German Army

“ Nothing like the German army has ever before stood on this planet. A great race, strong in both body and mind, has devoted itself for half a century to learning everything that is to be learned about war. It's a magnificent machine, smooth, powerful, tremendous, unconquerable, and for that very reason neither you nor I, John, will ever see a war of the first magnitude in Europe. ”

“ And yet when you hear, "The Germans are advancing! They are coming!" the German army seems to take on a supernatural aspect, to become a ruthless machine that drives everything before it in its advance, and in its wake leaves a country stripped of life—all the people and cottages rubbed off the face of the earth. ”

“ And then, of course, in addition to the admirals who wanted war, and the professors who glorified war, and the editors, pamphleteers, Navy and Army League leaders and paid agitators who wrote and talked war, there was the German Army, represented by its corps of fifty thousand or sixty thousand officers, which was the living, ineradicable incarnation of war and with every breath it drew sighed impatiently for its coming. ”

“ Germany in 1899 held the world’s medal Germany’s Splendid Army. for the finest and best equipped army, a magnificent engine of war, ready to move within an hour’s notice, and woe to the enemy that obstructs its path. Without any doubt in the closing period of the nineteenth century the General staff of the German army was justly regarded as the highest authority in military science. Such a vast and smooth working engine for the destruction of human beings was never before known. ”

“ An overwhelming majority of Germans believe that this is man’s real portrait; an overwhelming majority of Americans would not even understand it.
The German army is the antidote to this lack of physical discipline, this lack of strenuous physical life. The army takes the place of our West, of our games, of our sports; just as it takes the place of England’s colonies and public schools and games and sports. ”

“ In foreign politics I am determined to keep peace with every one in so far as in me lies. My love for the German army and my position in it will never lead me into the temptation of robbing the country of the benefits of peace, unless some [38] attack upon the empire, or her allies, forces war upon us. The army is to make our peace secure; yet if that should, nevertheless, be threatened, the army will be able to re-establish it with honor. And it will be able to do so by reason of the strength which it has received from the last army bill, which you voted unanimously. ”

“ In the preparation of the German Army for this supreme moment not a chance had been thrown away. In man power, armament, training, and equipment; in the instruction of leaders and officers; on the choice of commanders and every other element which makes for efficiency in an army, the most laborious thought and care had been expended. ”

“ It was of the greatest value in [Pg 228] maintaining the fighting efficiency of the army, since the possibility of getting sufficient nourishment kept our troops fresh and healthy.
All human work remains unfinished. Nevertheless, it may be said, without exaggeration, that the German army which marched to battle in 1914 was an instrument of warfare without an equal.
Whereas, at my accession to the throne, I had found the army in a condition which merely required development upon the foundations already laid, the navy, on the other hand, was in the first stage of development. ”

“ The whole system rests on the question of mobilization, meaning the ability to arm, transport, clothe, and feed a fighting force of four and one-half million men, in the shortest possible time on any given point in either eastern or western Europe. For let it be clearly understood that the main point of the training of the German armies is the readiness to launch the entire fighting force like a thunderbolt on any given point of the compass. Germany knows through past experience the advisability and necessity of conducting war in an enemy's country. The German army is built for aggression. ”

“ I place my confidence in the best army in the world, in the best army which the German nation has ever possessed. It is numerically strong, it has the finest weapons and is better led than ever before. We have a body of young leaders who have not merely proved their worth in the present war but, I can well say, have covered themselves with glory. Wherever we look today, we see a bodyguard of chosen men to whom the German soldiers have been entrusted. They in their turn are the leaders of soldiers who are the best trained in the world, who are armed with the finest weapons on earth. ”

“ Behind this armoured and mechanised onslaught came a number of German divisions in lorries, and behind them again there plodded comparatively slowly the dull brute mass of the ordinary German Army and German people, always so ready to be led to the trampling down in other lands of liberties and comforts which they have never known in their own. ”

“ There is no doubt the German army is the greatest fighting machine in Europe. We might dislike some of their methods, their cast-iron system and all that—oh, I know what the Times man said about their last manuvres—but they have been preparing for this war for years, and their organization is all cut and dried. How about the French? Yes, they have plenty of pluck, and I've seen something of their gunners—quite marvellous!—but have they got any staying power? ”

“ And so we see the empire, although still young, growing strong within itself from year to year, [206] while confidence in it is becoming more and more secure on every side. The powerful German army, however, affords a support to the peace of Europe. In keeping with the character of the Germans, we limit ourselves from without in order to remain free within. Far away over the sea our speech is spreading, and far away flows the stream of our knowledge and research. ”

“ If you stroll though the halls of the Krieges Academie, where the pick of the young officers of the German army, are preparing themselves for the examinations which admit a very small proportion of them, to appointments on the general staff, you will be delighted with the faces and figures, and the air of alertness and intelligence there. And you will find as fine a type of gentlemen, in face, manners, and figure, at their head as exists anywhere. ”

“ The active officers, usually the scions of an aristocratic house or the sons of the old military or feudal families in Germany, are mostly educated in one of the state Kadetten-Anstalten, military academies, of which Gross-Lichterfelde bei Berlin is the most famous. The real backbone and stiffening of the German army and navy is the noncommissioned officers recruited from the rank and file. In fact, this body of men is the mainstay of the thrones in the German Empire, especially of Prussia. ”

“ All in all the strategic value of the English army in regard to leadership, training, discipline and the spirit of the troops, cannot compare with the conscript armies of other lands—especially the German army. Yet the contempt which has been expressed for it in the Press as an army of hirelings, is just as little merited to-day as it was in the past when it added many a glorious page to England's history. ”

“ Buck noticed that in many cases, the rough cap of a French infantryman hung side by side with battered German helmets. The German army does everything neatly, thoroughly. Whenever there is time it buries the fallen enemy as well as its own dead. ”

“ In the German army the men are billeted upon the various towns or cities near which they happen to make their night’s halt. The German War Department has statistics showing the capacity of every house in the empire, and wherever a body of troops is moved, information is given to the officers regarding the accommodations to be found. Consequently, when a command marches into a village or town, they are told off into squads and sent to their respective quarters as easily as though they were in their own barracks. ”

“ I am of the firm conviction that, through the self-sacrificing devotion of the officers and men in their faithful work of peace, the army during the last ten years has been maintained in the same condition in which I received it from my departed predecessors.
In the next ten years, faithfully bound together, let us seek further the unconditional fulfilment of our duty in old and unremitting labor, and may the main supports of our army remain forever intact! They are courage, sense of honor, and unconditional, iron, blind obedience. ”

“ But to employ in the same space a force no greater than the British, considering the advantage of position given with modern arms to an army acting on the defensive on well-chosen ground, would have meant the annihilation of the German army section by section. ”

“ Many men with long service records could thus be dismissed. And still, mostly through the younger grades, we were in a position to strengthen the Wehrmacht at the same time. In terms of personnel the German Army looks completely different today from how it looked in the World War. Only a few days ago, I drove through Belgium and France, and as an old soldier of the World War, I must say our Wehrmacht looks magnificent today, irrespective of whether we are talking about the Army, Navy, Luftwaffe, or Waffen SS. All look equally handsome. ”

“ Thus in the German army the III. army corps is composed entirely of Brandenburgers. The infantry of the corps is stationed in ten towns, the cavalry in four and the artillery in five. In countries which adhere to voluntary recruiting, the system, depending as it does on the calculable certainty of recruiting, is not so fully developed, but in Great Britain the auxiliary forces have been reorganized in divisions of all arms on a strictly territorial basis. The advantage of the system as carried into effect in Germany is obvious. ”

“ In [Pg 89] all, forty German divisions were used against the American advance, among them being many picked regiments, the best the German army contained, seasoned fighters who had been in the war from the start. They brought to the defense of their important stronghold an enormous accumulation of artillery and machine guns and the knowledge that they must repulse the offensive and save their communications or give up their entire purpose and confess themselves beaten. German troops did no more desperate and determined fighting in the war than in this engagement. ”

“ It is only human nevertheless to be curious about personalities. Unfortunately for the satisfaction of this appetite, all is darkness as to the German Army. We may suspect that the Prussian junker, or country gentleman, controls and dominates it. But even as to this we may conceivably be wrong. The military genius of some Hanoverian, Saxon, or Bavarian may possess the mastery in council. As to the real heads of the army, as to their individual characters, and their potency in directing policy we know nothing at all. ”

“ The Prussian army in 1866 consisted of nine army corps. The German army to-day has twenty, and in case of war the number would be increased. Large forces like these are rendered manageable by grouping them into armies of four or five corps, and dealing with the armies as units. It is evident that the working of the armies and therefore of the whole depends upon the ease and certainty with which the several corps are directed. ”

“ Of every one hundred inhabitants of Germany, including men, women, and children, one is a soldier. There are, roughly, 65,000,000 inhabitants and 650,000 soldiers.
The American army is about equal in numbers to the corps of officers of Germany’s army and navy. To the American, as to almost every other foreigner, the German army means only one thing: war. ”

“ But the old German army that came raging through Belgium and northern France in 1914 is gone. Germany is well past the peak in man power, as shown in the soldiers of the line. It is also likely that the morale of the German line has its best days behind it. The American ambulance men in the Verdun sector told us of a company of German soldiers who had come across a few nights before to surrender, after killing their officers. ”

“ You can have no idea of the wonderful machine that the German army is and how well it is prepared for war. A chart is made out which shows just what must be done in the case of wars with the different nations. And every officer's place in the scheme is laid out beforehand. There is a schedule of trains which will supersede all other schedules the moment war is declared, and this is so arranged that the commander of the army here could telegraph to any officer to take such a train and go to such a place at a moment's notice. ”

“ By continually referring to the German army as a machine one gets the idea that it is an impersonal collection of inhuman beings remorselessly and mechanically devoted to duty. For a broad general impression that is perhaps a fair enough statement to start with ”

“ Wear it honorably. Think of the famous history of your Fatherland; remember that the German army must be armed against the internal as well as the external foe. More and more unbelief and discontent raise their heads in the Fatherland, and it may come to pass that you will have to shoot down or stab your own relatives and brothers. Then seal your loyalty with your heart’s blood! And now go to your homes and fulfil your duties.
— (According to the Breslauer Lokalanzeiger of December 8.)
According to the Neisser Zeitung, the second paragraph ran as follows:
Recruits! ”