Abstract
The efficiency of the German war machine in 1914 rested on a tradition of absolute command. Frederick the Great had commanded the army in all his victorious wars. Hence, at the outbreak of the First World War the King/Emperor William II commanded the German forces in fact as well in form. The constant struggle between the agencies for control – the Chief of the General Staff, the Reich Chancellor, the Ministries of War and Navy, the naval command – arose when the Emperor was too weak, as in 1914.
By concentrating on one decisive year in modern history, 1917, David Stevenson provides an extraordinarily sharp and detailed account of the fateful time. The close examination of the Hindenburg and Ludendorff command system and the struggle over the unrestricted U-boat campaign creates the drama and disaster of the attempt to destroy the British merchant navy. The tension among the British naval commanders and the cabinet on the adoption of the convoy system created a drama that very nearly lost the war. During ‘black fortnight’ in April 1917 between seven and nine merchant ships were lost each day.
Each chapter has its 1917 framework. Woodrow Wilson’s dilemma about neutrality covers the US political scene, and the decision to join the allies against Germany. In March 1916, President Wilson wrote, ‘This is a year of madness. It is a year of excitement more profound than the world has ever known before and the world is seeing red. No standard we had obtains any longer’ (p. 44).
The French army, nearly exhausted, made one last attempt to break the enemy and there is a stunning chapter on the Nivelle campaign. A French commander was simply unable to meet his responsibilities. A horrifying account of the attempt by General Nivelle to attack the Germans by surprise unfolds in which not everybody believed but none had the character to cancel. General Nivelle was in over his abilities and his rigidity and delay led to a catastrophe at a time when French forces had no reserves. The failures of vision and concern, incompetence and uncertainty, destroyed the French will to fight. The failure effectively eliminated France as a separate military force – a tale of horrifying incompetence and disaster.
If the Germans chose a naval offensive that cost them their last best chance of victory, the Allies jeopardized their prospects by French, Russian, British, and Italian land attacks. By 1917, the British Treasury decided to issue $1.1 billion unsecured British Treasury bills and UK credit collapsed. Lloyd George had no idea how to finance the new credit in the New Year. Complete bankruptcy could have occurred at any minute and knock Great Britain out of the war.
The Russian Revolution, ‘the February Revolution’, grew out of a subsistence crisis. The demonstrations by women in 1917, now 33.3% of the labour force in St Petersburg and Moscow, and the absence of lighting and sanitation created horrible housing and living conditions. In 1917 70% of the factory workers were employed in plants with over 1,000 operatives. The combination of poverty, vast numbers, and political conflicts in the Duma saw chaos emerging and marks the first stage of the Russian revolution. The second involves the struggle among the parties and the new Bolshevik leadership under Lenin with its absolute refusal to continue the war.
Meanwhile, General Haig was about to destroy his army at Passchendaele as if the French had not just done the same thing. A chapter describes the collapse of the Italian army at Caporetto in late October 1917. As Stevenson sums up, ‘amid the dreary litany of failed offensives and attrition battles, the name of Caporetto stands out’ (p. 205). The Italian disaster at Caporetto nearly brought the World War to an end. After 11 failed attempts by General Cadorna to crush the Austrians, the twelfth - a combined operation by Austrians and Germans - caught a much larger Italian army and routed them. The burden of the war landed on illiterate Italian peasants. Yet Stevenson shrewdly observes that, in the end, the improvement in the Italian forces made a real difference. As always in this fascinating book, Stevenson sees the struggle on the Isonzo in a wider context and shows how the defeat ‘strengthened Italy’s war effort’. The account of defeat and unusual Italian recovery after Caporetto is breathtaking. A chapter on diplomacy contains much knowledge that was new to me but shows how impossible compromise, even in the hands of Benedict XV and Monsignor Pacelli, turned out to be. This book is a wonderful achievement – rich in detail and sharp observation. Stevenson has a command of events which is astonishing and a short review like this can scarcely do it justice.