WI: Alternate German Chief of the General Staff?

On the retirement of Alfred von Schlieffen, Quartermaster-General Helmuth von Moltke became Chief of the General Staff. Wikipedia provides this:
In 1904 Moltke was made Quartermaster-General; in effect, Deputy Chief of the General Staff. In 1906, he became chief on the retirement of Alfred von Schlieffen. His appointment was controversial then and remains so today. The other likely candidates for the position were Hans Hartwig von Beseler, Karl von Bülow and Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz.[2]:68 Critics charge that Moltke gained the position on the strength of his name and his friendship with the Kaiser. Certainly, Moltke was far closer to the Kaiser than the other candidates. Historians argue that Beseler was too close to Schlieffen to have succeeded him, while Bülow and Goltz were too independent for Wilhelm to have accepted them. Moltke's friendship with the Kaiser permitted him a latitude that others could not have enjoyed. Goltz, at least, saw nothing wrong with Moltke's performance as Chief.[2]:71

What if Moltke had been unavailable to become Q-G in 1904, allowing one of the three men mentioned above (or perhaps someone else entirely) to become CGS after Schlieffen? How does change Germany's strategic planning and her performance in the Great War?
 
For the Imperial German Army there were to roles of importance. Chief of the Great General Staff and Minister of War.

While the General Staff drew up the war plans and lead the army in war it was the Minister of War that saw to the outfitting of the army in peace time and its budget. Schlieffen was always looking for more divisions to make his plans work but as Chief of the General Staff he had no ability to get more. Now Von der Goltz was noted military theorist and writer in particular he advocated for a much larger peace time army, economic general staff and preparation for a long drawn out war. He used phrases like war of nations / peoples.

Goltz as Minister of War might be interesting if he could push through a large increase in the size of the army and reserves.

Goltz as Chief of the General Staff would at least keep an East First option open as he advocated large forts vs France and mass concentration in the east.

Michael
 
While we're here, can someone please give me a summary of just what the "Schlieffen Plan" was supposed to have been and how it was supposed to worked? I've heard Schlieffen's "plan" was really just a mental exercise to make the case for more divisions, and was never intended to be an actual war plan. Did Moltke, or anyone, know this?
 
Zuber is leading the revisionist charge on the Schlieffen Plan. Start here and then find a more traditional history to compare it with.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008B3963U/

IMO The Germans had war plans that involved a big wheel through Belgium to get at flank of the French. The Germans mostyears had 2 to 4 war plans to choose from, in 1914 they had 1.

Michael
 

BlondieBC

Banned
While we're here, can someone please give me a summary of just what the "Schlieffen Plan" was supposed to have been and how it was supposed to worked? I've heard Schlieffen's "plan" was really just a mental exercise to make the case for more divisions, and was never intended to be an actual war plan. Did Moltke, or anyone, know this?

The Schleiffen Plan was written up initially as mental exercise. It involved a big wheeling motion via Belgium and the Netherlands to encircle the French army.

There is a separate process where the Germans write each years war plans, and the 1914 plan was about 10 revisions from the original Schlieffen Plan. It was a full war plan that used a very similar attack, but modified. For simplicity, we use the same words to describe both plans despite some big difference such as not attacking the Netherlands, actually studying the RR map, and at least 1 too many German armies defending the French/German border.

It almost worked IOTL, it would just take a little bit of effort. You have the Belgian forts fall a bit faster. The BEF arrives a bit later. The French 5th army is encircled and lost to the Germans. The Germans hold at the Marne with a slight tactical win but dig in for lack of supplies. The BEF holds Calais and some other ports but the Germans gain the channel in locations. Now to get the full impact, you need a second POD. The Austrians run War Plan Russia so the Germans can concentrate in the West. There Germans either destroy the BEF in the summer of 1915 or destroy a couple more French armies.
 
While we're here, can someone please give me a summary of just what the "Schlieffen Plan" was supposed to have been and how it was supposed to worked? I've heard Schlieffen's "plan" was really just a mental exercise to make the case for more divisions, and was never intended to be an actual war plan. Did Moltke, or anyone, know this?

Schlueffen had an idea that if 7 or 8 armies attacked France in a giant wheeling operation through Belgium and Holland av they could envelop and destroy the bulk of the French army in about 6 weeks. The concept was to inflict a crushing defeat on the French like at Sedan in 1870, and everything afterwards would be mopping up. As a memo of a concept Schleiffen used 300,000 troops that didn't exist, had no forces facing Russia or things like train schedules.

Moltke made the idea/memo into a plan that took into account the actual size of the army, the reality of defending against both Russia and the French frontier as well as other refinement such as not invading Holland. Within the limits of the time the plan was good enough and the various German armies performed and even very well. However its execution above the field army level was poor: the left wing was poorly coordinated within itself, the left wing was poorly coordinated with the right wing and neither was good with the eastern front.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Also worth mentioning that the war plan had different diplomatic assumptions such as Italy enters the war and largely assume the UK would not impact the plan. If either/both of these events had been true, the plan would have had a different outcome.
 
Zuber is leading the revisionist charge on the Schlieffen Plan. Start here and then find a more traditional history to compare it with.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008B3963U/

IMO The Germans had war plans that involved a big wheel through Belgium to get at flank of the French. The Germans mostyears had 2 to 4 war plans to choose from, in 1914 they had 1.

Michael

The Schleiffen Plan was written up initially as mental exercise. It involved a big wheeling motion via Belgium and the Netherlands to encircle the French army.

There is a separate process where the Germans write each years war plans, and the 1914 plan was about 10 revisions from the original Schlieffen Plan. It was a full war plan that used a very similar attack, but modified. For simplicity, we use the same words to describe both plans despite some big difference such as not attacking the Netherlands, actually studying the RR map, and at least 1 too many German armies defending the French/German border.

It almost worked IOTL, it would just take a little bit of effort. You have the Belgian forts fall a bit faster. The BEF arrives a bit later. The French 5th army is encircled and lost to the Germans. The Germans hold at the Marne with a slight tactical win but dig in for lack of supplies. The BEF holds Calais and some other ports but the Germans gain the channel in locations. Now to get the full impact, you need a second POD. The Austrians run War Plan Russia so the Germans can concentrate in the West. There Germans either destroy the BEF in the summer of 1915 or destroy a couple more French armies.

Schlueffen had an idea that if 7 or 8 armies attacked France in a giant wheeling operation through Belgium and Holland av they could envelop and destroy the bulk of the French army in about 6 weeks. The concept was to inflict a crushing defeat on the French like at Sedan in 1870, and everything afterwards would be mopping up. As a memo of a concept Schleiffen used 300,000 troops that didn't exist, had no forces facing Russia or things like train schedules.

Moltke made the idea/memo into a plan that took into account the actual size of the army, the reality of defending against both Russia and the French frontier as well as other refinement such as not invading Holland. Within the limits of the time the plan was good enough and the various German armies performed and even very well. However its execution above the field army level was poor: the left wing was poorly coordinated within itself, the left wing was poorly coordinated with the right wing and neither was good with the eastern front.

Also worth mentioning that the war plan had different diplomatic assumptions such as Italy enters the war and largely assume the UK would not impact the plan. If either/both of these events had been true, the plan would have had a different outcome.
Right then, thanks! I'm surprised that something as innocuous as a mental exercise on Schlieffen's part would eventually be understood as the German war plan.
 
Also worth mentioning that the war plan had different diplomatic assumptions such as Italy enters the war and largely assume the UK would not impact the plan. If either/both of these events had been true, the plan would have had a different outcome.

I think the assumption about the UK was fair enough. In the 6 week period of the campaign plan the British deployed a mere 6 infantry divisions and fought in 3 battles. There was no significant behind the lines landing or any war winning naval victory in that time frame.

After that, well thats a different story.
 
As for the OP question a different QMG might have come to different conclusions, however he would still be facing all the factors moltke faced. So a different QMG won't make the Haldane mission succeed or change the Anglo French naval agreement, nor will it magically make 300,000 more troops available. However the new QMG will still receive Schleiffens memo, so might well develop a worse plan around it.
 
As for the OP question a different QMG might have come to different conclusions, however he would still be facing all the factors moltke faced. So a different QMG won't make the Haldane mission succeed or change the Anglo French naval agreement, nor will it magically make 300,000 more troops available. However the new QMG will still receive Schleiffens memo, so might well develop a worse plan around it.
The assumption I was working from was that whoever became QMG in 1904 would more than likely become Chief of the General Staff in 1906, was this correct?
 
There are two areas where a different head of OHL would have made a difference. The first would be in scrapping the entire concept of going through Belgium and wheeling behind the French armies, and the second would be in keeping the general plan but making changes in execution.

And one possible third, Ludendorff was Molkte's protege and did most of the detailed planning, so with a different Chief of Staff maybe Ludendorff doesn't come to prominence.

On the execution, I think Molkte did a good job with the planning and was generally correct in the "alterations" hew as much criticized for, though I think they should have changed to the strategy to defend in the West and make limited attacks in the East. However, I get the impression that the general strategy was generally agreed to throughout the high levels of the Germany army. The most you could ask for would be someone flexible enough to keep an alternative plan and alternative mobilization plan in existence. Molkte had well documented problems co-ordinating the four armies on the left wing.

Based on the wikipedia bios, I don't think Buelow would have done anything different. In 1914 he was actually the senior officer in the left wing group of armies and so the co-ordination problems were more his fault than von Molkte's. Von der Goltz was an interesting man and seems to have had more military talent than Molkte, but he was also five years older and probably would have retired before the war. Beseler was the likeliest of the three to try something different.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
There are two areas where a different head of OHL would have made a difference. The first would be in scrapping the entire concept of going through Belgium and wheeling behind the French armies, and the second would be in keeping the general plan but making changes in execution.

And one possible third, Ludendorff was Molkte's protege and did most of the detailed planning, so with a different Chief of Staff maybe Ludendorff doesn't come to prominence.

On the execution, I think Molkte did a good job with the planning and was generally correct in the "alterations" hew as much criticized for, though I think they should have changed to the strategy to defend in the West and make limited attacks in the East. However, I get the impression that the general strategy was generally agreed to throughout the high levels of the Germany army. The most you could ask for would be someone flexible enough to keep an alternative plan and alternative mobilization plan in existence. Molkte had well documented problems co-ordinating the four armies on the left wing.

Based on the wikipedia bios, I don't think Buelow would have done anything different. In 1914 he was actually the senior officer in the left wing group of armies and so the co-ordination problems were more his fault than von Molkte's. Von der Goltz was an interesting man and seems to have had more military talent than Molkte, but he was also five years older and probably would have retired before the war. Beseler was the likeliest of the three to try something different.

If we don't use hindsight but things that could reasonably be seen, I see a couple of changes. You could have the Germans use the Army Group concept and have another coordinating level. You would reduce the chances of gaps in the lines. Moltke also made better estimates of how good the Belgian army and their fortresses were.
 
If we don't use hindsight but things that could reasonably be seen, I see a couple of changes. You could have the Germans use the Army Group concept and have another coordinating level. You would reduce the chances of gaps in the lines. Moltke also made better estimates of how good the Belgian army and their fortresses were.

They foresaw enough need to subordinate 1st Army to 2nd Army and 6th Army to 7th Army either before the war or in it's earliest days. Therefore I don't think it is unreasonable to think they could establish an actual Herresgruppe or two before the war. At the very least there would be 2 or 3 pairs of Armies to follow and perhaps a change in command style as a result.
 
I'm tagging @Riain, @BooNZ, @MichaelWest, @XLII, and @NoMommsen, do you guys have any input on this?

How much did Moltke's actions really impact German performance, and would a different person filling his spot really change anything?
I don't really at the top of my head.
The only thing which comes to mind was that Moltke wasn't as bad - or incompetent - as he was made out to be. His most pressing failing is that he was...unimaginative and jittery (basically, afraid of making mistakes. Understandable, standing in the shadow of 1871). But then, the Austro-Hungarian general staff rejected plans for a "WWII-Style" tank in 1911 [The imperial germans later in 1912](The Burstyn-Motorgeschütz - wiki only in german, sorry - on my recent visit to Vienna I saw the model an went "Oh god, how stupid were they?"). So, a more adventurous spirit may have had tanks in 1914.

But then again, none of the powers had particular powers of imagination and the end of Attaque á l'outrace had to be purchased in blood.

Edit: The Motorgeschütz would have been roughly comparable to the Renault FT, so late-WW1-to-early-WW2 tank. WW2-style refers to the turret, turret-mounted gun, crew config and treads.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_FT
 

BooNZ

Banned
How much did Moltke's actions really impact German performance, and would a different person filling his spot really change anything?
Compared to his continental peers (Joffre and Conrad), Molke was the least competent, but this weakness was mitigated by the fact Germany had the strongest General Staff and Molke was the least enegetic, so did not ordinarily interfer with the work of the German General Staff too much.

Without Molke there would have been alternatives to the OTL Schlieffen Plan [which by 1914 was obsolete] and this plan would have likely been canned/replaced/mothballed by a more competent CiC. So, you would have stalemate on a narrow western front and a steady CP advance in the east, limited by/to rail logistics. British participation on the continent would be optional.

In terms of military doctrine and planning, the Germans were already several [peacetime] years ahead of other militaries, so I doubt a different CiC would significantly improve on those OTL competencies, although a different CiC might have a different focus.
 

BooNZ

Banned
Less competent than Joffre, or Conrad ?
I conceed Joffre arguebly performed far worse, because he exerted greater influence over the entire French military, but he was a more competent and enegetic leader. That said, the men under his command were probably saved from meaningless offensives by the German excursion though Belgium.

Conrad inherited a broken A-H army and actually did a very decent job of reforming it, before he then trashed it against the Russians and Serbs. However, Conrad simply never had the same tools to work with as Germany and France. I get the impression Conrad also gets marked down for his numerous character flaws and outspoken warmongering.
 
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