Imperial German plans for the invasion of the United States

Imperial German invasion of the United States
Date Planned between 1897 and 1903 Location U.S. East Coast, Cuba and Caribbean Status Planned but never carried out
Belligerents
United States Cuba	German Empire
Commanders and leaders
William McKinley Theodore Roosevelt John D. Long William H. Moody Samuel B. M. Young Charles Heywood George F. Elliott Charles F. Shoemaker Robley D. Evans Charles J. Train Daniel S. Lamont Russell A. Alger John M. Hay Tomás Estrada Palma	Wilhelm II Prince of Hohenlohe Bernhard von Bülow Alfred von Schlieffen Friedrich von Hollmann Alfred von Tirpitz Eduard von Capelle Hugo von Pohl Friedrich von Ingenohl Albert William Henry Henning von Holtzendorff Wilhelm von Büchsel Otto von Diederichs Eberhard von Mantey
Units involved
U.S. Army  U.S. Navy  United States Marine Corps United States Revenue Cutter Service	Imperial German Army  Imperial German Navy
Strength
Ground forces: ~100,000–200,000 total Naval forces: ~160–175 ships[1] ~11 battleships (projected)	Ground forces: ~100,000 total Naval forces: ~60 warships ~40–60 cargo ships (projected)

Imperial German plans for the invasion of the United States were ordered by staff officers from 1897 to 1903 as training exercises in planning for war. The hypothetical operation was supposed to force the US to bargain from a weak position and to sever its growing economic and political connections in the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean, and South America so that German influence could increase there. Junior officers made various plans, but none were seriously considered and the project was dropped in 1906.

The first plan was made in the winter of 1897–1898, by Lieutenant Eberhard von Mantey [de], and targeted mainly American naval bases in Hampton Roads to reduce and constrain the US Navy and threaten Washington, D.C.

In March 1899, after significant gains made by the US in the Spanish–American War, the plan was altered to focus on a land invasion of New York City and Boston. In August 1901, Lieutenant Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz spied on the target areas and reported back.

A third plan was drawn up in November 1903 by naval staff officer Wilhelm Büchsel, called Operation Plan III (Operationsplan III), with minor adjustments made to the amphibious landing locations and the immediate tactical goals.

The Imperial German Navy, under Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, expanded greatly from 1898 to 1906 in order to challenge the British Royal Navy. It never was large enough to carry out any plans against the US, and there is no indication that they were ever seriously considered. The German Army, under Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, assigned at least 100,000 troops in the invasion, was certain that the proposal would end in defeat. The plans were permanently shelved in 1906 and did not become fully public until 1970 when they were discovered in the German military archive in Freiburg^[2] (an additional "rediscovery" occurred in 2002).^[3]

The general staffs of all major powers made hypothetical war plans. The main objective of them was to estimate the amount of resources necessary to carry them out so that if the crisis ever emerged, precious time would not be wasted in developing them. Since all nations did it routinely, there is no sense that the plans developed by junior officers had any impact on national decision-making. Most of the plans never left the War Department.^[4]