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2 results

Holding Out
  • The German Army and Operational Command in 1917
  • Tony Cowan
  • Published online:
    31 March 2023
    Print publication:
    20 April 2023
  • This is a ground-breaking study of German operational command during a critical phase of the First World War from November 1916 to the eve of the third battle of Ypres. The situation faced by the German army on the Western Front in 1917 was very different from the one anticipated in pre-war doctrine and Holding Out examines how German commanders and staff officers adapted.  Tony Cowan analyses key command tasks to get under the skin of the army's command culture, internal politics and battle management systems from co-ordinating the troops, matériel and different levels of command needed to fight a modern battle to continuously learning and applying lessons from the ever-changing Western Front. His detailed analysis of the German defeat of the 1917 Entente spring offensive sheds new light on how the army and Germany were able to hold out so long during the war against increasing odds.

  • 12 - The war at sea

  • from Part II - Theatres of War
  • Edited by Jay Winter, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the First World War
    Published online:
    05 December 2013
    Print publication:
    09 January 2014, pp 321-348

  • Summary

    The year 1917 began an important transition on the battlefield. The battles of Cambrai, Riga and Caporetto represented the start of a shift from the infantry-based age of mass assaults to the mechanical, combined-arms approach that featured infantry working with aviation, artillery and armour in various combinations. This transition showed the fulfilment of the Industrial Revolution and its impacts on war. Nivelle's optimism was infectious among politicians who wanted desperately to believe that he had unlocked the secret to modern warfare. Douglas Haig, the British commander, had received discouraging reports about the French army, including some that suggested that French soldiers were demanding peace and refusing to salute their officers. Haig concluded that his long-desired offensive in Flanders offered the best way to draw the Germans away from the French and give his ally the time it desperately needed.