On a Knife Edge: How Germany Lost the First World War (Cambridge Military Histories)

Was the outcome of the First World War on a knife edge? In this major new account of German wartime politics and strategy Holger Afflerbach argues that the outcome of the war was actually in the balance until relatively late in the war. Using new evidence from diaries, letters and memoirs, he fundamentally revises our understanding of German strategy from the decision to go to war and the failure of the western offensive to the radicalisation of Germany's war effort under Hindenburg and Ludendorff and the ultimate collapse of the Central Powers. He uncovers the struggles in wartime Germany between supporters of peace and hardliners who wanted to fight to the finish. He suggests that Germany was not nearly as committed to all-out conquest as previous accounts argue. Numerous German peace advances could have offered the opportunity to end the war before it dragged Europe into the abyss. Part I. Hybris -- The Road to War -- 'It can hardly go wrong now': The Schlieffen Plan and its Failure. -- Tannenberg and the Rise of Hindenburg -- The European Stalemate. -- A Strategy of Muddling Through? The War in 1915 -- 'An Unparalleled Act of Barbarism': The Naval Blockade, Submarine Warfare and the Battle for American Neutrality -- 'Potato-bread Spirit': The German Home Front in 1914-16 -- Squaring the Circle: Falkenhayn and Verdun 1916 -- Summer 1916: The Allied Attack on all Fronts and its Failure -- Part II. Climax: At the apex of war -- 'Only a Miracle can Save us Now': Germany and the War in the autumn of 1916 -- Action Stations, Panic Stations: The Radicalisation of Germany's Strategy under the Third OHL -- 'A Stroke of Genius': Tentative Offers of Peace in December 1916 -- The misjudged stand-off: Unrestricted submarine warfare and the USA's entry into the war. -- Part III. Nemesis: The defeat of the Central Powers and the destruction of the European Order -- Military Developments in the First Half of 1917 -- The First Russian Revolution and the Opportunity for a Peace Agreement with the Russian Democracy -- 'War Psychosis?' The Reichstag's Peace Offer and Bethmann Hollweg's Demission -- 'The Unmasking of the Central Powers?' Victory and Peace in the East -- 'Glorious, but hopeless': Germany's Position at the Turn of the Year 1917/18 -- 'Ludendorff's Hammer': The Western Offensive of 1918 -- 'Now the War was Lost': The Military Collapse of the Central Powers -- 'Savage in Victory, Contemptuous in Defeat': Germany's Route out of the War The Final Reckoning: A Terrible Debt that Must be Paid "On 31 July 1914, following the German government's announcement of an 'imminent threat of war' and the issue of the German ultimatum to Russia, the Bavarian General von Wenninger dashed across Berlin to the War Ministry. The officers he found there were not in a despondent mood, but rather a cheerful one: 'Beaming faces everywhere, handshakes in the corridors, each man congratulating the next that things are finally on the move. Rumours about the other ultimatum, issued to France - one man asks whether it is really necessary to draw the French into all this, as they always run scared like little rabbits. General von Wild replies that "It would be a shame not to take on those fellows as well."1 This level of confidence was also reflected in the general response of the German military leadership. The Kaiser's aide-de-camp, Max von Mutius, who had been involved in the crucial deliberations about war and peace at the end of July and beginning of August 1914, wrote in his memoirs: 'I deliberately did not give too much thought to the likely course of events and the duration of the war. Happily, we were all convinced that we would somehow ultimately win the war.'2"-- Provided by publisher