Arizona's First Political Blog

E-mail Anonymous Mike at zonitics4-at-yahoo.com

By Anonymous Mike, pseudonymously.

 
Stale Post 1- Clowns in Spiked Hats

A few months ago El Gringo had a post about the need for a Ken Burns-style documentary regarding politicians and generals dealing with the great strategic and operational questions of WW II. I think that's a great idea, too many people who should know better think all such choices are no-brainers on the level of not getting involved in a land war in Asia. The subtitle of documentary could be either "When Smart People Make Bad Decisions" or "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time"

I think with some good production values and nifty writing, we could really come up with a great piece here. Allow me to suggest the first episode, though it doesn't deal with WW II but it has all the elements you need. It has a German general staff plotting, French military officers nervously smoking cigarettes, it has pickelhaubes, the Huns marching on Paris, and the promise of having the boys home by the time the leaves fall. Most of all, it has the Kaiser.

(As a side note, even the worst chick flick or drawn out Simpsons episode can be saved by an unexpected appearance of the Kaiser. More than 60 years after his death and the man just keeps on giving.)

I am talking about the Schlieffen Plan. What you want another one dealing with the Japanese and Pearl Harbor or the Germans invading Russia?

The Schlieffen Plan was an attempt by the German military high command during the 1900's to address how in the heck they were supposed to win a possible 2-front war against France and Russia. The plan was to exploit the difference in time it took the French and Russians to mobilize their armies; as it took Russia much longer to prepare for war, Germany would defeat France during this time and then turn its full might on Russia. Problem of a 2-front war solved, the fact that the Schlieffen Plan covered up a few decades of diplomatic bungling by the Kaiser and his ministers made the plan sound all the better. After all with the Schlieffen Plan in your back pocket, turning your historic ally Russia against you wasn't a diplomatic problem but an opportunity to win an even more glorious war.

In order to defeat France in the necessary 7 weeks, Germany would have to bypass the fortifications along the Franco-German border by invading neutral Belgium. Germans armies would then sweep down through the undefended northern border of France, encircle the French army in a 20th Century re-enactment of Cannae, and destroy it.

There were 2 big problems with the Plan:

1) To invade Belgium was to violate that country's neutrality and risk bringing Great Britain into the war.

2) The great encirclement of the French Army called for the right-most German soldier of the German line to touch the English Channel. The problem was what to do about Paris in this great turning movement. Paris was too strong of a fortress to be taken within the 7 weeks so it was to be bypassed. However if the Germans bypassed it to the west, they risked creating a gap between their armies. If they bypassed it to the east, they exposed their flank to a counter attack from the Paris garrison.

The solution to the first problem was that the Schlieffen Plan was supposed to win the war in 7 weeks, long before Great Britain could field an effective army.

The solution to second problem was to provide another 200,000 men to the German offensive so that Paris could be masked. However as historian John Keegan notes, the German General Staff could plan the mobilization of the army and its offensive operations down to the last detail, but they couldn't account for how these 200,000 men were to march across Belgium and northern France and magically appear in front of Paris. The road network in that area wouldn't support it and Keegan notes that Schlieffen knew it.

So what happened?

The Schlieffen Plan was wildly successful. The Germans invaded Belgium and brought Britain into the war. However the Germans cut the French Army to pieces and sent the remnants flying in retreat. As the Germans neared Paris, they turned to the east exposing their flank to the French counterattack from Paris and the Marne. The French launched a last ditch counterattack, the Miracle of the Marne. The Germans retreated, the trenches were dug, and Europe descended into 4 more years of slaughter.

Historians point to the weakening diversion of nearly 200,000 men from the west to counter an early Russian invasion of East Prussia as the reason for the German defeat but as mentioned above, Keegan saw no way for those men to be deployed in front of Paris. Schlieffen was doomed to fail from the start.

If it couldn't succeed then why was it ever adopted? Was it because it helped justify the diplomatic bungling of previous decades, acts which allowed Germany to become encircled by enemies? Was it because it fit the intellectual predisposition, the Weltanschauung, of the German General Staff?

Whatever the reason, the result was devastating for Europe. It created a stalemate on the Western Front, too many German gains for them to give up without concessions from the Allies, too many German soldiers on sacred French soil for the Allies to give concessions. If the Kaiser didn't have the seeming war winner of Schlieffen in his back pocket would he have given Austria its blank check to deal with Serbia in July 1914? Would he have tried a diplomatic opening to Russia? Would the troops ever had marched or would the crisis that followed the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand faded like so many others before it?

We don't know because in the end , Schlieffen remained on the books and with its false hope, the troops marched and the bloodbath of the 20th Century was born.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 12:50 PM

 
Blogger Gathering Postscript

Many thanks to Vox for putting together a fine gathering of AZ bloggers last Saturday at Sonoran Brewing Company.... and even more thanks to her for hosting it at a location I could walk home from!

Needless to say after much fine conversation and many fine beers, I feel refreshed.

Those who attended agreed to publish some of the posts that were written but never published... so in honor of that agreement I dub this week "Stale Post Week" at Zonitics

Let it begin!
posted by Anonymous Mike at 12:45 PM

 
The Monster Under the Bed (Updated!)

An election you probably never heard of is taking place just to the north of us as Utahns go to the polls today to decide the fate of a Utah voucher program that would provide up to $3,000 to families wishing to attend private schools.

Two features of the program are unique. First any voucher funding will be drawn from the general fund, not from the education budget. The second is that public schools from which the voucher student would transfer would be able to keep the student on their books for the purposes of state reimbursement. This means the school would be largely paid for a student they no longer educate, increasing their amount of per-pupil spending.

As you can imagine.... not good enough for some.

The AZ Republic quotes the president of the Utah Education Association as saying "No issue is more important to the future of our students, our careers and our schools than this one"

She isn't kidding.

As of September 15 of this year, the UEA has contributed $1 million to the anti-voucher, Utahns for Public Schools. To keep it in perspective, Janet Napolitano received $1.5 million total, primary and general elections, for her gubernatorial re-election bid in 2006 in a state that has more than twice the population of Utah.

It gets better.

Notice I said September 15.

As of September 15, Utahns for Public Schools had raised $1.14 million (of which UEA had contributed $1 million.) As of the last report filed last week, UPS had raised a 2007 total of $3.37 million. So in a mere 45 days, the anti-voucher forces had tripled their contributions. Details are still pending but I doubt it was a lot of $50 contributions from concerned citizens of Panguitch.

So when there is discussion of vouchers during the legislative session, keep in mind that our elected representatives won't have the last word as Utah sends a warning that any voucher program will turn your state into a national battleground.

UPDATE: An e-mailed adds to the story by noting that the voucher battle is more evenly funded then I implied, stating that the pro-voucher forces have raised approximately the same amount of money.

That is true but the key is looking when the money came. As of September 15, the anti-voucher forces (Utahns for Public Schools) had raised about $1.3 million or about 4x what the anti-voucher had raised with $1 million being expended on ad buys by early September. By the time the pro-voucher people got organized, anti-forces had already prepared the ground and forced the other side into attacking up hill for the last 6 weeks of the campaign.

The Utah Education Association provided the money, the manpower, and the national connections to set the tempo for the entire campaign. While the pro-voucher forces took the summer to get spun up, the UEA provided the anti-voucher forces with a ready-bake ingredients.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 12:09 PM

 
Tax Man Cometh

Last night was yet another successful Halloween at the Anonymous Mike household. Large numbers of polite and creatively costumed kids came to the door, much candy was distributed, and my kids brought home a cornucopia of brand name candy.

I think I should confess after reading this post from Chad at Fraters Libertas, that, I too, tax my kids' Halloween candy.

It started off quite innocently so many years ago when they were but wee lads. Their mother would escort them with their small treat bags to the door of the next house and I would wait on the sidewalk holding the larger travel bags. When the kids returned from said house, we would empty the small bags into the large ones. After a few stops, I would inevitably start to snack on the kids' stuff (Mmmm... $100,000 bars) rationalizing that not only were they collecting way more candy than they would ever eat, but that I should be properly compensated for my escort services.

As the years progressed and I moved on from escort duty to manning the house-bound candy distribution station, I continued to "tax" the candy haul. While I no longer provided either protection or transportation services, I justified my ill-gotten gains as "overhead expenses" given that said kids expected to consume said candy under my roof with all the resultant creature comforts and security.

This year I gave up any pretense and just took my cut when they went to bed.

A steady and quick descent from good services provided, to flimsy rationales, to straight confiscation in 5 quick years... sort of parallels the history of the federal income tax.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 7:50 PM