Tag France
The French Army in Italy was a failing army but was revitalized in 1796 by the arrival of Napoleon and his dynamic leadership style that allowed his soldiers to realize their potential. The soldiers were unpaid and underfed; they… Continue Reading →
The first Battle of the Marne was fought from 5-12 September, 1914. It was the turning point of the opening campaign in what would be known as the Western Front during World War I. First Marne represented the death of… Continue Reading →
Today is Veteran’s Day in the US and Armistice Day in Britain and France. It is a day to remember the end of the fighting in World War I on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh… Continue Reading →
The Battle of Sedan, fought on 1 September 1870 displayed the superiority the Prussian Army had attained over the French in the nearly sixty years since their devastating defeat at Jena in the Napoleonic wars. The battle was notable for… Continue Reading →
The tactical and strategic situation at the beginning of 1917 was little changed from that at the beginning of 1916. All that the offensives on the Western Front had managed to accomplish the previous year were minor changes in… Continue Reading →
I ran across this article on discovery news today: Heavy Armor Led to French Knights’ Loss.The article immediately irritated me. Perhaps it was the way the article was written or perhaps it was the content of the interviews with the… Continue Reading →
At the present time, Germany is in a strategic position unparalleled in its history. The German state shares no borders with any potential enemies in the near future. Historically Germany has had to contend with one or more… Continue Reading →
The Franco-Prussian war was a modern war although it was not the first of Europe’s modern wars. The Franco-Prussian war was also not a total war because while it was intensive in manpower while it lasted, its limited duration… Continue Reading →
After Turkey’s entry into the war towards the end of 1914, the Dardanelles was closed to allied shipping and thus the only warm water route to Russian ports was closed. The allied solution to this dilemma was to use… Continue Reading →
The opening months of World War I on the Eastern Front did not proceed at as the German General Staff thought they would. When General Alfred von Schlieffen (1833-1912) was drawing up the German war plan that would subsequently… Continue Reading →
I originally saw Neiberg’s Fighting the Great War mentioned in a review essay covering recent works on WWI. The essay had good things to say about the work and then I decided to check and yes, the book had been… Continue Reading →
Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries was a continent in transition. The states of Europe were still in flux and the kings of Europe had limited authority outside their own personal demesne. Although individual French kings did… Continue Reading →
This will be a series of posts laying out the general history of the major Fronts in World War I. The First World War was unnecessary in that if the diplomats of Europe had truly wanted to stop the war… Continue Reading →
The Conquest of Gaul tells the story of the Roman Conquest of what is now France, Switzerland, most of the Low Countries, and parts of present day Germany. It was written by Julius Caesar, the Governor of the Roman… Continue Reading →
All classical military theorists point out that military strategy and national policy are intermingled. Clausewitz devotes a lengthy portion of his treatise to the ways in which military action should serve the needs of the state; indeed, his most… Continue Reading →