The Guns of August was an immediate and overwhelming success when it was published in 1962 and won the Pulitzer Prize for General Fiction in 1963. It opens with the funeral of Edward VII of England in 1910 and gives some background and an entertaining character sketch of the German Emperor (Kaiser) William II, who was happy that Edward, his bane, was dead at last. The narrative then concentrates on recounting the first month of World War I.  At just over 600 pages, The Guns of August took me a few months to get through. It’s a compelling narrative but there is such a lot of detail and so many characters that I had to pace myself.

The first modern German nation state was established after the War of 1870 in which France was defeated by Prussia. According to Tuchman, Germany had learned from this victory that the sole source of German greatness came from arms and war:

“We have won our position through the sharpness of our sword, not through the sharpness of our mind.” The decision to violate Belgian neutrality followed easily.”

Belgium was independent and neutral. The Belgian coast was England’s frontier. Germany considered it a military necessity to smash France and they needed to use Belgium territory in order to accomplish their plan of envelopment. The German planners did not think Belgium would fight. 

The author’s character sketches of the various players in this drama were pithy and informative.

King Albert I had come to the Belgian throne in 1909. The nephew of Leopold II, he had not been born to reign. Leopold didn’t at first see much in Albert and called him a ‘sealed envelope.’

‘Inside the envelope were enormous physical and intellectual energies Of the kind that marked two great contemporaries, Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, whom otherwise Albert resembled not at all.’

Albert read books at the rate of two a day on all sorts of subjects. He was passionate about mountaineering which he pursued incognito all over Europe. There was general relief and rejoicing when he began to reign in place of Leopold II in 1909. His marriage and family life stood in contrast to the old regime. Albert and his wife ignored pomp and were indifferent to danger criticism and etiquette. When King Albert heard a shoemaker’s son lecture in the War College, he was impressed by his teachings and although the man was only a captain, created a special post for him as his personal military adviser. 

Other important characters

General Joffre – the 59 year old who was named Generalissimo of the French Army:

‘Massive and paunchy in his baggy uniform, with a fleshy face adorned by a heavy, nearly white mustache and bushy eyebrows to match, with a clear youthful skin, calm blue eyes and a candid, tranquil gaze, Joffre looked like Santa Claus and gave an impression of benevolence and naïveté – two qualities not noticeably part of his character.

…Joffre was about as subservient by nature as Julius Caesar.’

British Home Secretary Winston Churchill – who had produced an astonishingly accurate prediction of the future course of the fighting, and who had no doubts whatever about what needed to be done.

Nicholas II, Czar of Russia – his father, Alexander III, intended to keep his son Nicholas uneducated in statescraft until he reached the age of thirty. However, Alexander died when his son was twenty-six and when WWI began, Nicholas was forty-six and ‘had learned nothing in the interval.’ According to the author ‘the impression of imperturbability he conveyed was in reality apathy – the indifference of a mind so shallow as to be all surface.’

Brigadier) Henry Wilson ‘was mentally still charging forward with medieval ardor…unaware that it was now about as applicable to the situation as the longbow.‘

The Russians 

Cossacks and inexhaustible millions of hardy, uncomplaining ’mujiks’ willing to die made up the stereotype of the Russian Army…It was envisaged as a gigantic mass, initially lethargic, but once thoroughly roused into motion, rolling forward inexorably with, no matter how many losses, endless waves of manpower to fill the places of the fallen. 

Russian railroads had intentionally been built on a wider gauge than those of Germany as a defence against invasion. The average Russian soldier had to be transported 700 miles during mobilisation.

To send an army into modern battle on enemy territory, especially under the didadvantage of different railway gauges, is a hazardous and complicated undertaking requiring prodigies of careful organization. Systemic attention to detail was not a noticeable characteristic of the Russian Army…The shortage of officers and the low, often nonexistent, level of literacy among the men did not ease the process of communicating orders down the line.

Interesting Facts

Two-thirds of all Britains food was imported and the British Empire would not survive naval defeat. Scapa Flow, a body of water located in the Orkney Islands in Northern Scotland was the fleet’s base in wartime. 

At the Battle of the Marne about 600 taxis, each carrying five soldiers, made a sixty-kilometre trip twice to deliver troops to the front. Tuchnan called this, 

‘The last gallantry of 1914, the last crusade of the old world.’

In 1914 “glory” was a word spoken without embarrassment, and honor a familiar concept that people believed in. 

The German march through Belgium, like the march of predator ants who periodically emerge from the South American jungle to carve a swathe of death across the land, was cutting its way across field, road, village, and town, like the ants unstopped by rivers or any obstacle. 

The gesture that was intended by the Germans to frighten the world – to induce submission – instead convinced large numbers of people that here was an enemy with whom there could be no settlement and no compromise.

Running from Switzerland to the Channel like a gangrenous wound across French and Belgium territory, the trenches determined the war of position and attrition, the brutal, mud-filled, murderous insanity known as the Westen Front that was to last for four more years.

Despite the historical detail and range of characters in this book, it has a surprising narrative flow. The character sketches of the various personalities were succinct, interesting and witty. 

Recommended for anyone interested in the World Wars, high-school age and adults.