Culture | The German way of war

“Iron and Blood” questions the story of German militarism

History could have been different, argues Peter Wilson

French soldiers caught in an ambush during the Franco-Prussian War aka Franco-German War, 1870. From Hutchinson's History of the Nations, published 1915.(Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Iron and Blood. By Peter Wilson. Allen Lane; 976 pages; £40. To be published in America by Belknap Press in February; $39.95

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “The German way of war”

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