Original Research

The Red Trousers. About Confirmative Thinking
and Perceptual Defense in Complex and Uncertain
Domains of Reality
Dietrich Dörner and Ute Meck
Institute of Psychology, Otto-Friedrich-Universität, Bamberg, Germany

This article is not about red trousers. The title points
to a political foolishness that killed more than 100,000
soldiers. The discussion of this foolishness is an introduc-
tion to a general discussion of the reasons for political
foolishness. – In her book ‘The March of Folly – From
Troy to Vietnam’, Barbara Tuchman said that in the last
3,000 years mankind has made large progress, primarily
in science, but also in medicine, architecture, economy,
agriculture, etc. Only in politics, in the art of managing
a state, nearly no progress is visible. Others share this
opinion. The Swedish Chancellor in the time of Gustav
II Adolph, in the time of the 30 Years’ War, Axel Oxen-
stierna, said to his son, who was elected for an important
political position and had doubts, whether, with his 18
years, he would be able to cope with this difficult task:
“If you would know, my son, with what low degree of in-
telligence the world is governed . . . .” – In surveys about
the reputation of professions, politicians normally get low
ranks. Why is that so? – In this article we try to give
an answer to that question. The answer is very simple.
Foolish decisions are reducible firstly to a low or waver-
ing self-esteem. Secondly, they are based on a lack of
phantasy; politicians have difficulties in finding new solu-
tions for problems. – This answer is not at all new; already
Platon and – nearly at the same time – the ancient Indian
Bhagavad Gita gave the same response. In this article we
develop a theory about political foolishness.

Keywords: Thinking, Decision-making, Politics, Errors, Foolishness

“Le pantalon rouge c’est la France!”1

Eugène Étienne, minister of war of France in
1913 in a parliament-debate 1912 about the
uniforms of the French army

Figure 1 shows a French infantryman in the uniformin which – in autumn 1914 – he marched into the
war. Even in those days the uniform was outdated.
Many armies had changed already to a camouflage-
battle-dress; the English soldiers wore khaki, the Ger-
mans preferred light grey ("feldgrau"), the Russians
green uniforms.

Especially the red trousers give rise to concern.
They make the soldier a well visible target. (At least
the red cap got a blue coating when the French army
went to war, showing a certain concern about the inap-
propriateness of the uniform.) As Tardi (2013) writes,

Figure 1. French infantry soldier in battle dress, 1914.

the French soldiers themselves called their dress an
operetta- or circus-dress, which made them look like
jumping jacks in uniforms. In his book, Tardi uses
the memories of his grandfather about the Great War.
Therefore, the novel seems to be authentic; the stories
make a genuine impression.

Figure 2 shows a line of German soldiers at the be-
ginning of the war (the figure is taken from the graphic
novel ‘Miserable War’ (‘Elender Krieg’ by Jacques
Tardi and Jean-Pierre Verney, 2013, p.10).

Figure 3 shows a company of French soldiers prepar-
ing a bayonet-attack on the German line (see Fig. 2).
One can see the start and the end of that “attaque
brusquée”. If you compare the French and the German
uniforms, equipment and tactics, you will understand
the reasons for the French defeat.

Within the first five months of the war, 350,000
French soldiers lost their lives in combat, but “only”

Corresponding author: Dietrich Dörner, Otto-Friedrich-Universität, Insti-
tute of Psychology, Economic and Organisational Psychology, Markusplatz
3, 96047 Bamberg, Germany. e-mail: dietrich.doerner@uni-bamberg.de
1“The red trousers, that is France!”

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Dörner & Meck: The Red Trousers

Figure 2. German infantry soldiers in the uniform of autumn 1914.

250,000 German soldiers. The difference in the num-
bers of killed soldiers is not only due to the outdated
uniforms of the French soldiers, but also to differences
in tactics and the armament.

For instance, at the beginning of the war, the French
army had nearly no heavy artillery at its disposal.
Heavy artillery, in the eyes of the French generals, did
not suit to the French maxime “l’attaque, l’attaque,
toujours l’attaque”; it was considered as too slow, too
awkward to move, and therefore was abandoned.

(However, only heavy artillery, with mortars and
howitzers, made it possible in those times to fire “in-
directly” over hills and walls. Therefore, the aban-
donment of heavy artillery was foolish2 to a high de-
gree.) Moreover, the French soldiers were not equipped
with pickaxes and shovels in sufficient numbers, be-
cause their fiery assaults should not be hampered by
clinging to the soil. Additionally, the French army had
much fewer reconnaissance-planes than the Germans,
who used them for guiding and controlling the (indi-
rect) fire of the heavy artillery on long distances. The
French infantrymen complained that grenades were
poured over them and they could not even identify
the source of the fire. (See Tuchman, 2007, p. 266.)
The French also had fewer light machine-guns than
the Germans, as they considered the machine-gun as
a pure “defense-weapon” (see Fig. 2). All that re-
sulted in the French attacks often ending as depicted
in Figure 3 (lower panel).
What was the reason for such a silly preparation of a

possible war? The “red trousers” and all the other reg-
ulations for “l’attaque, l’attaque, toujours l’attaque”
had not happened accidentally. They were based on a
“philosophy of war” which was the result of reflecting
about the reasons of the German victory in the war of
1870/71.

For centuries, the French Armed Forces were con-
sidered to be the foremost ones in Europe. Although

Figure 3. French infantry prepares for an assault on the German
lines. – And below it is shown, how it ended.

the victorious time of Napoleon Bonaparte ended
with Napoleon’s defeat, the great reputation of the
French army remained untouched. Hence, the defeat of
1870/71 was an unexpected catastrophe for the French
generals. Soldiers and politicians were usually keen on
honour and reputation, and thus the defeat of 1870/71
greatly affected the self-esteem of the French generals
and not only of them. What could be done? Well,
a good method to repair a wounded self-esteem is to
deny the insult! Has the defeat of 1870/71 and in the
Franco-Prussian war anything to do with the abilities
of the French army? Not at all.

The commander-in-chief of the French army in 1870
was Napoleon III, a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Napoleon III had an education as an artillery-officer.
But contrary to his uncle, he did not have very much
military experience and obviously was not at all a
gifted army leader. In 1870/71, France intended to at-
tack (and to conquer) Baden and Württemberg. How-
ever this plan failed: The Prussian-German armies
attacked Alsace and the French army was forced to
defend central France. Therefore, after the defeat
of 1870/71, the French generals explained that the
French army was deployed only defensively and this
was not in accordance with the “real” talents of the
army.

In 1806 Napoleon defeated Prussia within a fort-
night. – What was the reason for the disastrous defeat
in the 1870/71 war? Not the low quality of the French
army, of course! The French army had been excellent
(also in 1914), but it was forced by an ungifted gen-
eral to fight defensively. This, however, was not in
accordance with the spirit of the French army, which
in the glorious days of Napoleon I was offensive! The

2The term ‘foolish’ is understood as thinking or reasoning dis-
torted by emotions, whereas ‘silly’ means a low-grade thinking
because of low cognitive capacities.

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quality of the French soldier and hence of the French
army was the offensive. – Even biological factors were
discussed in this context. Bergson said that humans
are characterized by different levels of an “élan vital”,
and French have a much greater level of “élan vital”
than Germans, as it is shown (or not shown at all?)
by Figure 2 and Figure 3. (See Tuchman, 2007, p.39.)
And therefore, in a future war, the French army

should fight offensively, which always had been its
real strength. Thus, equipment and manoeuvers were
adapted to the idea of a permanent offensive. The
words ‘defense’ or ‘defensive’ were banned from the
French military vocabulary. Even in the war-schools,
officers did not learn how to organize defense. And
all that happened although Clausewitz, who has been
read in France, too3, had stated that defense is “the
stronger mode of fighting”. (See Figure 2.)
The French generals, preparing for a possible war

with Germany, made the mistake not to think about
soldiers and fighting and equipment, but were busy re-
pairing their hurt self-confidence by remembering the
great days of Napoleon. And, unfortunately, the ma-
noeuvers and uniforms of those days, too. Remember-
ing past glory replaced thinking. – So they lost their
methodical flexibility by hallowing the doctrine of the
offensive. Questions about life or death of the French
soldiers were replaced by questions about how to repair
the self-esteem of the French generals. And so the Ger-
mans won the border-battles in autumn 1914 through
a strategical offensive, which however, was carried out
by a tactical defense (see Figure 2).
In 1912, the French Minister of war, Alphonse Mes-

simy, after having visited Bulgaria in the first Balkan
war and having observed Bulgarian soldiers in camou-
flage uniforms, found it necessary to introduce camou-
flage dresses for the French army, too. This, however,
caused considerable protest votes in the French mili-
tary, as well as in the French public. It was argued
that the French soldiers would feel “humiliated” to be
dressed in “dirty grey” uniforms.

However, it was quite obvious that the red trousers
were rather conspicuous. But this argument was ra-
tionalized away. The French army in manoeuvres ex-
perimented with attacking infantry. A French infantry
attack was expected to be initiated by an artillery as-
sault on the enemy. (The French army in 1914 was
equipped with an extremely effective light artillery, the
soixante-quinze-cannons, calibre 7.5 cm). After the
end of an artillery assault, the respective enemy, ac-
cording to experiments and calculations of the French
army, would need about 20 seconds to be prepared for
defense. In this time a well-trained French infantry-
man could run about 50 m and before the enemy was
able to defend himself, he was already confronted with
the French bayonets. Therefore, whether the French
infantrymen wore red or grey trousers during the as-
sault was completely insignificant. (Later measure-
ments showed that the available time for an unhin-
dered approach was not 20 s, but only 8 s. See Tuch-
man, 2007 , p. 247.) Such “unconfirmed” ideas, how-

ever, had no chance to be considered by the French
military command.
In the first five months of the Great War, the French

lost 100,000 soldiers more than the Germans, because
of silly and foolish decision-making. This had serious
consequences for the morals of the French army.
During the entire World War 1 (WW1), 25 deserters

and mutineers were sentenced to death and executed
in the German army. In the British Army, this number
was 48; but in the French army this number was 645.
In the French army in 1917, half of the divisions

mutinied (which did not happen in any other army of
WW1). This was, in accordance with reports in Tardis
work, the consequence of the French soldiers being un-
satisfied not only with the conditions of fighting, but
with their command, too. Contrary to the public, in
the trenches they did not love General Joseph Joffre.
In the famous ‘Chanson de Craonne’, the chanson of
the mutineers, the Germans are not mentioned as en-
emies. The enemy is the war, “l’infame guerre”! In
Tardi’s novels, this plays a central role for the mutiny
of 1917. Stanley Kubrick directed a movie about
this mutiny (“Paths of glory”; in German “Wege zum
Ruhm”) featuring Kirk Douglas. It was forbidden to
perform this film in France until 1975. And the ‘Chan-
son de Craonne’ was forbidden, too. (This verifies
Tardis assumptions about the causes of the mutiny.
It testifies that indeed the mutiny of 1917 was consid-
ered as extremely dangerous for the French morals.)

An Explanation

What was the reason for these foolish forms of thinking
by the French generals before and at the beginning of
WW1? Here is an answer:
The reason for this kind of thinking is fear – or

rather the effort to overcome fear.
In war (and mostly in politics), the state of reality is

not completely known, or better, is unknown to a high
degree. Even what you believe to know is uncertain; it
might be true or false. Additionally, there is a second-
order uncertainty; you do not know what you do not
know.
The reality can be described as a large set of vari-

ables, forming a network with complex forms of de-
pendencies. Therefore, it is rather difficult to predict
the development of the whole system. Nevertheless, a
politician or a general has to decide – in spite of the
state of reality being unknown to a high degree. (We
focus on decisions rather than on actions, because the
politician could decide not to act, which would be an
“action”, too, as “no action” has certain consequences
as well as “action”.) – Often people in a highly un-
certain situation feel the urge to act as the ability to
act creates a feeling of competence and certainty. To
be able to act means that one is able to change the
state of reality, and this gives a feeling of power. That

3General Foch, later commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces in
France, was an admirer of Clausewitz.

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is what people desire when exposed to a situation of
high uncertainty.
However, in politics it is often unclear, whether an

action had any consequences at all. For instance, at
this very moment (September 24th 2021, the German
Minister of health declared that a “vaccination week”
was successful. The success, however, is not visible in
the numbers of newly infected or hospitalized persons.
It could be that this ‘no change’ means, that without
the vaccination week the numbers would have been
greater and that they have been constant only because
of the vaccination week. Or the numbers of newly
infected will decrease in the next weeks. This would
be a long-term effect. Obviously this is an unclear
situation, not a success.
Very often in war and in politics it is difficult to iden-

tify the results of an action. And often – when some
positive consequences are visible – side and long-term
effects are not (yet) visible. – The “optimism of the
direct effect” results in a strong tendency of decision-
makers to overrate the direct effect and to underesti-
mate side- and long-term effects, which will often be
visible only after months or even years. What immedi-
ately may be identified as a great success, may however
hide the monsters of the side and long-term effects in
the future.

How to cope with uncertainty? Well, it might be
appropriate to launch some activities to explore uncer-
tain parts of the respective domain. How could that be
done? Well, for instance by launching reconnaissance
activities. Or by thinking about the unknown domain;
how could the unknown terrain be shaped? Such ac-
tivities produce information, even though they usually
do not provide a complete picture of the current state
of reality. Therefore, thinking is necessary. In partic-
ular, phantasy is necessary – the ability to raise hy-
potheses about the structure of the unknown state of
reality. And this is the reason why, for instance, Pla-
ton demanded that a politician should be thoughtful.
That does not only mean that one is able to devise a
plan by means of reasoning. Thoughtful means that
an actor is able to think about his own thinking. He
must be able to criticise himself. He must be able –
and willing! – to identify his own mistakes and er-
rors. Here, however, a problem arises: Should General
Joffre tell his soldiers: “Hello comrades, unfortunately
I must tell you that we had rather wrong ideas about
infantry attacks, the necessity of heavy artillery, the
necessity of reconnaissance-airplanes, the necessity of
pickaxes and shovels and about the role of offensive
and defense. So sorry!”
It is known, what General Joffre really told his

army: “The division commanders and some army-
commanders, too, for instance General Lanrezac, have
not understood the plan XVII. And so we have to re-
place these commanders!” (See Tuchman, 2007, p.
438.)
There are two simple but deceptive methods of al-

tering the subjective reality; for identifying the actions
which are appropriate to change the image of the cur-
rent state of reality. These methods are:

• Perceptual defense (PD): Information about
the state of reality one does not wish to see is
not perceived.

• Confirmative Thinking (CT): Those aspects
of the current state of reality that are necessary
or would be helpful, but definitely do not exist,
are “perceived”. – The reaction of General Joffre
to the failure of the French army in the border-
battles, as mentioned above, is an example of CT:
“The division-commanders have failed.”

PD and CT presumably are phylogenetically old
mechanisms, which may give courage in hopeless sit-
uations. They result in the tendency of an organism,
not to give in, which is better than giving in, because
the latter means the end of all efforts. If one does not
give in, a certain amount of hope may remain.
We believe that PD and CT developed from safe-

guarding behaviour, which often can be identified with
animals and humans, too. The blackbird I observe
on my balcony, periodically switches to safeguarding
behaviour and looks around, whether something use-
ful or something dangerous might be close. PD and
CT are internal forms of safeguarding behaviour. This
safeguarding behaviour is done by checking what else,
apart from the objects in the center of attention, exists
or does not exist or may develop in the situation one
thinks about.
PD and CT mislead decision-makers with high prob-

ability. We will now show some rather common CTs
and PDs that can be found rather frequently in mili-
tary and political thinking:

• Denial of Side and Long-Term Effects: If
decision-makers consider only the positive effects
of a measure while forgetting or suppressing the
idea, that there might be unwanted side- and
long-term effects, they very likely commit a se-
vere error. This form of PD is very frequent.
(Dörner,1996)

• Rumpelstiltskin Planning (or neglecting con-
ditions): Rumpelstiltskin, a character from the
tales of the brothers Grimm, planned in the fol-
lowing way: “Today I shall bake, tomorrow I’ll
brew and the other day I’ll marry the Queen’s
child!” But for baking it is necessary to have fire-
wood, flour, yeast, and so on. Rumpelstiltskin
did not consider that. And he did not check ei-
ther, whether the firewood would be sufficient for
baking and brewing. And so, in the end, Rumpel-
stiltskin failed. (Well, he did not fail because of
the firewood and so on, but because, when danc-
ing around a fire, he sang his name and so the
Queen became to know the name of Rumpelstilt-
skin. And not being able to find out the name of
Rumpelstiltskin was the condition for the transfer
of the Queen’s daughter.) – Anyway: Rumpel-
stiltskin failed because he disregarded the condi-
tions of actions. – To solve a problem it is not

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sufficient to have a goal. It is necessary to dis-
pose of the actions, too. And this is only the case
if one knows whether the condition for a certain
action is given. Otherwise, the respective action
will not work.

• Thinking in Goals: The goals, one is striving
for, are great for one’s self-esteem. Because if we
reach them this will mean happiness and welfare
for mankind. “We should decrease the CO2 level
by 75% to be on the safe side with respect of
global warming.” Clear goal. – However, it is
not enough to have goals, but it is necessary to
know (or to find out) how to reach them. Forget-
ting to think about that is an example of PD. The
reasoning is incomplete then. – Immanuel Kant
(1965, p. 10) meant with respect to ‘thinking in
goals’: “To make plans is a luxuriant and boast-
ing mode of thinking, it is claimed what cannot be
done, it is demanded, what is unclear, it is sought
after, what is unknown.” – This form of “making
plans” can be found quite frequently during elec-
tion campaigns and in the programs of political
parties.

• Methodical Rigidity: You have experience in
your field and you know a lot of methods by which
you will reach the goal you aspire. But unfortu-
nately for military and political realities a com-
plete set of methods that allows to solve each
problem, does not exist. And it will never exist.
– In chess you know all the methods how to move
and use the pieces. And your knowledge is suffi-
cient for all the purposes of the game. This, how-
ever, is not true for political or military realities.
There you can never know all the methods for dif-
ferent purposes, because their number is infinite.
This is due to the “incompleteness-theorem” by
Kurt Gödel (see for instance, Hoffmann, 2012): A
calculus (i.e. a set of action methods or informa-
tion processing methods) to solve every problem
of a certain reality, does not exist. It is always
and for infinite times necessary to be prepared
for self-criticism and therefore to be prepared to
think about new modes of thinking. The belief to
believe all the necessary methods is called Method-
ological rigidity and that is a frequent form of CT.
– Even if you can show yourself and others that
you are able to solve a certain problem, this does
not mean that you are able to solve every problem
in the respective field.

• Groupthink: Normally, a military or political
leader has a “staff”, a couple of people, whose
task is to give advice to the commander-in-chief.
If, with respect to a proposed solution of a prob-
lem, all the advisors agree with the commander,
this will be considered as an indicator that the so-
lution is adequate. However, the agreement might
be the result of the tendency of the advisors to
share the opinion of the commander in order to
get the image of a loyal follower. Those who do

not agree, run the risk to be identified as oppo-
nents of the commander-in-chief or even as oppo-
nents of the group. And this could endanger their
career. Therefore, they agree publicly, although
they do not personally agree! This is “group-
think” as Janis (1972) described. – It is important
to have independent persons in advisory groups.
Persons who have their own standpoint and do
not give it up just to be in agreement with the
chief. An agreement of “loyal” group members is
not at all an indicator for an adequate solution.
– Groupthink is a – probably frequent – form of
CT. “We are right!”

• “Make it Simple”: Not everybody understands
complicated explanations. If one does not under-
stand an explanation one will normally get angry
and will try to avoid the respective topic. There-
fore, if you want to persuade somebody that your
ideas are true, if you want him as a follower, then
it is wise to cast your ideas into simple forms.
So Marx and Engels wrote the ‘Communist Man-
ifesto’ to persuade uneducated workers that com-
munism is the right idea. Bertolt Brecht wrote a
poem about communism; it begins with

“Communism is simple, everybody can un-
derstand it!”

Unfortunately, the poem ends with:

“Communism is simple, but difficult to ac-
complish.”

What does this mean? Is communism simple? Why
then is it difficult to accomplish it? We will come back
to this.

The Swedish historian Peter Englund states:
“Reality, well! Certainly reality has something to do

with the problem. Without any doubt politicians, gen-
erals, and others act in a strict logical manner. How-
ever, they do not cope with reality. As they never care
about what we call reality, but act according to an im-
age of reality, which they have created; however this
image often is not even similar to reality.” (Englund
1993, p. 42.)

With PD and CT it is extremely simple to get wrong
ideas about reality and hence wrong ideas for the so-
lution of a problem. However, there are conditions
favouring the use of CT and PD. If somebody runs
out of new ideas, CTs or PDs are possible resorts. It
is very easy to ignore the side and long-term effects
of an action, especially when these effects are not yet
visible. – An action that produces positive effects im-
mediately and negative effects only with a delay is a
trap. But if you are caught in a trap because of having
decided for a certain action, it might be very difficult
to get out again, to avoid the (negative) long-term ef-
fects.

A new image of the world, which does not mir-
ror reality, is the result of using CTs and PDs! Has
the decision of the French generals to adhere to the

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red trousers been stupid for the French infantrymen?
Well, not at all. The French military command in-
vested a lot of reasoning – experiments and calcula-
tions (see above) – to arrive at the answer that the
red trousers should be maintained. It was not stupid,
it was foolish!
There is a difference between foolishness and stu-

pidity. People are stupid if they use false forms of
deduction or other incorrect forms of reasoning. Or
they use data that are obviously wrong. – Foolishness
means not to think at all about topics one should think
about. For instance, it is foolish not to consider side
and long-term effects when planning actions. Or it is
foolish to assume that the conditions for a certain ac-
tion are given without checking, whether this is true.
The basis for ignoring topics one should consider in
the given situation, is the premature assumption that
certain events cannot happen or that certain condi-
tions do exist (or do not exist). The tendency for con-
firmatory thinking or for perceptual defense are well
known in psychology and not at all uncommon to hu-
man thinking. Confirmatory thinking and perceptual
defense have the function of creating courage. Many
philosophers and writers stress the importance of CT
and PD. Schopenhauer (2011, p. 246.) for instance,
writes: "An adopted hypothesis gives us lynx-eyes for
everything that confirms it and makes us blind to ev-
erything that contradicts it.”

CT and PD are often the reason for people to con-
tinue trying to solve a problem although all the odds
are against them. Often this tendency to continue a
difficult task is necessary, and confirmatory thinking
and perceptual defense deliver an optimistic view on
reality and its development.

Sternberg (2004) believes that foolishness is due to

• unrealistic optimism,

• egocentrism; only the effect for oneself is consid-
ered and not the difficulties other people have to
cope with,

• illusion of omniscience,

• illusion of omnipotency,

• illusion of invulnerability.

This is a good list! However, we interpret it in a
different way than Sternberg. Unrealistic optimism is
not the cause of foolishness, but the result of counter-
feiting reality by confirmatory thinking and percep-
tual defense. The illusions of knowing everything and
of being omnipotent again are not the causes of fool-
ishness, but the result of foolish thinking (viz., “non-
thinking”).
Back to invulnerability and omnipotence in connec-

tion with the “red trousers”: the Commander-in-chief
of the French army in 1914, General Joffre, sent a mes-
sage to the French Minister of war, Alphonse Messimy,
in the evening of 20th of August 1914, immediately be-
fore launching the plan XVII: “We have every reason

to expect the development of the operations with con-
fidence!” – This, however, was definitely wrong: The
development of the next four days demonstrated that
the French attack according to the plan XVII failed
completely. – Now the Germans believed they had
won the war and saw the French divisions in a head-
less flight. But this, again, was confirmatory percep-
tion and not at all true. The French fell back – not at
all headless, but in good order! – in the direction of
the Marne region, east of Paris. Therefore, the Ger-
man assumptions about the French withdrawal from
the border-battles, were as wrong as the French as-
sumptions before launching the Plan XVII.
Examples like this are relevant for a psychological

investigation because we use theoretical consistency
as a method to corroborate our theory about foolish-
ness and mistakes of military leaders. This method is
recognised in all sciences. It concerns the explanation
of single cases or events, which are empirically inac-
cessible. The method simply consists in proving that
the event or the behaviour, in our case the mistakes
and the foolishness of military leaders, can be deduced
from a theory. -– This method is quite common in sci-
ence. For instance, Darwin’s theory of evolution could
only be proven by this method for a long time. Physi-
cists use this method to prove that their theories about
the Big Bang is true. It has been shown that the se-
ries of events of the Big Bang can be deduced from
some basic physical assumptions. In psychology, where
single cases often have to be explained (for instance,
Hitler’s or Stalin’s behaviour) this method could be
very useful. But it is rarely used in the discipline. A
fact that could be explained by the nonexistence of a
Theoretical Psychology.
Let’s now have a look at another example of foolish

thinking with devastating consequences. This time we
look at the German army.

The Schlieffen-Plan

The “red trousers” are a good example for foolish be-
haviour. As this was a French foolishness, we will –
to get a balance! – now turn to a German one at the
beginning of WW1; no, not only – of course! – for
the sake of balance, but because this example shows
us aspects of foolishness we have not encountered in
the French examples.
We will examine the so-called Schlieffen plan. The

Schlieffen plan was a reaction of the German military
to the political situation that resulted from the cancel-
lation of the „Reinsurance Treaty“ between Germany
and Russia in 1886. In the aftermath of that cancel-
lation, Russia looked for a close relation with France
which looked for a possibility to revise the result of
the war of 1870/71. With French money, a Russian
network of railways was constructed, particularly con-
cerning the connection between the center of Russia
and the German eastern border.
For Germany, this development meant the risk of a

two front war against France and Russia; and this pos-

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sibility raised fear in Germany. The German general
staff tried to find a double sided strategy, but none
of the proposed plans was convincing. In that situa-
tion, General Schlieffen’s plan of having two successive
wars emerged. First, the French Army should be de-
stroyed in a campaign of about 40 days, afterwards
Russia should be attacked.
For quickly defeating the French army, the idea of

the German general staff had been to attack the left
wing of the French army with a very strong right wing
through the neutral Belgium, to pass Paris in the West,
then to destroy the rest of the French army by press-
ing it against the left-wing of the German army (see
Figure 4). This idea was a strategical repetition of
one of the battles of Frederick the Great. In 1757,
Frederick the Great defeated in the battle of Leuthen
(village in Silesia, near Breslau/Wroclaw) an Austrian
army, which was about 70,000 men strong, with an
army having about half the strength of the Austrian
army, by using the so-called “oblique order of battle”,
an idea invented in the antique by Epaminondas of
Theben. – (Tuchman writes: “Past battles and dead
Generals keep the military spirit in a deadly grip and
so Germans, and the others, too, plan the past war!”)

The idea of the Schlieffen Plan appeared unorthodox
to the German general staff and was accepted with
relief. This was a possibility to win the war – after
eliminating the French danger in the west, nearly the
complete German army would be at disposal in the
East to defend Germany against the Russian “Steam
Roller”. – On the other hand: The Schlieffen plan was
first considered to be extremely risky. What would
happen if the idea to outflank the French army in the
West would not work? Then one would get a two-
front war against France in the West and Russia in
the East. (That is exactly what happened in August
and September 1914.)

But as all the other alternatives seemed to be still
worse, the German military leaders agreed to elaborate
the Schlieffen plan. It may be, that the conviction
that the offensive mostly is the right method, played a
certain role in this decision, because the 19th century
had been a nearly uninterrupted series of successful
attacks for Prussia.
What happened then is, in my eyes, characteristic

of the fate of plans when their elaboration begins. The
Schlieffen plan had seen 20 years of elaboration when it
was realised in August 1914. Railway lines were built
for the plan of General Schlieffen and the plan was
more and more refined with respect to its execution.
The more the Schlieffen plan was refined, the more the
members of the German general staff appreciated it.
Each improvement of the plan increased the estimation
of its success and, hence, the German general staff
overestimated its probability of success. “Past battles
and dead Generals . . . .!” Above all, the general staff
forgot Platon’s reminder to stay thoughtful, to think
about one’s own thinking. So over the course of time,
what some authors called the ‘Mythos of the Schlieffen
Plan’ developed. “Schlieffen saves us all!”

When the Germans began to carry out the Schlieffen
plan, it soon became apparent that none of the condi-
tions was met which were considered as prerequisites
for success. Belgium did not concede the Germans
passage, but became a French ally and defended the
Belgian country with furor. England, initially show-
ing not much enthusiasm to engage in a war against
Germany on the side of France and Russia (both tra-
ditional enemies of England), decided to do just that.
The French army was defeated in the border-battles

and the French plan XVII found a quick termination.
However things began to develop in a different direc-
tion than had been planned by the Germans. The
French army managed to escape in good order to the
West, to the Marne region. And so the so called ‘Mir-
acle of the Marne’ became possible. In the beginning
of September, the French armies were able to defeat
the completely exhausted German troops. (As far as
we know even the probability of exhaustion was not
considered in the Schlieffen plan. For instance, it was
reported that the horses of the German cavalry were
not even able to trot.)
Additionally, the Russians appeared in East Prus-

sia much earlier than expected by the Germans. And
so the Germans had to send troops to East Prussia
to stop the Russian invasion. (There are discussions
whether it was really necessary to send these troops
from West to East. However they were sent and they
were lacking in the West.)
All that could have been considered by the German

military command; it was well known that the Rus-
sians had built railway-lines to the West with French
help, which made it possible for them to invade for
instance East Prussia much earlier than it had been
expected. Additionally, the Russian army had im-
proved qualitatively a lot since the catastrophic defeat
the army had suffered in the Russian-Japanese war in
1905; and the Germans knew that!
The behaviour of the French army after its defeat

during the border-battles, was – as already mentioned
– well-organized. It did not have the character of a
headless flight. This, however, was not regarded by the
Germans; the leader of the 1st German army, General
Kluck, decided not to pass Paris in the west, but to
directly attack the allegedly half ruined French army
east of Paris, to destroy it finally (see Figure 4). So
the French troops around Paris were able to attack the
right flank of the German 1st army and the Germans
lost the battle of the Marne.
To summarize: The Germans overestimated them-

selves and underestimated the French and the Rus-
sians. As with the red trousers, in this case the Ger-
mans did not live in the “actual” reality but in a self-
made, illusionary reality. Schlieffens plan was over-
rated. “Past battles . . . ..!”
The clarity and the logical structure of the Schli-

effen plan was one of the reasons for its overestima-
tion. Decision-makers often misinterpret the clarity of
a plan as an indicator of its adequateness. However,
an idea that is simple and clear and therefore is un-

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Figure 4. The Schlieffen Plan.

derstood by everybody, can still be wrong because it
might be too simple.

For instance, the simple form in which Friedrich En-
gels cast the ideas of Karl Marx (see Sperber, 2013,
p. 356) promoted the attractiveness of the communist
ideas, but concealed their shortcomings. In the Com-
munist Manifesto by Marx & Engels, one can find a
list of measures to create the communist system. Four-
teen measures were proposed. The list begins with
the famous request that the expropriators should be
expropriated.

1. Expropriation of the landowners.

2. Hard progressive taxes.

3. Repeal of the law of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the propriety of all emigrants and
rebels.

5. . . . . . . . (see Marx & Engels, 1946, p.24.)

We will not discuss these measures in the particular
case, but we want to indicate that any discussion of
their side and long-term effects is missing. This means
that it remains quite unclear what in particular these
measures, when carried out, will result in. It seems
necessary at this point to cite Machiavelli, who said:
„... ., that always something evil is close to the positive
effect, which easily is generated together with it, so that

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it is impossible to avoid it if the positive effect is striven
for.” (Machiavelli, 3rd book, 37., p. 369.)
“Communism is simple!” we learned from Bertolt

Brecht. This list of measures in the Communist Man-
ifesto seems to be simple. However, it is a black box;
nobody knows what it contains. The core of the com-
munist Manifesto is PD, “perceptual defence”.

More foolishness! And what could be
learned from it?

General Lanrezac, commander of the French 5th army
on the outermost left-wing of the French army (see
Figure 4), had been immediately confronted with the
very strong right wing of the German army, which
passed through Belgium. He was surprised and horri-
fied by the great strength of the Germans at that place,
which he could reliably identify by his reconnaissance-
cavalry.
He found it necessary to inform General Joffre,

commander-in-chief of the French army, about the un-
expected strength of the German troops in Belgium.
However, General Joffre was occupied with launching
Plan XVII, which meant crashing through the Ger-
man centre and crossing the Rhine near Mayence. The
news from Lanrezac therefore did not find much res-
onance in the French headquarter – it was just a nui-
sance. Taking it seriously would have meant to stop
Plan XVII immediately to concentrate on the defense
against the German right wing. In the mind of Gen-
eral Joffre, however, the Plan XVII had top priority.
Therefore, Joffre (and his headquarter) reacted to Lan-
rezac’s news between the 10th and the 20st of August
1914 in the following way:

• “Lanrezac is wrong; it is impossible that the Ger-
mans have so many troops in this region!”

• “The German troops in Belgium have a special
order!”

• “We have the impression that the Germans have
no troops in that region!”

• “General Lanrezac exaggerates!”

• “General Lanrezac is a coward!” (See Tuchman,
2007, p. 233 ff.)

These are impressive examples of PD, are they not?
Here are some more significant examples of percep-

tual defense and confirmatory perception in the time
of the beginning of WW1:

• “The only task cavalry could serve for in a future
war is cooking rice for the infantry!” (General Ian
Hamilton, British Army, observer of the Russian-
Japanese war in 1905).

• “Obviously the sun of the orient has burnt the
brain of General Hamilton!” (reaction of the
Supreme Command of the British Army).

• “The machine-gun as a weapon is completely over-
rated!” (General Haig, British army in 19084)

In 1910, General Ruffey, French army, proposed
to buy 3,000 reconnaissance-airplanes for the French
army. The reaction of General Joffre was:

• “Airplane!? This is a piece of sports equipment!”
(Cited from Peter Englund, 1993)

General Haig later became the Commander-in-chief
of the British Army in France. Ironically, Peter En-
glund noticed, that the only idea of General Haig
demonstrating a certain degree of originality had been
the decision to introduce lances for the British cavalry.
These proved to be very useful for hunting wild boars
in India.

The preparedness to launch a war would have been
far lower if generals and politicians had possessed a
better image of what a war in 1914 would mean. But
politicians and generals refused to develop an idea
about what a war with machine-guns, airplanes and
quick firing artillery meant. Or more likely, phantasy
was lacking to construct an image of a “modern” war.

We easily could continue the list of foolish ideas in
the dawn of the Great War. An overview about these
ideas can be found in the book by Barbara Tuchman.
With this book it can be shown, that it is not only
possible to shake one’s head about the foolish ideas
politicians and generals had hatched, but that it is
possible as well to alter one’s behaviour.

The book was published in 1962, and John F.
Kennedy, president of the US in those days, read it
during the second Cuba crisis in 1963. The book
altered Kennedy’s behaviour when coping with that
crisis, which menaced to end in an atomic war be-
tween Russia and the United States. Kennedy not
only stated that Chruschtschow had installed atomic
missiles on Cuba, but he asked himself, why the head
of the Soviet government had acted in that way? He
found out the reason of Chruschtschows behaviour.

A great agro-technical project had proved to be a
failure, and this jeopardised Chruschtschow’s position
in the Politburo. So in his eyes “throwing a hedge-
hog into Uncle Sam’s trousers” was the right way
to re-establish his standing in the Politburo. When
Kennedy was informed about that, he decided to help
Chruschtschow! Yes, he brought help to the man who
just had installed atomic missiles in Cuba, deadly men-
acing the United States!) – Kennedy withdraw mis-
siles in Turkey (which where outdated anyway). So
Chruschtschow could decide to dismantle the atomic
missiles in Cuba on his side.

Additionally, Kennedy commanded the Navy units,
who had to control the sea around Cuba, not to sink
Russian vessels trying to break the blockade, but to de-
stroy only the helm and the propeller of the respective

4In a similar way, Helmuth von Moltke, chief of the general
staff of the German army, reacted to a corresponding report
of the colonel Max Hoffman, Prussian army, who, like General
Hamilton, was an observer of the Russian-Japanese war in 1905.

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ship in order to save the life of the crew. – This was
very wise once more, as killing men certainly would
have intensified the crisis. The idea of revenge will
emerge! – Ask yourself! If you had been in the sit-
uation of Kennedy, would that idea have emerged in
your mind? – As far as we can remember, this idea is
without any example in the past.
Kennedy’s advisory board comprised not only per-

sons who shared his view, but also persons with de-
viating opinions. So he diminished the effects of
“groupthink” (Janis, 1972), reduced the dangers of
a distorted view of reality by perceptual defense or
confirmatory perception. The dangers of groupthink
Kennedy himself experienced in the Bay of Pigs fiasco
1 ½ year before the 2nd Cuba crisis. Here an American
charge on Cuba failed because an all too homogeneous
planning group, without a “devil’s advocate”, made
too much planning errors. Kennedy had learned from
the Bay of Pigs fiasco.)
So – fortunately – the Cuba crisis came to a peaceful

end. – Kennedy followed Platon’s advice “Be thought-
ful! Criticize your own thinking!” – for his first plan
after detecting the Russian atomic missiles in Cuba
was: “Bomb them!”

Kennedy shows that it is possible to learn from his-
tory although the situations and problems will never
be the same. But the meta-methods to find the right
methods for the problem at hand can be learned. It
can be learned that homogeneous boards of advisors
are a bad idea. And it can be learned that it is a bad
idea not to check whether the conditions necessary for
a certain action are given. And it can be learned,
that side- and longterm-effects of actions are not ex-
ceptions, but the rule in complex environments. And
it can be learned to be thoughtful; it is a good idea to
have a critical distance to one’s own thinking. Platon
knew that.

When it is discussed whether a certain person was
able to serve as a minister (or similar positions), it is
often discussed whether the person has “political expe-
rience”. However, it is meaningful to understand that
“political experience” may have disastrous effects. –
Hitler did not have any political experience, but he
managed that the Saarland remained a part of Ger-
many. He managed that the Rhineland was liberated
from French occupation (1936), he managed that the
Sudeten territories became a part of Germany (1938),
he managed that Austria was unified with Germany,
he managed to defeat Poland in a short war, he man-
aged to defeat France (1940) in a short war. – Field
marshal Keitel called Hitler the “Greatest General of
all Times” (“Größter Feldherr aller Zeiten”); this name
later was abbreviated to “GröFaZ”) and the German
soldiers used this term – especially after the battle of
Stalingrad – not at all as a honorary name.

Unfortunately however, due to his successes, Hitler
was convinced of his “political experience” and this
played an important role for his decision to begin a
war against nearly half of the world. “To the German
soldier nothing is impossible!” – Political experience
may be nothing but an overgeneralization and may

Figure 5. Diesel and Cancer. See Text.

thus result in sticklers for methods. Gilbert Parker
said: "Memory is man’s greatest friend and worst en-
emy." Think about that, if you ask for „political expe-
rience“. – The movie ‘Der Untergang’ (‘Downfall’ in
the English version) raised criticism because it did not
show Hitler as a monster, but as a – with respect to
his immediate environment – nice yet rather helpless
man. This is how Traudl Junge, one of Hitlers secre-
taries, remembered Hitler. Her book was used by the
author of the movie, Oliver Hirschbiegel, as a source
of information about Hitler.

And today?

All that, the Great War, Hitler, and even the Cuba
crisis are long gone. Nobody would recommend red
trousers for soldiers today. But look at Figure 5! An
engineer of a well-known producer of cars had an idea
how to improve the filter to reduce the emission of the
diesel engine of the BMW cars. “Wonderful; we will
use this filter for our cars!”

Fortunately enough, another engineer looked at the
filter more closely. In Figure 5 you can see what he
detected. This particle filter reduced the emission of
soot. As the emission of soot causes cancer this means
that the filter reduces the danger of cancer! Wonder-
ful!

However, the filter increased the output of polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbon particles. This in turn increases
the danger of cancer. Additionally, the particle filter
increases the emission of fibre particles, which again
increases the danger of cancer. Additionally, the par-
ticle filter increases diesel-consumption, therefore the
emission of soot is increased, too. (Bartsch, 2004)

The filter had some positive, but many more neg-
ative effects. It is typical for planning that people
consider only the positive effects and not the negative
ones. Here we have another example of PD (percep-
tual defense): the negative effects of an action have
not been taken into account.

As mentioned above, war and politics are uncertain
and complex realities; one never knows exactly how a
development will continue. Most of the time, it is un-
known and difficult to explore what really is the case.
Such realities cause anxiety, promote worry; they are
alarming. However, a politician, a general, or an engi-

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neer has to do something. And to get rid of increasing
concern by studying the reality, perceptual defense and
confirmatory cognition “help” a lot - especially in pol-
itics, where the consequences of poor acting are nor-
mally not visible immediately: Negative side-effects
frequently are longterm effects.
Look into your daily newspaper and examine the

degree to which negative consequences are not consid-
ered in political decision-making, to what degree it is
assumed that necessary conditions are given instead
of verifying them. Please check, how frequently politi-
cians plan “methodically” or “in goals” only and do not
invest any thought in how the goals could be reached.

It was already Platon (Timaios 69d, in Platon VII)
who stated that failures in political decision-making
may, to a high degree, be attributed to overestimation
of one’s own strengths. And this overestimation is the
result of confirmatory thinking and perceptual defense.

In this very moment (August 2021), in Germany
and elsewhere in the world the debacle of Afghanistan
is discussed. Within a very short period of time,
the Taliban had managed to re-establish their polit-
ical power in Afghanistan. During approximately 20
years, the Western world had tried to create something
like a foundation for a modern state in Afghanistan
and had established a 300,000-man army with mod-
ern weapons. Not in years, but in some weeks all
that collapsed and some thousand soldiers of the Tal-
iban on mopeds and armed with Kalashnikov rifles,
re-established their political power in Afghanistan. In
June 2021, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Heiko Maas, explained: „... That in some weeks the
Talibans will seize the power, is not the basis of my
assumptions¡‘
And afterwards, in August 2021, the minister ex-

plained: “We all have erred!” This was wrong, be-
cause some of the multinational forces in Afghanistan
had understood well what was going on, for instance
the French. And for years there had been reports
about the sluggish or even negative development in
Afghanistan, recognizable to each reader of newspa-
pers. At least for them it was quite clear that the
whole mission was not a progress at all. – In the
meantime we know that the Minister of Foreign Af-
fairs had been informed about the development in
Afghanistan by the German ambassador in the United
States, Emily Haber. She had a talk with the Chief of
the CIA about 1½ weeks before Kabul was “freed” by
the Taliban on August 23, 2021. The chief of the CIA
informed the German ambassador that the Afghan
government could collapse far more quickly than ex-
pected.
Therefore,the ambassador recommended that the

emergency plans for the German embassy in Kabul
should be activated at any rate. However, nothing
seems to have happened. The German Minister of
Foreign affairs seems to have done nothing.

In a session of an investigation committee of the
German Bundestag in the beginning of September
2021, the minister explained that this had been one of
the frequent wire news the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

is getting daily. – Obviously, this important message
had not altered the minister’s view of the situation in
Afghanistan. – This is an example of PD with serious
consequences.
Please try to identify the cases of neglecting side- or

long-term effects, the cases of abandoning the analysis
of conditions for actions, the cases of planning through
goal-setting only, without considering whether activi-
ties for reaching the goals are known. Or look at those
cases in which the appropriateness of the plan is ac-
cepted only because all the members of a group agree.
Or consider those cases in which the members of a
committee are selected with respect to their agreement
with the opinion of the leader of the group.

Closing remarks

I (DD) was about to put a book about the Seven Years’
War (Archenholtz, 1973) back into the bookshelf. Not
very skilfully, I tried to grab it, so the book opened
on page 68. And there I found a remark on Friedrich
II ( Frederick the Great, king of Prussia) after the
battle of Kolin (June 18, 1757). This was the first
battle Frederick lost. In a letter to his friend, the Lord
Marshal, Friedrich wrote: „The fortune, dear Lord,
often produces unjustified self-confidence. Twentythree
battalions were not sufficient to remove 60,000 men
from an advantageous position“.
Here you find the confession of Frederick that he had

overestimated his capabilities and therefore made mis-
takes. The uninterrupted series of military successes
of the Prussian king in the first two Silesian wars had
produced an (inappropriate) feeling of superiority in
him. The result were the mistakes of Kolin. And so
Frederick concluded: „Next time we will do better¡‘
This succeeded: He won the next battles near Ross-
bach (November 5, 1757) and at Leuthen (December
4, 1757), not least because of a number of new and
creative ideas about the conduct of war.
So the Prussian king identified the dangers of confir-

mative perception, the generalisation of successes. A
series of successes produces sticklers for methods, pro-
duces the conviction of having identified all the secrets
of warfare. (Please remember the Gödel-Theorem
here!) And this was the reason why the king failed
at Kolin. However, he was able to criticise himself and
so he learned.
But shortly after the battle of Kolin and after giv-

ing up the siege of Prague, Frederick tried to make his
younger brother, August Wilhelm, responsible for the
failure. Many historians believe that this was unjusti-
fied. And August Wilhelm died one year later. It is
said, that his brother’s accusations played an impor-
tant role for his untimely death. – Frederick’s 14 years
younger brother Heinrich later constructed an obelisk
in the park of Rheinsberg, which was devoted to the re-
membrance of his brother August Wilhelm and other
officers, who in his opinion were treated unfairly by
Frederick the Great (You can still pay a visit to that
obelisk today).

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The stories are similar: Joffre and Lanrezac, Fred-
erick and August Wilhelm. A General overestimates
himself, makes mistakes, and declares others respon-
sible for the failure. Different places, different condi-
tions, but a similar course of events.

If we try to identify the psychological background
of foolish behaviour in politics, two causes for inap-
propriate decision-making may be identified: Unstable
self-esteem may be one cause. And the other one is a
lack of phantasy, the inability to generate new ideas
for the solution to a problem. These two reasons seem
to be the central factors being responsible for foolish
behaviour.
Low self-esteem spurs the search for signals of com-

petence. The acting person wants to prove that abil-
ities exist that allow to do something, to solve prob-
lems. If this search for signals of competence is success-
ful, and if the new idea works and produces solutions,
then what Friedrich (the Great) experienced may hap-
pen: It is not improbable that the own strengths and
capabilities will now be overrated. – This however,
produces mistakes, generating a feeling of helplessness
again. It is not known what could be done! How-
ever – as mentioned above – persons with an unstable
self-esteem do not ask for advice in such a situation
to avoid admitting that the own capabilities are low.
Sometimes people try to find signals of competence in
other fields. In August 1914, General Joffre drove at a
speed of 100 km/h (high speed in those times!) from
division headquarter to division headquarter in order
to control whether each commander did what he was
ordered to do. (For this purpose Joffre’s car was driven
by a professional racing driver.) Being able to control
the division-commanders unexpectedly and frequently
demonstrated competence! Obviously, in Joffres eyes
a general should be a kind of bloodhound, biting the
legs of the sub-commanders, to lead them in the right
direction.

Without phantasy, it is very difficult to find new
ideas. For someone without phantasy, it would be diffi-
cult to think about how one could help Chruschtschow
instead of fighting him. – Without phantasy, ad-
vice will come from perceptual defence or confirmatory
thinking. This, however, mostly is poor advice.
Joffre for instance to whom Barbara Tuchman

(2007, p. 400) ascribes no capabilities of having new
ideas, did not ask for advice and was not willing to
accept advice from others. So he repelled general Lan-
rezac’s warning to consider the strong right wing of the
Germans, passing through Belgium westward. – Why?
Well, we explained it earlier: If you ask somebody else
for advice this means that you have no ideas, that you
cannot produce new ideas. And Joffre tried to avoid
this impression.

The “Order of the Day” before the battle of the
Marne, the order General Joffre delivered to the
French army on September 6, 1914, contained the fol-
lowing sentence: „a troop not being able to advance
further should, whatever it costs, keep the conquered
ground, and should die in their position rather than
falling back“. This sounds very heroic: „Win or die!“

However, this maxim often is inappropriate. There are
enough examples in military history where falling back
or evading have been appropriate methods to escape
the defeat, even to win a war.
Fabius Maximus Cunctator (Fabius the waverer)

succeeded in winning the 2nd Punic war against Han-
nibal by a flexible, evasive behaviour; a French exam-
ple is the flexible behaviour of Bertrand du Guesclin in
the Hundred Years’ War between England and France.
Guesclin ruined the English forces by a flexible and
evasive conduct of war.
“Win or die!” is a very rough maxim, and it seems to

mirror Joffre’s problems. It means “Here I am again!”
And a sentence right before the “Win or Die”- order
testifies this: “This is not the moment to look back!”
Joffre said. – Not to look back? Not to look back on
what? – Not to look back on the lost border-battles?
Not to look back on Plan XVII and its failure? Not
to look back on the missing heavy artillery and the
missing airplanes? Not to look back on the decision of
not replacing the red trousers by a camouflage-dress?
Not to look back on the failure of not listening to the
warnings of General Lanrezac?
By “Win or die!” Joffre repaired his self-esteem.

However “Win or die!” would not have been neces-
sary if Joffre had acted more prudently in the early
days of the war. But Joffre was Joffre and not Gal-
lieni. In 1915 Joffre continued the basic idea of Plan
XVII: offensive! Obviously for Joffre this was the only
appropriate strategy to give the war a different direc-
tion. (See Verney in Tardi & Verney, 2013, p.54.)
In 1915, Joffre launched attacks at Compiègne, then

north of Arras at the Vimy-heights, and repeated the
battle of the Champagne in September 1915. In the
whole year of 1915 the staff-divisions intensified the
former tactic: “L’ attaque . . . ”. The result were mini-
mal territorial profits for the allied forces, but 100,000
French, 60,000 British and (only) 65,000 German sol-
diers were killed. The attacking allied soldiers died
because of the obstinacy of their leaders. The politi-
cal price was that Sir French as supreme commander
of the British Expedition Corps had to leave the com-
mand to Sir Douglas Haig. – Joffre as the “Victor
of the Marne” was still untouchable (for the public!).
However, his reputation was violated (see Purseigle,
2013, p. 148 and 154-156).
Joffre is a great example of Methodical Rigidity, be-

cause of his craving for glory and his lack of phantasy.
– Verney (Tardi & Verney, p. 54) asks: “Did Joffre
see the superiority of the German heavy artillery and
the prudent German defence-tactics? Did he know the
exhaustion of the soldiers; did he see the real causes
for the flaw of ammunition?” These are rhetorical
questions. The answer to all these questions is: “No!”
Joffre was a master of perceptual defence! – Joffre saw
nothing! Why?
Joffre’s tendency to continue a behaviour although

it had proved to be not successful, in this case not to
change the strategy of “l’attaque, l’attaque, toujours
l’attaque!” is typical for people with low self-esteem
and a low degree of phantasy. Errors are denied –

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Dörner & Meck: The Red Trousers

they are not perceived as errors. At the most some
details went wrong or some sub-commanders failed.
But the general idea remained untouched and the be-
lief in its validity was even strengthened. For persons
like General Joffre everything else, for instance admit-
ting a substantial error, would be considered as an
indicator of weakness. So a strategical change is ob-
durately refused. For such people there is no way out
because of their wavering self-esteem and their lack-
ing phantasy. – (Today, such a behaviour is called the
Kruger-Dunning-effect, see Kruger & Dunning, 1999)
The necessity for self-criticism and to think always

anew at war and in politics is illustrated by nobody
else as well as by Clausewitz:
„War, in general terms, does not consist of an infi-

nite number of events, the differences of which balance
each other and therefore are mastered by a better or
worse scythe better or worse. War consists of single
problems, which should be handled individually. War
is not a land of stalks which, without respect to the fea-
tures of a single stem, with a better or worse scythe is
mown better or worse. But it consists of big trees, to
which the axe should be used with reflection according
to the quality and direction of each single tree. (Trans-
lation from: Clausewitz, 1880, p. 130 f.)
You may replace “war” in the first line of the Clause-

witz quote by “politics”. For Clausewitz war is politics
- with different means. – Undoubtedly, Platon would
have agreed with Clausewitz immediately. For a po-
litical leader it is necessary to be thoughtful; he must
be prepared for self-criticism. – Those however with
an unstable, wavering self-esteem avoid self-criticism.
For them self-criticism is a danger, a danger to lose
self-confidence. They like fixed rules. A fixed sys-
tem of rules appears them to guarantee success. They
like confirmation and not critique. “This is not the
moment to look back!” – Such persons should not be-
come politicians or should not be admitted to leading
positions in an army. They do not strive for success in
the long term, but for immediate success, immediate
glory. Unfortunately, just this kind of persons seem to
strive for political careers. – And this is the reason why
Platon (Politeia, 520 c,d) recommended not to admit
such people to political careers. And Clausewitz rec-
ommended the same for people whose main motive is
boosting their self-esteem (“Eigensinn” as Clausewitz,
1880, p.64, calls it). As such persons cannot cope with
failures, they will exhibit a strong tendency to avoid
self-criticism.
Interestingly, you will find nearly the same descrip-

tion of persons not suitable for politics in the Bhagavad
Gita, part of the ancient Indian epic of the Mahab-
harata. In the 18th chant you will find the verses 23
to 25, which summarise the action-theory of the Bha-
gavad Gita. Here they are, translated by the authors
from a German edition of the Bhagavad Gita (Mylius,
1997):

23. The necessary action, done without cling-
ing,
Without passion and hatred,

Without striving for glory,
Is a good action.
24. But the action done because of striving
For sensuality or for self-satisfaction
Which causes great grievance,
Is called the passionate action.
25. However an action without regard of the
consequences,
own losses, damage to others and the own
strength,
Done because of blindness,
Is called the mode of the dark.

It is important not to understand these verses as
part of a religious hymn or as a moralising sermon.
They are practical recommendations for the organisa-
tion of action and you should ask “why”? Why, for
instance, is it recommended to engage only in actions
that are necessary?
An action should be necessary to reach a goal. The

goal must be a political one, not a personal goal such
as revenge or retaliation. The goal should be necessary
to install a better reality or to prevent a bad reality to
come into being. –

Why should necessary actions be done without at-
tachment? Well, you should not cling to your methods,
you should not be a stickler for methods. You should
be able to alter your methods if these have proven un-
successful. – Why should you act without passion and
hatred? Well, because passion and hatred blind you!

Why should a commander not strive for glory? Be-
cause striving for glory is contradictory to the pre-
paredness for self-criticism. – It is very simple to act
in the right way, isn’t it?

The next two verses 24 and 25 describe how one
should not act.

Passion and hatred will blind you and you will not
find the right way. You will not act for the right goals
and you will not find the right methods of acting. Be-
cause there is a high risk that passion and hatred will
suggest inappropriate views of reality and methods.

Verse 25 recommends not to leave the command to
people whose mind is “dark” and without light, hence
to people, who are not very intelligent and often can-
not take into consideration side- and long-term effects.

In the first years of the Roman Republic the higher-
degree officials, the praetors and consuls, were elected
in Rome by the People‘s assembly. However, those
who were admitted to the election were selected by a
commission that tried to keep off the above mentioned
persons! – A good rule?

Declaration of conflicting interests: The authors de-
clare no conflicts of interest.

Author note: We would like to say “Thank you” to
following persons: Wolfgang Schoppek, who turned our
English into an understandable form and contributed a lot
of ideas to augment the flow of thoughts, Sigrid Dörner,
who found a lot of mistakes in spelling and in the course

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Dörner & Meck: The Red Trousers

of the argumentation, Peter Fankhänel for an idea, why
people with a low self-esteem confronted with a failure,
increase their self-esteem, Steffen Haumann for ideas,
how to condense the line of thoughts.

Peer Review: In a blind peer review process, Carlos
Kölbl (Bayreuth) and Lars Allolio-Näcke (Erlangen) have
reviewed this article before publication. Both reviewers
have approved the disclosure of their names after the end
of the review process.

Handling editor: Alexander Nicolai Wendt

Copyright: This work is licensed under a Creative Com-
mons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 In-
ternational License.

Citation: Dörner, D. & Meck, U. (2022). The Red
Trousers. About Confirmative Thinking and Percep-
tual Defense in Complex and Uncertain Domains of Re-
ality. Journal of Dynamic Decision Making, 8, 1–14.
doi:10.11588/jddm.2022.1.84578

Received: 29.11.2021
Accepted: 27.03.2022
Published: 11.07.2022

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