frontier. A strategy of interior lines of the kind that had been recommended by Jomini and regarded as perhaps
the
one most important device of all would thereby become impossible.
To Moltke, therefore, strategy remained what it had been from von Bülow on. It was, first, a question of moving large forces about in two-dimensional space so as to put them in the most favorable position for combat; and second, making use of the outcome of combat after it had taken place. Like du Picq, however, he realized that the rise of quick-firing weapons had caused the balance between offense and defense to change. To attack frontally in the face of rifles, such as the French Chassepots, which were sighted to 1,200 yards and capable of accurately firing six rounds a minute was suicide. Much better to look for the enemy’s flank and envelop him. In this way the deployment in width, which contemporary critics such as Friedrich Engels regarded as madness when it was used against Austria in 1866, was turned into a virtue. The enemy would be caught between armies coming from two, possibly three, directions, and be crushed between them. Moltke, in a letter he wrote to the historian Heinrich von Treitschke in 1873, called this “the highest feat which strategy can achieve.” Strategically speaking, Moltke intended his armies to take the offensive. Tactically the troops were supposed to use their firepower and remain on the defense, although in practice that order was not always obeyed.
To carry out the mobilization and coordinate the moves of his widely-dispersed forces Moltke made use of another new technical instrument, the telegraph. If only because the railways themselves could only be operated to maximum effect if the trains’ movements were carefully coordinated, wires and tracks tended to run in parallel. This enabled Moltke to implement his strategy of external lines
and
remain in control, previously an unheard-of feat. The contemporary telegraph was, however, a slow instrument. The fact that wiretapping had been practiced both during the American Civil War and in the Austrian-Prussian War required encryption and decryption procedures at both ends, slowing down the lines’ capacity. Again turning necessity into a virtue—the mark of a truly great general—Moltke devised his system of directives or
Weisungen
. He insisted that orders be short and only tell subordinate commanders what to do, but not how.
The system presupposed very good acquaintance and strong mutual trust between officers. That in turn meant that it was possible only thanks to that élite institution, the General Staff. The latter had its representatives in every major unit. In time it spread from the top down, until in 1936 the volume known as
Truppenfuehrung
(Commanding Troops) announced that “war demands the free
independen
t commitment of every soldier from the private to the general.” The result was a uniquely flexible, yet cohesive, war machine that was the envy of the world.
As already mentioned, unlike many of his eighteenth and nineteenth century predecessors Moltke never produced a “system.” He did, indeed, go on record as saying that strategy itself was but a “system of expedients.” War has a penchant for turning the victor into a fool, however, and post-1871 Imperial Germany was no exception. As Moltke himself noted during his later years—he was to remain in office until 1888, when he could barely any longer mount a horse—the younger generation at the General Staff did not possess their predecessors’ broad vision. Instead, possibly because of the attention they paid to the railways, an instrument regarded as the key to victory and requiring painstaking attention to detail, they tended to be technically-inclined and narrow minded. Nobody exemplified these tendencies more than the next writer with whom we must concern ourselves here, Alfred von Schlieffen. Born in 1833, in 1891 he was appointed chief of the General Staff. By that time
the
one most important device of all would thereby become impossible.
To Moltke, therefore, strategy remained what it had been from von Bülow on. It was, first, a question of moving large forces about in two-dimensional space so as to put them in the most favorable position for combat; and second, making use of the outcome of combat after it had taken place. Like du Picq, however, he realized that the rise of quick-firing weapons had caused the balance between offense and defense to change. To attack frontally in the face of rifles, such as the French Chassepots, which were sighted to 1,200 yards and capable of accurately firing six rounds a minute was suicide. Much better to look for the enemy’s flank and envelop him. In this way the deployment in width, which contemporary critics such as Friedrich Engels regarded as madness when it was used against Austria in 1866, was turned into a virtue. The enemy would be caught between armies coming from two, possibly three, directions, and be crushed between them. Moltke, in a letter he wrote to the historian Heinrich von Treitschke in 1873, called this “the highest feat which strategy can achieve.” Strategically speaking, Moltke intended his armies to take the offensive. Tactically the troops were supposed to use their firepower and remain on the defense, although in practice that order was not always obeyed.
To carry out the mobilization and coordinate the moves of his widely-dispersed forces Moltke made use of another new technical instrument, the telegraph. If only because the railways themselves could only be operated to maximum effect if the trains’ movements were carefully coordinated, wires and tracks tended to run in parallel. This enabled Moltke to implement his strategy of external lines
and
remain in control, previously an unheard-of feat. The contemporary telegraph was, however, a slow instrument. The fact that wiretapping had been practiced both during the American Civil War and in the Austrian-Prussian War required encryption and decryption procedures at both ends, slowing down the lines’ capacity. Again turning necessity into a virtue—the mark of a truly great general—Moltke devised his system of directives or
Weisungen
. He insisted that orders be short and only tell subordinate commanders what to do, but not how.
The system presupposed very good acquaintance and strong mutual trust between officers. That in turn meant that it was possible only thanks to that élite institution, the General Staff. The latter had its representatives in every major unit. In time it spread from the top down, until in 1936 the volume known as
Truppenfuehrung
(Commanding Troops) announced that “war demands the free
independen
t commitment of every soldier from the private to the general.” The result was a uniquely flexible, yet cohesive, war machine that was the envy of the world.
As already mentioned, unlike many of his eighteenth and nineteenth century predecessors Moltke never produced a “system.” He did, indeed, go on record as saying that strategy itself was but a “system of expedients.” War has a penchant for turning the victor into a fool, however, and post-1871 Imperial Germany was no exception. As Moltke himself noted during his later years—he was to remain in office until 1888, when he could barely any longer mount a horse—the younger generation at the General Staff did not possess their predecessors’ broad vision. Instead, possibly because of the attention they paid to the railways, an instrument regarded as the key to victory and requiring painstaking attention to detail, they tended to be technically-inclined and narrow minded. Nobody exemplified these tendencies more than the next writer with whom we must concern ourselves here, Alfred von Schlieffen. Born in 1833, in 1891 he was appointed chief of the General Staff. By that time
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