Struggling Against Inferiority: German Army Policy, 1890-1914
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UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Struggling against Inferiority: German Army Policy, 1890-1914 by Gavin J. Wiens A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DERGEE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY CALGARY, ALBERTA JANUARY, 2010 ©Gavin J. Wiens 2010 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-64185-9 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-64185-9 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Nnternet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. •+• Canada Abstract The diplomatic and geographic circumstances confronting Germany before the First World War demanded the maintenance of a large standing army. Consequently, in 1890 the Prussian Minister of War, Julius von Verdy du Vernois, introduced a long-term program of army expansion intended to increase the number of active formations and provide all able-bodied German males with military training. Whereas considerable political and social obstacles, together with the inauguration of a naval construction program in 1898 precluded its completion, the possibility of a two-front war thereafter ensured that the "realization of compulsory military service" remained the fundamental objective of the General Staff. Not even the return of budgetary preference to the army following the second Moroccan crisis in 1911 and the subsequent approval of substantial army bills in 1912-13 diminished the intense pressure for a large-scale increase in the peacetime-strength and the implementation of the core principles of the "Verdy Plan." ii Table of Contents Abstract ii Table of Contents iii Introduction 1 Chapter One: From the "Verdy Plan" to the "Big Army Bill" 5 Chapter Two: Operational Planning and the Quinquennat of 1899 28 Chapter Three: The General Staff versus the Ministry of War, 1899-1911 48 Chapter Four: The Army Bills of 1912 and 1913 70 Conclusion 106 Bibliography 112 Appendix A: The Balance of Military Power, 1887-1914 117 Appendix B: German Government and Military Expenditures, 1901-1913 118 Appendix C: Strength of the German Annual Recruit Contingent, 1890-1913 119 iii 1 Introduction On 11 January 1887 the Reich Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, explained to the Reichstag the international situation confronting Germany. "No one is going to embroil us with Russia," he declared. "The question as to how we shall stand with France in the future, I find less easy to answer." Bismarck therefore asked the parliamentary deputies: "Is this epoch of frontier warfare with the French nation at an end, or is it not?"1 Both domestic and foreign political considerations had compelled the Reich Chancellor to introduce the Septennat, the seven-year period over which the Reichstag could approve military expenditures, one year early. In January 1886 Georges Boulanger, who had continuously expressed anti-German sentiment and a desire for revanche after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, had been appointed French Minister of War. Bismarck, concerned that the opposition parties in the Reichstag were becoming too influential, wanted to present Boulanger as a serious threat to the European peace and thereby mobilize popular support for the government. "I can only voice my own suspicions in this regard," Bismarck had continued, "and say that it is not at an end." The demands for a large-scale increase in the standing army nevertheless floundered upon parliamentary opposition and the demand for more significant concessions. But following a dissolution of the Reichstag and fresh elections, the new Septennat was approved in March 1887. The Reich Chancellor had easily accumulated substantial support for the approval of an army increase that, considering the international situation, appeared absolutely necessary. But only one decade later the Ministry of War, responsible for the administration and organization of the army, had virtually renounced large-scale expansion. Moreover, between 1899 and 1911 the development of the standing army came to a standstill as successive Ministers of War preferred the step-by-step introduction of new technologies and the elimination of existing deficiencies in the organization to numerical increases. How did this happen? 1 Bismarck to the Reichstag, 11 January 1887, in Stenographische Berichte iiber die Verhandlungen des deutschen Reichstages, VI Legislative Period, 18th Session, vol. 93 (Berlin, 1886-7), 335-43. 2 Alan Palmer, Bismarck (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), 234-5. 2 The land armaments race that occurred shortly before the First World War has naturally been exhaustively examined. Two studies, in particular, have recently attempted to explain the lengthy period of stagnation in the development of the European armies and the subsequent rapid armaments build-up in 1912-13. David Herrmann examined this occurrence, as well as the relationship between diplomacy, political decision-making and military strength. In the years before the First World War political leaders had not entered diplomatic crises with the express intention of provoking a conflict. European armies were at the time attempting to predict the future conditions of warfare and were therefore in the process of implementing new weapons and equipment. The balance of military power, however, had started to shift by 1912. European governments thereafter began increasing military budgets, which in turn precipitated a spiralling armaments race. Subsequent fears that one power might eventually gain a significant military advantage assisted in the creation of "windows of opportunity," that in turn produced more threatening crises and, ultimately, the catastrophe of the First World War. David Stevenson similarly focused on the background of the rapid acceleration of land armaments in 1912-13. This process was not caused by gradual improvements in technology, Stevenson argued, but rather solely by the actions of nervous army leaders who remained concerned about a potential shift in the balance of military power. The rapid increase in the German army after 1912, in particular, resulted from a sudden change in the balance of power in the Balkans, where Germany's main ally, Austria- Hungary, would have to concentrate a large part of its military strength. The resulting armaments race in the years immediately before the First World War, together with an increasingly unstable international situation, above all contributed to the events of the July Crisis and the outbreak of a general European conflict.4 German armaments policy has similarly received considerable attention and several important studies stand out. The thesis that the development of the army was primarily influenced by the international situation confronting Germany was first 3 David G. Herrmann, The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996) 4 David Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe, 1904-1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) 3 challenged by Eckart Kehr. The primary concern of the Ministry of War, he proposed, was not the military strength of Germany's potential opponents, France and Russia, but rather the changing domestic political circumstances.5 A similar interpretation has more recently been presented by Stig Forster. The army administration was much more concerned about the social and political character of the annual recruit contingents and the reliability of the army in the event of a Social Democratic uprising than with the progress of military reforms abroad. This "militarism from above" was nevertheless contrasted with a increasingly more vocal and aggressive middle-class "militarism from below." Popular associations such as the Army League, formed in January 1912, expressed public anxiety that the international position of Germany had deteriorated following the implementation of the