The Kaiser: Warlord of the Second Reich

The Kaiser: Warlord of the Second Reich by Alan Palmer

As I write this review of a book I finished about 3 weeks ago, I’m slightly embarrassed and puzzled that there’s not much about this book that I actually remember. Although that’s not a good thing, I do recall that I enjoyed the book. This is one of those books that I read on a Kindle (not sure if there’s a physical copy even in existence. Maybe there is, but Amazon says nothing of such). The description page on Amazon does say that it’s slightly over 300 pages, but many eBooks don’t have page numbers. I remember that about half of the volume was indices, source notes, bibliography, etc. so the book may have been significantly shorter than the advertised 300 pages.  Why am I droning on about page length? Because it did seem a rather short book.  So maybe my lack of recollection is due to the fact that there wasn’t that much to remember in the first place.

Kaiser Wilhelm II (‘William’, as he’s mainly referred to here) has a bit of a bad rap. Many would say that he was the Hitler of the first World War.  After all, he was the German leader, and the Germans were the ‘bad’ guys. So…..  After reading this book, I didn’t feel he was evil at all.  Power hungry, maybe, and definitely incompetent. I would argue most monarchs during this time were just as incompetent though, so Wilhelm was in pretty good company, so to speak.

History tells us that he was actually England’s Queen Victoria’s grandson. Her other grandchildren were Russian’s Tsar Nicholas and, of course, King George V of England. Apparently, the desire back then was to arrange such marriages between powerful countries to form alliances. That doesn’t seem such a bad idea, but the plan doesn’t work during the years leading up to World War I. Wilhelm comes across as a bit of a spoiled brat. Such is the case when a monarchy is in place – it’s a crap shoot how good the leader will be. So we see Wilhelm throughout his whole life acting very pompous, peacocking his feathers, and bragging how strong the German navy is. One is led to believe he wasn’t pleasant company at a cocktail party.

There’s very little in this book about his wife and children. Most of the book focuses on relations with the various German chancellors (none good) and his attempt to form strong relations with other countries. The details can get a bit wearisome – the book is a lot of fact and not much feeling, but as I mentioned, the overall length is short, so it never gets a chance to drag you down too much.

Did Wilhelm cause the first World War?  I would say he did not, although he was certainly influential. Plus, being a poor leader of such a strong nation is never a good thing. After Germany’s defeat in 1918, he’s forced to abdicate and live in exile in the Netherlands for the rest of his life. He quietly wishes that the monarch will be reinstated during the 1930s, but once Hitler is in charge, all of his dreams go out the window. It should also be noted that Wilhelm never cared for Hitler, and felt he was ruining Germany. The Kaiser died in 1941.

I would recommend this book as it was a fairly quick read. There are a lot of names and places to digest, but this is usually the case with biographies about historical figures. It was refreshing to read about Germany’s “other” World War leader, and I felt I learned an awful lot about the man, the monarch, and the times.

Gods and Generals

Gods and Generals – by Jeff Shaara

This book is a prequel to Michael’s Shaara’s (Jeff’s deceased father) The Killer Angels. That book was a Civil War novel about the Battle of Gettysburg that also went on to be a high grossing film. From what I understand, the movie that this book is based on wasn’t very well received, so it’s possible you never saw it – or maybe even heard of it. I haven’t read any Shaara books before this one. This book was good in many aspects, but I also found it a bit lacking in places.

This story begins in the days leading up to the Civil War and concludes roughly three years later before the Battle of Gettysburg. Our story focuses mainly on two officers from each side of the war. On the Confederacy, we have General’s Lee and Jackson. On the Union – Hancock and Chamberlain. It should be pointed out the Joshua Chamberlain was, in fact, a Colonel. It’s fortunate that he’s included because I felt his story was the most interesting of the four.

In many ways, that’s really what this book is – a character study. It tries to go in depth of the lives of these four men. Since they’re on the battlefield during most of the story, their tales are rather introspective. We’ll read a chapter, for example, where General Lee is sitting on a stoop in between battles doing nothing but thinking of home. Such interludes can wear thin after a while. Unfortunately, when our main characters aren’t thinking, they’re “fighting”. I say “unfortunately” because I don’t really enjoy reading books (or chapters in books) that focus exclusively on a battle. Some of the best military/war books I’ve read are when most of the action takes place OFF the battlefield (see W.E.B. Griffin’s Brotherhood of War series). I tend to be in the minority, however. Such detail in a book doesn’t seem to bother most readers, so it’s quite possible you won’t be bothered by this as much as I was.

To each their own, however. Many seem to enjoy both son (Jeff) and father’s (Michael) books, so you might enjoy it slightly better than I did. There were good parts, I felt, but I felt it was a bit weighed down too much in the areas I mentioned. I will say that Shaara does an excellent job  portraying the character’s feelings and their reasons as to why their fighting on a particular side. It’s well known, for example, that Robert E. Lee was offered command of the Union army when the conflict broke out, yet turned it down as he felt his loyalties should like with his home state of Virginia.

It also should be pointed out that much of the stories told between the battles are speculation. Shaara uses creative license when detailing conversations between many of the principals, so some hardcore historians may tend to cry ‘foul’, but this never bothered me. I felt that I knew these men much better after reading this novel regardless as to how exact the tale was when compared to the facts.

Most that have read the book stated they enjoyed it overall, but felt it wasn’t quite as good as his father’s ‘The Killer Angels’. Such comparisons are usually inevitable whenever a new author takes over from a deceased author – especially when the two are related.  I imagine most, like me, will enjoy it even if you may be left with some reservations.

Who Lost Russia? How the World Entered a New Cold War

Who Lost Russia? How the World Entered a New Cold War – by Peter Conradi

If you were to ask a random individual on the street to describe the relationship between Russia and the U.S. in the past 80 years, they would probably state something such as:

“Russia became an enemy with the U.S. after World War II because of communism. When communism self-destructed in 1991, Russia then became one of the “good” guys.  Lately, though, the relationship between Russia and the U.S. has seemed to have gotten worse.  Although I’m not entirely sure why.”

That person would be mostly correct. What this book does so well, is explain why the euphoria of the early 1990s deteriorated around the relationship between the superpowers, and why things have regressed since then. In other words, this book is an excellent resource for those who don’t read about world news that often, and tend to read the Sports page first when they open their newspaper.

This book was very well written and very easy to follow. It’s not a book that you “give up on” because it’s too detailed, too scholarly, or too long. The author does an outstanding job balancing how to present enough crucial material for one to digest without putting them to sleep or overwhelming them with details ad nauseum. This is one of the books that I finished in only a few days because it was so well written, interesting, and informative.

A key point when discussing foreign relations is that other countries and other cultures think and behave differently. Most of us are unaware of this. We can’t understand why, for example, when we topple a brutal dictator such as Saddam Hussein, there’s dancing and singing in the streets of Baghdad for a few days, but then things seem to go back to exactly how they were before.  So when the Cold War ended and the Communist regime was toppled in 1991, there were many in the West that thought all they needed was a few more shopping malls and trendy restaurants, and Russia would magically transform to a peaceful place that looked and acted just like the state of Vermont.

The author reminds us though, that even though Russia “lost” the Cold War, they have always been a proud country. For the United States to start dictating how they run their country, and more importantly, the relationship with subjugated neighbors such as Ukraine and Georgia, there are going to be problems.  There is a lot of focus on the relationships between the leaders of the two countries.  First, Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin. Then, Bush and Putin, followed by Obama and Medvedev (later, back to Putin). None of the leaders of the West seem to perfectly play their cards, and whatever methods are tried, it seems as though relationships between the two simply become worse.  How does one maintain a healthy relationship with a country when it has such a cruel demeanor with places such as Crimea and Syria?

Old habits die hard, and Putin and his cronies are no choirboys. We read about a lot of rigged elections, under-the-table deals, and poisoned enemies that allow the country to climb back to the top and retain its former glory.  They may not be “Communist” anymore, but the author successfully argues that the cruelty that has been there since the Revolution in 1917 hasn’t abated. It may have taken a brief sojourn, but the nothing has really changed that much since the days of well-documented infamy.

The author does reveal who he thinks actually “lost” Russia in the last few pages. I’m not sure I completely agree with him.  For something to be “lost” it must first be “owned” or “possessed” and I’m not sure the U.S., or anyone else, ever had a firm grasp on the country to begin with. We may have thought we did 25 years ago, but smarter heads (i.e. Henry Kissinger) have always told us otherwise.  We just never wanted to listen. Why listen to people tell you things aren’t that great when they feel so good?

The book does talk a bit about the Clinton-Trump presidential race. The author makes no accusations, but it’s clear that Russia would much prefer a Trump president than a Clinton one. In fact, there are several references to Clinton, as Obama’s Secretary of State, wanting her Commander and Chief to do things differently and have a firmer hand.  It’s easy to speculate that if Hillary Clinton had won the election, things would finally move in the correct path, but one would have to be mightily optimistic to hold such a position. In fact, after reading this, my sad conclusion is that anytime we want something to be better, it sometimes must, first, get worse. Sometimes much worse. We can only hope and pray that things don’t deteriorate much more in the coming years.  We should all pay attention to world news more often.