The First World War

Keegan could have used some help from his editors. The maps are next to useless. For example, the map accompanying the text on why the German right was extended and had to retreat during the first stage of the war shows nothing even suggesting the military problem. Keegan states that many people have suggested ways that the always failing attacks against dug-in troops could have been improved. This is one of the great military questions of the war, since all sides continually attacked with terrible losses. But then he dismisses all suggestions with a wave of the hand, stating categorically none would have helped, except improved communications with hand held radios--which were not technically possible. He really should have explained why none of the suggestions would have made a difference. Whenever he quotes battle statistics, some number is missing so you can't get a full understanding. Finally, the Brits on the Western Front get more than their fair share of the coverage. If you want to know about the Eastern Front, you really need another book.

Since John Keegan came out with this history of the Great War, I have heard nothing but unqualified praise for it from the media. Certainly, it is a well written and immaculately researched volume. If this is your introduction to World War I, this is about as good a place to start as you can find. Keegan's book is comprehensive in its scope, yet contains just enough detail to keep afficionadoes of tactics and statistics happy.
My complaints about this book are somewhat more subtle. First, it deals almost entirely with the grand plans and grand characters, but almost completely ignores (or at least only deals with superficially) the common soldier in the trenches. What was it like for the average man fighting at Verdun, Tannenberg or East Africa? Keegan never tells us.
My second, and perhaps biggest complaint is that, for all of Keegan's reputation, he doesn't cover any new ground. This book is straight reportage. It's very good reportage. But it doesn't offer any analysis that offers the reader any new insights into the legacy of the 20th century's first global conflict.

The First World War by John Keegan will give the novice on World War I history a wonderful overview but will also be a thrill to those obsessed with this period as the author is unafraid of making his opinions loudly and, sometimes, gloriously known and will often challenge established ideas. This reader can sometimes get a little lost in the details of battles but the author is quite able at making these skirmishes clear and understandable (even if my head did swim a little still). The book covers more than battles, though, as personalities and politics become an important part of the mixture and the author clearly presents the impact of the evetns on the countries participating. The author is a historian with an edge and the skill to get away with it. This books should be enjoyed by anyone who wants to learn about this horrific war or those who want a fresh look at old arguments. A marvelous read.

Where this falls down is in the numerous descriptions of large battles where the names and locations and nations all begin to blur amid the large scale. But then, about every other chapter or so, the author takes a breath and steps back for a bit of perspective. There, we can appreciate his full grasp of this history as we learn about the larger meaning and experience of WWI, such as the preventable domino effect of the war's origins, what it was like to march off to war, the experience of trench warfare etc etc. The writing style is precise and quite British, so it doesn't flow exactly, but it does impress with its erudition. I wouldn't call this pop history. It's a bit beyond that. Best for those who know a little something.

John Keegan has written an outstanding overview of World War I. He has succeeded in connecting the many seperate events that took place throughout the 1914-18 period and ties them together into a readable and understandable whole. He deals on the highest levels of command and examines this structure. While people might be interested in the experiences of Rifleman Bloogs, these experiences may have little in common with what was going on back at the higher levels of command and it is there that the most examination must be done. We know about the huge casualty rates but Keegaqn tells us how the soldiers happended to be at a particular place at a particular time and facing a particular enemy. There are other books in print that give a particular point of view but Keegan has given us an excellent wiork to establish a basic understanding of World War I. Other writers and works can give added detail but Keegan lays the foundation to understand what happened and sometimes why.

This book mirrors Keegan's one volume history of World War II. As general histories, both books are steady droning compendiums of endless details. Keegan is understated about strategic situations, and fails to viscerally capture the turning points of the battles and wars, leaving the reader slogging through battles and decisions with too little context.
The maps are inadequate. The reader becomes quickly lost in left flank and right flank and one french village after another, losing the mental picture of events in Keegan's droning narrative.
I would reccommend Keegan's other excellent books, the Face of Battle and the Mask of Command. There Keegan exercises the narrative story telling of a master historian. This history reads like an encyclopedia article. It is comprehensive but uninformative. One feels that one has read all about the war, but absorbed little.

Keegan does a fine job of illustrating the conflict of WW1 with strokes that are wide enough to give 'the big picture' clarity while also delving into several campaigns and stories that will give the reader some intimate knowledge of the subject. His book was used as a text in a college level history course, which is where I read it, and helped a great deal.
The accounts of lesser know theaters of conflict are certainly some of the book's high points. My favorite section was a the German, Paul Lettow von Vorbeck, who was in charge of the German forces in German East Africa. Keegan describes how Vorbeck waged a guerrilla war against English forces for the duration of the war. It is great reading. There are other chapters equally insightfull.
Overall, the Keegan rarely becomes traped in the minutia of detail, though at times the various armies, regiments, battalions, and dates can become a bit thick. This is a book that needs about one or two days inbetween chapters for thought fermentation. You need to let it all sink in before moving on, otherwise the details slip away.
I highly recomend this book to anyone who knows little about WW1 and wishes to learn more- or, like myself, someone who thought that they knew most of what there was to know (and was wrong).
Professors everywhere: get books like this one for classes, they are better than texts, cheaper, and more enjoyable to read! Plus, we students will learn more in return.

This was the first book I read about the entire First World War, although I had read a few on the prelude to that terrible conflict. I highly recommend Barbara Tuchmann's "The guns of August" for an overview of the events that led to the stalemate in Northern France, and Robert Massey's "Dreadnought" on the political build-up to the storm.
The book is well-written, though I must confess that putting it down was not as hard as I had hoped it would be. Certainly the amount of information is staggering, and the writer appears to have a very solid grasp of the subject. This being my first read of a number of the events described here, I could not comment on the author's accuracy other than to say that it looks convincing! Keegan has his favourites (the Germans are not among them, nor is General Haig) but that makes for a more lively read than strictly observed neutrality.
The only problem with the book is that it needs a great deal more maps, and the maps need better definition in terms of places and geographic barriers. I found myself leafing back to maps that gave a bit of an impression of an area - often to find that the detail I was looking for was not there.
Other than that, I found this a good book to introduce a reader to the battles of the First World War.

This book came highly recommended to me by several sources, but I must confess that, while I enjoyed it, in the end I found it a bit wanting in several areas. Keegan does an excellent job covering the tactical and strategic matters of the war, but I believe some of his priorities are a bit off. It would have been useful for more personal stories of life in the trenches (while he says it was bad, there really are no descriptions of what it was really like--at least, not lengthy ones). Rather, he focuses on the grand strategy of the war. Yes, this is useful (and I cannot fault his meticulous research). But, more first-hand accounts of daily combat life would have been useful. I believe it would also have been stronger had he paid more attention to the roles of espionage, and had given U boats more than simply passing references (one of the great weaknesses of the book is its coverage of the U boats, in my opinion).
Still--a highly enjoyable read, and quite thought provoking. Recommended to anyone seeking a backgrounder on the course of WW1.

I've read many of the reviews here and notice the lack of comment on Keegan's most controversial point, i.e. the Western Front was secondary to the Central Powers until Brest-Litovsk; hence, the detailed review of the Russian Front and the scant mention of American activity. The American contribution was largely operational, limited to stopping an already-spent Kaiser Offensive. Keegan makes the crucial point that it was American potential, not actual combat, that made the US role decisive.
I also note the lack of comment on Keegan's discovery that Schlieflin had to "fudge" his own notes to make his plan operable. There's an eye-opener vis the Generalstab for you!
Keegan doesn't do detailed narratives. If you want maps (I had no problem with Keegan's) and day-to-day movements, there are more specialized works.

Keegan is British. Unlike his Second World War, he not only relates the events of the conflict, he digs into the characters and voices opinions on the futility of the whole First World War. So many soldiers died for so little reason. He clearly imparts the pointlessness, much like one gets from reading All Quiet on the Western Front.

The telling of events is excellent through to the last chapter, then he winds everything up in about 20 pages, almost as if he was tired of the whole topic. There is material enough for 2-3 more chapters in the last 6-12 months of the war, but Keegan skims over the last offensives, relegates the American involvement to a footnote and leaves discussion of the aftermath to books on the Second World War.

I recommend reading this book and John Eisenhower's Yanks : The Epic Story of the American Army in World War I to get a balanced view of the whole war.

This is a comprehensive, classic account of the twentieth century's First World War. Keegan's informative narrative is a model of economy that effortlessly guides us through the offensive, counter offensive maze and offers a poignant understanding of the consequences to this catastrophe. The conditions that led to the Second World War Keegan places squarely in the lap of the First.

Especially cruel was not only the use of mustard gas, but also the poor communication link between the Generals far behind and those being softened up (shelled) in the front. Many lives were lost because of blind directives from the rear. The irretrievable loss on all sides was symbolically acute for Germany whose dead lay on foreign soil, inhibiting the grieving process. There are no well kept cemeteries for the unknown German soldier as there are in France for the allies. Hitler would horribly galvanise this deep psychological wound with rhetoric of revenge.

It soon became evident that none of the participating European countries got the war they predicted, expected or calculated for; `benevolent and optimistic Europe' would never be the same. This is commendable reading for everyone.

Simply put, John Keegan is the finest miltary historian in the world. I do not read his works for their action, their depth of character, or their poetic qualities--these are not his strong suit, and I understand why the reviewers who prefer novels to history have been less than overly kind (my advice: read a novel). I read Keegan because he is a master of analysis, of both strategy and tactics, even-handed and thorough, and an engrossing explicator of battlefield situations. I'm never quite sure when he's about to drop a bomb that will make me look at his topic in an utterly new way. So no, Keegan doesn't explain why so much blood and gold went into this war (has anyone? *Can* anyone?), but he does provide a sterling, thoughtful overview of the war, its origins, development, and consequences. If Keegan would do us Yanks the honor of writing a full-length analysis of our Civil War, I'd kiss him on his ruddy English cheek.

Keegan's book is very good, but it takes determination to get through it. This was my first comprehensive look at World War One, so I was only vaguely familiar with the settings and personalities. The book is horribly short of maps, so it makes the prose difficult to put into perspective as strategy and tactics are laid out. And Keegan often bogs down the narrative with troop locations and movements. Many of the battles are set up with tremendous detail of battalion and division, more details than are required for a book of such broad scope. Having said those negative points, Keegan's foundation for the European mindset prior to the war, his explanation of the crisis at Sarajevo, and his representation of the armies going off to war in August 1914 are absolutely fantastic.
It is when Keegan pulls back from the battles and explains the thoughts of the leaders, the soldiers, and the citizenry that he is at his best and most convincing. And on these points he deserves praise and admiration.
It was a very good book, but a difficult read. I recommend it for those who are interested and can slog through some slow parts.

Admittedly told from the British perspective, I found this book full of interesting and useful information for a one volume book on the war. Covering in sufficient detail the events that led to war, as well as the pre-war obsession with pre-conceived strategies for the actualized theoretical war, this unnecessary war is indeed a tragedy of the twentieth century.

Keegan is effective in covering the essentials of the conflict though the British perspective is certainly noted. Even so, Keegan is an effective communicator of the nature of the conflict and exceeds in covering the most critical details of how the war progressed and how it was ultimately lost by the Axis powers. Acknowledging the military successes of the axis even as their goals were inevitably unattainable, this book effectively explains in limited pages the nature and scope of the conflict.

For those students of history who seek a concise history of World War I, I highly recommend this book.

I bought this book from a largescale bookseller recently. While it seems a very good and complete history of World War One which I had set out to find, it suffers from some very unapprochable prose and a writing style which, especially for non-British readers, means almost every sentence needs to be deciphered. Take for instance the phrase:

"The happenings set in motion by a particular scheme of action will rarely be those narrowly intended, are intrinsically unpredictable and will ramify far beyond the anticipation of the instigator."

I can think of at least half a dozen ways this phrase could have been said more simply and without loosing the meaning. Albeight, the loaded literary language does nail down the meaning. There can be no mistaking what is meant by 'instigator.' However, after a dozen or so pages into the book and almost every sentence is as 'loaded' as this one, it starts to seem like purple prose.

This is a solid overview of the military history of WWWI. It is not a history of WWI. Keegan does a good job of reviewing the major campaigns and summarizes operations well. There is no description or analysis, however, of the major social or political changes that occurred during the war, and relatively little on the experience of combat. His analysis, as opposed to description of the outbreak of the war, is embarassing. There has to be better conclusion than lack of rapid communications, though this may have been a contributing factor. There are other disappointing features. There are relatively few maps, and in an operational history, this is a major defect. The bibliography is scanty considering the huge literature on this subject and an essential feature of any good one volume history of a major subject is an extensive bibliography and interpretative bibliographic essay on the secondary literature. For example, see the bibliographies in any volume of the outstanding Oxford History of the United States. Keegan does relatively well on the Eastern Front campaigns, which tend to be obscured by the huge literature on the Western Front, but his coverage of the critical Atlantic submarine conflicts is poor. Writing a one volume history of WWI would be very difficult, but Keegan had not even come close to doing a satisfactory job. For comparison, see the shorter but insightful book by the French scholar Marc Ferro, which does a much better job of providing an overview of the conflict, its causes, and its aftermath. Keegan's book is the work on a man living on his reputation.

Once again John Keegan has produced another well written and researched book to add to his growing number of titles. This is an excellent one volume account of the Great War which the novice or experienced reader will enjoy. I found the first few chapters a bit dry but once the author moved into the sections covering the fighting the book moved along smartly.
The author covers all theatres of the war and covered those naval and aviation aspects that had bearing on the war as a whole. There were a number of excellent general maps and numerous black & white photographs to assist the reader to follow the narrative.
Overall a great book to read and well worth the time to sit down and enjoy.

An utterly engrossing, detailed account of WWI, especially for those who are not full-time students of the topic. As the narrative unfolds in its interested, quiet manner, the overwhelming tragedy of the conflict emerges.

My only complaint is related to the maps. First, there are not enough of them. Second, they are dispersed randomly throughout the text, so that readers must maintain a thumb at the most recent map. In future editions they should be located at the beginning for easy reference. Third and finally, there is a lack of synchronization between the maps and the text. Locations named in the text very often are not displayed in the corresponding map. Quite a few minutes are lost searching the maps for this town or that forest when they aren't labeled.

Keegan does it well! This book illuminates the war to end all wars and captures the sweep of the first global conflict. Keegan details the primary causes and the primary instigators of the conflict. You really come to understand how about 15 individuals and a lot of national pride led to the deaths of millions. While not a truly "modern" war, many of the instruments of death were well hoaned (e.g. the rifle, the machine gun and artillery). This book describes the horror of trench warfare, details the attacks and defenses, the general's attempts to break the stalemate, the mathematics of attrition, the political motivations, and most importantly, the effect on nations that established the groundwork for the second world war. No modern history, military history, or the 20th century history collection is complete with out a text such as this! Keegans book is dense and detailed, well researched, and yet understandable and a pleasure to read!

Keegan's work is a competent, intelligent and well-researched narrative summary of the War to End All Wars. Unfortunatly, it is also very dry reading. Also, even at the relatively superficial level of detail with which the war's great battles are outlined, there is a disappointing paucity of maps. As the author describes the movements of armies, corps and divisions here, there and everywhere relative to cities, rivers, lakes and other topographical features, the reader is left with an incomplete picture of the tactical situation. However, I liked the book enough to finish it, and was left with much greater degree of knowledge about the subject than I had when I started. A marginal "thumbs up".

The First World War by John Keegan is a wonderful overview of the First World War, its cause and its effect. Much of the book is devoted to troop movements and the resulting battles and is hard to follow. Worse are the maps which tend to confuse more than explain. With this limitation the book is very worthwhile.
Keegan's strength is on describing why the war began and the historical context in which it was played out. He goes to great lengths to describe how each event effected a latter event, whether it be the Russian Revolution or the Second World War.
Keegan writes marvelously and the book for the most part flows well. This was my first book on the First World War and it gave me a good overview. All in all a worthwhile read.

While living in Europe I have become interested again in The Great War. This book did not let me down. It is fascinating and well written, but for some reason I could not give it 5 stars. Perhaps the subject matter is just too depressing. Europe marched off to war, somewhat gleefully at the time, and ruined itself for no preceptible gain. And then did it again 20 years later. Hard to make 5 stars out of that sad tale.
In response to some of the other reviews I also picked up Spencer Tuckers shorter book. If you are in a hurry it will help you cover the carnage more quickly, but I frequently felt something was missing. He did to a great job re-interpreting the myth of the Versaille treaty and the costs of the war. Also a good book.

You have less than 500 pages to make some sense of the self destruction of Europe between 1914 and 1918. Where do you start? Where do you finish? How do you keep it all in perspective?
Most of my reading around the Great War has been about particular and quite detailed parts - Ypers, the Somme, the German High Seas Fleet, Galipoli. The authors try to make sense of the bit upon which they are concentrating. The other parts are understandably ignored.
Keegan trys to make sense of the lot and to tie it all up:
- Why were the battles of the Western Front doomed to stalemate and attrittion?
- Why did Lloyd George persist with Haig?
- Why did the West support the White Russians when the Bolshevics were anti-German?
- Why did an Indian Army regiment muntiny in Singapore in 1915?
- Why, given the rates of attrition, did the war end in 1918?
- Why was the Great War a prelude to the Second World War?
Along with the big picture comes limited and pithy fine detail. Enough to give a flavour and to make the point.
My main criticism is in the prose style. Long, multi clause sentences are not easy to read and are, in general, unnecessary. Perhaps a better editor is required for the next book.
I must commend the bibleography to those who want more about any of the subject matter of the book.
If you want a book to put it all in context or if you want the broad overview I recommend this one.

Keegan describes military events but confuses them with history. Our century saw Germany achieve European hegemony - in spite of itself - while "Great" Britain self destructed and Russia blew its shot at leadership. Moving pins around on maps is kind of fun, but it doesn't tell humanity much about why tens of millions were very cruelly murdered and unimagined wealth was simply blown up. Keegan is undoubtedly very well informed, but his "explanation" of the 1914-18 war comes across as rationalization - victor's history. Our world should have learned from WWI and its aftermath that while soldiers "do or die" they do not "reason why." We need reasons, not battlefied monuments.

This book is not a single volume history of the First World War, although it does chart the causes and consequences of the 2oth Centuries first global conflict. Neither is this book an extended version of the "The Face of Battle", "The Price of Admiralty" or "The Mask of Command", though it does touch on some of the same themes raised in those books.
Keegan's "The First World War" is more ambitious and more subtle than that. It explores the changing nature of modern war and shows how the inadequacies of the miltary establishments in dealing with technological warfare condemned a generation of young men to death on the killing fields of Europe.
The book's themes are presented chronologically. It graphically depicts the inevitability of the slide into War that came about through the separation of military planning from diplomacy. Keegan's analysis of the shortcomings of German staff work is masterful, eloquently reasoning that the Schlieffen plan could never have succeeded.
Keegan proceeds to look at each year of the war in terms of militry and technological evolution (1915 is the year of stalemate and war on other fronts, 1916 is the year of failed tactics, 1917 the year when losses had risen to such volumes that armies could no longer fight, and in 1918 as the American forces arrive, German social cohesion collapses).
In exploring these themes, Keegan presents magnificently realised picture of the war. People who are looking for a single volume, day to day account of the war will be disappointed. This is an exploration of the effects of technology on warfare - or on human interaction.
It could be argued that the book is overly Anglo-centric, that it does not do justice to the sacrifices of Russian and Dominion forces. That the war in Palestine and the Arab revolt are given short shrift. That there are not enough maps to illustrate the course of the war and of individual battles.
But that would be to miss the point of what the author is trying to achieve. This book is not about geography. It is about how the military establishment failed to deal with technology.
That is not to say this is a cold book. On the contrary, there is a melancholy and a sadness pervasive throughout that illustrates the author's love of life and his humanity.
I recommend this book to those who are willing to look at military history from a slightly different perspective.

When this book first became available I did not read it because I had read, on July 22, 1995, Martin Gilbert's The First World War: A Complete History, which I liked a lot and which I thought made it unnecessary to read Keegan's book. But no one interested in World War I should omit reading this and I now have and I have found it eminently well worth reading. I think it is more felicitously written than is Gilbert's book, with a surer grasp of the topic and one is bowled over anew by the epic things Keegan points out. I suppose I have read maybe 100 books on the First World War, but this is one not to be omitted regardless of how much one has read in the area.

Keegan is a very fine historian and this is fairly representative of his work. Avid World War One buffs will find very little new here, but it is a good overview of the facts of the conflict. I sense that there is a, not surprising, tendency by modern historians to break new ground in their research. Why else publish a new work on this well-known story? This book does not do that. It does give a very good one volume recap for the casual historian or lay reader that needs to know the rough outlines of the issues surrounding the war. Keegan's writing is elegant and authoritive and there is little here to criticize in his interpretation or treatment of the facts.

A practicing military historian, with a good grasp of the geography of Europe in 1914, might thoroughly enjoy this book. Apparently many have. It is immensely detailed in its treatments of the battles of the war and doubtless such detail informs a keen grasp of any battle. But that detail is almost completely unsupported by maps, keys or legends allowing the less-expert reader to maintain his bearings.
If you don't know the difference between a corps and a brigade, if you haven't memorized the twists and turns of the rivers of Europe along with the lay of the forests and of the ridges, you will be simply lost. Can you locate Luxembourg in your mental map of Europe? picture the fit of Belgium into Germany? sketch the course of the Meuse? Consider this passage:
"Lanzerac, in a conference held at Chimay on the afternoon of 21 August, told the Chiefs of Staff of his subordinate corps that the plan was for Fifth Army to hold the high ground on the south bank of the Sambre. He feared that if he committed his soldiers to hold the dense belt of little industrial buildings and cottages - le Boringe - that line the bank between Charleroi and Namur, they would become involved in small-scale street fighting and be lost''
After 95 pages of this I quit. Just looking at the number of times my spell-checker choked on the preceding paragraph reminds me of how densely geographic the first quarter of the book was. I honestly considered reading it with an atlas at hand - but that's hardly a relaxing read.
Excepting European and world maps printed on the front and back pastedowns, the book provides only 15 maps over the entire 450 pages and 4 years of war. All but one, I might add, appear after my own defeat on page 95! Few of these support the level of on-the-ground detail of Keegan's text. When they do so, as in the case of his map of the famous Gallipoli battle, which provides both detail and an inset reminding one where the Gallipoli peninsula is, it reminds one of what was glaringly absent in the dozens of prior battle descriptions.
The book has two discrete segments of photographs which seem to be a somewhat random assortment of images, albeit suitable gritty ones. For more illustration a later, putatively separate book provides 'An Illustrated History of the First World War' which I have reviewed separately (hint' still no maps !).
As a final critique, this book would more aptly be titled 'A Military History of the First World War'. Although it devotes a decent handful of pages up front to noting the diplomatic stutterings that failed to prevent the war, it hardly seems to address the world outside the battlefield after 1914.
Two stars for the immense amount of military detail.

I have heard Mr. Keegan speak in person, read his other books,I have taught World War I and find it a fascinating subject.So I was anxious to read this book. What a disappointment! Is this another case of author burnout? riding the wave of past glory? I am more than 3/4 of a way through the book and I am tempted to stop. He has taken an awesome topic and turned it in to something as dry as sawdust. Historians usually agree that this war was a turning point in so many ways. This is not coming across in this book. The human dimension is missing here-much too technical. His writing style gets in the way. About every 3 or 4 pages he produces a sentence structure that leaves me wondering "What was that?" Where was his editor? Missing like most these days? Or once you become THE John Keegan, you don't need an editor? This book is historian/writer burnout at is worst.

There is a difference between data and information. Data concerns itself with details, where information concerns itself with meaningful patterns or conclusions. This book clearly presents a great deal of data and expects the reader to derive meaningful information from it. If you enjoy military history in the purest sense of the term, I recommend this book highly. If, however, you believe (as I did) that this book is a one-volume history of all aspects of the war: politics, social impact, economic forces, ethnic conflicts, etc., you will be disappointed. Do make sure that you know what sort of book this is before you invest the time to read it.

If you need an introduction to the First World War, this is it.
John Keegan tells the story and provides the facts. The book is very approachable, even if you're not a history nut. He seemed to spend just the right amount of space on each of the topics. He conveyed the horror of Gallipoli without taking up half the book. He conveyed the global sweep of the naval battles with getting lost in endless detail. He was able to communicate the human side of the war without turning it into a catalogue of dead poets (don't read Martin Gilbert's coverage of WWI unless you're a poetry major who is also into history).
Buy the book. Read it.

Although Keegan gives an interesting view of the Great War, I found the book to be disappointing for several reasons. Some of my thoughts overlap with those already written by others here, for which I apologize. But, here thay are anyway:
1. Too much operational detail; too little politics, social implications, economic problems, etc. This book gave a narrow view of the war, almost entirely from the perspective of the battlefield. It gave very little information on the broader effects on the societies involved. And even when discussing battles, Keegan does not provide, in my opinion, enough of the common soldier's perspective.
2. Terrible maps. For a book that focuses almost exclusively on battles, I expected great maps showing the battles. Instead, we get too few maps, with far too little information. So, for example, Keegan frequently discusses cities, mountains, rivers, etc., that do not appear on any maps. Very annoying.
3. Very rushed at the end. I got the impression that Keegan either had to rush to meet a deadline or he lost interest near the end. As a result, after 400 pages of a lot of detail about the course of the war, he tells us very little about the final, decisive campaigns. And he tells us even less about the negotiated resolution of the war. Very little information on the armistice, and none on the peace treaty. So, after telling us how important the Great War was to subsequent events, including WWII, he does very little to explain why.
4. Contrary to what many reviewers have said, I do not think the writing is particularly good. Keegan tends to write very long (some would describe them as run-on) sentences, which I often had to re-read to understand.
5. Keegan assumes too much background knowledge. As a result, he sometime discusses people, and often discusses weapons, without adequate background information. At other times, he provides the background information, but only several hundred pages after first discussing a subject (eg., battleships).
6. Too little information about the role of the United States, and downplays the significance of that role.
I have other criticisms, but these give you an idea of what I think. Still, despite all the book's faults, it is a decent overview of the operational course of the war.

Being a John Keegan fanand having a long-standing interest in WWI, I was thrilled when I first heard this book was published and I ran out and got a copy immediately. I was not disappointed. All I could think to say is, Mr. Keegan brings his formidable guns to bear on an already thoroughly analyzed topic. His skills as a writer and military historian make this one of the premier books on the subject. The maps are superb and complement the text perfectly. The photos and illustrations place faces on names and give a sense of characters involved. It lacks the popularity and readability of Mrs. Tuchman's _Guns of August_ but provides more of a view from the trenches and maprooms making a great work of military history on the war. A very worthy piece of work on the topic.

Part of this book was really good on the details of the battles and the psychological part of the soldiers that fought in this war but I felt since Keegan is English, he has a vibe that the English beat the Germans which is not true. The U.S played a huge role in defeating Germany. Over all not a bad book, it does have some pointers in it.

Few military historians can match Keegan for ability to distill the key elements of a war into one volume, and leave the reader feeling almost completely satisfied.

Dr. Keegan tells in extremely literary prose the story of World War One from its origins to the very bitter end. He takes the reader through the major campaigns, taking diversions to highlight lesser-known but ultimately important episodes that made this war the "great" war.

One caveat: Keegan spends very little time with the social impact of the war, using non-military events to better elucidate the military campaigns that he knows so well.

The First World War is another great Keegan book, and a must read for anyone who wishes to have deeper knowledge of that cataclysmic event. Some fascinating insights: WWI represents a dividing line in history, and much more than the events that preceded it, WWI is responsible for shaping the world order of the last 90 years; this truly was a global war with campaigns in Africa and Asia; though the terrible nature of trench warfare is well-known, Keegan's descriptions of the realities of the life of a WWI soldier are indispensable. If you are interested in military history, you won't be disappointed by John Keegan.

Germany had long and coldly calculated the requirements for hegemony over Europe culminating in the Schlieffen plan.

The infirmity of the Ottoman's led Serbia to successfully assert independence much to the chagrin of Austria who possessed large serbian minorities.

This tension found expression, in the assasination of the archduke Ferndinand, on a mosaic background of mutual assurances and unslaked animosities between empires and nation states. The triple alliance was formed by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy aided by the sick man of Europe, the Ottoman empire. The Allies was formed of the French British and Russians.

The German desire for dominance with Austria's vacillation exacerbated by a lack of diplomatic infrastructure led to mobilization.

The exuberance of patriotism was soon to be replaced by the doleful laments of despair and the checked hopes of a decisive victory.

Within one year the Western front was scarred by a network of trenches pervaded only by the interminable ennui of trench warfare.

That year saw the collapse of the Austrians on the Eastern Front balanced by the victory of the Germans at Gorlice-Tarnow against the Tsar's armies. The Austrians were eventually buttressed by the Germans averting a Russian invasion.

Smaller fronts presented themselves in the German colonies in Africa and the middle east governed by the Ottoman Caliphate. The former were occupied to no great effect and the latter repelled an invasion which did little to deter another.

1916 saw the Jutland and the Somme which the author brings to life with photo and words alike.

By 1917 both France and Russia were experiencing inflation, food shortages and insurrection. The french patriotism waned clenching desperately to an empheral sense of the homeland thus refusing to attack but agreeing to defend. The Russian situation was ripe for the Bolshevik revolution which amputated a dying limb of the Allied force later replaced by the arms of America.

The Americans entered the war spurred by the German U boat campaign and interference with Mexican American affairs.

1918 saw the collapse of the house of Hollenzorn, Hapsburgs and Ottomans.

The author's penchant for description is delightfully balanced by his analytical prowess giving the reader an incomparable understanding of this apocalyptic event.

World War I is actually the beginning of World War II, and it amazes me how little attention this conflict receives. Keegan is enamored by The Great War (his father was in the British Army), and it shows. As an overview to an initiate, the tome succeeds admirably. The author begins by attacking the diplomatic disaster which parcipitated the conflict. Each personality is critiqued and criticized with literary zeal. I particuraly liked Keegan's description of a crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, the war itself takes center stage, and everything from opening manuevers of the Schleiffen Plan, to trench stalemate, and the final German offensive in 1918 are described in detail. Perhaps this detail will be too light for a grognard, but it IS a general history. I really enjoyed Keegan's fair treatment of Russia's armies underrated performance against the Germans (post Tannenburg until The Revolution). Are there problems? Well, maps are scarce. This fact does not hinder enjoyment of the book, but does leave alot to the imagination. Beyond that, I find little wrong with it. If you do not know much about this period, I believe it is an excellent prelude to prepare the reader for a better understanding of a much neglected period of 20th Century history.

This book is well organized and easily read. Research is outstanding. For me, the great mystery of WW 1, was how and why it started. This book answers those questions. I found the first twenty or so pages about the effects of the war on the people of the warring nations, and the final twenty or so pages on the consequences of the war, particularly interesting and even applicable to today's world.

The rest of the book is a well written military history of the campaigns, battles, and behind the scenes activities that impacted the war. After reading this account, I began to understand why my grandparents, born in 1892, never spoke much about it.

Read this book to understand much of our modern world.

I was certainly impressed with the content of the book, and with Keegan's fair and unbiased presentation of the facts. I did learn a few things I did not know before, and I always enjoy that.
I do, however, share the discontent of other reviewers who would have liked to see more and better maps. My biggest criticism on the book, though, is the language. As a second language speaker of English, I think I am doing generally quite well with any level of writing, but this book left me behind in many places - I just couldn't extract any useful information out of some of the sentences; not because of difficult words, but because of a syntax that really made me wonder where this or that part of the sentence belongs to. In some cases I even had the impression that things were wrongly constructed, but who am I to tell? I guess the book would have benefitted from another round of editing before publishing, because many of the misunderstandings were probably quite unnecessary.

As a one-volume narrative outlining the major events of the First World War, this book succeeds. It is a great introduction to the war. I wish, however, to state my reservations about the book.

One oddity is that the first three chapters cover the events leading to the war, but the last chapter ends abruptly with the armistice. It would have been nice to have a chapter on the Treaty of Versailles.

The book incorporates two previously published articles, as the acknowledgements acknowledge. This leads to the repetition of certain data, as it appears that they were not sufficiently edited to fit in with the rest of the book.

Keegan is British, and it is obvious. He emphasizes repeatedly how the British army was never defeated by the Germans except in one campaign. The Australians are praised as the world's greatest soldiers without further elaboration. He explicitly blames Germany's naval construction campaign preceding the war for the war itself, presumably because it challenged Britain's benign supremacy. The deaths of British soldiers are lamented with poignancy that overflows into sentimentality.

To be fair, the book was written for a British audience, and these excesses are much more modest than they might have been. Keegan seems to have tried hard to be evenhanded, and these excesses are largely superficial and forgivable.

Lastly, Keegan admits that this book does not break new ground. A glance at the endnotes reveals that most of the material from this book was taken from secondary sources. Each chapter seems to have come from three or so books. Thus, this is not a work of history so much as a gloss on history written by others.

Very good overview of the war as war, with social, technological and diplomatic background. As this is a military history, you may want to supplement your reading of this book with others. Tuchman's 'The Guns of August' on the war's origins; Fussell's 'The Great War and Modern Memory' on the larger social context and impact of the war; Winter's 'Death's Men' for the soldier's view. I also recommend the novel 'A Very Long Engagement' by Japrisot.
I would give Keegan's book five stars, but, as others have noted, this book desperately needs more maps.

I have finally finished the book. In an earlier review, I choked on the poor writing style--you can see this review a few weeks earlier at the store. Keegan needs to revise this book, and this time, he must take control of the map making. There are not enough maps (lots of earlier reviewers have complained about this), and the person who made the maps did not read what is written in the text. First, there needs to be five times as many maps. Secondly, the towns that were involved in the battles must be shown on the maps. Thirdly, the maps must show topology--we need to see the mountains, lakes, and bogs (and how about boundaries between the countries?). Can you believe that there is only one major map showing all the Western battle fields from 1914 to 1918 and that appears on about page 125? I am going to the library and search for a better book on WW1.

A brilliantly compiled work with some interesting and original analysis, especially on the inevitability of war once mobilization on the part of the French and Germans had commenced. My only criticism was on a part of the first war that I particularly wanted some insight into: The relevance, or otherwise, of the peripheral campaigns, especially in the Middle East. Most historians dismiss this theater either as an irrelevance or completely overplay its importance. Although Mr. Keegan addressed the Russian front in detail, and touched on the Italian, Balkan and colonial fronts en passe, I was a little disappointed that a little more detail on Allenby's campaigns, and their importance (or otherwise), was not forthcoming: I would like to have seen Mr. Keegan's keen insights on this aspect of the war expanded upon. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this otherwise superb work.

I'll start with the good aspects of this book: it increased my knowledge of World War I. This is my first full length account of the Great War and I feel I know more about the Battles of Ypres, Verdun, Somme, etc. I also know more about "Mustard Gas" and the European political situation that led to the Great War. I also think that Keegan accomplished his goal of overwhelming me with staggering death counts for inches of land. I found myself asking "why all this death for nothing? Can't the generals see this is insanity. Why don't they see the same old strategy is not working?" While I believe this is Keegan's goal, should it have been? As a professional military historian and author of several other books on military history, wouldn't Keegan serve the world more by trying to explain why, to get inside the generals' minds, to explain strategies? He does very little of any of this. At one point Keegan begins to explain some very intersting aspects of British General Haig's religon and how he used it to cope with the gut-wrenching death count. I confess I also became quite angry towards the end of the book when I realized the extent to which Keegan glossed over American involvement in the war. He describes one American battle, but quikly points out that the AEF only captured 13,000+ Germans because the Germans were caught by surprise. Isn't that one of the goals of attacking armies? Keegan's anti-American bias is also evident in his listing the death tolls of the involved nations...except America's. Finally, I find it very unprofessional that Rommel (of WWII) is mentioned more then American General John Pershing and that Keegan devotes more space describing memorials and gravesites than he does to American soldiers. One reviewer's comment that one should have a prior knowledge of European geography to understand the troop movements of 1914 hold true and Keegan devotes too much time to the movements of individual armies, companies, etc. and not enough to exciting and enlightening primary source accounts. When he does use primary sources, they tend to be the most intersting sections of the book. In all, not recommended.

While not as eloquent in depicting the true nature of war as fictional accounts are able to because of their more flexible formats, 'The First World War' can measure up to and even exceed the popularity of spellbinding war novels like 'The Triumph and the Glory' and 'All Quiet on the Western Front' because John Keegan has such a great understanding of conflict and presents it in such a manner that the reader can't help but turn the page. I hope he keeps writing military history for a long, long time. Bravo.

This book might even be superior to his Second World War. Like his earlier work, this volume is not full of the extensive scholastic insight that can be gleaned elsewhere. But for an introductory, single-volume treatment of the war, few better exist. Highly readable and incorporating Keegan's mastery of the subject matter, it would be my first suggestion for someone interested in beginning a study of the military history of the First World War.

Mr. Keegan, an English author, has put a lot of information in this book. Honestly, it may seem a little dry, but if you desire to learn about this unfortunate war, this book can help. Mr. Keegan opens with an excellent first paragraph, explaining that "when the guns at last fell silent four years later, a legacy of political rancour and racial hatred so intense that no explanation of the causes of the Second World War can stand without reference to those roots." He follows with the second chapter called "War Plans" and details pre war preparation and Germany's Schlieffen Plan. This book focuses on the total war. So both the eastern and western front, and also the war at sea are all covered in detail. Mr. Keegan even covers the Russian revolt and the last Tsar.
Overall this is a decent book written by a decent Historian.

Keegan brings out little details relating more to the reasoning than the rationality of why battles were fought and mens lives wasted. His explanations of the courseness of the generals to the fighting man are remarkable for their candidness. The only failure of the book I find to be the maps... in many places they are missing the place names he refers to... and some have no scale...
All in all a great read for those who want to understand the WHY and not the HOW.

This is a well researched and very inclusive book, but the author is no Stephen Ambrose in that his account is often dry and not that readable. This book is best for those who want an overall narrative about the war that includes every aspect (the section on the Gallipoli campaign is particulary enlightening). Keegan also does a good job in documenting just how much World War I has shaped subsequent historical events. Overall, a good read for history buffs but probably not for the average reader.

I almost put this book down after the first 150 pages. The first third of the book, which discusses the Crisis of 1914, the war plans of each major combatant, and the battles that led to the stalemate on the Western Front, are terribly boring. This book is not the Stephen-Ambrose-style history book that I am accustomed to. It floods you with names, places, and military units and assumes that you already know them all. But eventually the book seems to become more interesting (as did the war) around 1916. I learned quite a bit from reading this book, which was the reason I read it. It goes into great detail on the politics, the strategies, and the military strength, while does not tell the reader much about the people who fought the war, the horror stories from the fronts, nor the personalities of any one involved in the war at all. This is for history fans, not for light readers.

I couldn't agree more with the distinguished gentleman cslinks, whose commentary on the physical condition of the book I found to be both insightful and uncannily accurate. I have followed cslinks' reviews of other books with a great deal of interest, and invariably buy and read the books he recommends. I would encourage all users of the store.com to do the same, as I suspect cslinks may be a high-level publishing executive whose opinions carry much weight.

This is a first-rate book by an inspired Yale professor, which gives much to expert and novice.

I do not understand the criticisms, as it merits five stars in all categories.

Respectfully submitted....

Such a good book! Thank goodness for people like John Keegan, with the perspective and perception to boil these events down from 10,000 pages to 475, and still track all the threads. Particularly impressive is the presentation of the war in the middle east, with the Gallipoli Campaign and the contribution of the Arab Army under Hussain of Mecca considered in true relation to their effects on the overall situation. This book needs to be required reading anyone at any level, strategic or tactical, who must send children into battle. The foregoing good stuff notwithstanding, the carping by other reviewers about scarcity of maps is justified. I can imagine John Keegan writing in 100 maps, and the publisher insisting on not more than 5 maps, and the final total of 17 maps pleasing no one. Still, it's an ill wind! Now, we can look forward to a 2nd. edition with a "slip case" at the back cover, containing a CD with two large scale beautiful full-color maps of Europe and the Middle East, one in 1913, one in 1925, with overlays for all the campaigns, and naming all the towns, cities and locations referred to in the text. One small request for the next edition (even if it doesn't have the CD): Some latitiude and longitude tics on the endpaper maps, and at least one latitude and longitude tic on each of the campaign/battle maps, would be of immense help in tying together the geography. Thanks, John Keegan, for a powerful lesson and a great book.

A balanced treatment of the First World War. Much emphasis is spent on the military aspects of the conflict. While the social and economic issues of the war are mentioned, the bulk of the book is concerned with tactics and command decisions. Keegan gives an excellent treatment of the war on all fronts, giving a virtual blow-by-blow as the conflict dragged on. For those looking for details about how the war was fought from a technical, command perspective, I highly recommend it. If you are looking for a book that will give you some feeling for what the war was like for the average soldier, I would look elsewhere.

This book offers only a general overview of the military operations of the First World War. The analysis of the battles is not very detailed and the tactical issues are not treated in depth. Admittedly, the author refuses to consider the tactical handling of battles as a crucial point in determining the reasons for the stalemate on the Western Front. His point (imbalance between the advance in weapons technology and transport and communication means) carries conviction, but the scholarly debate on the importance of the tactics is too superficially dismissed: in the least, it would have been helpful to illustrate the other historians' views on the subject. The naval and air operations are treated in a very sketchy way and nothing new is said about them. The economical and social background of the warring nations is simply ignored, although some of the books cited in the bibliography examine it in detail. The consequences of the war are explained superficially; to state that the First World War it's a "mistery" (misterious it's cause, misterious it's prosecution after so many casualties in the first year) is amazing: since the first years of the XX century it was clear to any military men and to many politicians that a war was impending and more and more voices even advocated it (See D. Herrmann, "The arming of Europe and the making of the First World War"). Finally, Europe was NOT a "power for good and wealth" for herself and the world: just look at the facts related in T. Pakenham's "The Scramble for Africa" to see what the benefits were of European domination of the Black Continent. I don't mean to make here an ideological critic; I say that this statement is superficial and simplistic from the historical point of view. Finally, the bibliografy is very scanty and the book has numerous editing flaws. All in all, it's a decent general volume, but only for the general reader: anyone with a minimal knowledge of the scholarly work on the subject will be disappointed.

Knowing almost nothing about World War I, I really wanted to read a general history of it -- and I guess that's what I got. However, I still don't feel terribly well informed. First, the book gives a sort of high-altitude view, covering troop movements and major battles and (shocking) casualty numbers, but not much sense of what was really happening on the ground. Second, I needed a map every two pages to know which army was moving where -- I wish they'd been more generous in that respect. There's some pretty good information about strategy and technology. There's almost no information about personal experiences or the impact on the societies of Europe.

You should believe the other reviewers when they say the writing is poor. Let me give you an example from page 27: "Though A.J.P. Taylor was flippantly wrong to characterize the outbreak of 1914 as 'war by timetable,' since statesmen might have averted it at any time, given goodwill, by ignoring professional military advice, the characterization is accurate in a deeper sense." Do you get the idea? Every paragraph has sentences like that, making this book difficult to read. On the positive side, his knowledge is deep and wide, but you are going to have to dig.
I just finished Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August"--what a difference. I wish I knew of another book on this general subject so I could recommend it. Tuchman's book covers only about the first 30 days of the war.

This is nor for the car, doing laundry, jogging or anything that does not allow for complete attention. You will need a pen and paper and it would be very helpful to have battle reference maps (perhaps by the hardcopy version to accompany the tapes).
His points are well constructed, but you would not know that if you took your mind off of the barrage of details, facts, figures and minute geographical references that he peppers into his argument. I would not buy the audio version again, but might be interested in the hardcopy. Then again, I'd probably never take the time to read the hard copy.

A real page-turner thatis a fantastic read that explains an often-overlooked period in warfare. After reading, I am amazed at how little I actually knew about WWI beforehand. I cannot recommend this read enough.

Aside from the descriptions of battles, Keegan spends a fair amount of time discussing the various technological advances and constraints of the day. The lack of technology, or sometimes just keeping pace with it, paints a frustrating picture that can be directly linked to a massive death toll.

John Keegan is a true historian who not only lays out the facts in a coherent fashion, but spends time delving into causes and effects so we can better understand how to prevent such a tragic situation from recurring.

If you are looking for a descriptive, riveting, and involving depiction of the Great War in the style of Stephen Ambrose, Barbara Tuchman, or Ken Burns, this is NOT the book for you. Instead, the author serves up a tediously detailed and grindingly dull discussion of specific troop movements, battlefield maneuvers, and casualty numbers. Military historians may appreciate this approach, but it offers very little to the rest of us. Specifically:
1. The pre-events and causes of the war are glossed over, except for a silly discussion of how difficult it is to send messages thousands of miles without telegraph or telephone. The reader is left wondering what, if anything, made this tragedy inevitable.
2. The maps are extremely poor. This is odd for a book that is little more than a description of geography and troop movements. In most cases, the national borders are not even indicated. Natural features discussed in such great detail in the text, such as rivers and mountains, are nowhere to be found on the maps.
3. Military terms and concepts are mentioned with no explanation.
4. The reader never sees the battles from the perspective of the trenches nor the home front.
5. The author trivializes the contribution of the American Expeditionary Force, dismissing the American soldiers as chipper chaps whose impact on the course of the war was merely psychological.
6. The book ends abruptly at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The author engages in little if any discussion of the war's aftermath and significance.
7. One final grating point is the writing style. The dry, leaden prose seems better suited to Victorian novels than to modern military history, and the British spellings (e.g., the all too frequent use of "judgement") are more than a little distracting.

Maybe I was expecting a definitive history of the War. Maybe I was expecting something more than a well-researched recital of battles and army statistics. Maybe I was expecting to learn something. But the book was a big disappointment.
First off, the editing was quite poor. On several occasions there are sentences that make no sense whatsoever. There are mislabeled maps and misspellings of simple words.
The maps themselves are pretty much useless. They should have some relevance to the accompanying text, usually they don't. For example, the text will talk about a battle by a town. You look on the map, the town is not there. There seems to be little attempt to make the book comprehensible to anybody but the biggest WWI scholars.
The main point of the book is that the war's origins are a mystery. Contrast that to The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchmann comes up with several reasons that were apparently ignored by Keegan.
The book does make a good point about how the war started out simply as a local conflict, Serbia vs. Austria-Hungary. While Keegan stresses that point, he flounders at what could have been done to avoid it.
Keegan avoids other issues, the unprecedented reliance on machines in this war, on the introduction of airplanes, of the widespread use of poison gas. There is little 1st-person documentation in the book either, contrary to the dust jacket, one fails to get an idea of "how it felt".
Ideally, the shortcomings of this book could have been masked by making it part of a multi-media package. A computer CD that would stress and visualize Keegan's points would have been a huge help.
In conclusion, the book reminded me of several classes I took in college. You would have a very learned teacher in front of the room. But knowledge itself does not make a good teacher, the ability to impart and transfer that knowledge makes the teacher good. Sorry, Mr. Keegan, you may be a wonderfully knowledgeable historian, but the book did not transfer that knowledge very well.
Howard Wexler

Some historians said the 20th Century actually began in August of 1914 when the First World War began. John Keegan has penned yet another winning volume of military history with "The First World War." His comprehensive, yet consise account of the causes, effects and costs of the war ring with a resonance to all of us today. Keegan's descriptions of the how and why the battles were (and were not)fought (such as the Battles of Verdun and the Somme, two of history's bloodiest battles) are superb examples of the military historian's craft. Keegan's summary of the war's effects on the world to this day (the Balkan and Middle Eastern conflicts are, he argues, after-effects of the 1914-18 War) make "The First World War" more than good history. This is a book to study the world of the violent 20th Century and how it became that way. Highly recommended.

This is probably on a par with anything written by Barbara Tuchman. I learned new things about the war and its aftermath (1918 to 1921) that I had never known, especially because of the author's attention to detail on more than just the Western or Eastern fronts. Although it's detailed (nearing Kevin Philips quality), it's very readable. It would have benefited from the judicious use of more battlefield maps, especially for the typical American ignorant of the local geography of Flanders.
Nevertheless, this is a very pertinent book today for the world in which we live. Incidentally, if the description of the English losses at the Somme doesn't bring a tear to your eye, the only generous interpretation is that you missed that section. A small criticism is that the author spends more time than needed foreshadowing the calamity of WWII and not enough exploring the circumstances leading to WWI.

The author, Keegan, has apparently done a lot of research in original military documents, very little in anything else. He also has not thought much about his materials nor about his manuscript.
An example of the result is his section on the horrible and heroic Battle of the Marne, described so movingly by Barbara Tuchman in "The Guns of August". Keegan reduces it to a series of maneuvers and transfers of divisions from place to place. Appallingly Keegan omits any description of the battle - of hundreds of thousands of French soldiers' desperate and bloody struggle to save their country.
Keegan naively and uncritically swallows whole the German General Staff's excuses for their army's retreat after its defeat at the Marne. If one reads only Keegan's account, one would have no notion that there had been much fighting and dying, only that the German 1st Army had unaccountably gotten out of position. Keegan would have us believe that the German Army gave up its war plan, and Germany its hope of victory, because of a bad field position.
Had Keegan applied any critical thought at all, it would have been obvious from his own earlier chapters, that that could not have been the case. Keegan's lack of critical thought betrays him into such self-contradiction over and over, occasionally on the same page.
His absorption in staff documents leaves the reader repeatedly at the end of long passages full of maneuver and counter-maneuver, with little mention of the actual fighting. Incongruously he concludes each such narrative with a summary of the staggering, and from Keegan's description, inexplicable, numbers of the dead and wounded.
The reader's confusion is added to Keegan's own by the fewness and poor quality of the maps provided. Keegan's narrative involves dozens of place names not shown on any of his maps. For examples, it would take an erudite reader indeed to know the course of the river Sambre or the location of Ivangorod, without either being named on any of the few maps though mentioned repeatedly.
A similar example is Keegan's notion of the origins of trench warfare. First he tells us that the British Army learned trench warfare from the Boers during the Boer War and introduced it to the Western Front. Later we learn that the Russian army had learned the importance of digging trenches during the Russo-Japanese War and had brought it to the Eastern Front. Keegan assures us that the Turks were proficient in digging in to fortify their lines. And he mentions that the Germans surprised the Allies on the Western Front with the strength of the entrenchments to which they had retreated after the Battle of the Marne.
Keegan appears to be uncritically retelling uninformed soldier's scuttlebutt, oblivious to its contradictions. It makes one wonder if he even read his own manuscript.
I read this because of the glowing back cover one-line raves from the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, and so on. Now I doubt their reviewers actually read this thing any more than Keegan did. The other reason was that Tuchman's "The Guns of August" was so good that I was looking for a decent one-volume history of the rest of the World War. I am still looking.

The mortality rate from influenza at Fort Devens was fifty percent, higher than any campaign in Europe. This was left out. There does not seem to be anyone with the ability and talent to write of miltary history as john Keegan does. His style is addicting. His account of the Russian Revolution was th clearest and most succinct. I hope that he writes on other non miltary subjects. Highest marks.

Of course, any book by John Keegan is worth reading. He is a great asset to twentitieth century Western Civilization.
In "The First World War," Keegan performs his usual service to us all. However, I preferred Martin Gilbert's "The First World War: A Complete History." Despite Keegan's reputation for his evocative description of the perspective of the common soldier, Gilbert's book was better at this. And I did not understand why Keegan, despite his well-known admiration for Americans, did not give more space to the American role in World War I.
For those wish to see what Keegan really thinks about Amercians, read "Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America," Keegan's paean to American civilization.
David W. Lee

John Keegan is usually good with his books but somehow he forgot one important thing that should be in history books, maps. Without them it's confusing to read since you have no idea where the battles are based most of the time. The Second World War had maps on almost every page so it was easier to understand where on the continent battles were fought. So unless you know your geography skip it.

I find that it is very difficult to find any comprehensive books on the 1st world war. This is the first book I have found that gave me a good understanding of that first terrible period of the last century. Keegan is both knowledgeable and an extremely good writer. He manages to weave both and emotional testament of the times (as much as one not actually IN the battles can do) and give a concise and lucid description of why the stalemate on the wester front. This is a must for all those interested in the 20th century, but even more so for those interested in understanding how that war got to be a world war and how it affected two to three whole generations.

John Keegan's latest book is another must read history tome by the master himself. While I prefer war novels such as The Triumph and the Glory, Cold Mountain, or The Killer Angels to nonfiction histories, Keegan's style is so readable I always make an exception for him. The First World War is an excellent book by a world class military historian.

As a history buff I was looking for a general history of the war. I'm not qualified to judge the author's grasp of the subject, but this effort has a textbook feel to it that had me skimming paragraphs before long.
With descriptions like "Emmich's task force, composed of the 11th, 14th, 24th, 38th and 43rd brigades, specially detached from their parent divisions, with the 2nd, 4th and 9th cavalry divisions..." (page 84), parts of the book seem designed for someone recreating the battles with toy soldiers. If you're looking for insight into the decision-making characters, the political tides or the soldiers' experiences you'll have to look to another author.

This book provides an essential education that puts current events in Europe into the proper perspective. Having recently read "Citizen Soldiers" by Stephen Ambrose, I found myself wanting to explore the causes of World War II. Keegan does an excellent job of showing how the aggression of Germany in the 30's was a direct result of the outcome of WWI. I enhanced my reading of Keegans book by simultaneously reading "Back to the Front" by Stephen O'Shea, who walked the length of the trench lines to give us a contemporary view of the physical scars that remain to this day. Keegan's book is very readable and I highly recommend it to anyone who is at all curious about European current events.

Keegans new book is an excellent read. The vast knowledge of the writer is quite evident. There were a couple of areas, however, which could have used some improvement. The maps were too infrequent and the first two chapters can be quite tedious. These were the only details which kept me from rating this book as "five stars".

Keegan does an excellent job in this book of explaining the battle strategy of the generals and leaders of the warring countries. For an overview of the war's battles and tactics, it is top notch. I grew frustrated, however, with a missing personal touch. For example, there were was very little coverage of the everyday life of a soldier in the battle, or what it was like to be in a trench. Still, it is worth reading. One other criticism I have is that the maps are poor. While Keegan does an excellent job of detailing battles around small villages and towns, theose same towns are nowhere to be seen on the maps in the book. I found myself using maps from other books to follow along with the reading. I'd reccomend this, but be aware of what you are getting.

which may be the point. Keegan is a very reliable historian. He takes a steady, thoughtful, thorough approach to the build up to the first world war and then leads his readers step by long step through the war. While readers will find little to argue with I will venture to guess that they will find little to delight or astound them either. The sections on Serbia and the Eastern front in particular offer interesting reading though the book in general feels like a textbook.

Separated as we are from the Great War by an even greater war, we can lose sight of its enormity. Keegan's opening and closing chapters vividly portray the vast opening battles of maneuver and the awful cost in life. By comparison, its middle chapters seem muddy and bogged down, but this catchphrase would, in a nutshell, describe the First World War.

John Keegan fills in the wholes on World War I that were left from High School and College general history courses. I really got a sense of that it was like to be on the front lines during the war. I am a bit shocked how little involvement the US had in the war (we certainly were spared most of the death and dismemberment).

Keegan's title "The First World War" sounds as though the book was written some time back. Keegan provides an orderly sequence to events which at the time had no apparent order. Even reading the book eighty years after the events, there is a sense of uncertainty as to how this war was going to end, and if it was going to end. While the events are laid out, Keegan rarely ventures into the "why" or "what if".Keegan's book is an excellent prequel to Liam Ferguson's "The Pity of War" which plunges headlong into why and what if. What a book Ferguson and Keegan could and should write together! I get the feeling, however, that Keegan is a bit too tired or perhaps, is too pinned down by his former work, to let loose his opinions on those topics.

The first hundred pages were riveting as Keegan described how the chocks were removed from Europe's war machines. After that it's like plodding through the mud of Flanders, with arcane references to XX or XIX corps, the proper number of colonels that should die in battle, and an unexpected defense of those poor poor generals. Advice: read the first four chapters, then pick up Hochschild's "To End All Wars" (4/5) to better understand the English leaders.

In my mind a comprehensive, factual explanation of the military aspects of The Great War. Keegan does not dwell excessively on the political aspects that contributed to the conflict, but he correctly points out that it need not have happened, and that the combatants were woefully unprepared to prosecute such a war. I would give it more stars, but for the glaring absence of adequate maps.

Keegan once again proves why he is one of the greatest military historians of the last fifty years. In a single volume, Mr. Keegan has described how the Western World committed suicide on a grand scale and as a result, changed the world forever. For anyone who wants to understand what happened during the First World War, this is the book to read.

I share many of the complaints that previous reviewers have mentioned:
1) This book needs more maps. The description of the opening battles in 1914 is difficult to follow if one is not familiar with European geography.
2) The writing is turgid in places. Keegan's description of the Battle of the Somme repeats the phrase "The Germans were fighting for their lives" at least twice in close succession. Well, of course they were!
3) The analysis is thin in critical areas, particularly in analyzing pre-war events. Lack of communication was a problem, but it appears that the political systems of the European powers placed control of events in the hands of the people who had no incentive to practice restraint, and who had clearly performed no serious thought as to how new weaponry (particularly the machine gun!) would affect the conduct of war: the military commanders.
Despite the problems, I didn't have much trouble finishing the book. This book was my first comprehensive history of WWI, and has stimulated my curiousity about that war. I think Mr. Keegan is to be complimented on releasing this book. For Americans, WWI is a forgotten war, and I thank him for a sobering and thought-provoking look at this conflict that destroyed men, nations, and ideals without mercy.

I must concur with many of the reviewers. A plethora of place names, regiments, and troop movements, and a dearth of battle maps negatively impacts what is otherwise an incredibly lucid history. I can only suggest using a fairly detailed atlas to complement one's following the battlefield action. Otherwise, this is a tremendous work!

I love history and history books. I had great hopes for this one since I have read others by the author but the prose seems almost disconnected at time. There is LOTS of background and LOTS of evidence to support various conjectures, but somehow these seem disjointed from the tale. The book was packed full of information but that data seemed almost unrelated to the story. And he committed the worst sin of a writer - he bored. Better luck next time, John.

I think this simply is a great book about the Great War. Reading this book gives you a broad understanding of the First World War, the main events and battles, and the course of the war on each of the fronts without excessive detail. Some might wish for more detail on particular aspects of the war, but there are numerous other books on virtually every battle and Keegan simply couldn't have written any more detail and maintained a managable general history of the war.

One important point, though. This book is not a quick read, especially if you're being exposed to World War I for the first time. Keegan writes in a very terse style, and virtually every sentence and every word is important. You can't skim sections or paragraphs and hope to gain an understanding of what he's communicating. I recommend taking your time with the book and reading it in conjunction with the West Point maps on the war (the maps in the book are somewhat weak). But, if you do that, I think you'll find the experience rewarding.

This book by Keegan is once again brillant. Keegan a noted military historian wrote a very readable and convincing book on the Firt World War. This book give a good anysis of the war, why it started and teh various folks who ran the show and the battles that deterimined the war in Europe, Asia and Africa. This book is a must read.

Enough with the paucity of maps. Although I agree that this was certainly a shortcoming of this book, the greater concern is the dry, boring account of one of the most devastating wars in the history of mankind. Mr. Keegan's litany of names and places may be historically accurate, but gave little understanding of the human suffering that had to be an everyday occurrence. This book reincarnated all the boring moments spent in history classes taught by professors who almost destroyed any interest I had in history by focusing on names, dates, and numbers.
Also, it would have been nice if Mr. Keegan acknowledged the impact of the United States on the conclusion of this war. He seems to mention U.S.involvement almost as an afterthought and implies that our victories occurred because the Germans were already in retreat or because the vast numbers of fresh American troops discouraged the Germans. Although the United States did not enter the war until very late, surely its impact warranted more than approximately two paragraphs in a 427 page book. One wonders how over 100,000 American soldiers died in this war.

Keegan's WWI book is disappointing. There is an abundance of narrative factual information, but not much analysis of tactics, strategies, or politics. This book can serve well as an introduction to the details of the war, but is in no way even close to being definitive.

When I bought "The First World War" by John Keegan, I was looking forward to a my first comprehensive military history of World War I. I was disappointed and I wonder why the reviews have been so glowing. The first months of the war are desperate maneuvers by both sides to encircle and avoid encirclement. But trying to follow Keegan's description with the sorry minimum of maps, I was constantly frustrated. The key battles have no maps whatsoever. There's just a few summary maps. Keegan's descriptive style is as flat as the terrain of Ypres. I'm struggling to stay with the book. Arrgh. If you want to read a really good book about the initial stages of World War I, read Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August".

John Keegan's one volume narrative of the First World War is detailed, but hard to follow. I suppose a military historian would enjoy it more than others. My primary interests were the causes of the war, the geopolitical implications of the war, and the aftermath. Sadly, these areas were only glossed over in this book. The battles are covered very well, however, and I think it is a good source to have if studying this war.

Keegan makes a persuasive case that the WW I Generals who became household names were fools, or mad . Oddly,Keegan has no new information on the men who ran the war. He looks back at the slaughter and rightly concludes that the leaders made a mess of the entire escapade, besides killing humongous millions for no sensible end . Great stuff. But Keegan now owes us an explanation of military leaders as a group. Are they all con artists, madmen or just incompetents?

John Keegan has written military histories that transcend the genre, giving a reader insight into how technology and social and economic forces have shaped the face and outcomes of battle over the millenia. This ain't one of them. The first 50 pages is a traditional and readable account of the beginnings of WW I. While I disagree with Prof. Keegan's premise that WW I could have been averted by better communication, the beginning was at least interesting. The book thereafter degenerates into the minutiae of troop movements, offering little insight and no maps to help the reader follow what Keegan is talking about. I expected more from this master and was greatly disappointed.

There is wonderful detail in this work but for me, as a casual reader, it was a little too dense and academic. As other reviewers have mentioned, the maps provided are too few and somewhat confusing. Additionally, Keegan's accounts of individual fighting units need more context and explanation for the beginning armchair historian. Keegan assumes his reader already has a working knowledge of warfare generally and the Great War in particular. If this is your first book about WWI, perhaps you should chose another one to familiarize yourself with the basics - then choose Keegan to deepen your understanding.

This book covers a byzantine topic (origins and conduct of WWI) which is not assisted at all by the convoluted and run-on sentence structure which the author adheres to. The result is very confusing for the reader. In addition, town names are thrown about like one is very familiar with local French/Russian/Polish geography, frequently with no reference to maps. Something is moreover definitely lacking in the time-line presentation, because battles for example are very difficult to follow. I will definitely stay with The Guns of August.

This is a fact filled account that takes some concentration to get through, but all in all it is very interesting. I read Keegan's WWII account and thought that truly exceptional.
My real complaint lies with the physical nature of the book. Books can be beautiful, but this one has the paper cut to uneven widths, giving it a cheap and unprofessional look (I probably would have taken it out of the library instead of buying it had I known). I think Knopf does this quite often.

This is a history of battles of WWI. The author does a great job of setting the stage for military battles in WWI. However, I found the maps very inadequate. It was maddening trying to understand the battles that were being descibed when key places did not show up on the few maps that were presented. A book such a well written book deserved to have more maps depicting where the action was taking place.

I reviewed this book previously and did not like it (see below). I just finished a competing volume, The Great War, by Spencer C. Tucker. The Tucker book is half as long and superior in all respects to Keegan's book. Readers searching for a good introduction to WWI should go to Tucker's book.

Thin in places and admittedly very short on maps, John Keegan's latest still delivers a fairly thorough review of the bloody mess that was WW1. Whatever flaws it has are more than outnumbered by the good points in this clean and easy to read volume. To know WW1 from start to finish, read this book and Martin Gilbert's "The First World War" and "Atlas of World War 1", which should more than fill in the gaps. And yes, if you like novels, read a novel, because this history book isn't going to do it for the fictionally inclined.

This is the first of Keegan's books I have read. I found it to be well written and an excellent overview of the war including the causes and aftermath of the conflict. The one issue I take with the book is with the maps. The book does a particularly poor job or integrating the maps with the text. Not being an expert on this war many place names were new to me. Invariably, the towns and rivers referred to in the text were nowhere to be found on the maps. This was the only frustration, however, in all other respects it was a very satifying read.

John Keegan does a great job compiling a readable history of WWI. I did not realize that the US involvement in WWI was so relatively inconsequential from a military viewpoint and so important from a psychological viewpoint. Of course, Great Britain gets most of the credit for the victory from this resident of England. Rightfully so. I am now looking for a parallel history from the US viewpoint. One gets the impression that if the French would have just gotten out of the way and the American involvement started earlier we could have finished this war with a lot less bloodshed and perhaps prevented WWII.

By now, 100 years later, few really have any idea what caused the First World War and how completely horrific it was. John Keegan's clear record displays the cost in human lives, the irrationalities of its causes and the resulting effects that still exist in our time. Well done, indeed

The lack of maps is only one probem. This book is far less a narrative than it is a litany of facts (armies, corps, battles, leaders, etc.). Only rarely does Keegan employ compelling, elegant prose as described on the book's jacket. His paragraphs, at times, ramble beyond an entire page. Keegan also appears fond of changing subjects completely within the same paragraph. An apt question would be, "Where were his editors?" I found Keegan's "The Face of Battle" to be a wonderful, fascinating read. This book falls far short of its potential.

This book is not for the person who wants a general knowledge of history. It is very difficult to read and so boring that I kept having to re-read many pages. It presents more technical details without providing a narrative surrounding the events described. I would not recommend to the casual reader or those who prefer more of the story rather than just the facts.

I found this book quite unsatisfactory. The main focus is always on the Western Front (shockingly leaving out the Americans and their indispensable human and logistical support). The Eastern and Italian fronts are almost completely left out. The Author seem to ignore that millions of soldiers fought and died far from the Marne and the Somne (being Italian myself, I would like to remind the Author that the Italians had 600,000 dead and millions of wounded in the Great War). The sacrifice of Russian and Italian soldiers kept hundreds of German and Austrian divisions far from the Western front and the British troops. And what about the big blounder of the Peace of Versailles? Is still too embarassing for Mr Keegan to talk about it?

I have just read this incredible book and now the reviews from readers.
I take issue with many of the reviewers who are singularly unimpressed with the publication, due to lack of maps etc etc.
Take no notice, and take more heed of the serious reviews - from NY Times, Wall Street Journal et al. This is a fabulous book. Keegan has done a masterful job of pulling all the threads together and weaving a masterwork which will endure and will become a definitive text for those seeking a consise record of this horrendous conflict.

I have no doubt that Keegan is an authority on this subject. I felt that he failed to realise that readers may not have his encyclopedic knowledge of the First World War. There are constant references to battles and troop movements but no supporting maps & diagrams, the result was that the subject failed to come alive and I couldn't really get involved in the book.
This is a shame as Keegan is an excellent journalist and makes his points clearly and quickly in the medium of the newspaper.

Beware this overpriced offering. Before you buy it, it is most likely an ABRIDGED version, though it does not say so. Look up the book again, and on the main page offering this title, including the books, etc., note the CD version, and there it says Abridged, and it is Substantially cheaper.

John Keegan has managed to write this book, covering the whole of the First World War, and he has done it well. As other reviewers have said, this history is not radical or vastly different but it is very clear. Managing to convey the horror of the war whilst remaining impartial and focused is no easy matter. Here, Keegan has managed to do this.
I definately recomend it.

Hoping this would be a good, one volume overview of the war, I was greatly disappointed. The explanation for the outbreak, especially Russia's role, was oversimplified and in error, especially regarding Russian mobilization options.
Despite some detailed explanation of various campaigns, the treatment of the East (which was critical to the outcome of the war) struck me as a bit superficial.
I'm still waiting for "the" WWI survey history.

I enjoyed this book alot, although I enjoy reading Keegan alot. The lack of maps was not too much of a impairment, but then again I read quite alot about WWI so I was already familiar with the geographical areas concerned. Keegan does a nice job of "bringing things together" for the reader on this complicated subject.

Dr. Keegan is, arguably, the Western World's best military historian. He has the rare ability to synthesize precisely-documented historical facts with extraordinary ease of style. So much so, that the reader may very well read this book in one sitting. Dr. Keegan also has a marvellous way of humanizing the conflict with warmth, understanding and compassion. This book is a must-have for the serious student of war history.

Leaving aside Keegan's leaden prose style, the major problem I have with this (original hardcopy edition, 1998) is the of the lack of maps. Because of this I got no further than the chapter dealing with the Battle of the Frontiers and the Marne. It's very frustrating to be told in great detail about army movements without being able to see a pictorial representation. It's meaningless (and dull) to be told how X Division moved from town A to town B, failed to caputure town C, lost control of town D and then was forced back to river E without being able to see where they are. This is typical of the level of description, and yet there are only 10 maps in a book of 450 pages. All in all it makes for a dull and monotonous read.

If you want a good description of the first world war, from start to finish, at sea, on land, in air, in africa, in the east, in the west and in the middle east then this is the book for you. My only criticism is that more maps would have been helpfull but it's only minor.

This book is a very well written and comprehensive book about the causes and the battles of World War one on the Western as well as on the Eastern front. It is an excellent book for anyone who wants to start to learn about this war.

Very good writing. I find it impossible to follow the camapigns without maps. 1914 Battles in Galacia and Serbia are especially bad. I strongly suggest the publisher dedicate to producing a great book and include campaign MAPS.

Have now read 7 books on WWI, plus watched 9 hours of DVD based on old footage. My issue is with the author. He writes in poor "American English" let alone English English. Among the many issues I have with this author, he packs too many actions/activites into one sentence using far too many coma's. Therefore, the book at times reads very"choppy" and you need to go back to beginning of sentence.
The book seems to leave alot out regarding the winding down of the war. ie how soldiers of ALL sides were tired of fighting and some refused to fight. Better books to read are "The Guns of August"; "A World Undone" & "The Beauty & The Sorrow".

This book misses its point. It's written in a novel style rather then in style of documentary prose like it should be. There is also a lack of exact informations and I expected more maps, more dates, names, weapon-types...At some spots a little bit confusing too.

The people who have said "BORING" neglected to say "depressing" and "pompous". Certainly it is about a depressing and wasteful war, but it is unfair to those who died, to render their sacrifice into a stultifyingly dull intellectual ego trip. I have a couple of degrees in history, and this is the kind of stuff that makes other people hate history, so I doubly resent it.

Keegan is an amazing author who has tremendous knowledfe and seeks the truth. His analysis of things is pretty good, but in one ara he is way off. It certainly was NOT Germany that began WWI. Facts reveal that Russia, Franc, and England had ALL mobilised BEFORE GERMANY!!! In fact, Germanywas desperately seeking diplomatic negotiations to get matters under control, and only gave up when both Russia and Frace were parked at her borders. Read "Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War. That book tells how it was BRTIAN that was the real cause of the war: and though they strove migtily to desroy the evidence and write their lies into history (which lies the world has bought into), there is enough evidence to show their guilt. In fact, they began working toward war over a decade before they finally succeeded in manufacturing it for real. Read that book before you deny that that is possible. Nyone interested in truth will not avoid investigating something just because they don't like what that truth turns ot to be. It was not the Government of Britain that sought war, not at all; but a certain goup had decided that Germany was a threat to Britians own industry and empire-buildng, and thus worked for years to get their men into key positions in government and media to get thir war. These people flat out lied repeatedly to their own government to manipulate matters. In fact, these people, including Winston Churchill, who invented an absurd tale of escape from a prisioner of war camp during the Boer war and was gung ho for the war with Germany, played a key part. In fact the warmongers had actually started the mobilization of the British military before their own government knew a war was going to occur. Sad, but too true. And learn about Woodrow Wilson and his brutality in business toward workers, and how he as repackaged as a good boy and gotten into the presidency. And, oh, you know how he seemed so fanaticaly about setting up his war documant museum, or whatever it was called, using money and even the military to steal all documents in Europe about the war? it was all about getting everything that showed Britian's (that is the Elect insiders) culpability as the originaators of thewar. Britian's indider Elect group had negotiated withboth France and Russia to destry Germany. But this too long. Read Hidden History. And read Carroll Quigley's book "The Anglo-American Establishment". These books tell a story that will make you sick. World war Two came out of World War One, but WWI was begun by Britain. Hitler never need have happened...

But a very difficult read if you're wanting to learn more about the experience of the war. You get plenty of names, dates, battles, armies, but it becomes a jumbled mush of facts without anything to make it really interesting. I found that I had to keep notes to manage who was on what side. Like the Russian officer Rennenkampf. That's a German name, fittingly because Rennenkampf was Prussian, but so many names come at you so fast, it just messes you up.

This book is hardly a page turner. More of a "read that sentence again to try to clear things up" book.