New York Times Current History

In Short

This volume collects primary documents, diplomatic correspondence, battlefield reports, press commentary, and official dispatches covering the European conflict around mid-1915. It captures a world adjusting to total warfare, tracing military maneuvers across multiple fronts, the legal and moral arguments surrounding maritime blockades, and the domestic strains within neutral and belligerent nations alike. Rather than offering a single retrospective narrative, it preserves the immediate, unedited friction of history in progress. It endures as an unvarnished mirror of how the contemporary world understood, argued over, and experienced the overwhelming opening phase of modern global combat.

The Story

The volume opens on the legal and diplomatic fallout of Germany’s naval policy, specifically centered on the sinking of the Lusitania and the resulting tension between the United States and the Central Powers. The Austro-Hungarian government issues formal protests against the massive export of American munitions to the Allies, arguing that such trade violates true neutrality and prolongs the war. Legal scholars and public figures respond, debating whether international law permits neutral factories to supply arms to belligerents during a time of widespread economic disruption.

From these diplomatic exchanges, the focus shifts directly to the battlefields. Detailed military analyses outline the initial German strategy to strike France through Belgium, detailing how five armies pushed past Liege and Namur toward the line of Mons, Charleroi, and Longwy. The accounts track the subsequent Allied retreat and the grueling 120-day struggle along the heights of Notre Dame de Lorette between Bethune and Arras, where high explosives and cratered trenches define a new, devastating form of attrition. Reports from the Western Front record the initial deployment of poisonous, asphyxiating gas near Ypres, where British, French, and Indian units attempt to hold their positions under extreme physical distress. Farther south, Allied forces land at Gallipoli, enduring relentless artillery bombardments from Turkish shore batteries and warships like the Goeben.

Simultaneously, the narrative charts the massive shifting movements on the Eastern Front. Austro-German offensives break the Russian lines along the Dunajec River, forcing a general retreat through Galicia, recapturing strongholds like Przemysl and Lemberg, and mounting a coordinated enclosure on Russian-held Warsaw. Across the globe, imperial dimensions of the conflict unfold as Australian and New Zealand forces seize German Samoa without resistance, while British authorities contend with internal revolts in South Africa and seditious plots in India.

Beyond the front lines, the text captures the psychological and cultural impact of the war on home fronts. In destroyed cities like Rheims, civilians learn to walk through shell-pitted streets under the silent, damaged arches of their historical cathedrals. Aerial bombardment extends to non-combatant centers, as German aircraft drop explosives on Paris near Notre Dame. In neutral America, domestic tension escalates over the arms trade, culminating in political violence, including the bombing of the U.S. Capitol and an assassination attempt on financier J.P. Morgan by a former university instructor. The volume concludes with a chronological ledger of these daily developments, leaving the global powers deeply entrenched in a conflict with no immediate end in sight.

How It Unfolds

The diplomatic stalemate Austria-Hungary challenges American neutrality over the continuous sale of war materials to Allied forces. Legal experts analyze international treaties to determine if shutting off munitions exports aligns with historical precedent or economic reality.

The Western sweep Military summaries detail Germany's initial thrust through Belgium and the fierce initial engagements at Mons, Charleroi, and Longwy. Allied forces pull back toward Verdun and Nancy, setting up a static, brutal line of defensive trench warfare.

The Eastern offensive Teutonic armies break through Russian lines at the Dunajec, rolling back positions across Galicia. German and Austrian commanders coordinate a massive north-south pincer movement designed to trap Russian forces inside Warsaw.

The imperial expanse Colonial expeditions extend the war's footprint to the Pacific as Australasian troops occupy German Samoa. In India and South Africa, imperial authorities suppress insurrections, trials, and localized mutonies linked to the global crisis.

The home front terror Surveillance and aerial bombing bring the conflict directly to civilian populations in Rheims and Paris. In the United States, public debates over neutrality turn dangerous as political bombings and targeted violence erupt in major cities.

The People

• Theodore S. Woolsey

A former professor of International Law at Yale University who seeks to clarify the legal and ethical boundaries of neutral trade. He defends the commercial right of American manufacturers to export arms to Allied forces during widespread economic depression, placing the practice firmly within historical precedent and international conventions.

• Sir Herbert Plumer

A British commander tasked with managing critical defensive operations on the Western Front. Facing heavy artillery bombardment and the novel threat of chemical weapons near Ypres, he coordinates difficult, tactical withdrawals to prevent his divisions from being completely encircled.

• George Bernard Shaw

A prominent British playwright and critic who uses sharp, public satire to challenge his country's official wartime narrative. He criticizes British foreign policy and army administration, arguing that pointing out uncomfortable truths causes the public to react with defensive, feverish outrage.

• Frank Holt (Erich Muenter)

A former university instructor driven to extreme political violence by the international trade in weapons. Seeking to stop American financial support for the Allied war effort, he bombs the United States Capitol before attempting to assassinate banker J.P. Morgan at his estate.

In Its Own Voice

"For the sake of our pockets we were adding to the sum of human suffering and slaughter, and they urged that, even if legally justified, ethically this trade was a blot upon our character as a humane and civilized people and must be stopped."

— Former Yale professor Theodore S. Woolsey summarizes the fierce domestic ethical debate surrounding American exports of war materials to Allied nations.

"A bunch of schoolboys with Shanghais and a hatful of rocks could have taken it."

— A news report describes the surprising lack of resistance encountered by Australasian expeditionary forces upon arriving to capture German Samoa.

"The bomb exploded on the west slope of the roof of the north transept, a little above the gutter, near the clock."

— An official French architectural assessment documents the specific structural damage inflicted on Notre Dame Cathedral by aerial bombardment.

What It's Really About

The text examines how modern, industrial conflict rapidly destabilizes accepted norms of law, culture, and human behavior. Underneath the daily troop movements and casualty lists lies a fundamental debate over the ethics of neutrality and international obligation. The collection questions whether traditional legal definitions can survive when nations employ unprecedented technologies—from poison gas and armed submarines to long-range aerial bombs. It highlights the tension between imperial authority and local uprisings, demonstrating how distant regional disputes instantly ripple across continents. Ultimately, the collection argues that a major war cannot be contained to a battlefield; it inevitably reshapes domestic politics, alters civil liberties, strains social trust, and transforms ordinary daily life into a precarious survival exercise.

Why Read It Today

This volume offers an immediate, unfiltered look at historical events as they occurred, free from the benefit or bias of hindsight. Readers who enjoy raw historical evidence will appreciate seeing diplomatic arguments, press releases, and military dispatches presented side by side. It captures the exact tone of a world struggling to process the sudden arrival of total, industrial warfare.

The reading experience can be demanding. The text is dense with forgotten place names, specialized military movement descriptions, and detailed financial statistics regarding war loans. Period attitudes, archaic place spellings, and biased wartime reporting appear throughout, reflecting the intense nationalism of the era. Yet this density is precisely what makes the text valuable. It exposes the reader directly to the uncertainty of 1915, when the outcome of the war remained entirely unknown to those writing about it. It serves as a reminder of how quickly international order can unravel and how complex global crises appear to the people living through them.