The War Of Lost Opportunities

First published in 1924, German General Max Hoffmann’s The War of Lost Opportunities examines missed opportunities for the German military during the First World War. The book takes particular note of The Battle of Tannenberg fought between August 26-30, 1914, which resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov. The battle also led to the 1918 Spring Offensive—otherwise known as Kaiserschlacht (“Kaiser’s Battle”), or the Ludendorff Offensive—which saw a series of German attacks along the Western Front, beginning on 21 March 1918, that marked the deepest advances by either side since 1914. An invaluable addition to any First World War book collection.

Max Hoffmann was the unsung hero who devised the brilliant German battle plan to crush the invading Russians in East Prussia in the opening weeks of the Great War. Two huge Russian armies, led by Generals Samsonov and Rennenkampf, who were divided by mutual hatred as well as space - invaded the ancient German lands much earlier than expected and found themselves up against weak opposition, with most German troops on the western front. After defeating the Germans under von Prittwitz at Gumbinnen it seemed that nothing could stop the Germans. It was then that Hoffmann, a Russian specialist, devised his plan to encircle and defeat the two Russian armies piecemeal after they outreached themselves and overstretched their supplies and communications. When Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived to take charge, all they had to do was implement Hoffmann's plan - and gain the huge credit for the subsequent crushing victories at Tannenburg and the Masurian Lakes. Prussia was saved, and the Russians never recovered from the blow. Hoffmann remained on the Eastern Front and in these fascinating memoirs tells the full story of this forgotten war, a German triumph, from the victories of 1914 down to the Russian revolution and the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk. These memoirs betray Hoffmnn's justified bitterness over the fact that Hindenburg and Ludendorff had got the credit for the victory which he had devised.

In one of the most detailed and powerfully argued books published on American intervention in Vietnam, Fredrik Logevall examines the last great unanswered question on the war: Could the tragedy have been averted? His answer: a resounding yes. Challenging the prevailing myth that the outbreak of large-scale fighting in 1965 was essentially unavoidable, Choosing War argues that the Vietnam War was unnecessary, not merely in hindsight but in the context of its time. Why, then, did major war break out? Logevall shows it was partly because of the timidity of the key opponents of U.S. involvement, and partly because of the staunch opposition of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to early negotiations. His superlative account shows that U.S. officials chose war over disengagement despite deep doubts about the war's prospects and about Vietnam's importance to U.S. security and over the opposition of important voices in the Congress, in the press, and in the world community. They did so because of concerns about credibility—not so much America's or the Democratic party's credibility, but their own personal credibility. Based on six years of painstaking research, this book is the first to place American policymaking on Vietnam in 1963-65 in its wider international context using multiarchival sources, many of them recently declassified. Here we see for the first time how the war played in the key world capitals—not merely in Washington, Saigon, and Hanoi, but also in Paris and London, in Tokyo and Ottawa, in Moscow and Beijing. Choosing War is a powerful and devastating account of fear, favor, and hypocrisy at the highest echelons of American government, a book that will change forever our understanding of the tragedy that was the Vietnam War.

The First World War was above all a war of logistics. Whilst the conflict will forever be remembered for the mud and slaughter of the Western Front, it was a war won on the factory floor as much as the battlefield. Examining the war from an industrial perspective, Arming the Western Front examines how the British between 1900 and 1920 set about mobilising economic and human resources to meet the challenge of 'industrial war'. Beginning with an assessment of the run up to war, the book examines Edwardian business-state relations in terms of armament supply. It then outlines events during the first year of the war, taking a critical view of competing constructs of the war and considering how these influenced decision makers in both the private and public domains. This sets the framework for an examination of the response of business firms to the demand for 'shells more shells', and their varying ability to innovate and manage changing methods of production and organisation. The outcome, a central theme of the book, was a complex and evolving trade-off between the quantity and quality of munitions supply, an issue that became particularly acute during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. This deepened the economic and political tensions between the military, the Ministry of Munitions, and private engineering contractors as the pressure to increase output accelerated markedly in the search for victory on the western front. The Great War created a dual army, one in the field, the other at home producing munitions, and the final section of the book examines the tensions between the two as the country strove for final victory and faced the challenges of the transition to the peace time economy.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1865. At the second session thirty-eighth congress. Army of the Potomac. Battle of Petersburg.

“Racy two-volume military memoirs of the brilliant mind that conceived the operational plan for Tannenberg, Germany’s triumph on the eastern front in 1914. Hoffmann was the strong man in the east for the rest of the war. Max Hoffmann was Chief of Staff to Von Prittwitz, the aristocratic General charged with defending Germany’s East Prussian heartland at the outbreak of the Great War. Prittwitz was as inept as his name suggests, and when the Russians steamrollered west far faster than the Germans had expected, he panicked and sought permission to retreat behind the River Vistula. But Hoffman kept his head and conceived a bold scheme to attack and annihilate the Russian advance. This was the operational plan that was already being put into effect when the dynamic duo of Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived in the east to take over from the disgraced Prittwitz in late August 1914. The result was the total triumph of Tannenberg, soon followed by the twin victory at the Masurian Lakes. Hindenburg and Ludendorff got the credit for Tannenberg rather than its real author, the brilliant Hoffmann, who continued to be a tower of strength on the Eastern front, being part of the German delegation which negotiated the harsh Treaty of Brest-Litvosk which eliminated Russia from the war early in 1918. These two volumes of memoirs comprise (Vol 1) Hoffmann’s War Diaries and (Vol II) his reflections which are summed up in his title ‘The War of Lost Opportunities’. Hoffmannn believed that the Great War could have been won by Germany in the east in 1914-15, and that Falkenhayn made a major mistake by concentrating on the west. Hoffmann’s frank and rather salty comments on Falkenhayn and his other brother officers - including Ludendorff of whom he was a critical admirer - are valuable and revealing, coming as they do from one of the brightest minds among Germany’s supreme commanders.”-N&M Print Version.

An up-to-date and concise account of WWI for teachers and students looking for a balanced introduction. It details both the military operations as well as the development of war aims, alliance diplomacy and the war on the home front.