ABSTRACT
IT WAS taken for granted by military opinion in Europe, informed and uninformed, that the war would begin with a French thrust into Germany, either northwards into the Palatinate or eastwards across the Rhine. The London Standard, which on 13th July gave a long analysis of the routes which Napoleon might take, did not even consider an invasion of France. “It seems impossible to our judgment”, it explained, “that the Prussians will be ready in time to take the initiative”; and as Friedrich Engels pointed out in the Pall Mall Gazette of 29th July, if the French had not planned an offensive, their declaration of war did not make sense. The Germans themselves certainly expected invasion. The Crown Prince feared that it would cripple the mobilisation of the southern States; General von Blumenthal, his Chief of Staff, thought that such a thrust would be diversionary, and the main attack would be northwards towards Mainz. The King thought it unnecessary to have any maps of France immediately available at the beginning of the campaign.1 Moltke himself believed that the movements of the French units towards the frontier even before their reservists had been absorbed made it likely that Napoleon was contemplating a spoiling attack with the 150,000 men he had immediately available under arms; but the prospect did not alarm him. This force would need at least six days’ preparation before it could cross the frontier, and it would take another eight to deal with Prussian covering units in the Saar valley and reach the Rhine. By then he would have concentrated 170,000 men, and by 5th August he could meet the invaders with double their strength. Every day that passed without a French attack tilted the balance still further in the German favour; and by the beginning of August, as the trains from all over Germany poured uninterruptedly to the Rhine, Moltke could scarcely believe his fortune. Repeatedly he expressed his astonishment
at a Government declaring war two weeks before they could be ready for it; and the Crown Prince wrote, as his army concentrated behind the Lauter undisturbed, “It may well happen that, for all the French sabrerattling and all our age-long preparations against a sudden onslaught, we shall be the aggressors. Whoever could have thought it?”1
