Hacker News Reader

Comment by TSiege | Hacker News Reader

The argument laid out in this post and in the title around maps, specifically the battle of cannae, leading to world war one is pretty weak. I buy that German generals were obsessed with the battle, but I don't see any evidence here that this caused the war. Going to war is first and foremost a political act even if it is followed by a military response. There's no mention of the complex politics of europe at the time with it's web of alliances, nor any talk of arch duke ferdinand. Sure German generals thought they could easily win the war following the teachings of Cannae, but they no more caused the war than the US military did with the invasion of Iraq

View on HN

I'm not an expert, but I think for World War I the military strategy questions - and in particular the misconceptions - were very relevant to the decision to go to war. My understanding is that the various combatant powers believed that the war would be quick and decisive in the way that prior wars had been; none expected or prepared for a four-year slog of trench warfare, defensive supremacy, or total depletion of whole demographics of the population. I've read that the American Civil War pioneered many of the technologies and strategies used in World War I, and if European military strategists had paid attention they would have had a better idea of what they were in for.

Author here - yes, this is what I was getting at. The false promise of a rapid victory over the French via encirclement from the right flank (in the style of Hannibal) really was a major factor in justifying the risks of war for the German General Staff. And because Schlieffen was preoccupied with the idea that an ancient battle could be a model for that approach, it distracted from the now-obvious technological changes of the period (machine guns=defensive warfare) that made the approach impossible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieffen_Plan

I'd argue against Schlieffen wanting to recreate the battle of Canne, and say that was much more the result of Moltke giving the Crown Prince permission to advance. After all the original Schlieffen plan was to have the Alsace region slowly retreat and give ground enticing the French further in, whereas the right flank that was to wheel through Belgium and strike at Paris was to do all the work. If anyone was going trying to recreate Canne I would argue it was Moltke, as he was the one that allowed the left flank to start moving forward.

> After all the original Schlieffen plan was to have the Alsace region slowly retreat and give ground enticing the French further in

That actually would be a much better analogy to Cannae. Enticing them to break your center, not realizing until they're surrounded that the victory they've charged into is actually an epic defeat.

I still don't understand why they'd assume French generals would do that, though. It really assumes a hopeless level of ineptitude on their part for it to work. Seems obvious to me they're better off stalling till Russians are mobilized, no matter how enticing the bait is.

If that's the case you're trying to present, your article should be clearer about that. That wikipedia entry also doesn't seem to bolster your case. It doesn't even mention the battle of Cannae, but it does talk extensively about the importance of capturing the Belgian rail network for the German logistics in fighting France

>That wikipedia entry also doesn't seem to bolster your case. It doesn't even mention the battle of Cannae

In his defense, the Britannica entry does mention it. https://www.britannica.com/event/Schlieffen-Plan In your defense, you are right.

How does machine guns = defensive warfare make the "Schlieffen Plan" impossible?

The Germans were able to advance to the doorstep of Paris. They continuously tried to engage the Entente in a decisive battle (from the Frontier all the way to the Marne). They were unable to do so because the Entente refused to be engaged that way, and because the Entente had superior strategic/operational mobility (they were retreating onto their own logistics and infrastructure (railroads)). At the Marne (Paris), Germany was at or near it's logistical limits. Germany also transferred 200,000 troops to the Eastern front.

The Battle of the Marne itself was not "Germany face tanks into prepared defensive positions and is stopped cold by Entente machine guns and fortifications". The battle was a retreating Entente force, bolstered by re-inforcements, turning around and attacking into the pursuing Germans.

The "Schlieffen Plan" failed before the whole 'static warfare' thing started. In fact, it was the failure of the plan that induced the conditions for the race to the sea, and the whole western front shitshow.

The "Schlieffen Plan" failed because Germany outran it's logistics, because Germany panicked when Russia mobilized faster than anticipated and transferred over a sizeable body of men, because France was able to use it's position (retreating onto its infrastructure) effectively (and they weren't dumb enough to try to engage the Germans at every opportunity), and I'm sure for many other reasons as well. Machine guns may play a part, but I think it's overly reductive to claim that "machine guns - defensive warfare" made the plan impossible.

I agree with everything, except that I would not call the German reaction to Russia's fast mobilization "panicking". The German war planning was very aware of the meager prospects of a two-front war and that in order for a fast victory it was mandatory to beat France before Russia was (supposedly) ready. The fast Russian advance into Germany was just unexpected, and there existed simply no developed plan for such a situation. And of course no one would have wanted to simply let the Russians march through to Berlin.

To add to the debate about Cannae: Talking strategy is talking about abstract principles. The abstract patterns are here "frontal assault" vs. "flank movement" with the aim of encirclement. This is the only relevant and quite vage analogy of the Schlieffen plan and Cannae. However, the Schlieffen plan as it was adopted (and modified) by the German army was a plan of an assault with a very strong and fast right wing, but at Cannae, the battle began with a frontal attack by both armies, with Hannibal subsequently having his centre retreat and later advancing both flanks and finally his cavalry into the back of the Romans to complete the encirclement. So the analogy between Cannae and the so-called Schlieffen plan is not very far-reaching.

If we are looking for a better analogy to Cannae, the German invasion of the Low Countries and France in May 1940 comes surprisingly close. Here the advancing Belgian, English and French armies failed to cover their right flank sufficiently. A hazardous, rapid German tank advance on this flank cut them off from possible lines of retreat and threatened to envelop them from behind. Only the beach at Dunkirk remained as a way of escape for some.

The German plan of May 1940 has been described by some historians such as Antony Beevor as a variant of the Schlieffen plan. Beevor writes in "The Second World War" (2012): "Manstein's [the author of the plan] left-hook Sichelschnitt was thus a reversal of the version of the right-hook Schlieffen plan attempted 1914, which the French now expected them to try a second-time." (p. 97) -- In other words: The French expected another attempt like 1914, they operated accordingly, for that very reason walked into a trap and were defeated by an exactly opposite flanking manoeuvre.

Right, "panicked" was a bad word. I think their choice was sound (or at least very defensible). I meant "panicked" as even greater degree of "unexpected" (beyond even surprised).

The Germans had the right plan at the wrong time. It worked when they had meth and trucks in 1940.

I think there's something there, and I did enjoy your article. WW I had a lot of causes, at the head of which I'd put the Kaiser's stupidity and weakness.

But yeah, Cannae did (and still does) exert a big influence on military planners.

As others have pointed out, Schlieffen depended on massive luck and adherence to The Plan, neither of which obtained. It was not machine guns that made it fail.

it's a fascinating topic, but how can one person's stupidity and weakness cause millions and millions to go die far away from their homes in dirt? I could never understand that. surely there must have been some massive underlying reasons why a self-respecting burgher would suddenly leave his cozy family to die a terrible miserable ugly death in a faraway foreign land?

That's not how it was sold to them.

Different times than we live in, for sure.

The promise of titles and glory. You'd be surprised.

Hmmm. I doubt it was Cannae, it was more of the 1870 Franco Prussian war. The Franco Prussian war lasted only six months. That war destroyed the myth of France's military might (from Napoleon)and created modern Germany. Moltke the Elder became a warrior god in Germany. Schlieffen was tasked on how to solve the problem with a war on two fronts; he expected to knockout France in a quick blow just like in 1870 and turn around and fight the Russians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War

Not to mention that Cannae was famously a double pincer and the Schlieffen plan was not.

I think this is the key point. Sending columns through Belgium to try to envelop Paris from the north wasn't a particularly faithful recreation of Hannibal's battlefield-scale double envelopment

It was however the logical way to attack France from Germany given the geography. WWII generals, who weren't as obsessed with Cannae as Schlieffen, but were well aware the "Schlieffen Plan" was a failure, took the same route with better mobility and logistics and succeeded.

>WWII generals, who weren't as obsessed with Cannae as Schlieffen, but were well aware the "Schlieffen Plan" was a failure, took the same route with better mobility and logistics and succeeded.

They pulled a switcheroo on the allies in WWII and attacked through the Ardennes. The French & English forces rushing to counter Schlieffen II instead found themselves cut off in Belgium.

Were machine guns really the cause of 'defensive' warfare?

Rolling artillery barrages would send the front-line machinegunners hiding in the trenches. The wave of attackers behind the artillery barrage, when moving quickly had a very good chance of capturing the front line of trenches.

The problem that they would face is that rail-deployed reinforcements on the defender side would pour in as a counter-attack... And those recently-captured front-line trenches were, by design, indefensible from an attack from the rear.

So you'd get lots of bloody attacks, with horrific loss of life, where all the territorial gains made in them would be lost in an equally bloody counter-attack. As a net result, the front is frozen, despite both sides taking turns attacking (And making brief territorial gains, that are immediately reversed).

Artillery and railroads, not machineguns seem to be the major influences, there.

I think the main reason the western front was so static and defensive was the constrained geography. The front was less than 500 miles long, and large numbers of men were poured into that front (by rail, as you point out), so there was no room for maneuver. For context, the US-Mexico border is almost 2000 miles long, and the Eastern Front in WW2 was maybe 1800 miles long.

This is basically true of most wars. The war in Iraq was supposed to be quick and decisive. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rumsfeld-it-would-be-a-short-wa...

The war in Iraq was quick and decisive. The occupation afterwards was a mess in every way possible, but the organized war between states went exactly as planned.

The Iraq War ended in 2011. The initial invasion that toppled Sadam was quick

Absolutely, and so different from Ukraine, where I think pundits expected an Iraq-like situation. Initial rapid capture followed by years of instability. American advisors at the beginning looked like they were interested in mainly supplying Ukraine with guerilla warfare tools, etc. expecting that kind of situation.

... but reality went another way and now the west is sending in cruise missiles tanks and cluster artillery.

"none expected or prepared for a four-year slog of trench warfare"

Yet another parallel with what's happening in Ukraine right now. Both Russia (and some in NATO) I think expected this to end in days with an ugly military defeat, capture of the capital, and then years of guerilla and political battles.

We appear to be at a similar juncture as WWI in geopolitics and military organization/technology, where the relative capabilities of various forces are not well understood.

(And similar to WWI this seems to be primarily about imperial economics, within which smaller nations get caught up as battle sites and pawns and the issue of the self-determination of smaller ethnic nation states becomes one of the defining issues. At least that's how Lenin and others analyzed WWI, and it's notable that Putin went out of his way to namecheck and attack Lenin in particular at the start of the conflict...)

Coffee brainfarts, sorry. :-)

Both Russia and who?

The american civil war was a full 50 years before WWI.

Yeah, but during the later stages of the American Civil war, machine guns mowed downs entire cavalry regiments. Many European officers didn't realize that made cavalry shocks useless and thus rapid advances would not be possible. Only infantry advances were possible and only under slower moving artillery cover. That made shock tactics mostly impossible until mechanized warfare became a thing in world war ii.

The germans used Calvary units in WW2 as part of of the blitzkrieg.

Franco-Prussian happened after the civil war and had a much bigger influence.

I’m assuming you mean Gatling guns, since machine guns hadn’t been invented yet. Out of curiosity, do you have an example of an “entire cavalry regiment” being destroyed by Gatling guns in the Civil War?

You are right and I misremembered. I think mowing down "entire cavalry regiments" is something I read about the Second Boer war where indeed British cavalry charged against Boers equipped with machine guns with disastrous results, whether "entire cavalry regiments" is an exaggeration or not. However, I would say that already by the time of the American civil war traditional cavalry tactics had been proven to be ineffective. American generals learned their lessons and changed their use of cavalry during the war. European generals did not and continued to emphasize the use of sabres and lances. Thus, the early stages of the First world war featured some cavalry charges which ended in blood baths for the charging side.

So a couple of points of clarifications

> specifically the battle of cannae, leading to world war one is pretty weak. I buy that German generals were obsessed with the battle,

So not just the German generals specifically Schlieffen. The Schlieffen plan developed by it's namesake general was the governing document for the German plan of battle at the beginning of WW1. Schlieffen spent his entire life trying to figure out the plan that would eventually be his namesake, and he was also obsessed with Canne, so I could see an argument that was a contributing factor. If schlifen wasn't obsessed with the double envelopment he is less likely to send troops through Belgium and no Belgium means no UK involvement leading to a very different war.

> Going to war is first and foremost a political act

That is one of the fascinating things about WW1 is there are times where it seems as if forces more than men were dictating things. At one point after mobilization and but prior to the actual invasion of Belgium the Kaiser wanted to stop things as he believed a peace deal was reached and was told no, not only no but that such a thing was fundamentally impossible at that point because the military plans laid out by the generals many years ago had dictated so precisely how things had to happen that any change to the plans was close to impossible once they were set in motion. The same thing happened in the Russian side the Czar issued orders for mobilisation then stand down then mobilization again and then one general smashed his telephone so that it could not be rescinded. I think they is part of what made WW1 the war it was, it was one ran primarily by and for the generals (until the later years) with the political officials deferring all power and authority to them.

From what I've been able to find, the importance of invading Belgium had more to do with capturing it's rail network for logistics, than recreating the battle of cannae

I'd argue against that interpretation, the importance of invading Belgium had more to do with avoiding the French line of fortresses and hoping that the Belgians would just roll over than capturing rail networks that they wouldn't be able to use without a protracted war, which they had no anticipation of as they expected to be marching into Paris 900 hours after mobilization was declared.

That also makes sense, and has nothing to do with the battle of cannae? Like that seems like a logical tactical decision. Offensive maneuvers are costly for the attacker against well fortified positions, so avoiding them by going around them makes sense as well as using the element of surprise. It also has nothing to do with the 2000 year old battle

"Convinced that Germany, surrounded by powerful enemies, would have to fight outnumbered and win, Schlieffen believed the key to victory could be discovered in an account of the Battle of Cannae, written by the German military historian Hans Delbrtick. Therefore, Schlieffen ordered the historical section of the General Staff to produce a set of Cannae Studies that would demonstrate that the principle of double envelopment practiced by Hannibal at Cannae was the master key to victory in battle."

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA622847

> It also has nothing to do with the 2000 year old battle

It has a little bit to do with it, I think, but only in two sense 1. It involved a decisive victory by envelopment which, completely unrelated to Cannae, Germany needed to avoid a two-front war. 2. It's just the go-to military general's example to refer to their own "masterpiece". aka. Schlieffen's Cannae.

I'll agree, though, that it would be equally relevant had Schlieffen called it, "Pulling my goalie to put an extra man on the ice".

> The Schlieffen plan developed by it's namesake general

The Schlieefen plan didn't exist.

> The Schlieffen memorandum of 1905, with its 1906 supplement, was not a plan. It was not operational. It did not go into details or issue orders

David Frmokin's Europe's Last Summer

Terence Zuber's Inventing the Schlieefen Plan shows that the "plan" was written in a memorandum at his retirement, which his daughter kept in her family photos (even in August 1914). The memorandum also involved 20 divisions which never existed - 48 corps should have attacked France instead of the actual 34...

The actual plan as described was a one front war against France... From Schlieefen's other writings were Germany at war with France and Russia, he suggested using interior rail lines to lure enemy forces inside, and then counteract by taking their supply lines (the move through Belgium and Northern France), quickly winning the war, which bears only the most superficial resemblance to the war as started.

Mark Humphries and John Maker have gone into more detail on where the actual war plan (as followed) came from, von Moltke's beliefs etc. Even e.g. Gross who has strongly debated Zuber about this agrees that there was no official plan as such, instead arguing that Schlieffen's influence, staff rides etc. planted the seeds of seeing potential victory through such an approach.

My friend, I have been eagerly gobbling up all the good literature I can get my hands on recently, do you have any suggestions on books that you feel do a decent job of examining the Shlieefen Plan?

Besides The Guns of August which I just finished last month.

You'll want "Inventing the Schlieffen Plan" and especially GJ Meyer's "The World Undone".

The second deals with prewar military strategy, showing that European militaries expected trench warfare and ineffective offensive, until the Ruso-Japanese war, which made them switch gears, believing a strong offensive and bayonets could overcome machine guns.

One interesting point is bayonet designs in the 1870s and 1880s were wide, meant to be used for digging, entrenching. But by the 1910s, they were suddenly long and thin to give soldiers "more reach" akin to spears!

> forces more than men were dictating things

> one general smashed his telephone so that it could not be rescinded

Seems like your "forces more than men" are actually just "more men."

Arguably, though, you're describing ideology or mythos, eg "Der tag!"[0]

0. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anecdotes-from-the-arch...

To an extant yes, but another example where it seemed forces more than men moved things was Verdun. Halfway through the battle both the Germans and the French generals commanding the armies wanted to pull out because it was so horrible, but the Germans were so close to a victory they couldn't pull out after all the blood that had been spilt being so close to victory, meanwhile the French couldn't give a single inch of ground for doing so would mean the loss of Verdun, which was a monument of national pride, and so for three hundred and three days below the sun the battle carried, father and son fell one by one.

The war is replete with similar examples, and sure we can call it mythos or ideology or something like that, but it is clear there were times in the war that even had the generals and the populace wanted things to be different it was near impossible to change and men continued thrown into the meat grinder.

The German military prior to WWI had far, far more political power than the US military in 2003. Voltaire's famous line "Where some states have an army, the Prussian Army has a state" didn't change in the intervening centuries, except that they acquired a whole empire in the meantime.

I agree with this assessment; the words "probably helped" are doing a lot of work here. Maybe a better way to put it would be, "probably were a factor in the timing of WWI". The German general staff was indeed very focused on the operational art of war and their working assumptions at the time of the war's outset (i.e., that they had an edge over the French via the Schlieffen plan) were certainly factors in Germany's overall calculus....maybe one of the proximate causeS, but not the underlying cause, which was the cumulative history of intense great power competition in the decades leading up to 1914.

> Going to war is first and foremost a political act even if it is followed by a military response.

Yeah I think we can safely assume that the German general staff were familiar with Clausewitz.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com