I just finished rereading "The Guns of August", a book written by Barbara Tuchman in 1962. It was about my third time to read it. I am fascinated by what causes wars to begin, and how wars are fought, and how soldiers are able to endure all the suffering and fear. This book is all about how World War I started.
This book starts with the funeral of King Edward VII in May 1910, and explains all the political history of Europe at that time. It sets forth all the military plans of Germany, France, England, Russia, and their treaties, and then goes on to show how World War I started. The book ends with the Battle of the Marne, in Sept. 1914.
I think it is a fascinating book because I like to see how the generals come up with their strategy.
World War I was such a tragic war, with such a high loss of life. Here is a quote from the Afterword, on page 439 of the paperback:
"In the chapel of St. Cyr (before it was destroyed during World War II) the memorial tablet to the dead of the Great War bore only a single entry for "the Class of 1914." The mortality rate is further illustrated by the experience of Andre Varagnac, a nephew of the cabinet minister Marcel Sembat, who came of military age in 1914 but was not mobilized in August owing to illness, and found himself, out of the twenty-seven boys in his ly'cee class, the only one alive by Christmas. According to Armees Francaises, French casualties in the month of August 1914 alone amounted to 206,515, including killed, wounded, and missing out of total effectives for the armies in the field of 1,600,000....When the war was over, the known dead per capita of population were 1 to 28 for France, 1 to 32 for Germany, 1 to 57 for England, and 1 to 107 for Russia."
Imagine, having one out of every 28 people die in France. That is a huge percentage of the population.
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