The Swordbearers; Supreme Command in the First World WarThe theme of this book is the decisive effect of individual human character on history. The background, in sharpest contrast, is a sudden and violent transition to mass collectivised life - to twentieth-century industry civilisation. The principal actors are four national commanders-in-chief: two German, one Frenchman, one Englishman. Theirs was the novel task of directing these new and terrifying forces of mass power in battle. Each had been born and bred in the last age; each belonged to a highly conservative profession. Their abilities and defects reflected and illustrated those of their countries. |
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17th Army 18th Army 1st Army 2nd Army 3rd Army 5th Army Admiralty advance Aisne allies Amiens army commanders Army Group Army's artillery attack August battle cruisers battle fleet Battle Squadron battleships Beatty Beatty's Belgian Britain British Official History Bülow campaign cavalry Commander-in-Chief Compiègne corps decisive defeat defence deployment destroyers divisions east enemy Evan-Thomas fighting fire flank Foch forces France French army German army Grand Fleet guns Haig Haig's heavy Hentsch High Seas Fleet Hindenburg Hipper Horn Reefs ibid infantry Jellicoe Jellicoe's Joffre Jutland Kaiser Kluck Kuhl Lanrezac Liége Ludendorff manoeuvre March March 21 Marne Maubeuge Meuse miles military Moltke Moltke's moral mutinies navy Nivelle's numbers offensive officers Oise organisation Paris Pétain reserves retreat right wing round Royal Navy Rupprecht Russia Scheer Schlieffen Plan Serrigny shells ships signal soldiers Somme staff strategic submarines tactical tion troops Verdun victory western front wrote