Flame-throwers, poison gas, barbed wire, zeppelins, tanks, submarines, and most deadly of all, machine guns butchered over 10 million men in World War I and caused 20 million wounded. Science and technology turned war into slaughter. Adam Hochschild’s powerful story of people who saw the horror of this new war and tried to stop it becomes the best book I’ve ever read about “the War to end all Wars.” Hochschild’s research shows that over 5000 merchant ships were sunk by German U-Boats during the war, something I didn’t know. Groups of college students would march together into deadly machine-gun fire. The students had no conception of the ferocity of machine guns that could mow a 1000 men down in minutes. The complete waste of lives, the horrors of senseless fighting in the trenches, and the callousness of generals willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for a few feet of ground will disturb you. General Sherman said, “War is Hell” but World War I was way beyond that. GRADE: A
I’ve had a fascination for World War I for years – I’ve read several books and seen movies about the utter futility of it (remember Kubrick’s PATHS OF GLORY?) – and this sounds good, if depressing.
TO END ALL WARS is the best book I’ve read about WWI, Jeff. Hochschild tells his story through several people who were key to war’s action. The book just isn’t a list of battles like many WWI books are.
I took a course on WW 1 in college and was astounded by life in those trenches. Time to read another book on it. Downton Abbey touched on it.
I highly recommend TO END ALL WARS, Patti. The book captures the life in the trenches and the life of the average soldier on both sides.
At one point I read a lot of R. F. Delderfield’s historical novels. I remember the series set during WWI had several major characters being killed off.
The body count is high, Jeff. In most of the WWI battles, thousands were slaughtered.
That’s one of the reasons so many who survived that war came home and never spoke of it to anyone but other veterans of it. Also why there were so many cases of “shell shock”.
You’re right, Rick. WWI was a hellish experience. Those who survived it were scarred for life.