If politicians could not deliver peace the generals must deliver victory and to secure this there was no alternative to defeating the German army in the field. To all intents and purposes Hindenburg and Ludendorff ran Germany by the end of the war, the same could not be said for Haig in Britain or even Foch in France. This was beyond the purview of the generals to deliver, except in Germany where civil authority was more completely subordinated to military authority than elsewhere. The tragic truth is that the “something else” did not exist militarily, only politically. The Russian army was defeated as much by the uselessness of it's own leaders as by the good generalship of the Germans. Where there was room for the Indirect Approach, on the Eastern Front, the front line swayed inconclusively this way and that for three years until the Tsarist regime collapsed from within. And was the Indirect Approach not what the Schlieffen Plan was all about? It failed, and in doing so it left no room for further Indirect Approaches, only costly but irrelevant sideshows like Salonika. The trouble is, as Richard Holmes pointed out, that Liddell Hart “could produce no evidence that the destruction of railways in the Hejaz made the teacups rattle in Berlin”. Instead, Liddell Hart praises Gallipoli, in theory if not in practice, and Lawrence’s campaign in Arabia. Offensives such as Loos, the Somme, or Third Ypres, where the bulk of the British army threw itself on the defences of the bulk of the German army, should have been avoided. Understandably sickened by the Western Front, Liddell Hart developed the strategy of Indirect Approach, namely, avoiding the bulk of the enemy's forces and taking his flank or rear (see his book Strategy). This book makes that argument better than any other. Those who persisted with the attacks in France and Belgium were guilty of callous stupidity they should have been looking for the “something else”. As casualties on the Western Front ran into the hundreds of thousands for a single battle while the gains were measured in yards, some observers at the time and most observers since thought that there must be an alternative, we just had to find it. In fact, Napoleon’s conduct at Wagram, Borodino, and Waterloo suggests otherwise, but the belief took hold. “Had (Napoleon) been here”, de Castelnau observed, “he would have thought of the something else”. In his War Memoirs, Lloyd George recalls a conversation with the French General de Castelnau as stalemate set in on the Western Front. This book is sure to educate interested folks in lessons in management, strategy and tactics, perhaps the only profit from the mistakes of people long dead. It is incredible how many opportunities were missed through bad generalship and poor foresight and how many were rescued through ignoring of orders at local level. Thus, the reader can grasp both the actual turning points of the war or the points where the war could have turned. The author is scathing in his criticism of generals for wasting precious lives in futile struggles but he at the same time acknowledges where the effort might have had a greater impact.The author doesn't just describe events but also brings his own analysis and knowledge into the picture. However, this is an unbiased military history and it is clear that the author has genuine respect for the Germans even though he personally fought against them. Being British, the author perhaps focuses a wee bit more on their efforts. The campaigns are covered in detail and theaters other than Europe are also covered. The book breathes life into even the most static military struggle the world has ever witnessed. We never get to know what the peasant tilling on the fields of Germany thought of the war effort as he sat eating ersatz foods during his lunch break. Casualties and costs are rarely mentioned. This is not a book for those who wish to know about the costs of war or what war wreaks on a nation. This is strictly a book for folks who are able to visualize war as a complex puzzle with complex characters who are struggling for achieving definite objectives.
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