D. Stevenson - 1914-1918: The History of the First World War

19141918

DAVID STEVENSON

The History of the First World War

ALLEN LANE
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS

ALLEN LANE

Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in the United States of America by Basic Books
as Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy 2004
First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane 2004
1

Copyright David Stevenson, 2004

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright
reserved above, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior
written permission of both the copyright owner and
the above publisher of this book

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

EISBN 9780141904344

This book is dedicated with respect and affection to
my parents-in-law, Ida and Morris Myers, to my
mother, Moira Stevenson, and to the memory of my
father, Edward Stevenson.

PART ONE
Outbreak

PART TWO
Escalation

PART THREE
Outcome

PART FOUR
Legacy

2 The Western Front, 1914
(Insert: The Ypres Salient, 19141918)

4 The Balkans and the Straits
(Insert: The Dardanelles, 1915)

Crowned heads: Nicholas II meets Wilhelm II at sea (Bettmann/Corbis)

Naval gun turrets in the Krupp works, Essen 1912 (AKG, London)

Japanese soldiers man a trench in Manchuria, Russo-Japanese War (Corbis)

Death on the battlefield at Adrianople, Balkan Wars (Hulton Archive)

German reservists, 1914 (Imperial War Musuem, Q81763)

British troops arrive in France, August 1914 (Hulton Archive)

Bethmann Hollweg in military dress (Corbis)

Falkenhayn on the march (Bettmann/Corbis)

Wilhelm II, flanked by Hindenburg and Ludendorff (Corbis)

Kitchener visiting from the Gallipoli trenches, November 1915 (Imperial War Museum, Q13595)

Jellicoe (Imperial War Museum, Q22159)

Brusilov (Imperial War Museum, Q54534)

Joffre and Pershing meet again, 1922 (Bettmann/Corbis)

French trench at Verdun (RogerViollet/Rex Features)

Captured German trench mortar, 1917 (Imperial War Museum, Q4923)

German unit moves an observation balloon (Robert Hunt)

British tank held up in the German second line at Cambrai, November 1917 (Imperial War Museum, Q6433)

American soldiers in gas masks (Imperial War Museum, Q60962)

German barbed wire, Quant, 1918 (Imperial War Museum, Q3392)

German Rumpler C1 on a raid from Palestine over the Pyramids, Giza, 1915 (Imperial War Museum, Q93351)

Turkish cavalry in Palestine, April 1917 (Robert Hunt)

Armenian refugees in Syria, 1915 (The Art Archive/Imperial War Museum)

Mass burial of Lusitania victims, May 1915 (Hulton/Archive)

Berlin crowd waits for soup, 1916 (Hulton Archive)

British women fill shells (The Art Archive/Imperial War Museum)

Annamite munitions workers in France (RogerViollet/Rex Features)

Emperor Karl (Corbis)

Kerensky in 1920 (HultonDeutsch Collection/Corbis)

Trotsky harangues Russian troops (Underwood & Underwood/Corbis)

Anzacs on the road to the front, December 1916 (Imperial War Museum, E (AUS) 19)

Canadian machine gunners at Third Ypres, 1917 (The Art Archive)

German infantry during the Michael offensive, March 1918 (Ullsteinbild)

Americans resting on a route march, May 1918 (Imperial War Museum, Q8842)

German troops return to Berlin after the Armistice (Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz)

Woodrow Wilson lands in France, December 1918 (Hulton Archive)

Allied leaders in London, December 1918 (Bettmann/Corbis)

British schoolchildren visit war cemetery, 1923 (Topham Picturepoint)

AC Austen Chamberlain Papers, Birmingham University Library

AEF American Expeditionary Force

AIF Australian Imperial Force

AMTC Allied Maritime Transport Council

AOK Armee Oberkommando (Austro-Hungarian high command)

ASL Auxiliary Service Law

BA-MA Bundesarchiv-Militrarchiv, Freiburg im Breisgau

BDFA British Documents on Foreign Affairs

BEF British Expeditionary Force

CAS Chief of the Admiralty Staff

CCAC Churchill College Archive Centre, Cambridge

CGS Chief of the General Staff

CGT Confdration gnrale du travail (French trade-union centre)

CGW Comrades of the Great War

CIAMAC Confrence internationale des associations des mutils et des anciens combattants

CID Committee of Imperial Defence

CIGS Chief of the Imperial General Staff

CPI Committee on Public Information

CUP Committee of Union and Progress

DCG Deputy Commanding General (Germany)

DDP Deutsche Demokratische Partei

DORA Defence of the Realm Act

EEF Egyptian Expeditionary Force

EMA Etat-major de larme (French general staff)

EPD Excess Profits Duty

FO Foreign Office

FOCP Foreign Office Confidential Print

FOO Forward Observation Officer

GGS Great General Staff (Grosser GeneralstabGermany)

GHQ General Headquarters

GNP Gross National Product

GQG Grand Quartier gnral (French high command)

IRA Irish Republican Army

ISB International Socialist Bureau

ISNTUC International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centres

IWC Imperial War Cabinet

IWGC Imperial War Graves Commission

IWM Imperial War Museum

KDL Kyffhuserbund der deutschen Landeskriegerverbnde

KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands

KRA Kriegsrohstoffabteilung

KA Kriegsberwachungsamt

LC Liddle Collection, Leeds University Library

LHCMA Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives