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Hentsch, Richard (December 18, 1869, Cologne – February 13, 1918, Bucharest), German officer. After a private education in Berlin, Hentsch joined the 103rd Infantry Regiment (4th Saxon) in Bautzen in 1888. In 1899 he was posted to the Imperial General Staff, initially for two years, and then transferred there in 1902. He was promoted lieutenant colonel on April 20, 1914, and at the outbreak of war took up the post of head of the intelligence department to the chief of the General Staff of Field Fo…

Race to the Sea Popular metaphor for the military operations on the northern flank of the Western Front between September 15 and late October 1914, in the course of which both sides hoped to outflank the opponent, and which eventually came to an end with the onset of positional warfare in November of 1914. Following the German withdrawal to the Marne, the new chief of the Supreme Army Command (Oberste Heeresleitung, OHL), General Erich von Falkenhayn, planned to renew the offensive on the German rig…

Cadorna, Count Luigi (September 4, 1850, Pallanza, now part of Verbania – December 23, 1928, Bordighera), Italian general and chief of staff. The son of a prominent general, Cadorna joined the cadet corps at the age of ten. A lieutenant in 1870, he rose to major-general in 1898, lieutenant-general in 1905. In 1909 he was given command of the army corps at Genoa, and in 1914 Cadorna received the appointment to serve as chief of staff, succeeding the late Alberto Pollio. Cadorna us…

Moltke, Helmuth Johannes Ludwig von (the Younger) (May 25, 1848, Gersdorff [Mecklenburg] – June 18, 1916, Berlin), German general; chief of the Army General Staff and nephew of Field Marshal von Moltke. In 1869 Moltke joined Fusilier Regiment the Queen’s No. 86 (Schleswig-Holstein), taking part in the Franco-Prussian War as a lieutenant. In 1872 he succeeded in transferring to the 1st Foot Guards Regiment. Moltke’s later military career was shaped by his closeness to his famous uncle – Moltke was his adjutant until his uncle’s death in 1891 – and also from the protection of the young Kaiser Wilhelm II. Moltke was made a captain in 1881, then a major in 1888. As personal adjutant to the Kaiser, his command of several guards regiments, and position as liaison brought him to the court of the Russian Tsar. In 1899 he was named a brigadier general. In 1904, he was named quartermaster general of the Supreme Army Command. At the special request of the Kaiser, in 1906 he became Alfred von Schlieffen’s successor as chief of the General Staff. Later in 1906, he was made general of the infantry, and then promoted in 1914 to full general. During his time in service, Moltke was confronted with the overpowering military traditions of his predecessors, who would create an elaborate operational plan even if there were insufficient matériel to carry it out. Under the influence of the crisis-laden, final years of the war, he required army personnel to be more heavily armed. The two-front war against France and Russia became Moltke’s strategic dilemma, a quandary from which the General Staff chief sought to extricate himsel…

Sarajevo Capital of the Austro-Hungarian provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 had aroused strong hostility against the dual monarchy among the Serbian population in Bosnia. Radicalization had led to the emergence of secret societies that were prepared to use violence. One of those societies, the “Black Hand,” enjoyed the protection of Serbian military circles, and planned to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Austrian throne, on the occasion of his visit to Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. In the province for military maneuvers, Franz Ferdinand wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to make a courtesy visit to the Bosnian capital. Although the security situation was seen as critical, measures to protect the archduke and his wife Sophie Duchess of Hohenberg, who was with him, were inadequate. The route they woul…

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Military Historiography, Official German Immediately after the end of the war, nearly all the states that had participated in the war began elaborating an official military historiography. These early efforts to produce standard official publications were not only a consequence of historical interest or of the wish to honor the achievements of one’s respective army, but should also be viewed in the light of the international debate on war guilt, which began with the Treaty of Versailles. Hence, the …

Positional Warfare A form of warfare conducted along permanent and fortified front lines. The war of positions came to characterize the First World War in contrast to other forms of combat. All major military powers had based their pre-1914 war strategies on a war of movement. This was the case despite the fact that positional warfare was not unfamiliar. Siege warfare had been ubiquitous in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Even in recent conflicts such as the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 the effecti…

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Einem, Karl von (January 1, 1853, Herzberg [Harz] – April 7, 1934, Mülheim an der Ruhr), German colonel general. Educated in the cadet corps, in 1870 Einem joined the 14th regiment of Uhlans, with whom he took part in the war against…

Military Cabinet The bureau that handled personnel matters for the Prussian army. Created in 1883 out of the former Prussian Adjutant General’s Office, the Military Cabinet reported directly to the Kaiser. The Military Cabinet represented the last, official bastion of Prussian military absolutism. In addition …

Kuhl, Hermann von (November 2, 1856, Koblenz – November 4, 1958, Frankfurt am Main), German general. Kuhl received a doctoral degree from the University of Tübingen for his thesis on the Carmen Saliare in 1878. That same year he joined the Prussian Infantry Regiment No. 53, rising to captain in 1893, and to major in 1899. Having taught at the War Academy from 1898, Kuhl became chief of Department III at the General Staff in 1906. Promoted to major general in 1912, he was raised to the h…

Frederick Augustus III, King of Saxony (May 25, 1865, Dresden – February 18, 1932, Sibyllenort, district of Oels). After studying in Strasbourg and Leipzig and completing his princely military training, Frederick attained the rank of lieutenant general in 1898. In 1902 the crown prince …

Battle of the Frontiers Collective term for a series of engagements that were fought in Belgium and France in the course of the German invasion between August 20 and 24, 1914. The German operational plan had envisioned a strong right wing enveloping the bulk of the French, British, and Belgian forces in northern France. Following the successful coup de main against Liège this right wing consisting of the First, Second, and Third Armies advanced through Belgium toward the French border. The Fourth and Fifth Armies moved through Luxembourg and the Ardenne…

Tunnel Warfare Warfare by means of planting subterranean destructive charges. Following the onset of positional warfare, the belligerents soon turned to tunneling and mining along the stationary front lines, especially on the Western Front and in the Alps. A distinction must be made between offensive and defensive mining: offensive mining was conducted for the purpose of …

Headquarters Command centers for the supreme military, sometimes also political, leadership set up in the field for the duration of the war. Composition, location, and function of such a headquarters depended on the constitutional position of the supreme military command of each belligerent and the demands of modern mass and coalition warfare. – By far the most comprehensive headquarters at the outbreak of the war was the German “Great Headquarters.” Aside from the German Emperor as the nominal c…

Null-Acht-Fünfzehn (Maxim Machine Gun) The designation for the new Maxim machine gun, the Model 8, implemented by the German Army beginning in 1915. On this redesigned Maxim gun, the heavy carriage of older models was replaced by a bipod. It was lighter, and equipped for the first time with a shoulder stock as well as a pistol grip. Great quantities of the Model 8 were produced under very strict fabrication tolerances that resulted in exceptional durability, even when subjected to extreme mechanical stresses. It therefore comes as no surprise that in German soldiers’ slang, Null-Acht-Fünfzehn (‘08/15’) came to stand for anything standard issue or monotonous. After the Second World War Null-acht, fünfzehn was further familiarized as the name of Hans Hellmut Kirst’s Gunner Asch novel trilogy (released in the United Kingdom as …

Hausen, Max Klemens Lothar Freiherr von (December 17, 1846, Dresden – March 19, 1922, Dresden), Saxon general. After cadet school, von Hausen joined the Saxon Army’s Third Jägerbataillon (Rifle Battalion) in Dresden in 1863. He took part in wars in Bohemia in 1866 and in France in 1870/1871, and was promoted captai…

Hindenburg Line The name in British and French literature for the German defensive line on the Western Front in 1917/18, known in German as Siegfried-Stellung. After the close of the costly battles of 1916, the OHL (German Supreme Army Command) and the Army Group …

Krafft von Dellmensingen, Konrad (November 24, 1862, Laufen [Upper Bavaria] – February 22, 1953, Seeshaupt), Bavarian general. Krafft joined the Bavarian Army in 1881 as an officer candidate (field artillery) and attended the War Academy from 1891 to 1894. From 1908 to 1911, he served as division chief in the Munich War Ministry with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Promoted to the rank of major-general and appointed chief of the General Staff in 1912, Krafft became chief of staff of the Sixth Army (…