The Guns Of Augest By Barbara Tuchman

The Schlieffen Plan was a German battle plan to fight a two front war devised in 1905 by Alfred von Schlieffen as the Chief of the General Staff for Germany. The plan called for the German army to apply overwhelming force in France to capture the capital of Paris within six weeks before changing focus to Russia. The plan intended to achieve a quick and decisive victory by sweeping a line of armies through neutral Belgium and into France. In actuality, Helmuth von Moltke made significant changes to Schlieffen’s original plan before and during World War I. Ultimately, the plan ended in failure when the German advance halted at the First Battle of the Marne (Limbach, 2014).

"Battleground America," written by Jill Lepore, provides a strong history of guns and the way they have changed in the eyes of the American through the years. She proves her point with strong evidence throughout her article, sprinkling it with opinion and argument that is strongly supported. She presents her argument to convince her audience that the open availability of guns allows citizens to undeservingly purchase them by displaying the credibility in her sources, using negative connotations in her speech, and the strength and objectivity only a strong logos appeal can provide.

In February 1891 Count Alfred von Schlieffen was appointed Chief of the Prussian General Staff, a post which he held until the end of 1905. The most important responsibility of the General Staff was to produce the annual deployment plans, which stipulated how the German army was to be drawn up ready for battle in case of war. The initial pattern of deployment was the basis of the operational plan for the conduct of the war itself. The General Staff routinely tested these war plans in studies and exercises. During most of Schlieffen’s time as Chief of Staff, the essential strategic problem for Germany was indeed the likelihood that the next war would have to be fought against two enemies on widely separated fronts, the French in the west and the Russians in the east. Schlieffen never found a convincing solution to this problem. His suggestion was to deploy much greater forces on one of the fronts in order to defeat that enemy quickly and decisively, and then to use rail mobility to reinforce the other front and win a decisive victory there too. That sounded fine in theory, but when it was tested in exercises it proved hard to achieve. An initial victory on one front could not be fully exploited because of the need to switch forces promptly to the other front. Once that happened, the first enemy

In Barbara W. Tuchman’s book, The Guns of August, she argues that each competitor in World War I did some very feebleminded things in the first month of war. Tuchman quibbled that the first month was a disaster of headstrong generals, who were determined to stick with military plans that weren’t succeeding. The author explains that both sides lost in the first month because of foolish mistakes.

From 1890 to 1914, there was a drastic increase in the amount of money nations began to spend on their navy and army advancements. In fact, as the war began to approach, Germany raised the amount they spent towards armaments from 30 million to 120 million pounds and the Triple Entente raised their total money spent to 225 million pounds in 1914 (Document C). The presence of more armaments created an environment ready for war. Their existence meant that the countries are more likely to use them, which only discouraged time to cool off. Additionally, as one country built up their armies more, the others felt they had to do the same which increased tensions. Britain who increased its colonial empire to the largest in the world since the Romans’, caused an arms race where the nations were competing only to have more armaments than the others. Being an island, they began spending more money on their navy, needing to defend its waters. On the opposing side, Germany did not want to get their own feet tramped by any foreign power, fearing to become the anvil rather than the hammer. Bernhard von Bülow, the German Chancellor, said the only way to “keep ourselves at the fore if we realize that there is no welfare for us without power, without a strong army and a strong fleet” (Document D). Using the idea of survival of the fittest, individual countries became stronger in the fear of being destroyed by the aggressors. Clearly, having arms was a

xvi. Build up of armed forces – between 1932 and 1939 Germany increased navy from 30 to 95 warships.

When Germany declared war on Russia in 1914, they also had their own military plan, which called for a two front war with France and Russia. It was called The Schlieffen Plan and was developed by General Alfred von Schlieffen in 1903 but was revised in December of 1905. At this time, he was chief of the German General Staff, and Europe was separated into the Triple Alliance, which consisted of Germany, Austria, and Italy, on one side and the Triple Entente, which consisted of Great Britain, France, and Russia, on the other. Schlieffen was sought out by the Kaiser in order to construct an arrangement that would allow Germany to

Germany used the same war strategy in both world wars because they didn’t want to fight a two front war because they knew that if they fought a two front war they would quickly louse because of the lack of solders and firepower.

“I think it [war] is more of a kind of fever. No one in particular wants it, and then all at once there it is. We didn’t want the war, the others say the same thing- and yet half the world is in it all the same. (206)” Erich Remarque describes how war is an odd sort of happening through Albert Kropp, one of the most intelligent young men of Paul Bäumer’s company. Remarque, himself a German World War 1 veteran, uses the characters of Paul’s company to channel his frustrations from his experiences during the war. The vivid imagery used to describe bombardments and life at the front allows the reader to visualize the reality of warfare. It’s bloody, messy, and repulsive. Extreme detail aids Remarque in exposing the atrocities of war, and its repercussions. All Quiet on the Western Front focuses on an anti-war theme, and how war itself has no purpose other than to be savage and wasteful.

However, because Germany was already such a powerful country, the other countries became scared of the fact that if Germany was powerful on land and sea, they would be unbeatable. They saw Germany’s naval force as a threat. (“German”).

Throughout history, the circumstances that people were born into were not equal. While some people were born on hospitable lands where people and animals could flourish, others were born on desolate and isolated lands that proved unsuitable for livestock. These uncontrollable circumstances as well as others, such as climate, created the different types of lifestyles that people have adopted. Through the book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond illustrates the five themes of world history by explaining how a chain of effects starting from the first people interacting with their given environments and resources led to how they live in the present. While for the world it may seem apparent that one group of people seems to have the upper hand in the social hierarchy, Diamond shows his view that, in actuality, it only became this way because of the conditions that different groups of people had to cope with in the past.

In the book, “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond, Part Two talks about the roots of guns, germs, and steel, geographical differences relating to food production, causes of the spread of food production, development of ancient crops that are still used today, and domestication. Jared Diamond mostly likes to talk about the development of the Eurasian society and why they are more powerful. Instead of proximate causes that get straight to the point, he takes a different route that leads to ultimate causes. Ultimate causes go deeper in information and include many details unlike proximate causes. He does this and ultimately bothers with ultimate causes because proximate causes are common and shallow explanations. Ultimate causes trace

Jared Diamond is a Geography professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has many fields of interest ranging from physiology to evolutionary biology and biogeography . Adding to that, Diamond also has published countless articles and authored multiple books. His most decorated book “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 and is widely regarded as a groundbreaking scientific work.

This book review is on Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond. The book was very interesting but a lot of the information could have been cut because it’s a bit too long. Jared Diamond is a scientist, not a historian and he’s American. He upset many historians around the world by the way he bashes Europeans. However, he did win a Pulitzer Prize for the book so that says something.

The Schlieffen Plan was devised by Count Alfred von Schlieffen, the Chief of the General Staff in the German army in 1905. There were a number of different aspects to the Schlieffen Plan, and all were aimed at defeating France as quickly as possible, preferably in under 6 weeks. The Germans believed this was possible because they had defeated France in Alsace and Lorraine in the 1871. The main aim of the Schlieffen Plan was to knock out and capture France and then attack Russia in order to avoid fighting a war on two fronts at the same time.