Michael S. Neiberg

World War I Illustrated Atlas by Michael S Neiberg is a wonderfully detailed reference book that will make any history you may be reading that much more impactful.

First, since it seems some readers don't understand what an atlas is, or what it isn't, this is not a narrative history of the war. It is a reference book that focuses on, as the title states, campaigns, battles, and weapons. This is ideal for those reading narrative histories but perhaps with fewer illustrations or maps. It will help you to visualize what happened and where. It is great if you remember the location of a battle but not when, or the other way around. If you're reading or studying a narrow aspect of the war this can offer some context for what was happening elsewhere. But this is an atlas, not a history book. Are we clear?

I mentioned above some of the many uses this volume can serve. I also enjoyed just going through it as a way to remember what I once knew and to learn some additional facts. I did go back and look up where some notable people had served, which helped contextualize their later accounts of the war.

Whether you're a casual history buff or a scholar, this book will be an excellent addition to your library. If you're a writer, whether of nonfiction or historical fiction, this can be a valuable asset for getting details correct.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (meer)

I finished Michael Neiberg’s, Potsdam: The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe. The book goes into the period which transition from Franklin Roosevelt to Harry Truman and from Winston Churchill to Clement Atlee and how the decisions reached at The Yalta Conference impacted the decisions reached from this time through Potsdam.

A common theme is drawing comparisons between the post World War I world and The Versailles Treaty and the end of World War II and how the big three in each were trying to deal with the same issues

The major issues were assigning war guilt, dealing with potential reparations, post-war boundaries, and ethnic minority issues, specifically around the creation of Poland and the prior and new boundaries of Poland after both wars.

Truman, Churchill, and Stalin are trying to avoid the failures of Versailles, which are widely believed to have spawned the Second World War, dealing with the displaced persons, e.g., Germans, Poles, and Eastern European minorities

They were also trying to how China, Italy, and France fit into the post-war leadership and European security, specifically in Western Europe.

The other major issues are getting the Soviet Union to fulfill the promise to joining the war effort against Japan, the discussion surrounding the policy of unconditional surrender and to to modify it to hasten the Japanese surrender while allowing them to save face and the impact of the atomic bomb on Japan’s surrender.

It is a great book that I rate as a five-star book and only 292 pages of reading. It is great to read such a focused book on an important subject that is still relevant today.… (meer)

When Gavrilo Princip stepped up to the car of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 and fired his Browning pistol twice, one bullet for the Archduke and one for his wife, he gave Europeans what they had long wanted: a war to settle old grudges and to further the interests of their countries. The war had long been predicted, desired, and was greeted with enthusiasm. They all wanted it.

Or so one of the myths of World War One would have it.

Neiberg’s compelling and highly readable history is a convincing refutation of that idea. By looking at the journals, articles, letters, and diaries of Europeans – including some who found themselves in countries their home nations were at war with – and diplomats and journalists from neutral nations, he details how Europeans went from barely noticing any “crisis” in June 1914 to reluctant but resolute supporters of the war by December 1914.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire wasn’t that upset about the assassination. There was no cessation of regular activities to mourn the Archduke. French, Italian, and Russians newspapers barely noted the story. The British papers were sympathetic to the Archduke since he and his wife had visited England the year before. But, really, what could you expect from Serb “anarchists”?

It was a beautiful summer, and Europe was at peace. Bestselling books had argued for years that a European war was unthinkable because of international trade and the sheer volume of material that would be consumed in a modern war. And there had been war scares before back in 1905 and 1911. The diplomats had always worked things out. It may take months, and there would be ups and downs. Maybe the Austro-Hungarian Empire would take its gripes against Serbia to a third-party arbitrator. It’s not like it was going to punish a whole country because of a small group of terrorists.

Europeans were not internationalists. They had loyalties to nations and empires, but it was not an aggressive nationalism that yearned for war. Kaiser Wilhelm, astoundingly, was regarded in the Europe of 1914 as a major force for peace. Czar Nicholas had a similar reputation. The British Royal Navy visited the German High Fleet in Kiel that July, and politicians took vacations and went to the spa.

That all changed on July 23, 1914 when the Austro-Hungarians made their demands of Serbia and gave them two days to comply. Not exactly cricket, as a British diplomat might have said. It took months to resolve these matters, not days. And why make the demand directly to Serbia and not ask for arbitration?

Von Moltke the Elder, in the waning years of the 19th century, said that cabinet wars were a thing of the past. From now on, Europe would have people’s wars. But cabinets were taking actions behind the scenes that would lead to war – even if that wasn’t that intended outcome. (Neiberg takes the conventional and, to my mind, questionable position that the war was mostly the fault of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires.)

The Serbs agreed to all demands except one, and that led, as far as the Austro-Hungarians were concerned, to the desired outcome: an excuse to invade Serbia.

But, while some European diplomats were alarmed at the Austro-Hungarian demands, most of the populace paid little attention to the growing crisis or thought war was imminent or wanted one.

The one exception was European Socialists, and Neiberg explains well why, despite their pleads to an international brotherhood of workers, they all endorsed war for their countries.

Socialists were skeptical of war which they saw as a brutal affair that ended up enriching capitalists and killing or impoverishing the workers. French and German Socialists had a tight relationship with each other.

Jean Jaurès was Europe’s leading Socialist and immediately recognized, on July 25, 1914, that Europe was closer to war than it had been in 40 years. But he also thought protracted negotiations would ultimately resolve the situation peacefully. German and French Socialists had consulted with their governments and were assured they wanted peace. The idea that alliances could drag countries into war instead of being a force for peace didn’t occur to them.

And European Socialists were not internationalists or pacificists. They believed in the right and duty of Socialists to protect their own nations. Before he was assassinated on July 31st, Jaurès met with the French government. After hearing how it turned down Germany’s demand that France turn over some fortresses – including Verdun – in exchange for being left alone, Jaurès said he couldn’t imagine what more France could do to avoid war.

Mass demonstrations were held in Austria and Germany against the war, but, eventually, Socialists in all the belligerent nations supported – reluctantly – war. The reasons were several. Governments sold the conflict as being defensive in nature, and, after the outbreak of the war, press freedom was rapidly tamped down and propaganda began. Atrocity stories stiffened the resolve to fight. Opposing political parties made temporary alliances to present a picture of unity and for possible future concessions.

For a while, the notion of a short war held sway, but the belief in that seemed to have faded by September 1914.

Privation, propaganda, a sense of grueling patriotic duty reluctantly taken up, and the sunken-cost fallacy stiffened the resolve of the warring nations to see the war through.

Neiberg presents his case with elegance and many illuminating quotes and incidents.

He also takes a look at the changing notions of the soldiers involved as they went from a bored obliviousness to the coming storm to bafflement at where they found themselves. That includes German soldiers punished for giving food to Belgiums, a country that it seemed rather hard to regard as an enemy unlike France or the Asiatic hordes of Russia.

Highly recommended for those interested in the eventful summer of 1914 and the outbreak of the Great War.… (meer)

While Neiberg wrote this book as a case study of how governments behave in the case of shock and emergency, with the working assumption that he would find circumstances of ruthlessly carrying through on a course of expediency, with the period expectation that the ends would justify the means, that is not what his conclusions wound up being. The more Neiberg considered the evidence, the more he found a situation of FDR's administration desperately casting around, in the case of the Vichy government, for a policy that kept the remaining French resources out of German reach, while at the same time maintaining a semblance of respectability. What this practically meant is according recognition to Petain for too long, and then cycling through a range of possible partners in a determined effort to avoid dealing with Charles de Gaulle; at least until there was no other option. U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, in particular, does not come out of this study looking especially sensible or realistic. This is really not news, but what Neiberg does really well is put the contingency back in the story, so, if you have no familiarity with this tawdry tale, this is a book well worth reading.… (meer)