Review of 'Stabbed in the Back - The German General Staff and Economic Mismanagement during the Great War’ by Peter Edwards (March 2018)

There has been a lack of academic work on the proper economic concerns regarding the war effort on both sides of the combatants in the Great War. With regard to the German War Economy, the politicisation of the economy was the first action of the Prussian elite. This did not take into account the work force which had become increasing more literate due to the excellent education system in Germany which led to increasing influence of socialism and the unions. Did the plan take into account the preparation for war? To maintain the economy and to feed the workforce should have been the main aim, instead the economy was maintained to supply armaments for the army. 

Moltke’s interpretation of the Schlieffen Plan employed thousands of soldiers supported by armaments and field pieces. This was typical Prussian thinking – a military & social elite, maintaining its grip on the levers of power with little empathy with the middle class, civilians and industry. There was also the myth of the German success in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. Despite the victory, France had not been crushed and had spent the intervening years rebuilding its defences and training a new generation of young men in warfare. In 1914 which strategy was to be utilised? Crushing the enemy with one outright blow or a gradual wearing down of the enemy so that they capitulate under German terms? With hindsight we can see these two opposing views in the strategies employed by Falkenhayn and Hindenburg-Ludendorff. What the German high command did not take into account was the industrial back up for which ever strategy was to succeed. In terms of raw materials, especially coal and iron ore, there was a plentiful supply but the means of production of armaments and field pieces had not been thought through. The leading industrialist were treated with disdain during the Great War by the High Command, they were not Prussian, they were predominantly middle class and, heavens help us, some of them were Jewish!

One important feature of a long war, which the German High Command failed to address, was the food supply. Troops, like civilians, require a regular supply of fresh potatoes, pork and grain. Unfortunately, the picture of the romantic German farmer labouring by hand was all too true. There had been no mechanization of the agriculture in Germany, neither was there an adequate labour supply as front-line troops and armaments kept withdrawing labour from the land. Problems with the food supply were not equally distributed, some areas, closer to plentiful farming areas fared a lot better. The winners were the black marketeers. If you had sufficient money, pork was always available.

How did the Naval Blockade effect the economy? There was continual trade with friendly neutral countries and a competent High Command would have exploited this to the advantage of the war effort. But it was not to be. In 1915 Moltke, having been side-lined, warned about inadequate economic planning.

The Hindenburg-Ludendorff dictatorship set itself some ambitious aims: first to double the munitions stockpile, then to triple the production of artillery field pieces and machine guns. This would only be possible if more munition workers could be recruited. Where were they to be found? With the army demands on manpower, these men would have to come from agricultural areas. This was the first step in preparation for the ‘annihilating battle’. The two military leaders could command the army but could they command the economy? There was a lot of support from the industrialist who could see vast profits in the plan, but were they prepared to modernise their methods of production?

Another contributing drain on the German Economy can be seen in the Scheer Plan to increase the size of the U-boat fleet and extend the submarine action which ultimately brought the USA into the war. Once again, we are looking at re-allocating the work force and weakening the overall war effort as Germany was unable to feed itself without investment in the farms and in the movement of food. During this time there was a plan for the utilisation of the occupied territories. Industrialist did not like the idea of competition, therefore two plans appear to have implemented. The first involved forced labour – the young men were forced to allocate to Germany with all the problems that involved, and second serious consideration was given to moving plants from occupied territory into Germany which did not prove to be a success.

The Myth of the East proved to be a fallacy as the Prussian low opinion of Eastern European workers led to a ‘colonization’ attitude. The movement of labour, in place of exploiting workers ‘in situ’, proved to be less than effective. All these policies finally led to inflation: industrial workers, realising, their value and being not only articulate but well led demanded higher wages. The 1917 U-boat campaign brought the USA into the war but the Prussian high command underestimated the speed of militarisation and number and enthusiasm of the doughboys who arrived in France in 1918.

What went wrong? The attitude of Prussian elite can be seen in different ways, to militarise the economy, to secure their position as the leading force in Germany, to curb the rising influence of the middle class, to colonise parts of occupied Europe and to crush the socialists.

A measure of the incompetence of the Prussian elite was the recovery of the German industry after the war in the hands of the Social-Democrats. By 1923, Germany was once again a major steel producer in the Western World.

Report by Peter Palmer