I was watching a programme about Tannenburg, the commentator was giving a synopsis of Hindenburgs military career, he commented that Schlieffen had been due to retire in 1904, and that Hindenburg had been due to replace Schlieffen. However beating the Kaiser in a war game prevented this. Is this nonsense or is there some truth to it. I cant find anything backing the assertion up.
If its true then it begs the
What if Hindenburg had replaced Schlieffen, as i understand it, he was sympathetic to the defend against France and defeat Russia first strategy.
No, its not true. Hindenburg has his troubles with the Kaiser for sure. He was against the farcical maneuvers that let the Kaiser see his soldiers parade around and run cavalry charges instead of actually training the soldiers in tactics. Hindenburg got himself in trouble for that when he spoke up about it.
Now Schlieffen specifically selected his adjunct as his replacement because he trusted in his abilities. The Kaiser also liked Moltke and his heritage was a big plus. So far I haven't heard anything about Hindenburg ever being considered for Schlieffen's position though. Hindenburg was senior enough before retiring, so its not inconceivable that he could have been talked about at some point.
Nothing would have changed in Hindenburg took over after Schlieffen, because Hindenburg was for knocking France out first. Once that failed (and he took over Eastern command...) he became and Easterner. Once in that position he felt that he and his command should get priority, because he was a media whore. He wanted attention and deliberately cultivated the media to build up his stature for later promotions. As a result he had little knowledge of what was going on in the West and simply felt that he, where ever he was stationed, should be the Schwerpunkt. Had he been in overall command, he would have remained an Westerner, as nearly all the General Staff did historically, both under Moltke and Falkenhayn. It was obvious that was the center of the Entente power was located, France was vulnerable, and Russia was not going to collapse easily.