"Don't mention the war!"

Sorry, but I must; but not the last one, I mean the one before! 

(Before I go on, a brief history primer for those unfamiliar with the lunatic asylum that was Wilhemine Germany in the run up to WWI which all you experts can skip.  In the 19th c., Germany had grown like a cuckoo in the European nest under the brutal but shrewd real-politik of Bismarck.  He recognised the danger for Germany facing an enemy to the east (Russia) and to the west (France).  Thus, acknowledging that France would never be mollified so long as Germany held Alsace and Lorraine, he made every effort to act 'nicely-nicely' with Russia.  Alas, when the impetuous and moronic William II became Kaiser, Bismarck was dropped and William spent the next few years blundering about Europe upsetting everyone and raising fears about German intentions.  This eventually drove the Russians into the enticing arms of the French.  However, in 1904/5 the Russians were involved in a humiliating war with Japan which they lost.  Even so, the head of the German General Staff (GGS), Alfred von Schlieffen, in considering German strategy for a probable war on two fronts, devised a plan of awe-inspiring daring.  Based on his belief that Russia would, as it had done in the past, lumber into action very slowly, he suggested that 90% of the German army be deployed in the west against France and only a small holding force be left facing Russia.  Again, based on his belief that France would mass its army in the south against the existing border in order to attack and retake Alsace-Lorraine, he suggested that of the 90% of the German army in the west, the huge majority would be used on the right-wing to march through Belgium and Holland, ignoring their neutrality, and thence into northern France in a gigantic right hook that would pass either side of Paris and then swing round to the east to catch the French armies in rear and utterly destroy them against the southern German armies defending the Rhine.  If his southern flank in Alsace-Lorraine was forced back under French pressure, so much the better, thought Schlieffen, because the further the French pushed forward into the sack, so much the better for the Germans coming up behind them.  The total defeat of the French army was calculated to take no more than six weeks after which the magnificent, and fully militarised, railway system would rush the German armies over to the east to deal with the oncoming Russians. This plan was formulated in 1905/6 but Schlieffen was then retired and his place taken by Helmuth von Molke, the nephew of the great von Molke 'the Elder' who, under Bismarck, had beaten the Danes, then the Austrians and finally the French, and whose reputation deservedly places him in the ranks of the 'Great Captains of History'.  Alas, his nephew, Moltke 'the Younger', was not at all of the same stamp and under his leadership the Schlieffen plan was altered and in the view of some (most?) he weakened it fatally and it resulted in the Battle of the Marne in which the French army was able to redeploy and (with a little help from its friend!) fight back, thus forcing the Germans to retreat, after which four years of stalemate and slaughter in the trenches ensued. Map from Wikipedia)

 

 

A few weeks ago I contacted a lady by the name of Annika Mombauer.  She is a fearfully learn-ed historian specialising in Wilhemine Germany and I came across one of her papers published on the net by The Institute of Strategic Studies.  Unfortunately I couldn't open it but following my contact she very kindly e-mailed me a full copy.  So impressed was I that I felt compelled to buy a copy of her book: Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War.  The book, being more than somewhat specialist and scholastic and thus not designed for a mass market, is tremendously expensive but via 'abebooks' I obtained a second-hand copy.  It was worth every penny!

I have read the book only once, fairly quickly, so my remarks are impressionistic rather than scholarly.  She seemed intent on upholding Moltke's battered reputation but in that I think she failed.  However, she puts to flight the more extreme of Molke's critics whose main purpose was to uphold the reputation of his predecessor as Chief of the GGS, von Schlieffen, and his daring plan to defeat the French in 6 weeks.  These German critics came out of the woodwork shortly after the war ended and a considerable part of their motivation was to explain away Germany's defeat - and their part in it!  Blaming it on Moltke for having the temerity to alter Schlieffen's 'master plan' must have seemed like a good idea.  Ms. Mombauer makes the very good point that even if Schlieffen himself had remained in the job from 1906 to 1914, the plan would almost certainly have been altered in some way to fit changes over time - for example, the growing strength of Russia which by the 2nd decade of the 20th c. had recovered from its humiliation at Japanese hands.

Nevertheless, my impression is that she fails to aquit Moltke of the main charge, that is, that he lacked utter, total, ruthless and uncompromising commitment to the Schlieffen concept.  For example, he could not, as Schlieffen was prepared to do, contemplate even the possibility of the Russians setting foot on German soil in the east, or the French doing so in the west.  This prompted him to re-inforce both the eastern and southern flanks at the expense of his forces in the north.  To put it in boxing parlance, he had a deadly right-hook, but in the event he ever so slightly pulled his punch!

There are it seems to me, two fascinating 'what if' questions - and if you are not interested in 'what if' questions then you are not interested in history!

First, would an updated version of the Schlieffen plan have been successful if the man himself had commanded?  Despite Ms. Mombauer's superb book, I think it probably would.

Second, would it have been, in the words of Sellar & Yeatman, "A Good Thing" if it had?  Here, I am supposing that the British army had continued its flight towards Bordeaux and escaped via the Royal Navy.  Again, I am assuming that the French navy would have been either sunk (by us) or came over to us.  The situation would then have reverted to the familiar one of Britain standing more or less alone in its island fortress.  Such a situation would not have been a total disaster and whilst fraught with dangers it would have avoided four years of trench warfare and the horrific casualties that resulted from it.(*) 

At this point I should add a rider.  As Ms. Mombauer makes clear, the Schlieffen concept was the only one on offer at the time.  In retrospect, it is now clear that in the age of the machine-gun and high explosive, the weight of advantage had shifted to the defensive and against the offensive.  Unfortunately, for complex reasons only to be found in a geo-political and historical study of northern Germany, the Prussians were deeply imbued with the spirit of the offensive, at whatever cost.(**)

Let me end by recommending Ms. Mombauer's book for providing a piercingly clear picture of the lunacy that took over Germany under a psychotic king and the influence of an ultra-secretive, so-called expert collection of military technocrats.  There's a lesson for all of us in that, not just Germany. 

* Re-reading this later I see that my remarks might lead you to suppose that I support the idea that we should have remained strictly neutral.  I do not, and nor do I think it would have been possible.  However, there might have been an advantage to us in retreating behind our navy and slowly strangling Germany and its vassal states into poverty and hardship - although, as Nial Ferguson has made clear in his recent book, The Pity of War, blockade was not nearly as effective as some believed at the time.

** Although Bismarck had unified all of the 'Germanies' into an 'empire', nevertheless, the ruling military caste was predominately Prussian, with all the vices and virtues that are associated with that nation.

Comments

[Kymberlie R. McGuire]

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[Mike Cunningham]

"if you are not interested in 'what if' questions then you are not interested in history!"

If you care to spend an hour or two in 'Alternative Universe'-land, as I have, being a recent convert to the Genre,you may well see the the result of one author's answer to his particular 'what if' query.

The author is one Stuart Slade, and his book 'The Big One' is his version of what would have happened if Britain became 'Neutral' early in the Second World War, Marshal Zhukov replaced Stalin with the consequent abolition of Communism, and the two Allies who fought against the Nazis were an America whose formidable Carrier Fleet attacked the European Continent from the West, and a Russia whose forces, bolstered by American aid, held stubbornly to a massive Front in the East.

The Big One is the story of American retaliation against Germany, and although there are loopholes in the plot, as well as the fact that the book is self-published, I would reccommend it to your readers for a comparatively inexpensive few hours of 'Whatiffery'

[ortega]

I think it was Sebastian Haffner who said that the difference between Bismarck and the Kaiser was that the first's objetive was to make Prussia as big as Germany could handle wereas the second's main was to make Germany as big as Europe would allow.
A very good book on the history of Prussia: Iron Kigdom, by Christopher Clark.

[David Duff]

Ortega, you have the knack of touching my conscience. I have the book, and to be fair, I have dipped into it, but it remains on my 'waiting-to-be-read' pile! I enjoyed the aphorism; sums it up very neatly.

Mike, even I gulped at Slade's first premise, that Zhukov (or anyone) would have, or could have, replaced Stalin; he was, and remains, the World Champion Survivor! However, on the subject of 'what ifs', I suppose in his scenario, America would have used the bomb on the Japs and merely threatened its use on the Germans. My guess is that Hitler would have been overthrown instantly in such a case.

[dearieme]

If Britain had become neutral early enough America probably would not have had the A-bomb - it started life as the British "Tube Alloys" project and the British had to nag the Americans into taking over the project once the British had pursued it to the point where it was clear that they could not be confident of finishing it on their own faster than the Germans could.

[Mike Cunningham]

David,

No, Hitler fights on in a stalemate into 1947 on the Eastern Front, having dismissed the atom bomb as Heisenburg's delusions, and against the ever-increasingly ferocious Allied attacks from the Atlantic.

The Americans of course had Einstein. technology and eventually, the bomb.

I don't want to give too much of the plot away, but suffice to say there is a truly hilarious few paragraphs which take a sideways swipe at 'Peace Activists' such as we have to suffer today!

[David Duff]

The atomic 'what if' is fascinating. I am not very knowedgeable on the subject but I think DM is right in saying that we had a head start, but on the other hand as Mike says, Einstein had written to FDR to tip him off to the prospect and there was certainly a plethora of physics talent in the States. Perhaps, if we had remained neutral we might have enjoyed a thrilling scenario in which the Americans spied on us - James Bond vs. Felix Leitner!

Also, Mike, I am not at all sure that America would have gone to war with Germany in the event of us remaining neutral. FDR would have had an even more difficult job persuading the Congress if the Germans had not demonstrated their aggressiveness in submarine warfare. After all, it was Hitler who declared war, following Pearl Harbour, not the other way around.

[dearieme]

Einstein wrote to FDR as a British agent; that was part of the nagging to get the Yanks into action. Try Richard Rhodes "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" - one of the best WWII histories I've ever read.

[David Duff]

Oh God, and if, 'DM', my pile of 'waiting-to-be-read' books topples over on me I shall sue from my hospital bed! But thanks for the tip.