Nor does she have a military background, yet her description and analysis of the first month’s fighting shows an appreciation for the operational art that is extraordinary. No surprise, as she was not a classically trained historian. The author’s prose is such that you could be reading a newspaper account. Tuchman’s style is succinct enough that the book approaches “primer” status, using the term in a wholly positive vein. ” The events of August 1914, on and off the battlefield, doomed the Kaiser’s prediction that his soldiers would be home “before the leaves fell.” Tuchman says it best at book’s end: “…the failures of the first month determined the future course of the war… and the conditions of the Second Round. Its great strength lies in its adroit connection of the political decision making and strategic miscalculations which led to the military operations that directly followed in that critical opening month of the war. Barbara Tuchman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Guns of August is the starting point for any serious study of the First World War.
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