My War Memories, 1914-1918
The order to retreat from the Marne was issued, whether on good grounds or not I have never been able to decide.
It -was obvious that the war would now be a long one and require enormous sacrifices of the Fatherland. The hour had come when everything, literally everything, would have to be staked on the war, and the work of enlightening our people would have to be undertaken on a large scale. I was astonished at the optimism I found prevailing in Berlin towards the end of October, 1914. There seemed to be no realization of the tremendous gravity of our situation.
It was nothing less than a fatality, in view of the numerical inferiority of the Dual Alliance and the fact that Germany was surrounded by enemies, that she did not win\the war, which had been forced on her, by some overwhelming lightning stroke, and so lay low an enemy superior in numbers but inferior in training-We now had to face the prospect that, in the course of the war, the training of the armies would become equalized to a certain extent, although it was reasonable to hope that the German Army would long maintain some advantage over the others in virtue of its great traditions. The heavy losses in officers might be a serious matter. At all events, it was essential that we should do all in our power to maintain our superiority in training, so that the enemy's superiority in men might not be felt so much.
In particular, we had to face the prospect that England would make use of the time to increase her armaments and raise a powerful army in addition to her fleet. She had quite enough men.
In view of this we could not neglect any means that might still enable us to win the war. Germany had to become an armed camp. That was the burden of the New Year's message I sent to a newspaper on January ist, 1915.
In the autumn of 1914 and the winter of 1914-15 General Headquarters had raised from eighteen to twenty new divisions. We formed new divisions out of the Landwehr and Landsturm formations. We began by reducing the number of battalions in a. division from twelve to nine, and forming fresh divisions out
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