The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War Author(s): Stephen Van Evera Source: International Security, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Summer, 1984), pp. 58-107 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2538636 . Accessed: 18/04/2011 15:23 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Security. http://www.jstor.org The Cult of the StephenVan Evera Offensiveand the Originsof the First WorldWar During the decades beforethe FirstWorld War a phenomenonwhich may be called a "cultof the offensive"swept throughEurope. Militariesglorified the offensiveand adopted offensivemilitary doctrines, while civilianelites and publics as- sumed thatthe offensehad the advantagein warfare,and thatoffensive solutionsto securityproblems were the mosteffective. This articlewill argue thatthe cultof the offensivewas a principalcause of the FirstWorld War, creatingor magnifyingmany of the dangerswhich historiansblame forcausing the Julycrisis and renderingit uncontrollable. The followingsection will first outline the growth of the cult of the offensive in Europe in the yearsbefore the war, and then sketchthe consequences which internationalrelations theory suggests should followfrom it. The second sectionwill outlineconsequences which the cultproduced in 1914, and the finalsection will suggestconclusions and implicationsfor current Americanpolicy. TheCult of the Offensive and International Relations Theory THE GROWTH OF THE CULT The gulf between myth and the realities of warfarehas never been greater than in the years before World War I. Despite the large and growing advan- tage which defenders gained against attackersas a result of the invention of rifled and repeating small arms, the machine gun, barbed wire, and the development of railroads, Europeans increasinglybelieved that attackers would hold the advantage on the battlefield,and that wars would be short and "decisive"-a "brief storm," in the words of the German Chancellor, I would liketo thankJack Snyder, Richard Ned Lebow,Barry Posen, Marc Trachtenberg, and StephenWalt for their thoughtful comments on earlierdrafts of this paper. StephenVan Evera is a ResearchFellow at the Centerfor Scienceand InternationalAffairs, Harvard University. InternationalSecurity, Summer 1984 (Vol. 9, No. 1) 0162-2889/84/010058-50$02.50/1 ? 1984 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology. 58 Cultof the Offensive | 59 BethmannHollweg.1 They largelyoverlooked the lessons of the American CivilWar, the Russo-TurkishWar of 1877-78,the Boer War, and the Russo- JapaneseWar, which had demonstratedthe power of the new defensive technologies.Instead, Europeans embraceda set of politicaland military mythswhich obscured both the defender'sadvantages and the obstaclesan aggressorwould confront.This mindset helped to moldthe offensive military doctrineswhich everyEuropean power adopted duringthe period 1892- 1913.2 In Germany,the militaryglorified the offensein stridentterms, and in- culcatedGerman society with similar views. GeneralAlfred von Schlieffen, authorof the 1914 Germanwar plan, declaredthat "Attack is the best de- fense,"while the popularpublicist Friedrich von Bernhardiproclaimed that "theoffensive mode ofaction is by farsuperior to thedefensive mode," and that"the superiority of offensive warfare under modern conditions is greater than formerly."3German Chief of StaffGeneral Helmuth von Moltkealso endorsed"the principle that the offensive is thebest defense," while General Augustvon Keim,founder of the Army League, argued that "Germany ought to be armed forattack," since "the offensiveis the only way of insuring victory."4These assumptionsguided the SchlieffenPlan, whichenvisaged rapidand decisiveattacks on Belgium,France, and Russia. 1. Quoted in L.L. Farrar,Jr., "The ShortWar Illusion:The Syndromeof GermanStrategy, August-December 1914," MilitaergeschictlicheMitteilungen, No. 2 (1972), p. 40. 2. On theorigins of the cult of the offensive, see JackLewis Snyder, "Defending the Offensive: Biasesin French,German, and RussianWar Planning, 1870-1914" (Ph.D. dissertation,Columbia University,1981), forthcoming as a book fromCornell University Press in 1984;Snyder's essay in thisissue; and my "Causes of War" (Ph.D. dissertation,University of California,Berkeley, 1984),chapter 7. On thefailure of Europeans to learndefensive lessons from the wars of 1860- 1914, see Jay Luvaas, The MilitaryLegacy of the Civil War: The EuropeanInheritance (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1959); and T.H.E. Travers,"Technology, Tactics, and Morale:Jean de Bloch,the Boer War, and BritishMilitary Theory, 1900-1914," Journal of Modern History, Vol. 51 (June1979), pp. 264-286.Also relevant is BernardBrodie, Strategy in theMissile Age (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1965), pp. 42-52. A relatedwork which explores the sources of offensive and defensivedoctrines before World War II is BarryR. Posen, The Sourcesof Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and GermanyBetween the WorldWars (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 47-51,67-74, and passim. 3. Gerhard Ritter,The SchlieffenPlan: Critiqueof a Myth,trans. Andrew and Eva Wilson, with a Forewordby B.H. LiddellHart (London:Oswald Wolff,1958; reprint ed., Westport,Conn.: GreenwoodPress, 1979), p. 100; and Friedrichvon Bernhardi,How GermanyMakes War (New York:George H. Doran Co., 1914),pp. 153,155. 4. Imanuel Geiss, ed., July1914: The Outbreakof the First WorldWar: SelectedDocuments (New York:W.W. Norton,1967), p. 357;and WallaceNotestein and ElmerE. Stoll,eds., Conquestand Kultur:Aims of the Germansin TheirOwn Words(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,1917), p. 43. Similarideas developedin theGerman navy; see HolgerH. Herwig,Politics InternationalSecurity j 60 In France,the armybecame "Obsessed withthe virtues of the offensive," in thewords of B.H. LiddellHart, an obsessionwhich also spreadto French civilians.5The Frencharmy, declared Chief of StaffJoffre, "no longerknows any other law than the offensive. Any other conception ought to be rejectedas contraryto the verynature of war,"6while the Presidentof the FrenchRepublic, Clement Fallieres, announced that "The offensivealone is suited to the temperamentof French soldiers. We are determined to marchstraight against the enemy without hesitation."7 Emile Driant, a mem- berof the French chamber of deputies, summarized the common view: "The firstgreat battle will decidethe whole war,and warswill be short.The idea of the offensemust penetratethe spiritof our nation."8French military doctrinereflected these offensivebiases.9 In MarshallFoch's words, the Frencharmy adopted "a singleformula for success, a singlecombat doctrine, namely,the decisivepower of offensiveaction undertaken with the resolute determinationto marchon the enemy,reach and destroyhim."10 OtherEuropean states displayed milder symptoms of thesame virus.The Britishmilitary resolutely rejected defensive strategies despite their experi- encein theBoer War which demonstrated the power of entrenched defenders againstexposed attackers. General W.G. Knoxwrote, "The defensiveis never an acceptablerole to the Briton,and he makeslittle or no studyof it," and GeneralR.C.B. Hakingargued that the offensive"will win as sure as there is a sun in the heavens.""1The Russian Ministerof War, General V.A. Sukhomlinov,observed that Russia's enemieswere directingtheir armies "towardsguaranteeing the possibilityof dealingrapid and decisiveblows. ofFrustration: The UnitedStates in GermanNaval Planning, 1889-1941 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1976),pp. 42-66. 5. B.H. LiddellHart, Through the Fog of War (New York:Random House, 1938),p. 57. 6. In 1912,quoted in JohnEllis, TheSocial History of the Machine Gun (New York:Pantheon, 1975),pp. 53-54. 7. BarbaraTuchman, The Guns of August (New York:Dell, 1962),p. 51. 8. In 1912,quoted in JohnM. Cairns,"International Politics and theMilitary Mind: The Case of the FrenchRepublic, 1911-1914," The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 25, No. 3 (September 1953),p. 282. 9. On the offensivein Frenchprewar thought, see B.H. LiddellHart, "French Military Ideas beforethe FirstWorld War," in MartinGilbert, ed., A Centuryof Conflict, 1850-1950 (London: HamiltonHamish, 1966), pp. 135-148. 10. RichardD. Challener,The French Theory of the Nation in Arms, 1866-1939 (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1955), p. 81. Likewise,Joffre