Adam Hochschild’s To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 chronicles Britain’s moral struggle concerning World War I from before the outbreak of the war to after the armistice on November 11th, 1918. Though World War I—also the Great War—is often portrayed in media as one that was celebrated by all, To End All Wars brings to light a sizable anti-war movement thriving in Britain while telling the story of the soldiers who fought on the Western Front. Hochschild focuses on the lives of important figures throughout Britain at the time, such as Rudyard Kipling and Bertram Russell. Through Emmeline Pankhurst and Charlotte Despard, he also brings concurrent issues like women’s suffrage to the forefront, showing how the events
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This is done to its full effect by elaborating on the histories of John French, Charlotte Despard, Emmeline Pankhurst and her three daughters, Douglas Haig, and several others vital to the narrative Hochschild tells, in the section titled “Dramatis Personae”. Hoschchild begins telling their story far before the outbreak of World War I—as early as the Boer War—to assist readers in acquiring a sense of the personalities and motivations of whom he writes about. In fact, the inciting events of World War I happen seventy-seven pages in. While it may seem extraneous, this discussion of his key players before the war gives the reader more to understand about their motivations over the course of the war. The current state and brief histories of the nations involved in the war itself are also discussed. After the “Dramatis Personae” section, Hochschild takes a chronological approach to World War I, switching back and forth between people and places rather than time periods. Due to the number of people Hochschild has written about, neither approach reads entirely smoothly, yet this is relieved by the way Hochschild has connected everyone together through love affairs, political affiliations, familial relations, and the British army. While most of the book focuses on those he introduces in “Dramatis Personae”, he also briefly …show more content…
traditional warfare. World War I is contrasted with the Boer Wars in this matter, along with other small-scale colonial conflicts that Britain and other nations had experienced in the previous century. Hochschild makes it a point that most, if not all of the major nations in the war, were operating on traditional notions of warfare seen last in the Napoleonic Wars: that death in battle was honorable, and (more importantly) calvary was vital to warfare, even though the recent invention of machine guns could easily mow down horses and men equally, and the immense power of explosive artillery shells could easily destroy, such as in the Battle of the Somme. Hochschild notes that both British and German descriptions of the battle notes “not the suicidal nature of the attack, but the soldiers’ bravery”, and describes the cavalry that would never be used waiting behind British lines (205). A main focus of Hochschild’s coverage of the Western Front was that military commanders attempted to oppose these new technologies in traditional ways. Douglas Haig, one of the top commanders in the British Army, was said to be upset when there were fewer casualties in his troops because “British losses—and so, by association, German ones—were too low”
This is done to its full effect by elaborating on the histories of John French, Charlotte Despard, Emmeline Pankhurst and her three daughters, Douglas Haig, and several others vital to the narrative Hochschild tells, in the section titled “Dramatis Personae”. Hoschchild begins telling their story far before the outbreak of World War I—as early as the Boer War—to assist readers in acquiring a sense of the personalities and motivations of whom he writes about. In fact, the inciting events of World War I happen seventy-seven pages in. While it may seem extraneous, this discussion of his key players before the war gives the reader more to understand about their motivations over the course of the war. The current state and brief histories of the nations involved in the war itself are also discussed. After the “Dramatis Personae” section, Hochschild takes a chronological approach to World War I, switching back and forth between people and places rather than time periods. Due to the number of people Hochschild has written about, neither approach reads entirely smoothly, yet this is relieved by the way Hochschild has connected everyone together through love affairs, political affiliations, familial relations, and the British army. While most of the book focuses on those he introduces in “Dramatis Personae”, he also briefly …show more content…
traditional warfare. World War I is contrasted with the Boer Wars in this matter, along with other small-scale colonial conflicts that Britain and other nations had experienced in the previous century. Hochschild makes it a point that most, if not all of the major nations in the war, were operating on traditional notions of warfare seen last in the Napoleonic Wars: that death in battle was honorable, and (more importantly) calvary was vital to warfare, even though the recent invention of machine guns could easily mow down horses and men equally, and the immense power of explosive artillery shells could easily destroy, such as in the Battle of the Somme. Hochschild notes that both British and German descriptions of the battle notes “not the suicidal nature of the attack, but the soldiers’ bravery”, and describes the cavalry that would never be used waiting behind British lines (205). A main focus of Hochschild’s coverage of the Western Front was that military commanders attempted to oppose these new technologies in traditional ways. Douglas Haig, one of the top commanders in the British Army, was said to be upset when there were fewer casualties in his troops because “British losses—and so, by association, German ones—were too low”