Holy Russia

Nicholas II and George V - First Cousins

At the time of the build up to world war, Russia was a state under the absolute rule of a textbook example of an inept ruler, Czar Nicholas II and his wife Czarina Alexandra.  (The Czarina, like Wilhelm II of Germany and George V of the UK were all direct descendents of Victoria.)  The Czar had been kept in the dark about matters of state by his autocratic father Alexander III, who failed to foresee his own early death and the succession of a son at age 26, spectacularly unfitted to the task of leading the sprawling, backward country into the 20th century.  I don't think it's spoiling the story to reveal that he and his family would pay for this misapprehension with their lives.

In the absence of direct understanding of international politics, the Czar and Czarina have placed their trust in the Orthodox religion of the country.  They found confirmation of their faith in the person of the Mad Monk, Gregori Rasputin, who had seemed to intercede with God for them in the easing the pain of their beloved son, the prospective next Czar, who suffers from hereditary hemophilia.

Japan has surprised the world and essentially destroyed Russia's entire navy in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05.  Nicholas received news of the shattering defeat with resignation and then went back to his tennis game.  (Why does that seem familiar?)  In spite of the decline in the military reputation of Russia, France has determined that the road to victory over Germany and recovery of its badly tarnished military reputation hinges on forcing Germany into war on two fronts.  France doesn't really concern itself with the quality of the enemy on Germany's eastern front, as long as their was one.  And all Europe looked with envy at the massive male military age population available to the Czar.  At the instigation of the French, the Czar and his generals have agreed to synchronize their invasion forces and invade on the day specified in Plan XVII, Day 15.

Plan XVII

April 1913

German-French animosity is smoldering, largely the result of the outcome of the Franco-Prussian war.  French patriotism is outraged that the Prussians had triumphed over them and is now the dominant power on the continent.  In Germany the conventional wisdom believes that it has not received the just spoils of that war.  On both sides of the border, military minds are making plans.

The German plan for the next war was already in place in 1905, the Schlieffen plan, which posited a swift attack on France through neutral Belgium.  Of course, the planned movement through a neutral country is top secret and is known only at the highest levels of the German government and military.  The Germans, always contemplating with horror their possible encirclement, are counting on a swift defeat over France so they can turn their full attention to the behemoth in the East, the Russian Empire.

In French military circles, a new philosophical approach to war is being bruited, the principle of pre-eminence of offensive action.  (It's counterpoint on the German side of the border would one day be known as blitzkreig.)  The idea is to concentrate force where it can most quickly overwhelm and destroy the invading armies and turn them back.  It is a doctrine that is based on the somewhat metaphysical concept of Élan vital or the will to victory.

There are military strategists in France (General Victor Michel) who believe the correct approach is to fortify and prepare a defense along the northern border with Belgium  There is even substantial military intelligence that indicates the German plan but it is ignored, being at odds with prevailing opinion. But, the voices advocating a strong defensive posture are drowned out by the the voices of aggression (Foch who was instrumental in devising French military strategy as director of the military academy and Joffre) who devise Plan XVII, implemented beginning this month.  Along with it, a change to the French term of  service for conscripts to three years is instituted, resulting in a very different disposition of  French armed forces. 

The Next Chapter

Some Background.

All wars seem, in some sense, to be continuations of a preceding war.  WWI is no exception and the parent war of that conflict is certainly the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.   The war was ended, for all intents and purposes by the Battle of Sedan, which was a stunning victory of the German army over the French.  That war, among other things, established a new German dominance over European affairs.  It also solidified German unification (largely under Prussian leadership) and gave them control over the European territory know as Alsace-Lorraine.  This territory is west of the Rhine river and hence constituted an "expansion" of Germany beyond its natural border provided by that river.  The emotional  conflict that results in the French mind played a large part in the outbreak of the next war.  For their part, the Germans ruled Alsace-Lorraine, with a large French population, as if it were a colony, handing down edicts to be ignored by the populace at their peril.

Otto Von Bismark, the German Chancellor, who was a key figure in the creation of the modern German state, opposed the annexation, arguing correctly that it would only engender lasting enmity on the part of the French toward Germany.  Von Bismark can be seen as a "Germany First" man, a careful diplomat, more concerned about  holding on  to the gains made in unification and less in meddling in external affairs.  He sees with almost uncanny vision the future of Europe. 

"Jena came twenty years after the death of Frederick the Great; the crash will come twenty years after my departure if things go on like this" ― a prophecy fulfilled a little late when, twenty four years after his resignation as Chancellor, World War I began in August 1914.^[68]

He is asked to resign by Kaiser Wilhelm II, a man who imagines himself Germany's ultimate war lord, in 1890.

In 1894 a scandal erupted in France, the Drefus Affair, that resulted from accusation that a French army officer had communicated military secrets to the German government.  The baseless conviction of Dreyfus only succeeded in bitterly dividing French political thought.  Both anti-German thought and antisemitism (Drefus was Alsatian and a Jew) contributed to the conflict. In 1906, finally Drefus was exonerated, but the recriminations remain to influence French political thought.