General Staff Officers – part two
General Staff Officers – part two Bavaria had its own war academy. Almost the entire course of study was book learning but at the end, there was a three-week staff ride.…
The Sonderrechte Grand Duchy of Baden
Yesterday, I was asked why the blog archive contained the names of four states but not Baden. Those four states were kingdoms. They each had their own king. Baden was…
General Staff Officers part 1
General Staff Officers part 1 One of the reasons that our books are so different from others is because of our intimate knowledge of the “red donkey”. These were manuals…
The Population-part four –The Proletariat-second half
The Population-part four –The Proletariat-second halfThe proletariat lived in residential segregation and feared layoffs or any change in circumstances that would affect their ability to earn wages. Between 1870 and…
The Population-part three –The Proletariat-first half
The Population-part three –The Proletariat-first half – yes a long one.About two-thirds of the population made up the proletariat, split between agricultural workers and the urban manual laborers. Most had…
The Population-part two –The Bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie made up approximately 30 percent of the population. The term bourgeoisie originally denoted a wide range of individuals, from substantial business owners to small shopkeepers, from unbelievably rich…
Law of Land Warfare
A view of the inevitability of civilian involvement in combat and an "appropriate" military response permeated the German military. There was an anti-French feeling against the "people's war" or “levée…
Communications Telephone
There were only two means of electronic communication in the German Army: telephone and radio. Telegraph communications were abandoned in 1910. By 1914, the intent was to provide each army…
Language Anomalies
One of the reasons this book was in editing for so long was attributed to the three language balancing act. Really it is more like five languages and it has…
Partisans
During the Franco-Prussian war that ended in 1871, the German army ran afoul of a swarm of what became known as francs-tireurs - from the French word for “free shooters,”…