The War to End All Wars: World War I (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The War to End All Wars: World War I Elizabeth Bush, Reviewer Freedman, Russell. The War to End All Wars: World War I. Clarion, 2010. [192p]. illus. with photographs ISBN 978-0-547-02686-2 $22.00 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 7-10. It was the war that world leaders didn't want to fight, and the war that didn't quite end, and here Freedman narrates its story with a steady eye on the wasteful atrocity that ushered in modern warfare. Opening with a tense description of the assassination of the Hapsburg heir and his wife in Sarajevo, he establishes the way a deplorable but relatively minor political incident transmuted into pan-European conflict, weighed down by a network of alliances and nationalistic pride that even the blood bonds of opposing rulers could not forestall. Freedman follows the action chronologically as more nations join and military forces become literally entrenched in stalemate; he then smoothly inserts thematic chapters on weaponry and trench warfare before returning to the course of the war itself—futile efforts to significantly redraw the front lines, the withdrawal of Russia and the entry of the [End Page 430] United States, and the economic collapse that caused German citizens to press for surrender. Freedman's timely organization of chronological events and topical issues is masterful, and the allegretto pacing of his narration seems deceptively effortless. The closing chapter leads directly into the failure of the Treaty of Versailles and the emergence of a rearmed Germany, reminding readers that World War II can be interpreted as so much tragic unfinished business. Nearly every spread features one or more photographs or maps; notes are included for all quotations, as are a selected bibliography and index. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois