Prelude, 1900-14
I.I. States, Armies, and Navies
1.6. Facts and Counterfacts
Things came to a head in a famous encounter between Wilhelm II and his army chief of sta . An ill-written telegram from the German ambassador in Paris had made the emperor believe that France might not enter the war after all, whereupon he suggested that Germany’s entire weight be turned around and thrown against Russia alone. The very idea of making the change brought Moltke to the verge of a nervous breakdown; his trust in his imperial master, he later wrote, was never restored.58 In the event, the misunderstanding was soon put out of the way as France clari ed its position. Yet, looking back, there is no question that, in insisting on greater exibility, Wilhelm was right and Moltke, wrong. A high command less committed to its strategic dogma could and should have prepared alternative plans.
might constitute, than Germany—and in reality, nobody knew what role would be played either by Japan or, for that matter, the United States.
Just as the Germans had overestimated Russia’s strength (especially its economic and social strength), once war had broken out, they underestimated the role that rst Britain, and then the United States, would play. Indeed, Moltke’s behavior in July 1914 suggests that Britain was of little concern to him.60 At one point he even expressed the idea that, in return for Canada, the United States might be persuaded to join the war against Britain, but why Washington needed Berlin’s permission if it wanted to overrun its northern neighbor he did not say. Whether Germany would in fact support Austria-Hungary against the Serbs (reading the Serb response to the ultimatum sent from Vienna, Kaiser Wilhelm thought there was no more reason for war) and what Russia would do also remained unclear.
Not everybody chose to ride roughshod over these uncertainties the way the German general sta , with its all-consuming passion for the fastest possible mobilization, did. For example, in favor of the much-maligned Russian general sta it must be said that they prepared two di erent war plans, one for ghting Austria-Hungary alone and the other for ghting Austria-Hungary and Germany together. The even more maligned Austria-Hungary prepared no fewer than four. When the moment of decision came, it could have implemented any one of them, albeit at the price of some friction that could cause the timetables to become stretched.
At the technical and operational levels, uncertainty was equally great. Given the amount of time that had passed since the last major war in Europe and the changes that had taken place since, nobody knew, or could know, which of the war plans really would succeed.
Schlie en at one point had written that military-technical progress had ended (“Das denkbare 1st erreicht”: whatever is conceivable has been achieved).61’ That, however, was the belief of an old man. The reality was very di erent. Everywhere new inventions, both military
and nonmilitary, were sprouting like mushrooms out of the soil;
perhaps at no other time did so many possibilities, some real, some merely apparent, present themselves.
Was it true, as some claimed, that modern military science (with aid of new communications technologies) reduced war to “cool mathematical calculations”?62 Or was it true, as others feared, that armies had grown too large and too cumbersome to be commanded at all? How would the numerous technological innovations transforming naval warfare act and interact? Was a revolutionary invention that would make all existing weapons obsolete just around the corner? After all, as early as 1914 a British writer, H. G.
Wells (who had received a solid scienti c education before turning his talents to ction), was able to predict the introduction and use of nuclear weapons. All this made it really di cult to decide which of the daring new ideas and technologies would be truly realizable and worth investing in.
Recalling the events of 1801, when the British had annihilated the Danish eet for fear it would fall into Napoleon’s hands, the Germans thought that their eet might be “Copenhagened”—a fear that, since it had been informally considered by Admiral Fisher,63 was not without a certain foundation in reality. Across the channel, their worries were reciprocated by quite a number of writers, including some intelligence o cers, who spun tales about the coming German invasion(s) of Britain. Some provided ingenious answers to the little problem of dealing with the British navy.
Others simply ignored it; either way, they proved to be nonsensical.
Yet at the time, they were considered threatening enough to make Edward VII worry lest his temperamental imperial cousin one day present himself with an army and, promising to do away with British socialism, take over.64 When war nally did break out, road signs were removed all over the isles lest they help the kaiser’s troops nd their way.
In the end, perhaps the most interesting vision of the future was presented by that archetypical if ctional character, Josef Svejk. A
resident of Prague, Svejk was a Czech—a member of an “oppressed minority” bent on asserting its national rights. Nevertheless, like millions of ordinary people of the day, he was a good Habsburg subject who avidly followed the news by reading the papers in the beer houses. By his lights, responsibility for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand rested on Turkey, and Austria-Hungary was certain to declare war against it. The Germans (whom he of course considered “low scum”) would stand by Turkey and declare war on Austria-Hungary; France, Germany’s enemy, would come to the aid of Austria-Hungary. The critical point to remember is not that all this turned out to be totally wrong, but rather that, when it did turn out to be totally wrong, instead of thinking twice Svejk cheered, waved his crutches (he had gout), and went to ght anyhow.
The paci st German sculptress Kaethe Kollwitz took her soldier son to the railway station and gave him a copy of Goethe’s Faust as a parting present; the young Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein insisted on going to the front even though he could easily have obtained a discharge owing to a stomach complaint.
Millions of others acted likewise.