it that as large a number as possible of ensigns and cadets shall
pass their leaving examination before they enter the service; on the
other hand, in view of the pre-eminently practical nature of their
calling, we need not demand this unconditionally of the officers.
This should, at any rate, be left to time, especially as the higher
schools will have to endeavour to simplify their curriculum by
reducing the number of subjects. A consideration of the increased
demands which will undoubtedly have to be made upon our young men in
respect to physical culture will in itself necessitate this. This
applies to the modern schools and to the upper modern schools
(especially to the latter) just as much as to the classical schools.
The younger seats of learning, in their anxiety to raise themselves
to the educational level of the classical schools, have frequently
lost sight of the fact that it is they above all who should devote
their attention to training with a view to practical life and not
with a view to a high standard of scholarship.
These questions may appear to have little to do with the War, and it
would be narrow-minded to endeavour to make considerations which have
resulted from the War the basis of our educational system. No one,
however, will dispute the fact that the World War has given us cause
to subject our national life to a thorough examination in all its
departments and that it must mark the beginning of all kinds of new
developments. Moreover, the training of our youth is more or less
closely related to the development of our armed force.
In the case of the education of a future officer, the same demands
need not be made as in the case of a young man who intends to devote
himself to learned studies, or to the investigation of technical
problems. It must, however, be such as not only to qualify him for
the training and leadership of his men, but, above all, it must give
him that self-assurance in dealing with any situation, which is
required of an educated man. In regard to the further education of
the officer, intellectual development in all the departments which
directly or indirectly concern the soldierly profession is of great
importance in relation to his military duties, but first and foremost
in importance is the training of character, the cultivation of a
distinguished mode of thought. In the time of Napoleon, it was said
that every one of his soldiers carried the field-marshal's baton in
his knapsack. With us this is true, in a metaphorical and a better
sense, of every officer. He can and must strive to attain that
"harmonious combination of abilities" which Clausewitz declared to be
the characteristic of military genius. Thereby he will guard himself
against narrow-mindedness and the danger of that mechanical mode of
thought which the predominance of technical science at the present
day is apt to induce.
"Technical science and inward culture, or even human happiness, have
little connection with one another. In the midst of vast technical
achievements, it is possible for humanity to sink back into complete
barbarism."
This opinion, which was expressed by Professor Werner Sombart,[20] in
spite of his high appreciation of the progress of technical science
in other respects, has, unfortunately, been to a large extent
confirmed by the World War. The officer must possess a thorough
appreciation of technical science, but this must not mislead him into
neglecting the study of men. Knowledge of men is the fundamental
condition of successful leadership. Hence the study of
history--above all of military history--is of the highest value. It
is an inexhaustible source of instruction, an unequalled source of
consolation in the midst of the monotony which is an inevitable
circumstance of service in time of peace, for it keeps the eyes fixed
at the same time on the grandeur and sublimity of the soldier's
calling, and it encourages that just appreciation of the moral
element in war which in the course of a long peace is apt to be lost
sight of.
Field-Marshal Count Schlieffen, in the latter years of his life,
expressed his regret that he had not been able earlier, before he
became Chief of the General Staff, to spare the time for the study of
military history which he could now devote to it. "Despise mere
reason and abstract science," he said once, placing his hand upon a
book which lay before him, while he expressed his opinion of those
who imagine that they can do anything merely with the aid of their
own experience. And at the Centenary celebrations at the Staff
College he uttered the following memorable words:
"Before everyone who wishes to become a commander-in-chief, there
lies a book entitled _The History of War_. It is not always, I must
admit, very amusing. It involves the toiling through a mass of by no
means exciting details. But by their means we arrive at facts, often
soul-stirring facts, and at the root of it lies the perception of how
everything has happened, how it was bound to happen, and how it will
again happen."
The General Staff, which had been educated in the school of this man,
has done him no discredit. His training has up to the present
triumphantly stood the test to which it has been subjected in this
War. Not only have the officers of the General Staff shown
themselves capable of filling much higher positions than those for
which they were intended in respect of age and length of service; but
also for numerous appointments on the General Staff it has been
necessary to have recourse to officers who before the War were still
at the Staff College, or to those who, in the course of the War, had
proved their worth as adjutants attached to the higher staffs. The
very substantial augmentations of the large troop-units during the
War necessitated this. The fact that these officers have proved
themselves equal to their tasks is in itself a convincing argument on
behalf of that uniform mental training with a view to war which
prevailed in the army before the War, and which extended far beyond
the limits of the General Staff. The heritage of Field-Marshal von
Moltke was well administered and added to in the hands of Schlieffen.
And Schlieffen's successor, Colonel-General von Moltke, not only
rendered great service by increasing our armed force; he also
rendered the further service that he always realised the importance
of training the officers of the General Staff with a view to war, and
that he steadily and clearsightedly pursued this end.
Not only at the Front and on the higher staffs have the officers of
all arms shown themselves equal to their tasks, but also behind the
Front, on the lines of communication, and on home service, where they
have filled positions of authority for which they had received no
real training. Regular officers, half-pay officers, and officers of
the reserve have equally held their own; and the explanation of this
lies in the fact that all military efficiency is nothing less than
the exercise of sound human intelligence.
A consideration of these facts may well afford us satisfaction and be
accounted a proof that we have worked on the right lines in all these
departments, but it must not lead us into imagining that we have
reached the pinnacle of perfection. Here also it will be necessary
later on to build upon the basis of the new experiences we have
gained. We must not overlook the fact that the long duration of the
War, and, in part also, the stationary conditions which it
engendered, furnished all those who took part in it with abundant
opportunity for training and study and rendered it easier for them to
become familiar with the duties of their positions. On the other
hand, the World War has revealed the variety of the tasks which may
devolve upon the officer in war, tasks for which, as far as is
possible, he must be prepared in time of peace. Therefore a
deepening as well as an extending of his professional training is to
be aimed at. A training at the Staff College will never be possible
for more than a limited number. The War Schools, even if (as is
urgently to be desired) their course of training is extended over a
longer period and their programme of study somewhat enlarged in
scope, none the less cannot furnish more than a foundation for the
special knowledge which the officer must possess and which he must
afterwards acquire. This after-training was before the War for the
most part left completely to the individual. But not everyone is
capable of achieving it unaided, especially in the department of
military history, which can never be more than skimmed over in the
War Schools.
Therefore it seems desirable that an intermediate stage between the
War School and the Staff College should be established, in the form,
say, of nine-month courses, which it would be obligatory upon all the
senior lieutenants to attend. The mere fact that, during the World
War, the regular course of training in the War Schools has had to be
replaced by an abbreviated course makes such an institution very
desirable, since it may prove impossible to arrange that all those
who have been promoted to officer's rank during the long War should
subsequently go through the training provided in the War Schools.
Those who had concluded their intermediate course with the greatest
distinction would be sent on to the Staff College, at which in their
case a two-years' course would suffice. By this means, the Staff
College would be able to confer the benefit of its instruction upon a
number of picked officers larger than that customary hitherto by a
third as much again. The Staff College will remain, as before, the
special nursing-ground for the General Staff, the higher adjutancy,
and the military teaching-staff. The other officers, who, after the
completion of the above-mentioned nine-months' course, go back to the
Front, will in any case have gained the advantage of a more thorough
education, both as regards special training for their profession and
general culture.
In order to achieve this, it would be advisable that these
institutions should be established in university towns, so that the
services of the professors who would there be available might be
turned to account. This world economic War has revealed the
necessity that officers should make themselves so far familiar with
political, constitutional, economic, and social questions as to
enable them to form an independent judgment about these subjects.
The character of the whole modern life of our State makes it
desirable that the officer should keep himself in touch with these
questions, though he need not for that reason become a politician.
Frederick the Great, even in his day, wrote: "I expect above all that
a general shall be an honest man and a good citizen of the State;
without these qualities, all his ability and all his skill in war
will be rather harmful than profitable."[21] By this the King
implies that military science and political science are closely
related. We must contrive to kindle in the officer, while he is
still young, an interest in this relation, so that he may be capable,
in the training of his men, of enlightening them from time to time
upon questions of civic and economic life. Short, well-written
primers might be of great value here.
That "untiring application" which King Frederick demanded from his
officers and which has also always been demanded of us, must be
insisted on more than ever after the War. Its intellectual side is
by no means the least important. The training of the mind by
assiduous study is a necessity not only for the officers of the
General Staff, but also for those who wish to occupy with advantage
any high position in the army. We have no use for officers with a
scholastic training, but we do need officers with well-trained minds.
Napoleon felt keenly the lack of such, and, even at St. Helena, he
placed the Austrian General Staff above his own.[22] As long as
theory does not set itself--to use the words of Clausewitz--"in
opposition to intelligence," it can only be useful, for it is then no
longer theory in the vulgar sense. Even the talent of the most
famous representatives of the military art--Frederick the Great,
Napoleon, and Moltke--had a theoretical foundation, but this
foundation consisted only in education of the mind, which had been
developed and enlarged as a result of their own experience of life
and of war. In any case, the important thing can never be the
encouragement of purely theoretical knowledge in the army, but rather
the transforming of knowledge into practice. Willisen[23] has said
justly: "It is always a long step from knowledge to ability to act,
but none the less it is a step from knowledge and not from ignorance."
[1] _Bemerkungen über den Einfluss der verbesserten Feuerwaffen_.
[2] _On War_, i., 187. [_Vom Kriege, III. B._, 6 Kap.]
[3] Reisner v. Lichtenstern. _Die Macht der Vorstellung im Kriege_.
Berlin, 1902.
[4] _Echo de Paris_, November 23, 1915.
[5] July 16, 1916.
[6] _La Grande Armée de 1813_. Paris, 1871.
[7] Malachowski. _Scharfe Taktik und Revuetaktik_. Berlin, 1902.
E. S. Mittler und Sohn.
[8] _Militärische Schriften Kaiser Wilhelms des Grossen_. I., No.
336ff. Bemerkung zu einer Denkschrift Boyens.
[9] _Ueber Verantwortlichkeit im Kriege_.
[10] Wolfgang Foerster. _Prinz Friedrich Karl von Preussen.
Denkwürdigkeiten aus seinem Leben_. I., p. 170. Stuttgart und
Leipzig, 1910. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt.
[11] _Ibidem_, i., p. 219.
[12] Reisner v. Lichtenstern. _Schiessausbildung und Feuer der
Infanterie im Gefecht_. Berlin, 1895. E. S. Mittler und Sohn.
[13] See p. 164.
[14] Freytag-Loringhoven. _Die Grundbedingungen kriegerischen
Enfolges_. 1914. E. S. Mittler und Sohn. (The War has completely
justified this view.)
[15] _Imperial Germany_, pp. 154-6. London, Cassell & Co., Ltd.
[_Deutsche Politik_, 1916, pp. 163-4.]
[16] Heinrich v. Treitschke, _Politics_, vol. ii., p. 299-300.
London, Constable & Co. Ltd. New York, The Macmillan Company.
[_Politik_, II., p. 275.]
[17] Gourgaud. _Ste. Hélène_, i.
[18] Quoted from Jähns, _Das französische Heer von der grossen
Revolution bis zur Gegenwart_. Leipzig, 1873.
[19] Heinrich von Treitschke. _Deutsche Geschichte im 19
Jahrhundert_. Vol. ii., p. 10.
[20] _Die Deutsche Volkswirtschaft im 19 Jahrhundert_, 3d edn., p.
134. Berlin, Georg Bondi. 1913.
[21] _General-Prinzipien vom Kriege. Von denen Talents, welche ein
General haben muss_. Taysen, Friedrich der Grosse. Militärische
Schriften, p. 106.
[22] Gourgaud, Ste. Hélène, ii., p. 416.
[23] _Theorie des grossen Krieges_.
VI
STILL READY FOR WAR
The war-readiness of Germany had been very much increased by the
votings of the last great Army Bills, together with the carrying out
of the programme of naval construction. And yet we have been obliged
to organise new formations on a very large scale, and to develop our
armaments industry to an extent which had never been anticipated.
The levy on capital of a thousand million marks, measured on the
scale of the costs of the War, now no longer seems to us the enormous
sacrifice which caused doubts as to whether it could be demanded of
the German people. The War has, on the one hand, revealed to us the
full financial strength of Germany; but, on the other hand, it has
proved that additional expenditure on the army at the right time
would have been profitable. We should then have saved in this War
not only milliards of marks, but in all probability we should have
had to offer up a far less considerable sacrifice of men. In view of
the central position of the Fatherland, larger expenditure on the
land-army, in addition to the necessary expenditure on the fleet, was
absolutely essential. The demands which in this connection were put
before the Reichstag were but a feeble minimum of what was really
desirable, as the World War has proved.
The fact that in peace time the high demands of the Army Estimates
encountered all kinds of objections, must certainly not be
overlooked, more especially in view of the fact that it is easy, in
the case of a war the vast extent and long duration of which could
not have been foreseen, to declare after the event that our armaments
were not sufficient. The fact, however, still remains, and it is
important that we should not lose sight of it, for we have to learn
from it the lesson that in future we must disregard every objection,
and must see to it that the disproportion between the credits which
are asked for and what has to be done in case of war shall in any
case never again be so great as it was in the World War. By means of
the last Army Bills, which called to the colours a number of men fit
for service whom it had not been possible to enlist hitherto, we had
already before the War taken steps to restore to compulsory military
service the character of universality which belonged to it under law,
but which, with the increase of the population, just as formerly in
Prussia prior to the army reforms of 1859, threatened more and more
to be abandoned. We shall have to continue to pursue this road in
future, quite apart from the necessary increase of garrison artillery
and technical troops. Moreover, when the number of those who have
fought in the Great War has dwindled, we shall have to aim at
subjecting at least to a cursory training the men of military age who
are at first rejected, but who in the course of the War have turned
out to be fit for service, so that, when war breaks out, they may
form a generous source of reserves. Only so can we arrive at a real
national army, in which everyone has gone through the school of the
standing army.
In the case of those who have enlisted at the age fixed for military
service, it will not be possible to reduce the length of the
prescribed term of service without detriment to the strength of our
whole army of organisation as tested in the War. Periods of leave
might, indeed, be granted during the second or third years of
service. The chief task of all our associations of young men will be
to qualify for enlistment in the army larger numbers of those liable
to service than has been the case hitherto. In addition to the
training which they afford our youth both from a physical and an
intellectual point of view, these associations will, precisely in
view of the nature of present-day warfare, which demands in a high
degree sportsmanlike qualities, manual skill, and technical
knowledge, form an excellent preparatory school for the army. They
cannot, however, furnish a substitute for actual military training.
It may be asked, What is the use of all this? Will not the general
exhaustion of Europe after the world conflagration of a certainty put
the danger of a new war, to begin with, in the background, and does
not this terrible slaughter of nations point inevitably to the
necessity of disarmament to pave the way to permanent peace? The
reply to that is that nobody can undertake to guarantee a long period
of peace, and that a lasting peace is guaranteed only by strong
armaments. Our own armament, although it may have been defective in
some respects, has none the less secured peace for us for forty
years, that is to say, for such a length of time as has hardly ever
before been experienced in the world's history, in the case of a
great country. Moreover, world-power is inconceivable without
striving for expression of power in the world and consequently for
sea-power. But this involves the constant existence of a large
number of potential causes of friction. Hence arises the necessity
for adequate armaments on land and sea.
A sound policy of power is by no means equivalent to a one-sided
glorification of war. It is true that the effects of war are in many
respects very beneficial. War banishes pretence and reveals the
truth. It produces the most sublime manifestations of masculine
personality, and the greatest devotion and self-sacrifice for the
sake of the community. If ever an age has corroborated the words of
Treitschke that "the features of history are virile,"[1] it is the
present, and we, Germans have been described by a Swede as "the most
powerful military nation in the world's history."[2] But this does
not in any way alter the fact that the effects of war are terrible;
nay, that, judged by these, war seems to civilised men absolutely
senseless, in view of the sacrifice and destruction which it entails,
and of the misery which it brings in its train. And, none the less,
however convinced we may be that war is a sin against humanity, that
it is something worthy of detestation, this conviction brings us no
nearer to eternal peace. War has its basis in human nature, and as
long as human nature remains unaltered, war will continue to exist,
as it has existed already for thousands of years. The often quoted
saying of Moltke that wars are inhuman, but eternal peace is a dream,
and not even a beautiful dream, will continue to be true. The World
War has also fully confirmed the justice of the following words of
Heinrich von Treitschke: "The polished man of the world and the
savage have both the brute in them. Nothing is truer than the
biblical doctrine of original sin, which is not to be uprooted by
civilisation, to whatever point you may bring it."[3] A long peace,
such as that which preceded the World War, had frequently caused us
to overlook the fact that it was not the fine phrases about
international bliss and brotherhood uttered on every occasion at
public meetings which preserved us from war, but the might of our
sword which was only fully revealed on the outbreak of war. And it
will only be by this might that we shall be able to safeguard our
peace in the future.
We misconstrue reality, if we imagine that it is possible to rid the
world of war by means of mutual agreements. Such agreements will, in
the future, as in the past, be concluded from time to time between
States. The further development of international courts of
arbitration, and the elimination of many causes of dispute by their
agency, lies within the realm of possibility, but any such agreements
will after all only be treaties which will not on every occasion be
capable of holding in check the forces seething within the States.
Therefore the idea of a universal league for the preservation of
peace remains a Utopia, and would be felt as an intolerable tutelage
by any great and proud-spirited nation. Here, too, let us heed
Treitschke's warning when he says: "The idea of one universal empire
is odious. The ideal of a State co-extensive with humanity is no
ideal at all. In a single State the whole range of culture could
never be fully spanned."[4] The fact that it was precisely the
President of the United States of North America who advocated such a
brotherhood of nations must in any case arouse our wonderment.
America's behaviour in the War has shown that pacifism, as
represented in America, is only business pacifism, and so at the
bottom nothing else than crass materialism. This truth is not
altered by the fact that it is wrapped in a hazy garment of idealism
and so seeks to hide its real significance from unsuspecting minds.
Nor is the truth altered by the appeal to democratic tendencies, for
precisely this War is showing that those who at present hold power in
the great democracies have risked in irresponsible fashion the future
of the peoples entrusted to their guidance. In any event, as regards
us Germans, the World War should disencumber us once and for all of
any vague cosmopolitan sentimentality. If our enemies, both our
secret and our avowed enemies, make professions of this nature, that
is for us sufficient evidence of the hypocrisy which underlies them.
No one can foresee future developments, least of all while such a war
as the present is still in progress. Hence it is not impossible that
pacifist tendencies, based upon motives of utility, may gain currency
to a certain degree, but they will not conduce to the betterment of
humanity. We find it impossible to believe in the realisation of
genuine pacifist ideals, such as are cherished by well-meaning
sentimentalists. Only a spiritual transformation of the human race
could bring this about, and how far we are from any such
transformation has been revealed by the War. Therefore, in regard to
this question, we should pay less heed to the phrases of present-day
prophets than to the views of old and truly wise men. We must not
put might before right, but equally little shall we and can we
dispense with might. In the future, as in the past, the German
people will have to seek firm cohesion in its glorious army and in
its belaurelled young fleet.
[1] Heinrich v. Treitschke. _Politics_, vol. i., pp. 20-21. London,
Constable & Co., Ltd.; New York, The Macmillan Company. [_Politik_,
i., p. 30.]
[2] Fredrik Böök. _Deutschland und Polen_, p. 14. Munich, 1917.
[3] Heinrich von Treitschke. _Politics_, vol. i., p. xl. London,
Constable & Co., Ltd.; New York, The Macmillan Company. [_Politik_,
i., p. 9.]