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.
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