The World War: How It Looks to the Nations Involved and What It Means to Us (1914), by Elbert Francis Baldwin

Elbert Francis Baldwin, an American journalist, used a detailed snapshot technique to describe the first three months of World War I in The World War: How It Looks to the Nations Involved and What It Means to Us. Baldwin (1857-1927) wrote for the weekly magazine The Outlook.

Baldwin was traveling in Europe when the war broke out, and his analyses were written from his experiences traveling across Europe to return home to the United States.

The World War was published around December 13, 1914, when an advertisement for it appeared in The New York Times. The copyright page of the book stated that it was published in December 1914.  Front page headlines in The New York Times of December 13, 1914 included:

• ALLIES DRIVE GERMANS ACROSS YSER CANAL / Artillery Winning Ground at Other Points, Paris Says / Berlin Also Claims Victories
• SERVIA AGAIN DRIVES AUSTRIAN ARMY BACK / Repulse 30 Miles South of Belgrade Starts Retreat on Remainder of Front
• SAYS RUSSIANS LOST 150,000 MEN AT LODZ / Berlin Press Bureau Announces That More Were Killed Than at Tannenberg

Baldwin's journey started on July 28, 1914, in Bad-Nauheim, Germany, where he learned that Austria had declared war on Serbia. (Serbia was referred to as Servia in most books published in 1914)  This declaration came exactly one month after the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne in a murder plot that many believed originated in Serbia.

The beginning of Baldwin's trip through an increasingly war-torn Europe is described in a chapter titled "Austria and Servia." He described the discussions between these two countries following the assassination of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

This first chapter of The World War established a pattern in which Baldwin described the unique perspectives of each of the European and Asian countries that were involved in the world war, either directly or indirectly.

Baldwin's educational journey lasted three months and took him through Germany, Holland, England, and Ireland, with the final chapter written from the S.S. Cedric ocean liner as he returned to the United States.

At each of those stops, Baldwin focused on war-related activities in one or two countries at that point in time.

The first chapter was dated July 28, 1914 and concerned Austria and Serbia, the first two countries where tensions arose.  Reacting to these tensions was Russian, the subject of the next chapter, which was dated July 31, 1914.  Germany in turn reacted to Russia, and was the main topic of the next chapter, dated August 2, 1914.  The last chapter, about the postwar future, was dated October 30, 1914.

With Germany and England, Baldwin took a close look at different parts of that country's society. In Germany, he wrote about the government, the civilian population, and non-Germans who were in Germany when the war broke out. For England, he discussed the army, government, and civilians.

Baldwin made much use of the official war documents that were published in different countries to describe their actions regarding the war. These documents, of course, had a self-serving value for each of the countries that published them. But when looked at as a whole, with their different viewpoints, they do help a reader get closer to a full picture of how the war started.

These documents, which are extensively quoted and cited in The World War, include (titles linked to archived digital copies):

• Belgian Grey Book (diplomatic correspondence from July 24, 1914 to August 29, 1914)
• British Blue Book (narrative of how England became involved in the war)
• British White Paper (diplomatic correspondence from July 22, 1914 to August 4, 1914)
• German White Book (diplomatic correspondence from July 23, 1914 to August 1, 1914)
• Russian Orange Book (diplomatic correspondence from July 23, 1914 to August 6, 1914)

Baldwin also quotes extensively from:

• Documentation that came out of the 1907 Hague convention that was intended to prevent war (archived digital copy).
• Newspapers in Germany and England.  These quotations showed different viewpoints on what caused the war, how it should be conducted, and how the eventual peace should be administered. They also showed examples of nonfactual reporting.

As the full title implies, The World War was written primarily for readers in the United States. A chapter titled "America" appears towards the end of the book and includes Baldwin's recommendations on America's role in the war. He concluded with this summary: 

1. We must be ready to utilize whatever influence or power we have in upholding treaty obligations. 
2. We must emphasize the value of neutral tribunals. 
3. We must be the just man armed. 
4. We must interpret the nations to one another.

The United State is one of several neutral countries that Baldwin discussed. Also mentioned are Holland, Rumania (now Romania), and Italy. Baldwin used their neutral status to focus more sharply on why other countries were at war.

In between the warring and the neutral countries were the two countries that were involved in the war against their will—Belgium and Luxemburg. Baldwin clearly described the evolution of the neutrality treaties that were supposed to protect these two countries from the wars of other countries.

Baldwin concluded the main part of the book with the chapter "After the War." He described both the "immediate" and "ultimate" (historical) causes of the war, which led him to talk about how to prevent future wars. He recommended the creation of organizations that sound similar to organizations that were created later, like the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The World War was praised by many reviewers for its comprehensive, balanced look at the conflict. But Baldwin did use his carefully gathered collection of facts to raise some questions, in particular:

• Why did Germany declare war on Russia when it did, instead of using its troop mobilization to send a message of intimidation? 
• Why didn't the United States strongly object to Germany's violation of the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg?

The contents of the book after the chapters have a lot of value:

• A detailed timeline of the war from June 28, 1914 to November 20, 1914. This timeline shows how the political dominoes fell until the full start of the war on August 4, 1914. It also shows how the war spread from the European mainland to Africa, China, South America, the Indian Ocean, Turkey, and the North Sea.  This timeline makes up for the lack of battle reporting in the chapters.
• A historical timeline from 1361 to 1914 that helps describe the historical causes of war. 
• A communication from United States president Woodrow Wilson on September 16, 1914 to the German Emperor William II that stated the United States' neutrality in the European war. 
• A detailed index, unlike all of the previous books reviewed for this blog. 
• A list of war-related books and pamphlets that were sold by the publisher of The World War, the Macmillan Company. A quick skim of the titles in this list shows the historical forces that converged on the battlefields of World War I.

The front of the book includes a two-page color map that clearly shows the location of each European country involved in the war.

Online versions:

• Hathi Trust Digital Library
• Internet Archive

Sources:

• Internet Archive (https://archive.org/) 
• Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/)
• The World War I Document Archive (http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/)