Lidell Hart: Strategy = "The art of distributing and applying military means to fulfil the ends of policy."
Henrich von Bulow: Strategy = "Military measures taken beyond the range of the enemy's weapons; tactics are measures taken within that range."
Introduction
The genesis of the European War that became the First World War, or the Great War, had its origins in the late 19th Century. It was created by the ambitions and rivalries of the Great European Powers, the inherent instability of the Balkan states, and was linked to a burgeoning cult of militarism. At the root of it was the growing might of German technology and industry, allied with its fierce jealousy of the colonial empires of Great Britain and France. Germany felt it was not getting the global respect and deference, or territorial gains, that it's enhanced status and large population deserved.
These German ambitions and threats were clearly perceived by the other European Great Powers but particularly by France, for whom, sooner or later, another war with Germany, was inevitable.
As early as the last year of the 19th Century, books were being published in Great Britain concerning the threat of a German invasion. As the new century advanced the number of these books soared. Although France, the historic enemy of Great Britain, was also seen as a threat, the degree of speculation in literary form was less intense.
In their turn, both the Germans and the French had their fanciful martial adventures against the invaders. Other books foresaw the problems in the Balkans, with Russia playing the part of the principal aggressor and the other 'actors' with bit parts.
On the rostrum, international speakers were extolling the various threats, whilst others tried to minimise them by explaining the sheer impracticability and lunacy of it all.
Militarism raises its ugly head
The poor, even embarrassing, performance of the British Army in the Boer War (1899-1902), forced the British to review the state of their ground forces. As always the Royal Navy continued to have priority in men, materials and finance: in 1914 the ratio of British warships to Germany's was still over 2:1.
Despite an active National Service League that had the aim of 'improving national (military) efficiency', the traditional national antipathy towards conscription won the day. The national preference remained a well trained, if small, professional army of around 250,000, with a reserve of around the same number: 1.2% of the total population. There was also a combined colonial force of about 200,000 men.
In France, in 1913, there was a 'réveil national' (national wake-up call) and the almost universal military conscription commitment was extended from two to three years. The 1914 peace-time army strength was 830,000, with an anticipated war-time strength, after mobilisation, of 1.8 million (2.3% of the total population) plus 160,000 colonials
Militarism in Germany developed through a whole host of national movements of which the Pan-German League was one of the more active, working under nationalistic banner of Kultur. The strength of the German peacetime army in 1914 was around 750,000, which could be expanded to over two million upon full-scale mobilisation: 1.1% of the total population. An alliance of Germany and Austria/Hungary (The so-called Central Powers) would raise the combined potential armed forces by over another million men. The German colonies were only expected to contribute a nominal force of less than 10,000 men.
The international military status of Russia had declined with the fiasco of the war with Japan (1904-5). Its major preoccupations were with obtaining a military alliance with France against Germany, free access to the Black Sea - a warm water port - and the seizing of Constantinople, Turkey. The 1914 peacetime army of conscripts totalled 1.4 million with a potential on mobilisation of 3.5 million men. As population census figures were uncertain, this represented around 3% of the total population.
The means of mass mobilisation
In 1914, the prime consideration for the continental armies was the movement of their armies and their equipment to the borders where invasion was expected, or had already occurred.
As an island, Great Britain's defensive and offensive strategy was primarily based on the Royal Navy. Firstly, in case of invasion, to block the enemy forces from attaining land-fall and, secondly, in the event of the movement of the Army on active service over-seas, to ensure the safe transport of the British Expeditionary Force across the English Channel, and beyond as the situation demanded. Due to the relatively small size of the British landmass, when compared with its European counterparts, transportation by rail was relatively easy and fast over an extensive network.
The continental armies of France, Germany and Russia based their mobilisation plans almost entirely on their railways. By 1914, and the outbreak of war, vast sums had been spent up-grading the railway networks, their organisation and rolling stock, to best serve this purpose. At the outbreak of war the situation was
- Germany: Had over 60,000km of railway track. 11,000 trains were used to move 2 million men and their equipment and supplies in the first 14 days of the war.
- France: Had 40,000 km of track.
- Russia: Had over 70,000 km of track mostly in the West. The Russian initiative (Plan 20) to reduce the mobilisation time by half was forestalled by the outbreak of war. Nevertheless, 360 trains a day were available on the Eastern Front for mobilisation of the army.
- Austria/Hungary: 45,000km of track
The deliberate incompatibility of the gauge of the railway tracks of some neighbouring countries, i.e. Germany and Russia, caused difficulties to the invaders in the transfer of men and material across international borders. These deficiencies, and those encountered with the supply of men and material to the Front Lines, were often resolved by the construction of light railways from multiple railheads. The same tracks, and special branch lines, were also widely used to move the larger artillery guns.
Plans
Envisaging a European War by some years, Germany, France and Russia had all formulated elaborate strategic Plans of Action. Great Britain had no formal Plan as such; just the principle of the British Expeditionary Force for which some initial planning and organisation had been made. After all, Britain had stood aside during the last Franco-German War in 1870, and only 'promises in certain conditions' had been made to France this time; although the French thought otherwise. And certainly, King George V was against the war.
Without a pre-war plan for a Continental War; the pre-war British Army was simply a 'fire-brigade' force designed to watch over its far flung territories and with the ability to quickly move, grace à the Royal Navy, to quell revolt and dissension in the Empire. Moreover, boasts by navalists to the contrary, there was no conceivable way that the Royal Navy on its own could have seriously affected the Central Powers successes in the war on land.
In the end the BEF did sail for France on the 5th August 1914, but its full contingent of seven divisions (one cavalry) was not authorised until the 3rd September; all had arrived by October 1914.
The consensus is that that although limited, British intervention was crucial. Though by the end of 1914 it only ultimately produced the stalemate of trench warfare; not the anticipated victory over the Central Powers.
Accordingly, once committed Great Britain had to create almost from scratch a citizen's army to fight on the Western Front: Kitchener's New Army.
- The German Schlieffen Plan, 1906: Count Alfred von Schleiffen, the German Chief of Staff conceived a plan for a simultaneous war against France and Russia. It foresaw that France could launch a decisive battle 15 days after the outbreak of war, but that it would take Russia six weeks to do so. Accordingly, the Plan was aimed at defeating France first and then taking on the Russians before they were ready.
The Plan involved crossing the open plains of Flanders in the North, through neutral Belgium, with or without the acquiescence of its government, and advancing on Paris with a view to its capture, and the subsequent encirclement of the French Army to the East. Simultaneously, a small army would seal the Franco-German border against a French attack to the East. Once the French Army was defeated, a larger combined German Army would move to attack Russia.
For various reasons the plan narrowly failed. The German hope that the war could be won in one fell swoop, and before the British could intervene in France, was unrequited. The war on the Western Front began to run its long course.
- The French Plan XVII, 1913: The French Generals Foch and Joffre formulated a plan for the pre-emptive deployment of the French Army in the event of a presumed German invasion. Without a strict timetable, or assigning definite targets, the Plan envisaged the launch of a preliminary attack in Alsace, followed by a stronger one in Lorraine, with the ultimate objective of reaching the River Rhine. Depending on the German response, the line of attack would be into Germany through the Ardennes Forest in the South, or to the North via Luxembourg and/or Belgium.
As foreseen, the Plan was launched to the East in August 1914, whilst the Germans swept around it to the North. It ground to a halt on the 24th August 1914, when the grave German threat in the West became fully apparent.
- The Russian Plan 19, 1910: Written by Russian General Danilov and the Minister of War, Sukhomlinov, it put two thirds of the Russian Army in place for an immediate invasion of East Prussia assuming, correctly, that Germany would concentrate the main initial effort on France. But, in May 1912, a fateful change was made that greatly reduced the size of the force on the East Prussian Front arraigned against the German Army, in favour of a concentration on the Galician Front of the Austro-Hungarian Army. An additional change on the 7th August 1914 further compromised the Plan and led to the subsequent debacle on the Eastern Front.
Strategies on the Western Front in late 1914 to November 1918
Britain and its Empire: Throughout the war the British Army remained firmly under the political control of the British Government through the War Council: initially under the Liberal Government led by Asquith (1906 - 15) and then the Coalition with Asquith (1915 - 16) and Lloyd George 1916 - 22). By the judicious restriction of the flow of reinforcements and replacements across the English Channel, the politicians were to some extent able to retain influence over the prosecution of the war on the Western Front. Typical examples were the resistance of the War Council to sending Kitchener's New Armies to the BEF in 1915, and refusing big reinforcements in 1917 after the debacle of Third Ypres/Passchendaele. Once the armies were inducted into the British Expeditionary Force in France/Belgium, their control fell under the direction of the Commander-in- Chief, BEF. Initially this was Field Marshal Sir John Denton Pinkstone French, and his Staff, and later, from December 1915, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.
In principle, all major strategy plans and tactics of the BEF were formulated by the Commander in Chief and his Staff, then discussed with the politicians and a plan of action agreed upon. In practice many strategic decisions were taken by the BEF GHQ and only conveyed back to London after the event.
On this basis the major decisions on the major campaigns, such as the following, were made: Artois/Loos 1915, The First and Second Ypres 1914/18, First Somme 1916, Third Ypres and Passchendaele and the 100 Days Campaign in 1918.
Field Marshal, Sir John Denton Pinkstone French, C-in-C, BEF: The strategy of Field Marshal French after the first phase of the war in 1914, when the BEF fought cross country in support of their reeling French and Belgian allies at Mons and Antwerp, was to prevent an out-flanking movement by the Germans.
The Germans were the first to initiate trench warfare and selected their sites for their trench networks with characteristic care. Thus demonstrating an eye for the tactical value of territory that the Allies never seemed to master to the same degree This invariably left the British and the French Armies in the wetter and lower lying ground, under the constant surveillance of the higher placed German defences. Eventually, after the race for the sea and the neutral Swiss border was completed, the two belligerent alliances faced each other along 475 miles of an almost continuous network of trenches.
After the difficulties at Mons, French always had in mind the entire withdrawal of the BEF back to England, and he had to be persuaded by a visit from Lord Kitchener, the War Minister, to commit the BEF to participate in the French counter-offensive at the Marne.
The inability of Field Marshal French to speak the French language, and a general reluctance to liaise with them, seriously set back any strategy of unified action. Only in the latter part of 1915 were appropriate remedial steps taken.
A generally lack-luster campaign during 1915, including the first use of poison gas by the British, ended with a below par performance, with its muddle over reserves and lack of artillery support, in the Loos/Artois/ offensives. This led to the replacement of French, in December 1915, by his deputy, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.
Field Marshal, Sir Douglas Haig, CinC, BEF: The basic strategy of Field Marshal Haig was close to that of 'attrition' and to 'attack at all costs'. Although Haig preferred the euphemistic expression 'wearing out' to attrition.
Perhaps, his most astute strategic move was to support the appointment of Marshal Ferdinand Foch as Supreme Commander of the Allies in 1918, and the exemplary way he co-operated with Foch to bring about the defeat of the German Army in November of that year.
The decision to launch the offensive on the Somme in 1916 was largely dictated by the French (Haig's real preference was the Flanders Sector) and was actually planned before the German attack on Verdun took place and the ensuing pressure for diversionary tactics that that brought. This same operational requirement to support the French, frequently influenced, if not actually determined, Haig's choice of strategy. It was not until the Battle of Messines, in June 1917, that Haig first had complete control over both strategy and tactics.
There is little doubt that Haig's ambitious strategy on the Somme was impracticable from the outset. It involved a wide front of attack (20 miles), and deep penetration to the third line of defences - upto 5,000 yards -and a possible 'breakthrough'. Haig over-ruled the more realistic tactics of the Fourth Army commander, General Henry Rawlinson, who proposed the less ambitious. but more likely efficacious, 'Bite and Hold' tactic. Haig's persistent attempts, egged on by Joffre, at making his faulty proposition work by his literally 'At all Costs' approach was, ultimately, the genesis of the unsatisfactory climax. This emerged from months of intense and costly fighting for, at best, a seven-mile advance. His claim, when the fighting finally died down, that he had 'relieved Verdun and worn down the German Army' was not convincing then and, perhaps, is even less so now.
It is interesting to note that the French Army in its sector on the Somme, with more modest objectives from the outset, and more effective artillery support, generally did much better; particularly in the initial phase. The counter-strategy of Falkenhayn was equally inflexible as the Allies, and the Germany Army launched innumerable costly counterattacks.
After Nivelle's disastrous offensive at the Chemin des Dames, (see below) it seems that Haig turned again to the Flanders Sector for want of a better strategy.
Haig had the foresight to ardently support the introduction of the tank as a means of breaking the trench warfare stalemate. Although he might had done better to delay its introduction on the battlefield until.
- the inherent mechanical problems were solved.
- sufficient numbers were made available to make a real impact.
- the crews had been fully trained, and coherent strategy and tactics had been evolved to deploy the tank to its optimum potential under the variable topographical conditions of the French and Belgian battlefields.
Also, Haig did have an appreciation of the need for new tactics, such as: mining; defence-in-depth; the creeping barrage; and even storm-trooper like units. But he was forced to reciprocate with toxic gas attacks irrespective of whether he had ever seriously considered its use. However, generally, he did not do as well as his German counterparts in introducing these new tactics and measures to the battlefield. Particularly so the highly effective German Army tactic of 'directive command', flexibly based on the initiative and decisions of the troops on the ground.
Nevertheless, many authoritative military historians claim as exemplary his strategy for, and the management of, the more mobile battles of the last 100 Days of the war on the Western Front.
France and its Empire: The long-standing alliance between France and Russia inevitably drew France into the political machinations of the Balkan States, and all the complications that that entailed. But as the outbreak of war drew close, both the French politicians and the military had every confidence in their large, mainly conscripted army, and their Plan XVII. The military elite felt assured of a rapid victory over Germany in the West, while the Russians could be relied upon to use their Plan 19 to deal with the army of Austria/ Hungary, and any allies, in the East.
Marshal Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre, C-in-C, French Army: The failure of Plan 19 to contain the German invasion, meant the strategy had to change and all efforts had to be concentrated in the West to save the situation. By the narrowest of margins the C-in-C Marshal Joffre, with some help from the British, and General Joseph Galleni, managed to stem the German advance at the Marne.
When the dust had settled, the Germans dug in and began to create extensive trench networks. Almost everywhere this left the French and their colonial troops in similarly inferior tactical positions as were the British. Henceforth, the only strategy of the French was to repel the German invaders from French soil, whilst the Germans were largely content to hold what they had, and slowly wear down the French Army in a war of attrition.
With this quite unexpected and traumatic upset of the French pre-war planning, the politicians handed to the C-in-C, Joffre, and his General Headquarters Staff, almost total control of the strategy to wage the war through the French dogma of 'offensive à l'outrance = offensive spirit'.
Military censors clamped down fiercely on the Press. Only the blandest and most favourable military communiqués were released by the Army. Persons of influence outside the military cadres were strongly discouraged from visiting the war zone; the so-called Zone des Armées that was kept under Martial Law.
In December 1914, Joffre began a relentless series of offensives to drive back the Germans - principally in Champagne, 1914-15 and Artois, 1915 and, co-indentally, divert some of Falkenhayn's Central Powers armies in the East where Russia and its Eastern Allies were in serious difficulty.
By the end of 1915, with French casualties approaching 1.5 million and no sign of the expulsion of the German invaders, the French Socialists under Briand regained power. Briand immediately tried to regain political direction of the war and enhance Allied co-operation.
In December 1916, at a conference at Joffre's HQ in Chantilly, it was decided by Allied commanders that there would be a co-ordinated effort on the Western, Italian and Eastern Fronts. It was agreed that these offensives would all take place during, or shortly after, March 1916. As part of this strategy, all the Allies undertook to maximise the production of munitions and boost the numbers of troops available for the Front Line.
It was the fiasco at Verdun, and the public discontent with the progress of the war, that finally brought the downfall of Joffre, then Generalissimo of the French Army, in December 1916. Many thought that the disaster at Verdun was, at least in part, due to Joffre's decision to relocate many of the larger portable artillery guns for his 'Big Push' at Artois
General Robert Georges Nivelle, C-in-C French Army: Joffre was replaced by General Robert Nivelle. Nivelle was socially well connected and had the support of Prime Ministers Briand and Lloyd George - he was English speaking - and was the hero of Verdun. Nivelle fervently believed he had a strategy that would "end the war in 48 hours". This he signally failed to do with his ill-conceived Nivelle offensive in the Chemin Dames, in April/May 1917. The British provided diversionary support at Arras in a subordinate role. The heavy losses in the Nivelle offensive (187,000) brought a significant part of the French Army to a state of mutiny with 68 of France's 112 infantry divisions affected.
Marshal Henri-Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain, Commander French Army: Nivelle, was quickly replaced by Marshal Pétain, who skilfully brought the French Army back into an operational force, although some of the former extraordinary martial spirit appeared to have been permanently lost. By the beginning of 1918, supported by the British Army, and an ever-increasing wave of American troops, the French were once again able to play a significant, if less dominant, part in the fighting of the final year of the war.
Marshal (and British Field Marshal) Foch, C-in-C French Army/Allied Supreme Commander: The rehabilitation of the French as a leading participant in the final phase of the war was also enhanced by the extraordinary role that was played by Marshal Ferdinand Foch. Sacked when Nivelle fell, he was recalled to co-ordinate the inter-Allied support to Italy and then, crucially, from early 1918, superbly performed the same function on the Western Front. On the 14th April 1918, by consensus, Foch became the Allied Supreme Commander on the Western Front. This mandate was later extended to include the Italian Front in June 1918. His joint decisions with the other Allies produced the strategy and tactics that successfully concluded the war.
Germany and its Empire: There were four German commanders on the Western Front.
Field Marshal Helmuth Johannes Ludwig Molkte, Chief of General Staff: If ever there was a wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong friend, it was General Helmuth von Moltke. In 1916, Moltke took over from von Schlieffen as Chief of the General Staff with what proved for him to be the poisoned chalice of the Schlieffen Plan, and its strategy of simultaneous pre-emptive attack on both France and Russia. A dithering Moltke was caught between his friend - the war obsessed Emperor (Kaiser) Wilhelm II - and Erich von Falkenhayn, a highly ambitious War Minister/General with an unhealthy desire for a European War. Falkenhayn also had considerable influence on the strategy of the Central Powers. To make matters even worse, Molkte fatally changed certain aspects of the Schlieffen Plan.
With the failure of the Schlieffen Plan in August 1914, and the concommitant operational setbacks, Moltke had a serious nervous breakdown and Falkenhayn took his place in September 1914.
The German Army's Great War prediliction for the strategic gamble had been tried, and lost, and would be made again and again at crucial times and events in the War.
General Erich von Falkenhayn, War Minster/ Chief of the General Staff: Falkenhayn engendered the adoption of trench-warfare by the German Army: inevitably the French and British were obliged to followed suit.
Reinforced by his experience in the Battles of Flanders, in late 1914, Falkenhayn clearly understood the futility of massed frontal attacks in pursuit of the 'Big Breakthrough'. In effect, he realised that Central Powers could not win the war outright. Rather, he thought that the Central Powers could win the war by not losing the territory they already held, thus forcing its individual enemies to make separate peace agreements favourable to Germany. His successes in 1915 on the Eastern Front, provided support for this view.
From the outset Falkenhayn had in mind a state of warfare whereby the French and British Armies would expend themselves on the German defence line. This attrition process was defined in graphic expressions of his such as: 'Germany would bleed the enemy white'.
Falkenhayn also increased the number of machine guns per regiment and greatly enhanced the supply of shells: firepower in lieu of manpower.
The rationale of pre-emptive action to discourage the expected Anglo-French offensive of 1915, led him to be the first to use poison gas operationally on the Western Front at the Second battle Ypres in April 1917. Although the attack had an initial dramatic effect, the Allies were able to develop countermeasures before Falkenhayn could fully exploit this new 'terror weapon'.
Even more disastrously, in February 1916, Falkenhayn decided to launch 'a limited offensive' at Verdun with only nine divisions, using intense artillery fire as his main instrument of attrition. This turned into a murderous quagmire, principally because of French political considerations strongly articulated by the French Prime Minister Briand. It developed into a real battle of attrition for both the French and the German Armies. Verdun proved to be one of the most costly battles in history, with an outcome best expressed as an unsatisfactory draw. The French Army was indeed bled white, but so was the German Army. The respective total casualties were France = 377,000; Germany = 337,000.
Falkenhayn's attempts at attrition on the British Army also included limited offensives. Coincidentally, he gave his strong support to the concept of unrestricted submarine warfare. However, at this time neither the Kaiser nor the Chancellor, Bethman Hollweg, were willing to take this internationally illegal action at sea.
But the operational failures of 1916, and the subsequent British demonstration of their own ability to launch big offensives (e.g. The First Somme), brought about Falkenhayn's resignation in August 1916.
Field Marshal Paul Ludwig von Beneckendorf und von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff, First Quarter-Master General: Falhenhayn's fall from grace brought the highly successful Command Team of the Eastern Front - Hindenburg and his deputy Erich Ludendorff - to the Western Front in August 1916. Whilst Hindenburg presented the figurehead and gravitas of high command, Ludendorff was the brains, motivator and activator of the team; almost all the strategic decisions and initiatives came from him. A Prussian of relatively modest origins, Ludendorff was intensely ambitious and had most, if not all, of the abilities to gratify them: he was notoriously abrasive in manner, and lacking in social skills. Ludendorff relied on Hindenburg to cover up, or smooth over, his indiscretions, which Hindenburg invariably did. In return, Ludendorff was intensely loyal and deferential.
Ludendorff's power base included an unprecedented degree of control over the political leadership of the German State. His overall strategy may be briefly stated as Total War and the mass mobilisation of the military and political means of war. This included a revamping of tactics, operations and even the doctrine of warfare as required by trench warfare. Part of this philosophy also included the (ultimately) disastrous gamble of total unrestricted submarine warfare, which was reinstated, despite prescient warnings of adverse repercussions in the United States, on the31st January 1917.
To achieve these military aims, Ludendorff launched the Hindenburg Programme that effectively took control of the entire German economy.
Using this powerful base, Ludendorff also totally changed the strategy of the German Army in both defence and attack. In February 1917, he abruptly withdrew it from the former Western Front to a 300 mile long impregnable array of defence systems - the Siegfreid Stellung that he had planned as early as September 1916. It became known to the British as the Hindenburg Line.
The first casualty of this new strategy was the Nivelle Offensive of April 1917 which was remorselessly ground down in the Chemin des Dames Sector by the looser defences and more mobile tactics of the revamped German Army.
Ludendorff's final throw of the dice was his pre-emptive, but ultimately strategically suicidal, 1918 March Offensive. It was aimed to be a decisive strike against the Allied Armies before the ever-increasing American Expeditionary Force could become fully effective. Also known as 'Operation Michael' or the Kaiserschlacht, the offensive was launched on the 21st March 1918 over the former Somme battlefield. Initially, it achieved enormous tactical success, but not the required breakthrough to the Channel Ports, and eventually ran out of steam
The strength of the eventual Allied counter-attack was devastating. On the 8th August 1918, the success of Allies on the first day of what came to be known as the Battle of Amiens caused Ludendorff to say "The 8th August 1918 was the black day of the German Army in the history of the war". The die was cast and even the Kaiser realised the war was lost.
In September/October 1918, Ludendorff's strange, almost defeatist attitude, once the imminent collapse of the German Army became clear, was a primary catalyst for the decision of the German State, under the new Chancellor Max von Baden, to seek an Armistice.
Comment
Few military historians would doubt that General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, Military Commander, German East Africa Colonial Army was, within the limits and scale of his remit, one of most successful military strategists of the Great War. With a small force of German officers and men, backed by a small army of 3,000 African Askaris, he single-handedly held a 100,000 strong (350,000 including auxiliaries) British and Empire force at bay for almost the whole duration of the war. His threat to British interests in East Africa, and the need to deploy against him British and Empire forces that were urgently required elsewhere, was a significant drain on the British war effort. Indubitably, to some extent, he affected British strategy in the Great War and on the Western Front.
