The Russian army was far from perfect. Its maneuvers in 1913 were “free,” with commanders able to operate virtually at will within broad guidelines. The result was a series of bitter quarrels among the generals, requiring the frequent intervention of the maneuver directors. A significant number of favorable situations were missed through what the German attaché described as an “astonishing” lack of initiative. The Russians seemed embarrassed enough by the proceedings that they kept the French observers as far out of the way as possible. Yet at the same time the spirit and discipline of the troops appeared excellent. Even papers critical of the government were praising improvements in training. New French loans provided up to a half-million francs a year for the construction of strategic railway lines in western Russia. In October the authorized peacetime strength of the Russian army was raised by yet another half-million men. The Duma voted special grants to increase the artillery and enlarge the army’s munitions reserve. The German foreign office was receiving reports of new cartridge factories designed to work twenty-four-hour shifts. The British military attaché calculated that Russia’s defense expenditures had increased by 41.5 percent since 1908.82
The general staff’s annual report on the major alterations in the Russian army during 1913 altered its internal structure. The section on finances, economics, and politics, placed at the end of earlier versions, headed this one. Russia, the document concluded, had emerged from the Balkan crisis without having to borrow money or increase taxes. Yet her budget had grown by 660 million marks, 230 million of them earmarked for defense. Russia currently seemed more involved in Persia and China than in the Balkans—a reasonable result of her disappointment with the League. But this was a political decision, and as such subject to reversal. A potential adversary’s capacities are best judged independently of her probable intentions. And Russia’s capacities were continuing to grow.83 The war ministry had once again decided to retain its time-expired men for three additional months. The public explanation was that the continued shortage of noncommissioned officers required using the older soldiers to train the recruits. What would be next year’s excuse?
Moltke was increasingly concerned at the freedom of strategic action Russia would have in any future war should Austria fail to mount the offensive promised by Conrad in 1909. The Russian army could advance with its whole strength against either one of its opponents, and the German sector would be by far the weakest. If the Russians crossed the Vistula and moved on Berlin, troops must be withdrawn from the west to meet the threat, whatever the risk of disaster on both fronts. Russia could also delay operations until her armies were fully mobilized, then advance against both allies at once in overwhelming force. The German general staff in the spring of 1914 estimated that Russia would be able to produce 50 active and 13 reserve divisions for the European front as early as the eighteenth day of mobilization. And when fully mobilized, the Russian army was expected to reach the awesome total of 59 active and 35 reserve divisions, 12 rifle brigades, and 35 cavalry divisions.84
In the face of these numbers Germany’s eastern commitment remained unchanged. The wisdom of this policy was frequently challenged after 1918. No less an authority than Ludwig Beck, chief of staff of Hitler’s Wehrmacht from 1933 to 1938, argued that German strategic planning should have allowed for only a defensive screen against France, directing the bulk of the Second Reich’s forces against a Russia that in fact had proved so vulnerable. This line of argument has subsequently been repeated by scholars arguing that Germany planned and initiated in 1914 a war for European hegemony rather than a limited conflict.85 From an alternate perspective, in the context of a generally accepted belief in the superiority of offensive operations, this vast Russian strength seemed to demand some kind of direct reaction. Otherwise, the war on the eastern front might well be lost in its first days. The German general staff under Schlieffen and Moltke had maintained after 1905 a contingency plan for a “Major Deployment East,” the Grosse Ostaufmarsch. Its designers were, however, convinced that such an operation could only be implemented in the context of not merely British, but French neutrality. After 1909 it seemed increasingly clear that this was an unlikely possibility. And this forced the general staff to make a hard decision, one vital for Germany’s security and existence. Which enemy offensive was likely to be the most immediately dangerous? Which opponent could be the most rapidly defeated? In 1912 the answers seemed the same as in 1905. Germany must above all maintain the initiative, mounting its offensive before a French attack that was as sure to come as the Russian one.
This in turn put increasing pressure on the corps headquarters, which were responsible for their own mobilizations, and on the railway section of the general staff, which had to move the armies as quickly and smoothly as possible. Maintaining two separate, up-to-date war plans aimed in opposite directions seemed a diffusion of effort not merely undesirable but dangerous. In early 1913 Moltke ordered not that the Grosse Ostaufmarsch be abandoned, but that it no longer be annually revised. Existing plans were to be preserved for implementation should circumstances change.86
Much ink has been spilled on the actual course of events in August, 1914: the brief moment when French neutrality appeared possible; the kaiser’s enthusiastic suggestion that the German army could now be turned against Russia; Moltke’s emotional collapse at the thought of abandoning the Schlieffen Plan. His argument that the troops would arrive at the eastern railheads as a disorganized and hungry mob was carefully refuted after the war by General von Staabs of the general staff’s railway section.87 Implementing the Grosse Ostaufmarsch would hardly have meant the removal of a generation’s cobwebs. While the practical and emotional difficulties involved in executing such an emergency redeployment must not be underestimated, neither should they be regarded as insurmountable. Technical questions, plans or the absence of plans, were not the key issues. What counted was German professional opinion that an offensive of any scale against Russia was impossible in the context of even a potential French threat.
In March, 1913, the general staff played a war game in which the main force of eighteen army corps was concentrated in the east. By the thirty-fifth day of mobilization the Germans had occupied most of western Russia. They held Kiev in the south, Vilna in the north. But the Russian army was still undefeated, and the French were on the point of breaking through in the west. Ten days later they flanked the Metz fortress complex. The “Germans” were forced to retreat from an operational triumph that had become a strategic disaster.
The outcomes of such exercises have too frequently been adjusted to suit the demands of operational doctrine, state policy, or personal vanity to inspire absolute faith in any set of results. The Germans undertook this particular war game at the request of their Austrian allies, and might at least be suspected of trying to prove a preconception. The “French” commander, Hermann von Kühl, was one of the general staff’s most brilliant young officers—a reputation he was to sustain and enhance in the coming war. But the “German” attack on Russia was entrusted to Karl von Bülow, a general considered good enough to command one of the armies on the Schlieffen Plan’s vital right wing. His chief of staff would become quartermaster-general in 1914. These men too were part of the Imperial army’s first team, and not likely to endanger their images and careers by doing less than their best.88