German military trends in a barely avoided 1914 war

I and others have suggested here and elsewhere that the days of the France first mobilisation-offensive were numbered and eventually Germany will have to face east by about 1917. I wonder what sort of motorisation would occur by then and what changes will it have on doctrine/theory and in practice? Would the idea of a turn to the east cause an acceleration of motorisation over the trends established up to 1914 or so?
 
Germany will definitely conscript a higher percentage of men than previously (I believe they had been at about 50% vs France's 80%). Even the SPD and the Junkers had accepted the need for this by 1913.

Do not expect them to conscript everything with two eyes and two feet, as the French did. Prewar, the Germans were well aware that their smaller numbers permitted better training and a greater scale of issue for supporting arms.

They will take in more men, but not so many that they cannot continue these advantages.

Navy funding will have to stay low for a while to free up money for the Army.
 

Deleted member 1487

Germany will definitely conscript a higher percentage of men than previously (I believe they had been at about 50% vs France's 80%). Even the SPD and the Junkers had accepted the need for this by 1913.

Do not expect them to conscript everything with two eyes and two feet, as the French did. Prewar, the Germans were well aware that their smaller numbers permitted better training and a greater scale of issue for supporting arms.

They will take in more men, but not so many that they cannot continue these advantages.

Navy funding will have to stay low for a while to free up money for the Army.
Part of the problem was the impact of urban poverty on the health of potential conscripts; the German army had a limited pool because they were unwilling to compromise physical fitness standards with recruits; if they start making social spending a priority to get better human potential out of their manpower base due to less problems of childhood human, communicable diseases, and lack of access to non-urban environments to maximize exposure to sunlight and vitamin D (all Nazi priorities in addition to Hitler Youth training because of the need to maximize potential soldiers from their population of young boys) they'd get more potential soldiers out of their conscript pool. There had been some moves in the direction of all of that above with various nationalistic youth movements that were similar to the US boy scouts and the British version of that pre-1914 and with SPD policies to make the lives of the poor better, so if the army gets behind that as a move to improve the army's pool of recruitable conscripts they'd be able to maximize the number of each age cohort with military training.

It would probably help in the long run too to sanction the breakup of A-H to be able to impose Prussian efficiency on the Austrian Germans and modernize Austrian and Czech industry, while outsourcing the Balkans issues to the Hungarians, who would then be responsible for their own defense spending and would be unable to scrimp on that anymore.
 
Whats the go with naval funding and the navy? I understand that in late 1912 Germany decided to throw its cash at the army, which is where the extra 135,000 men came from amongst other ther things. How uch did the navy budget drop in 1913-14 as a result? IIUC they still built the Baden and Bayern and had other ships on the stocks and even their oldest dreadnoughts were only 10 years old, so I can't imagine they will quickly drop into obscurity. I think they'd still have what would be considered a big budget and a lot of resources in world terms, but without WW1 would the US undertake its huge 1916 building programme and what would the relative power rankings look like?
 

Deleted member 1487

Whats the go with naval funding and the navy? I understand that in late 1912 Germany decided to throw its cash at the army, which is where the extra 135,000 men came from amongst other ther things. How uch did the navy budget drop in 1913-14 as a result? IIUC they still built the Baden and Bayern and had other ships on the stocks and even their oldest dreadnoughts were only 10 years old, so I can't imagine they will quickly drop into obscurity. I think they'd still have what would be considered a big budget and a lot of resources in world terms, but without WW1 would the US undertake its huge 1916 building programme and what would the relative power rankings look like?
I think it was more a matter of the funding staying the same, but the naval laws expiring, which allowed for special levees of loans to pay for increased ships. Without new naval laws they just had enough to replace their existing fleet over time to keep it modern:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Naval_Laws

Plus tensions with Britain were dropping off and once the Anglo-Russian treaty wasn't renewed in 1915 Britain and Germany would probably start drifting together to counter the Russia army buildup initiated in 1914 and to be completed in 1917. So there is no need for new naval funding and Germany had more than enough navy to counter both the French and Russians at the same time. They needed major new funding for the army, forts, and air force which was supposed to be coming in probably every few years, but expanding the army was out of the question after the 1912-13 expansion due to the lack of horses to have more standing corps. So they'd need to make motorization more of a thing to get around the horse issue...that and increased mechanization of agriculture to free up manpower and horses.
 
So the navy will maintain a big, modern fleet out of the regular naval budget and of course there is alway the option in terms of money and industry to have another building spurt if the political situation demands it. The horse thing is a good point, motorisation could amerliorate that and I'd guess that that would become apparent in 1914-15 leading to bigger orders for trucks and maybe armoured cars and artillery tractors.

WW1 showed that an Army (Corps whatever) could operate up to 100 miles from the railhead with horse transport, so how much motorisation is required to operate at 150 miles or 200 miles? Once this threshold is reached will the srategy change? Perhaps for example the Germans could motorise 1st and 2nd Armies, deploy them to the east and give them objectives deeper than conventional wisdom believes possible. That could be the German edge, getting deep into Poland and disrupting Russian mobilisation. Just throwing it out there, feel free to object.
 

Deleted member 1487

So the navy will maintain a big, modern fleet out of the regular naval budget and of course there is alway the option in terms of money and industry to have another building spurt if the political situation demands it. The horse thing is a good point, motorisation could amerliorate that and I'd guess that that would become apparent in 1914-15 leading to bigger orders for trucks and maybe armoured cars and artillery tractors.

WW1 showed that an Army (Corps whatever) could operate up to 100 miles from the railhead with horse transport, so how much motorisation is required to operate at 150 miles or 200 miles? Once this threshold is reached will the srategy change? Perhaps for example the Germans could motorise 1st and 2nd Armies, deploy them to the east and give them objectives deeper than conventional wisdom believes possible. That could be the German edge, getting deep into Poland and disrupting Russian mobilisation. Just throwing it out there, feel free to object.
AFAIK it was 50 miles with horse transport, 100 miles or more with truck.

Motorized armies aren't likely going to be able to disrupt mobilization with Russian forts in the way, likely that task with go to the air force. I think the cavalry will evolve into a motorized and armored car formation like the French cavalry of WW2 and they were already on that way in 1914, as the Jager units attached to cavalry divisions were motorized.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Motorization (if the dicision, as a sensible one due to the horse situation, would be made) ... keeping in mind the cross-country capabilities of trucks at that time I would assume they would start as it was done later by the Wehrmacht (for other reasons in that way) : first the trains on divisional, then regimental level.

The motorization on tactical levels ... would need some/some more/ testing first, before being accepted by the generals (well, given the Kaisers fandom to technical newities, maybe faster ... ?).
 
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