The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880-1914 edited by Paul M. Kennedy

While rummaging through the Pentagon Library a few weeks ago, I ran across this book. I'm very glad I did! Kennedy presents a collection of eleven essays, all previously published in a variety of U.S., UK, Australian, Canadian and German journals from 1961 to 1974. The articles are arranged primarily by country (one exception being an article comparing U.S. and German war plans and how they might've interacted in a bilateral war prior to 1914). All of them were interesting and provided a very interesting look into the military mindset leading up to the war. Unlike the Hamilton and Hertwig work, many of these see militarism, war planning, social Darwinism, fatalism/determinism, and an "all or nothing" mentality as direct causes of the war. Kennedy states that these war plans reflect both military and political attitudes/assumptions that were major factors leading to war.

The section on U.S. war plans focuses fairly broadly, not just on War Plan Black (against Germany), but also looks extensively at U.S. Pacific obligations in light of the outcome of the Spanish-American War. Suddenly in possession of vast territories in the Pacific, the U.S. had to give thought to how to defend their new holdings, especially in light of Japanese expansion already underway. American war plans were very forward-leaning, always looking to the next war, but also remained primarily defensive. American plans did not look to take more territory, only to hold what was already taken. I also found it interesting that American plans never really considered the possibility of having allies. And, at their core, they were very much informed by Mahan and his writing (hardly surprising).

The comparison of German and U.S. war plans was perhaps the most interesting part of the book (to me, anyway). The U.S. expected any German attack to destroy the Monroe Doctrine to occur in Central or South America, the only decent bits of the world not carved into colonies. However, the German plan was for something more interesting - direct attacks against the United States. Their plans shifted over the years, with targets for invasion including the Hampton Roads area, Boston, Washington, New York City, and other key locations. To German thinking in the early 20th Century, the U.S. Army was very small, and most of that was out West dealing with Indians. The U.S. Navy was also weak and easily brushed aside. Thus, conquest of key American cities would lead to a quick capitulation - the intent was not to hold the U.S. indefinitely, but to force capitulation and the end of the Monroe Doctrine (the fact that it was really the UK that maintained it for so long is not addressed). However, there was one tidbit that I found particularly fascinating. Both German and US war plans had one thing in common -- each was to muster its battle fleet at the same location, the small island of Culebra off the east coast of Puerto Rico. That would've been quite a spectacle! Of course, the Germans would've outnumbered the U.S. throughout this entire period, but shorter supply lines might've helped the U.S. German plans to invade the U.S. died when the Schlieffen Plan came into being.

There are multiple essays on British strategy, including an interesting one on the building of the British underwater telegraph system - very fascinating reading and not something much covered elsewhere. On land, the British were reluctant to conduct any planning at first because it was felt that might itself lead to war. Additionally, the focus until 1904-6 or so was on Russia invading India. Uppity German naval building shifted that focus to Europe. Jacky Fisher's reign also saw opposition to naval planning - he believed the war plan should reside solely in the mind of the CinC until war came, and that's what he did, despite opposition from luminaries such as Corbett.

Several chapters on German planning were fairly straightforward - their discussion of an invasion of England made an interesting counterpoint to Riddle of the Sands - instead of using sand bars, the Germans would use commercial shipping in their key ports to sneak an Army across the North Sea, something feasible until the Royal Navy increased their presence there a few years later. In the east, there is a good discussion on German-Austrian coordination of their plans, or perhaps lack of coordination. Both sides promised to attack Russia - neither side wanted to initially, preferring to focus on France and Serbia, respectively. As for the third member of the Triple Alliance, the quote that summed them up was perfect - "Italy was reliable only in its unreliability."

The section on Russia focuses on the 1912 crisis, the author contending that the November crisis in that year over the Balkans was as close to war as 1914, though in this case the Tsar's ministers managed to talk him down from mobilization. The author contends this crisis is often overlooked.

So, this book really allowed me to get my war planning and strategy geek on. I definitely need to develop a scenario for the Avalon Hill game Jutland that covers the Battle of Culebra with miniatures, or at least get in a game of War Plan Black.

While I think that the Hamilton and Herwig book makes a better case of war causes (and thus contradicting the Kennedy book), this was still a very insightful look into pre-war planning and the mindsets of the political and military leadership of the major players.

Decisions for War, 1914-1917 by Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig

Holger and Herwig's Decisions for War is a shorter version of another work, The Origins of World War One (which I have not read). Their hypothesis, put simply, is that the origin of the war can be found in the decision-making of small coteries of people in each of the five Great Powers. These small groups of leaders and chief advisors made the decision to enter the war based on strategic calculations, mainly for defensive or "preventive" reasons that, while unique to each country's situation, are really fairly straightforward. The core of the book is a country-by-country analysis of the five great powers, the lesser powers of the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire, Japan, and the United States, examining who in each chose war, and why.

As part of their argument, the authors attack a number of other posited causes for the war, knocking them down one by one. The alliance system, nationalism, militarism, imperialism, social Darwinism, the supposed influence of bankers and big business, and the unavoidable "slide into war" are all discussed and found wanting. For example, a survey of the alliances in place in 1914 shows that they were generally defensive in nature - one state was not required to support its ally unless that ally were attacked. And yet, Germany came to the aid of Austria, while Russia mobilized because of Serbia, which was not even a formal ally. The "social" causes - nationalism, militarism, and social Darwinism - are discounted as the authors show that there was no real mechanism for popular opinion to influence leadership in any meaningful way, especially in the monarchical-authoritarian countries. With respect to bankers and industrialists, not only is their influence shown to have been minimal, in most cases they were strongly against war, recognizing the world as a globalized, integrated economy. I was favorably impressed by the arguments the authors use in countering these fairly common perceptions of what led to the war.

With all of the countries, there was this sense of "time running out" and the authors see all five great powers as essentially going to war out of fear, rather than for conquest (Thucydides would recognize these arguments). Germany, despite its meteoric economic rise, was concerned with the perceived expansion and growth of Russia. That country better understood its own weaknesses and knew they were one revolution away from disaster. Austria knew it was dying and felt it had to act against upstarts like Serbia before Balkan pressures destroyed the Hapsburgs. France felt her safety was inextricably entwined with the Franco-Russian alliance. If Russia was going to war, France must do the same to preserve the alliance and thus ensure French security. Finally, Britain's splendid isolation was predicated on ensuring no single power dominated Europe; thus, Britain had to commit to protect France. Thus, basic strategic calculations led to war, not the more commonly perceived reasons the authors argue against.

Of note, the lesser countries discussed - Italy, Japan, the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, Rumania and Greece - all joined for territorial aggrandizement. In essence, these lesser powers were opportunists who fought for their own benefit, some, like Italy, against their nominal alliance partners, thus further undermining the argument for the binding nature of treaties. The U.S. was a bit of an outlier, of course, being pulled into war through a series of German provocations, notably unrestricted submarine warfare and the infamous Zimmerman Telegram. However, even all of these participants entered the war after a careful deliberation by a core group of leaders who acted based on a careful analysis of their perceived interests.

So, overall a very interesting book with a well defined and argued hypothesis. I may go back to read the longer version at a later time to see the arguments more fully developed and supported with data, but next up is a look at The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1890-1914 edited by Paul M. Kennedy.

Oh, something I should've done before but will start now - interesting and sometimes previously unknown (by my) anecdotes from the books I read. From Hamilton and Herwig:

• The strongest check on the hawks in Austria was Franz Ferdinand; his death actually made war with Serbia more likely
• Japan operated warships in the Mediterranean in 1917 as convoy escorts
• The French broke German diplomatic codes in 1911. However, the Foreign Minister used them as a political weapon against Prime Minister Caillaux, who then summoned the German Ambassador to Paris and asked him to produce the originals so he could compare them to those stolen by the French! (The term "sources and methods" was obviously lost on the French in 1911!)

The First World War: An Illustrated History by A J P Taylor

A quick entry for a quick book.  I decided to read another single-volume overview to shake up my "road to war" readings.

Taylor's book is the first I ever read on WW1, quite a few years ago.  It's a fairly short book, with as much space given to illustrations (a lot of great ones) as to text; it is quick and easy to read.  Taylor provides a general, chronological overview of the war focused on the Western Front, though he does discuss other theaters in brief.  Also, he devotes more text to politics than simply recounting battle after battle.  Given the brevity, he does come off as somewhat breathless, but given the scope covered by a small volume, this is to be expected.  Throughout, he maintains a dry, very English, wit to some of his comments (biting and acerbic at times, perhaps).

Taylor certainly provides a heaping helping of criticism to military leadership on both sides and in each country, especially the French, English and Germans.  he does not have much positive to say, though he is certainly in the "but what else could they do" camp.  Politicians, however, come in for quite a bit of abuse from Taylor.  He hammers them left and right, from Wilson's naivete, to hapless Germans like Bethmann and Zimmerman, to Briand and others.  Lloyd George seems to get a bit of praise, though, as Taylor highlight's his demands for convoys and in other recommendations in the face of British military opposition; in fact, he seems a tad enamored with the man.  I am not terribly knowledgeable about Taylor, but given the time the book was written (late 60s, early 70s) I have to wonder if some of the Vietnam era thinking slips into his thought processes.

So, that one was quick.  Back to "origins of the war" reading.  Lucky for me, I found a large cache of them in the Pentagon library!

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers

The Riddle of the Sands is a bit different from previous books in that it is fiction.  I've always intended to include fiction in this little project, but this one dates back to 1903, well before the war.  So, then, why read it?  Simply because it was a key influence in the pre-war mindset of Britain.

Aside from being one of the earliest spy novels (and considered by many to be one of the best), the novel had an outsized effect on popular thinking in the decade or so leading up to the war.  The novel opens with a low-level British foreign office official, Carruthers, accepting an invitation to spend time with an old friend, Davies, sailing his yacht along the North Sea and Baltic coast of Germany.  After a time, Davies informs his guest that he has slowly come to realize that the Germans are up to something along the Frisian coast, an area along the North Sea facing England composed of a string of islands and vast areas of sand that appear as the tides drop away.  His vague ideas were previously solidified when a supposed German yachtsman essentially tried to get him killed during a storm by leading Davies into a dangerous area.  As time goes on, Carruthers comes to believe him and the two begin an exploration of the area to better understand just what is going on, conducting a running cat and mouse game with the yachtsman (revealed later to be a former Royal Navy officer in disgraced exile, now working for the Germans), a sinister local sailor, and a German gunboat captain.  The German plan, finally revealed, is to use the secret waterways through the sands to hide an armada of small craft destined to invade England when the time came.  As the author concludes, he laments the fact that the Royal Navy is scattered across the world, with no significant military ports facing the North Sea to defend against aggression from the Continent.

The novel's conclusion generated a strong sentiment in Britain that they were not ready for war, feeding into efforts by those like Jackie Fisher to better prepare Britain for the possibility of war.  It also helped lead to the creation of facilities like Scapa Flow to counter just the sort of threat postulated in the novel.  Further, the novel came near the cusp of the British shift towards France and impending naval arms race with Germany, and clearly pointed to the potential threat from Germany.  Childers also noted the potential role of submarines and torpedo craft, though this was undoubtedly less influential than his geopolitical and operational-level concerns.

So, an excellent novel; highly recommended.  Also, Childers'  personal life makes for a fascinating read.  From hard-core Victorian imperialist, to World War One hero, to Irish gun-runner, he had quite an adventurous life, although it ended with an Irish firing squad in 1922.