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Editor’s Note: In the Book Review Section of the January, 1950, Proceedings there first appeared Professor Louis Bolander’s survey of the outstanding naval books of the previous year. This survey proved so worthwhile that Professor Bolander, U. S. Naval Academy Librarian, was persuaded to make his survey an annual event, and each January issue since 1950 has included this feature. The Naval Institute is grateful for the pleasing response that these annual surveys have brought from Proceedings readers, and it proposes to continue the annual run-down.
It is thought wise, however, to make certain changes. First, it whs decided that we would publish this survey in the December issue perhaps thereby helping some Proceedings readers with their Christmas shopping lists. Secondly, the decision was made to exclude all works of fiction and books published in languages other than English. Present plans call for some future issue of the Proceedings to carry a separate naval fiction survey as well as a detailed comment on recent naval books in foreign languages. Finally, we regret that Professor Bolander’s press of duties as Naval Academy Librarian has forced him to discontinue the preparation of the annual survey which he inaugurated. Fortunately, Robert M. Langdon, a member of the Department of English, History, and Government, U. S. Naval Academy, and Associate Editor of the Proceedings, has found it possible to continue this work.
Naval Institute members are invited to submit comments and suggestions as to ways of increasing the value and effectiveness of this annual survey and of the Book Review Section generally.
1954’s Two Best Naval Books This year as for the past ten years at least, books on World War II led the list of the notable naval books. Serious students of World War II were pleased to note the successful launching of the first of three volumes on Britain’s maritime war, 1939-1945. The War At Sea (H.M. Stationery Office, §9.00) by Captain S. W. Roskill, R.N., covers the naval war from its outbreak in 1939 down through the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse early in December, 1941. When this 664-page volume appeared in the spring of this year it created something of a news sensation for it contained some unusually frank criticism of Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty. Press and radio reports throughout the world called attention to this “daring” feature but overlooked the book’s outstanding points of merit which are its original research, skillful analysis, and the author’s determination to tell the whole truth as he finds it. In addition, The War At Sea contains unusually fine maps and charts and exceedingly helpful tabulations of Royal Navy listings, fleet compilations, comparisons of the British, German, and Italian naval forces, etc. Captain Roskill’s work is truly an outstanding contribution to naval literature.
Readers of the “Morison Series” will recall that Volume VIII brought the story of U. S. Naval Operations in World War II up through the invasion of the Marianas and the Battle of the Philippine Sea, June, 1944. In October
of this year Volume IX—Sicily, Salerno and Anzio appeared (Little, Brown, $6.00). Taking up where Volume II, Operations in North African Waters, left off, this latest volume covers the Mediterranean story from January, 1943, through the capture of Rome in June, 1944. Part I of this volume offers a thorough coverage of the role of U. S. Naval Forces in the Mediterranean prior to the invasion of Sicily; Part II is Sicily; Part III, Salerno; and Part IV is Anzio and on to Rome.
According to the_Morison schedule, Volume X will cover the Atlantic during the latter half of the war, and Volume XI will deal with the invasions of France and the end of the European War. Neither volume is scheduled for publication in 1955.
Before taking leave of .the Morison series, note should be made of the publication of revised editions of the first six volumes. These revisions are not extensive but do include corrections which have come to light since each volume’s oirginal appearance.
Service Histories
The Historical Branch of the U. S. Marine Corps added three more volumes to its high- ly-useful monographs on Marine operations in World War II. These three brought the total to fourteen volumes and included Major 0. R. Lodge’s The Recapture of Guam (G.P.O., $4.25); Lt. Col. R. D. Heinl, Jr., and Lt. Col. J. A. Crown’s The Marshalls (G.P.O., $4.00); and Lt. Col. Whitman S. Bartley’s Iwo Jima (G.P.O., $4.25). These volumes are based on thorough research and are pleasingly and liberally illustrated.
Of particular value to those interested in the overall direction of the Western Allies during World War II and especially in Operation Overlord and the defeat of Germany is, Forest Pogue’s The Supreme Command (G.P.O., $6.00). This is one of the outstanding volumes in the U. S. Army in World War II series.
Several of the U. S. Navy Department’s bureaus have produced brief histories of their World War II activities, but none is better presented than B. Roland and W. B. Boyd’s U. S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II (G.P.O., $3.00) which offers twenty-four chapters of comprehensive treatment of such topics as Armor, Mines, VT Fuse, Rockets, and Torpedoes. This volume is ably illustrated and is remarkably objective.
Impatient critics have expressed regret that the so-called “British Official Histories” of World War II have not appeared more rapidly. Even though the lack of speed is deplored, certainly their high quality is all that a student of naval affairs would ask for. In addition to Captain Roskill’s excellent first volume of his War At Sea, another British war history, volume one (of six to come) of The Mediterranean and Middle East (H.M. Stationery Off., 37/6) by Major-General I. S. O. Playfair and Associates appeared this year. This volume covers the whole sweep of Britain’s Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and East African policies from 1936 through February, 1941. Of particular interest to naval history enthusiasts is this volume’s account of the Royal Navy’s dealings with the French Navy during the years covered.
Naval Biographies
There were two noteworthy additions to naval biography during 1954, both by naval officers. In his autobiography Ships, Machinery and Mossbacks (Princeton, $6.00), Vice Admiral Harold G. Bowen, U. S. Navy (Ret.), describes his fifty years of naval service and presents a valuable “I-was-there” picture of the introduction of new techniques and inventions into the U. S. Navy. The other significant and original contribution was The Magnificent Milscher (Norton, $4.50) by Lieutenant Theodore Taylor, U. S. Navy. Critics hail Taylor’s book as a fine piece of workmanship concerning a Navy figure whose noteworthy contributions, to naval aviation in particular, will become even more appreciated as a result of this biography.
Dipping back into “ancient” history we note that the first full-length biography of the Confederacy’s Secretary of the Navy appeared in J. Durkin’s Stephen R. Mallory: Confederate Navy Chief (Univ. of North Carolina, $6.00). The second volume of Frank Freidel’s excellent biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared this year and covered the last twenty months of FDR’s Assistant Secretaryship of the Navy, 1919-20. This volume, The Ordeal (Little, Brown, $6.00) is a fitting companion to Freidel’s pioneering The Apprenticeship which appeared late in 1952 and devoted more than two hundred pages to
FDR’s years as a member of Wilson’s “Little Cabinet.”
A publishing event significant for naval as well as for other aspects was the appearance, late in 1953, of Churchill’s sixth and concluding volume of The Second World War. This book, Triumph and Tragedy (Houghton, $6.00), covers the last year of the war from D-Day in France until Churchill’s resignation from the prime ministership late in July, 1945. Many critics expressed the opinion that this volume failed to measure up to its earlier companions, but they all acknowledged its documentary value. Coming from one of the principal architects of Allied strategy and tactics throughout the entire war, Churchill’s words are paramount in their significance for a thorough picture of World War II.
As Professor Bolander noted in his discussion of notable naval books in 1953, hardly a year passes without a new book on Nelson; he might well have included John Paul Jones too, and 1954 would have been no exception. One of the handiest, most readable biographies of Britain’s immortal naval hero is Carola Oman’s Nelson (Macmillan, $1.75), which, although far from revolutionary in its presentation of Nelson’s life, does provide an excellent digest of the noteworthy aspects of that career. Of particular interest is Miss Oman’s “Note on Sources” in which she discusses the use (and misuse) of source materials on Nelson.
Jones was the subject of two little books: Commodore John Paul Jones (Wm. Frederick, $3.00) by D. J. Munro and, The Admiral and The Empress (Bookman, $3.50) by Lincoln Lorenz. The former book is compact to the point of being skimpy, but the latter is based on original research and deals, of course, with Jones’ association with Catherine the Great.
Another biography of a noteworthy American was Elisha Kent Kane and The Seafaring Frontier (Little, Brown, $3.00) by Jeannette Mirsky. Kane, it will be recalled, was an outstanding medical officer and Arctic explorer of the mid-19th century.
Glancing Backward to World War II
Rear Admiral Robert Theobald’s The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor (Devin-Adair, $3.50) is probably the most controversial naval volume to appear since World War II. Theobald’s “secret” is that FDR was determined to get the United States into the war and that he deliberately sought the Pearl Harbor attack to achieve that end. The author goes to heroic ends to convince the readers of the validity of his thesis; there is no indication that this volume has swayed Roosevelt haters or worshipers from their deep- rooted prejudices.
The co-author of Admiral Halsey’s biography of several years ago, J. J. Bryan, produced an unusual book called Aircraft Carrier (Ballantine, $3.00; also a 35£ edition) which is an informal and dramatic presentation of the author’s diary of five months aboard the U.S.S. Yorktown during the last year of the war. Another Pacific war story, this one told from “the other side of the hill,” is H. Hashimoto’s Sunk (Cassell, 15/0). Here is a fairly satisfactory treatment of Japan’s submarine war by a Japanese naval officer who commanded four submarines during the Pacific War. One reviewer states that Sunk might well be sub-titled, “How NOT to Run a Submarine Navy.”
Books from “Down Under” are sometimes a long time in coming to the attention of Americans, and for that reason it is fitting and proper to refer to a significant addition to the literature of Australia’s role in World War II, even though it did not all appear in 1954. W. N. Swan’s Spearheads of Invasion (Angus and Robertson, $3.00) is a one-volume account of H.M.A.S. Westralia’s role in seven major invasions in the Southwest Pacific. Swan’s factual account of the invasions at New Britain, Hollandia, Leyte, Lingayen, and Borneo is particularly well worth reading by anyone interested in amphibious techniques and the overall story of the Pacific War.
Every year since 1940 has seen a goodly number of British naval books on World War II. D. Woodward’s Tirpitz (Norton, $3.50) (the British edition was mentioned last year) is a biography of the famous German battleship which caused Allied convoys so much concern as they battered their way through the North Atlantic en route to Russia. The German side of many of World War II’s naval events is told with considerable skill and excellent photographs in C. D. Bekker’s Swastika At Sea (Kimber, $3.50). Britain’s problem with the German U-boat is the subject of W. S. Chalmers’ Max Horton and The Western Approaches (Hodder and Stoughton, $4.50). Horton was one of Britain’s most successful submarine aces during the first war and was most active in combating the Nazi subs.
In 1939 the world was startled with the news that a U-boat had penetrated the defenses of Britain’s Scapa Flow and had there sunk the Royal Oak. The daring commander of that German craft was Gunther Prien who is the subject of a recently published volume, Enemy Submarine (Kimber, $3.75) by Wolfgang Frank. The career of another German, this one the auxiliary cruiser Penguin, is told in H. J. Brenneke’s Ghost Raider HK-33 (Kimber, $3.75).
Probably no World War II single-ship tale is more dramatic than Kenneth Poolman’s The Kelly (Kimber, $3.75), the biography of Lord Louis Mountbatten’s destroyer which was lost in the Battle for Crete. Another Mediterranean sea story is Dudley Pope’s Flag 4 (Kimber, $4.00) which is the account of gunboats and torpedo boats in their battle against coastal forces in the Mediterranean.
Two small volumes which add to the growing volume of accounts of underwater activities are Admirgl Lepotier’s Raiders from the Sea (Kimber, $3.75) and Max Manus’ Underwater Saboteur (Kimber, $3.75). Of particular interest in this field was the American publication of The Midget Raiders (Sloan, $4.50) by C. E. T. Warren and James Benson. This book had been on the 1953 list as Above Us The Waves (Harrup, 15/0.)
General History
Two significant military history volumes contain enough references to naval engagements and strategy to make them worthy of inclusion in this year’s list. The first of these is by that veteran military analyst, Major General J. F. C. Fuller, and is entitled A Military History of The Western World (Funk and Wagnalls, $6.00). One of a series on which General Fuller is working, this volume covers a broad sweep, in fact, from the earliest times to the Battle of Lepanto. Another 1954 book of genuine value is Captain B. H. Liddell Hart’s Strategy (Praeger, $5.95) which is a re-do of his Decisive Wars of IIis- lory published in 1929. The re-do consists of extensive research and a quarter century of reflection.
While hardly as general as the above two volumes, Christopher Lloyd’s The Nation and The Navy (Cresset, 18/0) deals with more than four centuries of English naval history in a relatively general way and succeeds admirably in presenting a social history of the Royal Navy as a profession and gives a convincing demonstration that the Navy has been an instrument of national policy throughout those centuries. This is an ideal companion volume to Michael Lewis’ The Navy of Britain published in 1948.
Whales
Careful research would possibly reveal that not many years have passed since 1851 (the year of Melville’s Moby Dick) without the appearance of a “new” book on whaling. This year has been no exception. Two books take the lead in this field—R. B. Robertson’s Of Whales and Men (Knopf, $4.50), and A. B. C. Whipple’s Yankee Whalers in the South Seas (Doubleday, $3.95). The former has been written by a British physician who signed aboard a modern whaler for an expedition to the South Seas, and it offers not only a scientific analysis of a modern whaler but also a remarkable collection of photographs of the mid-20th century descendant of Melville’s Pequod. Whipple’s account traces several different aspects of America’s whaling story but will hardly crowd E. A. Stackpole’s The Sea Hunters from the prominent position it reached upon publication in 1953.
Rafts and Goggles
Whenever a new type of book gains marked success in the publishing world it usually sets the pattern for future imitations of that type. Such were two post-World War II volumes, Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl and The Silent World by Captain J. Y. Cousteau. The former volume has caused hosts of otherwise normal souls to intentionally mount flimsy craft or rafts, float through shark-infested waters, and subsist only on flying fish and savory thoughts of best seller lists. The Cousteau book has lured swarms of humans to don underwater breathing apparatus and goggles and to become archeologists and ichthyologists of the sea floor.
How to see the world from a raft has been told this year both individually and collectively. A French physician, Dr. Alain Bombard relates in The Voyage of the Heretique (Simon and Schuster, $3.50) how he crossed the Middle Atlantic alone and lived on what he could obtain from the sea. Jean Merrien’s Lonely Voyages (Hutchinson, 21/0) and H. D. E. Barten’s Atlantic Adventures (Coles, 18/0) relate the trials of several dozen similar (yet each unique) excursions.
The past half dozen years have seen a veritable flood of diving books of all styles and depths. Harry Grossett’s Down to the Ships in the Sea (Lippincott, $3.75) is an autobiographical account of a half century of deep sea diving. The head of the French Navy’s undersea research unit, Captain P. Tailliez, has related his story in To Hidden Depths (Kimber, $3.00) while his compatriot P. Di- ole tells his watery tale in 4000 Years Under the Sea (Messner, $4.50).
Atomic Subs
Two 1954 books on atomic submarines present an unusual variety of information. Early in the year Time Correspondent Clay Blair, Jr.’s The Atomic Submarine and Admiral Rickover (Holt, $3.50) discussed Rick- over’s prominent role in the development of the Nautilus. A book which may have more lasting value, however, is John Lewellen’s The Atomic Submarine (Crowell, $2.50) which gives a general history of the submarine from Bushnell’s Turtle to the modern Nautilus.
Sea Stories and Pictures
The usual number of sea story anthologies has appeared, led by that veteran story-teller William McFee’s Great Sea Stories of Modern Times (McBride, $3.95) and L. B. Davidson and E. J. Doherty’s melodramatic Strange Crimes at Sea (Crowell, $3.95). The former contains such tales as McFee’s account of the last hours of the Flying Enterprise while the latter is a collection of murder, piracy, mutiny, and slavery.
Each year sees several photographic compilations issued, but none can exceed in attractiveness and value John and Alice Durant’s Pictorial History of American Ships (Barnes, $10.00), which appeared in 1953, and A. A. Bodine’s unsurpassed Chesapeake Bay and Tidewater (Hastings House, $10.00). Each of these large volumes offers fascinating textual material. The Durant book includes illustrations covering the whole span of American History while the Bodine volume consists of the author’s own excellent photographs.
For the Professionals
Technical books seldom become best sellers, but that misfortune should not exclude them from being noted here. A veritable encyclopedia in its own right appeared in Ocean Transportation (McGraw-Hill, $7.00) by C. E. McDowell and H. M. Gibbs. Although this volume is for the specialist, it also offers for the layman a sound emphasis on the importance of maritime commerce and the significance of that activity to a nation’s overall sea power. Another technical book of interest is E. R. King and J. V. Noel, Jr.’s Shiphandling (Van Nostrand, $4.50). An invaluable compilation which appeared late in 1953 is the Encyclopedia of Nautical Knowledge (Cornell Maritime, $12.50), by W. A. McEwen and A. H. Lewis. One reviewer calls it a book for all types of sailors, be they of the armchair or of the sea.
The Annuals
For more than a half century naval literature has been enriched by the annual appearance of new editions of “Jane's” and “Bras- sey’s,” the two best-known nautical reference books throughout the world. Although this year’s Jane’s All the World’s Fighting Ships (McGraw-Hill, $23.00) and Brassey’s Annual; the Armed Forces Yearbook (Macmillan, $8.50) were scheduled for publication before the end of 1954, they were not available for examination when this survey was being prepared.
Although hardly classified as an annual as yet, Laurence Dunn’s handy, pocket-size Ship Recognition (John de Graff, $2.50) will undoubtedly take its place as one of the most useful publications in its field. Obviously it cannot tell all that “Jane’s” does, but its illustrations and factual material—and low price—make it an excellent buy.
STRATEGY: THE INDIRECT AP
PROACH. By B. H. Liddell Hart. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc. 404 pages. 1954. $5.95.
Reviewed by W. H. Russell
(Professor Russell is a member of the U. S. Naval Academy’s Department of English, History and Government and co-director of the Seminar on the Philosophy of War at St. John’s College.)
Recently Ty Cobb broke the silence of his retirement to condemn modern baseball players as power-mad men who have fore- saken the game’s finer points in favor of the climactic home run. Cobb focused his remarks on Ted Williams and Ted’s stubborn effort to power the ball over or through the defenders massed in the “Williams Shift.” Leaving half the field unprotected in order to build such an obvious defensive mass would never have worked, Cobb said, against a hitter like the late Willie Keeler. For Keeler’s whole philosophy of batting comprised drawing the defenders into an awkward position. Then, Keeler used to say, “I hit ’em where they ain’t.” And this Forrest-like phrase of Keeler’s epitomizes the attitude toward making war advocated by Captain B. H. Liddell Hart in Strategy, Like Ty Cobb and Willie Keeler, Captain Liddell Hart has long advocated a doctrine of hit-’em-where-they-ain’t but one which he calls by a more elegant name—the indirect approach. For a generation Hart has tried to turn Western policy-makers (both civil and military) away from an obsession for the massive power drives and equally massive defenses that dominated World War I, and to turn them toward the more flexible combinations used so effectively by such generals as Alexander, Scipio Africanus, Marlborough, the young Napoleon, and “Stone Wall” Jackson. In this his latest book Hart reaffirms his earlier ideas, but presents them in a more refined form that is the product of both vigorous criticism by others and the deepening of Hart’s own perception. Indeed Hart’s Strategy comes very close to presenting the fundamental elements of a system for achieving clear military decision amid the frightful complexity of 20th century conditions.
In essence, Hart bases his system on St.
Augustine’s remark that the kind of peace a state seeks should condition all high policy decisions, both before and after she resorts to the violence of war. Then Hart asserts that, since the kind of peace a nation desires should control each separate objective she seeks, her military forces must also be designed for winning the peace. Thus if a nation be well satisfied with her own way of life, her fundamental concern must be to prevent aggression by a predatory power rather than to wipe out that enemy’s armed force. Hart recognizes the futility of trying to win a war when one is unwilling to fight, but he insists that even the decision to do battle should be subordinated to the controlling factor—-the kind of peace one seeks. For this purpose, Hart continues, the mature nation should bend all of its warmaking energy toward dislocating the balance of enemy forces until conditions favor some unexpected diplomatic or military exploitation that will contribute to the peace.
This Hart system demands patience but avoids fatal preoccupation with the climactic battle—by air, land, or sea—merely for the sake of climactic battle. It dispels the myth that in any given situation there may be a sound military decision diametrically opposed to sound political decision. And Hart’s doctrine rejects the convenient assumption that a nation may enjoy the luxury of war plans that disregard the proper strategic or tactical balance among its air, land, and sea forces. For if a nation commits herself in advance to massive action by a single force, she invites defeat by the enemy whose indirect approach will exploit such a self-imposed dislocation of military balance.
Captain Hart’s doctrine satisfies his own criterion of flexibility. For though he deals primarily with the various levels of strategy his system applies readily at all levels of military decision from high policy to minor tactics. Moving from his basic premise that the kind of peace a nation seeks should control her selection of objectives, Hart implies clearly that logistics provides the sub-foundation of all military activity. Next he shows how sound defensive disposition is the visible foundation on which any effective offensive is raised. Then despite a persistent myth to the contrary, Hart marches consistently with
Napoleon’s dictum that no position may be defended indefinitely, as well as with Sir Julian Corbett’s aphorism that no defensive is sound unless it holds the capacity to threaten or launch an offensive at a suitable moment. And here lies the key to Hart’s doctrine of the indirect approach. For he insists that is far sounder for a nation to win the peace by its mere capacity to exploit an unexpected opportunity than for the same nation to win the war by a long series of overwhelming victories along an expected line of advance. And even when the unexpected offensive is launched, Hart concludes, the wise nation will limit its execution to the minimum safe requirements of the peace. The 20th century, he implies, is not the time for venting one’s frustration in blood lust at the expense of a satisfactory peace.
The meat of this volume appears in the forty pages of Part IV where Hart summarizes his conclusions in language that will delight anyone who has struggled with the semantics of military analysis. The first 300 pages comprise a series of thumbnail commentaries upon the decisive actions which reflect 3,000 years of man’s evolving adjustment to the impact of technology on war. Though each of the action commentaries reflects original thought, separate campaigns are treated so briefly that this portion of the work will not in itself satisfy a reader not already familiar with the actions Captain Hart analyzes. The appendices contain a commentary by Major-General Eric Dor- man-Smith on the North African campaign of 1940-42 and a strategical analysis of the Arab-Israel War by General Yigael Yadin. And there is an Index of Deductions to guide any one interested in tracing Hart’s comment on a specific technical point like the Defensive, Mobility, or Surprise.
Captain Hart’s ideas are not new to those who have digested his other works, or to men who have studied carefully the writings of Mahan. But they suggest a quiet maturity which promises a workable solution for problems inherent in fast-moving war of global scope. Despite the deliberately cryptic nature of its commentary on past military history, Strategy is a thoroughly sound work by one of the few men whose military experience and education qualifies him as truly expert.
HISTORY OF THE GERMAN GENERAL STAFF. By Walter Goerlitz, New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc. 508 pages, $7.50.
Reviewed by Felix Gilbert
(Dr. Gilbert is Professor of History at Bryn Mawr College, co-editor of The Diplomats, 1919-1939, and author of Hiller Directs His War.)
The German General Staff seems to be an almost inexhaustible subject. A discussion of this institution raises issues of a most varied character and of great complexity. The aspect, which comes first to mind, is the technical-military question involved in the creation and existence of a special organization within the army, exclusively concerned, in peacetime, with the planning of war and charged with the control of military operations, after war has broken out. The German General Staff is also considered as having determined the course of German foreign policy at the end of the nineteenth and in the twentieth century, and a treatment of this topic, therefore, frequently extends into the problem of the role of the General Staff as a policymaking factor. Finally, the German General Staff is regarded by many as the embodiment of a special spirit, as the guardian of the Prussian tradition and of Prussianism, and is believed to have impressed this outlook on the entire German political life.
It would appear that the first thing with which the author of a book on the history of the German General Staff must be concerned is to provide a clear statement concerning the aspects of this topic, on what he wants to concentrate: whether he intends to write a technical-military study, whether he wants to analyze the particular intellectual outlook of the German General Staff or whether he is investigating the influence of this institution on German politics. The author of the book under review is strangely unaware of the necessity to approach his subject with a clear definition of the issues to be studied. Almost naively he enters into a discussion of all the facets of the problems involved, jumping from one to the other. This forms the strength and the weakness of this book.
It may sound strange to say that the lack of a definite framework can form an element of strength. There can be no doubt, however,
that the popular success which this book has obtained is closely connected with its diffuseness. The reader gets exactly what he expects to find in a history of the German General Staff: something about the organization of the General Staff, something about the relation of the General Staff to other government agencies and about its policymaking role, something about the spirit infused into the General Staff by Clausewitz and spreading from this center into all strata of society; in addition a large part of the book is devoted to themes, which seems to exert endless fascination, namely to the role of the Officers’ Corps under the Nazis, and to a narration of the events of July 20th, 1944.
The book is lively written and abounds in brief biographical sketches of the influential figures of the General Staff; particularly valuable are those of figures who were active in the period between Scharnhorst and Moltke and, although important for the development of the institution, are usually somewhat neglected in the historical literature: men like Ruehle, Mueffling, etc.
However, the disadvantages inherent in the vagueness of the author’s conceptual approach outweigh the advantages. By trying to take up all the possible questions involved the author treats none of them thoroughly nor with the precision and care which would be needed were this book to become the standard work on the history of the German General Staff. Moreover, the book is not based on extensive research; the author makes full use of the existing literature and, in general, is well informed, but the book contains definite errors. To mention a few of them: it seems hardly correct to regard the old Quartermaster Staff of the 18th century as a direct ancestor of the German General Staff. The author’s description of the decisive development through which the General Staff was placed directly under the monarch, and freed from control by any other civilian or military agency, is very questionable; he places too much emphasis on the purely formal regulations and underestimates the influence of personal factors and of the social forces out of which this unique arrangement arose. The author’s interpretation of Clausewitz is primitive. It is centered on the famous sentence that “war is the continuation of politics by other means,” but it should be evident by now that, in this isolated form, this sentence is equivocal; in order to be understood and evaluated it must be placed in relation to other fundamental concepts of Clausewitz’ thought. The starting point for an analysis of Clausewitz’ ideas must be his concept of “absolute war” which, in this book, is not mentioned at all.
The most striking weakness, however, is a strange inconsistency in the author’s evaluation of the General Staff. While he is severely critical of the attitude of the General Staff at the end of the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century his outlook changes when he discusses the events after 1918 and the Nazi period, then he becomes a passionate defender and admirer of the Officers’ Corps and the General Staff as protagonists of a sound policy.
This does not mean that this book can not serve as a useful general introduction to the problems connected with the history of the German General Staff. Chance has it that, since the appearance of Goerlitz’ book, two other books have been published, to which the reader might turn for more detailed information and which correct some of the chief defects of this work. It is one of the great merits of Wheeler-Bennett’s Nemesis of Power[1] that he shows how the ineffectualness of the military opposition against Hitler was conditioned and caused by the intellectual training and tradition which the General Staff had given to the German Officers’ Corps. A comprehensive, thorough, and scholarly treatment of the entire question of the influence of the Military on German politics, with special emphasis on the rise of the General Staff to a position free from civilian control, can be found in Gerhard Ritter’s Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk of which the first volume reaching till 1870 has just appeared. But these two books leave still an important lacuna: what we need, is a detailed technical-military history of the General Staff dealing with its organizational development, presenting the characteristic features of German General Staff planning, and evaluating the extent of Staff control
over military operations in wartime. It is a rather large hole which still needs to be filled.
RUSSIAN INFLUENCE ON EARLY
AMERICA, by Clarence A. Manning.
New York: Library Publishers, 1953. 216
pages. $3.75.
Reviewed by Professor Anatole Mazour
{Dr. Mazour is Professor of history at Stanford University and author of Russia—Past and Present.)
This is definitely a “dated” book, offering an interpretation that is currently in demand. According to the publisher’s announcement Professor Manning has undertaken to prove that aggression has been “a well-established policy of Russia as far back as the thirteenth century.” The author himself declares in the introduction that Russian claims in the New World during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could be summarized as an “avowed object of securing control over the entire western shore of the Americas and of making the North Pacific Ocean a Russian lake.” The author carries it even further, maintaining that this aspiration must be linked to a professed Russian manifest destiny which envisioned world domination as the fate of Moscow. Professor Manning offers little documentary evidence to substantiate such contention—with him it is an article of faith. Even his bibliography at the end supports the assumption that this is not the result of profound research.
That a handful of Russian statesmen and private individuals were interested in establishing Russian settlements and territorial claims in America is undeniable. It was as natural as it was for some American enthusiasts to advocate the annexation of Canada or parts of Mexico to the United States. But to consider this minority opinion as the aspiring goals of a nation or imperialistic plotting is most unsound. Neither reference to the mystical and threadworn idea of Moscow as the Third Rome, nor the fictionalized accounts of the early Russian Daniel Boones can lend any support to the assertions of the author. There was no deliberate plot to dominate the New World from St. Petersburg. Russian America resulted from a peculiar combination of circumstances: insatiable curiosity aided by individual initiative, human greed accompanied by daring and search for adventure. The profit motive was constantly luring men to lands little known and enabling them to endure all hardships. As the Russian pioneers moved eastwards they came to encounter unfavorable climatic conditions which constantly drove them farther on in search of milder climate and more fertile soil or ice-free shores. One did not have to be necessarily an imperialist to gaze southward and dream about Russian settlements in California after crossing the most forbidding northeastern wastes of Siberia or reaching the shores of Alaska.
The chapter that deals with Russian intrigues in Hawaii is probably the most fanciful tale of them all. When one recalls the total indifference which every sovereign from Catherine II to Alexander II had demonstrated toward any of the suggested schemes for Russian colonization in the Pacific or in America, the thesis presented here is perfectly ludicrous. And yet throughout the entire book Professor Manning relentlessly drives toward the same idea—Russia’s manifest destiny. Small wonder the final impression one gets of the author is chasing sparrow flocks with cannon balls.
The last chapter on “The Meaning of Communism” endeavors to fit into the supposedly old imperialistic policies current communist aspirations, presumably because both reveal a common pattern in the course of Russian history. The result is not only an unconvincing thesis, but a strikingly artificial structure as well as a travesty upon history. For the sake of the same cause for which presumably Professor Manning is breaking his spears, I would suggest that such writings as Russian Influence on Early America not be taken too seriously. They tend to oversimplify and becloud the true issues that are before us—the true nature of the current ideological conflict. To the student of history, however, the book can serve as a curious attestation of the strange climate of confusion in which we live at present. There is one alarming sign which points to the fact that this air of confusion is slowly infiltrating even academic life where one might justly hope to find some island of sanity.