Sent by Baxter Key, who says: "Would make a good campaign, eh!" BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm had drawn up detailed plans in 1900 for an invasion of the United States centred on attacks on New York City and Boston, according to documents published from a military archive. The weekly newspaper Die Zeit published details from documents on Wednesday it said it uncovered in Germany's official military archives in Freiburg. One plan foresaw a force of 100,000 soldiers transported across the Atlantic on 60 ships. 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 sceptical 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. This article came off the web and was a part of a long thread of responses talking about this subject. The thought would be to have the German first capture a base in the Caribbean, then conduct the campaign. My personal take on this is that the Kaiser and Tirpitz had a devil of a time trying to get the German people to support a Navy (it's hard to get a Bavarian farmer to support an overseas empire and the navy to realize it). Germany is a land power. Always has been, always will be. Adolf, in a later war, had the same interpretation. Back to Dispatch July 2002 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com