This is an excellent work on the development of American military strategy over the years. It will serve both as a standard work of reference, and an excellent read in its own right.

The book is at its best on the early Republic and the era from the Civil War to WWI. Later chapters are slightly weaker, possibly becase there is a plethora of books on the run-up to WWII, the conflict itself and its aftermath.

What is fascinating is watching the evolution of a nation deeply suspicious of a standing army (something inherited both from the British tradition, and from the experience of the Revolution), and looking for quick and easy solutions ro defend its seaborne commerce. In fact, Thomas Jefferson bleieved in strong coastal defences, and small ships equipped to defend ports. This was a disastrous strategy which misfired in the War of 1812. The British showed that command of the sea was command of the coast -such an invader could pick his spot for a landing, and proceed.
The North itself used this strategy in the Civil War.

For many years, Indian fighting was the main occupation of the army, usually supplemented by local volunteers. However, the foundation of West Point led to a significant improvement in that a cadre of trained officers were now available. In the Civil War, most of the high command (and one of the Presidents) were West-Point trained, and performed well (with exceptions) as tacticians and strategists compared with European contemporaries.

In Weigley's view (and I disagree with him slightly) Grant and Sherman emerge as the two best military strategists of the Civil War period. My only cavil is that he possibly is too hard on Grant, crediting him with a mistaken emphasis on mass and concentration that led to the bloody battles in Virginia (1864 - Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor) which bled the Confederates white but also severely mauled Grant's own army.

True, Sherman had an instinctive grasp of the turning movement and the destruction of enemy resources as a strategy of attrition. But he learned this from Grant, and Grant's own aberrant attacking mode lasted only three months, thereafter he also went back to turning movements. In fact, his crossing of the James after Cold Harbor was probably the boldest and most effective stroke of the war (better even than Vicksburg) but went unrewarded due to poor execution by his subordinates. Some of this was Grant's as his senior generals were exhausted after three month's hard fighting, but one wonders what would have happened if Phil Sheridan had been in command of the lead corps and taken Petersburg in July 1864. Richmond would surely have fallen, leaving the Confederacy facing into a bleak winter without Atlanta or Richmond.

Weigley rightly traces the influcence of Grant in the approach of the Americans to WWII strategy and defends Eisenhower against the charge that he had backed away from this strategy rather than give the British the lead role in the advance on Germany.

The naval counterpart to Grant was Alfred Thayer Mahan, and one of the best chapters in the book is the description of Mahan's influence on naval Pacific strategy before and during WWII.

I am now reaching the end of the book, and it badly needs a revision to take account of post-Cold War events. Hopefully, Weigley might do this - after the Gulf War and Sept 11, there would be a ready market for such a work.

Weigley is a great writer on military history - his 'Age of Battles' is about Pre-napoleonic warfare, and is possibly a better book this one. I recommedn both books.

If you were assigned this text as part of a college course, you are in luck - it might be the best thing you read all semester. Weigley has a sharp prose style, and he delves into areas of American military history that others either ignore or neglect. I found his take on the war of annihilation against the American Indians especially important, mostly because it is free of political sentimentality and simultaneously captures the human tragedy of the event. His account of the airwar against Germany and Japan is riveting and revealing. Weigley has a gift for making statistics come alive. A great and grand narrative.

There is nothing more boring than a badly written book of military history, especially when it is required reading. I have plowed through several in command & staff college, and this one is a delight. It is easy to read without being simple. I actually enjoyed the reading. After chapters of Clausewitz and Jomini and more battle diagrams than is humane, I got to this book. What a relief! Heck, I would read this book just for fun!

I have never enjoyed reading an academic war history, before. I will probably give copies of this book to selected friends. It is on my "top ten of the genre" list. Americana at its best.

This is an excellent book providing an interesting alternative viewpoint of historical events that have been reviewed extensively. The author writes with an engaging style which maintains the readers interest throughout the text. The only fault in this excellent book is the number of typographical errors in the text in one case leading to a small factual error. The Dauphine Estates General met at the town of Vizille not Virille as shown in the text.

But still a very enjoyable book!

Russell Weigley, long established as the premier American military historian, has written a work that illustrates the necessity for the field commander to pursue complete victory over an adversary. This has long been a dream of military commanders, yet not until Gustavus Adolphus and his attempt to destroy his opponents at Breitenfeld, and his failure to move forward to Vienna, has the proverbial defeat been snatched from the jaws of victory. Weigley analyzes the failures, successes, and overall planning that became an essential part of post medieval warfare. His choice of particular battles and campaigns were carefully chosen to offer the greatest examples of military leaders opting for total, in lieu of negotiated partial victory. It is a necessary book for any student of military or political history, and it offers insights which may be compared to recent conflicts such as the Gulf War.

Russell F. Weigley, a military historian at Temple University, used Freeman's classic Lee's Lieutenants as an inspirational model for his effort to produce a one-volume account of the Allied campaign in northwest Europe in 1944-1945. While Allied forces are addressed the main focus of this book concerns American strategy, doctrine and operations. Weigley's hypothesis is that American war-fighting doctrine called for a war of annihilation against enemy armies by means of a "power-thrust" with massed armies and material, but that the actual conduct of the campaign deviated from this doctrine. Furthermore, due to mistakes made in the War Department, Eisenhower was forced to fight with inadequate means and according to Weigley, the US had mobilized "just enough resources to win by a narrow margin."

Weigley's main hypothesis about the US "power-thrust" doctrine is similar to the modern-day Powell doctrine of massive force. Based upon study of the US Civil War and the First World War, American war planners envisioned overwhelming and destroying enemy armies by massive and sustained application of combat power. Unfortunately, Weigley concludes that this theory was undermined in reality by the coalition strategy and inadequate US military mobilization. The British, who were initially the senior partner in the alliance, preferred to avoid costly head-on battles against the main German armies in favor of indirect approach through the peripheries, like Italy and the Balkans. Yet even once the British acquiesced to an invasion of France, the lack of adequate forces inhibited the Allied campaign. Weigley states, that "the basic trouble was that the Anglo-American alliance had not given Eisenhower enough troops to carry it [Allied strategy] out safely," and the "mobilizing [of] a ninety-division army for the Second World War was not an altogether impressive performance for a superpower." Lack sufficient infantry replacements and a galling shortage of artillery ammunition in the Fall of 1944 greatly weakened the US armies at a critical point in the campaign. Lacking sufficient divisions, Eisenhower was unable to either mass his forces for a breakthrough or assemble a strategic reserve to deal with unexpected contingencies. When the Germans struck in the Ardennes in December 1944, the Americans were forced to throw in partly trained units and precious airborne infantry to stop tanks, exposing the 90-division army as a risky gamble.

Weigley's argument about inadequate resources bears serious consideration, but the argument is incomplete. While it is a fact that Eisenhower lacked an adequate number of divisions in late 1944, the reasons were due more to lack of strategic priorities rather than poor mobilization policies in Washington DC. Although President Roosevelt had called for a "Germany First" strategy - and the British concurred - the Allied chiefs of staff had violated this preference by not ruthlessly trimming secondary and tertiary theatres. While Eisenhower was scrambling to come up with adequate troops in the Fall/Winter of 1944, there were 6 US divisions in Italy and 26 in the Pacific. The British were even worse, committing only 12 commonwealth divisions to northwest Europe but leaving 5 divisions in Italy and several more in Burma. Slim's 14th Army in Burma was allowed to waste 18,000 high-quality infantrymen in the fruitless "Chindit" operations. If the Chiefs of Staff had adhered to the "Germany First" strategy, they would have ordered a defensive posture with residual forces in Italy and Burma and scaled back offensive operations in the Pacific. Thus the problem was not inadequate resources, but failure to reign in competing strategies and practice economy of force.

A positive feature of this work is the light it sheds on the virtually-forgotten operational-level US commanders of the Second World War, corps commanders such as Corlett, Haislip, Eddy and Middleton. Other than Bradley and Patton, most US wartime commanders tend to appear as ciphers, if at all. Despite the title, this book unfortunately misses the opportunity to present a study in command that would profile the US operational-level commanders. One issue that is apparent is the poor selection methods used to choose senior American commanders; George C. Marshall's famous list was a ridiculous method for a major power to select its combat leaders. Only Patton and Van Fleet of the 23 senior US combat commanders in northwest Europe had been wounded in action and many such as Bradley and Devers, had missed the First World War altogether. Patch, who lacked any combat experience, was chosen to command the 7th Army over the much-experienced Collins because Patch was a favorite of Marshall's. On the other hand, Marshall's whimsy excluded Van Fleet from senior command for most of the war, but Van Fleet went on to become a very successful combat leader in Europe and Korea.

Weigley also tends to nurture the shibboleth about German combat superiority by stating that, "the German army remained qualitatively superior to the American army, formation for formation" for most of the campaign in northwest Europe. While there were painful episodes in the bocage and the Huertgen Forrest of German forces inflicting heavy losses on US units, the argument of German tactical superiority does not square with the facts. In September 1944, the much-maligned US armor units were able to smash four German panzer brigades in two weeks in essentially even-odds combat. In December 1944, the thinly-spread and badly-bruised 28th Division was able to delay superior German armored forces in the early stages of the Battle of the Bulge. While the Germans were certainly better than the Americans at quickly rebuilding units from odds and ends, German tactical superiority was at best confined to the elite panzer units by 1944. Furthermore, American troops demonstrated improved tactical ability by late 1944, having learned many lessons in the previous six months. Weigley's conclusion that, "in the end, it was its preponderance of material resources that carried its army through to victory in World War II," is out of synch with his "army of emptiness" and "inadequate force" arguments.

This book is an in-depth, critical critique of the western campaign in Europe after D-Day. Although as dry as the technical journals used as source material, the first three chapters contain the bulk of Weigley's thesis. After a lengthy comparison, he clearly states that the Wehrmacht, even as last as January, 1945, was the best army in the world. "With unvarying consistency it had achieve proportionately greater results than any other army for the numbers of men and divisions it employed." It took the vast industrial power of the United States, and the combined arms of the British Commonwealth, Soviet Union, the U.S. and France to finally break the Germans. The Wehrmacht survived and won with a highly trained and competent officer corps and strong unit loyalty among the men. The U.S. Army was woefully short in these traits. Disgusted French and British officers referred to the Americans as "our Italians" during the campaign in North Africa.

The U.S. Army transformed itself into a modern, professional fighting force through its service schools. The Army's concept of war was heavily influenced by its greatest generals up to that point in time: Grant and Lee. Since Grant won, his influence was stronger in the Army. Americans tried to emulate his approach to war by trying to use artillery in a head-on confrontation in an effort to destroy the enemy. Although Grant's influence was predominate, there were generals like George S. Patton, Jr. and John S. Wood, who were swayed by Lee's legacy of maneuver for oblique attack. It is then no surprise that the only part of the U.S. Army that the Germans respected was the artillery and that Patton was the general they feared the most.

Given this overall effort of trying to destroy the enemy with a mass of shells, logistics was extremely important to the Americans. Indeed, Weigley devotes two chapters to the role that logistics played in slowing down the allied advance. The Germans, as a result, had enough time to regroup and prevent an allied breach of the Reich. Supply shortages became critical during the Battle of the Bulge, when U.S. units began to run out of ammunition.

Weigley's portrayal of Eisenhower is not quite as harsh. He had a talent at getting people to work together. Ike, however, vacillated on several strategic decisions. He also treated allied armies as being interchangeable entities. Weigley's Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery is a bold and creative leader, given the severe manpower problems the British faced at this point in the war. Monty, however, had little strategic vision and inflamed national tensions in the allied command with his public belittling of the Americans. Patton is treated as a brilliant, but able general.

Like many other military historians, Weigley argues against claims that President Franklin D. Roosevelt won the war by lost the peace. He, however, makes this contribution not with an emphasis on strategy, but on quality. Many historians have argued that alternative strategies would not have avoided the Cold War. Weigley, instead, contends that without the Soviets the Americans could never have beaten a force as good as the Wehrmacht.

There are two shortcomings in this impressive study. Weigley presents the Germans as monolithic. The three German land forces--the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS, and the Luftwaffe paratroopers--did not fight in the same fashion as one another. Also, he fails to take into account the effect that Hilter's purge, which followed the failed attempt on his life, had on the Wehrmacht. Many officers were arrested and executed after July 20, 1944. All in all, an impressive read with much merit.

This book is exactly that as it provides a wealth of detail that others merely gloss over. This book is not a tired recitation of the standard WWII European theatre timeline = D-Day, nothing much, Cobra, Race Across France, nothing much, the Battle of the Bulge, marking time, The Rhine, German Surrender.

The author presents a thorough operational history of all facets of the campaign including details on such little studied topics as; a.)The Cherbourg Peninsula campaign b.) The Aachen / Roer fighting in Oct. '44 c.) The Hurtigen Forrest fighting d.) Operation Dragoon - the invasion of Southern France in Aug. of '44 e.) The Colmar Pocket f.) Patton's Palatine campaign of '45 g.) The role of the French Army in Alsace and Lorraine

In addition the author fixes American strategy in the tradition of the "find 'em, fix 'em and destroy 'em" approach to strategy that dates back to US Grant and the Civil War. And he demonstrates the shortcomings of that strategy. Logistics and troop shortages are not neglected either as the author clearly demonstrates that, although the United States possessed much more potential combat power than Germany, the US Army was oftentimes outnumbered (or possessed only a thin superiority) at the point of attack. Original plans at the outbreak of war (for the U.S.) in 1941 called for an American army of 210 divisions. In fact only 89 were formed and not all of those went to NW Europe. The disparity between plans and execution is effectively analyzed by the author.

This last point is an important one because it puts to rest that tired old saw that the US Army and their allies simply overwhelmed the 30% of the German army that faced them in the West while all the "real" fighting was done in the East.

The book is invaluable because it casts light on those "other" combat commanders - at Corps and Division level - that we hear almost nothing about. Men like Collins, Corlett, Gerow, Eddie, Robertson, Allen, Van Fleet, etc., (the real heroes of the struggle) finally get their due.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the author's treatment of that WWII international superstar Bernard Law Montgomery. I feel Weigly is very evenhanded when it comes to Monty. He gives credit where it is due and clearly points out those instances where Monty promises much and delivers little. This approach will surely upset both sides of the debate on Monty's true contributions to the Allied effort. His partisans, weaned on a steady diet of Monty hagiography, will see the author taking sides against their man. Monty bashers will not get enough satisfaction from Weigly's evenhanded approach.

In conclusion, f you are interested in this period and have not read this book - get it.