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.
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.