Product Description
This highly personal account concentrates upon the national & racial character- istics of war-torn Eastern Europe in 1915.Reed has captured the spirit of the age,reminding us all how deep-seated are the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans…. More >>
Vivid descriptions and poetic use of prose by a gifted eyewitness. Reed takes the reader on a powerful journey into the embattled landscape of WWI Eastern Europe with his portrait of a people far from the front lines but just as devastated as the soldiers in the trenches
Rating: 4 / 5
In the Spring 1915, the American journalist John Reed and a companion took an extended trip to Eastern Europe. They began their trip in Serbia, which had recently repulsed two Austro-Hungarian invasions. Reed then moved onto the Galician Front. This was not a good time to be on the Russian side of the disintegrating Front. The Russian armies were in retreat and Reed was never able to reach the front lines. In order to get permission to visit the front, he travelled to St. Petersburg and Moscow. He was held as a spy and never received his accreditation. Unsucessful in this endeavor, Reed returned home via Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece.
One generally reads these types of journalistic accounts to get an up close account of the Great War. Unfortunately, Reed never really makes it to the front lines. Most of the book takes place on railway cars and various Grand Hotels. His book is rich in period details and atmosphere but he never really gets to cover the main story. I loved John Reed’s “Insurgent Mexico” and “Ten Days that Shook the World”. Unfortunately, “The War in Eastern Europe” is not of the same quality.
Rating: 3 / 5
John Reed is also the author of the much more famous ‘Ten Days that Shook the World’ about the Russian Revolution, which was the base of the same movie with Warren Beatty.
‘War in Eastern Europe’ is a impressionist account of the fighting in Serbia late 1915 and, after having traversed neutral Romania, of the characteristics of the Russian Army fighting the Austrians and Germans. What I really liked was that the book was great on atmosphere, less on historical fact.
I concluded that Reed must have landed with thte first troops at Saloniki and travelled north all the way up to Belgrade immediately, sharing with us vivid description of a confident Serb Army (WW1 Serbian Army is a favourite subject of mine, so I’m partial) holding off the Austrians with superb disdain, only weeks before the German/Austrian onslaught forced it to withdraw out of Belgrade, South, over the Albanian mountians to Corfu. After visiting the front at Belgrade Reed crosses over into neutral Roumania and through to Russia where he runs into very colourful, inventive and likeable Russians, many of whom seem not afraid at all to take on the German military powerhouse, in spite of some earlier setbacks, confident that in the end the inexhaustable Mother Russia will prevail.
I enjoyed every page of it.
Rating: 5 / 5