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

by Dennis Showalter

  In this context German concern for the Russian threat suggests incompetence on one hand, insincerity on the other. Was the general staff conjuring up a bogey to increase military budgets and enhance the acceptability of a future war? On a larger scale, did the new emphasis on Russia reflect a fundamental shift in German foreign policy from Weltpolitik to Ostimperium, either as an end in itself or an interim solution to domestic problems of encirclement and destabilization? Part of the answer lies in Germany’s position in the first decade of the new century. Her population was expanding at a rate frightening to her continental neighbors. She had matched and surpassed Great Britain in a broad spectrum of industrial and business activities. Her socialist movement was a model for the world’s organized labor. Her political system, with its synthesis of centralism and federalism, monarchy and populism, was an adventure widely respected beyond German borders. Culturally, intellectually, even sexually, Germany was a society open to experimentation, a society seeking new forms. Her Einkreisung was as much spiritual as political, a reaction to a world order imposed by French civilisation and the Pax Britannica. Yet this dynamism was balanced by a consciousness of weakness, of vulnerable geographic and military positions, of ideas subject to challenge by their very newness. The processes of change and growth at the heart of Germany’s strength seemed at the same time a source of weakness, eroding society’s all-too-fragile vital center.73

  Germany was also developing a sense of her objective limitations. For all its emphasis on vitalism and the categorical imperative, the Second Reich was essentially a material empire whose superiority to her neighbors rested on an ability to mobilize domestic human and economic resources in a developed industrial system. An ethnically homogeneous Germany stood against a polyglot Austria-Hungary. Sixty million Germans outweighed forty million Frenchmen, as did an empire with a balanced national economy compared to a Britain depending for her existence, much less her prosperity, on a complex structure of imports. Yet even this powerful position was relative. Compared to the vast potential of the United States on one hand and Russia on the other, Germany was a dot on the map—a situation indicated, if not quite demonstrated, by her recent adventures in Weltpolitik.

  As yet the New World could be discounted. Russia, however, was altogether another matter. While the United States was an uncertain participant in the game of power politics, Russia had a permanent seat at the table. Russian raw materials and Russian markets lured a Germany perceiving the limits of simple colonialism. But in the new century Russia’s image was changing sharply. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, brought new life to a Western culture that seemed increasingly mannered, increasingly sterile. Russian music filled concert halls. Russian ballet drew superlatives from the most jaded critics. Russia was “discovered” as a land of simple peasant virtues by neo-Romantic intellectuals, and as a vital frontier by travellers eager to ride the newly completed Trans-Siberian Railway.

  This process inspired respect and generated anxiety. The degenerated barbarians of de moribus ruthenorum posed less of a threat by far than a Kulturvolk with a million-man army and an economic system that bade fair in the coming decades finally to take advantage of a seemingly inexhaustible base of natural resources.

  Attitudes towards Russia were also influenced by the actions of two specific pressure groups. The Baltic German community increasingly described itself as victims of Russification and revolution. Particularly in the aftermath of events in 1905–06, its image of Russia was of a colossus in its death throes, whose convulsions bade fair to bring down the rest of Europe as well. From a different perspective, an increasing number of Russian students and political exiles described a tyrannical autocracy determined to crush whatever sparks of freedom and dignity remained to its people in the aftermath of the Black Hundreds.

  Neither the Baits nor the émigrés had anything like a general constituency in Germany. Liberals distrusted one, conservatives and anti-Semites the other. Both communities, however, contributed to a general sense that it was increasingly necessary to re-evaluate Germany’s position, in particular her military position, relative to Russia.74

  Historically, military intelligence work had been neglected in Germany, with officers avoiding it as a professional dead end. What intelligence efforts existed were primarily directed against France. For information about Russia the German army relied primarily on its attachés and military plenipotentiaries in St. Petersburg, and on Austrian sources. Efforts to build a modern intelligence network in the east encountered hostility from local civil authorities. The Prussian ministry of the interior disliked using royal officials for any kind of intelligence work. Corps commanders resented any interference with their authority. Schlieffen was relatively uninterested in the subject. As late as 1906, Prussian War Minister Karl von Einem insisted that no one could maintain relationships with spies, traitors, and similar disreputable characters without damaging his own character. Not until Moltke became chief did the intelligence branch of the general staff receive consistent support from the highest quarters.

  Intelligence work in Russia was a challenge. The country’s size and backwardness meant foreigners were relatively conspicuous. The archetypical nineteenth-century gentleman agent posing as a tourist or commercial traveller was correspondingly handicapped, particularly given the relatively rigid enforcement of passport and residence regulations in the tsar’s empire. This meant developing and cultivating Russian sources. In 1906, Captain Walter Nicolai was assigned to Königsberg as senior intelligence officer of I Corps. He was thirty-three, bright, assertive, and a tireless worker. It was Nicolai’s contention that good intelligence officers avoided isolated coups and bravura pieces, working instead to establish a total picture of their target’s capabilities. After his routine reassignment in 1910, intelligence officers of the army corps on the eastern frontier followed the pattern he established, concentrating on collecting and processing large quantities of low-level information. But what did the data mean? Some reports described carelessness, incompetence, drunkenness. Others presented changes in doctrine, training, and command that suggested enhanced vitality in the Russian military system. Were the changes mere ephemera in a Russia ultimately unable to modernize? Could Germany risk that assumption? French behavior suggested that the scope of the Franco-Russian alliance had expanded significantly since 1908. The developing armed strength of the Balkan states, the shattering of Turkey’s forces, and the continued weakness of Austria—all combined to enhance the danger of underestimating Russia.75

  The Imperial German army was confident in its particular blend of human and material elements. It expected to defeat its enemies quickly and decisively. But in the first years of the new century military technology had not yet progressed so far that combat strength could not legitimately be reckoned in the traditional material form of sabers, bayonets, and guns. Nor had recent wars demonstrated beyond doubt just which intangible military virtues were most useful. Russian stolidity and endurance, German dash and initiative, might well cancel each other. Nor could German planners afford to forget a major lesson of the Russo-Japanese War. The Japanese, foreign observers generally agreed, were far superior man for man to their adversaries in enthusiasm, dash, tactical skill—all the qualities on which the German army prided itself. Yet the Japanese army bled itself white against the Russian colossus at Port Arthur, LiaoYang, and Mukden. By war’s end it was virtually crippled by its positive qualities.

  The failure of Russia’s military reforms are clearer by far from a half-century’s hindsight than they appeared in 1912. Internal criticisms of the army’s shortcomings can be taken as positive: the Russian military establishment was anything but complacent in the years between 1905 and 1914. British observers, with less of an axe to grind than their French counterparts, continued to be impressed with Russia’s recovery after 1905.76 Germany’s generals, moreover, were not academic structuralists. Everything in their experience since the Wars of Liberation suggested that social organization, military ef
ficiency, and victory in battle did not follow one another in anything resembling logical progression. On the contrary, armies had the potential to introduce significant reforms within existing institutional frameworks. Armies had the ability to make good the failings of the systems that committed them to battle. German soldiers were aware that the French and Austrians had come closer to altering the destiny of Nineteenth-century Europe on the battlefield than was generally realized. And even marginal improvements in Russia’s military performance meant an exponential increase in the threat she posed. A skillful middleweight boxer’s chances against a clumsy, untutored heavyweight diminish significantly once his opponent assimilates a few pointers on footwork and timing.

  As for Russia’s economic position, its weaknesses were hardly unfamiliar in a Germany whose businessmen and financiers were so heavily involved in her development. But no one of consequence anywhere in Europe expected any future war to last long enough for anything but the resources on hand to influence the outcome. The exponentially greater output of German farms and factories meant nothing if the tsar’s armies delivered a knockout punch in the first round. Positive discrepancies between a state’s armed force and the economic infrastructure sustaining it should generate anxiety among that state’s neighbors. Fighting men can seize wealth easier than wealth can buy fighting men. The notion that economically limited states would spend themselves into bankruptcy competing with their neighbors proved an expensive delusion in the 1930s as Germany, Italy, and Japan demonstrated the military potential of unbalanced economies.

  IV

  The crisis of 1912 wound down, like so many of its predecessors, in a flurry of relieved correspondence. On December 17, the first session of the great powers’ conference on the Balkans opened in London—a conference characterized by increasing cooperation between Britain and Germany. The mood in Moscow, according to the German consul, was by no means warlike. Everyone had expected things to go wrong with the mobilization, and they did. The Warsaw military district began discharging its time-expired men in March, 1913. The only overt sign of hostilities came from the frontier district of Taurowitz, where local officials reported suspicious lights and noises that could only come from a Russian airship. The Landrat responded by ordering the gendarmerie to try and force down the alien flying machine when next it appeared.77

  As for the mobilization that triggered the anxiety, Sukhomlinov was at pains to tell the German military attaché that everything was Sazonov’s fault. The war ministry, he declared, had informed the foreign office as early as May, 1912, of its plans to hold a practice mobilization and assumed the German government had been appropriately notified. His surprise at discovering the contrary appeared genuine enough to convince the attaché. The Russian ambassador to Berlin took meticulous pains to report to the German foreign office the dates of projected call-ups of reservists in the Kiev and Warsaw districts during 1913. By October of that year, the Warsaw consulate quoted General Alexei Brusilov, the military district’s deputy commander, to the familiar effect that many senior Russian officers would welcome better relations with Germany. Only decrepit Austria would not be welcome in a new alliance.78

  Rhetorical good will did not obscure objective military developments. In October, 1912, Germany’s admiralty staff credited Russia with the capacity to transport, without special measures, a division-sized force from the Baltic ports of Riga and Libau to a Pomeranian coast German mobilization plans left stripped of all but token forces. Though Russia was not likely to run such a risk unless the Royal Navy first destroyed the German battle fleet, the potential nevertheless existed. It loomed even larger in the light of Russian proposals to build a modern Baltic fleet around new squadrons of dreadnoughts and battle cruisers.79

  As for the Russian army, its very shortcomings were a paradoxical advantage. A less-prepared force could learn more from its mistakes than one at the peak of efficiency. The recent issuing of a set of regulations for the period before mobilization was strongly suggestive. Its measures and procedures could be an important guide to Russia’s behavior in any future crises. Just as important, it indicated a commitment to overcoming Russia’s most obvious weakness, her cumbersome mobilization.80 In November, 1913, Moltke submitted a lengthy report to the foreign office insisting that practice mobilizations of the kind Russia regularly staged were extremely difficult to tell from the real thing. Should the diplomatic situation be at all tense, even if the call-up of reservists and the retention of time-expired men were routine exercises, Germany might be constrained to implement its own mobilization, with corresponding consequences.81

  The Russian army was far from perfect. Its maneuvers in 1913 were “free,” with commanders able to operate virtually at will within broad guidelines. The result was a series of bitter quarrels among the generals, requiring the frequent intervention of the maneuver directors. A significant number of favorable situations were missed through what the German attaché described as an “astonishing” lack of initiative. The Russians seemed embarrassed enough by the proceedings that they kept the French observers as far out of the way as possible. Yet at the same time the spirit and discipline of the troops appeared excellent. Even papers critical of the government were praising improvements in training. New French loans provided up to a half-million francs a year for the construction of strategic railway lines in western Russia. In October the authorized peacetime strength of the Russian army was raised by yet another half-million men. The Duma voted special grants to increase the artillery and enlarge the army’s munitions reserve. The German foreign office was receiving reports of new cartridge factories designed to work twenty-four-hour shifts. The British military attaché calculated that Russia’s defense expenditures had increased by 41.5 percent since 1908.82

  The general staff’s annual report on the major alterations in the Russian army during 1913 altered its internal structure. The section on finances, economics, and politics, placed at the end of earlier versions, headed this one. Russia, the document concluded, had emerged from the Balkan crisis without having to borrow money or increase taxes. Yet her budget had grown by 660 million marks, 230 million of them earmarked for defense. Russia currently seemed more involved in Persia and China than in the Balkans—a reasonable result of her disappointment with the League. But this was a political decision, and as such subject to reversal. A potential adversary’s capacities are best judged independently of her probable intentions. And Russia’s capacities were continuing to grow.83 The war ministry had once again decided to retain its time-expired men for three additional months. The public explanation was that the continued shortage of noncommissioned officers required using the older soldiers to train the recruits. What would be next year’s excuse?

  Moltke was increasingly concerned at the freedom of strategic action Russia would have in any future war should Austria fail to mount the offensive promised by Conrad in 1909. The Russian army could advance with its whole strength against either one of its opponents, and the German sector would be by far the weakest. If the Russians crossed the Vistula and moved on Berlin, troops must be withdrawn from the west to meet the threat, whatever the risk of disaster on both fronts. Russia could also delay operations until her armies were fully mobilized, then advance against both allies at once in overwhelming force. The German general staff in the spring of 1914 estimated that Russia would be able to produce 50 active and 13 reserve divisions for the European front as early as the eighteenth day of mobilization. And when fully mobilized, the Russian army was expected to reach the awesome total of 59 active and 35 reserve divisions, 12 rifle brigades, and 35 cavalry divisions.84

  In the face of these numbers Germany’s eastern commitment remained unchanged. The wisdom of this policy was frequently challenged after 1918. No less an authority than Ludwig Beck, chief of staff of Hitler’s Wehrmacht from 1933 to 1938, argued that German strategic planning should have allowed for only a defensive screen against France, directing the bulk of the Second Reich’s forces against a Rus
sia that in fact had proved so vulnerable. This line of argument has subsequently been repeated by scholars arguing that Germany planned and initiated in 1914 a war for European hegemony rather than a limited conflict.85 From an alternate perspective, in the context of a generally accepted belief in the superiority of offensive operations, this vast Russian strength seemed to demand some kind of direct reaction. Otherwise, the war on the eastern front might well be lost in its first days. The German general staff under Schlieffen and Moltke had maintained after 1905 a contingency plan for a “Major Deployment East,” the Grosse Ostaufmarsch. Its designers were, however, convinced that such an operation could only be implemented in the context of not merely British, but French neutrality. After 1909 it seemed increasingly clear that this was an unlikely possibility. And this forced the general staff to make a hard decision, one vital for Germany’s security and existence. Which enemy offensive was likely to be the most immediately dangerous? Which opponent could be the most rapidly defeated? In 1912 the answers seemed the same as in 1905. Germany must above all maintain the initiative, mounting its offensive before a French attack that was as sure to come as the Russian one.

  This in turn put increasing pressure on the corps headquarters, which were responsible for their own mobilizations, and on the railway section of the general staff, which had to move the armies as quickly and smoothly as possible. Maintaining two separate, up-to-date war plans aimed in opposite directions seemed a diffusion of effort not merely undesirable but dangerous. In early 1913 Moltke ordered not that the Grosse Ostaufmarsch be abandoned, but that it no longer be annually revised. Existing plans were to be preserved for implementation should circumstances change.86