STAFF WORK AND BATTLE PREPARATION
The foundations of the success or non-success of a battle rest on its
organisation, that is, on the preparations made for it. This is the
duty of the General and Administrative Staffs of an Army or Formation
and usually entails an immense amount of careful work. The fact that
success depends as much, if not more, on organisation (brain power)
as on valour (nerve power) is not generally recognised, and many an
officer and man in the firing line is, through ignorance of the causes
and effects which are operating behind, only too prone to forget what
the staff is doing, and, never more so, what the staff has done than
after a really great victory has been gained.
The more scientific weapons become the more will good staff work decide
whether their use is going to lead to victory or defeat. This was very
early realised in the Tank Corps, and every endeavour was made by its
commander and his subordinate leaders to select only the most capable
officers for their respective staffs; this resulted in ability more
often than seniority deciding the filling of an appointment.
The work of the Staff of the Tank Corps was often considerably
complicated by the fact that, the tank being a novel weapon of war,
it was little understood, not only by the other arms, but by many
members of the Tank Corps itself. This resulted in a great deal of
educational work being required before many measures, very obvious to
the Staff itself, were accepted by others. In the early days of the
Corps the tank was generally placed by the other arms under one of two
categories--a miracle or a joke, and this did not tend to facilitate or
expedite preparations.
The main duty of the General Staff is to foresee by thinking ahead, of
the Administrative Staff to prepare, of the Commander to decide, and
of his troops to act. These four links go to build up a battle, and if
any one of them is defective, the whole chain is weak. On the power
of thinking ahead, that is, foreseeing conditions and events, will
depend all preparations. Decisions cannot with safety be simply based
on former experiences, codified and printed rules and regulations; if
this were possible every intelligent subaltern with a good memory or
a big pocket could become a Napoleon[23] in six weeks. Decisions must
be based on weapons and men moved in accordance with the principles
of war as governed by conditions existing and possible. Possible
conditions cannot be guessed at; if they could the planchet board and
not the baton would be the emblem of a field-marshal’s worth. Possible
conditions can only be guarded against or converted into allies by
being prepared to meet all eventualities, and these preparations in a
formation such as the Tank Corps were at first prodigious. Little by
little, however, the knack of mechanical warfare was cultivated, and
then what had at first appeared a mountain eventually turned out to be
a molehill--a good sprinkling of molehills, and not a few mountains,
however, remained over even to the last.
In the training schemes carried out before the battle of Arras, as
mentioned in Chapter VII, no fewer than 132 headings of various
measures, all relative to the preparations requisite for an offensive
with tanks, were laid down. After this battle this number was
considerably increased and continued to grow as each engagement added
new experiences to the old ones.
The main preparations required for an offensive are the following:
(1) Movements, (2) Reconnaissances, (3) Secrecy, (4) Supply, (5)
Communication, (6) Assembly, (7) Tactics, (8) Reorganisation.
Tank movements generally fall under the headings of rail movements and
cross-country movements. As regards the former it must be remembered
that the tank cannot at present move over lengthy distances under its
own power. A Mark I tank on good going could not be relied on to run
more than 12 miles on a fill of petrol, and after it had completed
about 70 miles it had to be overhauled and many of its parts renewed.
Rail movements require special trucks, and, in the early days of the
Corps, special sidings and entraining ramps. As regards the latter,
cross-country routes should be reconnoitred beforehand. It will be
remembered how on the night of April 8-9, the night previous to the
first day of the battle of Arras, six tanks became ditched at Achicourt
on account of a bog existing under the hard surface of the ground. Had
the officer reconnoitring this route tested the ground along the valley
by pushing a stick into it, this accident would not have occurred,
for the stick would have penetrated the crust and informed him of the
nature of the soil below it.
Before any move takes place from the position of assembly, near
railhead, to the starting-points, the points whence the tanks will
proceed into battle, the following are a few of the subjects that a
Tank Unit Commander will have to consider:--Objectives; strong-points;
machine-gun emplacements; batteries; trenches; wire; infantry lines
of advance; minimum number of tanks required for the main objectives;
minimum of tanks required for subsidiary objectives; nature of ground
and its probable condition at zero hour; where ground, soil, natural
features and hostile batteries will chiefly impede tank movements; the
lines of least resistance for tanks through the enemy’s lines to the
main objectives and the points of greatest resistance to the infantry
advance; landmarks; starting points with reference to lines of least
resistance; positions of deployment with reference to starting-points;
tank routes from positions of assembly to the positions of deployment
and thence to the starting-points; any places on these tank routes
where delays are likely to occur; rallying points; supply dumps;
communication, etc., etc.
So in turn must each move or preparatory measure be dealt with,
reconnaissance playing an all-important part, not only before the
battle, but during it, and immediately after it, and if the system
of communication during the battle is not efficient the work of the
reconnaissance officer will frequently be wasted, so we find one
preparation depending for its worth on another until the whole forms a
complete and somewhat intricate chain.
Imagine now, when this chain is nearing completion what it means to it
if some new plan be evolved, or a change be introduced or forced on to
a scheme of operations--its effect will frequently have to be carried
right down the chain, and this will not only mean new work being
done, but old work being undone. Take the following as an example: a
battalion of tanks is to detrain at A, a few days later it is ordered
to detrain at B instead; this will probably entail shifting 20,000
gallons of petrol, 12,000 6-pounder shells, 300,000 rounds of S.A.A.,
and countless other stores. It is these changes in operations which a
good Staff guards its troops against by foresight; this being so, the
efficiency of a Staff may usually be gauged by the number of amendments
a Commander issues to his orders.
Another important duty of the Staff is to assist the troops when
the period of preparation ends and action begins, and further still
to watch closely every action so that changes may be foreseen and
preparations may be improved on the next occasion. These duties are
called “Battle Liaison,” a duty which was impressed upon every General
Staff Officer in the Tank Corps as the most important he would be
called upon to carry out. At every battle from that of the Ancre
onwards, the majority of the headquarters’ General Staff Officers were
present on the battlefield itself, not after the fight had swept on but
before it opened and whilst it lasted. Each night these officers would
report to their headquarters not only what they had heard but what
they had seen, a much more reliable source of evidence. The result of
this system was that when the crash came on March 21, 1918, though the
Tank Corps was split up over a front of 60 miles, and in many places
complete confusion followed the German attack, not once from that day
on to the end of the battle did the headquarters of the Tank Corps
lack information regarding the position of all its units. This may be
chronicled as a notable “feat of staff work,” and certainly as useful
as many a much more spectacular “feat of arms.” It is for this type of
staff work that Staff Officers are sometimes rewarded.