the Russian army had acquired quite a new character. In place of the
old soldiers with their long term of service, whose regiment had been
their home, there were now levies of troops subject first to a
six-year and later to a four-year and three-year term of service.
Many conditions which had formerly contributed to the efficiency of
the Russian troops were now abolished. The subordination of the
peasants disappeared more and more, but it could not be replaced by
that conscious and enlightened sense of duty which is possible only
in an old civilised nation. If the Russian army was found wanting in
Eastern Asia, this was due above all to the fact that it proved
incapable of adapting itself to the conditions of modern warfare. It
afforded no opportunity for the training of the individual soldier to
self-reliance in war. In his report to the Tsar upon the Manchurian
campaign Kuropatkin said:
"Undoubtedly, universal military service has, from a moral
standpoint, improved the mass of our troops, but in view of the low
standard of civilisation of the individual men, it is difficult to
infuse them with the notion of discipline. Belief in God, devotion
to the Tsar, love for the Fatherland, still contribute to keep the
soldiers firm in the ranks, and to make them brave and obedient
fighters, but these feelings have in recent times been severely
shaken and forcibly wrested from the heart of the Russian."
The unpopularity of the war against Japan was, in the opinion of the
General, chiefly to blame for the often very defective resistance of
the troops in battle. He writes:
"To-day more than ever, the moral strength of an army is governed by
public feeling. Therefore, in order to be successful, a war must be
popular, the whole people must strive for success in harmony with the
Government. But the aims which we pursued in the Far East were
understood neither by the Russian soldiers nor their officers."
In 1914, on the other hand, this condition was completely satisfied:
at the beginning, the war was extremely popular in Russia. Moreover,
the Russian army had learnt much from the Manchurian campaign, both
as regards organisation and also as regards strategy and tactics. It
had been systematically organised and prepared for the war against
Germany and Austria-Hungary. Nevertheless, the defects in the
political organism of the Empire and in the national character could
not be remedied in a decade. Kuropatkin expressed his conviction
that, in a war against Germany and Austria-Hungary, Russia would
certainly in the first instance be defeated. Only with time did he
hope for a turn of the tide, thanks to the inexhaustibleness of
Russia's reserves of men. His respect for the superiority of German
training led Kuropatkin, when he was Minister of War, to declare that
a war of conquest against Germany would be a calamity for the Russian
Empire. The World War, no less than the March revolution of the
present year, though in a different sense, has revealed that Russia
was not really ripe for universal military service. Had it been
otherwise, we and our allies might have been unable to defend
ourselves against envelopment by overwhelmingly superior numbers.
More than once did the Austro-Hungarian army threaten to succumb
before the far superior numbers of the Russian forces. At the
beginning, the Austro-Hungarian army proved not strong enough to
defeat the main body of the Russian forces in Galicia. Certainly the
troops showed no lack of heroic self-sacrifice, and the engagements
of August and September, 1914, furnished signal instances of the
splendid courage of the army of the Dual Monarchy, which was in fact
filled with glowing enthusiasm for this contest of giants.
Naturally, in view of the mixture of races comprised in the Dual
Monarchy, it could not be kindled through and through with a common
ardour to the same degree as the German army. Such a unity of
sentiment as existed with us was impossible in its case. The
Austro-Hungarian military leaders had to cope with difficulties
arising from the mixture of races comprised in their forces,
difficulties which did not exist in the case of ourselves or our
opponents. Moreover, these brave troops had to suffer for the sins
and omissions of which the Parliaments of the Monarchy had been
guilty during past decades. The army was too weak in numbers, and
equipped with far too insufficient an artillery, to enable it to
resist successfully the Russian hordes and at the same time to cope
with the Serbians. The weakness of their regimental cadres in time
of peace had rendered impossible the training for actual
battle-tactics. This fact was bound to result in a certain lack of
unity and cohesion in the larger units.
If the Russians, in spite of their great numerical superiority, did
not succeed in smashing the brave Austro-Hungarian army in the autumn
of 1914 at Lemberg and on the San, that speaks for the small ability
and defective mobility of the Russian army, which, it is true, made
progress in these respects in the course of the War. As a result of
the reckless expenditure of the Russian troops, whose leaders were
always spendthrift of the lives of their men, their army remained,
notwithstanding their heavy losses and the defective training of the
reserves, a redoubtable adversary.
In spite of all the technical improvements of the present day, the
moral element proved to be, now as ever, the decisive factor in war.
In the case of the Central Powers, that lofty moral strength, arising
from the sense of righteous self-defence in a war which had been
thrust upon them, showed its superiority to the zeal which a
commercial and predatory war could kindle in our enemies. The
following words of Droysen[6] completely apply to the German nation:
"Certainly it is not the fortune of war which decides the question of
right and wrong between States, but to succumb in the struggle for
existence is evidence of disorders or weakness such as history does
not forgive. Wealth and size and abundance of material resources are
not sufficient. There are other and ethical factors which ensure and
achieve victory: a deeply inculcated docility, an order and
subordination such as give shape to the mass, a discipline such as
renders it fit for use and self-confident even under failure, an
emulation of all the noble passions such as steels and braces the
soul, together with a strong will to direct the whole, and power of
thought to point the way to the desired goal."
[1] General Carl v. Clausewitz. _On War_ vol. iii., p. 101. Kegan
Paul, Trench, Trübner, Ltd., London. [_Vom Kriege. Skizzen zum
VIII. Buch_, 3 Kap. B.]
[2] _La Guerre_ 1870-1871. Paris, 1895.
[3] Vol. i., p. 100.
[4] _Die Operationen der 2 Armee an der Loire_. Berlin, 1875. E.
S. Mittler und Sohn.
[5] _On War_, vol. i., p. 47. [_Vom Kriege_. I, B., 3 Kap.]
[6] _Preussische Politik_, V.
III
THE INFLUENCE OF TECHNICAL SCIENCE
Notwithstanding the decisive importance of the moral factor, we must
not fail to appreciate the great significance of technical science in
the present War as regards the effectiveness of weapons, protection
against these weapons, organisation of transport and intelligence
services, and also aërial warfare. It could not reveal itself fully
until this War. In peace we had rather suspected than actually
realised it, for any testing of it on a large scale, let alone on
such an enormous scale as the World War has witnessed, was out of the
question. The Russo-Japanese War did not reveal it to anything like
the same extent; hence the instruction which that war furnished could
give but a feeble conception of what might be expected in the sphere
of technical science. Moreover, in the decade following upon the
Manchurian campaign, technical science underwent an increasingly
rapid development.
The importance of railways as an instrument of war was early
recognised by Moltke. He always kept an eye on their development.
Up to the beginning of the World War, the mobilisation of the German
forces by rail in 1870 was looked upon as a phenomenal achievement,
and rightly so, when we consider the very meagre development of our
railway system at that date. Nevertheless, at that time less than
half a million Germans had to be dispatched to the frontier, as
compared with something like one-and-a-half millions in the year
1914. Also the transports within the Empire after the mobilisation
were more than three times as numerous as those of 1870. Moreover,
the transfers of troops during the operations themselves, which in
1870-71 took place on both sides in France, appear insignificant by
the side of those effected during the World War. In the separate
theatres of war movements of transports have been constantly
effected, and at the same time the railways have been utilised for
manœuvring purposes. The one-time notion which attributed a
certain rigidity to railways as compared with progress on foot,
because the latter could be deflected at a moment's notice in any
desired direction, has now lost much of its force. In spite of the
rigidity of the railway tracks, we have always contrived to dispatch
the transports in accordance with the requirements of the military
command. Whole armies have been transferred from one theatre of war
to another, as was essential for the Central Powers in a war
conducted on several fronts. Previous wars have, of course, from
time to time, furnished instances of a similar utilisation of
railways, for instance the American Civil War, and the War of 1866,
in which strong contingents of the Austrian Southern Army were
dispatched over the Alps to the Danube and back again to the north of
Italy. When in 1866, after Königgrätz, we were threatened with the
intervention of France, Moltke contemplated the transport of the
Prussian troops in Moravia to the Rhine. Nevertheless, as regards
the distances to be traversed and the mass of men and materials to be
conveyed, never until the present War have such demands been made on
the railways.
The enormous numbers engaged in the War involved a very high degree
of dependence on the railways. Even in 1870-71 the German second
army (which at that time comprised only three army corps) experienced
at the Loire the serious inconvenience of not having adequate railway
communications in their rear. At the present day, the unhampered
development of operations in the war of movement and a secure
maintenance of positions in entrenched warfare are only possible if
the bringing up of munitions, stores, and men, and the removal of the
wounded, as well as the systematic organisation of the whole sanitary
service, are ensured by means of the railways. Only from time to
time has it been possible to dispense with them by having recourse to
motor wagons; but the latter have never really furnished an adequate
substitute for railways.
Moreover, the notion that railways were not to be relied on as an
instrument of war, because they could be so easily destroyed, has
proved itself untenable. This was entirely applicable in the case of
the destruction of railways in 1870, but present-day technology has
always found means to remove such difficulties with comparative speed
and to make the lines serviceable again. Where special difficulties
presented themselves, as for instance in Macedonia in the late autumn
of 1915, operations have been unavoidably brought to a standstill.
In his history of the autumn campaign of 1813,[1] Lieutenant-General
Friederich attributes the overthrow of Napoleon principally to the
fact that the manipulation and the mutual reinforcement at the right
moment of the various divisions in Saxony, Silesia, and the Mark, on
the Lower Elbe and in Bavaria, of a French army numbering in all more
than half a million men could only be possible with the aid of
railways and the electric telegraph. The armies of that day had
already outgrown the technical resources of their age. If we
consider that, after Napoleon himself had returned to Dresden from
the pursuit of the main army of the allies which began on the 28th of
August, it was not until the 3d of September that he was fully
informed of the defeats of Oudinot at Gross-Beeren and of Macdonald
at the Katzbach with all their consequences, and was able to form a
decision adapted to the circumstances, and this within a circuit of
from thirty to sixty miles from Dresden, which was all the area that
the disposition of his troops extended over at that time, we perceive
the great obstacles which opposed themselves in those days to the
joint direction of independent bodies of troops, even when the
distance between these was comparatively insignificant.
Even with the introduction of railways and of the electric telegraph,
these difficulties were not yet surmounted, owing to the deficiency
of the technical organisation and the inadequate equipment of the
troops. On the eve of the battle of Königgrätz, there was no
telegraphic connection between the main headquarters at Gitschin and
the second army of the Crown Prince of Prussia. The command to join
battle, dispatched at midnight, was delivered to the headquarters of
the second army at Königinhof at four o'clock in the morning of the
3d of July by the aide-de-camp, Lieutenant-Colonel Count
Finckenstein, who had thus accomplished the night-ride of twenty-five
miles by way of Miletin in four hours. Even the campaign of 1870-71
furnished numerous instances of defective and inadequate telegraphic
connections. On the other hand, in this World War, telephones,
telegraphy, and wireless telegraphy have placed the transmission of
orders and news on a very much more secure footing. The telephone
has been able to convey orders and information into the very midst of
a battle. Rides like those of Count Finckenstein on the night before
Königgrätz have been replaced by journeys in motor-cars, and orders
have been thereby transmitted with greater safety and far greater
speed. Moreover, by means of motor-cars and railways, verbal
consultations between the leaders or their deputies have been
rendered possible. The conduct of the operations as a whole has been
placed on a far securer footing as compared with former days, as a
result of the technical resources of the present day. And this was
very necessary in view of the immense numbers and the vast distances
which now had to be coped with. If technical science had been still
in the same condition in which it was in 1870, the manipulation of
armies and troops at the present day would have been a hopeless
undertaking. But however valuable as regards the conduct of
operations has been the aid furnished by the resources of modern
times, it could not completely overcome the very great difficulties
which had to be faced. Now as ever, war is the domain of frictions
and uncertainty.
The hitherto untried weapon of war furnished by aircraft brought
about a number of new phenomena. The dirigible airship, valuable as
it has proved for reconnoitring at sea, has given way before the
aeroplane in land warfare. The Zeppelins are extraordinarily
sensitive. They have to keep at considerable heights, because they
provide very large targets. This reduces the accuracy with which
they can aim bombs. They also need a large expenditure of labour and
materials and they have to be housed in sheds. The brilliant
invention of Count Zeppelin provided a weapon which, especially at
the beginning of the War, was of great moral importance, and was also
of indisputable value, because with the Zeppelin we got over to
England; but in this sphere also the large fighting aeroplane has
taken its place. The importance of aeroplanes has considerably
increased since it has become possible for them to keep at heights of
far more than 3000 metres, thereby reducing the danger from gunfire
directed against them from the ground. German industry furnished our
aviators with such an equipment as enabled them to establish more and
more their superiority in the air. Aviation obviously has a great
future. Its possibilities of development are many.
The aeroplane proved itself a valuable means of reconnaissance, in
connection both with strategy and tactics. In addition, the captive
balloon, with its more uninterrupted observation, rendered valuable
service. Further, the photographs taken from aeroplanes furnished
valuable assistance to the military command, above all in entrenched
warfare, where other means of reconnaissance could-not be employed.
By their aid, every alteration in the dispositions of the enemy and
all the organisation behind their front could be clearly made out.
In the war of movement also rapid aeroplanes have been extensively
used for reconnaissance. This comprehensive survey of the enemy was
something new. Cavalry had never been able to achieve anything
comparable to it, even in former times, when their opportunities for
reconnaissance were not restricted by the effectiveness of the
weapons employed against them to anything like the same extent. Just
as formerly cavalry engagements took place at the front of the lines
for the purpose of routing the cavalry of the enemy and thereby
gaining a view of their positions, so now air engagements take place
on both sides with the aim of gaining a view of the enemy or
frustrating a similar attempt on his part. Moreover, aircraft render
very notable services in direct co-operation with the infantry as
well as in the observation of artillery fire. The French at a very
early stage accustomed themselves to the use of aircraft for
observation, a plan which has since been imitated by us with
constantly increasing success.
Not only did aeroplanes make excursions over the enemy lines for
purposes of reconnaissance, but also for purposes of bomb-throwing.
Not only were the enemy harassed repeatedly by the bombing of their
quarters, their camp, their munition dumps and other establishments,
but also troops concentrating for an offensive were attacked in this
way with satisfactory results. Moreover, by raids into the enemy
country carried out by squadrons of aircraft, we were able to inflict
damage on fortifications, sources of military supplies, and other
military establishments. In the course of these raids some
unfortified places without military significance have had to suffer.
The bombardment of these places is in itself objectionable, but the
limits of what is permissible are in this matter in many ways
elastic. A new weapon opens up its own paths, as is shown, for
example, by the submarine war. In any case, in this contest of
nations with its economic background, the War is turned more and more
against the enemy countries, and the principle hitherto accepted that
war is made only against the armed power of the enemy is, in this
case as in other spheres, relegated to the background.
In regard to the weapons which have proved most effective in the
hands of the infantry, this World War, incredible as it may appear,
has witnessed to a certain degree a retrograde development. The
opposed forces, although equipped with long-distance rifles, were
brought so close to one another, that they had recourse to the naked
steel, and the hand-grenades of a past age were once again revived,
though in an improved form. To be sure, instances occurred in the
Russo-Japanese War, where the contending parties were for long
periods in very close proximity to one another, and also in the Boer
War many of the battles were fought, at any rate in part, at very
close range; but the general tendency was to regard these as
exceptions and to explain them as the result of local conditions or
of the national characteristics of the contending parties, and to
reckon the normal range of infantry righting as from 800 to 400
yards. Even with such an imperfect weapon as was the needle-gun
compared with the present-day magazine rifle, Moltke in 1865
unconditionally gave to firearms the first place as regards
effectiveness. He wrote[2]:
"Attack with the bayonet is the means with which finally to vanquish
the enemy; no soldier will wish to abandon its use. The confidence
of the men in the naked steel cannot be sufficiently aroused and
encouraged, but its application must have been made possible by the
previous course of the fight and have been prepared for by means of
effective gunfire.... If the bayonet contests so frequently
described in French accounts of the Italian campaign of 1859 were
stripped of their dramatic glamour, if we could ascertain the simple
prosaic truth, it would have to be admitted in reference to by far
the greater number of them that the enemy had already been
demoralised by more or less considerable losses and shunned a genuine
encounter."
Even prior to this date[3] the Field-Marshal wrote:
"General Niel, it is true, ascribes his victory (in the Battle of
Solferino) to the bayonet. It may be resorted to whenever the attack
has been pushed to a struggle of man against man. As a general rule,
this only occurs when it is presupposed that the opponent will not
accept battle."
We have already explained the psychological factors which come into
play in the World War and embitter it in a manner which had not to be
reckoned with in the time of Moltke. The Field-Marshal, moreover,
could not foresee when, in the essay we have quoted, he cited a few
instances taken from the Wars of Liberation, in which attacks were
made with clubs and bayonets "under conditions in which firearms
could not be effective," that such conditions would, at a future
date, present themselves repeatedly upon fronts extending for miles.
As with hand-grenade fighting, mine-warfare too suffered a kind of
resurrection in entrenched warfare. In the siege of Port Arthur it
had already once again played an important part. It was only natural
that from the moment that the operations took on the nature of a
siege all the available weapons should be brought into play, both
those which had been utilised previously and improved by the aid of
modern technical science, and also those of recent invention. Thus,
for warfare at close quarters, flame-throwers, bomb-throwers, the
trench-mortars of earlier days in an improved form, trench cannon and
muskets came into use, while the machine-guns acquired a growing
importance, corresponding with their great increase in numbers. With
the introduction of appliances for blowing gas from reservoirs and of
gas-grenades, entirely new weapons of war made their appearance. And
these in their turn called for special means of defence in the shape
of gas-masks. The English and the French sought to prepare the way
for their attacking troops by the employment of battle-motors--the
so-called tanks. Altogether, this War, as a result of the
development of modern technical science, has led to inventions and
improvements such as no previous war has ever witnessed. It will
always redound to the special glory of German industry, and above all
of Germany's chemical industry, that in this sphere it engaged in and
carried through a struggle against the industry of the whole world.
The supplies of artillery ammunition which had been provided for the
War proved in the case of all the belligerent States to be very far
below the requirements. Especially in the late autumn of 1914, our
troops found themselves more than once in a critical situation as a
result of this shortage. None the less, it was impossible that such
immense supplies as were actually required should have been stored up
in peace time. Our industry, however, succeeded in satisfying to an
ever-increasing extent the demands which had to be made upon it; it
was able, by its unaided effort, to keep pace with the enormous
supplies which poured in to our enemies from America and (in the case
of Russia) from Japan.
As a result of the manner in which the positions were more and more
adapted to the ground or artificially concealed, high-angle-firing
artillery gained in importance. At the beginning we possessed in our
numerous mobile heavy high-angle-fire batteries a certain superiority
over the French, which, however, they were able in part to make up
for by the extremely skilful use and appropriate grouped disposition
of their artillery. Later on in the War, the French and the English
brought into action guns of very heavy calibre, which hurled immense
quantities of shells against our trenches.