Paul Ham

“There was a happy irony in the first cousin of the autocratic Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II (with whom George…

— Paul Ham

“In America's 'nonlinear war', with no frontline or clear political or territorial goals, the number of enemy killed apparently revealed who was…

— Paul Ham

“If a complete free market seemed efficacious in principle, in practice it had not delivered the basic services necessary for a country…

— Paul Ham

“At the present rate of attrition, Haig delighted in informing the prime minister, ‘the enemy’s man power will be running out next…

— Paul Ham

“Thwarted by the British and French on the world stage, Berlin decided in 1913 to concentrate Germany’s military objectives in Europe. That…

— Paul Ham

“The moment historians examine the past they risk changing it, by selectively re-arranging events, consciously or not, according to the judgment(s) of…

— Paul Ham

“entrenchment of social conservatism, being a strident belief in God, King and Country that arose after the disillusionment of the Belle Époque…

— Paul Ham

“Friedrich von Bernhardi, one of Germany’s most influential military thinkers. Bernhardi believed the German people were destined to become the master race,…

— Paul Ham

“There is one possibility left,’ he wrote on Christmas Day 1913, 40 years ahead of his time, ‘an industrial customs union, of…

— Paul Ham

“Indeed, in the huge opening battles to come, hundreds of thousands of German youths would hurl themselves at the French, British and…

— Paul Ham

“During the Year of the Monkey, the press, which had hitherto generally supported the war or stuck to feel-good stories of heroism…

— Paul Ham

“Respected political and military leaders saw the world as a Darwinian battleground, where the fittest race would emerge triumphant from a savage…

— Paul Ham

“Despite these warnings, the Great powers’ arsenals were brimful; their ranks, swollen. In this light, to suggest they groped or sleepwalked blindly…

— Paul Ham

“But behind the superficial appearance of a time of radical upheaval, most governments and ordinary people simply did not experience the Belle…

— Paul Ham

“The Russian economy was strong, though only the wealthy seemed to enjoy the benefits. Throughout 1913 the stock market surged to record levels,”

— Paul Ham

“Germany’s siege mentality and gnawing sense of encirclement (the need to ‘storm out of the fortress’ to prevent a Russian attack); Austria-Hungary’s…

— Paul Ham

“In other words, it was unavoidable, and probably inevitable, so we might as well close our minds and accept that 16.5 million…

— Paul Ham

“Far from shocking the rulers of Europe, the war that erupted in August 1914 was widely anticipated, rigorously rehearsed, immensely resourced and…

— Paul Ham

“those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest tend to be the…

— Paul Ham

“The role of race cannot be understated in an era of fervent social Darwinism. For decades the Balkans had enacted in microcosm…

— Paul Ham