Author: Herbert Howland SargentPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Strategy
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
The Strategy on the Western Front (1914-1918)
Author: Herbert Howland SargentPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Strategy
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
The Strategy on the Western Front
Author: Herbert Howland SargentPublisher:
ISBN: 9781331315810
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Excerpt from The Strategy on the Western Front: 1914-1918 Most of the chapters in this book were published in the North American Review in a series of articles beginning with the February issue of 1919 and ending with the October issue of the same year. They have been revised, certain omitted parts restored, and are now published in book form. For suggestions and criticisms in the English of the text my thanks are due to Lieutenant Raymond H. Fuller, United States National Army, who was one of my assistants while I was on duty in the War Plans Division of the General Staff, United States Army, at Army War College, Washington, D. C., during the summer and fall of 1918. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
The Strategy on the Western Front
Author: Herbert Howland SargentPublisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781499767674
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
An excerpt from a review in the Naval Institute Proceedings, Volume 47, Issues 1: THE THREE ERRORS THERE were three great German offensives on the Western Front, we are told, in each of which Germany made a great strategical blunder: the first Marne, the Verdun campaign of 1916, and the offensive begun in March, 1918. The first alleged error was in attempting the strategical offensive on two fronts at the same time. The Western Front, only one hundred and fifty miles long, was protected by the Moselle and Metz, backed by the Rhine and Strassburg; it could not have been turned by France without violating the neutrality of Belgium or Switzerland. Had Germany held this line defensively with a small part of her combatant forces while she defeated her other enemies in detail, the war would not have lasted more than two years. Thus the Germans would have avoided violating the neutrality of Belgium and the consequential British and American hostility. The failure of the western offensive is attributed particularly to the strength of Belfort, which commands the narrow pass into France between the Vosges and Jura ranges. "Had the Germans been able to capture this fortress," Sargent says, "the way would have been opened for turning the Vosges and the fortresses of Épinal, Toul and Verdun and for the envelopment of the French right wing, which, with the left wing and the little British and Belgian armies already enveloped, would no doubt have resulted in the final surrender of the French army and the capture of Paris." The Second Error: After the battle of the Marne Germany remained on the defensive on the Western Front for about eighteen months, during which she was considerably outnumbered by the Allies. She assumed the offensive in other parts of the theatre of war with successful campaigns against the Russians and Serbians. But before she had entirely disposed of Russia, Serbia and Italy, she again assumed the offensive in the West by way of the Crown Prince's tremendous campaign for Verdun—one of the most formidable in history—which failed. This is charged as a mistake because with the same effort and less loss Germany could "have completed her victories in the Eastern Front, destroyed the army at Salonica, and captured that important seaport; then with greatly superior forces have struck and crushed the Italian army; and then, with all her enemies disposed of outside of France and Belgium, have returned to the Western Front with an enormous preponderance of forces." The Third Error: After the failure at Verdun the Germans again consigned the West to the defensive role, and resumed the offensive against Russia, Romania, and Italy. But here again the Germans were not persistent, for if they had massed their available forces in turn against Salonica and Italy, probably both would have been disposed of, the Germans would have occupied Greece and the valley of the Po, and would have advanced to the French and Maritime Alps for an invasion of France via Nice. Instead of following up her advantages in the Near East and in Italy, Germany precipitated her offense of 1918 in the West, beginning on March 21, with her powerful thrust at Amiens, followed by the attack against the British around Ypres and two attacks against the French between Reimes and Montdidier towards Chateau-Thierry, in none of which attacks was she able to make a sufficiently broad rupture in the line to allow resumption of a war of movement.
The Western Front 1917–1918
Author: Andrew WiestPublisher: Amber Books Ltd
ISBN: 1908273119
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
With the aid of over 300 photographs, complemented by full-colour maps, The Western Front 1917–1918 provides a detailed guide to the background and conduct of the conflict on the Western Front in the final years of World War I.
Battle Tactics of the Western Front
Author: Paddy GriffithPublisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300066630
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Historians have portrayed British participation in World War I as a series of tragic debacles, with lines of men mown down by machine guns, with untried new military technology, and incompetent generals who threw their troops into improvised and unsuccessful attacks. In this book a renowned military historian studies the evolution of British infantry tactics during the war and challenges this interpretation, showing that while the British army's plans and technologies failed persistently during the improvised first half of the war, the army gradually improved its technique, technology, and, eventually, its' self-assurance. By the time of its successful sustained offensive in the fall of 1918, says Paddy Griffith, the British army was demonstrating a battlefield skill and mobility that would rarely be surpassed even during World War II. Evaluating the great gap that exists between theory and practice, between textbook and bullet-swept mudfield, Griffith argues that many battles were carefully planned to exploit advanced tactics and to avoid casualties, but that breakthrough was simply impossible under the conditions of the time. According to Griffith, the British were already masters of "storm troop tactics" by the end of 1916, and in several important respects were further ahead than the Germans would be even in 1918. In fields such as the timing and orchestration of all-arms assaults, predicted artillery fire, "Commando-style" trench raiding, the use of light machine guns, or the barrage fire of heavy machine guns, the British led the world. Although British generals were not military geniuses, says Griffith, they should at least be credited for effectively inventing much of the twentieth-century's art of war.
The Strategy on the Western Front (1914-1918)
Author: Herbert Howland SargentPublisher: Palala Press
ISBN: 9781347023693
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Great War, Total War
Author: Roger ChickeringPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521773522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544
Book Description
World War I was the first large-scale industrialized military conflict, and it led to the concept of total war. The essays in this volume analyze the experience of the war in light of this concept's implications, in particular the erosion of distinctions between the military and civilian spheres.
The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918
Author: Nick LloydPublisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631497952
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 640
Book Description
The Telegraph • Best Books of the Year The Times of London • Best Books of the Year A panoramic history of the savage combat on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 that came to define modern warfare. The Western Front evokes images of mud-spattered men in waterlogged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts and machine-gun fire by a few feet of dirt. This iconic setting was the most critical arena of the Great War, a 400-mile combat zone stretching from Belgium to Switzerland where more than three million Allied and German soldiers struggled during four years of almost continuous combat. It has persisted in our collective memory as a tragic waste of human life and a symbol of the horrors of industrialized warfare. In this epic narrative history, the first volume in a groundbreaking trilogy on the Great War, acclaimed military historian Nick Lloyd captures the horrific fighting on the Western Front beginning with the surprise German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 and taking us to the Armistice of November 1918. Drawing on French, British, German, and American sources, Lloyd weaves a kaleidoscopic chronicle of the Marne, Passchendaele, the Meuse-Argonne, and other critical battles, which reverberated across Europe and the wider war. From the trenches where men as young as 17 suffered and died, to the headquarters behind the lines where Generals Haig, Joffre, Hindenburg, and Pershing developed their plans for battle, Lloyd gives us a view of the war both intimate and strategic, putting us amid the mud and smoke while at the same time depicting the larger stakes of every encounter. He shows us a dejected Kaiser Wilhelm II—soon to be eclipsed in power by his own generals—lamenting the botched Schlieffen Plan; French soldiers piling atop one another in the trenches of Verdun; British infantryman wandering through the frozen wilderness in the days after the Battle of the Somme; and General Erich Ludendorff pursuing a ruthless policy of total war, leading an eleventh-hour attack on Reims even as his men succumbed to the Spanish Flu. As Lloyd reveals, far from a site of attrition and stalemate, the Western Front was a simmering, dynamic “cauldron of war” defined by extraordinary scientific and tactical innovation. It was on the Western Front that the modern technologies—machine guns, mortars, grenades, and howitzers—were refined and developed into effective killing machines. It was on the Western Front that chemical warfare, in the form of poison gas, was first unleashed. And it was on the Western Front that tanks and aircraft were introduced, causing a dramatic shift away from nineteenth-century bayonet tactics toward modern combined arms, reinforced by heavy artillery, that forever changed the face of war. Brimming with vivid detail and insight, The Western Front is a work in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman and John Keegan, Rick Atkinson and Antony Beevor: an authoritative portrait of modern warfare and its far-reaching human and historical consequences.
Anglo-French Relations and Strategy on the Western Front, 1914–18
Author: William J. PhilpottPublisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349245119
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
This book is a study of Anglo-French relations and military policy making in the First World War, which considers the strategic policies and operational planning of the British and French armies in the joint campaign fought on the western front. It examines the influence of incompatible British and French strategic objectives, the role of the allies' military and political leaders and the institutional development of the military alliance, on the alliance relationship and military policy making.
The Western Front 1914–1916
Author: Professor Michael S NeibergPublisher: Amber Books Ltd
ISBN: 1908273100
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
The History of World War I series recounts the battles and campaigns of the 'Great War'. From the Falkland Islands to the lakes of Africa, across the Eastern and Western Fronts, to the former German colonies in the Pacific, the World War I series provides a six-volume history of the battles and campaigns that raged on land, at sea and in the air.