Marcus Faulkner reviews Cry Havoc by Joe Maiolo.

The road to the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe in September 1939 is a path well-trodden by historians and one that has seen many debates over the decades. Given the plethora of books on the subject one might legitimately ask what a new history has to offer. Joe Maiolo’s approach is novel for at its core Cry Havoc is a book about the phenomena of arms races. While it is generally acknowledged that an arms race was one of the contributing factors to the outbreak of the First World War, historians have largely suffered from not seeing the forest for the trees in this regard during the 1930s. Certainly German rearmament or French and British reactions there to have been amply explored, but Cry Havoc examines the wider picture and contends that an arms race was central to the various conflicts that combined in December 1941 to unleash a global conflict on an unprecedented scale.

Economics, production figures and technical details feature heavily throughout as one might expect, but Maiolo also seeks to steer clear of a reductionist path by strongly emphasising the role of individuals. Leaders like Stalin, Hitler or Roosevelt were acutely aware of the need to prepare for future war not only by augmenting industrial output, but also by reworking the social fabric of their nations. What enlivens the narrative is the focus on the officials who actually organised the rearmament processes, such as Thomas Inskip in Britain, or military officers like the German Georg Thomas or Colonel Ishiwara Kanji of the Japanese army.

Although each state faced its particular issues, what is striking is that there were more similarities than differences. The simple differentiation between weak ‘appeasers’ and strong ‘dictators’ needs to be somewhat revised. In particular, the characterisation of Neville Chamberlain’s role, the symbol of appeasement, will be of interest to readers. Chamberlain had, as a result of the First World War, harboured somewhat radical ideas to prepare Britain for Total War. Appeasement was a misjudged tool to contain Hitler’s ambitions, but the overall strategy of increasing British industrial mobilisation was sound and had by 1939 largely outpaced Germany.

While on the one hand the interwar era was marked by an attempt to regulate warfare and international cooperation, within each state there existed a cast of military-political technocrats who believed that the lesson of 1914-18 was that better preparation rather than war avoidance was the key to national survival. Collective security was undermined by the desire to perfect the concept of Total War. Rather than ‘merely’ perfecting train timetables and the mobilisation of reserves as had staff officers of an earlier generation, war planning now encompassed the entire nation’s ability to raise and sustain its armed forces.

The militaries increasingly drew on civilian expertise to plan the process. Thus while societies at large were still recovering from the effects of the First World War, the next was already being planned in a clinically sterile manner. The German military coined a new term to describe the process of military-industrial mobilisation, Wehrwirtschaft. Wars were too important to be left to the military alone and within the leaderships’ of all the great powers there was much tension about who was and should be in charge preparing for what many considered the looming conflict.

What makes Cry Havoc a compelling read is that the narrative is a blend of chronological, thematic and differing national approaches throughout the sixteen chapters that are neatly complimented by images and maps. While this is an academically informed book, Maiolo’s skill rests in his ability to distil complex, and at times technical subjects, into very readable prose. The references are authoritative and a glance at the bibliography shows an impressive array of material drawn from primary sources in a multitude of languages. The book is important because it provides a thorough examination of a neglected aspect of the cause of the Second World War.

Cry Havoc: The Arms Race and the Second World War, 1931-41, Joe Maiolo (John Murray)

Dr. Marcus Faulkner is a visiting lecturer at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.