My Amazon Review of Alexander Watson's "Ring of Steel"

 The Central Powers’ Long Slog in the East

 

University of London historian Alexander Watson has written a history of World War I through the eyes of the defeated Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary. It is a long slog, 608 pages in the paperback edition, but the reader will get a real sense of the tribulations their armies and people suffered during the war. A war caused largely by Austria-Hungary and Germany with a big assist from Russia.

 

Most of the focus of the book is on the bloodlands of the East and the fear Russia’s invasion of both countries in 1914 engendered in Vienna and Berlin. At the outset of the war Austria lost a good part of the granaries of Galicia which set the stage for the mass starvation that was to come. Later the British navy would induce mass starvation in Germany and of a sudden the Central Powers were surrounded by a ring of steel.

 

If the Central Powers did not have imperialist war aims in 1914, the Russian onslaught and the stalemate in the west, both Germany and Austria sought food security in the East and Germany longed for the French iron mines. And it was those goals that maintained the necessary popular consent for most of the war.

 

Germany’s hope for a swift victory died in the Marne Valley and Austria simply was not up to fighting a major war. Its leadership went from failure to failure. Its polyglot empire couldn’t stand the strains of modern war. Meanwhile all of the participants in the East turned on their Jewish populations with wave after wave of pogroms. Germany’s problem was that it had Austria for an ally.

 

Watson as many others have noted the fateful decision of Germany to start unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917 sealed its fate by bringing the United States into the war. The pressure from the populace and the military was too great, but had they waited less than a year the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 could opened the way to a German victory in 1918 without the United States in the war. When defeat came it came, it came not from a “stab in the back,” but rather from a collapse in the morale in the German Army. 

 

Watson has offered up a strong, but way too detailed history of the Central Powers at war. It would have benefitted from a little bit less detail and more coverage on the role of Ottoman Turkey in the war.

For the full amazon URL see: The Central Powers' Long Slog in the East (amazon.com)

Has the Recession Arrived?

Has the long forecasted recession arrived? My answer is YES. Here is why:

* The banking system is crippled with huge mark-to-market losses on securities held to maturity. (See: Shulmaven: Winter Comes to the Bank Stocks) Further the loan losses associated with bad commercial real loans have yet to be recognized. Hence lending is being curtailed across a broad front of borrowers.

* New claims for unemployment insurance reached an 18 month high last week at 264,000. The labor market is nowhere near as strong as it was.

* The price of copper made a new low for the year at $3.72/pound down 14% from its January high. This is the metal with a Ph.D. in economics, although as my friend John Lipsky always reminds me it is from the Universidad de Cattolica de Chile. 

* The stock market has gone nowhere over the past two years with nominal stock prices down 1% and real stock prices down 14%. Hence the consumption fuel coming from the wealth effect has evaporated.

* First quarter consumption was flattered by an 8% increase in Social Security payments, obviously not to be repeated for the balance of the year.

* Although real GDP is likely to to be up in the second quarter because of a modest swing in inventories, real final sales will decline and that will set the stage for a decline in both final sales and the overall GDP in the third quarter.

* Because inflation will remain sticky, the Fed will need a significant move up in the unemployment rate before pivoting to a lower interest rate regime. Thus the Fed policy would allow for a mild contraction in the economy.

The Video Link to a Book Talk by Daniel Gordis on his "Impossible Takes Longer...."

Presented below is the video link to a book talk by Daniel Gordis on his "Impossible Takes Longer...." where he discusses Israel@75. Trust me, it is well worth watching. I previously reviewed the book here at:

Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of Daniel Gordis' "Impossible Takes Longer: 75 Years after....... "

The video link presented by the Jewish Learning Channel is here: Daniel Gordis -- Impossible Takes Longer -- Israel at 75 - YouTube

My Review* of Jonathan Wilson's "The Red Balcony"

An Assassination on the Beach

 

In the evening June 16, 1933, Haim Arlosoroff, the political director of the Jewish Agency, was brutally murdered while taking a walk with his wife on the Tel Aviv beach. Arlosoroff had just returned from Germany where he negotiated the Transfer Agreement which enabled 50,000 Jews over the next three years to leave Germany conditioned on them turning over their resources to be used to pay for German exports to Palestine. To this day the mystery of who killed Arlosoroff is unsolved, and it is at the core of Jonathan Wilson’s “The Red Balcony” which takes us to the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Safed, cities I know well.

 

Wilson’s protagonist is Ivor Castle a young Jewish graduate of Oxford University who is hired to assist the lead defense counsel Phineas Baron. Castle’s first job is to secure the witness testimony of Tsiona Kerem, a very Bohemian artist who he instantly falls in lust and then in love with her, some of which is played out on her red balcony. Kerem is far more involved than first we are first let in on.

 

Castle is helping to prepare the defense for the two accused killers, Aaron Stavsky and Ze’ev Rosenblatt, both of whom are associated with Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionist grouping.  Jabotinsky’s group opposed the Transfer deal because it meant doing business with the Nazi devils and it worked to undo the boycott of German goods. Both defendants are ultimately acquitted and to this day the crime has yet to be solved with other potential assailants being hard-lined Arabs who opposed Arlosoroff’s peacemaking and the Nazis because of Arsololoff’s alleged affair with Goebbels’ part-Jewish wife.

 

There are two other interesting characters in the book. A Charles Gross, an Oxford contemporary of Castle’s who is very close to Revisionist Zionism. We also have Gross’ cousin, the Baltimore socialite whose father is very much involved in helping to fund the Transfer Agreement.

 

One of the things I really lied about the book is Wilson’s description of the Palestine Mandate in the hiatus between the Arab riots of 1929 and the Great Arab Revolt of 1936. You get a very real sense of what the state in the making was like in the guise of a crime thriller.

*- Amazon has yet to post this review. Amazon just posted at this URL An Assassination on the Beach (amazon.com)