Herwig, Holger H., - The Forgotten Campaign: Alsace-Lorraine August 1914 Keywords: French Army and its combattants | Western Front | France | Germany | Published memoirs and biographies | Experience of combat | Science, Technology, and Medicine Abstract: The conclusions drawn from the campaign in Alsace-Lorraine are as follows. First, the German army's prewar neglect of electronic communications and the need to assign royal heirs to command field armies combined against efficient coordination between Koblenz and Hell…

Jellicoe, John R. (December 5, 1859, Southampton – November, 20, 1935, London; Viscount of Scapa from 1918; Earl Jellicoe from 1915), British admiral. Jellicoe joined the Royal Navy in 1872 and took part in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877 as well as in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. As director of naval ordnance, he had been responsible for equipping HMS Dreadnought with heavy gunnery in 1905. Appointed rear admiral in 1907, Jellicoe was made Third Sea Lord in the following year and supervised the construction of 90 battleships, including eig…

Holtzendorff, Henning von (January 9, 1853, Prenzlau – June 7, 1919, Jagow [Uckermark]), German grand admiral. Holtzendorff entered the navy in 1869, took part in the war of 1870/1871, and in 1900 served as commander of a capital ship during the Boxer Rebellion. After various commands on land (commander in chief of the navy, chief of staff of the Baltic Division, commander of the dockyard at Danzig [Gdańsk]), from 1906 to 1909 he was commander of the First Squadron, and in 1910 took command of the …

Scheer, Reinhard (September 30, 1863, Obernkirchen [Kreis Schaumburg] – November 26, 1928, Marktredwitz [Bavaria]), German admiral. Scheer entered the German navy in 1879, and, after several overseas postings, was employed from 1890 in the torpedo service. Transferred to the Reichsmarineamt (Reich Naval Office) in 1903, in 1907 he became commander of the pre-dreadnought battleship Elsass and two years later became chief of staff of the High Seas Fleet. In 1911 he became the director of the general naval department within the Reich Naval office. Sch…

Luckner, Felix Count von (June 9, 1881, Dresden – April 13, 1966, Malmö), German naval officer. Luckner left the Gymnasium (grammar school) at the age of 13 and sailed as ship’s boy on the steamer Niobe to Australia, where he worked as a dishwasher, fakir’s helper, Salvation Army missionary, and prize boxer. Wishing to make the acquaintance of his idol Buffalo Bill, Luckner signed on as a seaman on a four-master bound for San Francisco. From there he hiked across the American continent, although he failed to meet …

Dreadnought British capital ship, and the name used for an entire type of modern battleships. By what has been termed the “Dreadnought leap” – superiority in firepower, protection, and speed – the Royal Navy rendered obsolete all large battleships built before that time. This qualitative advance in British naval technology was the consequence of military necessity. After the sea-battle of Tsushima on May 27/28, 1905, in which the Japanese fleet destroyed three Russian warships from a distance of …

Spee, Imperial Count Maximilian von ( June 22, 1861, Copenhagen – December 8, 1914, off the Falkland Islands), German admiral. Spee entered the Imperial German Navy in 1878 and became a rear admiral in 1910. Placed in command of the German East Asia Squadron in 1912, he was promoted to vice admiral in 1913. At the beginning of the war his squadron was operating in the vicinity of the island of Ponape, the largest of the Eastern Carolines. Following the Japanese declaration of war against Germany, Spee decided to head for Chile across the Pacific Ocean with the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gn…