Was hoping for more of a general history of the war that drew in the social and political elements, but instead got a military focus that felt like history with horse-blinders. Keegan introduces elements like the war weariness and internal politics of the parties only at the moments it becomes militarily relevant, meaning you never get a sense of momentum or continuity in the larger conflict. Instead, you get a lot of place names and corps numbers and petty opportunities found and squandered.

It was interesting, though, to see Keegan's totally different approach to Tuchman in covering the war's opening stages: while Tuchman tells of plans and schemes undone by individual foibles and contingency, Keegan stresses how much the plans were never going to work and were theoretically unsound or blind to certain elements. Neither approaches really felt thematically of-a-piece with a larger theme to the book, or a better take on the war as a whole.

The prose is good enough to get you thorough the first hundred pages or so but after that becomes a slog. Going to take a break from WWI and then return to try another book, probably The Beauty and the Sorrow.