Let me kick off with a couple quick disclosures regarding this review.
- Over 30 years ago, I attended Marquette with Mark, the author. I was a year older and we were on different degree tracks but we became friends through a mutual couple (Deb & Neal) via D&D/RoleMaster. Afterwards, we catch up at GenCon when it was in Milwaukee.
- Mark and I reconnected a couple years ago through FaceBook thanks to a mutual friend’s screed. As we were catching up, I experienced mudita over his achievement of a PhD in History along with his tenure. Eventually, we decided to have a book exchange and the title above is what he sent me. How I wish I had something as substantive bearing my name. I went with a couple works of fiction close to my heart.
With those points out of the way, I want to go forward about Mark’s really informative work because this year will be the centennial of World War I ending. Sure, there were details to work out all the way into 1919 with the final peace treaty but the carnage and horrors ended on what we call Veterans Day in the US; the world prefers Armistice or Remembrance Day.
Thanks to a student asking him “Why did Germany lose?” in his Twentieth Century course, Mark was inspired to write Germany’s Defeat after he discovered that there was no concise, informative and accurate books for people like me…non-academics. Much of what I know of WWI is a mix of The History Channel (when it’s not showing “reality” crap), college (partially inaccurate), movies (horrible creative liberties) and my maternal grandfather who was 10 at the war’s outbreak (often colored by what he experienced in rural Illinois). So this isn’t a technical book aimed at Mark’s peers and it is focused exclusively on Germany’s actions with their allies and enemies’ counter moves solely in Europe.
It’s pretty important to know the truth on why Germany lost too. Despite the Nazis’ defeat at the end of WWII, the convenient half-truths and outright lies which helped Hitler come to power continue to circulate 70 years later. Being a Yankee in the South, I experience the same problem with our Civil War 153 years after Appomattox.
As everyone knows, WWI was initiated by the assassination of Austro-Hungary’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The killer was an ethnic Serb from Bosnia, a region Austria had incorporated a few decades earlier. Suspecting Serbian skullduggery, Austro-Hungary declared war against Serbia. Serbia responds and gets Russia to declare war against Austro-Hungary. Germany is pulled in through their alliance with Austro-Hungary. Russia counters with France jumping in, opening up a two-front conflict for Germany.
The first question I had was, didn’t former Chancellor Bismarck craft a way to avoid this scenario? He did but after his ouster by Kaiser Wilhelm II, the regime did stupid things to alienate others who were indifferent-to-friendly with the German Empire, namely the UK. Meanwhile the generals, admirals and politicians devised a plan before the war known as the Schlieffen-Moltke Plan to solve the two-front dilemma.
In short, here’s the Schliffen-Moltke Plan:
- Rush the bulk of the German Army west via rail and knock France out quickly as they did in the Franco-Prussian War 40-45 years ago. This could be done in a matter of a few weeks.
- Minimal German forces with Austro-Hungary will keep Russia tied up. Once France accepts Germany’s peace terms, the bulk of the German Army is then rushed east to do the same to Russia.
- Germany and its allies win. Germany will then likely get to annex more land/citizens from Russia’s holdings; Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states and maybe a couple French provinces.
The clock was ticking on the plan’s viability too. Russia’s ongoing industrialization was expected to improve their deployment into Poland within a few years, thus, holding them back would be more difficult by the end of the decade.
Looking back, it’s easy for us to see that the S-M Plan was plagued with Underpants Gnomes Logic, too many variables between the beginning and the desired outcome. This didn’t matter, the S-M Plan had the result these leaders wanted. For it to work though, Germany had to defeat France quickly because the leadership didn’t have any feasible contingency if the French tied them up for months or let alone years. Sure Germany had the best rail system to shuffle its forces and the average German soldier was better trained than their French, UK or Russian equivalent. But it doesn’t mean squat when your opponents’ population is greater; doesn’t need to import much war materiel, food and fuel; and has access to the Atlantic Ocean. In the end, it didn’t matter anymore, both coalitions were now acting like drunk frat boys itching for a fight and nobody would back off for fear of appearing weak.
As expected, the S-M Plan unraveled immediately when the French failed to be a pushover and the UK declared war for the German invasion of Belgium; Germany did this to get some of their forces around French fortifications knowing the British would get off the sidelines. In my opinion, Germany’s defeat is 90% certain after the Battle of the Marne (September 5-9, 1914). French and British troops not only manage to stop Germany’s advance toward Paris (the goal), they pushed the invaders back some 30-40 miles (maybe more). Now the warring sides are in a stalemate and the trench warfare we Americans associate with WWI begins; both sides race each other to the Swiss border and the English Channel.
For the next four years, Germany desperately employs numerous strategies that could force France, the UK and Russia to accept peace on Germany/Austro-Hungary’s terms. The immediate problem is time is running out before Germany and its allies run out of food, ammo and other necessities.
Here are their key gambles which fail.
- The German Navy tries to break the UK blockade in two major battles, the most significant is the Battle of Jutland. Despite the UK losing more people and ships, the blockade stands. The UK wins.
- The German Navy initiates unrestricted submarine warfare on enemy and neutral vessels. Germany backs off after American complaints/threats. It was also unsuccessful. The losses didn’t affect the UK public enough to matter.
- Rationing in Germany is initiated. However, who gets what isn’t very equal. Munitions workers get more alongside pay hikes to keep up with inflation. White collar workers, soldiers and non-munitions employees get the shaft. Those with enough money can buy what they want through the Black Market. Resentment at home inevitably happens. The UK blockade strangles the German economy too as there’s less to ration.
- The German administration proves how incompetent it was by re-allocating the dwindling resources toward winning. Never mind that the infrastructure is gradually collapsing. For example, steel. Whatever steel Germany had needed to be made into munitions. Maintenance of its formerly superior rail system would have to wait, leading toward breakdowns. The list goes on.
- Hindenburg’s plan to build more factories demonstrated how clueless he was. The ones already at his disposal couldn’t produce more of what the Army needed anyway so new construction depleted what little there was.
- Germany attempts to bleed the French white through attrition at the Battle of Verdun. France loses more soldiers but Germany’s death toll is pretty close making it a French victory by default.
- Eventually, the submarine campaign was re-instituted with the promise of its success leading the UK population to demand peace before the American Army arrives. The u-boats make their tonnage quota but it just results in the UK to start rationing food in amounts which were more generous than what Germans were getting.
- Germany’s involvement in toppling the Czar/Tsar via the smuggling of Lenin back into Russia did get them a favorable settlement and the opportunity to re-allocate troops to the Western Front. It didn’t achieve the effect they desired with France and the UK. What happened to Russia made them more determined to defeat Germany and with the American Army trickling in by 1918, they could.
My second burning question was…what about the infamous Zimmermann note US history books mention in high school? It occurred but President Wilson declared war over the submarine attacks in 1917, not the fear of Mexico joining Germany in the war.
Another thing Mark’s book clarified was how effective WWI submarines were. In short, not much and when the UK started having their warships escorting convoys of freighters, the subs had fewer targets. When I think of a sub, I used to think the WWI-types were similar to the WWII-versions. They weren’t. In WWI, a German sub may be armed with, at most, four torpedoes to sink the enemy. More often they surfaced and sank freighters with the cannons on their front decks. The latter tactic made them vulnerable to warships and according to Mark, not one German u-boat inflicted significant damage on the UK Navy.
While I was reading this, I bugged Mark with my third nagging question. Why didn’t Wilson use America’s position as a neutral state to broker an end to the war? I ask this in light of Teddy Roosevelt doing the same with the Russo-Japanese war in 1905. Turns out, he did after he was re-elected in 1916. He sent envoys to the warring states with the offer only to be rejected by all countries but Austro-Hungary. The rejections contained mostly the same message, “No thanks. We’re going to win soon.” If I just read on, I would’ve seen this in the book too.
In conclusion, I want to come back to the premise of Germany’s Defeat, they lost because their leadership foolishly gambled on ill-conceived plans and strategies which all backfired. The failures then led to further doubling down on winning with even further ill-advised gambles. Inevitably Germany had to sue for peace and when the UK and France really laid on the punitive measures affecting all Germans, the myth of who was to blame was born, what we know as the Dolchstoss Legende.
Germany was going to win WWI but the army was stabbed in the back by Jews, Socialists, Pacifists, etc. The army was never defeated. These internal enemies are to blame until the Nazis came to power to make Germany great again.
Sounds familiar here as America finds its global dominance being challenged by China and the continual erosion our of soft power abroad, traditional allies included.
I want to thank Mark for the book. He helped dispel some of my incorrect assumptions on WWI overall, not just how soundly Germany was defeated, but more specifically the actions and consequences Germany undertook to get there. Much like the Confederacy in America’s Civil War, the Second Reich (Germany’s formal name until 1918), was pretty doomed as soon as the first shots were fired.