Task: Sentiment Analysis
Input (English): The lights are going out all over Europe... . "The Guns of August" documents the events, conversations, strategies, and expectations that unfolded across Europe from July to September 1914.  To brutally paraphrase the 500 pages of Barbara Tuchman's genius....in regards to the outbreak of World War I, virtually everything that was expected didn't happen, and everything that could have gone wrong did.  Contrary to the "domino effect" jargon we're taught in high school (the war was a spontaneous reaction to Archduke Ferdinand's assassination), Tuchman illustrates quite convincingly (as German primary sources have supported...read Kaiser Wilhelm II and General Moltke's speeches and memoirs), this war had years in the planning.     In the movie "Thirteen Days", President Kennedy uses the book as a means to deride his hawkish generals and what he considers their poor sense of long-sighted policymaking.  He uses the mistakes made by the generals in "The Guns of August" as examples.  But the book is not about the idiocy of generals, or even politicians.  The book does not lay blame or point fingers.  And when the book does pass judgment (stubborn Joffre's Plan 17 should have been aborted much sooner), it reciprocates in later pages (Joffre's stubbornness helps turn the German right flank).      The one question underlying the entire book is "What if?"  What if the Belgians at Liege hadn't fought?  What if von Kluck hadn't swung his First and Second Armies inland?  What if Britian had refused to add its troops to the French Sixth Army?  What if the German captain hadn't been killed and the German HQ battle plans not been intercepted?  Every page offers these "What ifs", and it keeps the reader on his/her toes.    This book also shuts up the armchair generals who glance over a war, like a road crew worker on Monday morning discussing a football game, and says, "What idiots...why didn't they do this?  Why didn't they do that?  How could they not see what was coming?"  "The Guns of August" answers these questions, and when the situations are examined up close and personal, it's clear that the men running Europe made about as reasonable, logical, and cautious decisions as can be made in wartime.  We have the luxury of not only hindsight, but of viewing the war as a whole.  In the middle of the war, a field officer knows only the battle around him and what information he receives from other officers.    Spread a rumor around your work or school, and in a single week see how distorted the rumor has become from the original one you spread.  Now pass a vital piece of information up and down lines of divisions and corps and armies during a full-fledged world war and see how great your communication is.      You don't need to be a military historian to follow this book.  There are maps to help the confused reader.  If there are wartime lessons to learn from the book, they are these:  remain strategically flexible, know your enemy, and plan for contingencies
Output (English): POS