Synopses & Reviews
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 ignited a Central Europe already deeply divided by political hostility. The Habsburgs felt Serbia threatening at every turn, challenging their power in the Balkans and their status as a great power. After two decades of inept, saber-rattling
Weltpolitik, Germany, their closest ally, found itself diplomatically isolated and militarily outgunned on land and sea. War was an opportunity for both nations to turn around their declining fortunes, and reestablish themselves as major power players. The key to this much-needed victory would be popular supportsupport the Central Powers governments would lie to gain, and struggle unsuccessfully to keep. In Ring of Steel, award-winning historian Alexander Watson explores the experiences of the German and Austro-Hungarian peoples and the ordeals that they faced at home and on the battlefield, showing how wartime suffering undermined their fragile support for the war and eroded their sense of national unity. Facing a populace ultimately deeply distrustful of the state and unwilling to make the sacrifices required for total war, the German and Austro-Hungarian governments collapsed, losing the war, shattering their societies, and pushing Central Europe into a new age of darkness.
Though many civilians felt a deep sense of unease and foreboding at the prospect of war, the Austro-Hungarian and German governments won their consent with a series of invented Russian attacks. Believing that they were not aggressors but defenders, the population rallied. Unfortunately, the early months of the war proved disastrous for the Central Powers, and their defeats ended any hope of a short, decisive war.
Weakened, the lie used to start the war that the two countries were vulnerable to invasion ironically became a reality when the Russian army conquered and occupied East Prussia and Galicia. Losing battles, territory, and hope, the Central Powers dug in for a long and grueling campaignone that would demand everything from their people.
As the war dragged on and supplies diminished, life on the home front became increasingly grim, and their rulers expansive war aims seemed to unnecessarily prolong civilian suffering. Food shortages and hunger plagued both nations, and the distressed populations increasingly blamed their own governments. National unity began to break down; city dwellers turned on farmers, ethnic tensions were enflamed, and food riots became worryingly frequent. It was only through the pitiless exploitation and plunder of conquered territories that Germany was able to maintain its fight for the last two years. By the second half of 1918, support for the war collapsed completely, both on the home front and in the trenches where soldiers deserted and surrendered en masse. The final curtain of WWI dropped on a very different Germany and Austria-Hungary, now countries marked by a fatal division between people and government, and a poisonous legacy of unredeemed sacrifice, stark ideological division, racial hatred and violence.
Based on extensive research in archives across Central Europe, Watson takes us inside the hearts and minds of the ordinary men and women living in Germany and Austria-Hungary during the Great War. From the home front to the trenches, Ring of Steel examines the slow but pernicious erosion of communal solidarity as the deprivations mounted. Watson offers a groundbreaking account of World War I from the other side of the continent, brilliantly covering the major military events and the day-to-day life which resulted in the destruction of one empire, and the moral collapse of another
Review
Geoffrey Wawro, author of A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg EmpireIn Ring of Steel Alexander Watson shows us what it was like to be pierced by the sharp end of the Allied juggernaut. He takes us on an illuminating tour of the German and Austrian trenches, their querulous headquarters, their cold, starving towns, and their increasingly desperate government ministries. This is a fascinating account of the Great War from the other side of the hill, but also an explanation for the chaos that followed: communism, fascism, depression, and Europe's plunge into a Second World War.”
Review
Winner of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military HistoryThe Society of Military History 2015 Distinguished Book Award Recipient
Winner of the Wolfson History History Prize
Wall Street Journal
In a year crowded with histories of World War I, Alexander Watsons Ring of Steel makes a truly indispensable contribution in allowing us to see from the inside out this disastrous alliance between Austria and imperial Germany.... It is a mark of talent in a historian to take familiar narratives and open them to new interpretation. Mr. Watsons book is a brilliant demonstration of this skill.”
Sunday Times History Book of the Year, UK
In a year dominated by memories of the First World War, this supremely accomplished book stands out. Not only does it look at the conflict from the perspective of the losing Central Powers, imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary, but it brings together political, military, economic and cultural history in an enormously impressive narrative.”
Los Angeles Review of Books
Remarkable
the first comprehensive history of the war written from the perspective of the Central Powers.”
Guardian, UK
Ring of Steel is perhaps the most important of the current crop of [WWI] books and certainly one of the best.”
Financial Times, UK
This book, at times gripping, at other times poignant, and always revealing, marks a valuable contribution to debate on the wars place in 20th century history.”
Daily Beast
A fresh approach in analyzing the conflict.... Watsons main concern here is to try and figure out why the loss of the war for the central powers created the unstable states that emerged in the aftermath of the conflict. He finishes off the task he has set himself here with considerable precision and skill.”
Telegraph, UK
British historians have tended to view the Great War predominantly from the side of the Allies. Watson has done our understanding an inestimable service by examining these familiar events from the perspective of the Central Powers.”
Sunday Times, UK
Every worthwhile new book surprises or stimulates. Alexander Watson achieves this effect by asserting that the most potent moral force in wartime Germany between 1914 and 1918 was not hate, but love of Fatherland, comrades and relatives at the front.... There have been so many social histories of wartime Britain that it is good to see here a mirror portrait of the other side of the hill.”
Choice
Watson has contributed a definitive resource to the literature on the strategic enigma being debated during the centennial of WW I.”
Houston Chronicle
For those who already have a general knowledge of the war, Ring of Steel is a good addition to their understanding.”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Ring of Steel stands out among this year's flood of books marking the 100th anniversary of World War I's start. History buffs will appreciate its distinctive approach, which emphasizes what the publisher calls the perspectives of (World War I's) instigators and losers.”
Battles and Book Reviews
Illuminating
an outstanding book that has been scrupulously researched. I highly recommend this book to students of World War I and indeed anyone who wants to see how the Central Powers dealt with the stresses of war on the homefront. They will not find a better, fairer history because it has not yet been written.”
Open Letters Monthly
One of the most comprehensive and readable assessments of the wartime roles of Germany and Austria-Hungary ever published in English; the book is an impressive, thorough tour de force.”
BBC History Magazine
There are some gems among the very many books released to coincide with the First World War centenary. One is the ambitions, impressive Ring of Steel.... An important, well-timed book that deserves a wide readership.”
Library Journal
In a centennial anniversary crowded with titles on World War I, Watson's book stands out and will appeal both to readers with a casual interest in the history of the Great War and to specialists seeking a balanced and nuanced view of the event.”
Publishers Weekly
Watson makes a major contribution to the ever-growing historiography of WWI with this comprehensive analysis of the war efforts of the primary Central Powers: Germany and Austria-Hungary.”
Kirkus
For World War I and modern European history enthusiasts, this is a comprehensive work that ably conveys the disintegration of empire.”
David Stevenson, author of With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918
Alexander Watson's Ring of Steel is an immensely authoritative new history of Germany and Austria-Hungary between 1914 and 1918. Watson writes fluently and compellingly, and his remarkable command of the sources offers new insight and information on almost every page. Soundly judged on the many controversial aspects of his topic, Watson is particularly ground-breaking in evoking the popular experience of the conflict and when investigating the atrocities that all too frequently were its accompaniment.”
Dennis Showalter, Professor of History, Colorado College
The Central Powers Great War was not waged from the top down. Instead, as Alexander Watsons comprehensively researched and clearly presented analysis demonstrates, in both Germany and Austria-Hungary popular support was vital to mobilizing and sustaining an increasingly-futile conflict. The escalating sacrifice and escalating violence, by radicalizing populations, in turn structured the entropy that precipitated ideological conflict and race hatred across postwar central Europe. World War I was indeed a Judas gift that kept on giving.”
Geoffrey Wawro, author of A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire
In Ring of Steel Alexander Watson shows us what it was like to be pierced by the sharp end of the Allied juggernaut. He takes us on an illuminating tour of the German and Austrian trenches, their querulous headquarters, their cold, starving towns, and their increasingly desperate government ministries. This is a fascinating account of the Great War from the other side of the hill, but also an explanation for the chaos that followed: communism, fascism, depression, and Europe's plunge into a Second World War.”
Synopsis
A prize-winning, magisterial history of World War I from the perspective of the defeated Central Powers For the Central Powers, the First World War started with high hopes for an easy victory. But those hopes soon deteriorated as Germany's attack on France failed, Austria-Hungary's armies suffered catastrophic losses, and Britain's ruthless blockade brought both nations to the brink of starvation. The Central powers were trapped in the Allies' ever-tightening Ring of Steel.
In this compelling history, Alexander Watson retells the war from the perspective of its losers: not just the leaders in Berlin and Vienna, but the people of Central Europe. The war shattered their societies, destroyed their states, and imparted a poisonous legacy of bitterness and violence. A major reevaluation of the First World War, Ring of Steel is essential for anyone seeking to understand the last century of European history.
Synopsis
In
Ring of Steel, award-winning historian Alexander Watson draws on extensive archival research to explain the First World War from the perspectives of the nations that started, and lost, the war: Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Convinced by their governments that they were entering a necessary and defensive war, the people of the Central Powers fully committed to the cause. But as the Central Powers expanded their ambitions, military losses mounted, and hunger and hardship beset the homefront, doubts set in. Plunging morale sapped the Central Powers war effort, as political leaders lost the support of the populations they relied on to prosecute and support the protracted conflict. When the war ended, the shattered states that remained were marked by an unbridgeable division between the people and their leaders, a poisonous situation that would eventually lead to another, even more cataclysmic war.
A major re-evaluation of a misunderstood war, Ring of Steel is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the last century of European history.
Synopsis
For Germany and Austria-Hungary the First World War started with high hopes for a rapid, decisive outcome. Convinced that right was on their side and fearful of the enemies that encircled them, they threw themselves resolutely into battle. Yet, despite the initial halting of a brutal Russian invasion, the Central Powers war plans soon unravelled. Germanys attack on France failed. Austria-Hungarys armies suffered catastrophic losses at Russian and Serbian hands. Hopes of a quick victory lay in ruins.
For the Central Powers the war now became a siege on a monstrous scale. Britains ruthless intervention cut sea routes to central Europe and mobilised the world against them. Germany and Austria-Hungary were to be strangled of war supplies and food, their soldiers overwhelmed by better armed enemies, and their civilians brought to the brink of starvation. Conquest and plunder, land offensives, and submarine warfare all proved powerless to counter or break the blockade. The Central Powers were trapped in the Allies ever-tightening ring of steel.
Alexander Watsons compelling new history retells the war from the perspectives of its instigators and losers, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians. This is the story not just of their leaders in Berlin and Vienna, but above all of the people. Only through their unprecedented mobilisation could the conflict last so long and be so bitterly fought, and only with the waning of their commitment did it end. The war shattered their societies, destroyed their states and bequeathed to east-central Europe a poisonous legacy of unredeemed sacrifice, suffering, race hatred and violence. A major re-evaluation of the First World War, Ring of Steel is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the last century of European history.
About the Author
Alexander Watson is a Lecturer of History at Goldsmiths, University of London and the author of
Enduring the Great War, which received the Fraenkel Prize from the Institute of Contemporary History. He has held the Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship at the Warsaw University in Poland, the British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Cambridge, and the Stipendiary Research Fellowship at the University of Cambridge. Watson is contributor to the
New York Times and the
Times Higher Education Supplement.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Decisions for War
2. Mobilizing for the People
3. War of Illusions
4. The War of Defense
5. Encirclement
6. Security for All Time
7. Crisis at the Front
8. Deprivation
9. Remobilization
10. U-Boats
11. Dangerous Ideas
12. The Bread Peace
13. Collapse
Epilogue