The Last Prussian

by Messenger, Charles;

  Gerd quickly settled into the life of an officer in Kassel and made an early favourable impression. Colonel von Mayer, commanding the 83rd Infantry Regiment, in his first annual report on him, noted that Gerd was ‘well attuned physically and mentally, shows great diligence to duty and promises to become quite a useful officer. He is well educated, has good manners and is well regarded by his comrades.’7 This indicates a more serious von Rundstedt than the cadet, and a ‘putting away of childish things’ in order conscientously to pursue a military career. Two years later, Freiherr von Thoma, who had taken over command of the Regiment, reported on him on much the same lines, confirming his diligence and noting his ‘modest and tactful demeanour’. He also drew attention to Gerd’s skill as a horseman and remarked in conclusion that Gerd’s finances were ‘in order’.8 The finances of their young officers was always a matter of concern for commanding officers, as in most armies, especially because of the danger that they might get into the clutches of money-lenders. A more serious consideration was that young officers finding themselves in this predicament made themselves vulnerable to the attention of the espionage agencies of foreign powers. Indeed, the Germans themselves were using this technique on French officers. Consequently, each regiment had an officers’ assistance fund from which loans could be made; the Russian Army had a similar system.9

  Von Rundstedt’s promise received its first reward in October 1896 when he was made adjutant of the 3rd Battalion of his regiment, a post he was to hold for the next three years. His battalion was detached from the rest of the regiment and stationed at Arolsen, some 20 miles west of Kassel. This was a small town of less than 3,000 inhabitants and the capital of the small principality of Waldeck. Von Rundstedt came to know the young Prince well since he was a frequent visitor to the mess. Furthermore, Gerd attended a number of balls and other functions at the small Court. At one of these he met Wilhelmina, the teenage Queen of the Netherlands, whom he much admired.10 It was probably as a result of his friendship with the Prince that Gerd was awarded the Waldeck Merit Cross 4th Class. In spite of these social divertissements, Gerd continued to take his chosen career very seriously. He now wanted to attend the Kriegsakademie (War Academy) in Berlin, the Royal Prussian Army’s Staff College and the passport to promotion to the higher ranks of the Army. The main hurdle to this was a very rigorous entrance examination. Candidates for admission had to have a minimum of three years’ service, be unlikely to be promoted captain within five years of entry, be in good health, and have their private affairs in order. The examination itself was competitive and only some 130 candidates were successful each year. It consisted of papers on theoretical and applied tactics, artillery and small arms, fortification, topography and plan drawing, a selected period of history, geography and a choice of either French or mathematics. Its object was to ‘ascertain whether the candidate possesses that degree of general education and knowledge which is requisite in order to be able to profit from the lectures at the Kriegsakademie. Besides this the examination must show whether the candidates possess powers of judgement which give promise of increase and development.’11 This entailed much preparation and most officers resorted to crammers. It is probable that von Rundstedt relinquished his adjutancy in order to study for the exam, which he sat in March 1899. Apart from writing the papers, he also had to submit to his army corps chief of staff a written autobiography, stressing his intellectual development and how he had prepared himself for his examinations to become an officer. He also had to state whether he wished to study mathematical sciences or languages at the Kriegsakademie. Gerd almost certainly opted for the latter and took the French paper. In addition, his commanding officer had to attach a corroborative report on the degree of assistance which he had received in preparing for the Kriegsakademie exam. Finally, the commanding officer had to submit a report to cover the candidate’s practical military aptitude, his intellect, health, conduct and character, and personal finances. An indication of what Gerd’s commanding officer, now Colonel von Hennigs, wrote is given in his annual report for 1899:

  ‘He is an especially able, useful, sound and well suited officer, full of diligence and enthusiasm. He filled the post of battalion adjutant very well…. Very pleasant, he combines good manners with modest and tactful behaviour. He is suited for regimental adjutant and promotion.’12

  Gerd’s hard work and his commanding officer’s recommendation were successful and he passed the exam at the first sitting. He was, however, still a junior Lieutenant and not senior enough to gain immediate entry to the Kriegsakademie.

  At the beginning of October 1900, however, von Hennigs did make Gerd his regimental adjutant, a move which he clearly had no cause to regret. In his report on him for 1901 he especially noted that Gerd’s ‘good military eye, his opinions and skill in matters on and off duty, together with his great reliability and popularity, make him a very good regimental adjutant’. It was also clear from this report that Gerd was working hard to prepare himself intellectually for the Kriegsakademie.,13 On 1 October, he was finally promoted to Senior Lieutenant (Oberleutnant). By this time, Gerd’s mind was not dwelling on military matters alone for he was in love. She was a local girl, from Kassel itself, and the daughter of a retired major. Gerd and Luise von Goetz became officially engaged in May 1901 and were married on 22 January 1902. A year later, on 21 January 1903, their union was to be blessed with the birth of their only son and child, Hans Gerd. Bila, as she was always known, was tall, slim and elegant. Like Gerd, she was modest in character and rather shy, something which she concealed behind a mask of coolness. She also had a very strict moral code.14 Bila and Gerd were to enjoy fifty years of married life together and would remain very close until the end. There is no doubt that it was a true love match, as Gerd’s letters to his wife reveal, and he would draw great strength from it.

  In the autumn of 1903 Gerd was at last posted as a student to the Kriegsakademie in Berlin. Before he did so, he spent the summer on attachment to the headquarters of XI Corps, of which his regiment formed part, for a staff ride and other exercises. Once again he impressed and his regimental commander was moved to recommend him for prefential promotion, writing that ‘he is one of those officers who can surely expect later to be employed in the higher positions of the Army’. This was endorsed by his brigade commander, who also considered him suitable for the Imperial Guard. General von Heringen, his divisional commander, while agreeing that Gerd justified ‘good hopes for the future’, was not prepared to support the recommendation for accelerated promotion on the grounds that Gerd had only held his present rank for little more than a year.15

  The course at the Kriegsakademie was to last three years.16 The Regulations laid down its aim as ‘the initiation of a limited number of qualified officers of all arms into the higher branches of the military science, so as to deepen and widen their military knowledge, and to clear and sharpen their military judgement’. The students were to also try to ‘penetrate more deeply into such branches of general science as are useful in the Army, and to attain fluency in the oral and written employment of certain modern languages’. The established strength of the student body was some 400 Senior Lieutenants, divided into three classes. In practice, the actual number of students was considerably less than this. They were only attached to the Kriegsakademie for a year at a time, remaining on the strengths of their regiments, and of the 130 students who arrived for the first year only some 20 per cent would complete the full three years, so rigorous and searching was the course. The students in the first and second years received 25 hours of formal instruction each week. This was based on lectures, oral and written work. The core subjects were Tactics, Military History, Fortification, Military Law and History. In addition, the students either opted to study science (Mathematics, Physics, Physical Geography) or General Geography and a language. On offer were French, Russian and Polish, but English had recently been added, and the selection was indicative of the countries whom Germany regarded as her most likely pote
ntial enemies. Von Rundstedt chose the language option and by the end of this time at the Kriegsakademie had qualified as a French interpreter, something he was to find especially useful 40 years later. During the second year, Artillery, Communications, Topography and Survey, Plan Drawing and Military Hygiene were introduced, and those who had chosen the science option studied Mathematics and Chemistry, the others continuing to study their chosen language. In the third year, the hours of instruction were reduced to 21 and, apart from Tactics and Military History, the only two subjects studied throughout by everyone, Staff Duties, Siege Warfare, Maritime Warfare, State Administration, Public and International Law were covered. Mandatory projects done at home were not encouraged during the first two years, although there was nothing to stop the keen student producing voluntary ones. In addition to the classroom instruction a number of visits were made to arms factories, technical institutions, manoeuvre areas around Berlin, and the fortifications of Spandau and Küstrin (on the Oder).

  The instructional staff were a mixture of officers and civilians. What was significant was that almost all the former held important staff posts and taught part-time. Likewise, the majority of the civilian instructors were professors at the University of Berlin. The students were very carefully monitored throughout the course. Indeed, Brigadier General Sir James Edmonds, who visited the Kriegsakademie on a number of occasions during the period noted that:

  ‘The special feature of the institution was the very thorough investigation of the character, talents, and attainments of the students. They were always under the microscope. The Commandant told me that he had a report on every student from every instructor every quarter, and that the students had to report what use they made of their spare time. A record was kept of every piece of work, essay, and problem that each man did. At the end of three years, as General von Manteuffel told me, there was very little he did not know about his students.’17

  At the end of each year of formal instruction, in June, the students had to sit examinations. Their results and reports were then reviewed to decide whether they should be readmitted for the next year. The year itself ended with the students of the first year being attached to an arm other than their own. In von Rundstedt’s case, as an infantryman, he was attached to an artillery regiment within his own corps, 11th Field Artillery Regiment, which was part of von Rundstedt’s own division, 22nd Infantry. At the end of his second year, after carrying out a three week survey exercise, Gerd was attached to a cavalry regiment, the 5th Dragoon Regiment, also part of the 22nd Infantry Division. This he clearly enjoyed and the regimental commander noted that he quickly adapted to cavalry ways and became an excellent patrol commander. All with whom he served were impressed by his enthusiasm and brain and at the end of 1905 his corps commander, General of Infantry Linde, wrote: ‘With his demonstrable achievements in every post and his whole personality, Oberlt v. Rundstedt justifies the certain belief of employment in the higher posts of the Army in the future. I recommend his preferential promotion.’18

  Gerd impressed throughout his time at the Kriegsakademie and his final report from there described him as,

  ‘An outstandingly able officer with a serious outlook on life, determined in his demeanour, with a firm character and very good manners. Outstandingly able in tactical matters, very sound and reasoned in opinion and judgement, quick and positive in decision and orders, he is well suited for the General Staff.’19

  Once again, he was recommended for accelerated promotion by his regimental, brigade and divisional commanders, but his training as a staff officer was not yet completed. After a brief return to his regiment, he then had to do an attachment to the General Staff as a test of his practical abilities. This attachment could either be to the Grosse Generalstab (Great General Staff) in Berlin or to the Truppengeneralstab (Troops General Staff), usually at the headquarters of an army corps. For Gerd it was to be Berlin once more and an opportunity to experience at first-hand the centre of the German military web.

  In April 1907, when von Rundstedt joined it, the Grosse Generalstab was headed by the Quartermaster General, who equated to the Army Chief of Staff, and at that time was Count Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, nephew of the man who had masterminded Prussia’s victory over France in 1870 and who himself, as we shall see, would tinker with the Schlieffen Plan in 1914 in such a way as to ensure its failure. He had a staff of just over one hundred officers organised into sections as follows:

  Section 1 –

  Russian (including the Balkans), Far East.

  Section 2 –

  Deployment and mobilisation.

  Section 3 –

  France and the West.

  Section 4 –

  Foreign armies (with Section 7 as a sub-section).

  Section 5 –

  Training and Kriegsakademie (with Section 8 as a subsection).

  Section 6 –

  Manoeuvres.

  Section 9 –

  Austria.

  Two other sections covered military history and map-making.20 It has not been possible to establish which section von Rundstedt joined, but given his fluency in French and English, it is possible that he joined Section 3. The usual length of this attachment was one year, but for some reason, possibly because he was still considered too junior, von Rundstedt did two years before being promoted Captain on the General Staff and thus entitled to wear its carmine striped trousers and silver collar tabs. There were two main promotions each year, in spring and autumn, and von Rundstedt was promoted with a large number of other Senior Lieutenants on 24 March 1909.21

  During his time on the Grosse Generalstab Gerd would have almost certainly been privy to the General Staffs plans for war. As we have seen, the greatest fear at this time was the war on two fronts – something which became a very real possibility after the formation of a military alliance between France and Russia in 1892, whereby each agreed to attack Germany if the other was attacked by either Germany, Austro-Hungary or Italy, the members of the Triple Alliance. The German Chief of Staff at the time was Count Alfred von Schlieffen, who had been appointed to this post the previous year. The plans bequeathed to him by his predecessors, von Moltke and Count von Waldersee, called for a defensive war against France and a decisive battle against the Russian Army, after which the forces in the West, which would have probably been forced into an initial withdrawal, would then turn and fight the French. This concept smacked of protracted war to the more aggressively minded von Schlieffen, something which would put severe strains on Germany’s economy. It was far better, he argued, to emulate Frederick the Great and look for quick, decisive victories. Since the Russian mobilisation machine was that much more unwieldy and slower than that of France, it made sense for Germany to strike west first. A small force of some ten divisions was to guard East Prussia against the Russian threat, while the bulk of the German armies quickly deployed to the West. A massive offensive would then be mounted which was designed to envelop the Frencharmies. To do this, von Schlieffen intended to defend with comparatively weak forces in Alsace-Lorraine and to use these as a pivot for the bulk of the German armies to execute a vast wheel, taking in the whole of Belgium, without regard to her neutrality, and the southern tip of Holland, with whom he hoped that freedom of passage could be negotiated. The two extreme right hand armies were to be the strongest and would pass west of Paris and then swing south-east in order to carry out the envelopment. In order to guard their ever extending lines of communication, von Schlieffen planned, the situation permitting, to switch forces from the left wing and also to deploy six reserve divisions to follow in the path of the right wing armies. Crucial to the plan was the efficient and speedy deployment of the armies and this was dependent on the German railways. It is thus understandable why Section 2 of the Grosse Generalstab, sometimes called the Railway Section, should be considered the most important. Von Schlieffen came to recognise that there were flaws in the plan, especially the assumption that the Dutch would allow German troops to pass th
rough their territory and that perhaps there was a danger of underestimating the French defensive capability. While he refused to accept criticism from others, he continue to polish the plan until his death in 1913. His successor, the nephew of the great von Moltke and Gerd’s chief, became mesmerised by the threat of a French attack in Alsace-Lorraine and could not accept von Schlieffen’s contention that a loss of territory here would not count for much once the wheel had really got going. He also blanched at the concept of using Dutch territory. Consequently, the right wing armies had less room in which to operate and von Moltke gradually reinforced the left wing at the expense of the right. What neither fully appreciated, however, were the problems of keeping the right wing resupplied once it had moved beyond the comprehensive network of the German railway system. What von Rundstedt thought of this at the time is not known, but in later years he would hold strong views. By then he would be speaking not just from hindsight, but also from his own personal experience in what culminated in the Battle of the Marne.

  He served for a year as a fully-fledged member of the Grosse Generalstab and continued to shine. His section chief, Lieutenant Colonel Brozi, wrote of his capacity for hard work and ‘energetic and independent personality’ combined with his tact and modesty. Significantly, von Rundstedt carried out a staff ride with XVIII Corps, whose Chief of Staff, Colonel Ilse, praised his ‘outstanding eye for country’ and the fact that he was ‘militarily educated above his age’ and recommended him for the Truppengeneralstab. Von Moltke himself endorsed all that had been written on this ‘excellent officer’.22 This recommendation was duly taken up and, on 1 October 1910, Gerd was posted to the staff of XI Corps. This meant a return to Kassel, which would have pleased both him and his wife. His talents were also being recognised not just in the annual reports written on him, but also by a growing number of decorations awarded to him (see Appendix 1).