DBWI: A great Read

[Campbell1004]

I just recently finished Verdun: How Germany won the Great War and I enjoyed it. The author didn’t simply state historical facts and slap them onto the page; he brought life to the people who lived those moments. When the Kaiser replaced Falkenhayn as commander of the assault on Verdun with the Crown Prince, I felt Falkehayn’s sense of betrayal. And when Poincare was reduced to tears in the palace of Versailles during the peace talks, the image was so startling it gave me shivers. This book gave me new insight to a subject I knew little of, and the writing style is simply amazing.

Well with my historical lesson over with, I enjoyed it really; I’m going to start an alternate history novel I picked up. Has anyone heard of it? It’s called, Into Berlin: When the Frenchman gets his Due. It was written after the war by some French officer named De Gaulle.

Has anyone read either of these books?

 

[wormyguy]

I personally think that "If I Had Sailed to Gallipoli," by Winston Churchill is perhaps one of the best counterfactual histories, of the great war (and his grasp of the hard history is fantastic). You can just feel the incompetence in the British leadership, who were too conservative to authorize a move as bold and decisive as the Gallipoli operation, something that surely would have shifted the tide of that war and led to a vastly different history of the 20th, 21st, and 22nd centuries.

 

[TheSevenLeggedFallyDowner]

I read Into Berlin. It was kind of dumb. The writing style was good and all, but the TL was totally ASB. He had the French winning at Verdun, and then the Americans getting into the war. The POD should be before Verdun, which was an inevitable German victory IMHO. Plus it ended up turning into a French-wank after the war. I haven't read Verdun, but I've been meaning to. Pre-collapse German history has always been a interest of mine. After the collapse I kind of stop caring. It gets too chaotic to follow anyway.

 

[Blue Max]

I don't know, us Yanks haven't done too much in our own history, just sit around and sell stuff to the rest of the world. I did find the Oriental Adventure to be a fun story of a Journalist in Nanjing and the international safe zone for refugees in light of a massive Japanese Attack on the city--but Japan was far too busy advancing into Siberia to even consider attacking China. Interesting counterfactual.

Also, I found the Man of Steel to be a good read as well--what if Russia had managed to unify itself after its civil war instead of completely collapsing? Could its revolutionary government have turned it into something more than a third rate country and stopped German, Japanese and Turkish ambitions on its borders?

 

[crackersncheese]

I don't know, us Yanks haven't done too much in our own history, just sit around and sell stuff to the rest of the world. I did find the Oriental Adventure to be a fun story of a Journalist in Nanjing and the international safe zone for refugees in light of a massive Japanese Attack on the city--but Japan was far too busy advancing into Siberia to even consider attacking China. Interesting counterfactual.

Also, I found the Man of Steel to be a good read as well--what if Russia had managed to unify itself after its civil war instead of completely collapsing? Could its revolutionary government have turned it into something more than a third rate country and stopped German, Japanese and Turkish ambitions on its borders?

OOC: lol "Man of Steel"
IC:

Personally, I liked the book Mein Kampf, written by the famous artist Adolf Hitler. Fascinating insight into his mind, especially when he talks about how the war affected his artwork.

 

[Campbell1004]

I haven't read If I had sailed to Gallipoli but I did read in the New England Star the other day that they fished hundreds of mines out of the straits at Gallipoli. I'm going to go out on a limb, but could that have stopped anything from threatening Constantinople? God knows their army couldn't, especially after it lost most of the holy land to the British.

I don't like the German collapse. It caused my grandfather to hightail it over to the USA here, but I'm planning on returning to the Fatherland sometime soon for a vacation and to catch up with my mothers side of the family. If only they hadn't destroyed that statue of Kaiser Wilhelm III in Berlin (the one where he is standing over the dying dragon).

If you want to read a good American history book, pick up The Third Try: Failing in Canada. Details the last invasion of Canada by American forces in 1903 (they tried to liberate Quebec) and the aftermath where Canada annexed northern Maine.

If Russia had pulled itself together the German Empire would have collapsed much early! So I say good riddance to the Russians! Let them bicker and fight amongst themselves.

OOC: Are the Russians the new Balkans?