A General Sketch of the European War

A General Sketch of the
European War

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Title: A General Sketch of the European War The First Phase
Author: Hilaire Belloc
Release Date: March 23, 2006 [EBook #18042]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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A GENERAL SKETCH OF THE EUROPEAN WAR
BY HILAIRE BELLOC
THE FIRST PHASE
THOMAS NELSON & COMPANY LONDON, EDINBURGH,
PARIS, AND NEW YORK

First published June 1, 1915 Reprinted June 1915

CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION 7

PART I.
THE GENERAL CAUSES OF THE WAR.
(1) THE GERMAN OBJECT 17
(2) CONFLICT PRODUCED BY THE CONTRAST OF THIS
GERMAN ATTITUDE OR WILL WITH THE WILLS OF OTHER
NATIONS 23
(3) PRUSSIA 27
(4) AUSTRIA 39
(5) THE PARTICULAR CAUSES OF THE WAR 50
(6) THE IMMEDIATE OCCASION OF THE WAR 64

PART II.
THE FORCES OPPOSED.
(1) THE GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION OF THE BELLIGERENTS 80
The Geographical Advantages and Disadvantages of the Germanic
Body 86
The Geographical Advantages and Disadvantages of the Allies 121
(2) THE OPPOSING STRENGTHS 136
The Figures of the First Period, say to October 1-31, 1914 145
The Figures of the Second Period, say to April 15-June 1, 1915 151
(3) THE CONFLICTING THEORIES OF WAR 164

PART III.
THE FIRST OPERATIONS.
(1) THE BATTLE OF METZ 316
(2) LEMBERG 322
(3) TANNENBERG 345
(4) THE SPIRITS IN CONFLICT 365

INTRODUCTION.
It is the object of this book, and those which will succeed it in the same
series, to put before the reader the main lines of the European War as it

proceeds. Each such part must necessarily be completed and issued
some little time after the events to which it relates have passed into
history. The present first, or introductory volume, which is a preface to
the whole, covers no more than the outbreak of hostilities, and is
chiefly concerned with an examination of the historical causes which
produced the conflict, an estimate of the comparative strength of the
various combatants, and a description of the first few days during
which these combatants took up their positions and suffered the first
great shocks of the campaigns in East and West.
But in order to serve as an introduction to the remainder of the series, it
is necessary that the plan upon which these books are to be constructed
should be clearly explained.
There is no intention of giving in detail and with numerous exact maps
the progress of the campaigns. Still less does the writer propose to
examine disputed points of detail, or to enumerate the units employed
over that vast field. His object is to make clear, as far as he is able,
those great outlines of the business which too commonly escape the
general reader.
This war is the largest and the weightiest historical incident which
Europe has known for many centuries. It will surely determine the
future of Europe, and in particular the future of this country. Yet the
comprehension of its movements is difficult to any one not acquainted
with the technical language and the special study of military history;
and the reading of the telegrams day by day, even though it be
accompanied by the criticisms of the military experts in the newspapers,
leaves the mass of men with a most confused conception of what
happened and why it happened.
Now, it is possible, by greatly simplifying maps, by further simplifying
these into clear diagrams, still more by emphasizing what is essential
and by deliberately omitting a crowd of details--by showing first the
framework, as it were, of any principal movement, and then completing
that framework with the necessary furniture of analysed record--to give
any one a conception both of what happened and of how it happened.

It is even possible, where the writer has seen the ground over which the
battles have been fought (and much of it is familiar to the author of
this), so to describe such ground to the reader that he will in some sort
be able to see for himself the air and the view in which the things were
done: thus more than through any other method will the things be made
real to him. The aim, therefore, of these pages, and of those that will
succeed them, is to give such a general idea of the campaigns as a
whole