A note on military history

[fpb]

It is often said that the armies and the generals in World War One were not prepared for the effect of then-modern technology on warfare - that is, the way it made defence prevail over offence and turn the war into a long and bloody slogging match. And I do not say that is wrong. But that really reflects on the ability of humans to extrapolate

Comments

[fellmama]

Excellent. I'd add that I think the example of the Boer War may emphasize your point even further. The British complained continually of the Boer's refusal to "fight fair" and abide by the usual rules of engagement. Perhaps in addition to the assumption that the side with the best staff would win, there was also an assumption that conventional war would necessarily be won even more handily.

[fpb]

I am not sure that is quite to the point. I think that the Boer War stands at the cusp between the age of colonial wars - much of the Boer's war fighting by bands is comparable to, say, the resistance of the Plains Indians to American encroachment - and the newer, modern way of fighting wars through the media, on which I touched in my essay on Vietnam. It was, itself, lost, but its after-effects, especially the British public's guilt at the way the Boers had been broken, ended up working in favour of the Boers, who got a Dominion designed according to their demands and in which they were intended to remain - and remained - dominant. The first war effectively won this way was the Irish war of independence of 1916-21. One has to remember that the purpose of war is one and one alone: to convince the enemy to stop fighting. If it can be done by winning battles, all well and good. If it can be done through the press - even better.

[deansteinlage]

A very interesting article.
Now I want to try getting through Von Klauswitz (again).

[fpb]

Klausewitz, of course, was one of the inventors of the General Staff system. He was, IIRC, chief of general staff to the great Prussian commander Bluecher, the joint victor of Waterloo.

[ihuitl]

I realize this is coming in late, but these are all good points and I would like to add one thing if you will permit and entertain my attempt. I'm partially channeling Keegan at this point, since I read his book on WWI not too long ago

[fpb]

My posts, even those posted six years ago, are always open to comment, especially if intelligent and well informed. Yours is both. I did not quite realize that the massive growth in artillery production due to the industrial revolution was not answered by a similar growth in communication and control technology, so that the guns could only be used in simple and obvious ways, like two dim-witted giants just battering at each other with bigger and bigger clubs. I can tell you that as late as my military service - in the eighties! - I was trained to lay cables and work cable-based field telephones, and that Jack Kirby, who was sent as a scout because he could draw and make useful images of the ground ahead, was often issued with a huge roll of cable to lay phone lines as he went - this was in France in 1944. Practically yesterday

[ihuitl]

Counter battery fire such as CPT Leone's case was easier because the proximity of the spotter to the guns (i.e. more or less embedded with the unit) allowed the gunners to correct their shot immediately, especially if you had someone who could estimate the enemy position with such precision. (The Austo-Italian front is, sadly, often glossed over for many learning about WWI...the western front with its trench warfare garners most of the study).

The main issue where communications came into play with artillery spotting, was in having the forward observer accompanying the attacking infantry relaying the correction calculations to the heavy artillery units further back. This was symptomatic of the problem of long range communication in general along the front and the delays with getting it to the rear - artillery or general staff. In the absence of wires cut by battle or effective wireless radio, pigeons and runners were still the order of the day.

[ravenclaw_eric]

During the Russo-Turkish war you mention, the siege of Plevna was a harbinger of things to come. The Turks defended from trenches and used faster-firing Winchester rifles, and bled the Russians terribly. If they had fought that well elsewhere, the war would not have gone well for Russia, to put it very mildly.