The Making of the First World War

by Ian F W Beckett

  Tannenberg was not a crippling blow for the Russians, but the propaganda value was such that Hindenburg and Ludendorff became instant national heroes. Later, Hoffmann is said to have remarked sourly to visitors to OHL of Hindenburg that, ‘This is where the Field Marshal slept before the battle, that is where he slept after the battle, and that, my friends, is where he slept during the battle.’ Hindenburg in particular became almost a ‘wartime cottage industry’.4 Widely promoted as a symbolic figure, Hindenburg had the Silesian town of Zabrze renamed after him. A series of wooden statues of him was erected in many cities, into which nails could be hammered upon donation to war charities or bonds: that in Berlin had space for two million nails. After the war, a huge commemorative monument was unveiled at Tannenberg in September 1927, under which Hindenburg was buried when he died in August 1934. His body was removed and the monument destroyed in January 1945 rather than allow it to be destroyed by the advancing Russians.

  Falkenhayn believed that France and, especially, Britain posed the greatest threat to German interests. In order to concentrate in the West, he was prepared to countenance seeking terms with Russia. By contrast, Hindenburg and Ludendorff were convinced ‘easterners’, believing that decisive victory was still possible in the East. Weakened by criticism of the failure to break through at Ypres in October 1914 and aware of the danger posed him by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, Falkenhayn attempted to have Ludendorff transferred to the Carpathians in January 1915. Hindenburg persuaded Kaiser Wilhelm to allow Ludendorff to remain. Falkenhayn survived an attempt, in turn, by Hindenburg to have him dismissed. The Kaiser took umbrage at Hindenburg's open challenge to his own authority and came close to having him cashiered for insubordination, but Hindenburg was already too popular to be removed. Ultimately, the failure of the Verdun offensive, and Romanian entry to the war against Germany in August 1916, brought about Falkenhayn's dismissal, the Kaiser reluctantly accepting the elevation of two men whom he disliked and whose ambition he feared. It was rumoured that the Kaiser had never forgiven Hindenburg for refusing to allow him to ‘win’ the annual manoeuvres in 1908. Hindenburg had remarked, ‘Had this been for real, Your Majesty would now be my prisoner.’5 Wilhelm equally loathed Ludendorff because he was a ‘dubious character, eaten away by personal ambition’. As suggested in an earlier chapter, one of the aides in the Kaiser's Military Cabinet, Colonel von Marschall had predicted that Ludendorff would destroy Germany and, with it, the Hohenzollern dynasty.6 To the aristocratic officers around the Kaiser, Ludendorff was an uncouth technocrat.

  Born in 1848 the aristocratic Hindenburg was a veteran of the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars. An imposing figure, thick set, impressively moustachioed, and over 6 feet tall, he appeared stolid, dignified, and wedded to duty. As a result, some thought him unimaginative and unintelligent. He was sufficiently astute to recognise the power vacuum that had opened through the Kaiser's incapacity to exercise authority, even if he maintained an outward appearance of traditional deference towards the monarch. He also recognised his own limitations, giving Ludendorff ‘free scope for his intellectual powers’ and ‘superhuman’ capacity for work.7 Just as Hindenburg and Ludendorff preferred to operate behind the political shield of pliable politicians, Ludendorff equally recognised his need to work behind Hindenburg's popularity. In turn, Hindenburg provided that sense of calmness that Ludendorff so conspicuously lacked.

  Both Hindenburg and Ludendorff had been born in Posen (Poznán) in West Prussia, but there the similarity ended. Ludendorff, seventeen years Hindenburg's junior, had little respect for tradition or position. Of middle-class merchant stock, Ludendorff was the supreme technocrat, ruthlessly ambitious and fanatically addicted to his work. His military outlook was a radical one, subordinating everything to the drive for perceived efficiency. He was to argue after the war, when he dabbled briefly with Nazism, that Germany's failure had been one of insufficient totality of political and socio-economic mobilisation, for war was ‘the highest expression of the racial will of life’.8 Ludendorff's narrow military outlook made him dependent for political and socio-economic ideas on the even more radical artillery expert, Colonel Max Bauer. As head of OHL's Section II, the ambitious Bauer, a consummate intriguer, was to become the architect of the Hindenburg Programme. As events would prove, while exceptionally talented as a tactician, Ludendorff had little strategic insight.

  There was certainly a glacial quality to Ludendorff, who often appeared arrogant, vain and rigidly humourless. An artist once told Ludendorff's first wife, Margarethe, that her husband gave him ‘cold shivers down my back’.9 Some meeting him for the first time, however, found him more agreeable than anticipated. In his private life, Ludendorff was undoubtedly devoted to the vivacious Margarethe, and the three sons and a daughter she brought to the marriage. Two of his stepsons were to be killed in the war, the youngest shot down over allied lines on 23 March 1918. He had met Margarethe when sharing an umbrella in a rainstorm, and she had divorced her businessman husband to marry Ludendorff in 1909. There were times, though, when even his family ‘knew that grim countenance’ and were suitably wary.10 What many also noted was the restless energy and an underlying nervous tension. He had the habit, for example, of rolling breadcrumbs at the table when concentrating or worrying. By the start of the spring offensives in March 1918, Ludendorff had taken only four days’ leave in two and a half years, and was also suffering from an exophthalmic goitre that had only increased his irritability. By mid-July he was also drinking heavily.

  The separation of the military and civilian spheres of government, the lack of administrative mechanism for the long-term discussion of strategic policy and the underestimation of the resources of Britain and the United States all contributed to the incapacity of Hindenburg and Ludendorff to weigh the balance between short-term gain and long-term strategic risk. They sought only operational solutions to strategic problems. That marked not only the decision on unrestricted submarine warfare but also the attempt to win the war in the West before the United States could intervene in force. Germany did not need to launch offensives in 1918 for negotiations were still entirely possible, but Ludendorff wished to attack because he feared the consequences of delay given the likely build-up of American forces by 1919. As Ludendorff wrote later, ‘The offensive is the most effective means of making war; it alone is decisive. Military history proves it on every page. It is the symbol of superiority.’ He also believed that the army shared his view for ‘they thought with horror of fresh defensive battles and longed for a war of movement’.11

  The decision to launch a spring offensive was taken on 11 November 1917 at a conference at the Mons headquarters of Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. Present were Rupprecht's chief of staff, Hermann von Kuhl; the chief of staff of Crown Prince Wilhelm's army group, Friedrich von der Schulenberg; Lieutenant Colonel Georg Wetzell, the head of OHL's Operations Section; Bauer; and Ludendorff. Earlier in October, Crown Prince Wilhelm, Rupprecht and Kuhl had all agreed that only a limited offensive in the West was possible. Ludendorff had seemingly concurred, suggesting such an operation in Flanders would ‘deflect the impact of the Americans’. Subsequently, Wetzell argued that ‘an annihilating blow’ could be struck before the Americans arrived in strength.12 Ludendorff readily agreed. A victory would solve all problems, but precisely where such an offensive should be launched and with what specific operational objectives was left unresolved. Ludendorff favoured attacking the British on the Somme, but Kuhl suggested attacking on the Lys in Flanders. His expectation was that this might forestall a British offensive, though the area was liable to flooding until at least April. Schulenberg favoured attacking Verdun. As staff studies continued, Kuhl and Wetzell concluded that an offensive towards either Verdun or Hazebrouck might offer better opportunities, Wetzell now proposing that a series of offensives should be mounted. On 27 December Ludendorff directed that planning be undertaken for a number of potential operations including an offensive on the Somme around St Quentin (codenamed M
ichael from St Michael), at Arras (Mars), and towards Hazebrouck (Georg I from St George) and Ypres (Georg II), as well as diversionary operations at Verdun and in the Vosges. He still favoured the Somme, which Kuhl and Wetzell felt too ambitious. Moreover, despite initially implying there were enough resources for only one offensive, Ludendorff now seemed to believe that Georg would be necessary if Michael failed. Kuhl told the post-war Reichstag Committee of Inquiry into the Causes of the German Collapse that, in view of the lack of both horse and vehicle transport, he doubted whether the German army ‘was still sufficiently mobile to be fit, as it was hoped, for larger operations in the open after breaking through the enemy lines’.13 Discussions continued until Ludendorff eventually settled on Michael on 21 January 1918. Final orders were issued on 10 March.

  What was abundantly clear was that strategic considerations were being sacrificed to tactical considerations. Ludendorff saw the possibility of breaking through the allied lines in certain sectors as more important than the potential strategic objectives that could be achieved. It was a fantasy that a tactical breakthrough could lead to the complete collapse of the allied armies, albeit there was some basis for optimism in the collapse of the Italians at Caporetto in November 1917. Influenced by his experience on the Eastern Front, where ‘we always merely set a near goal and then discovered where to go next’, Ludendorff remarked that he would simply punch a hole in the allied lines and, ‘For the rest, we shall see.’14

  In opting for the Somme (Michael) Ludendorff hoped to deal the British a decisive blow though he was later to pursue the idea of separating the British from the French, with the possibility of a more general advance in conjunction with the subsidiary supporting offensive around Arras (Mars). The British would be forced back on the Channel ports and the French on Paris, leaving both armies’ exposed flanks vulnerable. But the allied defence was weakest on the Somme precisely because it had less strategic significance, albeit Amiens was a rather more important allied north–south communications centre than the Germans realised. The Lys was a far more sensitive area for the British because any German success there immediately threatened the Channel ports and the British lines of communications. Accordingly, a local German success on the Somme would not necessarily fulfil any higher objective. Significantly, too, the three participating German armies in Michael – the Second, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Armies – had different axes of advance.

  In theory, the resources of the Eastern Front were to be directed towards the breakthrough in the West. Yet, the continued expansion eastwards never actually resulted in sufficient troops being made available to secure such a victory on the Western Front. A total of 48 divisions was sent west from Russia, Romania and Italy between November 1917 and March 1918, leaving 47 divisions in the East. The result was a balance in the West in favour of Germany of 191 divisions to 178.15 The Germans’ most successful commanders were also brought to the West: Oskar von Hutier, victor at Riga in the East in September 1917, took over Eighteenth Army; Otto von Below, who had won the major victory over the Italians at Caporetto, took command of Seventeenth Army; and Georg von Marwitz, whose counter-attack had wiped out British gains at Cambrai in November 1917, took over Second Army.

  The German army seemed well equipped for the coming offensive. It had adapted more quickly to the changing nature of warfare than the allies. If there was a British ‘learning curve’ on the Western Front, it was a distinctly uneven one. The Germans had learned most from the battles of the Somme and Verdun in 1916. The impact of the British artillery bombardment on the Somme in July 1916 led to the development of what has been characterised as ‘elastic defence in depth’ in the winter of 1916–17. This thinned front-line manpower but considerably deepened the defensive zone. It opened up the possibility of surrendering ground in order to render the attackers vulnerable to a mobile counter-attack by specially designated counter-attack divisions. Following the British success on 7 June 1917, when the British Second Army took the Messines ridge by detonating huge mines placed under the German line, yet further defensive lines were hastily prepared with an emphasis upon concrete pillboxes as strongpoints. The Germans also greatly refined infantry tactics in 1917, in the belief that it was not possible to hold a forward zone against the combination of artillery and tanks, and that a successful defence depended upon resourceful infantry counter-attack.

  Experimentation with new infantry tactics had begun as early as March 1915, with the creation of a Storm Detachment of pioneers supporting a new 37 mm light-artillery piece, which was intended to neutralise obstacles to an advance by bringing direct fire to bear at close range. In October 1916 eighteen Storm Battalions were formed, each including pioneers, machine gunners, light artillery and mortar crews, and flame-throwers. Specially located Stormtrooper formations featured in the German counter-attack at Cambrai on 30 November 1917. Stormtroopers were formed into small self-sufficient groups, lightly equipped but heavily armed with mobile mortars and Bergmann sub-machine guns. Infiltrating between strongpoints they were to effect a break-in and to achieve maximum penetration at least as far as the defending artillery lines. Control of reserves was vested in the forward elements so that they would reinforce success rather than failure.

  Allied to this was the artillery method devised by Colonel Georg Bruchmüller – partly in response to falling levels of shell production – to support the advance with rapid and accurate fire in a short hurricane bombardment. A liberal mix of high-explosive and gas shells added to the disorienting effect, paralysing and disrupting the opposing command structure. Bruchmüller's methods had been used at Riga, Caporetto and Cambrai. The overall operational concept was enshrined in a new manual, The Attack in Position Warfare, that began to be distributed on 1 January 1918.

  At the same time, however, weaknesses were becoming apparent. Casualties, and the evolution of a war economy, had resulted in manpower problems. After the launching of the Hindenburg Programme, industrial requirements had a greater priority and skilled men frequently had to be returned from army to industry. Thus, it became largely a question of pressing convalescents back into service early as well as mortgaging the future by calling up ever-younger men. The defeat of Russia had enabled men to be transferred to the West, but it has been estimated that at least 10 per cent deserted en route. There was also little confidence on the part of German commanders in those who had been repatriated after being prisoners of the Russians. Consequently, there was an attempt to claw back men from industry. It has also been claimed that as many as a million German soldiers were effectively ‘shirkers’, participating in a so-called ‘undercover military strike’ in rear areas during the last few months of the war as men either went missing or declined to take any more risks at the front. This is now disputed, and there seems no real evidence of large numbers wandering the rear areas before October 1918. Real disintegration only occurred once the army returned to the east bank of the Rhine after the armistice. Nonetheless, there were divisions between officers and men, the post-war Reichstag inquiry paying particular attention to ‘abuses’ of officers’ privileges and the sense of grievance among ordinary soldiers.

  Once the United States came into the war in April 1917, the economic blockade of Germany had become far more effective since restrictions could be enforced on remaining neutrals without diplomatic repercussions. Progressively, therefore, the blockade had an impact on Germany, especially when coupled with the poor harvests of 1916 and 1917. Soldiers on leave or in transit between western and eastern fronts could not be isolated from civilian privation. It was in the rear echelons of the army that collapse was most apparent. The plundering of army food stocks and their redistribution to civilians by soldiers was a particular sign of collapse. In the rear, tensions arising from supply problems and other difficulties, as Hew Strachan has put it, ‘could simmer and seethe . . . without the direct pressure of the enemy to suppress them’.16

  At best, there was a kind of stoicism, in the expectation of peace, in the German army.
A programme of ‘patriotic instruction’, originally started in March 1917, was stepped up in September 1917 in preparation for the spring offensives. German army trench newspapers had always had far more rhetoric of comradeship, and of justification for the war, than those of the British or French. Now they also presented the image of an idealised soldier, peddling the idea that a ‘victorious peace’ was the only viable one. The refusal of Hindenburg and Ludendorff to embrace any form of political and social reform undermined the propaganda effort among troops. In addition, morale was affected by poor rations and a lack of transport disrupting leave arrangements. Influenza also took its toll of the German troops to a greater extent than in the British and French armies, with at least 630,000 men being affected by July 1918. Reputedly, when informed of the outbreak, Ludendorff simply remarked that ‘he knew of no influenza’.17

  At 0440 hours on 21 March 1918, at the opening of Michael, Bruchmüller used 6,608 guns in just under six hours’ preliminary bombardment against the British Fifth Army. A total of 3.2 million rounds – a third of them gas rounds – were fired in seven carefully prepared phases. The Germans also committed 52 of their 70 specially created mobile attack divisions, 40 of which were fully equipped. The British had tried to recreate a German-style defence in depth over the winter of 1917–18. Rather than matching the flexibility of the German system, the British tended to rely upon static defensive points with minimal counterstroke capability. Matters were not assisted by the need to extend the Fifth Army's line by 28 miles just six weeks before the German spring offensive began. The result was that the ‘rear zone’, in which the relatively few available reserves were to be held, hardly existed.

  In 1916 the allies had painfully won 98 square miles on the Somme in 140 days at a cost of 1.5 million casualties: assisted by mist and fog, the Germans now seized 140 square miles of the same area in just twenty-four hours at a cost of only 39,000 casualties. Nonetheless, there was weakness in the failure to maintain the infiltration tactics after the initial breakthrough. British prisoners of war later reported that there was considerable disorganisation behind the German lines. German troops were soon exhausted by their exertions, often slowing their advance to loot British food-supply depots. They were also advancing into areas devastated by war – not least by their own strategic retreat to the Siegfried line in April 1917 – and devoid of communications. They were critically short of horses to bring forward their artillery, heavy machine guns and mortars.