Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman (Review)
As I noted in my review of Guns of August, I highly recommend reading Proud Tower as a primer to Barbara Tuchman’s more famous book on the early years of World War I. Proud Tower gives a rich background for World War I and does so in an accessible manner. Each chapter is a mini book from a different perspective:
The Patricians: England: 1895–1902
The Idea and the Deed: The Anarchists: 1890–1914
End of a Dream: The United States: 1890–1902
“Give Me Combat!”: France: 1894–99
The Steady Drummer: The Hague: 1899 AND 1907
“Neroism Is in the Air”: Germany: 1890–1914
Transfer of Power: England: 1902–11
The Death of Jaurès: The Socialists: 1890–1914
The first half (England, Anarchists, U.S. and France) was more focused and tied back cleanly to how each entity found themselves entangled in WWI. The second half (Hague, Germany, England, and the Socialists) seemed to wander. But the combination created an excellent structure to better understand World War I, particularly when partnered with “Guns of August.”
Though “Guns of August” received the most acclaim in the literary world, “Proud Tower” is likely a better option for those who don’t necessarily enjoy a historical account that focuses on political and military conduct. Because Tuchman sought to give more context to the culture that embraced war, she looked at music, philosophy, science, and more. She may have created the book using leftover research from “Guns of August,” but it made for an in-depth look at how the war stretched beyond its regional origins.
Here are some of the ideas that Tuchman addressed that stuck with me:
Lord Robert Gascoyne-Cecil Salisbury had the following observation on the role of diplomacy: “But there is nothing dramatic in the successes of a diplomatist. His victories are made up of a series of microscopic advantages; a judicious suggestion here, an opportune civility there, a wise concession at one moment and a farsighted persistence at another; of sleepless tact, immovable calmness and patience that no folly, no provocation, no blunder can shake.” Despite this knowledge, he spurred the Venezuelan crisis of 1895 with the United States by neglecting the core tenet of diplomacy: “leave room for negotiation.”
Historian and politician, John Buchan, gave the following praise to Prime Minister Arthur Balfour: “Although he was the best talker I have ever known, he was not a monopolist of the conversation but one who quickened and elevated the whole discussion and brought out the best of other people.” Tuchman described Balfour as leaving everyone happy they had talked with him. Austin Chamberlain noted after speaking with Balfour, he “left one feeling like one was at the top of his form and had really talked rather well.” Buchan’s description of Balfour strikes me as a worthwhile goal for how to participate in a conversation with others.
In “The American Commonwealth,” Viscount James Bryce wrote a chapter entitled “Why Great Men Are Not Chosen Presidents.” He explored this question and wrote:
“Europeans often ask, and Americans do not always explain, how it happens that this great office, the greatest in the world, unless we except the papacy, to which anyone can rise by his own merits, is not more frequently filled by great and striking men. In America, which is beyond all other countries the country of a “career open to talents,” a country, moreover, in which political life is unusually keen and political ambition widely diffused, it might be expected that the highest place would always be won by a man of brilliant gifts. But from the time when the heroes of the Revolution died out with Jefferson and Adams and Madison, no person except General Grant, had, down till the end of last century, reached the chair whose name would have been remembered had he not been president, and no president except Abraham Lincoln had displayed rare or striking qualities in the chair. Who now knows or cares to know anything about the personality of James K. Polk or Franklin Pierce? The only thing remarkable about them is that being so commonplace they should have climbed so high.”After a decade in politics, it hit me how our culture steers people away from politics and public service and what an ill effect this has on us all.
After the Dreyfus Affair and Emile Zola’s conviction, one publication observed: “Every conscience is troubled. No one reasons anymore. No discussion is possible. Everyone has taken up a fixed position.” As is often the case with history, there is nothing new under the sun. The publication could just as easily be one from today.
Nietzsche declared, “God is dead.” Tuchman made a good argument that nationalism replaced religion as what people fought to defend, a place to show passion and reverence. Nietzsche would have replaced God with Superman, but nationalism filled the void. This followed Darwin’s theory of natural selection and the subsequent rise of natural selection and social Darwinism—the conclusion that man needed to war to be at its best. I spent a great deal of time chewing on this idea and its applicability today.
British Admiral Jack Fisher lived by a Napoleon maxim: “I command, or I keep quiet." Yet he could not do the latter. Fisher overhauled the navy by pursuing modernity in all things—eschewing obsolescence. He pursued oil over coal, engine maintenance over ropes and rigging, and promoting men who did not adhere to “this is how we’ve always done it.” Fisher seems like a figure worth exploring more deeply. As with many iconoclasts, he had a great deal of critics as he forged ahead.
Tuchman explored a number of topics to set the stage for World War I. It demonstrated the transition from monarchy and the grandeur of the 1800s into the era of modernity. Her title Proud Tower extends from a poem by Edgar Allen Poe, “The City in the Sea:” “While from a proud tower in the town, Death looks gigantically down.” Proud Tower shows the death of the old the great optimism that people held for the new. Yet as DH Lawrence noted after WWI, “All the great words were canceled out for that generation. If any of them remembered with a twinge of pain...[for] the man I used to be, it was because the great words and beliefs before 1914 could never be restored.” Tuchman used this quote to end Guns of August, but it is her effort in Proud Tower that gives readers understanding and clarity to the stark change in perspective from the end of the 1800s to the start of the twentieth century.
