To the Last Man : A Novel of the First World War

Rating:
Summary: Among the Best of World War I novels.
Review: Having successfully finished off his novels on the American Revolution, Jeff Shaara turns to a different war in a different time period. For the first time he tackles an era with totally different characters and environments. The people in World War I, are new and different compared to the more recognizable characters Shaara has dealt with before. He does not attempt to narrate the entire war, but he deals with some of the more recognizable characters including the Red Baron and General Pershing. But at the same time his others characters are not as well known, but they are made incredibly human. From people like a raw British recruit to Captain Patton, Shaara gives a very unique and realistic look at the first World War. This book is not as abstract as the classic All Quiet on the Western Front, but it is an incredible story and should be required reading for any person who wants to understand exactly what war is about and what people think during a war. While I consider Shaara's revolutionary war books to be his best, this one is among his strongest. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Reading
Review: I enjoyed this book. Shaara gave personalities and humanity to people who, to me, were merely names in history books. Black Jack Pershing, the Red Baron, George Patton, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Billy Mitchell are all here and I now have a better understanding of who they were and what they did. I also learned how the armistice which "ended" the first world war was actually part of the circumstances which led to the second world war. Shaara provides vivid descriptions of early aviation and trench warfare. If you like history and human drama then this book is well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A realistic portrayal of combat
Review: In "To The Last Man," Jeff Shaara captures the horror and human cost of close combat be it in the air or on the battlefield. It does not matter whether the fight occures in France in 1918 or Iraq in 2004, for those who actually take the fight to the enemy the experience is fundmentally the same, only the dates and details change. I believe the American people are too far removed from a knowledge of the horrors of war. We haven't had a war on our own soil in 140 years. Today's reporting from a combat zone is santized to the point of being more proporganda than news. A good dose of reality would do the American people good with regard to war and its human cost. We infantry jungle rats from the Viet Nam War used to have a saying: "War is hell but combat is a m-----f-----." If we as a people had a more realistic image of the true nature of war perhaps we would not be so easily led like sheep into such horror.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful "Through The Eyes Of" Treatment of WWI
Review: Jeff Shaara has written and written well about famous Americans fighting America's wars . . . he has brought the Civil War, the American Revolution, and the Mexican War to life magnificently.

Fortunately for us, Shaara set his sights on America's involvement in World War I, which is a surprisingly overlooked conflict in America's military history. After reading "To the Last Man," one wonders how WWI can be so neglected -- the events chronicled in Shaara's new novel rival anything that WWII or Vietnam could offer.

True to form, Shaara follows a few characters around as his novel explores the different aspects of the war. The lion's share of the novel focuses on four men: General "Black Jack" Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force; Raoul Lufbery, one of the first American pilots to fly in combat; Manfred von Richtofen (the Red Baron), the hunter of the skies; and Roscoe Temple, a Marine in the front lines. Shaara focuses on each character one chapter at a time, and he manages to balance these often-independent storylines very well.

After some brief character exposition and a horrifying introduction to trench warfare through the eyes of an anonymous infantryman, Shaara focuses his story on Lufbery and the Red Baron. WWI saw the introduction of aircraft to the military as a combat vehicle, and these two men are pioneers in dogfighting. The Red Baron is a hunter's hunter, a killing machine whom Shaara imbues with a noble, reticent humanity (the Baron's scenes with his beloved Great Dane are heartbreaking).

Lufbery's situation is more complicated. Isolationist America won't enter this European war, but many Americans realize the plight we will be in if Germany's aggression is not beaten back. So wealthy Americans send their dollars and a handful of their sons to form the American contingent of the French Air Force. Initially outclassed by the German pilots and German aircraft, the fledgling Allied air force takes its lumps but quickly learns the game, and Lufbery is a master pilot. Shaara imbues the dogfighting scenes with a vivid realism that brings the reader into the cockpit.

Shaara also brings the reader into the hangars and the bars where the pilots spend their off-duty hours, and we see the psychic toll on both the Baron and Lufbery as their original cast of comrades grows smaller and smaller, and both men realize what the war is doing to them and their countrymen. The parallel tales of these two airmen meet a climax at the midpoint of the novel that is truly moving.

The second half of the novel follows General Pershing as he attempts to build an American army out of nothing . . . and in spite of the incompetence back in Washington D.C. and the dueling motives of the European allies. Pershing's achievements deserve greater recognition than he has received, but Shaara's book is a step in the right direction.

The second half of the novel also follows Marine rifleman Roscoe Temple as he journeys into the front lines and indeed the very teeth of the German army. Temple begins his sojourn as green as they come, but by the end of the book Temple is a haunted, scarred veteran who understands the vast gulf between a civilian and a veteran. Temple's tale may be the most powerful of them all, as Temple learns first-hand the shock and horror of what trench warfare can do to your friends, and what that means to your family back home.

Americans need to appreciate WWI more than we do. Our nation overcame its isolationist tendencies to send millions of young men overseas to fight for soil that was not theirs. This event laid the groundwork for our massive mobilization in WWII, but WWI was the first time America asserted itself so magnificently on the world stage. Shaara's novel is a great education for those, like me, who did not appreciate our involvement and the tremendous sacrifices made by so many.

Rating:
Summary: Shaara does it again!
Review: Jeff Shaara is without a doubt one of the best historical novelists writing today. To the Last Man is a vivid portrayal of World War I through the eyes of those who fought it. As usual, the author is historically accurate and is able to bring to life the battles and political problems as seen from all those involved, British, French, German and American. The characters are real people who come to life through the writers impression of what they may have thought and done. It's a remarkable story that will captivate you from start to finish. If you love history...this is a great book for you!

Rating:
Summary: Riveting narrative at the Strategic, Operational & Tactical
Review: Jeff Sharra does a beautiful job of weaving the lives and actions of various WWI characters into a vivid picture of combat life. Starting with new British replacements for the trenches he moves you back and forth between the principal aviation characters of the American, later renamed, Lafayette Escadrille and then to their German enemies including Richthofen. At the appropriate time Pershing is introduced to develop the strategic parallel and share the challenges that he and his staff, such as George Marshal, and George Patton faced in trying work their way through the myriad of political obstacles imposed by the British, French and even American leadership. Sharra's accurate research includes the source of French phrase for 40 men and 8 horses on the side of railroad boxcars which is still an advanced level of commitment to the American Legion which received a number of those boxcars from the French filled with gifts for our support for their past fights against aggression. Sharra makes the characters, both real and some introduced for story development such as the Marines in various battles, come alive with details of their miserable existence in this terrible conflict. I had to smile when mention of the Liberty DHs was made as I once met a very elderly gentlemen in Southern Oregon that had flown in the back open cockpit of the aircraft during the war. He said the fellow in the back seat was the navigator, gunner, and bombardier and they tied lanyards to the epaulets of the pilots and tugged on each one to tell them when way to go. He said when they put French spark plugs in the DH engines and took off; the higher combustion level blew the spark plugs completely out of the engines.

Rating:
Summary: To The Last Man
Review: This is the first book that I have read that was written by Jeff Shaara. It was a wonderfully written historical novel about a war that I knew little about. He describes the political, military and the personal aspects of the war very thoroughly. I especially liked his blow by blow account describing the combatants experiences both before and during battle. It was a book that I enjoyed from cover to cover. I came away from the book having a much better understanding of what transpired during that war.

Rating:
Summary: A realistic portrayel of "American" views towards WWI
Review: Truth be told, I obtained absolutely no enjoyment out of Shaara's latest fiction. Simply put, I hated it, though why a three star rating? I guess it does have a series of endearing qualities, it's outlook on the Great War definitely not one of them. Let me elaborate.

The Author's introduction seemingly sums up the raw inhumanity of a conflict that was more the result of a certain stubborness and extreme nationalism than any clear cut action. Of course there was the Austrio-Hungarian invasion of Serbia, Russia's mobilisation to aid it's Slav ally or the assassination of Austrio-Hungarian arch Duke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrillo Principe. Yet all such factors were excuses to go to war, not action out of self defence. All contributions to such a conflict should be recognised, yet never glorified. I thought that an almost romantic take on one of the most horrific examples of warfare known to man would not be possible, now i know that i was rather naive.

A large portion of the book revolves around the fabricated experiences of a group of pilots serving the pioneering French airforce. If you have seen "Pearl Harbour," you basically know half of the book. Heroic American pilots who have no other occupation than the "killing of the Hun." Like all Americans in American literature, these men are heroic beyond belief, shown in how some have the tendency to attack German airwings all on their own. So heroic in fact that they do not share the ailments of other WWI pilots, but would rather fish and hear a character known as deLaage commment on their astounding capacity for alcohol. Most WWI pilots had a very low life expectancy, their flight roster being so large that they were always exhausted. A factor that lead to experimentation in stimulants, in the hope of simply keeping pilots awake. Therefore, any ground-time was taken as a blessing, but not for these American pilots. They view any ground time as a curse, a time when that urge every patriotic American has, to kill another human being, can not be fulfilled. Furthermore, these pilots are seven in number, yet are supposed to support ideas of prolonged American support for the Allies.

This portrayal is a nice fantasy, but a fantasy without a doubt. War, unfortunatly, is never so clear cut. The Germans did not start the war, Europe did, and that is what is so tragic. When a German pilot is shot, it is not some baby killing Hun, but a farmer who believes that he has taken up arms in the "defence" of his country.Furthermore, Shaara believes that by giving a pathetically small chapter on trench warfare he is then able to go onto the seemingly chivalrous air war. Soldiers either hated their enemy or felt a common bond. I know it sounds nuts, but that is what led to the Christmas truce. There are also some reports of men who would not shoot an exposed German head if not forced to do so. Shaara makes the fatal error of not taking into account that your basic soldier in WWI killed out of self-preservation.

On a finishing note, just as well, this is turning out to be too long, there is a massive amount of American nationalistic overtone. The Great War is a complicated conflict, and should not be handled with a description that glorifies American fighting men, a description which only leads to more anti-American feeling throughout the international community. If you want to know what I'm talking about, look at another delicate matter taken into American hands. "The Battle for Falluja," is soon to be released, with Harrison Ford as the U.S.M.C protagonist, saving the world from tyrany. Ask any competent historian what the cause for the Great War was, and he will simply say, Nationalism and Imperialism, both attributes of modern day America.

Rating:
Summary: An Attempt that Simply Fell Short
Review: While I had high anticipations for Jeff Shaara's novel, being a lover of this particular historical period, I was sorely disappointed by my experience. Shaara's characters were fully fleshed and brought vividly to the pages and his descriptions of the terror, confusion, and futility of World War 1 trench warfare were gripping and seemingly accurate. My concerns arise from his frequent use of blatant and unnecessary foreshadowing, trite and overused themes in warfare, and the shockingly unexpected (and unwanted) ending. Throughout the novel, Shaara addressed the deepest fears of his characters often focusing on their fear of certain ways of dying. Low and behold, each of these fears was eventually realized. I won't spoil the details for the reader, but I was felt like my hand was being held throughout. The ending seemed like an afterthought added to make the reader feel warm inside about the aftermath of combat. I wondered why Shaara would take so much time and so many pages to attack the reader's senses and paint a horrifying picture of the hell of war, only to use the last pages to suddenly leave us with a rose-colored vision of the First World War. The novel made some admirable attempts in the right direction, in a too often overlooked genre of history, but sadly fell far short of expectations.

Rating:
Summary: The Pilots Of The First World War And More
Review: World War I is an overlooked war in American History. The author tells the story of the war. He most admires the pilots who were very brave and effective. The war had become a stalemate. The well-trained Americans were able to break the stalemate and win the war for our side. The author tells about a point in the war when saving Paris was the key to winning the war. He explains how the bravery of the American Marines saved Paris, changed history and helped win the war.