Lafayette We Are Here! by Jean-Michel Steg

Author:Jean-Michel Steg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Legend Press

Over the course of the First World War, the German general staff took a series of risky strategic gambles. The first of these was to implement the Schlieffen Plan – the invasion of France by way of Belgium in August 1914. This meant concentrating almost all of their forces on the Western Front, leaving only a thin curtain of troops to defend the east on the assumption that much time would be needed for Russia to fully mobilize its immense army. The plan’s successful execution depended on many factors: that the French troops massed along the frontier with Alsace-Lorraine would be rapidly encircled from the west; that an intimidated Belgian government would grant safe passage to German troops; that the invasion of Belgium would not trigger Great Britain’s entry into the war, even though it was a signatory (together with France and Germany) to the Treaty of London guaranteeing Belgian neutrality; and finally that German troops, as in 1870, would require no more than six weeks to beat the French army decisively and rapidly once contact had been made. One after the other, the Germans lost each of these gambles.

Yet this did not prevent the German general staff from contemplating a major new strategic gamble in early 1917. Since the onset of hostilities, German military and political leaders were split over the question of whether to use their U-boat fleet to block all forms of North Atlantic maritime traffic, neutral or otherwise, headed for France or (especially) Great Britain. The leaders of the German admiralty assured the Kaiser that their submarine fleet was capable of massively reducing trade in the direction of the Allied nations. They were confident that within three to six months an effective blockade could force the Allies to sue for an end to hostilities.50 The German chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, was not in the least convinced. Indeed, he particularly worried that resuming submarine warfare would drag the United States into the conflict, possibly tipping the demographic and industrial scales in the Allies’ favour. He also feared the impact that such a decision might have on Germany’s relations with neutral European states such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Spain. At this stage of the war, these countries played a minor but significant role in Germany’s ability to retain some connection with international trade. The position of German high command leaders – Erich von Falkenhayn first and then Hindenburg and Ludendorff from summer 1916 – fluctuated with the evolving fortunes of war. In the middle of this group of leaders, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the ultimate decision-maker, long hesitated between what became ever more divergent positions.

At the end of 1916, a year that witnessed the failure of the Verdun offensive (launched by the Germans) and that of the Somme (launched by the Allies), Hindenburg and Ludendorff, now in charge of the high command, were convinced that the nature of the conflict had changed. The search for the decisive battle and a breakthrough of enemy lines had been replaced by a war of attrition in both human and materiel terms.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.