Military Review English Edition July-August 2015 | Page 128

A SCRAP OF PAPER: Breaking and Making International Law during the Great War Isabel V. Hull, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 2014, 384 pages T here is an intense national and international debate underway over the right way to interpret and apply international law. It echoes, in some respects, a debate during World War I when Germany shrugged off international law, drew the United States into the conflict as a consequence, and eventually lost the war. A century later, U.S. decision makers strive to apply complex rules in challenging circumstances; meanwhile, it is losing ground in the information contest to enemies who have no use for such rules beyond their propaganda value. Professor Hull’s book provides a rare opportunity to examine international law as a factor in past decisions that remain relevant today. The author has mined an impressive range of English, French, and German archives. She employs them to look at the interplay of international law advisors and civilian and military leaders at crucial decision-making points. Readers will find only limited coverage of tactical and operational implementation of the law. The author, in fact, acknowledges that International Law and the World War, a study published in 1920, is still the best source for a survey of legal issues in that conflict. However, the author sets out to accomplish several key tasks, and does so effectively, with the evidence set forth in her book. For modern readers, she demonstrates that international law played a much larger role in the war than we now remember in that German violations of international law triggered the war; atrocities committed by German forces enraged popular opinion, and disdain for international law in strategic decision making eventually turned much of the world against the nation. She also favorably compares legal decisions taken by Britain and France with less admirable decisions by Germany. She presents her evidence in a series of detailed case studies. A Scrap of Paper explores French, British, and German practice in international law as it related to Belgian neutrality, the outbreak of war, atrocities, 126 treatment of civilians, treatment of prisoners of war, maritime blockade, reprisals, and the introduction of new technologies of war, including submarines, poison gas, and air power. In her introduction, the author invites the expectation that this book will similarly explore U.S. legal practice during the war and opines that “I must also admit another motive in writing this book. I have been deeply dismayed by the lawlessness of my own county in its pursuit of the war on terror.” However, U.S. practice is not one of her primary themes, and readers should not pick up the book with that expectation in mind. This book will be of interest to serious students of World War I. It explores important, long-forgotten decision making that influenced some of the best known and far-reaching operations in military history. A Scrap of Paper is also a source of unusual case studies for practitioners who need to understand how diplomacy, operational design, and strategic communications shape, and are shaped, by international law. This book illuminates challenges facing practitioners today as much as those facing their predecessors a century ago. Michael H. Hoffman, Fort Belvoir, Virginia WEST POINT 1915: Eisenhower, Bradley, and the Class the Stars Fell On Michael Haskew, Zenith Press, Minneapolis, 2014, 224 pages W as it their time? Or, was it the men themselves that make this such a compelling subject? The Class of 1915 had the highest percentage of U.S. Military Academy graduates reaching general officer ever: 59 of 164. The author details his case why this class is the best in military history based upon “the magnificence of their deeds.” Haskew focuses much of his attention on the brightest stars, such as Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley, but he also candidly includes the accounts of officers who fell short of great expectations. This historical study should be read by Army officers who want to understand the hum an dimension of their profession—under stress at the highest level. The book is filled with memorable stories, like one about a medical board unanimously voting against commissioning Cadet Eisenhower because of a knee injury. Ike first injured his knee as a star July-August 2015  MILITARY REVIEW