Author: David Stone
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1844862925
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 513
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Book Description
In this comprehensive book, David Stone describes and analyses every aspect of the German Army as it existed under Kaiser Wilhelm II, encompassing its development and antecedents, organisation, personnel, weapons and equipment, its inherent strengths and weaknesses, and its victories and defeats as it fought on many fronts throughout World War I. The book deals in considerable detail with the origins and creation of the German army, examining the structure of power in German politics and wider society, and the nation's imperial ambitions, along with the ways in which the high command and general staff functioned in terms of strategy and tactical doctrine. The nature, background, recruitment, training and military experiences of the officers, NCOs and soldiers are examined, while personal and collective values relating to honour, loyalty and conscience are also analysed. There is also an evaluation of all aspects of army life such as conscription, discipline, rest and recuperation and medical treatment. In addition the army's operations are set in context with an overview of the army at war, covering the key actions and outcomes of major campaigns from 1914 to 1918 up to the signature of the Armistice at Compiègne. For anyone seeking a definitive reference on the German Army of the period – whether scholar, historian, serving soldier or simply a general reader – this remarkable book will prove an invaluable work.
Author: Eric Dorn Brose
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199924066
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327
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Book Description
This volume covers a fascinating period in the history of the German army, a time in which machine guns, airplanes, and weapons of mass destruction were first developed and used. Eric Brose traces the industrial development of machinery and its application to infantry, cavalry, and artillery tactics. He examines the modernity versus anti-modernity debate that raged after the Franco-Prussian war, arguing that the residue of years of resistance to technological change seriously undermined the German army during World War I.
Author: Sven Hardin
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473849446
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 646
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Book Description
In 1914 Swedish professor, writer, illustrator and adventurer Sven Hedin was granted a car and escort and given a comprehensive tour of the German Armies fighting in Belgium and France during September and October 1914. Hedin was given unfettered access to German armies and leadership. The resulting book, With the German Armies in the West, was quickly finished and published, originally in Swedish, in 1914 then swiftly translated and printed in early 1915 by John Lane of The Bodley Head Press, London, at a time when the events described in the book were still fresh.During his battle-front tour, Hedin took the opportunity to roam around the Army's rear areas and to visit the frontline trench network. In the process he conducted many interviews, ranging from ordinary German privates to the most senior commanders and also with British and French POWs. He was an artist of great skill and was allowed to sketch many scenes depicting German infantry, cavalry, logistics and artillery batteries. He also documented the condition of post-August 1914 Belgium and described the situation in a very different light to the febrile tones of most neutral sources.This invaluable study of the Kaiser's Army in the early stages of the First World War is a great addition to the literature of the Great War providing a rare glimpse into the German Army of 1914.
Author: Ian Passingham
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752472585
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419
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Book Description
Convinced that both God and the Kaiser were on their side, the officers and men of the German Army went to war in 1914, confident that they were destined for a swift and crushing victory in the West. The vaunted Schlieffen Plan on which the anticipated German victory was based expected triumph in the West to be followed by an equally decisive success on the Eastern Front. It was not to be. From the winter of 1914 until the early months of 1918, the struggle on the Western Front was characterised by trench warfare. But our perception of the conflict takes little or no account of the realities of life 'across the wire' in the German trenches. This book redresses that imbalance and reminds us how similar these young German men were to our own Tommies. Drawing from diaries and letters, Ian Passingham charts the hopes and despair of the German soldiers, filling an important gap in the history of the Western Front.
Author: Charles Woolley
Publisher: Schiffer Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780764311734
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 147
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Book Description
During the period 1890-1910 the German Army of Kaiser Wilhelm II was ablaze in color, particularly the Garde and Cavalry regiments. In this superb new volume the author brings to the student of uniforms, as well as the art and military historian, the true glory of this brief, but most colorful time. Carl Becker was a skillful and talented artist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose treatment of German uniforms, the military pomp and ceremony, as well as the work-a-day activities of the Kaisers army, are both realistically and artistically among the very best. The 104 never before published uniform plates are a treasure trove of color, action, and rarity which have only been viewed by a select few before this publication. The additional illustrations from books and the postcard art reproduced here well display the scope and depth of Beckers work. Technically correct, and artistically rendered on the subject of Kaiser Wilhelm IIs flamboyant army of 1890-1910, this book will be a welcome addition to the library of the collector, the student of military costume, modelers and the appreciator of well executed military art.
Author: Richard Bassett
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300213107
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 633
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Book Description
Among the finest examples of deeply researched and colorfully written military history, Richard Bassett’s For God and Kaiser is a major account of the Habsburg army told for the first time in English. Bassett shows how the Imperial Austrian Army, time and again, was a decisive factor in the story of Europe, the balance of international power, and the defense of Christendom. Moreover it was the first pan-European army made up of different nationalities and faiths, counting among its soldiers not only Christians but also Muslims and Jews. Bassett tours some of the most important campaigns and battles in modern European military history, from the seventeenth century through World War I. He details technical and social developments that coincided with the army’s story and provides fascinating portraits of the great military leaders as well as noteworthy figures of lesser renown. Departing from conventional assessments of the Habsburg army as ineffective, outdated, and repeatedly inadequate, the author argues that it was a uniquely cohesive and formidable fighting force, in many respects one of the glories of the old Europe.
Author: Gerhard P. Gross
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813168392
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464
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Book Description
Surrounded by potential adversaries, nineteenth-century Prussia and twentieth-century Germany faced the formidable prospect of multifront wars and wars of attrition. To counteract these threats, generations of general staff officers were educated in operational thinking, the main tenets of which were extremely influential on military planning across the globe and were adopted by American and Soviet armies. In the twentieth century, Germany's art of warfare dominated military theory and practice, creating a myth of German operational brilliance that lingers today, despite the nation's crushing defeats in two world wars. In this seminal study, Gerhard P. Gross provides a comprehensive examination of the development and failure of German operational thinking over a period of more than a century. He analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of five different armies, from the mid--nineteenth century through the early days of NATO. He also offers fresh interpretations of towering figures of German military history, including Moltke the Elder, Alfred von Schlieffen, and Erich Ludendorff. Essential reading for military historians and strategists, this innovative work dismantles cherished myths and offers new insights into Germany's failed attempts to become a global power through military means.
Author: Ryszard Kaczmarek
Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
ISBN: 9783631814840
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
The book deals with the fate of Poles from Poznań, Upper Silesia, Masuria, and Eastern Pomerania, who served in the German Imperial Army during the First World War. In regiments recruited on the Polish soil, it was common to use the Polish language, and from 1917 Poles deserted to the Polish Army in France
Author: Alan Axelrod
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493031937
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
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Book Description
Immediately after the armistice was signed in November, 1918, an American journalist asked Paul von Hindenburg who won the war against Germany. He was the chief of the German General Staff, co-architect with Erich Ludendorff of Germany’s Eastern Front victories and its nearly war-winning Western Front offensives, and he did not hesitate in his answer. “The American infantry,” he said. He made it even more specific, telling the reporter that the final death blow for Germany was delivered by “the American infantry in the Argonne.” The British and the French often denigrated the American contribution to the war, but they had begged for US entry into the conflict, and their stake in America’s victory was, if anything, even greater than that of the United States itself. But How America Won WWI will not litigate the points of view of Britain and France. The book will accepts as gospel the assessment of the top German leader whose job it had been to oppose the Americans directly - that the American infantry won the war - and this book will tell how the American infantry did it.
Author: Robert Gaudi
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698411528
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 450
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Book Description
The incredible true account of World War I in Africa and General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the last undefeated German commander. “Let me say straight out that if all military histories were as thrilling and well written as Robert Gaudi’s African Kaiser, I might give up reading fiction and literary biography… Gaudi writes with the flair of a latter-day Macaulay. He sets his scenes carefully and describes naval and military action like a novelist.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post As World War I ravaged the European continent, a completely different theater of war was being contested in Africa. And from this very different kind of war, there emerged a very different kind of military leader.... At the beginning of the twentieth century, the continent of Africa was a hotbed of international trade, colonialism, and political gamesmanship. So when World War I broke out, the European powers were forced to contend with one another not just in the bloody trenches, but in the treacherous jungle. And it was in that unforgiving land that General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck would make history. With the now-legendary Schutztruppe (Defensive Force), von Lettow-Vorbeck and a small cadre of hardened German officers fought alongside their fanatically devoted native African allies as equals, creating the first truly integrated army of the modern age. African Kaiser is the fascinating story of a forgotten guerrilla campaign in a remote corner of Equatorial Africa in World War I; of a small army of ultraloyal African troops led by a smaller cadre of rugged German officers—of white men and black who fought side by side. But mostly it is the story of von Lettow-Vorbeck—the only undefeated German commmander in the field during World War I and the last to surrender his arms.
