

The First World War was a social and political cataclysm. Nine million soldiers died and millions more suffered mental and physical injuries. The war cost billions of dollars, not only in military expenses but also in damage to property. The war emboldened democrats and feminists as well as communists and fascists. During the war, four major empires collapsed. Afterwards, the peace settlements changed boundaries all around the world. All these things were highly significant for world history. But the thing that most fascinates readers about the First World War is that it seems, in hindsight, to have been avoidable. The war originated in a small conflict in Eastern Europe that snowballed into a much larger conflict. This happened because of disagreements between two groups of allied countries that were committed to rigid military plans. At the outset they took steps that were too aggressive, since none of the participants predicted the wars awfulness.