The Making of the First World War

There are many ways to assess the meaning or impact of a large scale war. UK historian Beckett (Ypres: The First Battle, 1914) offers his own insights here, viewing battles, leaders, and other events that shaped the outcome of the war, and going on to interpret how the events of the First World War had a lasting impact on nations and empires. Beckett is at his best when he writes about details such as his opening chapter's descriptions of Belgium's intentional flooding to stall the initial German thrust into France. In addition, he provides analysis of weapons development and political changes wrought by the war while contending that events that seemed important at the time were not as crucial to the outcome of the war as people then imagined. His comparison between the relative importance of tanks and airplanes in subsequent wars is illustrative of this point.