Today for Gus’ Gear, as I am away from the collection, I have another book that I have been planning on doing a report on. It is another work of our host Col. Joseph Robinson in collaboration with Dennis Showalter and COL. Janet Robinson titled “The German Failure in Belgium, August 1914.” It is a continuation of the book “Handstreich” and follows the German campaign through Belgium.
This work gives a very personal narrative from the point of view of a number of German soldiers and units. It helps the reader understand how a mighty power like Imperial German could do so poorly against a much smaller force. We have been taught through the past 100 years, that Germany had some of the best militaries and planners, but on close study, it becomes apparent that the German war machine was crippled by a habit of planning the best case without anticipating what could go wrong.
It is my opinion that Germany lost the war in the first few hours of invading Belgium. The German Army did not really improve in the following weeks and delays made the possibility of defeating France before the Russin Army was able to attack in force in the east unlikely.
There was a reason that the German leaders claimed that the war would be over by Christmas, that is because if it was not, it would be lost. Once the war became a long battle, Germany had the distinct disadvantage of supply, due to the British naval blockade cutting off foreign supplies. One of the more evident shortages was the lack of tin to make brass, and by 1915, brass was almost exclusively used for cartridges and shell casings. Helmet fixtures were made of painted steel and older bayonets with brass handles were scrapped to recover the brass.