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Podcast: New Books in German Studies
Episode: Alexander Watson, “Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914-1918” (Cambridge UP, 2008)
Description: It’s a question I’ve long asked myself: Why and how did common soldiers fight for so long in the First World War? The conditions were awful, death was all around, and there was no real hope of a “breakthrough” that might bring victory. It was simply one long hard slog to nowhere. Why not just give up? Thanks to Alexander Watson’s insightful Enduring the Great War. Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914-1918 (Cambridge, 2008) I now have a better understanding of what allowed the common infantryman to hang on. Watson convincingly explains that the r...