Background Article

August 03, 1914

Not since the Romans has there been such a profound effect on history, geography, science, politics, economics, technology, medicine, empires, and the everyday person.....than World War I and its aftermath. ... Nothing.

From the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Barbara W. Tuchman called the Guns of August....She shows how  a catastrophic event like WW I, second only perhaps to the meteorite induced destruction of the dinosaurs in scope and worldwide consumptive ruination, could have begun so needlessly by people of  such limited talent, abilities and indifference ..which makes it all the more tragic...I paraphrase below..

"Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans," Bismark had predicted, would ignite the next war.  The assassination of the Austrian heir apparent, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by Serbian nationalists on June 28, 1914, satisfied his condition.  Austria-Hungary, with the bellicose frivolity of senile empires, determined to use the occasion to absorb Serbia as she had previously absorbed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1909.  Russia on this occasion, weakened by the war with Japan in 1905, had been forced to acquiesce by a German ultimatum followed by the Kaiser's appearance in "shining armor," as he put it, at the side of his ally, Austria.  To avenge that humiliation and for the sake of her prestige as the major Slav power, Russia was now prepared to put on the shining armor herself.  On July 5 Germany assured Austria that she could count on Germany's "faithful support" if whatever punitive action she took against Serbia brought her into conflict with Russia.  This was the signal that let loose the irresistible onrush of events..and unleashed the dogs of war.  On July 23 Austria delivered an ultimatum to Serbia, on July 26 rejected the Serbian reply (although the Kaiser, now nervous, admitted that it "dissipates every reason for war"), on July 28 Austria declared war on Serbia, on July 29 Austria bombarded Belgrade.  On that day Russia mobilized along her Austrian frontier and on July 30 both Austria and Russia ordered general mobilization.  On July 31 Germany issued an ultimatum to Russia to demobilize within twelve hours and "make us a distinct declaration to that effect".

War pressed against every frontier.  Suddenly dismayed, governments and royalties, who for years preceding, had only played at war, who bullied, blustered and feigned at war, who intrigued and maneuvered and spent their way to national pride based on all things military...struggled and twisted to fend it off.  It was no use.  Agents at frontiers were reporting every cavalry patrol as a deployment to beat the mobilization gun.  General staff, goaded by their relentless timetables, were pounding the table for the signal to move lest their opponents gain an hour's head start to war.  Appalled upon the brink, the chiefs of state who would be ultimately responsible for their country's fate attempted to back away but the pull of the military schedules dragged them forward.

Frenchmen in their traditional "red" trousers whose generals believed in "elan" above all else.  The triumph of the sword, bayonet and cavalry charge over superior defensive positions manned with machine guns, both light & heavy artillery and eventually poison gas, & barbed wire was official policy.

Always advance.. regardless.. was the basis of the French military strategy...regardless of the odds or lack of plan.

Never dig in; in fact do not train or give soldiers tools with which to dig in lest the troops become "sticky".  Use only French invented light artillery (the famed 75 mm French light cannon could fire 15 rounds per minute but was only provided munitions to fire 2.2 shells per minute.)

The Germans mercilessly pounded the French with their 115 mm heavy guns.  The French high command did not believe in the use of spotter air planes to fixate accurate artillery shelling..but the Germans did and used this new technology very wisely.  The French high command also believed in the axiom that subordinate and front line officers "should fight like lions but submit like dogs" when central staff issued them orders..regardless of what their on the scene intelligence might be telling them.  French field regulations had calculated that in a dash of 20 seconds the infantry line could cover 50 meters before the enemy infantry would have time to shoulder guns, take aim, and fire.  All these "gymnastics so painfully practiced at maneuvers," as a French soldier said bitterly afterwards, proved grim folly on the battlefield.  With machine guns the enemy needed just 8 seconds to fire, not 20. The Field Regulations had also calculated that shrapnel fired by the 75's would "neutralize" the defensive by forcing the enemy to keep his head down and "fire in the blue".  Instead, as all observers of the 1905 Russo-Japanese war had learned, an enemy under shrapnel fire if entrenched could continue to fire straight into the attacker. Of course the generals ordered an all out advance on August 20, 1914 totally unsupported by an artillery barrage..This thinking would create 150,000 French casualties in just four days of fighting less than three weeks after the war began.

The British for their part just two years later would initiate the Battle of the Somme by blasting away at the entrenched Germans for more than one week prior to the actual attack taking place.  The British high command simply would not believe that the enemy could withstand such a pounding by digging deep into the earth..of course the Germans did just that.  When the shelling was really needed during the actual attack, the British stopped their artillery barrage and the poor soldiers advanced with no artillery cover and were slaughted.  Forty thousand fell in just 4 hours.  The British never even attempted to prove out their theory...they just believed in their plan period.  It would take more than a year later before the Canadians figured out at Vimy Ridge that infantry should attack just behind a creeping artillery  barrage.  When this tactic was used the German line was finally breached.

The Russians whose War Minister, General Sukhomlinov, decorated in an 1877 Russo-Turkish war in a cavalry charge, concluded that military knowledge acquired in that war was permanent truth.  He scolded Staff College instructors for interest in such "innovations" as the factor of firepower against the saber, lance and bayonet charge.  He could not hear the word "modern war", he said, "without annoyance."

"As war was it has remained..all these things are merely vicious innovations.  Look at me, for instance; I have not read a military manual for the last twenty-five years" he said.  While Sukhomlinov left work to others, he allowed no freedom of ideas.  Clinging stubbornly to obsolete theories and ancient glories, he claimed that Russia's past defeats had been due to mistakes of commanding officers rather than to any inadequacy of training, preparations, or supply.  With invincible belief in the bayonet's supremacy over the bullet, he made no effort to build up factories for increased production of shells, rifles, and cartidges.  No country, its military critics discovered afterwards, is ever adequately prepared in munitions.  Britain's shell shortage was to become a national scandal; French shortage of everything from heavy artillery to boots was a scandal before the war began; in Russia, Sukhomlinov did not even use the funds allocated on munitions.  Russia began the war with 850 shells per gun compared to a reserve of  2,000 to 3,000 shells per gun used by the Western armies, although Sukhomlinov himself had agreed in 1912 to a compromise of 1,500 per gun.  The Russian infantry division had 7 field-gun batteries compared with 14 in the German division.  The whole Russian Army had 60 batteries of heavy artillery compared with 381 in the German Army.  Firepower counted for nothing in official Russian war planning.

Czar Nicholas was of feeble mind and did not govern Russia in a working sense.  He ruled as an autocrat and was in turn ruled by his strong-willed, if not weak-witted wife.  Beautiful, hysterical, and morbidly suspicious, she hated everyone but her immediate family and a series of fanatic or lunatic charlatans who offered comfort to her desperate Austrian soul. Fuedalism lead by a one family rule was the means to become a modern nation...so believed the Romanovs.

Bismark always preached "never become involved in a two front war".

The Germans calculated that it would take Russia from 1914 to 1916 to mobilize and mount a strong resistence.  Hence they decided to fight a two front war.  They opened hostilities on a nuetral country..Belgium.. to get at France and to "brush their sleeve on the Channel" by pushing hard to out flank the French with a massive right wing maneuver by way of Belgium.  Contrary to the evidence, the French stubbornly refused to believe that this was indeed happening and continued to mass their troops in the centre of the line and thus left the Belgian border unprotected for the most part.  Germany invaded though knowing that Britain would only go to war, no matter the country, if Belgium's neutrality was ever violated.  After all, Britain had taken what became Belgium from France after defeating Napoleon in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo.  These flat plains were to become a buffer between England and France. This land was given to Holland to administer.  In 1830 the Belgian's gained their independence from Holland and declared themselves eternally neutral.

Italy would not be able to remain pro German should Germany ever attack Belgium.  Of course that's exactly what Germany did bringing in Britain and losing an ally of Italy.  And to make matters worse, Germany declared war on Russia when in fact it could have done nothing thereby putting the onus on Russia to begin hostilities in the east.  No one can figure out this blunder except that Germany's War Minister Moltke often uttered that so German of German phrases when military plans dictate policy--"and once settled, it cannot be altered".  So using this phrase Germany went on to blunder into unrestricted submarine warfare eventually bringing the U.S. in on the war against Germany.  It would be followed often throughout WW I and WW II situations (The largest tank battle ever fought was at a place called Kursk in the Ukraine during July, 1943).  The German planning, after established, could not be altered..thus they hurled themselves (out numberd two to one in men and aircraft) at the totally entrenched and prepared Soviet forces. They were of course,  destroyed and the way opened to Berlin. Hitler also declared war on the U.S. after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor thus freeing up Roosevelt from having to win over the American public and congress to take the fight to Europe.  Hitler also invaded Russia and of course fought and lost a two front war...but enough about WW II which most historians believe was just a continuation of WW I).

In WW I the German army firmly believed in Emperor Caligula's infamous teachings.."it matters not that they hate you as long as they fear you".  Well, the Germans became very annoyed at the silly Belgians for fiercely defending their homeland invasion and thus the Germans committed war atrocity after war atrocity on Belgian civilians as official policy.  They routinely rounded up and shot up to 700 people at a time.  Entire villages were burned to the ground, mothers, daughters, fathers, sons and especially Catholic priests were routinely shot by the dozens as the Germans advanced.  Thus Germany became the villain early in World War I..easy to hate and paint as barbarians and Huns.

Hitler committed the same grave error in WW II when instead of embracing the Soviet citizens he was "liberating" from Stalin..he began a systematic policy of killing Russian peasants enmasse and burning and destroying everything during his march on Moscow.  The resulting Russian partisan movement that sprang up took a terrific toll on the Nazi's.

By all accounts in WW I it would take the British, German and French militaries more than three years and over 10 million casualties to unlearn the lessons of the past and to adapt to strategies and tactics demanded of modern warfare in the early 20th century.  By 1917 change was in the air as it was plain for all to see and experience that without a new strategy...millions more would die needlessly.  Canada would be the country who instigated a new way of fighting on the ground in 1917.  The Germans would follow in 1918 with their new "storm trooper" select operations.  Instead of massing and attacking in a full frontal assault they would selectively move out with fast, specially trained and armed troops using flame throwers, supported by objective sharing down to each man, pin point support and intelligence.

In World War II the Nazis' would invent and introduce the world to blitzkrieg to avoid a protracted stalemated war.  The French, true to their history, began WW II the way WW I should have been fought..by the use of entrenched forts (Maginot Line) and entered WW I the way WW II should have been designed..by aggresively attacking.  In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 when France was defeated and occupied by the Prussians leading to the creation of the German nation...the French high command refused to believe that breach loading rifles were better than muzzle loading types.  They failed to figure on the huge advantage provided breach loading soldiers...they could rapidly reload in the crouched and laying down position.  The Germans using breach loading rifles laid down and fought and slaughtered the French standing upright in battle.  The British, for their part, came into WW II the same way they did in WW I.  Woefully unprepared, undermanned, and not with enough of anything.  The Russians entered WW II trusting the Nazis and ignoring their own intelligence that clearly showed that Hitler meant and was indeed preparing to invade  in 1941.  Russia was caught totally flat footed and again unprepared in WW II as it was equally caught in WW I.  Strange isn't it?

In 1914 Germany, France and Russia, once the mobilization button was pushed, the whole vast machinery kicked into gear and could not be stopped.  In Germany, especially...the action began of calling up, equipping, and transporting two million men .. automatically. In 1914 reservists went to their designated depots, were issued uniforms, equipment, and arms, formed into companies and companies into battalions, were joined by cavalry, cyclists, artillery, medical units, cook wagons, blacksmith wagons, even postal wagons, moved according to prepared railway timetables to concentration points near the frontier where they would be formed into divisions, divisions into corps, and corps into armies ready to advance and fight.  One army corps alone--out of the total of 40 in the German forces--required 170 railway cars for officers, 965 for infantry, 2,960 for cavalry, 1,915 for artillery and supply wagons, 6,010 in all, grouped in 140 trains and an equal number again for their supplies. From the moment the order was given, everything was to move unquestionably at fixed times according to a schedule precisly down to the number of train axles that would pass over a given bridge within a given time...

The Kaiser had a crippled arm from birth and was mediocre in all things so he became a bully of sorts.  He was a very poor diplomat in addition to being vainglorious, a braggart, imperious, and a strutting peacock.  He said whatever was on his mind to whomever would listen.  He acted more like a peasant than an aristocrat as regards style, manners and class.  He was a short and boorish snob who liked to dominate others.  Thus it was when the Kaiser lost his nerve and tried frantically to stop the momentum of war ... he could not.  The Prussian military leadership were growing tired of the Kaiser.  They wanted to bloody their superb military machine and were determined that the time was now.  The Kaiser's plan all along was to bully and bluster and gain political currency by way of saber rattling.  And now he was attacking the eastern and western fronts simultaneously in August, 1914, and he was helpless to put the genie back into the bottle...."                                                 

The 20th century was, in fact, evolved from the events that took place from this cataclysmic event and so far the 21st century is strongly influenced by WW I.

 ...If World War I had not occurred.....think of it...

 . No World War II.

. No Soviet Union.

. No Germany smuggling into Russia a communist named Lenin in 1917.

. No Russian Revolution.

. The British Empire lasting until possibly the year 2000.

. No Iraq and no Iraqi invasion by George Bush, no Iran.

. Continuation of Ottoman, French, Portuguese, Belgian, German, Dutch empires until late 20th century perhaps, no war brides, no mass immigration after both world wars.

. No independent Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma, Malaysia and India and most of Africa until ?

. No Hitler, no Nazis, no Tojo, no GI Bill in the U.S.

. No baby boomer generation, no hippies, no Kent State shootings.

. No Levittown, delayed suburbia, no Trotski, no Kruschev.

. No cocky, having left the farm and seen the world servicemen and women returning home after both wars.

. No Marshal plan.

. No mass migration of southern blacks to northern cities til much later in the 20th century severely delaying the civil rights movement.

. No Dr. Martin Luther King.

. Perhaps no Rock 'N Roll until much later.. if ever.

. No Korean War, No Vietnam War, No Six Day Arab/Israeli War, no Spanish Civil War, no Franco, no Tito, no Rommel, no Montgomery, no Omar Bradley, no George Patton, no Kitchener, no Alexander Hague, no Balfour Declaration (1917 Britain agreed that Israel have the right to a homeland in Palestine), no Exodus, no Anwar Sadat, no Nasser, no Lawrence of Arabia, no Saddam Hussein, no General Schwartzkof.

. No Holocaust, no Adolf Eichman, no Ann Frank, no Winston Churchill, no Black Jack Pershing, no Dwight Eisenhower,  Richard Nixon, no JFK (his dad made his money through prohibition), no Roosevelt, no de Gaulle, no Gandhi, no Beatles, no Audie Murphy.

. No barn stormers, no rum runners, no flappers, no jazz, no Ernest Hemingway, no Elvis?, no speak-easies, no charlston, no jitter-bug no wing-walkers.

. No independent Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Korea, Vietnam, Egypt, Jordon and Israel until when? 

. A much less powerful Japan and China today.

. Britain, Germany and France continuing to share world power with an ever growing United States and Japan, and the U.S. not becoming economically dominant until well into the 21st century.

. No 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon attack by muslim terrorists.

. No Osama bin Laden, no Franco, no Mussolini, no Ho Chi Min, no Mao Tse Tung, no Shaw of Iran, no Lockerbie disaster, no Verdun, no SS or Panzer or Storm Troopers, or blitzkrieg, or Iron Curtain or    Berlin Wall, or famous War Aces (Billy Bishop, Snoopie and the Red Baron, Chuck Yaeger, Eddie Rickenbacker),no General McArthur, no Jacque Cousteau (frogmen and underwater air tanks came from WW II).

. No army tanks until much later, if ever, no Hermann Goering.

. No war veterans or Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, or legions, or poppies in November, no poem called Flander's Field, or the air force poem (Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the   skies...).

. No AK 47 submachine guns, perhaps our military might still be riding horses and saber making may still be a skill?

. No wrist watch or trench coat, or income tax (came from WW I).

. No Afghanistan torn apart by a non existent Soviet Union.

. No destruction of countless historical buildings, artifacts, manuscripts, heirlooms, museums, in Europe, Japan, Russia, China, Indo-China during WW I, II and the Korean and Vietnam wars.

. No fast forwarding of technology (delayed possibly 50 years or more), computers, nuclear energy, jet engines, biological weapons, rockets, no landing on the moon until 2010 or later, delayed invention of radar.

. What would IBM be like today if the British did not hand over the German enigma machine (first manual computer) to them for analysis in 1940?  Same for General Electric when the British gave them their jet engines in 1942 (the British were close behind Germany in jet engine technology)...both of the above were as a result of the terms of the Lend Lease program.  Radar also was a technology involved in this program of sharing with the U.S.

.  The saving of hundreds of millions of lives when factoring in all wars, civil wars, rebellions, worldwide Spanish Influenza (started in WWI trenches).

. No Stalin and no Stalin starving 25 million of his people in the 1930's to raise hard cash).

. No Turkish massacre of the Armenians in 1915.

. No rape of Nangking or Bataan Death March, or sinking of the Bismark.

. No Suez or Cuban Missile crisis or Hungarian revolt in 1956.

. No Roaring 20's, no Great Depression, no Prohibition in the U.S.

. No vote for women until much later...perhaps in the 1950's or 60's (how would this have changed the political climate?).

. No Al Capone, no Las Vegas (mob created), no Bugsy Siegal.

. No military industrial complex, no Ypres or Dunkirk or Dieppe.

. No knowing what contributions or otherwise, that any of the many hundreds of millions of souls who died as a direct or indirect result of WW I would have contributed to humanity.

. No Whiz Kids (McNamara and his air force boys saving Ford after WW II), no Lincoln car (came from making WW I airplane engines).

. No hot rods, no 50's automotive tail fins (taken from WWII fighter plane designs). No breaking of the sound barrier in 1947.

. Perhaps no McDonald's since people may have remained less mobile for longer without WW I, WW II, Korea and Vietnam wars.

. No D-Day, no Armistice and Memorial Day holidays.

. No VE or VJ Days, no Spam, no USO shows, no Dough Boys.

. No aircraft carriers or nuclear submarines until just now?

. No Jeep, no French underground, no Pol Pot or Cambodian genocide.

. No B52, or Sopwith Camel, or Flying Jenny, or P39, or P51 Mustang, or Spitfire or Japanese Zero, or B17, B24 or B29 bombers, no Sabre jets, no F104 or F111, F16, F18 or B1 or B2 fighters/bombers.

. No flame throwers or perhaps land mines, no daisy cutter or cluster bombs, no neutron bombs, no molotov cocktails or Gallipoli or Pearl Harbor, or Vimy Ridge, or Battle of the Somme, or Guadal Canal, or Stalingrad or Warsaw Ghetto or Eva Braun or Eva Perone.

. No Nuremberg trials, no Josef Mengals or Golda Meir or Fidel Castro, no United Nations.

. Perhaps trans-Atlantic ocean crossings would still be the norm...

. No Somolia (Black Hawk Down), no DDT, no Berlin Airlift.

. No Billy Mitchell, no Rosenbergs trial, no Senator McArthy hearings.

. No Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan films, no Iwo Jima, no Cain Mutiny or Cassablanca, or All Quiet on Western Front films.

. No no-man's-land, no Western or Eastern Fronts, no trench warfare.

. No GI's coming home after discovering European sports cars...so no Shelby Cobras, Mustangs, Corvettes, or T-birds.

. No Taiwan only Formosa..no Baron Von Richtoven (spelling).

. No tail gunners, no Stuka dive bombers, no "Kilroy was here".

. No pom pom guns, no swastika, no hari kari, no V1 or V2 rockets.

. No such thing as a world war (the last one being the Napoleonic and French and Indian aka Seven Years War in 1756).

. No Hindenburg disaster...no MASH TV series, no China Beach,  no American evacuation of the Saigon embassy, no North or South Korea or East and West Germany/Berlin, or North and South Vietnam...

 IT GOES ON FOREVER....THINK ABOUT IT...THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT AND MANY OF THE TERMS WE USE AND TAKE FOR GRANTED WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN AROUND for better or for worse.....if WW I had not occurred.....

 .....Read the book....its outstanding...JFK used this book as his guide in working through the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 ... refusing to blunder into a war by following the traditional mobilization, ultimatums and brinkmanship..opting instead to think and use common sense and go slow....and not trust the generals and admirals to differentiate between politics and war ...         

Mickey Moulder

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