Fighting Friends: Institutional Cooperation in Multinational War Chapter 3: The Central Powers in WWI Sara Bjerg Moller On paper the 19th century alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary appeared to be a model alliance for war fighting. The alliance benefited not only from the existence of a clearly identified and common enemy, but also a shared language and culture, coupled with decades-long contact between the military staffs, all of which should have suggested successful wartime cooperation in the years 1914-1918.1 What then explains the poor combat performance of the Central Powers in World War I? Why did Germany and Austria-Hungary fail to generate sufficient military power to achieve their operational and strategic aims? The military performance of the Central Powers in the First World War is even more puzzling when the nature of its adversary is taken into account. At the start of the war, the Entente represented little more than a loosely formed conglomeration of countries. Yet this ad hoc and inexperienced coalition battled the allied militaries of Germany and Austria-Hungary (and later, Bulgaria and Turkey) and ultimately emerged victorious on the battlefield. Taken together, the combat experiences of the Entente and Central Powers in World War I therefore present themselves as ideal cases for a paired comparison of multinational fighting arrangements in wartime.2 Moreover, given both sides’ experimentation with the institutional architecture of multinational warfare, the two cases also naturally lend themselves to within-case analyses. The next chapter explains how the Entente coalition was able to accomplish its impressive wartime feat against the combined military power of the Central Powers. The present chapter addresses the military effectiveness of Germany and Austria-Hungary, the two most powerful members of the Central Powers. In this chapter, I demonstrate that the variation in the military performance exhibited by the Central Powers on the Eastern Front in World War One was a function of the extent to which they adopted unity of command rather than the traditional factors posited by the alliance and military effectiveness literatures. Additionally, and as expected by the theory outlined in Chapter 2, I demonstrate that operational defeat was 1 The 1879 defense treaty between the two countries dealt only with Russia. Under the terms of the treaty, the two signatories were only obligated to assist each other in case of a Russian attack. An attack by any other country required only neutrality on the part of the co-signatories. No mention of France or any other country appears in the treaty. 2 Sidney Tarrow, “The Strategy of Paired Comparison: Toward a Theory of Practice,” Comparative Political Studies 43(2), 2010: 230-259. 1 Fighting Friends: Institutional Cooperation in Multinational War Chapter 3: The Central Powers in WWI Sara Bjerg Moller the primary catalyst for experimentation with the multinational command arrangement. To establish a casual link between the fighting arrangement and combat performance, I trace battlefield developments on the Eastern Front for the years 1914 to 1917. Specifically, I show that unity of command was a necessary prerequisite for the military effectiveness of the Central Powers: when the Central Powers coordinated their plans and adopted centralized command they performed well on the battlefield; when they carried out independent operations or adopted joint command they often failed to achieve their military objectives and suffered serious setbacks. The remainder of the chapter proceeds as follows: The first section traces the evolution of the Central Powers’ military relationship in the years preceding the outbreak of war in 1914. As will be seen, the military arrangements put in place by the two allied general staffs in the decades before the First World War were poor to non-existent. Thus, contrary to one of the leading arguments of the alliance literature, prewar planning and coordination cannot account for the fluctuating periods of military effectiveness experienced by the Central Powers on the Eastern Front over the course of the war. Section two provides an in-depth history and analysis of the battlefield performance of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front in the years 1914 to 1917. As expected, variation in the combat effectiveness of the Central Powers during this period is correlated with the types of command and control system then being practiced by the two countries. Section three introduces and evaluates alternate explanations for the military performance of the Central Powers. The final section summarizes the evidence presented and concludes. THE CENTRAL POWERS AT PEACE Though extensive by standards of the day, military coordination between the Central Powers in the pre-war years was for the most part restricted to the exchange of train schedules and attendance at each other’s national military maneuvers. Missing almost entirely from the decades-long relationship was any discussion of larger wartime strategy or operational coordination. The German and Austrian General Staff’s reluctance to confront either in the years leading up to World War I would have serious ramifications for their wartime relationship. 2 Fighting Friends: Institutional Cooperation in Multinational War Chapter 3: The Central Powers in WWI Sara Bjerg Moller Pre-war military coordination between Vienna and Berlin Although the Austro-German alliance was to last almost forty years, military cooperation between the two empires was slow to take hold. Following the 1866 Austro- Prussian War diplomatic contact between the two countries gradually improved to the point that, by the end of the decade, the two once again maintained permanent military attaches in each other’s capitals. It was not until 1872, however, that Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph and German Kaiser Wilhelm I agreed to formally meet.3 When news of the Austrian emperor’s impending visit to Berlin – his first since the war’s end – reached St. Petersburg, Tsar Alexander II of Russia, afraid of what might transpire at the meeting, quickly secured an invitation for himself. The following May, the kaiser, accompanied by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and Chief of the German General Staff Helmuth von Moltke (the Elder) visited St. Petersburg and while there entered into a military convention. The Russo-German military agreement, which both parties wished to see expanded to include Austria-Hungary, required each country to assist the other with a force of 200,000 men in event of an attack by another European power. Having refused to join on “constitutional grounds”, Vienna instead concluded a consultation pact with Russia the following month. (It was this agreement that Germany acceded to on October 22, 1873, in the process forming the first League of Three Emperors or Dreikaiserbund.) Unlike the bilateral military convention signed between Germany and Russia a month earlier, however, the agreement between Vienna and St. Petersburg (and later Berlin) included only a very loose obligation “to take counsel together” in the event of a third party attack by another power on a co-signatory.4 An alliance of rivals, the Dreikaiserbund teetered over Russian and Austrian interests in the 3 An informal meeting between the two emperors had taken place the previous summer as part of the German Emperor’s holiday visit to Bad Gastien. 4 Patricia A. Weitsman, Dangerous Alliances: Proponents of Peace, Weapons of War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004); Ronald Louis Ernharth, “The Tragic Alliance: Austro-German Military Cooperation, 1871-1918” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1970), 17; Alfred Pribram, trans., The Secret Treaties of Austria-Hungary, vol. 2 (New York: Howard Fertig, 1967), 183-7; Graydon A. Tunstall, Jr., Planning for War Against Russia and Serbia: Austro-Hungarian and German Military Strategies, 1871- 1914, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 12; William A. Gauld, “The ‘Dreikaiserbundnis’ and the Eastern Question, 1871-6,” The English Historical Review 40 (April 1925): 211-12. 3 Fighting Friends: Institutional Cooperation in Multinational War Chapter 3: The Central Powers in WWI Sara Bjerg Moller East almost immediately. When the League unraveled five years later over the Russo- Turkish war, Germany and Austria-Hungary concluded a separate agreement. Directed at their former ally, the 1879 Dual Alliance called for Austria-Hungary and Germany to assist each other “with the whole fighting force” of their empires in case of an attack by Russia. Additionally, the two states pledged not to conclude a separate peace. Unlike the agreement signed between Berlin and St. Petersburg a few years earlier, the new German-Austro-Hungarian agreement did not contain specific military provisions. The decision to leave these out was taken by Bismarck who viewed the alliance as an instrument of conservative diplomacy. For Bismarck, alliance with Austria- Hungary fulfilled multiple aims. In addition to serving as leverage against growing Franco-Russian ties, the treaty would ensure a German sphere of influence in central Europe. As an additional benefit Bismarck calculated that the alliance might further serve to bring Berlin and London closer together; the latter of whom at the time was aligned with Austrian interests in the East. Conscious of the dangers involved in tying Berlin to Vienna however, Bismarck simultaneously sought to cultivate strategic ambiguity in order to deter Austrian adventurism in the Balkans. So successful in maintaining this strategic ambiguity were Bismarck and later German politicians that indeed much of the subsequent correspondence between the two allies in the ensuing decades was taken up with addressing Vienna’s repeated requests for clarification of the alliance’s casus foederis. Though privately Bismarck acknowledged that treaty or no treaty Germany would have to intervene in a future Austro-Russo war, publically he cultivated a policy of diplomatic flexibility toward Vienna. To create this flexibility, Bismarck not only ensured that the 1879 treaty was devoid of any definite military commitments but also sought to restrict future contact between the two military staffs.