Why is Germany so powerful?

I disagree.

In 1870/71, the key to prussian-german victory was not diplomacy but the fact that Prussia had much better logistics and enjoyed the benefits of national conscription that gave it more trained soldiers.

At the beginning of the conflict, Germany had twice as many soldiers as France : 500.000 against 265.000. After general mobilization was completed, Germany had 1.2 million men under arms, while France had 900.000.
And Germany enjoyed a railroad network that allowed it to bring quickly fresh reinforcements on the battlefront. While France did not yet.

That was the key to prussian-german victory in 1870/71.

Germany had more troops and better logistics precisely because France had no allies and Germany could direct its resources on a single front. Not a coincidence that when it had to divide its resources in WWI and WWII it lost.

And if Germany triggered WWI, it was not completely irrational. Germany did so, while it already was number one power on the continent, because it calculated that Russia was growing and modernizing so fast and that Austria-Hungary was fragile, that the balance of powers would shift to the benefit of the Entente in the future.
And who created the conditions that led to the Entente? Germany launched a futlie naval arms that alienated Great Britain and pushed them towards France. Thye had treaties with Russia and chose to abandon them. Willhemine Germany was the architect of it's own misfortune.

History suggests that post-Bismarck Germany was economically, industrially and militarily powerful, but diplomatically and stratefically ill led and run.

Post 1871 war with France, there was no need for an aggressive German foreign policy, naval race with Britain, nor their silly race for empire in Africa/Asia. One can almost envision German industrialists pleading with the Kaiser to be left to dominate Europe through economic power, without need for aggressive militarism.

Russia and Great Britain were essentially zero threat to Germany. France might have wanted revenge for 1871 but in the absence of allies that wouldn't have gotten anywhere. In both world wars a cadre of people with a desire for 'empire' and 'glory' led Germany to disaster.
 
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Germany had more troops and better logistics precisely because France had no allies and Germany could direct its resources on a single front. Not a coincidence that when it had to divide its resources in WWI and WWII it lost.

And who created the conditions that led to the Entente? Germany launched a futlie naval arms that alienated Great Britain and pushed them towards France. Thye had treaties with Russia and chose to abandon them. Willhemine Germany was the architect of it's own misfortune.



Russia and Great Britain were essentially zero threat to Germany. France might have wanted revenge for 1871 but in the absence of allies that wouldn't have gotten anywhere. In both world wars a cadre of people with a desire for 'empire' and 'glory' led Germany to disaster.

You are playing with words and dialectics in order to deny facts. Having allies just could have counterbalanced the technical and numerical french inferiority, although the 2 countries had the same population (around 35 million people).
 
You are playing with words and dialectics in order to deny facts. Having allies just could have counterbalanced the technical and numerical french inferiority, although the 2 countries had the same population (around 35 million people).

Which is exactly my point? It was the diplomatic isolation of France that allowed the Germans to concentrate forces that were superior to the French army in the field. No need to send troops to defend the East, no British or other foreign troops coming in to strengthen the French. Bismarck understood that Germany needed to fight one war on one front, a lesson his successors ignored to their cost.
 
Impressive martial tradition? The German army of 1914 had a strategy in the West that depended on four things:

The Russians mobilizing slowly enough that they could crush the French first.

The British either staying out or not being able to react in time to make a difference.

The Belgians essentially getting out of the way, civilians and military alike and letting the Germans march through their country.

That an army with large element of reservists could maintain the kind of pace over a number days that a few elite regiments could on a route march.

It wasn't bad luck that the Schleifen Plan failed, it had so many potential failure points that it wa almost bound to fail, and in fact all of the above failed.

Verdun was a bad plan retconned as an attritional battle.

The Kaiserschlacht of 1918 was a mess, it ran out of steam early on and rather than admitting failure the German High Command just threw troops at any part of the front where they seemed to be advancing, regardless of whether the advance had any strategic value or not. As has been suggested in other threads it was the WWI equivalent of the 'Battle of the Bulge', overambitious and ultimately serving to leave the German army in a precarious position having expended irreplacable resources.

Oh and if you look at 1871 the key to German victory was the diplomacy that left France without any allies to call on, Bismarck must have been spinning in his grave given the bunglers who succeeded him.

Above all this is the fact that both WWI and WWII simply served to delay the rise of Germany as the dominant power in continental Europe, its economic dominance would have emerged decades earlier but for the decimation of its infrastructure in the two wars.
To be fair, as I recall the Schlieffen Plans conditions for success also depended on Italian troops tying down French troops during the initial German offensive (which was very successful) and Austria-Hungary being able to hold back Russia if they'd mobilized before France surrendered. Neither happened. Germany was fignting two major continental powers so their plans with a major advantage in resources and manpower.
 
The only relevant comparison to Napoleon is that when leaders political actions result in war aims that are unachievable they usually fail.

Napoleon could actually call on support for the ideas of the French Revolution. People didn't like living under feudalism, and France's ability to use the levee on mass is what gave it the fighting strength to take on the coalitions and their private armies. They could also rely on some support in defeated powers because of the promise of reform.

When Napoleon got it into his head that he was Emperor of Europe he started doing stupid things like shoving his values down Spains throat and trying to invade Russia. Many of the soldiers he used to invade Russia weren't French, but German. He spent their lives on a doomed enterprise to enhance his own glory and power...kind of like the feudal kings the revolution was supposed to get rid of. It was the fighting in Germany in 1813 that really put an end to Napoleon, and it was because he had lost the heart of his German allies by wasting their lives in Russia.

In WWI and WWII German leadership similarly engaged in political actions that put the German nation in an uphill battle with near impossible objectives that quite frankly didn't make much sense.

By contrast in the Franco-Prussian war Bismarck brilliantly got another hot headed Napoleon to invade with no allies against a country that was stronger then his and to unite all of Germany against this second aggression by imperial France.
1) Napoleon had wide support from the French, was later brought back, was buried with honor and they even supported his nephew.

2) Or Polish, Italian, Portuguese, Croatian etcetera.


3) Napoleon was often the victim of agression. French didn't start most of those wars. They had a part in it, but more often then not they were the ones being attacked.


4) I also wouldn't say Russia was stronger than Napoleonic France. I'd say they had a better plan though, and French victories had made them arrogant. They had the victory disease.
 
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