According to the book description
of The German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I, “Former
U.S. Marine captain and accomplished military historian Robert Asprey tells the story of the First World War from the point
of view of the German general staff in The German High Command at War. Focusing on the celebrated partnership between general
Erich Ludendorff and field marshal Paul von Hindenburg, Asprey recounts the duo's career from their early triumphs over
the Russians at Tannenberg to the defeat of their military dictatorship in 1918. Responding to historians who tend to lionize Hindenburg and Ludendorff, this book argues
that their exemplary reputations were the result of a self-serving public-relations campaign during and after the war. Through
Asprey's capable analysis, Ludendorff emerges as a fat, ruthless martinet, while Hindenburg looms as a passive, scheming
narcissist. Their successes on the eastern front are portrayed as lucky breaks, the result of intercepted Russian radio transmissions.
However, there were no respites on the western front, and Asprey explains how the generals' desperation, arrogance, and
lack of strategic insight ultimately exhausted the German empire. Readers will find a comprehensive and lively treatment of
Hindenburg and Ludendorff's military decisions and political intrigues, but this book is more than a history. Asprey's
trenchant exploration of the dynamics of power and personality make The German High Command at War a warning for what can
happen if militaristic imperatives dominate a government's capacity for principled leadership.”
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Captain Robert B. Asprey, USMC is a former
US Marine Corps captain and veteran of two wars. Additionally, Robert B. Asprey is a Fulbright scholar
and a veteran writer of military history whose works are highly respected throughout the world. He is the
author of War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla in History; The Rise and Fall of Napoleon; Frederick the Great: The
Magnificent Enigma; At Belleau Wood; Operation Prophet; The Panther's Feast; The German High Command at War: Hindenburg
and Ludendorff Conduct World War I; First Battle of the Marne; Once a Marine : Memoirs of Commandant US Marines WW II; Semper
Fidelis: The U. S. Marines in World War II; and, The Reign of Napoleon Bonaparte.
According to the book description of
At Belleau Wood, “On June 15, 1918, the 2nd U.S. Division--consisting of army soldiers and
combat-ready troops recruited from the Marine Corps by General Pershing to supplement limited American forces--met with their
German opponents at Belleau Wood. At the time, Allied spirits were extremely low; the question was not if the Germans would
march into Paris, but when. But the 2nd fought hard and pulled out a victory, and created the psychological turning point
that allowed the Allies to end the war by year's end. Military historian Robert Asprey tells this rousing tale with much
first-hand testimony (in interviews, memoirs, and letters home) from the troops that made it happen.”
According to the book description of
Frederick the Great: The Magnificent Enigma, “A cradle-to-the-grave of one of the most intriguing
rulers in history, King Frederick the Great who raised the small kingdom of Prussia to major power status in the turbulent
military and political struggles of the 18th century. A cruel childhood forced him to lie, deceive and cheat in order to enjoy,
if only for brief periods, the life of an intellectual. Once on the throne he spent many years of often brilliant field command
of his army in seemingly endless campaigns. He remained an intellectual, however, an essayist, historian, poet, flautist,
consorting when possible with the French writer Voltaire.”
According to the book description of
Frederick the Great: The Magnificent Enigma, “A cradle-to-the-grave of one of the most intriguing
rulers in history, King Frederick the Great who raised the small kingdom of Prussia to major power status in the turbulent
military and political struggles of the 18th century. A cruel childhood forced him to lie, deceive and cheat in order to enjoy,
if only for brief periods, the life of an intellectual. Once on the throne he spent many years of often brilliant field command
of his army in seemingly endless campaigns. He remained an intellectual, however, an essayist, historian, poet, flautist,
consorting when possible with the French writer Voltaire.”
Publisher’s Weekly said of War
In The Shadows: The Guerrilla in History, “Originally published in two volumes in 1975, this updated,
abridged version of Asprey's monumental survey of guerrilla warfare begins with the struggle between Persian king Darius
and Scythian irregulars and concludes with the mujahedin resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He discusses how
great commanders such as Hannibal and Napoleon dealt with irregulars and how counterinsurgency experts such as Sir Gerald
Templar during the Malayan Emergency in the early 1950s found ways to defeat the guerrilla. Roughly a fifth of the text treats
the United State’s involvement in Vietnam and our failure to adapt organizationally or tactically to the guerrilla challenge
of the Viet Cong. Asprey's angry remarks about our "criminal military-political strategy" in Southeast Asia
is even more scathing than in the original edition. This is the definitive history of guerrilla warfare over the past two
millennia, illustrating its evolution into "an ideal instrument for the realization of social-political-economic aspirations
of underprivileged peoples.”
According to a reader of The
Panther's Feast, “This extensively researched book tells the story of Colonel Redl, who was the head
of counter intelligence for the Austrian empire before WWI -- and who was a Russian spy, blackmailed because of his homosexuality.
Redl was the basis for a play "A Patriot for Me" and the movie Col. Redl with K M Brandauer was based on the play.
The real story is a bit more interesting.”
According to the book description
of The Reign Of Napoleon Bonaparte, “Between the years 1805 and 1815, the armies of Napoleon
Bonaparte conquered most of continental Europe, establishing their leader, if but briefly, as "a new Charlemagne."
In the second part of his two volumes on the life of the emperor, military historian Robert Asprey examines the armies'
triumphs and eventual defeat, following in their footsteps from Spain to Russia, and on to Waterloo. Bonaparte, Asprey writes, aspired to forge and lead a united,
peaceful Europe, a quest that required much blood to be shed. A former U.S. marine officer, Asprey is a reliable commentator
on matters of battlefield strategy and tactics, and his book's greatest strength is his power to invoke the feel of bloody
engagements, which include the Battle of Borodino, where more than 40,000 Russians fell in a single day (cut down, he notes,
by the more than 2 million rounds that French muskets fired); Wagram, where French forces managed to eke out victory over
their Austrian foes despite a series of costly blunders; Corunna, where the French forces, having marched 15 and more miles
a day, proved "that there have probably been no tougher soldiers in the world"; and the decisive action at Waterloo,
where French, Belgian, German, and English armies clashed amid thunderstorms and confusion to an end that was anything but
inevitable.
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