THE RAGTIME INFANTRY ON THE EASTERN FRONT
TOBY SINCLAIR
Calcutta Telegraph, India
inion/story_8251138.asp
Aug 31 2007
Royal Irish Fusiliers, Gallipoli, 1915
WORLD WAR ONE: A SHORT HISTORY By Norman Stone,
Allen Lane, Rs 1,125
This is a remarkably concise and readable history of World War I. It is
full of details and interesting asides. Norman Stone leaves no doubt as
to how Germany prepared itself and manipulated events until conflict
was inevitable. This was a time when the arms industry dominated the
economies of many countries, a time when railroads were built with
troop movements in mind and rural platforms, long enough to disembark
troops, built in "the middle of nowhere".
Most people on both sides of the conflict thought it would all
be over by Christmas of 1914. It then all went terribly wrong with
millions killed, many more wounded and rendered homeless, and in some
cases stateless. The statistics and figures are staggering. But one
surprising fact was that, by 1918, thanks to the extraordinary advances
in medicine, only 1 per cent of the wounded died. To say that the
Western Front was a bloodbath has perhaps become a cliche, but what
this book tells us is the extraordinary carnage on the Eastern Front.
In every way, the war in the east was as bloody and as futile,
with extraordinary acts of bravery and stupidity by the respective
general staff. Here, the failure of Russia to invest in adequate
railway infrastructure meant that they could not get men, food and
materials to the front.
Stone’s book also has many delightful asides and a lot of new
information. There is a good description, in a few short sentences,
of how young Captain Rommel made his reputation with an extraordinary
feat in the Italian campaign.
There is a fascinating footnote about Kurt Riezler who was the German
Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Tollweg’s private secretary during
much of the war, but in 1933 was teaching at the University of Chicago
(having defeated Karl Popper for the post) and in 1945 was appointed
by Harry Truman to head a commission to judge the morality of dropping
the atomic bomb. There are many more such gems.
Sadly, two great areas of conflict have been overlooked by Stone. The
Turkish Empire, in 1914, spread from Europe to the Caspian Sea,
and from the Black Sea to the Arabian Sea. Four years later, it was
reduced to the country we know today. Despite Stone’s appointment
at Turkey’s Bilkent University, he only makes passing reference to
the Dardanelles where Kemmal Ataturk made his reputation, but he is
good on Turkish politics and cautiously honest about the Armenian
massacres. But he makes no reference to Palestine or Mesopotamia
where Indian troops fought, nor to the African campaigns.
India Gate commemorates the lives of over 60,000 Indian officers and
men killed in World War I. 10,236 Indian soldiers were captured at
Kut on the road from Basra to Baghdad. It seems that we have learnt
so little. One of Delhi’s landmarks and, I think, the only Imperial
statue to remain in the capital celebrates the last great cavalry
victory when squadrons from the Mysore and Jodhpur Lancers charged
Turkish machine guns defending Haifa on September 23, 1918 and took
the town. It is the Teen Murti Memorial. In Africa, the "butchers’
bill" totalled over 100,000.
The aftermath was as tragic as the conflicts themselves. Stone suggests
that the failure to occupy Germany, something that the Allies did
after the next war, perhaps allowed for the rise of the Nazis. But
he makes no mention of the other disastrous legacies of World War I
that we have to deal with today – Rwanda, Yugoslavia and the horrors
of the Nineties (still unresolved in Kosovo), and Iraq (Mesopotamia)
and the failure to meet promises made to the Kurds.
Despite these shortcomings, Stone’s book is a useful, concise and often
witty introduction. But it perhaps needs to be pointed out that World
War I was not limited to Europe. The maps are excellent and certainly
add to this very readable history, albeit too Euro-centric.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress