Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August" was written in the early sixties, It was assigned reading in one of my college classes. Hermann Kahn's "On Thermonuclear War" was one of several books written by that author much later, and I suspect it was in response to Tuchman's book, or at least, it's underlying assumptions. I read one of them, an update of his first book, (perhaps "Thinking the Unthinkable" ?) many years later. It referenced his earlier books extensively, so I believe it's fair to assume it represented his philosophy on nuclear strategy fairly accurately. I should point out that I haven't looked at either of these in decades, but I won't be picking through either of them to support or challenge facts, I'm more interested in how they influenced policy and my own thinking.

"Guns" was about the events leading up to World War I, and the first month's fighting. No parallels to nuclear war or lessons to be applied to it are proposed, but the book reportedly influenced greatly the Kennedy administration's strategy during the Cuban Missile Crisis (you will recall one dramatic TV retelling of that drama was entitled "The Missiles of October"). One of Tuchman's theses was that the elaborate German battle plan to invade France at the the start of the war actually helped precipitate the fighting, and it eventually unraveled in action from it's own weight and unanticipated developments on the battlefield.

The Germans had devised a complex mobilization plan based on pre-written sealed orders, elaborate prior-developed tactical scenarios, and telegraph coordination of troop movements. One of the elements of this plan involved a highly detailed and rigidly implemented set of rail schedules designed to deliver troops and support elements to the front. It was carefully worked out so that everything would get there just in time and with just enough to do the job, and so that the trains would not intefere with each other as they went back and forth. Part of the plan was then to shift attention to the Eastern front after the French and British and Belgians were defeated, so they could deal with the Russians. The military use of telegraphy and railroads, first introduced during the American Civil War, played a big part in German war planning.

In those days, it took time to mobilize armies and their support elements, as well as put civilian infrastructure on a war footing. This was also part of the plan, and it all had to be set in motion before the fighting actually started. A side benefit of this activity, which would be obvious to Allied intelligence, was that it demonstrated resolve and capability and might even prevent a war by convincing them that the Germans meant business.

What the Germans, and to a certain extent, the French who had similar mobilization plans, failed to realize was that once set in motion this stategy had a momentum all its own, and once set in motion would be difficult to stop or modify. Any interruption or last-minute modification threw the whole strategy into chaos, trains would pile up at depots, supplies and troops would not be delivered on schedule, orders issued too early or too late, or to units not in place, and battlefield maneuvers would occur without coordination or the required support. It could lead to chaos and an army helpless and bogged down and blind. Failure of the plan would make your entire army highly vulnerable, in fact, helpless, before the enemy.

In the month preceding the hostilities, The war plan was implemented according to schedule, each step leading to the next and each move provoking, not caution, but a counter-move by the Allies. It soon became clear that war, although still weeks away, was inevitable. Any attempt by either side to stand down would only expose it so much that it would almost certainly provoke an attack from the other side. In the last few days before the shooting started, German and French diplomats, realizing the corner they had painted themselves into, were frantically exchanging cables trying to find a way out of a war neither really wanted. They failed, the military and political events set into motion now had a life all their own and they would not not be denied.

When the fighting actually started, the fast-paced war of maneuver the Germans had anticipated fell apart due to battlefield reverses and quickly bogged down into the trench warfare that consumed the youth of Europe and set the stage for future conflicts to come.