CHANGES SINCE THE DAYS OF CLAUSEWITZ
In reading Clausewitz it is, first, the great principles of the nature
of war founded on human nature, which alter not; and, secondly, it
is his spirit and practical way of looking at things that we want to
assimilate and apply to THE PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY, to which end it is
necessary to read him always with the changed conditions of to-day in
our minds, and think what he would have said under the circumstances.
These changes are chiefly:--
(1) The improved net-work of roads.
(2) Railways.
(3) Telegraphs, wire and wireless.
(4) Improved arms.
(5) Aviation
(6) Universal service armies.
THE IMPROVED NET-WORK OF ROADS
The improved net-work of roads in Europe (not, of course, in Manchuria,
or in Afghanistan where we have to consider our future strategy, but in
Europe), as General v. Caemmerer puts it, "now offers to the movements
of armies everywhere a whole series of useful roads where formerly one
or two only were available," easier gradients, good bridges instead of
unreliable ones, etc. So that the march-discipline of that day when
concentrated for battle, artillery and train _on_ the roads, infantry
and cavalry _by the side_ of the roads, has disappeared. Such close
concentration is therefore now not possible, as we move all arms _on_
the road, and an army corps with train, or two without, is the most
that we can now calculate on bringing into action in one day on one
road.
RAILWAYS
"Railways have, above all, completely altered the term 'base,'" remarks
V. Caemmerer. "Railways carry in a few days men, horses, vehicles,
and materials of all kinds from the remotest district to any desired
point of our country, and nobody would any longer think of accumulating
enormous supplies of all kinds at certain fortified points on his
own frontier with the object of basing himself on those points. One
does not base one's self any longer on a distinct district which is
specially prepared for that object, but upon the whole country, which
has become one single magazine, with separate store-rooms. So the term
'base' has now to be considered in this light."
It is only when operating in savage or semi-savage countries, where
there are no railways, that the old idea of a base applies.
As we penetrate deeper and further from our own country into the
enemy's, and as a small raiding party can demolish the railway line so
as to stop all traffic for days or weeks, it becomes far more necessary
than it ever was in Clausewitz's day to guard our communications.
And armies become more and more sensitive to any attack upon their
communications.
Also "such a line cannot easily be changed, and consequently those
celebrated changes of the line of communication in an enemy's country
which Napoleon himself, on some occasion, declared to be the ablest
manoeuvre in the art of war, could scarcely be carried out any more"
(V. Caemmerer).
Also concentration by means of several railways demands a broad
strategic front, which produces that separation of corps or armies
which prepares the way for strategical envelopment, and so on.
General von der Goltz, in his "Conduct of War," says: "The more recent
treatises on the conduct of war on a large scale are principally taken
up with the mobilization and strategical concentration of armies, a
department of strategy which only began to play an important part in
modern times. It is the result of a dense net-work of railways in
Western Europe which has rendered it possible to mass large bodies
of troops in a surprisingly brief time. Each Power tries to outdo
its neighbours in this respect, ... which gives an opportunity to
the strategical specialist to show off his brilliant qualities....
Consequently it is now frequently assumed that the whole conduct of
war is comprised in this one section of it." This over-estimate is of
course an error, which, however, requires to be pointed out.
TELEGRAPHS
The telegraph has very greatly reduced the danger of separation.
The great advantage of the inner line in the day of Napoleon and of
Clausewitz was that separated forces could only communicate by mounted
messengers, so if the enemy got between them they could not communicate
at all, nor act in concert. This the telegraph has completely altered,
for as the field telegraph can now be laid as quickly as an army can
advance, the most widely separated bodies of troops can every day
arrange combined operations by telegraph through, if necessary,
a point one hundred or four hundred miles in rear. So that to-day
the chief advantage of the inner line has gone, while its chief
disadvantage, the possibility of being surrounded, remains.
MAPS
We now possess complete detailed Ordnance maps of every country in
Europe, kept up to date by the latest alterations, whereas in the days
of Clausewitz maps were of the very roughest character, and quite
unreliable in comparison.
IMPROVED ARMS
Smokeless powder, quick-firing and long-ranging artillery and rifles,
the infantry field of effective fire being ten times, the artillery
five times what it was in Clausewitz's time, have all to be borne in
mind when reading the tactical part of his writings. In consequence,
also, cover and the tactical use of ground are of far greater
importance now than then, etc., etc., etc.
AVIATION
The recent wonderful developments in aviation will obviously almost
revolutionize "Information in War." To what extent, it is as yet
impossible to say. Each year will teach us more.
THE NATION-IN-ARMS
The nation-in-arms as the common foundation of all armies (except our
own), brought up by railways, vastly increases the numbers in a modern
battle from what they were in Clausewitz's day. Compare Austerlitz,
Dresden, Leipzig and Waterloo, with Liao-yang and Mukden. It should be
so with us also, for as General von der Goltz says in "The Conduct of
War": "The BEST military organization is that which renders available
ALL the intellectual and material resources of the country in event of
war. _A State is not justified in trying to defend itself with only a
portion of its strength, when the existence of the whole is at stake._"
In Great Britain the difference which the introduction of this
nation-in-arms principle has made in our military strength compared
with that of our future opponents, a difference relatively FAR GREATER
AGAINST US than it was in Napoleon's and Clausewitz's day, is as yet
hardly realized by the people, or by our statesmen. People forget the
wastage of war, and the necessity for a constant flow of troops to
repair that wastage. As Von der Goltz puts it: "It is characteristic
of the strategical offensive that the foremost body of troops of
an army, the portion which fights the battles, amounts to only a
comparatively small fraction, frequently only _a quarter or even
one-eighth_, of the total fighting strength employed, whilst the fate
of the whole army throughout depends upon the success or failure of
this fraction. _Attacking armies melt away like snow in the spring._"
To condense his remarks: "In spite of the most admirable discipline,
the Prussian Guard Corps lost 5000 to 6000 men in the marches between
the attack on St. Privat and the battle of Sedan." "Napoleon crossed
the Niemen in 1812 with 442,000 men, but reached Moscow only three
months later with only 95,000." In the spring of 1810, the French
crossed the Pyrenees with 400,000 men, but still Marshal Massena in
the end only brought 45,000 men up to the lines of Torres Vedras,
near Lisbon, where the decision lay. Again, in 1829, the Russians
put 160,000 men in the field, but had barely 20,000 left when, at
Adrianople, a skilfully concluded peace saved them before their
weakness became apparent and a reaction set in. In 1878 the Russians
led 460,000 across the Danube, but they only brought 100,000 men--of
whom only 43,000 were effective, the rest being sick--to the gates of
Constantinople. In 1870 the Germans crossed the French frontier with
372,000 men, but after only a six weeks' campaign brought but 171,000
men to Paris. And so on. The result of it all is simple--that a people
which is not based on the modern principle of the nation-in-arms cannot
for long rival or contend with one that is, for it can neither put
an equal (still less a superior) army into the field at the outset
(_vide_ Clausewitz's first principle), nor even maintain in the field
the _inferior_ army it does place there, because it cannot send the
ever-required fresh supplies of trained troops. Sooner or later this
must tell. Sooner or later a situation must arise in which the nation
based on the obsolete voluntary system _must_ go down before a nation
based on the nation-in-arms principle. Circumstances change with time,
and, as wise Lord Bacon said long ago, "He that will not adopt new
remedies must expect new evils." May we adopt the remedy before we
experience the evil!
THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL FORCES IN WAR
But though these changed conditions must, of course, _modify_
Clausewitz's details in many important particulars, still (to complete
our circle and leave off where we started) I repeat that, as human
nature never changes, and as the moral is to the physical as three
to one in war, Clausewitz, as the great realistic and practical
philosopher on the actual nature of war, as _the chief exponent of the
moral and spiritual forces in war_, will ever remain invaluable in the
study of war.
Consider what unsurpassed opportunities he had for observing and
reflecting on the influence of enthusiasm and passion, of resolution
and boldness, of vacillation and weakness, of coolness and caution, of
endurance and hardship, of patriotism and freedom, of ambition and of
glory--on war, either by his own experience or by conversation with
other equally experienced soldiers, during that long period of almost
endless wars between 1793 and 1815.
The fervour and enthusiasm and boundless energy of the Revolution,
which drove the French forward, smashing everything before them, at
the beginning; the ambition, military glory, plunder and greed, which
animated them later on; the patriotism, religious and loyal devotion,
and stern endurance, which nerved the Russian hosts then as now; that
awful Moscow winter campaign, when human nature rose to its highest and
sank to its lowest, when the extremes of heroic endurance and selfish
callousness were visible side by side; the magnificent uprising of the
spirit of liberty and freedom from intolerable oppression in Germany,
which gave to the Prussian recruits and Landwehr the same driving
force that revolutionary enthusiasm had formerly given to the French;
the passing, therefore, in 1813 of the moral superiority, the greater
driving force, from the French to the allies. Clausewitz saw all this;
he conversed intimately with such men as Scharnhorst and Gneisenau,
who saw and guided it, too. All his friends had seen it also. No
wonder, then, that such an unexampled series of warlike phenomena
deeply impressed his reflective mind with the supreme importance of the
moral and spiritual factors in war.
His opportunities for long-continued observation of warlike phenomena
were far greater than those of any writer since his day, and it is to
be hoped they will remain so. For we have no desire to see another
series of wars such as the Napoleonic. It is fortunate for us that
there was then such a man as Clausewitz to sum up for us so simply and
so clearly the accumulated experiences of those long, long years of
carnage and devastation.
_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Book IV. Chap. 10.
[2] Book IV. Chap. 3.
[3] Book IV. Chap. 3.
[4] Book I. Chap. 8.
[5] Summary of Instruction to H.R.H. the Crown Prince.
[6] Summary of Instruction, p. 120.
[7] Book II. Chap. 6.
[8] Book II. Chap. 2.
[9] Prefatory "Notice" by Clausewitz.
[10] Book II. Chap. 4.
[11] Book II. Chap. 2.
[12] Book II. Chap. 2.
[13] Book II. Chap. 3.
[14] Book I. Chap. 1.
[15] By gaining Public Opinion, Clausewitz means, to force the enemy's
population into a state of mind favourable to submission.
[16] Summary of Instruction to H.R.H. the Crown Prince.
[17] Book I. Chap. 1.
[18] Author's "Introduction."
[19] Book I. Chap. 1.
[20] Book VII. Chap. 5.
[21] Book VII. Chap. 21.
[22] Book VII. Chap. 21.
[23] Book VIII. Chaps. 7, 8 and 9.
[24] Book I. Chap. 1.
[25] Book VIII. Chap. 9.
[26] Book I. Chap. 7.
[27] Book I. Chap. 8.
[28] Book I. Chap. 8.
[29] Book IV. Chap. 1.
[30] Book IV. Chap. 3.
[31] Book I. Chap. 1.
[32] Book IV. Chap. 3.
[33] Book III. Chap. 15.
[34] Book VII. Chap. 13.
[35] Book I. Chap. 4.
[36] Book I. Chap. 5.
[37] Book I. Chap. 7.
[38] Book III. Chap. 3.
[39] Book III. Chaps. 16-18.
[40] Book II. Chap. 1.
[41] Book III. Chap. 11.
[42] Book III. Chap. 8.
[43] Book V. Chap. 3.
[44] Book III. Chap. 8.
[45] Book VIII. Chap. 4.
[46] Book III. Chap. 12.
[47] Book III. Chap. 13.
[48] Book III. Chap. 12.
[49] Book III. Chap. 13.
[50] Book III. Chap. 8.
[51] Book III. Chap. 11.
[52] Book VI. Chap. 28.
[53] Book V. Chap. 10.
[54] Book I. Chap. 1.
[55] Book III. Chap. 13.
[56] Book I. Chap. 3.
[57] Book VIII. Chap. 9.
[58] Book VIII. Chap. 9.
[59] Summary of Instruction to H.R.H. the Crown Prince.
[60] Book I. Chap. 3.
[61] This warning as to the consequences of allowing information to be
published freely which would be helpful to an enemy was written five
years ago. In the present war the prudent reticence of our Press, and
its loyal co-operation with the Government in depriving the enemy of
any helpful information, show that the lesson here insisted on has been
learned.--Editor's Note.
[62] Book IV. Chap. 4.
[63] Book IV. Chap. 4.
[64] "Guide to Tactics," Vol. III. pp. 136-146.
[65] Book IV. Chap. 4.
[66] Book VI. Chap. 1.
[67] Summary of Instruction to H.R.H. the Crown Prince.
[68] Book VI. Chap. 5.
[69] Book VIII. Chap. 9.
[70] Book VII. Chap. 15.
[71] Summary of Instruction, "Guide to Tactics," par. 500.
[72] Book VI. Chap. 9.
[73] Book VII. Chap. 9.
[74] Book VII. Chap. 7.
[75] Book VII. Chap. 7.
Transcriber's Notes:
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Page 133: Paragraph ends with: "Otherwise," rather than with a period.