A Patriot's History of the Modern World

by Larry Schweikart

  Finally, European powers had been engaged for almost a century fighting natives in the colonies. Having largely ignored the U.S. Civil War with its stunningly high casualties (the Union lost 30 percent of the troops committed at Fredericksburg; Lee lost a similar percentage at Gettysburg) and then downplayed experiences in the Franco-Prussian War or the Boer War, Europeans had disregarded the lessons of almost a thousand years of Western military history. The recurring message was that Western armies and navies, when arrayed against non-Westerners, employed technology and precise drill, backed by a culture of individual rights and private property, to elevate their ability to kill on a massive scale. Those trends, as Victor Davis Hanson has shown, dated well back to the Greeks, resulting in combat success unparalleled in the rest of the world, and with the invention of firearms, especially automatic weapons and long-range cannon, the margin of victory grew even larger. Lost in this narrative, however, was the obvious corollary that when Western armies fought other Western armies, the carnage could be unprecedented, particularly in light of the staggering rise in firepower.

  That the French still touted the bayonet charge and relied on élan, and that all combatants (save the Americans, when they finally arrived) still fielded significant numbers of cavalry wielding lances, indicated that whatever modern technologies nations employed, the core thinking of their military commanders remained at least a generation behind. Germany’s General Staff may have embraced trains and planned loads to the last boxcar, but the presence of brigades of uhlans (German cavalry) reflected the continued overemphasis on nineteenth-century horse-drawn transport and reconnaissance by cavalry. Early fighting in the Ardennes, Lorraine, Alsace, and Mons served as a warning that any Napoleonic-style mass infantry tactics were hopelessly outdated. Nor did cannon fire, for all its thunder and visual pyrotechnics, significantly erode the fighting capability of a dug-in enemy. A look at Grant’s inability at Vicksburg and Petersburg to reduce Confederate lines to any degree by artillery fire was testimony enough that entrenched infantry could not be significantly affected by bombardment. So preoccupied were the general staffs on each side with their pivots and wheels, each seeking to outflank the other where he was (supposedly) weakest, that neither appreciated the fantastic damage that even half-strength units could inflict from defensive positions.

  Von Schlieffen’s “Wheel”

  Following the Schlieffen Plan, the German armies swung wide through northern France against the Allied left. At the same time, the French attempted to counterattack through the Ardennes on the German left. Each plan, whatever its original flaws, soon unraveled. The French failed to break through the entrenched positions of the German left, often attacking uphill through dense forests where they were mowed down by machine guns. Von Schlieffen’s plan may have been fundamentally sound, but the Russian attack against German territory in East Prussia in August 1914 so panicked the High Command that two corps were hustled out of the German “wheel” and shipped by rail to reinforce Paul von Hindenburg’s army, where they would arrive too late to aid in the German victory at Tannenberg. Military historians have long debated whether those troops would have indeed made the critical difference in the West, but that was not Germany’s only deviation from von Schlieffen’s plan of envelopment. The original plan had placed seven eighths of the German strength in the West in the right wing, but von Moltke became nervous over the gamble. France actually possessed superior numbers on the Western Front, along with a vast network of fortresses along its eastern border with Germany, and von Moltke was concerned about French offensive action.42 In his Deployment Plan of 1908–09, von Moltke reassigned an entire army corps (about 42,000 men) to defend the Upper Alsace, and in the Deployment Plan of 1913–14, he increased the strength on the southern flank to a full two armies under Prince Rupprecht. He thereby reduced the relative strength of his right wing from seven-to-one in his favor to only three-to-one.43 That meant, in raw terms, that the German left wing was strengthened by 85 battalions (150,000 men) and the right wing weakened by 96 battalions (more than 170,000 men), dooming the right wing to insufficient strength to accomplish its objectives from the outset. Rupprecht, commander of the German left flank with the 6th and 7th armies, had begged to launch an offensive of his own at the French right, rather than holding his ground as the “anvil” upon which the offensive “hammer” would crush French forces. Von Moltke provided additional strength for this possibility, but Rupprecht still was unable to break through the French fortresses. In one of those key moments in history, his troops had therefore been denied to the critical right wing effort for no purpose.

  On the Allied side, France’s plan suffered from the additional weakness of depending inordinately on British cooperation. If the British did exactly as France wanted, and if they held the line (even while French forces were retreating), then General Joseph Joffre’s grand scheme might work. When Britain failed to send the planned six divisions (and instead sent four, consisting of 90,000 men total) and failed to hold the Germans at the Belgian border, the magnificent “offensive” of which Joffre dreamed turned to ash. By late August, both the French and British were on their heels, and both British generals Douglas Haig and John French, being particularly sensitive to Kitchener’s admonition not to lose the army, knew they had to avoid massive losses at all costs.

  Even after the Germans had pushed within one hundred miles of Paris, Joffre dismissed any thought that his elegant offensive might have been the cause of French collapse. “Poor Joffre,” he would moan softly while rubbing his head, indicating to his staff that he refused to hear bad news.44 Irritated by anyone trying to change his mind or contradict him, he was adrift once plans demanded constant modification and alteration. Nevertheless, he was fixed when it came to any notion that France would lose. His tenacious attitude gave the army confidence at its lowest point, and the crises provided by the German advance finally prompted Joffre to sack some of his officers. General Charles Lanrezac, appointed by Joffre to lead the 5th Army, had objected to the French offensive from the beginning. Once matters unfolded badly, he did not hesitate to blame headquarters. But at least he fought. Britain’s Sir John French, on the other hand—in the face of orders (albeit gently worded ones) from Kitchener to maintain solidarity with the French line—withdrew under the weight of the German thrust and exposed his ally, and, along with it, the illusion of Anglo-French unified command.

  Despite a steady, agonizing retreat from the Belgian border, then Amiens, British propaganda maintained a constant drumbeat of optimistic reports. (The names of the towns being fought over, however, made painfully obvious to the reader that the Allies were moving in the wrong direction.) In particular, the myth of British resistance against the might of the German advance at Mons, where supposedly the bulk of the German forces were concentrated, reached epic levels overnight. News releases claiming Britain had faced the “brunt of the blow” (an oft-used phrase) ignored the fact that British troops faced only three, of thirty, German corps. It soon became commonplace to hear that England had not only saved France, but “saved Europe, saved Western civilization, or, as one British writer unabashedly put it, ‘Mons. In that single word will be summed up the Liberation of the World.’ ”45 Instead, another single word, “Flanders,” would eventually define the British effort on the Western Front, with virtually none of the glory that percolated up in 1914.

  Not only did the “myth of Mons” thrill the British citizenry—so too did rumors of a massive Russian relief force sailing to England, then across the channel. Before long, the rumors had Cossacks on the Thames, or landing in Scotland, all but conducting a ceremonial review in front of Buckingham Palace. In reality, the Russians were suffering a dramatic defeat at Tannenberg.

  Von Moltke witnessed the final unraveling of von Schlieffen’s plan from late August through September 4, when the “wheel” made its final pivot, ignoring Paris and seeking the envelopment of the French army. Already the German army was consuming vast amounts of supplies and the
logistic effort was falling behind. The 1st Army alone, under Alexander von Kluck, relied on 84,000 horses that gobbled up two million pounds of fodder per day. As reports of victory poured in to the General Staff, von Moltke’s dour mood was, for a change, appropriate. “We have hardly a horse in the army who can go another step,” he warned. “We must not deceive ourselves. We have had success but not victory. Victory means annihilation of the enemy’s power of resistance.”46 Above all, it was the lack of prisoners that hinted to von Moltke that the French remained a bloodied, but effective, fighting force: “Where are our prisoners?” he exclaimed. (This was the same phenomenon that would cause the German High Command in World War II to conclude the war against the Soviet Union was lost even before the Battle of Stalingrad.) Certainly some beaten French units wanted to surrender: at Champagne, German soldiers observed French troops shoot their own officer because he would not surrender in a hopeless situation. But the bulk of the French forces had withdrawn in orderly fashion with determined resistance, taking their lead from the unimaginative yet inflexible Joffre.

  Von Molke also suspected the Schlieffen Plan was played out. Already there had been too many missteps, too many delays: unexpectedly heavy Belgian resistance, the lure of the “double envelopment” with Rupprecht’s forces on the French right, the hopelessly inadequate logistics train, then finally, von Kluck’s impulsive decision to bring his forces up alongside those of General Karl von Bülow—who was thought to be delivering the crushing blow—instead of supporting von Bülow from the northwest to guard the right flank. Between von Kluck’s quest for glory and his unfounded certainty that the French army was broken and shattered, Germany’s fate was sealed.

  German forces reached the Marne on September 4, by which time von Moltke was dispatching warnings to the right wing to swing westward to face an attack from that direction. Paris’s military governor, the former colonial soldier General Joseph-Simon Gallieni (who had briefly been Joffre’s superior), audaciously organized the Paris defense forces, which included the core French 6th Army under General Michel-Joseph Maunoury, into a critical flanking attack from the west as von Moltke feared. Von Kluck, suddenly under attack on his open flank, began to siphon off troops to block the surge. At the same time, Joffre, despondent that British Field Marshal French was cooperating only reluctantly, personally contacted Kitchener, who in turn promised to keep the British forces on the line. By the time von Kluck, on September 5—often set as the opening day of the First Battle of the Marne—wheeled to engage the 6th Army at the Battle of the Ourcq, Germany’s chance of a decisive, quick victory had faded. That evening, von Kluck was persuaded to withdraw north of the Marne River and go on the defensive.

  When the Schlieffen-planned breakthrough ground to a halt outside Paris, it had produced 206,000 French military casualties, or one eighth of the entire French army, not including losses of garrison troops and territorials. Those casualty lists were about to grow exponentially. In the four years of unprecedented bloodshed that followed, France would see one man killed for every 28 French men, women, and children; Germany’s ratio, of one per 32, was only slightly lower. England lost one man for every 57, and Russia one for every 107. Now, in the first of the twentieth century’s million-casualty battles, the French counterattack on the Marne would usher in an entirely new era of combat.

  One of the most memorable moments at the Battle of the Marne occurred on September 6 at the Ourcq River, where 600 taxicabs, assisted by a potpourri of trucks, wagons, race cars, buses, and private vehicles of all types, each carrying at least five soldiers, brought 6,000 desperately needed reinforcements to the battlefield. Having dumped their customers in the streets, the cabs arrived at the appointed hour to load soldiers for the sixty-kilometer journey. Some men rode on rooftops; drivers—given only wine for rations—peered through the 4 A.M. darkness as they traveled without headlights. Reinforcing Maunoury’s faltering 6th Army, General Louis Franchet d’Espèrey began the Miracle of the Marne in earnest the following day, having replaced Lanrezac after his “failure” at Charleroi (where he failed to dislodge a defending army twice the size of his own), sending his men plowing into the German 2nd Army. Franchet d’Espèrey achieved complete surprise, forcing open a gap between von Kluck on the German right and von Bülow’s 2nd Army. When von Bülow “refused” his right flank—pulling it back at a 90-degree angle—it isolated von Kluck.

  It was then Germany’s turn for a miracle: instead of an aggressive French commander versed in the offensive, the gap between the two German armies loomed before the McClellanesque Sir John French, who moved too slowly to exploit it. On September 7 and 8, the British advanced only twenty-four miles against negligible opposition, falling twelve miles short of entirely severing von Kluck from the other German forces. Nevertheless, the very real possibility existed that, having marched through Belgium to the gates of Paris, the juggernaut of the German offensive was now about to see two entire armies—the 1st and 2nd—encircled. At that critical juncture, the German 1st Army fielded 128 battalions of infantry (224,000 men) engaged against 191 battalions of the French 6th Army and the British Expeditionary Force (or 320,000 men). This left von Bülow with only 134 battalions (235,000) against more than 450,000 French.

  After hearing nothing from the 1st or 2nd armies for two days, von Moltke dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hentsch under oral instructions to communicate with von Kluck and von Bülow as a special emissary from the Army High Command. A gifted General Staff officer, Hentsch assumed he was acting under normal General Staff practices, and believed he had been given full power of authority to act in von Moltke’s name and order a retreat if necessary. Once again, the German military structure was placing a low-ranking officer in a position to command the compliance of higher-ranking officers to his will; in this case a lieutenant colonel would determine what two colonel generals should do. Before Hentsch returned, von Moltke lost his nerve and suffered a nervous breakdown. He became lethargic, and when Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria saw him on September 8, a sick, broken man stood before him. By the 14th, von Moltke was no longer able to conduct operations, and the Kaiser ordered him to step down on grounds of “ill health.”

  Meanwhile, the French saw themselves threatened with encirclement and had already hurled in their reserves. From their side, defeat appeared imminent, but Hentsch became pessimistic while talking with von Bülow and decided the German forces needed to retreat and reposition themselves at the Aisne River. Hentsch blinked: von Bülow ordered a general retreat, and Hentsch informed von Kluck, who believed he was handling the British and nearing a decisive victory over the French 6th Army. Von Kluck acquiesced with a heavy heart and accepted defeat.47 In the German 5th Infantry Division, the unit that had held up the British Expeditionary Force and the French Cavalry Corps all by itself for five days in the gap between the 1st and 2nd armies, the order to retreat was incomprehensible. The men did not feel defeated, although they had been fighting against nearly ten times their number. With tears rolling down their cheeks, the fighting men plodded northeastward in columns.48 Von Moltke was replaced by Erich von Falkenhayn, the minister of war who had been sniping at von Moltke behind his back, but already things were out of the hands of such men. Both sides now raced to extend their lines to the English Channel, lest they be flanked: “Division by division, corps by corps, army by army they spread out virtually due northward, meeting, clashing violently, then forced to dig in and lie motionless….”49 In one such fight, the British Expeditionary Force stopped the Germans at Passchendaele near the Belgian town of Ypres, benefiting from the Belgians’ opening their sluice gates and allowing the Yser River to end the German advance. A major German attack resumed on October 22, and on October 29, at the crossroads of Gheluvelt, the Germans launched a powerful thrust by Army Group Fabeck, which contained a new division of young, zealous volunteers. After reaching the town of Gheluvelt—and threatening to puncture the Allied line (orders were even drafted for a general retreat)—the 364 men o
f the 2nd Worcesters, including cooks and orderlies, counterattacked and despite being outnumbered five to one, regained the town and pushed the Germans out, with heavy losses. Particularly devastated were the fresh volunteers, who were completely outclassed by the veterans of the Boer War, and whose slaughter was eulogized in Germany as the Kindermord bei Ypern (the “Massacre of the Innocents” or literally the “murder of the innocents near Ypers”). Britain was also greatly aided by Indian troops. It would not be the last time Dominion troops saved the Allies.

  The Chemists’ War

  An informal Christmas soldiers’ truce occurred in Flanders on December 25, 1914, when British, French, and German troops spontaneously left their lines by the thousands to meet the enemy in no-man’s-land, as if they had suddenly had enough. In this unofficial cease-fire, they exchanged tobacco, gloves, watches, cigarettes, chocolate, biscuits, and other items. Each unit thought it was somehow unique, yet this practice occurred up and down the front. The Lancashire Fusiliers traded beef tins to the Germans for helmet badges: the “bargain is complete,” recorded the divisional diary, “except for the slight disagreement as to who shall come out of his trench first….”50 When the German concert singer Walter Kirchhoff made a front-line appearance for the 130th Württembergers, French troops across Flanders quietly climbed to the tops of their parapets, applauding so long at the end that Kirchhoff performed an encore.51 On Christmas Day, the British 6th Gordons, discovering the Germans had a barber in their ranks, arranged for shaves and haircuts right in the middle of the battlefield. When reports of the spontaneous truce reached the rear, they were dismissed as fantasy, but in some sectors, the truce lasted until New Year’s Day. Although General Horace Smith-Dorrien, head of the British II Corps, issued orders forbidding consorting with the enemy, the end of the truce came naturally as the holiday passed. After that time, anyone leaving the lines was warned back by opposing troops, and, shortly thereafter, the shooting started again.