57 pages • 1 hour read
Barbara W. TuchmanThe Guns of August
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1962A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Ripple Effects of Individual Actions
In tracing the causes of World War I, The Guns of August often pauses to consider when and how events might have unfolded differently. Though these pivot points sometimes involve complex systems—the military apparatus, relationships between various countries, etc.—they just as often hinge on the choices and traits of individual people. When those people are in positions of power, Tuchman suggests, even seemingly inconsequential decisions can have an outsized impact.
Tuchman’s account of Edward VII’s funeral establishes this intersection of the personal and global by framing the war as something like a family feud. Tuchman draws attention to the blood ties among Europe’s ruling families, including the fact that Wilhelm II was Edward’s nephew. Though Wilhelm’s reasons for resenting Edward are political—he feels that Edward’s diplomatic achievements with Russia and France have alienated and threatened Germany—the intimate context in which Tuchman presents this background underscores the conflict’s personal dimensions. Wilhelm’s resentment and mistrust become driving forces as tension between the European powers escalates, contributing to the outbreak of war.
This is not the work’s only instance of personality shaping world events. For example, when Wilhelm begins to question the wisdom of going to war, his inflexible field marshal Moltke vetoes the kaiser’s attempt to pull out of the Eastern Front simply because he doesn’t want to disrupt their carefully planned train schedule. Conversely, Tuchman argues that the indecisiveness and hesitancy of Sir John French, commander of the BEF, played a decisive role in allowing the German forces to advance as far into France as they did in the early days of the war. By interpreting his orders to protect his troops overly cautiously, Sir John effectively abandons Britain’s French allies.
In addition to highlighting the foibles of major players in the war, Tuchman also draws attention to simple mistakes that compounded into devastating results. Sir George Milne’s efforts to intercept the Goeben are a case in point. Sir George fails to telegraph the direction of the German ship back to headquarters, confusing the British admiralty; a wireless error on the other end then causes the mission to fail. Tuchman portrays the outcome of this naval chase as pivotal in sealing the alliance between Germany and the Ottoman Empire, once again showing how significant apparently minor missteps can prove.
War Is Caused by Hubris, Not Inequity
One theory of war maintains that it stems from disputes over resources—e.g., “a concentration of valuable resources such as livestock, increasing social complexity and hierarchy, trade in high-value goods, and the establishment of group boundaries and collective identities” (Ferguson, R. Brian, “War Is Not Part of Human Nature.” Scientific American, 1 Sep. 2018). Therefore, without inequities of resources, war itself would become obsolete. For Tuchman, WWI proved this theory a fallacy; war is possible at any level of cultural or economic comfort because its primary causes are ideological rather than material.
To be sure, inequality still existed just before the outbreak of WWI. Nevertheless, the major players were some of the “technologically most advanced societies of the twentieth century” (Howard, Michael and William Roger Louis, The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press, 2006). Moreover, the interconnected nature of turn-of-the-century European economies meant that war would likely harm each country’s material condition rather than help it. In fact, this was the thesis of a book, The Great Illusion, published only a few years before the outbreak of WWI. The author, Norman Angell, contended that the economic costs of conflict made war all but unthinkable.
Tuchman references Angell’s work in Chapter 1; even for a reader unfamiliar with the history, the knowledge that there are many more chapters to come implies Angell will be proven wrong. In those following chapters, Tuchman insinuates that hubris—and more specifically nationalism—is the real cause of war. France’s national pride, for instance, leads it to believe it can easily defeat Germany. Moreover, its animosity toward Germany stems largely from wounded pride, as France has not forgotten the defeat it suffered in the Franco-Prussian War or the humiliation of occupation and annexation.
The rise of nationalism on the global stage causes the political maneuvering that makes Germany feel isolated. Nevertheless, Tuchman lays the largest blame at Germany’s feet. Germany, in her telling, believes that it should rule the world and that it has the best army, philosophers, and people. In a kind of poetic justice, Tuchman insinuates that Germany also pays the most for its arrogance. Germany’s belief that Belgium will not fight slows its advance through the country toward France. Germany’s fear of losing a war causes it to send two divisions to the east to fight the Russians. Von Kluck’s belief that the French have been defeated turns the tide of the war against the German invasion. Although German nationalism in the early 1900s was in practice intertwined with material concerns—e.g., imperialist competition for resources—Tuchman emphasizes its more emotional underpinnings to support her overall portrait of war’s causes.
The Courage of Ordinary Soldiers Versus the Military Machine
Tuchman’s depiction of ordinary soldiers is generally sympathetic, as when she emphasizes the courage of the Belgian soldiers defending Liège against the militarily superior German forces. By contrast, her portrayal of military leadership, as well as the military as an institution, is quite critical. Tuchman thus embraces and further popularizes the commonly held view that WWI troops were “lions led by donkeys.”
Military blunders during the early days of the war furnish much of Tuchman’s evidence. Every army outruns its supplies or has its lines cut. In the Eastern Front, Russian soldiers and their horses don’t eat for days. They die exhausted and lost in a swamp. The Germans on the march to Paris outrun their supplies and are forced to fight exhausted and hungry. The French don’t fare much better; in their retreat, they have no time to eat or find supplies. In every case, common soldiers pay the price for incompetent leadership.
The dichotomy is especially apparent in Tuchman’s treatment of Russia, whose industrial development lags behind that of other European countries, creating difficulties equipping soldiers and waging a modern war. For example, The Germans constantly intercept Russian telegraph messages because they are insecure due to lack of proper equipment. Moreover, corruption plagues the upper echelons of the Russian military, resulting in inefficiency and conflicts of interests. The sheer size of the country compounds these problems by slowing mobilization efforts.
France and Britain’s confidence that Russia will be a powerful ally once mobilized points to a more systemic critique not only of the Russian military but of militaries throughout Europe. Once in motion, Tuchman implies, the military apparatus has its own momentum that is difficult to stop, particularly on short notice. Kaiser Wilhelm’s failed last-minute attempt to avert war is a prime example. In theory, the country’s ruler ought to have the final word, but Wilhelm is overruled by his military officers. Ironically, King Albert’s very struggles to mobilize the Belgian army prove a similar point; Albert finds himself mired in bureaucratic red tape that impedes the country’s ability to respond to rapidly evolving tensions.
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