A World Undone Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  List of Maps

  List of Illustrations

  Chronology

  Major Characters

  Introduction

  PART ONE

  July 1914: Into the Abyss

  Chapter 1 June 28: The Black Hand Descends

  Background: The Serbs

  Chapter 2 Never Again

  Background: The Hapsburgs

  Chapter 3 Setting Fire to Europe

  Background: The Hohenzollerns

  Chapter 4 July 25 to 28: Secrets and Lies

  Background: The Romanovs

  Chapter 5 July 29 to 31: Fear Is a Bad Counselor

  Background: The Ottoman Turks

  Chapter 6 Saturday, August 1: Leaping into the Dark

  PART TWO

  August–December 1914: Racing to Deadlock

  Chapter 7 The Iron Dice Roll

  Background: Paris in 1914

  Chapter 8 First Blood

  Background: London in 1914

  Chapter 9 A Perfect Balance

  Background: The Junkers

  Chapter 10 To the Marne

  Background: The French Commanders

  Chapter 11 Back from the Marne

  Background: The British Commanders

  Chapter 12 Flanders Fields

  PART THREE

  1915: A Zero-Sum Game

  Chapter 13 The Search for Elsewhere

  Background: The Machinery of Death

  Chapter 14 The Dardanelles

  Background: The Sea War

  Chapter 15 Ypres Again

  Background: Troglodytes

  Chapter 16 Gallipoli

  Background: An Infinite Appetite for Shells

  Chapter 17 The Ground Shifts

  Background: Genocide

  Chapter 18 Gallipoli Again, and Poland, and…

  PART FOUR

  1916: Bleeding to Death

  Chapter 19 Verdun: Preparation

  Background: Old Wounds Unhealed

  Chapter 20 Verdun: Execution

  Background: The Living Dead

  Chapter 21 Verdun Metastasizes

  Background: Airships and Landships

  Chapter 22 Maelstrom

  Background: The Jews of Germany

  Chapter 23 The Somme

  Background: Farewells, and an Arrival at the Top

  Chapter 24 Exhaustion

  PART FIVE

  1917: Things Fall Apart

  Chapter 25 Turnips and Submarines

  Background: Consuming the Future

  Chapter 26 A New Defense, and a New Offensive

  Background: Hearts and Minds

  Chapter 27 Revolution and Intervention

  Background: The Cossacks

  Chapter 28 The Nivelle Offensive

  Background: The War and Poetry

  Chapter 29 Wars Without Guns

  Background: Enter the Tiger

  Chapter 30 Passchendaele

  PART SIX

  1918: Last Throw of the Dice

  Chapter 31 Going for Broke

  Background: Kaiser Wilhelm II

  Chapter 32 Entangling Misalliances

  Background: Lawrence of Arabia

  Chapter 33 Michael

  Background: Ludendorff

  Chapter 34 An Impossibly Complex Game

  Background: The Women

  Chapter 35 The Black Day of the German Army

  Background: The Gardeners of Salonika

  Chapter 36 The Sign of the Defeated

  Postwar: The Fate of Men and Nations

  Bibliography

  Also by G. J. Meyer

  Copyright Page

  Dedicated to the memory of my parents,

  Cornelia E. and Justin G. Meyer

  List of Maps

  The War in the West Front endpaper

  The War in the East Back endpaper

  German Advance of 1914

  Dardanelles / Gallipoli

  1916: Verdun

  Brusilov Offensives of 1916

  The Battle of the Somme

  Nivelle Offensives of May 1917

  German Offensives of 1918

  List of Illustrations

  Church (NA)

  Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife (NA)

  Franz Ferdinand and family (WW)

  Colonel Edward House (WW)

  Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic (CPE)

  Conrad von Hötzendorf (CPE)

  Emperor Franz Joseph (CPE)

  Hungarian Prime Minister Istvan Tisza (CPE)

  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov (CPE)

  Kaiser Wilhelm II (CPE)

  German Foreign Minister Gottlieb von Jagow (CPE)

  Romanov family (WW)

  French President Raymond Poincaré (WW)

  Enver Pasha (GW)

  Ambassador Lichnowsky (GW)

  Troops marching (NA)

  Helmuth von Moltke (GW)

  King Albert of Belgium

  Skoda gun (CNP)

  Belgian refugees (CNP)

  Herbert Henry Asquith (WW)

  British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey (CPE)

  General Alexander von Kluck (GW)

  General Otto von Bülow (NW)

  Pavel von Rennenkampf (GW)

  Otto von Bismarck (GW)

  Erich von Falkenhayn (CMP)

  General Joseph Joffre (NW)

  Joseph Gallieni (CPE)

  Field Marshal Sir John French (WW)

  Lord Horatio Kitchener (WW)

  Horse and soldier (NA)

  Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (CPE)

  Winter trenches (NA)

  French flamethrowers (NA)

  Vice Admiral Sackville Carden (GW)

  Rear Admiral John De Robeck (CPE)

  General Ian Hamilton (GW)

  Admiral Lord John Fisher (CPE)

  Lusitania (HW)

  Italian Prime Minister Antonio Salandra (CPE)

  Lieutenant General Horace Smith-Dorrien (CPE)

  Otto Limon von Sanders

  Mustafa Kemal (GW)

  British munitions factory

  August von Mackensen (WW)

  Troops at Suvla Bay (NW)

  Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Stopford (GW)

  British soldiers (NA)

  General Noël De Castelnau (CPE)

  Generals Ferdinand Foch and Henri-Philippe Pétain (WW)

  German artillery (NA)

  Field hospital (NA)

  General Alexei Brusilov (WW)

  General Luigi Cadorna (WW)

  Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig (GW)

  British troops on Western Front (NA)

  Grigori Rasputin (WW)

  French refugees (NA)

  American President Woodrow Wilson (HW)

  French women (NA)

  U-Boat (NA)

  French home in ruins (NA)

  David Lloyd George (CPE)

  Russian death list (CPE)

  Alexander Kerensky (WW)

  Arthur Zimmerman (WW)

  Cossack (GW)

  Arras Cathedral (GW)

  Ferdinand Foch and John J. Pershing (NA)

  Sir Herbert Plumer (GW)

  Premier Georges Clemenceau (HW)

  German wagon horses (NA)

  General Sir Arthur Currie (HW)

  Ruined British tank (NA)

  American troops (NA)

  General Oskar von Hutier (NA)

  Georg von Hertling (WW)

  Leon Trotsky (WW)

  Wully Robertson (CPE)

  General Max Hoffmann (IWM)

  Steel wheels (NA)

  Hindenburg, Kaiser Wilhelm, and Ludendorff (NA)

  German advance (NA)

  German
troops including Hitler (NA)

  French prisoners (NA)

  Army nurses (GW)

  Milk delivery (GW)

  General Douglas MacArthur (NA)

  Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria (GW)

  Abbreviations

  CNP Collier’s New Photographic History of the World’s War (New York, 1918)

  CPE Collier’s Photographic History of the European War (New York, 1918)

  GW The Great World War: A History, edited by Frank A. Mumby (Gresham Publishing Company, five volumes 1915–1917)

  HW History of the World War by Francis A. March (Philadelphia, 1918)

  IWM Imperial War Museum

  NA National Archives

  NW The Nations at War by Willis John Abbot (New York, 1917)

  WW Liberty’s Victorious Conflict: A Photographic History of the World War (Woman’s Weekly, Chicago, 1918)

  A Chronology of the Great War

  1914

  June 28:

  Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated at Sarajevo.

  July 5:

  Kaiser Wilhelm II gives “blank check” to Austria-Hungary.

  July 23:

  Austria-Hungary delivers ultimatum to Serbia.

  July 25:

  Serbia responds to ultimatum and mobilizes.

  Russia declares Period Preparatory to War.

  July 28:

  Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.

  July 30:

  Russia and Austria-Hungary order general mobilization.

  July 31:

  Germany issues “double ultimatum” to France and Russia.

  August 1:

  France orders general mobilization.

  Germany mobilizes, declares state of war with Russia.

  August 2:

  German troops enter Luxembourg.

  August 3:

  Germany declares war on France.

  Britain orders general mobilization.

  August 4:

  Germany declares war on Belgium.

  Britain declares war on Germany.

  August 5:

  Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia.

  August 6:

  Serbia declares war on Germany.

  August 7:

  French troops invade Alsace.

  August 10:

  France declares war on Austria-Hungary.

  Austria-Hungary invades Serbia.

  August 12:

  Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary.

  August 16:

  Russian troops invade East Prussia.

  August 23:

  Germans and British meet in Battle of Mons in Belgium.

  August 26:

  Battle of Le Cateau.

  August 28:

  Russian Second Army is destroyed at Tannenberg.

  September 3–11:

  Russians force Austro-Hungarians out of Lemberg, drive them back to Carpathian Mountains.

  September 5:

  French-British counterattack opens Battle of the Marne.

  September 9:

  German withdrawal marks end of Schlieffen Plan offensive.

  September 9–14:

  Germans defeat Russians in Battle of Masurian Lakes.

  October 6:

  Belgian troops abandon Antwerp to Germans.

  October 19:

  Opening of First Battle of Ypres.

  October 29:

  Turkey enters war on side of Austria-Hungary and Germany.

  November 5:

  Austria-Hungary invades Serbia.

  December 14:

  French and British launch general offensive all along Western Front.

  1915

  January 24:

  British-German warships meet at Dogger Bank in North Sea.

  February 7–22:

  German victory over Russians in Second Battle of Masurian Lakes.

  March 10–13:

  Battle of Neuve Chapelle in France’s Artois region.

  March 18:

  British-French naval task force fails to force open the Dardanelles.

  April 22:

  Second Battle of Ypres begins with German offensive.

  April 25:

  British and French forces land on Gallipoli Peninsula.

  May 1:

  German offensive at Gorlice and Tarnow in Galicia.

  May 9:

  British attack Aubers Ridge; French begin Second Battle of Artois.

  May 23:

  Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.

  June 23:

  Italian attack opens First Battle of the Isonzo.

  August 5:

  German forces occupy Warsaw, climaxing an offensive that began on July 13.

  August 6:

  British forces land at Suvla Bay in Gallipoli.

  September 25:

  Massive French offensive begins Second Battle of Champagne and Third Battle of Artois while British attack at Loos.

  October 6:

  Germans and Austro-Hungarians invade Serbia.

  October 14:

  Bulgaria and Serbia declare war on each other.

  December 17:

  Douglas Haig replaces John French as commander of British Expeditionary Force.

  1916

  January 8:

  British complete evacuation of Gallipoli peninsula.

  February 21:

  Germans open offensive at Verdun.

  March 18:

  Russians attack German defenders at Lake Naroch.

  May 5:

  Beginning of Arab revolt against Ottoman Empire.

  May 31:

  The Battle of Jutland in the North Sea.

  June 4:

  Russians begin the Brusilov offensive in Austria and Poland.

  July 1:

  British and French begin the Battle of the Somme.

  August 27:

  Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary.

  August 29:

  Hindenburg replaces Falkenhayn as chief of German General Staff.

  September 1:

  Bulgaria declares war on Romania.

  September 3:

  German-Bulgarian-Turkish force invades Romania.

  October 24:

  French launch counteroffensive at Verdun.

  November 23:

  Provisional Greek government declares war on Germany and Bulgaria.

  December 5:

  David Lloyd George replaces H. H. Asquith as British prime minister.

  December 6:

  German troops enter Bucharest, Romania.

  December 12:

  Joseph Joffre is replaced by Robert Nivelle as commander of French forces on the Western Front.

  1917

  January 31:

  Germany announces resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare.

  February 3:

  United States ends diplomatic relations with Germany.

  February 23:

  Germans begin withdrawal to Hindenburg Line on Western Front.

  March 1:

  Contents of Zimmermann telegram are made public.

  March 15:

  Tsar Nicholas II abdicates.

  April 6:

  United States declares war.

  April 9:

  British attack opens Battle of Arras.

  April 16:

  Nivelle offensive begins with French attack at the Chemin des Dames.

  April 17:

  First outbreak of mutiny among French troops on Western Front.

  May 12:

  John J. Pershing is appointed commander of American Expeditionary Force.

  May 15:

  Nivelle is replaced by Henri-Philippe Pétain as French commander in chief.

  June 7:

  British offensive at Messines Ridge in Flanders.

  July 1:

  Russians launch Kerensky offensive.

  July 31:

  British attack opens Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele).

  October 24: />
  Austro-Hungarian forces open Battle of Caporetto on Italian front.

  November 6:

  Passchendaele falls to Canadian Corps, ending Third Battle of Ypres. Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky overthrow Russian government.

  November 20:

  British attack with tanks at Cambrai.

  1918

  January 8:

  Woodrow Wilson presents Fourteen Points peace program to Congress.

  March 3:

  Russians accept German peace terms at Brest-Litovsk.

  March 21:

  Germans launch Operation Michael on Western Front.

  March 28:

  General Pershing invites Foch to use U.S. troops against German offensive.

  April 9:

  Germans launch Operation Georgette.

  April 14:

  Ferdinand Foch is named General in Chief of the Allied Armies.

  May 27:

  Germans launch offensive at the Chemin des Dames and the River Aisne.

  June 9:

  Germans attack at the River Matz.

  July 15:

  Germans open final offensive in Champagne along the River Marne.

  July 18:

  British and French counterattack to begin the Second Battle of the Marne, forcing German withdrawal.

  August 8:

  British launch Amiens offensive, “the Black Day of the German Army.”

  August 21:

  Germans begin withdrawal back to Hindenburg Line.

  September 8:

  Germans begin withdrawal from St. Mihiel salient.

  September 15:

  Allied Army of the Orient moves out of Salonika against Bulgaria.

  September 16: