Speaking of Prussians

In the summer of 1914, American journalist Irvin S. Cobb crossed the Atlantic to witness a war that would reshape the world. What he found in Belgium and northern France haunted him. Speaking of Prussians is his unflinching dispatch from the front lines of occupation: towns burned to rubble, refugees streaming toward the horizon with whatever they could carry, and the terrifying, mechanical efficiency of a military machine that viewed civilian populations as acceptable casualties. Cobb writes with the blunt power of a newspaper man who knows his words will reach millions, and his contempt for Prussian militarism burns on every page. He admires German discipline even as he recoils from German brutality. He understands the logic of war even as he chronicles its horrors. This is not history written from a distance; it is one American's furious, grieving attempt to make his countrymen understand what democracy was fighting against, and why it mattered.