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.
Then, the Hessians invaded Manhattan from across the east River and landed at Kip's Bay (present day 34th Street and First Ave. The Brits and their Hessian allies held New York City for the entire war after that and did not leave until 1783. So you see, this is not as unusual as it seems.
However, a German invasion may well have met with serious guerilla warfare as its army attempted to move inland.
LOL! Hillary has already set up the enemy camp!
Even before Saratoga, General Washington along with tired, ill-fed, ill-clothed Patriots surprised the Hessians at Trenton and took their colors. Boy--they were embarrassed by that one...
So they assigned a LT to prepare the invasion plans of the United States? Either this is not correct, or we see why Wilhelm's 'empire' didn't get very far.
THAT would NEVER work. The cruise terminals on the west side of Manhattan couldn't hold that many ships at once, and the nightmare of processing 100,000 Germans thru Customs and Immigration would take for-EVER. Just the Duty-Free hassles would make it a nightmare. Can you see the Customs Declaration Forms for all those weapons and ammo?
And then imagine all 100,000 Germans trying to exit the terminals. Why, back in 1900, the taxi service, difficult as it is to imagine, was actually WORSE than it is today.
Nope, the German Army would have bogged down just trying to get thru customs at the cruise terminals.
No wonder they abandoned the plan.
Michael
Fun for speculation though.
Mantey's plan for an American attack has been well known for YEARS. I've read "The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States" in the Library of Congress about 4-5 years ago, which has all the details of Mantey's plan.
I'm a wargamer, have played around with setting this up as a naval scenario. The naval forces are actually quite well balanced in terms of pre-dreadnoughts in the 1900-1905 period. (Americans a pretty short on cruisers and scouting forces, because Congress only budgeted for the big ships.) But the Americans have the advantage of defending. Interesting contrast in ships as the Germans went with smaller, quick-firing guns on their pre-dreadnoughts while the Americans had larger guns with a slow rate of fire.
If you read the various quotes and statements, there actually was quite a bit of ill-feeling on both sides towards each other....a German fleet had hung around the Phillipines hoping to pick up scraps from the Spanish during the Spanish-American war, and had been directly threatened by Dewey, and the Germans had wanted Samoa too.
I have little doubt the land invasion would have failed miserably eventually, as they were overwhelmed by hordes of enthusiastic and fired-up, if ill-trained, volunteers and draftees.
As others have noted, having a "plan" for something isn't that big a deal, though to non-military media types it seems like it is. The current US military, I'm sure, has a "plan" for invading every single country in the world. And the fact that this plan was done by a lowly Lt. should tell you something. It was a BIT more serious than an idle War College excersise, but FAR less serious than a plan developed by Admirals and Generals.
Why? At the time the most recent war scares the British had had was with the US over Venezuela, and with the French and Russians. The German-British rivalry really hadn't gotten going yet, and the British-American friendship hadn't either. At the time, the only real close ally the British had was Japan, and the British didn't actively support them in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 (though they came close after the Russians idiotically shot up a bunch of British fishing trawlers thinking they were Japanese torpedo boats).
The British likely would have done absolutely nothing.
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