Ep 7: Barbara Tuchman's leadership and psychology insights from WWI

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Peter Go is a real person and he wrote this memoir about how he founded Trader Joe's The

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_00]: grocery store. How far through this memoir, he makes a reference to this one history book about

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_00]: WWI and he claims that it's the best management book he's ever read. Now Trader Go went to

[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Stanford Business School so I was like, surely you've read a lot of proper management books

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_00]: in your day. Why is this history book your favorite one? The net came across another reference

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_00]: to the same book in this biography of Lyndon Johnson. The context was that the U.S. and the Soviet

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Union were on the brink of nuclear war. This was the Cuban missile crisis and President John

[00:00:33] [SPEAKER_00]: of Kennedy thought of this same book, The Guns of August about WWI while he was fearing

[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_00]: out how to avoid literal nuclear war. So how has this one history book influenced such

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_00]: different, very successful leaders? Today I'm going to tell you what I think makes this book great

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and what my key takeaways were in terms of psychology, leadership and strategy. And along the way

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_00]: tell you a bit about WWI. Welcome back to Women of Power. Today's episode is technically

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_00]: about a woman Barbara Tukman who wrote this book The Guns of August, but instead of focusing

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_00]: on her life I'm going to focus on her book which uses the primary way that he's influenced

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of important figures and won the Pulitzer Prize. It's also a little different in that I'm

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_00]: not reading a free written story. I'm just going to talk off the cuff so let's get started.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's start with why Trader Go said that this was the best management book he's ever read.

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_00]: As I mentioned it's about the lead up to WWI. So it's like a very high stakes

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_00]: to QEQ for all sorts of politicians, military leaders etc. Like your country is literally

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_00]: on the brink of going to war and then your country is at war and with every single strategy

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_00]: you're considering that you make. You've done hundreds of thousands of young men from your country

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_00]: out to the battlefield potentially to lose their lives all on the basis of your decisions as

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_00]: so given this issue you can give in the stakes Barbara Tukman does a really unique job

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_00]: of analyzing the psyches of the key players who are making these decisions and she even goes

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_00]: a level above that and she analyzes one of the national psyches of the different nations

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_00]: that were at war particularly Germany, France, Britain. What were the cultural forces that were

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_00]: shaping the ways that these military leaders thought about their decisions? What sorts of events

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_00]: influenced these countries different philosophies behind how they think that war ought to be

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_00]: conducted, how they think decisions ought to be made, how they think their country ought to be governed

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and let me dive into the details for you and give you a brief overview of what exactly

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_00]: the psyches were of these leaders in these countries. So when the book opens it is 1910.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Germany and France have been jealous of each other for a couple decades. In 1871 the German Empire

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_00]: was incorporated prior to that what we considered Germany was actually a bunch of independent

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: like kingdoms or principalities and there's this guy Otto von Bismarck who is one of the most

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_00]: famous statesmen of all time. He was the chancellor of Prussia which was this northern German state

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and he basically provoked the French into a war against Prussia in order to unite the German

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_00]: territories against a common enemy. This Franco-Prussian war happened in 1870. Otto von Bismarck

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_00]: kind of engineered the public relations so that it looked like France was the aggressor

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and Prussia had to use defend itself. When in reality in Bismarck did play quite a role in

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_00]: provoking the war but to the rest of the German territories they were like wow, our fellow German

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_00]: state of Prussia is fighting this really righteous war against the French people. We feel such

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_00]: sympathy for them. Oh my god if this is amazing they're winning the war, they're so strong

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and this really created like a sense of German nationalism against this common enemy. So in 1871

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_00]: a year after the Franco-Prussian war the German Empire was formed and Prussia essentially united

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_00]: all of these independent German states under its rule. So this is obviously a glorious day for the

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Germans but it's a scary day for France, it's his door-haw enemy. Probably so because the Germans

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_00]: had won this war and so the Germans demanded that they get to annex this contested border territory

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_00]: of Alsace Lourine which is right between France and Germany and the French conceded because

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_00]: they had just lost this war and the German Empire was like woo hoo we're starting off strong

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_00]: with a united empire plus this French territory that we've incorporated into our empire

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and the French are humiliated because on top of losing the Franco-Prussian war and giving up

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_00]: their prized piece of territory to the Germans they also had just watched Napoleon almost

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_00]: conquer all of Europe and then fall. The defeat of Napoleon happened in 1815 which is not too

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_00]: far in the past and so now when the book opens more in 1910 it's been what 30 years since

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_00]: the German Empire was formed and what is the state of the national psyches of these two countries?

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_00]: France is feeling weak, they're feeling guillus. They had always taken such pride in the French

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_00]: army especially under Napoleon that they weren't really attacked to the symbols of the army's

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_00]: strength. For example with the French army it always wore these red pants. It was like a big

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: thing like the key element of the pride of the French army and this was like fine back when

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_00]: the machine guns were not a thing and it was more like hand-a-hand combat but by the time

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_00]: more normal one came about there had been a lot of advances in military technology such that

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_00]: wearing bright red pants meant that you would get easily mowed down by the machine guns

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_00]: the French army for the longest time stubbornly held onto their red pants because of this

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_00]: side unnecessary deaths. So to have been basically describes that the French were feeling

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_00]: insecure and as there was no their insecurity they were hanging on to these symbols of the army's

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_00]: greatness. They really wanted to believe that there was something fundamentally special about

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_00]: the spirit of their army. The spirit is an interesting word here because their top army officers

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_00]: and French intellectual class started lacking on to the philosophy of this philosopher named

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Henri Burmson. I'm probably not saying it right this guy was basically like there is a vital spirit

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: like a life force that drives everything it drives evolution just like everything in the world

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_00]: is motivated by the by this essential spirit to exert its vitality and exert its strength

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_00]: the French military school and academics lakidon to this philosophy of the vital spirit

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and translated it in military terms to fighting spirit to being on the offensive. They essentially

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_00]: were like in order to win every soldier needs to have this like vital fighting spirit within them.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_00]: They need to be so determined to rock out the enemy and concretely on the strategic front. This

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_00]: means that you must always be on the offensive. You can never be like defending your territory

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_00]: reacting to the enemy. No, you have to always seize the initiative. At some point,

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: we're talking about the French army's field regulations which say quote,

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_00]: the French army henceforth knows no law but the offensive. The offensive alone leads to positive

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_00]: results and took men states that from a sort of psychological perspective lacking on to the idea

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_00]: of the offensive helped the French people psychologically cope with these insecurities and

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_00]: feelings of inferiority to the Germans like being like, well sure you know, sure the

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_00]: do they have this fighting spirit? We as the French are the most spirited. We're always going to be

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_00]: seizing the offensive so that was the French mentality as Barbara took men describes it.

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I do want to call me all this by saying that took men takes some liberties in doing some

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: psychoanalysis here, that isn't entirely scientific but overwhelmingly I think there's a reason

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_00]: that history books today tend to be quite boring because no one wants to hear okay I won't say no one

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_00]: but very few people want to just hear a dry list of facts about like oh yeah this thing happened

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and then that thing happened and then that happened and then there was a war but here in

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Barbara took men's hot takes and psychoanalysis of these national psyches like sure maybe she's

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: overreaching maybe she's wrong but it's interesting. It makes you think again why did traitor go say

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00]: that this history book was the best management book he's ever read? It's because when you're in

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_00]: a management physician you need to think critically you can't just list facts and accept them

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_00]: facebelly and congratulate yourself on your knowledge you need to dig deeper like okay yes

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_00]: objectively we do have documents that show that French military officials were very into the idea

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_00]: of the offensive and while another historian might just present it as like yes this was the French

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_00]: military philosophy. Barbara took men goes a step further and she's like well why why did they

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_00]: believe this? And he's like well I think it was more of their insecurities. That's interesting

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_00]: alright now onto the German national psyche so the Germans too have this combination of

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_00]: arrogance and insecurity. Now they're feeling really confident in some such fact because their

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_00]: economy is booming. They've built a ton of new railways, they're industrializing rapidly.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_00]: German culture was also flourishing, Richard Wadner, Brahms, Schumann, all these musicians

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_00]: lived during this period of the German Empire, Nisha lived during this period, Thomas Mann lived

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_00]: things were going really great for the German Empire. However they were also insecure. The

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Kaiser in particular was insecure by the way the Kaiser is essentially a hereditary king from

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_00]: the royal family and then the chancellor is someone who's selected to help run the government.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay so Kaiser will home the second he took over the throne in 1888. He's depicted as this man

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_00]: who's just very jealous, insecure, kind of small-minded. One passage that I found frankly funny

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_00]: from the guns of August is the Kaiser is unfilapriated himself on traveling to many different

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_00]: great cities around the world and giving these grins because and he always longed to be invited

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_00]: of heris. Paris, quote the center of all that was beautiful, all that was desirable, all that Berlin

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_00]: was not. But the Kaiser died at 82 without seeing this vacuumable French capital.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_00]: To have been also described how, remember the territory of a sauce Lorraine that your

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_00]: money had annexed from France. To have been described that the Germans were mad and confused about

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_00]: why it was that they had annexed a sauce Lorraine several decades ago. And the inhabitants were

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_00]: still unhappy to be a part of Germany. They still really held onto their French cultural identity

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_00]: and they were like why? Why do they want to be French? Why don't they want to be German?

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Do they think German culture is inferior? She also brings up a bunch of examples of

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_00]: will-home saying things like the other monarchs of Europe. Don't respect me. They don't

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_00]: listen to what I have to say, but once they see the power of my great army or navy, they will

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_00]: listen. Essentially when I'm describing is this complex around feeling like even though Germany had

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_00]: such strides in their economy, in literature and music, still for some reason. They were perceived

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_00]: as culturally backwards by other countries. And even though France was lagging behind in military

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_00]: progress and economic development, still they were perceived to be the fucking capital of the

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_00]: world, still tourists flocked to Paris instead of Berlin. And the Kaiser was like why? Why is it so

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_00]: hard for me to earn the love of the rest of the world when I've made my country so great by every

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_00]: objective measure? The Germans also have another corps insecurity, which is that they were bordered

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_00]: on one side by France and on the other side by Russia. And France and Russia were allies. So essentially

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_00]: if war ever broke out in Europe, they would very likely be facing both France and Russia on both

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_00]: sides of their territory. So for decades actually, the Germans had been working on a plan called

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_00]: the Schleifin Plan that was thinking about in the case of this European war, how do we mitigate

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_00]: the existential threat of enemies on both sides surrounding us? Top military minds for decades.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Had been planning this extremely meticulous plan, the premise was that Russia is extremely big

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_00]: and not very developed in terms of their transportation infrastructure. So from the time

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_00]: that war was declared, it would take Russia quite a few days to actually mobilize their soldiers

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_00]: and their resources over to the German border just because of their sheer size and lack of infrastructure.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So during the period that Russia is trying to mobilize their troops over to Germany,

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Germany needs to quickly smash France. So as soon as war is declared,

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Germany must instantly mobilize, concentrate all their forces on the Western Front,

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_00]: completely defeat France as quickly as possible so that as soon as Russia is ready to meet them

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_00]: on the Eastern border, they can then move their troops over to the east to fight Russia.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Culturally, Germany is very planned and logical with these things. The way that

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Barbara took men describes the Schleifin Plan and all of their military strategizing,

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_00]: it's just extremely extremely meticulous. I mentioned previously the French School of Thought

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_00]: was like, it's all about the fighting spirit. The German School of Thought was virtually the opposite.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_00]: They were like, it's all about strategy. Remember, Germany is the country that produced

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Karl Wornklauswitz, the great military strategist, who wrote on war, which is basically

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_00]: the Western equivalent of the art of war and considered one of the greatest works of military

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_00]: strategy in philosophy ever written. This book was published in Germany in 1832.

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And the overwhelming German military philosophy was that there isn't objectively correct

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_00]: strategy-yuk best move in any military situation. And the thing to do is to analyze the

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_00]: drew it in logically and apply the best strategic principles to arrive at what the logical

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_00]: best move is. Essentially, they believed that in war, whoever has the best strategy wins.

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_00]: So, in the military academies, they trained every single student in strategy.

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Actually, in conducting the war, they gave individual general a lot of leeway to make their own decisions.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Because their whole thing was, each of our generals has gone through the military academy,

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_00]: they have basically downloaded these strategic algorithms into their brain,

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_00]: such that in any given situation, they'll be able to arrive at the objectively correct next move

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_00]: to make. And so we could let the lower level of generals have as much decision-making autonomy

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_00]: as possible because they have the best data. They have the best understanding of what's going on in

[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_00]: the field. So they should be able to make the best decision. So that's on the two military philosophies

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_00]: to go back to the Kaiser. The Kaiser really insecure. He wants to prove German's superiority

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_00]: and took him in also says that Nika, the famous German philosopher, spread this philosophy of

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_00]: to grossly oversimplify things that the strong have the right and almost the obligation

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_00]: to impose their will onto the weak. And the German's believed that they were strong. So, in a sense,

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_00]: they were almost aching for an excuse to go to war in order to prove their superiority over

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_00]: the rest of Europe. And then the excuse for war arrived. A Serbian nationalist,

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_00]: huge the Duke of Austria, Hungary, Austria, declares war on Serbia, Russia wants to help out the

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Serbians because they are a fellow Slavic country. German's like his help to Austria in fighting

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Serbia and Russia. And then France is allied with Russia. So now Germany and France find themselves

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_00]: on opposite sides of the war, and Britain is considering entering the war. The Ottomans are also

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_00]: considering entering the war. Things escalate very rapidly. The German's were under a lot of pressure

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_00]: at this point to declare war and mobilize their soldiers as soon as possible. Because again,

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_00]: in order to avoid encirclement on both sides, time was of the essence. The Germans needed to crush

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_00]: the French before the Russians could get a chance to move their troops over to their border.

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_00]: They were basically like every single extra day that we can spend moving our troops and fighting

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_00]: France could be a matter of life and death. So the Kaiser issues the mobilization order to start

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_00]: getting the soldiers to say goodbye to their families, put on their uniforms,

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_00]: head to the crane stations, round-up that have already and the food supplies, and learn them

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_00]: onto the cranes. And this day of mobilization is so meticulously planned that Moutka, who's the

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_00]: mobilization, because everything has been planned. According to a schedule precise,

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_00]: down to the number of crane axles that would pass over a given brink within a given time.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Around this time, the other world leaders start to get cold feet. They're like, wait, are we

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_00]: actually going to war here, guys? This is kind of a big deal. Can we talk? And the Kaiser is also

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_00]: getting cold feet. The Kaiser is like, yeah, I don't know if I really want to fight,

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_00]: France and Russia, and all these people maybe we should talk about peace. But the German military

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_00]: leaders tell the Kaiser, no, we cannot stop the mobilization order. We've already started it.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_00]: This is the day that we've been planning for for decades. Mobilization day against France.

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Things are going exactly according to the schedule. The five-in-plan has dictated

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_00]: exactly with territories they need to take over on which days. And if one part of it fails,

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_00]: what the contingency plan is going to be. But there is no contingency plan for the Kaiser

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_00]: randomly halting mobilization because the Kaiser is going to cold feet about going to war. No,

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_00]: that's going to lead to other chaos. They don't know how to deal with that. And so the military

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_00]: leaders convince the Kaiser that mobilization cannot be halted. So the Kaiser essentially is like,

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah, sorry guys, I don't really want to go to war either. But my soldiers have started mobilizing.

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_00]: It's too late to stop them now. I'll see you on the battlefield. One key takeaway there is

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_00]: if you're too relayant on planning and you're not willing to be flexible about your plans,

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_00]: it can lead to a complete disaster. The war could have potentially been avoided altogether

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_00]: if the Germans had been more willing to pause their mobilization instead of being so rigid about

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_00]: adhering to their plans exactly. This part by the way, I think is what John F. Kennedy

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_00]: thought about during the face-off with the Soviet Union. He was like, I don't want to back

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_00]: the Soviet Union into a position where like the Germans they feel that their time is running out

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_00]: they're back into a corner, they need to act or internally politically. Maybe the rest of the

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_00]: government doesn't actually want to commit to war, maybe like the internal military leaders

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_00]: are pressuring them. So Kennedy was basically like, I'm going to give the Soviets every possible

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: benefit of the doubt. I'm going to, as much as possible, reduce the pressure on them so that they

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_00]: don't feel like they're cornered into a situation where they have to enter nuclear war or face

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_00]: this existential threat to their country. Okay, here's another interesting psychological

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_00]: so for various strategy reasons, the Germans decided that they were going to send their troops

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_00]: through Belgium in order to attack France. And they didn't plan to fight Belgium, they assumed

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_00]: that Belgium would just let them march through their territory. They told the Belgians like, hey,

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_00]: we don't want to fight you. We just want to march through your territory. Thanks guys. But the Belgians

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_00]: were really mad. They were like, no, you can't just march through a territory. That's a violation

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_00]: of our neutrality and our rights as a nation. And the Germans were operating under the assumption

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_00]: that there was no way the Belgians would fight them because it just made no rational sense.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Bogium is like a tiny country. It's weak. There's no way that they could take on the German army.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_00]: So the Germans were like, well, like, why would the Belgians unnecessarily sacrifice their men

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_00]: when they could just let us peacefully pass their? But the Belgians put up a surprising amount of resistance.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And so the Germans actually had this interesting psychological response at least according to

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Barbara Tukman, where they kept thinking, okay, well, if I just make it more obvious to the Belgians,

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_00]: then it makes no logical sense for them to resist us. Then they'll just stop and we'll get to pass

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_00]: through their territory. So they kept brutalizing the Belgians. They were like, okay, if any civilian

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_00]: from any village, there is to shoot out of German soldier, we're going to massacre the entire village

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_00]: or burn the whole village down. You know, all these absolute atrocities. And Tukman believes that

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_00]: this just came from a genuine place of frustration and confusion. Like they were so frustrated that

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_00]: they're on this like very strict timetable. They need to get to France. The Belgians are just

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_00]: senselessly slowing them down and killing their soldiers. And at least in Tukman's telling

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_00]: of it, the Germans just need to like knock some sense into these Belgians. Tukman says, quote,

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_00]: the Germans left this city of Belgium scorched, crumbled hollowed out, charred and sought-in.

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Profoundly moved by this picture of desolation, wrought by his German troops, German general

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: von Hausin departed from the ruins of the town, secure in the convicion that the responsibility

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_00]: for its destruction lay with the Belgian government. We should have approved this

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_00]: perfidious street fighting contrary to international law. In other words, the this German

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_00]: general believed that the Belgian government had gravely sinned by allowing their citizens to

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_00]: harass the German army that was passing peacefully through its territory. And therefore,

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_00]: it was correct for the Germans to burn down this town. But unfortunately, this really backfired

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: because there were just all these horrible news reports that came out of Belgium of Germans just

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_00]: like slaughtering their citizens. One of the worst pieces of PR that came out of this was there's this

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: famous library, Louvain, that represents centuries of like culture and knowledge. And then the

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Germans burned the library down. And the facial statement of the German foreign office affirmed

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_00]: that the entire responsibility for these events rests with the Belgium government. And

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_00]: vote. The whole world was terrified. They were like, my god, these barbarians. And actually,

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_00]: the French had been trying to convince the British to come into the war and help them fight

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Germany for quite a while. And the British were pretty on the fence because they were like,

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_00]: this is kind of none of my business. But after they saw the atrocities that Germany had committed

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_00]: in Belgium, this really pushed the British over the edge. They were like, oh wow, the Germans

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_00]: need to be stopped if this is the kind of philosophy that they have. Again, here we see another

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_00]: weakness in the German way of thinking, which is assuming too much that other people will always behave

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_00]: in a rational way, not accounting for the Belgians' sense of national pride, not accounting for

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_00]: the visceral sense of international horror that they would provoke by burning down on these

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Belgian billiards and libraries. So those were the highlights of Tuchmann's analysis of the

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_00]: national psyches of the countries. Now let's talk about the psychology of the military leaders

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_00]: themselves. I think the most interesting military leader in this book was Kiernero Fafri,

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_00]: who was the chief commander of the French army. So the Germans have infillated make it through Belgium

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_00]: and indifference. And once they got to France, it was just victory after victory after victory.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Within six weeks, the Germans were a day away from taking Paris. Later,

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Frank Huffichos would call these six weeks the most tragic period in all of French history.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And Jafri was the man who was in charge of the entire French military,

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_00]: during this period of defeat after defeat. Jafri responds though to all this

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_00]: was never to take personal responsibility. Instead, he blamed every single military defeat on

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: someone else. The soldiers were not attacking with enough fighting spirit. The generals on the ground

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_00]: were issuing the wrong orders. While all these defeats were happening, while French families

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_00]: were getting subject to the dominion of German soldiers, Jafri was sleeping soundly at night

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and eating three gourmet mios a day. Kofri ate in silence with a gourmet's entire devotion

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_00]: to the food. He complained continuously of being kept in the dark by his staff.

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_00]: He used to rub his forehead, murmuring, poor Jafri. He was angered by anyone who tried to

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_00]: king his mind. He was almost a despot, jealous of his authority, resentful of the least in

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_00]: croxment upon it. You know, terrible leader and all these senses. But at the moment of disaster,

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_00]: it was actually Jafri's supreme delucional confidence in himself and refusal to take responsibility

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_00]: for any military disaster that I fully saved him and saved France because he alone of all the

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_00]: commanders on the field was able to still maintain perfect calm in this hour of crisis and not

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_00]: contemplating giving up, not contemplating suicide as during this time, everyone else was rapidly

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_00]: losing morale. Within a week, the British commanders were thinking of giving up. Even the German

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_00]: commanders who were on a winning streak were suffering from nerves because this is a very high

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_00]: situation. Quote the hero of Lienge, the German commander who liked one this great battle, quote

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_00]: seems to have lost his nerve a little, graved out of footed him and at this moment, his colleague

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_00]: had to stiffen his nerves and quote Jafri alone standing amid the tumble debacle of all-french

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_00]: hopes with responsibility for the catastrophe resting upon him. Every one of his armies in

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_00]: retreat were fighting desperately to hold a defensive line, remained magically unperturbed by

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_00]: immediately casting the blame on the ex-accumers he was able to retain perfect and unblemished confidence

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_00]: in himself and in France. And in so doing, providing the essential and unique requirement

[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_00]: in the calamitous days ahead because as we all know, Germany did not win the war in 1914.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_00]: The more lasted for four more years and Germany never took over Paris because France made a muraculous

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_00]: comeback. Now how did this come back happen? It was in part things to goffries in perturbed more

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_00]: leadership, rallying the French to make one last stand and it was also in part due to German errors.

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So a big theme among the leaders in the book is that they keep believing what they want to believe,

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_00]: contrary to what the evidence would suggest and essentially letting their emotions get in the way

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and this happens to the Germans. Most obviously it happens to General Bonvallek who just became arrogant.

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_00]: There was one part of the German line that was not as heavily manned and that second of the line

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_00]: was vulnerable to attack from the French. And this guy, one clock, who's commanding a segment

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_00]: of the army, he was told, hey, this part of the line is weak. Please come reinforce this line.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Just like take your army and guard this other General's troops because he needs support here.

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_00]: He might get attacked in B10 and one clock was like no I don't want to have my troops be just

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_00]: protecting someone else's troops. I don't want to be someone else's second in command. I want

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_00]: my troops to be the ones to mark and to Paris. And so he made the fatal mistake of making his

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_00]: groups continue marching instead of falling back to defend as a weak part of the line.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Part of that was also him believing what he wanted to believe. He just wanted so badly to believe

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_00]: that the French were utterly beaten. There is no way they could make a comeback at this stage.

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_00]: When I feel like no, you can't allow yourself to believe that. Whether in business or in war,

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_00]: you cannot succumb to this kind of wishful thinking that your enemy or your competitor

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_00]: is weaker than they really are. One clock made this fatal mistake of Wolfily deluding himself

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_00]: into underestimating the strength of the French troops and Wolfily deciding that he wanted

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_00]: to take a risk essentially risk the entire German victory in order for him personally to command

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_00]: the troops that would play a core part of entering Paris and winning the decisive victory.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's a simplified psychological view into the German mistakes. There were a variety of

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_00]: reasons behind the German failure. For example, those German resistance made it so that they

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_00]: didn't have as many troops consuffated in France as the Schleifen plan dictated. They had a

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_00]: diverse some troops over to the Eastern Front to try to keep out the Russians and they didn't

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_00]: move those troops back to France when they probably should have Mouteka who was the commander in

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_00]: chief turned out to be unable to adapt to King King circumstances when things went differently from

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_00]: the Plyphin plan dictated. But on the French side, Jafri and this other brilliant French general

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_00]: correctly sensed that there was some weakness in the German line. And according to their

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_00]: doctrine of the offensive, they organized a huge offensive against the part of the German line

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_00]: that they had correctly perceived to be weak. And this was a huge endeavor. Again, the Germans were

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_00]: not completely delusional in believing that the French could not make a comeback because at this point

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_00]: their French troops were exhausted and sort of spread all around. And so they had to be very

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_00]: energizing and transporting their troops to make this last stand against the Germans before

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_00]: they invaded Paris. There's like this whole scene where the temporary governor of Paris summons all

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_00]: of the taxi drivers across all of Paris to help transport soldiers to the front. All these cabs are

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_00]: like driving across the city. They dump out their passenger's. They're like, I'm sorry, I can't give you

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_00]: a ride. I need to do my pay for your on a duty. They meet at this depot all the soldiers pile into

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_00]: the taxis and the taxis drive off to the battlefront. And the French food if eat the Germans,

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_00]: the Germans never reached Paris. Instead, the French pushed the Germans back, but neither sign

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_00]: was able to win a decisive victory. Neither signs philosophy, strategy and execution,

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_00]: added up to be clearly superior to the others. So there was just this four-year stalemate

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_00]: where 40 million people died for no good result. It's a very sad conclusion when you think about it

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and Ticman definitely makes you feel the sadness and the impact of it. I want to conclude by

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_00]: quickly talking about Ticman's writing style and how she successfully gets you emotionally invested

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_00]: in this whole saga. I want to read you a redacted version of the opening paragraph of the Guns

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_00]: of August, which Barbara Ticman spent months editing. So gorgeous was the spectacle on the main

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_00]: morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England. That the crowd,

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_00]: waiting in Hust and Black Cloud all, could not keep back gasp sub-admiration.

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plume helmets, gold braids,

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_00]: crimson sackers, and droid orders flaking in the sun. Together they represented 70 nations

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_00]: in the greatest assembly of road he and rank ever gathered in one place and of its kind the last.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_00]: The muffled tongue of Big Ben told nine by the clock as the court-held left the palace,

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_00]: but on history's clock it was sunset and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_00]: blaze of splendour never to be seen again. I think that line on history's clock it was sunset.

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_00]: The sun of the old world was setting in a dying place isn't insane opening

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_00]: and it immediately throws into a sense of impending tragedy. The sense that some era is about to end.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_00]: So what is it like this ending that Ticman is describing? To quote from her afterward,

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_00]: quote, when every autumn people said the war could not last through the winter and when every

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_00]: spring there was still no end-in sight. Only the hope that out of it some good would accrued a mankind,

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_00]: kept men and nations fighting. When at last the war was over, it had one dominant result

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_00]: transcending all others, disillusioned. All the great words were canceled out for that generation.

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_00]: The great words and beliefs of the time before 1914 could never be restored. Essentially I think what

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_00]: people had the sense of confidence and security in the way that the world was. People live in

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_00]: these empires that are ruled by these monarchs. People largely accepted their place in society

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and just tried to be the best person that they could be within these constraints. But after a

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_00]: world war won, there was the sense of my God I can do my duty and it can all be for nothing.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_00]: It could just end in four years of pointless war. We thought that we all lived under empires but

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_00]: over the course of Romer 1 and the media aftermath. The Rechen Empire got overthrown by Communists,

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_00]: the Austrian Hungarian Empire collapsed, the Ottoman Empire also collapsed, the British Empire greatly

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_00]: declined in its power. There was a sense of like anything as possible now. The lives of people

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_00]: across Europe, across the world, cached as a result of the decisions that these key leaders made

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_00]: on the road to war and during the war. It gives the reader a sense of emotional investment in these

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_00]: events that happened so many years ago. Again, if what you're looking for is a very

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_00]: fat space view of academic scholarship, this might not be the book for you but as someone who is not

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_00]: an academic or a professional historian I think her analysis helps readers build an intuition

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_00]: for what sorts of strategies work under what kinds of circumstances. Thanks for listening and see you next time.