And, one more essay I have kicking around on my PC. Hopefully it is interesting.
Opening Gambits in Blind Chess: Opening Strategies of World War 1The strategic decisions made by the three Great Powers on the Western Front in the prelude to the First World War were strongly dictated by the cultures and military traditions of each nation, which are the products of the 19th century innovations and armed conflicts. This paper will outline the opening strategies of each Great Power, and trace the influence of history and military tradition on each decision.
The German strategic plan at the outbreak of the Great War was determined largely by the culture of the nation and her leaders. The German Empire’s plan for the outbreak of war in fall 1914 was a famous one: the Schlieffen plan, modified by von Moltke the Younger, dictated a giant hinge attack with the goal of encircling the French army and, after pulling them back from their forts, crushing them. The plan required a push through the neutral Belgium, and, despite von Moltke’s changes, would leave the important lands of East Prussia open to a Russian offensive, if the Tsar’s armies could mobilize quickly enough. Schlieffen claimed that, in a two front war, “The whole of Germany must throw itself upon one enemy, the strongest, most powereful, most dangerous enemy, and that can only be France” , and this opinion is clear in his life’s work. Schlieffen’s strategy was “Derived from Hannibal at Cannae” , and this derivation was the result of a fascination with the decisive battle and the glories it maintained throughout history. Napoleon had resurrected the climactic battle in his conquests, with his whole strategy being “…to bring about the threat or reality of the decisive battle” , and in his conquests, in which he had obliterated the Prussian army at Jena and Austerlitz, had made Napoleon “the second taskmaster of Prussia” , who taught the founders of the German General Staff and directors of German military thinking Scharnhorst and Gneisenau how they would be conducting strategic operations. Schlieffen is written to have idolized Gneisenau, and certainly absorbed traditions from him, shaping his strategic goals. Of course, the Prussians were reaffirmed of their military tradition of decisive victory at Waterloo, and later from Napoleon’s intellectual successor Clausewitz, “the oracle of German military thought, [who] had ordained a quick victory by decisive battle as the first objective in offensive war”3. Schlieffen was not only shaped by the traditions of the Napoleonic wars and their resultant scholars, however: the Battle of Sedan “The most decisive of the [Franco-Prussian] War” , not only reaffirmed Schlieffen’s belief in the importance of the single decisive battle by ending organized large-scale resistance to the German attack and crippling the French army with insignificant German losses, but it clearly joined Cannae as one of the reasons why, in the WW1 German tradition, “envelopment became the fetish and frontal attack the anathema of the German General Staff”2, seeing as the battle was won in large part thanks to when von Moltke the Elder “…took advantage of [the French advance] to catch the French in a pincer grip”5, a move which had a large part in the extraordinary victory. Such a success clearly instilled into the German staff of the outbreak of WW1, many of whom, including Schlieffen were field officers at the time, the tradition of encirclement.
The Schlieffen plan was incredibly aggressive and highly risky, and showed the influence of the German culture and of Positivism. Helmuth von Moltke the Elder famous declared that ‘No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy’, and Clausewitz’ military theory focused heavily on friction and the fog of war, and how they disrupt battle plans, but the Schlieffen plan was created and implemented even after the Younger von Moltke’s stewardship, without any room for flexibility . Instead, the Germans “…attempted to provide for every contingency”8 but their approach was marred by the conceited positivist assertion that they could collect enough information and with that information the General Staff could make perfect plans. This reliance on contingencies rather than improvisation shaped Moltke’s decisions, who, despite predicting that “France will move into Belgium in the role of the protector of Belgian neutrality” ensured that “the ratio of seven to one in favor of the right wing armies…had been reduced to slightly less than four to one” , which would by the battle of the Marne prove to be a disastrous decision.
The French strategic plan at the outbreak of the Great War was determined largely by the culture of the nation and her leaders. The French “Plan XVI, in effect in 1911, provided for an offensive into Alsace-Lorraine to recover the lost provinces.” , with the lion’s share of the French Army. Small concentrations of French soldiers would protect the Belgian border, and the British were to be relied upon to defend the relatively exposed right flank of the French lines. The plan was simple, extraordinarily aggressive, and dictated by the ideas of the nation and the culture and traditions of the military staff. The French had been utterly humiliated in the Franco-Prussian war, and despite the protestations of Bismarck the French lost Alsace-Lorraine. The loss of these territories inflamed the French, and this anger of the people was reflected in their art , sculpture and in the words of the leadership, who claimed “We proclaim forever the rights of Alsatians and Lorrainers to remain members of the French nation” . It is because of this anger and outrage that the region was chosen as the immediate strategic concern, compared to the German objective of total victory, for example.
The French plan was also heavily based on “…Bergson’s elan vitale” , which dictated the French aggression, along with the influence from the traditions the entirety of French military command and in particular of the Ecole Superieure de la Guerre, where Ferdinand Foch influenced the minds of younger officers on the importance of the attack, claiming “victoire c’eset la violant” and “A battle won is a battle in which one will not confess themselves beaten”17. Foch instilled this culture of the attack, “l’offence a outrance” in the junior officers, but like the German culture of war the historical roots reach back to Napoleon and Clausewitz, who were famous for their preference for attack. Napoleon especially favored the attack and especially the bayonet, a tradition of “furia francaise” that would continue well into the battle of the frontiers and throughout the war. The depth at which this focus of the absolute attack runs through the French culture cannot be overstated, and it was adopted by all, not just Foch: the French Field Regulations, written and approved whole general staff and the governing body of the Republic, claimed “The offensive alone is suited to the temperament of French soldiers… We are determined to march straight against the enemy without hesitation”17 and that “The French Army, returning to its traditions, henceforth admits no law bu the offensive”17. The much less ambitious plan of the French when compared to the elaborate majesty of the Schlieffen plan also is an effect of Foch’s teachings and the traditions they espoused, as he claimed during his tenure that “Regulations are all very well for the drill yard, but in the hour of danger they are no more use… you have to learn to think”17. France planned to continue the advance one the situation in Alsace-Lorraine had been surveyed, rather than trying to plan for every contingency, based on this vein of French thought. This traditional faith in improvisation and in the superiority of attack not only determined the French war goals, but convinced them of the correctness of their strategy when faced with good knowledge of Moltke’s plans, repeatedly claiming [quite incorrectly] that such a flank attack would only be good for the French, since the widening of the German lines would allow the French to “Cut them in half!”
The British strategic plan at the outbreak of the Great War was determined largely by the culture of the nation and her leaders. The British army, in response to their impressively weak agreement with France, and their declaration of Belgian independence, sent the British Expeditionary Force to France. Meanwhile, the British Navy achieved a complete naval blockade of the German Empire from the very start of the war . The British Army’s involvement on the continent was ultimately far less important than the Blockade, which would last until 1918 and be a chief cause in the defeat of the Germans. The blockade itself was a result of the British naval tradition stretching all the way back to Trafalgar, since had enjoyed naval superiority since 1805, and had adapted as a principle a policy to ensure it had a navy larger than the next two nations combined, which it had in 1914 by a significant margin, not to mention more Dreadnoughts and better trained and supplied officers and sailors, and the plan of total blockade relied on this. The navy was, to Britain, “… a vital necessity in the exact sense of the word ‘vital’” , and unlike the leadership of France and Germany, who was expected to use their fleet aggressively, the British were extraordinarily cautious. “Risk was the least favourite concept of the British Admirality”22, as they had assumed the lessons of the Russo-Japanese war would pertain to the Great War, and the decisive battle of Tsushima, a decisive clash of battleships . The strategy of concentration and blockade was influenced heavily by John Fisher, whose claim “The whole principle of naval fighting is to be free to go anywhere with every damned thing the Navy possesses” , had dictated the preparedness of the British Navy to sail in full force from Scapa Flow and meet any enemy, but the plan was more nuanced than simply to be ready to fight. The British revised their strategy in July, when the blockade was made more distant, with the hope of “…giving German Naval leaders visual stimuli that should they set sail, it was at their own peril”20, a policy that matched their previous arms race and played on the modern fears of mutual naval destruction (a policy Britain was able to hasten thanks to the cultural importance of their navy and the resulting incredible size).
The Great Powers were products of their times. They were shaped by the events of history and the waves of changing philosophy, from improvisational romanticism to the neat order of the positivists. They had long memories, and could see the battles of Sedan, Austerlitz, Tsushima, and Waterloo clearly, and based their strategies accordingly. Ultimately, all failed to some degree, from the French withdrawal in Lorraine or the German defeat at the Marne, to the worrying British tactical defeat at Jutland. However, they planned as they thought best, keen scholars of the past and present as they were, and ultimately simply failed to account for the utterly new realities of warfare that would become so apparent by 1918.
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