The Guns of August
———, The Truth About Tannenberg, included in Vol. II of his War Diaries and Other Papers, tr., Eric Sutton; Intro. by K. F. Nowak, London, Secker, 1929.
KLUCK, GENERAL ALEXANDER VON, The March on Paris and Battle of the Marne, 1914, tr., New York, Longmans, 1920.
KOPP, GEORG (a member of the crew of the Goeben), Das Teufelschiff und seine kleine Schwester, tr. as Two Lone Ships, Goeben and Breslau, by Arthur Chambers, London, Hutchinson, 1931.
KRAFFT VON DELLMENSINGEN, GENERAL (Chief of Staff of Rupprecht’s Army), Die Führung des Kronprinzen Rupprecht von Bayern auf dem linken Deutschen Heeresflügel bis zur Schlact im Lothringen im August, 1914, Wissen und Wehr, Sonderheft, Berlin, Mittler, 1925.
KUHL, GENERAL HERMANN VON (Chief of Staff of Kluck’s Army), Le grand état-major allemand avant et pendant la guerre mondiale, tr. & ed. by General Douchy, Paris, Payot, 1922.
KURENBERG, JOACHIM VON, The Kaiser, tr. Russell and Hagen, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1955.
LICHNOWSKY, PRINCE KARL, Memorandum (published in English under the title The Guilt of Germany) with Introduction by Viscount Bryce, New York, Putnam’s, 1918.
LUDENDORFF, GENERAL ERICH, Ludendorff’s Own Story, August 1914–November 1918, Vol. I, tr., New York, Harper’s, 1919.
LUDWIG, EMIL, Wilhelm Hohenzollern, New York, Putnam’s, 1926.
MOLTKE, GENERALOBERST HELMUTH VON, Erinnerungen-Briefe-Dokumente, 1877–1916, Stuttgart, Der Kommendetag, 1922.
MüHLON, WILHELM (a director of Krupp’s), L’Europe devastée: notes prises dans les premiers mois de la guerre, tr., Paris, Payot, 1918.
RITTER, GERARD, The Schlieffen Plan, Critique of a Myth, tr. (contains first published text of many of Schlieffen’s papers), London, Oswald Wolff, 1958.
RUPPRECHT, CROWN PRINCE OF BAVARIA, Mein Kriegstagebuch, Vol. I, Munich, Deutscher National Verlag, 1929.
SANTAYANA, GEORGE, Egotism in German Philosophy, 2nd ed., New York, Scribner’s, 1940.
SCHINDLER, OBERLEUTNANT D., Eine 42 cm. Mörser-Batterie im Weltkrieg, Breslau, Hoffmann, 1934. The author served as artillery officer with the 420s at Liège and afterward. His book is the only firsthand account of the operation of the siege guns.
SCHLIEFFEN, ALFRED, FELDMARSHALL GRAF VON, Cannae, tr. Fort Leavenworth, Command and General Staff School Press, 1936.
SCHOEN, FREIHERR WILHELM VON, Memoirs of an Ambassador, tr., New York, Brentano’s, 1923.
SOUCHON, ADMIRAL WILHELM, La Percée de SMS Goeben et Breslau de Messine aux Dardanelles in Les marins allemands au combat, ed. Vice-Admiral Eberhard von Mantey, Reichs Marine-Archiv, tr. Capitain R. Jouan, Paris, Payot, 1930.
STÜRGKH, GENERAL GRAF JOSEF (Austrian representative at OHL), Im Deutschen Grossen Hauptquartier, Leipzig, List, 1921.
TAPPEN, GENERAL GERHARD (Chief of Operations at OHL), Jusqu’à la Marne en 1914 in Documents allemands sur la bataille de la Marne, tr. and ed. by Lt.-Col. L. Koeltz of the French General Staff, Paris, Payot, 1930.
TIRPITZ, GRAND ADMIRAL ALFRED VON, My Memoirs, 2 vols., tr., New York, Dodd, Mead, 1919.
TOPHAM, ANNE (Governess to the Kaiser’s daughter), Memories of the Kaiser’s Court, New York, Dodd, Mead, 1914. An invaluable view from the inside by an outsider.
WETTERLÉ, ABBÉ E. (deputy in the Reichstag from Alsace-Lorraine), Behind the Scenes in the Reichstag, tr., New York, Doran, 1918.
WILE, FREDERIC WILLIAM, Men Around the Kaiser, Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1913.
———, The Assault: Germany Before—and England After—the Outbreak, Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1916.
WILHELM, CROWN PRINCE OF GERMANY, My War Experiences, tr., London, Hurst, 1922.
———, Memoirs, tr., New York, Scribner’s, 1922.
WILHELM II, The Kaiser’s Memoirs, New York, tr., Harper’s, 1922. Reticence having unhappily overtaken the author late in life, this meagre volume by a central figure of his time is thin and disappointing.
———, Letters from the Kaiser to the Czar, ed. Isaac Don Levine, New York, Doubleday Page, 1920. Generally known as the Willy-Nicky Letters.
WOLFF, THEODOR (editor of the Berliner Tageblatt), Eve of 1914, tr. E. W. Dickes, New York, Knopf, 1936.
ZEDLITZ-TRUTZSCHLER, ROBERT, GRAF VON, Twelve Years at the Imperial German Court, tr., New York, Doran, 1924. A particularly revealing study of the Kaiser by his unhappy Court Chamberlain.
On Russia
AGOURTINE, LéON, Le Général Soukhomlinov, Clichy, l’Auteur, 1951.
ALEXANDRA, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA, Letters of the Tsaritsa to the Tsar, 1914–16, ed. and intro. by Sir Bernard Pares, London, Duckworth, 1923.
BOTKIN, GLEB (son of the Czar’s physician), The Real Romanovs, New York, Revell, 1931.
BUCHANAN, SIR GEORGE, My Mission to Russia, Boston, Little, Brown, 1923.
BRUSILOV, GENERAL A. A., A Soldier’s Notebook, tr., London, Macmillan, 1930.
DANILOV, GENERAL YOURI, La Russie dans la guerre mondiale, tr., Col. A. Kaznakov, Paris, Payot, 1927.
———, Le Premier Généralissime des armées russes: le grand-duc Nicolas, tr., Paris, Berger-Levrault, 1932.
DOBROROLSKY, GENERAL SERGE (Chief of Mobilization Service in the Ministry of War in 1914), “La Mobilisation de l’armée russe en 1914,” Revue d’Histoire de la Guerre, 1923, pp. 53–69 and 144–165.
GILLIARD, PIERRE (tutor to the Czar’s children), Thirteen Years at the Russian Court, tr., New York, Doran, 1922.
GOLOVIN, LIEUT.-GENERAL NICHOLAS N., The Russian Army in the World War, tr., New Haven, Yale, 1931.
———, The Russian Campaign of 1914, tr., Captain Muntz, A.G.S. Command and General Staff School Press, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1933. The first of these on the organization, and the second on the military operations, of the Russian Army are the outstanding sources on the Russian war effort in the early months.
GOURKO, GENERAL VASILII (BASIL) (Commander of a Cavalry Division in Rennenkampf’s Army), War and Revolution in Russia, 1914–17, tr., New York, Macmillan, 1919.
GOURKO, VLADIMIR, Features and Figures of the Past: Government and Opinion in the Reign of Nicholas II, tr., Stanford University Press, 1939.
IRONSIDE, MAJOR-GENERAL SIR EDMUND, Tannenberg: The First Thirty Days in East Prussia, Edinburgh, Blackwood, 1925.
KNOX, MAJOR-GENERAL SIR ALFRED, With the Russian Army, London, Hutchinson, 1921.
KOKOVTSOV, COUNT V. N. (Premier, 1911–14), Out of My Past, tr., Stanford Univ. Press, 1935.
NIKOLAIEFF, COL. A. M., “Russian Plan of Campaign in the World War, 1914,” tr., Infantry Journal, September-October, 1932.
PALÉOLOGUE, MAURICE, An Ambassador’s Memoirs, tr., F. A. Holt, Vol. I, London, Hutchinson, 1923.
RADZIWILL, PRINCESS CATHERINE, Nicholas II, Last of the Czars, London, Cassell, 1931.
———, Sovereigns and Statesmen of Europe, New York, Funk & Wagnalls, 1916.
RODZIANKO, M. V. (President of the Duma), Memoirs: Reign of Rasputin, tr., London, Philpot, 1927.
SAZONOV, SERGEI, Fateful Years, 1909–16, tr., New York, Stokes, 1928.
SUKHOMLINOV, VLADIMIR, Erinnerungen, Berlin, Hobbing, 1924.
WITTE, COUNT SERGIUS, Memoirs, tr., New York, Doubleday, Page, 1921. Among the rash of memoirs inspired by the fall of the Czarist regime, this is the most solid and informative, although Witte’s official career ended in 1906.
WRANGEL, BARON NICHOLAS, Memoirs, 1847–1920, tr., Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1927.
On Turkey
DJEMAL PASHA, Memoirs of a Turkish Statesman, 1913–1919, tr., New York, Doran, 1922.
EMIN, AHMED, Turkey in the World War, New Haven, Yale, 1930.
KANNENGIESSER, GENERAL HANS (a member of the German military mission to Turkey in 1914), The Campaign in Gallipoli, tr., London, Hutchinson, 1928.
MORGENTHAU, HENRY, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story, New York, Doubleday, Page, 1918.
NOGALES, GENERAL RAFAEL DE, Four Years Beneath the Crescent, New York, Scribner’s, 1926.
Secondary Works
BENSON, E. F., The Kaiser and English Relations, London, Longmans, 1936.
BUCHAN, JOHN, A History of the Great War, Vol. I, London, Nelson, 1922.
CRAIG, GORDON, A., The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640–1945, New York, Oxford, 1956.
CRUTTWELL, C. R. M., A History of the Great War, 1914–18, Oxford Univ. Press, 1936.
DE WEERD, H. A., Great Soldiers of Two World Wars, New York, Norton, 1941.
EARLE, EDWARD MEADE, ed., et al., Makers of Modern Stategy, Princeton Univ. Press, 1943.
———, Modern France, Princeton Univ. Press, 1951.
FLORINSKY, MICHAEL T., The End of the Russian Empire, New Haven, Yale, 1931.
FROTHINGHAM, CAPT. THOMAS G., The Naval History of the World War, Vol. I, Offensive Operations, 1914–15, Cambridge, Harvard, 1925.
GOERLITZ, WALTER, History of the German General Staff, tr. Brian Battershaw, New York, Praeger, 1955.
HALÉVY, ELIE, A History of the English People, Epilogue, Vol. II, 1905–1915. London, Benn, 1934.
MAUROIS, ANDRÉ, Edwardian Era, tr., New York, Appleton-Century, 1933.
MCENTEE, COL. GIRARD L., Military History of the World War, New York, Scribner’s, 1937.
MONTEIL, VINCENT, Les Officiers, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1958.
NEAME, LT.-COL. PHILIP, German Strategy in the Great War (Lectures at Staff College, Camberley), London, Arnold, 1923.
PONSONBY, ARTHUR, Falsehood in Wartime, New York, Dutton, 1928.
RENOUVIN, PIERRE, The Forms of War Government in France, New Haven, Yale, 1927.
ROSINSKI, HERBERT, The German Army, London, Hogarth, 1939.
Notes
1. A Funeral
Accounts of the funeral, besides those in the daily press and in memoirs of the periods, appear in The Queen, The Sphere, and The Graphic for May 21, 1910; “The Meeting of Nine Kings” by William Bayard Hale in World’s Work for July, 1910; “An Impression of the King’s Funeral” by Mary King Waddington in Scribner’s for October, 1910; Theodore Roosevelt to David Grey, October 5, 1911, Letters, ed. E. E. Morison (Harvard UP., 1951–54), VII, 409–13.
“Grave even to severity”: The Times, May 21, 1910.
“Call this place my home”: to Bülow, qtd. Ludwig, 427.
“He is Satan”: Zedlitz-Trutschler, 177–8. The German press also represented Edward’s tour as “having the sole object of forming an alliance against Germany.” Lascelles to Grey, April 19, 1907, BD, VI, No. 15.
“A very nice boy”: Roosevelt to Trevelyan, October 1, 1911, Letters, VII, 397.
“I bide my time”: Lee, I, 477–8.
Ferdinand of Bulgaria annoyed other sovereigns: Roosevelt to Grey, op. cit., 409–10. His Byzantine regalia: Sazonov, 230.
Prince Danilo and friend: Cust, 111, 249.
“You have a nice country”: qtd. Maurois, 44.
Edward’s visit to Paris and reports of Belgian and German envoys: Lee, II, 241–2.
“Not a mouse could stir”: Lee, II, 11.
Compared to Bülow an eel was a leech: qtd. Maurois, 177.
Holstein called warnings “naïve”: Eckhardstein, 249.
Eckhardstein overhears: ibid., 230.
Kaiser wanted to go to Paris: Paléologue, Un Prélude, 494–5
Kaiser complained to Roosevelt: Roosevelt to Trevelyan, Letters, VII, 396.
Kaiser told King of Italy: Bülow, II, 355; Benson, 248.
Bernhardi, “We must secure”: Bernhardi, 81.
Huns of Attila: Bülow, I, 418.
“Legitimate aims”: Hans Delbruck, professor of history at University of Berlin and Germany’s leading military historian, qtd. Wile, Men Around the Kaiser, 119–22.
Deutschland ganzlich einzukreisen: Neue Freie Presse, April 15, 1907, qtd. Lee, II, 542.
Clemenceau on Germany’s “lust for power”: qtd. Bruun, 116.
Clemenceau told Edward: Goschen to Grey, August 29, 1908, BD, VI, No. 100; Steed, I, 287.
Czar a “common murderer”: Lee, II, 587.
“An Englishman is a zhid”: Witte, 189.
Edward waltzed with Czarina: Fisher, Memories, 234.
Czar only fit “to grow turnips”: The Kaiser expressed this opinion to the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, at Queen Victoria’s funeral, qtd. Newton, 199.
“Garcon mal élevé”: Benson, 45.
“Nicky, take my word for it”: October 25, 1895, Willy-Nicky Letters, 23.
“More speeches, more parades”: Botkin, 103.
A detail that “escaped his Majesty”: qtd. Ludwig, 263.
“Lies. He wants war”: qtd. Maurois, 256.
Kaiser took to his bed: Crown Prince, 98–100.
Esher’s lectures on The Great Illusion: “Modern War and Peace” and “La guerre et la paix” in Esher, Essays, 211–28 and 229–61.
Germany “receptive” to The Great Illusion: ibid., 224. Esher gave copies to the Kaiser, ibid., 55.
Bernhardi the first to enter Paris in 1870: Hindenburg, 59. Quotations for Bernhardi’s book are from Chapters I, II, IV, V, IX, and X.
King Edward’s death; quotations from Isvolsky and Le Figaro and details of mourning in Paris, Tokyo, and Berlin are from The Times, May 8, 1910.
Kaiser’s arrival at Victoria Station: The Times, May 20, 1910.
Kaiser impressed by the Lying-in-State: Kaiser’s Memoirs, 129.
Kaiser’s proposal to Pichon: Arthur, George V, 125.
“Other sovereigns so much quieter”: Trevelyan, 172.
Kaiser denies proposal to Pichon: Kaiser’s Memoirs, 131.
“Amiable and pacific”: The Times, May 21, 1910.
Conan Doyle’s account: ibid.
Queen Alexandra loathed Kaiser: Arthur, George V, 126. Her letter to George: Nicolson, George V, 40.
“There never was such a break-up”: Esher, Journals, III, 4.
2. “Let the Last Man on the Right Brush the Channel with His Sleeve”
“The heart of France”: qtd. Buchan, I, 118.
“An unimportant obstacle” : Goerlitz, 129.
“The whole of Germany must throw itself”: Schlieffen’s Memorandum of 1912, Ritter, 172.
The Schlieffen plan: Schlieffen’s Memoranda for 1892 and 1912 in Ritter; Schlieffen’s Cannae, Kuhl’s Generalstab, Förster.
“It is better to lose a province”: qtd. by Schlieffen, Ritter, 172.
“The principles of strategy remain unchanged”: Schlieffen, Cannae, 4.
Von der Goltz, “We have won our position”: qtd. Wile, Men Around the Kaiser, 222.
“Desperate delusion of the will”: Santayana, 69.
Elder Moltke foretold a long war: Foerster, 21.
Younger Moltke, “It will be a national war”: Erinnerungen.
“Belgian neutrality must be broken”: General von Hahnke’s notes on Schlieffen’s Memorandum of 1912, Ritter, 186.
“Gaining great victories”: Clausewitz, III, 209–10.
“The one that willed war more than the other”: General Percin in article in Ere Nouvelle, January, 1925, qtd. Ponsonby, 55–6.
Bülow’s conversation with Schlieffen: Bülow, II, 88.
Leopold II a “thoroughly bad man”: Roosevelt to Trevelyan, October 1, 1911, Letters, VII, 369.
Kaiser’s proposal to Leopold II and Leopold’s reaction: Bülow, II, 82–85; Cammaerts, 108–9.
Two million pounds sterling: J. V. Bredt, Die Belgische Neutralität und der Schlieffensche Feldzugsplan, qtd. AQ, July, 1929, 289.
“The French would have had to pay for it”: Dupont, 23.
“Lining up her army along the road”: the diplomat was Richard von Kuhlmann, then counselor of the German Embassy in London, later, in 1917, Foreign Secretary, qtd. Cammaerts, 134.
“All fortresses, railways and troops”: Memorandum of 1912, Ritter, 175.
“Lille … an excellent target”: ibid.
“Let the last man on the right”: qtd. Rosinsky, 137.
Schlieffen counted on British belligerency: Ritter, 161–4.
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Use of reserves in the front line: Isaac, Reserves, 335; Foerster, 71.
“Only make the right wing strong”: Foerster, 70.
“Engaging the enemy in his own territory”: Erinnerungen.
“Entirely just and necessary”: Tappen, 92.
“We must put aside all commonplaces”: Cambon (French ambassador in Berlin) to Foreign Minister Pichon, May 6, 1913, French Yellow Book No. 3.
German spies’ reports on Russia: Tirpitz, I, 343.
Moltke to Conrad: “Any adjournment”: Conrad, III, 670
“We are ready and the sooner the better”: Eckhardstein, Lebenserinnerungen, Vol. III, Die Isolierung Deutschlands, Leipzig, 1921, 184.
3. The Shadow of Sedan
Official sources for Plan 17 and its predecessors are AF, Tome I, Vol. I, Chaps. 1 and 2 and Joffre, 45–112. Text of the general directive and of the deployment orders to the several armies is No. 8 in Annexes to AF, I, I. The leading critics of the Plan are Engerand, General Grouard, and General Percin; the last, being blamed for the evacuation of Lille in August, 1914, had a personal ax to grind.
General Lebas’s interview with Castelnau: Briey, session of May 23, evidence of M. Vendame, deputy of Lille, who accompanied Lebas; session of July 4, evidence of General Lebas.
Density of troops per meter for offensive action: Col. Grandmaison had worked it out at 6 to 8 km. per army corps. Engerand, 431.
“We proclaim forever the right of Alsatians”: Alexandre Zevaes, Histoire de la Troisième République, Paris, 1926, 41.
Gambetta, “N’en panes jamais”: Huddleston, 36.
Victor Hugo, “France will have one thought”: Zevaes, op. cit., 41.
Secret patrols gaze down on Colmar: Monteil, 38.
Forty-two ministers in forty-three years: qtd. Craig, in Earle’s Modern Strategy, 276.
“Oh, les braves gens!”: Pierre de la Gorce, Histoire du Second Empire, VII, 343.
Foch and doctrine of offensive: the quotations and episode of Clemenceau and Foch are from “Du Picq and Foch” by Stefan T. Possony and Etienne Manteux, Chap. 9 in Earle’s Modern Strategy.
Grandmaison’s lectures: Lanrezac, 138, n. 1; Messimy, 72; John Bowditch, “The Concept of Elan Vital,” in Earle’s Modern France, 39–43.
Fallières, “The offensive alone”: Joffre, 30.