MEN, MACHINES AND THE EMERGENCEMEN, MACHINES AND THE EMERGENCEMEN, MACHINES AND THE EMERGENCEMEN, MACHINES AND THE EMERGENCEOF MODERN WARFAREOF MODERN WARFAREOF MODERN WARFAREOF MODERN WARFARE

1914 - 19451914 - 19451914 - 19451914 - 1945

BYBYBYBY

COLIN J McINNESCOLIN J McINNESCOLIN J McINNESCOLIN J McINNES

MEN, MACHINES AND THE EMERGENCEOF MODERN WARFARE

1914-45

The reason for starting this analysis of modern land warfare with theGreat War of 1914-1918 is straightforward: the First World Warbrought together three important developments which distinguished itfrom previous wars, and which were to cast a shadow over the othermajor conflicts of this century. Firstly, the war involved all of the majorindustrial powers of the day, and most of the minor. In particular thegreat battles on the Western Front were fought between the three pre-eminent industrial powers of the day, at a time when the process ofindustrialisation was well established within their economies. Secondly,the war was fought by mass armies, and involved entire populations in amanner hitherto largely unknown. And finally, the war was fought withproficient weapons of mass battlefield destruction ( the machine gun andartillery in particular), and saw the introduction of two important newtechnologies: the aircraft and the tank.

Little of this was new in itself. The effects of modern firepower had beenwitnessed not only in the Russo-Japanese War (to which most Europeanpowers had sent military observers), but also the Boer War and even theAmerican Civil War. Similarly from Napoleon on, wars had been foughtby ever larger armies, the American Civil War in particular drawing in alarge proportion of each sides available manpower. But two things werenew. Firstly the level of industrialisation, of mass involvement, and oftechnological sophistication, was much higher than in previous wars,reaching a qualitatively different level. Secondly, and more importantly,this was the first war in which these factors were combined to such anextent. In particular the battles on the Western Front between Britain,France and Germany involved the three most important industrialisedpowers of the day, fighting battles with mass armies and deployingweapons of huge destructive power. This analysis therefore concentrateson the Western Front, not because this best represents the nature of theFirst World War, but because it is here that we see these three

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important developments brought together.

The combination of mass armies and devastating firepower clearly poseda variety of new problems for Generals before and during the FirstWorld War. The Generals however failed to either accurately predict thenature of the war, or, in the middle years of the war, to provide asolution other than a series of bloody, static attritional battles. Giventhese failures it was perhaps only natural that the finger of blame for theapparently senseless slaughter at such battles as Verdun, the Somme andPasschendaele was pointed at the Generals in charge. It appeared thatdevelopments in society and in technology had not been matched bydevelopments in strategy and tactics. This fairly basic (and not entirelyaccurate) accusation is important because it leads to a series of majorquestions: how do developments in society, and more especiallytechnology, affect the strategy and conduct of war? How sensitive ismilitary strategy to changes in technology? And how important istechnology in affecting the conduct of war?

Firepower and the Offensive: Technology and Strategy on the Eve ofFirepower and the Offensive: Technology and Strategy on the Eve ofFirepower and the Offensive: Technology and Strategy on the Eve ofFirepower and the Offensive: Technology and Strategy on the Eve ofWarWarWarWar

The years immediately prior to the First World War were marked bymuch thinking and discussion on the changed conditions of war, and onthe nature of a future war (increasingly seen as an inevitability bymilitary staffs). In particular the Russo- Japanese War of 1904-5, andthe Prussian/German victories of the 1860s and 1870s were closelystudied, as was the Boer War (though most tended to the conclusion thatthe colonial nature of that particular war meant that any lessons learntwould not be applicable to a future war in Europe1. The key point thenis not that the Generals went into the First World War blindly ignorant

1. Tim Travers, The Killing Ground: the British Army, the WesternFront and the Emergence of Modern Warfare, 1900-1918 (London, 1987),pp. 45 and 67. Michael Howard, ‘Men against fire: the doctrine of theoffensive in 1914’, in Peter Paret ed. Makers of Modern Strategy:from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Oxford, 1986), pp. 516-20.

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of the changes in warfare. If anything the reverse was true - moreattention had been paid to the conduct of war and to the changes inwarfare than had usually been the case prior to a major conflict. Ratherthe key point concerns the lessons learnt by the Generals. Why did theylearn the lessons they did? And why did they discard evidence which inretrospect pointed more accurately to what would happen during thewar, particularly on the Western Front?

The answer to this problem lies perhaps in an examination of themilitary’s reaction to the two key developments of the period: theemergence of mass armies, and the increased firepower of modernweapons. Although armies had been growing in size, such that theGerman army launched at France in 1914 was over a million strong, themilitary had yet to take the step to acknowledge that a future war wouldinvolve not just the army, but the whole of society. Similarly the processof industrialisation and the importance of firepower on the battlefieldsuggested that industrial production would increasingly be harnessed tothe war effort, while the pursuit of ever larger armies suggested theeventual mass mobilisation of civilians. Again the military failed topursue this logic. Instead the military preferred to think in terms ofshort wars fought by professional armies. Despite the experience of theAmerican Civil War - and to a lesser extent the Russo-Japanese War - insuggesting that wars would not be over quickly, military opinionpreferred to think in terms of short wars decided by vigorous offensiveactions. Indeed, when Lord Kitchener, the newly appointed WarMinister, suggested to the British Cabinet in August 1914 that the warwould probably last a number of years and that mass recruitment wouldtherefore be necessary, his views not only shocked the politicians butwere considerably out of line with advice from the Chief of the GeneralStaff.2 In the opinion of General Staffs in Britain and Europe, there wasno requirement for mass civilian recruitment, or for the

2. Barbara Tuchman, the Guns of August(London, 1962), p. 120.

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harnessing of industry to meet the war effort, because the war would beover quickly. General Staffs were therefore more influenced by Germansuccess against France in 1870 than by events in far flung corners of theworld. Why was this? For the Germans, clearly the desire to repeat theelder Moltke’s massive success against France in 1870 was a notinconsiderable factor. But there is more to it than this. Europeanobservers in the Russo-Japanese War saw the beginnings of a new style ofwar:static, attritional and firepower orientated. Why was this ignored? Noone reason suffices, but a number of factors seem to have contributed invarying degrees. Firstly the influence of a fairly crude form of SocialDarwinism meant that the Russians and Japanese tended to be viewed assomewhat less sophisticated and capable than the major European powerswhen it came to war. Secondly, mass armies would erode the status ofthe military as a separate elite within the hierarchical societies of pre-1914. In particular, regular armies possessed a degree of professionalismwhich set them apart from civilians and which enabled them to claim aspecial status. Moreover the discipline of the military was often seen asproviding benefits which set the military - and in particular the officerclass - not merely apart from, but above other classes. Thus the militaryenjoyed a privileged status which might be threatened by mass, conscriptarmies. Thirdly, a mass war involving huge armies and the fullutilisation of industry threatened to turn war from a glorious activityinto a monster, consuming ever more men and resources. Finally if warwas fought not by a social elite but by the masses, this might disrupt thesocial hierarchy and destabilise existing power structures within thestate. This was particularly a danger in Central European states wherethe military constituted an important political elite; but even in moredemocratic states such as Britain these fears were to be justified by suchdevelopments as the emancipation of women after the war. Therefore, ifwar was kept short and professional, the impact upon society and themilitary’s position within society could be controlled. Once warexpanded and involved the whole of society however, the effects uponsocial order and upon the military’s privileged status might be profound.Military hierarchies therefore wanted a short war not

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because they saw this as the best means of securing victory,3 but rather aquick victory was essential to avoid the social upheaval of a protractedwar.

The second area which requires examination in order to assess theGenerals’ failure to predict the nature of war concerns their attitudetowards new battlefield technologies. In particular the problem posed byincreased battlefield firepower requires some detailed examination.Moreover attitudes towards technology have been used to explain theGenerals’ failure to provide a satisfactory alternative to static, hugelycostly and apparently wasteful battles such as Verdun, the Somme andPasschendaele. Two schools of thought have been developed usingtechnology to explain the bloody impasse of 1915- 1917. The firstsuggests that technology inherently favoured the defensive, and thatoffensives would inevitably be ground down into static, attritionalbattles.4 the second school of thought, developed to varying levels ofsophistication, argues that the Generals failed fully to appreciate howtechnology had changed the battlefield, and as a consequence usedinappropriate strategies and tactics.5 But technology alone cannot fullyexplain the character of the First World War. More important are theattitudes and responses towards the new technologies, which provideimportant clues in explaining why the war developed the way it did.

3. For the Germans there were admittedly strategic advantages to begained from a quick victory, most notably in avoiding a war on twofronts. Conversely for the triple entente there were strategic advantagesin a protracted war. The British Army in particular wasdisproportionately small, while the Russian masses (almost the solemilitary advantage possessed by the Russians being the size of theirpopulation) were notoriously slow to mobilise.

4. For example Bernard Brodie and Fawn Brodie, From Crossbow to H-Bomb (Bloomington, lnd., 1972).

5. The most sophisticated exponent of this school is Travers, op.cit.,especially chapters 3 and 6.

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the First World War, and in particular the Western Front, witnessed theimpact of what was effectively a revolution in firepower. In particularartillery, the machine gun, and the rifle demonstrated vastly improvedrange, accuracy, weight and speed of fire. Moreover artillery andmachine guns were deployed in numbers never previously seen, whileartillery bombardments consumed almost unimaginable quantities ofshells:at Verdun some 24 million shells were used over a four month period; inthe 8 day preparatory bombardment on the Somme, the British used1.75 million shells; and in the 19 day bombardment beforePasschendaele, 32 trainloads of shells were used- a year’s production for 55, 000 workers.6 This scale of firepower was ofcourse a product of the massive industrialisation of the nineteenthcentury. The consequence of this increased firepower was what wastermed the ‘empty battlefield’ - a battlefield where troops in the openwere critically vulnerable to enemy firepower, and were therefore forcedto retreat into fortified positions (trenches) beyond the range of enemyfirepower.7 At its crudest and most potent this produced the stereotypeof two parallel lines of trenches, the ground between them swept byartillery and machine gun fire. This empty battlefield created a problemfor offensive forces. They would have to cross the empty battlefield toengage the enemy, but in so doing they would be vulnerable to enemyfire, and in particular would confront what the influential FrenchColonel (later Marshal) Foch termed the ‘zone of death’- an area outside friendly fire support where infantry would be

6. Brodie, p. 192; John Terraine, the White Heat: the New Warfare1914-1918 (London, 1982), p. 208-10.

7. Griffith argues that the empty battlefield can actually be tracedback over a hundred years before the First World War. See PaddyGriffith, Forward into Battle: Fighting Tactics from Waterloo to Vietnam(Chichester, 1981), pp. 9-10 and 45ff. Nevertheless the phenomenonwas still a product of firepower, and the awesome firepower of the FirstWorld War revealed this phenomenon on a scale never previously seen.

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most vulnerable to enemy firepower.8 Overcoming this zone of death wasthe single most important problem faced by military strategists beforeand during the war. Again the key point is not that the military wereignorant of the changes in weapons technology and the increasedfirepower available on the battlefield. Rather it is that their responses tothe new technologies simply did not work.

Two schools of thought can be easily identified in response to thesetechnological developments. The first, principally associated with thePolish financier Jan Bloch, argued that firepower had fundamentallyaltered the battlefield by giving defensive forces a decisive advantage.With the massively increased firepower now available, frontal assaultsagainst defended positions would result in little less than slaughter forthe attacking forces. The chances of an offensive succeeding against awell defended position were slight. The logic of the empty battlefieldtherefore led inevitably to the triumph of defence over offence, and tobattlefields being dominated by firepower.9

Bloch’s ideas however failed to convince military hierarchies - hisconclusions were distinctly unpalatable and the military, like mostprofessions, had an aversion to unpalatable advice from an amateur (inthis case, a civilian). In contrast the second school of thought effectivelyswept the board, and had a major, and frequently decisive influence onall of the major powers in 1914. This school of thought is usually termedthe ‘cult of the offensive’, though perhaps it is more accurately describedas the ‘psychological battlefield’. Its basis is the belief that victory isdetermined by the will to win. In France this view was initiallydeveloped by Ferdinand Foch, who as director of the French WarCollege ( the

8. Howard, p. 512

9. I S (J G) B loch, Modern Weapons and Modern War (London,1900).

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Ecole Superieure de Guerre) had an important impact on French militarythinking just prior to the war. Foch’s beliefs were reflected in a series ofaphorisms such as ‘ the will to conquer is the first condition of victory’,or ‘A battle won is a battle in which one will not confess oneself beaten’,or more succinctly ‘Victoire, c’est la volonte’. 1 0 Similarly LieutenantGeneral Sir Ian Hamilton, an observer at the Russo-Japanese War andlater to command the allied forces at Gallipoli, commented in 1910:

Blindness to moral forces and worship of material forces inevitablylead in war to destruction. All that exaggerated reliance placed uponchassepots and mitrailleuses by France before ‘70; all that trashwritten by M. Bloch before 1904 about zones of fire across which noliving being could pass, heralded nothing but disaster. War isessentially the triumph, not of a chassepot over a needle-gun, not ofa line of men entrenched behind wire entanglements and fire-sweptzones over men exposing themselves in the open, but of one willover another weaker will. ’1 1 (emphasis added)

Foch however was careful to ground these near metaphysical aspects ofbattle in the hard realities of tactics, discipline and the proper use offirepower. But this careful grounding assumed less and less importancein the French army. In particular the ideas of Colonel Grandmaison,Director of Military Operations, struck a chord in the French militaryhierarchy. Grandmaison developed the idea of the offensive withoutlimit (offensive a l ’outrance), whereby the French would impose theirwill on an enemy by seizing the initiative and pursuing it ruthlessly. Thedefence was all but abandoned - it could only be justified as enablingeconomies

10. Tuchman, p. 32.

11. Quoted by Travers, pp. 44-5

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to be made in peripheral sectors. Rather French planning prior to 1914could increasingly be summed up in a single word: attack! Battle was astruggle of moral forces, and victory was determined by the will to win.By seizing the initiative, one side imposed its will upon the other, whileat the same time imbuing troops with the fighting spirit necessary tocross the ‘zone of death’ and engage the enemy.’ 1 2

The cult of the offensive was most influential in France, though it alsohad a major impact upon Russian thinking.1 3 Similarly within Germanythe offensive was seen as the decisive act, though under Schlieffen moralfactors tended to be subsumed by the importance of numbers andmaterial.1 4 Where the French were flamboyant, the Germans were precisein their emphasis upon material rather than psychological factors. TheGerman offensive was planned in such detail that it resembled less a planfor war than a delicately choreographed movement over 40 days1 5. Evenin Britain, despite an aversion to formal doctrine, an unofficial cult ofthe offensive based upon the psychological battlefield can be identified.This was based upon a number of factors. Firstly a consensus hademerged that, despite increases in firepower, offensive action was notonly possible but decisive. In this respect the lessons of the SouthAfrican war were considered abnormal due to the colonial nature of thatwar. More relevant were the lessons of the Russo-Japanese War, whereJapanese troops defeated Russian firepower through offensive spirit, highmorale and cold steel.1 6 Secondly, the

12. Tuchman, pp. 32-4.

13. Tuchman, ch.5.

14. Howard, p. 579.

15. G Ritter, the Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth (London, 1958)trans A and E Wilson.

16. Travers, pp. 36 and 43.

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prevalence of Social Darwinism amongst senior officers produced doubtsover the reliability of working class recruits. It was commonly believedthat troops drawn from the industrial working classes would lack thenecessary moral fibre for war. By an exaggerated emphasis upon offensiveaction and moral qualities, these troops could be imbued with fightingspirit and their natural deficiencies overcome. In particular the highlosses likely in offensive action (a product of improved firepower)required an increased emphasis upon the offensive to ensure that troopsclosed with the enemy - closing with the enemy being seen as the meansof achieving victory. As Travers comments:

The offensive was diligently pressed by almost all senior officers,who were afraid of the converse, that troops would normally befearful or unreliable in crossing the fire-swept zone.1 7

Thirdly the Army, like most large organizations, functioned best in astructured environment where each component part had a distinct placein the whole and a clear role to play. By assuming the offensive, theintegrity of the structure could be maintained: the enemy would respondto your plan, and you could control events. The offensive thereforeoffered greater control than surrendering the initiative and moving ontothe defensive. In this respect the British Army was little different toother armies.1 8

What emerges from this is that the Generals prior to the First WorldWar were not ignorant of the changes in society and technology, andthat they did take change into account in their planning for war. Whathappened though was that these changes were approached with a seriesof assumptions about man and war which led to inappropriate lessonsbeing drawn. Social

17. Travers, p.48.

18. Travers, pp. 37-8 and 53-4.

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Darwinism and anti-modernism led to an emphasis upon the humanrather than material aspects of war; the problem of commanding largearmies led to the requirement for a structured war, which was moreeasily accomplished when on the offensive since that side would thenpossess the initiative; and the dangers of social disruption and the desireto maintain the professional status of the military led to pressure for ashort war, again best achieved by decisive offensive action. These ofcourse are broad trends, which vary in their applicability from army toarmy. Nevertheless the result was that all sides had learnt the lesson thatwhen war came they must immediately take the offensive. As a resultAugust 1914 was marked by a series of offensives: the Russians into East Prussia, the French through Lorraine, the Austro-Hungarians into Poland. The most successful however was that of theGermans into France, and it is here that any analysis of the war on theWestern Front must begin.

The Schlieffen Plan and the German Invasion of FranceThe Schlieffen Plan and the German Invasion of FranceThe Schlieffen Plan and the German Invasion of FranceThe Schlieffen Plan and the German Invasion of France

The war on the Western Front may be usefully divided into threephases. The first was a war of movement, with the simultaneous Germaninvasion of France and French invasion of Germany. The failure of bothoffensives led to the so-called ‘Race to the Sea’ whereby both sidesattempted (and failed) to outflank the other. Thus 1914 ended with aline of trenches stretching from the North Sea to Switzerland, usheringin the second phase of the war, that of static attritional warfare. Thisphase lasted roughly from 1915 through to the German Spring Offensive( the Kaiser’s Battle, or ‘Kaiserschlacht’) of 1918. It was characterised bya series of huge battles involving hundreds of thousands of casualties,but for little or no territorial gain (indeed one of the more substantialAllied territorial gains of this period was the voluntary Germanwithdrawal of some 11 miles in 1917 to the stronger defences of theHindenburg Line). The key battles of this period - Verdun, Somme andPasschendaele - still evoke memories of horror and apparently pointlessslaughter. The third phase saw movement once again restored to thebattlefield. In the Spring of 191 8 the Germans launched their finaloffensive on

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the Western Front, employing new tactical methods. Despite initialsuccess the offensive ran out of steam, but was followed by the BritishSummer offensive whose success forced the Germans to sue for peace.This section considers the first phase of the war, and in particular theGerman invasion of France. Subsequent sections discuss the two otherphases of the war.

the German invasion of France in 1914 was based upon a plan drawn upby Graf Schlieffen, Chief of the General Staff from 1891 to 1905.1 9

Schlieffen himself revised the plan on a number of occasions, but themost important changes were made by his successor as Chief of theGeneral Staff, Moltke the Younger, who put the plan into effect inAugust 1914. The fundamental strategic problem facing the Germanswas the danger of a war on two fronts - that the political alliancebetween France and Russia left Germany facing in both directions whenwar came. Schlieffen and his successor Moltke reacted to this politicalproblem by attempting a military solution, namely the rapid defeat ofFrance before Russia could fully mobilise, followed by a transfer oftroops to the East. This was the heart of Schlieffen’s Plan. Hispredecessors, Moltke the Elder and Waldersee, had both planned for adefensive campaign in the West, and an offensive in the East against theweaker Russian forces. Nor did Moltke the Elder hope for a decisivevictory, rather planning to cripple

19. the Plan, in the form of a memorandum entitled War againstFrance’ was dated 31 December 1905. This was Schlieffen’s last day inoffice, and the date is symbolic rather than actual. The memorandumwas written in December 1905 and January 1906, and was handed toMoltke in February 1906 as a kind of military testament’ (Ritter, p. 48).Schlieffen himself then proceeded to make a number of alterations,particularly in the additional memoranda of February 1906 andDecember 1912. In 1911 Schlieffen also produced an operational plan(‘Red’) for the invasion of France, including detailed maps, in responseto the German staff exercises of that year. For details on the evolution ofSchlieffen’s ideas, and copies of the various drafts and memoranda, seeRitter, op. cit.

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France and Russia, and then negotiate a favourable peace.2 0 Schlieffentherefore not merely reorganised the priorities in war, but also the aim -total victory. Schlieffen’s reasoning for the latter change was heavilyinfluenced by his reading of Clausewitz, and in particular Clausewitz’semphasis on the decisive battle.

For [Schlieffen] it did not suffice to lame the opponents - theymust be destroyed. (Liddell Hart)2 1

His reorientation of priorities towards France was founded on a beliefthat the Russian army would be difficult to destroy given its resources ofmanpower and the space it could retreat into. In contrast the Frenchdefences were vulnerable to a flanking movement through neutralBelgium. Schlieffen’s Plan therefore envisaged a massive envelopment ofthe French Army. Leaving the East of Germany relatively lightlydefended to allow the maximum concentration of forces in the West,Schlieffen further concentrated his forces on the right wing leaving thecentre relatively weak. Thus while French forces were sucked into thecentre, German forces would smash through the weak Belgian defences,march West of Paris to avoid the danger of a counter-stroke, and destroythe retreating French army in a decisive 'cauldron battle’(kesselschlacht)2 2

A number of features are worth commenting upon at this stage. Firstly,Schlieffen seems to have relegated politics to a peripheral role in hisplan. This was most obvious in the assumption that Russia would fighton France’s side, and vice versa. Equally, the violation of Belgiansovereignty was seen as a military necessity to outflank the French, whilethe political consequences (bringing both Belgium and more importantlyBritain into the war) were paid scant attention.

20. Liddell Hart, foreword to Ritter, p. 4.

21. Liddell Hart, p.5.

22. Ritter, op. cit.; Tuchman, pp. 19-21.

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Secondly, the military basis of the plan was far from new - indeedSchlieffen derived his planned envelopment of the French fromHannibal’s classic double envelopment of the Romans at Cannae.2 3 Sucha strategy was extremely risky, especially in leaving the centre weak (and,at a more fundamental level, in leaving East Prussia vulnerable toRussian attack). But as Liddell Hart commented

It was a conception of Napoleonic boldness ... if the Germandefensive wing was pushed back, without breaking, that would tendto increase the effect of the offensive wing. It would operate like arevolving door- the harder the French pushed on one side the more sharply wouldthe other side swing round and strike their back.2 4

This ‘bold conception’ was badly flawed however. Firstly whereasGerman troops would have to march around the enveloped French, theFrench army could be moved by rail the considerably shorter distanceacross from the German border to their threatened flanks and rear. Evengiven the blow to French morale caused by German troops appearing intheir rear, the French possessed a considerable advantage in terms ofinterior lines of communication, and improved transportation. Secondlywhether Germany possessed the forces necessary to destroy the FrenchArmy in battle began to look increasingly doubtful. Even givenSchlieffen’s remarkable innovation of using reservists in the front

23. Tuchman, pp. 20-1. This was to have consequences at a later stageboth in the planning and execution of the invasion, when the lure of adouble envelopment raised its head.

24. Liddell Hart, p. 6. Ironically the French had similar ideasconcerning their offensive in Lorraine - the stronger the German rightwing, the greater the French success in the centre would be.

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line, he worried that the German Army would not have the necessarysuperiority of force for a successful offensive.2 5

The third noteworthy feature of the Schlieffen Plan was the way inwhich it emphasised speed and surprise. France would have to be beatenquickly to enable sufficient forces to be transferred to meet the Russianthreat, while the surprise caused by marching through neutral Belgiumwas essential to the breakthrough phase of the envelopment. Moreoverspeed was important once the breakthrough was achieved to keep theFrench forces off balance, and to destroy them before they couldreform. This coupling of speed and surprise was therefore as much afeature of the envelopment strategy as was breaking through in strengthon a weak, narrow sector of the front and striking deep to surround theenemy. But whereas German envelopments in the Second World Warwere used in part to erode the enemy’s will to fight - and therefore beathim ‘psychologically’ as well as ‘physically’ - Schlieffen saw theenvelopment as a means of catching the French Army off balance so thatthe Germans could then destroy it in a decisive battle.

Schlieffen’s plan was handed to his successor, Moltke the Younger, inearly 1906. Although retaining the essence of the Schlieffen Plan,Moltke incorporated a number of important changes. These weresubsequently to lead to Moltke being blamed for the plan’s failure in1914, and to the original plan being held in something approachingmythical respect. The two most important changes made by Moltkeconcerned the balance of forces, and the sweep of the envelopment. Asmore forces became available to Moltke, so he strengthened the centreand

25. Liddell Hart, pp. 6-7; Tuchman, p. 25.

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left wing relative to his right.2 6 As a result Moltke was criticised forlacking Schlieffen’s boldness and for fatally weakening those forceswhich would deliver the decisive blow. This comparative weakness onthe German right2 7 in turn forced them to wheel East of Paris, thesecond major alteration from Schlieffen’s original plan, and one forcedon the Germans once the invasion of France was actually under way.This in turn released some of the pressure on the French left and allowedthem to execute the successful counter-stroke against the German rightflank on the Maine. The ‘miracle of the Maine’ therefore came at theend of a series of developments initiated by Moltke’s weakening of theGerman right.

Whether Moltke fatally altered Schlieffen’s original plan, or whether heimposed a sensible degree of caution and moved in a direction Schlieffenhimself was moving towards, is a point of some dispute.2 8 Moltkecertainly seems to have lacked Schlieffen’s confidence as a commander,being by nature somewhat more cautious2 9 Thus the risk to East Prussiaand to the German centre on the Western Front loomed large inMoltke’s mind. Equally Moltke was wary of moving troops throughneutral

26. The ratio of forces on the right compared to the rest of the frontchanged from 100:15 under Schlieffen to 100:42 under Moltke. L C FTurner, ‘ the significance of the Schlieffen plan’, in Paul Kennedy ed.,the War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880-19 14 (London, 1985).

27. Compounded by Moltke transferring two corps from the right wingto the Eastern Front once the invasion had already started.

28. Critics of Moltke include Turner, Terraine, and Gordon Craig inhis the Politics of the Prussian Army 1640- 1945(Oxford, 1955). LiddellHart and Ritter are more favourable towards him.

29. Tuchman, p. 26.

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Holland lest that leave the Dutch an enemy in the German rear. Moltkewas therefore forced to move his two, powerful right wing armiesthrough a bottleneck around Liege. This in turn constrained the numberof troops he could allot to the right wing without overburdening hislines of communication.

Moltke’s final plan envisaged a left wing of some 320, 000 men (8 corps)to hold the front in Alsace and Lorraine against the expected Frenchattack there. A centre of 400, 000 men (4 corps) would attack throughthe Ardennes, while the right wing of 700, 000 men would smashthrough Belgium and envelop the French army on the border. TheGermans did not expect the Belgians to resist, but as a precautionconstructed huge siege guns to destroy the formidable fortresses of Liegeand Namur in the path of their advance. In the event this was a wiseprecaution, as the Belgians did resist. But it also demonstrates the degreeof German planning. The whole move through Belgium and South toParis was precisely timetabled. The roads through Liege would be opened12 days after mobilization, the French frontier reached 22 days aftermobilization, and Paris and decisive victory 39 days after mobilization.On the fortieth day forces would begin to be transported to the East toface the Russians who, slow to mobilize in large numbers, posed a lessimmediate threat to Germany (though not to East Prussia). Wary ofClausewitz’s warning concerning ‘friction’ - that the unexpected wouldoccur, and that things would go wrong - the Germans attempted to planfor every conceivable contingency. Far from clearing the ‘fog of war’, theresult of this extensive and highly detailed preplanning was to store upproblems. The key feature of the Plan became not its comprehensiveattention to detail, but its inflexibility.

The Schlieffen Plan failed in August 1914 for a number of possiblereasons: the weakening of the German right wing; the excessiverequirements placed on the German infantry, who would have to marchand fight their way to Paris in some 30

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days3 0; the ability of the French to reorganize and mount adefence against the threat from the German right; and a series of tacticalerrors and unforeseen delays. But behind these mistakes lies somethingmore fundamental: the German inability and unwillingness to react to achanging situation. The reliance on pre-planning meant that Moltke hadlittle or no control over the battle once it began, and that the Generalsin charge of his armies were tied to plans which became less and lessrelevant as the plan unfolded. This is not to say that decisions were notmade in response to developments; rather it is to say that the system wasinsufficiently responsive to change, both through structural limitationsand through the inclination of the commanders in charge ofimplementing the plan. This then is the first key feature to note. Thesecond is the Schlieffen Plan’s attitude towards technology.Underpinning the Plan was the assumption that a direct, frontal assaulton French positions would be impossible due to the advantages modernfirepower gave to the defence. The Schlieffen Plan was therefore basedupon a surprise blow against a weak area of the front, enabling theGerman army to destroy the French in an encounter battle, rather than aset-piece battle against well positioned defences. With the failure of theSchlieffen Plan, and the emergence of a solid line of trenches across theWestern Front in late 1914, such a flanking move became impossible.The Generals now faced the problem of frontal assaults against defendedpositions.

The Period of Static Attritional Warfare The Period of Static Attritional Warfare The Period of Static Attritional Warfare The Period of Static Attritional Warfare

The period 1915-17 saw a different style of warfare emerge, onecharacterised by static attritional warfare. It is this period on theWestern Front which has led to many of the popular images of the FirstWorld War, and in particular to the belief that it was a

30. Paris would be reached 39 days after mobilization began, andtherefore less than 30 days after the main thrust through Belgiumcommenced.

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senseless war where Generals, removed from the battlefield and from thehuman realities of war, squandered the lives of their men in ill-conceivedoffensives against well prepared defensive positions. This was the periodof huge battles such as Verdun (1916), the Somme (1916) andPasschendaele (1917), where for great loss of life little or no ground wasgained. Instead infantry were hurled at artillery and machine guns withpredictable results

I could see, away to my left and right, long lines of men. Then Iheard the ‘patter, patter’ of machine guns in the distance. By thetime I’d gone another ten yards there seemed to be only a few menleft around me; by the time I had gone twenty yards, I seemed to beon my own. Then I was hit myself. (Sgt. J. Galloway, 3rd TynesideIrish).3 1

The continuous line of trenches meant that there were no flanks to turn,therefore commanders were forced into frontal assaults. Worse, itbecame increasingly apparent that these assaults could not achieve adecisive breakthrough to open up a more mobile campaign. Poorcommunications between offensive forces, the power of defensiveartillery placed outside counter-battery range but within range of forcesas they advanced and closed with trenches, and the comparative easewith which reserves could be brought up by train for the defencecompared to the difficulty in crossing the empty battlefield to reinforcea break-in, all contributed to an inability to break through enemy lines.Thus a tactical impasse was reached: even if advancing forces could breakinto enemy lines, they could not break through them. As this becameincreasingly apparent to commanders, so a new attritional strat

31. Martin Middlebrook, the First Day on the Somme: 1 July 1916(London, 1984), p. 141.

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egy emerged - what John Terraine calls the ‘wearing out fight’3 2 thepurpose of battle was no longer envelopment or the gaining of ground,but the slaughter of the enemy’s forces in situ. That this would involvehuge casualties for one’s own side was unfortunate, but inevitable. In itscrudest form this was the ‘strategy of the longest purse’, where the sideto run out of manpower first would lose. How this strategy was arrivedat, and the continued hope for a breakthrough resulting in a restorationof mobility, is the focus of this section. In particular it will concentrateon the planning for the huge British offensive on the Somme, whichdemonstrated the tension between attritional, firepower orientatedstrategies, and the lingering hope for a restoration of mobility.

1915 saw the Germans focusing their attentions on the Eastern Front,to so cripple the Russian Army (already badly shaken after the defeat atTannenberg in August 1914) that it could play no more useful role inthe war. Accordingly the Germans went on the defensive in the West,holding a front line in France which bulged alarmingly in the directionof Paris. For the French, with the edge of this bulge a mere 5 days marchfrom Paris, and with the psychological blow of the German Armyoccupying large areas of France, the priority was to throw the Germansback by launching offensives either side of this bulge. Since the BritishArmy was still in the process of transforming itself from a smallprofessional army to Kitchener’s million-strong ‘New Army’, thisoffensive would have to be carried out by the French Army. Starting inlate 1914, and throughout the early part of 1915, the French attackedthe Germans. Again, offensive spirit was emphasised, and elan wasconsidered to be of huge importance. But the firepower of the Frenchartillery began to assume greater

32. Terraine, White Heat, p. 204ff.

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significance, with some pieces firing 25 rounds per minute. The strategybehind this was to exert pressure on the German lines over a sustainedperiod such that eventually cracks would appear. Further pressure wouldthen ensure the collapse of the front at these weak points which couldthen be exploited.3 3 In other words, the strategy was based on attrition,and upon a combination of physical and moral factors; but its aim wasthe restoration of mobility through the exploitation of a weakenedsector.

The failure of the French 1914-15 offensives, where some quarter of amillion casualties saw the capture of no more than a few villages, set thetone for the rest of this period. In February 1916 the Germans, underMoltke’s successor Falkenhayn, went back on the offensive in the West,attacking the weakened French Army at Verdun. Falkenhayn’s aim wassimple: the physical destruction of the French Army. By bleeding theFrench Army dry he hoped to so shatter French morale that their wareffort would collapse. Thus the battle plan was not to capture ground, toenvelop the enemy, or to break through and restore mobility, but toannihilate the French Army where it stood.3 4 Slow but inexorableGerman pressure drew in more French reserves, whose own counter-attacks equally sucked in more Germans. Like heavyweight sluggers, thetwo armies fought each other over a period not of hours, days, or weeks,but months, until by the end of June, after four months of blood letting,the French Army was nearing the point of collapse. Thus the Frenchpressured their British allies into an early start for their own offensivefurther North. So it was that on the 132nd day of the Battle of Verdun,the British attacked on the Somme.

The Somme was the first battle for the ‘New Army’, the army of

33. John Terraine, the First World War 1914-18(London, 1984), p.61ff.

34. Terraine, White Heat, p. 204ff.21

volunteers raised by Lord Kitchener. The battle was to be foughtprimarily by Rawlinson’s Fourth Army, with Allenby’s Third Armyproviding a diversionary attack at Gommecourt on Rawlinson’s left, andGough’s Fifth Cavalry Army in reserve to exploit a breakthrough. Inoverall command was General Sir Douglas Haig. On the eve of battleRawlinson’s Fourth Army amounted to just over half a million men, andon the first day of the battle he would launch some 18 divisions at theGermans with a seven to one numerical superiority. Some 60% of thebattalions in these 18 divisions were volunteers, almost none of whomhad seen battle before. In later years these would be seen as the cream ofthe nation’s manhood; at the time, for commanders like Haig andRawlinson, they were novice amateurs of questionable reliability underfire.3 5

The British offensive was a carefully planned, set-piece battle involving ahuge preliminary artillery bombardment, extensive preparatory training,and even the construction of tunnels to mine the German positions.Behind this careful preparation however lay a fundamental difference ofopinion between Rawlinson and Haig. For Haig, a cavalry officerschooled in the cult of the offensive and the psychological battlefield,the battle offered perhaps the last opportunity for the British cavalry.3 6

More importantly, Haig’s Staff College training had impressed upon himthe importance of the structured battlefield. For Haig, an offensiveshould be structured with three clear, distinct phases. The first phaseused artillery to wear down the enemy defences over a period of days orweeks. In the second phase, the infantry would attack across a broadfront to draw in enemy reserves. Finally the third phase would see adecisive, surprise blow by

35. Middlebrook, pp. 78-9.

36. Middlebrook, p. 71.

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reserve forces against an enemy weak point, resulting in a breakthroughto be exploited by the cavalry.3 7 Haig therefore ordered Gough’s CavalryArmy to wait until Rawlinson’s infantry had secured a breakthrough, atwhich point they would push through the gap created, and head into theGerman rear.3 8

In contrast, Rawlinson doubted the practicality of cavalry exploitationbecause of the increased firepower available to the defence. ForRawlinson the problem was less one of breaking through enemy lines andexploitation, than of holding on to initial gains in the face of theinevitable counter-attack. Rawlinson was therefore less influenced by thecult of the offensive than by the effects of modern firepower. His planwas accordingly somewhat less ambitious in its scope, and centred uponartillery supported by infantry. The essence of Rawlinson’s plan may becharacterised as ‘bite and hold’: a massive artil lery bombardment woulddestroy the enemy’s first line of defences; the infantry would then walkover the empty battlefield to clear the enemy trenches, and wait for thecounter-attack. As Middlebrook comments

Rawlinson planned to use the heaviest and longest bombardment ofthe war to destroy the German line . The infantry themselves wererelegated to the role of mopping up and occupying defences thathad already been destroyed for them by the artil lery.3 9

The result was a plan where the details were carefully worked out, butwhich lacked strategic coherence. The root cause of this was theexistence at this time of two very different conceptions

37. See in particular Travers, chapters 4 and 6.

38. Middlebrook, p. 71.

39. Middlebrook, p. 75. See also Travers, pp. 54 and 132-3.

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of warfare. The first saw battle in human terms, as a triumph of spiritand discipline over firepower. This was the view of Haig and GHQ inFrance. The second was more ‘modern’ and emphasised the role - indeed,the dominance - of firepower on the battlefield. These views were heldnot merely by Rawlinson, but by the Minister of War Lord Kitchener,and by the GIGS General Sir William Robertson.4 0 What is alsointeresting is that neither Haig nor Rawlinson appear to have had anystrategic objective other than killing Germans. Whereas the SchlieffenPlan was aimed at Paris, the French attack of 1914 at recovering Alsaceand Lorraine, and the Russian offensive of 1914 at East Prussia as thegateway to Berlin, by 1916 objectives had been limited to thedestruction of enemy armies.

The British attacked on 1 July 1916, and suffered their single bloodiestday of this or any war. By evening they had suffered over 57, 000casualties, and had barely achieved any of their first day objectives.4 1

The scale of the disaster seems to have initially escaped Haig, who waslocated well behind the front line and isolated by his staff and his ownpersonality from what was happening.4 2 Nevertheless news eventuallypercolated through, and as the battle staggered on Haig’s hopes for abreakthrough were slowly dropped. The reasons why the first day wassuch a disaster are, like many such disasters, many and perhaps all tooeasily identified in hindsight. Nevertheless there appear to be threebroad categories of reasons for the failure of the first day.4 3 The firstconcentrates on technical factors, principally that the British artilleryfailed to penetrate the deep German trenches,

40. Travers, p. 54.

41. The best single account of this day remains Middlebrook, op. cit.See also Lyn MacDonald, Somme (London, 1989).

42. Travers, p. 153.

43. See particularly Travers, p. 154 ff.

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and that as a result the German machine gunners were still alive and ableto fire against the rows of British troops slowly marching across thebattlefield. Secondly a number of tactical failures are evident,particularly the failure to even attempt to achieve surprise, poor counter-battery work by the artillery, the early lifting of the artillery barragewhich allowed the German machine gunners time to reach the tops oftheir trenches, and the deployment of the infantry in line-abreastformation to ensure an ordered march across the battlefield.

The final set of reasons concern the command relationship. Here thereare two broad critiques. Firstly that the Generals, particularly Haig andRawlinson, were too isolated and insensitive to feedback from morejunior officers (even Corps commanders were expected to listen toRawlinson, and not to offer constructive criticism or other suggestions).Secondly, the nature of the New Army - amateurs, untested by battle -led to an excessive emphasis upon discipline and order. In particulartroops were expected to march in battle in a preordained, parade-styleformation to encourage unit cohesion, and to follow orders at all costs toprevent a collapse of will. The result was a complete loss of initiative andflexibility which, when coupled to the isolation of higher commanders,resulted in mistakes being repeated and compounded.

Despite the disaster of the first day, as John Terraine rightly points outthe Somme lasted throughout the Summer of 1916 and, following onfrom Verdun, broke the back of the German Army. After the Somme theGermans were forced to shorten their lines, and retreated to a new lineof defences, christened the Hindenburg Line.4 4 The blood letting wasbeginning to take its toll. In what was becoming the ‘strategy of thelongest purse’, the Germans were beginning to look the weaker.

44. Terraine, First World War, p. 122.

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1917 however began well for the Germans in the South, with thedisastrous French attack of Chemin des Dames. The French were sobadly mauled in this that their front line troops mutinied and Frenchcommanders were forced onto the defensive for the rest of the war.Further North the British were more successful at Arras in April andJune, but the major Summer and Autumn offensive at Passchendaeleproved to be another huge battle characterised by massive losses. As thetable below indicates, British losses had been steadily mounting. By thebeginning of 1918 the British Army had been severely weakened, and theFrench were effectively incapable of offensive action.4 5 Although theUnited States had now entered the war, sizeable numbers of Americantroops had yet to arrive in France. Germany had also sufferedenormously, but going into 1918 it had a major advantage: the Russianrevolution had effectively brought the war on the Eastern Front to anend, releasing German troop there for duty on the Western Front. TheSpring of 1918 therefore presented the Germans with a window ofopportunity. The British and French were still weak, the Americans hadyet to arrive, while German troops transferred from the Eastern Frontcould be used in one last throw of the dice on the Western Front.

BRITISH CASUALTIES, 1915- 1917

Neuve Chapelle, March 1915 12, 892Aubers Ridge and Festubert, May 1915 28, 267Loos, September and October 1915 61, 713Somme, July - November 1916 415, 000Arras, April and May 1917 139, 867Passchendaele, June - November 1917 250, 000Cambrai, November and December 1917 70, 264

Middlebrook, the Kaiser’s Battle, pp. 22-3

45. Martin Middlebrook, the Kaiser’s Battle (London, 1983), pp. 20-1.Although over 600, 000 men were available in the UK as reinforcements,the British Prime Minister Lloyd George was unwilling to release themfearing Haig would simply use them as cannon fodder.

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The Kaiser’s Battle: the German Spring Offensive of 1918The Kaiser’s Battle: the German Spring Offensive of 1918The Kaiser’s Battle: the German Spring Offensive of 1918The Kaiser’s Battle: the German Spring Offensive of 19184 64 64 64 6

Planning for the German Spring Offensive began late in 1917. InNovember the decision to launch an offensive was taken, and the choiceof Spring the next year was straightforward enough. By then the weatherwould have improved, troops from the Eastern Front would have arrivedand been installed in France, and the Allies would not yet be strongenough to launch an offensive of their own. The choice of where toattack was slightly more difficult, and a number of options weredeveloped. The final choice - Operation Michael - was to attack theBritish right flank at its junction with the French Army, and then toswing North to roll up and destroy the British Army. The choice of thisarea for attack was partly determined by ground (particularly the factthat the ground would dry out quickly, thus avoiding the problem ofmud encountered by the British attack at Passchendaele). But perhapsmore interestingly it was chosen as a weak link in the Allied line. TheBritish forces here were known to be weak, while the junction betweenthe British and French Armies offered many possibilities for confusionand crossed lines of authority amongst the defenders. This then revealsan important point concerning German strategic thinking. The purposebehind the offensive was not to fix the enemy and draw in his reserves inan attritional battle which might eventually result in a breakthrough.Rather the Germans picked a weak sector of the front to facilitate thebreakthrough. The defenders would be destroyed not in situ, but in amobile offensive following a breakthrough. Thus although Middlebrookis correct in drawing a parallel between Operation Michael and Haig’sbreakthrough plan on the Somme4 7 (both battles were fought acrossroughly the same ground), where the two differ fundamentally is in thepriority given to the breakthrough.

46. The chief German architect of the 1918 offensive, Ludendorff,named the battle the Kaiserschlacht(Kaiser’s Battle) in honour of KaiserWilhelm II.

47. Middlebrook, Kaiser’s Battle, p. 32.

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For Haig the breakthrough was a desirable endgame to a structured,three stage battle; for the Germans in 1918 it was the essence of theoperation.4 8

The true importance of the German offensive to the development ofmodern warfare however lies in the way in which they attempted tobreak through enemy lines - the tactical impasse which had confoundedmilitary planners since 1914. In order to achieve this the Germansundertook a major reassessment of tactical methods. This reassessmentused consultations with front line officers, and encouraged new ideas.This in itself was fundamentally different to the practice elsewhere ofimposing solutions from on high, often conceived by General Staffs withlittle or no immediate contact with the battle.4 9 The German GeneralStaff itself had also changed. In 1916 during the British offensive on theSomme, the German Chief of the General Staff, Falkenhayn, had beenreplaced by the partnership of Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Thispartnership, probably the most famous military partnership of thiscentury, had been formed in August 1914. With two Russian armiesadvancing into East Russia, Ludendorff had been transferred from hissuccessful attack at Liege, and Hindenburg had been brought out ofretirement, to take over the command of the German Eighth Army inEast Prussia. Within days they had utterly annihilated one of the twoadvancing Russian armies at Tannenberg, a catastrophe the Russiansnever really recovered from. The Spring 1918 offensive was to be thismythical partnership’s first and only major

48. Other differences include that for Haig the breakthrough would beby cavalry, for the Germans by infantry, and that whereas Haig's attackwas across 16 miles of the front, the German attack was much broader,across a 50 mile front. Middlebrook, Kaisers Battle, p. 34.

49. Travers ch. 5 and p. 143.

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offensive on the Western Front, and in particular it was to beLudendorff’s attempt to solve the problem of static, attritional warfare.5 0

Ludendorff's plan was for an infantry assault and breakthroughsupported by artillery. Cavalry played no part in this, despite being thetraditional arm of exploitation. The artillery plan, devised byBruchmuller, forewent the traditional long bombardment to soften upenemy defences over a number of days - the sort of bombardmentRawlinson had relied upon at the Somme. Instead he concentrated halfof the German artillery available on the Western Front in a single,massive five hour bombardment. The emphasis had therefore shiftedfrom attrition to shock action, with surprise and concentration of firebeing much more prominent considerations. Bruchmuller also paidparticular attention to counter-battery work, so that the advancinginfantry would be less vulnerable to enemy artillery fire. The physicaldestruction of the enemy by artillery - the essence of Rawlinson’s planon the Somme - had been replaced with the idea that artillery paved theway for an infantry assault by confusing the enemy, and by degrading theenemy’s artillery.

Infantry tactics were similarly innovative. The traditional practice hadbeen to devise a rigid plan, choreographed in advance by staff officers,capturing one line of trenches at a time in a steady linear advance.Instead, the Germans encouraged greater initiative amongst officers inthe field, and attempted to improve

50. Ludendorff was the military planner, and the driving force behindthe partnership. The planning for the Spring 1918 offensive wastherefore very much his, with Hindenberg taking something of a backseat.

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the flexibility of operations. Therefore rather than a steady linearadvance maintaining contact with both flanks, officers were given a lineof advance and encouraged to proceed as quickly as possible along thatline, using their own initiative, and regardless of what was happeningon their flanks. The advance was to be led by small groups of speciallytrained troops using infiltration tactics, rather than relying on theweight of a mass, linear attack. Once the front line was pierced, enemystrongpoints were to be by-passed and left for subsequent troops in orderto retain the momentum of the attack. Moreover enemy commandcentres were to be hit hard in an attempt to paralyze the enemy’s abilityto react, and to sow further confusion.5 1 Finally, in order to furtherfacilitate the breakthrough, German strength would be concentrated atselected points in the line, rather than evenly spread across the entirelength of the battlefield. Thus at Queant, a 2, 000 yard line was held byhalf a British division. Against this the Germans assembled an entirecorps totalling five divisions. The aim was to achieve decisive superiorityat weak points, thus making a breakthrough possible.5 2

What emerges from this is a new emphasis upon surprise, momentumand flexibility. Whereas on the Somme, and even with the SchlieffenPlan, these had not headed the list of operational priorities, in theSpring 1918 offensive they became the guiding principles behindGerman operations. Thus what we have is a new form of thepsychological battlefield where human qualities (flexibility and initiativewith the attacking force, confusion and despair amongst defenders) areonce again considered decisive elements in battlefield success. Butwhereas in 1914 the French emphasised human qualities over material(firepower), in 1918 Ludendorff marries the human dimension of thebattle ....

51. Middlebrook, Kaiser’s Battle, pp. 53-5; Griffith, pp. 81-2.

52. Middlebrook, Kaiser’s Battle, pp. 55-6.

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field to the material, devising an artillery plan to closely support theinfantry, and concentrating his forces at key points to achieve numerical(i.e. material) superiority.

The Spring 1918 offensive was initially successful, not merely in piercingthe British lines, but in creating confusion and panic, particularlyamongst Gough’s Fifth Army. The offensive however ultimately failed.This was partly due to a series of tactical and operational mistakes madeby the Germans, but it is difficult to see these as being the sole reasonfor the ultimate German failure to knock the British Army out of thewar, particularly since the British also made a series of mistakes. It hastherefore been popular to blame war-weariness and a lack of materialresources for the German failure. In particular it has been noted that thetroops following the first line of ‘special troops’ were of a much poorerquality, again reflecting the toll of four and a half years of hard fighting.But perhaps most important of all was the German inability to translatea tactical success into a strategic. The German breakthrough andexploitation was hugely successful at the tactical level, but it was unableto transfer this into a breakthrough of strategic significance. Thus theoffensive was a disaster for the two British armies in its immediate path,but not for the entire British Expeditionary Force in France. The reasonfor this was the Germans’ inability to push deeply enough quicklyenough. It is tempting to suggest that this was in turn a technologicaldeficiency which mechanisation and the radio would remedy in 1940.But there is also conceivably a tactical deficiency here in that theGerman breakthrough was too limited in its scope, and relied upon thepsychological dislocation of only those forces it immediately faced, andnot of the entire British Expeditionary Force. Ludendorff has often beenadmired for the ambition of the Spring Offensive. Ironically, perhaps theseeds of its failure were in its lack of ambition.5 3

53. cf. Middlebrook, Kaiser’s Battle, p. 342.

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The Killing Ground? The Killing Ground? The Killing Ground? The Killing Ground?

How can we explain what happened on the Western Front in the FirstWorld War? In particular, how can we explain the static attritionalwarfare of 191 5-1 917 which constituted what Travers terms the ‘killingground’?

there are a number of possible explanations. The first concerns thetechnology used - that technology determined the character of the war.Developments in firepower, particularly in artillery and machine guns,created the empty battlefield, which in turn made offensive actionextremely difficult. Moreover technology limited the means of exploitinga successful break-in. If a line of enemy trenches was captured, then theattacking troops would all too often find themselves vulnerable toenemy counter-attack, out-side the range of their own artillery support,and out of touch with commanders in the rear. Moreover enemy reservescould be brought up by train, while troops to reinforce the attack wouldhave to cross the empty battlefield. Moreover technologies designed toaid offensive action – particularly the tank and gas shells - proved ofdubious reliability. Thus once the initial mobile phase was over, andthere were no flanks to be turned, technology favoured a staticattritional war.

There is clearly much weight to this argument, but it is not convincingas the sole explanation for the style of warfare which emerged. Inparticular it fails to explain the initial success of the German SpringOffensive and how the innovative tactics employed by Ludendorffovercame to some extent the problem of offensive action against fixeddefences. To blame technology also obscures other factors which were atwork during this period, and which also contributed to the style offighting.

A second hypo thesis therefore concerns the way in which the Generalshandled the war. It asserts that the Generals failed to react satisfactorilyto the new battlefield conditions, and that the strategies and tacticsemployed were deeply flawed. Thus when Ludendorff develops moreappropriate battlefield tactics, the

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problem is overcome. This argument has received much public exposure,and has led to the popular criticism of Generals such as Haig as‘donkeys’.5 4 the problem with this view is that the Generals were notsimply pig-headed and ignorant of the changes around them (though insome instances this might have been the case). The close attention paidto the lessons of Russo-Japanese War, the application of ‘scientific’methods to battle plans, and the detailed planning of offensives suggestthat the Generals were careful planners who attempted to learn thelessons of modern warfare. The problem, however, was with the lessonsthey chose to learn, and those they chose to ignore. As Tim Travers hasargued, commanders in 1914 held a set of assumptions about the natureof war, and lessons were learnt within the confines of these assumptionsrather than leading to a more fundamental questioning of theassumptions themselves.5 5 The problem was that the world had changedsufficiently to invalidate these assumptions, and thus their solutionswere flawed. In particular assumptions concerning the power of offensivespirit to overcome firepower, and the importance of discipline and tightplanning led to fundamentally flawed strategies and tactics.

54. From the phrase ‘l ions led by donkeys’ used to describe the BritishExpeditionary Force. The great defender of Haig is John Terraine. Seeparticularly his Doug/as Haig: the Educated Soldier (London, 1963). Seealso Alec Danchev’s review of Terraine’s views, Haig revisited’, RUSIJournal 135/2 (1990), pp. 71-4.

55. Travers, op. cit. This is based upon Thomas Kuhn’s ideas concerningscientific discovery. Kuhn argues that science progresses not as a series ofbuilding blocks, each being placed on top of the other, but rather as aseries of leaps from one set of fundamental assumptions to another. Thusphysicists from Newton worked within a set of assumptions concerningmotion and matter. But these assumptions became increasingly tenuousas experiments produced results which did not correspond with theseassumptions. Then with Einstein’s theory of relativity, theseassumptions were abandoned in favour of a different series ofassumptions (or what is termed a paradigm).

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The final hypothesis considers war not as a military but as a socialphenomenon. Thus wars between mass industrialised societies, unlessthey are won quickly, will inevitably develop into wars of attrition whereentire societies are mobilised for the war effort, and where victory isdependent upon out-producing the enemy in war material (includingmanpower). The most popular advocate of this view is John Terraine,who argues that in a war between mass industrialised societies victory isarrived at not by taking ground, but by imposing unacceptable lossesupon the enemy. In this respect Terraine claims that the First WorldWar was no different to the American Civil War or the Second WorldWar. This argument again carries some weight, but has two flaws. Firstlyit fails to explain why battles in the period 1915-1917 were so static.The wearing down battles of the Second World War in particular werecharacterised by mobility. Thus this theory may account for theattritional nature of the war, but it fails to explain why it was static.Secondly, it fails to explain the peculiarly wasteful tactics adopted bycommanders with respect to their own men, and the manner in whichcommanders such as Haig, Rawlinson and Moltke were removed fromthe battlefield.

Individually, none of these hypotheses satisfactorily accounts for theevents on the Western Front in the First World War, but together theygo some way towards an explanation. Perhaps the most interestingfeature however concerns the relationship between thehuman/psychological battlefield and the material/firepower battlefield.Neither conception of war worked particularly well. The French inAugust 1914 in particular suffered horrendously from an over-commitment to the psychological battlefield in the offensive al’outrance, while firepower theories led to bloody slaughter at Verdun,the Somme and Passchendaele. It was only when firepower wassatisfactorily married to the human battlefield in Ludendorff’s 1918offensive that the strategic and tactical impasse of modern war wasovercome.

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The Inter-War YearsThe Inter-War YearsThe Inter-War YearsThe Inter-War Years

In the sorry aftermath of the First World War, two competing schools ofthought emerged concerning the nature of modern war. The firstconsidered the Great War’ to have set the pattern of modern war. Inbroad terms, wars would be characterised by attrition; by firepower andby the defensive prevailing. This was the predominant school of thoughtin official circles, and led to the construction of a series of powerfuldefensive lines, the most famous of which was the French Maginot Line.The second, competing school of thought stemmed from a revulsion atwhat had happened on the Western Front, and the conviction that a new(and implicitly better) approach was required. Advocates of a radical newapproach included Liddell Hart and Fuller in Britain, Guderian inGermany, and Tukhachevskii in the Soviet Union.5 6 Although there are anumber of important differences between these radical thinkers, anumber of similarities can also be detected. Firstly there was a commonemphasis upon the need to restore mobility to warfare, an emphasiswhich drew them towards the possibility that mechanisation mightrevolutionise the battlefield. In particular the impact of the tankreceived much attention. Secondly there was an emphasis upon avoidingfrontal assaults against prepared positions. Liddell Hart in particular isassociated with the idea of the ‘indirect approach’, though it should benoted that these ideas were not simply geographic’ (e.g. turning a flank)but ‘psychological’ (e.g. The use of surprise to catch the enemyunprepared). Thirdly, tactical

56. See for example: Richard Simpkin, Deep Battle: the Brainchild ofMarshal Tukhachevskii(London, 1987); Brian Bond, Liddell-Hart: A Studyof his Military Thought (London, 1977); Brian Holden-Reid, J F CFuller: Military Thinker(London, 1987); B H Liddell Hart, the Other Sideof the Hill: Germany’s Generals, their Rise and Fall, with their OwnAccount of Military Events 1939-45 (London, 1948); Hew Strachan,European Armies and the Conduct of War (London, 1983), pp. 160-3. Fora critical assessment of Liddell Hart see John J Mearsheimer, LiddellHart and the Weight of History (Ithaca, N.Y., 1988).

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ideas tended to involve the concentration of force on a narrow front toachieve a breakthrough, which would be exploited by mechanised forces(particularly tanks). And finally these radical thinkers appearedincreasingly concerned with psychological effects, and in particular witheroding the enemy’s will to fight. Thus the confusion caused by theappearance of forces in the defender’s rear, forces moreover which werehighly mobile and which could therefore appear and disappear withstartling rapidity, would cause massive damage to an enemy’s morale.Thus it was no longer necessary to annihilate the army in the field;rather the enemy’s will to fight could be eroded.

This debate over the nature of modern war was mirrored in the debateover the tank. It is important to note that the debate was less over thetank’s importance- most armies readily recognised that it was animportant new weapon on the battlefield - but on how it was to be used.Again two schools of thought are apparent. The first saw the tank as amobile source of firepower to be used in support of the infantry, andtherefore to be incorporated into infantry dominated formations. Thiswas the British Army’s view,5 7 the view of the Soviet Union after thepurges of the early-mid 1930s, and the view of the German General Staffin the mid-1930s. The second school of thought is more commonlyassociated with radical thinkers such as Liddell Hart, Guderian andTukhachevskii, though it was adopted by the Red Army prior to Stalin’spurges, and increasingly by the German Army in the late 1930s.According to this school of thought, the tank should be used as anindependent arm of

57. The British Army was the most fully mechanised army to go to warin 1939, but its view of the tank as an infantry support weapon meantthat it operated in a very different manner to, for example, the GermanPanzer divisions. Thus it was not mechanisation which led to theopening up of the battlefield in the form of the Blitzkrieg, but the wayarmoured forces were used.

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exploitation to strike deep into the enemy’s rear. Tanks should thereforebe concentrated in units separate from the main infantry armies, andsupported by mechanised infantry.

By 1939 neither this debate concerning the tank, nor the broader debateconcerning the nature of modern war had been satisfactorily resolved. Aswill be seen, the Second World War provided some support for bothschools of thought in both debates, but by the end of the war asomewhat different style of battle was emerging, incorporating elementsfrom a number of schools of thought in the inter-war years.

Blitzkrieg and Attrition: the Second World WarBlitzkrieg and Attrition: the Second World WarBlitzkrieg and Attrition: the Second World WarBlitzkrieg and Attrition: the Second World War

Superficially the Second World War appears to have been fought in avery different manner to the First. Whereas the First World Warproduced a lingering memory of static, attritional warfare, and ofapparently senseless battles with higher command removed from thereality and true horrors of war, the popular memory of the SecondWorld War is summed up in one word -Blitzkrieg. In reality howeverthere are strong threads of continuity linking the First to the SecondWorld War. In particular the envelopment strategy of the Schlieffen Planwas also used for the Blitzkrieg; the infantry tactics of Ludendorff’sSpring 1918 offensive formed the basis for infantry tactics in the SecondWorld War, and created a number of important innovations for use inmanoeuvre warfare; Joffre-esque attritional tactics were extensivelyapplied in set-piece battles - albeit perhaps in a more subtle form; andthe middle years of the War were marked by an attritional phase similarin effect, if not necessarily in style, to the middle years of the FirstWorld War.5 8 In other words continuity

58. On this theme of continuity rather than change see G D. Sheffield,‘Blitzkrieg and attrition: land operations in Europe, 1914-45’, in ColinMclnnes and G D Sheffield eds., Warfare in the Twentieth Century(London, 1988), pp.51-79. I have shamelessly borrowed the title of thissection from G D Sheffield.

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as well as change was apparent. This in turn has suggested a simpletechnological reductionism: that the elements of change in the characterof war were the result of technological developments, and thatcontinuity was the result of ‘deeper’ features concerning the unchangingnature of warfare and the relationship between society and war. Inparticular it may be argued that improved battlefield mobility was aproduct of mechanisation, and therefore that the Blitzkrieg was a tankphenomenon. As with most reductionist arguments, there is an elementof truth in this, but this element of truth has been exaggerated toobscure other determining factors. This has therefore produced anargument which simplifies what happened. In particular it obscures thedeveloping relationship between the human and material battlefieldswhich was a key feature of both the First and Second World Wars.

The Second World War in Europe may be usefully divided into twobroad phases, each characterised by the ascendancy of a specific style ofwarfare.5 9 The first phase is from the outbreak of war in 1939 through tothe German defeat at El Alamein and the stalling of their offensive atStalingrad in 1942. This phase was marked by the ascendancy of amanoeuvre-orientated style of warfare, emphasising battlefield mobility,deep envelopment and psychological impact. The second phase, from1942 through to 1945, saw the ascendancy of a different style of warfare,one which emphasised firepower, attrition and material advantage. A keyfeature to note however is that the two styles were not mutuallyexclusive, but rather that at various stages of the war one style was moresuccessful than the other. Thus the French in 1940 failed to engage theGermans in a firepower-orientated style of warfare, while Germanattempts at manoeuvre warfare

59. This analysis concentrates on the war between European powers,broadly defined to include the war on the Eastern Front and the war inNorth Africa.

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at Kursk (1943) and in the Battle of the Bulge (1944) failed. Moreintriguing still is the way in which one style was incorporated into theother, one providing the dominant theme, the other a major sub- theme.Thus Soviet operational art towards the end of the war emphasisedfirepower and attritional elements, but also used mobile tank armies fordeep envelopment in manoeuvre-style warfare.

The first theme, that of a manoeuvre-style warfare demonstratedprincipally in the German Blitzkrieg campaigns, displays a number offeatures. Firstly the importance of surprise and deception in catching theenemy off balance and therefore vulnerable to a sudden, daring thrustthrough his lines. Surprise also enables the attacker to seize theinitiative, and erodes the enemy’s morale. Examples of this are theGerman Panzer assault through the Ardennes in 1940, and the Germaninvasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. In the first example, the directionof the German assault caught the French by surprise, in the second thetiming of the German assault (coupled to Stalin’s unwillingness tobelieve the Germans would attack) caught the Red Army by surprise. Inboth instances surprise assisted greatly not merely in physicallyweakening the enemy, but in eroding his morale. Following closely onfrom the importance of surprise, a second key feature is theconcentration of force at weak spots. The Ardennes in 1940 againprovides a good example, this time of the Germans successfully attackinga weak sector of the Maginot Line, while the failure of the Germanattack at Kursk in 1943 owed much to the attack being conductedwithout the benefit of surprise against strong, well prepared Sovietdefences.

A third characteristic is the use of a combined arms assault to breakthrough enemy lines, to be exploited by a mobile group launched deepinto the enemy rear. The important point to note here is that Blitzkriegdid not, as some writers have suggested, involve the avoidance of battle.6 0

Rather a combined arms

60. Griffith, p. 89.

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assault was the first step in launching a mobile campaign. Thus theGermans fought a tough battle around Sedan before breaking throughthe French lines in the Ardennes in 1940, a battle in which the infantrysupported by firepower were crucial, while the German invasion of theSoviet Union began with massive infantry and artil lery assaults on Sovietfrontier defences.6 1

Fourthly, the breakthrough was followed by an envelopment of theenemy’s armed forces. In France, the bulk of the French Army and theBritish Expeditionary Force was enveloped by the German thrust fromthe Ardennes north to the English Channel, while OperationalBarbarossa involved the envelopment of huge numbers of Soviet troops,most notably at Minsk and Smolensk. Two features are worthcommenting upon concerning this strategy of envelopment. The first isthat this was far from an innovative strategy, and had deep rootsparticularly in the German military tradition. Indeed the plannedenvelopment of British and French forces in 1940 was initially a faircopy of the Schlieffen Plan, envisaging an attack through Belgium, and itwas only at a comparatively late stage that attention shifted to a blowthrough the Ardennes supplementing the advance through Belgium.Thus although envelopment was a key feature of this style of warfare, itwas far from being innovative. Secondly the focus of the envelopmentwas the enemy’s armed forces, not a strategic location. Its aim was torender the enemy’s army incapable of action by both physical andpsychological means. Traditionally the envelopment had been used tothrow an enemy off balance, leading to its physical destruction in thefield. The assumption was that the envelopment would be followed bybattle ( the kesselschlacht or ‘cauldron battle’), after which the enemymight be physically and/or morally defeated. With the

61. On Sedan see Robert Allan Doughty, the Breaking Point: Sedanand the Fall of France, 1940 (Hamden, Conn., 1990); on the invasionof the Soviet Union see John Erickson, the Road to Stalingrad(London,1975).

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Blitzkrieg however it became increasingly apparent that physicaldestruction might not be necessary, and that the cauldron battle mightbe avoided. This was because of the psychological impact of mechanizedforces appearing in the rear of an army, and the collapse in morale thatthis might engender. David Irving writes of Rommel’s advance intoFrance on 16-17 May 1940, having pierced the Maginot Line.

There was no firing. Every unit he met meekly surrendered and, atRommel’s suggestion, began plodding eastward into captivity, theenemy evidently believing that their position was more precariousthan Pommel’s, which was not so.6 2

Two final characteristics of this style of warfare were the relativeimportance attached to maintaining momentum, and the opportunisticnature of many operations. Both of these clearly reflect the human sideof modern warfare. Momentum avoids a fixed battle where firepowerwould play a relatively more important role, and reinforces thepsychological dislocation felt by the defending troops. Opportunismfavours individual initiative and flexibility over pre-planning. This leadsto an important conclusion. The first phase of the Second World Warsaw the ascendancy of the human battlefield over the material. Surprise,momentum, morale and opportunism are all facets of the humanbattlefield. But this was grounded in an appreciation of the materialaspects of war - in an appreciation of the importance of firepower (foruse by attacking forces in piercing enemy lines, and to be denieddefending forces once the battlefield opens up), and in an understandingof the need to concentrate at the decisive point. Thus this style ofwarfare was not so much the triumph of the human battlefield over thematerial; rather it was

62. David Irving, the Trail of the Fox: the Life of Field-Marshal ErwinRommel (London, 1977), p. 43.

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that human factors were placed higher on commanders agendas thanmaterial. A balance was struck in favour of human factors, but materialfactors played a supporting role.

The second phase of the war however saw a different style of battleemerge, one which placed a higher priority on material aspects.Moreover, whereas the chief practitioners of the first style had been theGermans, this second style of fighting was more closely associated withthe Soviets and the Anglo-American alliance. Thus it is not entirelycoincidental that the first style Germany sees on the strategic offensivein the West, in North Africa and in the Soviet Union, while the secondsees the allies push the Germans Out of North Africa, back up Italy, andacross France into the Reich, while the Soviets conduct a series ofoffensives pushing the Germans back from Stalingrad in the South andLeningrad in the North, to Berlin. Two background factors helped thisnew style of warfare emerge. Firstly the tank, the weapon which hadsymbolised the first style of warfare, became less effective as a shockweapon. Troops - particularly infantry - learned new tactics to deal withthe tank, and effective anti-tank weapons became increasingly available.Thus at Kursk in 1943, German tanks ran into anti-tank screenssupported by Soviet tanks, while at Alam Halfa in 1942 Pommel’s AfrikaKorps was brought up sharp by Montgomery’s well-positioned anti-tankdefences. This is not to say that the tank could no longer be a decisiveweapon; rather it is to say that the tank’s psychological impact wasreduced as its novelty was eroded, and as weapons and tactics weredeveloped to counter it. Secondly industrial strength and the quantity ofweapons began to play an increasing role in battles. Thus Montgomeryrefused to go on to the offensive in Egypt until he had achieved decisivematerial superiority over the enemy, while Stalin’s guiding principles ofwar - the ‘permanently operating factors’ - reveal an emphasis onquantity which was in turn reflected in the numerical superiority theSoviets regularly achieved on the battlefield. To destroy German ArmyGroup Centre in Operation Bagration (June 1944) for example, theSoviets amassed a 2.5:1 superiority in men,

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2.9:1 in guns and mortars, 4.3:1 in tanks and 4.5:1 in aircraft.6 3 As theSoviet maxim put it, ‘quantity has a quality of its own’.

This second phase of the War was characterised by a number of features.Firstly artillery and infantry became increasingly important in theplanning for, and conduct of battles. For the Soviets, artillery was themaster of the battlefield, not the tank, whilst Montgomery was noted forhis use of artillery at El Alamein.6 4 Again it is important not tooverestimate this. The tank remained an important weapon on thebattlefield, whilst artillery and infantry had been far from unimportantin the earlier phase of the war. But the balance had shifted. Also a newtype of formation was emerging: the combined arms unit. Battles werebeing fought by synergistic units - artillery, infantry, armour, andengineers working together such that the whole was greater than the sumof the parts. In addition aircraft became increasingly a factor, not merelyin interdicting lines of supply, but in direct support of land operations.6 5

Thus the modern combined arms, land-air battle emerged in the NorthAfrican desert, and the Soviet steppes.

Secondly battle was increasingly characterised by massive combined armsassaults used to weaken enemy defences, followed by a mobile phaseusing armoured forces to exploit the break

63. Gerd Niepold, Battle for White Russia: the Destruction of ArmyGroup Centre, June 1944, trans. Richard Simpkin (London, 1987), p.57. .pa

64. On Montgomery see in particular Nigel Hamilton’s three volumehistory Monty. El Alamein is dealt with in the first volume, Monty: theMaking of a General, 1887-1942 (London, 1981).

65. Although the German Stuka had been used in support of theBlitzkrieg campaigns, its effectiveness was very limited (Doughty, pp.323-4).

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through and envelop the enemy. Thus in Operation Bagration of June1944, the Soviets deployed a crushing weight on the German line, withinfantry, artillery and tanks breaking into enemy lines in a combinedarms operation. Mobile tank corps then exploited this success with deepthrusts to surround the enemy. Roughly one-third of all tanks were usedin the first phase, two-thirds in the second.6 6 It is interesting to note therole surprise played in this battle. The Soviets used deception(maskirovka) extensively throughout the war, and by 1944 had becomeadept in its use. In this instance the Soviets were able to deceive theGermans into thinking that their Summer 1944 offensive would befurther to the South against Army Group North Ukraine. As a result theGermans transferred the powerful LVI Panzer Corps from Army GroupCentre to Army Group North Ukraine, depriving the former of 82% ofits tanks, 20-30% of its artillery, 50% of its self propelled anti-tankguns, and 15% of its divisions.6 7 It is also interesting to compare Sovietoperational art in 1944 with Haig’s plans for the Somme. Superficiallythe two appear to share a number of conceptual similarities, in particularthe idea of a massive assault to weaken the defences, followed by amobile exploitation to envelop the enemy. Yet the two are in reality verydifferent. For the Soviets, surprise, speed of assault, concentration ofeffort at key points, and combined arms operations were all essential tothe successful conduct of the battle, whereas for Haig and Rawlinsonthey ranked much lower on their list of priorities. The difference wastherefore not so much the technology available as the priorities of thecommanders fighting the battle, what we might term the ‘battle agenda’.

A third characteristic of this phase of the war was the relative importanceof planning over opportunism. The point is not that

66. Niepold, p.263.67. Niepold, p.15.

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planning replaced opportunism: detailed planning was in evidenceduring 1939-42, and opportunism did occur after 1942. But the balancehad shifted towards greater planning and a reduced scope foropportunism. This reflects once again the more material approach to warduring this phase. A greater emphasis was placed upon the destruction ofenemy forces by the careful massing of resources. Less emphasis wasplaced on daring, risky moves which might backfire, but which ifsuccessful might reap disproportionate dividends ( the US GeneralGeorge Patton being a notable exception). In part this was becausedisproportionate dividends were not required given material superiority.The Germans lacked material superiority in 1940 and 1941, andtherefore placed greater emphasis on the human battlefield. The Anglo-American Allies and the Soviets began to enjoy material superiority from1942 on, or were able to achieve it through the use of deception, andcould use this for battlefield success.

Finally the balance between psychological dislocation and the physicaldestruction of enemy forces was shifted in favour of physical destruction,again symptomatic of a greater emphasis on the material battlefield.Thus Montgomery encouraged his forces at El Alamein to ‘kill Germans’,and the essence of his battle plan was the systematic annihilation of theenemy infantry (what he termed ‘crumbling’).6 8 This was a pattern hewas to follow in Sicily, Italy and France. Similarly the Soviets placedgreater emphasis upon the destruction of German forces than on theircracking under psychological pressure. When morale did play animportant role, it was in motivating forces for attack. Montgomerytherefore, despite his emphasis upon careful planning and the‘crumbling’ of enemy defences, also considered highly motivated soldiersessential to the success of any

68. Hamilton, p. 711ff

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operation. Morale was not to be displaced by firepower, but was to workwith it to ensure battlefield success.

By the end of the war then a style of warfare had emerged whichblended elements of both the human and material battlefields. Thematerial battlefield was dominant, and overwhelming firepower providedthe key to success; but human factors provided a major sub- theme, andmanoeuvre an important element in overall success.

Conclusion Modern Warfare Conclusion Modern Warfare Conclusion Modern Warfare Conclusion Modern Warfare - Principles and PracticePrinciples and PracticePrinciples and PracticePrinciples and Practice

Constructing a list of the principles of war can become something akinto a shopping list, or perhaps more accurately a wish list. The purchaseof an item from this list may well preclude purchasing other items - whateconomists call opportunity costs. Such a list may include the followingitems:

• Concentration of force at decisive points• Surprise• Superiority of fire• Clear plan of operations• Operational flexibility• Momentum and mobility• Discipline• Morale

But what happens when these items contradict each other? ForRawlinson on the Somme, firepower precluded surprise. For Haig,discipline precluded operational flexibility. For Ludendorff, surprisemeant foregoing the full exploitation of the concentration of artillery in1918. For Montgomery, the concentration of force, weight of firepowerand clear planning constrained his ability to manoeuvre forces andexploit mobility in the manner Rommel did. The simple answer to this isthat a balance needs to be struck between competing principles. But thismerely raises the question of where the balance is to be struck. Whichprinciples are to receive priority? And to what extent should otherprinciples be sacrificed for their sake?

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The period 1914-45 saw the development of a balance through theworkings of two not quite distinct sets of priorities. The first emphasisedhuman qualities: morale, surprise, initiative (or, sometimes, discipline).The second emphasised material qualities: firepower, concentration offorce, planning. During the First World War these two approachescompeted, with clear priority being given to one set of priorities, whilstat the same time others might be almost completely abandoned. Thisfailed. Ludendorff’s Spring 1918 Offensive attempted to balance the twoapproaches, and part of its success was attributable to this. But by 1939the balance had yet to be fully determined, and although the Germansenjoyed an advantage in the early years through emphasising humanqualities (though not to the exclusion of material) this proved to beshort-lived. At the end of the war the balance which had emergedfavoured the material battlefield, but with important concessions to thehuman. Thus firepower emerged as dominant, though not to theexclusion of surprise and momentum. Surprise and momentum were tobe achieved within a context set by firepower. Similarly clear planningwas essential on the complex and large battlefields of the twentiethcentury. But within this clear plan, elements of flexibility must be builtin to allow for the exploitation of initiative, and for opportunism. ThusOperation Desert Storm worked within a context set by a clear plan, andby overwhelming firepower. These were the dominant themes. Butwithin these, initiative, surprise, momentum and flexibility were clearsub- themes.

Printed in the United Kingdom for the Stationery OfficeJ0048289 6/98 10170

THE AUTHORTHE AUTHORTHE AUTHORTHE AUTHOR

COLIN J McINNESCOLIN J McINNESCOLIN J McINNESCOLIN J McINNES

Dr Dr Dr Dr Colin J Mclnnes is Defence Lecturer in the Department ofInternational Politics, the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. Hewas formerly a lecturer in the Department of War Studies, RMASandhurst. He is the author of a number of books and articles, includingTrident: the Only Option?, (1986) Warfare in the Twentieth Century(ed.with C D Sheffield) (1988), NATO’s Changing Strategic Agenda (1990),and Security and Strategy in the New Europe (ed.) (1992).

Errata

SCSI Occasional Paper Number 1

War Studies at the Staff College 1890-1930Brian Holden Reid

Page 8. The second line of Footnote 8 has beenreplicated at the top of this page andshould be deleted.

Page 16. Footnote 18 has been omitted. Thefollowing should be inserted aboveFootnote 19.

18.Brian Holden Reid, .J F C Fuller:Military Thinker(London: Macmillan, 1987), p 28.