Why the Germans Lost by Bryan Perrett

Author:Bryan Perrett [Bryan Perrett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

A Choice of Foes

Field Marshal Count Alfred von Schlieffen was born into a Prussian military family in 1833 and entered the Army in 1854. Noted for his intelligence early in his career, he quickly earned a position in the General Staff, seeing active service during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the Franco-German War of 1870–71. In 1884 he was appointed head of the General Staff’s military history section, and in 1891, after thirty-eight years of service, he replaced Field Marshal Count von Waldersee as Chief of General Staff.

Schlieffen was best known among his contemporaries as a strategic theoretician whose thoughts were greatly influenced by the campaigns of the Roman Army, particularly the concept demonstrated by the annihilation battle of Cannae on which he wrote a book of the same title that was widely read in military and academic circles in the United States and indeed commented upon by General Schwarzkopf in the First Gulf War. Some of his colleagues felt that his character contained more of the scholar than of the soldier, and indeed his general appearance was more of the Classics master at a public school than of a senior officer of the Imperial German Army. His basic philosophy, however, was entirely grounded in sound military common sense: ‘To win, we must be the stronger of the two at the point of impact. Our only hope in this lies in making our own choice of operations, not in waiting passively for whatever the enemy chooses for us.’

As the new century opened, it was marked by a feeling of growing insecurity among Germans, despite their financial stability and the possession of the most formidable army in Europe. It stemmed from the Entente concluded between France, her ancient enemy, and Imperial Russia, creating a situation in which Germany seemed to be surrounded by enemies and might be forced to fight on two fronts. France, though still dreaming of La Revanche, was unlikely to attack Germany on her own, for although her population had grown to forty million, that of Germany was in excess of fifty million and rising. Russia, on the other hand, possessed apparently uncountable reserves of manpower. Of the two armies, that of France was the more efficient, but that of Russia possessed mass. In 1905 German worries eased a little when Russia not only sustained a humiliating defeat at the hands of Japan but was forced to deal with the revolution that followed. In that year, too, Schlieffen produced the great plan that bore his name and which he hoped would deal with the situation decisively and once and for all.

To understand his thinking, it must be remembered that the conscript armies of continental nation states were far larger than those that had fought the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-German War. Then, it had been possible for an army commander to have the entire battlefield in view and despatch orders to subordinate commanders whose troops were visible to him. Now, with national armies deployed along the full length of the opposing frontiers, he could see little or nothing of what was taking place.

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