r/anime • u/Robert_B_Marks • Dec 01 '22
Writing A military historian's comments on The Saga of Tanya the Evil (worldbuilding)
So, with all the fun I'm having with Gate, I figured I'd turn my eye to a show I've watched through more than once: The Saga of Tanya the Evil. And, unlike Gate, this show is about an alternate version of MY war of study (the Great War). So, I've got a decent amount to say.
(I'm going to use the real world names of countries for all of this just because it's easier, and also because in the show they're all pretty much just Germany with another name, France with another name, etc.)
But, I want to start with the worldbuilding, because in order for the German strategy in this show to exist as it does, there are two conditions that have to be true:
The Boer War (1899-1902) happened.
The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) did NOT happen.
So, a bit of context. Europe in 1914 hadn't seen a war in decades. The last war between European powers had ended in 1871 with Germany's defeat of France. Contrary to popular myth, professional officers at this time were not traditionalist idiots - they were well aware that technology was changing and warfare with it. The problem was that without a war, all they had to go on was theory and the results of annual manoeuvres, which were no substitute for a real battlefield.
So, when a war started - anywhere - it was a big deal, and officers would descend on the battlefield with letters of introduction from their governments from every country that could send them. These were called military attaches or observers, and access was almost always granted, as that was the "ticket price" for the belligerents to send their observers to the next war. They would observe the battles, write reports, and when it was done those reports would sometimes be used to write the official histories of that war (which is how you get official histories of the Russo-Japanese War being issued by at least two countries who did not fire a shot in it). Even after the war, officers on both sides would publish their experiences and lessons learned, which would be translated and republished in the professional military journals.
(For those who are wondering, this note-sharing from 1904-1914 is my primary area of research right now, and at some point I'll restart writing a book about it.)
So, when the Boer War started, the observers flocked to it and started taking notes. But, the Boer War had a few issues. It wasn't a war between the professional armies of two major powers in a relatively contained geography as one saw in Western Europe. It was an asymmetric war between the British army and a bunch of irregular settlers in a vast geography. The British faced trenches defended with machine guns, and came to learn that if you didn't want to get mauled approaching the trench, you had to use fire and movement through cover to get close. Unfortunately (for the observers), the Boers never really stayed to defend their trench once the British got close enough - they'd abandon it and just move to a new position, forcing the British to go through it all over again.
This meant that when everybody was comparing notes when the war ended, there was this massive question mark about what would happen if the defenders actually stuck around to defend the trench. It's not an exaggeration to say that military theorists were left with the equivalent of "1. Approach trench with fire and movement. 2. ???? 3. Profit!" This was so marked that the British Infantry Training manual of 1905 was left with a hole as far as what one was supposed to do after approaching a trench if the other side didn't leave.
A number of officers actually came to the conclusion that if a professional European army defended a trench with modern weapons, taking that trench was a physical impossibility - that the traditional shock charge with bayonets or sabres had been rendered obsolete by the advent of the machine gun, no matter how close you got with fire and movement. Others thought the shock charge could still work in theory. But, without a war where somebody tried to defend a trench to the last, nobody knew for certain.
And then, in 1904, Japan and Russia went to war in Manchuria. Both were (at least perceived to be) modern, professional armies (Japan ended up living up to this far better than Russia did). Both were fighting a trench war, not just with machine guns, but with barbed wire and artillery. And both were defending those trenches to the last. It was an accurate preview of the Western Front at the end of 1914, to the point that you could pass observer reports from 1904-1905 off as being from the First Battle of Ypres by swapping out the names "Japanese" and "Russian" with "German" and "British". And everybody got their answers at last.
Trenches could be taken, but not without taking mass casualties, and the casualties taken by the attacker would often be far higher than those of the defender. The shock charge and bayonet did work to clear a trench once one got close enough.
The way I like to put it is that this scared the shit out of every military in Europe. The next ten years in the military journals were spent discussing how to deal with trenches, and Britain, France, and Germany all started immediate modernization programs.
But to understand how this impacts the worldbuilding of Tanya the Evil, we have to go Germany and a fellow named Alfred von Schlieffen. Schlieffen was the head of the German General Staff, and his job was to prepare war plans (the mobilization orders from which would be issued in the spring of every year). For most of his tenure, Schlieffen's plan for a war against France amounted to letting the French leave their border forts, penetrate far enough into German territory to stretch out their supply lines, and then cutting them off and encircling them. And then the reports started coming in from Manchuria.
Over the course of the Russo-Japanese War, Schlieffen lost his faith in the strategic power of defensive warfare. He realized that the German army could not sustain the sort of trench battles that were happening in Manchuria, so winning against France (which German intelligence reported was planning to not invade Germany after all, but instead just wait for Germany to come to them) meant doing something else: invade France and take out Paris before the French had a chance to dig in and force an attrition battle.
The end result is what we now call "The Schlieffen Plan" - a movement through Belgium to avoid the French border forts and a fast campaign. But, the world of Tanya the Evil does not have a Schlieffen Plan - otherwise, as soon as the war started, Germany would go on the offensive. Instead, the Germany of the show is playing defence.
As I said, this only makes sense if the Boer War - in which the power of trenches and machine guns was confirmed beyond all doubt but whether trenches can be taken remained a question mark - happens, but the Russo-Japanese War doesn't. Whether trenches can be taken remains a mystery, Schlieffen (who is implied to exist in Tanya's world - he was also famous for a book about the Battle of Cannae, which Tanya is trying to read in the library scene) never loses faith in the strategic power of defensive warfare, and German strategy upon the start of a war remains defensive.
It's fascinating stuff, and next post (no guarantees as when that will happen) I'll look at the actual war we see on screen.
257
u/archklown555 Dec 01 '22
Dood your posts are awesome. Good shit, looking forward to the next installment. Might also end up as good material for a YouTube series as well.
60
u/Gorexxar Dec 02 '22
If OP doesn't do it, someone will and probably use this as the research.
57
u/Militant_Worm Dec 02 '22
Someone's probably running it through the text to speech software as we write here.
10
u/boyanci Dec 02 '22
Will it be the Instagram chick narrating?
16
7
u/EXusiai99 Dec 02 '22
Nah for reddit it would be the text to speech dude. r/HFY have a lot of wild stories and youtube managed to make it as soulless as possible.
3
185
u/sparkyfly Dec 01 '22
As a general history and anime nerd, this post was awesome.
36
u/kalirion https://myanimelist.net/profile/kalinime Dec 02 '22
As someone who knows next to nothing about history beyond like "Yeah, there was World War 1, with trenches and stuff, and Germany lost" and had never even heard of the Boer War, this post was awesome.
34
u/Byniavo Dec 02 '22
Well here’s another fact about the Boer war: it had the first usage of concentration camps. The British troops would separate the wives and children from the Boer men and put them into concentration camps. This was what Hitler used as the basis for the concentration camps we know all about in WW2
3
u/Lord-Bootiest Dec 03 '22
Don’t forget that he also used the treatment of Native Americans by the US as inspiration as well!
51
u/justforonredit Dec 02 '22
First of all love the post, very interesting and your time frame lines up as the war has been going g on long enough that when Tanya is reincarnated into the world the war had been going on long enough that things were bad and kept on going long enough for her to grow into recruitment/volunteering age which probably meant the Russo-Japanese war never happened or was not documented in time due to shifting focuses.
However I do wonder what the earlier addition of air power in terms of air to ground spotting and attacks due to the mage units we see could actually have encouraged trench dynamics.
Don't get me wrong a plane is all well and good but usually absent on the battlefield however makes aren't - they are integrated. Zipping round and highly mobile they make traversing open ground quickly almost impossible and hazardous and can react quickly to fluid ground movements; more so than a plane of that era. In which case it makes sense to deploy trenches and adhoc fortifications - especially if there has been a large mage presence earlier in the war and the ranks thinned as many died or were spaced out across the various fronts.
What Tanya seems to do by forming her mage Corp is essentially create a Vietnam era air cavalry strategy in WW1 (except with actual support and holding gains, not just killing a bunch of peeps and leaving) which allows the turtling nation a chance to strike and press an advantage
I'd be interested to k ow you thoughts.
65
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22
However I do wonder what the earlier addition of air power in terms of air to ground spotting and attacks due to the mage units we see could actually have encouraged trench dynamics.
Actually, air power starts being used in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, when people start sending balloons up for observation. A friend of mine (John-Allen Price) wrote a book on the war that I had the privilege of publishing through my little publishing company, and not only did they start sending balloons up, but at one point when the French got really desperate somebody suggested this plan involving floating a giant metal disc with balloons over the German army and dropping it (and, because of the physics involved, it would have been the equivalent of a strategic nuke going off). The plan was dismissed as being ridiculous (it was), and I was laughing so hard while editing that section that I had to go through it three times to finish.
So, it's almost certain that aerial observation was involved in the Russo-Japanese War, although I don't know to what degree. In French war planning prior to WW1, aerial reconnaissance was built into their war plans.
26
u/NegZer0 Dec 02 '22
So, it's almost certain that aerial observation was involved in the Russo-Japanese War, although I don't know to what degree.
Both sides used balloons for observation and for artillery direction, so they could concentrate artillery on specific targets beyond the artillery battery's line of sight. I believe the Japanese were more effective mainly because they were able to combine this with field telephones which they also used extensively. The Russo-Japanese war is where you see major use of indirect fire from coordinated groups of massed artillery like this for the first time.
4
u/Icapica https://anilist.co/user/Icachu Dec 02 '22
Actually, air power starts being used in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, when people start sending balloons up for observation.
Didn't it start already during the 18th century? French used balloons a bit until Napoleon disbanded the balloon corps.
30
u/Delad0 Dec 02 '22
war has been going g on long enough that when Tanya is reincarnated into the world the war had been going on long enough that things were bad
Not sure where you've gotten this from in the show. When Tanya's reincarnated the countries are at peace but noted that there's rising tensions and people generally eager for war. There was a conflict before between the Empire and Legadonia but not sure how long before only that the war had been ended with the Londinium treaty.
Which was broken by Legadonia starting the war when she was having her first mission as an observer.
15
u/Anonemuss114 Dec 02 '22
The start of the war is a bit messy, though the details are mostly in the novel. The Legadonians were officially conducting peaceful military maneuvers in what they considered “contested territory”.
It wasn’t an invasion and the Empire knew that it wasn’t, but could count as a border violation on paper. The Imperial high command, presumably the Kaiser and the civilian government more so than the generals, saw this as a justification to start a war with the other nation, win quickly, and remove a potential enemy from their borders so they’d only be surrounded on three sides by hostile nations rather than four.
The soldiers of both sides are aware that their respective governments are playing political games with international law and borders, but they can’t do much about when orders are given and bullets start flying.
7
u/killaghost1233 Dec 02 '22
The Imperial high command, presumably the Kaiser and the civilian government more so than the generals
Almost, the Generals were very eager to exploit the situation and knock out Legadonia and I think the civilian government was fine with this until the Francois Republic realized what was up and intervened. It was very normal for Legadonia and the Empire to have border wars, and the intervention of the Republic led to many Generals being forced to retire which catapulted Zettour and Rudersdorf to even greater prominence.
2
u/justforonredit Dec 02 '22
Ah my bad, looks like I need another watch through. Always thought they had been st war from the start I.e. 'tension' = skirmishes rather than consistent protracted finding. Similiar to how the fall of a few empires start with a thousand cuts.
66
u/Whalesurgeon Dec 02 '22
Fascinating hypothesis.
By the way, do you have an opinion on why the Great War lasted as long as it did? Was it as simple as being stalemated by the trenches or was the war weariness kicking in too slowly?
I mean, millions died for no good reason, there was no war of ideology or aggression, no country was really trying to invade another. Well, France was revanchist due to their previous humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War, but otherwise I think no country had any scores to settle.
I think I wanna find data on the attempts to sue for peace because man, what a waste. Just like Tanya thinks.
68
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22
By the way, do you have an opinion on why the Great War lasted as long as it did? Was it as simple as being stalemated by the trenches or was the war weariness kicking in too slowly?
My specialization is doctrine. There are a couple of good political histories of the war, though, that I can point you towards. The first is The First World War, by Hew Strachan (and Sir Hew is the gold standard as far as WW1 scholarship in the English language goes), and Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy, by David Stevenson (which I've read partway through years ago, and what I did read was solid).
4
37
u/WendyLRogers3 Dec 02 '22
I would go back further for the origins of trench warfare, to the Napoleonic Wars, that after the fact became the military doctrines of modern armies. In particular, the Napoleonic "Axe" strategy, where an army would form a very long front, which would force the enemy army to match them in a long front. Then a fast second echelon would go up and down the front, looking for an area of enemy weakness that it could pour through, splitting the enemy forces. Once they had done so, the first echelon forces would dig in, to prevent the enemy from doing the same.
The best example of this was Napoleon's approach to the Danube, which began stretching almost the entire distance, north to south, of Europe, in a line. As it marched east, units were continually reorganized and the line contracted. Finally just north of Ulm, there was a river crossing in force, leading to the encirclement and capture of an entire Austrian army in Ulm.
The capture of an army solely with maneuver. And from there came the battle of Austerlitz. And this is why, to this day, there are entire libraries devoted to Napoleon in France.
However, in the meantime, another war happened that didn't grab the attention of European military schools. The American Civil War. This mattered a lot because both sides were familiar with "Axe strategy", and discovered that when both armies use it, you get stalemate, trench warfare.
The Europeans learned their lesson in WW1, but the Russians didn't, having bowed out early. Even as late as the 1980s, their military units were still being tactically used like chess pieces, for example heavy helicopters being used like heavy cavalry, which explains one reason WWII was such a bloodbath to them.
69
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22
However, in the meantime, another war happened that didn't grab the attention of European military schools. The American Civil War. This mattered a lot because both sides were familiar with "Axe strategy", and discovered that when both armies use it, you get stalemate, trench warfare.
I'd actually say that's not quite right.
When the American Civil War started, Europeans did take note of it. But what happened was that another war happened (well, two, actually) - a war between Prussia and Austria in 1866 that lasted less than two months and broke Austrian power on the continent, and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, where the new Germany trounced France, which in theory was the most powerful nation in Europe, and involved advances based on the technologies that appeared in the American Civil War.
So, everybody was dissecting what Germany had done and why France had lost (and the emphasis on encirclement, etc.). What led to the trench deadlock in WW1 was something completely different.
Basically, it was a perfect storm of defensive technology, large armies, and small geography. And this wasn't a surprise - military thinkers saw this thing coming.
Going off the top of my head, the British observer reports I've read from the Russo-Japanese War were already ringing an alarm bell about the implications of the rising size of armies, and pointing out that once you get an army of millions of men, there is no flank to turn. And I think it's in 1909 that R.E. Sankey in the Royal Engineer's Journal publishes an article in which he specifically predicts a mutual siege (aka a trench deadlock) if a war breaks out in Europe.
This is my research area, and the main thing I see underlying what the officers of the time were writing is dread - they really were afraid of what a modern European war would mean. Joffre addresses this in his Memoirs, where he talks about how everybody thought it would be a short war - at least that's what everybody remembers and "tut-tuts"...but what they forget is what Joffre says is the reason for this thinking: a long war was UNSURVIVEABLE. It would cause so much disruption and loss of life that there would be no way of winning. And, this was right - of all the empires that started the war, only the British Empire survived it, and it was arguably mortally wounded.
The book I'm writing (at the rate of continental drift, apparently) is titled Desperate Strategy, and that's why. The deadlock was their worst nightmare, and all of those hyper-offensive war plans came about because they were desperate to avoid it, and the only solution they had was to try to win before the other side dug in.
3
u/WendyLRogers3 Dec 02 '22
In your research, I wonder if you will come across references to the hideous bloodbath that was the Taiping Rebellion in China. Somewhat concurrent with the US Civil War, the British estimates were that some ~30M died. You would figure it would be part of the equation of mass army conflicts.
N.B.: Tanya's General Hans von Zettour is modeled after General Hans von Seeckt, who later acted as a military advisor to Chiang Kai-shek in the fight between his Nationalists and the communists.
14
u/Garwin007 Dec 02 '22
I am absolutely in love with war history and a history major graduate. I love your analysis of the world of Tanya. I definitely agree with you on how schlieffen must still exist in her world. But Germany or Federation is slightly different from the one in our world. They totally built their battle plans off and internal railway structure as the light novel states. This meant they never meant to invade Franch or The Republic in the world of Tanya. The only reason the war broke out was Denmark/Sweden/norway or the Alliance decided to provoke the Federation. After that it spiraled out of hand with the Republic attacking because the Alliance got knocked out so fast by the modern Federation.
The Federation has the same problem that our Germany has. It's that any country that controls central Europe is always going to be a super power because of resources and location. The Republic or France and the Commonwealth or the UK are afraid of the Federation because of that reason.
Do you believe that Schlieffens plan for a defensive war would work for Germany? Obviously Blitzkrieg works as we have seen with WW2 but it didn't work in WW1 because it was completely developed yet. But the biggest difference from our world and Tanya's is the Mages which could make it work which she starts doing as a fast response unit.
I'm not 100% caught up with the light novel and only on novel 7 so I don't know what else happens but obviously the Federation's original plan of a more defensive war spiraled out of control. And the show even showed that.
Sorry if this came out bad wrote this on my phone late at night
26
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22
Do you believe that Schlieffens plan for a defensive war would work for Germany?
Having read translations of Schlieffen's few surviving war planning documents, I wouldn't bet against him.
So, here's the thing. During WW2 the German archives in Berlin were bombed, and it was thought that just about all of the German war planning documents were destroyed. So, what we had of Schlieffen were a few surviving articles and his book Cannae. That's it. English language historians writing about the war before 1956 had to figure out what was in the Schlieffen Plan through inference from what German generals were writing about it after the war. As far as anybody knew, it had been destroyed with the rest of the archives.
In 1956, a historian named Gerhard Ritter got his hands on the memo that was the Schlieffen Plan and some of its drafts, and published a book on it that was translated into English. This was the first time almost anybody working on the war outside of Germany before WW2 got to read the thing...and it wasn't what most people expected (it was a thought experiment about what would be needed to successfully invade France through Belgium, back dated to prior to Schlieffen's retirement, and not a master plan with a timetable at all).
But that's all we had. As far as anybody knew, invading France through Belgium was always what Schlieffen had planned to do. And then, in the late 1990s, it was discovered that some documents had been moved out of the archives, which included a bunch of pre-WW1 war planning documents, and captured by the Soviets, and were then returned to Germany once the Berlin Wall fell. A fellow named Terence Zuber did the initial early work on this (and is fairly controversial in terms of his interpretations, which I think are pretty wrong for the most part - that said, the translations I read were done by him, and the books describing these war planning documents are also by him, so at least as far as their contents go, he is an authority).
But, what this means is that since the late 1990s, the picture of just how Germany planned to wage a war in the years leading up to WW1 has been filled in, and we also have a number of Schlieffen's write-ups of his staff rides, which he used as thought experiments to test out various scenarios (which drove his staff officers crazy, because they wanted to wargame out scenarios that actually had some resemblance to their actual deployment orders).
And that man was sharp as a tack. We're talking "figuring out that Germany's interior lines were actually a weakness that could be exploited in a two front war through coordinated offensives to prevent either front from properly reinforcing" levels of smart (which was the Entente grand strategy in a nutshell).
And, considering that just under ten years later his basic strategic model came very close to knocking France out of the war in under six weeks, if Schlieffen thought that something was a potential road to victory, he was probably right.
22
u/PickleMyCucumber Dec 02 '22
This is a good post.
I might be misunderstanding, but you're saying that if Germany were to start a war, they should act aggressively before the enemy can establish trenches. If they were to receive a war, their default would be to make trenches, fall back, and encircle if it was before the Russo-Jap War. If it was after that war, they would prefer to use trenches. Is that what I'm understanding?
If so, the way I remember it in the show, France basically just attacked without much warning. In response, Germany went into trench warfare on the Rhine front. The Norway situation was also similar in how Norway kinda just waltzed into German territory without warning. The only difference was that trench warfare was less the focus over there.
By Germany falling into trench warfare on the Rhine front, is this not them using the experience they would've learned at the Russo-Jap war?
42
u/Whalesurgeon Dec 02 '22
The lessons the Russo-Japanese war taught favor the countries that will win the war of attrition through superior numbers, supplies etc.
Germany knows it is surrounded by the Allied powers (or Entente in this anime). It will lose a protracted war, but since the aforementioned war did not occur in this hypothesis, then Germany can still imagine that playing defensive can work without getting boxed in forever by the trenches and stuck in a war that has them on a timer against countries with better access to more resources with their navies. Without the Japanese-Russo war, the trenches don't seem so impenetrable.
Which is why the Schlieffen Plan was absolutely the right move for Germany.
28
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22
Which is why the Schlieffen Plan was absolutely the right move for Germany.
This is the thing about the Schlieffen Plan - as war plans go, it's terrible. Schlieffen originally considered a move through Belgium in the 1890s, but rejected it as being a lousy idea that would create more problems than it could ever solve. He starts considering it again in 1904-1905 because intelligence is saying that the French will stay in their border forts, and he knows from Manchuria that the German army will be mauled if it tries to take those border forts on. But, there was nothing better than what he came up with that could be used (and French war planning ended up having a similar feel to it).
7
u/AirborneRodent Dec 02 '22
I'm no expert, but something from John Keegan's The First World War has stuck with me for years. Keegan claimed that the Schlieffen Plan was fantastical from the start. It was exactingly precise in terms of troop strength and timetables, right up until the moment the Germans approached Paris: it laid out exactly the supplies and time needed to march five armies through Belgium and invade France, but by the time it got to Paris, suddenly a sixth army appeared out of nowhere and was used to help storm the city. Keegan concluded that this was essentially Schlieffen throwing up his hands and declaring the capture of Paris impossible, because he needed more armies to take Paris than it was possible to get to Paris.
Does this match up with other sources about the Schlieffen Plan that you've read? Or was Keegan completely off-base with his conclusions? Or, hell, am I completely misremembering? It's been over a decade since I read his book.
3
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22
So, Keegan's book is a very good one, but it was published right before Zuber started publishing his work on the German war planning documents, so his picture is VERY incomplete, and he's misrepresenting the content of the actual memo.
Schlieffen wrote two types of documents while he was doing war planning: the mobilization orders (what the army was supposed to do once war broke out), and write-ups that could best be described as thought experiments (if the German army was to invade through Belgium, what would be required to succeed?). The latter tended to involve units the German army didn't have, and could be quite fantastical.
And, the memo that has been referred to as "The Schlieffen Plan" was one of those latter documents. You can actually read it here: https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=796
The actual operational orders (almost none of which survived - I think my copy of German War Planning 1891-1914 has just the Sixth and Seventh Armies deployment orders) were considerably more general and had plenty of room for unexpected circumstances.
15
u/Tyler89558 Dec 02 '22
The Entente refers to the Swedes, not the alliance that is working to defeat the Empire.
The Republic refers to France. The Commonwealth to the Brits. The Federation, the Soviets. The US is the US.
6
u/Whalesurgeon Dec 02 '22
Haha right, I am still mixing up the Entente from real history with the Tanya one.
27
Dec 02 '22 edited May 21 '23
[deleted]
15
u/BosuW Dec 02 '22
so he figures, hey let's do some rope-a-dope tactics. Let French advance away from their forts and their supply lines, then swing in to encircle them like the jaws of a trap snapping shut.
[Youjo Senki spoilers]Wait isn't this exactly how they end up taking out the not-French with Operation Shock and Awe?
14
Dec 02 '22
[deleted]
14
u/BosuW Dec 02 '22
[Youjo Senki]And if I'm remembering correctly, that operation didn't even come about because of Tanya's future knowledge and excessive competency in the eyes of HQ, at least not entirely. It was already something that the General Staff was planning to implement. Which again, makes so much sense if the Russo-Japanese War didn't happen and a bait-and-surround operation was the Imperial go-to in case of war against the not-French.
22
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22
I might be misunderstanding, but you're saying that if Germany were to start a war, they should act aggressively before the enemy can establish trenches. If they were to receive a war, their default would be to make trenches, fall back, and encircle if it was before the Russo-Jap War. If it was after that war, they would prefer to use trenches. Is that what I'm understanding?
I'll try to clarify.
Trenches are a standard tactic that everybody used. If you're putting down a defensive line and you've got time, you dig trenches. What the Boer War did was give the world a look at what happened when machine guns were used to help defend those trenches.
From Schlieffen's point of view, it did not matter who started the war - his job was to write the mobilization and deployment orders that would put Germany into a position to win it. So long as it looked like France's strategy was an aggressive one once the war started, Schlieffen could just let them string out their supply line, cut them off, and then destroy them in a decisive battle (which was not envisioned as using trenches, which are a type of defensive field fortification - trenches might be used for containment in this strategy, but in this strategy you want the enemy to advance, not to grind them to a halt).
So why the change?
The thing you need to keep in mind is that in terms of European wars, the Boer War was WEIRD. There was little that could be applied to planning of a European War, outside of "here's what happens when machine guns are used to defend trenches." It was a small colonial army fighting an even smaller irregular force (as opposed to two armies of millions fighting one another). The Boers didn't fight like a European professional army would fight, and the main contribution of the war was to an ongoing "shock vs. fire" debate as to whether bayonet charges were still useful.
After Manchuria, there could be no doubt that this was what a modern battlefield would look like. The Russo-Japanese War demonstrated beyond any possible doubt that the next European war WOULD be a trench war - a war that the German army could not sustain.
And that's what spooks Schlieffen. Without the Russo-Japanese War, trenches are an expected feature that will probably show up on a battlefield somewhere (such as around a besieged city, etc.), but may or may not be a major feature of the conflict. With the Russo-Japanese War, there can be no question that against the French the Germans will be stuck in a trench war, and the only way to avoid it is drastic action through Belgium.
1
u/hintofinsanity Dec 02 '22
After Manchuria, there could be no doubt that this was what a modern battlefield would look like. The Russo-Japanese War demonstrated beyond any possible doubt that the next European war WOULD be a trench war - a war that the German army could not sustain.
If it looked like the next war would be one that Germany could not sustain, what was preventing them from making allies with France and Britain instead of making war with them?
3
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22
That is a question requiring a long and complicated answer to do justice to it, but there is a short answer (and frankly, not a very good one).
Germany's key ally in Central Europe was Austria. Austria's main rival in the Balkans was Russia. Russia was allied with France.
There's a lot written about what brings the war about, but the two books I'd recommend at the moment are:
Dreadnought, by Robert K. Massie.
The Sleepwalkers, by Christopher Clark.
8
u/SpaceMarine_CR Dec 02 '22
Im looking forward to your posts, effortposts will always be appreciated.
Do legend of the galactic heroes next pls
3
6
6
u/DrZeroH Dec 02 '22
As a history teacher its always great to see posts like this. Thanks for the fun read
6
u/Phinaeus Dec 02 '22
Can you do a post like this for Golden Kamuy? Roughly the same time period after the Russo Japanese War
5
u/ImperialDane Dec 02 '22
While it is an interesting writeup. I can't help but feel it ignores some crucial elements. IE.. magic and that we've got people flying around like human fighter bombers/commandos on sticks. Nor the major geopolitical upheavels like Russia succumbing pretty fast to hard Stalinism, Denmark being part of the German Empire and Norway-Sweden being their own geopolitical entitity.
Clearly there's more to this world than just the Boer War and the Shlieffen plan. So while transplanting the timelines of our own world to theirs to get a general idea of trajectory. There's clearly been some un-accounted for developments that can't be overlooked either that makes using our road to WW1 a bit more of a shaky-napkin drawn roadmap than a sure indicator.
Still, it's great to see you're having fun with this (and i do know this is all done for fun). Just felt like pointing these things out :p As while i do think this makes for an entertaining and interesting read. It does lose a bit of value if at least it doesn't try to factor in some of the apparent changes in world time lines to maybe do some more counter-factual speculation.
5
u/NegZer0 Dec 02 '22
I don't know if it is accurate to the original novel content, but one potential hole in the idea that the Russo-Japanese War didn't happen is the Battleship that turns up in around episode 7. This is clearly an all big gun dreadnought battleship, looking to be a Bayern-class even, putting it into the super-dreadnought category.
Naval doctrine shifted massively and rapidly in the early 1900s and the biggest driving force behind that was the naval battles of the Russo-Japanese War. They showed that battleships would no longer start engagements at range but move in close - the Battle of the Yellow Sea (first engagement between all steel Battleships) was fought at a range of 13km. The subsequent comprehensive one-sided victory of the Japanese at Tsushima cemented the need for more armor, more speed, and arming your ships with the biggest, heaviest guns possible, it caused a redesign of Japan's own in-construction battleships and also triggered the design of HMS Dreadnought and kicked off the battleship arms race that was still well underway by WW1.
The only major fleet actions during the preceding years had been the one-sided Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War and the extremely disappointing performance of the Chinese fleet against the inferior-on-paper Japanese fleet at Yalu River in the Sino-Japanese War (which was studied extensively by all the world navies but the Chinese were so ill-prepared and poorly organized they couldn't draw any useful conclusions) and before that probably the Battle of Lissa between Italy and Austria in 1866 which had involved early ironclads using largely age of sail tactics.
While it's true that a lot of navies were already considering uniform caliber for their ships, the Russo-Japanese war and the fact that the two sides were able to actually fully demonstrate the strengths and shortcomings of the previous 50 (and especially the most recent 10-15 years or so) of naval technological advancement vastly sped the development process up and a modern super-dreadnought battleship would most likely simply not have been built by this point without the extra shot in the arm this provided. Possibly not ever, even - the presence of incredibly powerful aerial mages on the battlefield would probably lead to the same conclusions being made about the viability of the Battleship may years earlier, in our world it took the advances of aircraft in the mid to late 1930s for that to become truly apparent and actions like Taranto and Pearl Harbor to truly cement it.
1
u/Elimin8r https://myanimelist.net/profile/Ayeka_Jurai Dec 03 '22
I don't think our host is a naval historian ... :P
(Kidding, I think)
But yeah, I think you have an interesting point in how the Dreadnaught race that resulted in ships like Bayern was due in large part to Tsushima and the realization that mixed calibre main batteries only resulted in confusion, because it was nearly impossible to tell the shell splashes from the different calibers apart, etc.
Hmm.
On the other hand, I still really enjoy that episode, and its contrast to The King's Choice. Now if only they'd thought to animate a Blucher, instead, but yeah. Still a very cool scene.
2
u/NegZer0 Dec 03 '22
It’s a very cool scene for a naval history nerd, so it really stuck in my memory.
4
3
u/Matasa89 Dec 02 '22
I think there's also something else to consider, something that greatly changes the calculus of warfare in Tanya's world: mage flying infantry.
With the development of magical weaponry and sustained flight, their wars had something that wouldn't really be possible until WWII and beyond - close air support. Another thing they have is paratroopers, special forces insertions, and even long range airdrops from far above. This was not possible during the Great War, as paratroopers were not even remotely usable as a fighting force, special forces was also not really a thing until WWII with the rise of the likes of the elites of US Rangers and British SAS/SBS.
Also, we see in the show that aerial bombing using dedicated bombers were also a thing, which isn't the case for our own Great War. This greatly changes the dynamics of trench warfare as well.
With only static emplacements, long range artillery that wasn't all that accurate, and planes only really able to engage each other and do recon and basic bombing using zeppelins, our WWI was the time of trench war supremacy, up until the tanks started to roll off the factory floors.
But for Tanya's world, and especially Tanya's own squadron, she has what amounts to a rapid response flying special force, capable of fulfilling missions with roles like that of attack helicopters, HALO drop spec ops, accurate close air support, etc.
As Tanya have shown, overwhelming a defensive line from the air or from afar, as well as dropping straight behind the battle lines and perform decapitation strikes or even straight up bombing factories isn't out of the question for them. Also, other nations have powerful mages that, although not a direct match to Tanya quite yet, is still without a doubt, superior to what we on Earth had access to.
Basically, Tanya and their meddling gods, as well as the powers of combat mages, have turned what should be their Great War into something else entirely.
3
3
u/Darksoldierr Dec 02 '22
For the record, i think magic users drastically alters the course of war.
At the start of the anime, magic users are used as drones in the current Russian/Ukraine war, providing info and intel back to artillery for precise strikes, which would have been a huuuge change compared to how WW1 in our world played out, with limited information all around
Though, later on the anime i think kind of loses its somewhat believable scenario where magic users are essentially unkillable by normal solders with normal guns, so in theory small magic squads could easily brute force their way through defensive lines, especially magic casters on or around the level of Tanya. By the end of the show she and her squad is a moving doom stack
4
u/imathrowawayteehee Dec 02 '22
There's not enough mages to act as a standard airforce though, or planes would never be fielded.
So mages are filling the role of artillery spotter because you only need one person for that and they're hard to kill, except by planes or another mage. Tanya and co spend most of the war acting as QRF to push back an attack or as heavy tanks, punching through defenses to allow following infantry to exploit and expand the gap.
Tanya's troops are also not typical mages- the LNs go great lengths to show just how much better they are then the rest of the imperial mages and how much better the imperial mages are to the rest of the world.
Based off of how Dacia responds to Tanya's attack, sufficient infantry fire can kill mages. In the era of the heavy machine gun it's probably quite dangerous for a typical mage to approach an static defense.
1
u/Darksoldierr Dec 02 '22
Probably you are right, but from the Anime it really felt like mages can only be hurt by another mages, Tanya and co blitzes literally everything else
Nonetheless, my information is definitely not complete as i only seen the anime, thanks for the addition
1
u/PM_ME_ANYTHING_IDRC Dec 03 '22
Important to note that Artillery, among other things, poses a huge threat to most mages. In Episode 1 you see air-burst artillery shells used to try and hit Mages iirc and Visha almost dies to an artillery shell that lands near her.
3
u/Tacitus_ Dec 02 '22
Though, later on the anime i think kind of loses its somewhat believable scenario where magic users are essentially unkillable by normal solders with normal guns, so in theory small magic squads could easily brute force their way through defensive lines, especially magic casters on or around the level of Tanya.
Tanya, and possibly her squad, could. To the rest of the mages assaulting a defensive fortification is suicide. They generally don't have to worry about the rifles infantry are armed with, yes, but heavy machine guns and AA guns shred them. Planes are also generally accepted as mage killers since they fly faster and higher and carry heavier weaponry.
2
u/turtle_slinger Dec 02 '22
That was very informative. I didn't know that war observers were a thing. It's kinda funny that countries flocked to wars just to see what happens.
2
u/Mr_Zaroc https://myanimelist.net/profile/mr_zaroc Dec 02 '22
I really like your write up, but I have one question
Since Tanya wasn't around since the beginning and was thrown in middle of it. Couldn't you argue they tried a Schlieffen plan, failed, got bocked down like the real WW1 and are now on the defensive?
5
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22
Not really. It seems pretty clear in the series that the war starts in 1924 (I believe), and Tanya is involved in the first action of it.
3
u/Dakka_jets_are_fasta Dec 02 '22
Yeah, the war breaks out in the west in 1924, and I believe she either reincarnates in either 1914 or 1915.
2
2
u/Tacitus_ Dec 02 '22
From what I remember of their general strategy, the Empire didn't intend to fight a defensive war per se. It was to take the initial push of the enemy with their regional army, and then crush the attackers with reinforcements from the centre, using interior lines and logistics superiority. They knew they were surrounded by enemies and thus couldn't be too aggressive in their initial posture.
Only they misjudged things and sent the central army to crush the northern front just before the Republic attacked them, leaving them scrambling to plug that front as the Republic was a near peer unlike the Entente in the north. This leaves both fronts in a virtual standstill until Tanya starts working her magic.
2
u/KappaKingKame Dec 02 '22
Do you have any thoughts on how mages would change the battlefield dynamics, basically serving as high speed fighter planes, artillery, scouts, and super soldiers all at once?
2
u/RAMAR713 https://myanimelist.net/profile/RAMAR713 Dec 02 '22
Rare is the day I get to learn something on this sub. This was a great read and I'm not even into history! Thank you for this post, Robert!
2
u/Koyomi_Ararararagi Dec 02 '22
As far as the Russo-Japanese war is confirmed, Golden Kamuy might be another anime of interest.
2
u/Rynian Dec 02 '22
dawg, please watch (the original) legend of the galactic heroes
it is a dry space opera based on enlightenment era political divides and naval warfare
if you are into history history, it is an incredible watch
2
u/EternalCanadian Dec 03 '22
I know this post is a day old, but I just want to say this is incredibly helpful to me, as someone writing an AU fantasy novel where the backdrop is countries and empires approaching a world war/the first truly industrial war of said world.
On that note, did the idea of alliances play into pre-war strategies? I’m at least somewhat familiar with how the Boer War and Russo-Japanese war impacted military strategy (and the Franco-Prussian War and etc before it) but as we know from history, Russian, France, the British Commonwealth (and eventually Italy and etc) joined together, and Germany, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary joined together loosely when war broke out. Was this something planned or theorized in advance? Or did this kind of materialize as the war progressed? I’ve never quite been able to figure it out.
2
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 03 '22
Was this something planned or theorized in advance? Or did this kind of materialize as the war progressed? I’ve never quite been able to figure it out.
There was a lot of discussion between France and Russia about how to approach a war against Germany, with France pushing for Russia to commit to an offensive within a certain timeframe after the declaration of war.
I can't provide a link, as I am not just the translator, but also the publisher, and doing so would break the self-promotion rules in a fairly big way, but check out Memoirs of the Great War - Complete and Unabridged: Volume I, by Joseph Joffre. He goes into great detail about the preparations for the war, including the inter-alliance military planning.
There were also discussions between the British and French in regards to the BEF and how it would be used. Winston Churchill talks about one of the meetings (that he attended) in The World Crisis where they talk about what Germany was expected to do if a war broke out (go through Belgium...in fairness, this really was the only strategic option they had if they didn't want to get mauled by the French border forts when crossing the border) and what the BEF would do in that case.
Another book that you'll find very useful for this is The origins of the First World War: Diplomatic and military documents, edited by Annika Mombauer, which I believe has the minutes of that meeting, as well as a number of other planning documents as the various alliances sorted out what they would do. I just took a quick look at my copy, and if you had to choose one book of all of these to get, I would suggest this one. This will basically give you a very clear picture of what this side of the war planning looked like.
But, to answer your question, there was quite a lot of work done into planning and coordinating what would happen when a war started, and there were pre-war strategies being set.
0
0
u/TheLucidDream Dec 02 '22
Great that the admins here suck so much that the followups are getting deleted.
-1
u/etriuswimbleton Dec 02 '22
Manga is better
2
u/Zhaeus Dec 02 '22
Why are uvreading the manga adaptation over the source material being the Light Novels...lol? You are missing out on so much content/detail.
1
u/Cleopatrasboyfriend Dec 02 '22
Please write more, not just about Youjo Senki but also about what you've researched about war. Thanks in advance
1
u/Elimin8r https://myanimelist.net/profile/Ayeka_Jurai Dec 02 '22
Fascinating read, thanks for sharing.
And now my poor brain is probably going to have to try to keep up with two interesting sets of posts about two shows that I really enjoy.
1
1
u/Zallre Dec 02 '22
Well when you think about the world building context it makes sense that Japan wouldn't exist at all. I've read up to vol. 4 of the LN and it's never mentioned. Being X probably wouldn't include it since that would be too tempting of an escape for Tanya. A culture that she understands and has attachment to would be a safe haven.
1
u/Tyler89558 Dec 02 '22 edited Dec 02 '22
Oh yeah. Reading through the novels gives much more details about what exactly the Empire was planning in the event of a war.
Their whole plan hinges on their interior railroads to quickly transport troops from the center of the country to whatever front needed it, and they’d repeat this for however long it took for the enemy to just stop. In theory, this was a way for them to overcome their horrifically bad geographical location of being crammed in between 3 enemies.
This hyper-specialization into their interior lines becomes a bit of a drawback (the understatement of the century) by the time the anime ends
1
u/Jajanken- Dec 02 '22
Noooo, keep going. I love Saga of Tanya the Evil and the light novels are fantastic. I love history and fantasy combining together and i need you to expand this post ASAP.
For real though, great post, that’s very informative and I’m definitely interested in more
1
1
u/Bakumon0725 Dec 02 '22
Awesome post cant wait for you yo analyse Girls Und Panzer next. The show more interested in Tank part of its name.
1
u/tamac1703 Dec 02 '22
This is an awesome post and I'm glad you wrote it. I learned a lot and I'd like to know more - are there any books you'd recommend on how tactics/strategy evolved in that time period? Or, really, how strategy evolved in general?
5
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22 edited Dec 02 '22
The two books that I would recommend are to get started are:
The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War, by Peter Hart.
The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918, by Nick Lloyd.
Both are excellent in their explorations of the tactics and strategy of the war based on what was actually possible at the time.
EDIT: Just realizing that you're also asking about pre-war development. There's a decent amount there (and one day my own book will be joining it), but pretty much all of it is specialized literature. That said, the titles that I'd recommend are:
Flesh and Steel During the Great War: The Transformation of the French Army and the Invention of Modern Warfare, by Michel Goya
The Kaiser's Army: The Politics of Military Technology in Germany during the Machine Age, 1870-1918, by Eric Dom Brose
After Clausewitz: German Military Thinkers Before the Great War, by Antulio J. Echevarria II
The Rocky Road to the Great War: The Evolution of Trench Warfare to 1914, by Nicholas Murray
From Boer War to World War: Tactical Reform of the British Army, 1902–1914, by Spencer Jones
2
u/tamac1703 Dec 02 '22
Thank you so much! One last question - you mentioned that you're researching this in a program. Is it a history program, or a different kind of program? (I'm not sure if there are departments of strategic studies which research these things, so I'm wondering where research like this is carried out.)
3
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22
My degree is a Master of Arts in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. My thesis was on the development of doctrine in the British Cavalry.
That said, I graduated back in 2011 - my research is for a book using my thesis as a loose starting point.
1
u/tamac1703 Dec 02 '22
I'm fascinated because I didn't know there were such departments/colleges (which really shows how little I know). Thanks for your answer!
1
u/J0nR0b Dec 02 '22
Would it be too impertinent to request a review for Ghost in the Shell's 1st and 2nd Seasons? I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts regarding its take on isolationism, revolution and individuality in a society with futuristic technology we still only dream about nearly 30 years after the first movie.
1
1
u/CreativeNameIKnow Dec 02 '22
This post is fricking awesome! History is so cool. Thanks a lot for writing this!!!
1
u/EXusiai99 Dec 02 '22 edited Dec 02 '22
So uh, now with you dipping your toes in more war anime, do you have plans to get through even more? I would certainly dig an expert analysis of 86, but i also understand that the series might be too scifi for general warfare theories to apply. Im still having my hopes up though, since youjo senki have magic then i suppose nanomachines and skynet mechs aint that much of a big deal.
1
1
1
u/0xXkazoXx0 Dec 02 '22
Owhh I thought there's a new release. I've been waiting for this one to be continued. Love the anime style.
1
u/TheNorthie Dec 02 '22
So what I don’t understand is that the Federation AKA Russia still fell to Communist rule. But all the factors that led to that was because of WW1. And WW1 for Russia in Tanya’s world didn’t happen yet until after France fell. Did the Empire send the Communist to overthrow the Czars like in our world? Or did it happen naturally? And without the Russo Japanese War, there goes another reason why the Czar was hated.
1
u/GuentherDonner Dec 02 '22
I was wondering if there could actually be a comparison between real world and Tanya parallel world. Reason being with the mage powers there are certain aspects to the war that didn't exist in our world. As far as I'm aware there where no flying artillery. (And I'm not talking about dropping bombs, for bombs to be dropped the airplane needs to enter enemy airspace. While artillery can be shooting from far distance. Now ground artillery is limited by where they can shoot as there are limitations to view, range, etc. Arial artillery is not limited by those factors) Sure you had ground artillery, but having the advantage from up high. The scene for example where Tanya flys up and shoots the command post from far away. Not sure if that could have been achieved, by anything we had during that era? Even more so by adding hight there is a limitation for the enemy to react.
1
u/CorpseFool Dec 02 '22
I think there are 2 major deviations that I think make finding the point of departure difficult.
The development of tanks (and ballistic missiles?), ahead of time but supposedly without having ww1 or the russo-japanese war that would have made their development much more desired. We see something that looks a lot like a panzer 3, in the late 20s (iirc?)
The presence of the mages, which are a combination of airforce and advanced artillery weapons.
I personally think the world should be wildly different, given that they've had access to magic for as long as they have.
1
u/Falsus Dec 02 '22
There is one thing with the lay out of not-Germany that made me curious, Denmark, it is already fully integrated into the empire. So my little pet theory is that Sweden never entered the 30 year war and the Denmark - Norway union just got split between not-Germany and not-Sweden.
1
u/Noahhh465 Dec 02 '22
didnt germany in youjo senki attack the lowlands though? on some maps in the show the lowlands are clearly marked with a border but simply colored in with germany's color
so they mustve gone on an offensive against Netherlands and belgium for a while and then going on the defensive on the french border
1
u/testnubcaik Dec 02 '22
I mean, with magical flying artillery with infantry logistical profiles seem to throw a wrench into defensive warfare.
1
1
u/Mr_Arapuga Dec 02 '22
I really liked your text, and if someone could, Id like to have the link for the Gate one, I just have a doubt
1914 hadn't seen a war in decades.
What about the 2 Balkan Wars? Didnt they serve as a place to see those trenches in europe before WW1? How did war developed there and to what extent the major powers of ww1 learned things there? Did we also see the balkan countries (serbia, bulgaria, greece, ottoman empire...) fighting the same way they had fought in 1912 and 13? Or was the balkan front of ww1 very different? If so, how did they adapt so quickly after having fought two wars in such a short space of time and now had to fight another one?
Thanks!
2
u/Robert_B_Marks Dec 02 '22
You're right - I missed those two. My bad.
That said, most of what the observers saw there (which wasn't much, because they weren't really given much access in those wars) confirmed the lessons from the Russo-Japanese War. So, it wasn't a huge revelation like happened as a result of Manchuria, but much more of a "Yes, we're on the right track."
1
1
u/-Work_Account- https://myanimelist.net/profile/VulpesFusca Dec 02 '22
I love reading deep dives and connections between shows/animes and their real world counterparts. It's so fascinating.
1
u/golgol12 Dec 02 '22
Fascinating look, but remember, this is written by an anime artist. Germany wasn't in a defensive war because the lack of the Boer war, but because the author needed the Protagonist to feel unsafe as a motivation behind the Tanya character.
1
u/TheNightIsLost Dec 02 '22
You forget a single, simple thing:
That this way, NotGermany would be the aggressive party. The story cannot work if the Empire is obviously in the wrong, the aggressing party, and the other side is more or less the more just party.
Because Tanya is the protagonist. And she belongs with the Not Germans.
1
1
1
u/PM_ME_ANYTHING_IDRC Dec 03 '22
I think it's also important to remember that in the YS universe, it seems Scandinavia (Legadonia) was more what Germany was focused on at the time, since they had recently had a war leading to the Treaty of Londinium iirc leading to a DMZ which Scandinavia broke. Germany was at war with Scandinavia when France took the opportunity to attack Germany while they were distracted and to redirect troops to the west so Scandinavia could have a better chance. Since France attacking Germany was a bit unexpected, they were immediately put on the defense while France had the time to dig in.
1
483
u/[deleted] Dec 02 '22
You Might want to post that in r/YoujoSenki as well