“The Battle-Fortune of Marshal Hindenburg is not Bound up with the Possession of a Hill”: The Germans and Vimy Ridge, April 1917

On 9 April 1917 four Canadian divisions and one British division of 170,000 men broke through the “Vimy Group” of German Sixth Army of some 40,000 men. By late afternoon, the Germans had been driven off the Ridge. That day, as Brigadier-General Alexander Ross famously put it, constituted “the birth of a nation.” Rivers on ink have been spilled in the Canadians’ actions that day, but little attention has been paid to “the other side of the hill.” Which German units defended the Ridge? What was the quality of their leadership? Why did the defence collapse so quickly? Why did the German soldiers not break and run? And how were they able to prevent a deeper British-Canadian breakthrough? On the basis of German sources, this article seeks to provide answers to those question

Jutland: Acrimony to Resolution

Jutland: The Naval Staff Appreciation, edited by William Schleihauf; The Jutland Scandal: The Truth about the First World War’s Greatest Sea Battle, by J. E. T. Harper and Sir Reginald Bacon; Jutland: The Unfinished Battle, by Nicholas Jellico

Miscalculated Risks: The German Declaration of War against the United States, 1917 and 1941

Twice in this century, Germany opted for war with the United States on the basis of what its leaders perceived to have been calculated risks designed to overcome a strategic impasse on the Continent. Twice the gambles failed. The first miscalculation ended in defeat and revolution; the second in near annihilation