338 Chapter NineThe war thereupon assumed a new ideological aspect. Lenin’s chal
lenge to the legitimacy of all the governments of Europe and the world
was explicit and direct. The Marxist-Leninist explanation of how
monopoly capitalism had precipitated war and how the resulting di
saster could and should be cured by converting international into class
war could not be lightly dismissed. Socialists and trade union leaders
had to decide whether Lenin was right in summoning them to revolu
tionary action; and the managerial elites that had come so vigorously
to the fore were everywhere alarmed by the prospect of domestic
disaffection conjured up by Lenin’s words.
Germany’s response was to press ahead with an intensified war
effort. Hindenberg and Ludendorff, coming to supreme command of
the army in August 1916, had already initiated all-out mobilization.
They simply cut loose from the War Office’s previous habit of keying
all planning to calculations of how much powder could be made avail
able each month. Instead, the new planners put military goals first.
Having decided on physical requirements for the next season’s cam
paigns, they placed orders for the necessary level of supply, challeng
ing the civilian sector of society to achieve “impossible” goals, if nec
essary by cutting back drastically on other forms of economic activity.
Germany thus became a garrison state, in principle and to a consider
able degree also in practice, subordinating everything to the needs of
the army as defined by the High Command’s strategic plans for the
coming year.
The “Hindenburg Plan” of 1916 was originally proclaimed in imita
tion of Lloyd George’s noisy campaign of 1915 to expand munitions
production in Britain. Goals were often set arbitrarily and with scant
attention to their feasibility. It was partly mere propaganda, as had
been true of the British program as well. But in Germany the conse
quences of exaggeration and overambitious production goals were
rather more serious than in Great Britain. Overload swiftly resulted.
Coal, steel, and transport all began to run short. Food shortages soon
became most critical of all. But Germany could not do much to correct
official mistakes by buying abroad, whereas Great Britain and France
could compensate for defects of their own planning and overcommit
ment of their home resources by falling back on the tried and true
mechanism of the world market to provide critical items from over
seas. The Royal Navy prevented Germany from doing the same. Con
sequently, all the successes the Germans had in raising their output
of munitions after 1916—and they were very great—were counter
balanced by a growingly serious malfunction of the national economy
as a whole.