he Great War: Breakthroughs is the third in a four-novel series by Harry Turtledove, a series based on the premise that the United States remained two nations after its Civil War. Since then, the U.S. has suffered two humiliating military defeats at the hands of the Confederate States of America, defeats which have led them to join forces with Germany. With the British-allied C.S.A. to the south and Canada to the north, the U.S. finds itself in a two-front war when global conflict erupts in 1914.
Earlier novels in the series, beginning with How Few Remain, detail the outbreak and early prosecution of this altered World War I. When Breakthroughs opens, the conflict is now years old and the battle lines have been fixed for months at an incredible cost in human lives. However, as its title suggests, Breakthroughs details the conclusion of these long stalemates. As the underpopulated South slowly runs out of resources, an ancient and odious George Custer pioneers tactics for overrunning them with newfangled tanks. Meanwhile Theodore Roosevelt fights political opposition to the war and struggles to keep it on a sound fiscal footing.
In Breakthroughs, all of the familiar and faraway horrors of the European war are brought home to North American soil, savagely deployed by Americans against Americans. Readers experience dogfights over Toronto, submarine battles along the coasts of Florida and Cuba, the use of poison gas in the trenches of Tennessee and a northern occupation of Confederate Kentucky. A vicious fight to control the city of Washington, D.C. pounds the city to dust.
As one side finally triumphs over the others, new questions arise: how harsh will the terms of surrender be--and what trouble will rise in the future as a result?
Compassionate and complex
Unlike other Turtledove outings, The Great War series has no overt science fiction elements. Readers looking for the aliens of the Worldwar novels or the time-traveling racists of The Guns of the South will find pure alternate history instead. This seems especially fitting for an exploration of World War I, with its unexpectedly huge scope, murky causes and devastating long-term consequences.
Turtledove is at his best in bringing the radical politics of the period's working people to life. The vivid labor activism of that period is in full flourish, providing illumination for real-world historical events. Without ever leaving the North American continent, Turtledove provides fresh understanding of how Tsarist Russia fell to the Communist revolution. Race relations are also at the forefront, as the increasingly beleaguered Confederates grudgingly put weapons into the hands of their former slaves. Readers who enjoy Turtledove for his rigorous political extrapolation will not be disappointed.
However, even as the novels explore the issues of war in Europe, the focus in this series is very much on America and Americans: war wives struggling at home to make ends meet, soldiers in the U.S.A. and C.S.A. trying to avoid death, a brilliant socialist politican learning the ropes as a new Congresswoman. Despite this tight focus, readers will understand the devastating effects of an American absence from the European war.
Most importantly, Turtledove captures the battlefield in all of its horror and absurdity. From the vision of a white C.S.A. officer firing on retreating black soldiers to the death of a long-term war survivor during a cease-fire, The Great War: Breakthroughs never fails to remind readers that war is the most costly, destructive and wicked of human pursuits.
