Rehearsals purports to be “the first book to provide a detailed narrative history of the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 as it affected civilians” (back cover). Author Jeff Lipkes, a historian of British economic thought, argues that the German Army launched a deliberately brutal campaign of terror against the Belgian population in order to intimidate them into obedience to the invading German army. Moreover, he contends that the suffering of Belgian civilians (more than 6,000 executions and 25,000 buildings destroyed) has been largely obliterated from the historical record, beginning in the 1920s, by overly zealous revisionist historians whose outlook has become the consensus among historians today. While providing interesting and important information on both matters, Rehearsals promises more than it delivers.

Lipkes's main contribution is in chronicling the brutality of the German Army in eastern Belgium. Rehearsals is richly detailed with evidence of the extensive atrocities and immense suffering that occurred throughout much of this region in August 1914. The book provides ample evidence that the German Army regularly took civilian hostages and often executed them (typically without the pretense of trial), deliberately looted and destroyed homes and other buildings—including churches and Leuven University's library—and forcibly expelled and deported civilians all on the mere suspicion of “franc-tireur” activity. Lipkes's detailed presentation of the victims' recollection of the misery inflicted upon them is a valuable contribution to our understanding of this important topic.

Yet, even in this arena, Rehearsals is flawed. Lipkes nobly wishes to present the recollections of as many victims as possible, but the nearly 550 pages of vignettes and anecdotes are often confusing and repetitive, particularly in the three chapters on Dinant and the four on Leuven. The twelve total chapters on the civilian experience lack introductions and conclusions, so that the presentation of this important evidence is left to stand largely on its own. Allowing the witnesses to speak is sometimes vividly illustrative, but Lipkes does little to categorize experiences, add context, and offer interpretation. Moreover, chapters are broken into subsections with only minimal, if any, transition between them. In many ways, the book would have been stronger had the author chosen to present selected recollections in edited anthology form.

A more significant failing in Rehearsals concerns the charge that the German Army's brutality was part of a deliberate campaign of terror. Lipkes's evidence is overwhelmingly from Belgian and neutral civilians (particularly those interviewed by official Belgian inquiries); the only German sources are a few accounts from POWs, newspapers, memoirs, and the so-called German White Book—which Lipkes correctly points out is purely exculpatory in intent. This evidence certainly demonstrates that Belgian civilians recalled no hint of partisan activity and that German units were quick and systematic in employing the most savage methods; but only an examination of German sources could provide evidence as to the intent and motive behind these actions. Clearly there are cases where German military discipline broke down, often under the influence of alcohol, and devolved into barbaric acts. In other cases, German troops mistook accidents, friendly fire, unexpected encounters with Allied patrols or any loud noises for civilian sniping and took revenge. Indeed there was a pattern of German officers ordering the seizure and execution of hostages and indiscriminate arson to intimidate as well as retaliate. Yet, the perceptions of the victims, while important and worth preserving as part of the historical record, cannot by themselves prove the motivations of the perpetrators. This significant flaw also renders the book's title rather hyperbolic. Lipkes suggests a clear link between German behavior in Belgium in 1914 and the Holocaust—even positing that Germans exhibited an “ideological animus” against Belgians; yet, aside from a few superficial comparisons and a brief, broad discussion of German culture there is no real effort to prove that connection. Rehearsals demonstrates the need for further investigation into the Kaiser's army's official policy for dealing with civilians in occupied territory, but does not contribute much to our understanding of that issue.

Lipkes's historiographic claims for Rehearsals' originality are also overdone. While there is an influential revisionist strain that has dismissd German brutality in the invasion of Belgium as purely Allied propaganda, it is inaccurate to suggest that historians have universally accepted this interpretation. John Horne and Alan Kramer, authors of the well-received monograph German Atrocities 1914: A History of Denial (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), published articles in the early 1990s based on extensive examination of German sources that demonstrate that the German Army entered Belgium prepared to intimidate civilians into obedience at the first and slightest (and often imagined) hint of guerrilla resistance. Similarly, Larry Zuckerman's The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I (New York: New York University Press, 2004) covers, though in less detail, the same ground as does Lipkes. Indeed, the conclusion that the German Army behaved with intentional brutality toward Belgian civilians in 1914 appeared three decades ago in works that relied heavily on synthesizing existing scholarship, e.g., Walter Laqueur's Guerrilla: A Historical and Critical Survey (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1976). Lipkes's historiographical overview has merits but it overstates the uniqueness and originality of his position.

Ultimately, Rehearsals attempts too much, even for a book totaling 815 pages. Lipkes seems to vacillate between wanting to write a gripping saga of civilian suffering for the popular market and producing an analytical monograph for specialists, and he ends up trying to do both. The result is a book marred by too much unprocessed detail and claims that reach beyond the evidence. Rehearsals does make contributions in detailing the suffering of Belgian civilians in the opening phase of World War I, but it would have been a stronger, more effective contribution had the work been more tightly focused on explaining that particular topic.