The German General Staff : training &r1c velopraent of~ general staff off icer~,Vol V. Hisitorical- Division, ETJCOI,

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CGSC FORM 160 Army-CGSC-P1-1367-29 Mar 51-5M13 Mar 51

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Dr. Waldemar ERFURIGeneral der InfanterieGerman General attachedto the Finnish ArmedForces

Project # 6

GE MAN GENERAL STAFF

Vol V

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT OF GERMAN GENERAL

STAFF OFFICERS

Translator:ditor :

Th. KLEINDr FREDERIKSEN

HISTORICAL DIVISIONEUROPEAN COMMAND

JUN

_ I I I __

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LIST OF OONTRIBUTORS

Vol I *

Vol

Vol III

Vol IV

Vol V

Vol VI

Vol VII

Vol VIII

Vol

Vol

Vol

IX

XI

XI

Vol XII

Vol XIII

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT OF GEMAN GENERALSTAFF OFFICERS

Author: Karl ALUINDINGER,General der Infanterie.

Author: Guenther BItMENTRITT,General der Infanterie.

Author: Kurt BRENECKE,General der Infanterie.

Author: Horst Freiherr von BUTTIAR,Generalmajor.

Author: Waldemar ERFURTH,General der Infanterie.

Author: Friedrich Joachim FAIGOHR,General der Infanterie.

Author: Hans FELBER,General der Infanterie.

Author: Hermann ODERTSCH,General der Infanterie.

Author: Peter von GROEBEN,Generalleutnant.

Author: Franz HAIDER,Generalober st.

Author: Wolf HAUSER,Generalajor .

Author : Helmut KLEIKAMFF,Generalma j ,

Author : Rufolf ANGHAEUSER,Gener alma jor.

* An Introduction and Explanatory Notes by Hans von GREIFFSIBERG,General der Infanterie, and Commentaries on the IndividualContributions by George von SODENSTERN, General der Infanterie,is included in Volume I.

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Vol XVI Author: Wilhelm LIST,Gener alfeldmarschall.

Vol XV Author: August Viktor von QUAST,Generalmajor.

Vol XVI Author: Walter REISINGER,Oberst i.G.

Vol XVII Author: Hans Georg RICHERT,Oberst i.G.

Vol XVIII Author: Albrecht SCHUBERT,General der Infanterie.

Vol XIX Author: Hans SPETH,Gener alleutnant .

Vol XX Author: Herrmann TESKE,Oberst i.G.

Vol XXI Author: Siegfried WESTPHAL,General der Kavallerie.

Vol XXII Author: Fritz BERENDSEN,Oberst i.G.

Vol XXIII Author: Werner von TIPPELSKIRCH,Oberst i.G.

Vol XXIV Author: Leo Freiherr Geyr von SCHWEPPENBURG,General der Panzer.

Vol XXV Author : Hans SPEIDEL, Dr.Generalleutnant.

Vol XXVI Author: Wilhelm SPSIDEL,General der Flieger.

Vol XXVII Author: Albert KESSELRING,Generalfeldmarschall.

Vol XXVIII Author: Hens GUIDEIAN,Generaloberst.

Vol XXIX Author: Kurt MAELZER, Dipl. Ing.Generalleutnant (Luftwaffe)

Vol XXX Author: Erich BR ADEBERGEL,General der Artillerie

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Waldemar ERFURTH, Ph. D.General der InfanterieBorn: 4 August 1879 in Berlin.

ERFURTH joined the Army immediately afterleaving school and received his commission asLeutnant on 27 January 1899. Promoted to Haupt-mann on 22 March 1922 he on the same day was ap-pointed Director of Mapping and Surveying inBerlin.

In World War I he served in various posi-tions with the field forces and in the GeneralStaff at the eastern and western fronts.

From 1919 to 1924 he served as OperationsOfficer and Chief of Staff of I Corps Area Head-quarters in Koenigsberg, Eastern Prussia, laterthe same position in a General Staff group inBerlin until 1929, when he was promoted General-major. For the next two years he was Commanderof Infantry Schwerin, II Corps Area Headquarters,which assignment terminated with his promotionto Generalleutnant on 1 May 1931. Then ERFURTHresigned and took up his studies in philosophyat the Freiburg University remaining there from1931 to 193~. Re-called to the Army 1934 he be-came Chief of the Section for PRACTICAL APPLICA-TION OF WAR EXPERIENCE at Potsdam, followed bytwo years as Chief, MILITARY SCIENCE BRANCH, Ber-lin. After a term of four years, 1938 - 1941, asFifth Senior General Staff Officer (0 Qu V) handlingmilitary history, ERFURTH was appointed GERMANGENERAL ATTACHED TO THE FINNISH ARMED FORCES, whichpost he held until 1944. During this time he re-ceived his Ph. D. degree from the Freiburg Univer-sity.

The last year of the war he was in the OfficerReserve Pool OKH. Finally General ERFURTH was cap-tured in his home at Markleberg near Leipzig on 25May 1945.

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Well-knon as a writer on military subjectsGeneral ERFURTH took part in compiling the lastvolumes of the German official history of WorldWar I and between 1933 - 1940 published the follow-ing works:

CAVALRY

DEFENSE IN LAND WARFARE

THE SURPRISE ELEMENT IN WAR

COOPERATION BETWEEN SEPARATELYOPERATING ARMY FORCES

FINAL OUTCOME OF A WAR BETWEENGREAT POWERS

POLISH-SOVIET RUSSIAN WAR 1918-1920 *

As a homeworker of this Division he in 1950submitted his work "FINNIAND S LAST WAR."

# This book was written in collaboration withAdalbert von Boetticher. Printing was com-pleted in 1939 but publication was not allowedby order of Hitler.

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FOREWORD

This is Vol V of 30 volumes concerning the Trainingand Development of German General Staff Officers.It is divided into two general portions, manuscriptsnumbered P-031a are the results of studies solicitedfrom individual writers by the Historical DivisionEUCOM and consist of Volumes XXII to XXX inclusive.The evaluation and synopsis given in Volume I does notconsider these volumes. Inasmuch as this materialis considered to be of immediate value to the GeneralStaff Department of the Army as well as to service schoolsfrom the level of Command and General Staff Collegeupward, these volumes are submitted as they are pro-duced rather than waiting for completion of the pro-ject.

Volumes I to XXI were completed for Historical Divi-sion, EUCOM by individual writers under the supervi-sion of the Control Group and consist of manuscriptnumbered P-031b. This particular series has beenevaluated and co-ordinated by the Control Group.

Louis M. NAROCKYMajor, CavalryChief, Operational History(German) Branch

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CONTENTS

REMARKS CONCERNING THE TEXT byGeneravon GREIFFENBERG.. a** * *

REMARKS T) THE STUDY by Generaloberst F. HAU)ER d

THE DEEPER PROBLEMS OF THE GERMN GENERAL STAFF 1

GENERAL STAFF AND MILITARISM. ................. . 1

TRADITION AND FORMATIVE FORCES. . 7

MXTHiODS AND PERFEORMANCE. . . . . 27

THE GEMAN' THEORY OF WAR. . . , . 42

THE WEAKNESSES OF THE GEN\ERAL STAFF. .72

AN OVER-ALL EVAU ATION . .. . . . . 0. . 97

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REMARKS CONCERNING THE TEXT

The author, now sixty-nine years of age, became personally acquainted

in the course of his career with all Army Chiefs of Staff from Feldmarschall

Graf Schlieffen to Generaloberst Guderian.

After devoting himself to historical studies for several years he was

re-activated, and after 1934 he greatly furthered and influenced the study

of military history within the General Staff.

The present treatise on the deeper problems of the General Staff makes

it clearly evident that it was written by a historian who is attempting

to answer critically and philosophically the questions asked him, on the

basis of his great knowledge of interrelationships in military history.

The work commences with a weighing of the terms "General Staff" and

"militarism." Erfurth agrees with the American Vagt who shows in his book

"A History of Militarism," published in 1938, that the General Staff and

-militarism have basically nothing in common and that militarism means not

the opposite of pacifism but the opposite of civilian thinking.

The author regrets that no official history of the German General

Staff was ever written, with the result that it is now difficult to write

a reliable record of its activities during former generations. How it came

to pass that, throughout centuries, Prussian and German youths were attracted

to the officer profession which, to say the least, was not very remunerative,

Erfurth believes he can explain by the personal relationship and close ties

which linked every officer with his monarch. This was a condition which

developed from the medieval feudal system and which was abolished by Hitler.

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Because of these opinions the paragraphs dealing with the principles

and habits of the German officer corps prior to 1914 deserve great interest.

Then follows a special chapter, "The Origin," which gives a histori-

cal review of the German General Staff, how it developed after the pattern

of the French Etat Major General, how it was created by Scharnhorst and

further shaped after the Wars of Liberation, and how it was recognized,

esteemed, admired, and hated throughout the world.

The structure of the General Staff rests on two main pillars;

selection and training. The detailed description to follow will deal in

historical seq ence with the curriculum and training during the period

from Clausewitz to Beck, and from the Prussian kings to Hitler. The General

Staff's actions and thinking -- motivated by the often quoted motto,

"Be rather than seemt" -- will be elucidated, and the military historians

who were its former members will be remembered with great sympathy.

In the chapter "Lessons of War," Erfurth draws on historical examples

to express his views on the arguments about strategy which motivated the

outstanding leaders of the General Staff, in particular the "five-star per-

formers" Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Clausewitz, Moltke, and Schlieffen. He

also portrays Napoleon as the master of interior lines, Moltke as the

master of exterior lines, Schlieffen as the exponent of using makeshift

measures, and so on.

When describing the weaknesses of the General Staff the author sees

as one main reasca for 'the failure of German arms in the last war the ill-

fated top level command organization, and as another Hitler's megalomania,

his dilettantism, and his adament inflexibility toward the advice of tested

exper ts.

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The foregoing are only a few aspects of a voluminous and readable

study, which close with the author's thoughts on the merits of the Ger-

man General Staff.

(Signature) v. Greiffenberg

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With respect to the study written by Irfurth, Generaloberst

Halder expresses the following opinions:

This treatise should be considered especially valuable because it

was written by an extraordinarily capable and historically trained rep-

resentative of the senior German General Staff officers who, after 1918

-- even though mostly as unit commanders and ordnance inspectrs -- exer-

cised a decisive influence upon the organization and the spirit of the

100,000-man army and thus, although often indirectly, shaped the course

of the General Staff after 1918.

But the effect of the older men upon-the younger was not as strong as

it had been during the long peace period before 1914 in the closed circle

of the Royal Prussian General Staff, as the result of its previous victor-

ious campaigns. The younger generation of General Staff officers who had

been raised in the atmosphere of World War I were inclined, even though im-

bued with the same military ideals as the older generation, to base their

mental processes on their own war experiences in addition to accepting the

theories of the great Prussian Chiefs of Staff, which the older generation

still venerated as dogmas. The awareness of strength felt by young men raised

under gunfire instinctively revolted against any over-evaluation of theories

developed by great soldiers, as in the hands of their heirs these theories

had not been able to assure victory to an excellent army. Added to this

was the fact that, after 1918, the German General Staff was heavily staffed

by officers of the farmer 1Royal Bavarian General Staff, whose recognized

thorough professional training was not one-sidedly based on Moltke and

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Schlieffen, but which often derived direct inspiration from its intellectual

forbears, men like Napoleon and Prince Eugen. In the intellectual-profdasion1

field the formerly somewhat one-sided ties which bound the General Staff

to the theories taken over from the great Prussian soldiers were thus some-

what loosened -- a fact which resulted in sound progress -- as may be seen

from the numerous reports by younger General Staff officers.

This study is, probably unconsciously, clear proof of the mamer in

which the General Staff wqs restricted to the professional field of opera-

tions and related ccmanad problems. Even though this restriction made pos-

sible superior achievements in the purely military professional field, it

nevertheless weakened the General Staff' s valuable force in the other fields

of modern warfare which nowadays permeate every phase of national life and

in fact prevented the General Staff from seriously fighting for the influence

which it was denied by politicians. This elimination of the German General

Staff' s influence, which contributed to its historical development, I regard

as an important reason for the failure of Germany' s over-all war command

during World War II.

Koenigstein (Ts.), 12 November 1948

(Signed) Franz HALDER

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The Deeper Problems of the German General Staff

Under present c cnditions it is not easy to answer off-hand questions

regarding the German Army General Staff, its nature and merits, its his-

tor ical achievement, and its influence upon Germany's destiny. For at

the present stage of history we are still too close to World War II and

the propaganda set loose by it against German militarism, for which profes-

sional soldiers, and among these primarily the General Staff, was held

responsible by its accusers. Anyone who wishes to arrive at true findings

manst try to free himself from slogans resulting from war psychosis and

must try to ferret out the facts and then judge them soberly.

General Staff and MLlitarism

There is still lacking today a clearly undisputed and generally recog-

nized definition of the term "militarism." We are of the opinion that

militarism means the loss of the proper perspective for matters that are

military, ani that a militarist desires to impose the soldier's mentality,

manners, and customs upon the life of the citizen. We go further in assert-

ing, and are supported by the judgment of strewed contemparanious observers,

that the professional soldier in Germany, including the troop officer as

well as the General Staff officer, was not the first but rather the last

of militarists. *

* 1r instance &nst Friedlaender, the editorial writer of the weekly"Die Zeit," comes to the sane conclusion in his article on "Militarism."(See "Die Zeit, Vol II, No. 19, 8 May 1947.)

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The pseudo-soldiering which, after 1933, penetrated all professional

circles in Germany, which found expression in putting into uniform all

public life, and which led during the war to the luxuriant growth of a

militaristic bureaucracy, was quite distasteful to the professional

soldiers in all ranks and was unanimously rejected by them. They rejected

these excesses of a militaristic epoch as an exaggeration and profanation

in the same manner as ecclesiastic circles would reject it as in bad

taste and absurd, if, during a time of strong religious feelings, it should

becne stylish to wear church robes on the street, to apply canonical rules

in daily life, or to sing church songs at lay meetings. Want of moderation

always means that exaggerations on the one hand are overbalanced by inade-

quacies on the other and that the natural forms of life become stunted if

overrun by foreign influences. Moderation, self-control, and precise ob-

servation of official rights and duties are, however, the cardinal charac-

teristics of professional officers in all armies, including that of the

former German Army. In the course of history it has always proved dai ger-

ous if military conduct and military thinking have engulfed an entire na-

tion and have determined the actions of the national government.

The impetus to such a development has never been supplied by soldiers,

but always by political parties. Considering the tragic role which militar-

ism has undoubtedly played in the past, it may be hoped that science will

deal thoroughly with this problem and that it will find an analysis based

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on historical research of this type of mentality * appearing during this

age of the masses. A beginning has been made among contemporaneous his-

torians by the voluminous work, "A History of Militarism," by the American,

Alfred Vagt (published by Allen and Unwin, London, 1938). Vagt treats

militarism not as a specifically German, but as a general, characteristic

of the times, and he contrasts a definition of the term militarism with that

of its opposite, namely civilianism (meaning civilian thinking). Vagt lays

great stress on differentiating between the "military way" and the "militar-

istic way." The representative of a true military class, Vagt believes, does

not mix into political problems but leaves the decision regarding peace

and war to the citilian powers, does not make himself the center of attention,

does not strive in peacetime for the enjoyment of power and honors, does not

adhere to outmoded traditions, but keeps abreast of the most recent technical

advances; he also realizes that any future war will take on the form which

shape society and industry, and is accordingly not conservative as a matter

of principle. Militarism, according to Vagt is the very opposite of all

the above-mentioned degeneracies and excesses. Militarism means, therefore,

* The appearance of militarism is not exclusively confined to our own age.EBen in the later period of the Roman Enpire thare was a militaristicage, during which all organs of the State, in internal structure andorganization, gradually resembled an army as such, and it is thereforenot surprising to find during late antiquity every sort of public serv-ice called "militia," that is to say, military service, and the act ofserving called "militari." This development led, in a manner similar tothat in the authoritararn states of the present age, characterized by thedomination of a single party, to what more recent historians have descrip-tively called the "authoritarian State of antiquity."

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a preponderance of those military elements in politics and society wh

aim at preparations for war, and especially favor excessive taxes for

military purposes. Further, militarism means that the army becomes inde-

pendent from the restraints of civilian authority. And finally, it means

traditionalism instead of rationalism in moral, political, and military-

technical concepts, and a clinging to obsolete military procedures, consti-

tutional forms and political ideas. Militarism is, to cite Vagt, not the

opposite of pacifism, but the opposite of civilian thinking. The militarism

of our age is a mass phenomenon which Vagt believes lad its roote in the

era of romanticism when soldiers were idealized with the halo of chivalrous

and Audal tradition. Even though one might differ from Vagt about t he

origin of militarism (in our opinion Napoleon was a true militarist who put

the stamp of militarism on the era named after him, although this era re-

ceived its blessings from the later romantic historians), one nevertheless

has to agree with the American author that the militarism of the masses

(a sentimental admiration for military leaders, pompous ceremonies at mili-

tary parades, the enthusiasm of veterans' organizations for military dis-

cipline, rigid marching, and comradeship) are by no means restricted to Ger-

many, and that romantic militarism has indeed had a bad influence on the

customary writing of history in all countries. Vagt's book fails to do jus-

tice, however, to the positive values of the past, the fine qualities of

true soldiers, namely those genuine ethical motives which have never been

entirely absent among the military elements in all armies. The book

needs, as very aptly remarked by Gerhard Ritter, supplementation by a

systematic discussion of the sound and natural relations between the fight

for power and the peacetime order.

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The German historian Gerhard Ritter, of Frieburg, will soon publish

a book dealing extensively with the history of German militarism; it

will certainly help to clarify these problems and especially the question

as to the part played by German militarism in the past.

His investigations will have to bear in mind the fact that, although

the Prus sian-Geman state possessed a strong army, this army newer ruled

the State. The Prussian Army and later on the German Army always acted

only as the instrument of German policies, but it neither inspired nor

personified them. But it is only by engaging in political activities, by

carrying out its own policies, that an army can become militaristic, be-

cause it then transcends the limits of its military mission.

In german history there exists no parallel to the overt militarism

of the Japanese Army, which directly influenced the policy of its nation

and which created incidents causing wars, or to the role played in France

by General Boulanger, who fanned the lust for revenge dormant in the French

nation and thus produced a tension which almost led to war between France

and Germany. As shown by the American, Vagt, the main exponent of imperial-

istic ideology in Prussia-Germany before 1914 was the Navy and not the

Army, which always felt itself menaced by the threat of having to wage war

on two fronts. Until the last war it was typical of the German professional

soldiers that they were military technicians who did not overstep the

bounds of thir mission. The German General Staff was also a military-

scientific institution and certainly not a center of conspirators -- as

expressly recognized by the Nuernberg Irternational Tribunal, which made

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a clear dif ferentiation between honor able soldierliness, militarism, and

criminal ambition for power by a military clique. One may, on the whole,

agree with the thesis repeatedly emphasized by Vagt that, not only in

Germany but everywhere, the real imperialists and warmongers have been

the civilian nationalists and not the soldiers.

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Tradition and Formative Forces

The research work of the historian who desires to illuminate basic

problems connected with the German General Staff is confronted with great

difficulties because there are no real sources for creating a clear and

authentic historical picture of this institution. It is regrettable that

no history of the Prussian-German General Staff has ever been written.

Nor are there memoirs of any kind on hand which depict the internal life

of the General Staff. In accordance with Feldmarschall Moltke's motto,

"To accomplish nuch and to stay in the background," ,no one in the General

Staff felt inclined to transmit to posterity its achievements in a his-

tory which might give the impression of being a glorification. The General

Staff officers, who were trained in the doctrines -of Moltke, also known

as "Moltke the Reticent," often wrote about scientific military (and espe-

cially historical) subjects, but they left nothing in writing about their

work and about the internal affairs of the General Staff.

Although General Staff officers were always keenly interested in mili-

tary and army history, no plan for writing the history of the General

Staff was discussed until a much later date, during the tenure of General

Beck, when there was justification for fearing that the old principles

would be shaken and thro on overboard by the revolutionary forces, but

these efforts did not go beyond beginning a collection of materials,

which probably was lost.

Thus there was free room for play in forming the legends which grew up

around the General Staff during the time of the foundation and rise of

the German Empire; these legends were instrumental in promoting general

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confidence in the General Staff but also in developing derogatory prop-

aganda which was carried on against it between the two wrld wars. The

picture of the General Staff which is today available to researchers be-

came quite contradictory, and colored according to the source of the

opinions. It is therefore necessary, if one wishes to get to the bottom

of matters, to draw on the memories of old officers raised in the General

Staff, of whom there are only a few still alive, and to reconstruct a

picture of the nature and work of the old General Staff from impressions and

recollections passed on by word of mouth. We wish to make such an attempt

at reviewing the past, even though our memories reach back only to person e

experiences during the time of the younger Moltke. At that time, that is,

at the beginning of the present century, the impressive picture of Graf

Schlieffen was still very vivid before the eyes of all General Staff offi-

cers. The 19th century, on the other hand, was nothing meore than traditions

which, however, was still clearly recognizable on account of the conserva-

tive character of the old Prussian Army and its General Staff. The insti-

tutions and procedures which were introduced during the time of Feldmarschall

Moltke were so firmly impressed upon the consciousness of the generation

which followed after him that it was still much in evidence at the beginning

of our century. Until World War I was under way all General Staff officers

regarded themselves as disciples of Moltke and Schlieffen. The nature of

their system ill be described in a subsequent chapter.

The formative force exerted by the two great Prussian kings, who were

the key figures in raising Prussia to the rank of a Great Power, and who

so deeply and permanently influenced all state and army institutions, also

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exerted a permanent and deliberately retained effect on the General Staff,

which, to be sure, was a Prussian institution until World War I. The organ-

izational forms created by King Frederick William I who shaped Prussianism

with a strong hand and iron tenacity and gave all public servants of the

Prussian State an adamant law, as well as the memory of Frederick the Great,

who by his military glory and his works of peace imbued his Prussian nation

with pride and self-confidence and raised his State to the rank of a Great

Power, survived the collapse of 1806 and made possible the incurrection

against Napoleon and Prussia' s large share in his defeat and remained alive

in the Prussian State and arrw beyond the time when the Reich was founded

and until bWrld War I. An integral part of "The Heritage of Frederick the

Great" was the indoctrination of the Prussian officer, .hiis strong national-

ism, self-discipline, sense of justice, frugality, and pure morals.

He served his king net for the sake of lucre, for public servants never

found it very remunerative to "travailler pour le Roi de Prusse (work for

the King of Prussia). In families where the soldier's profession was hered-

itary fortunes became increasingly reduced from generation to generation,

this being a development in utter ccntrast to the prosperity of trade and

industry in the "Age of William."

Around the turn of the century this development served as the subject

of a widely-read contemporary novel, "Glittering isery" ("Glaenzendes Elend")

which dealt with the great contrast between the officer's highly esteemed

position in society, envied by many representlatives of civilian professions,

and his financial straits.

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The Prussian State was never in a position to pay its-ipublic servants

and officers high salaries and pensions. After Frederick the Great had

fought his wars, Prussia was so impoverished that extreme economy had to

be practiced with regard to all public services. If officers wanted to

"make a fortune," they were obliged to emigrate and serve in foreign armies.

For instance, General Von Steuben fought with the young American iepublic;

Gieisenau served on the side of ingland against the secessionist colonies;

York in the East India Company; after Prussia's defeat in 1806 numerous

Prussian officers, among them Clausewitz, ccntinued the fight against

Napoleon in Austria, Spain, and finally Russia. Such volunteering in foreign

armies was then considered entirely honorable, and since olden times had

been thought of in the old German Reich as a commuendable feature of German

"libera lism."

Still more burdensmea was the poverty of the Prussian State after the

defeat of 1806 when the country was ruthlessly exploited by Napolen. At

the begin ing of the 20th century orne Prussian city had not yet paid off

the debts which it had had to c tract because of the exhorbitant levies

imposed by the Eperor Napoleon.

The great intellectual movement which took hold of the entire Prussian

nation during the Wars of liberation was followed, after Napoleon' s downfall,

by political reaction and i elamerishment. After the Napoleonic Age the

Prussian officer who chose the soldier's career lived in great need and often

did not know how to obtain the money to pay for the necessities of life.

Many an officer with literary talents took recourse to his pen in order to

increase his small salary by earning a small stipend as a writer. For

instance, Feldmarschall Moltke, as a young of±fcer*, translated into German

* Feldmarschall Moltke was born in 1800 andCelmar Frh. v.d. Goltz in 1843.

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Gibbon's six-volume historical work "The Decline and Fall of the Roman

JEpire," (published in London, 1782-88), so that he could buy the horse

which he needed after his promotion to a captaincy. Likewise, the con-

siderably younger Colmar Frh. v.d. Goltz*, before his great talent as

a war historian became recognized, wrote cheap sensational novels to make

some money on the side.

What was it then that made the soldier's profession in Prussia in spite

of its poor economic prospects, so attractive that the sons of the most

distinguished families flocked to it, and that in some old families the

officer's career was passed down for five or six generations?

It is indeed remarkable that, in spite of the materialism which gradually

spread throughout the 19th century and the better prospectsAit other voca-

tions, such as caomerce, industry, and banking, there was retained in certain

segments of the population, such as land holding and the civil service, the

kind of idealism which again and again induced worth while men in sufficient

numbers to choose the military profession. It was this idealism which

prescribed adherence to the traditional high professional ethics and which

found expression in a strict application to official duties and unsullied

conduct, although the world around them had adapted a more liberal outlook

on life.

These virtues, implanted in the army by great educators in the time of

the old Prussianism, received strong impulses** rom Kant's book on the

"Categorical Imperative," and the philosophies of Fichte and Hegel.

* Feldinarschall Moltke was born in 1800 and Colmar Frh.v.d.Goltz in 1843.** Included in the curriculum of the War College in Berlin were lectures

an philoso hy. hese were discontinuud in he aid-seventies in thereforms a6ae by General Von eueer nspector General of Military Train-

and Education. Thereafter the War olege no lcn&er taught generalsubjects like a university, but only specialized sub3ects, like aGener al taff school.

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Moreover, these virtues characterized typical Prussian officer, and, since

the founding of the Reich by King William I and Bismarck, the German offi-

cer as well, who, in line with Prussian tradition, was a convinced conserv-

ative and monarchist. The relationship of the Prussian officer to his king

was a very personal one. From the day when the young soldier was commissioned

he entered into personal relations with the mcnarch; he became a "Royal

Prussian Officer." Thus he not only accepted the duties prescribed for

his class and profession, but he was guaranteed, according to the obsolete

language used for ccnveying commissions, "the prerogatives to which his

class entitles him." The king assured every officer of his protection and

promised to watch over him. This was the king's counter-service which gave

the officer the secure feeling that at the head of the state there was a

monarch who, being the army's highest officer, exercised comand powers

according to the constitution, who personally decided all important prob-

lems by means of "Supreme Cabinet Orders," and who took care that the

"privileges" of officers would be respected by all State agencies. Every

officer could feel himself safe under the protection of his monarch. The

relationship between king and officer was therefore a relationship of

mutual rendering of protection and services, as it had developed fran the

medieval feudal system.*

Pursuant to the feudal code, which on the whole was of Germanic origin

and which dominated Germany throughout the Middle Ages, the feudal overlord

was obliged to provide protection, an income, and military equipment, or

* This feeling of mutual belongingness and fealty still linked theGerman Wehrmacht to Reichspraesident Feldmarschall Von Hindenburg,but not to Hitler.

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an adequate "beneficium, " while the vassal' s duties included was fealty,

service at court, and bearing arms. BEen though the practical importance

of the feudal system as a pattern for warfare vanished with the introduc-

tion of standing armies at the close of the Middle Ages, many feudal c on.-

cepts and customs were nonetheless retained, particularly in Germany,

until the 19th century and played a certain role in the thinking of the

Prussian officer and official. As can be proved by various utterances

and actions, Bismarck thus considered his relationship to his monarch not

that of the functionary of a modern state but that of a vassal to his lord.

If the king objected to policies which Bismarck recommended, he expounded

the matter from the viewpoint of an officer and "withdrew to the level

of vassality," thus demanding from his lord the return of mutual fealty.

He described this by saying: "I grasped the king by his scabbard." The

Emperor William I was in fact very receptive to appeals to his status as

an officer, as well as to reminders to serve the officer corps as an

example by his unblemished personal conduct, since he was very much aware

of the Prussian officer tradition, and also because as a monarch he felt

himself with all his heart in agreement with the provisions of the court

of honor which were valid for the officer corps.

This feeling of close connection with its monarch gave to the officer

corps a firm foundation, and to each individual in this brotherhood a

class consciousness and a willingness to comply with the high standards

of professional ethics and strict application to official duties. All

officers, from the youngest lieutenant to the oldest general, were subject

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to the same severe law which King Frederick William I had decreed by in-

stituting officer selection, courts of honor, consent to marriage and reg-

;ular reports by superiors about the conduct of officers.

Washi $tan's requirement that "only gentlemen should be officer s

always applied to the Prussian officers. This requirement was kept in

mind by the commanders because they accepted as officer candidates

("Fahnenjunker ') only young men who from the breeding they had received

in their paternal homes and in schooling and training could be expected

to fit into the circle formed by the ryoal orders and were also conversant

with the etiquette taught children at an early age and brought along the

necessary philosophical prerequisites, such as loyalty to the monarchy, a

sense of duty toward the State, consideration for comrades, and a co-

operative spirit.

In addition to training by superiors which guided the official conduct

of every young officer, training by his comrades was also of great influence

upon the development of each officer. The example of older comrades dur-

ing hours of duty and of relaxation provided the young officer with poise

in handling difficult situations. If he was occasionally in doubt about

how to conduct himself he could always draw on the advice of a mere eaper-

ienced older companion. At mess tables for unmarried officers the senior

officer acted as moderator.

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Today it may seem as if the life of the Gernman officer on and off

duty was subjected to extraordinary restraints. But this was by no means

the case. Since the officer corps consisted only of well-bred men Who

agreed on all basic problems affecting life, there was always a feeling

of harmony and a readiness to meet older aasociates with tact and to

accept their well-meant advice. This was believed to be a natural subordi-

nation of younger to older men, and not felt as an onerous compulsion but

as something entirely justified. The consciousness of belonging to an

elite, to an aristocratic institution, put every officer under obligations

as if he were a member of a knightly order or an exclusive gentlements

club.

Every era should be measured by its own yardstick. What nowadays

may perhaps appear as ultra-exclusive and reactionary was in the Prussian-

influenced conservative world of the 19th century entirely vital and sound.

ahe Army, to which the German nation owed its unification, the founding

of the Reich, and its rise to the rark of a Great Power, and which in the

three wars conducted by the Emperor William I had supported and put into

effect Bismarck's policies, was a pillar of the State, enjoying among all

the German people a tremendous prestige and, until World War I, an unshak-

able confidence. In Germany the military profession was highly regarded

and the officer corps enjoyed, especially in the provinces of the Prussian

monarchy, great social prestige. All elennts which supported the State

MS # P-031b

liked to be seen in the garrison officers club. Only one who has lived

in Germany before 1914 can appreciate how beautiful and complete the life

of an officer then was. Just as in every country there had always been

young men who felt themselves attracted by the military profession, so was

this true, and to a greater degree, in Germany where the soldier had always

played the starring role in the State, and where he was even linked out-

wardly with the monarchy by his uniform as well as by many traditions and

customs.

The material amenities of the profession were then not as important

as they are today because higher society, from which the officer corps was

mainly drawn, had attained a certain degree of propperity during thelcng

period of peace after 1871. The senior official or the estate owner were

quite able to give their sons who selected the officer profession a regular

stipend, which they no longer needed, however, upon being appointed to a

captaincy.

Ideals were undoubtedly the decisive factor in most cases in selecting

the officer profession. But the sons of poorer families were by no- means

barred from becoming officers. The cadet corps, that wise institution dat-

ing back to Frederick William I, enabled even fathers who were poor or who

lived in the country to send their sons to a good school. The officer

profession called for no protracted and expensive training such as that

required by academic careers. If the merit of his family was beyond re-

proach, a "royal stipend" might be paid to a young officer whose father

could not afford to help him out financially. Consequently, it was not

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MS # P-031b

only the sons of wealthy families who became officers before 1914. To be

sure, high living standards and expensive habits were the rule in a few

officer corps, but the majority of the officers lived frugally and simply,

regarding this frugal standard of living not as a mark of onerous poverty,

but as a part of Prussian tradition, according to which it was not the

purse which made a gentleman but his aristocratic qualities.

It was quite self-evident that the few wealthy officers did not call

the tune in the officer corps but that they kept in mind their comrades

with less money to spend. Any improper display of wealth would have been

frowned upon as tactless and ill-timed and would have brought about the

intervention of the commanding officer.

Loan and aid funds were designed to aid the indigent officer. On ap-

plications for loans the commanding officer had to state whether the appli-

cant's financial affairs were in order. The contracting of frivolous

debts was not permitted. An above-average income, on the other hand, did

not help the officer to obtain more rapid promotion. Before 1914, the

Prussian-German officer corps was not plutocratic in character.

The fact deserves mention that many first-class officers came from

the poorer classes and that they rose, via the War College and the General

Staff, to high positions. Officers were assigned only on the basis of

their personal fitness and qualifications.

This was the general background of the Prussian-German officer, which

also decisively influenced the thinking and mental outlook of the General

Staff. For the General Staff was by no means a special and closed organi-

zation, but only a part of the entire officer corps.

MS # P-031b

The General Staff Of:ficer came from among the troops and had to prove

himself time and again in service with the troops if he wanted to rise

to higher General Staff positions. General Staff and troop officers thought

along the same lines and the formative forces which shaped both categories

were Prussianism, the Hohenzollern Monarchy, and the laws enacted by the

great kings of this dynasty. In Prussia's historical tradition the focal

points of patriotic memories for the army and the entire nation were the

wars of the Great Elector and of Frederick the Great, the Wars of Liberation

against Napoleon's yoke, and the German Wars of Unification under William I.

Sedan-Day, 2 September, ranked in first place among patriotic days of com-

menoration. This day, like the king's birthday, was celebrated by the

entire nation.

The Origin

The original roots of the General Staff, as a clearly defihable institu-

tion, do not reach farther back than the Napoleonic Age. To be sure, Gen-

eral Staff officers had already been employed in the Prussian Army before

that time -- Frederick the Great, indeed even the Great Elector, made use

of officers of the General Staff or of the General Quartermaster Staff in

their campaigns. They aided the "generalissimo" in working out orders far the

billeting of troops and for planning marches and battles; and they took steps

to provide military maps (which were first prepared during the 18th century),

to write a description of the country, and to reconnoiter local conditions

(such as the passability of roads, facilities for feeding and billeting,

defense of localities, reconnoitering of enemy positions).

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.... -1-MS # P-031b

Since cartography was very inadequate until Napoleon's time kin the

Fiench Emperor's armp, during its advance march into Prussia, not even

the corps ccmmanders possessed maps), and since the gathering of statis-

tical material about foreign armies and the various battle fields had also

not yet been systematically organized, the supreme cmmader had to have

available special officers who could be assigned to these tasks if needed.

Until the beginning of the 19th century battles were fought within a very

small area, which could be surveyed from the command post on a hill, and

the supreme commander was thus able to perform personally many functions

in the direction of the battle which in a later period had to be turned

over to trained aides.

Frederick the Great made it a rule to personally reconnoiter the enemy

positions before every battle. Even Napoleon often went on a reconnaissance

tour on the morning of the battle. But with the expansion of the armed

forces during the militaristic age of the French Emperor and their parti-

tion into armies, corps, and divisions it became necessary to support the

generalissimo and the senior commanders through officers who had been

trained in General Staff service and in higher troop cnmand. Following

the pattern of the Etat Major General in France, other Ehropean countries

such as Russia, Austria, and Prussia also established General Quartermaster

Staffs which, in the course of time, everywhere received the designation

of General Staff.

A revolutionary innovator along these lines in Prussia was General Von

&Sharnhorst who transferred in 1801 from the Hanovarian Army to Prussian

MS # P-031b

service where he became director of the school for young infantry and

cavalry officers, subsequently the War College. His teachings greatly

influenced the development of the Prussian officer corps and planted the

seeds from which grew the Prussian General Staff. Scharn horst's creation

was by no means tradition-bound; the "Heritage of Frederick the Great"

was for him, a native of Hanover, of no great significance. He was a keen

thinker, a practical genius possessing a wealth of theoretical knowledge,

and by his realistic work he achieved within a few years the greatest

successes.

Scharnhorst had the great gift of being able to gather around himself

excellent students and to profoundly influence them by his noble character,

his outstanding qualities, and his large store of knowledge. By his modesty,

simplicity, sobriety, and realism he acted as a model for the Prussian Gen-

eral Staff to imitate.

Scharnhorst truly set the pace for others as director of the War College,

as head of the Military Organizational Commission after Prussia's defeat in

1806, as chief of the War Department, from 1807 on and finally as Army Chief

of Staff. Among the disciples who admired him as the master and who fol-

lowed blindly in his footsteps were a number of important personalities who

rose to the highest positions in the Prussian Army during the Liberation

Wars and the years which followed. At this juncture there should be men-

tioned Clausewitz, who was especially close to the master and chief, and

such other men as Grolman, Mueffling, b.ehle Von Lilienstern, Boyen, and

Krauseneck.

Scharnhorst, as Chief of Staff, reorganized the Prussian Army fran top

to bottom, aboliahed the recruiting system changed the mercenary army into

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MS # P-031b

a people's army, and thus prepared Germany's liberation. Being progres-

sive he often had difficulties in convincing King Frederick William, III

of the merits of his new ideas. Moreover, he was bitterly fought by the

very influential reactionary circles of the monarchy. The great service

which he rendered the Prussian Army and the General Staff stands undisputed.

He imbued the army with an entirely new spirit, he freed the officer class

from feudal and aristocratic restraints and enabled it to render genuine

service, and he created the General Staff in conformity with the new re-

quirements of his time and endowed it with his own spirit.

Mention should be made of the fact that the founders of the Prussian

General Staff -- Scharnhorst and his disciples -- were exceptionally well-

educated men of versatile talents and that the General Staff at its birth

was sponsored not cnly by Mars but also by the Muses.

Scharnhorst was not only a great practician but also decidedly a

scientist who had unusual talents and great interest in military history.

To rai se the level of the scientific training of officershe founded in

Berlin in 1802 the "Military Society," which subsequently carried on

until our days as the "Scharnhoerst Society."

From the circle of disciples around Scharnhorst, who must be considered

the founder of the General Staff, there were passed on to this institution

many of the personal qualities which became characteristic of the German

General Staff and which lent it its profile: the selfless devotion of the

master to his task; the formulation of a modern military theory by the evalu-

ation of the lessons of the Napoleonic Period by Clausewitz, whose work

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was continued and completed by Feldmarschall Moltke and Graf Schlieffen;

the creation of a modern, caupletely adequate cartographic system on a

Scientific basis by Mueffling (the mapping of Prussia became the pattern

for many foreign armies); the recording of military history by Ruehle

Von Lilienstern and Boyen, which brought forth rich results during the

19th century and produced many stars of first magnitude; the organizational

technique of Grolman who, as first Chief of Staff after the liberation Wars,

gave the Greater General Staff of the Prussian Army its constitution and

organizational statutes.

After the siege of Kolberg was raised, Gneisenau, the town's courageous

defender, joined the circle of men grouped around Scharnhorst in leenigsberg,

and from this time on he was one of the most assidious aides of the master.

Gneissenau was not only an outstanding soldier and commander, but his ver-

satile education and statesman-like gifts would have enabled him to make

his mark in politics after 1815 if the King of Prussia had cared to avail

himself of them. But the reactionary currents then prevailing in Prussia

during the Age of the Restoration forced him into the background. His war-

time exploits as the real conqueror of Napoleon have passed on his glory to

posterity. His chivalrous nature, dignified modesty, and benign and amiable

conduct assured him of the love and admiration of his contemporaries. By

his genius Gneisenau put the stamp of his personality on the General Staff

in its formative period. No history of the German rebellion would be com-

plete without all of these men who were counted among Scharnhorst' s dis-

ciples in Koenigsberg and who fought with him in the Liberation Wars, since

every one of them played an important part in the Liberation of Germany

MBS # P-031b -22-

MS # P-031b

and Europe from the French yoke.

During Napoleon's long rule of oppression, and in spite of unfavorable

conditions, politics developed at a lively pace in Prussia. The memory of

an earlier great period under the monarchy aroused a blazing patriotism

and a grim hatred against the despotic oppressor. This hatred, starting

from the educated classes, also spread anmng the loer segments of the

population, whose position became unbearable due to exhorbitant war repara-

tions and taxes imposed on a stagnating trade and industry. During this

period of German resurrection there was born in Prussia (feeling in the non-

Prussian parts of Germany, especially in the states of the Federation of

the Rhine was by no means enthusiastic and patriotic), the type of national-

ism which, in the course of the 19th century, was also crystallizing in other

great powers and which developed into that form of imperialism that became

the hallmark of the century. During the period of the liberation Wars and

in the ensuing age of restoration there also came into being -- and by no

means in Prussia or Germany alone -- modern militarism in the frm of a

partly bureaucratic and party t'Junker-like" reaction which tried to revive

pre-revolutionary traditions, rejected the ideas of 1789, drove the bour-

geoisie from political influence, and systematically barred the soldier

from politics. From that time on the nationalists, who were closely tied

up with militarism, frequently appeared to be more bellicose and therefore

more "militaristic" than the professional soldiers.

The Prussian General Staff in no wise either influenced or participated

in this development. In fact, the American Vagt recognizes in his above-

quoted book that Clausewitz, the creator of the Prussian war doctrine, was

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MS # P-031b

actually a philosopher who evaluated the war lessons learned from the time

of Frederick the Great to Napoleon, that he did not pursue any "militaristic

aims" and that it was indeed he who had warned against the onesidedness of

militaristic thinking. The men of the Scharnhorst circle were by no means

reactionaries, nor could they be charged with military blunders or failures.

For the age in which they lived they were modern, progressive men who tried

in vain to stem the tide of reaction which engulfed Prussia after the vic-

tory over Napoleon; due to political difficulties they either retired early

from military service to private life, as for instance Gneisenau, Grolman,

and Boyen, or they confined themselves to their scientific work with the

General Staff or to military writing, as did Mueffling and Clausewitz.

From the common destiny experienced by the General Staff's founding

generation assembled around Scharnhorst there developed a lasting institution,

namely the organization known as the Prussian "General Staff with Troops"

(Truppengeneralstab), which was taken as a pattern by many foreign armies

and which lived on in the German Army until World War II. In Bluecher's

Silesian Army headquarters Scharnhorst served as his first Chief of Staff to

be followed by Gneisenau after Scharnhorst's untimely death from combat

wounds. Mueffling headed the "Ia" (chief of operations) branch and subse-

quently the Quartermaster-General branch of the same army. It was here in

the Silesian Army that there was introduced the division of headquarters into

Ia, Ib, Ic, and IIa branches -- as still krona today. During that time there

also originated the special co-responsibility of the General Staff under

which the position of the Chief of Staff was given importance and influence

alongside that of the canmander-in-chief. The Chief of Staff was charged with

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MS # P-031b

co-responsibility for the command and execution of operations and for

co-ordinating all other branches at headquarters, which was the reason why

he had to be informed about everything taking place at headquarters *.

If, before 1914, a Prussian Army General Staff officer had been asked

what were the traditional factors of which he felt specially conscious,

he would have pointed to Scharnhorst, the elder Moltke, and Graf Schlieffen,

but certainly not to the "Heritage of Frederick the Great," which was so

frequently cited under the National Socialist regime.

* fue to the characteristics and strength of the personalities concerned,and the special conditions involved in the coalition war againstNapoleon (the Allied monarchs pursued different political aims andthe Allied armies were composed of contingents from different countries)it became necessary that, the army's Chief of Staff should be accordedstrong influence together with his .cmmmader-in-chief, that the GeneralStaff should bear co-responsibility, and that special General Staffchannels should be fer-ed in the Prussian Army. During operationsScharnhorst kept in contact with his disciples working in the GeneralStaffs with Troops. Gneisenau, Scharnhorst's ideal successor, in-formed these disciples (Clausewitz in the "Korps Thielmann," Boyen inthe "Korps Buelow," Mueffling in Wellington s headquarters, etc.) abouthow the situation was evaluated at the Silesian Army headquarters andthe intentions of the headquarters.

It is a well-known fact that this "Prussian solution" of the GeneralStaff organization was not copied in all other armies. Thus, in theFrench Army, which also served as a pattern for other armies, theChief of Staff was not charged with co-responsibility. Although he isresponsible for the co-ordination of all headquarters branches, theQuartermaster-General (who in Prussia is in charge of logistics) isindependently in charge of the command and supervision of operations.

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MS # P-031b

However it is true that this figure from a far distant illustrious

past was paid unmistakable tribute by the Army officer corps and its

General Staff. Thus, the birthday of Frederick the Great was traditionally

celebrated by a festive lecture in Berlin's Military Society, usually

attended by the Kaiser and all top military leaders living in Berlin. To

the young officers attending the War College, who often came to the Reich

capital from small garriscn posts, it was a glittering martial picture

which impressively brought before their eyes Prussia's military might. As

a rule a General Staff officer of the Historical Division (II) delivered

the lecture on Frederick the Great, in which he illuminated his campaigns

from a new angle. The General Staff's work on the se campaigns was carried

on with painstaking thoroughness and by delving into all available scarce

material, and it proceeded at a very slow pace. When World War II broke

out in 1939, the multi-volume work was finally just about to be concluded.

The last volume was then ready to go to press and it is probable that, like

so many other German military-scientific publications in libraries and

collections, it was lost in the storma of the war and postwar period. In

retrospect, critics might perhaps object becanse so great an importance

was still officially attributed to the age of Frederick the Great at the

beginning of this century, because one of the two Historical Sections of

the General Staff had devoted many years to the task of issuing a revised

edition on the campaigns of the great king, and because it was standard pro

cedure to comence the semesters at the War College with lectures on Freder'

the Great' s campaigns. Warfare had changed, without doubt, so dractically

during the past two centuries that occupation with more recent campaigns

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MS # P-031b

would probably have been more profitable for the junior General Staff

officer. This was a compromise with Prussian tradition and less the result

of sober, cogent c cnsiderations though the General Staff can hardly be blamed

for following this procedure. Before World Wars I and II, other General

Staffs probably acted similarly in preserving a vivid memory of their

country's greatest military period in the minds of their General Staff can-

didates. Ledtures about Napoleon's campaigns are presumably being delivered

even today at the- cole Superieur de Guerre in Paris. This is a part of the

imponderables in military tradition which are of great importance for the

spirit of an officer corps. The leaders of an army and especially of the

General Staff should take steps, however, to see to it that the cult of

tradition does not turn into an obstacle preventing a sensible attitude by

the officer corps toward the new missions and developments of the time.

Methoda and Performance

The tight organization of the Prussian General Staff during its classical

period, which may be regarded as lasting from Scharmhorst to Schlieffen,

rested on two pillars which were so solid and rugged that throughout a cen-

tury they bore the structure of the General Staff. These two pillars were

painstaking selection and thorough, carefully-conducted training. It may

be assumed as widely known how General Staff candidates were selected, and

how the training at the War College and within the General Staff was devel-

oped in the course of time to be a special science. In this connection it

should be mentioned but briefly that the number of young officers volunteering

MS # P-031b

each year for the War College was rather large (according to my recol-

lection about 1,000 officers), but that only very few (some eighty or ninety)

were actually accepted as the result of their entrance examinations.

This selective process was cntinued at the end of the three-year

training period at the War College, since only about half of the students

were found fit to be accepted by the General Staff school. Of these again

only about half were transferred into the General Staff after two years of

training. Consequently, of roughly 1,000 officers starting out in the con-

test, at the end of five training years only some fifteen or twenty were

left who had reached their goal. The young General Staff captains were em-

ployed in the Greater General Staff in Berlin or at corps headquarters as

Ib or Ic officers. After about two years they were put at the disposal of

the "military cabinet" (Militaer-Kabinett) for line assignments. Their serv-

ice as company, squadron, or battery commanders lasted as a rule two years.

Then followed another transfer to the Greater General Staff, and soon

thereafter an assignment as Ia at division level. Then the process of selec-

tion again began to function. Not all General Staff officers were considered

qualified to take over the fubhtions of a la at corps headquarters, and only

a small number of those who were so c nsidered, and not until they had suc-

cessfully passed their assignments as battalion commanders, were judged quali-

fied for duty as Chief of Staff of an army corps or as section chief in the

Greater General Staff. Fran among these section chiefs there were appointed

four or five chief quartermasters (Oberquartiermeister) of the Greater General

Staff who then stood between the Chief of the Army General Staff and his divi-

sion chiefs. Thus the General Staff officer corps formed a pyramid resting on

a broad base but tapering off rapidly toward the top.

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MS # P-031b -29-

From the Scharnhorst period on the general training of General Staff

officers consisted in the solution of tactical problems. In the course

of time there were added:

War gazes (since Mueffling).

General Staff trips (Generalstabsreisen); (long General Staff trips

since Krauseneck's time; Corps General Staff trips since RePher; administra-

tive and fortress General Staff trips since Schlieffen).

Emperor maneuvers (Kaisermaneuver), since Feldmarschall Graf Moltke.

Courses in military history.

About once every fortnight during the winter the older General Staff

officers (working in the sections) posed and discussed the tactical problems

which were then worked out within the sections of the Greater General Staff.

Thereupon, the section chiefs were engaged in winding up the winter training.

The chief quartermaster then submitted for solution one or two problems re-

lating to his own operations. The climax was reached when, during the spring,

the Great Chief ("Grosse Chef" -- that is, the Army Chief of Staff)

submitted the problems which affected the general operations of the Greater

General Staff and the General Staff with Troops either one or two problems).

The problems dealt with were kept on a small scale (relating to a brigade, a

division or an army corps) and concerned the period from Scharnhorst to Graf

Moltke. Graf Schlieffen was the first to make a great modern war the subject

of his problems which, as a rule, touched on those arising from a two-front

war and fighting against superior forces, His successor, the younger Moltke,

continued Schlieffen' s methods.

MS # P-o31b

The war games, supervised by the Great Chief, took place in winter

and were attended only by senior General Staff officers of the Greater

General Staff. The war games dealt with problems concerning Germany's

current military and political situation and were based alternately on the

front against Russia and the front against France. The same applied with

regard to the long General Staff tours which, commanded by the Great Chief,

occurred during the sunner aid offered the participating senior General

Staff officers an insight into German border regions. Until the beginning

of this century the tours were made on horseback, and afterward by motor

vehicle. Until 1914 it was a rule to participate only on horseback in

the smaller (corps) General Staff tours.

Prepared in a section of the Great General Staff, the "emperor maneuvers'

were commanded by the Great Chief. The officers of the Great General Staff

functioned as his aides or as organs of the umpire service. At the end of

the maneuvers the emperor briefly expressed his opinions in a critique.

This critique was supplemented by a detailed written report about the

emperor maneuvers called the Brown Book which offered a comprehensive survey

of the course of the maneuvers as a whole, expressed opinions regarding the

decisions and measures ordered by the commanders of the opposing forces, and

discussed the problems encountered in a modern war. The maneuver commanders

tried successfully to simulate wartime conditions. as far as possible. In

this respect the younger Tbltke, the last Chief of Staff before World War I,

earned special plaudits because, before taking over his office, he had induced

the iser to relinguish his supreme command over one side -- which fact facil

itated the umpire staff's work and favored the warlike c nduct of the maneuver

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MS # P-031b

Before 1914 no other scientific field played such a significant part

in the life of the German General Staff as military history. The Military

History Division (from Schlieffen on there were two such divisions) was

an important component of the Great General Staff. Of the Army Chiefs of

Staff, Mueffling, Feldmarschall Graf Moltke and Graf Schlieffen were themn-

selves outstanding historians. For a long period Moltke was chief of the

Historical Division and even as Chief of Staff he worked very closely with

it. The publications issued by the Historical Division during the Moltke

period were very detailed and were influenced by Moltke down to the last

particulars. From the time of the elder Moltke on it became a tradition in

the Prussian General Staff to assign the best brains to the Historical Divi-

sion. Let us remember men such as Verdy du Vernois, Frh. v.d. Goltz, Meckel,

Graf Yorck V. Wartenburg, V. Bernhardy, Kuhl, Schlichting, Frh. V. Freytag-

Loringhoven -- all of whom, coming from the Historical Division, found a

lasting niche in world literature.

All the great Chiefs of Staff from Scharnhorst to the younger Mbltke

were not only outstanding soldiers but also possessed a general education

far surpassing mere professional knowledge. Not all 19th century General

Staff officers were scientific luminaries or great thinkers, but the cultural

level of the old General Staff was nevertheless, if seen as a whole, sur-

prisingly high, as is shown by the large number of important German military

writers who created works of enduring value. However, not only books about

military history were written, although they naturally had the greatest ap-

peal, but also works on general history (e.g., Graf Yorck's "Outline of His-

tory"), on geography (e.g., 'oltke's travel descriptions of Turkey), and other

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MS # P-031b

literature, as well as a good many memoirs and memorandums, all of which

gave witness to the high intellectual culture of their authors by their

great value in illuminating contemporary events.

Following the examples of Scharnhorst, Mueffling, Moltke, and Schlieffen,

Prussian General Staff officers proved to be highly enthusiastic writers

since they considered it an honored duty to pass on their deeper insight

into current events and problems to the entire officer corps, and thus to

stimulate its education.

The fact that, in addition to handling its huge official workload,

the General Staff could still pour forth a considerable #olume of literature,

makes it evident that this institution was capable of avoiding onesidedness

and that it attracted versatile talents. This wealth of talents was particu-

larly conspicuous during the period from 1870 to around 1900, when the in-

fluence of the elder Moltke was still very strong. But even the years from

the turn of the century until 1914 produced among a large number of minor

lights a few stars of the first magnitude, including Schlieffen, Freytag-

Loringhoven, Kuhl, Goltz, and Bernhardy. The great achievements and charac-

teristic features of the Prussian General Staff during the 19th century re-

sulted from the seeds planted by Scharnhorst and his disciples and were

further developed by its Chiefs of Staff. These were, without exception,

very remarkable men who occupied their offices for a very long time, as

was then customary. The tenures of the Chiefs of Staff encompassed the

following periods:

F.M.v.Muef fling 1820 - 29

Genl. v.Krauseneck 1829 - 48

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Genl.v. Reyhor 1848 - 57

F.M. Graf Moltke 1857 - 88

F.M. Graf Waldersee 1888 - 91

F.M. Graf Schlieffen 1891 - 1905

Gen. (b. v. Moltke 1906 - 14.

As Chief of Staff, Graf Waldersee was only an episode, and his ccntro-

versial personality left no permanent mark on the General Staff. On the

other hand, all other "Great Chiefs" created lasting values and with forma-

tive force strongly shaped the institution of the General Staff. Because

of their long tenures of office and concentration on their proper missions

they had sufficient time to probe to the bottom of contemporary problems

and to establish a school. It is to their merit that there evolved a defir-

ite type of Prussian General Staff officer, and a genuine tradition devel-

oped, both to a degree which is the annals of history only become possible

otherwise through the cultivation of an exclusive aristocracy or under the

formative hands of a religious hierarchy. This fact is the more amazing as

Moltke's dictum, "Accomplish rach, remain in the background," was neither

attractive to nor easily followed by men of the 19th century and still less

by those living in the present one. Indeed it appears as if Meltke' s dictum,

reformulated as it was by Schlieffen into the more impressive "Be more than

you appear to be," was a dictum which is inadequate as the rule for an

Order and hardly comprehensible. To find historical parallels for the

military proficiency and religious ethics practiced simultaneously in the

Prussian General Staff, it is necessary to travel far back into past epochs,

perhaps to the time of the German Knightly Order which colonized eastern

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MS # P-031b

Germany or to the Spanish Knightly Order during the time of the "Reconquista."

The stimulants for the development of this special type of Prussian

General Staff officer certainly need not be sought in such external aspects

as special uniforms, quicker promotions, higher social esteemn,. etc. For

these advantages were outbalanced by considerable disadvantages, such as

numerous transfers, which usually took the General Staff officer to field

assignments in small border garrisons, frequent moving of his family, and

many changes in the schools of his children. One who witnessed conditions

as a General Staff officer in the years preceding 1914 will admit that the

troop officer led in every way a more agreeable and tranquil life than the

General Staff officer who was subject to constant changes and whose shoulders

were saddled with a hge workload which compelled unswerving devotion to

his official duties throughout the years and which left him with very little

time for his family and friends. In recent times there has perhaps existed

no other institution in which all members worked as hard for so little pay

as in the Prussian General Staff before 1914.

The record that the General Staff unfolded for more than a hundred

years on the stage of events must have been incomprehensible to outside

spectators living in an age steadily growing more materialistic. Time and

again the question was asked, "What ideas united and inspired these men,

who threw themselves into their work with a veritable frenzy and who, by

ignoring the amenities of human life, exhausted themselves in devotion to

their tasks, like members of a religious sect?" For it appeared indeed unbe-

lievable that such an intensified devotion to a concept of duty as was deeand-

by the General Staff and performed by its members should be possible without

adequate remuneration.

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"'Genius ,work," the maxim coined by Graf Schlieffen with reference

to the elder Moltke, points the way to the solution of the General Staff

problem. Even the most gifted of men needs incessant and methodically

continued training in order to improve his work and achieve perfection.

To make this ideal come true, careful measures had to be taken to find

the army's best brains and then to assign them to the General Staff. The

officers who were weighed in the balance and judged acceptable had to prove

themselves worthy of the distinction of permission to work in the General

Staff by a supremely intensified sense of duty and responsibility, and

they had to acquire, through never-ceasing work, a fitness to handle ever

greater tasks. But an individual's out standing talents were not alone

sufficient for lasting success: in the Prussian General Staff, for his

character also had to stand the test of trial. Such an individual had

to have qualities all his own which combined a harmcnious blending of the

heart and mind, splendid idealism, a large degree of self-denial, tactful

self-control, the faculty to feel content to live out of the limelight

notwithstanding a knowledge of his own merits, and such a sense of responsi-

bility as would make him feel amply rewarded with a gradually increased

reliance on him. A critical review of the long row of General Staff officers

who occupied important positions during the century from Scharnhorst to the

younger Moltke will reveal amazingly high standards and uniformity of

achievements and intellectual bearing, as well as men of a highly educated

type, and a school of outstanding soldiers such as has rarely been developed

in any other army in such large numbers and unbroken continuity.

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MS # P-031b

In spite of their great accomplishments, all these men willingly

submitted to the rules of the General Staff, practiced self-restraint,

and kept themselves free from human weaknesses. In their breasts there

blazed the fire of ambition, for there is no competent officer without

ambition. Bat esprit de corps, a consciousness of their rank, self-

discipline, and a proper understanding of facts prevented their ambition

from flaring up in consuming flames. Violations of the Rules of the Order

on tactfulness, which prescribed modest reticence and work for the cause

and it fir t~ ':s dah peratsh were hardiy conceivab a and if they did

occur were never condoned, irrespective of a man's other qualifications.

Any officer whose deficiencies of character established his unfitness for

the General Staff was permanently removed from it.

A large pool of great personalities who are, or appear to be, fit for

the highest canmand positions is the best standard by which to measure the

intellectual strength of an army. They abounded in the glorious age of

the General Staff during the tenure of Generalfeldmarschall Graf Moltke.

Moltke's collaborator, General Von Verdy, mentions in his "Studies on War"

six other generals besides Moltke who he thought could be fully trusted

with the position of Chief of Staff for the entire army. At the end of the

Moltke period this large pool of leaders had not yet been dissipated. We

know from the writings of General Von Schlichting that Feldmarschall Moltke

kept a list of generals mhom he considered best -qualified to replace him.

This list was fairly long.

That the Prussian General Staff, when World 'War I broke out in 1914, had

carefully preserved Moltke's heritage and was still in its prime is proved

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MS # P-031b

by the large number of great soldiers who, as graduates from the General

Staff, made names for themselves from 1914 to 1918. Not counting the

commanding generals who as aristocrats were placed, following Prussian

tradition, at the head of armies and army groups, all German commanding

generals (with the sole exception of Gen. Oberst Von Kluck) came from

the General Staff. Of the many outstanding General Staff officers who as

Chiefs of Staff or in other special assignments excelled since 1914,

the following among many others should be mentioned; Seeckt, Hoffmann,

Kuhl, Luettwitz, Lossberg, v.d. Schulenburg, Wetzell, Pawelsz, Hell,

Reinhardt, Tschischwitz, Hasse, Groener, Haye, and Keller. Because of se-

lection and methodical training these men were shaped into a uniform type,

conscious of tradition, faithful to their duty, full of initiative, void of

ambition, loyal counselors and aides of their commanding generals, completely

conversant with German military doctrine, ready and capable for great achieve-

ments, but restrained by strong self-discipline from inconveniencing others

by focusing attention on themselves.

Against their will, and entirely in cantrast to the Rules of the Order

and the real tradition of the General Staff, its members were gradually

drawn into the spotlight by Palkenhayn's and still more by Ludendorff' s

personal policies when World War 1 developed on the German side into a

' ar of chiefs", and their positions thus underwent a complete change fram

those held by the chiefs of staff of armies and corps during Moltke's wars.

The German General Staff and the War College were dissolved for the

time being as a result of the "peace dictate" of Versailles. That the

professional ethics of the old army and of the old General Staff could,

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MS # P-01b 3

to a considerable degree, be preserved and adopted by the Reichswehr' s

100,000-man ary was primarily to the merit of General Seeckt, who selected

his collaborators for the reconstruction of the small professional army

from the ran of former General Staff officers. Seeckt's maxim, "General

Staff officers have no names," spoke the mind of Scharnhorst, Moltke, and

Gneisenau. Faced with the most unfavorable internal political conditions,

Seeckt created something great with his small professional army. His icy

taciturnity effectively repelled all attempts to disturb the rebuilding of

the ary on traditional lines. His dismissal, brought about by an internal

political problem, was an irreplaceable loss to the Reichswehr. None of

his successors could reach Seeckt's stature.

Severely hampered by political ccnditions and the general unrest pre-

vailing between the two world wars, the War College could, relatively

speaking, merely vegetate in the shadow during the few years which passed

between the re-establishment of military sovereignty (in 1935) and the

outbreak of World War II. The training courses had to be shortened to

two years and frequently condensed even more. The old General Staff's

time-tested procedures which originated in the serenity of a secure peace

were not always applicable ,during the hectic years of rapid rearmament and

incessant foreign crises.

The years following Adolf Hitler's seizure of power were also not

favorable to the General Staff's cult of tradition or the methodical train-

ing of its officers. Nevertheless, conditions permitting, an attempt was

made to re-establish contact with the old times before 1914. This wish

was dLese to the hearts of the various chiefs of the Army High Command,

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such as Reinhardt, Seeckt, Heye, Erh. v.Fritsch, and especially General Beck,

the first Chief of the revived General Staff. Beck, whose entire bearing

testified to his fine humaneness, lived ccnsciously in the tradition of the

old General Staff. He tried to adapt modern requirements to old principles.

When something new was to be introduced, he always asked reporting officers

how such matters had been dealt with in farmer times. The General Staff's

old procedures were for him the standard to be emulated; it was difficult

to induce him to change old methods. If he had stayed in office longer,

and if peace could have been preserved, Beck would certainly have created

something of lasting value. However, his tenure was too short, the instabil-

ity of the times too great, and thus there was precluded any planned recon-

struction of a new General Staff on a solid foundation, Moreover, Hitler

and the National Socialist Party were suspicious of, and had no understand-

ing for, the General Staff, its traditions, and its methods. "Be rather

than seem" was a motto which no longer reflected the new spirit; the prin-

ciple that only true merit should be rewarded was ccntrary to the lust for

power of the revolutionists; the value of well-grounded professional experi-

ence was not recognized; the General Staff's operating procedure, whereby

its members shared responsibility, ran counter to the technique of an authori-

tative regime; the General Staff's claim to be heard before decisions were

reached was denied; and the method of arriving at logical decisions through

a realistic evaluation and a conscientious weighing of facts was declared

outmoded and lifeless. What Napoleon called the foremost quality of a mili-

tary leader, a realization of the actual situation, was to be substituted

for by an unbridled optimism.

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MS # P-031b

As a matter of principle, Hitler liked nothing better than to score

a propagandistic effect and he would not listen to reascn. The most import-

ant reasan why Hitler and the Party rejected and opposed the General Staff

stemmed from the deep distrust with which both regarded this institution

which was motivated by high idealism and strict professional ethics. Hitler's

very suspicious nature probably saw in the General Staff something different

than it really was. To him, the General Staff was uncanny. His ever-

present apprehension made him feel that the concept of the classical General

Staff was incompatible with the National Socialist doctrine and that the

selective processes of the General Staff produced a different type of offi-

cer than the school of the Warty. Hitler feared perhaps that some day the

General Staff might endanger him and his despotism, that from the ranks of

the General Staff officers men might join together to overthrow him and the

National Socialist regime -- as almost actually came to pass on 20 July 1944.

This is the reason hy Hitler carried an his fight against the General

Staff in an ever more ruthless manner. With regard to promotions and decora-

tions the General Staff officers found themselves at a disadvantage compared

to troop officers. Whereas in earlier tines the Prussian officer had felt

himself linked to his monarch by ties of mutual confidence, the times had

now changed. Between the head of the Reich and his officers there existed

a growing tension, distrust, indeed unconcealed enmity. The last Chiefs

of Staff had to bear in mind that Himmler might step into their positions,

and that the General Staff vould be taken over by the SS. While the battle

against the enemy became ever more perilous there smouldered disguised at

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MS # P-031b

home the embers of civil and class warfare. General Halder and Zeitzler

were dismissed from their offices in the most humiliating manner. Guderian,

the last Chief of Staff, had to put up with a security guard watching over

him in his outer room.

The Chief of Staff had to act with great caution lest he should fan

still higher the existing distrust against himself and against the General

Staff as an institution. It was up to him to inccnspicuously straighten out

matters tie and again after they had been tangled into confusion by inter-

fering dilettantes. The number of cases when Hitler ruled against the Gen-

eral Staff and its suggestions during the war is exceedingly large. In a

frivolous and unscrupulous manner Hitler dissipated the wealth of experi-

ence and competence accumulated by the General Staff in countless hours of

hard w wk and study.

After Hitler's accession to power very little could be done to preserve

the old traditions of the General Staff. After World War I, for this purpose

a "Graf Schlieffen Society of Former General Staff Officers," there had been

founded which, however, was far from flourishing. .nce a year, on the anni-

versary of Graf Schlieffen' s death, the society members met in Berlin. They

would hear a lecture, usually on some recent historical subject, and then

dine together at a long table with the "president by seniority," General-

feldmarschall V. Mackensen, generally delivering a brief speech. This was

the only occasion during the whole year when the old and young General

Staff officers came together and when the General Staff Society had a chance

to function. But even these unimportant activities aroused Hitler's

suspicion and displeasure. He intended, as General Schmundt once said, to

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dissolve the Schlieffen Society after Feldmarschall Mackensen' s death.

But his plan was never consummated because Hitler died before Mackensen.

The German Theory of War

The greatest achievement of the Prussian General Staff was a theory

of modern war developed according to the denands of the time. Within the

scope of this brief study it is not possible to discuss in detail the ques-

tion as to how the General Staff arrived at its theory of war after much

intensive intellectual effort. Here there dan only be briefly mentioned

those men who contributed the most in the solution of the problem and the

mental processes which they used in reaching their aims. Above the large

number of German military theoreticians who tried to unveil the "mystery of

war" there shine in bright glory for all time the five brilliant stars --

Schamrnhorst, Gneisenau, Clausewitz, Moltke, and Schlieffen.

The first among these intellectual master minds was Scharhorst, the

creator of the Prussian General Staff. From various operational plans

drawn up by him and still preserved it becomes evident that he endeavored

to take into account the increased size of armies and that he wished to

find a more fluid form for commanding large units. During the many wars at

the beginning of the 19th century it became more and more unavoidable to order

large units to nmarch separately. Moltke's subsequent dictum that "the nature

of strategy consists in the ordering of separate marches and of troop con-

centrations at the proper moment" * had actually already been formulated

it:oltke, "Tactical and Strategic Studies from the years 1857-71,"Berlin, 1900, page 237.

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MS # P-031b

by others during the Napoleonic period, and it meant, according to Nbltke,

"merely the revival of a military experience forgotten during a long peace

period" (1). The maxim, "March separately, fight in unison," although later

on ascribed to otlke, was definitely first pronounced by Scharnhorst. This

great thinker had at a surprisingly early moment discovered this idea which

he formulated as follows: "It is an erroneous opinion that one's own forces

must be held together and that is it is a principle of military art not to

fan out. On the contrary, it is a general rule, though only for the more

skilled, to cautiously divide one's forces and to compel the enemy to do

likewise, in order then to attack his divided parts with concentrated strength.

The principle of strategy here discussed, therefore demands: Never deploy in

concentrated force, but always attack with concentrated forces." (2)

Scharnhorst' s ideas were later on further developed when he wrote:

"Every close concentration of large masses is a calamity in itself. It is

justified and necessary if battle is imminent. in the presence of the enemy

it is dangerous to loosen up this concentration and impossible to persist

in adhering to it. It is the difficult task of a good comnander to keep the

massed troops separated but to insure their ability to concentrate again in

time. No general rules for this can be established as the problems will

change with each new situation." (l)

(1) Frh. v. Freytag-Loringhoven, "Army Command in World War I," Berlin,1920,p.4.

(2) Scharnhorst, "The Battle Near Mareago," 1802.

(l)Reprinted from "Militaer Wochenblatt," 1867, No.18.

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The concept which was not fully clarified until Moltke applied it in

his strategy was that it is immaterial whether the troops are concentrated

or not, since the decisive factor is their operation in battle as a unit.

At the beginning of the 19th century, when armies first marched separately,

it was certainly not the intention thus to introduce a new strategic system,

for this procedure was designed to facilitate the general requirements of

the command. The size to which armies had grown during the Napoleonic period,

since about 1805, no longer permitted the movement of masses in a permanently

concentrated form. Even the Emperor Napoleon frequently applied the new

system of separated marches, most conspicuously probably on his advance toward

the Danube in 1005. The principle "March separately and fight in unison" was

thus not some new strategy since it was one of the basic prerequisites for

co mnding large armies.

A milestane in developing the problem of how to carry out operations

through separated parts was represented by the operational plan worked out

by Napoleon's opponent for the autumn campaign of 1813 and which history

recorded as "Trachenberger' s operational plan." The basic idea of the Al-

lied plan, which was variously changed in the course of events, was that

three armies should mutually support each other by advancing from different

directions. But none of these armies was to engage in combat against

superior forces.

The agreements reached by the Allies concerning the command of the

campaign had the effect that their individual armies met the Emperor's

field marshals in battle and defeated them, but that Napoleon's offensive

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MS # P-031b -45-

thrusts were avoided. This method, which called for a very forceful leader-

ship, miscarried at Dresden where the emperor came to the aid of his hard

beset marshals in time. The problem which the Allies had to solve was this:

how were their three armies to combine on the same day in the battle field

against Napoleon, who occupied a central position?

Very curious suggestions were made. They indicate how difficult the

situation of those units located on the extreme flanks was then considered.

The campaign dragged on without a clear decision. Finally the commanders

of the Silesian Army Blitcher and his Chief of Staff, decided -- since

Napoleon appeared to be the master of the Elbe between Torgau and Witten-

berg -- to march to the right, cross the Elbe between Torgau and Wittenberg,

and approach Bernadette's Northern Army in order to induce it to commence

an energetic offensive. The risks of this operation were obvious. The

Silesian Army could be defeated individually or pushed off the decisive

battleground. All these disadvantages were considered by Bluecher and

Gneisenau as secondary to their determination to regaining the intiative,

and in view of a possible great victory. The commanders of the two other

Allied Armies, on the other hand, were more hesitating and cautious than

those of the Silesian Army. Consequently, many more difficulties had to be

surmounted before the collaboration of all three armies was secured for

carrying out the decisive battle. In this connection, the operational

initiative always originated with the headquarters of the Silesian Army.

At that time it was something entirely novel to march, not only from

one direction, but from two opposite directions to converge for battle. In

a review of the countless difficulties which then had to be mastered to

MS # P-031b

initiate and carry through the first great converging operation with sev-

eral armies, it will be realized how strange and unaccustomed the novel

nature of their operations against Napoleon must have seemed to the com-

manders in 1813. The reader will gain an impression of the meritorious

services rendered by the Silesian Army' s headquarters inasmuch as Trachen-

berger's plan was finally crowned with success in the Battle of the Nations

at Leipzig. Gneisenau's genius and Bluecher's combative initiative directed

the autumn campaign of 1813 into an entirely different corse than could

have been expected as the result of the extremely cautious campaign plan

plotted by Trachenberg.

The Battle of the Nations at Leipzig was such a battle as had never

before been witnessed in history. It might have become a complete battle

of amihilation had not the faint-heartedness of the victors opened a door

to the French Ekperor through which he could escape complete destruction,

In any case, a catastrophy had overtaken Napoleon. The result of Allied

strategy of converging of separated armies on the battlefield exceeded all

their expectations at the beginning of the campaign.

The importance of the Allied strategy which led to the Battle of Leipzig

was not clearly recognized either by contemporaries or during the long peace

period which followed the Wars of Liberation. The military theoreticians

who discussed this problem in the first half of the 19th century doubted

the efficacy of, and on the whole even rejected, the concept of collabora-

tion between separate armies on the battlefield as it began to emerge at

the end of the Napoleonic era. Napoleon' s preferred strategy of concen-

trating his forces as much as possible during an advance against the enemy

for mass attacks in any direction, seemed to most observers the very essence

of strategy.

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Considered to be the first military theoretician of the Napoleonic era,

the Swiss writer Jomini deduced from Bonaparte's wars that it is a mistake

to operate with divided forces and without contact among them. According

to Jomini,, the autumn campaign of 1813 was nothing but an example of "a rare

exception happening only once in centuries" and it did not invalidate rules

which were supported by thousands of other exanples.

Scharnhorst's pupil Clausewitz in his investigations compared an oper-

ation along interior lines with a concentric advance march and attack. He

opposed any one-sided judgment of strategic procedures and expressly warned

against Jomini's assertion that either one or the other method (concentric

operation or operation on interior lines) deserved general preference.

Both methods were equally applicable. That method would gain predominance

which is handled best. The different strategic procedures are of equal

merit, so believed Clausewitz, and should be applied in each case according

to the situation.

As the first among the theoreticians of the post-Napoleonic era, Clause-

wits clearly recognized that the risk involved in making a converging attack

held out greater prospects of success. Provided this type of attack suc-

ceeds, the enemy will not cnly be forced to fall back but will be decisively

defeated. "The converging attack is always more promising but also always

more dangerous because of the divided deployment and the enlarged combat

area." In this terse sentence Clausewitz described with unsurpassable

clarity all the characteristic features and operational lessons brought

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to the fore by the Battle of Leipzig. He believes that all depends on

whether the attacker feels himself strong enough to reach for the great

reward of a complete victory. Only in case the attacker has physical and

moral superiority and the enemy lacks striking power, does he think a c an-

verging attack is justified. The weaker opponent should not embark on it

but take "advantage of interior lines." For it is a law of nature that the

weaker party should always concentrate his forces more.

Clausewitz finally pointed out that the advantage of interior lines

grew with the areas to which these lines referred. The smaller this area

the more advantageous was thepposition of the adversary holding the exter-

ior lines. If the latter had a chance to combine his massed forces on the

battlefield, his opponent occupying the interior lines would be encircled

and overpowered by the superior force.

The publication of the book "On War" at first made no visible impres-

sion on the public. Its author was relatively unknown outside the Scharnhorst

circle. He had not rendered ary specially outstanding service during the

Wars of Liberation, and subsequently had been employed in rather unimportant

positions. It was only after quite some time that Clausewita' s book was

widely recognized as a unique and classic work. It was for this reasai

that Hans' Delbrueck aptly compared Clausewitz with "one of those most dis-

tant stars which do not become visible to the eyes of the inhabitants of

this earth until they have long left the place there we first saw them.

"The views postulated by Clausewitz spread only gradually among the German

Army officer cceps," as if the wind had disseminated the seeds of his ideas,

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for where one dropped to the ground it blossomed forth into ripe fruit."

Many concepts which Clausewitz propounded in his studies on military philo-

sophy appear modern even today, and they will retain their eternal value,

whereas his teachings on strategy merely mark a step in the advance to

new lessons from experience outlined by Moltke and Schlieffen.

For some time, however, Jomini' s teachings dominated military think-

ing in Germany as well as in other mEropean countries. The teahnique of

converging operation applied at Leipzig, which at Belle-Alliance also proved

to be decidedly superior to Napoleon's strategy, was forgotten for half a

century, whereas the Emperor's great mastery of operations on interior lines,

his methods of uniting his forces before the battle, was hailed by the theore-

ticians as truly model. Jomini's theory, which the French Army as well as

the Russian adhered to until World War I and which brought upon the Austrian

Army the catastrophy of Koeniggraetz, also dominated the Prussian General

Staff under its first Chiefs of Staff and in turn prevented strategic con-

clusions from being drawn for the future from the great events of Napoleonic

times. The pathway pointed out by Gneisenau, of trying for a decisive vic-

tory on the battlefield by the converging of forces, which were to be led

on separate marches against the front and the flanks had not yet been fol-

lowed by Generals Von Meffling and Von Krauseneck with respect to the

strategic training of the Prussian General Staff.

General Von Reyher, undoubtedly a remarkable personality with a wide

horizon for strategic problems, paved the way for the studies of his great

successor. He was therefore called, surely with justification, the apostle

of the master who succeeded him. But it was Moltke who led the Prussian

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General Staff from the narrow confines of Jominit s teachings into the

ideology of Clausewitz, Gneisenau, and Scharnhorst, and it was he who

further successfully developed the strategic teachings passed down from

Clausewitz in accordance with the great 19th century technological changes,

such as railroads and telegraph.

Moltke revived the problem of collaboration between separate army units,

which had been forgotten since the battles of Leipzig and Belle-Alliance

and, in view of the changed general conditions for waging warfare, such as

changed traffic conditions, different effect of weapons, and greater iade-

pendence exercised by lower command echelons, after taking over his office

he studied this problem and gradually led it to a solution after ceaselessly

thinking about it. For the results at which he arrived from his theoretical

studies he fixed definite rules which were subsequently tested and confirmed

in practice in the wars of 1866 and 1870 - 71. Moltke ordered that the prep-

aration for battle, in the wider sense, should constitute the main topic of

General Staff training trips, and he pointed out that "the assembly, the ad-

vance march, and the deployment of forces for the purpose of a decision are

matters which can be learned and practiced in peacetime."

Moltke' s teachings reached their climax in his "Notes on Actual Marching

Depth on 16 September 1865." They contained the basic rules of Moltke's

strategy.

The greatest Chief of the Prussian General Staff taught:

The difficulties of movement grow with the size of the army units. Not morethan one army corps can march on one road in one day. (1) But the difficul-ties also grow during the process of approach, which limits the number of roadswhich can be used. Thus it follows that in the case of army corps the separate

(1) Due to motorization and the different composition of today's army corpsthis sentence no longer fully applies for the period of Weorld War II.

-5D-

MS # P-031b

approach of carps is the normal condition and that their concentrationwithout a very definite purpose is a mistake.

Especially because of the -feeding problem, any permanent concentration willturn into a calamity and often into an impossibility (2). Permanent concen-tration is a temptation to seek a decision and should therefore not takeplace if the moment for the decision has not yet arrived. The concentratedarmy can no longer march at all and can only move sideways. In order to beable to march again, such an army would first have to be separated, whichwould be dangerous in the face of the enemy.

If it nevertheless becomes absolutely necessary to combine all forces forcombat, then the ordering of separate marches with due consideration toconcentration at the right time will constitute the essence of strategy.

As was shown by the conduct of the campaign of 1866 in Bohemia, only

one's own operations and the conduct of the enemy provide the possibility

of attacking on two fronts and the concentric effect following therefrom.

Because of the fact that the Austrian commander in northern Bohemia waited

for the approach of the Prussian Army in a concentrated position, and be-

cause Iboltke recognized this situation in time, and because he properly cor -

related the movements of the three Prussian Armies, the combining of separated

army units actually succeeded on the battlefield of Koeniggraetz, "which is

the greatest accomplishment that strategic leadership can bring about"

iNoltke to Treitschke in 1881).

Since 1866 the importance of the converging effect upon the course of

a modern battle is beyond any dispute. In this respect the campaign of 1866

with its culminating victory at Koeniggraetz marked a turning point in the

lessons gained for conducting modern warfare. But these lessons took a long

time before being generally accepted. The Prussian generals of the same and

higher rank cqnsidered the command doctrine passed on from Napoleon to be

right and regarded the victory of eoeniggraetz as an accident which was made

(2) Food supply difficulties are not so important in the age of motorization,but the dangers of air attacks preclude the permanent concentration oflarge combat forces.

-51-

MS # P-031b

possible by Benedek' s poor leadership. Conseqxently, if in the next war

harmony was to prevail between commander and subordinate, rules had to be

enacted which were to-be binding for the senior commander. In his instruc-

tion to senior troop ccmmanders, dated 24 June 1869, ltke set forth his

basic thoughts on cancentration and separation of forces as follows:

Very large troop concentrations are a calamity per se. An army concen-trated at one single point is difficult to feed and can never be billetedin ho ses; it is unable to march, it carnot operate, in the long run itcannot even exist; all it can do is fight. Ecept for a definite purpose,or to bring about a decision, it is therefore a mistake to concentrate allforces . . . . It is the task of commanders of large troop units to keepthem separated as iong as possible but to arrange their concentration fora decision at the proper mmHnt.

In the section on "Combat Command" printed in the Prussian instructions

will be found the hltke law gained from the lessons of the Battle of

Koeniggraetz. It reads:

If an army moves up in concentration even before the battle to contact theenemy, then every new separation -- for the purpose of enveloping or out-flanking -- will induce the enemy to make a flank march within the scopeof his tactical operational sphere. if one does not wish to launch such analways-hazardous operation, there is no other choice left but to reinforcethat wing which is to overpower the opposite enemy wing, a procedure whichon the whole amounts to the same as a frontal attack . . . . . . . . Farmore favorable will be the situation if on the day of battle the forces canbe concentrated from separated points upon the battlefield, hence, if theoperations are commanded in such a manner that the final and brief marchcomnin from different sides leads simultaneously against the enemy's -frontand flanks. Then strategy will have accomplished the best possible andgreat results will be inevitable.

:Moltke thus set himself up as fully opposing Napoleon, who described

it as a basic principle that the combining of different army units should

never take place near the enemy, but he also contradicted Clausewitz who

represented the principle that "the combining of the entire combat force

-52-

MS # P-031b -53-

should be considered the norm and any separation and dividing as a devia-

tion from the norm which must be fully motivated."

Moltke's plans for working out the problem of collaboration between

separated army units evidences a clear line which had its origin in the

theories developed in Bluecher's headquarters during the autumn campaign

in 1813 and in the campaign of Belle-Alliance in 1815. The lessons thus

gained and the theoretical deductions drawn from them by Clausewitz osten-

sibly formed the basic foundation of Moltke's military doctrines whose sup-

porting pillars were erected, during the preparatory years, upon the field

lord's office through Moltke's purely intellectual work. Thus intellectually

equipped to wage modern warfare, the Prussian Chief of Staff applied the

strategy of Belle-Alliance at Koeniggraetz in 1866. He kept in mind that

the separated units must be brought together in such a manner that they

could not be individually defeated through superior forces.

However, a few days before Koeniggraetz, near Langensalza, Moltke

selected the strategy applied at Leipzig, according to which the army units

advancing from different directions were to be united on the battlefield

itself. But at Koeniggraetz the initiation of operations on the exterior

lines sufficed to paralyze the will to fight of the enemy occupying the

interior lines. On the basis of the experience gained by the campaigns in

northern Bohemia and western Germany, Moltke went on to expand his strategic

theories by describing operations from divided fronts as the climax of what

could be demanded from a supreme commander.

It must arouse surprise today that even after the death of Feldmarschall

Graf Moltke the question was frequently discussed whether there really was

#s # P-031b -54-

a basic difference between the strategy of Napoleon and that of Moltke.

Obviously, Moltke' s strategy often applied different means than Napoleon

was in the habit of using. It could not be gainsaid that since Napoleon's

time progress had been made in the deployment of large army units by better

organization (dividing the army as a whole into armies) as well as by

technical advances (telegraph, railways, and road construction). Some

theoreticians therefore recommended a new strategic method based on the

experiences of 1866 and 1870 - 71. They were opposed by influential men

who insisted on portraying the great Corsican as the unsurpassed example

of leading large troop concentrations to strategic-tactical victory.

The scientific arguments aroused by this problem were also commented

upon by the men who assisted the immortal Feldmarschall as subordinate

during the campaigns of 1866 and 1870, although they expressed themselves

with reticence and with that kind of reserve which had already become a

tradition in Moltke's school. Thus, General Von Verdy, who Was a branch

chief in Moltke's headquarters during the war of 1870, called attention to

the fact that the advantages of interior lines were very considerable and

that converging operations on the exterior line required especially favorable

conditions as a prerequisite. Were the victories of Keeniggraetz and Sedan,

the encirclement of Bazaine's army in the fortress of Metz, merely individual

strokes of luck which, however, were not to be generalized nor formulated

into basic principles of a modern strategic doctrine? It appears as if

the authors of such an opinion could appeal to the authority of the great

silent man, who, fearing that some mechanical minds in the German Army might

attempt to convert his theory into a rigid doctrine, added a warning expressed

I6 # P-O31b -55-

in a terse maxim that there could be no general rule as to how an army

command was to perform its duties, inasmuch as the task would be a dif--

ferent one on each occasion.

It was undoubtedly difficult for posterity to arrive at a clear

picture of Moltke's intellectual accomplishments, since his official writ-

ings were published at a late date, his operational drafts originating before

1870 remaining unpublished until 1896 - 97, and his tactical-strategic

treatises until 1900. Moltke's operational drafts originating after 1870,

specially important for evaluating his strategy, were indeed not published

until 1929. This explains some of the distorted criticisms which were

printed in the professional literature before the turn of the century, and

which today appear to us to be rather one-sided. The scientific arguments

about Napoleon's and Moltke's strategies were finally climaxed by the question

whether the use of interior or exterior lines was the more promising form of

strategy, with Napoleon being considered the master of the interior line

and Moltke as the master of the exterior line.

The Historical Division I of the Great General Staff entered the debate

by publishing the book "Battle Success, with What Means Was It Sought?"

("Der Schlachtenerfolg, mit welchen Mitteln wurde er erstrebt") (Berlin,1903),

but it led to no solution which can satisfy us today. The questions concern-

ing "Battle Success" were too general in scope; and too narrow conclusions

as to the nature of the General Staff were drawn from the investigation.

Consequently, the book "Battle Success" could not completely clarify the

chief problem of modern military command, namet , operations with separated

army units. There was no understanding of the fact that the attempt to

B # P-031b -56-

annihilate the enemy finds ,its highest development in the converging

attack from several sides. The Historical Division declined to see a

fundamental difference between Moltke's and Napoleon's strategies, and it

tried to portray both commanders as completely devoid of any tendency to

systematize or any decided preference for operations on interior or exterior

lines.

This official viewpoint was also represented by the well-known former

General Staff officer and military historian Frh. V. Freytag-Loringhoven

(1) who, in a study on "Napoleon's and Moltke's Strategies" (published

in Berlin, 1897), tried to furnish historical proof that Moltke's strategy

was based on Napoleon's strategy, of which it was merely an extension and

continuation with the aid of modern means; moreover, that in Napoleon's

technique there could nowhere be found a definite principle, but that this

technique was also mainly a system of expedients which, according to Moltke,

was the nature of strategy.

To be sure, Freytag's study and the official viewpoint as expressed

in the General Staff's book "Battle Success" did not bring about a conclusive

clarification of this widely debated problem. For it was too obvious that,

since Moltke's time, the course of battle was dominated by strategic planning

and long prepared movements. Even though during the German Unification Wars

the initial separation of army units and the independence and obduracy of

subordinate commanders may occasionally have jeopardized the uniformity

of combat action, the final success was nevertheless secure because of Moltke's

(1) For a long time chief of the Historical Division of the General staffand subsequently Oberquartiermeister V (for military history).

10 # P-031b -57-

previous planning of the over-all operations. Meckel's (1) opinion

that "the Prussian-German military procedure in 1866 and 1870 - 71 with

its predominantly strategic ideas was more audacious that Napoleon's

technique" did not appear to have been refuted by "Battle Success."

General Von Blume (2), Moltke's long-time collaborator, suggested that

Moltke wanted to clearly characterize a substantial difference in his

own preparation for battle from that of Napoleon when he stated that the

strategist had done the best he could if he succeeded in leading separated

army units into the battlefield after a brief daytime march from different

directions. Moltke did not tie himself slavishly to the maxim, "March

separately and fight in unison"; particularly in 1870, in the advance toward

the Moselle, he clearly deviated from this rule. But it is true that he

habitually acted with this maxim in mind whereas Napoleon had a proclivity

for concentrating his forces, and that a corresponding difference in the

planning of most of their battles was brought to light.

(1) Born in 1842, he was transferred to the Great General Staff in 1876.He was temporarily chief of the Historical Division and from 1895 onOberquartiermeister V (for military history). In 1888 Mechel wentto Japan as military advisor to the Japanese Army, which he modern-ized.

(2) Bor in in 1835, Blume was a General Staff officer in Moltke's head-quarters in 1870 - 71. He was well-known for his historical andtheoretical books on war.

MS # P-031b -58-

Colmar Frh. V. d. Goltz (1) dealt with this problem from a new angle at

the turn of the century. He, too, thought the strategy credited to Emperor

Napoleon and Feldmarschall Moltke were of equal merit. Concerning the

question of what procedure should be selected for combining separated army

units, whether near to or on the battlefield, he was of the opinion that

it depended a great deal upon the degree of uncertainty inherent in the

situation. This factor of uncertainty influenced the decisions of both

commanders: Napoleon had separated the masses whenever he could oversee the

situation and was sure that the individual units would support each other;

Moltke had selected close concentration when he was confronted by a confused

situation. Under the same conditions each of them had therefore used the

strategic principle which became known as the strategy of the other.

These opinionS, as espoused by Goltzs, were opposed by General Von

Schlichting*, who insisted sharply that the instructors in strategy would

have to choose one or the other method. Subordinate commanders would have

to know according to which method they were going to be led, Schlichting

(1) "Born in 1843, Goltz was in 1870 - 71 General Staff officer at SecondArmy headquarters. Working subsequently at various times in theHistorical Division of the Great General Staff, he became famousas a military writer. His books, especially "A Nation In Arms" (DasVolk in Waffen") and "From Rossebach to Jena" ("Von Rossbach bis Jena")was read throughout the world. In 1883 he went to Turkey where formany years he was in charge of military training. Goltz died asPrussian and Turkish Field Marshal in Bagdad during World War I.

Served in the General Staff during the Moltke period and was anespecially enthusiastic exponent of Moltke's strategy. When thelatter retired, Schlichting was one of the few Prussian generalswho were considered for the position of Chief of Staff.

MS # P-031b -59-

entertained no doubts but that Moltke's system was superior. Moltke's

axiom that units should advance on separate routes until they enter combat

jointly was a revolutionary idea for the commanders of large armies,

according to Schlichting. Thus, Moltke had infused attacking forces with

hew strength which they were otherwise in danger of losing when opposed by

an enemy equipped with magazine-fed rifles. The tactical dangers which, for

identical reasons, and proved the undoing of Benedek at Koeniggraetz, of

MacMahon at Sedan, and of Kuropatkin at Mukden had stemmed from Moltke's

art of warfare. It was something still entirely unknown to the writers

of previous text books. ith Moltke there had commenced a completely

new chapter in military history. Consequently, one has to demand that there

should be a break with Napoleon's strategy when teaching strategy now (these

words were written in 1913, hence immediately before World 44ar I).

According to Schlichting, Moltke's general command procedures were

the exact opposite of those followed by Napoleon. They consisted in "divid-

ing the advance for the purpose of concentration at the right time." Since

Moltke the outcome of battles was the direct result of the operations them-

selves. These operations, therefore, decided the order of battle and

this circumstance sufficed, in the view of the temperamental proponent of

Moltke's strategy, to throw overboard the whole obsolete battle picture as

painted by Clausewitz. Because of the fact that in Napoleon's time it was

only possible to uniformly command an operation on interior lines because

of the factors of time and space, the rule was established of giving the

interior line preference. Such a view is obsolete when it is no longer neces-

say to devote so much time to the transmission of intelligence and commands.

1S # P-031b -60-

The scientific controversies which Schlichting (1) believed he had to

carry on against the unsystematic strategy practiced during his time in

order to materialize Moltke's heritage undoubtedly had a very stimulating

effect upon the strategic planning of his contemporaries, but, taken as a

whole, they did not convince his opponents. In the Prussian General Staff

there meanwhile appeared a man of far greater caliber, Graf Schlieffen (2),

who, pushing aside the arguments about old and partly obsolete theories and

systems, put others under his spell by developing his oin up-to-date doctrine

which was tailored to the requirements of a modern war.

Sharing the views of Goltz, Schlieffen turned with much greater emphasis

against all attempts to infer from Moltke' s command techniques any one

particular method. He thought that Moltke had bequeathed us the maxim:

"Not one method, not one means, nor one expedient,- but many." In every

instance the most practicable means had to be sought; the commander would

have to have full liberty to decide what he wanted to do in order to gain

victory.

(1) 'Schlichting's Tactical and Strategic Principles of the Present Time"("Taktische and strategische Grundsaetze der Gegenwart") was publishedin 1098.

(2) Born in 1833; in the war of 1870 - 71 a General Staff officer in thestaff of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg; in 1884, branch chief; in1889, Quartermaster-General with the Great General Staff. In 1891 hesucceeded Graf Waldersee as Anmy Chief of btaff. He left this positionat the end of 1905 and retired. He then devoted himself to the writingof military history. With his theoretical study "Cannae" he joinedthe foremost ranks of military writers in world literature.

S# P-031b -61-

Today it must seem to us as all the more incredible that it was

Schlieffen who was particularly criticized during his entire career as being

too one-sided. It was believed that Schlieffen's doctrine -- which supposedly

directed exclusive attention to the attack and the concept of envelopment --

displayed a desire, according to Graf Haessler, "to lose sight of the unlimited

variety of military demands in favor of a one-sided tendency." It would

be extremely dangerous to look for success merely and exclusively by envelop-

ments. Bernhardi said: "One who goes to war with the idea of gaining

victory according to a definite system will hardly be able to wind a wreath

of laurels around his temples."

Schlichting's criticism turned into condemnation because Schlieffen had

not continued the doctrines bequeathed by Moltke, which had found many ad-

herents, but had raher frequently changed Moltke's actions in the light of

his own principles. Thus in his historical studies, Schlieffen allegedly

attributed operational intentions to the Chief of Staff of the German Unifica-

tion Wars which he had never entertained. On the other hand, Freytag-Loging-

hoven, Schlieffen's close collaborator, saw his main merit "first of all in

the fmrther development of Moltke's operational ideas."

It must be admitted that Graf Schlieffen, in his writings about former

campaigns, at times misrepresented military history. The accurate description

of military events seemed to him of less importance than a strong impression

upon his readers of the military theories which he developed. Military history

was to him not a purpose in itself but merely the explanatory material from

which he developed his military deductions. He did not hesitate to change

the results of historical research to suit his teaching objectives. As a

MS # P-031b -62-

result, his writings were extremely impressive as they were written in a

classical style and seasoned with a great deal of wit and sharp sarcasm.

During his fifteen years in office and the eight years he spent as writer

after retirement from active service, Schlieffen silenced the arguments

about Napoleon and Moltke which upset the 19th century and created a military

doctrine of his own which suited the war requirements of our time. He

enjoyed immense esteem in the Prussian General Staff. Anyone who even once

in his life faced this extraordinary man, the personification of the highly

cultured aristocrat, will never be able to forget the strong impression

which Schlieffen radiated. Our era has produced few "great men" who impress

not merely by what they say, but even more by the style and manner in which

they say it. Sehlieffen was tall ard slender; he maintained his erect and

elegant demeanor until senility. He radiated an indescribable dignity as

well as coldness. This fact as well as his outstanding knowledge created

a great distance between him and his co-workers. After the early death of

his wife he had no family life and lived only for his work. With regard to

work, Schlieffen put very high demands on his co-workers. Thus on Christmas

Eve he was in the habit of sending to the quartermasters-general and section

chiefs on whom he especially relied in the working out of his operational

studies, as a token of his special confidence, a long tactical problem the

solution of which had to be returned to him on Christmas Day, whereupon the

person thus distinguished by the confidence of the Great Chief would be sent

another problem on which he also had to set to work immediately.

To Graf Schlieffen work was the content of life and he took it as a

matter of course that his General Staff officers thought likewise. It is

MS # P-031b -63-.

impossible to say that Schlieffen was well liked by his co-workers. On the

contrary, he was feared because of his indelicate questions and his biting

sarcasm. But the power of his great personality, his outstanding accomplish-

ments, and the breadth of his knowledge were generally recognized. His

ideas, presented in classical German, had a convincing effect. Not one

of the General Staff officers raised his voice in contradiction. Thus it

was given to Graf Schlieffen, just as it was to Scharnhorst and Moltke, to

establish a real doctrinal school of his own. The General Staff officers

who had passed through his school regarded him as their master. So it

happened that the Moltke tradition was supplanted by the Schlieffen school

at the turn of the century. It was self-evident therefore that the General

Staff Society founded after World War I was named for Schlieffen.

We now ask the following question: What new principles are contained

in Schlieffen's teachings? What distinguishes his views with respect to

basic questions of modern command fran the rules and laws established by

Feldmarschall Moltke?

We take our departure from the important and perhaps surprising fact

that Schlieffen, as Quartermaster-General, played a considerable part in the

drafting of Waldersee's operational plans against Russia in 1890, and that

soon after he took office as Chief of staff he decided to drop the plans of

his predecessor with which Moltke had agreed in a memorable letter dated

30 March 1890. From this it might be concluded that Schlieffen's views on

conducting war against Russia deviated from those of Moltke. 'e do not

believe, however, that such a divergence existed. Schlieffen's decision

in 1892 to commit the mass of the German Army first against France, while

MS # P-031b -64-

the forces to be engaged against Russia were to be kept at the possible

minimum, was the result of changes in the political situation in Europe..

The cordial reception of the French Navy in the Harbor of Kronstadt in 1891

led to developments which finally resulted in the Franco-Russian alliance.

Germany was now confronted with the nightmare of encirclement. In its

deliberations and planning the Prussian General Staff now had to face the

dilemma of a war on two fronts and the problem of fighting aginst superior

forces. The great superiority on which Moltke could count in any war

against Russia was in all probability no longer available to Graf Schlieffen.

The Great General Staff had information that Russia had accelerated the

mobilization procedure and striking power of its army, and that it thus

could no longer be surprised and forced into a decisive battle by means

of a rapid Austrio-German offensive from Galicia and East Prussia.

From this military-political basis there developed Schlieffen's doctrine

on war. Simultaneously he worked out a plan for an overpowering offensive

of the mass of the German Army against France. This plan, having been

further developed in the course of years, was recorded in the annals of

history as the "Schlieffen Plan."

A rapid decision against Russia could no longer be expected. The

Russian Army had the opportunity of withdrawing to the interior of the

huge empire. The Germans would, so inferred Schlieffen, get no chance

to carry out a battle of decision and to annihilate the Russian Army, but

would become involved in indeterminate frontal attacks. This is the reason

why Schlieffen wanted to turn first with the mass of the German Army against

France in order to defeat it as rapidly and decisively as possible. For

iS # P-031b -65-

only in case the prospective enemies in the West and East were beaten

one by one and were laid prostrate could it be hoped that Germany would

emerge victorious in the two-front war and would defeat superior enemy

forces.

Schlieffen' s manuscripts (1) reveal the development of his ideas

regarding the most important command problems in modern warfare. In

his quest for opportunities for Germany to survive victoriously in the

impending war against a stronger enemy, Schlieffen turned his attention

first to operations on the interior line. Former military theoreticians

had taught that the interior line offered the weaker opponent a chance

for uccess. The latest views advocated by Schlichting and Geoltz, accord-

ing to which the advantages of the interior lines were no longer the same

as in former times, were not adopted by Schlieffen, in fact in General

Staff training he expressly stressed the strategy of interior lines. Almost

all the final questions which he submitted to students, and some of the

Great General Staff training tours in the East which he persnally super-

vised, emphasized operations on interior lines against a far superior

enemy.

In order to obtain rapid and final victory, Schlieffen tried for a

tactical decision by enveloping one wing and advancing against the enemy's

line of retreat. The enveloping attack was to be carried out not with weak

forces but with as large masses as possible. Finally, he even demanded that

the commander should throw everything he had into the encirclement of the

enemy wing. This would afford an opportunity for a battle with a reversed

front, the battle of annihilation. For this reason Schlieffen considered

(i) Schlieffen s importnt official reports (especially regarding GeneralStaff training trips to the West and critiques of war games) were notyet been published in 1939 and probably will never become available.

S # P-031b -66-

the Battle of Leuthen the ideal battle. It served him as a pattern for

his strategic concept of envelopment fra one side and in his view embodied

the features making up the "secret of victory." It is a proven fact

that in the Great General Otaff training tour to the East in 1899 Schlieffen

believed that the only chance for success which a weaker army had was to

commit as large a force as possible against the wing of the stronger and

thus less mobile enemy, while at the same time engaging his front.

Not until a much later date did Schlieffen adopt the concept of a

double envelopment. At first, his problems and training tours were con-

cerned only with operations along exterior lines carried out by the enemy.

The enemy's mistakes in deploying separated units were to be exploited in

order to defeat him piece meal.

The concept of double envelopment as a means of obtaining final victory

does not appear in Schlieffen's teachings before 1909, and, in a broader

form which visualizes an attack from four sides, it advances steadily into

the foreground of his thinking as the ideal battle plan.

In his widely discussed article, "Present-Day" * Schlieffen demanded

decisive and annihilating victories in the coming European war. This would

require an attack fram two or three sides, hence against the front and

against one or two flanks. Such an attack is relatively easy for the opponent

possessing superior forces. But Germany could hardly count on such a

superiority under prevailing conditions.

* "Der Krieg in der Gegenwart," "Deutsche hevue," January 1909.

MS # P-031b -67-

It appears as if Schlieffen, in agreement with the then prevailing theory

regarding superior numbers, believed such superiority a prerequisite Tor

converging attacks.

Not until he had read a description of the Battle of Cannae in

Hans Delbrueck's "History of the Art of War" ("Geschichte der Kriegskunst")

did Schlieffen find a solution to the problem over which he had pondered

in years of ceaseless study. The course of Hannibal's battle revealed to

him the secret of how an enemy almost twice as strong can not only be

seriously defeated, as by Frederick the Great at Leuthen, but can even be

completely destroyed. From this time onward * Schlieffen demanded an

attack from several sides, the double envelopment, if possible supplemented

by an attack from the rear. The weaker Hannibal had operated concentrically

and not only upon both wings, for he even enveloped the enemy's rear. The

same plan as that conceived by Hannibal could be used even today for a

battle of annihilation. A prerequisite of success, however, was that the

enemy, by committing mistakes as was done by the Roman Consul, should

eliminate his own superiority.

The course of the Battle of Cannae shows the way in which, as accepted

by Schlieffen, an inferior number of troops can gain an annihilating vicbby.

As it contradicted all theoretical teachings, this concept was basically new,

and echlieffen made it a part of military doctrine. It should be remembered

that the most important and original contribution made by Schlieffen

The first part of the study on the Battle of Cannaewas published in the last quarter of 1909.

MS # P-031b -68-

to the theory of modern warfare was his concept that, through exploitation

of the concentric effect of an attack from many sides, even a weaker_

opponent may be able to score a decisive victory.

In contrast to the "Battle Success" published by the Historical

Division and to his own former writings, Schlieffen in his study on

Cannae which was printed between 1909 and the beginning of 1913 underscored

the difference between the operational techniques as applied by Napoleon

and by Moltke. He pointed out how Moltke had to cope with much interference

and many difficulties in his conduct of the wars of 1866 and 1870 - 71

because the generation of 1870 was steeped in Napoleonic traditions and had

considered mass deployment before the battle as an indispensable precondi-

tion. He raised his voice in warning that it was the favored custom

of separated army units to first concentrate before the enemy front before

they commenced the attack. Such a procedure would prevent an annihilating

victory, which required not only a frontal attack but especailly, just

as in the Battle of Koeniggraetz, an attack against both flanks. Funda-

mentally, the broader front would prove decisive, as it makes possible an

outflanking maneuver, but it logically presupposes a larger and more

numerous army. However, the weaker opponent could take Hannibal at Cannae

as his example if he wanted to destroy enemy forces in spite of their

superiority, thus refuting Napoleon's dictum that "the stronger side is

always victorious."

As at Cannae one could even today extend the wings into a destructive

encirclement, and one could still hope that ihe enemy would form a more

or less concentrated mass as did Terrentius Varro at Cannae, Napoleon at

MS # P-031b -69-

Leipzig, and Benedek at Koeniggraetz.

It was with such conclusions in mind that Schlieffen reached the aim

of his life's work. He was clearly aware that a battle like that at

Cannae was not often possible. If the prerequisites for such an order of

Battle was not on hand an attack against one flank would become necessary

(as in the case of Frederick the Great at Leuthen), or some other operation.

The "Cannae concept" was the latest and ripest fruit of Schlieffen's

strategic doctrine, but by no means the only operational technique embodying

the secret of victory. Although in his final years they dropped into the

background, he also considered the following other two methods: an

attack against one flank, following the strategic pattern of Leuthen, and

operations on interior lines.

The essentials of concentric operations of separated forces consist,

according to Schlieffen, in a procedure in which all elements advance in

the prescribed direction and attack the enemy wherever met. It is up

to the commander-in-chief to co-ordinate the movements of separate elements

for the purpose of collaboration. It is his duty to issue appropriate orders

for shortening the unavoidable time lag between the arrival of one unit

facing the front and of the other unit facing the flank or the rear.

Schlieffen thinks that contact between the movements of separated armies

is evidently necessary, but that the responsibility for the risk which

every attack from several sides represents must be borne by the commander-in-

chief. It is the task of subordinate commanders to proceed in the direction

ordered and, if they contact the enemy, to engage him without counting on

additional support. The subordinate commanders are therefore allowed only

MS # P-031b -70-

a limited amount of independence; they must be disciplined, be profession-

ally trained, and possess an understanding of the intentions of the

commander-in-chief. Schlieffen laid the greatest stress on the "order of

battle" ("Ordnung in der Operation") and in addition demanded that a tight

and uniform command of all armies be exercised by the commander-in-chief,

whose intentions must be carried out by the subordinate commanders.

Even though Schlieffen never specially mentioned in his discussions

and writings Moltke's basic dictum, "Always remain separated until you

reach the battlefield," he by no means rejected Moltke s requirement of

keeping the major forces in operational separation as long as possible.

He merely paraphrased Moltke's law to make it fit the new military situation

of his time. As a result of the experience gathered during the Great

General Staff tours in the 'est, Schlieffen became convinced that the ratio

between major forces and space (which had changed since Moltke's time) had

to be taken into proper account, with the inevitable inference that in

the war which Germany would soon fight it would often be entirely impossible

to divide the army groups at their assembly point or to maintain operational

separation during their advance march. He wanted to advance against the

enemy in a broad battle line (breite Schlachtlinie) and have the oeter wing

or wings pivot against the flanks. Schlieffen declared:

"If for any reason the wings are separated from the center it will

not be necessary to draw them to it in order to jointly commence the march

for an enveloping attack. The wings may advanee directly on the shortest

route against the flanks or the rear. It is just this that Moltke calls

the uniting of separated elements on the battlefield and that he describes

MS # P-031b -71-

as the supreme achievement within the gift of a commander-in-chief."

After 1890, the altered military situation necessitated a reformiula-

tion of outdated strategic doctrines and regulations. The military histor-

ian Freytag-Loringhoven was certainly right when he described the

continued development of Moltke's operational concepts as the chief

accomplishment of Schlieffen.

When Graf Schlieffen passed away in 1913, soon after the last part of

his study on Cannae was published, he was considered in Germany, except

by a few critics, as the teacher of modern warfare. Without doubt

Schlieffen was the last great German military theoretician.

Neither contemporary nor succeeding military writers could compare

with him. He scored his main success as a teacher apparently because he

could impart to the commanders who graduated from his school an understanding

of Moltke's strategy and because he uprooted their reluctance against

operations on exterior lines which was the upshot of outworn theories.

Schlichting's postulate that "those who are being led should know

according to what method they in turn should lead" was fulfilled by Schlief-

fen's work and teachings. It was exclusively due to him that the German

Army's higher ranks during both world wars thought much more uniformly

about basic command questions than the preceding generation at the start

of the wars of 1866 and 1870. It was through Schlieffen that German

military doctrine had reached the apex of its development as well as its

conclusion.

The Weaknesses of the General Staff

The Last prewar Chief of Staff, the younger Moltke, occupies a

difficult position in the judgment of history, as the man responsible

for the failure of the German war plan in 1914. He was justly reproached

* for having watered down the gigantic "Schlieffen Plan" and because he

did not lead the German armies in the great Western offensive in 1914

as tightly and uniformly as the teacher of modern warfare, Graf 6chlieffen,

would have demanded of the commander-in-chief. These reproaches against

Schlieffen's successor are irrefutable. But the German experts criticised

only the Chief of Staff, whom destiny had saddled with the difficult task

of commanding the German Army in a two-front war, not German military

doctrine, Schlieffen's method of training the General Staff, nor the

Schlieffen Plan" On the contrary, all critics who were serious experts and

not demagogues were fully convinced that Germany's defeat in World War I

was due to no other reason than the non-observance of Schlieffen's teachings,

and that execution of his war plan would probably have led to full success,

especially if its creator had himself commanded the German Army in the

two-front war. Graf Schlieffen was also fully aware of the difficulties

which the German Army would have to face in the war which he foresaw as

imminent. This is why he suggested to key German leaders in 1905, when

Russia was emaciated through the East Asiatic War and revolutionary upheavals,

that they take advantage of the situation and resolve the European tension.

* For instance by General. Wilhelm Greener in his two critical studies,"The Testament of Graf chlieffen" ("Das Testament des Grafen Schlieffen")and "The Supreme Commander Against His ill" ("Der Feldherr wider Willen"),as well as in the voluminous literature dealing with the cammand of theGerman Army in the Battle of the Marne.

Mts #e P-031b -72-

FMS # O31b -73-

While Schlieffen was already struggling with death he was tormented

by worry and fear last his war plan, which he wanted to enlarge into ever

greater dimensions, should be enfeebled by his successor. "Be sure to

strengthen the wing!" was his urgent admonition to the friends surrounding

his deathbed. He died with the anguished fear that the "secret of victory"

which he had discovered and entrusted to the General Staff would not be

handled properly by his successors.

His successor had many good qualities. He would have made a great

name for himself in Prussian General Staff annals if he had been Chief of

Staff in peacetime as well. The kind of peacetime training which he init-

iated was excellent and entirely in Schlieffen's spirit. The problems which

Moltke raised for others to solve were interesting, they were discussed in

an informative manner, and they were essentially the identical problems

(dealing with the two-front war, a war against superior forces), handled

in the same manner and according to the same principles as if Schlieffen

were still Chief of ~taff. Thus, Schlieffen's methods of training the General

Staff survived even the tenure of his successor. All this should be credited

in favor of Generaloberst Von Moltke.

In an article entitled "The Commander-in-Chief" ("Der Felderr") Graf

Schlieffen once remarked: "The head of state appoints a generalissimo as

the leader of his country's armed forces, but whether the supreme commander

is a truly great general will be proved only in actual combat." This state-

ment applied perfectly to the younger Moltke. He was a skrewed and ex-

perienced general, but he was not a military genius, Anyone who worked under

Schlieffen's successor will always remember with gratitude the great human

MS # P-031b -74-

qualities of this Chief of Staff. However, he did not possess the

unswerving confidence with which every General 6taff officer regarded

Schlieffen as a man of genius. Moltke lacked the dominating will, the

unshakable firmness, of the born supreme commander who is destined to lead

a great army to victory. Hesitancy and caution were not the qualities with

which a German general could reap the fruits of victory. He required a

different stature than the one given him by nature. "Not a desire not to

be defeated, but the burning urge to vanguish the enemy must determine all

decisions" -- thus taught 6chlieffen, as if he had foreseen the situation

which was to face the German Chief of Staff in the Battle of the Marne.

When confronted with the unavoidable reverses in the fortunes of war, the

younger Moltke lost his self-confidence, his belief in the "Schlieffen Plan,"

and in the "secret of success." Since Moltke was a sick man at the start

of World War I and died soon after its beginning, it might easily be assumed

that poor health was the cause of his failure in the Battle of the Marne.

Thus he becomes an especially tragic figure among the unlucky generals of

modern times. Although no one can absolve him from responsibility, it will

also be impossible to deny him human sympathy.

/ aBut Falkenhausen, Moltke's successor as Chief of taff, also lacked

the "sacred fire" of the born supreme commander and also did not know how

to find the right expedients to cope with a grave situation. His leader-

ship was encumbered by petty jealousies against the popularity of the German

generals fighting on the eastern front. He lacked self-confidence, the

sense of superiority of a great soldier inspired by his mission, the intel-

lectual resources of man like Schlieffen, Moltke, Napoleon, or Frederick

US # P-031b

the Great, and the ability to evaluate correctly a difficult situation.

The right position for 'alkenhayn would have been that of commander of--

an army. In the campaign against Roumania in the winter of 1916 - 17 he

accomplished something worthwhile. But he reached the highest position

only by coincidence because a replacement had to be found quickly among

the generals present at Headquarters after Moltke had physically broken

down under the burden of responsibility due to the acute crisis engendered

by the battle of the Marne.

When Hindenburg and Ludendorff took charge of the Third Supreme Army

Command ("3. Oberste Heeresleitung,') in the summer of 1916, this twin star

team enjoyed the confidence of the entire army and nation. No other men

of promise were available. But they also could no longer stave off the

match of destiny. Considering the way the military situation had developed

for the Central Powers in the summer of 1916, a German victory seemed virt-

ually impossible. Perhaps not even a Chief of staff with the resourcefulness

of a Schlieffen could have contrived expedients which would insure a

successful outcome of the war. The solution then adopted by the supreme

command, namely to place a Quartermaster-General vested with special

responsibility at the side of the Chief of staff, was the kind of measure

which resulted not from cogent reasoning but frm Hindenburg's reluctance

to get along without Ludendorff. Schlieffen and Clausewitz, these two

great military theoreticians, would never have approved this measure of

expediency. If the rule that only one man must be responsible applies unalter-

ably to any man-made institution, it is to the office of the supreme com-

mander of a great army, that of the generalissimoL

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MS # P-031b -76-

It would be difficult to imagine a second man of influence standing as

inspirer next to the great military heroes of history, such as Alexander,

Caesar, Frederick the Great, Ghenghis Khan, Napoleon. A similar attempt

has hardly ever been made in all history.

Ludendorff's predominating influence at the side of Hindenburg was

unfavorable and disadvantageous to the General Staff as an institution

because it ran counter to its traditions. Ludendorff had matchless accamplish-

ments to his credit as army commander in the East. He was the ideal ad-

visor of his Commander-in-Chief and he had organized the administration of

the ceanmmication zone under Commander-in-Chief Bast in an exemplary manner.

Before the summer of 1916, while he and Hindenburg safeguarded Germany

in the East, no one within or without the Gneral staff could have found

any reason for critising him. This changed when the Supreme Army Ccmmand

was changed. Ludendorff was an organizational phenomenon and a man of

the type of exclusively devoted to his work, the kind which the General

Staff had raised up by its selective and training systems. 1~ proclivity

to draw to himself as much work as possible and to force his strong will

on all administrative organs, was cheerfully welcomed by the militaristic

bureaucracy which already flourished luxuriantly during the third war year

in Germany. The Supreme Army Command thus overtazed itself with ever more

work and ever greater responsibility. This development toward "totalitarian

war" was perhaps unavoidable as a concomitant of the times. As matters

happened to be, the soldier was in the end held responsible for everything,

including the mistakes and blunders of the politicians, of the industrial

leaders, and of the administrative bureaucracy. When after the defeat

S # P-031b -77-

suffered in World War I propaganda against "militarism" and the General

Staff was spread by the Left parties among broad segments of the population

in revolutionary Germany, it was not merely the natural result of a lost

war but also of Ludendorff's assailable policies. The weaknesses of his

leadership had already been strongly felt and criticized by the General

Staff during the war. A great deal on this subject may be found in the

diaries and memoirs of army commanders, for instance in those of General

Von Gallwitz, who displays especially clever judgment.

But one will be at a loss for an answer when raising the question

of which man, upon Falkenhayn's relief, would have been a better successr

than Hindenburg and Ludendorff, the twin cmmander-in-chief. During

World War I there were no longer as many leaders available who were qual-

ified to become chiefs of staff as at the end of the Moltke period. An

ideal commander comparable to the elder Moltke, a generalissimo who could

lead Germany through the two-front war to victory, apparently was lacking

in 1911 - 18. Schlieffen also sized up this problem correctly. He warned

that it was not enough to have one canmander-in-chief; efforts should be

directed to finding as may as possible who were "born and predestined"

for this position, and to prepare them for their missions.

After World Var I it was an important mission of the men who played

a leading part in building up the "Reichswehr" to divorce the Azny from

the prominent place in all public life into which it had been forced as

a result of "total warfare", and to guide it' back frot the harmful

"militaristic way" into the natural, traditional "military way." The then

influential men, such as Schleicher, Reinhardt, Seeckt, and later on Fritsch

MS # P-031b -78-

and Beck, as well as the civilian Gessler, clearly recognized this re-

quirement, which they turned into reality with much wisdom and tact.- The

Reichswehr, without a monarch at its head and confronted by an extraordinary

situation which stemmed from the birth travails of a parliamentarian

democracy, adapted itself with great aptitude to the new times by develop-

ing rapidly into a professional army beyond reproach.

This process of taking the 4Ariny t of-olities was-interrupted and

reversed when the National Socialist Party seized power in Germany. The

Party's efforts to give all public life a political tinge could in the

long run not be resisted effectively even by the Reichswehr. The tragic

fate which engulfed Schleicher, Fritsch, Beck, and many other officers who

had been connected with the General 'taff brings to mind the sacrifices

claimed by this intra-German struggle that became more violent from year

to year and during the Second World War assumed frightful forms, such as

the suicides forced upon Generals Von Kluge and Rommell

During World War II, Germany still produced a large number of out-

standing military leaders who reflected great glory upon the General Staff,

of which the majority had been members. It cannot be definitely decided,

however, whether Germany had one of those great generals "born and pre-

destined for this position." It is certain that he would have been cramped

by Hitler, who thought. himself the greatest military commander of all

times. The solution of the problem of commander by setting up a triumvirate

consisting of the Fuehrer, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and the

Chief of Staff, as it existed on the German side in World War II, was in

any event the least appropriate to secure victory. What could serious men

MS # P-031b -79-

and outstanding soldiers lite Brauchitsch and Halder be expected to

accomplish when having to put up with a psychopath who, with the arrogance

of a genuine dilettante, wanted to decide everything by himself and who

was completely deaf to the arguments of experts?

Nevertheless, the high level of the German Army High Command during

the initial period of World War II seems amazing and admirable to the

historian who looks back at it. The campaigns against Poland, France,

and Yugoslavia will be recorded in the history of the German Army as classic

achievements of the German General Staff. Hitler at that time kept himself

more or less in check, for he intervened only occasionally in a disturbing

and fateful manner, as for instance, when he prevented the complete annihila-

tion of the British Army in France, thus enabling it to flee aboard the

ships at Dunkirk.

But the list of cardinal blunders which violated the logical rules

for waging war and which outraged the "Holy Spirit" of German military

doctrine committed during the campaign against the Soviet Union is inter-

minably long. A11 of these blunders must be charged to the account of

Hitler who, since at least early in 1943, had become insane and because

of his megalomania had turned upside down all rules of strategy. What mis-

fortunes did this muddle-head bring on the German Army by his obstinate

refusal to abandon untenable positions in time, and by his mania, dictated

by a thirst for prestige, for declaring large towns "strong points"l That

this was outright lunacy was known to every soldier who had studied Clause-

witz, Moltke, and Schlieffen. For since 1866 no German had doubted the

importance of concentric operations with respect to the outcome of a modern

battle.

MS #Y P-031b

It may be wondered what the author of the study on Cannae would have

said if he had still lived to see, at Stalingrad, the destruction of the

German Sixth Army which Hitler (like Terentius Varro at the Aufidus

River) had exposed at the Volga banks to the converging attacks of the

superior Soviet Army, in spite of all warnings, Clausewitz had drawn from

his realistic and clear reflections on the most effective strategy the

conclusion that "the smaller the area, the more advantageous the position

of the opponent holding the exterior lines." If he was given the opportunity

to unite his major forces on the battlefield, the side occupying the

interior lines would be encircled and overpowered by superior forces.

"Central and enveloped positions are always dangerous," was taught by the

elder Moltke. The encirclement of an entire army was described by Schlief-

fen as the foremost objective of any operational plan. As a means of

attaining such an annihilating victory he called for attacks from several

sides, including double envelopment and rear assaults, as shown by the

examples of Cannae, Leipzig, and Sedan. To be sure, a precondition for a

successful converging operation was, as Schlieffen added, that the opponent

holding the interior lines should commit blunders to help the attacker on

the outside to tighten the noose and destroy the defender. Such a "labor

of love" Hitler rendered to the Soviet commander, when in spite of all

pleas of the General Staff, he forbade Feldmarschall Paulus to break out

from imminent encirclement and thereby avoid a fatal constriction while

there was still time, thus causing the German Army's greatest defeat in

all its history. The annihilation of a strong German army at Stalingrad

decided Germany's fate. Thereafter German military leaders faced a hopeless

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MS # P-031b

task. The war was lost. The "secret of victory" went by default to

Germany's enemies and was aptly applied ,by Red Army commanders against our

Eastern Army. Finland's Marshal Mannerheim, who well knew the Russian

soldier because of his long service in the Russian Army, at that time

made to the German general attached to his headquarters the following

significant statement: "The Soviet Army has learned a good deal from

the Germans, the Red generals now proceed courageously with pincer movements,

as the German Army used to do."

The Finnish Marshal's opinion was verified during the course of all

later Soviet offensives against Germany's Eastern Army. Since they were

also superior in numbers, the Russians were constantly at an advantage

after the winter of 1942 - 43 and thus capable of defeating us by applying

German strategic doctrines.

From now on every nation at war with the Soviet Union must count on

the fact that its commanders will avail themselves of German military

doctrinej

Another sin against the "Holy Spirit" of military leadership was

Hitler's order to divide the supreme command into OKH (Army High Command)

and QKW (Wehrmacht High Command) theaters of war. The German General Staff

can hardly be blamed for not having solved the problems inherent in a

modern-Armed Forces High Command during the few years available for prepar-

ing World War II. During the conflict other armies were also rent by many

controversies regarding over-all command' and no over-all General Staff was

usually established until after World War II. This problem, which did not

exist until after World War I, was especially difficult to solve in Germany,

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MS # P-031b

inasmuch as Hitler frowned on and distrusted all problems pertaining to

the General Staff and since he favored the original calamitous hostility

between O1 and OH, as well as the separatist tendencies displayed by the

various arms branches. As long as he headed the German Wehrmacht as

supreme commander it was even impossible to imagine that a reasonable solu-

tion for the problems affecting the Wehrmacht command and the Wehrmacht

General Staff could be found. It is undoubtedly true, however, that the

German General Staff might have found a practicable solution if it could

have made its decisions freely, without interference and while enjoying

the respect which it had always possessed under the Prussian kings.

About the time when the National Socialists seized power, the Army

High Command had already quite seriously planned the formation of a

Wehrmacht General Staff by initiating the first steps in this direction,

such as the "Reinhardt Courses" for Wehrmacht General Staff officera, as

-well as drafts and memorandums on organizational programs. But since it

was impossible to come to an agreement with the other Wehrmacht branches,

which resisted in a petty and egotistical manner any limitations on their

independence, and because the fight for predominance between the OKW and

the OKH had really begun, the solution of the problem was drggged out until

the start of World War II without having been seriously tackled by either

side. Every individual who knew about this problem was dissatisfied and

realized the inadequacy of the existing organization, but Db one was able

to devise means of correcting the situation. Federation might be advantageous

for the integration of political parties, given certain circumstances, but

the principle of federation is not applicable for commanding a modern

)S # P-031b

military establishment, and is certainly doomed to failure. The problem

of Aimed Forces command finds its most natural solution if the strongest:

arms branch proVides the supreme commander of the over-all Armed Forces

and the authority of the branch chiefs is limited in his favor. That

such a solution is possible is proved by the small Finnish military establish-

ment which carried out successfully the principle of unified armed forces

command based on the prestige enjoyed by the outstanding personality of

Mannerheim.

For the historian it will be very difficult to gain a clear picture of

how operational decisions were reached on the German side during the war

and who, in any particular instance, was responsible for them. In the

Army High Command, as long as Feldmarschall Von Brauchitsch was in charge

with Generaloberst Halder at his side as Chief of Staff, the command pro-

cedure followed the General Staff's traditional principles according to which

significanx military problems were discussed and decided by these two men

alone or in the presence of top-level collaborators. This changed as early

as December 19j1 when Brauchitsch resigned and Hitler made himself Supreme

Commander of the Army. The confidential discussions between the Supreme

Commander and his Chief of Staff now came to an end. The latter was com-

pelled to participate as one in a crowd of many who made simultaneous daily

reports on the situation to Hitler, nor was he any longer the sole adviser

of his commander-in-chief. The course of these conferences with the Fuehrer

was very odd and was bound to invoke astonishment in all those acquainted

with General Staff procedures. In this "conseil de guerre" (war council)

the representatives of the various Wehrmacht branches reported on the

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MS #/ P-031b

latest events in their respective fields, but there was lacking any

comprehensive situation report with proposals resulting therefrom, as

is probably customary in the General Staffs of all armies. Hitler did

not formulate his decisions clearly, because he apparently had no con-

ception of how top-level commands should be given, and did not realize

that they should be phrased so explicitly as to allow no doubts about

their execution. Every participant in these conferences had to make his

own decision as to the measures he had to take in his own field on the

basis of the various reports and Hitler's comments and objections. Debate

with Hitler was of course entirely impossible. His irritability tolerated

no °disagreement, no matter how well founded such disagreement might have

been.

An experienced general will also listen to diverging opinions because

they held to clarify his own judgment. The authority of a truly great

man will not suffer from the voicing of different opinions by his advisers

and collaborators, for he still retains the supreme privilege of rendering

final decisions and of bearing responsibility. He is aware of the fact that

a well-trained General Staff is bound to respect and conscientiously carry

out the decisions of the Supreme Commander even though he may not have

accepted the proposals of the Chief of Staff. It goes without saying that

this was always a tradition observed by the German General Staff.

The division of top-level commands into separate OKW and OKH theaters

of war had a most disadvantageous effect on the situation discussions

with Hitler. It led to the 'OKW Armed Forces Operations Staff being reduced

from the level of a supreme comprehensive and regulating authority, as

.84.

M&S P-031b

which it could have gained great influence, to the level of a representative

of its own interests, which perforce often brought it into controversies

with the Army General Staff.

But it was absolutely grotesque that during the last two war years,

when crisis followed crisis on the Eastern front, Hitler went with the

Wehrmacht Operations Staff for extended periods to Berchtesgaden, while

the Army General Staff remained in its camp near Angerburg in East Prussia.

Contact between Hitler and his Chief of Staff was thus reduced to tele-

phone conversations, or else Generaloberst Zeitzler had to f ly to Berchtes-

gaden in order to make oral reports to the so-called "Supreme Commander

of the Army." This was a harmful procedure since the Chief of Staff had

to be away from his office for several 4 In addition, the situation

maps of the Eastern front had to be shipped to various places (Angerburg,

Berchtesgaden, and possibly also Berlin) and constantly kept up-to-date.

For an objective and fair evaluation of the Army General Staff's

performance in the war it should be taken into account that reasonably

normal conditions with respect to command functions cane to an end with the

rest gnation of Feldmarschall Von Brauchitsch, and the Generaloberst Halder

was the last German Chief of Staff who was entitled to this post by reason

of his whole past and his professional qualifications. When Generaloberst

Beck resigned as Chief of Staff in the autumn of 1938, all persons acquainted

with the General Staff's internal affairs thought it a matter of course

that Halder would be appointed his successor. Although Halder was patently

the logical choice, events took a different turn when Hitler compelled him,

in the most insulting manner, to resign in September 1942. The appointment

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of Zeitzler to succeed Halder was a surprise to all. Under the General

Staff's traditional rules on selection on the basis of performance and

reputation, Zeitzler would never have even been considered. He was

appointed because he had made a good first impression upon Hitler.

In this connection the historian is bound to state that Germany's

situation had become far too serious to permit the head of state to indulge

in such risky experiments. The German Army's procedure for personnel

selection, as previously applied, had stood the test of time. It should

not have been tampered with, the more so as Hitler, if he had properly

assessed his own limitations, would have realized that he lacked the

deeper insight into the General Staff's mission and technique, as well as

that accurate knowledge of personnel matters which alone could have enabled

him to select from the roster of available General Staff officers the one

best qualified for the position of "Great Chief". During the war it was

also extremely disadvantageous that Zeitzler was an '"unknown" among the

German General Staff officers, for he had not participated in the last large

General Staff training tours before the war, since he had not yet belonged

to the elite of senior General Staff officers. In addition, he was complete-

ly unknown to the supreme commands of Germany's Allies. This was a dis-

advantage not to be underestimated because personal relations with General

Staff officers of foreign armies play a large part in coalition wars.

General Halder was well known to Germany's Allies, and he enjoyed their

unbounded confidence, Behind Zeitzler was merely the confidence of Hitler,

and even that only at the beginning of his term in office,

Generaloberst Guderian, who succeeded Zeitzler after 20 July 194,

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MS # P-031b

would under normal conditions also never have been appointed Army Chief of

Staff, In peacetime he had rendered great service in motorizing the German

Army. As commander of a Panzerkorps, and during the first year of the

campaign against the Soviets, he distinguished himself as commanding

general of a Panzergruppe, but he fell into disgrace and was "put on

ice" toward the end of 1941 when the first serious crisis overtook the

German Eastern Army due to the rigors of the Russian winter climate. Even

though, after some time, he was reassigned as Inspector General of Motor-

ized Troops, his career seemed to have reached its end. Hitler, who was in

the habit of blaming his own blunders on subordinate commanders, held a

grudge against him, for he accused him of not being sufficiently exacting

of his own troops during the Battle of Moscow, although they were decimated

by cold and overexertion.

Guderiants appointment as Chief of Staff was therefore again a great

surprise to the German Army. Perhaps Hitler selected him because immediate-

ly after the bombing attempt of 20 July 194h he could not feel sure who

among the circle of senior General Staff officers was not compromised by the

attempt. Apparently the suspicion of the bitterly exasperated despot

was not directed against Guderian, whom he therefore appointed Chief of

Staff tithout misgivings.

The historian who writes impartially on the German General Staff in

World War II will feel compelled to credit the overpowering victories of

the German Army d~wbg the first campaigns and until into the first summer

of the war against the Soviet Union to the elan of the German soldier, as

well as to the great achievements of the General Staff, whereas the

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MS # P-031b

responsibility for the blunders committed by the German Army Command and

the momentous defeats suffered by the Eastern Army from the winter of 19i1

on will be charged to a lesser degree to the ever more often by.passed

General Staff, and chiefly to Hitler's megalomania and military dilettantism.

Hitler listened less and less to qualified advisers. On the other hand,

he often accepted information from the queerest sort of people whom he

had known during his obscure past and whose advice was mostly the result

of egotistical motives. Perhaps never before in history was a great army,

which could look back on a glorious and honorable past, dragged into per-

dition uith such abandon by the guilt of a single man.

The historian of World War II, when tracing the reasons for German

defeat, is confronted by the puzzle of what brought about the first serious

crisis in the German Army during the winter of 1941-42. He will find it

impossible to understand the recklessness with which the German Eastern

Army was led into the Russian winter. The grave transportation crisis,

which immediately took on menacing proportions as soon as the especially

harsh winter had begun, explains only some of the difficulties encountered.

Could the disaster not be foreseen that overtook the German Eastern Army,

decimated by many battles and countless marches, when it was exposed without

winter clothing or adequate housing to the rigors of a Russian winter?

In his pathological optimism Hitler was obsessed by the idea that the

Red Army had been annihilated and the war against the Soviet Union finished.

He wanted, as an outward symbol of his victory, and in spite of the progress-

ively mounting difficulties, to conquer Moscow. He was deaf to all warnings.

The offensive against the Soviets, he decreed, shauld be continued without

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respite into the winter, until the last remnants of the Red Army were

destroyed. When his army suffered serious reverses, he should have

admitted to himself that casualties due to cold weigh much heavier on

a commander's conscience than do casualties due to enemy action. That

is why he tried to exculpate himself from guilt by a propaganda campaign

based on lies. He declared that the Rssian winter had come sooner than

could have been reasonably foreseen and that the meteorologists had made

false predictions. Nor was he sparing with accusations against the Eastern

Army's senior commanders who participated in the battle before Moscow, a

number of whom were relieved and sent home in disgrace.

To foreign generals attached to his headquarters Hitler tried to

belittle German losses. Thus, he asserted to the representative of the

Finnish Army that only "a few hundred" men had suffered amputations for

severe frostbite and that any higher figures were false and mischievous

exaggerations. The Party's propaganda painted in the brightest colors

Hitler's contribution in mastering the crisis; he was praised because,

after having had bad experiences, he was now taking over the supreme command

of the German Army himself.

Today there is still no historical material available to indicate what

the responsible men (Brauchitsch and Halder, the commanders of the Army

Groups) had advised at the, end of the summer of 191. when it became evident

that the offensive against the Soviets could not be brought to the scheduled

conclusion before the beginning of winter. It is very likely that these

two generals raised serious objections against Hitler's fantastic plans.

But even leading German commanders had hardly any clear notion of the

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degree to rhich Russian geography and climate were to affect military

operations. Nor was the magnitude of suddenly appearing difficulties

probably foreseen by the military agencies.

The General Staff may be blamed for an act of omission because it

had not studied the previous wars waged by Sweden, Finland, Poland,

Austria, and Turkey on Russian soil. There is no doubt that man3 priceless

lessons could have been learned by an evaluation of these wars, for it

must be admitted that only very inadequate information concerning winter

warfare in Russia was on hand.

After the death of Feldmarchall Graf Moltke in 1890, when the

traditional "German-Russian friendship" which lasted throughout the 19th

century came to a close, some General Staff officers strongly recommended

not only a study of the wars waged by Napoleon and Moltke but also an

historical inquiry with respect to other wars and other countries. Among

those who thus advised were Schlieffen, Coltz, and Freytag-Loringhoven.

They were opposed by a conservative faction (e.g., Schlichting) which pro-

pounded the opinion that German interest in military history should be

restricted to the Central European area, perhaps in memory of Bismarck's

saying that "the Balkans are not worth the bones of a single Pommeranian

soldier.,

Around the turn of the century no one had a clear idea of the magnitude

of future world wars, the general trend being directed toward a specializa-

tion of historical research by an ever more detailed study of the wars of

the past century in which the Prussian and German armies had taken part.

To be sure, nobody could have then predicted that the day would come when

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the sons and grandsons of the present generation would fight in the

North African desert, in the Caucasus Mountains, and on the Arctic coast.

A somewhat more liberal and modern spirit dsplayed on the part of German

military historians would have proved profitable and would have revived

in the entire officer corps an interest in research which was now growing

more antiquated from day to day.

It is certain that the Prussian General Staff could have gathered

irnaluable experience by studying the wars waged by Sweden against Russia,

the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 and the American Civil War Freytag-

Loringhoven rendered a great service because as editor oT the "Quarterly

for Troop Command and Military Science" ("Vierteljahrshefte fuer Truppen-

fuehrung und Heereskunde") he printed detailed reports on the Russo-Japa-

nese War in Manchuria, as we;l as very instructive articles on the American

Civil War which he wrote himself. The conservative trend which was always

very strong in the Prussian Army finally retained supremacy in this field

as well.

After World War I there was neither time nor personnel available for

long-range historical studies. There was enough work on hand in handling

the huge official publications dealing with World War I (which was called

the Reich Archive Project). But after a number of volumes in this project

had been printed, General Beck, the Chief of the Truppenamt, decided on the

preparation of a record of the Soviet-Polish War of 1918-20. This was

an up-to-date and highly educational task by which the far-seeing Beck open-

e up new pathways to military researchers in the General Staff, which was

again fully functioning after 1935. Even thoughthis work met with unusual

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difficulties, since it was impossible to draw on original source material

either in the Soviet Union or in Poland, the task was resolved successfully

and in a most satisfactory manner.

By 1939, two volumes on the Russo-Polish War were written, and three

thousand books ready for shipment at the R.S. Mittler & Sohn publishing

house.in Berlin. Hitler now prohibited distribution of the books by explain-

ing that the Russians might benefit from them. He did not understand that

a knowledge of this highly interesting war, with its dramatic events in

White Russia, in the Ukraine, and in Poland, together with the evaluation by

the Historical Division, offered priceless benefits to the German officers'

intellectual preparation for a possible war against the Soviet Union.

How profitable would especially this General Staff publication have been"

But once Hitler had said "No," there was nothing that could be done about

it. "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." The books remained

undet lock and key at the publishers watehouse where, together with all

other manuscripts and books, they were completely burned as a result of

air attacks on Berlin early in 1915. Since the galley proof and the

research manuscripts for the book were also lost, all of the Historical

Division's work, which extended for about six years, went for nothing.

This work, which had been initiated by Beck, and furthered in every way

by Halder, his successor, never found a reader.

The German General Staff was blamed by critics for an unprogressive

attitude with regard to the technical advances of the times. It must be

admitted that, during World War I, the German Western Army was at a dis-

advantage with respect to tanks then invented, and also that no antitank

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weapons were developed in time, both failures being contributing factors

o final defeat. Bt it should also be taken into account that a four-

year blockade had cut Germany off from world markets, and that it was

therefore hardly in a position to improve its striking power by the

production of new weapons.

This consideration applies equally to World War II, when the demands

made on the German armament industry grew to immense proportions. It

was not only necessary to provide weapons and equipment to the numerous

newly-organized German units, but also to those of allied armies, and it

was necessary to replace the many losses constantly caused by the great re-

treats during the final war years.

The Chief of Signal Communications, General Fellgiebel, stated with a

heavy heart as early as the spring of 1943 that the combined U.S. and

British :war potential was several times greater than that of Germany and

that prospects were bound to worsen the longer the war lasted. Fellgiebel

estimated Western superiority in signal communications to be five- to

seven-fold.

If during the war, German armament production trailed more and more

behind that of the Western Allies, it was a natural process and in no way

due to any lack of understanding for technical progress, for it was caused

by a lack of raw materials and by the hampering of production resulting

from air warfare. The two Chiefs of Staff, Beck and Halder, devoted

lively interest and much understanding to modern technical developments and,

by establishing a tehnical division in the General Staff, tried to create

an agency of their own for handling this field. If Bermany had had available

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the inexhaustible resources of the Western Powers, its armament industry

would certainly have supplied all the Wehrmacht 's requirements until

the end of the war. In both world wars, however, Germany could only wage

a poor man's war."

Finally there might be mentioned an old charge raised against the

Prussian General Staff by outsiders even under the monarchy. Blame was

placed on the seclusion which characterized the work and life of General

Staff officers and which was regarded as an exaggerated exclusiveness. If

we reconstruct today the impression which the Prussian General staff gave

fifty years ago, the reproach seems to be justified. But one should

judge people and the institutions which they have created only according

to the viewpoints and modes of life prevailing during their time.

Before World War I, Germany was an authoritarian state, and Prussia

a caste state. The professional soldier took no part in politics. He

lived in his official circle and looked for off-duty contacts, as far

as his means permitted social entertainment, in those social circles which

were close to the officer corps.

At that time the work of all government authorities, and not of the

General Staff alone, was carried on in great seclusion from the outside

world. There was no such contact with public life as is customary today.

The change began only after 1918. Before 1914 there was lacking the stream

of visitors which now flows daily into the offices of authorities during

the main office hours. Then there &*d not exist the many ties with the out-

side world, the close contacts between agencies; there were not so many

meetings, conferences, and appointments which now fill in the whole day

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of the higher public servants. They could then devote themselves without

interference to their work, since the outside world made no claims on

their time. It was not deliberate seclusion but the mode of life then

prevailing. This exclusiveness may have caused a certain unfamiliarity

with worldly affairs among General Staff officers, but, on the other hand,

it was conducive to intellectual work. Formerly there was a chance for

concentration with nowadays can generally be realized only with difficulty

and incompletely.

The planning and thinking of Moltke and Schlieffen remained free from

all interference; their doctrines could mature only in seclusion. No

intruder could penetrate to the working rooms of the General Staff officers.

Only on very rare occasions did a visitor call during office hours at the

General Staff building on the Koenigsplatz in Berlin. In that period men

had the time to think about their problems and to work in a methodical

manner.

All of this changed abruptly after 1918. Instead of time there pre-

vailed hurry, and official work was constantly disturbed by interference

from the outside. The professional officer was drawn into all problems of

public life and stood in the center of politics during the unsettled years

after 1918. One will have to admit that the German professional officer

adapted himself quickly to the requirements of the new age and its mode

of life. The difficult conditions during the frequently proclaimed states

of emergency, when the executive power was transferred to the supreme

commanders, demanded from' them and their subordinate commanders a high

degree of tact, moderation, and fairness. General Von Seeckt, in whom

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President Ebert vested executive power during the critical period of

1923 - 24, displayed in his unaccustomed mission a high degree of political

sagacity and a firm hand, in dealing with the abortive uprising of the

National Socialist Party in Munich. Seeckt 's training program exerted

an extraordinarily strong influence on the mental attitude of the profess-

ional officers and those working in the Reichswehr Ministry. He selected

the shrewd Schleicher to head his political department. Seeckt set him-

self the aim of keeping the Reichswehr out of politics and of infusing his

senior officers with an understanding of political questions which would

transcend party lines. It was Seeckt who insured the separation of the

professional soldier from politics, his non-interference in political

controversies, and absolute obedience by officers to orders from military

superiors, which means, in the last analysis, to those issued by the Chief

of the Army High Command. These measures, the value of which may appear

problematical today, were in the post revolutionary years absolutely essen-

tial, and perhaps the only means of shaping the small German professional

army into a reliable and disciplined force on which the Reich Government

could rely absolutely. The policy prescribed for the Reichswehr by Seeckt

and Schleicher was certainly well conceived and timed, and if Schleicher

had remained in power he would surely have prevented not only the seizure

of power by the National Socialist Party but also the threatening Communist

revolution. These were the two possibilities faced by Germany in 1930.

It was the policy of the Reichswehr Ministry to overcome the dangers threaten-

ing from both the National Socialists and the Communists and to retain

control of the ship of state. It would go beyond the limits of this report

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to discuss the reasons why this policy nevertheless miscarried in the end.

An Over-all Evaluation

After having been dissolved twice, the German General Staff has

ceased to exist. It was an important factor in the Prussian State, with

whose history it was very closely connected. All General Staff officers

and broad segments of the German people undoubtedly agreed with Schlieffen

when, at the beginning of this century, he said in a speech at the unveil-

ing of the Moltke monument in Berlin: "Since the days of the Battle of

Koeniggraetz the institution of the Prussian General Staff has enjoyed

one of the best reputations in the whole world."

As the result of two lost wars, the Prussian State and Prussian General

Staff are now only historical concepts. Since the General Staff was a

scientific institution, and since it was forced into politics only at

times -- and entirely against its will -- its most significant achieve-

ment was without doubt its influence upon the development of the military

arts, and on the German doctrine of war, as created by its great Chiefs

of Staff. At the conclusion of this study it seems justifiable to raise

the question to what extent Schlieffen's doctrine, which dominated German

strategy in both world wars, was tested in the crucible of actual combat.

Schlieffen's doctrine had only the offensive is mind. uNo battle can be

won by taking up positions but only by movement, " was his idea of modern

warfare.

Although instilled by Schlieffen, this desire to wage a war of move-

Ms # P-031b

ment, could nonetheless not prevent strategy from becoming quickly frozen

in a war of position on the main battlefields of World War I. This was

not due to faulty German command procedures, however, but to the superiority

of tactical defenses as they grew out of military developments then pre-

vailing, The machine gun, invented at the start of this century, dominated

the battlefields of World War I until the Western Powers used tanks, and

restricted offensive movements. Only by means of huge concentrations of

offensive weapons was it occasionally possible during the great break-

through battles to transform the petrified fronts into a liquid state for

a limited time. Schlieffen's teachings on strategy stood the test of trial

as long as both opponents were on the move. However, if it was a matter

of advancing against an enemy holding reinforced defense positions, the

assault troops had to be assembled jointly and prepared according to plan

before the battle,. The assault techniques applied in such cases, which

were very thoroughly developed through positional warfare, evoked memories

of Napoleonic strategy, and to a lesser degree memories of the strategy

applied by Moltke and Schlieffen. The envelopment started, as a rule, with

a concentrated build-up for battle, and it rarely made use of attacks

carried out by separated elements from different directions.

Moltke's strategic mainm that the art of commanding large armies

consists in remaining separated during operations as long as possible, was

not always confirmed by the course of events during World War I. The tendency

to establish connected fronts, which developed at an early juncture, led

rather to new strategic forms. The lineal strategy, which very soon develop-

ed from the formation of connected fronts, in which the separate deployment

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of army forces was carefully avoided, and attempts were made from the very

beginning to avoid the creation of gaps, unmistakably constituted a direct

departure from Moltke's strategy.

But these new strategic concepts which, based on the superiority of

the defense, were still unknown during the 19th century, did not prove

uniformly and simultaneously successful on all battlefields. In the East,

until late in 1916 or early in 1917, there was still carried on a war of

movement in which campaigns and battles were led according to the spirit

exemplified by Moltke and Schlieffen in their strategy. On these occasions

it happened repeatedly - and especially in the case of operations of

decisive consequences (for instance in the campaigns against Serbia and

Roumania t ) -- that operations were carried out with separated units of

armies which came from different directions. In purely mobile warfare the

strategic main forms, as discussed in Schlieffen s doctrine namely, opera-

tions on exterior or interior lines, were considered of equal importance,

Tactical victory was then always gained by attacking from several sides,

such as through the envelopment of one wing or through a double envelopment.

Attacks coming from opposite directions had the most far-reaching conse-

quences, as for instance at Tannenberg.

During World War I German commanders tried most frequently to defeat

the enemy by enveloping one of his wings. The result was as a rule an

indecisive victory (for instance, the winter battle at the Masurian Lakes

in East Prussia, as well as the Battles of Lodz and Vilna) -- but seen

as a whole they were merely "a vitiated or unsuccessful Canae," The enemy

recognized at an early moment the designs of the attacker and took counter-

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measures. Either he profited by the circumstance that his rear was free,

in which case he evaded the encirclement, or he committed fresh replace-

ments against the enveloping move, as in the Battle of Vilna.

Experience in World War I in the East and southeast confirmed the

opinions of Moltke and Schlieffen that, under modern conditions, encircle-

ment can best be achieved if it is possible for the operations following

a strategic separation to meet on the battlefield. In this event the

probability of an exterminating victory will be in proportion to the

width of the angle at which the lines of operation cut across the separated

parts of the army being moved forward for the decision. According to

Schlieffen's doctrine, in order to fight a battle like that at Leuthen, it

is sufficient to commit the forces which are destined to attack the enemy

flank in a line vertical to the front. The prospects of a complete victory

are the greater the more a commander succeeds in making attacks from

opposite directions against the front and the rear. In such an event the

culmination is reached; either annihilation or encirclement. This fact,

recognized since the battles of Leipzig, Richmond, and Langensalza, was

confirmed in World War I by the example demonstrated at Tannenberg, Here

was found the ideal solution for the task of connecting separated parts

coming from opposite directions to attack at the right moment.

That the simultaneous attack against the front and rear during World

War I did not more oftenlead to a classical victory of extermination may

be explained by the fact that superior achievements are the exception rather

than the rule. It would be a mistake, however, to deduce, because of the

infrequency of victories of extermination, that Moltke's basic principle

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dealing with the offensive from separated fronts, and Schlieffen's doctrine

on the concentric attack from several sides, have lost importance under

present conditions. That such an inference is erroneous becomes evident

from the events of World War II. In it the German doctrine on war was

fully confirmed. Technical progress during the period after World War I

created new offensive weapons, (tanks, assault artillery, combat aviation,

large motorized units) and the offensive thus regained that superiority

which it had temporarily lost in World War I because of the predominance

of machine guns.

In World War II it was shown that concentric operations, because of

the drastic changes in organization, equipment, and armament in modern

armies, run a quicker course than during past military eras. With a proper

employment of forces, this fact increased the prospects of annihilating the

enemy in real battles of decision. Schlieffen's ideal battle plan found

its realization in the "blitz campaigns" in Poland and Yougoslavia, but also

in the many major battles at Uman, l.eve, Bialystok, insk, Smolensk, Vyazma,

Bryansk, etc. in the first year of the offensive against the Soviet Union.

But even the strategic pattern of the Battle of Leuthen was strinkingly

emulated by the quick defeat of the French Army in the early summer of 19i1.

Graf Schlieffen described it as desirable to have a superiority in

numbers available for every type of battle fought on the Cannae pattern.

Germany's favorable superiority in numbers changed in the course of the

conflict when the Soviet war machine displayed an amazing power of re-

sistance and an ability to replacelosses, and when United States and

British forces invaded France. The combining of the American and British

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armament ptduction facilities with the manpower resources of the giant

Soviet Empire tipped the scales so far in favor of Germany's enemies that

its defeat could not even be prevented by the German military doctrine.

Nor could, for any length of time, German military doctrine remain "the

secret of victory" and available only to those who had knowledge of this

secret. Germany's enemies had the choice of imitating German command

procedures. From the summer of 19h on they made frequent use of them,

as in the Soviet offensive against Heeresgruppe Mitte, and during the

Battle of Normandy.

On the basis of experience gathered in both world wars we believe

that we must answer in the affirmative the question we raised, namely,

have actual events confirmed the validity of German military doctrine.

Any further accentuation of the concept of annihilation beyond the con-

centric attack from several sides, as taught by Schlieffen, seems indeed

impossible. The supreme commander of future wars will therefore keep this

battle plan always in mind as an ideal, but it is an ideal which can be

realized only by the coincidence of many favorable factors. Even the

German military doctrine will not last for ever. It will be outstripped

by other theories, when the invention of new weapons beings about drastic

changes in warfare. But for the time being this doctrine will retain its

validity, offering to the supreme commander who knows how to apply it

properly, the "secret of success."

But in the history of the arts of war the German General Staff ill

never be denied the glory due to the fact that in its school the classic

doctrine of the victory of extermination was conceived and developed. That

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is the reason why the words which Pericles engraved on the tombs of the

Athenian warriors who died during the first year of the Peloponnesian

War are applicable to the General Staff: tie were feared and we were

admired And we will be imitated"

The foregoing study was written during the period from 2 September

to 18 October 1948.

In case this study is to be published, I expressly request that I be

not named as its author,

(Signed) Dr. Waldemar Erfurth

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