Abstract
This chapter provides a fresh perspective on the Germany ruling dynasty (the Hohenzollerns) via the perspective of the heir to another important German royal dynasty, the House of Wittelsbach. This provides a basis for the assessment of the robustness of the institution in Germany via an exploration of the sometimes fraught relationship between Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, the Oberste Heeresleitung (German Command) and the Kaiser in the opening period of the First World War. It reveals thereby the impact of the royal contributions on contemporaries. In discussing examples and causes of friction in the chain headed by the Kaiser, it illuminates wider problems of government in Wilhelmine Germany and the extent to which the monarchy contributed to these. Prince Rupprecht was a Roman Catholic in the otherwise Protestant-led German army, which was important because, after Prussia, Bavaria provided the most substantial number of troops. What concerned Prince Rupprecht was to ensure that, while fighting for the German cause, Bavarian identity was preserved and respected—it was an aspect of his duty as heir to the Bavarian crown. He was fully aware that, both in defeat and victory, wars reshaped nations—the modern history of Germany itself underlined this. A German victory could provide an opportunity for further Prussification of the German state at the expense of Bavaria, while defeat could see Bavaria punished for Berlin’s war aims. Rupprecht’s sense of responsibility for Bavaria and his consciousness of his own importance as a symbol for Bavarians, especially in the German army, ensured that he was equally aware of the symbolism used and cultivated by the Kaiser. This chapter shows the complexity of the German royal network even when they were theoretically fighting for a unified cause, and in so doing, suggests that the abdication of the Kaiser must be seen in a more nuanced light.
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Notes
- 1.
John C. G. Röhl (2014) Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900–41 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); John C. G. Röhl (1994) The Kaiser and His Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1973) Das deutsche Kaiserreich, 1871–1918 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht).
- 2.
Röhl, Wilhelm II; Röhl, The Kaiser and his Court.
- 3.
Gerhard Ritter (1972–1973) The Sword and the Sceptre: The Problem of Militarism in Germany Volumes II–IV (London: Allen Lane); Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1993) The German Empire 1871–1918 (Oxford: Berg).
- 4.
Markus Pöhlmann (2002) Kriegsgeschichte und Geschichtspolitik: Der Erste Weltkrieg: Die amtliche deutsche Militärgeschichtsschreibung 1914–1956 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh) pp284–321.
- 5.
Published sources include Bernd F. Schulte (1979) ‘Neue Dokumente zu Kriegsausbruch und Kriegsverlauf 1914’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 25; Walter Görlitz, ed. (1961) The Kaiser and His Court: The Diaries, Note Books and Letters of Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller, Chief of the Naval Cabinet, 1914–1918 (London: Macdonald); Holger Afflerbach, ed. (2005) Kaiser Wilhelm II als Oberster Kriegsherr im Ersten Weltkrieg: Quellen aus der militärischen Umbegung des Kaisers 1914–1918 (Munich: Oldenbourg); Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria (1929) Mein Kriegstagebuch, in Eugen von Frauenholz, ed. 3 vols (Munich: Deutscher National Verlag). Unpublished sources include the Nachlässe of Gerrhard Tappen and Wilhelm von Dommes (both in the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg (BA-MA); and those of Krafft and Major Rudolf von Xylander in the Munich Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv Abt: IV: Kriegsarchiv (BKA), alongside Rupprecht’s 4200 page manuscript diary, in Geheimes Hausarchiv (GHA). For discussion of Rupprecht’s diary as a source, see Pöhlmann, Kriegsgeschichte und Geschichtspolitik, pp303–6; Dieter J, Weiss (2007) Kronprinz Rupprecht von Bayern: Eine politische Biografie (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet) pp14–18.
- 6.
The staff ride was an important element in army planning for any military campaign, consisting of a systematic preliminary study of terrain over which action could be expected to take place, along with the incorporation into any pre-planning of lessons learned both from the physical survey and the experiences of relevant past campaigns. For more discussion of its military importance, see Brian Bond (1972) The Victorian Army and the Staff College, 1854–1914 (London: Eyre and Spottiswood); M. Samuels (1995) Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies 1888–1918 (London: Frank Cass); also Paul Harris (2016) The Men Who Planned the War: A Study of the Staff of the British Army on the Western Front 1914–1918 (Aldershot: Ashgate).
- 7.
Rupprecht’s dry response was: ‘No less so for Bavaria’, GHA Nachlass KPR 716, ‘Meine Teilnahme am Weltkrieg 1914–18’, p10.
- 8.
Crown Prince William of Germany (1922) My War Experiences (London: Hurst and Blackett) p4.
- 9.
Dieter Storz (2006) ‘“Dieser Stellungs- und Festungskrieg ist scheußlich!” Zu den Kämpfen in Lothringen und in des Vogesen im Sommer 1914’ in Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, and Gerhard P. Gross, eds Der Schlieffenplan: Analyse und Dokumente (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh) pp162–204, 166.
- 10.
BKA Nachlass Krafft 145, Diary, 31 July 1914.
- 11.
GHA Nachlass KPR 699, Diary, 1–5 August 1914, pp4–5.
- 12.
The key biographers here are Thomas Müller (2002) Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen (1862–1953): Porträt eines bayerischen Offiziers (Munich: Kommission für bayerische Landesgeschichte); Kurt Sendtner (1954) Rupprecht von Wittelsbach, Kronprinz von Bayern (Munich: Richard Pflaum Verlag); Weiss, Kronprinz Rupprecht.
- 13.
Müller, Konrad Krafft, pp308–9, 444–5; Sendtner, Rupprecht von Wittelsbach, pp242–3; Weiss, Kronprinz Rupprecht, pp124–5.
- 14.
GHA Nachlass KPR 476, ‘Aufmarschanweisung für Oberkommando der 6. Armee, 2 August 1914’, paras 38, 44. Original emphasis.
- 15.
Müller, Konrad Krafft, p301.
- 16.
Michel Goya (2004) La Chair et l’Acier: L’invention de la guerre moderne (1914–1918) (Paris: Editions Tallandier) p181; Service Historique, État-Major de l’Armée, Minstère de la Guerre (1922), Les Armées Françaises dans la Grande Guerre, 34 vols (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale), I, pp183, 230–43.
- 17.
GHA Nachlass KPR 699, Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen, ‘Kurzer Überblick über die Vorgänge beim Oberkommando der 6. Armee im August 1914 bis zur Schlacht in Lothringen am 20.8.1914’, pp2, 11–16.
- 18.
GHA Nachlass KPR 699, Diary, 17 August 1914, p36.
- 19.
Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, I, pp6–21. The account in the published diary follows the manuscript version closely, omitting only the flustering of Dommes. See also Konrad Krafft von Delmensingen (1925) Die Führung des Kronprinzen Rupprecht von Bayern auf dem linken deutschen Heeresflügel bis zur Schlacht in Lothringen im (1925) August 1914 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler and Sohn) pp17–21.
- 20.
The AOK, in full Armeeoberkommando, were the German (and Austro-Hungarian) army commands. Reichsarchiv (1925) Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918: Band I Die Grenzschlachten im Westen (Berlin: E. S. Mittler and Sohn) pp256. See also pp208, 210–11.
- 21.
GHA Nachlass KPR 699, Diary, 20 August 1914, p48.
- 22.
Ibid.
- 23.
Service Historique, Les Armées Françaises, 1, pp252–60.
- 24.
Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, I, pp36, 41.
- 25.
Annika Mombauer (2001) Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) pp266–71.
- 26.
Holger Afflerbach (1996) Falkenhayn: Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (Munich: R. Oldenbourg) pp190–3; Robert T. Foley (2005) German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870–1916 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) pp92–104.
- 27.
Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, I, pp26–7; BKA NL Krafft 48 Tagebuch 18.9.–27.10.1914, Diary, 18 September 1914, pp1a–2a; Foley, German Strategy, pp99–102; BKA Armeeoberkommando 6: Bund 1 Vorl Nr 1 Kriegstagebuch, 2 August 1914–14 March 1915, Sixth Army War Diary, 23 September 1914, p30.
- 28.
Bayerische Kriegsarchiv (1923) Die Bayern im Großen Kriege (Munich: Verlag des Bayerischen Kriegsarchivs) pp111–29.
- 29.
BKA NL Krafft 48 Tagebuch 18.9.–27.10.1914, Diary, 23 September 1914, 4 October 1914, 14 October 1914, pp15b–16b, 54a, 91a.
- 30.
GHA Nachlass KPR 700, Diary, 14 October 1914, pp303–6. It is interesting to compare with the published diary, as the words in italics feature only in the unpublished diary. See Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, I, pp206–9.
- 31.
Ibid.
- 32.
Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, I, p236.
- 33.
BKA NL Krafft 48 Tagebuch 18.9.–27.10.1914, Diary, 14 October 1914, p87a.
- 34.
GHA Nachlass KPR 700, Diary, 27 October 1914, pp356–7. Again, the words in italics feature only in the unpublished manuscript diary. See, for comparison, Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, I, pp232–4.
- 35.
GHA Nachlass KPR 716, ‘Meine Teilnahme am Weltkrieg 1914–18’, p17.
- 36.
Rudolf von Xylander (1935) Deutsche Führung in Lothringen 1914: Wahrheit und Kriegsgeschichte (Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt Verlag) p22.
- 37.
Holger H. Herwig (2009) The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle that Changed the World (New York: Random House) p171.
- 38.
GHA Nachlass KPR 716, ‘Meine Teilnahme am Weltkrieg 1914–18’, pp16–17. A similar arrangement on the other wing proved equally unsatisfactory: H. von Kuhl (1920) Der deutsche Generalstab in Vorberietung und Durchführung des Weltkrieges (Berlin: E. S. Mittler and Sohn) pp182–3.
- 39.
Müller, Konrad Krafft, p317.
- 40.
BKA NL Krafft 48 Tagebuch 18.9.–27.10.1914, Diary, 1 October 1914, p44a.
- 41.
Isabel Hull (1982) The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II 1888–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) pp215–25.
- 42.
Weiss, Kronprinz Rupprecht, pp140–1.
- 43.
Hull, Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, p190; Weiss, Kronprinz Rupprecht, p46.
- 44.
GHA Nachlass KPR 702, Diary, 19 May 1915, p808.
- 45.
GHA Nachlass KPR 716, Rupprecht, ‘Meine Teilnahme am Weltkrieg 1914–18’, p22.
- 46.
GHA Nachlass KPR 700, Diary, 2 October 1914. The sentence quoted here is, once again, omitted from Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, I, p180.
- 47.
On this point, see Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig (2004) Decisions for War 1914–1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
- 48.
BKA NL Krafft 188, Correspondence with Reichsarchiv President Mertz von Quirnheim, Letter, Quirnheim to Reichsarchiv Director Dr von Haeften, 20 November 1928, p6.
- 49.
Pöhlmann, Kriegsgeschichte und Geschichtspoliti, pp284–321, 301–3.
- 50.
Ibid., p81.
- 51.
There is an interesting parallel here with Matthew Glencross’s chapter in this volume, see Chapter 6.
Select Bibliography
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Boff, J. (2018). Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, the German Command and Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1914–1915. In: Glencross, M., Rowbotham, J. (eds) Monarchies and the Great War. Palgrave Studies in Modern Monarchy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89515-4_3
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