THE GREAT WAR
Despatch no: 8
September 2013
The Kaiser’s Warlords
This month, we are looking at the Kaiser’s Warlords: the generals who were involved in
the early stages of the Great War and some of whom had an increasing involvement in
German affairs until 1918 and into Nazi Germany.
Paul von Hindenburg was born on 2 October 1847 in Posen, Prussia (now Poznan,
Poland) into an aristocratic German family.
During an honourable but undistinguished military career, he served in the AustroPrussian War of 1866 and in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, retiring in 1911.
However, in 1914 he was recalled as the nominal superior of Erich Ludendorff, a talented
military strategist. Credit for Ludendorff's invasion of Russia was misdirected to
Hindenburg, who was appointed field marshal and commander of all German land
forces, with Ludendorff at his side. Hindenburg oversaw the mobilisation of the whole
German state for war, and became immensely popular throughout the country. Kaiser
Wilhelm II was sidelined.
After Germany's defeat in 1918 Hindenburg retired, but in 1925, largely because of his
status as a war hero, he was elected president of Germany. Hindenburg was re-elected
president in 1932, mainly with the support of those who saw him as a protection against
Nazi lawlessness and brutality. Yet Hindenburg's own circle thought the Nazis as a useful
- albeit unpleasant - group, who were worth accommodating.
Two successive governments failed to win Nazi support as Adolf Hitler insisted on
becoming chancellor in any government in which his party participated. Despite
considerable pressure, Hindenburg refused to appoint him. But in November 1932 an
agreement was reached between Hitler and Franz von Papen - a former chancellor - to
form a government with Hitler as chancellor, but with non-Nazis in most other posts.
Once in office, Hitler quickly secured almost unlimited political power through terror
and manipulations.
Hitler was publicly respectful to Hindenburg, who remained in office until his death on 2
August 1934.
Alexander von Kluck (1846-1934) was born in Munster on 20 May 1846. Von Kluck saw
active military service at an early age during the Seven Weeks' War of 1866 and, in 187071, the Franco-Prussian War.
During the First World War von Kluck commanded the German First Army, notably in
the Schlieffen Plan offensive against Paris at the start of the war in August 1914. Von
Kluck's role in the plan was to command the extreme right of the German forces in
attacking the left flank of the French army and encircling Paris, bringing a rapid
conclusion to the war. After capturing Brussels on 20 August, von Kluck was almost
successful in defeating France, his forces being halted a mere 13 miles from the French
capital in the First Battle of the Marne from 6-9 September 1914. His forces had earlier
fought costly battles against the British at Mons and at Le Cateau. Von Kluck was himself
seriously wounded in the leg in March 1915, retiring from active service the following
year in October 1916.
Alexander von Kluck died on 19 October 1934.
Alfred von Schlieffen (1833-1913) was the German Field Marshal who, as chief of the
general staff from 1891-1905, was responsible for devising the Schlieffen Plan.
Schlieffen was the son of a Prussian general, and entered the army himself in 1854.
Quickly moving to the general staff he participated in the Seven Weeks War against
Austria in 1866 and in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. In 1884 Schlieffen became
head of the military history section of the general staff, replacing Alfred, Graf von
Waldersee as chief of the Great General Staff in 1891.
The Schlieffen Plan provided for a war on two fronts, West and East, by first quickly
defeating France through a concentration of troops on the Western Front, which by
moving rapidly through Belgium and Holland would defeat France in a flanking
movement (overwhelmingly so on its right). Meanwhile a smaller army would hold off
Russia in the east.
The plan disregarded Belgian and Dutch neutrality and required boldness in its
execution. Once war actually broke out the plan was initiated in a modified form, but a
number of factors led to its failure, including German lack of mobility, increased Russian
numbers, and effective French resistance.
Alfred von Schlieffen died on 4 January 1913 in Berlin.
Erich von Falkenhayn (1861-1922) was born in Graudenz, in West Prussia, on 11
November 1861.
He served as Chief of the Imperial German General Staff for part of the First World War
before his eventual dismissal by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Having joined the army at an early
age Falkenhayn served as a military instructor to the Chinese army in 1899, where he
remained until 1903. During the Chinese Boxer Rebellion he was a member of the
German General staff, seeing action when the Allies marched to relieve besieged
Peking. Upon his return to Germany, Falkenhayn continued to serve on the German
General staff, and was appointed Prussian Minister of War in 1913.
He was inclined to consider defensive rather than offensive operations - a sound strategy
but one ill-suited to the Eastern Front. His approach led him to reject an ambitious plan
to capture the entire Russian army championed by Paul von Hindenburg and Erich
Ludendorff. Falkenhayn however believed that the real war was being fought on the
other front, the Western Front. He conceived the idea of besieging the historic French
city of Verdun in early 1916, of "bleeding it white" as he phrased it. He planned to draw
the bulk of the French army into the Verdun salient, thus effectively tying up the French
army, and then to methodically destroy them with concentrated artillery fire.
Certainly French losses at Verdun were significant, as were German casualties. It
succeeded in diverting French attention solely towards the defence of Verdun, to the
extent that the British offensive on the Somme on 1 July 1916 was executed as much as
anything else to provide relief for the French forces at Verdun. Even so, the German
Verdun offensive was ultimately a failure; indeed, by the time the Somme offensive was
started the French were already beginning to claw back ground.
With the failure of the Verdun offensive the Kaiser finally decided to replace Falkenhayn
with the more aggressive von Hindenburg on 29 August 1916 when he heard news of
Rumania's declaration of war with Austria-Hungary.
Eric von Falkenhayn died on 8 April 1922 near Potsdam.
Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937) was born near Poznan on 9 April 1865.
Commissioned into the infantry in 1883 and a member of the General Staff from 1894,
Ludendorff served as head of the deployment section in 1908. A highly militaristic man,
Ludendorff held that peace was merely the interval between wars, and that the nation's
chief duty was to provide the means with which to conduct war. In the pre-war period
Ludendorff assisted with the fine-tuning of the invasion strategy for France, the Schlieffen
Plan.
Upon the outbreak of the First World War he was made quartermaster general to von
Bulow's Second Army, responsible for capturing the Liege forts, without which the
Schlieffen Plan could not succeed. This task successfully accomplished, Ludendorff was
sent to East Prussia where he worked with Paul von Hindenburg as his Chief of Staff.
Hindenburg, who relied heavily upon Ludendorff in crafting his victories at Tannenberg
(1914) and the Masurian Lakes (1915), later appointed Ludendorff his quartermaster
general when he was appointed Chief of Staff of the German Army in late August 1916,
replacing Erich Falkenhayn.
Shortly after becoming Chief of Staff, Hindenburg, working with Ludendorff and leading
industrialists, created what was effectively a military-industrial dictatorship, the Third
Supreme Command, largely relegating the Kaiser, Wilhelm II, to a peripheral role.
Ludendorff was the chief engineer behind the management of the German war effort
during this time, with Hindenburg his pliant front man.
Ludendorff was a supporter of unrestricted submarine warfare, an especially
controversial policy with the then-neutral Americans, ultimately responsible for bringing
the U.S. into the war. An aggressive commander, Ludendorff pressured the Kaiser to
dismiss those in the armed forces who favoured a negotiated peace settlement; Wilhelm
agreed, with Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg a casualty of Ludendorff's 'defeatist'
campaign.
With Russia's withdrawal from the war in 1917, Ludendorff played a key role in the BrestLitovsk peace treaty, an agreement negotiated at great cost to Russia. Expecting a
successful resolution to the great German spring push in 1918, Ludendorff realised that
the war was lost once the offensive failed, aware that with the arrival of fresh American
troops the impetus would quickly swing to the Allies.
He therefore, with Hindenburg, transferred power back to the Reichstag on 29
September, demanding an immediate peace; subsequently changing his mind,
Ludendorff was forced to resign on 26 October under pressure from Max von Baden's
government. With the armistice Ludendorff left Germany for Sweden. Whilst in exile he
wrote numerous books and articles mythologizing the German military's conduct of the
war, claiming that the army had been 'stabbed in the back' by Germany's left-wing
political element.
Ludendorff eventually returned to Germany in 1920, where as a right-wing politician he
took part in the Hitler Munich Putsch of 9 November 1923. In 1924 he was elected to the
Reichstag as a representative of the Nazi party, serving until 1928. He contested the
1925 presidential election against his former commander, Paul von Hindenburg, the
latter easily winning.
Erich Ludendorff died on 20 December 1937 at the age of 72. Hitler attended his funeral.