To the Last Man was published by Ballantine Books in 2004, Shaara’s single-volume treatment of World War I. The novel covers the Western Front from 1916 through the Armistice in November 1918, using perspectives that span the conflict’s hierarchy: Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron, the war’s most famous fighter pilot), a young American Marine named Roscoe Temple (representing the doughboys who arrived in 1918), and senior commanders on both sides.
Shaara’s WWI novel confronts the war’s central horror directly: the mismatch between nineteenth-century military doctrine (which emphasized offensive spirit and the bayonet charge) and twentieth-century military technology (the machine gun, barbed wire, and artillery that made such charges suicidal). The result was a war in which millions of men died to gain or lose a few hundred yards of mud, and in which the commanders on both sides — intelligent, professional soldiers — could not find a tactical solution to a strategic problem.
The Richthofen sections provide the war’s only romance: the early air war as a domain of individual combat, chivalry, and personal skill — qualities that the ground war had made obsolete. But even this domain grows industrial as the war progresses, and Richthofen’s death in April 1918 marks the end of the last arena where individual heroism could affect outcomes.
Collecting To the Last Man
First edition (Ballantine Books, New York, 2004): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $8–$15
- Signed first edition: $20–$50