A landmark work of history. An explosive and argumentative new book that rewrites our most basic assumptions about the causes and consequences of the First World War. . The Pity of War makes one very simple and provocative argument: that the human atrocity known as the First World War was entirely Englands fault, that Englands entry into the war was based on a miscalculated and nave exaggeration of German aims, and that Englands entry into the war transformed a continental conflict into a World War that they then badly handled, necessitating American involvement.

In The Pity of War , Niall Ferguson makes a simple and provocative argument: that the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely Englands fault. Britain, according to Ferguson, entered into war based on nave assumptions of German aimsand Englands entry into the war transformed a Continental conflict into a world war, which they then badly mishandled, necessitating American involvement. The war was not inevitable, Ferguson argues, but rather the result of the mistaken decisions of individuals who would later claim to have been in the grip of huge impersonal forces.

That the war was wicked, horrific, inhuman,is memorialized in part by the poetry of men like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, but also by cold statistics. More British soldiers were killed in the first day of the Battle of the Somme than Americans in the Vietnam War; indeed, the total British fatalities in that single battlesome 420,000exceeds the entire American fatalities for both World Wars. And yet, as Ferguson writes, while the war itself was a disastrous folly, the great majority of men who fought it did so with enthusiasm. Ferguson vividly brings back to life this terrifying period, not through dry citation of chronological chapter and verse but through a series of brilliant chapters focusing on key ways in which we now view the First World War.

For anyone wanting to understand why wars are fought, why men are willing to fight them, and why the world is as it is today, there is no sharper nor more stimulating guide than Niall Fergusons The Pity of War .

Table of Contents

Figures; Tables; Illustrations; Acknowledgements; Notes on the Illustrations; Introduction; The Myths of Militarism; Empires, Ententes and Edwardian Appeasement; Britains War of Illusions; Arms and Men; Public Finance and National Security; The Last Days of Mankind: 28 June4 August 1914; The August Days: The Myth of War Enthusiasm; The Press Gang; Economic Capability: The Advantage Squandered; Strategy, Tactics and the Net Body Count; Maximum Slaughter at Minimum Expense: War Finance; The Death Instinct: Why Men Fought; The Captors Dilemma; How (not) to Pay for the War; Conclusion: Alternatives to Armageddon; Notes; Bibliography; Index