The Proud Tower
Authors: Barbara Tuchman
More Praise for
The Proud Tower
“Mrs. Tuchman’s popularity is due to more than her skill with words … she never loses sight of individuals, and she is not afraid to tell a story.… As in all her books, this one is resplendent with people … marvels of idiosyncratic fullness.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
“Her Pulitzer Prize-winning
The Guns of August
was an expert evocation of the first spasm of the 1914–18 war. She brings the same narrative gifts and panoramic camera eye to her portrait of the antebellum world.”
—
Newsweek
“An exquisitely written and thoroughly engrossing work.… The author’s knowledge and skill are so impressive that they whet the appetite for more.… [To read these polished essays] is an esthetically rewarding experience. No one should forgo the opportunity.”
—
Chicago Tribune
“Solid and interesting.… Bright with sketches of hundreds of men.”
—
The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Mrs. Tuchman paints the scene for us with a masterly brush, a scene glittering and brilliant, sumptuous and outrageous.”
—
Herald Tribune
“A stunning success … As remarkable a work as
The Guns of August
.”
—
Library Journal
By Barbara W. Tuchman
BIBLE AND SWORD
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM
THE GUNS OF AUGUST
THE PROUD TOWER
STILWELL AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN CHINA
A DISTANT MIRROR
PRACTICING HISTORY
THE MARCH OF FOLLY
THE FIRST SALUTE
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1962, 1963, 1965 by Barbara W. Tuchman
Copyright © 1966 by The Macmillam Company
Copyright renewed 1994 by Dr. Lester Tuchman
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by The Macmillan Company in 1966.
Chapter 2
appeared, in part, in
The Atlantic Monthly
for May 1963. Parts of
Chapter 3
were published in
American Heritage
for December 1962 and in
The Nation
100th Anniversary issue, September 1965. Parts of
Chapter 1
were published in
Vogue
in 1965.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Doubleday and A.P. Watt Ltd.:
“The White Man’s Burden” and eight lines from “The Truce of the Bear” (“The Bear that Walks Like a Man”) from
Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition.
Reprinted by permission of Doubleday and A.P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.
Henry Holt and Company, Inc. and The Society of Authors:
Excerpt from “On the Idle Hill of Summer” from “A Shropshire Lad” from T
he Collected Poems of A.E. Housman.
Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Co., Inc., and The Society of Authors as the literary representative of the Estate of A.E. Housman.
A.P Watt Ltd.:
Four lines from “The Valley of the Black Pig” from
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats.
Reprinted by permission of A.P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Michael Yeats.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96–96511
eISBN: 978-0-307-79811-4
v3.1
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
From “The City in the Sea”
EDGAR ALLAN POE
Acknowledgments
To Mr. Cecil Scott of The Macmillan Company, a participant in this book from the first outline to the end, I owe a writer’s most important debt: for the steady companionship of an interested reader and for constructive criticism throughout mixed with encouragement in times of need.
For advice, suggestions and answers to queries I am grateful to Mr. Roger Butterfield, author of
The American Past;
Professor Fritz Epstein of Indiana University; Mr. Louis Fischer, author of
The Life of Lenin;
Professor Edward Fox of Cornell University; Mr. K. A. Golding of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, London; Mr. Jay Harrison of Columbia Records; Mr. John Gutman of the Metropolitan Opera; Mr. George Lichtheim of the Institute on Communist Affairs, Columbia University; Mr. William Manchester, author of
The House of Krupp;
Professor Arthur Marder, editor of the letters of Sir John Fisher; Mr. George Painter, the biographer of Proust; Mr. A. L. Rowse, author of an introduction to the work of Graham Wallas; Miss Helen Ruskell and the staff of the New York Society Library; Mr. Thomas K. Scherman, director of the Little Orchestra Society; Mrs. Janice Shea for information about the circus in Germany; Professor Reba Soffer of San Fernando Valley State College for information on Wilfred Trotter; Mr. Joseph C. Swidler, chairman of the Federal Power Commission; and Mr. Louis Untermeyer, editor, among much else, of
Modern British Poetry.
Equal gratitude extends to the many others who gave me verbal aid of which I kept no record.
For help in finding certain of the illustrations I am indebted to Mr. A. J. Ubels of the Royal Archives at The Hague; to the staffs of the Art and Print Rooms of the New York Public Library; and to Mr. and Mrs. Harry Collins of Brown Brothers.
I would like to express particular thanks to two indefatigable readers of the proofs, Miss Jessica Tuchman and Mr. Timothy Dickinson, for improvements and corrections, respectively; and to Mrs. Esther Bookman, who impeccably typed the manuscript of both this and my previous book,
The Guns of August.
BARBARA W
.
TUCHMAN
Contents
1 THE PATRICIANS
England: 1895–1902
2 THE IDEA AND THE DEED
The Anarchists: 1890–1914
3 END OF A DREAM
The United States: 1890–1902
4 “GIVE ME COMBAT!”
France: 1894–99
5 THE STEADY DRUMMER
The Hague: 1899 and 1907
6 “NEROISM IS IN THE AIR”
Germany: 1890–1914
7 TRANSFER OF POWER
England: 1902–11
8 THE DEATH OF JAURÈS
The Socialists: 1890–1914
Illustrations
FOLLOWING
THIS PAGE
5.1
Lord Salisbury
5.2
Lord Ribblesdale by Sargent, 1902
5.3
The Wyndham sisters by Sargent, 1899
5.4
Chatsworth
5.5
Prince Peter Kropotkin
5.6
Editorial office of
La Révolte
5.7
“Slept in That Cellar Four Years”: photograph by Jacob Riis, about 1890
5.8
“Lockout”: original title “
l’Attentat du Pas de Calais
,” by Théophile Steinlen, from
Le Chambard Socialiste
,” Dec. 16, 1893
5.9
Thomas B. Reed
5.10
Captain (later Admiral) Alfred Thayer Mahan
5.11
Charles William Eliot
5.12
Samuel Gompers
5.13
The mob during Zola’s trial: original title “
Les Moutons de Boisdeffre
,” by Steinlen, from
La Feuille
, Feb. 28, 1898
5.14
The “Syndicate”: original title “
Le Pouvoir Civil
,” by Forain, from
Psst!
, June 24, 1899
5.15
“Allegory”: by Forain, from
Psst!
, July 23, 1898
5.16
“Truth Rising from Its Well,” by Caran d’Ache, from
Psst!
, June 10, 1899
5.17
British delegation to The Hague, 1899
5.18
Paris Exposition, 1900: Porte Monumentale and the Palace of Electricity
5.20
Alfred Nobel
5.21
Bertha von Suttner
5.22
The Krupp works at Essen, 1912
5.23
Richard Strauss
5.24
Friedrich Nietzsche watching the setting sun, Weimar, 1900
5.25
A beer garden in Berlin
5.26
Nijinsky as the Faun: design by Léon Bakst
5.27
Arthur James Balfour
5.28
Coal strike, 1910: mine owners arriving at 10 Downing Street
5.29
Seaman’s strike, 1911
5.30
David Lloyd George
5.31
August Bebel
5.32
Keir Hardie
5.33
“Strike,” painting by Steinlen
5.34
Jean Jaurès
Foreword
The epoch whose final years are the subject of this book did not die of old age or accident but exploded in a terminal crisis which is one of the great facts of history. No mention of that crisis appears in the following pages for the reason that, as it had not yet happened, it was not a part of the experience of the people of this book. I have tried to stay within the terms of what was known at the time.
The Great War of 1914–18 lies like a band of scorched earth dividing that time from ours. In wiping out so many lives which would have been operative on the years that followed, in destroying beliefs, changing ideas, and leaving incurable wounds of disillusion, it created a physical as well as psychological gulf between two epochs. This book is an attempt to discover the quality of the world from which the Great War came.