The Evolution of Strategic Thinking in World War I: A Case Study of the Second Battle of the Marne

Authors

  • Michael Neiberg Professor of History at University of Southern Mississippi

Abstract

This analysis compares the strategy, command and operations of the armies of Germany and the Allied and Associated Powers during the First World War, with particular focus on 1918. It shows the difficulties which both sides found in combining grand strategy, with what could be done operationally in the field. It shows that imperfect political consequences flowed from Ferdinand Foch‘s able and surprisingly humane approach to war. Foch was an officer who could learn, and the only one who commanded the western front effectively.

Author Biography

Michael Neiberg, Professor of History at University of Southern Mississippi

Michael S. Neiberg, Ph.D. (1996 ) in History, Carnegie-Mellon University, is Professor of History at University of Southern Mississippi. He has wide-ranging publications on World War I, most notably Fighting the Great War: A Global History (Harvard, 2005)

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Issue

Vol. 13 No. 4 (2011): Summer 2011

Section

Military Strategy in War and Peace