Part 4
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.
These trenches, both with ourselves and with our enemies, and both in 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.