Product Description

This book explores the influence of Helmuth von Moltke, Germany’s Chief of the General Staff between 1906 and 1914. Based largely on previously unknown primary sources, it analyses the General Staff’s role in military decision-making and Moltke’s relationship with Kaiser Wilhelm II, as well as the genesis of the Schlieffen Plan and Germany’s military and political reactions to the many pre-war crises. Moltke’s influence on Germany’s political decision-making was decisive, helping to foster an increasingly confrontational mood. The book takes specific issue with the common perception of Moltke as an ineffectual and reluctant military leader, remembered primarily for the defeat at the Battle of the Marne and his alleged adulteration of the Schlieffen Plan. It concludes that he was both bellicose and ambitious, hoping for war ‘the sooner the better’ and playing a crucial role in the outbreak and early months of the First World War.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1747004 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 344 pages

Review
‘ … a very significant contribution to the scholarship on both Wilhelmine Germany and the military pre-history of the Great War … clearly the definitive statement on the role and career of the younger Moltke as Chief of the Great General Staff. I suspect that it will remain as such for a long time to come.’ Dr Matthew S. Seligmann, Reviews in History

‘… as a study of power and the manipulation of government it is unsurpassed.’ Open History

‘ … this tightly argued and widely researched study … This is revisionist history at its best.’ Contemporary Review

‘The book is essential reading for students of Modern Europe, Germany, and the First World War because it moves the debate on the origins of the war to a new plane - from national to individual responsibility, with Moltke.’ German Studies Review

‘Anyone interested in the history of the first world war will find this scrupulously researched book of absorbing interest ….’ The Spectator

‘ This important and scholarly work … offers a major contribution to scholarship on the origins and early stages of the First world War … Mombauer’s work will play a major role in future discussion of the period.’ History

‘Historian Annika Mombauer has produced an excellent book … every serious historian of the Wilhelmine period will want a copy of this book.’ Journal of Military History

Customer Reviews

Good insights, but hard going
This is a fine attempt to re-evaluate the role of the younger Moltke in the build up to and first few months of World War One.

Curiously, it both vindicates and convicts him. He is vindicated of the charges - levelled especially during the Nazi period - of incompetence in his amendation of the Schlieffen plan, and cowardice in the first weeks of the war.

However, he is convicted of warmongery of the grossest kind, believing that Germany had only two choices: war now while she had a chance of winning, or war later when she was certain to be defeated.

This belief, combined with his unashamed bypassing of the government authorities (eg the Chancellor!) and his influence on the Kaiser implicate him seriously in the bringing about of WWI - a conflict that he himself feared would be appalling in its length and casualties.

The book is slightly marred by poor and infelicitous English: this makes reading it rather hard going, and one is brought up short rather too often by anacoleutha.

A very good study, but for 40-odd quid you might expect it to be better edited.

Very interesting study
I must say that I am very impressed by Annika Mombauers book.

I think it is very interesting how she for instance describes the differences between the environment Moltke operates in contrast to the environment Joffre operates in. Both of them see it as a good idea to go through Belgium from a military stand point, but Joffre recognize that he can't do it from a political point of view. President Poincare is also against because it would violate Belgiums neutrality and thereby the relationship to Britain. This is also interesting because this also questions Niall Fergusons idea that France and Britain would violate Belgiums neutrality without prior German violation, which I think is out of the question.

It is also interesting to see how Moltkes warmongering is partly due to fear that Russia would be stronger than Germany from 1917 onwards (and he therefore needs to strike now), and partly due to that he had an inferior complex because he was always compared to his great uncle.

I think that his biggest mistake he made by far was not either to carry out the Schlieffen Plan with a strong right flank as intended or much better have developed a plan with an Eastern concentration, which would not have given a quick decision as hoped for with the Schlieffen Plan.

The big advantages of this was that it would have allowed for more political room for manouvre, Britain would not have been brought in right away if Belgium or France was not threatened and by concentration in the East Germany could have secured Austria-Hungary and maybe brought Rumania in on the side of the Central Powers and eventually beaten Russia as they did anyway in 1917-18.

Moltke feared anyway that his revised Schlieffen Plan would not deliver a quick decision, so it is unforgiveable that he did not develop a real alternative with a concentration in the East, which would have been much better politically. But it again proves the point that the German general staff operated detached from political considerations and control.