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45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
or Why the Germans Fight Like They Do, March 25, 2006
This review is from: The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
Robert Citino takes a foundational view of Prussian (later German) way of seeing warfare that has led to the war fighting patterns observable over the past 400 years. Specific viewpoints based in the economic and population base of the Prussian state of 400 years ago led to a way of fighting that is recognizable throughout the history since.
Citino looks to Frederick William I as the progenitor of the Prussian way of war in the modern era. Frederick ruled a nation "on the periphery of the Holy Roman Empire" which had a very limited economy and a small population. It was impossible to field and maintain a large army for an extended war. Therefore, the Prussians had to fight to win very short, violent wars. The only way to do this was to attack the enemy with the utmost aggression. The best way to attack was to maneuver onto the enemy's flank or into his rear and destroy him.
According to Citino, this thinking is the basis for Prussian/German organization, training, and operation from Frederick's time forward. The author provides us with many examples of this modus operendi in action covered the era from Frederick William I to Operation Barbarossa. The author also points out where the Prussian way of war is deficient--logistics and intelligence being among the most important shortcomings.
I found this book superb. Seeing German military history through the lens of Prussian military philosophy makes what has been previously mysterious understandable. Despite years of reading WW2 history, I still could never get my head around certain concepts. Why were the Germans so unprepared for the end of the campaign season in 1941? Why were they so reluctant to go into winter positions when they had time? Why was the logistical effort so poorly planned and executed compared to the operational effort? Various authors have made various claims which never really satisfied me. Seen through the lens of Prussian bias, the events of the 1941 campaign make perfect sense. The Germans made every effort to finish the war in a single campaign. They were so strongly temperamentally disinclined (especially Hitler) to go to the defensive with the enemy still in the field against them that the Germans pushed until they literally ran out of strength. The WW1 experience only reinforced their determination not to go into prepared positions until the offensive options had been exhausted. Ultimately, there was no rational reason for the Germans to refuse to get themselves ready for Winter 1941-1942. They simply couldn't bring themselves to do it because doing so went against everything they believed.
This book would be a valuable addition to any library with a section for military history.
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Brilliant Concept!, December 30, 2005
This review is from: The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
Imagine that you are in command of an army. You are marching your troops toward the enemy, when suddenly you find yourself under attack. You do your best to hold them off and might even find yourself starting to experience some success. Suddenly, you become surrounded in a giant cauldron of fire from a direction that you never would have imagined possible. You were prepared for a long, bloody, and drawn out war, but find yourself completely incapable of fighting within a matter of days, or even hours. You have just been defeated by the German/Prussian army. Relax, you were not the first.
This, according to Robert Citino, is the German way of War, "short and lively." For over three-hundred years, armies from the kingdom of Prussia and later, Germany had devised a method of fighting conducive to their geographic location and manpower. The only way an army from this region could be successful in war was to win them quickly. Any bogging down of this army (stellungskrieg) would put a massive strain on their resources. In other words they were unable to fight a prolonged campaign. The solution: fight a war of movement (bewegungskrieg). This war of movement was designed, tested, and perfected over the course of three-hundred years of intercontinental fighting between random European nations and Prussia/Germany. Names like Frederick the Great, Blucher, Helmuth von Moltke, Schlieffen, Guderian, and a host of others are all mentioned along with their contributions to the German way of War.
The German Way of War is a remarkable book. Compelling from beginning to end, it is filled with information on every major German conflict since the Thirty Years' War. The thesis of the book is that despite rapidly improving technology, and an ever-growing population, the Germans style of fighting remained constant. Keep the wars "short and lively," find the enemy and attack, attack, attack. Pin down your enemy with accurate firepower and maneuver onto his rear, forming a huge cauldron (kesselschlacht). Although it sounds easy, only the Germans managed to perfect it, over and over again. While Citino does give attention to Germany's successes, he also discusses their failures, and why they occurred. This is a great book for anyone interested in modern European warfare. The chapters on the Napoleonic wars and World War II are outstanding. There are not too many books in English that tell the story of the Napoleonic wars from the Prussian point of view.
Overall, The German Way of War is recommended for anyone interested in modern European or operational warfare. The only criticism is that does not have nearly enough maps for the amount of battles analyzed. An inherent knowledge of the European landscape is required to fully understand many of the battles discussed, unless you want to keep a map of Europe handy while reading. This, however, is a minor criticism of an otherwise excellent book.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, March 8, 2008
This review is from: The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
After reading Robert Citino's excellent books "Quest for Decisive Victory" and "Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm", I was excited to read his latest book. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a disappointment. Citino reduces the German way of war down to a few basic concepts: the limited resources of the Prussian state created a need to keep wars "short and lively" (kurz und vives) which, in turn, led to a focus on operational maneuvers (bewegungskrieg) to achieve decisive victories, preferably by flanking or better yet encircling the enemy (kesselschlacht). Subordinate commanders were given wide latitude and could even flout orders with few or no consequences (the independence of subordinate commanders). For someone who echoes Moltke's disdain for catchphrases, he uses them a lot.
He makes the point that the German army's shortcomings were mostly the flipside of their virtues, although he doesn't discuss this in much detail. He also puts forth the idea that the independence of subordinate commanders derived from the unique social contract between the Junker class and the monarchy. It is an interesting, if not entirely convincing, argument. After all, as he explains, many of the best (and most independent-minded) officers of the 17th, 18th and even early 19th centuries were not Junkers, but foreign mercenaries.
His evidence is also a bit one-sided: it is easy enough to come up with a list of cautious and/or defensively-minded generals to put against his litany of aggressive "attack dogs" (his phrase). Which does not invalidate the truth or value of his conclusions: they help make clear many choices by German generals that otherwise seem inexplicable. But once you get this far, there's no more to say. Citino just keeps pounding away at these few points over and over again, as if we were third graders being taught the multiplication table. If I never see the phrase "kurz und vives" again, it will be too soon. Is there nothing more to the "German Way of War"?
It would have been more interesting if he had explored some other aspects of the German army's performance; particularly such contradictory points as its excellence in defense when its doctrine was so focused on the attack. At the least, he needed to explain better how these doctrines were transmitted down the generations. Saying that it was bred into their genes is a singularly useless metaphor. Certainly Frederick the Great thoroughly imbued these ideas into his army; his comment that the Prussian army only attacks sums up much of Citino's thesis. But only British subsidies allowed him to replace the soldiers his doctrine killed off. His victory at Rossbach did not keep the French off his back, a British-Hannoverian army did that. This is hardly a resounding endorsement. Geriatric generals who began their careers under Frederick help explain the disasters at Jena and Auerstadt. But why, after such clear proof that it was not a panacea, was it still treated as dogma in 1866, 1870, 1914 and 1939?
The book has its strong points. It's basic thesis is clear and well (overly?) supported, if a bit simplistic. Citino does a first-class job of describing many interesting campaigns and battles from 1656 to 1941; although this is rather spoiled by the few and sketchy maps. He does a better job at bringing to life the key characters: the Great Elector (Grosser Kurfurst), Seydlitz, Derfflinger, Frederick the Great, Clausewitz, Moltke and Schlieffen. It is fascinating, but totally irrelevant, how many of these names ended up on German battleships and battlecruisers. The footnotes (as always with Citino's books) do an excellent job of pointing you to further reading on every topic or event discussed.
His final conclusion, that by 1941 the independence of command crucial to the German Way of War had been rendered obsolete by advances in technology, rings hollow. Certainly Rommel, Manstein, Patton and others were prepared to flout orders when they saw the need, right up to the end of the war. Ultimately, in spite of its strengths, I found this book disappointing.
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