I finished reading Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August on Monday night, and last night I made some notes about the two major battles of August 1914 that occurred on the Eastern Front. Then I started John Keegan's book on the First World War, which I've read some parts of previously. (Let's hope Professors Matchak and Mauriello aren't reading this: they assigned the WHOLE book when I took History 796!)
Few subjects have received as much attention as the First World War. Obviously it was a cataclysm in human history, so scholars want to go back and make sense of it through hindsight. What's interesting to me, though, just from reading these two books (which were authored more than 35 years apart) is that the events are so complex and the motivations so ambiguous, that there is a whole range of answers to the "why" questions.
Tuchman is interested in the military tactics and how the personalities and the personality interactions between various commanders shaped those tactics. Keegan thus far (I've only read 50 pp) is interested in broader generalizations.
I'm sure I'll have more on this in the days to come. I am hoping that the next time I'm in Poland, I'll be able to visit some of the Eastern Front and see what's what. If there is anything left after all that's happened since. One doesn't read about memorials on the EF the way they've been so prominent on the WF. Why, I wonder?
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Posted by: qxtlaucpwj at August 5, 2007 05:16 PM