This double biography of the joint leaders of Germany's General Staff provides an account of the Great War from the German point of view and sheds light on the nation's disastrous defeat as a result of expanded military egos unchecked by civil authority. Even when Hindenburg led his troops home after the 1918 armistice, he declared that the German army had been, not beaten, but destroyed - the origin of the stab in the back concept that became Hitler's rallying cry. Both Hindenburg and Ludendorff rejected all overtures for a compromise peace, and in their different ways led their country into total war and ruin. Robert Asprey's other books include War in the Shadows , Semper Fidelis: A History of the Marines in World War II and Frederick the Great: The Magnificent Enigma .