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3. A German Plan for the Invasion of Holland and Belgium, 1897
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
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1 The documentary sources of this article come from the hitherto unpublished operational plans found in the German Naval Archive, The University of Cambridge. The archive includes III reels of microfilm, covering documents from the files of the Imperial Naval Cabinet, The Admiralty Staff of the Imperial Navy, Departments A and B, and the Imperial Naval Office. The documents were filmed at the Admiralty in London in 1959, as a joint project of the University of Cambridge and the University of Michigan. The plan discussed in this article, part of which is printed in the annex, was found in a file entitled’ Operations against Belgium and Holland, Very Secret, Hand to Hand only’, and bearing the reference number, ‘III, 3–18, Admiralty Staff’.
2 In his memoirs, Admiral von Tirpitz states categorically that’ the first official plan for an operation against England was worked out in the Admiralty Staff during the course of the twentieth century…‘(Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, Leipzig, 1920, 59). The statement follows another categorical assertion that’ the plan for a German battle fleet was created without any thought of a war against England…‘ (ibid. 58). The discovery of the memorandum of 1897 certainly diminishes, if it does not destroy, the value of Tirpitz's attempts to justify himself in this way. Plans for a war against England were devised before the first Navy Law had been introduced, indeed, before Tirpitz became State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office in June of 1897.
3 Adm. Archive, III, 3–18, pencil comment, dated 26 November 1897.
4 Ibid, reply to A I, 7 December 1897.
5 Ibid. Comments of A V on Operational Plan, 23 November 1897.
6 Ibid. Comments of A IV, 4 December 1897.
7 In a note of 15 November 1897 prepared by A IIIb, a letter to the General Staff, reference A I 190 VII, is mentioned. At that time no reply had been received in the Admiralty Staff. The original letter from the General Staff was not in the files, but it is safe to assume from Captain Schröder's remark that a reply to the series of questions raised must have arrived between 15 November and 7 December.
8 Ibid. Reply to A IV and A V, 7 December 1897.
9 Attaché report, Brussels, no. 5, dated 8 January 1898.
10 in, 3–18, Letter, Admiral von Knorr to Count Schlieffen, 10 February 1898.
11 Direct Audience, original draft, marked ‘Very Secret—From Hand to Hand Only’, dated Berlin, 21 February 1898.
12 III 3–18, Handwritten memorandum, ‘ Results of Audience of His Majesty’, signed by von Knorr, dated 21 February 1898.
13 III, 3–18, Letter dated 4 March 1898, Admiral von Knorr to Count Schlieffen, original draft with corrections.
14 III, 3–18, ‘Memorandum re: Carrying out an Operation against Holland—Very Secret. From Hand to Hand Only’. Drawn up by Captain Schröder, dated 15 March 1898.
15 II, 3–18, Letter, dated 17 June 1898, signed by Count Schlieffen, to Admiral von Knorr.
16 III, 3–18, letter, original draft with corrections, from Admiral von Knorr to Count Schlieffen, dated 13 July 1898.
17 The ultimate fate of the plan is unknown. The records of the German Army prior to 1914, which were stored in the Reichsarchiv in Potsdam until 1936, were then transferred to Berlin and, it is believed, destroyed during the Second World War. Professor Gerhard Ritter, who made use of these archives during the war while preparing his monumental history of militarism (Staatskunst und Kreigshandwerk, 2 vols., Munich, 1954 and 1960), noted several entries in the Secret Journal of the General Staff: ‘ 10.1.1899 Memorandum from Commanding Admiral of the Navy—re: War against England; 20.3.1900 Two General Staff officers sent to joint consultations on operational undertakings at sea, suggestion of Chief of Admiralty Staff’ (11, 195, n. 51). Professor Ritter, relying on a recent study of the German Admiralty by Walther Hubatsch (Hubatsch, W., Der Admiralstab und die obersten Marinebehorden in Deutschland 1848–1945, FrankfurtlMain, 1958),Google Scholar suggeststhat these discussions were occasioned by naval plans for offensive striking attacks in the North Sea. Hubatsch would seem not to have known of the existence of the plan either. He writes of a plan against France which involved a strike at Le Havre by sea but seems to have confused correspondence with reg ard to the amphibious operations against Holland and Belgium with a separate study for naval support in a war against France alone (Hubatsch, Ibid. 91). Hubatsch is certainly confusing the two plans when he argues that one reason for the abandonment of offensive operations against France was the lack of shipping space for the transportation of three Army Corps. There is nothing in his account to explain why a naval operation alone against the coast of France should have been dropped because troop transport space was not available.
18 Gatzke, Hans W., Germany's Drive to the West (Baltimore, 1950), 8.Google Scholar
19 Dehio, Ludwig, Deutschland und die Weltpolitik im 20. Jahrhundert (Ausgabe, Fischer, Frankfurt, , 1961), chapter 3, pp. 63 ff.Google Scholar
20 Ibid. 83.
21 Ritter, Gerhard, The Schlieffen Plan—Critique of a Myth (London, 1958), 8.Google Scholar
22 Ritter, Gerhard, Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk (2 vols., Munich, 1954 and 1960), II 240.Google Scholar
23 Ritter, op. cit., n, 246.
24 I cannot understand how plans which forced Germany to strike the first blow, a foul one at that, and which staked everything on one risky manoeuvre can be regarded as manifestations of optimism. Surely, Professor Ritter's own evidence belies this argument. When Germany really was militarily vastly superior to its enemies, as in the days of the elder Moltke, Germany's strategy was calm and defensive. Both Schlieffen and the younger Moltke were essentially pessimists, and the Schlieffen plan was a counsel of despair. For Moltke's acute pessimism see Generaloberst Helmuth von Moltke, Erinnerungen, Briefe, Dokumente (Stuttgart, 1922), 153, 243, 288, 298, 301, 304 ff., 337; for Schlieffen's gloomy estimate of Germany's chances, see Gerhard Ritter, The Schlieffen Plan—Critique of a Myth, foreword by B. Liddell Hart, p. 100, in which Professor Ritter quotes the following passage from Schlieffen's Der Krieg in der Gegenwart: ‘ An endeavour is afoot to bring all these Powers together for a concentrated attack on the Central Powers. At the given moment, the drawbridges are to be let down, the doors are to be opened and the million strong armies let loose, ravaging and destroying, across the Vosges, the Meuse, the Konigsan, the Niemen, the Bug and even the Isonzo and the Tyrolean Alps. The danger seems gigantic’ Schlieffen's writings are filled with an almost paranoid preoccupation with’ the revengeful enemy’ waiting ‘ in his lair for the best moment to break out. Attack is the best defence’ (Schlieffen, , Gesammelte Schriften, I, 18).Google Scholar
25 Ritter, op. cit. 247.
26 Bogdan, Cf. Count Hutten-Czapski, Sechzig Jahre Politik und Gesellschaft (2 vols., Berlin, 1935-6).Google Scholar Hutten-Czapski, who was Hohenlohe's private secretary, describes a dinner at which Schlieffen outlined his plan to Hohenlohe, as well as a meeting with Holstein in which, at Schlieffen's request, Hutten-Czapski outlined the plan to violate Belgian neutrality (PP- 371 ff-). A note on one of Schlieffen's later drafts of the plan indicates that it had been discussed with Bülow (Ritter, , The Schlieffen Plan, 92).Google Scholar