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A General Sketch of the European War: The First Phase, a non-fiction book by Hilaire Belloc |
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Part 2. The Forces Opposed - (3) The Conflicting Theories Of War |
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_ PART II. THE FORCES OPPOSED (3) THE CONFLICTING THEORIES OF WAR The long peace which the most civilized parts of Europe had enjoyed for now a generation left more and more uncertain the value of theories upon the conduct of war, which theories had for the most part developed as mere hypotheses untested by experience during that considerable period. The South African and the Manchurian war had indeed proved certain theories sound and others unsound, so far as their experience went; but they were fought under conditions very different from those of an European campaign, and the progress of material science was so rapid in the years just preceding the great European conflict that the mass of debated theories still remained untried at its outbreak. The war in its first six months thoroughly tested these theories, and proved, for the greater part of them, which were sound in practice and which unsound. I will tabulate them here, and beg the special attention of the reader, because upon the accuracy of these forecasts the first fortunes of the war depended. I. A German theory maintained that, with the organization of and the particular type of discipline in the German service, attacks could be delivered in much closer formation than either the French or the English believed to be possible. The point is this: After a certain proportion of losses inflicted within a certain limit of time, troops break or are brought to a standstill. That was the universal experience of all past war. When the troops that are attacking break or are brought to a standstill, the attack fails. But what you cannot determine until you test the matter in actual war is what numbers of losses in what time will thus destroy an offensive movement. You cannot determine it, because the chief element in the calculation is the state of the soldier's mind, and that is not a measurable thing. One had only the lessons of the past to help one. The advantages of attacking in close formation are threefold. (_a_) You launch your attack with the least possible delay. It is evident that spreading troops out from the column to the line takes time, and that the more extended your line the more time you consume before you can strike. If I have here a hundred units advancing in a column towards the place where they are to attack (and to advance in column is necessary, because a broad line cannot long keep together), then it is evident that if I launched them to the attack thus:-- packed close together, I get them into that formation much more quickly than if, before attacking, I have to spread them out thus:-- (_b_) The blow which I deliver has also evidently more weight upon it at a given point. If I am attacking a hundred yards of front with a hundred units of man and missile power, I shall do that front more harm in a given time than if I am attacking with only fifty such units. (_c_) In particular circumstances, where troops _have_ to advance on a narrow front, as in carrying a bridge or causeway or a street or any other kind of defile, my troops, if they can stand close formation and the corresponding punishment it entails, will be more likely to succeed than troops not used to or not able to bear such close formation. Now, such conditions are very numerous in war. Troops are often compelled, if they are to succeed, to rush narrow gaps of this kind, and their ability to do so is a great element in tactical success. I have here used the phrase "if they can stand close formation and the corresponding punishment it entails," and that is the whole point. There are circumstances--perhaps, on the whole, the most numerous of all the various circumstances in war--in which close formation, if it can be used, is obviously an advantage; but it is equally self-evident that the losses of troops in close formation will be heavier than their losses in extended order. A group is a better target than a number of dispersed, scattered points. Now, the Germans maintained in this connection not only, as I have said, that they could get their men to stand the punishment involved in close formation, but also that:-- (_a_) The great rapidity of such attacks would make the _total_ and _final_ wastage less than was expected, and further:-- (_b_) That the heavy wastage, such as it was, was worth while, because it would lead to very rapid strategical decision as well as tactical. In other words, because once you had got your men to stand these heavy _local_ losses and to suffer heavy _initial_ wastage, you would win your campaign in a short time, so that the high-rate wastage not being prolonged need not be feared. Well, in the matter of this theory, the war conclusively proved the following points:-- (_a_) The Germans were right and the Allies were wrong with regard to the mere possibility of using close formations. The German temper, coupled with the type of discipline in the modern German service, did prove capable of compelling men to stand losses out of all proportion to what the Allies expected they could stand, and yet to continue to advance neither broken nor brought to a standstill. But-- (_b_) The war also proved that, upon the whole, and taking the operations in their entirety, such formations were an error. In case after case, a swarm of Germans advancing against inferior numbers got home after a third, a half, or even more than a half of their men had fallen in the first few minutes of the rush. But in many, many more cases this tactical experiment failed. Those who can speak as eye-witnesses tell us that, though the occasions on which such attacks actually broke were much rarer than was expected before the war began, yet the occasions on which the attack was thrown into hopeless confusion, and in which the few members of it that got home had lost all power to do harm to the defenders, were so numerous that the experiment must be regarded as, upon the whole, a failure. It may be one that no troops but Germans could employ. It is certainly not one which any troops, after the experience of this war, will copy. (_c_) Further, the war proved even more conclusively that the wastage was not worth while. The immense expense in men only succeeded where there was an overwhelming superiority in number. The strategical result was not arrived at quickly (as the Germans had expected) through this tactical method, and after six months of war, the enemy had thrown away more than twice and nearly three times as many men as he need have sacrificed had he judged sanely the length of time over which operations might last. II. Another German theory had maintained that modern high explosives fired from howitzers and the accuracy of their aim controlled by aircraft would rapidly and promptly dominate permanent fortification. This theory requires explanation. Its partial success in practice was the most startling discovery and the most unpleasant one to the Allies of the early part of the war. In the old days, say up to ten years ago or less, permanent fortification mounting heavy guns was impregnable to direct assault if it were properly held and properly munitioned. It could hold out for months. Its heavy guns had a range superior to any movable guns that could be brought against it--indeed, so very heavily superior that movable guns, even if they were howitzers, would be smashed or their crews destroyed long before the fortress was seriously damaged by them. A howitzer is but a form of mortar, and all such pieces are designed to lob a projectile instead of throwing it. The advantage of using these instruments when you are besieging permanent works is that you can hide them behind an obstacle, such as a hill, and that the heavy gun in the fortress cannot get its shell on to them because that shell has a flatter trajectory. The disadvantage is that the howitzer has a very much shorter range than the gun size for size. Here is a diagram showing how necessarily true this is. The howitzer, lobbing its shell with a comparatively small charge, has the advantage of being able to hide behind a steep bit of ground, but on such a trajectory the range is short. The gun in the fortress does not lob its shell, but throws it. The course of the gun shell is much more straight. It therefore can only hit the howitzer and its crew indirectly by exploding its shell just above them. Until recently, the gun was master of the howitzer for three reasons:-- First, because the largest howitzers capable of movement and of being brought up against any fortress and shifted from one place of concealment to another were so small that their range was insignificant. Therefore the circumference on which they could be used was also a small one; their opportunities for hiding were consequently reduced; the chances of their emplacement being immediately spotted from the fortress were correspondingly high, and the big gun in the fortress was pretty certain to overwhelm the majority of them at least. It is evident that the circumference {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~} offers far more chances of hiding than the circumference ABC, but a still more powerful factor in favour of the new big howitzer is the practical one that at very great ranges in our climate the chances of spotting a particular place are extremely small. Secondly, because the explosives used, even when they landed and during the short time that the howitzer remained undiscovered and unheard, were not sufficiently powerful nor, with the small howitzers then in existence, sufficiently large in amount in each shell to destroy permanent fortification. Thirdly, because the effect of the aim is always doubtful. You are firing at something well above yourself, and you could not tell very exactly where your howitzer shell had fallen. What has modified all this in the last few years is-- First, the successful bringing into the field of very large howitzers, which, though they do lob their shells, lob them over a very great distance. The Austrians have produced howitzers of from 11 to 12 inches in calibre, which, huge as they are, can be moved about in the field and fired from any fairly steady ground; and the Germans have probably produced (though I cannot find actual proof that they have used them with effect) howitzers of more than 16 inches calibre, to be moved, presumably, only upon rails. But 11-inch was quite enough to change all the old conditions. It must be remembered that a gun varies as the _cube_ of its calibre. A 12-inch piece is not twice as powerful as a 6-inch. It is _eight times_ as powerful. The howitzer could now fire from an immense distance. The circumference on which it worked was very much larger; its opportunities for finding suitable steep cover far greater. Its opportunities for moving, if it was endangered by being spotted, were also far greater; and the chances of the gun in the fortress knocking it out were enormously diminished. Secondly, the high explosives of recent years, coupled with the vast size of this new mobile howitzer shell, is capable, when the howitzer shell strikes modern fortification, of doing grievous damage which, repeated over several days, turns the fort into a mass of ruins. Thirdly, the difficulty of accurate aiming over such distances and of locating your hits so that they destroy the comparative small area of the fort is got over by the use of aircraft, which fly above the fort, note the hits, and signal the results. Now, the Germans maintained that under these quite recently modified conditions not even the best handled and heaviest gunned permanent fort could hold out more than a few days. The French believed that it could, and they trusted in the stopping power not only of individual works (such as the fortress of Manonvilliers on the frontier), but more especially of great rings of forts, such as surround Liege, Namur, Verdun, etc., and enclose an area within the security of which large bodies of troops can be held ready, armies which no one would dare to leave behind them without having first reduced them to surrender. The very first days of the war proved that the German theory was right and the French wrong. The French theory, upon which such enormous funds had been expended, had been perfectly right until within quite recent years the conditions had changed. Port Arthur, for instance, only ten years ago, could hold out for months and months. In this war no individual fort has held out for more than eleven days. It might be imagined under such circumstances that the very existence of fortresses was doomed; yet we note that Verdun continues to make a big bulge in the German line four months after the first shots fell on its forts, and that the Germans are actively restoring the great Belgian rings they have captured at Liege, Antwerp, and Namur. Why is this? It is because another German theory has proved right in practice. III. This German theory which has proved right in practice is what may be called "the mobile defence of a fortress." It proposes no longer to defend upon expensive permanent works precisely located upon the map, but upon a number of improvised batteries in which heavy guns can move somewhat behind field-works concealed as much as possible, numerous and constructed rapidly under the conditions of the campaign. Such works dotted round the area you desire to defend are quite a different thing to reduce from isolated, restricted, permanent forts. In the first place, the enemy does not know where they are; in the second place, you can make new ones at short notice; in the third place, if a howitzer does spot your heavy gun, you can move it or its neighbours to a new position; in the fourth place, the circumference you are defending is much larger, and the corresponding area that the besiegers have to search with their fire more extended. Thus, in the old forts round Verdun, about a dozen permanent works absolutely fixed and ascertainable upon the map, and covering altogether but a few acres, constituted the defence of the town. Before September was out the heavy guns had been moved to trenches far advanced into the field to the north and east, temporary rails had been laid down to permit their lateral movement--that is, to let them shift from a place where they had perhaps been spotted to a new place, under cover of darkness, and the sectors thus thrown out in front of the old fortifications in this improvised mobile fashion were at least three times as long as the line made by the ring of old forts, while the area that had to be searched was perhaps a hundred times as large. For in the place of the narrowly restricted permanent fort, with, say, ten heavy guns, you had those same ten heavy guns dotted here and there in trenches rapidly established in half a dozen separate, unknown, and concealed spots, along perhaps a mile of wooded hill, and free to operate when moved over perhaps double that front. IV. _In Grand Strategy a German general theory of strategics was opposed to a French general theory of strategics, and upon which of the two should prove right depended, much more than on any of the previous points, the ultimate issue of the campaign._ This is far the most important point for the reader's consideration. It may be said with justice that no one can understand this war who has not grasped the conflict between these two fundamental conceptions of armed bodies in action, and the manner in which (by the narrowest and most fortunate margin!) events in the first phase of the war justified the French as against the German school. I must therefore beg the reader's leave to go somewhat thoroughly into the matter, for it is the foundation of all that will follow when we come to the narration of events and the story of the Western battle which began in the retreat from the Sambre and ended in the Battle of the Marne. The first postulate in all military problems is that, other things being equal, numbers are the decisive factor in war. This does not mean that absolute superiority of numbers decides a campaign necessarily in favour of the superior power. What it means is that _in any particular field_, if armament and discipline are more or less equal on the two sides, the one that has been able to mass the greater number _in that field_ will have the victory. He will disperse or capture his enemy, or at the least he will pin him and take away his _initiative_--of which word "initiative" more later. Now, this field in which one party has the superior numbers can only be a portion of the whole area of operations. But if it is what is called the decisive portion, then he who has superior numbers _in the decisive time and place_ will win not only there but everywhere. His local victory involves consequent success along the whole of his line. For instance, supposing five men are acting against three. Five is more than three; and if the forces bear upon each other equally, the five will defeat the three. But if the five are so badly handled that they get arranged in groups of two, two, and one, and if the three are so well handled that they strike swiftly at the first isolated two and defeat them, thus bringing up the next isolated two, who are in their turn defeated, the three will, at the end of the struggle, have only one to deal with, and the five will have been beaten by the three because, although five is larger than three, yet _in the decisive time and place_ the three never have more than two against them. It may be broadly laid down that the whole art of strategics consists for the man with superior numbers in bringing all his numbers to bear, and for the man with inferior numbers in attempting by his cunning to compel his larger opponent to fight in separated portions, and to be defeated in detail. As in every art, the developments of these elementary first principles become, with variations of time and place, indefinitely numerous and various. Upon their variety depends all the interest of military history. And there is one method in particular whereby the lesser number may hope to pin and destroy the power of the greater upon which the French tradition relied, and the value of which modern German criticism refused. Before going into that, however, we must appreciate the mental qualities which led to the acceptance of the theory upon the one side and its denial upon the other. The fundamental contrast between the modern German military temper and the age-long traditions of the French service consists in this: That the German theory is based upon a presumption of superiority, moral, material, and numerical. The theory of the French--as their national temperament and their Roman tradition compel them--is based upon an _envisagement_ of inferiority: moral, material, and numerical. There pervades the whole of the modern German strategic school this feeling: "I shall win if I act and feel as though I was bound to win." There pervades the whole French school this sentiment: "I have a better chance of winning if I am always chiefly considering how I should act if I found myself inferior in numbers, in material, and even in moral at any phase in the struggle, especially at its origins, but even also towards its close." This contrast appears in everything, from tactical details to the largest strategical conception, and from things so vague and general as the tone of military writings, to things so particular as the instruction of the conscript in his barrack-room. The German soldier is taught--or was--that victory was inevitable, and would be as swift as it would be triumphant: the French soldier was taught that he had before him a terrible and doubtful ordeal, one that would be long, one in which he ran a fearful risk of defeat, and one in which he might, even if victorious, have to wear down his enemy by the exercise of a most burdensome tenacity. In the practice of the field, the contrast appeared in the French use of a great reserve, and the German contempt for such a precaution: in the elaborate thinking out of the use of a reserve, which is the core of French military thought; in the superficial treatment of the same, which is perhaps the chief defect of Germany. It would be of no purpose to debate here which of these two mental attitudes, with all their consequences, is either morally the better or in practice the more successful. The French and Latin tradition seems to the German pusillanimous, and connected with that decadence which he perceives in every expression of civilization from Athens to Paris. The modern German conception seems to the French theatrical, divorced from reality, and hence fundamentally weak. Either critic may be right or either wrong. Our interest is to follow the particular schemes developing from that tone of mind. We shall see how, in the first phases of the war, the German conception strikingly justified itself for more than ten days; how, after a fortnight, it was embarrassed by its opponent; and how at the end of a month the German initiative was lost under the success--only barely achieved after dreadful risk--of the French plan. That plan, inherited from the strategy of Napoleon, and designed in particular to achieve the success of a smaller against a larger number, may be most accurately defined as _the open strategic square_, and its leading principle is "the method of detached reserves." This strategic conception, which I shall now describe, and which (in a diagram it is put far too simply) underlies the whole of the complicated movements whereby the French staved off disaster in the first weeks of the war, is one whose whole object it is to permit the inferior number to bring up a _locally_ superior weight against a _generally_ superior enemy in the decisive time and at the decisive place. Let us suppose that a general commanding _twelve_ large units--say, twelve army corps--knows that he is in danger of being attacked by an enemy commanding no less than _sixteen_ similar units. Let us call the forces of the first or weaker general "White," and those of the second or stronger general "Black." It is manifest that if White were merely to deploy his line and await the advance of Black thus, he would be outflanked and beaten; or, in the alternative, Black might mass men against White's centre and pierce it, for Black is vastly superior to White in numbers. White, therefore, must adopt some special disposition in order to avoid immediate defeat. Of such special dispositions one among many is the French Open Strategic Square. This disposition is as follows:-- White arranges his twelve units into four quarters of three each, and places one quarter at each corner of a square thus:-- We will give them titles, and call them A, B, C, and D. If, as is most generally the case in a defensive campaign at its opening, White cannot be certain from which exact direction the main blow is coming, he may yet know that it is coming from some one general direction, from one sector of the compass at least, and he arranges his square to face towards that sector. For instance, in the above diagram, he may not know whether the blow is coming from the precise direction 1, or 2, or 3, but he knows that it is coming somewhere within the sector XY. Then he will draw up his square so that its various bodies all face towards the average direction from which the blow may come. The SIZE of his square--which is of great importance to the result--he makes as restricted as possible, _subject to two prime conditions_. These conditions are:-- First, that there shall be room for the troops composing each corner to be deployed--that is, spread out for fighting. Secondly, that there shall be room between any two corners (A and C, for instance) for a third corner (D, for instance) to move in between them and spread out for fighting in support of them. He makes his square as close and restricted as possible, because his success depends--as will be seen in a moment--upon the rapidity with which any one corner can come up in support of the others. But he leaves enough room for the full numbers to spread out for fighting, because otherwise he loses in efficiency; and he leaves room enough between any two squares for a third one to come in, because the whole point of the formation is the aid each corner can bring to the others. In this posture he awaits the enemy. That enemy will necessarily come on in a lengthy line, lengthy in proportion to the number of his units. For it is essential to the general commanding _superior_ numbers to make the _whole_ of the superior numbers tell, and this can only be done if they march along parallel roads, and these roads are sufficiently wide apart for the various columns to have plenty of room to deploy--that is, to spread out into a fighting line--when the shock comes. This extended line of Black marching thus against White strikes White first upon some one corner of his square. Suppose that corner to be corner A. Then the position when contact is established and the first serious fighting begins is what you will observe in the above diagram. A is the corner (now spread out for fighting) which gets the first shock. Note you (for this is the crucial point of the whole business) that upon the exposed corner A will fall a very dangerous task indeed. A will certainly be attacked by forces superior to itself. Normally forces more than half as large again as A will be near enough to A to concentrate upon him in the first shock. The odds will be at least as much as five to three, the Black units, 4, 5, and 6, will be right on A, and 3 and 7 will be near enough to come in as well in the first day or two of the combat, while possibly 2 may have a look in as well. A, thus tackled, has become what may be called "the _operative corner_ of the square." It is his task "to retreat and hold the enemy" while B, C, and D, "the masses of manoeuvre," swing up. But under that simple phrase "operative corner" is hidden all the awful business of a fighting retreat: it means leaving your wounded behind you, marching night and day, with your men under the impression of defeat; leaving your disabled guns behind you, keeping up liaison between all your hurrying, retreating units, with a vast force pressing forward to your destruction. A's entire force is deliberately imperilled in order to achieve the success of the plan as a whole, and upon A's tenacity, as will be seen in what follows, the success of that plan entirely depends. Well, while A is thus retreating--say, from his old position at A_1 on the foregoing diagram to such a position as A_2, with Black swarming up to crush him--the other corners of the square, B, C, and D, receive the order to "swing"--that is, to go forward inclining to the left or the right according to the command given. Mark clearly that, until the order is given, the general commanding Black cannot possibly tell whether the "swing" will be directed to the left or to the right. Either B will close up against A, C spread out farther to the left, and D come in between A and C (which is a "swing" to the left) as in Sketch 25, or C will close up against A, B will spread well out to the right, and D come up between A and B, as in Sketch 26 (which is a "swing" to the right). Until the "swing" actually begins, Black, the enemy, cannot possibly tell whether it is his left-hand units (1 to 8) or his right-hand units (9 to 16) which will be affected. One of the two ends of his line will have to meet White's concentrated effort; the other will be left out in the cold. Black cannot make dispositions on the one hypothesis or on the other. Whichever he chose, White would, of course, swing the other way and disconcert him. Black, therefore, has to keep his line even until he knows which way White is going to swing. Let us suppose that White swings to the left. Mark what follows. The distances which White's units have got to go are comparatively small. B will be up at A's side, and so will D in a short time after the swing is over, and when the swing is completed, the position is after this fashion. Black's numbers, 1 to 9 inclusive, find themselves tackled by all Black's twelve. There is a superiority of number against Black on his right, White's left, and the remaining part of Black's line (10 to 16 inclusive), is out in the cold. If it were a tactical problem, and all this were taking place in a small field, Black's left wing, 10-16, would, of course, come up at once and redress the balance. But being a strategical problem, and involving very large numbers and very great distances, Black's left wing, 10-16, can do nothing of the kind. For Black's left wing, 10-16, _cannot possibly get up in time_. Long before it has arrived on the scene, White's 12 will have broken Black's 9 along Black's right wing. There are three elements which impose this delay upon Black's left wing. First, to come round in aid of the right wing means the marching forward of one unit after another, so that each shall overlap the last, and so allow the whole lot to come up freely. This means that the last unit will have to go forward six places before turning, and that means several days' marching. For with very large bodies, and with a matter of 100 miles to come up, all in one column, it would be an endless business (Sketch 28). Next you have the delay caused by the _conversion of direction_ through a whole right angle. That cause of delay is serious. For when you are dealing with very large bodies of men, such as half a dozen army corps, to change suddenly from the direction S (see Sketch 29) for which your Staff work was planned, and to break off at a moment's notice in direction E, while you are on the march towards S, is impossible. You have to think out a whole new set of dispositions, and to re-order all your great body of men. White was under no such compulsion, for though he had to swing, the swing faced the same general direction as his original dispositions. And the size of the units and the distances to be traversed--the fact that the problem is strategical and not tactical--is the essence of the whole thing. If, for instance, you have (as in Sketch 30) half a dozen, not army corps, but mere battalions of 1,000 men, deployed over half a dozen miles of ground, AB, and advancing in the direction SS, and they are suddenly sent for in the direction E, it is simple enough. You form your 6,000 men into column; in a few hours' delay they go off in the direction E, and when they get to the place where they are wanted, the column can spread out quickly again on the front CD, and soon begin to take part in the action. But when you are dealing with half a dozen army corps--240,000 men--it is quite another matter. The turning of any one of these great bodies through a whole right angle is a lengthy business. You cannot put a quarter of a million men into one column--they would take ages to deploy--so you must, as we have seen, make each unit of them overlap the next before the turn can begin. Nor is that all the delay involved. It would never do for these six separate corps to come up in driblets and get defeated in detail; 10, 11, and 12 will have to wait until 13, 14, 15, and even 16, have got up abreast of them--and that is the third cause of delay. Here are three causes of delay which, between them and accumulated, have disastrous effect; and in general we may be certain that where very large bodies and very extensive stretches of territory are concerned, that wing of Black which has been left out in the cold can never come up in time to retrieve the situation created by White's twelve pinning Black's engaged wing of only nine. If the square has worked, and if the twelve White have pinned the right-hand wing of Black, 1 to 9 inclusive, there is nothing for Black to do but to order his right wing, 1 to 9, to retreat as fast as possible before superior numbers, and to order his left wing, 10 to 16, to fall back at the same time and keep in line; and you then have the singular spectacle of twelve men compelling the retreat of and pursuing sixteen.
If that operative corner is destroyed as a force--is overwhelmed or dispersed or surrounded--while it is fighting its great odds, the whole square goes to pieces. Its centre is penetrated by the enemy, and the army is in a far worse plight than if recourse had never been had to the open strategic square at all. For if the operative corner, A, is out of existence before the various bodies forming the "manoeuvring mass" behind it have had time to "swing," then the enemy will be right in their midst, and destroying, in overwhelming force, these remaining _separated_ bodies in detail. It was here that the German strategic theory contrasted so violently with the French. The Germans maintained that an ordeal which Napoleon might have been able to live through with his veterans and after fifteen years of successful war, a modern conscript army, most of its men just taken from civilian life and all of short service, would never endure. They believed the operative corner would go to pieces and either be pounded to disintegration, or outflanked, turned, and caught in the first days of the shock before the rest of the square had time to "work." The French believed the operative corner would stand the shock, and, though losing heavily, would remain in being. They believed that the operative corner of the square would, even under modern short service and large quasi-civilian reserve conditions, remain an army. They staked their whole campaign upon that thesis, and they turned out to be right. But they only just barely won through, and by the very narrowest margin. Proving right as they did, however, the success of their strategical theory changed the whole course of the war. With this contrast of the great opposing theories considered, I come to the conclusion of my Second Part, which examines the forces opposed. I will now turn to the Third Part of my book, which concerns the first actual operations from the Austrian note to the Battle of the Marne. _ |
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