Posted on 05/08/2002 6:19:40 AM PDT by Koblenz
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm had drawn up detailed plans in 1900 for an invasion of the United States centered on attacks on New York City and Boston, according to documents in a military archive published on Thursday.
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Beginning in 1897, a German navy lieutenant named Eberhard von Mantey was assigned the task of preparing an invasion of the United States after German and American interests had collided in the Pacific.
"Wilhelm II wanted colonies and military bases around the world," author Henning Sietz wrote in Die Zeit. "The United States was increasingly getting in the Kaiser's way."
Von Mantey's aim was to find a way to force the United States to sign a treaty giving Germany free reign in the Pacific and Atlantic. He rejected ideas of a naval blockade or a naval battle and made plans for an invasion of the northeast instead.
"This is the core of America and this is where the United States could be most effectively hit and most easily forced to sign a peace treaty," von Mantey wrote. He said the morale and discipline of American soldiers was low.
The plans were reworked and revised over the next decade. Chief of staff Alfred von Schlieffen, who planned Germany's invasion of France in World War One, was skeptical about the idea of attacking the United States, 3,000 sea miles away.
But his loyalty to the Kaiser prevented him from rejecting the war planning outright, Sietz said. At one point the German chief of staff had a plan to bombard New York City.
"The greatest panic would break out in New York over fears of a bombardment," von Mantey wrote.
Canada did indeed have a plan to invade the U.S. until it was rescinded in 1931. The U.S. had a plan to invade Canada that was ordered to be kept on file with portions incorporated into RAINBOW.
During the earlier part of the 20th Century, it was assumed by U.S. military planners that every major power had contingency plans for war against every other major power. Each major power was assigned a color. The British Empire was RED, Japan was ORANGE, etc. Joint Plan Red stated:
……….”the Chiefs of Staff of the three (British) fighting services may be assumed to have well considered war plans for the conduct of any probable war ready at any time to present to the Prime Minister.”
In May 1930, the U.S. Secretaries of War and of the Navy approved the “Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan – Red”. This war plan outlined the defense of an attack from and an invasion of….Canada. Actually, it outline the war plan in case of a war with the entire British Empire, but Canada featured prominently in it.
Minnesota would have been a side-show and only raids were anticipated there. The main thrust of any invasion of the U.S. from Canada, as envisioned by Plan - Red was expected to be Northeast of the Norfolk-Chicago line in order to attack the industrial center of the U.S. The main Canadian invasion was expected to drive down the Hudson. A sea invasion by the Royal Navy would secure Narraganset Bay as a base for a drive on Boston. Once captured, the port of Boston would support an invasion of the rest of the northeastern U.S.
Not to be outdone, the U.S. planned an attack of Quebec to secure the St. Lawrence River and thereby blunt the Canadian Hudson offensive.
The Brits, being sensible chaps, had no intention of going to war with the USA in the 20th Century and had no war plans for a USA vs British Empire scenario. In 1919, they informed the Canadians that they should not waste time with such military planning.
However, a certain Canadian officer by the name of Colonel J. Sutherland “Buster” Brown never trusted those damned Yanks. From 1920 to 1927, he served as a one man Canadian G-2, spied in upstate New York and wrote a 200 page “Defense Scheme No. 1” that outlined Canadian actions in case of war with the USA. It remained the official Canadian plan for war with the USA until rescinded in May 1931.
Although the Royal Navy outnumbered the U.S. Navy in the 1930’s in all major categories (Battleships: 20 to 18. Carriers: 6 to 3. Cruisers: 62 to 18. Submarines: 68 to 57.) the U.S. Navy sensibly focused on planning for an Orange war rather than a Red war but, occasionally, theoretical problems at the Naval War Collage did involve scenarios of war against the Royal Navy.
As WW II approached, it was realized that the future war that was brewing was going to be a global alliance war. In 1939, the U.S. Joint Board declared that Joint Plan RED was “wholly inapplicable” to the existing international situation and ordered that no further planning under it be done. The “single color” and “double color” war plans were replaced by a series of plans named RAINBOW.
Joint Plan RED, however, was not scrapped. It was ordered kept on file as part of RAINBOW as it contained useful elements for Atlantic defense against any major maritime power which could, in fact, have turned out later to be Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, depending on the then unknown outcome of World War II.
Joint Plan RED was declassified on 4 FEB 1974.
Excellent point. In any case, the "Great White Fleet" of American battleships would have put most of those German troop ships on the bottom of the Atlantic even if the Her Majesty's navy stood aside.
This episode was pretty well covered in the recent biography of TR, "Theodore Rex".
No, the battleship forces were pretty well balanced; if anything, Germany would have had a slight edge; and many of the Great White Fleet ships had some design flaws, including a low "freeboard"...that is, the decks weren't high enough off the water. Serious problems if the fighting occured with high seas. Also, the fleet was not concentrated on the East Coast, but split between the Atlantic and Pacific. And no Panama Canal yet.
And I think the German's smaller quickfiring guns would have ended up being better than our slow-firing larger guns.
So how do you keep them supplied afterwards?
There's a lot more to an invasion than simply putting a bunch of guys on ships. Same reason an invasion of Taiwan would fail.
A few years ago I read about the British war plan against the US drawn up before WWI.
The main thrust was an amphibious landing near New Bedford and a northward trust to isolate Eastern New England and envelope Boston.
It's been quite a few years, but I recall reading some information plaque at the fort that spoke of it being built for defense purposes against coastal attack. This article puts it all in historical perspective.
(That old fort (and the beach nearby), by the way, was one of the most scenic spots I've ever visited anywhere in the country!)
The way I read the article, the German brass handled this just right.
The Kaiser, with vision of overseas conquest, wants a plan to invade America. This is a ludicrous notion since the German High Seas Fleet is still trying to find a way to get a single German surface capital ship into the Atlantic as the Royal Navy has them bottled up in the North Sea. Any invasion of the U.S. would have meant a Jutland area victory against the Royal Navy, then an Atlantic victory against the U.S. Navy, then a victory against U.S. shore batterries, then a contested landing near a good port, then a land victory against an entire continent with 100,000 men and a 3,000 long logistics train.
Clearly, the Kaiser was in fantasy land. However, he was the Kaiser. What the Kaiser wants, the Kaiser gets and the Kaiser wanted a U.S. war plan.
So the brass called Lieutenant von Mantey and entrusted him with this great undertaking.
In Navy jargon, Lt. von Mantley was the SLJO.
SLJO = Sh*tty Little Jobs Officer.
The Kaiser was happy and the brass was happy that the Kaiser was happy. I have a feeling that Lt. von Mantley probably knew all along that he was an SLJO.
But I see your side.
If you want to see turn of the century coastal batterry fortification again, get on the Bainbridge ferry and drive to either Fort Flagler or Fort Wagner State Parks. "Officer and a Gentleman" was filmed at Fort Warden State Park. The concrete fortifications they ran around on were turn of the century shore batteries.
I had originally thought that these were built somewhat later, around the First World War, but I see now they were built earlier than that (and now I see the historical perspective, too).
Some never left at all, but having secured the animosity of the Yankee patriots after the war (two Hessian soldiers came to a violent and ignoble end in the old inn in which I was raised), chose to settle in the bony hills between the Hudson and the Housatonic. After a few generations of inbreeding, these outcast families came to be known as the "raggies". Some of these genetically enfeebled descendents were still living the hillbilly porch life as recently as the 1970s.
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