---
product_id: 36563083
title: "The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End Hardcover – November 15, 2016"
brand: "robert gerwarth"
price: "$113"
currency: NZD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.nz/products/36563083-the-vanquished-why-the-first-world-war-failed-to-end
store_origin: NZ
region: New Zealand
---

# The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End Hardcover – November 15, 2016

**Brand:** robert gerwarth
**Price:** $113
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End Hardcover – November 15, 2016 by robert gerwarth
- **How much does it cost?** $113 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.nz](https://www.desertcart.nz/products/36563083-the-vanquished-why-the-first-world-war-failed-to-end)

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    What Happened to the Losing Powers of WWI? Read This Book.
  

*by R***T on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 24, 2022*

So much of the history of World War I concerns the victors (US, Britain and France, primarily). Much less is written about the aftermath of the War in Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. This very readable work tells the story of those who lost and the struggles of peoples and nations to reconstitute themselves in the wake of WWI. From the fall of the German Kaiser, the dissolution of imperial Austria into several smaller ethnic states, the ongoing effects of revolution in Russia, and the ethnic wars among the former Ottoman peoples, the author provides a history that is largely forgotten in the US. But by describing this history, we learn a great deal about WWI from the standpoint of the defeated, and why the War has continuing significance to this day. Highly recommended to those interested in WWI and the history of central and eastern Europe.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Some wars never end
  

*by R***Y on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 19, 2017*

Gerwarth’s book examines the conflicts that continued well into the 1920s in the period after WWI.  As he notes, most of these conflicts broke out in the nations that lost the war, and these lesser known wars set the stage for WWII; in fact, “between 1917 and 1920 alone Europe experienced no fewer than twenty-seven violent transfers of political power, many of them accompanied by latent or open civil wars.”It seems obvious, when pointed out, that WWI led to the disintegration of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman empires.  As should have been expected, these were not peaceful disintegrations as various political elements within each empire sought independence for their segment of the empire, or sought to impose their view of a new political order caused by the post-war vacuum of power.  In fact, even leaving out deaths caused by starvation and the influenza, over four million people died because of post-war conflict – more than the combined WWI casualties of Britain, France, and the United States.Gerwarth identifies three different types of “civil wars” that occurred after WWI.  The first type was the more traditional conflict between new national armies such as Poland vs. Russia, Greece vs. Turkey, and the Romanian invasion of Hungary.  Another type of “civil war” occurred within nations such as the well know conflicts internal to Germany and Russia, which saw Russia trying to regain national territories lost with the breakup of its empire.  And the last type of civil war was social/national revolutions the truly manifested themselves in two radical variants – Bolshevism and Fascism.  Of course, to complicate matters, these three types of civil war often overlapped each other within a paradigm of existential conflict to eliminate ethnic or class enemies."The Vanquished" examines many of the key conflicts that occurred during these year; the political and ethnic drivers of war along with the leadership. It should come as no surprise that a large part of the book covers the breakup of Russia and the impact of Bolshevism, and it looks at rise of Fascism; in fact the book also reviews the impact of political radicalism of the left and right and their impact on conflict and the suppression of democracy and minority rights.  It also examines post war conflicts between Turkey and Greece, that lasted until 1922, Poland and Russia, Romania and Hungary, and Finland and Russia.We often think wars have clear beginnings and ends.  This is certainly true of WWI when the war “ended” on November 11, 1918.  But the reality is the end of the war created the conditions for years of civil war as the old order fell apart and political and ethnic hopes collided with each other. Gerwarth’s "The Vanquished" does an excellent job of analyzing and documented these forgotten wars that set us up for WWII and, in some ways, still cause problems today.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    The Never Ending War
  

*by D***N on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 3, 2017*

Irish historian Robert Gerwarth certainly proves George Kennan’s notion that World War I was “the seminal catastrophe of this century.” To most of us in the West World War I ended on November 11, 1918. However in the East the war would rage on through 1923 and even today nearly a century later we remain prisoner of the forces it unleashed.He also confirms the view of Ian Kershaw in his “To Hell and Back…..” that the Russian Revolution, an outgrowth of the war, paved the way for fascism by dividing the Left and hardening the Right. We see that at the outset where communists under the leadership of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Leibknecht die in their attempt to seize power in 1919 Berlin. Similarly an attempt to form a Munich Soviet fails in that year as well. Put simply the Social Democratic government relied on the rightest Freicorps to put down the rebellion. In its aftermath Munich would become the festering ground for the rise of the Nazis. In Hungary Bela Kuhn, a communist, temporarily takes power only to be put down by a counter action from the Right. All the while the Russian civil war rages and within that there are the Russo-Polish and Russo-Finnish Wars, so much for the end of violence in November 1918.For the Jews of Eastern Europe and Germany the situation turns from bad to worse. On top of the latent anti-Semitism that already existed we have the conflation of Jews with communism as much of the communist leadership in Russia, Germany, Austria and Hungary are Jewish. Thus the way was paved to broaden the appeal of anti-Semitism to much of the middle-class.Where I think Gerwarth breaks new ground I think is in his discussion on the role of Mustapha Kemal’s success on Mussolini and Hitler. Kemal defeated the Greeks in Turkey and undid the toughest settlement against the Central Powers in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres which made Turkey a vassal of the Allies. In Kemal both Hitler and Mussolini saw his success in the ethnic cleansing of the Greek population in Eastern Anatolia by force and his willingness to stand up to the allies so much so that the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne completely undid the Treaty of Sevres. By the 1930s those lessons were well learned.There is much more to Gerwarth’s book. He discusses why Italy ended up on the winning side; it still felt like a loser. And he discusses the chaos in the Balkans that we relived once again in the 1990s. Yes, World War I is still not over. Just look at the Middle East.

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*Store origin: NZ*
*Last updated: 2026-02-21*