Germany during
World War One
Table O' Contents
June
22nd - Conflict Begins
The
Schlieffen Plan
A
State of Imminent War Danger
August
3rd, 1914 - World War One Begins
The
Battle At Marne
A
War of Attrition - The Trench Forms
The
Eastern Front
1915
- Germany Slows Down
The
Effect of War Back Home
The
German Navy - Why the United States Entered World War One
1918
- Germany Makes a Treaty With the Bolsheviks (Russia)
The
German Army is Defeated
An
Immediate Armistice
- Back
to the main page
The Great War, World War One, consisted of two stages:
conventional warfare that lasted from 1914 to 1916, and a war of desperate
expedients, when both sides struggled for their own existences, lasting
until the end. The two sides of the war consisted of the Allied Powers
(France, Great Britain, Russia, the United States, and other smaller counties)
and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey/Ottoman
Empire, along with other smaller country support).
Though Germany turned out to be the Central Power
most involved in the war, there is little or no evidence that the Germans
had planned for war. There are several fundamental causes that had
brought the world to the brink of war: nationalism, imperialist competition,
militarism, and the build up of prewar alliances. These growing appearance
of these factors perhaps inevitably led to what was called the Great War,
World War One.
June 22nd - Conflict Begins
The war began as a chain
of events that revolved around several alliances made between countries.
These pre-war alliances called for the defense of various countries under
attack, and all of the major players in the war had made these alliances.
These alliances combined with tensions between militarily active countries
set the world up for a major war. The chain of events that led up
to the war began on June 28nd 1914, when a Serbian student named
Gavrilo Princep, who was part of the militant group called the "Black Hand",
assassinated Austrian archduke Frances Ferdinand and his wife. The
assassination was a result of the nationalism caused by the molding of
the Yugoslavian provinces into a single state. The Serbian government
was implicated as being involved in the plot and naturally the Austrians
grew angry with them. Austria declared that they would go to war
against Yugoslavia, but they were hesitant to do so because Yugoslavia
held a defensive treaty with Russia. Germany had made a defensive
treaty with Austria, so they promised that if Austria went ahead and made
a move against Yugoslavia, Germany would defend them from Russia.
Germany then told Austria to begin the war, and if it evolved into a larger
conflict, Germany would support them.
Germany had a variety
of reasons for being willing to be involved in this war. One of these
reasons was that the assassination was an example of the Hapsburg’s loss
of control and if Austria were to decline to Germany's offer, Germany would
be completely surrounded by enemies.1
The German government also knew that Russia would lose a major base in
Europe if they were to lose Yugoslavia. An annexation of Yugoslavia
would also leave Greece and Bulgaria open to attack. Germany believed that
Russia would back down like they had in 1908, when Austria had annexed
parts of Serbia. The only difference from the earlier conflict was
that in 1908 Russia was also suffering from a revolution, but by 1914 Russia
had not only stopped the revolution, but they also had recovered enough
to fight against Germany or Austria. Aside from that though, Germany
had recently made an alliance with Turkey, and that made them confident
that they could defeat any European country. Another benefit that
Germany had was that England would not enter the war if Russia were the
aggressor. Little did Germany know that the general consensus around
Europe was that even if Serbia had been involved in the assassination it
was not grounds to conquer it.
The Schlieffen Plan
Germany had been developing
plans for invasions into every European country since the time of Bismarck.
One of these plans was called the Schlieffen Plan. The plan basically
called for quick, encircling movements that would surround and destroy
the enemy. This plan was used for the invasion of France and also
for individual conflicts like the Battle of Tannenburg. One of the
key points of this plan was that it was absolutely necessary to put all
possible force behind the invasion of France and not to hold any soldiers
back in reserve. It was Germany's hope to end this war quickly by
attacking France immediately and overrunning it before Russia had a chance
to mobilize. The violation of this plan was what many consider to
have caused the Germans to lose the war. This could easily be compared
to Pericles and the Peloponnesan war. He warned the Athenians that
the only way they could win the war was if they did not try to expand and
colonize. In this example too, they broke the condition and therefore
lost the war. Anyway, the plan involved attacking Belgium and then
proceeding south into France. Unfortunately for Germany, the Belgians
didn't simply step aside for the Germans; they fought back, making it much
harder for Germany to carry out the Schlieffen Plan. Aside from these
war plans, Germany also tried to stop countries from getting involved in
the war by starting revolutions in them. As we shall see, it worked
in Russia but all attempts to start a revolt in Ireland failed.
A State of Imminent War Danger
The Germans, in order to
prevent England from entering the war, tried to make it appear as if Russia
had really started the war. They announced that any conflict between
Austria and Serbia was a local conflict in which outside powers should
not interfere. Of course, the other European states saw right through
this ruse and prepared themselves for a war that would involve all of the
great powers.
On July 13th,
1914, the Austrians made an ultimatum saying that they would require all
Serbs to leave Albania. The Serbians were not willing to agree to
any demand that would hurt their government, and they immediately mobilized
for war. On July 28th, three days after Yugoslavia refused to yield
to their demands, the Austrians officially declared war. The conflict
was begun with the intentions of capturing a small part of Serbian territory
and then bargaining that land for compliance with their demands.
On July 29th
and 30th, Russia began its mobilization with the intent to protect
Yugoslavia from Austria. Germany's only stop from entering the war
was England. Their main energies were put into trying to keep England
out of the war. England, as a result of the outbreak of war, tried
to begin peace talks but none of the involved parties complied. Soon
after this attempt at peace, the German government decided that England
was not going to remain neutral, but they decided to engage in the war
anyway. This was another reason the Schlieffen Plan would fail; Britain's
entry into the war was not expected, at least not so quickly.
On July 30th,
Moltke, Germany's military leader, announced a "state of imminent war danger."2
The next day Russia completed its mobilization, but they still maintained
that they would not attack if peace talks were to begin. Germany
then replied that Russia must demobilize within the next twelve hours.
This short deadline shows that Germany was really itching for a war and
did not expect Russia to comply in any way. Russia naturally declined
to demobilize and Germany used this as an excuse to declare war.
On July 31st William II ordered Germany to fully mobilize its
armies. Moltke decided that a war would have to be fought and won on the
western front before they could defeat Russia. If the Schlieffen
Plan worked, he could concentrate all of his army on the Eastern Front.
He went on to demand that Belgium allow him to cross through their country
and on into France unopposed. As we shall see later, this refusal
to comply was a key factor in the defeat of Germany.
August 3rd, 1914 - World War One Begins
The war began on August
3rd when Germany declared war on France, saying that they had
infringed upon Germany's territory. The German army that took the
field August 1914 has been described as the most brilliant the world had
ever seen. The day after the declaration of war against France, Germany
moved soldiers into Belgium, and the Belgians resisted. Three days
later the Germans captured the stronghold of Liege, and Belgium fell.
As the opening invasion
into Belgium began, England sent an ultimatum to Germany saying that they
had to withdraw from Belgium or England would enter the war. England
effectively lost any element of surprise by announcing their attack beforehand.
By August 18th Germany had overrun all of Belgium and the German
army was gathering on the French border to begin the offensive. Two
days later the attack began, and the French were immediately driven out
of Lorraine. The Germans continued to advance until they hit France's
frontier fortifications. This offensive took the French completely
by surprise even though a German defector had already warned them.
On August 22-25 the French tried to begin their own offensive but were
soundly defeated at the battles of Neuchateau and Longwy. Soon after
this failed offensive, the Germans advanced into France from the north
and quickly defeated the French at the battle of Namur and the British
at the battle of Mans.
The Battle At
Marne
By the end of the initial
offensive, August 25th, Germany's front was uncontested by any
of the other powers. The Schlieffen plan had stated that the German
army should have been in France in 40 days and by the 32nd day
the Germans were still 25 miles from the city. This was Moltke's
largest mistake- the mistake that would eventually lose the war for the
Germans. He saw that the Germans were doing well in France and therefore
decided to send divisions to stabilize the eastern front, which had been
compromised by a quick Russian mobilization.
By August 27th,
the German army had already been greatly lessened by the loss of the forces
sent to the eastern front and the loss of the forces sent to survey the
land around Antwerp. To add to this, the army was weakened by the
siege of Maubeuge and at other forts along the way. The Germans had,
on the western front, only 40 of the 52 divisions that had begun the war.
This was enough to continue winning, but it became obvious that it was
not enough to take Paris as the Schlieffen Plan dictated.
On August 30th
the Germans began their pursuit of the French army that was retreating
towards Paris. The armies were directed to advance to two points
near Paris. The emergence of another French army caused Moltke to
have to rethink his plan. He ordered the southern armies to advance
to the northwest and the northern armies to advance to the southeast. This
action was intended to surround the French army. The German armies
were assembled for the new offensive by September 4th but this
maneuver had made the left flank of the northern army vulnerable.
The French noticed this vulnerability and attacked the German front with
52 divisions while they sent a smaller detachment to attack the exposed
side. The ensuing battle took place at Marne.
The German army turned
and defeated the small detachment in three days of fighting, establishing
their military superiority over the French. The complete turn to
the west that the northern army made caused a gap to form in the northern
front. The English army advanced into this opening, thereby placing
the Germans in a weak position. Moltke saw this and ordered his army
to retreat, and as they were doing so the French army advanced and began
to attack the retreating soldiers. The eastern armies tried to resist
the attack but Moltke ordered the withdrawal of the northern army due to
its
precarious position. The result of this battle, the Battle of Marne,
was a major swing in the German army's momentum as they were now moving
backward for the first time.
"Its [Marne’s] loss by Germany that
meant the failure of the entire Schlieffen plan; the end of any prospect
of a short war."3
A short war was basically
what the entire German military was counting on as the only way to win
the war. When this possibility was taken away, the prospect of winning
began to fade. Moltke’s lack of judgment in this matter can be attributed
to the distance he was away from the actual line of battle. He could
not make decisions because he could not see what was going on. The
condition of the soldiers was also a factor as reported by a German officer:
"Their faces coated with dust, their
uniforms in rags, looking like living scarecrows. They march with their
eyes closed, singing in chorus so that they shall not fall asleep…It is
only the delirium of victory that sustains our men."4
A War of Attrition - The Trench Forms
On September 14th
General Erich Von Falkenhayn replaced Moltke, and by the 15th
the western line had been stabilized. By this time the German army
was so hurt that even if they could have reached Paris, they could never
have taken it. After the battle, the two lines entrenched themselves
as close as 800 yards away from each other. Here was where the trench
warfare that caused so many losses began. The giant trench formed
the western front, and the battle in the west from then on became a war
of attrition.
Falkenhayn decided
that there was no way to win a war against England, France and Russia put
together. He adopted the policy of attrition in order to tire out
the western powers. He planned to be merely defensive on the western
front while attacking the eastern front. On the days of October 17-30
the battle of Yser was fought, in a last effort to assault the French.
The Germans committed all of their last resources to launch this attack
on the French front but the battle proved costly and ineffective.
The attacks lasted until November 3rd, when Falkenhayn was finally
convinced that the west was hopeless and the only place a victory could
be won was in the east.
"Falkenhayn had to send into the holocaust
thousands of half trained volunteers straight from school or the university,
commanded by elderly officers. Enthusiastically singing "Deutschland
Deutschland Uber Alles", the youngsters were mowed down in swathes by the
expert marksmen of the B.E.F."
The Eastern Front
While the conflict in the
west was developing, Russia was having success with driving the Austrians
back and also infringing on German territory. Their basic strategy
was to concentrate all of their forces on Austria, but due to the success
of Germany in France at the time they sent 28 divisions into East Prussia
as a relief force. The Russians had mobilized more speedily than
the Germans expected and were therefore able to overrun most of East Prussia
before the Germans could react. The eastern general for the German
force, Von Prittwtiz-Gaffron, hesitated before making any move. He
was immediately deposed of, and on April 23rd General Von Hindenburg
and Ludendorff, two of the most influential generals of their time, replaced
him.
Hindenburg was a veteran
of the wars in 1866 and 1870. He was a very careful and calculating
general. Ludendorff was one of the nationalistic zealots created
by the outbreak of war. Hindenburg decided to attack at once.
He left a small force in Germany and lead 166,000 men against Russia’s
200,000. These forces came against each other on August 26-31 at
the battle of Tannenburg. The German army performed a perfect Schlieffen
plan maneuver and encircled the Russian army. They captured 92,000
Russian soldiers while overall 3/5ths of the Russian army was destroyed
(at least those in Prussia). The offensive ended at the battle of
the Masurian Lakes (September 9-10) wherein the Russians withdrew from
the rest of Germany without putting up a fight.
The Austrians, on the
other hand, were soundly defeated by the Russians due to the lack of coordination
between the Austrian and German armies. At the beginning of the war
the Germans had not even told the Austrians about the Schlieffen plan and
their intentions to invade France. This shows that the Germans did
not really care about the Austrians and what had initially caused the war.
They acted like they were fighting their own war despite the fact that
the Austrians supposedly started it. By September 13th
the Austrians had lost 300,000 soldiers and the entire army had retreated
into the mountains. By February the army had lost 1.5 million soldiers.
The Austrian army was also defeated at two attempts to invade Serbia.
At this point, Austria was effectively out of the war leaving Germany and
Turkey alone against the Russians.
During October, while
the battle of Yser was going on in the west, the German forces launched
an offensive and advanced all the way to Warsaw and Iangorad, but by the
end of October, a buildup of Russian forces along the border caused the
Germans to retreat from Poland completely. Hindenburg moved most
of his forces into North Prussia where they could strike against the unprotected
northern front of the Russian army. He even got a promise from Falkenhayn
of six divisions to join in on the offensive. Unfortunately for Germany,
Falkenhayn decided that a withdrawal of western forces would be perceived
as a retreat, so the divisions were never sent. Falkenhayn then decided
to continue the attack at Ypers and again was defeated. On November
18th, the western army began to break off and slowly go
to join the eastern soldiers. The opportunity for Hindenburg’s flanking
maneuver however, was lost.
Though Russia managed
to destroy the Austrian army, The Battle of Tannenburg was the event that
effectively knocked Russia out of the war. Later on, after the Bolshevik
Revolution, the Russians would completely surrender to Germany.
1915 - Germany Slows Down
The situation at the beginning
of 1915 was definitely not in Germany's favor. The western front
showed 90 German divisions against 108.5 Allied. On the eastern front,
there were 78.5 German divisions against 93.5 Russian. Falkenhayn
decided to leave only enough soldiers to hold the west and to bring the
rest over to the east, to fight the Russians. These soldiers took
part in the second battle at Masurian Lakes where the Russian army was
again completely destroyed. By the last week of January, the Germans
had also freed the trapped Austrian forces. The German army joined
up with the Austrians and proceeded to break the Russian line in Austria
at the beginning of May. The eastern forces continued their success
through the summer of 1915, overrunning Poland, Lithuania, Galicia and
Latvia. The Russian casualties were estimated at 200,000.
While this was going
on in the east, an Allied offensive had begun to liberate France on September
25. Despite a 5:3 soldier ratio, the German army was unable to do
anything about it. As a result of this failure, Falkenhayn decided
to test his luck with yet another offensive against the French line.
He decided to attack the French army's cornerstone at Verdun. The
offensive began on February 21, 1916, and met with initial success but
was soon stopped. The battle was reduced to a "grim endurance test
on a narrow battlefield transformed by rain into a grenade pocked quagmire."
Falkenhayn was attempting to "bleed the French white" by exhausting their
resources, but the battle proved to be just as exhausting for the Germans
as it was for the French. No one ever made any headway but both sides
suffered severe casualties. Falkenhayn did not finally call off the
attack until July 1916.
Soon after the Battle
of Verdun, the Allies launched their own offensive with 52 divisions at
Somme. After two months of fighting, Germany's line had only backed
up six miles. With the offensives of Verdun and Somme, the casualties
for both sides were over 600,000, with both sides losing almost the same
number of people. The offensive was renewed in September of 1916.
The Germans began to worry about the increasing number of Allied soldiers
as well as the invention of the first tanks, a technology which the Germans
had not pursued up until then.
On the eastern front,
the Germans were still making much headway. On August 27th,
Rumania, one of the Balkan countries which was sitting on the fence over
which side it would join, declared war on Austria and therefore Germany.
Rumania did this because Russia promised them Transylvania. The fact
that the Russians were also launching an offensive in the area was also
a small part of their decision. On August 29, 1916, Hindenburg and
Ludendorff were given complete command of the entire eastern front.
The first act of these generals was to invade Rumania, and by December
6th, Bucharest was occupied.
The Effect of War Back Home
During the fighting in
the west and the east the people of Germany were mostly in support of the
war. The belief was widespread that even though the war was forced
upon the German people, it was for the "Greater Germany" that it could
become. When the war started turning against Germany, there was still
the general belief that at least they should gain something from their
effort. The German people were mostly willing to have peace as long
they did not have to give up any land. The government did not want
peace because they thought it would be seen as a loss and the liberal party
would lose popularity, and perhaps there would be a revolution. This
situation can be compared to the conflict between Israel and the PLO, where
Israel wants peace but does not want to lose land. Germany, in general,
wanted peace, but not at the expense of the land they had taken.
When the war was beginning,
it had the support from a coalition of the SPD, the Progressives, and the
Kaiser’s conservative government. As the war continued and was becoming
more and more a war of attrition, the SPD, who were already opposed to
an offensive war, split into three groups: the Independent Socialists,
the SPD and the International Socialists. The international socialists
(Spartacists) were opposed to any war of any kind while the other two groups
were still in support of a defensive war. The leaders of the Spartacists,
Liebknecht and Luxenburg, held a demonstration against the war on May 1,
1916. They were arrested, and in response to this the workers rose
up for their first strike of the war. From this, there can be seen
the first seeds of discontent among the people.
The German economy
was also going through more and more strain as the war went on. In
1914 the German economy was almost completely reliant on outside trade
and therefore not ready for a protracted war. They had absolutely
no large stocks of guns or ammunition and were forced to employ chemists
to find replacements for substances that were made scarce by the war.
They discovered things like a replacement for gunpowder ingredients, synthetic
rubber, and the use of oil instead of coal in machinery.5
There was such a shortage that riots had already begun in 1916. The
armed forces took all the hired labor out of the economy. The immediate
consequences of the war on the economy were more government control of
goods and production, army control of what determined economic policy,
and an increase in scientific pursuit.
The German Navy - Why the United States Entered
World War One
The German navy was not
very active during World War One. In fact, the only major battle,
the Battle of Jutland, was fought on May 31, 1916. Germany was the
victor but was still behind in terms of naval superiority. An Allied
fleet in the North Sea blockaded Germany, and as a result, Germany declared
that they would sink any Allied ship that they find. The Germans
initially did not try to get out any further than the Baltic Sea due to
an U.S. ultimatum, but in 1917 they began to advance and sink various American
ships carrying munitions and reinforcements, thereby drawing the U.S. into
the war.
1918 - Germany Makes a Treaty With the Bolsheviks
(Russia)
By 1917 and 1918 the German
people had begun to lose faith in the war. The government was torn between
what the people wanted, a "status quo" peace, and what Hindenburg wanted,
a "fruits of victory" peace. On November 7-8, 1917, a German encouraged
revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, began in Russia. After much
conflict, the Communist leader Lenin was appointed their new leader.
He wanted peace with Germany because of the instability of his position
in the Russian government.
On December 20, 1917
the central leaders and Russia met to make a peace treaty. The talks
lead to nothing and Germany began its attacks on the Balkan states.
Peace talks again resumed with Russia and by 1918 Germany had concluded
a peace treaty with the Ukraine. By March 3rd, a treaty
was made with Russia. Germany quickly ignored previous treaties and
marched straight into the Ukraine, taking Kiev on March 1. From there
they proceeded directly into Russia, despite recent treaties. The
attack was so effective that the Germans had reached the Caspian Sea by
September 1918. On August 27, 1918, the German government decided
that they had enough land, and they signed another peace treaty with Russia.
At this point, Russia had pretty much surrendered to the Germans.
At that point, Germany also made an alliance with Finland and deposited
150,000 soldiers in their country- soldiers that could have been used in
the actual war.
The German Army is Defeated
By the summer of 1918 the
Germans had concluded most of their business in the east, so half of the
eastern army was sent to aid the west. By March there were 190 German
divisions in the west opposed to 170 Allied. Ludendorff decided to
attack the point where the English and French lines met, hoping to separate
the two armies and force the English to withdraw across the sea.
On March 21, 71 German
divisions prepared to attack the 26 British divisions. The British
were overwhelmed and the French were pressed back. In the ensuing
battle from March 21-April 5 Germany advanced 35 miles into the line, causing
the British to lose 163,000 soldiers and the French to lose 77,000.
The Germans tried to follow up on this success by launching an attack on
April 9. This attack met with minimal success was basically considered
a failure. Ludendorff then decided to launch a new offensive, this
time concentrated on the French lines, in the hopes that the Germans could
cut off reinforcements to the British. When the British were in a
position where they were unable to secure reinforcements, the Germans would
attack the them.
The offensive began
on May 27th and the Germans were able to force back the French
line. By June 3rd the Germans had reached a point five
miles from Paris, but the Allies rallied and managed to stop the German
advance. Ludendorff began to plan yet another offensive. In
June of 1918 the first American soldiers fought the Germans. The
Germans began their new offensive on July 15th with 51 divisions,
this time against the combined forces of the British, the French, and the
Americans. The German army was met with strong resistance and many
losses.
Three days later, the
French began a counter-offensive lead by 600 tanks. The move by the
French took the Germans by surprise and the Allies began to slowly push
the Germans out of Marne. The German army suffered 30,000 casualties
and lost 800 artillery pieces. The Allies pressed their advantage,
and on August 8, 1918, they began a huge offensive that completely broke
the German's strength.
This was the major
turning point in the war, as the Germans not only lost their momentum but
also began to lose more and more ground. The offensive was renewed
against the German lines and the whole German army began to be pushed back.
By September, the Germans had lost 1,000,000 soldiers, reducing their army
from 3.5 million to 2.5 million. The previously superior German army
was now down 191 divisions to the 400-500 of the Allies. The American
involvement in the war rose from 200,000 in March to 2,086,000 at the end
of the war.
During the days of
September 14-30, Allied troops caused the entire Bulgarian front to collapse.
At the same time, the Austrians were also negotiating their own peace treaty
with the Allies. Meanwhile, a combined French, British, Greek and
Serbian army liberated the Balkans, and by November 10 they had moved into
Rumania. Ludendorff accurately summarized the outlook of the war
when he said:
"The condition of the army demands an
immediate armistice"6
An Immediate Armistice
Bulgaria (Germany's ally)
collapsed in late September, and Austria-Hungary was soon to collapse.
With no other choice left, the Germans proposed the armistice on October
3rd. The Allies declared that they would grant it only
if Germany made no move to improve its military strength. On October
26th Ludendorff resigned because he was unwilling to sign the
armistice. After his departure, the Germans amended the constitution
to prevent people like Ludendorff from becoming virtual dictators.
Instead, the general was made to require the support of the Reichstag.
This shows that the Germans were not completely supportive of the war.
The armistice was given
to Germany. It basically required that the Germans retreat into their
own borders and leave all of their weapons behind. William I fled
the country and Prince Max was put on the throne just long enough to sign
the armistice. The German soldiers began to retreat into their own
country and on November 11 the armistice was signed, officially ending
the war.
During World War One
we were still seeing the nationalistic tide that was begun by Otto von
Bismarck and would ultimately end after the Second World War. Germany
was a country that had just unified forty years earlier, after decisively
beating almost every European country. When Kaiser William came into
power, he had very expansionist views. Furthermore, he did not have
any of the political savvy that was displayed by Bismarck. The downfall
of the German people was that they had a leader who was trying to repeat
the conquests of the past while lacking the skills to do so. William
"cleverly" tried to gain power by finesse and treating the Balkan conflict
like the unification wars: localized and defensive. When the other
powers saw through this fumbling ruse, he dropped all pretense of political
maneuvering and just started attacking everybody, a policy that would inevitably
end with his destruction as he also, at the start of the war, lacked a
military mind that could make up for his political bluntness.
Moltke and Falkenhayn
took a war that should not have been started in the first place and made
it even worse by horribly bumbling it. The people during this time
period were only kept going by the leftover nationalism caused by the unification.
The war was probably looked at from the point of view of a country that
had never lost a major conflict. The German people went to war expecting
to win because they knew of nothing else. They had been raised on
the tales of the unification wars and to them, this was just another step.
1.Holburn, 415
2.Holburn,422
3.Ryder, 115
4.Holburn, 434
5.Ryder, 154
6.Holburn,506
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