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Authors: Barbara W. Tuchman
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one—flexibility.
While the plan for maximum effort against France hardened, Moltke’s fears of Russia gradually lessened as his General Staff evolved a credo, based on a careful count of Russian railway mileage, that Russia would not be “ready” for war until 1916. This was confirmed in German minds by their spies’ reports of Russian remarks “that something was going to begin in 1916.”
In 1914 two events sharpened Germany’s readiness to a fine point. In April, England had begun naval talks with the Russians, and in June, Germany herself had completed the widening of the Kiel Canal, permitting her new dreadnoughts direct access from the North Sea to the Baltic. On learning of the Anglo-Russian talks, Moltke said in May during a visit to his Austrian opposite number, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorff, that from now on “any adjournment will have the effect of diminishing our chances of success.” Two weeks later, on June 1st, he said to Baron Eckhardstein, “We are ready, and the sooner the better for us.”
3
The Shadow of Sedan
G ENERAL DE C ASTELNAU , Deputy Chief of the French General Staff, was visited at the War Office one day in 1913 by the Military Governor of Lille, General Lebas, who came to protest the General Staff’s decision to abandon Lille as a fortified city. Situated ten miles from the Belgian border and forty miles inland from the Channel, Lille lay close to the path that an invading army would take if it came by way of Flanders. In answer to General Lebas’ plea for its defense, General de Castelnau spread out a map and measured with a ruler the distance from the German border to Lille by way of Belgium. The normal density of troops required for a vigorous offensive, he reminded his caller, was five or six to a meter. If the Germans extended themselves as far west as Lille, De Castelnau pointed out, they would be stretched out two to a meter.
“We’ll cut them in half!” he declared. The German active Army, he explained, could dispose of twenty-five corps, about a million men, on the Western Front. “Here, figure it out for yourself,” he said, handing Lebas the ruler. “If they come as far as Lille,” he repeated with sardonic satisfaction, “so much the better for us.”
French strategy did not ignore the threat of envelopment by a German right wing. On the contrary, the French General Staff believed that the stronger the Germans made their right wing, the correspondingly weaker they would leave their centerand left where the French Army planned to break through. French strategy turned its back to the Belgian frontier and its face to the Rhine. While the Germans were taking the long way around to fall upon the French flank, the French planned a two-pronged offensive that would smash through the German center and left on either side of the German fortified area at Metz and by victory there, sever the German right wing from its base, rendering it harmless. It was a bold plan born of an idea—an idea inherent in the recovery of France from the humiliation of Sedan.
Under the peace terms dictated by Germany at Versailles in 1871, France had suffered amputation, indemnity, and occupation. Even a triumphal march by the German Army down the Champs Elysées was among the terms imposed. It took place along a silent, black-draped avenue empty of onlookers. At Bordeaux, when the French Assembly ratified the peace terms, the deputies of Alsace-Lorraine walked from the hall in tears, leaving behind their protest: “We proclaim forever the right of Alsatians and Lorrainers to remain members of the French nation. We swear for ourselves, our constituents, our children and our children’s children to claim that right for all time, by every means, in the face of the usurper.”
The annexation, though opposed by Bismarck, who said it would be the Achilles’ heel of the new German Empire, was required by the elder Moltke and his Staff. They insisted, and convinced the Emperor, that the
While the plan for maximum effort against France hardened, Moltke’s fears of Russia gradually lessened as his General Staff evolved a credo, based on a careful count of Russian railway mileage, that Russia would not be “ready” for war until 1916. This was confirmed in German minds by their spies’ reports of Russian remarks “that something was going to begin in 1916.”
In 1914 two events sharpened Germany’s readiness to a fine point. In April, England had begun naval talks with the Russians, and in June, Germany herself had completed the widening of the Kiel Canal, permitting her new dreadnoughts direct access from the North Sea to the Baltic. On learning of the Anglo-Russian talks, Moltke said in May during a visit to his Austrian opposite number, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorff, that from now on “any adjournment will have the effect of diminishing our chances of success.” Two weeks later, on June 1st, he said to Baron Eckhardstein, “We are ready, and the sooner the better for us.”
3
The Shadow of Sedan
G ENERAL DE C ASTELNAU , Deputy Chief of the French General Staff, was visited at the War Office one day in 1913 by the Military Governor of Lille, General Lebas, who came to protest the General Staff’s decision to abandon Lille as a fortified city. Situated ten miles from the Belgian border and forty miles inland from the Channel, Lille lay close to the path that an invading army would take if it came by way of Flanders. In answer to General Lebas’ plea for its defense, General de Castelnau spread out a map and measured with a ruler the distance from the German border to Lille by way of Belgium. The normal density of troops required for a vigorous offensive, he reminded his caller, was five or six to a meter. If the Germans extended themselves as far west as Lille, De Castelnau pointed out, they would be stretched out two to a meter.
“We’ll cut them in half!” he declared. The German active Army, he explained, could dispose of twenty-five corps, about a million men, on the Western Front. “Here, figure it out for yourself,” he said, handing Lebas the ruler. “If they come as far as Lille,” he repeated with sardonic satisfaction, “so much the better for us.”
French strategy did not ignore the threat of envelopment by a German right wing. On the contrary, the French General Staff believed that the stronger the Germans made their right wing, the correspondingly weaker they would leave their centerand left where the French Army planned to break through. French strategy turned its back to the Belgian frontier and its face to the Rhine. While the Germans were taking the long way around to fall upon the French flank, the French planned a two-pronged offensive that would smash through the German center and left on either side of the German fortified area at Metz and by victory there, sever the German right wing from its base, rendering it harmless. It was a bold plan born of an idea—an idea inherent in the recovery of France from the humiliation of Sedan.
Under the peace terms dictated by Germany at Versailles in 1871, France had suffered amputation, indemnity, and occupation. Even a triumphal march by the German Army down the Champs Elysées was among the terms imposed. It took place along a silent, black-draped avenue empty of onlookers. At Bordeaux, when the French Assembly ratified the peace terms, the deputies of Alsace-Lorraine walked from the hall in tears, leaving behind their protest: “We proclaim forever the right of Alsatians and Lorrainers to remain members of the French nation. We swear for ourselves, our constituents, our children and our children’s children to claim that right for all time, by every means, in the face of the usurper.”
The annexation, though opposed by Bismarck, who said it would be the Achilles’ heel of the new German Empire, was required by the elder Moltke and his Staff. They insisted, and convinced the Emperor, that the
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