Review - Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany by Isabel Hull


            Isabel Hull, in her tome Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany, analyzes German military culture and policy from the German Wars of Unification (1866-1871) to the final year of the Great War (1918).  She contends that an isolated German military culture emerged as the chief directorate of German foreign policy (Weltpolitik).  The German state and society, forged in war, came to adulate the military apparatus as a conveyer of strength and patriotism in Europe during the late 19th century.  Fin-de-siècle Europe found itself immersed in social Darwinist ideology as well as global imperial competition and militarism.  However, as Hull makes clear, Germany was different.  Germany came to be dominated by its military institution rather than civilian institutions. It is also important to note that the German military was not ideologically driven (as it was during the era of the Third Reich).  Rather, Germany was driven by a military culture that internalized "habitual practices, default programs, hidden assumptions, and unreflected [sic] cognitive frames" that created illogical and irrational war aims and practices (2).  Moreover, the military was, itself, isolated from criticism due to the Bismarck constitution, which restricted the Reichstag's ability to control the military, the creation of a powerful Kaiser, and an accommodating public (militarist and "patriotic" pressure groups) and press.  The German military, thus, became entrapped in its own "solipsistic" groupthink, approving of its own policies (including the complete "annihilation" of the enemy as the only form of victory), which eventually led to the Kaiserreich's demise by 1918.
            Hull uses the German colony in Southwest Africa (SWA) during the early 1900's as an example of brutal tactics utilized by the German war machine.  The General Staff was given nearly complete control of orchestrating policy in SWA by the Kaiser.  The "Wilhelminian government was not integrated under civilian leadership" (12).  Rather, Kaiser Wilhelm II had the authority to appoint the apparatus of his choosing to implement policy in the colony.  Because the Herero revolt was considered one of "national security," Wilhelm chose the General Staff.  Moreover, the constitution allowed for the Kaiser to fund the army without Reichstag approval.  Thus, the colony fell under the auspices of German military doctrine rather than civilian doctrine.  Military patrols lacked government oversight, leaving generals and subordinate commanders in charge of implementing policy on the ground.  Courts-martial and the arbitrary shooting of civilians suspected of practicing guerrilla warfare ("francs-tireurs") were, therefore, carried out by the military apparatus.  Because the military identified "the entire people" in SWA as enemy combatants, all were susceptible to execution.  Executions were "not random atrocities but accepted methods of warfare" preached in German military doctrine (20).  This brutal approach regarding civilians was implemented previously during the Franco-Prussian War, "the first German 'national' war," which generated and "galvanized" German military doctrine and later in Belgium and France during WWI (110).  Because this policy of annihilation seemed to "work" in SWA, the military leadership convinced itself that it was indeed the correct tactic for military victory.     
            How did a policy of killing civilians in warfare become part of German military doctrine?  Hull utilizes a sociological approach, arguing that such a policy became protocol as a result of "trauma-learning" from the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War.  The Franco-Prussian War was, in a sense, Germany's war of revolution.  The autonomy of a future unified German state "hung in the balance" (117).  Because the French did not surrender after the massive battle of Sedan, in which the enemy was "annihilated," a core precept of German-Clauswitzian military doctrine, the General Staff could not see how to clearly end the war.  Civilians, Hull contends, became the enemy because many committed to guerrilla warfare.  The General Staff came to the conclusion, out of irrational fear, that annihilating civilian populations was a fundamental condition for victory.  Thus, despite international prohibitions against killing civilians, the German army trained its burgeoning officer corps to essentially disregard such regulations.  Hull compares this policy to the British policy in South Africa during the Boer War in which the British Army, constrained by a powerful Parliament and press, was kept from committing such atrocities against civilians through civilian oversight.                 
            The General Staff's policy of annihilation led it to create irrational and impractical military strategies such as the Schlieffen Plan, which eventually led to disastrous results for the German war machine in the first two years of the Great War.  The German military entered WWI with no real goals other than the total annihilation of the enemy, which consisted of countries with much larger armies and populations (Russia, France and, later, Britain).  By 1917, WWI had become a war of attrition, for which the German military had no supplies or manpower.  A nation forged in war was destroyed by war.

No comments:

Post a Comment