Conclusion- part one
The finest theories and most minute plans often crumble. Complex systems fall by the wayside. Parade ground formations disappear. Our splendidly trained leaders vanish. The good men which we had at the beginning are gone. Then raw truth is before us.
–Charles O’Daniel
After all this, the Germans almost pulled it off. The great envelopment could have happened on August 23 around the area of Mons. It did not come down to the number of divisions that had been assigned to the right wing. It did not come down to the amount of cavalry on the right wing. It did not come down to an envelopment east or west of Paris; this still happened in Belgium. It did not take forty days. The Germans were able to overcome all of the technical problems associated with Liège. They were also able to overcome the problems associated with letting the Belgian field army get away. They were able to compensate for a complete lack of strategic reconnaissance. They were able to determine methods that would compensate for a lack of communications in their force structure. Had HKK2 swung around into the rear area of the BEF near Mons, World War I might very well have taken a completely different course. Indeed, that result might have been certain.
So are we to conclude that all was well and, without changing anything, the Germans were at the point of complete victory? Given the obvious flaws in the planning and execution of the invasion pointed out in this book, it should be acknowledged that the German near success was the product of a great deal of luck. But luck is in good part the residue of design. And this was the Imperial German Army—an organization fundamentally unlikely to trust blindly to luck. We are therefore constantly plagued by trying to understand why such a flawed plan was allowed. Why was a plan with this many obvious problems and pitfalls allowed to pass for years as the best the GGS could come up with? Hindsight asserts there should be some record that the GGS objected vehemently to this entire concept. Instead, it appears that when the GGS could not solve some questionable aspect of the plan, the accepted solutions were silence and overlooking.
This is not acceptable staff work, let alone something normative in one of the premier staff organizations in the world. Presenting a plan that overlooks or discounts major obstacles to success is by definition risky. Consider the confederacy’s Gettysburg campaign, the Third Reich’s operation Barbarossa, or SHAEF’s “bridge too far” strike for Arnhem and the Rhine in 1944. Imperial Germany’s planners should have been able to see—or if necessary forced themselves to see—the relatively obvious ways that the projected invasion of, and sweep through, Belgium could be compromised. If this plan was not the best project or idea, somethingneeded to be developed and presented that had a reasonable chance of success. So, what mindset allowed the GGS to press forward—to internalize, indeed to normalize, this approach to the war plan on which Germany’s fate depended?Why would Moltke accept such seemingly obvious flaws? What went on between Moltke and the planners?
Was this some sort of solipsistic syndrome? General Staff officers were trained to come up with similar solutions to a presented problem. A near-inevitable consequence of that is an institutional bias towards “the correct solution.” If this is allowed to grow unfettered, it can become a matter of dogmatic acceptance of whatever the General Staff officers tell each other. When the approved solution becomes established, the result might be called, borrowing a familiar movie title song, “The 3:10 to Yuma.” Everyone wants to ride the train, but nobody is quite sure why. No one is say anything questioning the journey or the destination. Passengers follow one another blindly. Why are they going to Yuma? When the 3:10 whistles, take that train! Might this be the reason the GGS was allowed to present such a ramshackle solution? A form of group think? A rubicon mindset crossing a point of no return? Did someone, or enough someones, say that the Handstreichmight work and so it became an accepted methodology? The overall plan revolved around force destruction of the allied armies: Schlieffen’s Cannae. Was the GGS capable of so fundamentally missing the objective and instead focusing on what seemed the less formidable, more familiar mechanics of deploying and moving two armies through a small gap? At some point, did clearing the gap at Liège become the primary objective of the invasion plan, instead of destruction of the enemy force as intended by Schlieffen and directed by Moltke?
Why did the staff fall into the trap of wishful thinking, of assuming away problems? What would have been the response if the four railroad tunnels between the border and the city of Liège had been properly demolished? The German army had no reliable method for seizing these tunnels, no commandos or spetsnaz. Securing them was on anybody’s essential task list. What about the Belgian field army? What if it initially concentrated to defend the west side of the river Meuse? Why were the defensive forces at the Liège estimated to be so small as to be token, when reliable information existed that they were larger?The Germans knew for five days that the Belgian Third Division had already mobilized and was waiting in Liège! They knew the areas between the forts were fortified. They knew the bridge at Visé had been blown up the night before. The extent of the total damage to the exploded tunnels was unknown. What mindsets led the GGS to internalize, indeed to normalize, this approach to the war plan on which Germany’s fate depended?Why would Moltke accept such seemingly obvious flaws?
Whether or not the GGS displayed solipsistic planning behavior, Moltke believed his plan would work. What did Moltke expect? He allowed the GGS to present him with an absolutely horrible plan. We have demonstrated both that the plan was risky and that only Moltke knew in the War Council that the plan was significantly flawed. He did not tell the kaiser. Did he expect that the Belgians would agree to the ultimatum? If that was his belief, it went against everything his soldier’s training and general staff experience should have taught him. Nevertheless, he thought it would work:
However awkward it may be, the advance through Belgium must therefore take place without the violation of Dutch territory. This will hardly be possible unless Liège is in our hands. The fortress must therefore be taken at once. I think it possible to take it by a coup de main. Its salient forts are so unfavorably sited that they do not overlook the intervening country and cannot dominate it. I have had a reconnaissance made of all roads running through them into the center of the town, which has no ramparts [emphasis added]. An advance with several columns is possible without their being observed from the forts. Once our troops have entered the town, I believe that the forts will not bombard it but will probably capitulate. Everything depends on meticulous preparation and surprise. The enterprise is only possible if the attack is made at once, before the areas between the forts are fortified. It must therefore be undertaken by standing troops immediately [when] war is declared. The capture of a modern fortress by a coup de main would be something unprecedented in military history. But it can succeed and must be attempted, for the possession of Liège is the sine qua non of our advance. It is a bold venture whose accomplishment promises a great success. In any case, the heaviest artillery must be at hand, so that in case of failure we can take the fortress by storm. I believe the absence of an inner rampart will deliver the fortress into our hands.
For someone generally described and dismissed as a pessimist, Moltke in this case was surprisingly unbothered by worst-case scenarios. Was his intent to launch the Handstreichagainst Belgium and “hope” the Belgians would fold? After all, Germany had to mobilize for a full-scale war, and that would take some time. So perhaps that Handstreichwas his version of a medieval coup de mainlaunched as a forlorn hope—a long-shot gamble that might work. The chief of staff’s exact words were, “I think it is possible.”
