First World War For Dummies Chapter Summary

TThe Title “First World War for Dummies” is self-explanatory that it is about World War 1. The author of the book, Sean Lang describes the war in detail of how this war differs from others, whether the war was worth it till describing the best places to visit to learn more about World War 1. The countries’ leaders (especially in Europe) desire to be “Great Power” of the world is the main reason why the war started. But, “the Sarajevo assassination in 1914, however, was the spark that finally set off the First World War.” Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Royal Highness of Austria, Hungary was assassinated by Colonel Dimitrijevic, also known as Apis to obtain power by obtaining a port on the Adriatic coast. Austria- Hungary asked German’s help

to fight against Serbia. Since then, countries have begun to form alliance with other countries. Germans declared war on Russia; Britain declared war on Germany for invading Belgium; Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia, Britain and France declared war on Austria-Hungary and more wars.
After so many wars have been declared, Britain, France and Russia formed an ally (Entente Cordiale/Triple Entente) and Germany, Austria-Hungary formed an ally called the Triple Alliance with partial inclusion of Italy. Lang also described about the involvement of the United States in the war and the central role it played to end it (such as Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points). After the war, United States became the dominant and influential country of the world. Even though, the peace treaty has been signed between the Allies and the defeated powers, the whole world has been affected and caused an unchanged impact. Since most of the European rule countries in Asia and Africa, they are forced to be involved in this war. More to that, the idea of trenches was involved in World War 1 as well.
Sean Lang is pretty detailed oriented, but tries to keep the facts at least complicated as possible.

He does not use many jargon words, therefore makes the reading easy. Besides that, he uses quite a few symbols throughout the book. For the important points, he infers them as “Remember”, the technologies that we introduced or used during the war are categorized as “Technological Innovation”, uncertain facts are written under “Did it Really Happen?”, etc. In order to keep the reader entertained engaged throughout, he does include some of his jokes and interesting titles. For example, “In those days many doctors even recommended smoking, saying it was good for the lungs!” and titles such as, "Any Idea How to Win this War by Christmas?” In addition to that, Sean Lang have so much information to share in his book and I wish he could organize them in a better way for readers not to feel chaotic. Overall, Lang did not have bias feeling towards an alliance over another, but in some places, I felt that he was leaning towards the British. “Unfortunately, when the British tried to work their way around the German flank, they found that the Germans were now trying to do the same to them (page 93).” He used “unfortunately” which indicates that he was feeling pity for British for the evil act of

Germany.
“The First World War for Dummies” is a great book for readers who have a very basic or naïve about this war. It could be a great high school book to read for history than a textbook to learn war in a much enjoyable way. Lang mentioned, “I’m assuming that you’ve heard a bit about the war, but don’t know much about it in any detail” and realizing that the war was a pretty grim affair from which no one, and certainly no one in charge, emerges with much credit.” Therefore, I would say that his intended audience would be students in high-school and colleges.
The strength of the book is the definitely the content of information with very limited biasness. Therefore, the reader could view a better image of the war without portraying one ally is better than the other. Other than that, I would say that it is an easy reading with straightforward facts as I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Other than describing the war, Lang also did a great job in describing how the current world is affected by World War 1. For example, part of the problem in the Middle East is because of World War 1. Israel and Palestine are still having problems because of the war. One of the main reasons is because of “Sir Henry agreed and promised Sherif Hussein, he could have a large Arab state after the war, except for some areas, such as Palestine and Syria, which the British and French had earmarked for themselves. So in 1916 Sherif Hussein launched his revolt (189).” Not only Middle East was largely affected by the war, Lang also described on how other countries such as Unites States was affected.
On the other hand, one of the weaknesses of the book is the repetition of information. There are both pros and cons in the repetitions. The pros would be that the readers would remember the fact better, but at the same time, reading the same fact again and again could make one feel bored. Lang has kept on mentioning that Britain is the Great Power and it rules colonies around the world, especially in Asia and Africa (pages 32, 329, 195, etc.). The other weakness is that he did cite any resources, forget about primary resources. Sean Lang is definitely a great, trustworthy writer, but the inclusion of some valid sources could have made his claim stronger and valid.
Furthermore, the book takes into account of multiple perspectives. A reader could understand felt how a country or leader acted from their point of view. One could understand the Indians’ perspective during the war when Lang stated Indians expectation of getting independence from the British. However, the British had no such intention towards India’s independence. “Before long, protests broke out all over India against what they saw as a huge British broken promise (210).” Lang also gave the readers the knowledge on countries’ leaders’ perspective. One of the examples are, Woodrow Wilson’s perspective of entering the war. Since he knew that Americans will not vote for him if they knew of his idea of involving in war. Therefore, he kept his slogan “He kept you out of the war.” More to that, he gave various countries point of view of women working on behalf of men. Britain recruited women to work in the field of war. French recruited them to work in the industries, many women in Austria- Hungary volunteered to work in the war, but women in Germany stayed at home and help their families to overcome “food shortages and higher prices (252).” These are a few perspectives of many that Lang described. He gave his perspectives of the war, the soldiers, etc. One of the reason the book was interesting is because I could understand the war from various accounts of perspectives.
A history based book with background information will definitely make a better book. The first three chapters describe the elements of the war such as describing the main countries in the war, the weapon and technologies, explanation of the important definition, etc. Some of the countries that Land described are Germany as strong, successful nation, Russia as the “friendless giant” and England as the most powerful but worried nation because of the rising of other nations as United States and Germany. Likewise, the definitions that he provided of front, battle, and theatres of the war helped me understand the reading better. Knowing the cause of the war helps to understand better on which alliance caused the war and to be blamed. Before reading this book, I thought the main nation to be blamed for the war was the German but Serbia and Austria-Hungary played a vital role for the war to start. Other countries all around world played a significant role in the war as well. In chapter 3, Lang makes one realize that even the strongest nation in the world will have some weakness. He described the strength and weaknesses of each country in the Central Powers and Triple Alliance.
Besides that, the book does make a clear connection between claim and evidence throughout the book. Sometimes, the claim would be in one page and the evidence would be on the other page (by providing a link to go to that page). For example, “The Europeans, Americans and Japanese (see the later ‘Thoroughly modern Meiji: Japan’ section to find out why the Japanese were fighting alongside the westerners) organised a multinational force to defeat the Boxers (36).”
As a whole, “First World War for Dummies” is good, trustworthy book in its historical approach. Even though, Sean Lang does not provide any sources to support his claims and evidences, he is a senior lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge and studied at Oxford, one the world renowned university. Therefore, his work can be trust