the latter, far from being an obscure department in the
Kriegsministerium
, had become the most prestigious single institution in Germany with overall responsibility for preparing the land army and leading it into war.
From 1893, the year in which Germany and Russia concluded an alliance, Schlieffen’s problem was to prepare his country for war on two fronts. The basic assumption was that Germany, was the smaller power caught between two others which, together, were stronger than it was. Hence it could not afford to remain on the defensive, leading to the abovementioned debate concerning the respective virtues of annihilation versus attrition. But against which of the two enemies should the Germans concentrate first? Schlieffen decided on France, suggesting that its capacity for rapid mobilization made it into the more dangerous enemy. Moreover, geographical circumstances—compared with Russia, France was small—would permit the delivery of a rapid knock-out blow. Like his late nineteenth century contemporaries, however, Schlieffen was well aware that advancing technology, including, by now, barbed wire, mines, machine guns, and cannon provided with recoil mechanisms, favored the defense. Furthermore, the French border had been fortified. Hence he decided that an outflanking movement was needed; and, after considering a left hook and a right one, finally settled on an advance through Belgium.
Having ruminated on all this for years, and having prepared the great Plan which will be forever associated with his name, on 1 January 1906 Schlieffen stepped down from his post. In the same year he produced his theoretical “masterpiece,” a three-page article entitled “Cannae” after the battle fought by Hannibal against the Romans in 216 BC. From this as well as his other essays, especially “The Warlord” and “War in the Modern Age,” one may form an idea of the way he, as the general in charge of the most powerful and most sophisticated military machine the world had ever seen, understood war. Tactics and logistics apart (he never showed much interest in either of them) war was the clash of large armies (he never showed any interest in navies) maneuvering against each other in two dimensional space. The objective of this maneuvering was to annihilate (
vernichten
) the other side with the greatest possible dispatch. Anything else, though perhaps admissible under particular circumstances, was considered a lesser achievement.
To annihilate the enemy it was not enough to simply push him back by applying pressure to his front. Given the superior power, under modern conditions, of both the tactical and the strategic defense such a procedure would merely result in an “ordinary” victory after which the enemy, though forced to retreat, would be able to reorganize and renew the struggle. The trick, therefore, was to hold the enemy in front while taking him in flank and driving him off his lines of communications and, ideally, forcing him to surrender. That was what Moltke had succeeded in doing at Sedan in 1870. To Schlieffen’s credit, it should be said that he did not believe it was simply a question of geometry. An alert enemy would not allow himself to be outflanked easily. Therefore, he had to be
enticed
into making the wrong moves. “For a great victory to be won the two opposing commanders must cooperate, each one in his way (
auf seiner Art
). To a critic who once told him that the art of war was at bottom a simple one, he responded: “Yes, all it turns on is this stupid question of winning.”
With Schlieffen, we have arrived at the end of the “long” nineteenth century. It started auspiciously enough with von Bülow and Berenhorst presenting their opposed interpretations of the factors which made for victory. Very soon afterwards Jomini and Clausewitz, each in his own way, rid themselves of “the ancients” and tried to penetrate the secret of Napoleonic warfare. Clausewitz in particular combined an
Kriegsministerium
, had become the most prestigious single institution in Germany with overall responsibility for preparing the land army and leading it into war.
From 1893, the year in which Germany and Russia concluded an alliance, Schlieffen’s problem was to prepare his country for war on two fronts. The basic assumption was that Germany, was the smaller power caught between two others which, together, were stronger than it was. Hence it could not afford to remain on the defensive, leading to the abovementioned debate concerning the respective virtues of annihilation versus attrition. But against which of the two enemies should the Germans concentrate first? Schlieffen decided on France, suggesting that its capacity for rapid mobilization made it into the more dangerous enemy. Moreover, geographical circumstances—compared with Russia, France was small—would permit the delivery of a rapid knock-out blow. Like his late nineteenth century contemporaries, however, Schlieffen was well aware that advancing technology, including, by now, barbed wire, mines, machine guns, and cannon provided with recoil mechanisms, favored the defense. Furthermore, the French border had been fortified. Hence he decided that an outflanking movement was needed; and, after considering a left hook and a right one, finally settled on an advance through Belgium.
Having ruminated on all this for years, and having prepared the great Plan which will be forever associated with his name, on 1 January 1906 Schlieffen stepped down from his post. In the same year he produced his theoretical “masterpiece,” a three-page article entitled “Cannae” after the battle fought by Hannibal against the Romans in 216 BC. From this as well as his other essays, especially “The Warlord” and “War in the Modern Age,” one may form an idea of the way he, as the general in charge of the most powerful and most sophisticated military machine the world had ever seen, understood war. Tactics and logistics apart (he never showed much interest in either of them) war was the clash of large armies (he never showed any interest in navies) maneuvering against each other in two dimensional space. The objective of this maneuvering was to annihilate (
vernichten
) the other side with the greatest possible dispatch. Anything else, though perhaps admissible under particular circumstances, was considered a lesser achievement.
To annihilate the enemy it was not enough to simply push him back by applying pressure to his front. Given the superior power, under modern conditions, of both the tactical and the strategic defense such a procedure would merely result in an “ordinary” victory after which the enemy, though forced to retreat, would be able to reorganize and renew the struggle. The trick, therefore, was to hold the enemy in front while taking him in flank and driving him off his lines of communications and, ideally, forcing him to surrender. That was what Moltke had succeeded in doing at Sedan in 1870. To Schlieffen’s credit, it should be said that he did not believe it was simply a question of geometry. An alert enemy would not allow himself to be outflanked easily. Therefore, he had to be
enticed
into making the wrong moves. “For a great victory to be won the two opposing commanders must cooperate, each one in his way (
auf seiner Art
). To a critic who once told him that the art of war was at bottom a simple one, he responded: “Yes, all it turns on is this stupid question of winning.”
With Schlieffen, we have arrived at the end of the “long” nineteenth century. It started auspiciously enough with von Bülow and Berenhorst presenting their opposed interpretations of the factors which made for victory. Very soon afterwards Jomini and Clausewitz, each in his own way, rid themselves of “the ancients” and tried to penetrate the secret of Napoleonic warfare. Clausewitz in particular combined an
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