Chapter 107: Compromise

When Feng Chengqian and Tirpitz arrived at the Potsdam Palace, Frederick III had just seen off Falkenhayn, Ludendorff, and other army generals.

At this moment, the empire’s greatest challenge was no longer at sea, but on land.

On the Western Front, although the Anglo-French Allied forces had stabilized the line after the Battle of the Marne, and the German Emperor had abandoned Falkenhayn’s plan for a strategic offensive, the front remained relatively stable. Yet numerous signs indicated the Allies would soon launch a large-scale strategic offensive. To begin with, the Anglo-French forces had already surpassed the Germans in manpower and stockpiled more supplies.

The Allies’ failure to seize the initiative was not due to lack of troops or scarcity of supplies, but a problem with their forces.

Simply put, the overall quality and combat capability of the German army were clearly superior to those of the Allies, which allowed them to hold the line with fewer troops.

Since the Franco-Prussian War, the German army was arguably the most formidable military force in Europe and even worldwide.

More importantly, Germany’s modernization efforts began earliest, with the most refined staff organization and a long-standing universal conscription system.

These factors endowed the German army with incredibly fierce combat strength.

For example, a German infantry battalion began the war equipped with eight Maxim water-cooled heavy machine guns, and this number had since increased to fourteen, while the British Expeditionary Force had only two Vickers water-cooled machine guns per infantry battalion, and the French had eight.

In terms of artillery, countless battles had proven that Krupp and other German armaments manufacturers produced the world’s finest cannons.

However, these advantages were still insufficient to guarantee German victory on the Western Front, or even to hold the entire line during prolonged fighting.

Falkenhayn had already warned that if no action was taken, the German army would certainly be driven out of France.

The Emperor was fully aware of this: if the German army remained on the defensive, it would hand the initiative to the enemy and eventually lose the Marne line.

The best course was to launch an offensive before the enemy.

To this end, Falkenhayn proposed increasing the Western Front forces to 240 divisions, so he would have the capability to mount a threatening offensive.

According to Falkenhayn’s plan, he intended to launch separate offensives against the French at Artois and the British at Ypres.

Clearly, Falkenhayn’s demands were too high.

Although the empire had completed total war mobilization and the army’s strength was growing by twenty divisions each month, the front-line casualties were severe, and many of the new troops were used to fill gaps. The Emperor had fewer than eighty infantry divisions available for redeployment. Meeting Falkenhayn’s request for 240 divisions on the Western Front would require sending an additional sixty divisions westward.

This would make it impossible to reinforce the Eastern Front.

The problem was, if the Western Front could not hold, any victories in the East would be meaningless, and Ludendorff couldn’t guarantee defeating Russia within a few months.

After repeated negotiations, Falkenhayn and the Emperor compromised.

Falkenhayn reduced his request to forty additional divisions, splitting reinforcements evenly with the Eastern Front, while the Emperor only required him to launch two phased offensive campaigns.

Thus, Falkenhayn planned the upcoming Second Battle of Champagne, striking first at the French in Artois.

At that time, the real focus was on the Eastern Front.

After discussions with Feng Chengqian, the Emperor realized that rapidly defeating Russia would determine whether the empire could win the war.

Put simply, the two-front war needed to end as soon as possible.

Though the empire possessed the most powerful army in continental Europe and indeed the world, fighting two major wars simultaneously on its borders was beyond its capacity.

After several months, the difficulties of two-front warfare had become apparent.

In terms of troop allocation alone, the German army was stretched thin, often forced to prioritize one front at the expense of the other.

Continuing this way would lead to a disastrous outcome for the empire.

In fact, when Marshal Schlieffen devised the overall war plan, he had foreseen this and proposed defeating France within three to six months, formulating the detailed “Schlieffen Plan.” His foresight was remarkable—just four months into the war, his concerns had become reality.

Of course, Schlieffen wasn’t wrong.

He focused on the Western Front for a critical reason: France lacked strategic depth, and the German army needed only to advance about two hundred kilometers to capture Paris. Conversely, on the Eastern Front, German forces would have to advance over two thousand kilometers to reach Moscow, and marching toward St. Petersburg would be even more difficult, making a swift defeat of Russia impossible.

Clearly, militarily, defeating France was much easier than defeating Russia.

Had Schlieffen’s plan been strictly implemented, the battlefield situation would have been very different. It was Moltke’s mismanagement that doomed the plan.

Before the Battle of the Marne, Moltke had withdrawn over twenty divisions from the main Western offensive: eight sent east and more than a dozen used to reinforce comparatively unimportant border defenses.

At the height of the Marne battle, had Mackensen and Demagwitz had a few more divisions, they could have repelled the Anglo-French counterattack.

In other words, if Moltke hadn’t diverted troops from the Western offensive, Mackensen and Demagwitz would not have been defeated.

One could even say that without Moltke’s erratic command, the Allies would never have had the chance to launch the Battle of the Marne, as Mackensen and Demagwitz, with sufficient forces, might have reached the outskirts of Paris as planned.

Of course, regrets are useless now.

Regardless of Falkenhayn’s abilities, even if the elder Moltke were alive, it’s uncertain whether he could have resolved the difficulties faced by the German army on the Western Front.

Fortunately, the Emperor had rich war experience and would not be swayed by the Chief of Staff or the Minister of War.

Given the situation, unless the Western Front forces increased to over 300 divisions, even if Falkenhayn launched offensive campaigns, achieving a strategic breakthrough would be difficult.

More importantly, the longer the delay, the worse the situation for the Germans, as large numbers of British troops were crossing the English Channel into France, and French mobilization was in full swing, growing the French army by more than ten divisions monthly.

It was beyond doubt that the German army could not increase Western Front forces to over 300 divisions in the short term.

The Western Front was thus at a deadlock; even if Germany could not win quickly, the Allies also could not break through German defenses soon.

The reason was simple: no suitable offensive tactics had yet been developed.

It must be understood that against the defensive firepower array of water-cooled heavy machine guns, trenches, and heavy artillery, any traditional attack was utterly powerless.

For example, cavalry—dominant on the battlefield for over a millennium—had become mere supporting players within months of fighting. Any cavalry charge against machine guns and artillery was tantamount to suicide, reducing millions of cavalrymen to little more than scouts.

Since the Napoleonic era, defensive forces had again gained the upper hand.

With the Western Front stalemated, all efforts turned to the Eastern Front.

Compared to the West, the Eastern Front had two notable characteristics: a much vaster battlefield and severely underdeveloped transportation networks like railways and roads.

In some respects, the East emphasized the application of troops rather than sheer numbers.

This was why Feng Chengqian advised the Emperor to shift focus eastward, entrusting command to young generals like Ludendorff and Hoffmann.

The Emperor clearly understood this.

With the Ottoman Empire entering the war, the Central Powers had gained a significant advantage in the East, and German victories at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes had shattered Russian morale.

To the Russians, Ludendorff had become an undefeated war god.

Seizing this opportunity to fight two large-scale annihilation battles in the East—even if unable to crush Russia outright—would severely damage Russian forces, depriving them of offensive capability in the short term, easing pressure on the Germans in the East, and creating more favorable conditions on the battlefield.

Still, the Emperor sought a decisive victory in the West.

In other words, his support for Ludendorff’s offensive in the East was not solely to defeat Russia but to weaken Russian combat strength enough to restart the Western offensive.

In any case, the empire had to focus on the Eastern Front in the near term.

The problem was that the East faced the same issue as the West: severe troop shortages.

Though Ludendorff confidently affirmed the Eastern Front’s favorable situation and the high likelihood of success in launching an offensive soon, he insisted that a decisive victory required ample reinforcements.

Without more troops, he could only guarantee a campaign-level victory; to completely defeat Russia, he demanded at least sixty infantry divisions.

Could the Emperor muster sixty infantry divisions?

Even with Falkenhayn’s concessions, forty divisions would be sent westward, leaving only forty divisions for the East—just two-thirds of Ludendorff’s request.

Fortunately, Ludendorff did not pressure the Emperor.

Upon receiving forty divisions, Ludendorff promised to strive for a strategic decisive battle, or at minimum, a campaign-level victory.

More bluntly, Ludendorff aimed to expel the Russian army from the Polish region, eliminating the threat to the empire’s heartland.

Clearly, this was the best achievable outcome at the time—or the least damaging compromise.

After consulting with Falkenhayn and Ludendorff, the Emperor finally breathed a sigh of relief.

No matter what, neither Falkenhayn nor Ludendorff were as unreasonable as Moltke. (To be continued)