This caution was not specific to the situation. Germany’s mainstream military theorists had moved a long way from Waldersee’s ebullient advocacy of preventive war. Since the turn of the century they had become increasingly dubious about their country’s prospects. For all of Tirpitz’s elaborate building programs, naval planning against likely combinations of enemies more and more assumed the nature of the Mad Hatter’s tea party in Alice in Wonderland. The army’s consideration of invading Denmark and Holland, Schlieffen’s eventual decision to attack Belgium, reflected a sense of weakness rather than strength, a fear that these small states would become sally-ports for future enemies, and a corresponding search for compensating advantages however ephemeral and costly these might be in the long run. As late as November, 1909, the general staff asked the navy to evaluate which Dutch harbors would be suitable for a major British landing.58
This pessimism reflected Germany’s increasingly unfavorable diplomatic situation. It responded to the domestic strains engendered by increased military preparation: the social consequences of enlarging the army and the financial burdens of expanding the navy. At the cutting edge, however, it was a function of professional anxiety at two levels. Schlieffen’s growing commitment to an all-out offensive against France represented at least as much a turn away from the east as a focus on the west. In a quarter-century’s alliance between Germany and Austria, the Habsburg army had developed an image and a self-image as a military Avis—not exactly a poor relation, but an attendant lord, suited to start a progress and swell a scene or two but able to do nothing the Germans could not do better. In Schlieffen’s opinion the Austrian army could not even protect its own state from a determined Russian offensive.
His judgment is open to question. Unit for unit, in equipment, efficiency, and command, there was arguably little to choose between Habsburg and Romanov. Psychic reality, however, was more important than hindsight. In his early years as chief of staff Schlieffen believed that if the main German strength were not deployed in the east Austria might collapse completely. Much to Waldersee’s chagrin, he therefore replaced Moltke’s pincers movement with a side-by-side German-Austrian offensive from Silesia and Galicia into southern Poland.59
This new concept left East Prussia completely exposed to a Russian attack. It meant deploying almost a million men in an area where road and railway networks were poor on both sides of the frontier. Its only advantage was the possibility of providing direct German support for an inefficient ally. And Schlieffen increasingly doubted whether the advantages of this operation justified its risks. A large part of the active Russian army was stationed on the western frontier. To expedite the deployment of the remainder, railroads were being built in European Russia with all possible speed. Russian strategic concepts had correspondingly altered. Revised war plans now incorporated one offensive from the Niemen against the German left, and another against the Austrian right flank in southern Galicia. Each ally would therefore have to secure its own respective flank before any combined operations would be possible. This in turn encouraged a tendency to establish two separate secondary theaters of war, whose geographically diverging objectives were likely to absorb critical numbers of the available troops.60
The possibility of winning even the kind of limited victory Moltke originally projected was substantially reduced. And if the allies could cope with the new strategic situation, what would they have gained? Moltke’s original hypothesis that victory would encourage negotiation in the east depended on at least a stable front in the west. Schlieffen’s ultimate dream may have been a repetition of the victory of Cannae on a European scale. But that dream was the fruit of his nightmare: a series of meaningless victories in the east, drawing German armies even deeper into Russia while a rejuvenated France drove at the Vosges and the Rhine.61
For all its positive qualities, however, the French army was to Germany what the German navy was to Great Britain—a challenge that no one doubted could be matched. This by no means made the French a foe to be despised. But since 1870 the French military had essentially formed itself according to patterns set in Germany. Despite specific advantages in some areas, it continued to sustain the image of a blurred copy of its original.62 Even without the advantage of a larger population, German military planners were convinced that France could be beaten both by sheer numerical superiority and man for man, corps for corps. The growing faith among Europe’s military planners in the tactical and operational superiority of the offensive only strengthened the conviction that an all-out attack on France would remove not only an immediately dangerous enemy, but the one most vulnerable to a Germany herself in no position to sustain a long, drawn-out war.63
Schlieffen’s concern for the eastern theater also provided him with the beginnings of a solution to his greatest practical anxiety: the fundamental imbalance in manpower between Germany on one hand and France and Russia on the other. Even by training every fit man, Germany could not hope to match her enemies numerically. In an age when all armies were trained, armed, and equipped essentially alike, the prospects for securing more than a marginal advantage in quality seemed severely limited.64 These problems posed a corresponding challenge to professional skill. The window of vulnerability must become a door of opportunity. The general staff exercises of the 1890s indicated the possibilities even under modern conditions of a small force defeating a larger one by concentrating against an enemy’s flank, then driving against its lines of retreat. Far from ignoring or denigrating the power of modern weapons, Schlieffen proposed to take advantage of them by reducing the strength of covering and screening forces to what seemed an unacceptable minimum to more conservative colleagues. Instead of playing to its enemies’ strengths by a series of frontal encounter battles, the German army must seek to change the rules, to impose a plan so comprehensive, so cohesive, that the enemy whould be able to do nothing except react.65
Orthodox general staff wisdom held that Germany’s long and exposed eastern frontier could only be defended by a strategic offensive, by thrusts into Russian territory.66 This opinion was unchallenged by Bismarck and shared by his successors, Caprivi and Hohenloe. Schlieffen for his part was willing to test the hypothesis that the east and in particular its most vulnerable area, the province of East Prussia, could be held even against heavy odds by relatively weak forces. East Prussia’s complex network of lakes, swamps, and woods offered excellent possibilities to well-trained, boldly commanded defenders. The geography of the area and the disposition of the Russian railroad network encouraged dividing invading Russian forces into two halves, one advancing westward from the Niemen, the other northwest from the Narew. And this in turn offered excellent prospects for operational ripostes that would overwhelm the invaders in detail.