- drilldo squirt
- Aug 18, 2006
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a beautiful, soft meat sack
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Clapping Larry
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So quick effort post, about the attention to historical detail.
WWI is often shorted handed as being caused by the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand; while technically true doesn't quite convey the whole story.
There are two intertwining causes, the political geopolitics that has its roots in the following: the Balkan Question stemming from the long running Austrian imperial interests in the Balkans, and the Russian Imperial interests in defend Orthodox christians within the Ottoman Empire and seeking a warm water port; and the byzantine plate spinning alliance games begun by Otto Von Bismark that his successors lacked the skills to keep up after his ouster.
Second, was the military-industrial developments leading up to the first world war: The creation of a permanent General Staff, and the implementation of war plans and mobilization tables.
To give brief context; the Kingdom of Prussia had won a series of wars culminating with their victory over France at Sedan in 1870 due to a number of reforms and technological developments. The Prussian General Staff happened as a result of the crushing defeat of the Prussian Army at the Battle of Jena at the hands of Napoleon; this "Military Reorganization Commission", worked to reorganize and rebuild the shattered Prussian Army.
After the defeat the Napoleon the General Staff was formally established, but it wasn't until the appointment of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder that the General Staff was considerably expanded and consolidated, gaining the features of a modern General Staff.
With Moltke at the helm after some false starts in Denmark (where Moltke's plans to cut off the Danes retreat are bungled) Molke gets his chance to show how good at war he is from playing games in 1866 in the war against Austria.
The benefit of a General Staff is that you have a bunch of young intelligent educated officers coming up with elaborate war plans to be executed at specified dates and times in advance; the most important aspect of these plans is railway and mobilization time tables.
A huge and crucial advantage Prussia had going into the war against Austria that entirely negated Austria's geographical defence-in-depth advantages is that their railway network was considerably superior; according to Moltke they could concentrate 300,000 troops in under a month while the Austrians only had one railway line to get 200,000 troops in two months to Bohemia. Thus, even if they could concentrate against a single Prussian army attacking in one direction; they have no way of doing so without two other Prussian armies quickly striking against their flanks.
This despite Austria having superior field artillery allows Prussia to crush Austria and from there the way is clear for Prussia to unite Germany as a primarily protestant nation; but only France remains to oppose this.
Napoleon III, Emperor of France is captured with his army surrounded at Sedan; largely due to the better organization, faster mobilization, and swifter execution of battle plans.
Not that Prussia was invulnerable hell no; this is still the same Army that would invade Russia without adequate logistical planning during WWII; but the point is the General Staff and a greater emphasis on better officer training and organization allows the Prussian Army to more quickly recover and adapt to failures in the field.
So what happens after 1870? Well my understanding is that pretty everyone in Europe adopts the Prussian model, widespread conscription, and hair trigger mobilization time tables; because if your enemy mobilizes 500,000 men and marches over the border than he's already as good as won if you're still struggling to mobilize in turn.
Creating these war plans and organizing them according to the scale of multi million man professional armies is a massive colossal undertaking and also makes them extremely rigid. Adjusting these plans can take weeks in order to properly reroute the hundreds if not thousands of trains that need to also be ferrying supplies to your front line units; you can't just throw a division onto a train and get to Point B; you'll have collisions and traffic jams for sure.
So for WWI, the last great chance for peace where Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nichalas tried to hash things out privately over telegram, was mainly foiled because of how difficult it would be to cancel mobilization orders once sent; it would be chaos; and the war could be won or lost in that time.
So a lot of people with passing familiarity with WWI tend to blame what is usually called the "Schlieffen Plan"; because according to Wikipedia: "Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen was the Chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1906 and in 1905–06 devised a deployment plan for a war-winning offensive"; and that this is the plan that called for a massive quick offensive against France by storming through the Low Countries. This plan has had a lot of back and forth over the years but the basic idea is that for the plan to have a hope of working rapid deployment of forces over rail lines is crucial.
German strategic thinking for WWI is basically "Defeat France first super quick and then somehow something *mumble mumble* defeat Russia!"
So in Tanya of the Evil we see something similar happens in what I'm calling the "3-15 War"; in Tanya the Imperial General Staff have devised a similar war winning plan to win the war (called Plan 315) by deploying their best troops quickly over railways to crush their enemies piece meal, while the rest of the army holds the fort delaying the other fronts as long as possible; which is very similar to the Schlieffen Plan except that it doesn't appear to call for the defeat of any particular army as a prerequisite for ultimate victory.
In the first episode this plan has already appeared to have failed; none of their enemies have been defeated and forced from the war and the plan basically now seems to have been downgraded to rather than being their War Winning Army, is their Main Fire Brigade force where its sent, not to win any particular front, but to avert disaster of the front collapsing.
So we have the current situation of a primarily land based power locked into a two+ front war of attrition due to poor long term contingency planning, hrrmmmm where have I heard this before?
I think the main reason why the plan failed is largely the same as to why WWI turned out the way it did; armies due to improvements in logistics, training, and armament, are now robust enough to avoid destruction in a single days fighting; and the economies are sufficiently industrialized and efficient to continuously supply these armies with enough munitions and arms to keep the army in the field indefinitely until one side collapses due to the sheer economic and human cost.
So you know, they deploy their army, probably have something like the Battle of Tannenberg but before they can follow up on it another front is calling for emergency reinforcements due to enemy advances and the cycle rinses and repeats.
tl;dr: I like how the story seems to be close not just to the historical events it is based on; but also models the underlying causes in addition to it. Like a big game of Hearts of Iron IV.
This is interesting. Also am I the only one who thinks that drifter crazy person smile in the first gif looks dumb as hell?
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Jan 17, 2017 20:52
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- drilldo squirt
- Aug 18, 2006
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a beautiful, soft meat sack
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Clapping Larry
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I saw that as more Tanya's specific character, rather than author suggesting the world was that way. Tanya's a total sociopath and doesn't instinctively understand that other people have desires beyond their own self interest, so of course she blames them for doing something she can't see as anything but stupid.
She seems like that but she also sent her friend back to the rear so even if she can't admit it she is capable of emotion like that. Her face still weirds me out though.
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Jan 29, 2017 22:25
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- drilldo squirt
- Aug 18, 2006
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a beautiful, soft meat sack
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Clapping Larry
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She rationalised that as just trying to look like a good CO and a good person to increase her chances for promotion and I'm inclined to believe that. Kinda wish that was called up during the dinner after her "bad reputation" was mentioned.
She seems kinda hosed up emotionally so I wouldn't count on her being a reliable narrator. Though I might be giving anime to much credit.
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Jan 29, 2017 22:41
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Jan 17, 2017 20:52
