Germany and the Next War Part 16

It is unnecessary to go into the details about the training in the use of modern arms and technical contrivances: this follows necessarily from the introduction of these means of war. But if we survey the sphere of training as a whole, two phenomena of modern warfare will strike us as peculiarly important with regard to it: the heightened demands which will be made on individual character and the employment of "ma.s.ses" to an extent hitherto unknown.

The necessity for increased individualization in the case of infantry and artillery results directly from the character of the modern battle; in the case of cavalry it is due to the nature of their strategical duties and the need of sometimes fighting on foot like infantry; in the case of leaders of every grade, from the immensity of the armies, the vast extent of the spheres of operation and fields of battle, and the difficulty, inseparable from all these conditions, of giving direct orders. Wherever we turn our eyes to the wide sphere of modern warfare, we encounter the necessity of independent action--by the private soldier in the thick of the battle, or the lonely patrol in the midst of the enemy's country, as much as by the leader of an army, who handles huge hosts. In battle, as well as in operations, the requisite uniformity of action can only be attained at the present time by independent co-operation of all in accordance with a fixed general scheme.

The employment of "ma.s.ses" requires an entirely altered method of moving and feeding the troops. It is one thing to lead 100,000 or perhaps 200,000 men in a rich country seamed with roads, and concentrate them for a battle--it is another to manoeuvre 800,000 men on a scene of war stripped bare by the enemy, where all railroads and bridges have been destroyed by modern explosives. In the first case the military empiric may be equal to the occasion; the second case demands imperatively a scientifically educated General and a staff who have also studied and mastered for themselves the nature of modern warfare. The problems of the future must be solved in advance if a commander wishes to be able to operate in a modern theatre of war with certainty and rapid decision.

The necessity of far-reaching individualization then is universally recognized. To be sure, the old traditions die slowly. Here and there an undeserved importance is still attached to the march past as a method of education, and drilling in close formation is sometimes practised more than is justified by its value. The cavalry is not yet completely awakened from its slumbers, and performs the time-honoured exercises on the parade-grounds with great strain on the horses' strength, oblivious of the existence of long-range quick-firing guns, and as if they were still the old arm which Napoleon or Frederick the Great commanded. Even the artillery is still haunted by some more or less antiquated notions; technical and stereotyped ideas still sometimes restrict the freedom of operations; in the practice of manoeuvres, artillery duels are still in vogue, while sufficient attention is not given to concentration of fire with a definite purpose, and to co-operation with the infantry. Even in theory the necessity of the artillery duel is still a.s.serted. Many conservative notions linger on in the heavy artillery. Obsolete ideas have not yet wholly disappeared even from the new regulations and ordinances where they block the path of true progress; but, on the whole, it has been realized that greater individual responsibility and self-reliance must be encouraged. In this respect the army is on the right road, and if it continues on it and continually resists the temptation of restricting the independence of the subordinate for the sake of outward appearance, there is room for hope that gradually the highest results will be attained, provided that competent military criticism has been equally encouraged.

In this direction a healthy development has started, but insufficient attention has been given to the fact that the main features of war have completely changed. Although in the next war men will have to be handled by millions, the training of our officers is still being conducted on lines which belong to a past era, and virtually ignore modern conditions. Our manoeuvres more especially follow these lines. Most of the practical training is carried out in manoeuvres of brigades and divisions--i.e., in formations which could never occur in the great decisive campaigns of the future. From time to time--financial grounds unfortunately prevent it being an annual affair--a corps manoeuvre is held, which also cannot be regarded as training for the command of "ma.s.ses." Sometimes, but rarely, several army corps are a.s.sembled for combined training under veteran Generals, who soon afterwards leave the service, and so cannot give the army the benefit of any experience which they may have gained.

It cannot, of course, be denied that present-day manoeuvres are extraordinarily instructive and useful, especially for the troops themselves', but they are not a direct training for the command of armies in modern warfare. Even the so-called "Imperial Manoeuvres" only correspond, to a very slight extent, to the requirements of modern war, since they never take account of the commissariat arrangements, and seldom of the arrangements for sheltering, etc., the troops which would be essential in real warfare. A glance at the Imperial Manoeuvres of 1909 is sufficient to show that many of the operations could never have been carried out had it been a question of the troops being fed under the conditions of war. It is an absolute necessity that our officers should learn to pay adequate attention to these points, which are the rule in warfare and appreciably cramp the power of operations. In theory, of course, the commissariat waggons are always taken into account; they are conscientiously mentioned in all orders, and in theory are posted as a commissariat reserve between the corps and the divisions. That they would in reality all have to circulate with a pendulum-like frequency between the troops and the magazines, that the magazines would have to be almost daily brought forward or sent farther back, that the position of the field bakeries is of extreme importance--these are all points which are inconvenient and troublesome, and so are very seldom considered.

In great strategic war-games, too, even in a theatre of war selected in Russia which excludes all living upon the country, the commissariat arrangements are rarely worked out in detail; I should almost doubt whether on such occasions the possibility of exclusive "magazine feeding" has ever been entertained. Even smaller opportunities of being acquainted with these conditions are given to the officer in ordinary manoeuvres, and yet it is extremely difficult on purely theoretical lines to become familiar with the machinery for moving and feeding a large army and to master the subject efficiently.

The friction and the obstacles which occur in reality cannot be brought home to the student in theory, and the routine in managing such things cannot be learnt from books.

These conditions, then, are a great check on the freedom of operations, but, quite apart from the commissariat question, the movements of an army present considerable difficulties in themselves, which it is obviously very hard for the inexperienced to surmount. When, in 1870, some rather complicated army movements were contemplated, as on the advance to Sedan, it was at once seen that the chief commanders were not masters of the situation, that only the fertility of the theatre of war and the deficient attacking powers of the French allowed the operations to succeed, although a man like Moltke was at the head of the army. All these matters have since been thoroughly worked out by our General Staff, but the theoretical labours of the General Staff are by no means the common property of the army.

On all these grounds I believe that first and foremost our manoeuvres must be placed on a new footing corresponding to the completely altered conditions, and that we must leave the beaten paths of tradition. The troops must be trained--as formerly--to the highest tactical efficiency, and the army must be developed into the most effective machine for carrying out operations; success in modern war turns on these two pivots. But the leaders must be definitely educated for that war on the great scale which some day will have to be fought to a finish. The paths we have hitherto followed do not lead to this goal.

All methods of training and education must be in accordance with these views.

I do not propose to go further into the battle training of infantry and cavalry in this place, since I have already discussed the question at length in special treatises.[A] In the case of the artillery alone, some remarks on the principles guiding the technical training of this arm seem necessary.

[Footnote A: v. Bernhardi: "Taktik und Ausbildung der Infanterie," 1910 "Unsere Kavallerie im nachsten Krieg," 1899; "Reiterdienst," 1910.]

The demands on the fighting-efficiency of this arm--as is partly expressed in the regulations--may be summed up as follows: all preconceived ideas and theories as to its employment must be put on one side, and its one guiding principle must be to support the cavalry or infantry at the decisive point. This principle is universally acknowledged in theory, but it ought to be more enforced in practice.

The artillery, therefore, must try more than ever to bring their tactical duties into the foreground and to make their special technical requirements subservient to this idea. The ever-recurring tendency to fight chiefly the enemy's artillery must be emphatically checked. On the defensive it will, of course, often be necessary to engage the attacking artillery, if there is any prospect of success, since this is the most dreaded enemy of the infantry on the defensive; but, on the attack, its chief duty always is to fire upon the enemy's infantry, where possible, from masked positions. The principle of keeping the artillery divisions close together on the battlefield and combining the fire in one direction, must not be carried to an extreme. The artillery certainly must be employed on a large plan, and the chief in command must see that there is a concentration of effort at the decisive points; but in particular cases, and among the varying incidents of a battle, this idea will be carried out less effectively by uniformity of orders than by explaining the general scheme to the subordinate officers, and leaving to them the duty of carrying it out. Accordingly, it is important that the personal initiative of the subordinate officer should be recognized more fully than before; for in a crisis such independent action is indispensable. The great extent of the battlefields and the natural endeavour to select wooded and irregular ground for the attack will often force the artillery to advance in groups or in lines one behind the other, and to attempt, notwithstanding, united action against the tactically most important objective. This result is hard to attain by a centralization of command, and is best realized by the independent action of tactically trained subordinates.

This is not the place to enter into technical details, and I will only mention some points which appear especially important.

The Bz sh.e.l.l _(Granatschuss)_ should be withdrawn as unsuitable, and its use should not form part of the training. It requires, in order to attain its specific effect against rifle-pits, such accurate aiming as is very seldom possible in actual warfare.

No very great value should be attached to firing with shrapnel. It seems to be retained in France and to have shown satisfactory results with us; but care must be taken not to apply the experiences of the shooting-range directly to serious warfare. No doubt its use, if successful, promises rapid results, but it may easily lead, especially in the "ma.s.s" battle, to great errors in calculation. In any case, practice with Az shot is more trustworthy, and is of the first importance.

The Az fire must be reserved princ.i.p.ally for the last stages of an offensive engagement, as was lately laid down in the regulations.

Care must be taken generally not to go too far in refinements and complications of strategy and devices. Only the simplest methods can be successfully applied in battle; this fact must never be forgotten.

The important point in the general training of the artillery is that text-book pedantries--for example, in the reports on shooting--should be relegated more than hitherto to the background, and that tactics should be given a more prominent position. In this way only can the artillery do really good service in action; but the technique of shooting must not be neglected in the reports. That would mean rejecting the good and the evil together, and the tendency to abolish such reports as inconvenient must be distinctly opposed.

Under this head, attention must be called to the independent manoeuvres of artillery regiments and brigades in the country, which entail large expenditure, and, in fact, do more harm than good. They must, in my opinion, be abandoned or at least considerably modified, since their possible use is not in proportion to their cost and their drawbacks.

They lead to p.r.o.nounced tactics of position _(Stellungstaktik)_ which are impracticable in war; and the most important lesson in actual war--the timely employment of artillery within a defined s.p.a.ce and for a definite object without any previous reconnoitring of the country in search of suitable positions for the batteries--can never be learnt on these manoeuvres. They could be made more instructive if the tactical limits were marked by troops; but the chief defect in these manoeuvres--viz., that the artillery is regarded as the decisive arm--cannot be thus remedied. The usual result is that favourable artillery positions are searched for, and that they are then adhered to under some tactical pretence.

After all, only a slight shifting of the existing centre of gravity may be necessary, so far as the development of the fighting _tactics_ of the various branches of the service is concerned, in order to bring them into line with modern conditions. If, however, the troops are to be educated to a higher efficiency in _operations_, completely new ground must be broken, on which, I am convinced, great results and an undoubted superiority over our opponents can be attained. Considerable difficulties will have to be surmounted, for the crucial point is to ama.s.s immense armies on a genuine war footing; but these difficulties are not, in my opinion, insurmountable.

There are two chief points: first, the practice of marching and operations in formations at war strength, fully equipped with well-stocked magazines as on active service; and, secondly, a reorganization of the manoeuvres, which must be combined with a more thorough education of the chief commanders.

As regards the first point, practice on this scale, so far as I know, has never yet been attempted. But if we consider, firstly, how valuable more rapid and accurate movements of great ma.s.ses will be for the war of the future, and, secondly, what serious difficulties they involve, we shall be rewarded for the attempt to prepare the army systematically for the discharge of such duties, and thus to win an unquestioned advantage over our supposed antagonist.

The preparation for the larger manoeuvres of this sort can naturally also be carried out in smaller formation. It is, moreover, very important to train large ma.s.ses of troops--brigades and divisions--in long marches across country by night and day with pioneer sections in the vanguard, in order to gain experience for the technique of such movements, and to acquire by practice a certain security in them.

Training marches with full military stores, etc., in columns of 20 to 25 kilometres depth would be still more valuable, since they correspond to the daily needs of real warfare. Should it not be possible to a.s.semble two army corps in such manoeuvres, then the necessary depth of march can be obtained by letting the separate detachments march with suitable intervals, in which case the intervals must be very strictly observed.

This does not ever really reproduce the conditions of actual warfare, but it is useful as a makeshift. The waggons for the troops would have to be hired, as On manoeuvres, though only partly, in order to save expense. The supplies could be brought on army transport trains, which would represent the pioneer convoys _(Verpflegungsstaffel)_, and would regulate their pace accordingly.

Marching merely for training purposes in large formations, with food supplied from the field-kitchens during the march, would also be of considerable value provided that care is taken to execute the march in the shortest possible time, and to replace the provisions consumed by bringing fresh supplies forward from the rear; this process is only properly seen when the march, with supplies as if in war, is continued for several days. It is naturally not enough to undertake these manoeuvres once in a way; they must be a permanent inst.i.tution if they are intended to develop a sound knowledge of marching in the army.

Finally, flank marches must be practised, sometimes in separate columns, sometimes in army formation. The flank marches of separate columns will, of course, be useful only when they are combined with practice in feeding an army as if in war, so that the commissariat columns march on the side away from the enemy, in a parallel line, and are thence brought up to the troops at the close of the march. Flank marches in army formation will have some value, even apart from any training in the commissariat system, since the simultaneous crossing of several marching columns on parallel by-roads is not an easy manoeuvre in itself. But this exercise will have its full value only when the regulation commissariat waggons are attached, which would have to move with them and furnish the supplies.

I also consider that operative movements in army formation extending over several days are desirable. Practice must be given in moving backwards and forwards in the most various combinations, in flank movements, and in doubling back, the lines of communication in the rear being blocked when necessary. Then only can all the difficulties which occur on such movements be shown one by one, and it can be seen where the lever must be applied in order to remove them. In this way alone can the higher commanders gain the necessary certainty in conducting such operations, so as to be able to employ them under the pressure of a hostile attack. An army so disciplined would, I imagine, acquire a p.r.o.nounced superiority over any opponent who made his first experiments in such operations in actual war. The major strategic movements on both sides in the Franco-German War of 1870-71 sufficiently showed that.

I recognize naturally that all exercises on this scale would cost a great deal of money and could never all be carried out systematically one after the other. I wished, however, to ventilate the subject, firstly, in order to recommend all officers in high command to study the points of view under consideration--a thing they much neglect to do; secondly, because it might be sometimes profitable and possible to carry out in practice one or other of them--at the Imperial Manoeuvres, for example, or on some other occasion. How much could be saved in money alone and applied usefully to this purpose were the above-mentioned country manoeuvres of the artillery suspended? From reasons of economy all the commissariat waggons and columns need not actually be employed on such manoeuvres. It would be useful, however, if, in addition to one detachment equipped on a war footing, the head waggons of the other groups were present and were moved along at the proper distance from each other and from the detachment, which could mainly be fed from the kitchen waggon. It would thus be possible to get a sort of presentation of the whole course of the commissariat business and to acquire valuable experience. It is, indeed, extraordinarily difficult to arrange such manoeuvres properly, and it must be admitted that much friction and many obstacles are got rid of if only the heads of the groups are marked out, and that false ideas thus arise which may lead to erroneous conclusions; but under careful direction such manoeuvres would certainly not be wholly useless, especially if attention is mainly paid to the matters which are really essential. They would, at any rate, be far more valuable than many small manoeuvres, which can frequently be replaced by exercises on the large drill-grounds, than many expensive trainings in the country, which are of no real utility, or than many other military inst.i.tutions which are only remotely connected with the object of training under active service conditions. All that does not directly promote this object must be erased from our system of education at a time when the highest values are at stake.

Even then exercise in operations on a large scale cannot often be carried out, primarily because of the probable cost, and next because it is not advisable to interrupt too often the tactical training of the troops.

It must be repeated in a definite cycle in each large formation, so that eventually all superior officers may have the opportunity of becoming practically acquainted with these operations, and also that the troops may become familiarized with the modern commissariat system; but since such practical exercises must always be somewhat incomplete, they must also be worked out beforehand theoretically. It is not at all sufficient that the officers on the General Staff and the Intendants have a mastery of these subjects. The rank and file must be well up in them; but especially the officers who will be employed on the supply service--that is to say, the transport officers of the standing army and those officers on the furlough establishment, who would be employed as column commanders.

The practical service in the transport battalions and the duties performed by the officers of the last-mentioned category who are a.s.signed to these battalions are insufficient to attain this object.

They learn from these mainly practical duties next to nothing of the system as a whole. It would therefore be advisable that all these officers should go through a special preliminary course for this service, in which the whole machinery of the army movements would be explained to them by the officers of the General Staff and the higher transport service officers, and they would then learn by practical examples to calculate the whole movement of the columns in the most varied positions with precise regard to distances and time. This would be far more valuable for war than the many and often excessive trainings in driving, etc., on which so much time is wasted. The technical driver's duty is very simple in all columns and trains, but it is not easy to know in each position what is the crucial point, in order to be able, when occasion arises, to act independently.

While, therefore, on the one hand, driving instruction must be thoroughly carried out, on the other hand, the inst.i.tution of a scientific transport service course, in which, by practical examples out of military history, the importance of these matters can be explained, is under present circ.u.mstances an absolute necessity. I have shown elsewhere how necessary it is to proceed absolutely systematically in the arrangements for relays of supplies, since the operative capabilities of the army depend on this system. Its nature, however, cannot be realized by the officers concerned like a sudden inspiration when mobilization takes place; knowledge of its principles must be gained by study, and a proof of the complete misapprehension of the importance which this service has attained under modern conditions is that officers are supposed to be able to manage it successfully without having made in peace-time a profound scientific study of the matter.

The transport service has advanced to a place of extraordinary importance in the general system of modern warfare. It should be appreciated accordingly. Every active transport service officer ought, after some years' service, to attend a scientific course; all the senior officers on the furlough establishment intended for transport service ought, as their first duty, to be summoned to attend such a course. If these educational courses were held in the autumn in the training camps of the troops, they would entail little extra cost, and an inestimable advantage would be gained with a very trifling outlay.

The results of such a measure can only be fully realized in war, when the superior officers also thoroughly grasp these matters and do not make demands contrary to the nature of the case, and therefore impossible to be met. They should therefore be obliged to undergo a thorough education in the practical duties of the General Staff, and not merely in leading troops in action.

This reflection leads to the discussion of the momentous question how, generally, the training of the superior officers for the great war should be managed, and how the manoeuvres ought to be reorganized with a view to the training. The essential contradiction between our obsolete method of training and the completely altered demands of a new era appears here with peculiar distinctness.

A large part of our superior commanders pa.s.s through the General Staff, while part have attended at least the military academy; but when these men reach the higher positions what they learnt in their youth has long become out of date. The continuation school is missing. It can be replaced only by personal study; but there is generally insufficient time for this, and often a lack of interest. The daily duties of training troops claim all the officer's energy, and he needs great determination and love of hard work to continue vigorously his own scientific education. The result is, that comparatively few of our superior officers have a fairly thorough knowledge, much less an independently thought out view, of the conditions of war on the great scale. This would cost dearly in real war. Experience shows that it is not enough that the officers of the General Staff attached to the leader are competent to fill up this gap. The leader, if he cannot himself grasp the conditions, becomes the tool of his subordinates; he believes he is directing and is himself being directed. This is a far from healthy condition. Our present manoeuvres are, as already mentioned, only occasionally a school for officers in a strategical sense, and from the tactical point of view they do not meet modern requirements. The minor manoeuvres especially do not represent what is the most important feature in present-day warfare--i.e., the sudden concentration of larger forces on the one side and the impossibility, from s.p.a.ce considerations, of timely counter-movements on the other. The minor manoeuvres are certainly useful in many respects. The commanders learn to form decisions and to give orders, and these are two important matters; but the same result would follow from manoeuvres on the grand scale, which would also to some extent reproduce the modern conditions of warfare.

Brigade manoeuvres especially belong to a past generation, and merely encourage wrong ideas. All that the soldiers learn from them--that is, fighting in the country--can be taught on the army drill-grounds.

Divisional manoeuvres are still of some value even to the commanders.

The principles of tactical leadership in detail can be exemplified in them; but the first instructive manoeuvres in the modern sense are those of the army corps; still more valuable are the manoeuvres on a larger scale, in which several army corps are combined, especially when the operating divisions are considered part of one whole, and are compelled to act in connection with one grand general scheme of operation. The great art in organizing manoeuvres is to reproduce such conditions, for only in this way can the strain of the general situation and the collective ma.s.s of individual responsibility, such as exist in actual warfare, be distinctly brought home. This is a most weighty consideration. The superior officers must have clearly brought before their eyes the limits of the possible and the impossible in modern warfare, in order to be trained to deal with great situations.

The requirements which these reflections suggest are the restriction of small-scale manoeuvres in favour of the large and predominantly strategical manoeuvres, and next the abolition of some less important military exercises in order to apply the money thus saved in this direction. We must subject all our resources to a single test--that they conduce to the perfecting of a modern army. We must subject all our resources to a single test--that they conduce to the perfecting of a modern army. If the military drill-grounds are suitably enlarged (a rather difficult but necessary process, since, in view of the range of the artillery and the ma.s.s tactics, they have generally become too small) a considerable part of the work which is done in the divisional manoeuvres could be carried out on them. The money saved by this change could be devoted to the large army manoeuvres. One thing is certain: a great impulse must be given to the development of our manoeuvre system if it is to fulfil its purpose as formerly; in organization and execution these manoeuvres must be modern in the best sense of the word.

It seems, however, quite impossible to carry out this sort of training on so comprehensive a scale that it will by itself be sufficient to educate serviceable commanders for the great war. The manoeuvres can only show their full value if the officers of every rank who take part in them have already had a competent training in theory.

To encourage this preliminary training of the superior officers is thus one of the most serious tasks of an efficient preparation for war. These must not regard their duty as lying exclusively in the training of the troops, but must also be ever striving further to educate themselves and their subordinates for leadership in the great war. Strategic war games on a large scale, which in the army corps can be conducted by the commanding Generals, and in the army-inspections by the Inspectors, seem to me to be the only means by which this end can be attained. All superior officers must be criticized by the standard of their efficiency in superior commands. The threads of all this training will meet in the hands of the Chief of the General Army Staff as the strategically responsible authority.

It seems undesirable in any case to leave it more or less to chance to decide whether those who hold high commands will be competent or not for their posts. The circ.u.mstances that a man is an energetic commander of a division, or as General in command maintains discipline in his army corps, affords no conclusive proof that he is fitted to be the leader of an army. Military history supplies many instances of this.

No proof is required to show that under the conditions of modern warfare the reconnoitring and screening units require special training. The possibility and the success of all operations are in the highest degree dependent on their activity. I have for years pointed out the absolute necessity of preparing our cavalry officers scientifically for their profession, and I can only repeat the demand that our cavalry riding-schools should be organized also as places of scientific education. I will also once more declare that it is wrong that the bulk of the training of the army cavalry should consist in the divisional cavalry exercises on the military drill-grounds. These exercises do not correspond at all to actual conditions, and inculcate quite wrong notions in the officers, as every cavalry officer in high command finds out who, having been taught on the drill-ground, has to lead a cavalry division on manoeuvres.

The centre of gravity of effectiveness in war rests on the directing of operations and on the skilful transition from strategical independence to combination in attack; the great difficulty of leading cavalry lies in these conditions, and this can no more be learnt on the drill-grounds than systematic screening and reconnaissance duties. The perpetual subject of practice on the drill-grounds, a cavalry engagement between two divisions in close formation, will hardly ever occur in war. Any unprejudiced examination of the present conditions must lead to this result, and counsels the cavalry arm to adopt a course which may be regarded as a serious preparation for war.

It is a truly remarkable fact that the artillery, which in fact, always acts only in combination with the other arms, carries out annually extensive independent manoeuvres, as if it had by itself a definite effect on the course of the campaign, while the army cavalry, which _always_ takes the field independently, hardly ever trains by itself, but carefully practises that combination with infantry which is only rarely necessary in war. This clearly demonstrates the unsystematic and antiquated methods of all our training.

Practice in reconnoitring and screening tactics, as well as raids on a large scale, are what is wanted for the training of the cavalry.

Co-operation with the air-fleet will be a further development, so soon as aviation has attained such successes that it may be reckoned as an integral factor of army organization. The airship division and the cavalry have kindred duties, and must co-operate under the same command, especially for screening purposes, which are all-important.