In Defence of The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman

[ColonelRuffhouse]

It's a fair assumption that if you're on this forum, you're familiar with Barbara Tuchman's famous Pulitzer Prize winning book The Guns of August. It's easily the most famous book on the First World War, and even 60 years after its publication it's still often recommended.

 

However, it seems like in recent years, the tides have turned against Tuchman's book. Oftentimes I see people recommending against reading it, and warning of its inaccuracies and saying that it is out of line with current historiography. One common critique I've seen is that Tuchman posits a "war by timetable" thesis. Margaret MacMillan, author of The War That Ended Peace, said as much in an interview with The Guardian:

 

Quote

"Moreover, her main argument that entangling alliances and rigid military timetables caught Europe in a grip that led the powers inexorably towards catastrophe is no longer accepted by most historians."

 

In this post, I plan on showing why Tuchman was not advancing the "timetable thesis" in The Guns of August. I'll do so by comparing her work to that of other, more recent books. This is because oftentimes those who criticize The Guns of August state that it's better to read more modern books. And overall, these modern books are very much worth reading. But I'd like to demonstrate that Tuchman's book is not out of line with modern historiography in this respect, and therefore it's still worth reading.

 

The Timetable Thesis:

 

The best place to start is to define the timetable thesis. The main proponent of the timetable thesis is AJP Taylor, who wrote a book titled War by Timetable: How the First World War Began, published in 1969. Taylor's thesis can be summed up by his line:

 

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"The First World War had begun - imposed on the statesmen of Europe by railway timetables. It was an unexpected climax to the railway age."

 

Also, he states,

 

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"No one had time for a deliberate aim or time to think. All were trapped by the ingenuity of their military preparations, the Germans most of all." (p. 121)

 

In essence, the timetable thesis argues that the beginning of the First World War was inadvertent, and that the European powers were unwillingly forced into war by their detailed and rigid military plans. In other words, the timetable thesis compares the European military plans to a nuclear missile, which once launched and clear from the silo could not be recalled. Taylor's timetable thesis has been largely rejected by modern historiography on the First World War, as more recent books have emphasized that the European nations chose to go to war, and that they were not bound by their military plans.

 

Does Tuchman Argue the Timetable Thesis?

 

So, does Tuchman propose the timetable thesis alongside Taylor? It's worth noting that The Guns of August was written in 1962, seven years before Taylor's book. But that's hardly a bar to two authors making the same argument. It's important to note that Tuchman does not discuss the July Crisis at all. It isn't within the scope of her book. The narrative begins (besides the funeral of Edward VII) on July 31st, once Germany has sent the ultimatum to Russia. Therefore, Tuchman does not attempt to explain the motivations of the various powers as the July Crisis heated up. Rather, she begins her narrative after Germany has declared war on Russia.

 

As far as I can tell, most assertions that Tuchman is making the timetable argument are based on Chapter 6 of the book, August 1: Berlin. This chapter is primarily focused on the infamous August 1st confrontation between Moltke and the Kaiser, on the eve of war. Tuchman describes how the civilian leaders (Bethmann Hollweg and the Kaiser, specifically) got 'cold feet' right before the start of the war, and attempted to convince Moltke to refocus his armies to the East. This was based on confused proposals from England. At this point, Tuchman recounts Moltke's legendary melt down (and possibly a stroke) where he flatly refused to reorganize the mobilization. Tuchman makes clear that this was because Moltke had, "For the past ten years, first as assistant to Schlieffen, then has his successor... been planning for this day." (p. 86-87). She then quotes Moltke, where he stated,

 

Quote

"'Your Majesty,' Moltke said to him now, 'it cannot be done. The deployment of millions cannot be improvised. If Your Majesty insists on leading the whole army to the East it will not be an army ready for battle but a disorganized mob... Those arrangements took a whole year of intricate labor to complete... and once settled it cannot be altered.'" (p. 88).

 

Now, on face value this may look like the timetable thesis. Tuchman is arguing that Germany was bound by their military plans! However, she isn't. Tuchman is explaining Moltke's personal opinion of the possibility of reorganizing the mobilization. She then states,

 

Quote

"In fact it could have been altered. The German General Staff, though committed since 1905 to a plan of attack upon France first, had in their files, revised each year until 1913, an alternative plan against Russia with all the trains running eastward." (p. 88).

 

Tuchman is explicitly rejecting the timetable thesis here. Far from saying that the European powers had no choice but to go to war due to their plans, Tuchman is saying that they did have a choice. She disproves Moltke's opinion and states it is incorrect.

 

The Moltke-Kaiser argument is widely recounted in modern historiography. Christopher Clark, in Sleepwalkers, recounts the same incident in the following words:

 

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"The messages from London set the scene for a violent dispute between the Emperor and the Chief of the General Staff. The German mobilization was already underway, which meant that the vast machinery of the Schlieffen Plan was in motion... But whereas Wilhelm and Bethmann wished to seize the opportunity to avoid war in the west, Moltke took the view that, once set in motion, the general mobilization could not be halted." (p. 531).

 

In The War That Ended Peace, Margaret MacMillan herself recounts the same incident, stating: 

 

Quote

"Moltke refused to contemplate the possibility of deploying only against Russia. The deployment in the west could not be stopped without disrupting the plans and so ending any chance of success in the coming war against France." (p. 613).

 

And Holger Herwig uses the same quote as Tuchman (albeit with a different translation) when he recounts the incident in his book Marne 1914, writing:

 

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“[After Wilhelm’s instruction to redirect the armies] Moltke was thunderstruck. The deployment of an army of millions could not simply be ‘improvised’ he reminded the Kaiser. The Aufmarschplan represented the labor of many years; radically overturning it at the last minute would result in the ‘ragged assembly’ of a ‘wild heap of disorderly armed men’ along the Russian frontier.” (p. 14).

 

All that Tuchman was doing was explaining Moltke's personal unwillingness to deviate from the detailed German war plan. She wasn't endorsing this view as correct - in fact she does the opposite and disproves it. In this respect she seems to be in line with current historiography, and I do not see how this can be taken as her proposing the timetable thesis.

 

War Plans:

 

I'll also call attention to other quotes in The Guns of August which could be used as proof of her arguing for the timetable thesis, and show how these are also in line with current historiography.

 

Throughout the book, Tuchman emphasizes the rigidity of the pre-war plans - particularly the German plans. She states that:

 

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"The plan of campaign was as rigid and complete as the blueprint for a battleship. Heeding Clausewitz’s warning that military plans which leave no room for the unexpected can lead to disaster, the Germans with infinite care had attempted to provide for every contingency. Their staff officers, trained at maneuvers and at war-college desks to supply the correct solution for any given set of circumstances, were expected to cope with the unexpected. Against that elusive, that mocking and perilous quantity, every precaution had been taken except one—flexibility." (p. 31-32).

 

And yet, this does not seem to be an opinion unique to Tuchman. In his book The First World War, John Keegan shares the view of pre-war European military planning as obsessively detailed and inflexible. He writes:

 

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"[After the Franco-Prussian War] timetables inevitably came to dominate thereafter the European military mind... inflexible calculation prescribed how many troops could be carried at what speed to any chosen border zone... Simultaneous equations revealed the enemy's reciprocal capability. Initial war plans thus took on mathematical rigidities, with which staff officers confronted statesmen... All European armies in 1904 had long-laid military plans, notable in most cases for their inflexibility." (p. 27).

 

Later, during her discussion of the German deliberations, Tuchman writes that on August 1st in Germany,

 

Quote

“Once the mobilization button was pushed, the whole vast machinery for calling up, equipping, and transporting two million men began turning automatically. [...] From the moment the order was given everything was to move at fixed times according to a schedule precise down to the number of train axles that would pass over a given bridge within a given time.” (p. 83).

 

The "vast machinery" phrasing in this sentence is echoed very closely by Clark in Sleepwalkers, who writes that on August 1st,

 

Quote

“The German mobilization was already underway, which meant that the vast machinery of the Schlieffen Plan was in motion...” (p. 531).

 

Finally, Tuchman also writes that,

 

Quote

"War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off. It was no use. Agents at frontiers were reporting every cavalry patrol as a deployment to beat the mobilization gun. General staffs, goaded by their relentless timetables, were pounding the table for the signal to move lest their opponents gain an hour’s head start. Appalled upon the brink, the chiefs of state who would be ultimately responsible for their country’s fate attempted to back away but the pull of military schedules dragged them forward." (p. 80).

 

This possibly the strongest evidence against my point, and could be interpreted as stating the timetable thesis. However, I don't think so. Tuchman isn't saying that the governments had no choice but to go to war due to their timetables. How could she, when she later explicitly says that Germany could have reorganized their mobilization eastwards? As far as I can tell, Tuchman is stating that due to the rigidity of their planning, the military staffs of the European nations before the war exerted pressure and influence on their civilian leaders, pushing for war when the nations were already at the brink. This at least was the case with Moltke, as shown above. And other, more modern books on the subject share this assertion.

 

John Keegan explicitly rejects Taylor's timetable thesis, by stating that the European nations had a choice to reject their military's plans - much like Tuchman. However, he writes that,

 

Quote

"Though AJP Taylor was flippantly wrong to characterise the outbreak of 1914 as 'war by timetable', since statemen might have averted it at any time, given goodwill, by ignoring professional military advice, the characterisation is accurate in a deeper sense... [here he emphasizes the rigidity of the plans, quoted above]" (p. 27).

 

MacMillan also writes that, 

 

Quote

"Far to the east the pace towards war was accelerating. The military plans with their built-in bias towards the offensive now became an argument for mobilization, to get the troops into place and be ready to launch an attack over the frontiers before the enemy was ready." (p. 601).

 

Peter Hart, in The Great War, also writes that:

 

Quote

"[On August 1st] Too many elements within the German military establishment were set on war - they could not conceive of backing down once the timetables were running." (p. 29).

 

It seems to be a shared assertion in modern historiography that as events drew to a head in late July and early August, the militaries of Europe (at least of Germany) began to push for war, motivated by the perceived rigidity of their plans and the need to put those plans in motion before their opponents did. None of these authors are arguing that the European governments had no choice but to go to war - they're saying that their military staffs felt they had to, and exerted pressure on civilian leadership accordingly.

 

Thesis...?

 

My final point is that I'm not sure why this argument is even characterized as Tuchman's main thesis. The Guns of August, by and large, is not a book which attempts to explain the causes of the war. The vast majority of the book recounts events which occur after August 3rd, and the main thrust of the book is depicting the events in France which led up to the Miracle on the Marne. In fact, Tuchman doesn't even mention timetables or the causes of the war anywhere in her Afterword. One would think that the primary thesis of a book would recapped at the end, but Tuchman doesn't do so. Instead, she discusses the effect of the Miracle on the Marne, and it's inconclusive result, on history thereafter.

 

Conclusion:

 

Therefore, it seems to me that Tuchman isn't making the timetable thesis argument after all. She emphasizes the rigidity of German plans, and Moltke and the military leadership's perception that war was necessary due to these plans, but she disproves this notion and argues that the governments of Europe did have a choice.

 

If you've got this far, I hope you found this interesting. If you have any counterpoints or disagree, I'd love to hear them as I love engaging with First World War historiography. If you agree or found this persuasive and haven't read The Guns of August yet (maybe because of someone recommending against it!), the book is definitely worth reading! Thanks for reading.

 

Books Cited:

 

Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (Random House Paperback, 2014 edition).

 

Christopher Clark, Sleepwalkers (Harper Collins, 2012).

 

John Keegan, The First World War (Key Porter Books, 1998).

 

Peter Hart, The Great War (Oxford University Press, 2013).

 

Holger Herwig, Marne 1914 (Random House, 2009).

 

Margaret MacMillan The War That Ended Peace (Allen Lane, 2013).

 

 

Edited 22 February , 2021 by ColonelRuffhouse
Added another quote, fixed a typo.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, ColonelRuffhouse said:

The Guns of August. It's easily the most famous book on the First World War,

 

    Hmmm.  Think I will pass on that one.

 

             It seems a circular argument to ignore the causes of the war and merely start with the roll-out of mobilisations.  As Tuchman-in essence-is a chronicler of the mobilisations onwards then the parameters of her book set the parameters of her argument.  The only underlying debate in this limited time-frame is whether there was any realistic possibility that war could have been averted AFTER the mobilisations had all begun-or, indeed, whether there is any evidence that there was   any realistic consideration of doing so by any of the decision makers  of any of the belligerents. There may be a reason for this.

    We are beguiled by dates and by diplomatic niceties. We date the beginning of "war" from the diplomatic ritual of a formal declaration- the herald on the steps of the Royal Exchange, etc. This narrative is largely pointless, though it may have kept the Foreign Office clerks of the various states happy and their paperwork  in order.  Alas, war starts with the boots on the ground. To me the chronology of the start of the war should,realistically, regard the start dates for each country as the dates that mobilisations were authorised and began- anything after that is diplomatic flim-flam, news management and the blame-game.  

    Thus, Tuchman chronicles  what happened largely AFTER war began de facto- and not BEFORE.  It is essentially the narrative of the first few weeks of the war, not a narrative of the lead-up.  War by Timetable?  Well of course, M'Lud. If you study the roll-out of mobilisation plans, then it is not a surprise what you get-Study timetables and you get timetables.

   

[ilkley remembers]

The Guns of August must be one of the few books that can claim to have stopped a war as John F Kennedy is supposed to have read it at about the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and was influenced to recommence negotiations with the Russians rather than prime the nukes. I suppose that Tuchman must have credit for taking a then rather neglected subject and producing readable and accessible book which was no small achievement given her lack of formal training and the paucity of available evidence. Perhaps it was the books very success that limited its appeal to her academic peers.  Her near contemporaries Fritz Fischer and AJP Taylor clearly had more academic authority and credentials.

 

 Tuchmans book is rarely cited these days and I suspect that this is a reflection of limitations particularly in relation to the Eastern Front and her one dimensional view of German diplomacy. An exception to some extent is Max Hastings who gets rather misty eyed about The Guns of August in his own ‘Catastrophe; Europe Goes to War in 1914’. Certainly, his book covers much the same ground as Tuchman and to me there is more than a hint of her narrative including in conclusion and when apportioning blame ‘it was the Germans wot done it’

 

Margaret MacMillan and Christopher Clarke both offer more nuanced explanations of the events of August 1914 and benefit from a much wider pool of resource material. MacMillan may have a sentimental attachment to Tuchmans book but she is clearly aware its limitations. Clarke on the other hand has postulated a rigorously expressed and plausible alternative interpretation of these events.

 

I think that it is laudable to attempt to rehabilitate Barbera Tuchman and your examples intriguing and insightful but would ask what you hope to achieve given that the Guns of August is clearly of its time and with increased access to evidential sources scholarship has moved on.

Edited 22 February , 2021 by ilkley remembers

[Terry_Reeves]

Change through time appears to be the watchword here. Fritz Fischer's thesis mentioned above, caused a major discussion in Germany in particular. He took part in a TV debate in Germany in the 1960's with the official German historian of WW1. This was judged by a jury of German academics who declared him the "loser. " This had the effect of causing a new, younger  generation of German historians, to start questioning anew the causes of WW1 from the German perspective as had previously been the case.

 

Understanding change through time is one of the of the tenets of historical study.  It changes  as more documentary material is brought to light and generationally, therefore, a different  way of thinking.

 

TR

 

 

Edited 22 February , 2021 by Terry_Reeves

[Resurgam13]

I have a copy of the English Edition ("August 1914") inscribed by Tuchman to Alistair Horne who, as Tuchman noted (either tongue-in-cheek or confident on how she would be viewed) "wrote the other good one on WWI"

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, Terry_Reeves said:

Understanding change through time is one of the of the tenets of historical study.  It changes  as more documentary material is brought to light and generationally, therefore, a different affects way of thinking.

 

     I am fortunate that I can remember Fritz Fischer at the LSE in the early 70s- one of my teachers was the English chronicler of all the renewed Fischer Thesis stuff, James Joll.  But the product of history is a never-ending circle of thesis, antithesis and new hypothesis.  Fischer broke down the "thesis" of the inter-war years that the war was a catastrophe and that everyone was guilty as everyone had fallen into it. Along came Fischer (opposing Gerhard Ritter-I think he is the German official historian you mention,author (in English) of the 4 volumes "Sword and Sceptre")  and put the boot in by looking at the similarity of German war aims and actions in 1914+ with the hindsight of WW2.  It seems to me we are on the edges of another revolution of the circle-   vis a vis  Barbarossa , there is the German position that it was an "angriff"-a pre-emptive strike-win the war quick before superior forces get together to bite you.

    Seems there may be a bit of this for 1914-  that Germany, overall, did not have the final advantages-and some actions could be seen as a pre-emptive strike.eg The germans gearing up when Russia went on to "Threatening Danger of War"- hit them before they were fully up and running.  

     Looking at wars either side of the Great War, the passage of time doe suggest to me 2 things:

 

1)  Everyone in 1914 UP TO THE OUTBREAK OF WAR expected it to be a re-run of the Franco-Prussian War- a war of movement, bloody battles and a probable French defeat.

2)  Tuchman?   A Cold War  polemic- the book itself is nothing special- it's the background that made it influential-  "Hang on Folks, this could get seriously out of hand -like 1914" 

 

[ColonelRuffhouse]

 

1 hour ago, ilkley remembers said:

I think that it is laudable to attempt to rehabilitate Barbera Tuchman and your examples intriguing and insightful but would ask what you hope to achieve given that the Guns of August is clearly of its time and with increased access to evidential sources scholarship has moved on.

 

I had just finished reading Guns of August and enjoyed it thoroughly, and I was surprised afterwards to read that people were suggesting that it was proposing the now-discredited timetable thesis. I wanted to try to explain my perspective and why I thought that it wasn't.

 

I think overall, you're right. Historiography has moved on and someone looking for a detailed explanation of the causes of WW1 would do better off reading The War That Ended Peace or Sleepwalkers. However, I don't think those books are a good replacement for Tuchman's book - they both end around August 5th, when war begins! Meanwhile, that's merely the beginning of Tuchman's narrative!

 

So I guess my point is that Tuchman's book isn't so out of line with current historiography, and it is still generally correct and doesn't propose any widely discredited theories or misstate any facts. And I have yet to find a better account of the first month of fighting on the Western Front. I think going forward, I would advise people to read MacMillan's or Clark's books if they want to understand why WW1 began, but to read Tuchman's book if they wish to understand why the first part of fighting went the way it did, as it doesn't get anything substantively wrong or advance any discredited theories, and it's still very well written and researched.