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

by Dennis Showalter

  27“Die wichtigsten Veränderungen im Heerwesen Russlands im Jahre 1910,” BA/MA, RM5/1486; Military attaché’s report to war ministry of Sept. 13, 1911, PAAA, Russland 72/92.

  28Kiderlin to Lichnowski, Dec. 6, 1912, PAAA, Deutschland 131/34; letter of Mar. 20, 1909, in E. Jäckh, Kiderlin-Wächter, der Staatsmann und Mensch, Vol. II (Stuttgart, 1924), 26–27.

  29V. N. Kokovtsov, Out of My Past, ed. H. H. Fischer, M. L. Malveev (Stanford, 1935), 334 ff.; Mary S. Conroy, Peter Arkad’evich Stolypin: Practical Politics in Late Tsarist Russia (Boulder, Colo., 1976); Ferenczi, Aussenpolitik und Öffentlicheit, 259 ff.

  30Hans Uebersberger, Österreich zwischen Russland und Serbien (Köln, Graz, 1958), highlights on the other hand the objective threat these Russian initiatives posed to vital Habsburg interests.

  31For Russia’s Balkan policy generally cf. Andrew Rossos, Russia and the Balkans: Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian Foreign Policy, 1908–1914 (Toronto, 1981); and E. C. Thaden, Russia and the Balkan Alliance of 1912 (University Park, Penn., 1965).

  32At the conference of the general staffs, held on August 31. France, Ministére des Affaires Étrangéres, Documents Diplomatiques Français 1871–1914, 41 vols. (Paris, 1929–59), 3rd Series, II, Nr. 90 (hereafter cited as DDF).

  33Cf. D. W. Spring, “Russia and the Franco-Russian Alliance, 1905–14: Dependence or Interdependence?” Slavonic and East European Review LXVI (1988), 564–592; and Douglas Porch, “The Marne and After: A Reappraisal of French Strategy in the First World War,” The Journal of Military History, LIII (1989), 363–386. Donald R. Mathieu, “The Role of Russia in French Foreign Policy, 1908–1914” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1968); and Carol H. Wilcox, “The Franco-Russian Alliance, 1908–1911” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Clark University, 1968), survey this subject in detail from a diplomatic perspective.

  34Report of the German consulate at Tiflis, Dec. 25, 1912, in PAAA, Russland 72/94. On the Turkish rearmament after 1908 see particularly Jehuda L. Wallach, Anatomie einer Militärhilfe. Die preussisch-deutsche Militärmissionen in der Türkei, 1835–1919 (Düsseldorf, 1976).

  35Geoffrey Barraclough, From Agadir to Armageddon (New York, 1982), is a strong recent argument for the Second Moroccan Crisis as a decisive event in the origins of World War I. Douglas Porch, The Conquest of Morocco (New York, 1983), focusses on the local and regional factors inspiring the French action. J. C. Allain, Agadir 1911 (Paris, 1976), is a detailed analysis from a French perspective. Emily Oncken, Panthersprung nach Agadir: Die deutsche Politik während der zweiten Marokkokrise 1911 (Düsseldorf, 1981), is excellent for the German side.

  36Cf. T. W. Childs, “Mediterranean Imbroglio: The Diplomatic Origins of Modern Libya (The Diplomacy of the Belligerents during the Italo-Turkish War, 1911–1912)” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Georgetown University, 1982); and R. J. B. Bosworth, Italy, the Least of the Great Powers. Italian Foreign Policy before the First World War (Cambridge, 1979), 127 passim.

  37Sazonov expressed himself in those terms to his ambassador to Bulgaria in October, 1911. A. Nekliudov, Diplomatic Reminiscences 1911–1917 (London, 1920), 45–46. Hartwig was quoted by the German ambassador to Serbia a year later. Griesinger to Bethmann, Oct. 28, 1912, PAAA, Serbien 17/8.

  38Pourtalès to Bethmann, Feb. 5, 1912; and Bethmann’s report of July 6/7, 1912, PAAA, Orientalia Generalia 5/17.

  39Memorandum of Oct. 9, 1912, PAAA, Russland 72/93.

  40For Austria’s preparations, cf. Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., “Military Dimensions of Habsburg-Romanov Relations During the Era of the Balkan Wars,” in East Central European Society and the Balkan Wars, ed. B. Kiräly, D. Djordjevic (New York, 1987), 328–345.

  41Reports from Germany’s Warsaw consulate of Oct. 19, 1912, and the Moscow consulate of Oct. 6, Nov. 11, and Nov. 28, 1912, PAAA, Russland 72/93.

  42Kiderlin to Tschirsky, Nov. 26, 1912, PAAA, Deutschland 143.

  43Pourtales to Bethmann, Nov. 19 and Nov. 20, 1912, PAAA, Russland 72/93; Kagenech to foreign office, Nov. 27, 1912, PAAA, Deutschland 143. Cf. also E. Tuiczynski, “Österreich-Ungarn und Südosteuropa während der Balkan-kriege,” Balkan Studies V (1964), 11–46.; Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914, tr. and ed. I. M. Massey, 3 vols. (London, 1952–57), I, 379 ff.; and L. C. F. Turner, Origins of the First World War (New York, 1970), pp. 40 ff.

  44Kokovtsov, Out of My Past, 344 ff.; Ernest R. May, “Cabinet, Tsar, Kaiser: Three Approaches to Assessment,” in Knowing One’s Enemies. Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars, ed. E. R. May, (Princeton, 1984), 17–26.

  45Raymond Poidevin and Jacques Bariety, Les relations franco-allemandes 1815–1975 (Paris, 1977), 191 ff., is a brief general survey. John Keiger, France and the Origins of the First World War (New York, 1983); and “Jules Cambon and Franco-German Détente, 1907–1914,” Historical Journal XXVI (1983), 641–659, cover the relationship’s diplomatic aspects; Poidevin, “Wirtschaftlicher und fin-anzieller Nationalismus in Frankreich und Deutschland, 1907–1914,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (1974), incorporates a useful bibliography.

  46Cf. the general staff reports of July 13 and Sept. 2, 1912 in DDF, 3rd Series, III, Nrs. 200, 359. Samuel R. Williamson, The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France Prepare for War, 1904–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), 205 passim, develops the British influence on French planning.

  47Izvolsky to Sazonov, Sept. 12, 1912, in Un Livre Noir. Diplomatie d’avant-guerre d’apres les documents des archives russes, 1910–1917, 3 vols, in 6 (Paris, 1922–34), I, 323 ff. Robert H. Allshouse, “Aleksander Izvolskii and Russian Foreign Policy, 1910–1914” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 1977) presents Izvolsky’s ambassadorial career without exaggerating its impact.

  48Louis Garros, “En Marge de l’Alliance Franco-Russe,” Revue Historique de e’Armee VI (June, 1950), pp. 29–30, 36.

  49Raymond Poincaré, Au service de la France. Neuf années de souvenirs, 10 vols. (Paris, 1926–33), II, 336 ff.

  50Pourtalès to Bethmann, Dec. 1, 1912, PAAA, Deutschland 131/34.

  51Kiderlin to Bethmann, Sept. 2, 1912, ibid.

  52R. J. Cramp ton, The Hollow Détente: Anglo-German Relations in the Balkans, 1911–1914 (London, 1979), passim.

  53Minute by Sir Edward Grey, Apr. 18, 1910, BD VI, Nr. 344. Cf. Keith M. Wilson, “The British Démarche of 3 and 4 December, 1912: H.A. Gwynne’s Note on Britain, Russia and the First Balkan War,” in Empire and Continent (London, 1987), 141–148.

  54For Bethmann’s speech see Verhandlungen des Reichstages, Stenografische Berichte, Vol. 286, 2471–2472. A copy of Kiderlin’s is in Kiderlin Papers 10/185.

  55Grey to Bertie, Dec. 3, 1912; and Nicholson to Buchanan, Dec. 3, 1912, in BD, IX, 2, Nos. 321, 322; and Prince Karl Max von Lichnowsky, Heading for the Abyss, tr. S. Delmer (London, 1928), passim.

  56William’s comments, on an article of Oct. 1, 1912, in the Täglichen Rundschau, are in Kiderlin Papers 10/176.

  57The best examples of the first approach in John G. Röhl, whose most recent version of his case is “Der Militärpolitische Entscheidungsprozess in Deutschland am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges,” Kaiser, Hof und Staat. Wilhelm II und die deutsche Politik. (Munich, 1987), pp. 175–202. For the second, cf. especially Wolfgang J. Mommsen, “Domestic Factors in German Foreign Policy before 1914,” Central European History VI (1973), 12–14; and Egmont Zechlin, “Die Adriakrise und der ‘Kriegsrat’ von 8. Dezember 1912,” in Krieg und Kriegsrisiko (Düsseldorf, 1979), 115–159.

  58Kiderlin to Lichnowski, Dec. 6, 1912, PAAA, Deutschland 131/34.

  59Immanuel Geiss, German Foreign Policy, 1871–1914 (London, 1976), 123–124; and Fritz Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War (New York, 1967), 19, are familiar statements of this position.

  60Ann Taylor Allen, Satire and Society in Wilhelmine Germany. Kladderadatsch and Simplicissmus, 1890–1914 (Lexington, Ky., 1984), pp. 131–132; Moltke to Bethmann, June 19, 1914, in Die Deutschen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, ed. W. Schücking, M. Mont
gelas, rev. ed., 5 vols. (Berlin, 1927), II, Nr. 349.

  61Michael R. Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1985), 45–46. The quotation is from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and the Conduct of the Balkan Wars (Washington, D.C., 1914), 151.

  62Djordje Miki “The Albanians and Serbia During the Balkan Wars,” in East Central European Society and the Balkan Wars, 165–196.

  63Joachim Remak, “1914—The Third Balkan War: Origins Reconsidered,” Journal of Modern History XLIII (1971), 353–366; Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1983), II, 108 ff.

  64Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London, 1986).

  65Alfred Cobban, National Self-Determination (London, 1945), 45–46; and Anthony Hartley, “The ‘Cold War’ for Beginners,” Encounter LXXII (Feb. 1988), 13; H. R. Trevor-Roper and George Urban, “Aftermaths of Empire: The Lessons of Upheavals and Destabilisation,” ibid., LXXIII (Dec. 1989), 13; On the evolution of self-determination as a political concept during World War I see particularly Harold Nelson, Land and Power: British and Allied Policy on Germany’s Frontiers, 1916–1919 (Toronto, 1963).

  66Crampton, Hollow Détente, stresses the short-term aspects of the German initiative. J. M. Miller, Jr., “The Concert of Europe in the First Balkan War, 1912–1913” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Clark University, 1969), is a more general treatment.

  67Klaus Schwabe, Woodrow Wilson, Revolutionary Germany and Peacemaking, 1918–1919. Missionary Diplomacy and the Realities of Power, tr. M. R. and R. Kimber (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1985), p. 69.

  68Cf. Roland Stromberg, Redemption by War: The Intellectuals and 1914 (Lawrence, Kans., 1982); and Michael Howard, “Men Against Fire: Expectations of War in 1914,” International Security IX (Summer, 1984), 41–57.

  69The respect accorded these men in German military circles reflected their status as experts on tactical and operational issues—a fact giving their opinions on broader questions a more polite hearing than might otherwise have been the case. Cf. Dennis E. Showalter, “Goltz and Bernhardi: The Institutionalization of Originality in the Imperial German Army,” Defense Analysis III (1987), 305–318.

  70“Memorandum of December 28, 1912, on a War with France and Russia,” in Gerhard Ritter, The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth, M. A. and E. Wilson (New York, 1958), 168 ff.; and A. Bohm-Tettelbach, Der Böhmische Feldzug Friedrichs des Grossen 1757 im Lichte Schlieffensche Kritik (Berlin, 1934).

  71“Die Militärpolitische Lage Deutschlands,” Dec. 2, 1911, in Kriegsrüstung und Kriegswirtschaft, ed. Reichsarchiv, Anlageband (Berlin, 1930), 126 ff.; “Die wichtigste Veränderungen im Heerwesen Russlands im Jahre 1911,” BA-MA, RM5/1946, Russland Militärisches, Apr. 1892-Apr. 1914.

  72Paul M. Kennedy, “The First World War and the International Power System,” in International Security IX (Summer, 1984), 28–29. Parallel critiques of the Russian army are John Bushnell, “The Tsarist Army after the Russo-Japanese War: The View from the Field,” and W. C. Fuller, “The Tsarist Army after the Russo-Japanese War: The View from the War Ministry,” in The Impact of Unsuccessful Military Campaigns on Military Institutions, 1860–1980, ed. Lt.-Col. C. E. Shrader (Washington, D.C., 1984), 77–99, 100–119. Walter T. Wilfong, “Rebuilding the Russian Army, 1905–1914: The Question of a Comprehensive Plan for National Defense” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University, 1977), is a bit more optimistic, but remains negative.

  73Modris Eksteins, “When Death Was Young . . . : Germany, Modernism, and the Great War,” in Ideas into Politics: Aspects of European History 1880–1950, ed. R. J. Bullen et al. (London, 1984), pp. 25–35, is an eloquent brief presentation of Germany in the modern era as “more modern than we have had the courage to admit” (p. 33). Frank J. Ward, “The Center Party and the German Election of 1907” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1984) is a convincing case study showing that the Reich by 1907 had moved much closer to parliamentary responsibility than is generally accepted.

  74For Russia’s new cultural position see Camilla Gray, Die russische Avant-garde der modernen Kunst 1863–1922 (Köln, 1962). German responses are presented in Brigitte Löhr, Die “Zukunft Russlands”: Prospektiven russischer Wirtschaftsen-twicklung und deutsch-russische Wirtschaftsbeziehungen vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Wiesbaden, 1985); Werner Markert, “Die deutsch-russischen Beziehungen am Vorabend des ersten Weltkrieges,” in Deutsch-russische Beziehungen von Bismarck bis zur Gegenwart, ed. W. Markert (Stuttgart, 1964), 40–79; and Robert C. Williams, “Russians in Germany: 1900–1914,” in 1914: The Coming of the First World War, ed. W. Laqueur, G. L. Mosse (New York, 1966), 254–282.

  75For the history and significance of German intelligence operations cf. Fritz Gempp, “Geheimer Nachrichtendienst und Spionageabwehr des Heeres,” National Archives T-77, rolls 1,438–1, 440, 1,442, 1,507–1,509, Part I, passim; and the excellent analysis by Holger Herwig, “Imperial Germany,” in Knowing One’s Enemies, 62–97

  76Keith Neilson, “Watching the ‘Steamroller’: British Observers and the Russian Army before 1914,” The Journal of Strategic Studies VIII (1985), 199–217.

  77Moscow consulate to Bethmann, Feb. 8, 1913; PAAA, Russland 72/92; Warsaw consulate to Bethmann, PAAA, Russland 72/95; reports of Feb. 23, 1913, ibid.

  78Eggeling to Bethmann, Feb. 2, 1913; PAAA, Russland 72/94; Russian ambassador to Jagow, Aug. 18, 1913; ibid., 72/95; Warsaw consulate to Bethmann, Oct. 26, 1913, PAAA, Deutschland 131/35.

  79Memorandum of Oct. 16, 1912; and attaché’s report of June 19, 1912, BA/MA, RM 5/1633.

  80Eggeling to war ministry, Dec. 6, 1912; PAAA, Russland 72/94; Moltke to Bethmann, May 5, 1913, PAAA, Russland 72/95.

  81Moltke to Bethmann, “Nachrichten über die militärische Lage in Russland,” Nov. 21, 1912; and Jan. 28, 1913; and Moltke to Kiderlin, Nov. 12, 1912, PAAA, Russland 72–93.

  82Eggeling to war ministry, Aug. 28, 1913; Moscow consulate to Bethmann, July 4, 1913; Adolf Frank Export-Gesellschaft to foreign ministry, Dec. 12, 1913, PAAA, Russland 72/95; Knox to Buchanan, Nov. 10, 1912, BDFA VI, Nr. 126.

  83“Die wichtigste Veränderungen im Heerwesen Russlands im Jahre 1913,” BA-MA, RM5/1486; Moltke to Bethmann, Jan. 7, 1914, PAAA, Russland 72/96.

  84Germany, Reichsarchiv. Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, Vol. II (Berlin, 1925), 16–17.

  85Beck’s defense of the Grosse Ostaufmarsch, “West-oder Ost-Offensive 1914?” is in Studien, ed. Hans Speidel (Stuttgart, 1955), 143–189. Cf. Adolf Gasser, “Deutschlands Entschluss zum Präventivkrieg 1913/1914,” Discordia Concors: Festgabe für Edgar Bonjour, Vol. I (Basel and Stuttgart, 1968), 171–224, esp. 175 ff.; and “Der deutsche Hegemonialkrieg von 1914,” in Immanuel Geiss and B. J. Wendt (eds.), Deutschland in der Weltpolitik des 19. und 20. Fahrhunderts, 2nd ed., rev. (Düsseldorf, 1974)), 307–339.

  86Tappen’s comments of Oct. 22, 1919, in BA-MA, Nachlass Tappen, N 56/2.

  87H. von Staabs, Aufmarsch nach zwei Fronten: Auf Grand der Operationsplane von 1871–1914 (Berlin, 1925).

  88The war game is described in Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive-Military Decision-Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984), 117; and Garros, “En Marge de l’Alliance,” 38.

  89Tappen to H. H. von Pertz, July 20, 1928, BA-MA, Nachlass Tappen, N 56/4.

  90For German evaluations of Russia’s military potential, cf. Bernd F. Schulte, Vor dem Kriegsausbruch 1914. Deutschland, die Türkei und der Balkan (Düsseldorf, 1980); and Risto Ropponen, Die Kraft Russlands. Wie Beurteilte die politische und militärische Führung der Europäischen Grossmächte in der Zeit von 1905 bis 1914 die Kraft Russlands (Helsinki, 1968). The evolution of military plans for the east is described in Graydon A. Tunstall, “The Schlieffen Plan: The Diplomacy and Military Strategy of the Central Powers in the East, 1905–1914” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Rutgers University, 1974); Ivo Lambi, The Navy and German Power Politics, 1862–1914 (Boston, 1984), 398 passim, covers the naval aspects.
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  91See, for example, Conrad’s recommendation of Mar. 25, 1913, that Austria must establish a reserve army. Conrad III, 187–188. Cf. Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914–1917 (New York, 1975), 226 ff.; and Oskar Régele, Feldmarschall Conrad. Auftrag undErfüllung 1906–1918 (Vienna, 1955), 169.

  920n Italy’s changing military policies, cf. Ludendorff’s report of Jan. 3, 1913; Moltke to Kleist, Jan. 1913; and the naval attaché’s report of Oct. 15, 1913, in BA-MA, RM5/2670. Michael Palumbo, “German-Italian Military Relations on the Eve of World War I,” Central European History XII (1979), 343–371, stresses the German military’s continued faith that Italy would honor her commitments. But cf. Alberto Monticone, Deutschland und die Neutralität Italiens 1914–1915, (Wiesbaden, 1982); and Risto Ropponen, Italien ais Verbündeter: Die Einstellung der politischen und militärischen Führung Deutschlands und Österreich-Ungarns zu Italien von der Niederlage von Adua bis zum Ausbruch des Weltkrieges 1914, tr. C. Krotzl (Helsinki, 1986).

  93Eugen Bircher and Walter Bode, Schlieffen: Mann und Idee (Zurich, 1957), 144.

  94Conrad III, 669–670.

  3. WAR FINDS A WAY

  1Konrad Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor: Bethmann-Hollweg and the Hubris of Imperial Germany (New Haven, Conn., 1973), 118–119.

  2Riezler’s views are best expressed in his Die Erforderlichkeit des Unmöglichen (Munich, 1913). For evaluations of his career and influence cf. Karl-Dietrich Erdmann’s introduction to Kurt Riezler, Tagebücher, Aufsätze, Dokumente (Göttingen, 1972), pp. 19 ff.; Wayne C. Thompson, The Eye of the Storm: Kurt Riezler and the Crisis of Modern Germany (Iowa City, Iowa, 1980); and Andreas Hillgruber, “Riezlers Theorie des kalkulierten Risikos und Bethmann-Hollwegs politische Konzeption in der Julikrise 1914,” Historische Zeitschrift 202 (1966), 333–351.