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Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918, World War I and Its Violent Climax, by Joseph Persico
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November 11, 1918. The final hours pulsate with tension as every man in the trenches hopes to escape the melancholy distinction of being the last to die in World War I. The Allied generals knew the fighting would end precisely at 11:00 A.M, yet in the final hours they flung men against an already beaten Germany. The result? Eleven thousand casualties suffered–more than during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Why? Allied commanders wanted to punish the enemy to the very last moment and career officers saw a fast-fading chance for glory and promotion.
Joseph E. Persico puts the reader in the trenches with the forgotten and the famous–among the latter, Corporal Adolf Hitler, Captain Harry Truman, and Colonels Douglas MacArthur and George Patton. Mainly, he follows ordinary soldiers’ lives, illuminating their fate as the end approaches. Persico sets the last day of the war in historic context with a gripping reprise of all that led up to it, from the 1914 assassination of the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand, which ignited the war, to the raw racism black doughboys endured except when ordered to advance and die in the war’s last hour. Persico recounts the war’s bloody climax in a cinematic style that evokes All Quiet on the Western Front, Grand Illusion, and Paths of Glory.
The pointless fighting on the last day of the war is the perfect metaphor for the four years that preceded it, years of senseless slaughter for hollow purposes. This book is sure to become the definitive history of the end of a conflict Winston Churchill called “the hardest, cruelest, and least-rewarded of all the wars that have been fought.”
- Sales Rank: #1055318 in Books
- Published on: 2004-11-02
- Released on: 2004-11-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.54" h x 1.56" w x 6.47" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 480 pages
From Publishers Weekly
A tight focus—the activities of the British and American troops on the final morning of WWI—has yielded a somewhat sprawling study for Persico, who coauthored Colin Powell's My American Journey and whose Roosevelt's Secret War made the cover of several book reviews. Some soldiers laid down their arms and waited quietly for 11 a.m.; others suffered heavy casualties (a total of about 10,000) because aggressive commanders (including General Pershing) insisted on launching assaults right up to the last minute. Incidents of the final morning are sandwiched between an episodic overview of the Anglo-American experience on the Western Front (to the detriment of other nations and theaters of war) and capsule biographies of prominent and ground-level players in the war. The narratives of battles are something of a mixed bag, but more than commonly readable for the lay reader. Although not satisfyingly organized, the book is a good introduction to what it covers for new students of WWI.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
For readers who may be new to the chronology and character of World War I, popular historian Persico (Nuremburg: Infamy on Trial, 1994) illustrates the struggle by treating its last day as typifying the war. About 2,700 Allied and German soldiers died in combat on November 11, 1918, about the average daily toll for the war. The difference is that many perished under officers knowledgeable of the imminent armistice. Why? That is the fundamental question Persico's story poses. Although there are explanations (French Marshal Foch and American General Pershing opposed terminating the war and let their existing offensives continue), Persico contrasts them with the actual results. Implicitly, he is instilling the dominant historical conception of WWI as mindless wastage as he sutures personal memoirs into a two-level narrative. One level tracks the last-minute attacks of that last day, and another traces the trench experiences of several soldiers through the length of the war. The latter technique permits Persico to chronicle the war's principal campaigns via the experiences of generals and down the organizational chain to corporals and privates. Effectively marshaling his source material, Persico powerfully reconstructs Armistice Day as an emblem of the war. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Praise for Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour
“The days preceding November 11, 1918, featured a deadly minuet involving exhausted armies conditioned to fight, yet desperate to avoid still more futile bloodshed. Joe Persico recreates this twilight struggle with heartbreaking intimacy. His pointillist portrait is at once harrowing and heroic. Written with a narrative elegance and factual command reminiscent of David McCullough or William Manchester, this is much more than a poignant account of the road to armistice. It is the single finest work I have read on the Great War.”
–RICHARD NORTON SMITH, executive director, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
“Once again Joe Persico has brought us an unforgettable moment in history. At a time when our own world is changing, Americans are increasingly understanding how we are still affected by World War I, and Persico takes us into the experience of how that war ended–the violence, sacrifice, frustration, and hope.”
–MICHAEL BESCHLOSS
“Joe Persico has done the impossible–he has written an original book on World War I. By starting with the last day, he has found a way to see the nightmare as a separate world, something that became for all the participants a totally consuming passion.”
–THOMAS FLEMING, author of The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I
“A compelling account of the dramatic final moments of World War I that not only captures the tragedy that marked the final hours of the Great War but brings to life the remarkable stories of its participants. This is a splendid book by a born storyteller and a superb historian.”
–CARLO D’ESTE, author of Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life and Patton: A Genius for War
Most helpful customer reviews
50 of 55 people found the following review helpful.
A Readable Book About An Incomprehensible War
By Timothy Haugh
I have read a number of histories of World War I. I believe this war was the most important event of the twentieth century, creating world political and social conditions we are still trying to work through today. At this point, 90 years after the start of the war, it is difficult to find an author with a new take on taking us through this history. Mr. Persico has made a valiant attempt and, for the most part, he succeeds.
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918 is, of course, the moment when World War I came to an end. What Mr. Persico does is tell the story of the war with its last day as his starting point. He does this for a couple reasons. First, he wants to make the point that, as the armistice had been signed before this day, the casualties of November 11th were pointless. He then uses the senseless casualties of the last day to bring to life much of the senselessness of the previous four years. He needs to do this to bring the scope of the war into a focus that he can cover in 400 readable pages, using the stories of many individual soldiers to get at the heart of the matter. And we do manage to get a lot of personal stories here: from the great (Foch, Pershing) to the soon to be great (McArthur, Truman, Patton) to the lesser known. And he gives us at least a taste of the German side with, of course, Hitler, Ludendorff and others.
The difficulty with the book is that the jumping around in time and place occasionally makes things difficult to follow. And he often gets away from his "last day" conceit, spending most of his pages on other days which makes his conceit seem somewhat artificial. Though, to his credit, he does tie everything together rather well by the end with a brief but lucid commentary on the effect of the war.
Mr. Persico may not have written the best book on the war but he has given us a fine addition to the literature that can be read in a reasonable amount of time. A quality many tomes on the topic do not share.
27 of 29 people found the following review helpful.
Uneven, but Required Reading for WWI
By David M. Dougherty
The author's point concerning the sheer stupidity and callousness of Pershing and other allied commanders in continuing to attack German positions AFTER THE ARMISTICE HAD BEEN SIGNED is earthshaking and almost incomprehensible to today's reader. Yet there it is; probably 6,500 additional American, Canadian, French and British soldiers gave their lives in the six hours between 5:00 AM when the armistice was signed and 11:00 AM when the cease fire took effect. And this was not because of German perfidy or perverseness -- it was due to our own commanders continuing to send troops over the top to attack German trenches.
The French and British can be almost forgiven for ordering Americans to die up to the last moment; they looked upon the US troops as Johnny-come-latelys who were going to grab the spoils without paying their butcher's bill. But nothing can excuse Pershing, Bullard, and other American commanders for ordering their troops to attack and die. It is impossible to read Persico's treatise without experiencing mounting anger, but this last date, at whom or what?
I will be eternally grateful to author Persico for making this imformation public -- like probably most others I had accepted official reports of casualties (woefully understated for 11/11 in a cover-up) and did not realize the abject criminality of those involved. There were many rationalizations, and Persico offers them all, but to little effect. For this I would give the author 5 stars.
Unfortunately, the author flits back and forth from the morning of November 11th, 1918, to other days in the war starting with its beginning. Most of the coverage is through ancedotes from letters and works by participants, but the overall effect detracts from the book's main theme and makes for confusing reading. On this basis the book becomes a personalized narrative, rating only three stars. With respect to learning about the war in a wider context, the book is simply unsuitable.
The concluding chapters feature probably the author's best work. His provocative questions and thoughts concerning the armistice of 1918 as leading to World War Two are worth reading. Some of it is light, such as overlooking that the British continued their blockade of Germany until the Versailles Treaty was signed (in a very large sense, continuing the war after the armistice), and the proffered idea that the war needed to be fought through to Germany's total defeat to eliminate any chance of resurgent militarism. It needs to be remembered in this context that no European War had been fought at that time since the Romans to the complete and unconditional surrender of a nation. Prior to WWI, wars were fought to acquire land, resources, hegemony, or to place a particular ruler on a throne, and negotiated treaties had been the norm.
Another item treated lightly was that had Wilson not brought the US into the war through propaganda and pretense, the parties most probably would have had to negotiate a peace after fighting to exhaustion on both sides. Clearly this point was reached in 1918, and it was only the American intervention that brought about the German collapse. One is tempted to believe that Hitler would not have come to power and World War Two would not have occurred had the US stayed out of WWI. Unfortunately, Persico does not expound on this thesis.
There were a few minor problems such as saying the Germans said, "Der Krieg ist ueber." That's a literal translation for "The war is over", but a German would have said, "Der Krieg ist vorbei" or something more idiomatic. Overall, however, the prose is excellent and well-edited and the author's writing style is crisp and engaging.
In conclusion, author Persico makes many valid points and has produced an important work that adds to the World War One literature. At this late date, that is an achievement in itself. I recommend purchasing this book.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
A Captivating Book, Well Worth Reading
By Aussie Reader
"11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour" by Joseph Persico is an interesting and captivating book covering not only the final moments of the Great War but also offering a general history of the war from its beginning in 1914. The author follows a number of characters, great and small, throughout the narrative. We follow the paths and final fate of a number of soldiers from America, Britain, France, and Germany. We also get glimpses of those who control their destiny, Foch, Haig, Hindenburg and Pershing.
The story is well told and you'll find yourself following the lives of these men and women intensely, mostly with the knowledge of what is to come but still drawn into the final agonising moments before the end. The book can jump about a little, from 1914 to 1918, as mentioned by previous reviewers, however I did not find that this detracted from the story and felt it worked well enough.
The book has received a few negative reviews in my country (Australia), mainly for the fact that the author tends to miss the other allies (Australia & New Zealand) who were fighting along side the Americans. The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) served from 1915 to 1918 on the Western Front and as a whole suffered a casualty rate of 65%, the highest of any Allied army in WW1. However I can see that this book has been written mainly for an American audience and I think it has done well.
The author's intent, to show the terribly tragedy of that final day, the waste of soldiers lives by Generals in an attempt to comply with criminal inept and stupid orders from higher up comes through strongly. Regardless of which nation those soldiers served, it's a well-told story and one that needed to be told.
I have read a quite a number of books on the Great War but this is one of the first to bring home the futility of some of the actions carried out by supposedly intelligent leaders & commanders. I hope that we never forget the sacrifice made by all the combatants, willing or not, in this most terrible War.
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