All Wrong on the Eastern Front

With apologies, or not, to Erich Maria Remarque, this is an expanded version of the Goodreads review of my most recent World War 1 reading. And, it's being posted just before Veterans Day, for people to savor.

The Eastern Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 by Nick Lloyd
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Gack!

I had some heads-up via a two-star reviewer, Elliott — who nonetheless has the wrong thing he pitches the biggest fit about in his review (Lenin almost assuredly DID order the killing of the Romanovs), and is apparently a tankie in general and also a JFK conspiracy theorist, per his overall reviews at his first link that this book might be less than fantastic. (Said tankie has been blocked, too.)

Actually, presenting itself as a "magisterial" history? It's crap and needs to be crushed.

(On the "presenting itself," I have as one my Goodreads bookshelves "touted by critics." And, even if they didn't use the word "magisterial," the idea was clearly there, with talk about how this was the most tome-like and impressive book about the Eastern Front since Norman Lloyd 50 years ago.

So, if it's not "magisterial"?

It needed to be crushed, in my opinion, especially since I got my review in before the 25-reviewer mark and was the first one-star person to give it a review, not just a rating.

And crushed it will be in the paragraphs to follow.

I knew to ding this a star for including Italian front war as part of the Eastern Front, per seeing Elliott when stumbling across this just two weeks before seeing the book in my library. And, when we get there? Any noob about WWI history can see the front moved 10 miles in two and a half years. If you have to include it? Skip to the last year.

There are many more errors right off the bat in the introduction. Serious ones. "Rookie mistakes." 

Lloyd claims Trialism was a factor in Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. Reality? He had abandoned Trialism years earlier, in part due to fears that, whether the Triad included a third crown or not, it would stir up Quadrilateralism among Czechs. Given that, even before the start of the war, the Czechs were the noisiest minority in the Austrian parliament in its half of the Ausgleich, this wasn't an idle worry.

Whether the likes of Apis realized that or not, and cared or not, I don’t know. It's cited in many histories, whether of just the June-July Days, or the war in general, as inspiration for him sending the assassins to Sarajevo. That said, the 1908-14 relationship of Ferdinand to Serbia could get a book on its own. In reality Ferdinand was often almost as Serbia-bellicose as Conrad.)

Franz Joseph’s semi-mystic comment on Ferdinand’s death, quoted on the first page of Chapter 1 has generally been seen not as generic fatalism, but his last comment about the morganatic marriage bringing the hammer of fate down upon itself. Lloyd not getting this right further reduced my confidence in him. (And, as it turns out, we're just getting started.)

I wasn’t expecting a full book about the July Days, as I’ve read both "The July Crisis" and "Sleepwalkers". I was expecting a bit more than what we're actually offered in terms of background.

The bits of analysis sprinkled throughout pages of Austrian, Russian and Italian military deficiencies, such as in medium and heavy artillery, are nice. Or “nice.” Why not more of that? I've seen more in other histories of WWI that weren't limited to the Eastern Front. And, putting all of this together in a brief early chapter, up-front, would have been a good table-setter for a book being presented as "magisterial" or similar.

The maps are decent but not great for a book whose focus is military history. (One of the reasons I five-starred Lloyd's Passchendaele book was the quality of the maps.) Some of the maps show only borders/boundaries of military action. Those that do indicate location of armies don't show boundaries between armies on either side. None of them dive below the army level to the corps level.

OK, the biggie on the big picture? You can include Italy but not the Ottoman-Russian front in Armenia? True that this was second to Mesopotamia, and eventually Northwest Arabia-Palestine. But, it was there, and definitely more Eastern than Italy. And, it’s like Lloyd’s determined to write the Ottoman Empire out of WWI history while writing in Italy. For example, the Ottomans sending troops to the Salonkia Front? Not mentioned. (And, other things listed below, and hold on to that thought.)

But, even worse?

Lloyd misses entirely that Emperor Karl was reportedly talking with Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasiç as well as the French, via his Bourbon-Parma brothers-in-law, in early 1917. This is one reference. I’ve seen others. Wiki also has this. And, it lists a source: MacKenzie, David (1995). Black Hand on Trial: Salonika 1917. (I've just submitted an interlibrary loan request to my library; the book is rare enough that, while it's listed on Yellow Satan, it isn't here. So far, it's not available, though two copies are “out there,” it seems at the Houston Public Library.)

This one is a biggie and is far less known than Karl’s talks with Britain and France via his brothers in law. In fact, it was new to me until I stumbled across it while doing some Net-searching for notes for the review. But, it’s still real. And, for a book that presents itself as a “magisterial” history of the Eastern Front? Missing this is simply not acceptable. I'm not an academic, but I found the book, and PDFs of it are available through various academic systems.

Were these talks related to Apis’ eventual treason trial? Was it, in turn, related to a possible deal at what seemed to be near the low point for Serbia in the war? Was Apis' execution, per his own Nathan Hale-like words, part of a cover-up so that Pasiç’s own pre-knowledge of Sarajevo could never be nailed down?

By this point, and also per the paragraph below? I knew we were in two-star territory, and I was entertaining one-star thoughts.

Back to other stuff missed in re the Eastern Front? Where’s the Ottoman invasion of Qajar Dynasty Iran, in part because of Russian meddling there pre-WWI, that helped cause one of the worst famines of the 20th century and led to the toppling of the dynasty, replaced by the Pahlavis? Where’s the Central Powers getting Libyan tribes not yet subdued by Italy to invade Egypt from the West? (Well, not here because Palestine and anything Ottoman is not part of the Eastern Front.)

There's also the issue of a lack of a thesis, also a biggie in what's supposed to be a “magisterial” book or the first book of its like about the Eastern Front in 50 years. (Sidebar: I've not read Stone's book, but I obviously know plenty about the Eastern Front from other WWI books; maybe Stone's wasn't so magisterial, either.)

Actually, we're missing two theses.

One is the cause of the war. And a brief (and incorrect) reference to Trialism doesn't cut the mustard. Give me one. Even if if it's something I'd instantaneously reject, like an updated version of Fritz Fischer's German war guilt, at least we have a talking point.

Second? There's no thesis on why Lloyd defined “Eastern Front” as he did, especially in light of this being volume two of a three volume set. Again, I might disagree with your thesis when you present it, but we still have a talking point.

Other missing things, that I'll try to keep short?

We get relatively little analysis of generalship, whether Lloyd's own or a derivative round-up. Tannenberg is an example. “We” all know Hindenberg and Ludendorff glory-hogged, but Lloyd doesn't discuss generalship there.

That relates to issues of audience. Is this book for a more general reader, or for somebody who is a fairly serious student of The Great War?

Other minor issues include things like calling today’s Lviv by its Austrian name of Lemberg but NOT calling Wroclaw by its then-Prussian name of Breslau. And yet, Thorn it is, not Torun. I hate inconsistency in this in any WWI book.

Finally, while not having large font with blown-out leading, like some of today's non-fiction books trying to look more impressive than they are, this book did NOT have relatively small font and leading, either. In other words, there's not enough verbiage here to consider this “magisterial,” either.

In short, again, magisterial this is not. (Had it not been touted by critics and so billed, the rating would only be two stars, and a high two at that.)

The ONLY thing new to me of note was the first use of poison, or poison-like, gas (closer to tear gas than chlorine or mustard) was on the Eastern Front, not Western.

So, while this doesn't fall in my “bs-pablum” shelf, it's still a one-star book. It's otherwise overrated.

==

How to fix this book, beyond things like better maps, more maps and the niggling city names?

First, since Lloyd had already done a Western Front book, he should have already had the idea of a MENA front book queued up. Italy’s not really MENA, but it’s closer to that than it is Eastern Front. Palestine, Mesopotamia and the minor actions go there. Armenia and Iran go in the Eastern Front book. Since a third volume is supposed to follow, that may be it. In turn, that would have made it easy to present a “cur alii, non alii” thesis for why Italy is in, the Ottomans are out, in this book's introduction.

Supposedly, this was the second of three volumes. If so, then he divided wrongly, per what I just said above. If we get into things like German meddling in Iran and even in Central Asia, hoping the Ottoman Sultan would issue a call for jihad that Muslims in the British Raj would respond to, etc., he'll have plenty for a third volume, which means that he could have put what I said above in this volume.

Second? Better maps.

Third? Volume three had better address ALL of the fighting I mentioned above, or it will get a swifter grokking and faster crushing.

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Veterans Day and the WWI centennial

Today is the first of four Veterans Day celebrations that also fall within the observation of the centennial of World War I.

I've long contended that:
1. Woodrow Wilson was more British-biased than most mainstream histories present
2. We shouldn't have gotten involved in World War I
3. A true neutrality would have kept us out of World War I.

As we reflect on our veterans today, remember that, from World War I on, most our wars (including, to some degree, Cold War "Red scare" ones) were based in part on Wilsonian idealism. World War II, besides Japan attacking us, arguably had a strong Realpolitik component; all others, lesser ones.

We had no vital interests at stake in 1914, other than, possibly, freedom of the seas, which was threatened just as much by the British blockade by extension as by German unrestricted submarine warfare, if not more so.

Had we stayed neutral, we could have let "old Europe" punch itself even more senseless than it actually did. What would have happened?

At a glance, the British and French would have pulled troops from the Balkans and Near East to stop Ludendorff in 1918 just shy of Paris. But, without American troops, and with British and French senior commanders far stupider than Pershing, no major counterattack would have resulted.

If one realizes that German casualties on World War I on both the Eastern and Western fronts were less than French and British casualties, almost all of those on the Western Front, one realizes just how great the difference in generalship — and training of enlisted men, in general — was between the Allies and Germany (The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary is different; in part, because of rising internal nationalism, it fought about as bad as Russia in the first 18 months of the war, and not a tremendous amount better than Italy.)

Then, the November 1918 revolution would have hit Germany (and the Dual Monarchy) as it actually did.

And spread to British and French front-line troops. All combatants, Allies and Central Powers alike, would have scrambled for some truce.

The Dual Monarchy would have disintegrated anyway. An independent Poland would have formed — but likely without the Polish corridor. Wilhelm might have abdicated anyway, whether for his son in a constitutional monarchy or in a republic, I don't know.

Just a few thoughts from alternative history about how different the world could have been today.

And, beyond that, about how we need more Realpolitik in foreign policy.

Veterans Day — too bad it's needed this much

True liberals and left-liberals among regular readers of my blog know my feelings on American exceptionalism, and recently, what I've also called Texas exceptionalism (and since then, learned that similar thought runs even among academic historians).

Well, it should be no surprise that this spills over to Veterans Day. Most of the wars the United States has fought have been unnecessary at best and imperialist at worst.

That starts, of course, with our various wars against Indian tribes. We could have been like Tsarist Russia versus its Siberian aborigines, and simply killed people without the "benefit" of first making treaties then breaking them. That, at least, would have been honest.

Mexican War: Sorry, Texas exceptionalists, but when Tejas was a province of Spain, then of Mexico, its normal boundary was the Nueces, not the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo del Norte. A Congressman named "Spotty" Lincoln was right about President Polk wanting, and pushing for, and conniving for, this war when Mexico refused to sell California, and using Texas issues as the cornerstone of his conniving. Also, El Paso never was a part of old Tejas, either.

Spanish-American War: President McKinley is on record before the 1896 election as wanting the Philippines. Spain requested a third-party investigation of the Maine explosion, arbitration, etc., Nope. We then had a three year imperialist war in those newly-American Philippines after the Spanish-American War itself was done.

World War I: President Wilson was a Britain-leaner far before April 4, 1917. And, the British blockade by extension (blockading Sweden, Denmark, etc., to no more than pre-1914 foodstuffs so they couldn't trans-ship to Germany) was just as illegal under international law as was German submarine warfare. We should have let both sides beat themselves senseless.

Vietnam: "Old hands" in the State Department knew the 2,000 years of Vietnamese-Chinese animosity, and knew that the domino theory was dumb on that account alone.

The Gulf War: I still believe April Glaspie that we set up Saddam Hussein in some way, egging him on in invading Kuwait. Even if we didn't, we have no doorknob-guaranteed right to cheap oil.

There was only one war that we really "underfought" in a sense. That's the Civil War, or actually, Reconstruction. Instead of 20,000 troops in the South for a decade, we should have had 200,000 for a generation, at least.

That said, it's fun to watch and hear "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" sung at Veterans Day and Memorial Day events in the South, since it was a Union-based Civil War song, as stanza 2 makes abundantly clear.

And, for Christians who love to selectively quote Romans 8, you might want to ponder further the issue of "obedience to the governing authorities" in light of both the Revolutionary War and Obamacare. That's you, dominionist Ted Cruz.

==

Update: I totally agree with this Salon piece.

Most of our "freedoms" are constitutional ones, not from foreign enemies. True, a foreign enemy might want to overthrow them, but, outside of war, the Center for Constitutional Rights, or the ACLU (second to the CCR in my book for the past several years) defends those freedoms more than the military. Also agreed that the fusion of sports and "Patriotism(TM)" pretty much makes me ill. 

This is tragic, that vets aren’t getting better mental health insurance

The biggest problem, other than Tricare’s stinted coverage and lack of therapists in its coverage, is that Guard and Reserve troops called to active duty aren’t getting active-duty level mental health insurance coverage.

Soldiers returning from war are finding it more difficult to get mental health treatment because military insurance is cutting payments to therapists, on top of already low reimbursement rates and a tangle of red tape.

Wait lists now extend for months to see a military doctor and it can takes weeks to find a private therapist willing to take on members of the military. The challenge appears great in rural areas, where many National Guard and Reserve troops and their families live.

Tricare itself needs to be improved, and Guard and Reserve on active duty should get 100 percent payment of premiums while called up.