West and East, assumed more and more the character of fortifications,
fitted with quickly manufactured wire entanglements such as only
modern industry could have been equal to supplying in such enormous
quantities. This fact, taken together with the astonishing successes
which our heaviest high-angle-fire artillery and also the
motor-impelled Austro-Hungarian howitzers achieved against the
Belgian and later against the Russian fortresses, has given rise to
the idea that in future fortified trenches will take the place of
fortresses. In any case it is certain that the old-fashioned
fortresses are worthless, and, moreover, that the earlier notion,
handed down from the Middle Ages, that positions had to be secured by
means of fortresses, must finally be discarded. It has long been
among the things which have been outgrown. As early as 1809 Napoleon
wrote[4]: "Fortresses like cannon are only weapons, which cannot of
themselves fulfil their purpose; they must be properly manipulated
and applied"; and in 1806 he said[5] that in the construction of
fortresses the same principles were applicable as in the disposition
of troops. Fortresses are intended to assist operations, and since
the course of the latter can never be foreseen with absolute
certainty, it might seem to be the best plan to construct them during
the war wherever they are required. That, however, would be going
too far. It will not be possible to dispense with certain previously
prepared fortified points at places where only defensive tactics can
be employed. The fortifications on the French eastern frontier,
above all Verdun and the fortified Moselle front, have demonstrated
how valuable these may be. When the insufficiently-manned and
widely-separated fortifications of the French eastern frontier in
1814 were described by those who opposed the notion of an invasion of
France by the allies as "the impregnable front of France," this was a
very great exaggeration. A century later, however, it became an
actual fact. Even the powerful effectiveness of our heavy and
heaviest artillery did not avail at Verdun to enable us to take the
works everywhere by storm in the further course of the attack, a
proof that skilfully constructed sunk fortifications, when they are
favoured by the character of the ground, now as ever may be of great
value.
On the other hand, the practice of fortifying large towns seems now
to have become obsolete. They had long lost their significance as
centres of fortifications, and in future they will have such
significance only as places of refuge in the midst of fortified
zones. Such fortified zones will still be required, in the sense
that certain frontier districts will be secured by means of a
succession of permanent forts which must be constructed and
maintained in time of peace, and to which must be linked certain
other works to be taken in hand on the outbreak of war, and for which
the necessary materials must be in readiness. It is a question of
constructing not a continuous _Limites Romani_[6] which only affords
a mainly immovable defence, such as was several times forced upon us
by circumstances during the World War, but a succession of central
points of defence, and this not in the shape of fortified towns, but
of entrenchments of important areas. The World War has, as we shall
explain, on the one hand confirmed anew the old truth that only by
means of attack can decisive results be achieved, and that the war of
movement and not entrenched warfare is the thing to be aimed at. On
the other hand, it has revealed the immense power of a defence based
upon well-constructed fortifications, in view of the effectiveness of
modern weapons; and this revelation--more especially in view of our
central geographical position--is of great value.
[1] Vol. iii., p. 401. E. S. Mittler und Sohn.
[2] _Einfluss der verbesserten Feuerwaffen auf die Taktik.
Taktisch-strategische Aufsätze_, p. 59.
[3] _Kriegsgeschichtlicke Arbeiten III. Der Italienische Feldzug des
Jahres 1859_, p. 258.
[4] Corr. XVIII., No. 14707. Notes sur la défense de l'Italie.
[5] Corr. XIII., No. 10726.
[6] The name of a continuous series of fortifications consisting of
castles, walls, earthen ramparts, etc., erected by the Romans along
the Rhine and the Danube, to protect their possessions from the
attacks of the Germans.--_Translator's Note_.
IV
LEADERSHIP
In view of the development of modern technical science, it was
inevitable that the World War should exhibit many characteristics
different from those of earlier wars. None the less, it would be a
great error to declare all the experience gained from previous wars
to be out of date. The human intelligence attaches itself
involuntarily to what lies nearest. Those who turned to account the
experiences of the Boer War and of the Manchurian campaign would have
benefited by a warning against one-sidedness. We have already drawn
attention to the fact that, notwithstanding the power and
effectiveness of modern weapons, now as ever it is the moral element
that is finally decisive in war. The same is true of the
intellectual element, of leadership. If the leaders were unwilling
to consult the experiences of earlier wars, they would fall into a
hopeless one-sidedness. As in every department of practical life, it
is a question of finding the true relation between knowledge and
capacity. Clausewitz expresses it exactly when he says[1]:
"He who intends to move in such an element as war must bring with him
nothing at all gained from books save the education of his mind; if
he brings with him ready-made ideas which have not been inspired in
him by the shock of the moment, which he has not generated out of his
own flesh and blood, the rush of events will overthrow his building
before it is completed. He will never be understood by natural men
and will enjoy least confidence precisely among the most
distinguished of them, that is to say, those who know themselves what
they want."
Thus the instruction gained from the past must be further developed
and adapted to present-day conditions. This was done for his age by
Moltke in exemplary fashion. When he became the Chief of the General
Staff he was already advanced in years, and although he possessed
abundant practical experience and a comprehensive technical training,
he had had no experience of European wars on a large scale. Hence he
derived his opinions inevitably from the Napoleonic wars, and he
could do so without detriment. The masses of troops which he had
subsequently to command were no larger than the armies of the last
wars of the First Empire. The army corps of 1866 and 1870 still
corresponded to some extent to what to-day has already reached the
dimensions of an army or army-group. Moreover, the difference
between the military weapons of Moltke's day and those of the
previous Napoleonic era was less than the difference between those of
our day and those of 1870, though the introduction of breechloaders
and rifled barrels had even at that day marked an important advance
in the technique of arms, and Moltke did in fact form a just estimate
of their influence upon tactics.
The war of 1870-71, like every other war, was not without its
surprises. The importance of massed rifle-fire was only revealed by
the effect of the chassepots of 1870. Indeed, Moltke himself, in his
orders to the commanding officers of 1869, recommended that the lines
of sharpshooters should not fire till they were at a distance of 300
paces from the enemy, with the exception of the troops especially
designed for long-distance firing. On the morning of the 18th of
August, 1870, the leader of the third army corps, Lieutenant-General
von Alvensleben, expressed himself as follows to the commander of the
first division of the foot-guards, Major-General von Pape:
"The chassepot fire has been underestimated, and also to some extent
the mitrailleuses. It is impossible for us to make any progress as
the result of tactics practised on the drilling-ground; we must have
more manœuvring; we must develop and make use of even the most
insignificant cover in the open country; above all we must employ our
artillery long and continuously."[2]
The fire of the breechloaders of small calibre proved very much more
effective still against the English in the South African war. When
they had been repulsed at Paardeburg on the 18th of February, 1900,
with heavy losses, Lord Kitchener said the next day: "If I had known
yesterday what I know to-day, I should not have attacked the Boers in
the river-valley; it is impossible in the face of the modern rifle."
The fact that exercise in time of peace does not afford any real test
of the effectiveness of the enemy's fire will play an important part
at the opening of every campaign. Even the most perfect military
training cannot protect us against the element of incalculability
which confronts us in this field. It can only satisfy to a limited
extent the demands of the case.
In the sphere of instruction, Field-Marshal Count Schlieffen, no less
than Moltke before him, even if, like the latter, he could not
foresee the phenomena which the present War has engendered down to
their every detail, none the less was always at pains to discipline
and prepare the mind of the nation with a view to the demands of
present-day war. For instance, in 1909, when he had already retired
from office, he wrote:
"One direct consequence of the improvement of firearms is a greater
extension of the fighting-front. Thus it has come about that while,
in the battles of the last two centuries, all weapons and reserves
included, on an average ten to fifteen men were reckoned to a metre
of battle-line, and even forty years ago ten men to the pace was the
ordinary reckoning, in the war in Eastern Asia of 1904-5 three men to
the metre, or in case of need even less, was the ordinary rule.
Neither of the contending parties entered the war with a fixed theory
as to the extension of the fighting-fronts, or endeavoured to apply
the notions which he had formed in time of peace. The long
fighting-fronts have been the result of the force of circumstances
and of the natural desire to take cover and at the same time to
secure the full effectiveness of first-rate weapons. Beyond doubt,
therefore, the phenomena which made their appearance in the Far East
will be repeated in a European war. The battlefields of the future,
therefore, will and must be of quite a different extent from those
which we know from past experience. Armies of the same strength as
those of Königgrätz and Gravelotte-St. Privat will occupy more than
four times the space that they occupied at that day. But what will
the 220,000 men of Königgrätz and the 186,000 men of Gravelotte
signify, as compared with the masses which will certainly take the
field in a future war!"
The tendency in the direction of vast numbers was in fact exhibited
on all sides in the World War to a very striking degree. Count
Schlieffen recognised at an early date that this was bound to happen.
Our successes in the World War have been to a large extent due to his
untiring efforts to train the General Staff and our higher command
for a war of masses. His successor, Colonel-General von Moltke,
adhered to the fundamental ideas of Schlieffen. Thus the beginning
of the campaign in the West in August, 1914, developed in the main in
accordance with Schlieffen's views. If at that time no decisive
victory fell to our share, and our strength proved insufficient to
vanquish France, we must none the less consider that up to the Marne
we had achieved enormous things.
"In the very moment of accomplishment the completion of the battle
was abandoned for far-reaching general reasons.... The battle was
broken off by the German Supreme Command, and, in view of the general
situation, a strategic retreat to a new line was ordered."
This is the judgment of a neutral writer[3] on the Battle of the
Marne, and certainly it would have taken very little to turn the
scale so that the victory might have fallen to us and a retreat been
avoided. But the really decisive factor was that the German
offensive was no longer strong enough to break through in the face of
an enemy country bristling with armaments. The withdrawal of the
German armies after the dazzling successes which had been achieved at
the beginning could not but in the nature of things cause bitter
disappointment at home. It ought, however, to be borne in mind that,
if Moltke was able to achieve a Metz and a Sedan, he none the less
had at his disposal forces considerably superior in numbers to those
of the enemy, since, at the beginning of the war of 1870, the numbers
of the German forces as compared to the French were in the ratio of 5
to 3. At the beginning of the War of 1914, on the other hand, the
armed force of France alone was slightly in excess of the whole
mobilised strength of Germany, while if we deduct the German forces
employed in the East and those which were in the first instance kept
at home for coast defence, the French, English, and Belgians
possessed a numerical superiority of something like three-quarters of
a million men. In addition to this, when the German Western army
engaged in the Battle of the Marne, its original first-line troops
had been reduced not only by two army corps which had been sent to
the East, but also by two further army corps which it had been
necessary to leave behind at Antwerp and Maubeuge.
It is the old phenomenon of the wearing down of forces in the course
of an offensive which we here encounter anew. In the autumn of 1805
Napoleon crossed the Rhine and the Main with more than 200,000 men;
at Austerlitz he engaged with only 75,000. At Eylau, out of the
200,000 men which he had at his disposal after the arrival of the
contingent of the Rhenish Confederation in North Germany, he could
send into action only 60,000 men, not to speak of the rapid dwindling
away of his great army in Russia in 1812. In spite of the
considerable superiority which we possessed in 1870-71 at the
beginning of the war, and of the fact that the total strength of the
German troops which gradually crossed the French frontier, amounted,
all told, to 1,147,000 men; in spite of the enormous successes which
we achieved at that time; none the less, owing to the unexpectedly
long resistance which France with the aid of her new formations
opposed to us, we found ourselves more than once, during the second
period of the war, faced with a very serious and critical situation.
A powerful offensive, aiming at the overthrow of the enemy, has
almost always led up to a situation in which it was proved to lack
the necessary troops in order to pursue its purpose to the end with
complete security. Clausewitz expresses this when he says: "Every
attack must lead to defence."[4]
Napoleon, when he was still General Buonaparte, insisted once to
General Moreau, on the importance of numbers as a decisive factor in
war.[5] He said: "Victory falls in the final event to the biggest
battalions." Moreau is said to have retorted that this was quite
correct in itself, but that in point of fact Napoleon himself had
just proved in Italy that superiority of numbers does not always
decide. "Does it not often happen that numerical superiority is
compensated for by bravery, experience, discipline, and, above all,
by the talent of the leader?" To which Buonaparte replied: "In a
battle, certainly, but in a whole war seldom." Victories used up
armies slowly but just as surely as defeats.
Thus the German offensive at the beginning of September, 1914, was
not powerful enough to effect the overthrow of the enemy. The
intention was to effect an envelopment from two sides. The
envelopment by the left wing of the army, was, however, brought to a
standstill before the fortifications of the French eastern frontier,
which, in view of the prompt successes achieved against the Belgian
fortifications, it had been hoped to overcome. The envelopment of
the French left wing was successful up to in front of Paris and
across the Marne, but here the German troops found their frontal
advance arrested, while they in their turn were threatened with an
envelopment. The defensive tactics of the leaders of the French army
were rendered very much easier owing to the strong support which the
fortifications on the eastern frontier gave to their wing, and also
the possibility of effecting rapid transfers of troops afforded by a
very convenient network of railways and a very numerous supply of
motor wagons upon good roads. Moreover, they commanded the inner,
shorter line. At the same time, even apart from this, it was proved
on the Marne that the age of armies numbering millions, with their
improved armament and the widely extended fronts which they
necessitate, engenders very special conditions. On the Vistula and
in Galicia in October, 1914, at Lodz and after the winter battle at
the Masurian Lakes, as well as in the autumn of 1915 at Vilna, the
same phenomena always made their appearance, even though the
conditions of extent and character of the ground, as well as the main
course of events, were in each case completely different. Forces
which suffice to achieve victory and even to destroy strong sections
of the enemy's forces prove inadequate for the attainment of the
complete success which is desired. The individual armies of the
enemy may be enveloped--as happened at Tannenburg and later at
Hermannstadt, where the "Cannae" of Schlieffen was realised, but the
envelopment of the whole host of the enemy is a very difficult
matter. In order to accomplish it at the Marne, we should have
required yet another army, disposed in echelon behind the right
German wing, while on the East the possibility of any effective
enveloping movement was very much restricted. The vast extent of
their territory always made it possible for the Russians to effect a
withdrawal. Their railway network, though of wide mesh, was
extraordinarily favourable from a strategic point of view, and by its
aid they were generally able to bring up reinforcements at the right
time to any wing that was threatened, while, in the case of ourselves
and our allies, our railway communications were not only very
circuitous, but, when it came to a further advance, ceased
altogether. In addition to this, with the extension of the Eastern
theatre of war, a blow inflicted on one wing of the Russians could
not have the same effect on the other sectors of their long front as
would have been the case if it had been of less extent.
Hence break-through tactics, which Napoleon attempted several times
on the restricted battlefields of his age, supported by powerful
heavy artillery, once again asserted their importance. Instances of
this were furnished at Gorlice, in the later battles in Galicia, as
well as between the Bug and the Vistula, in the breaking of the
Russian Narew front in the summer of 1915, and in the break-through
at Tarnopol in 1917. Also the Serbian and above all the Roumanian
campaigns furnished several similar instances. The preliminary
condition of success was always a moral and tactical superiority on
the side of the attacker, and a corresponding violence of mass
effect. The fact that we did not possess this moral and tactical
superiority in sufficient measure in the West has always relegated to
the background the idea of breaking through the enemy front. What
has to be done is not only on a comparatively limited front to break
in upon the enemy with concentrated masses--these masses will
immediately be exposed to outflanking on both sides--but to force in
a more or less considerable part of the enemy front, and then to
develop strategically the break-through which has succeeded
tactically. The extent of the success will in every case depend upon
the local conditions and the strategic situation.
The importance of envelopment, both strategic envelopment and
tactical envelopment, of course remains very great. Clausewitz
says[6]: "A complete victory requires an enveloping attack on a
battle with an oblique front, for these two forms always give the
result a decisive character." Moltke furnished proof of this at
Königgrätz, Metz, and Sedan. Schlieffen, who made it his chief
object to keep the desire for the annihilation of the enemy alive in
the German army through the long period of peace, developed in his
"Cannae" the conditions for a battle of annihilation on classical
lines. Even if, as the World War has shown, his doctrines frequently
have to be modified, when they are applied to conditions of very
large scale, none the less this War too has furnished instances where
the envelopment of a whole host might have been effected and would
have had very far-reaching consequences. Such an opportunity was
presented to our opponents on the Western front after the Battle of
the Marne. By making use of their convenient and efficient railway
network and their numerous columns of motor wagons, they might have
hurled at the proper moment powerful forces against the right flank
of the German army and thereby prevented us from establishing our
positions on the Aisne and to the west of the Belgian frontier.
Since, however, they had not achieved a tactical success at the Marne
at all, they lacked the strength and the capacity for such an
undertaking. They pressed their attack only in a frontal direction.
The German forces at once resumed in part an offensive attitude, and
by this means arrested the progress of the enemy forces opposed to
them. They strengthened the right wing of their army, and were
always able to oppose adequate forces to the striking movement of the
French pursuing army when the latter at length (but too late) set
itself in motion, and this even though the railway network in Belgium
and North France had not yet been restored to anything like full
efficiency.