No Schlieffen Plan

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Thankyou for an intelligent and cogent response and the reference.

The reference however is an an assertion of the author's opinion (or possibly that of his source, a historian) not a court judgement, Law or legal opinion.

Something is not illegal just because an academic thinks it is.

Slightly earlier he notes that the doctrine of continuous voyage and what constitutes contraband would always be (and will always be) subject to interminable dispute.

There were at the time only two relevant jurisdictions as to what or was not legal - relevant in that their opinion would have carried weight with the belligerent powers. One is a UK admiralty court the other is a US court.

http://www.americanforeignrelations...eas-World-war-i-a-critical-turning-point.html

has a readable summary of the US and British practice.

The key issues are:

that what the UK did was no more than accepted practice in time of war and specifically had been accepted by US courts during the ACW, after the UK had sued in them.

that the US accepted the UK actions were reasonable.
Thank you, for your equally informed and rational response.

I still think that Hobbes has a point there, though.

First of all, what is legal or not is determined by the law as it is either written or practiced by the courts. If there is written law it is the primary source of what is legal or illegal. A court can make an illegal decision that is a decision which is not according to the law it apllied or had to apply but did not.

Of course, law has the problem that it is based on language as medium. And language as a system suffers from a high variety and a low redundancy (in contrast to eg mathematics, which in turn shows a high redundancy and a low variety). That means that it is in part open to interpretation.

That the blockade was illegal is clear if you look at the Declaration of Paris.
2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war;
3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under enemy's flag;
Interpreting this text is not that difficult. Obviously there exist goods, which are not contrabands, otherwise there would be no need to make an exception for them. Furthermore they are an exception to the rule. That means that any list of contrabands which would include all or almost all goods (especially things like foodstuff) are not in line with this treaty which was signed and ratified by the UK.

4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective, that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.
Since the UK employed a far blockade it was not "effective" as defined by this treaty. Therefore a near blockade had to be in effect.

There are other violations of international law, for example, Hague XI, Art. 1 and 2 considering the immunity of postal correspondence, which were committed by the RN.

Whether a US or UK court has decided that this would be legal does not have any impact on its legality. The UK was able to commit these violations of international law, because the US backed them and in the end favoured them over Germany, something your article states, too. It was a clear and simple case of "might makes right".

I doubt that the illegality of the British blockade is seriously disputed. So far I have never come across a source disputing that. But I will look it up and consider legal opinions on the matter, not only those of historians. I admit that international law is not my strongest suit, I am a private lawyer.

Edit: BlondieBC was quicker.
@BlondieBC: I would argue that a neutral France is more realistic than a neutral Russia, if there is not a considerable divergence in events prior to the declaration of war.

Kind regards,
G.
 
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BlondieBC

Banned
If the Germans do succeed in knocking France out as planned early in the war most of the German forces committed to the OTL Sclieffen plan (most likely the same forces are committed to our variant Alsace Lorraine plan) can, in the event of a decive German win, be transferred too the East. In OTL and even with the forces deployed against Russia the Germans astill won by 1917 and imposed the Ttrewaty of Brest Litovsk. If the Central Powers knocked France and Britain out of World War 1 in the summer/early autumn of 1914 the chances of an earlier victory against Russia have dramatically increased. And, without the Western Front no need for the Germans to transfer the Eastern Front forces to France and Italy as they did in OTL 1917 - 18 as with France and probably Britain knocked out of the war in 1914 and Russia defeated in sometime between 1515 and 1916 the war would be over, The Turks don't get involved, the Austrians stom Serbia as they did in 1915 ad the Roumanians do the sensible thing (keep out iof it. End result the Hapsburg Empire continues to stagger on as it had since 1866 under effective German domination. Germany expands East taking control of Poland and parts of Russia itserlf, Russia ends up with an eary Russian Revolution and civil war but does not dare try anything of what was tried in 1920. Kaiseer Wilhelm II would today be remembered as a great German Empieror who set the stage for the greater German Empire extending into what was once Poland and parts of Western Russia. A defeated and humiliated France plots towards the next watr much as she did after 1870. The Entente Cordiale breaks up. Britain, though on the losing side. managed to get the BEF (which hardly fired a shot) away and reached a setlement weith the Germans. The British Empire continues and, without the stresses placed upon it by the two world wars ogf OTL probably lasts much longer than it did and probably still exists in some form in 2012.

Even the most optimistic TL on the France in 1914 does not knocked them out of the war. Look at Wiking TL on this matter. In fact, if we take both of Wiking's TL (his Western Front one and Conrad turns east), the war does not end within a year.

And while Germany is more able to conduct SeaLion in WW1 than WW2, it would require at a minimum knocking France and Russia out of the war and decisively defeating the RN. I do believe Germany can drive the UK to the peace table, but it will be through a AMC/U-boat campaign combine with issue in Ireland and potential issues in the rest of the Empire combined with financial issues.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Russia on the other hand threatened Austria-Hungary, which was Germany's most reliable and strongest ally. That was one reason why Germany's leadership was willing to go to war for the sake of Austria-Hungary. Furthermore Russia's rapidly developing railway system and its equally fast armament program were a real threat to German military security. Estimates of the GGS showed that Russia could crush Germany alone in 1916. In 1914 it was already a formidable foe. Another reason why part of the German leadership wished a quick war with Russia - to defeat it decisively as long as they still could.

You seem to be citing a specific source. What is it?

Now yes, Germany if they made not changes would be in a world of hurt in a 1920 war, but these issues make the changes likely. Somethings that would be easy to change.

1) Less belligerence diplomacy.

2) Germany could afford 10 not 8 armies.

3) They would have switched War Plans. We are looking at 4 armies in the west, and 4-6 in the east.

4) A-H was rapidly modernizing their military.

5) France would go for 3 back to 2 years conscription.

So, while it would be an unpleasant thought of a long war after 1916/17, it is not certain Germany would lose WW1 fought a few years later than OTL.

The reason for a change in the war plans had nothing to do with France being the "stronger" enemy or the "main" enemy. They were based on the following assessments:
1. To fight a successful war it must be a quick war.
2. A quick victory cannot be achieved against Russia.
3. The only chance to achieve a quick victory is to attack France first as strongly as possible.

As you can see the reason for attacking France first was that it was seen as the weaker enemy. These assessments are in and of themselves true. The problem was that the chance of a qick victory even against France was very low. A study of the GGS from May 1910 showed that even if anything was to go according to plan - something which is already very unlikely - than the Germans would still face considerable difficulties in securing the victory. That means that the GGS bet knowingly on a very slim chance of a quick victory. they took that risk instead of preparing for a prolonged war properly. Moltke the Younger of course knew of the risk he was taking, therefore he modified the Schlieffen-plan to leave the Netherlands unscathed as a "breathing pipe" in case of a prolonged war and a British blockade.

We I see the Germans actions, I think of the KUBA I was taught in school. Know, Understand, Believe, Act. Often people know the correct answer, the understand the likely consequences, and the don't action because they don't believe for emotional reason. Germany's leaders were much like a drunk driver. A DD knows how getting drunk works. Germans knew it would likely not be short war. A DD understands he can ruin his life. The German GHQ understood a war could break the back of Germany, I seems like the prewar literature uses words like "unthinkable". But both a DD and German GHQ did not believe the bad things would happen to them. It is as much emotional as logical.

I did a lot of reading on prewar literature in the last year. If one reads writings of people in power, they tend to have this "we will be ok" rationalization. If I read works of non-military men or military men out of power, they tend to have a much more realistic assessment. Cpt Mahan clearly outlines how the major powers break (Italy/UK), I don't remember him getting into Ottomans, but he can't accept the Law of naval warfare will be ignored. I found a book by a German civilian writer that clearly explains that as soon as the war gets "serious" (war of national survival), all sides will ignore the rules. You can find works around the German planning, the clearly understood a long war was likely, but neither prepared for it or tried to make the diplomacy more peaceful. Germany lack a food rationing plan, studies on how to procure war materials past the first few months, the conscription plan took too many skilled workers from important war industries, etc. The list of easy things to change would go on for pages.
 
@BloddieBC: I agree with what you are saying there.

I do not remeber the specific source, I have read so much on the topic. But I think most of this you will find in [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Stevenson, David, [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Armaments and the Coming of War in Europe[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif], Clarendon Press Oxford 1996 and Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War, Cambridge University Press, 2001. I can look specific pages up for you.

Here are parts of what I used as research material for my TL (a lot of these secondary sources are farely well referenced with primary sources - some of them are German):
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Afflerbach, Holger, [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Kaiser Wilhelm II. als Oberster Kriegsherr im Ersten Weltkrieg[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif], R. Oldenbourg Verlag München 2005.[/FONT]
Brose, The Kaiser's Army, Oxford University Press 2004.
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Burchardt[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif], Lothar, [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Friedenswirtschaft und Kriegsvorsorge[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif], Harald Boldt Verlag Boppard am Rhein 1968.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Fischer, Jörg-Uwe, [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Admiral des Kaisers[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif], Verlag Peter Lang Frankfurt am Main 1992.
[/FONT]Foley, German strategy and the path to Verdun, Cambridge 2005. (according to rast poorly researched).
Förster, Stig, Der deutsche Generalstab und die Illusionen des kurzen Krieges, 1871 – 1914, Metakritik eines Mythos, in: Burkhardt/Becker/Förster/Kronenbitter, Lange und kurze Wege in den Ersten Weltkrieg, pp. 115 – 158, Verlag Ernst Vögel München 1996.
Guth, Ekkehart P., Lyncker, Moriz Freiherr von,in: Neue Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 15, Duncker & Humblodt Berlin 1987.
Hamilton/Herwig, War planning in 1914, Cambridge 2010
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Stein, Oliver, [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Die deutsche Heeresrüstungspolitik 1890 – 1914[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, sans-serif], Ferdinand Schöningh Paderborn 2007.[/FONT]

One of the best books on the subject in English are still Stevenson and Mombauer. Stig Förster also has a lot of good essays in English.

There were actually a lot of people who were quite depressed at that time and feared the war. It was kind of a cult of fatality. Oh well, we are doomed anyway, let's go down - let's bet everything on one card. Also recently historians have begun to acknowledge the strong influence of very personal relationships on decisions of leading personalities, eg the death of the wife of Bethmann Hollweg, Conrad von Hötzendorf's interest in a specific woman etc. A fascinating subject.

Here is my take for a TL where they act not as drunken drivers all the way through, sadly still on hiatus.

Kind regards,
G.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
@BloddieBC: I agree with what you are saying there.


One of the best books on the subject in English are still Stevenson and Mombauer. Stig Förster also has a lot of good essays in English.

There were actually a lot of people who were quite depressed at that time and feared the war. It was kind of a cult of fatality. Oh well, we are doomed anyway, let's go down - let's bet everything on one card. Also recently historians have begun to acknowledge the strong influence of very personal relationships on decisions of leading personalities, eg the death of the wife of Bethmann Hollweg, Conrad von Hötzendorf's interest in a specific woman etc. A fascinating subject.

Here is my take for a TL where they act not as drunken drivers all the way through, sadly still on hiatus.

Kind regards,
G.

I see we did the research for out TL in different manners. I restricted myself to pre-1927 books (free on google books) and often restricted action to things I could find mentioned in 2-3 sources. It gives a different perspective on the events, you seem to be more on what was the best solution using existing leaders, and I was more trying to get into the minds of "invented leaders", so I could make very plausible decisions once the war started.

I did not see that there was much depression prewar, it was more denial. I think it is the after the war writings that change the denial into memories of depressions. Much like a tragic accidental death at the end of a vacation would change how one remembers the happier days of the vacation before the death.

I do strongly agreed that personal relationships drove decision leading up to the war. This is why I concluded simply replacing the senior admiral in charge of the U-boats would result in vastly different tactics and building programs, even with very modest budget changes.
 
No. Just......no. This is not the 1870s. The armies are much larger, the rifles far more accurate, the artillery more powerful and more effective, everyone has machine guns, and the logistics of armies has bloated far more from the 1870s. The French of 1914 are not those of 1870, here Germany is cramming a huge amount of manpower into the kind of area where the French start providing multiple Kindermorden and Germany destroys its own military power and provides a means for Russia and France to win their war circa 1916, assuming it doesn't ultimately decide to invade Belgium after all when this proves to be a disaster.



Because 1870 is not 1914. In 1914 all the armies everywhere are much larger than they were in 1870. Artillery is far more sophisticated than it was in 1870, in terms of the types of arms, their reach, and their lethality. Rifles are more accurate, more lethal, tend to fire smokeless powder, all the armies have huge quantities of reserves. The Germans aren't facing an army as in 1870 deeply divided among itself and with the civilian leadership, they're facing a large modern army that was able to outlast them in will in for instance Verdun. Germany can't ram an army that size into the Alsace-Lorraine forts, while in this case the bloodshed here will keep the Germans from reinforcing the East, which at least potentially helps Samsonov and Rennenkampf.

And with those much larger armies, more sophisticated artillery (though in 1914 not that much better than in 1870 thoough longer ranged I will grant) the Germans IOTL convineingly won the Battle of the Frontiers and roke the attempted French offensive with only a portion of the forces available in the West.

Now let us suppose that, insteadof goingthroughBelgium the German plan is to do something similar to their 1870 plan striking through Asace Lorraine n the same sector asd the French are implementing their own offensive. So both sides have a head on meeting egagement similar to the OTL Battle of the Frontiers, But the other key difference is that, whiwithout the invasion of Belgium which Britain was gaurunteed to go to war to protect. While the Entente Cordiale existed and while staff talks had been undertaken since the 1905 Morroccan Crisis there would have been no reason for Britain to enter the war in July/August 1914. So either no BEF deployment to France at this stage and, even if Briain does declare war on Germany (less likely considering the political opposition to entering the war) there is o BEF deployment orat least a severely delayed deployment

So let us assume, quite reasonably that Germany wins the Battle of the Frontiers but not asdecisivelly as the August 1870 battles. A badly battered French army retreats towards Paris pursued by the Germans now thrusting towards Paris. An operational encirclement of Paris and the French armies is possible. The French will still have to make a stand, perhaps on the Marne to defend Paris. If the French armies are still in disarray which they probably would be having lost the Battle of the Frontiers and during the subsequent retreat and very likely without the support of the BEF they had IOTL there is a very good chance of a German victory. That would probably result in the fall of Paris and the end of the Third Republic. The new regime might try to fight on as in 1870 but with the same result by the end of 1914 or early 1915 at the latest. And don't forget IOTL the Central Powers held on the Eastern Front and even advanced with the forces available considering the failure of the Schlieffen Plan.
 
The German counterattacks in the battle of the frontiers pushed the French back to their start line of prepared defenses, at which point the Germans were stopped cold. All a souped up Alsace Lorraine offensive will get the Germans is the exact same thing. Wading into the French fortified belt.

What you will get with this strategy is Verdun in 1914, a giant attritional bloodbath, where the Germans go nowhere fast.
 
Lawfare

On my part I have never seen anything that questioned the legality of the UK blockade in WW1 or 2 or earlier, or for that matter the US blockade of the Confederacy.

Your argument comes down to two points. What is contraband and what constitutes an effective blockade. There was in the early 1900’s a significant body of UK legal opinion that the UK was not bound by the Declaration of Paris anyway as it had never been ratified by Parliament (dubious I think but it was there).

Contraband is almost impossible to define although the 1949 Geneva convention tried to define something allowing for the free passage of medical supplies, religious objects, food, clothing and tonics for children and maternity cases which strongly suggests that prior to 1949 it was not only done but was within an acceptable definition of contraband to seize such goods as contraband of war.

The effectiveness of a blockade is as I understand it a practical definition. The bulk of shipping must be subject to being stopped, That makes the blockade legal. When that is the case the belligerent may then stop any ship and inspect it. If it contains actual or conditional contraband it can be seized without payment following legal proceedings in a ‘friendly’ to the blockader, port. That port can be in a neutral country.

You will note that the right to determine what is or is not contraband rests with the courts to which the seized ship are delivered.

I would also note that the belligerent may use force to stop a fleeing ship but must make all efforts to use less than deadly force.

In what way was the distant blockade not effective?

Incidentally the US blockade imposed immediately outside the territorial waters of British Carribean ports in the ACW with the encouragement of the UK if not specific agreement so the principle of distant blockade had been in existence for 50 years.

I would however question your assertion that my argument is might makes right. The UK could in any event stop a German (or AH or Ottoman) registered ship. The issue is stopping US or other neutral merchants. Practically this means the US merchant marine.

All of these arguments (and continuous voyage overland) were tested in US courts up to the Supreme Court after the ACW regarding the actions of UK flagged ships breaking the US blockade of the Confederacy. In the absence of any other court the national courts on matters affecting those nations matter. The fact that a third party disagrees with outcome does not superimpose their view on the parties to the case nor does it overturn the decision.

Both the UK and US in 1914 believed that the UK actions fell within the realm of legal behaviour and certainly in the case of the US believed that any remedy was to be found in the courts after hostilities ceased.

In this I am not citing specific opinion but third party definitions (which are on the ipad so a pain to transcribe happy to do so if required).
 
Thanks for the feedback

Hey Everyone,

Let me first say awesome feedback and discussion on this question. Correct me if I am wrong but it looks like to me that where one comes down on this issue ultimately boils down to your stance on these two questions.

1) Would not invading Belgium prevent/substantially delay Britain’s entry into the war?
2) Are the French forts near the German border strong enough to make a German attack impossible/ridiculously costly?

Judging by the posts so far I still believe that the UK (and therefore probably Italy) would stay out of the war at least for the short term, that is at least a year or two, had Belgium not been invaded. I can't really vouch for the French forts. Maybe they were near impregnable but something in me still thinks it would be better for the Germans to deal with the French forts than face the combined might of the British Empire, Italy, Belgium, and then later the United States. However, if you answer yes to either of these question I completely understand deciding that it would be in German’s best interests to have invaded Belgium. Cheers!
 
Hello Mac,

For myself,I have to answer both questions "yes." The second resoundingly so; the first nearly so. To attack Verdun and Toul head-on, with the cream of the French army deployed in front of them, given the technology of the time . . . you might as well feed those men into a sausage grinder. And it would run cross grains with German general staff thinking of the time, which emphasized (rightly, I think) envelopment, not frontal assault.

And if you answer both questions yes, I think that points to a profoundly different strategy than that of Schlieffen/Moltke, unless you're going to build a German Army a fair bit different than the one that existed in 1914. Which is why I lean to a Germany that would go out of its way to reach real detente with Britain in the prewar years, and put the main effort in the East if war came with the Entente.

But even that would take at least a couple years for Germany to win.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
On my part I have never seen anything that questioned the legality of the UK blockade in WW1 or 2 or earlier, or for that matter the US blockade of the Confederacy.

Your argument comes down to two points. What is contraband and what constitutes an effective blockade. There was in the early 1900’s a significant body of UK legal opinion that the UK was not bound by the Declaration of Paris anyway as it had never been ratified by Parliament (dubious I think but it was there).

Contraband is almost impossible to define although the 1949 Geneva convention tried to define something allowing for the free passage of medical supplies, religious objects, food, clothing and tonics for children and maternity cases which strongly suggests that prior to 1949 it was not only done but was within an acceptable definition of contraband to seize such goods as contraband of war.

The effectiveness of a blockade is as I understand it a practical definition. The bulk of shipping must be subject to being stopped, That makes the blockade legal. When that is the case the belligerent may then stop any ship and inspect it. If it contains actual or conditional contraband it can be seized without payment following legal proceedings in a ‘friendly’ to the blockader, port. That port can be in a neutral country.

You will note that the right to determine what is or is not contraband rests with the courts to which the seized ship are delivered.

I would also note that the belligerent may use force to stop a fleeing ship but must make all efforts to use less than deadly force.

In what way was the distant blockade not effective?

Incidentally the US blockade imposed immediately outside the territorial waters of British Carribean ports in the ACW with the encouragement of the UK if not specific agreement so the principle of distant blockade had been in existence for 50 years.

I would however question your assertion that my argument is might makes right. The UK could in any event stop a German (or AH or Ottoman) registered ship. The issue is stopping US or other neutral merchants. Practically this means the US merchant marine.

All of these arguments (and continuous voyage overland) were tested in US courts up to the Supreme Court after the ACW regarding the actions of UK flagged ships breaking the US blockade of the Confederacy. In the absence of any other court the national courts on matters affecting those nations matter. The fact that a third party disagrees with outcome does not superimpose their view on the parties to the case nor does it overturn the decision.

Both the UK and US in 1914 believed that the UK actions fell within the realm of legal behaviour and certainly in the case of the US believed that any remedy was to be found in the courts after hostilities ceased.

In this I am not citing specific opinion but third party definitions (which are on the ipad so a pain to transcribe happy to do so if required).

You should do more reading. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of books, articles, and pamphlets discussing the subject. Quite frankly, the only way you could possibly seen nothing on the subject is to have never researched the matter. You should encounter the material within the first few minutes of using google.

As to the legality of the blockade, the 1949 convention is irrelevant. It is a generation and a half in the future. On the contraband list, there were many clear violations of the classifications. Yes some items would be subject to debate, but things such as grain going to neutral country A from neutral country B on neutral shipping is not contraband under any imaginable interpretation of the rules.

The concept of close versus distant blockade was well established. Not only must the blockade be close, it must continuously be maintained during the duration of the merchant ships transit. Again, while there are things to debate, the UK is so far from the laws of war at the time as to be a joke.

BTW, Wilson protested the UK actions in formal correspondence. You can also read this online.
 
The German counterattacks in the battle of the frontiers pushed the French back to their start line of prepared defenses, at which point the Germans were stopped cold. All a souped up Alsace Lorraine offensive will get the Germans is the exact same thing. Wading into the French fortified belt.

What you will get with this strategy is Verdun in 1914, a giant attritional bloodbath, where the Germans go nowhere fast.

The problem with this is that, if the French follow their war plans they come out of their fortifications, hit the German main effort coming through Alsace Lorraine as in 1870 (the only real alternative to the Schlieffen Plan. The French, just like in OTL will be retreating in disarray having been badly beaten. You think the French can rally on their fortifications under these circumstances. Depending ibn the extent of their defeat and the resulting disorganisation this might be difficult. It could well be that the Germans actually break through a disorganised French defence line reulting in a more demoralised and disorganied French defence. Next defensive position will most likely br the Marne as in OTL. The French would have to stop the German advance here or lose Paris and with it most likely the war.
 
They did rally on their fortifications in OTL. And the fort troops were never committed to the offensive. Unlike in Fall Gelb, the French had lots of reserves handy. they were later pulled out to reform the line on the Marne.

The French attack OTL was into Germans in prepared defenses. The OP is postulating the germans come out to play too. In 1914 German attack doctrine was about the same effectiveness as everyone elses, as evidenced by the fact that every time they attacked too, they suffered heavy casualties in doing so. In a meeting engagement, the result will be much more like those in OTL that occured in the west like the battle of Albert or others. The French and Germans smash each other in the face, go nowhere, and then try to go around. Except in Alsace there is no where to go.

And without the hook through Belgium, the French have 2 spare armies in reserve that are untouched, and the advantage of rail to get them there.

There are too many men, in too small a space to go anywhere. Even if the germans "win". They will be so wrecked by their victory they won't be advancing far.
 
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