French war plans, 1914: The ‘Balance of Power Paradox’

Abstract

Historians have noted that both German and French war preparation in 1914 fell victim to the inadequacies of traditional threat-based planning: vulnerability to ‘threat deception’ which caused each to underestimate or mischaracterize the threat; a tendency to ‘mirror-image’ by fitting intelligence into preconceived notions of how the enemy was expected to behave; and ‘group think’ that discouraged a serious consideration of alternative scenarios. This article applies the ‘Balance of Power Paradox’ to explain why, at the dawn of the twentieth century, war planning in both Germany and France was driven by an acute sense of weakness which encouraged each side to fashion highly ‘risk acceptant’ strategies. In particular, he examines why and how French commander-in-chief General Joseph Joffre evolved and rationalized his audacious, and disastrous, Plan XVII to leverage French weaknesses and prevent the stronger German Army from bringing the full weight of its military strength to bear against France. The potential implication of this historical vignette is that leaders, and by extension military planners, of both strong and weak states focus on the constraints faced by their opponents, and assume that they can avoid the limitations of their position, while their opponent cannot.

Key Words:

• France, 1914
• World War I
• War Plans

Notes

¹For Germany, see Terence Zuber, ‘The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered’, War in History 6 (July 1999), 262–303; and Holger H. Herwig, ‘Germany and the “Short War” Illusion: Toward a New Interpretation?’, The Journal of Military History 66/3 (July 2002), 171–83.

²Herwig, ‘Germany and the “Short War” Illusion’, 184.

³Leonard V. Smith, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, France and the Great War, (Cambridge, UK: CUP 2003), 32.

⁴Anthony Clayton, Paths of Glory. The French Army 1914–18, (London: Cassell 2003), 17.

⁵Lt. Col. John. D. Nelson, ‘Swiftly Defeat the Efforts, and then What? The “New American Way of War” and the Transition from Decisive Combat Operations to Post-Conflict Security Operations’, in Willliamson Murray, ed., A Nation at War in an Era of Strategic Change (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, Sept. 2004), 43, 48–9.

⁶Samuel R. Williamson, ‘Joffre Reshapes French Strategy, 1911–1913’, in Paul M. Kennedy, The War Plans of the Great Powers 1880–1914 (Boston: Allen & Unwin 1985), 148.

⁷Robert Doughty, ‘French Strategy in 1914: Joffre's Own’, Journal of Military History 67/2 (2003), 453–54.

⁸Hew Strachan, The First World War, Vol.I, The Call to Arms (Oxford: OUP 2001), 171.

⁹Douglas Porch, ‘The French Army and the Spirit of the Offensive, 1900–1914’, in Brian Bond and Ian Roy, ed., The War and Society Annual (London: Croom Helm 1975), 117–33.

¹⁰Herwig, ‘Germany and the “Short War” Illusion’, 178.

¹¹Douglas Porch, The March to the Marne. The French Army 1871–1914 (Cambridge, UK: CUP 1981), 214.

¹²Other impediments to military efficiency included absence of training camps, too few experienced NCOs, too many conscripts channeled into non-combatant jobs, and poor utilization of reserve periods. Porch, March to the Marne, 191–212.

¹³Herwig, ‘Germany and the “Short War” Illusion’, 175, 179.

¹⁴Williamson, ‘Joffre Reshapes French Strategy, 1911–1913’, 148.

¹⁵Joseph Joffre, Mémoires du Maréchal Joffre 1910–1917, Vol.1 (Paris: Plon 1932), 150.

¹⁶Michael Howard, ‘Men Against Fire: The Doctrine of the Offensive in 1914’, in Peter Paret, ed., The Makers of Modern Strategy. From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton UP 1986), 517.

¹⁷These characteristics of good planning can be found in 12-15; Paul K. Davis, Analytic Architecture for Capabilities-Based Planning, Mission Systems Analysis, and Transformation (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp. 2002) Publication MR 1513, 34–35.

¹⁸Williamson, ‘Joffre Reshapes French Strategy, 1911–1913’, 133.

¹⁹Herwig, ‘Germany and the “Short War” Illusion’, 184.

²⁰Joffre, Mémoires, 142–43.

²¹Doughty's desciption of 1914 sees Joffre as acting in an ad hoc manner to the evolving situation on the battlefield, with his decision to throw troops into Alsace-Lorraine linked primarily to his desire to hasten the Russian offensive by showing offensive intent and to siphon off German troops in the center. Doughty, ‘French Strategy in 1914’, 434, 445, 451, 453. I am suggesting that the seizure of these important provinces, surrendered to Germany in 1871, was also part of an ‘end game’.

²²Japan attacking the United States in 1941, or North Vietnam's decision to step up its activity in the South in 1964 in the knowledge that it would probably provoke a US intervention are two examples that come to mind.

²³James J. Wirtz, ‘The Balance of Power Paradox’, in T.V. Paul, James J. Wirtz and Michel Fortmann, Balance of Power. Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP 2004), 129.

²⁴Wirtz, ‘The Balance of Power Paradox’, 131, 135.

²⁵Herwig, ‘Germany and the “Short War” Illusion’, 184.

²⁶S.R. Williamson, The Politics of the Grand Strategy, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1969), 115–17.

²⁷French and Russian armies had a total peacetime strength of 2,170,000 to 1,242,000 for Germany and Austria-Hungary. Wartime numbers were 2,150,000 German and 1,300,000 Austro-Hungarian troops to 5,600,000 for the Allies. Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (New York: Basic Books 1999), 92–93.

²⁸French army ‘corps’ in peacetime were not combatant commands, but rather regional military divisions. The Conseil superieur de la guerre was made up of these ‘corps commanders’, who were generals of division or major generals in Anglo-Saxon terms.

²⁹Adolph Messimy, Mes souvenirs (Paris: Plon 1937), 74–75.

³⁰Ibid., 77. Pau, like Galliéni, was also close to retirement.

³¹Messimy, Souvenirs, 77–78; Castelnau was assigned the bureau of military operations and training, the bureau of foreign armies, and that of railways. Joffre, Mémoires, 13–14.

³²The chiefs of staff of each army were brought together in the Comité d'état major, which Joffre saw as the primary way to create a coherent doctrine and prepare staffs to exercise their wartime functions. These men, together with their designated army commanders in wartime, devised and carried out wargames, in conjunction with the Centre des hautes études militaires and the École de guerrre. These men elaborated the themes that were tested in autumn maneuvers. Joffre, Mémoires, 13, 35–37.

³³Joffre, Mémoires, 2–6, 14.

³⁴Nevertheless, Joffre fretted that the directors of the various arms and services essentially functioned outside the chain of command, which made it difficult to create a coherent program of rearmament. Joffre, Mémoires, 27–28, 59, 73.

³⁵Indeed, Joffre justified not having a ‘strategy’ per se, but a series of operational alternatives, and keeping his intentions secret from his staff subordinates and political superiors, in part to waylay political interference the planning procedure. Joffre, Mémoires, 144–45. Quoted in Doughty, ‘French Strategy in 1914’, 429.

³⁶Joffre, Mémoires, 22.

³⁷Joffre, Mémoires, 2–4, 23, 30.

³⁸On ‘Le Vengeur’ episode, see Maurice Palélogue, Un Grand tournant de la politique mondiale, 1904–1906 (Paris: Plon 1906), 64–65; Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, La France et les français, 1914–1920 (Paris: Editions Richelieu 1972), 45.

³⁹Joffre argued that French intelligence revealed that the German general staff had wargamed an invasion of France through Belgium in 1906. Joffre, Mémoires, 115; See also Denis Showalter, ‘Intelligence on the Eve of Transformation’, in Lt. Col. Walter T. Hitchcock, ed., The Intelligence Revolution: A Historical Perspective, Proceedings of the 13th Military History Symposium, US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, 12–14 Oct. 1988 (Washington DC: Office of Air Force History 1991), 19; Gerhard Ritter, The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1978), 42–44.

⁴⁰‘Note sur des renseignements récent relatifs à la mobilisation et à la concentration allemandes’, 8 March 1904. Service historique de l'armée de terre (SHAT), 7N 1756. ‘Note’, 23 Jan. 1908, SHAT 7N 670. Quoted in Jan Karl Tanenbaum, ‘French Estimates of German Plans’, in Ernest R. May, ed., Knowing One's Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars (Princeton UP 1984), 154, 156.

⁴¹Henri Navarre, Le service de renseignements (Paris: Plon 1978), 18.

⁴²Tanenbaum, ‘French Estimates of German Plans’, 158–59.

⁴³Ibid. 160.

⁴⁴Winston Churchill relates that when he attended a meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence during the 1911 Agadir crisis, ‘Overwhelming detailed evidence was adduced to show that the Germans had made every military preparation for marching through Belgium.The great military camps in close proximity to the frontier, the enormous depots, the reticulation of railways, the endless sidings, revealed the utmost clearness and beyond all doubt their design.’ The World Crisis, 1911–1914 (London: Butterworth 1923), 57.

⁴⁵Samuel R. Williamson, The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France prepare for War, 1904 – 1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1969), 121–24.

⁴⁶Joffre, Mémoires, 9, 19. Joffre claimed to have believed that reports that the Germans would invade Belgium were a feint to draw him north, to allow the Germans to counterpunch in Lorraine. Ibid., 23.

⁴⁷Strachan, First World War, Vol.I, Call to Arms, 186.

⁴⁸He believed, or claimed to believe, that the Germans might stay on the offensive against France to prevent British intervention, and direct their force against Russia. Joffre, Mémoires, 137.

⁴⁹Ibid., 114.

⁵⁰For French confusion about German reserves, see Douglas Porch, The French Secret Services (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux 1995), 69–72.

⁵¹Joffre, Mémoires, 106.

⁵²Williamson, Politics of Grand Strategy, 178–80.

⁵³Williamson, ‘Joffre Reshapes French Strategy, 1911–1913’, 135–44; Williamson, Politics of Grand Strategy, 210–18, 333.

⁵⁴Williamson, Politics of Grand Strategy, 120, 159–60. Joseph Caillaux, Agadir: ma politique extérieure (Paris: Albin Michel 1919), 141–46; Joffre, Memoires, 14–15.

⁵⁵Joffre, Mémoires, 26–27, 129–34.

⁵⁶Williamson, Politics of Grand Strategy, 167–70, 174–77; Joffre, Mémoires, 107–9.

⁵⁷While the Germans could field 870,000 active duty soldiers against 700,000 for the French, Joffre calculated that Berlin would be obliged to station 175,000 to deal with the Russians. Reserves, of course, were not figured into French calculations. Mémoires, 95–96.

⁵⁸Joffre, Mémoires, 23–24.

⁵⁹Williamson, Politics of Grand Strategy, 248, 298, 318–27, 331.

⁶⁰Joffre, Mémoires, 5–6, 25–26, 30.

⁶¹P. Simon, L'Instruction des officiers, l'éducation des troupes et la puissance nationale (Paris: 1905), 172.

⁶²Williamson, Politics of Grand Strategy, 117.

⁶³Joffre, Mémoires, 20–1.

⁶⁴Ibid. 30–31, 118.

⁶⁵Strachan, First World War, Vol.I, Call to Arms, 185–6.

⁶⁶Ibid., 190.

⁶⁷Loyseau de Grandmaison, Dressage de l'infanterie en vue de l'offensive (Paris: 1906), 2–3.

⁶⁸Ministère de la guerre; Etat-Major de l'Armée – Service Historique, Les Armées Française dans la Grande Guerre, [hereafter AFGG] tome premier, premier volume (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale 1936), 41.

⁶⁹Joffre, Mémoires, 146–50. At this point, Joffre had not decided definitely to take the offensive into Alsace-Lorraine. Williamson, Politics of Grand Strategy, 221; Doughty makes the same point, ‘French Strategy in 1914’, 446.

⁷⁰Ministère de la guerre, AFGG, 66.

⁷¹Strachan, First World War, Vol.I, Call to Arms, 195.

⁷²Williamson, “Joffre Reshapes French Strategy, 1911–1913”, 148.

⁷³Joffre argued that earlier reports of large German troop movements north of Liège that indicated a large sweep through Belgium were still too vague to give him an indication of German intentions. Joffre, Mémoirs, 265–70.

⁷⁴Strachan, First World War, Vol.I, Call to Arms, 224, 230.

⁷⁵Marc Michel, Galliéni (Paris: Fayard 1989), 263.

⁷⁶Joffre, Mémoires, 121.

⁷⁷Clayton, Paths of Glory, 19.

⁷⁸William Serman and Jean-Paul Bertaud, Nouvelle Histoire Militaire de la France, 1789–1919 (Paris: Fayard 1998), 706.

⁷⁹Michel, Galliéni, 263.

⁸⁰Ibid. 142.

⁸¹Porch, ‘The French Army and the Spirit of the Offensive, 1900–1914’, 117–33.

⁸²Smith et al., France and the Great War, 41; Strachan, First World War, Vol.I, Call to Arms, 231.

⁸³Joffre, Mémoires, 113.

⁸⁴Ferguson, Pity of War, 170–71, 177.

⁸⁵I've taken this observation from a, so far, untitled, unpublished paper by Daniel Moran on Clausewitz and political objectives in war, 10.

⁸⁶Ferguson, Pity of War, 167.

⁸⁷Herwig, ‘Germany and the “Short War” Illusion’, 178.

⁸⁸Eugenia C. Kiesling, ‘France’, in Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, The Origins of World War I (Cambridge, UK: CUP 2003), 247.

⁸⁹Ferguson, Pity of War, 167.

⁹⁰Strachan, First World War, Vol.I, Clash of Arms, 166–7; Herwig, ‘Germany and the “Short War” Illusion’, 179; Clayton, Paths to Glory, 23.

⁹¹Strachan, First World War, Vol.I, Clash of Arms, 185–86.

⁹²Porch, March to the Marne, 223–26.