WORLDForeword by Gary Sheffield WAR I COMPANION MATTHIAS STROHNEdited by © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com WORLD WAR I COMPANION Edited by MATTHIAS STROHN © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com Acknowledgements A book such as this cannot be written without the help and support of numerous people and this is the place to thank them. First and foremost, I would like to thank the contributors to this book. It is often said that looking after academics is worse than herding cats, but this was most definitely not the case in this project. All the contributors worked with a high level of professionalism which made my work as the editor an enjoyable task. My role as the editor was made even easier by the outstanding support provided by Marcus Cowper and his team at Osprey. I know that without this support the road to publication of this book would have been far bumpier than it turned out to be. I would also like to thank the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, in particular the Director of Studies Sean McKnight, my colleagues in the War Studies Department and Andrew Orgill and his team from the library. Even though his role in the project was only a small one I would like to thank Professor Sir Hew Strachan from Oxford University for his continuous support. Without him, I would not be where I am today. Last, and by no means least, I would like to thank my family, and in particular my wife Rocio, for their help and understanding. Rocio had to share my attention with old generals and chapter drafts for far too long. Without her infinite patience and love it would have been much harder to complete this book. This book is dedicated to the soldiers from all nations who fought and suffered in World War I, believing that they were fighting for a just course. © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com CONTENTS Contributors 8 Foreword 13 Professor Gary Sheffield Chapter 1 Commanding Through Armageddon 19 Allied Senior Leadership in World War I Professor Michael S. Neiberg Chapter 2 German Operational Thinking in World War I 33 Major Dr Thorsten Loch Chapter 3 The Expansion of the British Army During World War I 47 Major Bruce Gudmundsson Chapter 4 World War I Aviation 61 From Reconnaissance to the Modern Air Campaign Dr James S. Corum Chapter 5 The Global War at Sea, 1914–18 77 Professor Dr Michael Epkenhans Chapter 6 The French Army Between Tradition and Modernity 94 Weaponry, Tactics, and Soldiers 1914–18 Professor Dr François Cochet Chapter 7 German Tactical Doctrine and the Defensive Battle on the Western Front 107 Dr Matthias Strohn Chapter 8 The Rollercoaster of Austria-Hungary’s World War I Experience 121 Professor Dr Lothar Höbelt © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com Chapter 9 The Imperial Russian Army and the Eastern Front in World War I, 1914–17 140 Dr Stephen Walsh Chapter 10 ANZACs and the Rocky Road to Tactical Effectiveness, 1916–17 160 Dr Andrew Macdonald Chapter 11 A Sideshow of a Sideshow? 176 The Arab Revolt (1916–18) and the Development of Modern Desert Warfare Dr David Murphy Chapter 12 The Reluctant Pupil 195 The American Army on the Western Front, 1917–18 Professor Andrew Wiest Chapter 13 The German Occupation of the Ukraine, 1918 210 Blitzkrieg and Insurgencies Dr Peter Lieb Endnotes 226 Bibliography 254 Index 263 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com CONTRIBUTORS Professor Gary Sheffield is Professor of War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. He has published widely on military history, especially World War I. His books include The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army (2011); the bestselling Forgotten Victory: The First World War – Myths and Realities (2001); and Leadership in the Trenches (2000). He previously held Chairs at the University of Birmingham and King’s College London. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is currently editing, with John Bourne, the World War I letters and diaries of General Sir Henry Rawlinson, and researching a book on the experiences of the British and Commonwealth soldiers in World War II. He frequently broadcasts on television and radio, and writes for a variety of newspapers, journals and magazines. Professor Michael Neiberg is Professor of History in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He is the author or editor of numerous books and articles about World War I, most recently Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of War in 1914 (Harvard University Press, 2011). He is also the author of the World War I article in the forthcoming Cambridge History of Warfare series. He is a founding member of the International Society for First World War Studies and a trustee of the Society for Military History. His latest book is The Blood of Free Men: The Liberation of Paris, 1944 (Basic Books, 2012). Major Dr Thorsten Loch, MA, works at the German Armed Forces Office for Military History and Social Sciences in Potsdam, Germany. He studied history and social sciences at the German armed forces university in Hamburg and has held several postings related to military history (e.g. as lecturer in military history at the German officer training academy) and as an infantry company commander. His publications include Das Gesicht der Bundeswehr. 8 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com Contributors Kommunikationsstrategien in der Freiwilligenwerbung der Bundeswehr. 1956 bis 1989 (Munich, 2008), Wie Friedrich der Große“ wurde. Eine kleine Geschichte des Siebenjährigen Krieges 1756 bis 1763 (Freiburg, 2012), Wie die Siegessäule nach Berlin kam. Eine kleine Geschichte der Reichseinigungskriege 1864 bis 1871 (Freiburg, 2011), and Das Wachbataillon beim Bundesministerium der Verteidigung (1957–2007). Geschichte – Auftrag – Tradition (Hamburg, 2007) Major Bruce Gudmundsson, USMC (Retired) is a military historian who studies tactical innovation, professional education, and organizational culture. He has written six books on these subjects, as well as a large number of short books, doctrinal manuals, case studies, concept papers, magazine articles, translations, and tactical decision games. A graduate of Oxford University (D.Phil), Yale College (BA) and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island (PFC), Dr. Gudmundsson has taught at the Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfighting, Oxford University, and the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Dr James S. Corum is the Dean of the Baltic Defence College since 2009. From 1991 to 2004, he was a professor at the US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. In 2005 he was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, where he held a Leverhulme Fellowship, and then an associate professor at the US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Dr Corum is the author of several books on military history, including The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform (1992); The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918–1940 (1997); The Luftwaffe’s Way of War: German Air Doctrine, 1911–1945, with Richard Muller (1998); Airpower in Small Wars: Fighting Insurgents and Terrorists, with Wray Johnson (2003); and Fighting the War on Terror: A Counterinsurgency Strategy (2007). His eighth book on Cold War History is Rearming Germany (Leiden, Brill Press, 2011). He is the editor in chief of the translation (from German) of the Encyclopedia of the First World War (2 volumes) (Leiden, Brill, 2012). He has also authored more than 60 major book chapters and journal articles on a variety of subjects related to air power and military history, and was one of the primary authors of Field Manual 3-24, the US Army and US Marine Corps doctrine on counterinsurgency. Dr Corum served in Iraq in 2004 as a lieutenant-colonel in the US Army Reserve. He holds a master’s degree from Brown University, a Master of Letters from Oxford University, and a PhD from Queen’s University, Canada. 9 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com WORLD WAR I COMPANION Professor Dr Michael Epkenhans is currently the director of Historical Research at the German Armed Forces Office for Military History and Social Sciences in Potsdam. Between 1996 and 2009 he was the director of the Otto-von-Bismarck- Foundation in Friedrichsruh. He has published widely on the German history of the 19th and 20th centuries as well as on naval history. His publications include Preußen. Aufstieg und Fall einer Großmacht (Stuttgart, 2011), The Danish Straits and German Naval Power, 1905–1918 (Potsdam, 2010), and Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Architect of the German Battle Fleet (Washington, DC, 2008). Professor Dr François Cochet is Professor of Contemporary History at Lorraine University, Metz. Before taking up his position in Metz in 2002 he was he was a professor at the University of Limoges. Francois Cochet is a Chevalier de l’ordre des Palmes académiques and Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He is the author of a number of books on the subject of World War I, with a particular emphasis on the experience of combat and prisoners of war. His publications include Les soldats inconnus de la Grande Guerre (Saint-Cloud, 2012), Former les soldats au feu, premier volume de la collection l’Expérience combattante, 19e–21e siècles (Paris, 2011), Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929), «Apprenez à penser» (Saint-Cloud, 2010), and La Première Guerre mondiale: Dates, thèmes, noms (Paris, 2001) Dr Matthias Strohn was educated at the Universities of Münster (Germany) and Oxford. He has lectured at Oxford University, the German Staff College (Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr) and the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham. Since 2006 he has been a Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and in 2011 he was also made a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham.