Author: Michael W Jackson

Highly recommended.
The second Tuchman book I have read. This by legend is the one Jack Kennedy read and it scared him when he thought about nuclear weapons.

One of Tuchman’s major themes is that a plan carefully made in detail and extensively supported takes on a life’s of its own.  If a small shove engages the plan, then it takes a super-human effort to divert it, stop it.  (When President Kennedy abruptly gets up from the table and walks out of the room while the Air Force generals are arguing for bombing Cuba in the film ‘Thirteen Days’ that is one example of the effort to resist a plan in the face of enormous pressure.) In 1914 the Germans had the most extensive and detailed plan for war of all time and so were the most bound by it.  It specified the train cars platoons would ride it and at what place and time they would, dismount from Mobilization Day (or M40) plus 40 in Paris. Once the plan was initiated everyone knew what to do and set about doing it. Belgian resistance which had been set at 0 in the plan broke down the schedule and traffic jams resulted. The perfect plan contained an erroneous assumption. But that dislocation simply made it more imperative to get back on schedule, not to think twice about the plan. The General Staff set to work around the clock to re-route trains, to re-supply units, to to find alternative roads, to shift rolling stock, and so on.
Another general theme is the difficulty of getting anyone to obey orders. French, German, Russian, and English generals refused orders, stalled, deliberately misunderstood, or willfully rendered themselves incommunicado.  Even when the superior officer came and delivered the order face-to-face in person the response was sometimes tomorrow, not just yet, or no. At times it was impossible to replace this general so he stayed in command and did not move. The Prussian General Francois waited and stalled and stalled until he was ready to move on his terms. The Prussian Von Kluck ignored his order and improvised in the hope of a magnificent coup and blundered.
In the same vein, she stresses the general confusion of war. The German Chief of Staff had little idea of what the situation with his own armies was, let alone where the French or English were and in what force.  Ditto for corps and division commanders.  
Another theme is the logistic of moving regiments, divisions, corps, and armies. The staff work was crucial. To move 70,000 armed men with artillery and other equipment takes a very great deal of detail and direction, a timetable for movement, an allocation of roads or railroad cars, fodder and food along the way, and much more. It all makes Sydney’s Town Hall Station at peak hour seem organized.
The tangled web of secret treaties, each with its conditions and conditionals, made it difficult for anyone to predict what would happen.  And even where there was a simple and clear treaty inevitably it was made by someone else a few years ago and the question of the will of the current incumbents to live up to it arose.
The disobedience gave scope for individuals to make a difference.  Her study by the way is all at the command level, generals and up, not grunts. 
Of personalities, the Kaisar seems a loose cannon who wanted to show the world Germany was a great power. The French general Joffre made many mistakes, none of which he ever admitted, but was a rock of calm and optimism.  French, the English commander, lost his nerve not even a personal visit from Kitchner could stiffen him. 
The contradictory character of orders plays into the disobedience.  A general is ordered to attack but cautioned not to expose his flank.  A general is ordered to be aggressive but not to risk defeat.  Which part takes priority, aggression or risk avoidance?
Galiani seems to have been the man for the hour at the Marne.  His idea of a long meeting was 15 minutes, all else was action.  He was a general without an army for the most of the time but that only slowed him down, it did not stop him.  The taxi cabs were but one of his initiatives.
King Albert of Belgium was ready to fight from the first and did not relent when the Germans started shooting civilian hostages. Even a German effort to buy him off for an enormous sum was rejected.
The Russians fulfilled their French alliance by attacking long before they were ready and that led to be a major defeat from which they never recovered, but it did draw off two German army corps from the invasion of Frances and that helped weaken the German advance in the West. There are many ifs and might have beens. 
Even the most bellicose commanders, when the order to attack came, hesitated, trimmed, temporized.
She has many masterful turns of the phrase. Impressive research and synthesis from original sources.  The scope is everything that happened in August 1914, well literally from the July assassination to the started of the Battle of the Marne in mid-September.  
The tactical of manuals of the Russian army placed little emphasis on shells for either rifles or cannons, but instead stressed sabres and bayonets. The German manual told attackers to run 20 seconds then fall down while the enemy fired every 20 seconds. After they have fired get up and run again.  But the fire rate was 8 seconds as it turned out.
Though most of the weapons, artillery and machine guns, that dominated World War I were used by the Japanese against the Russia in Asia, and dutifully reported by the European military attachés who observed the Russo-Japanese War, virtually nothing of that made its way into the manuals, the ministers of war, or generals.
Personal rivalries and antagonisms between generals often spoiled plans.
The capacity of politicians to dither in the hope that the crisis would dissipate of its own accord in England and France is worth reading.  Even with the Germans 40 miles from Paris no democratically elected office holder would permit General Galini to demolish building to create firing lines.  Instead they argued over who would pay compensation to the owners and questioned the necessity of destroying bridges to impede the German advance.  Galini wanted to mine all the bridges over the Seine and delegations of historians opposed him. There was very little singular focus even with the Barbarians at the gates.
Speaking of barbarism, the German atrocities in Belgium did occur and they were systematic.

Barbara Tuchman, The Zimmerman Telegram (1958). Recommended.
It is far fetched and yet true story of how the Kaiser’s Germany tried off-and-on to encourage animosity between Japan and the USA, between Mexico and the USA and then an alliance between Japan and Mexico against the USA, or between the Japan, Mexico, and Germany against the USA to keep the USA out of European affairs, especially in the years for American neutrality in WWI.  The various schemes were launched independently by several German agents and government departments promoted a Japan-Mexico alliance funded in part by Germany to keep the USA locked into North America.  It included either a Japanese invasion or inflitration through Baja California.  The prize offered to the Japanese would be the Philippines and Hawaii and to Mexico the return of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.  If Mexico could be won over it might stop the flow of Tampico oil for USA navy and might offer naval basis to U-boats along with the oil.

In World War I Japan had allied itself with the England and France, but once it had occupied the German possessions — Guam, Samoa, and the Marshall Islands — in the Pacific it had no further interest in the war. Germany was willing to give those up for Japan to dabble in Mexico.  There was even at one time mention briefly of a formal military alliance of Germany, Japan, and Mexico.
The Japanese encouraged the approaches to see what was on offer, but never seemed to be seriously considering it.  But simply being receptive was disturbing intelligence in Washington.  The real value of Japan to the Western European alliance was that it secured Russia’s Asian border so it could concentrate its armies in Poland and not have to hold back some to guard against a Japanese attack and replay of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Accordingly, to the Western Allies the goal was to neutralize Japan one way or another. Anything that jeopardized that neutrality was dangerous. Hence the German efforts to do just that.
At the time Mexico was a cauldron of vying war lords throughout this period: Villa, Huerta, Carranza, and others.  Each willing to promise anything to get arms and gold, each hating El Norte.  (Well that just about sums up a great of Mexican history to today.)
President Woodrow Wilson is presented as an inflexible idealist who could not shape his manner, means, or message to the circumstances.  He worked from elevated first principles for all times and all places, and so not suitable for any particular time or place.  His invasion(s) of Mexico was for its own good!  He found it very frustrating that Mexicans did not realize that and acquiesce. His goal was regime change!  History is repetitive.  He was quite upset that Mexicans resisted and united against his invasions.
Colonel House features largely in this story as one who enjoyed playing the game that he often lost sight of what it as all for.  Because he enjoyed wire pulling so much, he overestimated his own influence.
Wilson ignored the reports and advice of diplomats because he knew they did not imbibe his goals of world peace and were concerned only with American interests, including business interest in Mexico and with Germany.  Instead he relied on House who never said anything Wilson might not want to hear.  
Robert Lansing came early to the conclusion that war with Germany was inevitable.  He was reading the diplomatic reports and realized Germany would never compromise to make peace.
The most astounding thing was that Colonel House convinced Wilson to let the German embassy in Washington DC use State Department cables, during US neutrality, to communicate with Berlin and for the German foreign office to reply by the same means ostensibly to consider peace terms but in fact it was to avoid British intelligence surveillance in communicating to Mexico from Washington DC. The Secretary of State, Lansing, to his credit resisted and demanded a written order from Wilson each of the many times over weeks, because it violated neutrality.
Even after the Zimmerman Telegram was revealed the Germans kept using it this American channel.  It seems never to have occurred to any German that the code had been broken somewhere. They tried to trace the leak and the English tried to conceal it. Zimmerman, by the way, was the German foreign minister.
The Zimmerman Telegram was timed to coincide with the launch unrestricted submarine warfare with the up of an uprising in Mexico and the prospect of a Japanese attack on The Philippines, or Hawaii, or even California to paralyze the USA.  The German General staff estimated Britain could only hold out six months with unrestricted submarine attacked. If the USA was pinned down for a time, it might be long enough to compel a British surrender.  Without Britain, France would, the Germans supposed, fall over.
The declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare depended on having 200 U-boats operational to go to unrestricted warfare to cover the sea approaches to Britain. When that number was reached, the declaration was made.
The British had broken the code and since the German sent that Telegram three times, such was their confidence in the impenetrability of the code, once via the neutral Swedish diplomatic route which the Swedes offered to Germany throughout the war in violation of their own neutrality, via radio from Berlin, and by Telegram to Washington D.C., they got it.  The British wanted to conceal the fact that they had cracked the code so that the German would keep using it.  So they had to figure out a way to reveal the message to the USA in such a way to prove its authenticity but not so much as to reveal how the USA came to have it.  That is a convoluted story best read. 
Yet there is more.  The authenticity was denied by American pacifists like Robert LaFollette.  The Senate was set to block.  Then Zimmerman in Berlin called a press conference.  The opening question came from a pro-German American journalist who said ‘Of course,you are going to deny it….’  But no, Zimmerman said, ‘I can’t deny it because it is true.‘ End game! Then he proceeded to split hairs about whether the putative alliance was to apply before or after the USA entered the war.  Too late, the admission undercut the deniers in the USA.  
Let’s count the blunders there.  Zimmerman did not need to have a press conference.  If there was one, he could have sent someone else.  If he went, he could have stalled, temporized, or prevaricated since time was the essence. Remarkably he continued in office.
When the telegram was revealed, the fact that it had been transmitted unknowingly by the State Department was omitted.    
Tuchman argues that the German were determined to win the war because to settle or lose would mean a revolt that would lead to a regime change and Kaiser would be gone.  They were right…
The book has many marvelous turns of the phrase, and enough skulduggery for several Le Carré novels.  Spies and counter spies tripping over each other.  
A few quibbles. A lot of guesses are passed off as fact, e.g., ‘when he read the telegram, his heartbeat faster..’  ‘When the Kaiser again ….., he felt his grasp on reality slipping away.’  How can she possibly know the inner mind of all these characters. Of course, it adds a human touch to offer these comments and makes it read like a novel, but …. it is sheer speculation.  She could have said ‘he might have felt his grasping reality’ or ‘his must have beat faster’ but these subjunctive constructions reveal the description as hypothesis not as fact.  Just in case she was paraphrasing a source I checked the notes three or four times and found nothing to support the text. 
She also more than once reifies a nation, ‘Germany reacted.., rather than which Germans or ‘the State Department was embarrassed when..,’ rather who was embarrassed.
She underestimates William Jennings Bryan and disparages him as though she had recently seen the play ‘Inherit the Wind‘ (1955). He was certainly the most well travelled man in Wilson’s cabinet and he read German and his wife spoke French on their travels. I have no doubt that he would have blunted the pervasive and pernicious influence of Colonel House in the State Department.
She makes no mention of that superstar journalist of the day H L Mencken who was pro-German. Yet he made enough noise for six others.
I was keen to read this as a precursor to her great book The Guns of August (1962), and also because I found that the Zimmerman Telegram was hardly mentioned in the biography of President Wilson I read, yet I recalled it to be of great importance.