and weapons forward of a main line of advance, against opposition, over war-
ravaged terrain. The result was stalemate, leading first to the kind of drawn-out
fighting retreat that German planners and thinkers had predicted meant catas-
trophe, and then to final visions of an apocalyptic last stand in the Reich itself. 51
THE RECOVERY: FROMSITZTOBLITZIn 1914 and again in 1918, the Germans were unable to develop their initial
advantage in the war’s decisive theatre. They could break into Allied defences, and
break through them. They could not break out. General Hans von Seeckt began
moving the army from Sitz to Blitz. Educated at a civilian grammar school
(Gymnasium), during the war he had established a reputation as one of the
army’s most brilliant staff officers and, in March 1920, he became head of the
army high command in the newly established Weimar Republic.
Seeckt wore a monocle, but refused to wear blinkers. He disliked slogans. He
disliked nostalgia—even the nostalgia surrounding the Great War’s ‘front experi-
ence’. Instead, he called for a return to the principle of pursuing quick, decisive
victories. That in turn meant challenging the concept of mass that had permeated
military thinking since the Napoleonic Wars. Mass, Seeckt argued, ‘becomes
immobile. It cannot win victories. It can only crush by sheer weight’. 52
Seeckt’s response was to develop an army capable of ‘fighting outnumbered
and winning’. The Reichswehr, Seeckt insisted, must dictate the conditions of
battle by taking the initiative. Boldness was his first rule; flexibility his second.
The manuals issued in the early 1920s emphasized the importance of the offen-
sive. 53 As yet, operational art played no significant role. The underlying principle
of Reichswehr planning was less to achieve decisive victory, much less a battle of
annihilation, than to buy time for the diplomats to work a miracle. 54
The Treaty of Versailles had specified the structure of the Reichswehr in detail:
a force of 100,000, with enlisted men committed to twelve years of service and
officers to twenty-five. It was forbidden tanks, aircraft, and any artillery above
three inches in calibre. That Reichswehr faced at least a double, arguably a triple,
bind. It could not afford to challenge the Treaty of Versailles openly. It badly
needed force multipliers. To seek those multipliers externally, for example by
supporting clandestine paramilitary organizations, was to risk destabilizing a
state that was Germany’s best chance to avoid collapsing into civil war. 55
Seeckt correspondingly sought internal multipliers. The Treaty of Versailles
authorized each Reichswehr division a motor-transport battalion. Some unimag-
inative officers might agree with the critic who allegedly insisted the trucks were
there to haul flour. Seeckt saw motor vehicles as an increasingly valuable supple-
ment to the cavalry that made up almost a quarter of the Reichswehr’s front-line
strength. German cavalrymen were likely to find motor vehicles appealing pre-
cisely because they were deprived of them—a human tendency freeing the Reich-
swehr from much of the hoof dragging other armies confronted.
48 The Evolution of Operational Art