Tannenberg: Clash of Empires, 1914 (Cornerstones of Military History)

by Dennis Showalter

  The German army’s morale was more than a temporary creation of blaring bands and cheering civilians. It was more as well than the belligerence of ignorance. Most accounts of World War I stress the naïvete with which Europe’s youth rushed to arms—a mixture of generational awareness, belligerent rhetoric, and a commitment to abstract ideals of heroism at best obsolescent in an age of industrial war. Germany is a particularly fruitful source of supporting images. Trainloads of young men gaily sing “Die Wacht am Rhein” on their way to be slaughtered; others even younger scream the “Deutschandlied” as they charge into British rifles at Langemarck. Stefan Zweig, Erich Maria Remarque, even the fire-eaters like Werner Beumelberg or Ernst Jünger, fill their pages with tales of innocence sacrificed at Verdun or on the Somme, with the resulting emotional discord contributing to a postwar generation at once terribly lost and tragically vulnerable.33

  This process of disillusionment must not be exaggerated. Unlike their counterparts in the English-speaking countries, German men were part of a society with a long tradition of compulsory military service. Those who took the field in August were not the schoolboys whose dying lent such poignance to the Langemarck-Mythos on one hand and Im Westen nichts Neues on the other. They were overwhelmingly either serving soldiers or men who had worn uniforms earlier in their lives. This generated a high level of cultural familiarity with the army. The men who marched to the sound of the guns of August had a broad spectrum of concrete expectations—but these concerned what might be called their working conditions, rather than the nature of the war itself. The German soldier, whether serving conscript or long-discharged reservist, saw himself as part of an institution incorporating both the rectitude of certitude and a significant technical competence. Much of the content of British or American military reminiscences in the twentieth century involves the superiority of the individual soldier, particularly the narrator, to an insensitive, indifferent, essentially inefficient system. German soldiers, on the other hand, not only went to war in an atmosphere of patriotic enthusiasm, but had their enthusiasm reinforced by the army’s capacity to give at least the appearance of knowing what it was doing.

  The German army of 1914 was by no means as good as its press releases. It had, however, kept steady pace with developments in material and doctrine. It had paid close attention to the lessons of the world’s recent battlefields. The kaiser’s army had not gone down to the operational dead end of the French in 1940, or the United States in Vietnam. It clearly recognized an uncomfortable ultimate: victory in war depends on advancing. Unlike the British, with their suspicion of any kind of theory, unlike republican France, whose soldiers were expected to replace skill at arms with patriotic zeal, the Germans attempted to respond to the problem by producing men with both the psychological and the professional equipment to survive on the modern battlefield. Emphasis in principle on dispersion and articulation put the German army on the right tactical track, even if that emphasis was not sufficiently developed to antedate directly the infiltration and stormtroop methods of the world war.

  While questions of initiative and flexibility are more difficult to resolve, the evidence suggests that discipline did not drive independence out of German heads, nor did the German rank and file have to be led everywhere. German snipers and German patrols were respected by their western front adversaries, including the Canadians and the Australians. As in any mass army, some formations were excellent and others were a liability. In the course of four years, the same company might on one occasion collapse without its officers and sergeants, and another time carry on to the last man under the senior surviving private.

  Yet if Germany’s direct preparation for war was not necessarily impractical, it was theoretical. Relevant battle experience was virtually nonexistent at all levels. Some of the senior generals had been subalterns in 1870. A few adventurous company officers had served against the Herero in Southwest Africa—too few to be a major source of wisdom and advice on what to do when the ammunition was live. The German army of 1914, in short, was a brittle instrument. The first shocks of war might temper it, but they might just as possibly break it. No one could in his heart really be sure what was going to happen—particularly in the context of the eastern front.

  III

  Germany had gone to war in good part from fear of Russia—specifically, fear of a massive Russian invasion. How real had the anxiety been? With hindsight sharpened by exile, Russia’s military memoirists described their 1914 offensive as a sacrificial gambit made to fulfil a moral obligation to their French ally by relieving the German pressure in the west. Soviet scholars too present the relationship between France and Russia in terms similar to George and Lenny in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men: the weak-minded, good-hearted giant, more or less controlled by his smaller and smarter comrade. In fact, an offensive into East Prussia made strategic sense in its own right. The alternate possibility of a direct attack westward into Silesia from Russian Poland looked promising on maps—especially French maps. Russia’s ally had repeatedly urged such a blow in the years before 1914. Launching it, however, would expose the force involved to counterattacks from north and south against increasingly long flanks. A Napoleon, facing Napoleon’s opponents, might have taken the risk. Russian planners had too much respect for the German army not to seek an easier solution, one exploiting advantages bestowed by geography and history. The salient was Germany’s most obvious geographic weak point. Apart from this, East Prussia’s assumed cultural and political importance in the Second Empire seemed to guarantee that the German army—or at least that part of it left in the east—would stand, fight, and be crushed.

  The operational plans for that happy contingency were the product of a series of ambiguities. The size and hererogeneity of the Rusian officer corps combined with the army’s broad spectrum of missions to enhance professional diversity. More than any of their European counterparts, Russian officers differed strikingly from each other in status, education, and attitudes. In the face of its unpopularity among the intelligentsia and the middle classes, in the face of aristocratic contempt for a military career except within strictly limited parameters, the Russian army tended to accept and retain what it could get. Unlike their German colleagues, Russian officers also developed a broad spectrum of professional orientations based on alternate forms of experience. Service in the Caucasus or Siberia could generate perspectives on the empire’s military needs that were quite different from those cultivated in St. Petersburg, or on the western border. Unlike the situation in France, such officers were not encapsulated as “colonials.” A more legitimate comparison might be to the U.S. army of the post-Vietnam era, with its ongoing debate between those officers advocating a focus on the “real soldiering” of NATO’s central front and those insisting that the coming threats to vital U.S. interests would be posed in Latin America, Africa, or other regions demanding low-intensity and unconventional war-fighting capacities.

  The growing institutional rivalry between the war ministry and the general staff after 1905 was the tip of a structural iceberg. Neither the army’s professionalism nor its corporate spirit were strong enough to create an integrated officer corps from variegated material. More and more officers, particularly in the field grades, considered their career to depend less on competence than on an interlocking network of favors and patronage whose distribution depended on both sponsorship by and identification with a major power group. Administrative decisions, command appointments, and operational policies alike reflected increasingly bitter, increasingly complicated power struggles by men who saw not only their own futures but the destiny of the state as depending on the “right” decision in each case.34

  Russian military thought, particularly after 1905, correspondingly tended to be centrifugal rather than cohesive. The work of the uniformed intellectuals documented attitudes as opposed to inspiring analysis. While this kind of solipsism was no more prevalent in Russia than anywhere else in Europe, the bases of the various arguments were f
ar enough apart to ensure an army divided against itself doctrinally as well as institutionally. The major fault line lay between Westernizers and nativists: those who favored deliberate, conscious adjustment to the demands of industrial technology, following models developed in France and Germany, and those who emphasized Russian experiences with an eye to strengthening the internal cohesion and moral force of the Russian army. This was by no means a simple division between reformers and traditionalists, materialists and vitalists. Both factions were concerned with Russia’s response to the demands of modern war. Would it be short or long? Should the state plan for total mobilization, or prepare to fight and win with the resources on hand? What was the proper balance between moral and material factors?

  Whatever their specific perspectives, since the 1870s Russia’s generals, like their German counterparts, had focussed on the worst-case contingency: Russia alone in a war with Germany and Austria. The strategic policies developed against this background by no means reflected unrelieved belligerence. Much professional literature stressed the dual historical mission of the Tsarist empire: transmitting European culture to the peoples of Asia while defending the West from Oriental barbarians. In this context, even offensive war against one or more Western powers was considered “military,” as oppposed to “political,” in nature, a temporary manifestation of maladjusted diplomacy.

  In the 1870s Russia’s first modern war minister, D. A. Miliutin, had consistently argued against risking any conflict with a coalition of the Western states. This initial support for a cautious strategy of building up strong forces behind the frontiers and awaiting the enemy’s attacks gave way during the 1880s to a policy of preparing active operations against Austria combined with a passive, defensive posture towards Germany. The new approach combined military and political considerations. The Habsburg Empire was both Russia’s obvious diplomatic adversary and an enemy Russia’s generals were confident of defeating. Germany was a dangerous military opponent, but also a potential mediator of armed conflict between her eastern neighbors as she so often mediated diplomatic disputes. Common sense suggested the wisdom of antagonizing her as little as possible, particularly given the risks of forcing battle with the finest army in Europe.

  Feelings of admiration, envy, and inferiority generated an attitude of deference reinforced by the relative failure of Russian intelligence to provide much inside information on the German military. On the other hand, a series of extremely successful intelligence operations against Austria not only resulted in an imbalance of material on the Central Powers, but encouraged a tendency to exaggerate both Austrian weaknesses and German strengths.

  Russia was by no means ill-informed of the general outlines of prospective German moves. As early as 1891, the Russian chief of staff explained to his French counterpart his plans for checking a German attack towards the Niemen while delaying the armies of the Dual Alliance in Poland until reinforcements arrived from the interior. His description of the Central Powers’ probable strategy and force structures fit the German and Austrian intentions at the time almost exactly.

  Discussions of striking first, of mounting a spoiling offensive into East Prussia from the Niemen line, gave way to a more cautious approach during the 1890s. This reflected Russia’s increasing concentration on central Asia and the Far East. It also reflected the unacceptable financial and diplomatic costs of preparing in peacetime an infrastructure for an immediate, full-strength onslaught against Germany. Some general staff officers argued, particularly in the company of the French attachés, the moral advantages of beginning the next war with a decisive victory over Germany. Nevertheless the policy of concentrating against Austria continued to prevail. When pressed for specifics, its advocates said the Russian army would take the offensive on the twenty-fifth day of mobilization and crush the Austrians no more than ten days later. Within another ten days Russia would be ready to strike for Berlin.

  This optimism was unconvincing to the French general staff. Between 1900 and 1905 it continued to press for a Russian strategy designed to draw German troops from the western theater by striking at the vulnerable East Prussian salient. Russia’s generals continued to temporize. Despite an increasing weight of evidence that the Germans proposed to remain on the defensive in the east, the tsarist high command never quite abandoned belief that their country might after all be the target of the main German attack. Their anxieties were enhanced by the Russo-Japanese War. In the minds of Russian planners, defeat exposed Russia’s weaknesses in a way that invited exploitation. Nor were they certain after 1905 that France could be relied on, particularly if the casus belli turned out to be a Russo-Austrian dispute focused on Eastern Europe. In the annual meetings of the French and Russian general staffs, Russian generals repeatedly stressed the difficulties of mounting an offensive with an army that in Manchuria had proved so deficient in training and endurance. Yet they also remained aware that France needed Russia far too badly to terminate the relationship because of a dispute over the timing of an offensive. And it was in this context of confidence that the general staff began preparing and implementing an alternative strategy taking advantage of Russia’s historic strengths.35

  Part of the planning for war with Japan had involved questioning what to do in case of a surprise attack by the Central Powers while Russia was occupied in Asia. The solution was obvious and traditional: mobilize and concentrate in the heart of Russia, abandon the Polish salient and the western fortresses, and allow the enemy to exhaust itself in endless marches and debilitating siege operations. This approach was brought out of the sphere of emergency procedures in the writings of General N. P. Mikhnevich, professor at the general staff Academy from 1904 to 1907. Mikhnevich was more than a spokesman for Russia’s past as a guide to future operations. He was the closest thing to a grand strategist produced in the empire’s final years. Accepting the familiar argument that developed, industrial economies could not sustain long wars, Mikhnevich argued that Russia should adopt a defensive strategic posture, accompanied by a comprehensive plan for developing the national economy along lines favorable to national security. Denied a chance to win the quick victories demanded by their socio-economic systems, Russia’s future opponents would face domestic chaos at the same time their armies were bearing the brunt of Russia’s fully mobilized forces.36

  Mikhnevich’s proposals made a strong initial impression on Sukhomlinov. They blended well both with the need to buy time to complete the post-1905 reform programs, and with such manifestations of reform as increased territorialization of recruitment and more money for the field army at the expense of the fortress network. By 1910 the revised Russian war plan proposed not only to abandon the Polish salient and the Narew River line, but to concentrate a maximum of fifty-three divisions against Germany and only nineteen against Austria. Its principal sponsors, Sukhomlinov in the war ministry and Yuri Danilov in the general staff, were not acting from pessimism. Danilov was a worst-case planner, conscious of the limits of Russia’s power and accepting a corresponding need for caution in war and politics. He also regarded Russia’s initial defensive orientation to be merely the prelude to a massive counterattack into East Prussia and Silesia. Sukhomlinov for his part argued that fixed fortifications encouraged committing field armies in all the wrong places. Troops concentrated in the interior provinces, on the other hand, could quickly be brought to war strength with reliable reservists, then sent forward on a railway network whose efficiency was rapidly improving thanks to recent and projected French loans. Like Danilov, Sukhomlinov insisted to the French at every opportunity that Russia’s war plans were essentially offensive. It made no sense, he asserted, to concentrate masses of troops in an exposed salient like Russian Poland. Nor were fortifications being razed haphazardly. Those which could not be improved were being abandoned, not destroyed. Russia would not advance prematurely, but her strategy was sound in providing for concentrating against and defeating the strongest enemy first, at minimum risk to either coalition partner.37 />
  From the beginning this plan generated a broad spectrum of opposition. Westernizers saw its defensive aspects as violating the principles of war as understood everywhere across the Vistula. Nationalists and traditionalists cited Russia’s centuries of experience against Turkey, Prussia, and France to prove their case that the best way of fighting a war is on someone else’s territory. As early as 1898 a comprehensive history of Russia at war proudly asserted that thirty-six of the empire’s thirty-eight campaigns since 1700 had been offensive.38 Operational commanders criticized abandoning or downgrading the fortresses, and questioned the tactical wisdom of concentrating so far in Russia’s interior. Diplomats argued that French good will was being sacrificed to unnecessary caution. And from all points of the spectrum, Danilov’s and Sukhomlinov’s critics argued that Russia’s new strategy was aimed at the wrong enemy. It reflected expectations of a massive German offensive, twenty-five divisions or more. An overwhelming weight of evidence, including maneuvers, staff rides, and similar relatively public events, indicated instead that Germany would initially deploy no more than token forces in the east, and would pursue a correspondingly defensive strategy.

  This made Austria Russia’s strongest immediate enemy in case of a war between the alliance systems. Events in the Balkans since 1908 suggested, moreover, that France was not to be relied on to support Russia’s interests there—which made unilateral Russian action against Austria-Hungary at least a thinkable possibility. In either case, an invasion of Galicia was likely to have significant impact on the attitudes of the Balkan states and the Dual Monarchy’s Slavs. Finally, it was significantly risky for a great power to resign so completely the strategic initiative. If Russia waited for a German offensive that never came, and if things went badly for the French, Russia might well face a German-Austrian coalition by herself. Did it not make better sense to concentrate against and eliminate Austria at the start of the next war, then deal, militarily or politically, with a Germany which even in the worst-case contingency was virtually sure to be bled white by her struggle with France?39