The Reverse Side of Auftragstaktik
The German army was proud to have been a role model for many other armies including Japan, Russia, Sweden, and numerous other countries in Europe and South America. This was an army that boasted the best General Staff in the world that had the sure recipe for victory in the coming Great War. The German army was known as a center of military excellence. Then, suddenly, because of major professional and systemic failures, this army found itself in an adverse situation only six weeks after the start of the war; this was a situation that was regarded by several members of the military elite as tantamount to losing the war, or at least having forfeited sure victory.
How could this failure happen to an army that considered itself superior to all other armies in the world? In the following paragraphs on leadership problems and the misapplication of Auftragstaktik, there will be no comment on operational decisions. There will be no analysis concerning when and how the Germans lost the Battle at the Marne, nor will there be any discussion of the failed coup de main on Liège or of the bloody battles fought in August and September 1914. Instead, the focus will be on the leadership and decision-making processes on the German side. In order to analyze these failures, we will explore several significant situations.
In contrast to many officers on lower command levels, army commanders had extremely strong-willed personalities and needed to be directed by an equally strong-willed Supreme Commander or Chief of General Staff. Army commanders were used to having their own way on operational and strategic problems. These individuals had participated in the debate about the development of tactical doctrine during the past decades and had their own positions. Bülow, the Commander of the Second Army, was known as a systematic and formalistic drillmaster. Kluck, the commander of the First Army, was willing to take risks, to move quickly, and to pursue success—if necessary at all costs. Kuhl, who was Kluck’s Chief of Staff, was a comparatively aggressive, fast moving, and belligerent personality bent on success. Putting Kluck and Kuhl under Bülow’s control led to difficulties and friction right from the beginning of the operation. A similar situation was found on the left wing, where the Bavarian Crown Prince was Commander of the Sixth Army and Heeringen was Commander of the Seventh Army. Heeringen had a significant and well-known dislike for the Bavarians as a result of his term as War Minister between 1909 and 1913. Because the Seventh Army was under the control of the Sixth Army, it soon became obvious that Heeringen tried to slip out of this arrangement, leading to severe friction in the cooperation between both armies. This was made worse by Moltke’s ambiguity about the strategic and operational goals set for Sixth and Seventh Army. Originally, the left wing armies were designed to shield the left flank of the huge attack wing wheeling around Paris. However, Moltke was also influenced by the idea of breaking through the French fortress belt along the river Moselle in the course of a massive pursuit operation once French Second Army was defeated in a major battle in Lorraine. This would permit the creation of a huge double-pincer movement, annihilating the entire French army.
In both cases, it was Moltke’s task to keep these armies on track and within the missions he gave them. With the poor communication lines between the OHL and the army commands, this turned out to be very difficult to achieve. The younger Moltke attempted to follow the leadership style of the elder Moltke, wishing to command his armies by means of short directives like his uncle did during the Unification Wars. The Younger probably misinterpreted the Elder’s loose leadership style as kind of Auftragstaktik leadership doctrine. In reality, much of the elder Moltke’s leadership style was forced on him due to the very poor communication lines that allowed only short directives transmitted by short range communications. The leadership of the younger Moltke was in direct contrast to the leadership Schlieffen had executed and described as the role model in an article in the Deutsche Revue printed in 1909. Schlieffen was also an advocate of Auftragstaktik but had a different understanding of its execution.
The first situation for analysis is the advance of the right wing through Belgium and France with the First and Second Army as the spearheads. After the capture of Liège, the First and Second Army had to deploy forward and then advance in a coordinated way in accordance with the guidance provided by the OHL. This advance demanded clear leadership, either by establishing a stable communication channel through telephone, radio, or telegraph or by having an army group headquarters set up to control the operations of the right wing on behalf of OHL. Instead, OHL tried to somehow muddle through with the available resources and existing poor communications channels. As long as the army HQs were still based in Germany, communication by telephone was straightforward. However, in the operations departments of OHL, only a handful of officers reporting directly to the Chief of General Staff were available to carry out the necessary operational analysis and planning or to handle contact with the armies in the west and in the east.
Department
Number of field grade officers
Number of company grade officers
Central Department
1
1
Operations Department
4
8
Intelligence Department
2
11
Political Department
1
0
This staffing had been sufficient to command armies of the same size and in the same way as occurred in 1866 or 1870. For the complex operations of eight armies in two different theaters, the operational departments of the OHL were certainly understaffed to actually manage the necessary command and control functions.
To be continued……