World War I - Week 3 - August 17-23, 1914
POLITICAL
| Aug 17- | Belgium moves government from Brussels to Antwerp. | |
| Aug 23- | Germany levies war fine on Belgium. | |
| Aug 23- | Japan declares war on Germany. Though Japan would take little part of actual fighting in the War, it took the opportunity to snap up most of the German possessions in Asia (Chinese port of Tsing-Tao, part of New Guinea, and the Caroline, Marshall and Mariana islands). |
MILITARY
Aug 20 - Germans begin bombardment of Namur, the last great fortress in Belgium.
Aug 20 - Russians continue to advance in East Prussia region of Germany.
Aug 21 - Germans attack British interests in east and South Africa.
Aug 23 - Namur falls. (Expected to hold out 6 months, lasted 4 days)
Aug 23 - Battle of Mons begins with first major British forces engaged.
Aug 23 - French retreat continues all along their lines.
QUOTES
Only the offensive yields positive results. French Army manual
Though the Germans invaded, it was the more often the French who attacked. Winston Churchill
We will continue, gentlemen. French General Castelnau to his staff upon learning his son had been killed in battle. Many of the Generals on both sides would lose one or more sons during the War.
Keep the right wing strong. Dying words of German General Alfred von Schlieffen, designer of the Schlieffen Plan detailing German strategy to defeat France in six weeks. (map below)
Battle of the Frontiers
The Battle of the Frontiers was actually a series of seven battles in which the French attacked German forces, would be stopped, and retreated after German counter-attacks. In a four day period, the French would lose 140,000 men. The French would see (but continue to ignore) the futility of the doctrine of the offensive. It died on a field in Lorraine where at the end of the day nothing was visible but corpses strewn in rows and sprawled in the awkward attitudes of sudden death as if the place had been swept by a malignant hurricane. (Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman)
The Battle of Mons
The Battle of Mons on Aug 23 in southern Belgium was the first major engagement of British and German forces. The bulk of the BEF (70,000) ran into Von Klucks German 1 st Army (160,000). The British put up a valiant and determined fight, but were overwhelmed by numbers. British riflemen were required to be able to hit at least 15 targets at 300 yards every minute and the rapid fire of the British convinced the Germans they were facing lines of machine guns. The British would lose 1,600 men but inflicted 5,000 German casualties. The British were ready to fight another day but were forced to retreat when the French unexpectedly exposed the British right flank retreating after the Battle of Charleroi. The British commander, Sir John French, would never forgive the French for this and several times considered evacuating the BEF from the continent. This would begin a British-French retreat of over 200 miles in 13 days.
The German Army
At the start and throughout the War the German Army was the best trained and equipped army in the world. While only marginally larger than the Allied armies on the Western Front (far less than the accepted 2-1 ratio considered the minimum needed for successful offensive operations), the German armies within weeks conquered virtually all of Belgium and much of France, including most of the richest French industrial areas. It would hold these lands, with minor adjustments for better defensive positions, for over 4 years.
The Germans would hold several advantages over its opponents. The Germans from the start utilized reserve units in combat. The French and the British believed reserve units were merely good for guarding railway stations and ammunition dumps. At the beginning of the War, only the Germans had portable mortars, hand grenades, an overwhelming superiority in machine guns, and motorized super-heavy artillery. They would be the first to use poison gas, flamethrowers, and shock troops. The development and usage of the tank by the British later in the War was the only significant innovation in which the Germans lagged. Their skillful use of submarines would almost bring Britain to her knees, though the resumption of unrestricted sub warfare would fatally bring the U.S. against them in 1917. The strategic use of their extensive railway system would allow them to quickly and easily switch forces from the western to eastern fronts (and vice-versa) throughout the War to meet any contingencies. A more in-depth discussion of German tactics will follow later in this series.
Photo below shows German soldiers wearing their pickelhaube helmets. They were discontinued soon after the War began. Several exhausted German soldiers needing a rest forgot the rule about sitting on your helmets. 
German soldiers were nicknamed Fritz or Jerry by the British. The French referred to them as the Boche (cabbage heads). In Allied newspapers the Germans were usually " The Huns ".
The many years of quality training of German junior officers and NCOs gave their superiors the confidence to allow them to make many more tactical decisions on the field of battle. French and British junior officers were expected to carry out orders from above regardless of how the battles were actually progressing on the ground.
Fundamentally the German General Staff was staffed with men ready to fight modern warfare. The leadership of the French and British military was, simply put, stubborn idiots who believed war could be won with rifles and bayonets. The French generals who pleaded otherwise were mostly ignored by their superiors until much later in the War when much of the French army mutinied in protest at the senseless sacrifice they had been forced to endure for years. The best thing that could be said of the British and French Generals was that they all had damn fine moustaches.
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Like his young country (Germany only had become unified in 1871), Wilhelm was ambitious and insecure. Upon his assuming reign in 1888 Germany had already become the economic and military superpower on the European continent, yet had obtained few colonies which were the mark of a Great Power at the time. He has been variously described as stubborn, restless, gentle, sensitive, lazy, easily distracted (he may have had ADD), paranoid, and had a screw loose. He loved archaeology and was a practical joker. Though born with a withered left arm he loved to pose as a military man. He had dozens of uniforms of all types and would often change them several times a day. When visiting his grandmother Queen Victoria or his uncles Kings Edward VII and George V, he would proudly wear his honorary British Admirals uniform.
He loved to make speeches though his impulsiveness would worry his aides who never knew what he might say. He also frustrated the German General Staff during war games. In those games, the Kaisers side would always be required to win. On the final day he would lead his side to victory with himself at the head of a magnificent cavalry charge.
He would have a love/hate relationship with Britain throughout his life. His jealousy of the British Royal Navy would lead to the rapid buildup of the German High Seas Fleet in the two decades preceding the War. This buildup threatened and alienated Britain who could accept no challenge to her navys dominance of the seas.
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If you missed the first two installments of this series, here they are:
Another good chapter pokermike.
I found this sentence very telling.''The best thing that could be said of the British and French Generals was that they all had damn fine moustaches.'' The waste of life by the French and British command was truly appalling. Living in the past, when involved in a war is a sure way to be defeated.
Keep it coming pokermike.
I'm glad you liked that one. I made that up myself (not that it is particularly clever).
In the opinion of most military historians, the two most outstanding British Generals were both from Commonwealth countries: General John Monash (Australia) and General Arthur Currie (Canada). I will devote a special section to them later in the series. Their innovations in tactics won victories while minimizing the losses of their own men.
Looking forward to reading about the Australia and Canadian Generals. Having lived in both countries, it should be interesting.
Enjoying the series, and learning a lot.
One other tidbit about WWI Generals. They often had names not exactly coinciding with their countries. The commanding British General in 1914 was named French and at the same time on the Eastern Front the Germans had a General von Francois. Also at the same time the Germans had a prominent General with a Scottish name (Mackenson) and the commander of the Russian 1st Army was named von Rennenkampff.
Then again in WWII, the U.S. had General Eisenhower as Supreme Commander in Europe and Admiral Nimitz as Commander of the Pacific Fleet, both of German ancestry.
In the late 19th Century, oil was found in Baku, Azerbaijan. The English had sent a spy there, SidneyReilly, to see if they could get hold of the oil. The German's quickly learned of this, through an arms dealer, Sir Basil Zaharoff, made sure, once he learned that oil could power ships, that he would profit from it. His most famous words was that "I made wars so that I could sell arms to both sides. I must have sold more arms than anyone else in the world." This he first armed the Germans. This is why they had the edge of the arms race.
You can read more about him here:
or read Reilly: Ace of Spies.
Great Chapter Mike.
I always thought that the best defence is an offense. Who knew?
Perrie, I don't think you are old enough but years ago on PBS they had a great series on Sidney Reilly, aptly named Reilly: Ace of Spies. I loved it and always wanted to see it again. It starred Sam Neill as Reilly. Since you mentioned it, I checked out youtube and they actually have at least several of the episodes. Thanks for reminding me.
In most cases it is probably true. Except when you have to charge across open fields and get through 40 feet of barbed wire while facing machine gun fire, poison gas, and shells exploding all around you.
More great stuff, poker... sincere thanks again for undertaking this monster job. It appears that the Brits, French & Belgian commanders were stuck on tactics and technology that was probably at least 30 years out of date when the war began. I suppose it has something to do with both Britain & France having had 'success' with those tactics when conqueringless developed military forces and subdhing uprisings in their colonies in Africa & Asia...
Sadly Mike.. I am old enough to remember it (I'm 54)... and even own it! LOL you and i must be the only two people here who have seen that series.
I know that, that war was fought very differently from any other war fought before. I just wasn't sure how or why. I'm beginning to understand that now.
Glad you and the others here seem to be enjoying the series.
Though there hadn't been a war on the continent involving two Great Powers in 44 years, there were lessons they should have known. All the major powers had military observers at the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.The Japanese would defeat the Russians but would lose thousands of men in suicidal charges against Russian machine guns which all these observers witnessed. The British and French would duplicate that insanity against the finest army in the world for most of the War.
I have the impression that the 'high command' simply didn't really grasp the impact of widespread mechanization in warfare, at least not on the scale it would be employed in WWI. As you mentioned above, junior officers in the field would 'get it' pretty quickly, but the 'grand old men'were mired in a mindset from a time when 'horsepower' really meant horsepower. Hell, they were stillpicturing cavalry charges as effective tactics.
As you also noted, initial strategies (at least on the Austro-German side) were predicated on over-running the territory in weeks--- which initially looked like it was going to happen. Once the war bogged down to ongoing trench warfare over the same patches of ground, it amounted to marching men into a giant technology-driven meatgrinder...
It is almost amazing how short-sighted many military men were at this time. I am not sure of their exact names without looking them up but here are some quotes I remember by top Generals who fought in the War.
French General on air warfare: "The aeroplane, it is nothing".
Another French General on air power: "The aeroplane is good for sport, not warfare".
British General: "The machine gun is an overrated weapon".
French General preferring the bayonet: "Bullets may land wherever, but cold steel finds its mark."
In addition to the weekly summary of WWI political and military events, next week's 3 vignettes will be:
It will be posted on Saturday afternoon.
Right now I have nothing to offer but an inquiring mind and I appreciate you doing this.
Excellent series Mike. Thank you for doing this. WWI is one of those wars that are often overlooked in our History. Some see WWI and WWII as not much more than a continuous period of war with a (relatively) long half-time.
There's a hefty measure of irony and schadenfreude in realizing that the 'war to end wars' basically did nothing except set up all the dominos to fall into WWII (and on into the present). The crushing 'war debt' imposed on Germany in combo with the massive economic disruptions in the '20s and the spread of communism made a perfect opportunity for that opportunistic little Austrian house-painter... and the German industrial magnates who figured to use Adolf to get rid of the commies.
Exactly Swami. When the Germans went to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 they believed it to be a good-faith negotiation to settle the War. Instead their representatives were humiliated into signing a declaration of complete guilt for the War and ridiculous reparations of $400 billion (in today's $$). There was much talk of a trial (and certain hanging) of Kaiser Wilhelm, but the Dutch stood firm in their granting of asylum and would not turn over the Kaiser to the Allies despite heavy pressure.
**Trivia - The Germans paid off the last $94 million of their WWI war reparations in 2010.
Holy shit--- I had no clue that that insane 'peace treaty' extortion actually continued (but I guess Germany wasn't in any position to seek redress after 1945...)
The Germans should have paid it off in 1923 when it took 1 billion Deutsche Marks to buy a loaf of bread due to the hyperinflation.
I'm liking this series. Thanks.
Grumpy, I posted Week 4 a few hours ago.