Holding Out
The German Army Operational Command in 1917
Tony Cowan, Cambridge University Press, 2023, 386 pages
Book Review published on: May 20, 2025
The U.S. Army has a long history of idealizing the Prussian and German militaries. In fact, much of the Army's modern concept of "mission command" and its offensive and defensive tactics is heavily influenced by the German experience in the two world wars. In Holding Out: The German Army Operational Command in 1917, author Tony Cowan notes that while much in the German experiences in 1917 merits praise, they often faced grave challenges in finding the proper balance in how much initiative and flexibility commanders should give their subordinates and how to best evolve their doctrine, organizations, and command structures to maintain an edge over the Allies. Cowan maintains that while the German army successfully implemented changes that allowed it to survive multiple Allied onslaughts in 1917, it was not the unalloyed bastion of innovation and adaptability as presented in the works of Timothy Lupfer, Martin Samuels, and Robert Citino.
After the 1916 battles of Verdun and the Somme pushed the German army to the breaking point, Cowan maintains that the high command was forced to implement a host of changes to counter the growing firepower, manpower, and materiel advantages of the Allies. The demand to husband Germany's limited manpower and artillery resources generally lead the high command to centralize the control of reserves, firepower, and doctrine at the expense of the initiative of division commanders and their subordinates. In other words, the realities of mass attritional warfare often put the brakes on Auftragstaktik.
Cowan offers a detailed a wide-ranging study of the factors that influenced the German operational level of war in the pivotal year of 1917. By examining the Germans' doctrinal, intelligence, organizational, communications, and promotions systems, he presents a complex and nuanced discussion of how their approach to fighting the Great War evolved after the crisis of 1916. His work reveals that the German army was not the efficient and professional Teutonic monolith of myth and legend, but rather a force where personality clashes, shortages of talent in command and staff positions, military culture, and deep divisions over tactics often blunted the effectiveness of the force. The adoption of the defense in depth doctrine highlighted these problems. The doctrine's imperative was to stop Allied offensives while simultaneously husbanding Germany's diminishing manpower. Cowan maintains that unresolved questions within the doctrine itself, such as when and if the defenders should give up ground, how thickly units should defend the main defenses, and the strength and timing of counterattacks, led to mixed results in the German's performance in 1917. He notes that while the Germans were successful in preventing major Allied breakthroughs on the western front, the success came at an unsustainable cost in German lives, and that some of the success stemmed more from Allied missteps than from German brilliance.
Holding Out is an important book not only for furthering our understanding of the German army in the Great War, but also for reminding us that militaries are very complex machines whose success or failure in war is ofttimes driven by equally complex factors that they do not control. One of the great strengths of the work is that Cowan continually grounds his narrative in a deeply Clausewitzian understanding of the nature of war. The only issue with the book is that it reads too much like a dissertation. As such, in places it is repetitive and plodding. This, however, is minor problem. The work is important for today's Army officer because we are facing some of the same challenges as those in the Great War as we confront the realities of fighting a large conventional attritional war. Much like the Germans of 1917, the U.S. Army today must wrestle with how to operate in a time of grave resource constraints to achieve the Nation's ends without suffering casualties that our systems cannot replace.
Book Review written by: Richard S. Faulkner, PhD., Fort Leavenworth