As the prospects for forcing a political decision in the west sank into the mud of Ypres, Falkenhayn increasingly began considering the prospects on Germany’s other front. Falkenhayn was aware that the entente powers had pledged themselves by bell, book, and candle never to negotiate a separate peace. He was also aware of the historic weaknesses of such grand coalitions. Even against the overwhelming threats of Louis XIV or Napoleon they had proved significantly unstable. Like most of his counterparts, Falkenhayn was psychologically unable to cast Germany in the role of a hegemony-seeking disturber of Europe’s order. This was instead a defensive war, to be fought within parameters set by cabinets and general staffs. Above all it must not be allowed to take on a life of its own. As late as August 1 Falkenhayn had warned against the risks of declaring war on Russia prematurely. Now he began urging Bethmann to consider the possibilities of negotiation.36
Bethmann-Hollweg was reluctant to accept a military program with such strong political coloring. His suspicion that the army was seeking to pass the buck for its operational failures to the political authories reflected too many past realities in the Second Reich. Pragmatically, Bethmann was less confident than Falkenhayn that Russia could readily be brought to the peace table after being taught a few salutary lessons in the open field. In his mind Falkenhayn was relying on an outmoded appeal to the solidarity of the conservative eastern monarchies and on a faith in the power of single victories, which experience of the last four months suggested might be equally outdated. Even if successful, moreover, a negotiated peace of the kind projected by Falkenhayn would do nothing to remove the Russian threat that had exercised such an increasing influence on German foreign policy since the days of Bismarck.
In early December, 1914, Bethmann visited Hindenburg’s headquarters. The chancellor, like his counterparts everywhere in Europe, was a military amateur. Like most amateurs, he had developed over the years an exaggerated respect for the generals’ military competence, combined with certain fears for their political aspirations. The respect at least had been considerably shaken by the events of August, 1914. In one sense Bethmann was in a mood to be convinced when he journeyed east—convinced that the German army could still earn its pay by winning the war. While details of the meeting remain obscure, Bethmann was impressed by the abilities of a new team that seemed to incorporate the old virtues. He came away with glowing opinions of the professional skills of Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and their staff officers—a sharp contrast to what seemed Falkenhayn’s growing pessimism. The chief of staff’s reiterated description of the German army as a broken weapon unable to conduct decisive operations in existing parameters contrasted sharply with Hindenburg’s and Ludendorff’s confident appeals for just a little more of everything, and their even more confident assertions of light at the end of a tunnel that already had proved far longer than anyone expected.37
Hindenburg and Ludendorff for their part saw Bethmann as a highly desirable ally against a chief of staff who, even more than his unfortunate predecessor, seemed to have no idea of what to do next. At the end of October Falkenhayn had summoned Ludendorff to Berlin in an effort to take the measure of his principal subordinate’s attitudes and opinions. The meeting was unfortunate. Falkenhayn shared the widespread prewar opinion that Ludendorff was primarily concerned for his own career—the kind of personally ambitious man whose advancement boded ill for Germany as well as for the army. His suspicions were not alleviated by Ludendorff’s proposal to make Hindenburg the supreme commander of German forces in the east. Apart from the likely impact of this move on Falkenhayn’s own hopes for a peace with Russia—another cook would be stirring the pot—it would offer new fields for Ludendorff’s ambitions, which by this time plainly included Falkenhayn’s post as chief of staff.38
Ludendorff’s visions were still wavering between theater level and grand strategy. Neither he nor Hindenburg seem to have believed at this stage that the war could ultimately be won in the east. Instead they hoped to cripple Russia beyond recovery in order to settle accounts with Britain and France. And what they really wanted was more troops to pursue the victory that seemed so close—the next Tannenberg. The resources to do it seemed at hand. In August the army had begun the raising of thirteen new divisions from a mixture of volunteers, reservists who had not received actual peacetime training, and trained reservists superfluous to requirements in existing units. Nine more divisions with a similar composition would be ready for the field early in the new year.
Of the first thirteen divisions, eleven had been sent west—a decision logical enough given prewar doctrine and the existing operational situation. They had formed a good part of the forces directed against the Channel ports. Their failure at Ypres,Langemarck as it was known in Germany, had already been written into mythos as “the massacre of the innocents”—teenagers, the hope of Germany’s future, sent forward without adequate training, leadership, or support, to be mowed down by Godless British mercenaries and their black auxiliaries.39 The German army was not a nursery for the finer feelings. Nevertheless, for social and political as well as military reasons, no one on the general staff was particularly anxious to risk a repeat performance with the next group of war-raised formations. Technically much had been done to give these nine divisions a better chance. Their cadres were larger and younger, including a number of experienced officers and NCOs who became available as they recovered from wounds suffered in August and September. Their training was better: much less close-order drill and much more practice in fieldcraft, in open-order tactics, and in working closely with artillery.40
Where could these new formations be most profitably used? Falkenhayn initially saw them as necessary reinforcements for a western front that was sure to face a massive allied attack in the spring. For Ludendorff and Hindenburg the eastern theater was a far more logical area of deployment. The inevitable weaknesses of the new formations were unlikely to be as pitilessly exposed by the Russians as by the French, particularly since these young soldiers would be under the genial supervision of Germany’s proven best operational brains. A small increment of force in the east promised results disproportionate to anything likely to be obtained in a west already gaining an evil reputation as a corpse factory where generalship had become virtually impossible.
Initially Ludendorff and Hindenburg sought to bring Falkenhayn to their viewpoint by sending a “special liaison officer,” Major Hans von Haeften, to Falkenhayn’s headquarters. For a man with a delicate assignment Haeften proved remarkably heavy handed. The report he submitted on the previous course of operations in the east praised Ludendorff in such glowing terms that it had a predictably negative effect on Falkenhayn. Haeften then turned to the chancellor, recommending Falkenhayn’s relief by Ludendorff—not least, he argued, because the combination of war minister and chief of staff posed disturbing domestic political problems. But this maneuver failed when William, with a flash of his old spunk, said that he would never appoint “a dubious character, devoured by personal ambition” to the post once held by Moltke and Schlieffen.41