Military history of Germany

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History of Germany

While German-speaking peoples have a long history, Germany as a nation-state dates only from 1871. Earlier periods are subject to definition debates. The Franks, for instance, were a union of Germanic tribes. Some of the Franks later identified themselves as French. The capital of medieval ruler Charlemagne's empire was the city of Aachen, now part of Germany, yet he was a Frank. Hence both French and German historians can claim his victories as their heritage. The Holy Roman Empire he founded was largely but far from entirely German speaking. Prussia, which unified Germany in the nineteenth century, had significant territory in what is now Poland. In the early nineteenth century the philosopher Schlegel referred to Germany as a Kulturnation, a nation of shared culture and political disunity, analogous to ancient Greece.

During the ancient and early medieval periods the German tribes had no written language. What we know about their early military history comes from accounts written in Latin and from archaeology. This leaves important gaps. German wars against the Romans are fairly well documented from the Roman perspective. German wars against the early Celts remain mysterious because neither side recorded the events.

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Ancient times

Germanic tribes are thought to have originated during the Nordic Bronze Age in northern Germany and southern Scandinavia. The tribes spread south, possibly motivated by the deteriorating climate of that area. They crossed the River Elbe, probably overrunning the territories of the Celtic Volcae in the Weser Basin. The Romans recorded one of these early migrations when the Cimbri and the Teutones tribes threatened the Republic itself around the late 2nd century BC. In the East, other tribes, such as Goths, Rugians and Vandals, settled along the shores of the Baltic Sea pushing southward and eventually settling as far away as Ukraine. The Angles and Saxons migrated to England. The Germanic peoples often had a fraught relationship with their neighbours, leading to a period of over two millennia of military conflict over various territorial, religious, ideological and economic concerns.

  • German tribes often fought both against and for the Roman Empire.
  • In 9 AD a Roman army led by Publius Quinctilius Varus was defeated by the Cheruscan leader Arminius (Hermann) in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.
  • Around 260, the various German tribes finally broke through the Limes and the Danube frontier.
  • The Goths, after settling in the region west of the Black Sea in the third century AD, split into two groups, the Ostrogoths(East Goths) and the Visigoths(West Goths).
  • In 364, the Visigoths ravaged much of Thrace, mostly present day Bulgaria.
  • In the late 4th and early 5th Centuries, West Germans led initially by Hengist and Horsa, but later joined by leaders including Aelle of Sussex and the kings of Deria and Bernicia, leading tribes of Jutes, Saxons and Angles, began to occupy and settle the lowlands of the South and East of Britain.
  • On Christmas Day 406, with the freezing of the Rhine, Franks, Allemanni, Burgundians, Suebi and Vandals crossed the Rhine from Germany into Gaul. The Franks later expelled the Goths from Aquitaine and absorbed the Burgundians. They were later to give their name to modern France. The Suebi, in alliance with the Alans, an Indo-Iranian people from the Hungarian steppes, settled in Portugal, under the hegemony of the later Visigothic kings.
  • In 415, Visigoths led by Alaric I were the first people since the creation of the empire to sack Rome.
  • In 451, the two divisions of Goths were on opposite sides at the Battle of Chalons. The battle was caused by Attila the Hun's sacking and pillaging of much of the Roman Empire. The Visigoths, led by King Theodoric I, were on the Roman side, whereas the Ostrogoths were on Attila's side. The battle took an entire day, and Theodoric was killed during the battle. His son, Thorismund, took over the battle in his place and helped win the battle against Attila.
  • In 455, under the leadership of their King Gaiseric, the Vandals seized Rome, plundering it for 15 days (and henceforth giving their name to wanton destruction).
  • From 772 to 814, the Frankish King Charlemagne held the Carolingian Empire, an empire which contained both France and Germany.

The Holy Roman Empire (843 - 1806)

The Holy Roman Empire emerged from the eastern part of the Carolingian Empire after its division in the Treaty of Verdun of 843, and lasted almost a millennium until its dissolution in 1806. It was never a unitary state; from the beginning it was made up of many ethnicities and languages and would at its height comprise territories ranging from eastern France to northern Italy and western Poland. Its unifying characteristic was its Carolingian heritage and strong religious connotations, its claim to ‘German-ness’ the ethnicity of most of its subjects and rulers. (Note the difference between the German monarchs and the Holy Roman Emperors - Louis the German became the first king of the East Franconian Kingdom (reign from 843 until 876), while his brother Lothair I became King of Middle Francia (840 - 855) and also the Holy Roman Emperor (823 - 855)).

From 919 to 936 the Germanic peoples (Franks, Saxons, Swaben and Bavarians) were united under Henry the Fowler, then Duke of Saxony, who took the title of King. For the first time, the term Kingdom of the Germans ("Regnum Teutonicorum") was applied to the Frankish kingdom.

In 955 the Magyars were decisively defeated at Lechfeld by his son Otto the Great, ending the threat from the Eurasian steppes for four centuries. In 962, partly on the strength of this victory, Otto went to Rome and was crowned the first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by the pope.

By 1155, the German states had descended into disorder. Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa) managed to restore peace through diplomacy and skillfully arranged marriages. He claimed direct imperial control over Italy and made several incursions into northern Italy, but was ultimately defeated by the Lombard League at Legano in 1176. In 1189, Frederick embarked on the Third Crusade. After a few initial successes against the Turks, notably at Konya, Frederick was killed when trying to cross a river. Leaderless, panicked and attacked on all sides, only a tiny fraction of the original forces survived.

Teutonic Knights, charging into battle. Note the distinct black cross on the white background. Painting by Giuseppe Rava.
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Teutonic Knights, charging into battle. Note the distinct black cross on the white background. Painting by Giuseppe Rava.

In 1226 Konrad I of Masovia in west-central Poland, appealed to the Teutonic Knights, a German crusading military order, to defend his borders and subdue the pagan Baltic Prussians. The conquest and christianisation of Prussia was accomplished with great bloodshed over more than 50 years, after which the Order ruled it as a sovereign Teutonic Order state. Their continuing aggression posed a threat to the neighbouring states, and in 1410 at Grunwald a Polish-Lithuanian army inflicted a decisive defeat and broke its military power, although the Order managed to hang on to most of its territories.

The Hussite Wars, fought between 1419 and 1431 in Bohemia, had their origins in a conflict between Catholics and the followers of a religious sect founded by Jan Huss. Sigismund, the Holy Roman Emperor of the period and a firm adherent of the Church of Rome, obtained the support of Pope Martin V who issued a papal bull in 1420 proclaiming a crusade. In all, four crusades were launched against the ‘heretics’, all resulting in defeat for the Catholic troops. The Hussites, capably led by Jan Zizka, employed novel tactics to defeat their numerically superior enemies, notably at Sudomer, Vyšehrad, Nemecky Brod and decisively at Usti nad Labem. After this great victory, and another at Tachov in 1427, the Hussites repeatedly invaded german lands, though they made no attempt at permanent occupation.

From 1618 to 1648 the Thirty Years' War ravaged Germany, when it became the main theatre of war in the conflict between France and the Habsburgs for predominance in Europe. Besides being at war with Catholic France, Germany was attacked by the Lutheran Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus, who won many victories until he was killed at Lützen.The war resulted in large areas of Germany being laid waste, causing general impoverishment and a loss of around a third of its population. It ended with the Peace of Westphalia.

During the reign of Frederick William I (1713-1740), the military power of Prussia was significantly improved. He organized the government around the needs of his army, and produced an efficient, highly-disciplined instrument of war. The army was expanded to 80,000 men, about 4% of the total population. Peasants were drafted into the military and trained for duty, but were sent home for ten months out of each year. This allowed a well-trained military force to be mobilized in the event of a conflict while not significantly impacting the economy in peacetime.

In the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748) Empress Maria Theresa fought successfully for recognition of her succession to the throne. However, during the subsequent Seven Years' War and Silesian Wars Frederick II of Prussia occupied Silesia and forced Austria to formally cede control in the Treaty of Hubertusburg of 1763. Prussia had survived the combined force of its neighbours, each larger than itself, and gained enormously in influence at the cost of the Holy Roman Empire. It became recognised as a great European power, starting a rivalry with Austria for the leadership of the German-speaking lands.

The Napoleonic Wars (1805-1815)

The Napoleonic era ended the Holy Roman Empire and created new German-speaking states that would eventually form modern Germany. Napoleon reorganized many of the smaller German-speaking states into the Confederation of the Rhine following the battle of Austerlitz in 1805. Essentially this enlarged the more powerful states of the region by absorbing the smaller ones, creating a set of buffer states for France and a source of army conscripts. Neither of the two largest German-speaking states were part of this confederation: Prussia and Austria remained outside it.

Napolean at the battle of Austerlitz, by François Pascal Simon, Baron Gérard
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Napolean at the battle of Austerlitz, by François Pascal Simon, Baron Gérard

King Frederick William II viewed the Confederation of the Rhine as a threat to Prussian interests and allied against Napoleon. At this time the reputation of the

Prussian army remained high from the period of the Seven year's War. Unfortunately they retained the tactics of that period and still relied heavily on foreign mercenaries. The lack of military reforms would prove disastrous. Prussian defeats at Jena and Auerstadt led to a humiliating settlement that reduced the size of the country by half.

the original Iron Cross military medal from 1813
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the original Iron Cross military medal from 1813

A demoralised Prussia brought its distinguished old general Gebhard von Blücher out of retirement and reorganized the army. The reforms of the Prussian military were led by von Scharnhorst and von Gneisenau, and converted the professional army into one based on national service. They brought in younger leaders, increased the rate of mobilisation and improved their skirmishing and unit tactics. They also organized a centralized general staff and a professional officer corps.

Following Napoleon’s defeat in Russia, Prussia and a few other German states saw their chance and joined the anti-French forces in the Sixth Coalition, which won a decisive victory over France at Leipzig in 1813 and forced the abdication of Napoleon. Although declared an outlaw by the Congress of Vienna, Napoleon returned and met a final defeat at the hands of Blücher and Wellington at Waterloo in 1815.

The making of a united Germany (1815-1871)

The Congress of Vienna in 1814 - 1815 redrew the political map of Europe. It established 39 separate German speaking states and organised them in the German Confederation or Deutscher Bund, under the leadership of Prussia and Austria. Significantly, Prussia gained new territories in the west along the Rhine river in geographic isolation from the rest of its lands. This Ruhr valley district underwent rapid industrialisation, inspiring Prussia to establish the Zollverein, a customs union (which excluded Austria) with the aim of promoting German economic growth.

The Revolutions of 1848 in the German states were a series of popular uprisings that promoted liberalisation and German political unification. The Frankfurt Assembly of 1848 offered the crown of Germany to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. He declined, stating that the assembly did not represent its respective states. A smaller Prussian-led unification plan was dropped in 1850 after Austria threatened war. The rest of the decade was a period of political and economic consolidation. In the one major conflict during that period - the Crimean War - Prussia remained neutral and strengthened its position with the smaller German states at the expense of Austria.

After a period of constitutional deadlock between crown and parliament in Prussia, a crisis arose in 1863 over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, disputed between Denmark and the German Confederation. Otto von Bismarck, then prime Minister of Prussia, used this as a pretext to force the smaller German states to join Prussia and Austria in a war with Denmark. The Second War of Schleswig ended with the defeat of the Danes at Dybbøl, and agreement between Austria and Prussia to jointly administer the annexed territories.

Bismarck then set about weakening Austria and make Prussia the undisputed master of northern Germany. This eventually provoked Austria and led to the Austro-Prussian War, sealed by the Prussian victory at Königgrätz in July 1866. The result was the de-facto Prussian annexation of substantial north German territories and the creation of the North German Confederation one year later.

The Prussian 7th Cuirassiers charge the French guns at the Battle of Mars-La-Tour, August 16, 1870
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The Prussian 7th Cuirassiers charge the French guns at the Battle of Mars-La-Tour, August 16, 1870

The Franco-Prussian war of 1870 - 1871 (nominally fought over the succession to the Spanish throne) resulted in the southern German states honouring their secret treaties of mutual defence with Berlin, with the first emergence of a strong german national sentiment in the background.

The Germans under Wilhelm I and von Moltke mobilized a mass conscript army of 1.2 million men which faced 400,000 experienced regular french soldiers under Napoleon III. While the Germans were mobilizing the french forces held the upper hand, but the massive size of the german army allowed the mass-encirclement and destruction of enemy formations at Gravelotte, Metz and Sedan. The war culminated with the defeat of the french army during the siege of Paris, and was followed by the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles in January 1871.

The results of these wars was the emergence of a powerful German nation-state and a major shift in the balance of power on the European continent.

German Empire (1871-1914)

The creation of the German Empire heralded the end of Bismarck’s expansionism. From that point onwards until the end of his career, he skillfully used diplomacy to maintain the status quo in Europe.

The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand
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The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand

In 1888 however, Wilhelm II ascended to the German throne. A grandchild of Queen Victoria, he was an admirer of Britain's empire and naval power and opposed Bismarck's careful foreign policy. To further his goals, he made Admiral von Tirpitz, an energetic campaigner for a greatly enlarged fleet, Secretary of State for the German Navy. Through successive "Fleet Acts" he succeeded in giving Germany by 1914 the second largest naval force in the world.

This expansion program was sufficient to alarm the British, starting a costly naval arms race and leading indirectly to the emergence of a fragile stand-off between two alliances in Europe: the Triple Entente (Britain, France and Russia) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austro-Hungary and Italy).

When in 1914 the growing nationalism in Europe claimed a victim in Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the Austrians replied by setting a seemingly impossible ultimatum to Serbia which they held ultimately responsible. Although the Serbs almost completely relented, their Russian allies refused to halt their mobilisation. Spurred on by their Austrian allies, Germany declared war on Russia on 1914-08-01, ultimately resulting in an all-out war between the two opposing blocks.

The First World War (1914-1918)

German soldiers on the front in the First World War
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German soldiers on the front in the First World War

The German Schlieffen plan was to deal with the Franco-Russian alliance involved delivering a knock-out blow to the French and then turning to deal with the more slowly mobilised Russian army. At the start of the First World War, Germany attacked France through Belgium to avoid French defenses on the French-German border. They are beat back at the First Battle of the Marne Years of stalemated trench warfare followed on the Western Front.

German artillery shown on a 1914 postcard
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German artillery shown on a 1914 postcard

In the East, however, the war was very different. The Russian initial plans for war had called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian Galicia and German East Prussia. Although Russia's initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, they were driven back from East Prussia by the victories of the German generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914. Russia's less-developed economic and military organisation soon proved unequal to the combined might of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires. In the spring of 1915 the Russians were driven back in Galicia, and in May the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland's southern fringes, capturing Warsaw on 5 August and forcing the Russians to withdraw from all of Poland, known as the "Great Retreat".

By 1917 the German army had begun employing new infiltration tactics in an effort to break the trench warfare deadlock. Units of Sturmabteilung, or stormtroopers, were trained and equipped for the new tactics, and were used with devastating effect along the Russian front at Riga then at the Battle of Caporetto in Italy. These formations were then deployed to the western front to counter the British tank attack at the Battle of Cambrai. In March, 1918 the German army Spring Offensive and began an impressive advance creating a salient in the allied line. The offensive stalled before reaching Paris, however.

Increasing numbers of American soldiers along the western front now began to make their presence felt. Although the German military was able to stand off the Allied forces on both fronts, by 1918 victory appeared unobtainable and a negotiated peace seemed preferable to continuing to an inevitable defeat. The armistice impoverished Germany, setting the stage for the rise of the National Socialists in the 1930s.

The Interwar Period (1918-1939)

[The [Messerschmitt Bf 109] was one of Germany's best fighter planes during World War 2
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[The [Messerschmitt Bf 109] was one of Germany's best fighter planes during World War 2

The treaty of Versailles imposed severe restrictions on Germany's military strength. The army was limited to one hundred thousand men with an additional fifteen thousand in the navy. The fleet was to consist of at most six battleships, six cruisers, and twelve destroyers. Tanks and heavy artillery were forbidden and the air force was dissolved. A new post-war military (the Reichswehr) was established on 23 March 1921. General conscription was abolished under another mandate of the Versailles treaty. The treaty also forced Germany, whom was blamed for the war, to pay billions of dollars in war reparations. The Occupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgian forces (1923 and 1924 was a result of Germany not being able to pay. The anger and resentment of this treaty was a cause of Adolf Hitler's rise to power.

The Weimar Republic largely obeyed the Versailles restrictions; the economic problems of reparations, hyperinflation and the Great Depression also made military spending difficult. However, the German armed forces retained their strong officer corps.

The Nazi regime began remilitarization, initially with stealth, in the 1930s. German armed forces were named the Wehrmacht from 1935 to 1945. The Heer was encouraged to experiment with tanks and motorised infantry, using the ideas of Heinz Guderian. The Kriegsmarine re-started naval construction and Hitler established the Luftwaffe, an independent airforce.

In 1936 German troops marched into the demilitarised Rhineland. On 12 March 1938, German troops marched into Austria. Under the Nazis, Germany annexed the Sudeten border country of Czechoslovakia (October 1938), and then took over the rest of the Czech lands as a protectorate (March 1939). The Germans were allowed to take Czechoslovakia because the League of Nations did not have the power to stop them and did not want to start another World War.

The Second World War (1939-1945)

Main article: History of Germany during World War II
German Tiger Tank
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German Tiger Tank

In September 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. German special forces staged 'border incidents' to provide a spurious justification for war. However, the invasion resulted in the United Kingdom, France, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and Canada declaring war in short order.

The new German tactics of concentrated tanks, motorised infantry, and air support - what is now known as Blitzkrieg - caused Polish resistance to collapse within weeks.

German troops occupied Denmark and Norway in the summer of 1940. Then in Autumn 1940, they began the invasion of first the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg and then of France itself.

Allied plans were based on the strength of the Maginot Line preventing a direct German invasion. The Germans would be forced to attack through the Low Countries. French and British troops therefore planned concentrate themselves in Belgium to defeat the German attack.

The German strategy was to deploy tank units through the Ardennes area and encircle the troops in Belgium. This worked very effectively and plunged the British and French troops into retreat. A large number of British troops were evacuated from pockets of encirclement at Dunkirk and, in smaller numbers, at other coastal ports.

Through the winter of 1940-1 Germany threatened Britain and planned an invasion, while consolidating her territory in Eastern Europe, invading Yugoslavia.

General Erwin Rommel
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General Erwin Rommel

The German army took over an area from France to Russia, and from Norway to Libya. Germany invaded Yugoslavia because of an uprising there, then Greece and Cyprus. German troops were sent to Africa under the command of Rommel to attack the British in Egypt with the Afrika Korps.

In 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union, gaining enormous territory in the first year of the war, but their forces were stopped because of the Russian winter and inadequate winter clothing and supplies. The German army was decisively defeated at the Battle of Stalingrad and later at the Battle of Kursk. While Germany was fighting the Russians, the Allies captured Africa with victories at First Battle of El Alamein and the Second Battle of El Alamein, Italy and landed in France on D-day in 1944, then pushing the Germans back to the Rhine river.

The Germans attacked the Allies again in Belgium at the Battle of the Bulge but were defeated with the help of General George Patton. Germany was eventually overwhelmed with allies moving in from the west and Russians from the east, with Berlin falling in May 1945.

The Cold War (1945-1989)

Occupation zones of Germany in 1945.
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Occupation zones of Germany in 1945.

Among the legacies of the Nazi era were the Nuremberg Trials of 1945 - 1949. These established the concept of war crimes in international law and created the precedent for trying future war criminals.

Following World War II, the eastern borders of the state of Germany were substantially modified as part of the surrender settlement. Prussia and other portions of eastern Germany were used to form the highly modified state of Poland (with Poland losing a good portion of its eastern territory to the USSR.) The remainder of Germany was split into Soviet (later Russian), American, French and British occupation zones.

In 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany was formed from the French, British and American zones, while the Soviet zone formed the German Democratic Republic. The western territory of Germany fell under the protection of the NATO alliance in the west, while the eastern state joined the Warsaw Pact. Each state possessed its own military force, with eastern Germany formed along the Soviet model and federal Germany adopting a more 'western' organisation. The allied zones of Berlin became part of the Federal Republic of Germany despite the city's location deep in the German Democratic Republic. This condition continued until 1990 when the two states were reunited.

The Bundeswehr was established in 1955 in West Germany. In 1956, conscription for all men between 18 and 45 in years was introduced after heavy discussions about re-militarising Germany. A significant exception came from the conscientious objector clause in the West German constitution: West Germany was the first country to grant alternative service to all men who objected to military service on ethical grounds, regardless of religious affiliation.

Most cold war analysts considered Germany the most likely location for the outbreak of a possible third world war. Tensions ran high during 1948 when the Soviet Union and German Democratic Republic closed all roads bringing supplies to West Berlin. The Berlin Airlift sustained the population and avoided a new war. Construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 commenced shortly after the Bay of Pigs invasion and preceded the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was the closest the cold war superpowers came to commencing a nuclear war.

During the Cold War the Bundeswehr had a strength of 495,000 military and 170,000 civilian personnel. The army consisted of three corps with 12 divisions, most of them armed with tanks and APCs. The air force owned major numbers of tactical combat aircraft and took part in NATOs integrated air defence (NATINAD). The navy was tasked to defend the Baltic Approaches and to contain the Soviet Baltic Fleet.

In East Germany, the National People's Army was founded on March 1, 1956. The NVA was a professional, volunteer army until the 24 January 1962, when conscription was introduced. In 1987 at the peak of its power, the Nationalen Volksarmee (NVA) of the DDR numbered 175,300 troops. Approximately 50% of this number were career soldiers, while the remaining half were short-term conscripts.

Military today

After reunification in 1990, the Bundeswehr absorbed parts of the Nationale Volksarmee of the GDR, which was being dissolved. In 1999, the NATO war on Yugoslavia in Kosovo was the first offensive conflict in which the German military actively took part since the Second World War. In 2000 the European Court of Justice opened up the previously all-male (besides medical divisions and the music corps) Bundeswehr to women. Since the early 1990s the Bundeswehr has become more and more engaged in international missions in and around the former Yugoslavia but also in other parts of the world such as Cambodia, Somalia and Afghanistan.

External Links

  • [1] Einhard's The Life of Charlemagne
  • [2] The Monk of St. Gall's The Life of Charlemagne]
  • [3] documents of German unification (in English)
  • [4] primary documents from 18th and 19th century German history (links and background in English, documents in German).
  • [5] maps of nineteenth century German unification
  • [6] Hussite Wars
  • [7] Nuremberg Trials
  • [8] German Culture site summary of the Federal Republic of Germany constitution
  • [9] Truman Presidential Library information on the Berlin Airlift
  • [10] Berlin Wall Online
  • "The Fontana History of Germany 1790-1918", David Blackbourn, Fontana Press 1997 (ISBN 0006861288)
  • "Dreadnought - Britain, Germany and the coming of the Great War", Robert K Massie, Jonathan Cape 1991 (ISBN 0224032607)
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