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e6a0298
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Whatever our lot may be, August 4, 1914, will remain for all eternity one of Germany's greatest days!
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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69a6d69
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Where Brooke was embracing cleanness and nobleness, Mann saw a more positive goal. Germans being, he said, the most educated, law-abiding, peace-loving of all peoples, deserved to be the most powerful, to dominate, to establish a "German peace" out of "what is being called with every possible justification the German war."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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5c9b683
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After a last attempted poisoning--this time of Burgundy and Berry--Navarre died in horrid circumstances. Sick and prematurely old at 56, he was tormented by chills and shivering and at doctor's orders was wrapped at night in cloths soaked in brandy to warm his body and cause sweat. To keep them in place, the wrappings were sewn on each time like a shroud, and caught fire one night from the valet's candle as he leaned over to cut a thread. T..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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089e9c4
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Though writing in 1917, Mann was reflecting 1914, the year that was to be the German 1789, the establishment of the German idea in history, the enthronement of Kultur, the fulfillment of Germany's historic mission. In August, sitting at a cafe in Aachen, a German scientist said to the American journalist Irwin Cobb: "We Germans are the most industrious, the most earnest, the best educated race in Europe."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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7235a0b
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The death of the last of the three brothers in 1328 left the succession to the crown open, with results that led to the longest war--so far--in Western history. Three claimants were available--a grandson and two nephews of Philip the Fair. The grandson was the sixteen-year-old Edward III of England, son of Philip the Fair's daughter Isabel, who had married Edward II. She was generally believed to have connived with her lover in the murder o..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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ac102d8
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Devout or not, all owned and carried Books of Hours, the characteristic fashionable religious possession of the 14th century noble.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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e74837a
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For a hundred years the Ottoman Empire, called the "Sick Man" of Europe, had been considered moribund by the hovering European powers who were waiting to fall upon the carcass."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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59efb2a
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The cutting off of Russia with all its consequences, the vain and sanguinary tragedy of Gallipoli, the diversion of Allied strength in the campaigns of Mesopotamia, Suez, and Palestine, the ultimate breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the subsequent history of the Middle East, followed from the voyage of the Goeben.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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36520ad
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Having won the Cross of St. George as a dashing young cavalry officer in the war of 1877 against the Turks, Sukhomlinov believed that military knowledge acquired in that campaign was permanent truth. As Minister of War he scolded a meeting of Staff College instructors for interest in such "innovations" as the factor of firepower against the saber, lance and the bayonet charge. He could not hear the phrase "modern war," he said, without a se..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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f1cb29c
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Though a profound student of Clausewitz, Foch did not, like Clausewitz's German successors, believe in a foolproof schedule of battle worked out in advance. Rather he taught the necessity of perpetual adaptability and improvisation to fit circumstances. "Regulations," he would say, "are all very well for drill but in the hour of danger they are no more use.... You have to learn to think." To think meant to give room for freedom of initiativ..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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05efa38
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Fear and horror of the franc-tireur sprang from the German feeling that civil resistance was essentially disorderly. If there has to be a choice between injustice and disorder, said Goethe, the German prefers injustice.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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dbcc501
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Two years later the logic of the struggle led (Pope) John XXII to excommunicate William of Ockham, the English Franciscan, known for his forceful reasoning as "the invincible doctor." In expounding a philosophy called "nominalism," Ockham opened a dangerous door to direct intuitive knowledge of the physical world. He was in a sense a spokesman for intellectual freedom, and the Pope recognized the implications by his ban. In reply to the exc..
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occams-razor
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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c3a7680
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To achieve decisive victory, Schlieffen fixed upon a strategy derived from Hannibal and the Battle of Cannae. The dead general who mesmerized Schlieffen had been dead a very long time. Two thousand years had passed since Hannibal's classic double envelopment of the Romans at Cannae. Field gun and machine gun had replaced bow and arrow and slingshot, Schlieffen wrote, "but the principles of strategy remain unchanged. The enemy's front is not..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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2e928a8
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Alexander Guchkov, a subsequent Minister of War, testified that he "reached the firm conviction that the war was lost" after Tannenberg. The defeat gave new vigor to the pro-German groups who began openly to agitate for withdrawal from the war. Count Witte was convinced the war would ruin Russia, Rasputin that it would destroy the regime."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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dc10176
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Once the mobilization button was pushed, the whole vast machinery for calling up, equipping, and transporting two million men began turning automatically. Reservists went to their designated depots, were issued uniforms, equipment, and arms, formed into companies and companies into battalions, were joined by cavalry, cyclists, artillery, medical units, cook wagons, blacksmith wagons, even postal wagons, moved according to prepared railway t..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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c75dfb8
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Disdain of the reserves was augmented by the new doctrine of the offensive which, it was felt, could only be properly inculcated in active troops. To perform the irresistible onslaught of the attaque brusquee, symbolized by the bayonet charge, the essential quality was elan, and elan could not be expected of men settled in civilian life with family responsibilities. Reserves mixed with active troops would create "armies of decadence," incap..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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35cf616
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Officers from St. Cyr went into battle wearing white-plumed shakos and white gloves; it was considered "chic" to die in white gloves. An unidentified French sergeant kept a diary: "the guns recoil at each shot. Night is falling and they look like old men sticking out their tongues and spitting fire. Heaps of corpses, French and German, are lying every which way, rifles in hand. Rain is falling, shells are screaming and bursting--shells all ..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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f05ad7e
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At Coucy's level, men and women hawked and hunted and carried a favorite falcon, hooded, on the wrist wherever they went, indoors or out--to church, to the assizes, to meals. On occasion, huge pastries were served from which live birds were released to be caught by hawks unleashed in the banquet hall.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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1cdb27b
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Lanrezac finally spoke. He gave the order for a general retreat. He knew he would be taken for a "catastrophard" who must be got rid of--as indeed he was. His own account tells that he said to one of his officers: "We have been beaten but the evil is reparable. As long as the Fifth Army lives, France is not lost." Although the remark has the ring of memoirs written after the event, it may well have been spoken. Fateful moments tend to evoke..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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aa9ae6a
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The Naval Minister next challenged the War Minister to a duel, but after fervent efforts by their colleagues to separate and calm the combatants, he embraced Messimy in tears and was persuaded to resign for reasons of health.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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2140df7
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Many who lived through the next thirty days of mounting combat, agony, and terror were to remember the sound of endless, repetitious masculine singing as the worst torment of the invasion.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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ae5ae0b
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Germans felt similar emotions. The war was to be, wrote Thomas Mann, "a purification, a liberation, an enormous hope. The victory of Germany will be a victory of soul over numbers. The German soul," he explained, "is opposed to the pacifist ideal of civilization for is not peace an element of civil corruption?"
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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6efab61
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Owing to the high infant mortality of the times, estimated at one or two in three, the investment of love in a young child may have been so unrewarding that by some ruse of nature, as when overcrowded rodents in captivity will not breed, it was suppressed.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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1a9cea1
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In Whitehall that evening, Sir Edward Grey, standing with a friend at the window as the street lamps below were being lit, made the remark that has since epitomized the hour: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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48449af
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As early as August 24 Sukhomlinov, the War Minister who had not bothered to build arms factories because he did not believe in firepower, wrote General Yanushkevitch, the beardless Chief of Staff: "In God's name, issue orders for gathering up the rifles. We have sent 150,000 to the Serbs, our reserves are nearly used up and factory production is feeble."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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d8d156f
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Human behavior is timeless.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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8b202eb
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There is no record what Asquith replied or what, in his inmost mind, a region difficult to penetrate under the best of circumstances, he thought on this crucial question.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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6326a2d
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Supposed to be commissioned by the Church, the pardoners would sell absolution for any sin from gluttony to homicide, cancel any vow of chastity or fasting, remit any penance for money, most of which they pocketed.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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afda899
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General Gallieni, dining in civilian clothes at a small cafe in Paris on August 9, overheard an editor of Le Temps at the next table say to a companion, "I can tell you that General Gallieni has just entered Colmar with 30,000 men." Leaning over to his friend, Gallieni said quietly, "That is how history is written."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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a5eba9d
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No one dared tell the outcome of the battle to Philip VI until his jester was thrust forward and said, "Oh, the cowardly English, the cowardly English!" and on being asked why, replied, "They did not jump overboard like our brave Frenchmen." The King evidently got the point. The fish drank so much French blood, it was said afterward, that if God had given them the power of speech they would have spoken in French."
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medieval-history
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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0ef77ef
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This was not necessarily a deliberate effort to be offensive; it was normal for General Staff officers to be offensive.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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efdc3a6
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One corps had run out of wire altogether and was relying on mounted orderlies. The VIth Corps did not possess the key to the cipher used by the XIIIth. Consequently, Samsonov's orders were issued by wireless in clear.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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3beb85a
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Hausen himself could not get over the "hostility of the Belgian people." To discover "how we are hated" was a constant amazement to him. He complained bitterly of the attitude of the D'Eggremont family in whose luxurious chateau of forty rooms, with green-houses, gardens, and stable for fifty horses, he was billeted for one night. The elderly Count went around "with his fists clenched in his pockets"; the two sons absented themselves from t..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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1e20c07
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Palaver is the rule," he said. "Every morning I lose three hours in reports and discussions which have no results. Every decision requires an arbitration. Even as Chief of Staff to the Governor, I cannot, as a simple general of brigade, give orders to the generals of division who command the sectors."
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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ea03d36
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The reckoning of time was based on the movements of sun and stars, nature's timekeepers, which were familar and carefully observed.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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95ce15b
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Although my initial question has escaped an answer, the interest of the period itself-- a violent, tormented, bewildered, suffering and disintegrating age, a time, as many thought, of Satan triumphant-- was compelling, as it seemed to me, consoling in a period of similar disarray. If our last decade or two of collapsing assumptions has been a period of unusual discomfort, it is reassuring to know that the human species has lived through wor..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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628a294
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Hausen himself, whose chief concern, second only to his reverence for titles, was a passionate attention to the amenities offered by each night's billets, was equally annoyed. On August 27, his first night in France, no chateau was available for himself and the Crown Prince of Saxony who accompanied him. They had to sleep in the house of a sous-prefet which had been left in complete disorder; "even the beds had not been made!" The following..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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8f5d2a7
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On the same day, the British chiefs were hurrying the BEF southward with such urgency that the soldiers were deprived of the rest they needed far more than they needed distance from the enemy. On that day, August 28, a day when von Kluck's columns gave them no trouble, Sir John French and Wilson were in such anxiety to hasten the retreat that they ordered transport wagons to "throw overboard all ammunition and other impediments not absolute..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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7b9af3d
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In dust, heat, and discouragement and fatigue beyond telling, the British retreat continued. Trailing through St. Quentin, the tired remnants of two battalions gave up, piled up their arms in the railroad station, sat down in the Place de la Gare, and refused to go farther. They told Major Bridges whose cavalry had orders to hold off the Germans until St. Quentin was clear of troops, that their commanding officers had given the mayor a writ..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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0476787
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Early on August 4, a quiet, clear, luminous morning, seventy miles to the east of Brussels, the first invaders, units of von Marwitz's Cavalry, crossed into Belgium. Coming at a steady purposeful trot, they carried twelve-foot steel-headed lances and were otherwise hung about with an arsenal of sabers, pistols, and rifles. Harvesters looking up from the roadside fields, villagers peering from their windows, whispered, "Uhlans!" The outlandi..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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6b3875e
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As vanguard of the invasion, the cavalry's mission was to reconnoiter the position of the Belgian and French armies, to watch out for British landings, and to screen the German deployment against similar enemy reconnaissance. On the first day the duty of the advance squadrons, supported by infantry brought up in automobiles, was to seize the crossings of the Meuse before the bridges were destroyed and capture farms and villages as sources o..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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2cf8aab
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Behind them, filling the roads that converged on Liege came the infantry of Emmich's assault force, rank after rank. Only the red regimental number painted on helmet fronts broke the monotony of field-gray Horse-drawn field artillery followed. The new leather of boots and harness creaked. Companies of cyclists sped ahead to seize road crossings and farmhouses and lay telephone wires. Automobiles honked their way through, carrying monocled S..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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840f2f8
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There was an aura about 1914 that caused those who sensed it to shiver for mankind. Tears came even to the most bold and resolute.
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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3de6bd7
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In the annual Feast of Fools at Christmastime, every rite and article of the Church no matter how sacred was celebrated in mockery. A dominus festi, or lord of the revels, was elected from the inferior clergy--the cures, subdeacons, vicars, and choir clerks, mostly ill-educated, ill-paid, and ill-disciplined--whose day it was to turn everything topsy-turvy. They installed their lord as Pope or Bishop or Abbot of Fools in a ceremony of head-..
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Barbara W. Tuchman |