The general staff (with a few interruptions) was in place from 1808 to the end of World War II. During that period the Germans consistently outfought other armies in the field–including the Allies in World War I, despite the severe limitations of trench warfare. Their success culminated in the most devastating military victory in modern history: the 1940 blitzkrieg invasion of France and the Low Countries, when the German army ran rings around the rigid defenses of the French. It was the structure of their army, and their use of the Auftragstaktik, that gave them more options and greater
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