Trevor Nevitt DupuyRezensionen

Options of Command:

Truly one of the worst books I have read in years. It deals with alternate scenarios of what might have been had one side or the other made different decisions during WWII. I typically love these kinds of books, but beware, this book is definitely biased. It has a fair amount of “what if’s” from both sides, but most of the alternate scenarios work out for the Allies, whereas almost none of the alternate scenarios work out for the Axis. If these were legitimate, I would not have any issues, but as you will see, this is truly not the case.
The first alternate scenario I had major issue with is the Battle of Britain/Sea Lion alternate scenario. The big change from history in this scenario was the Germans focusing on taking out all of the British airfields instead of changing their targets to London (after Berlin was bombed). In the authors scenario the Germans pound all of the British airfields into ruins, and then launch the seaborne portion of the attack in October. So far so good, but then the author says that the Royal Navy is scrambled to meet the oncoming invasion fleet. Again, so far so good. But here is where things go off the rails. According to the author, the Luftwaffe is not able to intercede very effectively against the Royal Navy, and the Royal Navy hammers the invasion fleet so that very few German units land in England, and the few that do are destroyed after only a couple of days. Clearly, the author does not know his history, as the Luftwaffe (under very similar circumstances) absolutely hammered the Royal Navy at Crete, as the Stukas had an absolute heyday sinking ship after ship. Assuredly the same thing would have happened (since in this scenario the Royal Air Force has been smashed), but yet at the end of the scenario the Stukas are literally nowhere to be found. Truly a massive oversight. It makes this scenario null and void.
The second alternate scenario that reaches to the realms of fantasy was Barbarossa boomerang. With this one, the author dreams up a super-secret reserve Army that goes into the counterattack after the Germans have been stopped after, what could be considered to be relatively small gains, and then proceeds to destroy multiple German armies, all the while new high tech Soviet airplanes wrest control of the skies from the Germans. All of this is just pure fantasy. These Soviet planes were merely on the “drawing board” and nowhere near ready to send into production, and the idea of a massive grouping of Reserve Armies that was ready to counterattack and destroy German Armies in 1941 is again, just pure fantasy. The Soviet leaders had a lot of learning to do yet, and they were in no way equal to the task.
The third alternate scenario is a Moscow scenario, where the Germans push onto Moscow in late August 1941, my thinking is that they could have pushed onto Moscow in early August, but to make it even more difficult for the Germans, the author on purpose, pushes the beginning of the offensive to late August. At any rate, he describes events as they historically did happen in September and October 1941, and then even says the Germans surrounded Moscow by early October, and then he says that the Russians had accumulated their “Siberian” Armies/divisions on the flanks of this massive bulge, and then the Soviets launched a counterattack into the flanks of AGC. What is interesting here is that the author just described how the Germans were struggling to move forward in the autumn mud, but yet when the Soviets counterattack, there is no mud, and they simply break through and advance at a super-fast rate (like it was mid-summer). Obviously, this is complete bunk, as the Russians would have sunk up to their axles in the mud as well, even their calvary divisions would have been hard pressed to make much ground during October. On top of that, these so-called Siberian units would not have been ready by early October (a full two months before they did go onto the offensive). More than likely the Soviets would have been in no condition to launch a coordinated counter attack in October of 1941. One other thing that is unhistorical, is that the author has Stalin giving up Moscow (mostly), and he has them withdrawing all of their 1st line units out of the encirclement. This is also extremely doubtful, since Moscow was the capital, and I am almost positive that Stalin would have fought for it. This so-called alternate scenario is again pure rubbish. The idea that the Germans might have launched an offensive towards Moscow in early (or late) August is not so far-fetched, but the Soviet responses are merely fantasy. The thing that should be added is that from the research of Nigel Askey, he has found that the Germans at this time, had around 1,000 to 1500 tanks in depots in Germany that could have been released to the Eastern Army, but were not, for whatever reason released. If these tanks had been released, this would have more than made up for all losses so far on the eastern front, and these tanks were modern Pz. III and Pz. IV, so they would have been replacing the old German tanks which had taken the majority of the losses (i.e. Pz. I and Pz. II), so if these tanks had been released, the German Panzers on the Eastern front would have increased massively in strength.

Overall I would not recommend this book. There are far better “what if” books out there than this one.

96VC8R8T

An excellent overview of military history. Quite Eurocentric, so not the ultimate encyclopedia but very close. The chapters notes are also of great value.

This is a well researched, albeit brief, survey book dealing with the collaboration between Hindenburg and Ludendorff during World War I. Discussion begins with their work on the Eastern Front against Russia and assisting the poorly performing Austro-Hungarian forces. The book, then shifts to the Western Front and the attempts to break through the mire of trench warfare. Many of the major battles are discussed, again in brief. Dupuy gives some attention to the relegation of German civilian leadership to the background of events, and Kaiser Wilhelm II is characterised as indecisive and bumbling, being held captive by the military leaders. This is a good book to use as an introduction to the German side of the Great War from its military perspective (aws opposed to the political and domestic aspects).

Coupled with Hurtgen Forest, two of the toughest WW 2 European battles were in the last year of the war.½

Dupuy is a familiar name in the combat simulation and military history community. It was his analysis that first established that the German Army consistently outfought its opponents by about a factor of 1.3 to 1.5, a result now widely if sometimes reluctantly accepted by historians and military analysts. In this book, Dupuy presents his early theory (1977) to explain this phenomenon: The German General Staff was extraordinarily successful at institutionalizing military excellence.

Generals had had staffs before 1807, of course, but these minions were largely there to hold the general's coat and deliver messages for him -- the latter a responsibility of no small importance as armies grew in size. The success of Frederick the Great in holding off a powerful allied coalition in the late 18th century proved Frederick a military and political genius, but left Prussia with a problem: With no really defensible borders, one does not want to rely on the slim chance that one's kings will always be military geniuses.

This led two Prussian officers, Scharnhorst and Geneisenau, to work for a staff system that would institutionalize military excellence, overcoming any lack of genius in the top commander (presumably the king or another high noble). Their work gained impetus from the drubbing the Prussians got at the hands of Napoleon, who was undoubtedly just such a military genius. Ironically, as originally conceived by these rather liberal men, the sword they meant to construct was to be matched with an appropriate sheath -- control of the Army by a constitutional government. They got the sword; the sheath, not so much, with tragic consequences for the world.

The General Staff played a significant role in the success of Prussia in gathering the other German states into an empire, beginning with some spats with Denmark in which Austria, the other great German state, was a sometimes ally and sometimes foe. This was aided by Bismark, who was probably the greatest diplomat Germany has ever produced, and who managed to ensure that the budding young nation only had to fight one enemy at a time. The system gained further impetus from such technological advances as the needle rifle, adopted at about the time of the American Civil War. (The anecdote that Moltke the Elder, who led the staff at this time, regarded the American Civil War as unworthy of study because it was fought between armed mobs is almost certainly untrue; on the other hand, it is true that systematic study of the American Civil War was not part of the staff curriculum until shortly before the First World War.)

The General Staff really came into its own during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, where the French got clobbered and William I had himself crowned Emperor of Germany in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The Germans probably had slightly inferior equipment, but their troops were a bit better trained and, Dupuy claims, the real advantange was their excellent staff system.

World War I did not turn out well for the Germans, of course, but it was not for lack of military excellence. Moltke the Younger tinkered with the Schlieffen Plan and lost the Battle of the Marne, but Dupuy attributes this to military genius on the part of Foch, the French commander, less than lack of competence in Moltke; Moltke was a very competent officer, just not a Napoleon -- or a Foch. And, after all, the battle didn't win the war for the French. It merely kept the Germans from winning the war right then and there. Dupuy notes that the Germans continued to fight better than the Alies throughout the war; they were simply overwhelmed by numbers.

Same for World War II. Dupuy takes pains to make it clear he loathes the Nazis and despises the Wehrmacht for serving Hitler so well; he then talks at great length about how incredibly good the German Army was. Of course, the Allies from the first war had tried to gut the German Army by limiting its size to a pittance, denying it modern equipment, abolishing the General Staff, and requiring long enlistment so no reserves could be built up. This meant that, once Hitler outbluffed the former Allies in a performance that would not be again matched until Iran in 2015*, the Germans would rapidly equip themselves with the most modern arms (having few obsolete ones to discard), create a new General Staff out of the Troop Office (where it had been hiding all along -- abolishing the General Staff was an utterly silly and unenforceable demand), and have a corps of officers and officer candidates with many years' experience ready to step into higher billets.

At that, Hitler wanted the Army expanded faster than its officers liked; they managed to hold the line on requiring high standards for officers almost to the end of the war, but had to compromise on overall troop levels by creating an Army within the Army. The armored and mechanized forces were the "real" Army, which was small but mobile and very well trained; the vast numbers of men rapidly inducted and trained formed the rest of the Army, from which less was expected. But not much less; it's amazing how well the Germans did.

So was German military excellence really attributable to the General Staff? Not everyone has been convinced, since the book came out in 1977. Beevor insists that the Germans like soldiering a lot more than the Allies; there is some evidence of this. van Creveld thinks the Germans had far better unit cohesion, due to superior personnel policies; there is some evidence for this as well. Hastings thinks political indoctrination and resulting morale were more important that Dupuy gave them credit for; there's evidence for this as well. It cannot hurt that serving in the military was always a prestigious thing in modern Germany; Dupuy notes this but glosses over it with inadequate explanation. Contrast this with the view in other countries (such as the U.S., where in the 1920s officers in Washington, D.C., were ashamed to wear their uniforms to work) and it's hard to imagine it wasn't important.

Still, a lot of interesting history and though-provoking analysis.

Absolutely necessary manual of military history - better than others in that it is chronologically ordered. Extensive categorization and clear labeling of dates makes it a breeze to look up any particular country/time/conflict.

This book is a short (57 page), compact explanation of the Battle of Austerlitz. It is a useful summary and well written.

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