A Higher Form of Killing: Six Weeks in World War I That Forever Changed the Nature of Warfare by Diana Preston (PDF)

Description

Between April 22 and May 31, 1915, Western civilization was shocked. World War I was already appalling in its brutality, but until then it had been fought on the battlefield and by rules long agreed by international convention. Suddenly those rules were abandoned. On April 22, at Ypres, German canisters spewed poison gas over French and Canadian soldiers in their trenches; on May 7, the German submarine U-20, without warning, torpedoed the passenger liner Lusitania; and on May 31, a German zeppelin began the first aerial bombardment of London. Each of these actions violated rules of war carefully agreed to at the Hague Conventions of 1898 and 1907 which were deliberately breached by the German authorities in an attempt to spread terror and force the Allies to surrender. While that failed, the psychological damage these attacks caused far outweighed the physical casualties.Celebrated historian Diana Preston links these events for the first time, revealing the dramatic stories behind them through the eyes of those who were there. Placing the attacks in the context of the centuries-old debate over what constitutes “just war” and “civilized warfare,” Preston shows how subsequently the other combatants felt the necessity to develop and use similar weapons. Now, when such weapons of mass destruction are once again deployed and threatened, and terrorist atrocities abound in very different kinds of conflicts, the vivid story of their birth is of great relevance.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “A British historian of considerable breadth and accomplishment, Preston (The Dark Defile: Britain’s Catastrophic Invasion of Afghanistan, 1838-1842, 2012, etc.) focuses on three wartime innovations that elevated to new heights mankind’s ability to slaughter itself: submarines, zeppelins and poison gas . . . In what is often difficult but necessary reading, Preston provides haunting descriptions of the effects of poison gas. A harrowing–and, in this era of drones, absolutely pertinent–look at the rapacious reaches of man’s murderous imagination.” ―starred review, Kirkus”Preston deftly and graphically weaves the complex stories–hitherto kept distinct–of these land, sea and air innovations into a connected narrative. For the first time, readers can grasp the mounting cognitive assault on civilians, soldiers and politicians of the curious clustering of events that spring.” ―New York Times Book Review”Well-detailed, shattering . . . This is Preston at the top of her analytical form, offering fascinating modern parables on war, mortality and civilization.” ―starred review, Publishers Weekly”For an illuminating look at the Lusitania in the context of Germany’s pioneering use of weapons of mass destruction, see Diana Preston’s A Higher Form of Killing.” ―Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine”[A] gripping and excellent book . . . Preston, whose previous books include a history of the sinking of the Lusitania, tells this grim story well. Her extensive archival research fills in the historical chronology with well-selected quotations from personal accounts of participants at every level of civilian and military life and of government.” ―Richard Rhodes, Washington Post”The author’s excellent use of war diaries and newspapers in the sections on Zeppelin warfare are particularly gripping, juxtaposing the terror and awe felt by Londoners and the heroism required of Zeppelin crews . . . A well-documented and argued analysis of the emergence of modern warfare.” ―starred review, Shelf Awareness”A fascinating and chilling chronicle of weapons of mass destruction . . . Preston’s eloquent and objective history of war is immensely exciting.” ―Library Journal”Vividly narrating the deployment of each of these new technologies, Preston emphasizes the horrors they delivered and the ethical deliberations (or absence thereof) of key decision makers. Viewed together, Preston suggests, these three new ways of killing demonstrated the shortcomings of the laws of war and set the trajectory for even more powerful weapons of mass destruction.” ―Booklist”[A] fine new book . . . Preston succeeds best in her dramatic renderings of the gas attacks at Ypres, the terror on the decks of the Lusitania as it sank, and the surreal flights of giant airships that seemed like an H.G. Wells fiction come to life.” ―Boston Globe About the Author Diana Preston is an Oxford-trained historian and the author of A First Rate Tragedy, The Boxer Rebellion, Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy, and Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima, which won the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology. With her husband, Michael, she has coauthored A Pirate of Exquisite Mind and Taj Mahal. She lives in London, England.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Early in World War One between April 22nd and May 30th, 1915 only 8 months after the start of the war there were three major events using weapons never used before in the history of warfare. Dianna Preston’s new book is the story of these three told with exceptional detail and interesting research. No doubt the Germans are the villains here but Preston does not hold anyone blameless for how they adopted and further developed even more horrific forms of mass killing. Preston’s choosing of these three weapons leaves out many other terrible higher forms of killing introduced in World War One. The use of machine guns and tanks for example. But her choices are interesting, educational and sound. The irony being that these awful weapons were used to fight a war that was totally unnecessary and pointless. A war that devastated European civilization and economic growth. A war that never ende First at Ypres was the use by Germany of poison gas on Canadian and French troops. I found this section of the book the most interesting and horrifying. Just the description of the Germans transporting the gas canisters to the front line trenches and digging the holes to plant them while waiting for the wind to blow in the right direction before mounting their attack is worth the price of the book. Preston also discusses the future use and stockpiling of gas by major powers after the war. Second, was the submarine U-20 sinking the Lusitania on May 7th killing 1,198. This section of the book is well done but Dianna Preston’s earlier book about just the Lusitania sinking is a much better read and more detailed. I still consider her Lusitania book her best book (and I have read all of her books). I also just read Erik Larson’s book DEAD WAKE which also is about the sinking of the Lusitania. Thirdly, on May 31, 1915 London was bombed by a German Zeppelin. Although the damage done was insignificant compared to the use of gas and submarines the Zeppelin attacks had a great psychological impact on the British civilian population. The stories told here about the development of the Zeppelins and the inability of the British to develop planes that could shoot them down is most interesting. And serves as a prologue to the Second World War’s Battle of Britain.d until the very end of World War II and in the Middle East is still being fought today. The book’s publication is obviously timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of these events.

⭐Diana Preston is a wonderful popular author of historical subjects! The London born and Oxford educated Preston has written about such subjects as The Boxer Rebellion, The Road to Culloden Moore, Antony and Cleopatra and The Lusitania. In this latest volume from her prolific pen she delves into three horrible innovations in warfare which transformed warfare in the twentieth century. During 1915 battle in the air, on land and under the seas was forever changed by:a. The invention of the Zeppelins led to aerial warfare in France and to bombing in England by the German Air Force. This was a forecast of the Battle of Britain in 1940. The author traces the development of the zeppelins and World War I combat in the skies.b. The use of poison gas by the Germans at Ypres in 1915 led to terrible deaths in the trenches. Poison gas was used by both the Germans and Great Britain during the war.c. The German navy resorted to undersea warfare against shipping in their unrestricted submarine warfare by the U-Boats. The attack on the Lusitania in May 1915 is covered in detail by Preston. This book is a good study of warfare as we remember the one hundred year anniversary of the tragedy of World War I and the beginning of the bloodiest century in human history.

⭐perhaps misleadingly titled this is a fascinating look at the escalation of industrial terror driven by technology and a refusal on the German side to believe that the war was a mistake and unwinnable. the author avoids blaming and helpfully locates the inclusion of civilians and industrial scale murder of soldiers in the cultural mindset of the age – not so dissimilar to our own. vicious escalation will shorten the war was the belief then heedless of common humanity and inevitable reciprocation. In this as in so many otherr ways WWI was the precursor to WWII

⭐An excellent book. Well-written, well-organized and compelling. More attention, however, should have been paid to the blockade of Germany during this period of time and the horrible suffering and death caused thereby. This omission is rather strange since it is directly related to the subject matter of this book, mass death during time of war.

⭐Very readable history of cloudy events…thought provoking

⭐Great book pulling together scholarship and first hand accounts of the horrors of war. Diana Preston does a great job of setting the stage for the use of lethal forms of killing in future wars and helps us inside the minds of the British and German leaders who made the decisions to unleash submarine warfare, chemical warfare and aerial bombing targeting civilians.

⭐Diana Preston never disappoints. Faultlessly weaving human thought and emotion into a tragic tale of brutal history. It’s hard to believe that people once thought war could be ‘civilized ‘.

⭐Extremely well written and detailed history of the development of modern warfare and the elimination of the distinction between combatant and civilian during WW I. Dianna Preston has provided a very readable and compelling look at industrialization’s contribution to the slaughter that was WWI.

⭐This book describes in great detail three major instances of “total warfare” as introduced by the German in the First World War. Where I was less than happy, – but I am no expert, is the central tenet that total warfare by the Germans really started in early 1915 with a) unrestricted submarine warfare, including the sinking of the Lusitania, b) the use of poison gas, and c) the bombing of civilians.There is no mention whatsoever of the naval bombardment of Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough in December 1914 when well over 100 civilians were killed. This bombardment had little military significance (other than to try and lure the Grand Fleet in action). It seems remarkable that the bombardment is not used as an example of total warfare.With that objection out of the way, the book itself provides plenty to maintain the interest of a student of the events of the First World War.The book is certainly readable, and is well researched.It is just my prejudice regarding no mention of the bombardment of Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough that lessens my star rating.

⭐In the spring of 1915 the Imperial German government unleashed three separate attacks on the allies that, in addition to being illegal, shattered long-cherished concepts of honour, decency and ‘civilized’ behaviour in wartime. These three events – the first use of poison gas,

⭐the first sinking of an unarmed civilian liner by U-boat

⭐, and

⭐the first air raid on a European capital

⭐were a watershed moment in the history of warfare. In this unusual book, Diana Preston, the Oxford-educated historian, writer and broadcaster considers how during a six week period in 1915 Germany tore up the pre-WW1 Hague conventions and forever changed how wars are fought.According to Preston, the use of chemical weapons and deliberate attacks on civilians was a measure of Germany’s desperate realisation that, having failed to win the war quickly in 1914, it faced slow economic strangulation by a British naval blockade and subsequent defeat. Germany knew that it risked both worldwide condemnation and retaliation in kind by the Allies but still took the gamble. The gamble failed. As Preston explains, not only did the allies start bombing and gassing the Germans back but the weapons and tactics themselves proved unreliable and none of them achieved their aims of shortening the war and bringing Britain and her allies to their knees. In fact, US outrage over Americans drowned by German unrestricted submarine warfare overcame the nation’s isolationism and actually helped bring Washington into the war on the allies’ side – all but guaranteeing Germany’s defeat.Sadly, the new, brutal form of ‘anything goes’ warfare unleashed by Germany in 1915 didn’t disappear with that country’s defeat in 1918 but, rather, it set the tone for the following blood-soaked century. The Kaiser himself had predicted that, following Germany’s attacks on civilians and its use of chemical weapons, “the entire world will rage about it at first and then imitate us” – and they did. Crucially, says Preston, no-one in the German government was ever held to account for breaking the pre-WW1 Hague conventions and it was this omission – the failure to prosecute German war crimes

⭐] – which gave subsequent tyrants the world over the confidence to believe they could kill with impunity and, quite literally, get away with murder.

⭐In the last year I’ve read three books about World War One: one by Paxman, one by Hastings and now this one, by Diana Preston. This was definitely the most absorbing. I loved Preston’s different approach; most of all I loved her attention to detail.We all know the war’s key events (Mons, Verdun, Cambrai…the mud, the horror, the endless poetry), but this is something new. It’s a thin slice of narrative packed with a treasure house of detail about three key technologies that helped define the war: gas, zeppelins and submarines. What Preston does so nicely is pepper her account with many small, interesting facts which give it real emotional resonance. Sometimes when reading a history of the First World War it’s hard to feel moved by the carnage because the number of deaths seems so unreal (a million deaths is just a statistic, and all that). Preston knows this, so she gives us the opposite: a single death as tragedy.She tells of an unfortunate drinker at a London pub who was impaled on railings by a zeppelin bomb; she tells of a brave sea captain who rammed his merchant ship into a U-boat, only to be captured and hung for his heroism; she tells of a desperate passenger who leapt from the stern of the Lusitania, only to be diced by the ship’s propellers. But most of all, it’s the fate of children in wartime which gives the book its emotional heft. If you’re anything like me, every few pages you’ll feel the need to put down the book and give each of your kids a hug. Apparently the people of London cheered when they watched a Zeppelin crew burn and fall to their deaths. Having read about the fate of three-year-old Elsie Leggatt, I know that I would have cheered too. Preston uses these small and detailed vignettes to impress upon 21st Century readers the suffering, trauma and evil of 20th Century warfare. In this book, the devil almost literally lies in the detail.But the detail doesn’t just provide an emotional (and moral) centre to the book; it continually piques your interest and keeps the pages turning. Who knew that one of the super-rich heirs to the Vanderbilt fortune effectively committed suicide on the Lusitania, spending his last few minutes putting lifejackets on children, rather than saving himself (there you go: children again)? Or that industrial chemist Fritz Haber, gas warfare’s chief architect and apologist, went on to win a Nobel prize for chemistry and invent the pesticide Zyklon-B which was used by the Nazis to gas millions of Haber’s fellow Jews? And did you know that it was an Archbishop of Canterbury who coined the phrase ‘weapons of mass destruction’?Juicy tidbits like these add spice to almost every paragraph in each of the book’s three narratives. As a result, I read the book in three days. It was great to learn so many new things about such an old topic. Illuminating, entertaining and sometimes genuinely upsetting. I would recommend this book to anyone who knows about the war but wants to know still more.

⭐An excellent analysis of the first use of chemical weapons on the battlefield. Diana Preston’s assessment is an excellent example of research and lucid writing. Recommended for all military history buffs interested in the subject. NOT to be confused with the Paxman/Harris novel with the same title of “A Higher Form of Killing”

⭐Interesting book: I got it as a Kindle version, and so like virtually all such formats the pictures are so small as to be more-or-less lost. But the book is a fascinating insight into various ‘new’ forms of warfare and weapons.

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