The two sides had strikingly different approaches to diplomacy. The military leadership of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his deputy General Erich Ludendorff increasingly controlled Germany and the other Central Powers. They worked around the Kaiser and largely ignored the politicians and diplomats; they focused on military supremacy.Robert B. Asprey, Hindenburg & Ludendorff: The German High Command at War (1991). The most dramatic example came when military command decided on unrestricted submarine warfare against Britain in early 1917, over the objections of Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg and other civilian leaders. Historian Cathal Nolan says their strategy was, "Germans must win fast and win everything or lose everything in a war of exhaustion: knock out Russia in 1917, defeat France and starve Britain, all before the Americans arrived in sufficient numbers to make a real difference on the Western Front." A military approach meant that victory was to be achieved by winning great campaigns against the main enemy armies. Allies were useful for providing hundreds of thousands of bayonets, and access to critical geographical points.
