1906
“A General European War of murder, a massacre whose horror can only make one shudder to think… It will be a People’s War that cannot be won in one decisive battle but will turn into a long, difficult, painful struggle.” -Helmut von Moltke 1905 on the nature of the next war.
January 1st, Helmut von Moltke nephew of the Helmut von Moltke Chief of the Great General Staff from the German Wars of Unification succeeds Schlieffen as Chief of the Great General Staff.
April, Heads of STAVKA and Conseil supérieur de la Guerre holds the first of annual summer meetings to coordinate cooperation and planning between French and Russian militaries.
April 7th, Algeciras conference on Morocco ends and it is clear that Germany has suffered a major diplomatic defeat and is in fact largely isolated.
Spring, Eulenburg scandal rocks Germany
POD
June, Summer Staff ride, Moltke does two runs of a campaign vs. France. The first sends the entire army except 10 divisions in a great wheel through Belgium; the remaining 10 divisions plus 10 Italian Divisions hold the line in Elsaß-Lothringen. The result was a German victory if just. The second test of the campaign has Moltke removing 10 divisions from the right wing to reinforce either the left wing in Elsaß-Lothringen to cover Italy not honoring its alliance or to defend in the East vs. Russia. The result is a stalling of the German attack and it then being driven back when 50 Battalions of a British Expeditionary Force and 66 French Battalions of the Garrisons of Paris and Northern Coasts join the battle at D + 35. A number question the assumptions that the second staff ride operated under.
June 5, Third Naval Law passed, number of large cruisers for Foreign Service increased by 5 ships, Material Reserve by 1 ship.
June 6, Beginning of discussions between Britain and Russian on reducing tensions between the two nations.
Summer, Engineering and Fortress Intelligence Section of German General Staff presents a report to Moltke that current French and Belgian forts can only be defeated by 12” siege mortars; of which the army has only six and the new forts being built in France are immune to the siege mortars.
August, Moltke asks for increased funding for training, expanded support services and more artillery in particular guns heavy enough to defeat the new French forts. War Minister Karl von Einem rejects most of the requests as the army is already engaged in a replacement of all uniforms with Feldgrau and new field artillery to be finished in 1907. All Moltke gets is the funding for increased training at this time with a vague promise to work on support increases as the budget allows. Krupp is asked to work on a 420mm siege mortar at its own cost.
Autumn, Annual maneuvers held for the army. Moltke returns to the issue of breaching French defenses in the west and orders the umpires to lean towards the defenders. The result is a fiasco with the attacker formations shredded by machinegun and dug in artillery fire. The aftermath has Moltke in internal memoranda beginning to question the ability of the war plan to work. A number of army officers including Moltke start to suggest a Russia first option as the main war plan; a return to the school of thought form the 1880’s and 1890’s. Soon fierce battles are being waged in military journals and in private between pro-west and pro-east factions of the army; in time Schlieffen writing under a pseudonym enters the fray.
December 2nd, HMS Dreadnought enters service
1907
“…In the coming century the German people will be a hammer or an anvil.” - Bernhard von Bülow 1899 to conclude a speech before the Reichstag
January 1, Eyre Crowe's (British Foreign Office) memorandum on English interest in preserving balance of power and joining 2nd most powerful country in Europe (France); comments on German foreign policy and confrontation possible. HMS Temeraire laid down at royal dockyard, Devonport.
January 25, Reichstag elections
Party Seats
Centre Party 105
German Conservative Party 60
National Liberal Party 54
Social Democratic Party of Germany 43
Freeminded People's Party 28
Deutsche Reichspartei 24
Polish regionalist 20
Anti-Semites 16
Freeminded Union 14
Farmers 8
Alsatian regionalists 7
German People's Party 7
Economy Party 5
Other 3
German-Hanoverian Party 1
Bavarian Peasants' League 1
Danish Regionalists 1
Total 397
February 6, HMS Superb laid down at Armstrong, Elswick.
February, Russian Second Duma meets for the first time
April, Eulenberg scandal spreads, Hardin accuses three of the Kaiser's aides-de-camp of homosexuality
May, Duma dissolved by the Tsar
June 1, SMS Rheinland laid down at Vulcan Stettin
June 15, Second Hague Peace Conference Opens. Summer staff ride in Germany see’s Moltke consider an offensive into Congress Poland. Many issues need to be considered but for right now considering the state of the Russian army it is expected to consist of little or than an occupation. Moltke writes a letter to Conrad von Hötzendorf to reopen joint staff talks dormant since the late 1890’s.
June, summer maneuvers in France leave many unhappy at the state of the troops. Ever since the two year army service law was passed in 1904 many have felt that the troops are just not receiving enough training to make them into proper soldiers. A number of junior officers lash out in print at what they view as socialist anti-military restrictions on the army.
July 22, SMS Nassau laid down at Howaldtswerke Kiel
July 30, Russo-Japanese War ends; Russia begins focusing on Balkans instead of Far East for influence peddling
August 12, SMS Westfalen laid down at Weser Danzig
August, the Grand Maneuvers are held for the Italian Army, many foreign observers report upon an exceptionally low standard of drill and discipline in the Italian troops, fouling of weapons by allowing dirt in the barrel and breach, almost no existent fire training, poor discipline, highly unimaginative maneuvers and repeated cases of formations getting lost very quickly. A debate among observers as to whether the Italian or Russian army is the worst major army in Europe, as the 1907 British Army handbook on the Russian army neatly puts it, the officer corps was made of the nations rejects, its NCO’s uneducated and inadequate and the common soldiers while hardy are insubordinate.
August 31, Anglo-Russian Entente; agreement over Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet
October, fall maneuver in Germany sees one of the two corps use Linear tactics and the results are such that even the Kaiser called the display abysmal. This reinforces the view in France that the German army while highly disciplined is ridged and overly focused on old tactics and massed cavalry charges; especially when the Kaiser takes the field with his favorite arm the cavalry. The debate over open order tactics vs. linear is reignited once more.
October 23, Trial of Hardin (Moltke-Hardin trial) for libel begins in Berlin (dropped on technicality); Kaiser upset by trial and implications
November 11, Kaiser reluctantly visits England during Eulenberg scandal and interviewed by Haldane of the Daily Telegraph.