Max Hastings - Catastrophe 1914

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright 2013 by Max Hastings

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House Company. Originally published in Great Britain as Catastrophe by William Collins, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, London, in 2013.

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Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon
are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-35122-5
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-307-59705-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hastings, Max.
Catastrophe 1914 : Europe goes to war / by Max Hastings.First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-307-59705-2
1. World War, 19141918Causes. 2. EuropeHistoryJuly Crisis, 1914.
I. Title.
D511.H37 2013
940.311dc23 2013027865

Maps by John Gilkes
Cover design by Eric White

v3.1

For

PENNY

who does the real work

Images of the campaigns of 1914 are rare. Those professing to portray combat are often posed or faked, and many contemporary captions are wilfully or accidentally inaccurate. The pictures in this book have been chosen with these realities in mind, to give the most vivid possible impression of what the battlefields looked like, while recognising that few can be appropriately placed and dated, while some predate the war.

Kaiser Wilhelm II (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Poincar and the Tsar, St Petersburg, July 1914 ( Interfoto/Alamy)

Asquith and Lloyd George (Private collection)

Pasic (Imagno/Getty Images); Berchtold (akg/Imagno); Sazonov ( RA/Lebrecht Music & Arts); Grey (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Churchill (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Bethmann Hollweg (DPA/Press Association Images)

Russians solicit divine assistance (Mirrorpix)

Moltke (The Granger Collection/Topfoto); Ludendorff (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Hindenburg (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Kitchener (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Lanrezac (Mary Evans/Epic/Tallandier)

Conrad ( Ullsteinbild/Topfoto); Joffre ( Roger-Viollet/Topfoto); French ( Roger-Viollet/Topfoto); Haig ( Roger-Viollet/Topfoto); Falkenhayn (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Franchet dEsprey (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Russians in Galicia (Mirrorpix)

Serbian troops advance ( Robert Hunt Library/Mary Evans)

Putnik ( The Art Archive/Alamy)

Potiorek (Getty Images)

Corporal Egon Kisch ( Imagno/Lebrecht)

Austrian troops conduct a mass execution of Serbian civilians ( Robert Hunt Library/Mary Evans)

An Austrian siege piece (Photo12/Ann Ronan Picture Library)

Kluck (akg-images)

Blow ( Interfoto/Alamy)

French troops, before the deluge ( Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)

Belgians in action (Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

The legendary French soixante-quinzes (Roger-Viollet/Rex Features)

Smith-Dorrien (Mirrorpix)

Wilson, Foch and Huguet (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Murray (Universal History Archive/UIG/The Bridgeman Art Library)

Germans advance (RA/Lebrecht Music & Arts)

Frenchmen display offensive spirit (Mirrorpix)

Austro-Hungarian cavalry in Galicia ( Robert Hunt Library/Mary Evans)

The British deploy on their first battlefield ( IWM [Q 53319])

British troops await the enemy

Samsonov (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Russians under attack

Russian prisoners after Tannenberg ( Robert Hunt Library/Mary Evans)

Rennenkampf (RIA Novosti)

Fortunino Matanias painting of L Batterys action at Nry ( David Cohen Fine Art/Mary Evans Picture Library)

The Middlesex under fire (R.C. Money. LC GS 1126. Reproduced with the permission of Leeds University Library)

A Suffolk girl at the handle of a Lowestoft tram ( IWM [Q 31032])

Russian soldiers in bivouac (David King Collection)

A Russian field hospital (David King Collection)

The Western Front, winter 1914 ( SZ Photo/Scherl/The Bridgeman Art Library)

Oberleutnant; Foto: Privatbesitz; Reproduktion: Salzburger Landesarchiv; aus: Verffentlichungen der Kommission fr Neuere Geschichte sterreichs, Bd. 95, Wien [u.a.] Bhlau, 2003); Lionel Tennyson (Tennyson Research Centre, Lincolnshire County Council); Venetia Stanley ( Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans); Louis Spears (Patrick Aylmer); Helene Schweida and Wilhelm Kaisen (State Archive of Bremen); Louis Barthas (From Les Carnets de guerre de Louis Barthas, tonnelier, 19141918 Editions de la Dcouverte. Paris. English edition to be published in 2013 by Yale University Press); Franois Mayer ( IWM [Q 111149])

A family flees a battlefield (Mirrorpix)

British soldiers in Belgium, winter 1914 (K.W. Brewster/The Liddle Collection/Leeds University Library. Photograph LC GS 0195)

While every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of photographs, in some cases this has not proved possible. The author and publishers would welcome any information that would enable such omissions to be rectified in future editions.

Authors note: The movements of the vast armies in 1914 were so complex that it is impossible to depict them cartographically in detail. In these maps I have striven for clarity for non-specialist readers, for instance by omitting divisional numbers except where essential. They are generally based upon the maps in Arthur Bankss A Military Atlas of the First World War (Heinemann, 1975).

Rival concentrations on the Western Front, August 1914 130

Serbia, 1914 144

Frontier battles in Lorraine, 1028 August 1914 173

The German advance through Belgium, August 1914 1967

The Battle of Mons, 23 August 1914 207

The British at Le Cateau, 26 August 1914 232

The allied retirement, 23 August6 September 1914 244

A view of the Eastern Front 191418 262

The Russian advance into East Prussia 267

The Battle of Tannenberg, 2429 August 1914: the pre-battle situation 277

The Battle of Tannenberg: the final act 279

German advance, 17 August5 September 1914 299

The Battle of the Marne, 56 September 1914 317

The Battle of the Marne, 78 September 1914 323

The Battle of the Marne, 9 September 1914 333

10 SeptemberThe German armies in retreat towards the Aisne 344

The Galician theatre 390

The Allied withdrawal to the YserLys position, 915 October 1914 4523

First Battle of Ypres: the first moves 470

First Battle of Ypres: final positions 492

Approximate positions on the Eastern and Western Fronts, December 1914 544

As commandant of the British Armys staff college in 1910, Brigadier-General Henry Wilson asserted the likelihood of a European war, and argued that Britains only prudent option was to ally itself with France against the Germans. A student ventured to argue, saying that only inconceivable stupidity on the part of statesmen could precipitate a general conflagration. This provoked Wilsons derision: Haw! Haw! Haw!!! Inconceivable stupidity is just what youre going to get.

We are readying ourselves to enter a long tunnel full of blood and darkness ANDR GIDE , 28 July 1914

A bantering Russian foreign ministry official said to the British military attach on 16 August: You soldiers ought to be very pleased that we have arranged such a nice war for you. The officer answered: We must wait and see whether it will be such a nice war after all.