‘A Barometer of National Confidence’: a British Assessment of the Role of Insecurity in the Formulation of German Military Policy before the First World War

English Historical Review

Volumn 117, Issue 471, 2002, Pages 333-355

  Seligmann, Matthe W S ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTHAMPTON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 84909060466     PISSN: 00138266     EISSN: 14774534     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/117.471.333     Document Type: Article

References (83)

1. Fritz Fischer, Griff nach der Weltmacht (Düsseldorf, 1961). Too many books and articles have been written as part of the Fischer debate for one footnote to do them justice. However, interested readers might care to see the excellent historiographical survey of this controversy contained in J. W. Langdon, July 1914: The Long Debate 1918–1990 (Oxford, 1991).
2. Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (London, 1998); Stig Förster, ‘Der deutsche Generalstab und die Illusion des kurzen Krieges, 1871–1914. Metakritik eines Mythos’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, liv (1995); David G. Herrmann, The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War (Princeton, 1996); John H. Maurer, The Outbreak of the First World War: Strategic Planning, Crisis Decision Making, and Deterrence Failure (Westport, CT, 1995); Annika Mombauer, ‘A Reluctant Military Leader? Helmuth von Moltke and the July Crisis of 1914’, War in History, vi (1999); Annika Mombauer, ‘Helmuth von Moltke: A General in Crisis?’, in Matthew Hughes and Matthew Seligmann (ed.), Leadership in Conflict 1914–1918 (Barnsley, 2000); Annika Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War (Cambridge, 2001); Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca, NY, 1984); David Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe 1904–1914 (Oxford, 1996).
3. The reports of 16 different French military attachés have been used by Stevenson and Herrmann. Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War; Herrmann, The Arming of Europe.
4. It is only because military attachés were placed in a subordinate position to ambassadors that a useable corpus of their correspondence survives at all. Required for reasons of protocol to address all reports to their chiefs of mission, who would then forward them to the Foreign Office for onward transmission to the War Office, the vast majority of the extant attaché material consists of Foreign Office copies of letters sent there for delivery elsewhere. Of course, as Foreign Office documents, these copies lack the annotations that would reveal the reception accorded to these reports when they reached the General Staff and War Office.
5. Alfred Vagts, The Military Attaché (Princeton, 1967) was written from printed sources. Lothar Wilfred Hilbert, ‘The Role of Military and Naval Attachés in the British and German Service with Particular reference to those in Berlin and London and their Effect on Anglo-German relations 1871–1914’ (Doctoral Dissertation Cambridge University 1954) was based on archival sources up to 1902 and published material thereafter.
6. Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1941 (London, 1980), p. 544.
7. Geoffrey Barraclough, From Agadir to Armageddon: Anatomy of a Crisis (London, 1982).
8. For details on Lord Odo, see Karina Urbach, Bismarck’s Favourite Englishman: Lord Odo Russell’s Mission to Berlin (London, 1999).
9. A. V. F. V. Russell, ‘Reminiscences of the German Court’, The Fighting Forces, i (1924), 58.
10. Major General Leopold Swaine to Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Davidson, 21 May 1903. Royal Archives VIC/X 1/2.
11. Joseph C. Grew, Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years, 1904–1945 (Boston, 1952), I, 131–2.
12. Colonel Maurice Pellé to Allexandre Millerand, 2 March 1912. Quoted in Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Documents Diplomatiques Français (1871–1914) (Paris, 1931), 3rd series, vol. 2, 135.
13. Kim Philby, My Silent War (Frogmore, 1969) p. 91.
14. For details about Trench see my ‘A View from Berlin: Colonel Frederick Trench and the Development of British Views of German Aggressive Intent, 1906–1910’, Journal of Strategic Studies, xxiii (2000), 114–47.
15. Russell, Military Attaché Germany (hereafter M. A.) No. 23, 21 October 1910. P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice] FO 371/907 ff. 132–3 & 273.
16. Russell, M. A. No. 27, 31 October 1911. PRO FO 391/1126: f. 90.
17. Russell, M. A. No. 15, 20 April 1910. PRO: FO 371/904 f. 323.
18. Russell to H. H. Wade, 4 February 1911 in H. H. Wade to Eyre Crowe, 6 February 1911. PRO: FO 371/1123 f. 452
19. Judging by the private correspondence of such leading figures in the military establishment as Erich von Falkenhayn, Russell was not wrong in his assessment of the German contempt for France. See Holger Afflerbach, ‘Planning Total War? Falkenhayn and the Battle of Verdun 1916’, in Roger Chickering and Stig Förster (ed.), Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 116–7.
20. Russell M. A. No. 4, 3 March 1911. G. P. Gooch and Harold Temperley (ed.), British Documents on the Origins of the War (London, 1926–38) (hereafter BD), VI, p. 594.
21. Gädke gained some notoriety for being prosecuted by a military court for criticism of the Prussian Minister of War. See Karl Liebknecht, Militarism (New York, 1917).
22. Russell, M. A. No. 30, 15 December 1910 and M.A. No. 32, 1 December 1911. PRO: FO 371/907 f. 381 and FO 371/1128 f. 307.
23. Ibid.
24. Russell, M. A. No. 28, 2 December 1910. PRO: FO 371/907 f. 302.
25. Jack R. Dukes, ‘Militarism and Arms Policy Revisited: The Origins of the German Army Law of 1913’, in J. R. Dukes and J. Remak (ed.), Another Germany: A Reconsideration of the Imperial Era (Boulder, 1988), p. 25.
26. Reports by Lieutenant Colonel Pellé. Cited in Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, p. 192.
27. Russell, M. A. No. 16 27 July 1911. BD, VII, pp. 414–5.
28. Colonel W. E. Fairholme to Sir Francis Bertie, 7 September 1911. BD, VII, pp. 635–7.
29. Russell, M. A. No. 23, 22 September 1911. PRO: FO 371/1127 ff. 87–8.
30. Russell, M. A. No. 26, 27 October 1911. BD, VII, p. 643.
31. The impact of this is discussed in Herrmann, The Arming of Europe, pp. 163–4. See also A. J. A. Morris, The Scaremongers: The Advocacy of War and Rearmament 1896–1914 (London, 1984), pp. 296–7.
32. Russell, M. A. No. 29, 16 November 1911. BD, VII, p. 646.
33. The truth of this judgement can be seen from the Diaries of Admiral von Müller. See John C. G. Röhl, ‘Admiral von Müller and the Approach of War, 1911–1914’, Historical Journal xii (1969), 652–4.
34. Russell, M. A. No. 20, 1 September 1911. BD, VII, p. 493.
35. Russell, M. A. No. 23, 22 September 1911. PRO: FO 371/1127 f. 89.
36. Russell, M. A. No. 26, 27 October 1911. BD, VII, p. 644.
37. Russell, M. A. No. 7, 16 February 1912. PRO: FO 371/1374 f. 69.
38. Russell, M. A. No. 36, 15 December 1911. PRO: FO 371/1125 f. 386.
39. Russell, M. A. No. 5, 31 January 1912. PRO: FO 371/1372 f. 449.
40. Russell, M. A. No. 21, 23 May 1912. PRO: FO 371/1374 f. 364–7.
41. Pellé cited in Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, pp. 199 and 224.
42. Russell, M. A. No. 21, 23 May 1912. PRO: FO 371/1373 f. 405.
43. Pellé cited in Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, p. 212.
44. Russell, M. A. No. 6, 5 February 1912. PRO: FO 371/1373 f. 405.
45. Russell, M. A. No. 16, 19 April 1912. PRO: FO 371/1373 f. 409.
46. Russell, M. A. No. 16, 27 July 1911. BD, VII, p. 414.
47. Herrmann, The Arming of Europe, p. 172. This judgement about the significance of Agadir to Germany’s military expansion has recently been confirmed by important new research on the chief of the Great General Staff. See Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke, pp. 86–8.
48. Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, pp. 246–7.
49. Russell, M. A. No. 37, 15 November 1912. PRO: FO 371/1379 ff. 121–2.
50. Serret’s first reports were on 20 and 31 January 1913. Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, p. 304; Gerd Krumeich, Armaments and Politics in France on the Eve of the First World War (Leamington Spa, 1980) pp. 44–5.
51. Russell, M. A. No. 44, 18 December 1912. PRO: FO 371/1379 f. 312.
52. Russell, M. A. No. 3, 10 January 1913 and M.A. No. 6, 24 January 1913. PRO: FO 371/1648 f. 1 & f. 5.
53. See, for example, Dukes, ‘Militarism and Arms Policy Revisited’, p. 28; Herrmann, The Arming of Europe, ch. 6; Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, ch. 5. For a more recent comment on this point, see Hew Strachan, The First World War. Volume I: To Arms (Cambridge, 2001), p. 52.
54. Captain Hugh D. R. Watson, Naval Attaché Germany No. 2, 20 January 1913. PRO: FO 371/1649 f. 62.
55. Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, pp. 286–7.
56. Russell, M. A. No. 5, 23 January 1913. PRO: FO 371/1649 ff. 78–9.
57. Russell, M. A. No. 40, 18 November 1913. PRO: FO 371/1654 f. 13.
58. Russell, M. A. No. 18, 11 April 1913. PRO: FO 371/1648 f. 128.
59. Russell, M. A. No. 19, 12 April 1913. PRO: FO 371/1648 ff. 136–8.
60. Russell, M. A. No. 30, 5 September 1913. PRO: FO 371/1652 f. 310.
61. Russell, M. A. No. 15, 4 April 1914. PRO: FO 371/1989 f. 2633.
62. Russell, M. A. No. 13, 12 March 1913. PRO: FO 371/1648 f. 43.
63. Russell, M. A. No. 25, 4 July 1913. PRO: FO 371/1648 f. 201 [my emphasis].
64. Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, p. 363.
65. Russell, M. A. No. 5, 23 January 1913. PRO: FO 371/1649 f. 803.
66. Russell, M. A. No. 10, 9 February 1913. PRO: FO 371/1649 f. 186. A similar point was made a mere eleven days later by the Austro-Hungarian military attaché in Berlin, Freiherr von Bienerth. See John C. G. Röhl, ‘Germany’, in Keith Wilson, (ed.) Decision for War 1914 (London, 1995), p. 42.
67. Russell, M. A. No. 11, 3 March 1913. PRO: FO 371/1650 f. 189.
68. For further details on this, see John C. G. Röhl, The Kaiser and his Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany (Cambridge, 1994), p. 187.
69. Russell, M. A. No. 32, 22 September 1913. PRO: FO 371/1653, p. 32.
70. Russell, M. A. No. 44, 11 December 1913. BD, X, pt. 2.
71. Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, p.247.
72. Russell, M. A. No. 26, 5 July 1913. PRO: FO 371/1651 f. 406A. In fact, Russell was wrong about the esteem in which Heeringen was held; the general was given an army command in 1914. However, Russell’s report may have been based on the critical newspaper reports on Heeringen that appeared in Germany around this time. See Richard William Mackey, The Zabern Affair, 1913–1914 (Langham, Maryland, 1991), pp. 11–12.
73. Russell, M. A. No. 27, 8 July 1913. PRO: FO 371/1652, f. 19.
74. Russell, M. A. No. 41, 27 November 1913. PRO: FO 371/1654 f. 133.
75. Russell, M. A. No. 40, 18 November 1913. PRO: FO 371/1654 f. 13.
76. This complaint was also levelled at some of the naval attachés. See Arthur J. Marder, From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904–1919 (Oxford, 1961–65), I, 148.
77. Although the numbering sequence suggests that Russell sent over 1,000 direct communications to the War Office, I have, after much searching, only been able to locate 30 surviving examples, none of which sheds much light on the question of the attaché’s sources.
78. Russell M. A. No. 16, 19 April 1912 and Russell M.A. No. 6, 5 February 1912. PRO: FO 371/1373, f. 409 and f. 406.
79. Russell, M. A. No. 26, 27 October 1911. BD, VII, p. 644.
80. The pivotal role of military attachés in the gathering of British military intelligence has been established by the research of Thomas G. Fergusson. He concludes that, prior to 1914, they were ‘the heart of the army’s strategic collection effort on the European continent . . .’. This premiss is substantiated by the work of Nicholas Hiley, who has uncovered the manifold deficiencies in British espionage in Germany. The lack of success from such covert means served, amongst other things, to heighten the importance of attaché material. See Thomas G. Fergusson, British Military Intelligence, 1870–1914: The Development of a Modern Intelligence Organization (Frederick, MD, 1984), p. 236; Nicholas P. Hiley, ‘The Failure of British Espionage against Germany, 1907–1914’, The Historical Journal, xxvi (1983), 867–89. Also useful is David French, ‘Spy Fever in Britain, 1900–1915’, The Historical Journal, xxi (1978), 362.
81. Mark Hewitson, ‘Germany and France before the First World War: A Reassessment of Wilhelmine Foreign Policy’, ante, cxv (2000), 570–606.
82. Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and Roots of Conflict (Ithaca, New York, 1999).
83. Fritz Stern, The Failure of Illiberalism: Essay on the Political Culture of Modern Germany (New York, 1992, p. 153. For a more recent look at this issue, see Hermann Joseph Hiery, ‘Angst und Krieg. Die Angst als bestimmender Faktor im Ersten Weltkrieg’, in Franz Bosbach (ed.), Angst und Politik in der europäischen Geschichte (Dettlebach, 2000), esp. pp. 175–80.