Did Germany Forget Clausewitz During Their Prewar Planning?

Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz

All theories of Clausewitz have to be thrown overboard!

General Erich Ludendorff, 1916 

By Joseph Enge

Ludendorff did throw Clausewitz's theories overboard when ascending to command of the German General Staff with Hindenburg in 1916, but German military leadership had already consciously and in practice done so since General Alfred von Schlieffen took over as chief of staff in 1891.  Schlieffen decided as well to reject Helmuth von Moltke the Elder's balanced military views that allowed for various political considerations and solutions. By doing so he set in motion military preparations not only disconnected from the state's political objectives but also unnecessarily limited, forcing Germany into political directions against its best interests. Such a disconnect of policy and military considerations would have been unthinkable under Bismarck's leadership. 

The political system Bismarck designed was essentially flawed in that it was designed after German unification around himself and Kaiser Wilhelm I without any accountability other than to the emperor. Henry Kissinger pointed out the German Second Reich was an artifice without the traditions or philosophical frameworks of other nation states. The chancellors who followed Bismarck were not maestros, and Wilhelm II impulsively interfered with foreign and domestic political matters. The new military thought and theory from Schlieffen to Hindenburg, Weltpolitik and its fantasy visions of grandeur, a government without clear lines of authority and accountability, and an impetuous emperor in the middle of these elements led to the self-destructive decision making to enter World War I, the design and application of the Schlieffen Plan, and the decision to resume unrestricted submarine warfare. Clausewitz's war as a method to achieve political objectives became political means to achieve military objectives. The price paid for upturning Clausewitz's central concept was high and consistently repeated by Germany throughout the Great War, leading to its ultimate defeat. 

Graf Alfred von Schlieffen

A common mindset developed after Bismarck's departure—from 1890 to the end of the war in 1918—that twisted Clausewitz's trinity of government policy, military methods, and popular passions into an imbalanced combination that inexorably alienated neighbor states, unnecessarily created a coalition of nations opposing Germany, limited Germany's choices and options to only risky military solutions. Those military solutions produced became more desperate and riskier with less likelihood of success as the war progressed. In the 16th century, Pope Julius III had asked,  “Do you know, my son, with what little understanding the world is ruled?” In the early 19th century, Carl von Clausewitz attempted to provide some understanding he found lacking of war, man's riskiest and costliest endeavor. Clausewitz's central concept of military  theory . was:  

The political object…must become an essential factor in the equation, and war is merely the continuation of policy by other means. The political object is the goal, war is a means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose. The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish by that test the kind of war on which they are Carl von Clausewitz, Theoretician of War embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature. This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive. 

Clausewitz's advice is both timeless and universal, yet was completely disregarded six decades later by fellow Prussian officer General Alfred Schlieffen while drawing up Germany's war plan that took his name and whose essentials were retained at the outbreak of World War I from August to September of 1914.

Schlieffen produced his military plan in complete isolation from political objectives and foreign policy concerns of the chancellor, assuming a singular scenario of Germany having to fight both France and Russia at the same time. Schlieffen directly contradicted Moltke the Elder's plan of Germany facing a two-front war by evenly dividing forces in defense that allowed an offense in either direction and for a political solution that made options available for Bismarck. The fundamental and fatal flaws of the Schlieffen Plan were its complete disconnect from any political objectives (as it was a singular plan that left the chancellor without other military options), the absence of a fallback plan should it fail, and its unilateral decision to violate neutral territory without regard for the political consequences. 

Graf Helmuth von Moltke the Younger

Clausewitz's clear admonition was that the first and  most important decision is for the statesman and commander to meet to establish the kind of war they are fighting. It is not only amazing that Schlieffen constructed a plan that tied the political hands of the current chancellor, Leo von Caprivi, without providing options, but also tied the hands of future German chancellors for the next 20 years without its salient strategic shortcomings being raised or questioned. The July 1914 crisis found a German general staff locked into and unwilling to scrap their 20-year-old plan that did not allow for a potential war only with Russia.

Both Kaiser Wilhelm II and German chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg did not fully appreciate how German war plans limited their choices to pursue Germany's best interests until it was too late. A great deal of focus and emphasis has been put on timetables and the need to mobilize quickly without falling behind opponents' mobilizations as forcing the start of World War I. More important was German linear rigidity to a singular plan that did not allow the chancellor or Kaiser the opportunity to seek not only political solutions but also alternative military solutions that were not in The Plan. Michael Geyer wrote, “Ideally means were subordinated to goals…Strategy (German)…proceeded to turn this calculus on its head.

The full extent of the upside-down relationship of military method dominating political objectives cannot be fully appreciated without realizing Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg did not have any concrete war aims until September of 1914, once the war was unleashed. If Moltke the Younger followed Clausewitz and was not fixed on one war plan without any alternatives, Bethmann-Hollweg would have been hard pressed, and the Kaiser too, to provide war aims other than the general and broad idea of breaking the Entente encirclement, which, ironically, Germany's actions had created.

Source:  Excerpted from "AFTER BISMARCK:  WHY THE SUBSEQUENT REJECTION OF CLAUSEWITZ AND MOLTKE THE ELDER LED TO WORLD WAR I AND GERMANY'S DEFEAT" By Joseph Enge, Over the Top, February 2014