Germany’s Invasion Plans
11 MARCH 1903
GERMANY’S INVASION PLANS
In the last decades of the 19th century the United States and Germany had several brushes, the most serious occurring during the Spanish-American War. VADM Otto von Diederichs’ Imperial German Asiatic flotilla appeared in Manila Bay a month following ADM George Dewey’s rout of the Spanish fleet. Diederichs refused Dewey’s inquiries as to his purpose, though it was clear to US planners that Germany was hungry to step into the gap should the US choose to abandon the Philippines. As a result of this incident, Germany began to consider the US a potential future enemy and initiated planning should an assault on the American continent become necessary.
On 20 March 1901, the German naval attaché in Washington, Kapitänleutnant Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz, was ordered to scout possible amphibious landing sites along the US eastern seaboard. Specifically, Rebeur-Paschwitz was to board the cruiser SMS VINETA, and under the guise of a repair stop, reconnoiter the Boston area. He reported favorable sites to be Rockford or Gloucester, north of Boston. Other places actively considered were Cape Cod, Nantucket, Long Island, and Long Bay, South Carolina, as well as Frenchman Bay, Maine. From these sites a campaign against New York City and/or Norfolk would be mounted. US resistance was anticipated to be light. The American fighting spirit was described as sorry, owing to the poor discipline, morale, training, and technical capability of our troops. It was surmised that the US Army could muster only 30,000 troops on short notice, and that 10,000 of these would still be devoted to fighting Indians in the west!
German planners had created “Operationsplan III” by 1903. Norddeutsche Lloyd and Hamburg-Amerika passenger liners would transport 15,573 men, 6074 horses and 894 mechanized vehicles to the Caribbean where Ponce, Puerto Rico, would be assaulted. Weak US response was expected, allowing the Germans to occupy the island while sufficient supplies and men were assembled for the main invasion through Norfolk.
US officials took the German threat seriously (though they anticipated an assault on Washington DC through Annapolis). So concerned was CAPT Charles D. Sigsbee, head of the Office of Naval Intelligence, that on this day he suggested surveying all Naval personnel to determine the naturalized or native-born status of American sailors with German names, and whether any bore tattoos emblematic of German patriotism. Sigsbee postulated a German spy system aboard our ships, and that gunnery officers with German names would intentionally fire off the mark in the event of attack. In fact, Sigsbee’s survey was never conducted, nor has there since been any evidence that his concerns were valid.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 18 MAR 26
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Herwig, H.H. and D.F. Trask. “Naval Operations Plans between Germany and the USA, 1898-1913. A Study of Strategic Planning in the Age of Imperialism.” IN: Kennedy, Paul M. The War Plans of the Great Powers 1880-1914. Boston, MA: Allen & Unwin, 1985, pp. 39-64.
Love, Robert W. History of the US Navy, Vol 1 1775-1941. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 358-61, 391-92.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: The years from the 1870s to 1914 saw the rise of the German Navy, especially, after 1898, under Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wilhelm desired a German colonial empire and by the time of the Spanish American War had acquired several Pacific island possessions. A German/American brush occurred in the 1890s over Samoa, an archipelago that was ultimately divided between Germany and the United States. Closer to home, in 1901, Venezuela defaulted on loans that had been made to her by Germany. Germany sent a gunboat squadron that included SMS VINETA to blockade Venezuela. This “gunboat diplomacy” in our backyard angered then President Teddy Roosevelt.
By 1906 shifting alliances between the European powers had created the two major camps that would eventually fight WWI. German attentions were re-directed against France, Russia, and England such that the comparatively costly plans against the USA were dropped.
Germany lost her Pacific island possessions after WWI, but a vestige of German occupation still survives in the name of the Bismarck Archipelago, the island chain northeast of Papua-New Guinea.
“Long Bay” was the original name for what is now Isle of Palms, Charleston, South Carolina.
