From Library Journal
Historian Herwig (Biographical Dictionary of World War I, LJ 12/15/82) draws primarily on German and Austro-Hungarian archival sources?many of which have become accessible only in the last decade?to analyze the surprising weaknesses and blundering of those two powers. Following an informative preface by series editor and historian Hew Strachan and an introduction by the author, Herwig presents a terse narrative of the war's course. Chapter notes and an extensive bibliography contain a large number of German and Austrian official sources, while black-and-white maps illustrate major battles and campaigns. For separate treatments of the two major Central Powers, libraries are referred to Samuel R. Williamson's Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (St. Martin's, 1991) and Rod Paschall's The Defeat of Imperial Germany, 1917-1918 (Algonquin, 1989). Warmly recommended for academic and large public libraries.?Harry E. Whitmore, formerly with Univ. of Maine at Augusta, PortlandCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
This book draws on ten years of archival research to provide the first comprehensive treatment in English of how Germany and Austria-Hungary conducted World War I and what defeat meant to them.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Great War toppled four empires, cost the world 24 million dead, and sowed some of the seeds of another worldwide conflagration 20 years later. Yet, until now, there has been no comprehensive treatment of how Germany and Austria-Hungary - two of the key belligerents - conducted the war and what defeat meant to them. Much of the writing on the war has hallowed the tactical and operational effectiveness of the German army. Yet Germany lost the conflict. In tackling this paradox, Herwig shows how greatly the Central Powers suffered from inadequate resources and an incapacity to manage effectively what they had. He also shows with clarity just how much of Germany's effort was expended in sustaining not only its own war effort but also that of its ally, without any corresponding subordination of Vienna to Berlin, as the economic and military realities required. But it is in his reassessment of Germany's military effectiveness that he offers the most fundamental corrective. For readers accustomed to criticisms of the various Allied commanders, Herwig's examination of the German military effort will have uncanny echoes. Even the famous German offensives of March 1918, regarded as a model of breakthrough operations by interwar theorists, are condemned not just for their lack of strategic objective but even for their tactical failings.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal