The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War

Abstract

Bethmann Hollweg.1 They largely overlooked the lessons of the American Civil War, the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, the Boer War, and the Russo-Japanese War, which had demonstrated the power of the new defensive technologies. Instead, Europeans embraced a set of political and military myths which obscured both the defender's advantages and the obstacles an aggressor would confront. This mindset helped to mold the offensive military doctrines which every European power adopted during the period 1892-1913.2 In Germany, the military glorified the offense in strident terms, and inculcated German society with similar views. General Alfred von Schlieffen, author of the 1914 German war plan, declared that "Attack is the best defense," while the popular publicist Friedrich von Bernhardi proclaimed that "the offensive mode of action is by far superior to the defensive mode," and that "the superiority of offensive warfare under modern conditions is greater than formerly."3 German Chief of Staff General Helmuth von Moltke also endorsed "the principle that the offensive is the best defense," while General August von Keim, founder of the Army League, argued that "Germany ought to be armed for attack," since "the offensive is the only way of insuring victory."4 These assumptions guided the Schlieffen Plan, which envisaged Cult of the Offensive | 61 ... We also must follow this example."12 Even in Belgium the offensive found proponents: under the influence of French ideas, some Belgian officers favored an offensive strategy, proposing the remarkable argument that "To ensure against our being ignored it was essential that we should attack," and declaring that "We must hit them where it hurts. "13 Mythical or mystical arguments obscured the technical dominion of the defense, giving this faith in the offense aspects of a cult, or a mystique, as Marshall Joffre remarked in his memoirs.14 For instance, Foch mistakenly argued that the machine gun actually strengthened the offense: "Any improvement of firearms is ultimately bound to add strength to the offensive.. .. Nothing is easier than to give a mathematical demonstration of that truth." If two thousand men attacked one thousand, each man in both groups firing his rifle once a minute, he explained, the "balance in favor of the attack" was one thousand bullets per minute. But if both sides could fire ten times per minute, the "balance in favor of the attacker" would increase to ten thousand, giving the attack the overall advantage.15 With equally forced logic, Bernhardi wrote that the larger the army the longer defensive measures would take to execute, owing to "the difficulty of moving masses"; hence, he argued, as armies grew, so would the relative power of the offense.16 British and French officers suggested that superior morale on the attacking side could overcome superior defensive firepower, and that this superiority in morale could be achieved simply by assuming the role of attacker, since offense was a morale-building activity. One French officer contended that "the offensi...

Counterfactuals and Hypothesis Testing in Political Science

“…See Neuberg (1988) An example will help make this point concrete. It has been proposed that a "cult of the offensive" in turn-of-the-century Europe --the widespread con viction in civilian and military circles that there were enormous strategic advantages to striking first --was an important cause of World War I (Van Evera 1984, Snyder 1984. According to the analysis above, we have two means of empirically checking this hypothesis.…”

“…On similar grounds, Stephen Van Evera (1984) has convincingly developed the thesis that a "cult of the offensive" was a major cause of World War I --in fact, he argues that military and civilian tendencies to glorify the offensive had the effect of "feeding or magnifying a wide range of secondary dangers" which other analysts thought were independent or unrelated causes.…”

Why the World Needs an International Cyberwar Convention

“…According to traditional offense/defense theory, when offense holds the advance it is relatively easier to 'move forward, destroy and conquer territory' than to protect and defend it (Jervis 1978;Evera and Stephen 1984;Glaser and Kaufman 1998). 10 Cyber experts list three main reasons why offensive strategies have an upper hand in cyberspace.…”

“…According to Stephen van Evera (1984), the Cult prior to WWI pushed states to adopt a highly aggressive style of diplomacy, reliant on issuing ultimatums and threats rather than focusing on negotiation. A similar tendency can be observed in today's cyber domain.…”

Uluslararası Sistem ve İstikrar: Kavramsal Bir Değerlendirme

“…Çift kutuplu sistemlerde dengeyi devam ettirecek olan süpergüçlerin savaş üretecek olan hem sorumsuzluk yapma ihtimalleri hem de sorumluluğu abartarak savaşa sürüklenme ihtimalleri ortadan kalkacaktır. Mesela Birinci Dünya Savaşı öncesinde müttefikleri olan Sırbistan ve Avusturya-Macaristan arasındaki gerginlik, Almanya ve Rusya'yı savaşa sürüklemişti (Williamson, 1988;Van Evera, 1984;Lieber, 2007;Sagan, 1986). İkinci Dünya Savaşı öncesinde ise tam tersi büyük güçlerin ortaya çıkan Almanya tehdidinin karşısına dikilme görevini diğer büyük güçlerin üzerine yıkma sorumsuzluğunun İkin-ci Dünya Savaşı'na neden olduğu iddia edilmektedir (Hughes, 1988;Kennedy, 1962).…”