Dennis Showalter (1942–2019)

The Encyclopedia of Warfare is an excellent resource for anyone from a casual history buff to a professional historian. It is meant to answer basic questions and point one in the right direction for further research or reading. And to that purpose it is a wonderful success. Admittedly, for the 2023 edition, I found the same strengths with the main difference being that conflicts since 2013 have been included. So this is mostly a repeat of my review of the 2013 edition.

First of all, just like any encyclopedia, this is not designed to be read from cover to cover, at least not as a single work. Like my old Encyclopedia Britannica, one will likely skip around and end up reading most of it. But also like the EB, each entry aims to offer a very basic who, what, why, when, where with a little more elaboration when the event (battle, skirmish, etc) is more important. Anyone coming to this work expecting it to be something other than a single volume encyclopedia is either unaware of what an encyclopedia is or just likes to hear themselves be negative.

In deciding for myself how much I liked the volume I mostly read the entries for wars and conflicts with which I have more than a passing familiarity. In order to keep this book manageable some things were glossed over or omitted while others were given more space. A reader may well think one battle, for example, is more important than the space it is given. That does not mean either the editors nor the reader are wrong, they probably came at it from different perspectives. My study and research on wars were primarily cultural and intellectual history with enough military history thrown in so I could try to understand when something might have been done for military reasons and when something may have been done for political or appearance reasons. As such, I would probably highlight something that rightfully doesn't warrant it in a volume like this. So keep in mind the title of the book before criticizing it for being what it is not trying to be.

As a big aside, I can picture this being in a fiction writer's office, especially a writer of historical fiction, as a quick easy first step toward including any conflicts that might have been going on and impacted their characters, even if just to make the story more immersive. I personally hope to jump around in the book, mostly in the time periods in which I have the least knowledge, and use it as a springboard for more detailed reading.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (more)

This book is among a range of recent studies utilizing primary source records documenting the German Army of World War I. Tiring of the usual recounting of German action during the war (von Schlieffen plan, Race to the Sea, Verdun, the Somme, Ypres, Operation Michael, Amiens), authors like Nick Lloyd and Dennis Showalter did the difficult research work to present a different narrative, one that puts the German war effort in a much different light.

Encompassing a total of 320 pages, "Instrument of War" was published by Osprey in 2016. The book is divided into an introduction and acknowledgements, six numbered chapters, a coda (I had to look that one up; it means conclusion), a selection of photographs, endnotes, and an index. Logically arranged in chronological order, Chapter I, Portents and Preliminaries, sets the stage for the war to follow and covers its early weeks. Chapter II, Autumn of Decision, delves into the fall of 1914 and the end of mobile warfare on the Western Front. Chapter III, Reevaluating, explores the changes that the German Army leadership and the General Staff initiated in the wake of the failure of the war of maneuver and the subsequent shift to the strategic defensive in the West. Chapter IV, Verdun and the Somme: End of an Army, recounts the crippling of the German Army even as it inflicted incredible damage on its foes during the battles of Verdun and the Somme. Chapter V, Reconfigurations, eamines how the German General Staff and senior military leaders changed the formations, tactics, organization, and equipment of the Army to face the new realities of 1917. Chapter VI, Climax and Denouement, closes out the story with the Spring Offensive and the ultimate defeat of the German Army.

The story of Germany's First World War army is a difficult one to portray accurately as so much was written about it in the years immediately after the war, giving the German Army a mythical reputation that fostered the rise of fascism in the 1920's and 30's. Unfortunately, this optimistic portrayal of that army lingered long after the trauma of the Second World War. Potential modern authors of German Army histories have to hack away at the layers of distortions and exaggerations to get at a story that resembles the truth. Dennis Showalter has done this to my satisfaction. His focus on contemporary primary sources undermines the revisionist historians of the twenties and thirties--those who provided a false narrative that gave rise to the "stab in the back" myth that had such an impact on German politics and culture.

Although Showalter covers other combat theaters in this book, they are mentioned only as they impact the primary theater of the war--the Western Front. Although this gives short shrift to those who fought in the other theaters, the author rightly concentrates on the action that truely determined the war's outcome. I do have some issues with Showalter's writing style at different points in the book, but I had no problem understanding the author's presentation of his case and the proofs he provides.

Dennis Showalter fills a noteworthy gap in military histories with this book. Anyone interested in First World War history should pick up "Instrument of War ".… (more)