Mitchell Loughlin’s Reviews > The Guns of August > Status Update

The English line “lacks cohesion” retreated. They went as far as to leave behind ammo to quicken there pace. The German line found the dump and knew the reality. The French line also retreated but was ordered to counter attack much to the chagrin of the field commanders. The Germans now with a overwhelming advantage continued to press the attack and got to choose between dismantling the English or striking Paris

As a result they began looking for scape goats and started hastily replacing there best officers.
Meanwhile the British army noting the French retreat were left vulnerable on the right. They began their own retreat that the French were not expecting. On the way they encountered German troops and the whole line started to fall apart

The French army needs to retreat and demobilize. They are running low on healthy men. The army
Was not built to retreat with the French mentality of attack first they had very little defensive training or preparation. As the front moved closer to France the governors began to feel panicked as they had no defensive plan. The scrambled to come
Up with something asking Jeoffry for men he couldn’t spare

During the war trading with Germany all but ceased while they lent goods and money to the allies on credit that had vast economical advantages post war


Woodrow Wilson was the president at the time and he was outraged by German tactics during the war

Meanwhile international trade was mostly done via naval movements. Treaties were being worked on to determine how neutral parties would act during a war and America was viewed as the chief neutral in this war. America was neutral party in the beginning but felts they had a vested interest in the allied troops because there annual trade pre war was 4-5 higher than that of Germany

Due to the idea that the war would last only 40 days they assumed England would not have time to enter the war and therefore it would be unadvisable to draw down your land troops to support the sea which would have no purpose. On top of this the Kaiser viewed the fleet as his “darlings” and didn’t want to risk them being damaged.

All this culminated into Germany have little to no naval impact on the war

Because of this they moved there many fleet north of Germany where it would be out of the way and able to attack the rear of any blockades. The entire army was on edge waiting for something to happen.

The Kaiser had read a book about the superiority of marine control during war and had demanded the German navy be brought up to equal that of the English. They came pretty close

The burning of the city caused international outrage. The Germans gave weak explanations of civilians breaking war codes which nobody bought. It brought out an opinion that Germany needed to be stopped.

Britain, ever found of its navy was constantly on edge about the German navy. They had correct reports that the Germans were amassing a large fleet including submersibles.

When that wasn’t enough they started taken 5 government officials. Then one man from every street, then 10. Then one person from every home.

If they were to be fired on they would execute the hostages. One German troop was reported to have said.
“Through some peculiar failure of the system the greater, the terror, the more terror seemed necessary

Germany was founded under the Montra of obedience. The army’s moto was “We’ll do it! What is it?”

Because of this they could not rationalize any civilian actions being done without the command of a someone in the government. It was this reason that the army reacted so violently to civilian resistance

They found more and more resistance as they went through Belgium. The started taking the mayor as a hostage