Customer Reviews

All the Kaiser's Men: The Life and Death of the German Army on the Western Front 1914-1918

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book provides a refreshing perspective of the history of the Western Front. The author, Ian Passingham, describes the efforts and travails of the Imperial German Army from the assault on Liege to the November armistice in 1918. He describes an organization that in 1914 was far superior to its enemies in personnel, tactics, and equipment. However, its top military leadership, vested progressively in Moltke, Falkenhayn, and finally Ludendorff, fatally undermined its chances of ultimate success against the Western Allies. The problem seems to have been a recurrent streak of indecisiveness at the most critical moments. And millions of their own men and their enemies would pay the price in death and blood.

Thankfully, the book is lavishly illustrated with maps and photos, many of which come from previously unpublished sources. The chapters are organized chronologically and are focused on the major battle campaigns, i.e. Belgian invasion, First Marne, First Ypres, Second Ypres, Verdun, the Somme, Third Ypres, Cambrai, the Kaiserschlacht battles, and the Hundred Days. Passingham also briefly covers the slow but dreadful effects of the Allied naval blockade and their extreme effectiveness at producing malnutrition on an industrialized Germany vitally dependent on imported foodstuffs and fertilizers. However, Ludendorff and Hindenburg still managed to support great pot bellies throughout the war!

The book relates the German military's concerns regarding the huge attritional losses from the epic Verdun, Somme, and Passchendaele battles with direct quotes from respected army group leaders, such as Crown Prince Rupprecht and Von Below. So with this evidence Passingham makes the dual claim that the British Army was not so far behind the Germans tactically as often thought and that the Somme and Passchendaele battles were not a total loss.

While it is impossible to make sweeping truthful generalizations, I believe the Germans were markedly superior in offensive tactics (with the exception of newly recruited units at First Ypres). However, in defense both the Allies and Germans repeatedly made the mistake of packing the front line trenches (with consequent heavy casualties from shelling) till the last two years of the war. And so far as I am concerned, any major offensive that fails to achieve a strategic victory is a failure, which would encompass all the Western Front battles except the Hundred Days.

There are three paths to victory. 1) Eliminate the enemy's will to fight. 2) Eliminate his resources to fight. 3) Or physically eliminate the enemy. It was the Allies who won the war because Ludendorff (and the German people long before) lost the will to fight. Ludendorff lost his will since his own wasteful offensives to nowhere had failed and since the new relentless Hundred Days' offensive, backed with massive American manpower and Allied logistical support, psychologically unhinged him.

The book does a good job of recounting Western Front history, but tends to rely on statistics provided by the official British war histories which almost always way overblow the numbers of German casualties. (After all without access to enemy unit personnel rosters, how could they really know?) Still, it is a book that I quite enjoyed and recommend.

Other reviewers have done a very good job of summarising the book, so I will not attempt it here. I will just add some of my own comments.

This book is invaluable in plugging a gap in the story of the First World War that was being told over the past decades. In recent years, a movement has arisen that attempted to address (or revise, depending on your perspective) the many myths concerning the First World War. Much of the works from this movement had concentrated on the British contribution to the war.

While this is much needed, in attempting to revise the misconceptions of the British contribution and military achievements in WW1, the authors had concentrated on the British perspective and experiences. Often, other countries such as France, Germany, Russia and the United States had been neglected.

Here is where this book make an important contribution. While in parts, the author could not resist correcting misconceptions about British military effectiveness, he at least attempted to show what it was like for the German soldiers on the Western Front. As he made clear, it was every bit as horrific as that for the British and French - perhaps more so. Worse, quite contrary to the popular misconception of the abilities of German commanders, the German soldiers often served under commanders that were wasteful of their lives to achieve little strategic gain.

Under these conditions, the author rightly paid tribute to the endurance and fighting skills of the average German soldier, who much more than his British counterparts, had to endure hell to 'do his bit'.

In showing the German perspective, the author had plug an important gap in recent WW1 studies.

This is highly recommended for junior staff officers as a general account of the German war effort in WW1.

This is one of the better guides to the "average" German Soldier on the Western Front of WW I. This book has clear, concise writing and excellent photographs, many of which are very uncommon. This is a super reference book for the serious historian or someone with only a passing interest. Great gift book for the WW I armchair historian who "has everything" already! Soft cover edition is large and easy to read with no photos deleted from hard back version. Highly recommended!

Illustrated with photographs, postcards, maps and drawings this book does a good job of giving the reader an idea of the war fought by the WWI landser. Mr. Passingham did an excellent job of researching the material and I thoroughly enjoyed his writing. The organization of the book and the perspective of the author made All the Kaiser's Men eminently readable. I recommend this to anyone who is reading up on World War One.

In this well written and excellently illustrated book, complete with maps, the story of the German army in the First World War is laid out. This stody is one not often told except for in All Quiet on the Western Front: The Illustrated Edition. The story is one that is interesting and is rarely told. Most English language histories of the Great war examine the history of the allied powers. John Keegan's The First World War is guilty of this. The German army entered the war with a brilliant plan to knock the French out before they could mobilize. The Germans knew the Russians would mobilize slowly and that the Tsars army had to march as much as thousand miles, the railways being inefficient, to be within striking distance of the frontier.

So the Germans struck through Belgium, sweeping away the low countries and aiming for Paris. But it was not to be. Four years of terrible conditions, food shortages and trench warfare were to come. In the end the Germans launched one last great offensive in 1918. Depite brilliant commanders such as Ludendorf and Hindenberg the Germans could not break the deadlock. They bled the French white at Verdun and cuased French mutinies but could not destroy the allies.

A fascinating book that finally sheds light on the other side of the Great War.

Seth J. Frantzman

For me, this was something of a disappointing 'coffee table book of WWI.' It is lavishly illustrated with interesting photographs and maps. Many of the maps are in the original German. I read a little German so found this interesting. Others may find it frustrating. This leads to one of my serious reservations about the book. The text often mentions place-names that are not on any of the maps. So, unless you know every village or ship canal in Flanders and Northern France, you search somewhat in vain for where they are talking about. This is particularly so when they talk of an offensive between place A and place B--and sometimes neither of them can be found. Frustrating.

A second major reservation has to do with opinions being stated as fact. Several examples... Ludendorff had no strategic goal in mind when he threw most of the 1 million soldiers released from the Eastern Front against the British in Flanders in the 1918 battles. The author contradicts himself frequently in his own text, by making clear that the strategic objective was to knock the British Army out of the war, after which Ludendorff believed France would fall easily.

And again... he maintains that Ludendorff was essentially a military dictator--without much other than his own say-so to back this up. I haven't seen this in more serious works on WWI such as Liddel-Hart's.

The book does make the point that the Germans suffered massively from the Somme and Passchendale battles and lost hundreds of thousands of men also.

The major contribution of the book is what it provides about the life of the German trench-dweller. Otherwise there are better books.

I THOUGHT THE BOOK GAVE A IN DEPTH ACCOUT OF THE LIFE OF THE AVERAGE GERMAN SOLDIER IE GI.there is little info in circulation about this subject.