The Kaiser's Army: The Politics of Military Technology in Germany during the Machine Age, 1870-1918

322 Pages·2001·4.41 MB·English

by  Eric Dorn Brose

THE KAISER’S ARMY
THE POLITICS OF MILITARY TECHNOLOGY
,
IN GERMANY DURING THE MACHINE AGE
1870–1918
Eric Dorn Brose
1
2001
1
Oxford NewYork
Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota´ BuenosAires CapeTown
Chennai DaresSalaam Delhi Florence HongKong Istanbul Karachi
Kolkata KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Mumbai
Nairobi Paris Sa˜oPaulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw
andassociatedcompaniesin
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright(cid:1) 2001 by Eric Dorn Brose
PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc.
198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NewYork10016
OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress,Inc.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,
storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,
electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise,
withoutthepriorpermissionofOxfordUniversityPress.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Brose,EricDorn,1948–
TheKaiser’sarmy:thepoliticsofmilitarytechnologyin
GermanyduringtheMachineAge,1870–1918/EricDornBrose.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0–19–514335–3
1.Germany.Heer—History—19thcentury. 2.Germany.Heer—History—20thcentury.
3.Militaryartandscience—Technologicalinnovations. I.Title.
UA712.B762000
355'.00943'0934—dc21 00-061121
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
onacid-freepaper
contents
Introduction, 3
1. Old Soldiers, 7
2. Queen of the Battlefield, 26
3. Between Persistence and Change, 43
4. The Plans of Schlieffen, 69
5. Past and Present Collide, 85
6. No Frederick the Great, 112
7. Toward the Great War, 138
8. Rolling the Iron Dice, 183
9. Denouement, 226
Notes, 241
Bibliography and Abbreviations, 293
Index, 305
The Kaiser’s Army
This page intentionally left blank
introduction
T
his is a book about human and institutionalresponsestotech-
nological change. It deals with times of peaceandtimesofwar.The
institution in question is the German Army. The peacetimeinques-
tion is 1871 to 1914. The people in question are the German offi-
cers who faced a dizzying succession of new technologies that chal-
lenged their notions of how men shouldfight. Thewarsinquestion
are those that created the German Kaiserreich before 1871andthe
Great War that finally destroyed it in 1918.
The German Army was so successful by 1871 that other powers
feared it. It was still highly respected in 1914, but the planning
legacy of Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the Prussian-German Gen-
eral Staff from 1891 to 1906,didnotproduceanothervictory.Con-
temporaries, followed by historians, have debated the reasons for
this ever since. A favorite explanation of Schlieffen’s disciples was
that his successor, Helmuth von Moltke (the younger), botchedthe
master’s work by weakening the armies that were to sweep through
Belgium and surround French forces.1 They did not mention the
violation of Belgian neutrality or the provocation of both Belgium
and Britain or the dubious diplomacy that landed Germany in a
two-front war. Another scholarly hypothesis assumes recklessness
and failed diplomacy but focuses on the unreadiness of a German
Army allegedly too weighted down with aristocratic traditions to
adopt expeditiously mechanical devices of destruction.2 This thesis,
associated mainly with Bernd Schulte, has come under the fire of
4 the kaiser’s army
other historians like Dieter Storz, who reject the idea that the
German Army was an aristocratic, antimodern relic of a backward-
looking era.3 This school sees the German Army as not only less
conservative than other European armies of the time but also, in
some respects, very progressive.
Ibecameinterestedinthisdebateafterwritingabookthatdeals
with similar controversies in the Prussian Army before 1848.4 From
the perspective of my research, as well as that of others who had
written about the earlier nineteenth century,5 it seemed odd that
soldiers who had come to accept modern industrial technology on
the battlefield would give way to a generation of warriors that dis-
daineditsuse.Suspecting,however,thattheImperialGermanArmy
may have relapsed and fought another great controversy over tech-
nology,Ibecamedeterminedtosortthingsout.Sixyears—andnine
archives—later, the findings can now be presented.
The key lies in the decades between 1871 and 1900—years less
intensely considered by other historians. Drawn more and more to
this period as my research progressed, I found that feudingfactions
intheinfantry,cavalry,andartilleryhadfoughtoverthetacticaland
technological lessons of the Wars of Unification (1866–1870).
Those who emphasized the superiority of man and moraleoverma-
chine and firepower prevailed by the late 1870s—to the army’sdet-
riment. Regulations and majority prejudicescalledfortightinfantry
formations and shock attack tactics, large-unit cavalry charges fea-
turingwavesofmassedhorsemen,andoffensivefieldartillerytactics
that maximized mobility and valor while neglecting firepower and
marksmanship.Heavyartillerywasrelegatedtofortressesandallbut
ignored. It is not that the horrendous casualties of recentwarswere
forgotten by the dominant groups; rather, the offensive combat ex-
perience of 1866–1870 was interpreted from the heady, arrogant
perspective of overconfident victors. These proud soldiers spawned
a persistent tactical-technological tradition.
Russia’s disastrous offensive tactics in the Russo-Turkish War of
1877–1878 aided the gradual ascent of more prudent and prag-
matic factions in every branch of the German Army. The advent of
magazine repeating rifles, smokeless powder, nitrogen-based high
explosives, and modern heavy artillery in the 1880s and 1890s ac-
celerated this trend, as seen by new regulations that called for dis-
persed infantry formations and small-unit cavalry tactics. The pro-
cess of overcoming nineteenth-century traditions, however, was
controversial, hard fought, and painfully slow. After 1900, a second
waveofnewtechnologies—includingthemachinegun;rapid-firing,
introduction 5
shielded cannons; heavy-caliber mortar; rigid and nonrigidairships;
and the airplane—exacerbated and intensified these factional de-
bates and feuds as advocates and opponentsofthenewdevicescon-
frontedeachotherandarguedovertherelatedtactical,operational,
and organizational changes made necessary by their adoption. Al-
thoughanaccuratepictureoftheGermanArmyin1914isprobably
closer to Storz than to Schulte, the former’s image of calm, profes-
sional assessment of technology and steady progress toward change
and reform does little justice to the historical reality.6
This became clear during the high summer of 1914 as the
German Army strove for victory on the western frontiers. The cam-
paign that Schlieffen had planned—and the younger Moltke exe-
cutedinsomewhatmodifiedform—hadareasonablechanceofsuc-
cess despite the riskyprovocationofBelgiumandEngland.Itfailed,
however, largely because of the residual effects of four decades of
pride and stubborn adherence to the old ways.7 The legacy of tac-
ticalandtechnologicalbreakdownin1914wasabloody4-yearstale-
mateandavainsearchforthenewtacticsandtechniquesthatwould
end it.
It isimportanttoexaminethesemilitary-technologicalcontroversies
in a wider sociopolitical context. As we shall see in the early chap-
ters, these struggles were definitely influenced by the politics of so-
cial class. Thus, the army’s conservative drift after 1871 fits nicely
with those academic models that posit a Prussian-Germanstatecon-
trolled by noblemen who resisted change. But there are problems
with this model. The aristocratic state had been breaking down for
decades as members of the middle class pushed upward into the
citadels of status and power. The army reflected these trends, es-
pecially in the meteoric rise of its artillery branches. Whereas there
was definite assimilation of bourgeois soldiers by the nobility,apro-
cess known as “feudalization,” there was also a certain degree of
“embourgeoisement,” or middle-class encroachment on noble turf.
Both processes, however, worked against the army factions favoring
modernization. Later, both classes recoiled defensively as the work-
ing class protested its plight. The rise of the workers affected the
tactical-technological debate, too, for some very highly placed sol-
diers argued that maintaining older shock tactics was necessary for
fighting in the streets if revolution were to break out.
It is also important to realize that the Prussian-German Army
was a state within a state—and a fragmented one at that. It wassplit
among its infantry, cavalry, and artillery branches and, along an-
6 the kaiser’s army
other plane, among its political-functional units: the War Ministry,
the General Staff, the Military Cabinet, and after 1888 the Imperial
Headquarters.Departmentalismworsenedduringthereignofapsy-
chologically unstable William II (1888–1918) because different
branches and divisions found no firm, consistent, or effective guid-
ance from the top. Internal struggles over technologies that were
rapidly changing and evolving must be placed in the context ofthis
rampant departmentalism and weak leadership. Thus, there were
feuds over weaponry and technology-related tactics, strategy, and
organizationthatpittedcavalryagainstinfantry,fieldartilleryagainst
heavy artillery, and the General Staff against the War Ministry—all
made worse by the last kaiser. This feuding was highly significant
because it reduced Germany’s military preparedness, especially in
the decade before 1914, when bitter disagreements erupted over
machine guns, airships, artillery, and levels of ammunition.
These disputes spilled over into society when a “right-wing” op-
position centered in the Pan-German League and the Defense
League charged that the army wasnotprepared.8Theseaccusations
ofmilitaryunreadinesswentbeyondtroopstrengthtomodernweap-
onry—rightists cried out that army leadership had not procured
enoughmachinegunsandairplanes.Notsurprisingly,theyhadvery
close friends and allies among army dissidents. These relationships,
bridging army and society, point to a serious “legitimacy crisis” in
the Kaiserreich. Rightly or wrongly, the New Right associated the
last kaiser with the side of the army that was fighting change and
resisting the seeming inevitability of modern weaponry. WilliamII’s
relegation to the background during the ugly years of machinewar-
fare from 1915 to 1918 seemed only fitting to technologicalenthu-
siasts in and out of the army.
This introduction skims the surface of a vast literature on the
kaiser’sarmy.Readerswillfindmorecompletecitationsinthechap-
ters that follow. For now, I believe, the stage is adequately set. It is
time to turn back the clock and open the curtains on a bygone era
that was struggling, much as our own, to brace for the future by
learning from the past.