The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World

From Publishers Weekly
Herwig's engrossing narrative of the first battle of the Marne in 1914, really a history of the first six weeks of fighting on the western front, treats the clash as a study in best-laid plans gone awry. The chaos and miscalculation that derailed both the German and French armies' meticulously wrought strategies owed much, Herwig shows, to a new and ghastly style of warfare in which machine guns and heavy artillery rendered courage irrelevant. But his account is also an analysis of generalship, pitting the German commander, Helmuth von Moltke, a weak leader who lost his grip on his armies in the midst of dazzling successes, and French Gen. Joseph Joffre, who imperturbably slapped together new defenses amid disastrous defeats. Herwig combines colorful evocations of the horrors of the fighting with a lucid operational history of the campaign. An immense bloodbath that was supposed to be climactic but proved only a prelude to worse carnage, the Marne becomes, in Herwig's telling, an apt microcosm of the war to end all wars. 16 pages of b&w photos; maps. (Dec. 1)

From Booklist
This fine history of World War I’s opening battle argues persuasively that it was decisive in setting the pattern for the war, a pattern that made World War II inevitable. The narrative extends back to the war’s opening days and includes frank assessments of performance (the Germans weren’t nearly as good as they thought they were, the Belgians rather better than expected). Throughout, numerous myths in the historiography of the battle (such as “the taxis of the Marne”) are politely analyzed and, where necessary, debunked. Herwig’s research has been exhaustive, including of archives long since thought destroyed that help him fill in a great many details about the German side. Finally, Herwig constantly uses “What if?” to remind us that none of the outcomes of the campaigns or battles here were foreordained. As fine an addition to scholarly World War I literature as has been seen in some time. –Roland Green