ABSTRACT
There is no shortage of books in the English language to tell us of the technical brilliance and innovative genius of the German Army in the First World War. We have descriptions aplenty of the way the Germans learned the lessons forced on all combatants by the trench stalemate that set in towards the end of 1914. The taking of increasingly strong and sophisticated defences certainly required new methods of infantry attack, new training and weaponry, and new artillery equipments and tactics. One could study the historiography of fighting on the Western Front and be forgiven for thinking that it was only the German Army that had the wit to study the problem and devise ‘modern’ ways of overcoming the difficulties. This sort of admiration can be at the modest level of accepting that the Germans were a very professional military nation, with a widespread military culture based on universal conscription, and, of course, the unique and wonderful Great General Staff which constantly absorbed new ideas and spread them throughout the German Army. At the more extreme end of the spectrum we are asked to believe that the Germans created an entire army of storm troopers who were able to crush their opponents by the power of their attacks. It must be an abiding mystery to this school of history how Germany actually lost the war. 1
