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| Document Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| All Authors / Contributors: | Barbara W Tuchman |
| ISBN: | 0026203111 9780026203111 |
| OCLC Number: | 18560266 |
| Notes: | With a new preface by the author. Maps on lining papers. |
| Description: | xvi, 511, [16] pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm |
| Contents: | 1. A funeral -- Plans -- 2. let the last man on the right brush the channel with his sleeve -- 3. the shadow of sedan -- 4. a single british solider -- 5. the russian steam roller Outbreak -- 6. August 1:Berlin -- 7. August 1: Paris and London -- 8. Ultimatum in Brussels -- 9. home before the leaves fall -- Battle -- 10. Goeben ... an enemy then flying -- 11. Liege and alsace -- 12. BEF to the continent -- 13. sambre et meuse -- 14. debacle:Lorraine, Adennes, Charleroi, Mons -- 15. the cossacks are coming -- 16. Tannenberg -- 17. the flames of Louvain -- 18. blue water, blockard, and the great neutral -- 19. retreat -- 20. the front is Paris -- 21. Von Kluck's turn -- 22. gentlemen we will fight on the Marne -- 23. Afterward. |
| Responsibility: | Barbara W. Tuchman. |
Abstract:
Published to immediate acclaim in 1962 and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1963, The Guns of August is the classic account of the cataclysmic outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the 30 days of battle that followed. This opening clash determined the future course of the war and shaped the history of our century. Its tense drama continues to enthrall readers of Barbara W. Tuchman's magnificent best-selling work, now in 25th anniversary edition with a new preface by the author. In the summer of 1914, Europe with a heap of swords piled as delicately as jackstraws, and not one could be drawn out without upsetting the others. Still, statesmen, field marshals, admirals, kings, and patriots believed what they wanted to believe -- or what they feared not to believe -- and waited in profound ignorance for victory to reveal itself within a matter of weeks. Instead, the holocaust of August was the prelude to 4 bitter years of deadlocked war that cost a generation of European lives. The German, French, English, and Russian General Staffs had had their plans for war completed as early as 10 years before hostilities began. Germany intended to invade France; England had committed her army to cooperation with the French Army. France, bolstered by her alliance with Russia and her "entente" with Britain, designed her strategy in terms solely of the offensive and the attaque brusqueée. Russia planned a pincer invasion of East Prussia while the main German armies were involved in the West. None of these plans allowed for the contingencies of the others, or recognized their own intrinsic errors. Yet for perhaps five years before the war began, each General Staff knew what the others would do; all that was planned. The bloody catalogue of the battles of August 1914 includes the almost mythic names of Liège, Tannenberg, Mons, the Battle of the Frontiers, and Charleroi. And of men like Joffre, indomitably rebuilding his shattered French armies; Samsonov dying a suicide after the annihilation of the Russian 2nd Army; von Kluck stubbornly committing his fatal mistake; Admiral Souchon choosing his desperate and fateful course for Constantinople. Through her unforgettable portraits of these characters and many others, Mrs. Tuchman has made her book doubly exciting -- revealing the human reasons for the disasters of war. - Jacket flap.
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