Volume 6, Number 1 · February 3, 1966
Guided Tour
By James Joll
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War: 1890-1914
by Barbara W. Tuchman
Macmillan, 528 pp., $7.95
When war broke out in 1914, very few people realized what it was going to involve. While the French soldiers scrawled A Berlin on the railroad cars taking them to the front and the German Crown Prince called for a 'bright and jolly war'—a frisch-fröhlichen Krieg—the British were confident that 'it would all be over by Christmas.' Only very few people saw beyond the immediate upsurge of patriotic enthusiasm to the long term social and political consequences of the war—the revolutions and, as the French socialist leader, Jean Jaurès, had prophesied in 1905, 'the crises of counter-revolution, of violent reaction, of exasperated nationalism, of stifling dictatorship, of monstrous militarism, a long chain of retrograde violence and of enslavement.' Sir Edward Grey, it is true, saw the lights going out all over Europe; but more people would probably have agreed with the German industrialist Walther Rathenau, who heard 'the ringing opening chord for an immortal song of sacrifice, loyalty and heroism.'
Review, 2002 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |