Summary of Adam Hochschild's To End All Wars

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 On June 22, 1897, London celebrated the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's ascension to the throne. The sun emerged patriotically from an overcast sky just after the Queen's carriage left Buckingham Palace.

#2 Victoria's empire was not known for its modesty. The overseas cables had been kept clear of traffic until the Queen pressed an electric button linked to the Central Telegraph Office. From there, as the various lancers, hussars, camel troopers, turbaned Sikhs, and Borneo Dayak police marched through the city, her greeting flashed in Morse code to every part of the empire.

#3 The British army, in peacetime as well as during wartime, was led by the cavalry. It was a small select aristocracy born booted and spurred to ride, who thought of everyone else as a large dim mass born saddled and bridled to be ridden.

#4 John French was a lieutenant in the 19th Regiment of Hussars in 1874. He was promoted to captain soon after, and then married two years later. He seemed genuinely fond of his new wife, although he would still embark on an endless string of love affairs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822514478

IRB Media

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Insights on Adam Hochschild's To End All Wars

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 20

Insights from Chapter 21

Insights from Chapter 22

Insights from Chapter 23

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

On June 22, 1897, London celebrated the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's ascension to the throne. The sun emerged patriotically from an overcast sky just after the Queen's carriage left Buckingham Palace.

#2

Victoria's empire was not known for its modesty. The overseas cables had been kept clear of traffic until the Queen pressed an electric button linked to the Central Telegraph Office. From there, as the various lancers, hussars, camel troopers, turbaned Sikhs, and Borneo Dayak police marched through the city, her greeting flashed in Morse code to every part of the empire.

#3

The British army, in peacetime as well as during wartime, was led by the cavalry. It was a small select aristocracy born booted and spurred to ride, who thought of everyone else as a large dim mass born saddled and bridled to be ridden.

#4

John French was a lieutenant in the 19th Regiment of Hussars in 1874. He was promoted to captain soon after, and then married two years later. He seemed genuinely fond of his new wife, although he would still embark on an endless string of love affairs.

#5

In the army in which French was making his career, an important military virtue was sportsmanship. War was similar to soccer, and the army fought for the good of its country as the team played for the honor of its school.

#6

In John French’s England, the boulevards along which Victoria’s Jubilee parade marched were splendid, but large stretches of London and other cities were less glorious, for little of the wealth the country drew from its colonies ever reached the poor.

#7

Charlotte Despard, a woman who was raised by relatives after her parents died, married a man who supported home rule for Ireland and other progressive causes, and they traveled extensively together for 20 years. She wrote seven enormous novels, which were the Victorian equivalent of today's formula romances.

#8

The Duchess of Albany, who was hired to help with the Nine Elms Flower Mission, a project in which wealthy women brought baskets of flowers from their gardens to Nine Elms, the poorest corner of London, surprised everyone by making Battersea her main focus.

#9

Charlotte Despard was a British socialist who converted to Roman Catholicism, and she developed a passion for theosophy, a mystical faith that includes elements of Buddhism, Hinduism, and the occult. She was elected to a Poor Law Board, and she fought to expose a corrupt manager who was selling food from the workhouse kitchen while the women were on a bread and water diet.

#10

The warmth and loyalty between Despard and French was never broken, despite their very different views of the world. They remained close for many years, through a colonial conflict about to break out and a global war that would leave more than 700,000 of their countrymen dead.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The war began with the British invasion of