The Great War toppled four empires, cost the world 24 million dead, and sowed the seeds of another worldwide conflict 20 years later. This is the only book in the English language to offer comprehensive coverage of how Germany and Austria-Hungary, two of the key belligerents, conducted the war and what defeat meant to them.This new edition has been thoroughly updated throughout, including new developments in the historiography and, in particular, addressing new work on the cultural...

For the first time in a generation, here is a bold new account of the Battle of the Marne, a cataclysmic encounter that prevented a quick German victory in World War I and changed the course of two wars and the world. With exclusive information based on newly unearthed documents, Holger H. Herwig re-creates the dramatic battle and reinterprets Germany’s aggressive “Schlieffen Plan” as a carefully crafted design to avoid a protracted war against superior coalitions. He paints a fresh portra...

Karl Haushofer, a Bavarian general and professor, is widely recognized as the “father of geopolitics.” In 1945 the United States sought to put him on trial at Nuremberg as a major war criminal for being “Hitler’s intellectual godfather” and the true author of Mein Kampf. In this definitive biography, noted historian Holger H. Herwig assesses the fiction and reality behind these claims. Making comprehensive use of Haushofer’s previously unavailable private papers, Herwig analyzes Haushofer’...

A brilliant work of naval history, Deadly Seas tells the dramatic story of the birth, life, and death of two wartime vessels, one Allied, the other Axis, and, through them, the larger story of the epic Battle of the Atlantic itself.

Late in the morning of 27 May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck was sunk by an overwhelming British armada in a fierce battle that lasted ninety minutes. Admiral Gunther Lutjens, Captain Ernst Lindemann and 2,206 men of her crew were lost, only 115 survived.Five days earlier, an RAF reconnaissance plane flying low off the coast of Norway spotted four large warships in the sea below. At 19,000 tons fully loaded, the sight of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen was shocking enough; even...

Long Night of the Tankers presents a fresh account of a lesser-known but critical component of the Atlantic naval theatre during World War II. Using war diaries, after-action reports, and first-hand accounts, authors Bercuson and Herwig examine the story behind Operation Neuland, the German plan to interrupt vital oil supplies from reaching the United States and the United Kingdom by preventing Allied oil tankers from leaving refineries in the Caribbean. The story begins in February 1942 a...

This work poses a straightforward - yet at the same time perplexing - question about World War I: Why did it happen? Several of the oft-cited causes are reviewed and discussed. The argument of the alliance systems is inadequate, lacking relevance or compelling force. The arguments of mass demands, those focusing on nationalism, militarism and social Darwinism, it is argued, are insufficient, lacking indications of frequency, intensity, and process (how they influenced the various decisions...

"This book is a work of detail and scholars can now envision the campaigns and battles of the First World War from a high-level German perspective." — Journal of Military HistoryGen. Fritz von Lossberg (1868-1942) directed virtually all the major German defensive battles on the Western Front during the First World War. Hailed as "the Lion of the Defensive," he was an extremely influential military tactician and, unlike many other operations officers of his ...

Offering exhaustive coverage, detailed analyses, and the latest historical interpretations of events, this expansive, five-volume encyclopedia is the most comprehensive and detailed reference source on the First World War available today.One hundred years after the beginning of World War I in 1914, this conflict still stands as perhaps the most important event of the 20th century. World War I toppled all of the existing empires at the time, transformed the Middle E...

Originally published in 1980 ‘Luxury’ Fleet (the phrase was Winston Churchill’s) was the first history of the Imperial German navy from 1888 to 1918. After tracing the historical background to German naval ambitions, the first two sections of the book analyse Admiral Tirpitz’s programme of building a battle fleet strong enough to engage the Royal Navy in the North Sea. The author shows the fleet in its European setting and describes the warships and the attitudes of the officer corps and s...

The major European powers drafted war plans before 1914 and executed them in August 1914; none brought the expected victory by Christmas. Why? This tightly focused collection of essays by international experts in military history reassesses the war plans of 1914 in a broad diplomatic, military, and political setting for the first time in three decades. The book analyzes the war plans of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Russia on the basis of the latest research a...