As he reliably does, Serge has structured a historically accurate explanation of Von Moltke's war and his angst about the way it evolved into Volkskrieg elucidated in his Reichstag summation. He is further solidly correct in his analysis of Putin's intent and purpose in finally acting in Ukraine. Where I take some issue with him is in his inference about Putin's intention with the SMO. Putin's strategy was sound and achievable against Ukraine; just not against a Ukraine funded and fully supported by The Empire and its clumsy toy, NATO. If Putin can be strategically faulted it has to be because he could not believe the U.S., in its vicious determination to do anything short of actual commitment to engage itself, would go all in and back the Ukronazis with endless arms and money. That is all that frustrated the kabinettkrieg Putin foresaw, and it has kept an insane Ukraine still fighting to the last Ukrainian for the gratification of doddering, impotent, old Aunt Sam.
A valuable commentary and description of the war Russia is now waging.
However, labeling this conflict as a "peoples' war" by Ukraine is a stretch. The Ukrainian people are certainly being exploited and destroyed but it is through control by the tribe in Kiev, Wall Street and its control over the US government and European governments, all of whose resources are being used to march the people to their deaths.
Thanks for illuminating parallels between previous European wars and the current one. It could be argued that both France and Germany are now losing an extermination war against mass migration facilitated by the EU and GAE. Russia is the last bulwark on the continent and Ukraine a sacrificial lamb used to poke the bear, far more lopsided than the sides fighting the Prussian War.
As a French amateur of military history, I have been thinking for more than a year that the 1870 war was much more relevant to understanding this War of Ukraine than WW1, which most commenters love to bring up because of the trench/position war aspect, and probably also because of the scale of maiming of soldiers.
Your depiction of the German analysis of the French political and popular reaction to defeat is most interesting, I did not know about the debate among Prussian elites.
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That being said... I think the analysis (the Prussians' first and by extension yours as well) is lacking an understanding of the mechanisms behind the French nationalistic reaction in 1870. The refusal of defeat and the belief in Guerre à Outrance was less about a refusal of Prussia's defeating French military forces, than about a refusal of the complete failure of 20 years of authoritarian rule by Napoleon III. That's what the Gouvernement de Défense Nationale was all about.
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Napoleon III was a rather mediocre mind, but an expert in faking talent by buying it from others. He was in essence little more than a political manipulator. Once he held power, he exercised it through permanent abuse of it. His regime had sent more than 100.000 political opponents in jail and to penal colonies in Algeria, in Guyane and in New Caledonia. His government was one of arrogant upper class privileged people who had never proven much but who posed as equal to the greatest generations in French history, particularly the generation of military leaders that existed un Napoleon's Empire.
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The 1870 war was started by Napoleon III and his government out of arrogance. He wanted to humiliate the King of Prussia on a rather insignificant matter of accession to the throne of Spain, because he dreamt of securing an actual Bonaparte dynasty. By declaring war on Prussia, he also set the conditions for the pan-German mutual defense treaties to operate, so that instead of fighting Prussia, France fought almost every German state representing twice the forces France could gather in a short time. In order to justify declaring war, the government lied to the French Parliament about a supposed humiliation of the French ambassador by the King of Prussia, and by Bismarck in a communication to his network of diplomats. Parliament by then was made up of people who had been appointed by the government, and whose elections were all fake, due to the system of picking "official candidates" that oppositions could hardly ever hope to beat.
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When France suffered the first catastrophic defeats, in Wissembourg first, then in Woerth-Reichshoffen after only a few days of war, it soon became obvious that the government had lied about the levels of preparedness of the French army. They were supposed to have a most modern and superior Chassepot rifle, but in fact those had not been produced in large numbers and most of the troops still used early 19th century rifles. They lacked canons as well, especially the bigger ones, and means to move them around. They lacked ammo. They even lacked shoes... In Reichshoffen, the Prusso-German army actually suffered more losses than the French side, due to rather poor tactics of sending infantry lines through the field one after the other. But German artillery dominated the battle in every way. France lost in a single battle 4 of its 6 elite heavy cuirassé cavalry regiments, which were seen as the sign of its military superiority over Europe.
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Following the Reichshoffen defeat, the military command proved utterly incapable of taking any decisive action. Moltke did not even have to work hard to trap the main army in Metz: Maréchal Bazaine chose to hide inside the fortified city because he was scared to fight, and scared to be defeated and to have his fame diminished. He'd worked hard to become an Insta-hero of the days, he couldn't fathom the idea of facing public reckoning with reality... He had several opportunities to break through Prussian besieging lines but he did not even make a proper attempts. After the war, he was tried and sentenced for betrayal... In fact, he had hoped that the Imperial government would be replaced by his monarchist friends who would shield him from the consequences of his military failure.
In Paris, both the government and parliament, made up of courtiers and insignificant sycophants who owed their positions to the Emperor's arbitrary favours, proved incapable to decide anything as well. Armies were sent to one side, then recalled and sent in the opposite direction due to changes in who managed to convince the Empress, who was acting as a ruler was the Emperor was with the Northern Army. Logistics failed utterly because no one was able to give proper orders to the train companies.
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Once Napoleon III was defeated in Sedan and made prisoner, most of his sycophants fled Paris very quickly. And Parliament failed to make decisions to replace the government and the Emperor. So that a gathering of only 20 members of Parliament, who had been the Republican minority, had to take it upon themselves to create a new government to try and salvage the situation. Only one prominent conservative figure joined them, and promoted national unity in the face of disaster. That was Adolphe Thiers, who'd later become president and oversee the massacre of rebellious civilians in the Paris Commune.
As soon as they announced the formation of a new Republican government, these minor political figures drew huge crowds of Paris in support of their action. In the coming days, many official documents were published that showed everyone how the war had been decided based on lies, how unprepared the army had been, and how useless the political institutions had proven themselves to be.
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Basically, the new Gouvernement de la Défense Nationale had no other resource than to appeal to the people's patriotic feelings. Hence the formation of new armies in the West and Central provinces. But Paris was soon put under a siege, which the new rulers faced off rather well, to be honest: they held the place for 5 months, while the initial estimate of food stocks and other resources had concluded they could hope to hold for 2 weeks! And they managed to do so without facing a revolt from the people of Paris, who suffered much. Once the siege ended though, and the government was replaced again by a conservative one, it didn't take long to experience an actual Revolution in Paris...
During the 5 months of siege, Bismarck tried to favour monarchist political factions, only to be constantly outplayed by the Republican government in Bordeaux. And indeed, as you noted in your paper, there was massive desire by the population to continue the fight, despite further failure from the top military leaders (Bourbaki especially, who utterly failed to even look like a threat on the Eastern side of the front despite having the last well-trained and experienced army under his command).
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So, to put it shortly, the reason behind the French nationalistic reaction, was a mix of shock at discovering they had been lied to and played by incompetent political leaders; anger at discovering the scale of the Emperor's impotence; resent about the 2 decades of authoritarian repression; and serious disappointment at the lack of organisation and industrial support, while the Second Empire had advertised itself as a glorious regime of all-powerful enlightened industrialists. Very simply, the French people discovered they had been thoroughly cheated by their own leaders, while for 2 decades they had believed they had gone back to the glorious days of the mythical Napoleon... These factors are much more important, I believe, in explaining the French choice to keep fighting at all costs, than any decision made by Prussian military or political leaders.
As a Russian, I feel the need to add a dimension to this discussion, and in particular refute this incessant point of "IF X, then Ukraine would be allowed to re-arm itself and wage another war in the future".
No. This point has passed. It could've worked in March of 2022, but those days are no longer there. And it has to do with demographics, propaganda and Ukrainian mentality.
Let's talk demographics first. Ukraine is already 10-15 million people short (including the loss of people in the new Russian oblasts). Whether you buy the un-substantiated in 20+ years official initial population of 40 mil or the more realistic numbers of 32 mil, that's a loss of a third or quarter of the existing number of population, and specifically - younger, working class people and professionals.
That is a huge blow to the economy. What happens next, is that the noose would self-tighten due to this loss. Less people in the econony means less consumers and so, less business activity. Less business activity - worse economy, more incentive for people to move out of the country, accelerating the cycle of immigration.
People that have moved in and rooted themselves in the new country would seek to pull their relatives out. More bleeding.
This is expanded by the second component of Ukraine's future systemic failure - mentality. Ukrainians are 90s Russians, in effect. They have never evolved past the oligarchic tribal rule, and they never moved past worship of the West (and the idea that a person's goal is to eventually immigrate to said West), and corruption is Ukraine's lifeblood. All the fervent nationalism is a thin veneer on the ukro society, existing only thanks to the generous economic dotations from Western states.
What this means is, the moment a ceasefire is made and any sort of "peace agreement" is achieve and there's even a TIIIIIIINY breach on the closed borders... Even more Ukranians would leave for the greener pastures of the Sacred West.
Ukranians arent the French in the 1800s. They a) can leave the premises of their war-torn country and b) there's really no Volkskrieg, not truly. There's still a lot of sympathisers to the idea of a full Russian rule over Ukraine, and more than those - people that equally hate Zelensky and the ukro government and Russia/Russians. But the latter part doesn't mean they'll fight for the former. So a disappointing ceasfire would just re-ignite the habitual Ukranian oligarch and bandit infighting, not solidify the society further. If it hadn't really solidified by now - going further, without military victories, it can only fall apart more.
The blame game will begin. More maidans. More fear. More crackdowns. More immigration. Worse business. Worse economy... You get the drift by now.
But what of those who are staunch believers in the Ukro project, the good useful proxy-bots to the GAE? Well thanks to Ukrainians' own propaganda, anything short of getting all of Donbass and Crimea and ugh, Rostov, would be considered a failure of this project. Ukranians are even more than we Russians prone to fall into gloom and demoralized self-reflection, only unlike us, they'll be doing it amidst a country full of destroyed infrastructure, dysfunctional economy, hundreds of thousands of dead and dozens of thousands invalid veterans. And also - it would be forced to remain on a permanent war footing that would further drain the state despite any potential boons from military contracts it could get with the West.
All these aspects combined guarantee that an upheaval of Ukraine into this tight boisterous revanshist Israel, should Russia stop at 4 oblasts and work out an agreement, is impossible.
Instead, what it WOULD be, is a festering sore. Not an Israel, but a Somalia. Dangerous and unpleasant, but yet...
People have to understand that in general, the failed counteroffensive was the nail in the coffin. Ukraine will NEVER have better military chances than it did this past summer. And so, the best scenario for it is to turn into this belligerent "Larger Lithuania" - turtled up in a defensive posture, provocatory, but constantly depopulating, depressed and unable to rise up for a true "second round". Unless it wants a complete suicide.
And another gut punch to the "dreams of re-militarization" - Russia and Belarus bordering this failed state. Common language. You wouldn't be able to stop Ukranians in this post-war era from looking over the fence and seeing how much better it is in Russia, in DNR/LNR.
The hatred combined with anger... Yep, you guessed it, immigration again.
So, you can arm Ukraine all you want in the pos-war period, you can funnel any "reconstruction money" into it... But unless the West is planning to build Ukranianans their own Switzerland in the remaning territories and free of charge, it will simply slowly rot. It could rot very loudly and clank their weaponry, but...
Demographics, mentality, propaganda. The three Horsemen of Ukrocalypse.
Hidden History: Secret history of the origins of WW1 by Gerry Docherty is excellent at illuminating how elements of Cecil Rhodes's Round Table especially Milner engineered WW1. The use of satellite reconnaissance and drones has turned the Ukraine Russia war into a war more like ww1 than ww2, I doubt even Guderian, Rommel, or Patton would be able to engineer kettles in this war. I liked the elucidation of Serge to illuminate why Russia started out with the idea of a quick cabinet war with limited objectives but had to entirely change their strategy when the US and Britain stopped a negotiated settlement. It saddens me to see a whole generation of young Ukrainian men killed on the battlefield and now going on to the last Ukrainian - even women when they must know they will lose. I congratulate the Russian military for correctly reading the changed circumstances and limiting their casualties. I must admit that it took me a long time to see the reality that decided a snail's pace for the Russians was the correct way to go.
Thank you, Serge. Wonderful article, I had not known of Moltke's dismay at the future prospect of "Total War". One thing I noted on your Mount Rushmore, all are true legends worthy of the rock. The final four can be disputed as a matter of opinioned debate, but no one can argue they don't belong in the ring with any contender. It's a very interesting topic, and I considered who I might put forward as alternates and the cases for and against when I suddenly realized: Hannibal, Napoleon, and Manstein all ended up losing their wars, and as pointed out, Moltke's success became Germany's tragic fate! Curious if you had considered that irony and how would you argue the case for your final four given no shortage of rivals for the Mountain who knew nothing but victories?
Interesting. But with the key decision makers on the other side of the table found in Washington rather than Kiev, it's hard to see how any amount of finesse could have avoided the outcome.
The initial gambit of the SMO is a year and a half behind us. The once feared US sanctions regime lays broken in the corner. EU's run at being a global power center has ended. Some cabinet-war.
A peace is unlikely until Ukraine exhausts itself. For that they would have to conscript the university population, burn thru those, and continue long enough that the educational system is reduced. Cruel fate for a country, really. Something about fate of proxies... can't remember... ask the late (way too late) Kissinger, perhaps. He was the expert.
One, volkskrieg depends on either massive logistics for the new "armies", or guerilla war as we saw in occupied portions of the Soviet Union, the Balkans, France, and numerous issues the US has faced since 1955. Ukraine touted the partisan form early on before the feint on Kiev faded. The SMO so far seems sensitive to mass territory grabs. While the NATO side likely cannot arm a volkskreig, if indigenous soldiers could be raised.
Second is an observation. Hitler discounted the chance for a volkeskreig in 1940. He also saw the weakness of the French military psyche. Sedan was the key to unleashing Guderian and Rommel to roll to the Channel, and the French had no unity to resist once Hitler put the Swaztika over the Arc de Triumph. If you have not you should read Strange Defeat by Marc Bloch, and Strange Victory by Earnest May. Bloch was a reserve staff officer in the French army of 1940. May a US Historian/professor.
Great article, but I feel a massive thing was left out at the end. It was & has never been a Russian /Ukrainian war. We only have to look at the lead up to the American sponsored & instigated maidan coup in 2014. Remember what Burns the then head of the CIA wrote in the 2,000's. He wrote Nyet means Nyet referring to the NATO alliance trying to get Ukraine into NATO. What it would result in. The Americans knew fine well what they were doing, they knew fine well what it would result in. We all should know of the statements made by Merkel, Hollande & Poroshenko. About the Minsk 1 & 2 agreements. They deceived the Russians for the reason to buy time so they could fully arm & train the Ukrainians to confront the Russians on their behalf. We now know Russia went to Kiev with only a force of 40 thousand to hopefully force the Ukrainians into peace talks. It 100% worked. There was no seige of Kiev. No Ukrainian military victory around Kiev. The Russians withdrew as a sign of goodwill. When the talks started in Turkey. We now know Boris Johnson went to Kiev & told them not to sign any peace deal with the Russians, he went on to promise the Ukrainians everything needed for victory. If that action right there doesn't confirm it was never a conflict between Russia/Ukraine I don't know what more proof to give. It was after this happened the wheels were put in motion inside of Russia to face up to who they were really fighting against. The arrogance of our western rulers was in the fact, they thought their extremist sanctions against Russia would have been enough to render the Russians unable to finance their SMO. Remember Queen Von De Leyen & her washing machine micro chips story, finishing that idiotic speach of hers with the mortal line of. The Russian Economy is in tatters, tatters I tell you. The more the Queen's sanctions failed the more she imposed. Regardless of the damage she was doing to the economy of the EU. The more strength Russia gained financially the more extreme the lies & propaganda became. It's so obvious now America & some of its policies. Like its anti inflation policy & its attack on its allies energy infrastructure. Where & are aimed at it's European allies as much as they are against Russia. The cowardly vassels in the EU are watching their own citizens struggle & suffer through their actions. But they've gone that far in, they can't get out. Von De Leyen & Borrel will gladly send EU troops into Ukraine rather than admit their massive mistakes. Germany the industrial power house that has single hand idly kept the EU afloat at times. Is being deindustrialised (who is the benefactor). But they can't stop they know the humiliation they'll have to face. They'd rather hundreds of thousands more die than face up to their disastrous actions. As the EU commits suicide, the Germans are suffering the most. But no other country has a leader as weak as Scholtz, no other country has a foreign minister lacking in intelligence as much as Germany has, since Liz Truss was sacked. At least the British realised very quickly they had to get rid of their idiot. Sadly the Germans are sleep walking & so are the rest of the EU. While Queen Von De Leyen & Lord Borrel of the Jungle are around. The leadership in Russia are light years away from the western leaders in intelligence & professionalism. They understand mitary matters much better also. Russia won't trust the west for any agreements. They're all in for it now & they're fully prepared to face NATO as they know how idiotic those making the decisions in the west are.
Russia has artillery and air overwhelming dominance led to a 10-1 butchery of Ukrainian soldiers across the 1000km battle line. The horrible cold winter and destroyed Ukrainian infrastructure results in mass migration. Primarily the US, a foreign power, pays for the Ukrainian resistance. A people's war? No, a proxy war, and a lost one at that.
Historically speaking the gung-ho Nationalists were not the Prussians but the other Germans. It was them that demanded Alsace Lorraine against Bismarck’s better judgement.
Another problem for Germany/Prussia was that their casualties were nearly as high as the French. A mistake Putin is at pains to avoid.
Historian Michael Howard wrote that the French could have concentrated guérilla type attacks on the long enemy lines of communications and that might have compelled a German withdrawal from Paris.
Prussia would have hesitated to extend the war for fear of a British intervention and maybe Austria.
I think that this war in many ways is more like the Spanish Civil War, with one side fighting a war to win and the other fighting a PR war to encourage foreign intervention.
Interesting conclusion and it may come to that - if Russia has that strength. But I'm not sure. If Russia can gain two or three Bakhmut style victories this may convince Ukraine, NATO and the US that defeating and decolonizing the Russian Federation was a costly pipe dream. In 1875 France and Germany were not so far apart in terms of population and resources - Germany was the larger, and as time went on, grew much richer. (German industrial power grew greatly in the late 19th and early 20th century - it was far richer than in 1970.) But they were both great powers - and France was only one ally away from being a dangerous enemy. And while it is true that good relations between France and Germany were not possible because of the Lost Provinces, the two nations cooperated on a daily basis well enough and even collaborated on colonial matters on occasion. Even when the new Kaiser kicked out Bismarck and alienated Russia - and gained France its ally - it's really hard to see that France was eager for a war of revenge. It wasn't Paris writing a blank check for Moscow, but Berlin creating one for Vienna.
Now let's say - hypothetically - that Russia clears out Luhansk and Donetsk - and "demilitarizes" Ukraine and the West forces Ukraine to accept a peace. I do not see that a country with a population of say 20 million (it will be a neutral nation if there is peace) being eager to take on 145 million Russians possessing one of the world's most formidable military machines any time in the future. Nor do I see the West eager for a rematch with the world's strongest nuclear power. You quoted Clausewitz - I'd like to remind you that Clausewitz also argued that in every major war there is a "peace party" and the closer to peace the situation comes, the stronger it will be. Let's not forget that after 1871 the Lost Provinces were exactly that. (Alsace no doubt had German sympathizers - but Lorraine was French heartland.) The Russian Federation will incorporate several million people that have shown dramatically that they want no part of Kiev's rule. If anything Ukraine will blame the West for not coming to their aid - and unless Kiev ever believes that NATO and the US is willing to directly intervene in a new war to create a Greater Ukraine - and risk a nuclear showdown with Russia - Ukraine is not going to renew hostilities alone. The French economy was strong enough to pay a hefty reparations bill to Germany (France had more than a little bit of responsibility for that war) and was strong enough to rebuild its military. Ukraine has done everything wrong since 1991 and it's one of the poorest countries in Europe with the lowest rate of population reproduction - a whopping 1.2. So unless NATO members decide to militarize their economy and risk WWIII Ukraine will be on its own. And on its own, Ukraine is not going to march to Moscow.
As he reliably does, Serge has structured a historically accurate explanation of Von Moltke's war and his angst about the way it evolved into Volkskrieg elucidated in his Reichstag summation. He is further solidly correct in his analysis of Putin's intent and purpose in finally acting in Ukraine. Where I take some issue with him is in his inference about Putin's intention with the SMO. Putin's strategy was sound and achievable against Ukraine; just not against a Ukraine funded and fully supported by The Empire and its clumsy toy, NATO. If Putin can be strategically faulted it has to be because he could not believe the U.S., in its vicious determination to do anything short of actual commitment to engage itself, would go all in and back the Ukronazis with endless arms and money. That is all that frustrated the kabinettkrieg Putin foresaw, and it has kept an insane Ukraine still fighting to the last Ukrainian for the gratification of doddering, impotent, old Aunt Sam.
A valuable commentary and description of the war Russia is now waging.
However, labeling this conflict as a "peoples' war" by Ukraine is a stretch. The Ukrainian people are certainly being exploited and destroyed but it is through control by the tribe in Kiev, Wall Street and its control over the US government and European governments, all of whose resources are being used to march the people to their deaths.
Thanks for illuminating parallels between previous European wars and the current one. It could be argued that both France and Germany are now losing an extermination war against mass migration facilitated by the EU and GAE. Russia is the last bulwark on the continent and Ukraine a sacrificial lamb used to poke the bear, far more lopsided than the sides fighting the Prussian War.
An interesting analysis, thanks again, Serge.
As a French amateur of military history, I have been thinking for more than a year that the 1870 war was much more relevant to understanding this War of Ukraine than WW1, which most commenters love to bring up because of the trench/position war aspect, and probably also because of the scale of maiming of soldiers.
Your depiction of the German analysis of the French political and popular reaction to defeat is most interesting, I did not know about the debate among Prussian elites.
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That being said... I think the analysis (the Prussians' first and by extension yours as well) is lacking an understanding of the mechanisms behind the French nationalistic reaction in 1870. The refusal of defeat and the belief in Guerre à Outrance was less about a refusal of Prussia's defeating French military forces, than about a refusal of the complete failure of 20 years of authoritarian rule by Napoleon III. That's what the Gouvernement de Défense Nationale was all about.
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Napoleon III was a rather mediocre mind, but an expert in faking talent by buying it from others. He was in essence little more than a political manipulator. Once he held power, he exercised it through permanent abuse of it. His regime had sent more than 100.000 political opponents in jail and to penal colonies in Algeria, in Guyane and in New Caledonia. His government was one of arrogant upper class privileged people who had never proven much but who posed as equal to the greatest generations in French history, particularly the generation of military leaders that existed un Napoleon's Empire.
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The 1870 war was started by Napoleon III and his government out of arrogance. He wanted to humiliate the King of Prussia on a rather insignificant matter of accession to the throne of Spain, because he dreamt of securing an actual Bonaparte dynasty. By declaring war on Prussia, he also set the conditions for the pan-German mutual defense treaties to operate, so that instead of fighting Prussia, France fought almost every German state representing twice the forces France could gather in a short time. In order to justify declaring war, the government lied to the French Parliament about a supposed humiliation of the French ambassador by the King of Prussia, and by Bismarck in a communication to his network of diplomats. Parliament by then was made up of people who had been appointed by the government, and whose elections were all fake, due to the system of picking "official candidates" that oppositions could hardly ever hope to beat.
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When France suffered the first catastrophic defeats, in Wissembourg first, then in Woerth-Reichshoffen after only a few days of war, it soon became obvious that the government had lied about the levels of preparedness of the French army. They were supposed to have a most modern and superior Chassepot rifle, but in fact those had not been produced in large numbers and most of the troops still used early 19th century rifles. They lacked canons as well, especially the bigger ones, and means to move them around. They lacked ammo. They even lacked shoes... In Reichshoffen, the Prusso-German army actually suffered more losses than the French side, due to rather poor tactics of sending infantry lines through the field one after the other. But German artillery dominated the battle in every way. France lost in a single battle 4 of its 6 elite heavy cuirassé cavalry regiments, which were seen as the sign of its military superiority over Europe.
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Following the Reichshoffen defeat, the military command proved utterly incapable of taking any decisive action. Moltke did not even have to work hard to trap the main army in Metz: Maréchal Bazaine chose to hide inside the fortified city because he was scared to fight, and scared to be defeated and to have his fame diminished. He'd worked hard to become an Insta-hero of the days, he couldn't fathom the idea of facing public reckoning with reality... He had several opportunities to break through Prussian besieging lines but he did not even make a proper attempts. After the war, he was tried and sentenced for betrayal... In fact, he had hoped that the Imperial government would be replaced by his monarchist friends who would shield him from the consequences of his military failure.
In Paris, both the government and parliament, made up of courtiers and insignificant sycophants who owed their positions to the Emperor's arbitrary favours, proved incapable to decide anything as well. Armies were sent to one side, then recalled and sent in the opposite direction due to changes in who managed to convince the Empress, who was acting as a ruler was the Emperor was with the Northern Army. Logistics failed utterly because no one was able to give proper orders to the train companies.
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Once Napoleon III was defeated in Sedan and made prisoner, most of his sycophants fled Paris very quickly. And Parliament failed to make decisions to replace the government and the Emperor. So that a gathering of only 20 members of Parliament, who had been the Republican minority, had to take it upon themselves to create a new government to try and salvage the situation. Only one prominent conservative figure joined them, and promoted national unity in the face of disaster. That was Adolphe Thiers, who'd later become president and oversee the massacre of rebellious civilians in the Paris Commune.
As soon as they announced the formation of a new Republican government, these minor political figures drew huge crowds of Paris in support of their action. In the coming days, many official documents were published that showed everyone how the war had been decided based on lies, how unprepared the army had been, and how useless the political institutions had proven themselves to be.
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Basically, the new Gouvernement de la Défense Nationale had no other resource than to appeal to the people's patriotic feelings. Hence the formation of new armies in the West and Central provinces. But Paris was soon put under a siege, which the new rulers faced off rather well, to be honest: they held the place for 5 months, while the initial estimate of food stocks and other resources had concluded they could hope to hold for 2 weeks! And they managed to do so without facing a revolt from the people of Paris, who suffered much. Once the siege ended though, and the government was replaced again by a conservative one, it didn't take long to experience an actual Revolution in Paris...
During the 5 months of siege, Bismarck tried to favour monarchist political factions, only to be constantly outplayed by the Republican government in Bordeaux. And indeed, as you noted in your paper, there was massive desire by the population to continue the fight, despite further failure from the top military leaders (Bourbaki especially, who utterly failed to even look like a threat on the Eastern side of the front despite having the last well-trained and experienced army under his command).
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So, to put it shortly, the reason behind the French nationalistic reaction, was a mix of shock at discovering they had been lied to and played by incompetent political leaders; anger at discovering the scale of the Emperor's impotence; resent about the 2 decades of authoritarian repression; and serious disappointment at the lack of organisation and industrial support, while the Second Empire had advertised itself as a glorious regime of all-powerful enlightened industrialists. Very simply, the French people discovered they had been thoroughly cheated by their own leaders, while for 2 decades they had believed they had gone back to the glorious days of the mythical Napoleon... These factors are much more important, I believe, in explaining the French choice to keep fighting at all costs, than any decision made by Prussian military or political leaders.
As a Russian, I feel the need to add a dimension to this discussion, and in particular refute this incessant point of "IF X, then Ukraine would be allowed to re-arm itself and wage another war in the future".
No. This point has passed. It could've worked in March of 2022, but those days are no longer there. And it has to do with demographics, propaganda and Ukrainian mentality.
Let's talk demographics first. Ukraine is already 10-15 million people short (including the loss of people in the new Russian oblasts). Whether you buy the un-substantiated in 20+ years official initial population of 40 mil or the more realistic numbers of 32 mil, that's a loss of a third or quarter of the existing number of population, and specifically - younger, working class people and professionals.
That is a huge blow to the economy. What happens next, is that the noose would self-tighten due to this loss. Less people in the econony means less consumers and so, less business activity. Less business activity - worse economy, more incentive for people to move out of the country, accelerating the cycle of immigration.
People that have moved in and rooted themselves in the new country would seek to pull their relatives out. More bleeding.
This is expanded by the second component of Ukraine's future systemic failure - mentality. Ukrainians are 90s Russians, in effect. They have never evolved past the oligarchic tribal rule, and they never moved past worship of the West (and the idea that a person's goal is to eventually immigrate to said West), and corruption is Ukraine's lifeblood. All the fervent nationalism is a thin veneer on the ukro society, existing only thanks to the generous economic dotations from Western states.
What this means is, the moment a ceasefire is made and any sort of "peace agreement" is achieve and there's even a TIIIIIIINY breach on the closed borders... Even more Ukranians would leave for the greener pastures of the Sacred West.
Ukranians arent the French in the 1800s. They a) can leave the premises of their war-torn country and b) there's really no Volkskrieg, not truly. There's still a lot of sympathisers to the idea of a full Russian rule over Ukraine, and more than those - people that equally hate Zelensky and the ukro government and Russia/Russians. But the latter part doesn't mean they'll fight for the former. So a disappointing ceasfire would just re-ignite the habitual Ukranian oligarch and bandit infighting, not solidify the society further. If it hadn't really solidified by now - going further, without military victories, it can only fall apart more.
The blame game will begin. More maidans. More fear. More crackdowns. More immigration. Worse business. Worse economy... You get the drift by now.
But what of those who are staunch believers in the Ukro project, the good useful proxy-bots to the GAE? Well thanks to Ukrainians' own propaganda, anything short of getting all of Donbass and Crimea and ugh, Rostov, would be considered a failure of this project. Ukranians are even more than we Russians prone to fall into gloom and demoralized self-reflection, only unlike us, they'll be doing it amidst a country full of destroyed infrastructure, dysfunctional economy, hundreds of thousands of dead and dozens of thousands invalid veterans. And also - it would be forced to remain on a permanent war footing that would further drain the state despite any potential boons from military contracts it could get with the West.
All these aspects combined guarantee that an upheaval of Ukraine into this tight boisterous revanshist Israel, should Russia stop at 4 oblasts and work out an agreement, is impossible.
Instead, what it WOULD be, is a festering sore. Not an Israel, but a Somalia. Dangerous and unpleasant, but yet...
People have to understand that in general, the failed counteroffensive was the nail in the coffin. Ukraine will NEVER have better military chances than it did this past summer. And so, the best scenario for it is to turn into this belligerent "Larger Lithuania" - turtled up in a defensive posture, provocatory, but constantly depopulating, depressed and unable to rise up for a true "second round". Unless it wants a complete suicide.
And another gut punch to the "dreams of re-militarization" - Russia and Belarus bordering this failed state. Common language. You wouldn't be able to stop Ukranians in this post-war era from looking over the fence and seeing how much better it is in Russia, in DNR/LNR.
The hatred combined with anger... Yep, you guessed it, immigration again.
So, you can arm Ukraine all you want in the pos-war period, you can funnel any "reconstruction money" into it... But unless the West is planning to build Ukranianans their own Switzerland in the remaning territories and free of charge, it will simply slowly rot. It could rot very loudly and clank their weaponry, but...
Demographics, mentality, propaganda. The three Horsemen of Ukrocalypse.
Good for Putin. Smash the Hegemon's proxy.
Hidden History: Secret history of the origins of WW1 by Gerry Docherty is excellent at illuminating how elements of Cecil Rhodes's Round Table especially Milner engineered WW1. The use of satellite reconnaissance and drones has turned the Ukraine Russia war into a war more like ww1 than ww2, I doubt even Guderian, Rommel, or Patton would be able to engineer kettles in this war. I liked the elucidation of Serge to illuminate why Russia started out with the idea of a quick cabinet war with limited objectives but had to entirely change their strategy when the US and Britain stopped a negotiated settlement. It saddens me to see a whole generation of young Ukrainian men killed on the battlefield and now going on to the last Ukrainian - even women when they must know they will lose. I congratulate the Russian military for correctly reading the changed circumstances and limiting their casualties. I must admit that it took me a long time to see the reality that decided a snail's pace for the Russians was the correct way to go.
What a great essay! Thank you so much for this. A clear mind is a rare thing.
Thank you, Serge. Wonderful article, I had not known of Moltke's dismay at the future prospect of "Total War". One thing I noted on your Mount Rushmore, all are true legends worthy of the rock. The final four can be disputed as a matter of opinioned debate, but no one can argue they don't belong in the ring with any contender. It's a very interesting topic, and I considered who I might put forward as alternates and the cases for and against when I suddenly realized: Hannibal, Napoleon, and Manstein all ended up losing their wars, and as pointed out, Moltke's success became Germany's tragic fate! Curious if you had considered that irony and how would you argue the case for your final four given no shortage of rivals for the Mountain who knew nothing but victories?
Interesting. But with the key decision makers on the other side of the table found in Washington rather than Kiev, it's hard to see how any amount of finesse could have avoided the outcome.
The initial gambit of the SMO is a year and a half behind us. The once feared US sanctions regime lays broken in the corner. EU's run at being a global power center has ended. Some cabinet-war.
A peace is unlikely until Ukraine exhausts itself. For that they would have to conscript the university population, burn thru those, and continue long enough that the educational system is reduced. Cruel fate for a country, really. Something about fate of proxies... can't remember... ask the late (way too late) Kissinger, perhaps. He was the expert.
Two points:
One, volkskrieg depends on either massive logistics for the new "armies", or guerilla war as we saw in occupied portions of the Soviet Union, the Balkans, France, and numerous issues the US has faced since 1955. Ukraine touted the partisan form early on before the feint on Kiev faded. The SMO so far seems sensitive to mass territory grabs. While the NATO side likely cannot arm a volkskreig, if indigenous soldiers could be raised.
Second is an observation. Hitler discounted the chance for a volkeskreig in 1940. He also saw the weakness of the French military psyche. Sedan was the key to unleashing Guderian and Rommel to roll to the Channel, and the French had no unity to resist once Hitler put the Swaztika over the Arc de Triumph. If you have not you should read Strange Defeat by Marc Bloch, and Strange Victory by Earnest May. Bloch was a reserve staff officer in the French army of 1940. May a US Historian/professor.
Interesting article, Thanks.
Great article, but I feel a massive thing was left out at the end. It was & has never been a Russian /Ukrainian war. We only have to look at the lead up to the American sponsored & instigated maidan coup in 2014. Remember what Burns the then head of the CIA wrote in the 2,000's. He wrote Nyet means Nyet referring to the NATO alliance trying to get Ukraine into NATO. What it would result in. The Americans knew fine well what they were doing, they knew fine well what it would result in. We all should know of the statements made by Merkel, Hollande & Poroshenko. About the Minsk 1 & 2 agreements. They deceived the Russians for the reason to buy time so they could fully arm & train the Ukrainians to confront the Russians on their behalf. We now know Russia went to Kiev with only a force of 40 thousand to hopefully force the Ukrainians into peace talks. It 100% worked. There was no seige of Kiev. No Ukrainian military victory around Kiev. The Russians withdrew as a sign of goodwill. When the talks started in Turkey. We now know Boris Johnson went to Kiev & told them not to sign any peace deal with the Russians, he went on to promise the Ukrainians everything needed for victory. If that action right there doesn't confirm it was never a conflict between Russia/Ukraine I don't know what more proof to give. It was after this happened the wheels were put in motion inside of Russia to face up to who they were really fighting against. The arrogance of our western rulers was in the fact, they thought their extremist sanctions against Russia would have been enough to render the Russians unable to finance their SMO. Remember Queen Von De Leyen & her washing machine micro chips story, finishing that idiotic speach of hers with the mortal line of. The Russian Economy is in tatters, tatters I tell you. The more the Queen's sanctions failed the more she imposed. Regardless of the damage she was doing to the economy of the EU. The more strength Russia gained financially the more extreme the lies & propaganda became. It's so obvious now America & some of its policies. Like its anti inflation policy & its attack on its allies energy infrastructure. Where & are aimed at it's European allies as much as they are against Russia. The cowardly vassels in the EU are watching their own citizens struggle & suffer through their actions. But they've gone that far in, they can't get out. Von De Leyen & Borrel will gladly send EU troops into Ukraine rather than admit their massive mistakes. Germany the industrial power house that has single hand idly kept the EU afloat at times. Is being deindustrialised (who is the benefactor). But they can't stop they know the humiliation they'll have to face. They'd rather hundreds of thousands more die than face up to their disastrous actions. As the EU commits suicide, the Germans are suffering the most. But no other country has a leader as weak as Scholtz, no other country has a foreign minister lacking in intelligence as much as Germany has, since Liz Truss was sacked. At least the British realised very quickly they had to get rid of their idiot. Sadly the Germans are sleep walking & so are the rest of the EU. While Queen Von De Leyen & Lord Borrel of the Jungle are around. The leadership in Russia are light years away from the western leaders in intelligence & professionalism. They understand mitary matters much better also. Russia won't trust the west for any agreements. They're all in for it now & they're fully prepared to face NATO as they know how idiotic those making the decisions in the west are.
Russia has artillery and air overwhelming dominance led to a 10-1 butchery of Ukrainian soldiers across the 1000km battle line. The horrible cold winter and destroyed Ukrainian infrastructure results in mass migration. Primarily the US, a foreign power, pays for the Ukrainian resistance. A people's war? No, a proxy war, and a lost one at that.
Historically speaking the gung-ho Nationalists were not the Prussians but the other Germans. It was them that demanded Alsace Lorraine against Bismarck’s better judgement.
Another problem for Germany/Prussia was that their casualties were nearly as high as the French. A mistake Putin is at pains to avoid.
Historian Michael Howard wrote that the French could have concentrated guérilla type attacks on the long enemy lines of communications and that might have compelled a German withdrawal from Paris.
Prussia would have hesitated to extend the war for fear of a British intervention and maybe Austria.
I think that this war in many ways is more like the Spanish Civil War, with one side fighting a war to win and the other fighting a PR war to encourage foreign intervention.
Interesting conclusion and it may come to that - if Russia has that strength. But I'm not sure. If Russia can gain two or three Bakhmut style victories this may convince Ukraine, NATO and the US that defeating and decolonizing the Russian Federation was a costly pipe dream. In 1875 France and Germany were not so far apart in terms of population and resources - Germany was the larger, and as time went on, grew much richer. (German industrial power grew greatly in the late 19th and early 20th century - it was far richer than in 1970.) But they were both great powers - and France was only one ally away from being a dangerous enemy. And while it is true that good relations between France and Germany were not possible because of the Lost Provinces, the two nations cooperated on a daily basis well enough and even collaborated on colonial matters on occasion. Even when the new Kaiser kicked out Bismarck and alienated Russia - and gained France its ally - it's really hard to see that France was eager for a war of revenge. It wasn't Paris writing a blank check for Moscow, but Berlin creating one for Vienna.
Now let's say - hypothetically - that Russia clears out Luhansk and Donetsk - and "demilitarizes" Ukraine and the West forces Ukraine to accept a peace. I do not see that a country with a population of say 20 million (it will be a neutral nation if there is peace) being eager to take on 145 million Russians possessing one of the world's most formidable military machines any time in the future. Nor do I see the West eager for a rematch with the world's strongest nuclear power. You quoted Clausewitz - I'd like to remind you that Clausewitz also argued that in every major war there is a "peace party" and the closer to peace the situation comes, the stronger it will be. Let's not forget that after 1871 the Lost Provinces were exactly that. (Alsace no doubt had German sympathizers - but Lorraine was French heartland.) The Russian Federation will incorporate several million people that have shown dramatically that they want no part of Kiev's rule. If anything Ukraine will blame the West for not coming to their aid - and unless Kiev ever believes that NATO and the US is willing to directly intervene in a new war to create a Greater Ukraine - and risk a nuclear showdown with Russia - Ukraine is not going to renew hostilities alone. The French economy was strong enough to pay a hefty reparations bill to Germany (France had more than a little bit of responsibility for that war) and was strong enough to rebuild its military. Ukraine has done everything wrong since 1991 and it's one of the poorest countries in Europe with the lowest rate of population reproduction - a whopping 1.2. So unless NATO members decide to militarize their economy and risk WWIII Ukraine will be on its own. And on its own, Ukraine is not going to march to Moscow.
Reading Big Serge is great but the comments provide icing on the cake for the most part.