Wilhelm Groener, Officering, and the Schlieffen Plan

By Mark R. Stoneman, Georgetown University

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the career and attitudes of Wilhelm Groener (1867-1939), whom it uses as a vehicle for understanding the Imperial German army officer corps and the assumptions that guided the General Staff war planning process that culminated in the Schlieffen Plan and the German invasion of Belgium and France in 1914.

Part I addresses the relationship between social background and officering. An influential body of historiography portrays the officer corps as noble-dominated, atavistic, and unprofessional. Groener is usually portrayed as an exception to the rule, but this dissertation shows that while his career was exceptional, it was not anomalous. Moreover, his cultural orientations comported with those of his superiors. This circumstance did not amount to his “feudalization”, however, because he continued to exhibit bourgeois cultural orientations (“Bürgerlichkeit”). Yet if his career shows that we can no longer accept the venerable “feudal” interpretation of the officer corps, it also points to the limitations of the competing functional interpretation. Groener’s military professionalism can only be understood in connection with the culturally specific image of war that manifested itself in the Schlieffen Plan.

Part II addresses the relationship between Groener’s concept of officering and his image of war. It asks why Groener found Schlieffen’s military thought so compelling, even after the First World War, when he had spent time trying to manage Germany’s material and manpower shortages. In order to answer this question, this dissertation also addresses the Schlieffen Plan debate that Terence Zuber has initiated. Zuber claims that Groener and other prominent Schlieffen advocates “invented” the Schlieffen Plan after losing the war in order to protect the General Staff’s reputation. Groener’s antebellum attitudes towards war and his references to Schlieffen’s teachings and “plan” already in the opening months of the Great War show that Zuber is wrong. Groener’s image of war comported with the revised and nuanced view of the Schlieffen Plan that Terence Holmes and Robert Foley have put forth in response to Zuber’s challenge. It was also consistent with the image of military culture that Isabel Hull offers.

Contents

Introduction

Part I — Social Background and Officering

1. Making an Officer 

      Social Context 

      Suitability 

      Becoming an Officer 

      Making a Career

2. The Right Stuff 

      Bourgeois Culture 

      Professional Self-Concept

Part II — Officering and Image of War

3. Mastering the Future 

      Military Context 

      The Schlieffen Plan Debate 

      Groener’s Prewar Expectations

4. 1914 

      Mobile Operations 

      Staying the Course 

      Permanent War

5. Lessons of War 

      Fragmented Leadership Structures 

      Schlieffen Plan Redux

Conclusion

Appendix

Bibliography

For more information about my research, see my history blog, Clio and Me.