The Generals' War: Operational Level Command on the Western Front in 1918 (Twentieth-century Battles) - Hardcover

Zabecki, David T., PhD.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0253037018 ISBN 13: 9780253037015

Verlag: Indiana University Press, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Known as the War to End all Wars and the Great War, World War I introduced new forms of mass destruction and modern technological warfare. When the Bolsheviks pulled Russia out of the war in late 1917, the Germans turned their offensive efforts to the Western Front in an attempt to win the war in 1918. But as fresh American troops entered Europe, the strategic scales tipped against Germany.

Much of how World War I played out turned on the plans and decisions of the senior-most German and Allied commanders. The Generals' War explores the military strategies of those generals during the last year of the Great War. These six very different men included Germany's Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff; France's Marshals Ferdinand Foch and Philippe Pétain; Great Britain's Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig; and the United States' General John Pershing. Although history remembers none of them as great captains, these six officers determined for better or worse how World War I was fought on the battlefields of the Western Front between November 1917 and November 1918.

The Generals' War is a landmark exploration of the generalship that shaped the very framework of modern warfare as we know it today and provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis on the senior commanders of the Great War.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David T. Zabecki (Lt. Gen. Ret) is author or editor of nine military history books, including The German 1918 Offensives: A Case Study in the Operational Level of War, and the assistant editor of several military history encyclopedias. He is editor of Vietnam Magazine, the Senior Historian of the Weider History Group, the world's largest publisher of history magazines, and author of numerous articles, book reviews, and encyclopedia entries, all dealing with military topics.

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The Generals' War

Operational Level Command on the Western Front in 1918

By David T. Zabecki, Spencer C. Tucker

Indiana University Press

Copyright © 2018 David T. Zabecki
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-253-03701-5

Contents

Foreword by Anthony C. Zinni, General, USMC (Ret), ix, 
Acknowledgments, xiii, 
Table, Maps, and Plates, xv, 
List of Abbreviations, xvii, 
1 Generalship in the Great War, 1, 
2 Future Shock on the 1914–1918 Battlefield, 11, 
3 The Strategic Situation at the End of 1917, 37, 
4 The Commanders in Chief, 47, 
5 The Yanks Are Coming, 75, 
6 Two Conferences in November 1917, 85, 
7 The Gathering Storm, 95, 
8 MICHAEL and GEORGETTE: Ludendorff versus Haig, 110, 
9 BLÜCHER and GNEISENAU: Ludendorff versus Foch and Pétain, 140, 
10 Operation MARNESCHUTZ-REIMS and the Second Battle of the Marne: Foch Wrests the Initiative, 165, 
11 Hamel to Mont St. Quentin: Haig Assumes the Offensive, 195, 
12 Closing to the Hindenburg Line: Foch Tightens the Vise, 216, 
13 The Allied General Offensive: Foch Moves In for the Kill, 231, 
14 Armistice and Occupation: 11 November 1918–28 June 1919, 277, 
15 The Fluctuating Verdict of History, 290, 
Appendix I: Biographical Chronologies, 317, 
Appendix II: A Note on General Officer Ranks, 333, 
Notes, 337, 
Bibliography, 371, 
Index, 389, 

CHAPTER 1

GENERALSHIP IN THE GREAT WAR

The truth is, no study is possible on the battlefield. One does there simply what one can in order to apply what one knows. Therefore, in order to do even a little, one has already to know a great deal, and to know it well.

Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Principles of War

The hour after an attack begins is a trying time at headquarters. There is nothing for a general officer to do but sit with folded hands. ... He had done everything he could before H Day, or if he has not, it is too late now. He can do nothing now until the first reports come in.

Lieutenant General Hunter S. Liggett, A.E.F. Ten Years Ago in France

No general, as the old saying goes, ever wakes up in the morning and decides he is going to lose a battle, or indeed a war. Yet for every general who loses a battle, he has a counterpart on the other side who wins the fight. This has been a constant of warfare, from long before Leonidas met Xerxes at Thermopylae in 480 BC to Norman Schwarzkopf 's encounter with Saddam Hussein during Desert Storm in 1991. World War I, however, is seen somewhat differently by history, or at least by popular history. From the four years of "mud and blood" carnage, the likes of which the world had never seen, the myth of "lions led by donkeys" still holds great sway one hundred years later. The troops on all sides were courageous and patriotic, but they were blindly led to the slaughter by heartless and incompetent "butchers and bunglers" who lived in châteaux, far from the front lines. The generals ate well and drank champagne while their troops lived in rat-infested trenches and endured unrelenting shelling from enemy artillery until they were committed to senseless frontal attacks, only to be massacred en masse.

World War I today is seen quite differently by the general publics of the four nations this study concerns itself with. The Great War exists only dimly in the American consciousness, even though the United States emerged from that war as one of the great powers of the twentieth century. Germans today also pay little attention to World War I, although the war does have somewhat greater resonance in France. In all three countries, there is far more interest in World War II, or in earlier conflicts, such as the Napoleonic wars and the American Civil War. Accordingly, relatively few military historians in those three countries specialize in the 1914 to 1918 period. This is not the case in the United Kingdom. For the British, the Great War is still the war. The eleventh of November passes in Germany each year without the slightest recognition. In the United States, it has been transformed from Armistice Day into Veterans Day, a national holiday to recognize all veterans of all wars. In the UK and many Commonwealth countries, however, Remembrance Day is the most significant national observance of the year. For the British, the Great War still looms very large, and many British historians continue to write books and produce new research about it. It is important to keep in mind, however, that most British scholarship concentrates on the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

One hundred years on, British military historians continue to grapple with questions: Why was the First World War such a gridlocked bloodbath? Did it have to be that way? Could it have been fought differently? And if so, why wasn't it? For many years, two basic schools of thought dominated, and in the past thirty-five years or so a third school has emerged. The internal factors school emphasizes the structural weaknesses and the inbred culture of the Edwardian army, which produced incompetent and callous commanders and poorly trained staff officers. The external factors school focuses on things that generally were beyond the control of the BEF, including the exponential expansion of the British army during the war, new war fighting technologies that no one could ever have anticipated, political interference, and a very tough opponent that fielded one of the best armies in history. The recent and third school attempts to strike a balance by integrating both the internal and external factors and also stresses the defects in prewar British military doctrine, especially a lack of understanding of combined-arms warfare. Much of that third school model can also be applied to the experiences of the French, and especially to the Americans.

Nonetheless, the internal factors school continues to have a great deal of resonance in British thinking. Yet, for all the appealing and apparent clarity of the "butchers and bunglers" view, it was not nearly that simplistic. World War I was a war unlike any other ever fought. It was a war of "future shock." Newly emerging technologies in weaponry, communications, and later mobility rendered all the old tactics and mechanics of war fighting obsolete. All the past experience, doctrine, and theory no longer worked. Nor did the new dynamics of war fighting remain static between 1914 and 1918. They evolved quite rapidly, constantly changing the harsh realities of the battlefield. Thus, the senior military leaders on all sides, including the Germans, spent most of the first three years of the war trying to keep up with and come to terms with the new technologies — how most effectively to use them and how best to counter them in the hands of the enemy. As historian Tim Travers put it so aptly, "The story of the Western Front was really the attempt of senior officers to come to mental grips with a war that had escaped its preordained boundaries and structures." Unfortunately, when you are in the middle of fighting a war, trial and error is the only viable mechanism for such a process.

By the start of 1918, many of the most important lessons had been learned and internalized, albeit at a terrible price. However, none of the separate national armies — German, French, British, American — learned exactly the same lessons at the same pace. And for all its emotional appeal, the "Château General" fable does not quite hold up to close scrutiny. Because of the relatively primitive communications systems of...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Indiana University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0253037018
• ISBN 13: 9780253037015
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 440
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland