Opinions+on+WW1

====On this page, I am listing my top five failures in WW1, and the answers to my interview questions I asked my uncle, John Vaaler, who was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corp when he retired two years ago.====

1.Top Five Failures

 * 1) Unrestricted submarine warfare. This prompted America to join the war against Germany and did not accomplish much anyway.
 * 2) Field Marshal Conrad of Austria. He single handedly lost almost all of Austria's army with his crackpot schemes. He was not a realist.
 * 3) Germany failed to see quickly (after 1916) that the war could not be won. They failed then to negotiate a fair peace. I admire the courage of the German people, but I think an early peace negotiation would have saved them from great loss of men and material.
 * 4) French generals were almost all idiots, and same with the British. Joffre and Nivelle were especially stupid, costing who knows how many lives with their offensives. They had very little effective strategy between them.
 * 5) Adolf Hitler was given two medals for bravery in WW1. Hitler would the lead the world to war yet again in the coming years. Millions of civilians and soldiers died as a result of his rise to power.

Interview with the expert Expert: Lt. Col. John E. Vaaler, USMC (Ret.)

Questions:
 * 1) Who should have won WW1? The best answer to that question is, I think, "It depends." It depends on when during WW1 we are focusing. At the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914 either the Allies (France, Russia, UK) or the Central Powers (Germany, Austria) could have prevailed. Remember that the Germans very nearly took Paris and the Russians actually occupied much of eastern Germany. But after 1914, the war was probably in favor of the Allies. They had advantages of manpower, naval power, industrial base, and natural resources. The Central Powers were isolated and slowly starved of war-making resources. The entry of America in 1917 only made the imbalance between the Allies and Central Powers greater. The Allied victory in late 1918 involved strategy, courage and sacrifice. But that victory was foretold years before.
 * 2) What was the best decision on either side? What was the worst decision? If by "best" you mean smart, novel and unexpected, then I would say that the best decision was by the Germans in 1917. Russian Liberals under Alexander Kerensky had just forced Tsar Nicholas to abdicate his throne in favor of a democratic republic that would remain at war with Germany and Austria. Vladimir Lenin and his Russian Communist Party compatriots were living in Switzerland --they were barred from returning to Russia by the Tsar's government. The Germans had no love for Lenin, but even less love for Kerensky. They offered to transport Lenin and his compatriots from Switzerland, across Germany (in a sealed train), Denmark, Sweden and Finland to St. Petersburg. Thus, did Lenin return to Russia and implement his own revolution in late 1917. After his revolution, the new leader of "Soviet" Russia concluded a peace treaty with Germany. The worst decision may have also taken by the Germans. The decision to resume unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic in late winter 1917 almost certainly prompted America to seek a declaration of war against Germany and Austria. Remember that US President Woodrow Wilson had run successfully for re-election in 1916 with the slogan that "he kept us out of war." In fewer than six weeks after his inauguration in 1917, he was seeking the declaration of war, and the main reason was the threat to American shipping posed by Germany's submarines. A more thoughtful and patient Germany might have waited longer to resume a policy that it knew America would not tolerate. Just think if Germany had waited to resume unrestricted submarine warfare in 1918 AFTER Soviet Russia had been neutralized.
 * 3) Why did the Germans decide on using the Schlieffen Plan? Why not a different plan? These two questions get at the same issue. That issue is how Germany could manage to fight a two-front war. The threat of encirclement by Germany's two traditional European enemies, France in the West and Russia in the East, was the central issue for a generation of German military leaders. The "traditional" view was that Russia posed the greater threat. After all, quantity (of men) had a terrifying quality all its own to most German generals. Thus, German mobilization plans until 1900 all assumed that meeting and beating back Russian armies with technologically superior weaponry and mobility; France would be held off with a screen of 10-15 divisions on the Rhine. General Alfred von Schlieffen realized that technological superiority had also given Germany the advantage of speed. The greatest railway system in the world gave Germany by 1900 the ability to move multiple armies hundreds of miles in a matter of days. With such speed, Schlieffen thought the unthinkable. Germany could destroy the French armies via a grand encirclement and do so in a matter of 4-6 weeks. Then it could entrain to the Eastern Front in time to meet the slower mobilizing and marching Russian armies. Thus, the Schieffen Plan was born and embraced by his subordinates and his successor in 1914, Helmut von Moltke.
 * 4) What was the most interesting battle? What was the most decisive battle? Again, I think I can answer these two questions together. My answer might seem to contradict the intent of your questions, but no matter. To me, both the most interesting and decisive battle was the naval Battle of Jutland (in the North Sea) in May-June 1916. Jutland saw the only large-scale clash of the German High Seas Fleet with the British Grand Fleet. It was said by a young Winston Churchill (and others) that the only man who could "lose the war in an afternoon" was British Grand Fleet Admiral-in-Chief Sir John Jellicoe. His failure to keep the German High Seas Fleet "bottled up" around Kiel,Germany would let the Central Allies re-supply from world ports, would threaten every port in Western Europe, and would menace Britain's supply life-line. Neither Germany nor Britain emerged clearly victorious from the week of naval maneuvre, gunfire, torpedo attacks in the North Sea now called the Battle of Jutland. Yet, its indecision as a battle was decisive for the Allies' broader strategy of isolating Germany. The German High Seas Fleet remained bottled up in Kiel for the rest of the war. True, Germany had submarines to harass Britain (and America), but Britain remained the Mistress of the Seas. The Grand Fleet kept up its debilitating blockade of supplies to Germany and Austria. Jellicoe did not lose the war in an afternoon, and helped win war that ended two and a half years later.