Chapter 218: A Proper Staff Department Must Prepare Plans For Every Hypothetical Enemy
“You say the Schlieffen Plan is only a half-finished product at the political and diplomatic levels? Interesting, not many dare to speak like that. I hope you can provide detailed reasons, otherwise this arrogant speech of yours today may lead to disciplinary action.”
Marshal Goltz was actually very much looking forward inside to Lelouch saying something substantial, but on the surface, he still had to pretend to be impartial.
Although everyone at the Potsdam Military Academy knew that the grudge between Goltz and Schlieffen was enormous.
Lelouch had no need to curry favor with this retired old principal, so he simply analyzed impartially:
“I remember that in early July 1914, the Emperor actually expressed multiple times that he did not want to start a war—although, I must admit, during the more than twenty years of His Majesty the Emperor’s reign, relations between the Empire and the Britannians have deteriorated significantly, which is an objective fact.
But the Emperor had no intention of proactively starting a war at that point in 1914. The Empire’s Navy, the Empire’s material imports, and strategic reserves were not prepared for a full-scale war.
The Britannians’ national strength is inferior to ours. If engaged in a long-term armament shipbuilding competition, even if they boasted ‘for every battleship the Empire builds, the British Royal Navy will build two,’ it was just bluffing. If stretched over a long timeline to compare industrial strength, the British people’s industrial power simply could not fulfill that slogan!
Therefore, people cannot say that just because His Majesty might want to launch competition against Britain at some distant future point, at that critical juncture in early July 1914, His Majesty already wanted to start the war.
And ultimately everything turned out like this because of the Schlieffen Plan and the incompetence and dereliction of duty by Schlieffen’s Staff Department. I once applied through formal channels to review the Empire’s internal minutes, which clearly showed that in the two closed-door meetings on July 22 and 26, 1914, His Majesty asked the Chief of Staff and the ministers of relevant diplomatic departments:
Is it possible not to fight this war? Or is it possible to fight this war only against the Lushans? If war ultimately breaks out, given the situation at the time, there was a 99% probability it would be because Austria, seeking revenge for the assassination of the crown prince, went to war against Serbia. And Lusha, for the sake of Great Lusha nationalism, would go to war against Austria, against our ally Germania.
Although the Franco-Russian Entente had some binding effect, it was after all just an ‘entente’ and not an ‘alliance’ like ours with Austria. What they required was that when one side was invaded by a third country, the other had an obligation to co-defend, but it did not say that when the Lushans proactively started a war, the Franks also had an obligation to assist.
In any case, at that critical juncture in mid-to-late July 1914, because the prelude to the war’s outbreak was an accidental assassination, plus in 1912 and 1913, Serbia had launched and won a Balkan War on the Balkan Peninsula（ the Second Balkan War does not count as launched by Serbia, it just won）, at that time many countries outside Europe also felt that Serbia was too aggressive and proactively provoking great powers.
If the Empire had exercised a bit more restraint at that time, theoretically it was possible to go to war solely against Lusha, avoiding France and Britain jumping in immediately. But why did it not ultimately happen? Actually, the main reason was that the General Staff Headquarters only had one Schlieffen Plan!
The Schlieffen Plan did include content for operations against Lusha, but that content was very rudimentary, even presupposing a premise: ‘first use small-scale mobile forces to feint, pin down, and delay the Russian Army for 6 weeks, use this time difference to annihilate the Franks completely, then turn around to deal with the Russian Army.’ As for how to fight after turning back, there was almost no elaboration, just to respond as situations arose.
How many loopholes are there? The Schlieffen Plan fundamentally had no plan for ‘attacking Lusha alone without going to war with the Franks, or at least without attacking the Franks’! Moreover, the General Staff Headquarters had no other plans at the time.
Therefore, in the end, His Majesty the Emperor was told ‘if war is to be waged, there is only one plan, which is to quickly take out the Franks first,’ ‘there is no partial war mobilization targeted only at Lusha, only total mobilization.’ His Majesty made two requests for the General Staff Headquarters to produce other plans without success, was told that it was impossible to urgently produce a new plan in time no matter what, and that if execution was to happen, it could only be this one, so he was forced to provoke the Western Front first.
The internal minutes also clearly recorded what His Majesty said to the generals after signing the mobilization order: Gentlemen, one day you will regret what you are doing now.
Before his death, Schlieffen claimed to be an inheritor of Clausewitz’s thought, saying that his crude approach of placing the military above politics, economy, and diplomacy was an ‘up-to-date improvement on Clausewitz’s theory.’
But where was that an improvement? Could an improvement practically negate the words Clausewitz emphasized right at the beginning: ‘war is the continuation of politics’? Is there such an improvement in the world that changes the very root?
Schlieffen also said he was the inheritor of the great Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of Staff, inheriting the other’s military thought. But when Marshal Helmuth von Moltke served as Chief of Staff, there was a set of ‘defend west, attack east’ operational plans.
In the 1880s, Chief of Staff Moltke envisioned ‘the Western Front border is shorter, more advantageous for the defender, suitable for building dense defensive fortress zones, so just hold the border. The Eastern Front border is vast, terrain complex, low development, impossible to build fortress zones across the entire line, so relatively advantageous for the attacker. But Lusha’s depth is vast, must learn from Napoleon’s lesson, impossible to pursue total conquest of the Lushans, can only fight a few brilliant mobile annihilation battles, continuously eliminating Lusha’s living forces, creating domestic anti-war pressure, then offer the enemy relatively generous and dignified ceasefire negotiation terms to end the war.’
Unfortunately, this set of plans was considered during Schlieffen’s tenure as ‘although it can win the war, winning it has little meaning, does not thoroughly conquer any enemy country, and in the end still gives the enemy a dignified ceasefire,’ so under His Majesty’s aspiration to expand territory, the General Staff Headquarters turned to the more radical Schlieffen Plan, which at least sought to thoroughly conquer at least one enemy country through a war…”
Lelouch spoke at length with impassioned tone, listing in one breath the core problems of Schlieffen, which was subordinating superiors, military dominating politics.
This was the core issue, a betrayal of the core thesis of Clausewitz《’s On War》.
Marshal Goltz unusually did not interrupt, listened to him rant until this moment, then interjected: “What you’re saying seems a bit excessive. The war turning out like this cannot entirely be blamed on the legacy problem of Chief of Staff Schlieffen; the execution level and other factors also bear responsibility.”
Lelouch immediately clarified: “I didn’t say it was all Chief of Staff Schlieffen’s responsibility. In fact, Chief of Staff Moltke the Younger also bears responsibility; this is already public consensus from His Majesty and Parliament, and Moltke the Younger’s resignation was completely reasonable.
But what I want to say is that there are still many aspects worth studying regarding the specific breakdown of Chief of Staff Moltke the Younger’s responsibility.
The direct public reason for Chief of Staff Moltke the Younger’s resignation was that he failed to execute the Schlieffen Plan. But his problems in execution were actually not that severe; his problems in preparing staff plans were even more serious than publicly stated.
Chief of Staff Schlieffen passed away in 1913, and in the more than a year before his death, his health had deteriorated severely, almost unable to attend to duties. So, Chief of Staff Schlieffen actually did not fully monitor the First Balkan War of 1912 and the Second Balkan War of 1913.
And before that, where did the Empire’s main diplomatic tensions come from? From the First Moroccan Crisis of 1906 and the Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911.
Both Balkan Wars were Eastern Front wars, with global tensions caused by the Lushans and their followers. Both Moroccan Crises were Western Front crises, with global tensions caused by the rivalry between the Empire and the Franks.
So in the years when Chief of Staff Schlieffen formulated his plans, he did not see the Eastern Front tensions surpassing the Western Front trend, nor could he foresee what the direct war triggers like the Sarajevo Incident would be, nor foresee a situation like ‘the Lushans giving us a just pretext to start war.’
During Chief of Staff Schlieffen’s lifetime, all his plans were based on the assumption that ‘the future war might be proactively initiated by the Empire.’ He did not anticipate the enemy providing a pretext, which led to us failing to seize it when the pretext arrived—opportunity only favors the prepared.
Therefore, I believe that compared to unfavorable execution of the Schlieffen Plan, Chief of Staff Moltke the Younger’s biggest problem at the time was failing to work diligently in the two years after taking over, to urgently produce a new plan or supplementary plan based on the new political and diplomatic situation, to address ‘how to seize it if the Eastern Front enemy hands us the knife, the pretext.’
Precisely because he did not produce new supplementary plans and was passively negligent, when the sudden event truly arrived, when war truly arrived, he had no choice but to execute the ‘Schlieffen Plan’ which did not strictly fit the actual situation, and he did not execute it well either, so he deserved to be dismissed.
I believe that in the future world, any country’s staff department, if it deserves to be called a qualified staff department, must produce specialized standalone contingency plans against all hypothetical enemies, on how to fight if war breaks out solely with that one country. This is the attitude the military should have in serving politics, serving diplomacy, serving the economy, and being loyal to the Emperor, the nation, and the people. Rather than letting the military override the nation and the people!”
The issue Lelouch raised was one that many countries learned from and reformed after the first war.
Just like on the Earth plane, Germania had “White Plan/Yellow Plan/Blue Plan” in the second war, a bunch of various plans, pulling out Poland, France, and other neighbors individually, hypothesizing how to fight if war solely with that one country.
This was learning from the painful lessons of the first war; they also knew that having only one Schlieffen Plan trying to use one trick for everything was impossible, and that kind of gamble had already paid the painful price of national extinction.
Players who have played《Hearts of Iron》 also know that if you’re playing Ugly Country, you can see in the game’s diplomatic military national policy tree for Ugly Country, there are also a bunch of plans in various colors, “Black Plan/Red Plan/Green Plan,” not only military plans targeted solely at Germania, but even solely targeted at neighbors like Canada and Mexico.
And these plans all existed in real history, not fabricated by P-company game developers. It was because Ugly Country’s Joint Chiefs truly learned from the Germanians’ previous war, from then on striving to cover all bases.
Because even though Canada and Mexico pose no threat to Ugly Country under normal circumstances, who knows if one day there might be a sudden black swan event causing Canada or Mexico to descend into chaos or change colors overnight, requiring Ugly Country to strike instantly?
Similarly, many later audiences have heard the rumor: “Before Operation Barbarossa on the Earth plane, the other side actually had a ‘Operation Thunderstorm,’ so Barbarossa was just striking first”—this statement is strictly speaking flawed; it can only be said that ‘Operation Thunderstorm’ did exist, but there is no evidence that ‘Operation Thunderstorm’ posed any imminent risk of immediate implementation at the time.
Perhaps ‘Operation Thunderstorm’ was also just a “be prepared for any neighbor” operational plan, normally locked in a drawer in the staff department office gathering dust. No hype, no diss, no need to awkwardly bash it.
Even Ding Wei in《Liang Jian》 understood when attending military academy: even though in the early 1950s, relations between the Great Eastern Nation and the Northern neighbor were still good. But as a general, when making staff contingency plans, one cannot let emotional closeness bias judgment.
Even for allies at the time, precautions must be taken; normally prepare a national defense plan for if they turn hostile one day and war breaks out. And those criticizing Ding Wei for “treating allies as hypothetical enemies” are the pedantic ones.
These principles, decades later, many people actually understood.
But helplessly, it is now 1916 in Lelouch’s plane; except for Lelouch this transmigrator, no one else has had time to reflect and understand this principle.
Thus, Lelouch naturally became the first to propose “a qualified staff department should, in peacetime, formulate a standalone operational plan targeted at every hypothetical enemy neighbor country regardless of closeness, irrespective of the current diplomatic situation or emotional ties. Because you don’t know when a neighbor might experience a black swan event, like the Sarajevo Incident, causing the neighbor’s situation to suddenly change, requiring immediate thunderous measures.”
What Lelouch was saying to Marshal Goltz at this moment was actually quite similar to what Ding Wei said in《Liang Jian》 when selecting topics.
Except Lelouch was not targeting any specific country, nor selecting specific topics; he was just making requirements for the future General Staff Headquarters, requiring them to indiscriminately formulate N plans without favoritism.
——
PS: Last chapter many mentioned names, rehabilitating Liddell Hart; here a brief analysis. Those mentioning names, go back and check; what I wrote was “Liddell Hart’s war deception,” I’m addressing the matter, not the person!
I did not target all of Liddell Hart’s theories, just the war deception things he said.
Even if part of what a person says is correct, it doesn’t mean everything they say is correct.
Many things Bureau Seat says are correct, but what he says when deceiving enemies is of course not correct.
Liddell Hart’s analyses of Germania were obvious war deception, to make the Germanians stray further on the already wrong path, best not to reflect, and if there is another war, to repeat the Schlieffen Plan, so they could reuse old tricks to defend again.
But in the end, the second war on the Earth plane succeeded precisely because Manstein did not copy the Schlieffen Plan. He gave the British the impression that “we think the Schlieffen Plan itself was not wrong, just problems in execution,” but actually in the final sprint used the young reflectionists’ plan to blitz France and create the Dunkirk situation.
