Author’s Foreword
It may seem presumptuous to draw conclusions from the World War while it is still in progress. And yet it is imperative that we should be clear in regard to a number of questions which have presented themselves as a result of the War. We must look for their solution in the State and the Army. The War must admonish us to submit our whole national life and our military organisation to an examination in the light of the experiences which we have gained. Such an examination cannot and should not be much longer postponed.
Without clear views and an adequate understanding of the major sequences of the War, not only as regards operations and tactics, but also as regards world-politics and world-economics, without carefully balancing the new experience that it has brought us against all that it has confirmed and that has to be maintained, we shall not be in a position to draw accurate deductions for the future. Towards this the writer hopes to contribute by means of the following arguments. They are addressed equally to the Army and the nation.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SITUATION OF THE CENTRAL POWERS
II. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONAL AND MASSED WARFARE
III. THE INFLUENCE OF TECHNICAL SCIENCE
IV. LEADERSHIP