The Guns of August (3 page)
Read The Guns of August Online
Authors: Barbara W. Tuchman
He then went on to describe the main actors in the narrative, saying that “one of the marks of the superior historian is the ability to project human beings as well as events,” and he
picked out the salient characters—the Kaiser, King Albert, generals Joffre and Foch, among others, just as I had tried to convey them, which made me feel I had succeeded in what I intended. I was so moved by Fadiman’s understanding, not to mention being compared to Thucydides, that I found myself in tears, a reaction that I have never known again. To elicit perfect comprehension is perhaps to be expected only once.
I suppose the important thing to say in introducing an anniversary edition is whether the significance given to it historically holds up. I think it does. There are no passages I would wish to change.
While the best-known part is the opening scene on the funeral of Edward VII, the closing paragraph of the Afterword expresses for the book, or rather for its subject, the meaning in our history of the Great War. Though it may be presumptuous of me to say so, I think this is as well stated as any summary of World War I that I know.
On top of Fadiman’s praise came a startling prediction by
Publishers Weekly,
the bible of the book trade.
“The Guns of August,”
it declared, “will be the biggest new nonfiction seller in your winter season.” Carried away by its own superlative,
PW
was led to some rather eccentric prose stating that the book “will grip the American reading public with a new enthusiasm for the electric moments of this hitherto neglected chapter of history …” I did not think that “enthusiasm” for the Great War was quite the noun I would have chosen, or that one could feel “enthusiasm” for “electric moments” or that one could justly call World War I, which had the longest list of titles in the New York Public Library, a “neglected chapter” in history, nevertheless I was pleased by
PW
’s hearty welcome. Given the fact that in moments of depression during the course of writing, I had said to Mr. Scott, “Who is going to read
this
?” and he had replied, “Two people: you will and I will.” That was hardly encouraging, which made
PW
’s pronouncement all the more astonishing to me. As it turned out, they were right.
The Guns
took off like a runaway horse, and my children, to whom I assigned the royalties and foreign rights, have been receiving nice little checks
ever since. When divided among three, the amount may be small, but it is good to know that after twenty-six years the book is still making its way to new readers.
With this new edition I am happy that the book [is being introduced] to a new generation, and I hope that in middle age it will not have lost its charm or, to put it more appropriately, its interest.
—Barbara W. Tuchman
T
HIS BOOK
owes a primary debt to Mr. Cecil Scott of The Macmillan Company whose advice and encouragement and knowledge of the subject were an essential element and a firm support from beginning to end. I have also been fortunate in the critical collaboration of Mr. Denning Miller who in clarifying many problems of writing and interpretation made this a better book than it would otherwise have been. For his help I am permanently grateful.
I should like to express my appreciation of the unsurpassed resources of the New York Public Library and, at the same time, a hope that somehow, someday in my native city a way will be found to make the Library’s facilities for scholars match its incomparable material. My thanks go also to the New York Society Library for the continuing hospitality of its stacks and the haven of a place to write; to Mrs. Agnes F. Peterson of the Hoover Library at Stanford for the loan of the Briey
Procés-Verbaux
and for running to earth the answers to many queries; to Miss R. E. B. Coombe of the Imperial War Museum, London, for many of the illustrations; to the staff of the Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine Paris, for source material and to Mr. Henry Sachs of the American Ordnance Association for technical advice and for supplementing my inadequate German.
To the reader I must explain that the omission of Austria-Hungary, Serbia, and the Russo-Austrian and Serbo-Austrian
fronts was not entirely arbitrary. The inexhaustible problem of the Balkans divides itself naturally from the rest of the war. Moreover, operations on the Austrian front during the first thirty-one days were purely preliminary and did not reach a climax, with effect on the war as a whole, until the Battle of Lemberg against the Russians and the Battle of the Drina against the Serbs. These took place between September 8 and 17, outside my chronological limits, and it seemed to me there was unity without it and the prospect of tiresome length if it were included.
After a period of total immersion in military memoirs, I had hoped to dispense with Roman-numeraled corps, but convention proved stronger than good intentions. I can do nothing about the Roman numerals which, it seems, are inseparably riveted to army corps, but I can offer the reader a helpful R
ULE ON
L
EFT AND
R
IGHT
: rivers face downstream and armies, even when turned around and retreating, are considered to face the direction in which they started; that is, their left and right remain the same as when they were advancing.
Sources for the narrative and for all quoted remarks are given in the Notes at the end of the book. I have tried to avoid spontaneous attribution or the “he must have” style of historical writing: “As he watched the coastline of France disappear, Napoleon must have thought back over the long …” All conditions of weather, thoughts or feelings, and states of mind public or private, in the following pages have documentary support. Where it seems called for, the evidence appears in the Notes.
2
“Let the Last Man on the Right Brush the Channel with His Sleeve”
4
“A Single British Soldier …”
9
“Home Before the Leaves Fall”
10
“
Goeben
… An Enemy Then Flying”
14
Debacle: Lorraine, Ardennes, Charleroi, Mons
16
Tannenberg
18
Blue Water, Blockade, and the Great Neutral
19
Retreat
22
“Gentlemen, We Will Fight on the Marne”
General Joffre with General de Castelnau (left) and General Pau
Sir Henry Wilson talking with Foch and Colonel Huguet
General Sukhomlinov with staff officers
The Czar and Grand Duke Nicholas
The Kaiser and von Moltke
The
Goeben
Admiral Souchon
King Albert
Field Marshal Sir John French
Prince Rupprecht and the Kaiser
General von François
Colonel Max Hoffmann
German cavalry officers in Brussels
Joffre, Poincaré, King George V, Foch, and Haig
General Gallieni
General von Kluck
Maps by William A. Pieper
Battle of the Frontiers, August 20–23
Battle of Gumbinnen and Transfer of the Eighth Army
Battle of Tannenberg, August 25–30
The Retreat, August 25–September 1
So
GORGEOUS
was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens—four dowager and three regnant—and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.