Command or control?: command, training and tactics in the British and German armies, 1888-1918

COMMAND OR CONTROL? Command, Training and Tactics

in the British and German Armies,

1888-1918

MARTIN SAMUELS

FRANK CASS L O N D O N

First published in 1995 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS & CO. LTD.

Newbury House, 900 Eastern Avenue London IG2 7HH, England

and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS

ISBS, 5804 N.E. Hassalo Street Portland, Oregon 97213-3644

Copyright © 1995 Martin Samuels

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Samuels, Martin Command or Control?: Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918 I. Title 355.5

ISBN 0-7146-4570-2 (cloth) ISBN 0-7146-4214-2 (paper)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Samuels, Martin. Command or control?: command, training, and tactics in the

British and German armies, 1888-1918 / Martin Samuels, p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7146-4570-2 (cloth); 0-7146-4214-2 (paper) 1. Military doctrine—Great Britain—History—19th century.

2. Military doctrine—Great Britain—History—20th century. 3. Military doctrine—Germany—History—19th century. 4. Military doctrine—Germany—History—20th century. 5. Great Britain. Army— Organization. 6. Germany. Heer—Organization. 7. Great Britain. Army—Drill and tactics. 8. Germany. Heer—Drill and tactics. I. Title. UA647.S182 1995 355'.033541—dc20 95-7053

CIP

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Frank Cass and Company Limited.

Typeset in 10W12pt Ehrhardt by Vitaset, Paddock Wood, Kent

Printed in Great Britain by Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd, Midsomer Norton, Avon

Contents List of Maps vi

Foreword by Professor John Gooch vii

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

1 Directive Command and the German General Staff 7

2 The British General Staff and Umpiring 34

3 From Stosstaktik to Stosstrupptaktik 61

4 Restrictive Control and Timetable Tactics 94

5 The Battle of Thiepval, 1 July 1916 124

6 The Evolution of Elastic Defence 158

7 'Blob'Defence 198

8 The Battle of St Quentin, 21 March 1918 230

9 Conclusion 270

Notes 286

Bibliography 316

Index 334

Maps 1 Thiepval, 1 July 1916: German Defences 133

2 Thiepval, 1 July 1916: Initial Attack 145

3 Thiepval, 1 July 1916: Second Phase 154

4 St Quentin, 21 March 1918: The Battlefield 248

5 St Quentin, 21 March 1918: British Defences 250

6 St Quentin, 21 March 1918: First Phase 256

7 St Quentin, 21 March 1918: Second Phase 261

Foreword For three-quarters of a century, from its victory in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 until its defeat in the Gotterdammerung of 1945, the German army stood out from all its rivals by virtue of the sheer excellence of its fighting power. Other armies incorporated within their ranks specialised units which could demonstrate high levels of tactical virtuosity, and larger formations could - and did - perform outstandingly on individual battle-fields. But for consistent excellence in combat performance the German army set a standard which none of its rivals could match. Indeed, Germany's defeats in the two world wars are now often ascribed to a degree of strategic ineptness, and a proclivity to make the same major mistakes twice, which seem in retrospect quite astonishing but which leave the German soldier still the undisputed master of his craft - although in neither war was he ultimately master of the field.

The First World War tested the German army as much as it tested all other combatants. Machine guns, barbed-wire, concrete bunkers, gas and high explosive shell combined to create an entirely new kind of battlefield. To survive and to succeed required that the pre-war rules of attack and defence be fundamentally rethought and reformulated, and that the new doctrines which resulted from this process then be effectively put into action.

In the pages that follow, Martin Samuels shows both why and how the German and British armies adopted quite different postures in the face of the new twentieth-century battlefield. The extent to which the German army succeeded in its task is evident in the contrast between the operational rigidity of the Schlieffen plan as executed by the German field army in August and September 1914, and the flexibility and fluidity which characterised the 'Michael' offensive which Ludendorff unleashed on 21 March 1918.

In adjusting to the new operational landscape, the German army had one important advantage over its British rival. Ever since 1806, German practice had incorporated a system of directive military command which devolved the control of battle to subordinate commanders. When, at quite an early stage in the war, senior German soldiers recognised that traditional pre-war infantry doctrines, which rested upon linear formations of infantry attacking with fixed bayonets, were quite unsuited to trench warfare, it was therefore possible to accommodate new methods of attack which empowered lower-level commanders to achieve their objectives through the use of

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COMMAND OR CONTROL?

dispersed formations and new combat techniques. In terms of both attack and defence - and in contradiction to a popular stereotype which still portrays the Great War as a continuous and unvariegated blood-letting -the speed with which the German army identified and analysed the new problems of attack and defence and evolved effective answers to them is quite remarkable. However, a command structure characterised by flexibility and a readiness to listen to creative criticism from relatively junior officers could show occasional signs of bureaucratic rigidity: despite its efforts, the German General Staff could not get the artillery expert Colonel Bruchmuller promoted to the rank of permanent colonel.

In contrast to Germany, Great Britain lacked both an established General Staff and an intellectual tradition to accompany it. A very different pattern of British generalship had developed by 1914 and persisted during the war - one which combined rigidity and inflexibility in planning with a marked reluctance on the part of senior commanders to interfere with any aspect of their subordinates' handling of divisions or corps. In the British army, disdain for - or incomprehension of - the kind of staff work which was characteristic of the German command system was both deep-rooted and long-lived: as late as 1941, discarding strategic and operational skills, Field Marshal Lord Wavell opined that administration was 'the real crux of generalship'.

It is perhaps scarcely surprising, then, to learn that the British G H Q possessed no equivalent to the German sections which developed and tested new tactical doctrines. Even the best Corps instructional schools such as Maxse's XVIII Corps School, set up in 1917, had no authority to enforce their methods on lower commanders. An even more telling observation which Martin Samuels draws from his analysis is that the British Army would probably have been unable to implement German doctrines even if they had properly understood them, as they required skills and practices which were beyond the capabilities of most British officers and men.

By juxtaposing the German and British armies as models for historical analysis, and by contrasting structural and functional differences between them as they went about their business of fighting one another between 1914 and 1918, Martin Samuels makes an important contribution to the literature of military effectiveness. The result is a genuinely comparative military history which, by contrasting two very different military institutions, matched against one another for four bloody years of continuous campaign, highlights the vital ingredients of German combat excellence. After critically re-examining them during the inter-war years, the Reichswehr would apply the doctrines devised by its predecessor to the campaigns of 1939-41. Thus, the Imperial German Army can fairly claim to have invented modern warfare during the Great War.

J O H N G O O C H

viii

Acknowledgements The writing of this book was aided by the support of a number of people. The British Academy awarded me the financial assistance necessary for the research to be undertaken. The staff of the following establishments gave me invaluable help in gathering material: the departments of Printed Books and Documents at the Imperial War Museum; the Tactical Doctrine Retrieval Cell and the library of the Staff College, Camberley; the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King's College, London; the British Library; and the Public Record Office, Kew. Particular thanks are owed to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives for permis-sion to use and to quote from archives in their care. My thesis supervisor, Michael Elliott-Bateman, of the Department of Military Studies, Univer-sity of Manchester, spent many hours discussing my ideas and provided constructive criticism of the manuscript. My wife, Helen, drew the maps and gave me support throughout. All translations from sources given in German in the bibliography are mine. Any errors or omissions are my own.

Note\ In numbering military units, I have adopted the following conven-tions: First Army, I Corps, 1st Division, 1st Brigade. British battalions are denoted, for example, 1/Border. German battalions are given as 1/175 and companies as 1/175.

ix

Introduction It may well be that my history will seem less easy to read because of the absence in it of a romantic element. It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine are judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future.

Thucydides

'Is the British Army 50 years out of date as a fighting force?" asked Captain Graeme C. Wynne in 1957, arguing that the army was indeed out of date, owing to a failure to develop its tactical ideas beyond the sterile practices employed on the Somme and the retention of the concept that I'artillerie conquiert, I'infanterie occupe'. Over the previous 20 years, Wynne had con-sistently pointed to differences between the methods used by the British and German armies and had contrasted the results achieved. Unlike many military theorists, Wynne based his arguments upon an unrivalled know-ledge of the evidence. As a member of the Historical Section of the Committee oflmperial Defence from 1918 to 1956, he had played a major role in the production of the official history of the First World War on the Western Front. Although his name appeared on only one volume,2 he was largely responsible for the two 1915 volumes, the first 1916 volume and the 1917 volumes on Vimy and Passchendaele. In short, the historical core, although not the editorial line, of the official history of the central part of the war was his work.3 His knowledge of events on the British side was matched by his research concerning 'the other side of the hill'. His footnotes indicate that he examined hundreds of German regimental histories, as well as numerous personal accounts, and kept abreast of German analysis of the war.

Despite Wynne's unique knowledge and understanding of British and German military theory and practice, his conclusions were vigorously denounced.4 In 1938, an editorial in the Canadian Defence Quarterly stated: 'In our opinion Captain Wynne's criticisms [of the British Army] are anything but reasonable and almost certainly are not founded upon fact.' It urged its readers to dismiss his ideas, claiming that he had completely misunderstood the modern British tactical doctrine, which was in any case,

1

COMMAND OR CONTROL?

it argued, little different from German practice.5 Although the Germans achieved a number of stunning successes at the beginning of the Second World War, their eventual defeat was widely seen as confirming the apparent superiority of British arms shown by the result of the First World War. Despite the accuracy of many of his predictions, Wynne was once again ignored and no reputable publisher was willing to touch his contro-versial material.6

The orthodoxy that the British Army had proved itself more effective than the German Army remained largely unshaken until 1977. In that year, a book was published which claimed to prove statistically that in fact the Germans had been over 20 per cent more effective, man for man, than the British in both world wars. The author of these astonishing claims, retired US Army Colonel Trevor Dupuy, based his assertions upon the results of a mathematical model of combat which he had developed, using data from the Italian campaign of 1943-44. Having taken every material factor into account and having adjusted for attack and defence, Dupuy found that he could match the historical outcomes of battles only by heavily weighting the German score.7 The conclusions were startling:

On the average, a force of 100 Germans was the combat equivalent of 120 American or 120 British troops. Further refinements in the model began to reveal that in terms of casualties the differential was even greater, with the German soldiers on the average inflicting three casualties on the Allies for every two they incurred . . . A less detailed analysis of World War I battles suggested that during that war the Germans had enjoyed a similar 20 per cent combat effective-ness superiority over the Western Allies, and also the same 3-to-2 casualty-inflicting superiority.8

Dupuy argued that the German superiority could not be dismissed as being due merely to circumstances or to particular skill at one form of combat. The Germans enjoyed a similar level of superiority 'when they were attacking and when they were defending, when they had local numerical superiority and when, as was usually the case, they were out-numbered, when they had air superiority and when they did not, when they won and when they lost'.9 While Dupuy's figures are not without their difficulties, his basic contention, that the German Army was considerably more combat-effective than the British Army, is now generally accepted.

Although Dupuy's work is of great value in demonstrating the extent of German combat superiority, his analysis of the causes of this superiority is disappointing. Having rightly dismissed the idea of inherent militarism. Dupuy claimed the General Staff was the key to the 'institutionalising of excellence'10 in the German Army. Although the General Staff was indeed a vital aspect of German combat effectiveness, to argue that this body

2

INTRODUCTION

alone was the cause of that effectiveness appears too one-dimensional an explanation.

Far more promising in this regard is Martin Van Creveld's Fighting Power." In this wide-ranging work, Van Creveld contrasted German and US Army practices in areas such as officer selection, personnel manage-ment and training during the Second World War. Owing to the very multi-dimensional nature of his study, Van Creveld was able to do little more than demonstrate that the German and US armies operated different philosophies, there being insufficient space to examine these in detail or their effect in combat.

T h e aim of the present study is to adopt a middle way between the narrow focus of Dupuy's work and the broad focus employed by Van Creveld. T h e basic method is comparative analysis of the German and British armies between 1888 and 1918. As Van Creveld has shown, this method can produce a more rounded picture than if attention is focused on a single army in isolation.

T h e direction of the analysis is guided by a number of hypotheses. T h e first and most basic is that this study is not concerned with absolutes of effectiveness but with comparatives of effectiveness. The argument is not that the German Army was effective and the British Army was ineffective. It is that, in the given circumstances, the German Army's combat effective-ness was greater than that of the British Army. In war, it is often the army which is the least ineffective that achieves victory. In short, German combat superiority should be explained as much by British performance as by German performance. Study of the German Army in isolation can give only half the picture.

T h e second hypothesis is that the differences in effectiveness resulted in large part from different philosophies of combat. It is suggested that the German philosophy saw combat as inherently chaotic. T h e key to success was seen as being the ability to operate effectively in this uncertain environ-ment. T h e British philosophy was that combat was essentially structured. Effectiveness was seen as being achieved through the maintenance of order.

T h e importance of the dialectic between the philosophy of chaos and that of structure may be illustrated by an examination of the concept of 'tempo'. When used in the military context, tempo has been defined as 'the actuality of total domination of the "being" of the enemy; that is, of his physical, mental and spiritual existence'.12

T h e essential concept of tempo is that the enemy force is so dominated by the actions of the force with tempo that it becomes unable to respond in any co-ordinated or effective fashion. Count Alfred von Schlieffen taught that 'the enemy, surprised by the suddenness of the attack must become more or less confused, thus following up his rash decisions with a hasty

3

COMMAND OR CONTROL?

execution'.13 As the actions of the enemy force become increasingly ineffectual, it enters a state of 'high stress', rendering clear thought all but impossible. If overwhelming pressure is maintained by the force with tempo, the enemy's 'central nervous system' collapses, the organisational equivalent of a nervous breakdown. Once this has occurred, the enemy force becomes largely unresponsive and may be annihilated with com-paratively little further effort.

Briefly, the goal of inflicting a nervous breakdown is achieved through four stages. The first stage is marked by a sudden and violent action, intended to 'dislocate' one part of the enemy structure. 'Dislocation' has been defined as 'the displacement and disarrangement of parts causing a disordered state throughout the organism containing those parts'.'4 The second stage is the enemy's reaction to the initial dislocation. The third stage involves a second violent action at another point. The enemy, having committed his reserves, cannot react effectively to this new threat. The final stage involves further actions to maintain the pressure and so prevent the enemy regaining his balance. This allows the force with tempo to take full advantage of the enemy's confusion.

Essential to the question of tempo is 'rhythm'. It is rhythm that governs the pauses and timings essential if pressure is to be put on the enemy while confusion of the dominating force avoided. In this context, rhythm has been compared with a jazz improvisation session,

where the whole band works to one broad harmonic framework or direction, but each individual player improvises upon it harmonically, melodically and rhythmically, introducing new shades of colour and new tensions and resolutions to intensify - or relax - the sense of pace over the underlying progression. It is the adaptability of indi-vidual initiative to emergent opportunities that makes the jazz session an evolutionary rather than a static process. Each player is sensitive to any change of direction, either from the lead instrumentalist or from something good arising out of the developing music, to which he then makes his own response, enhancing and exploiting it in accordance with his own skill and imagination."

An essential feature of tempo is that the pressure of actions is maintained, giving the enemy no opportunity to recover his balance and analyse the situation, in accordance with the teaching of Clausewitz:

It is one of the most important and effective principles of strategy: a success gained somewhere must be exploited on the spot as far as the circum-stances permit it; for all efforts made whilst the enemy is involved in that crisis have a much greater effect and it is a bad economy of force to let this opportunity slip away.16

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INTRODUCTION

As more recent authors have written, effective and rapid exploitation

involves the utilisation of a wide variety of opportunities created by the almost random fluidity o f . . . warfare. These opportunities usually appear and disappear suddenly. Therefore, a tactical system that utilises decentralised decision-making, rapid movement, small-unit initiative, and imagination are basic if a military organisation is to convert these fleeting advantages into battlefield success. By contrast, tactical systems that stress set-piece batdes, rigid schedules for reaching objectives, and tight central control do not create the conditions necessary for timely exploitation.'7

The need to exploit fleeting opportunities was an essential part of the German philosophy of combat as being inherently chaotic. Von Schlieffen considered that the history of war presented but a catalogue of generals' mistakes. This led him to state that the aim of a commander should be to identify and exploit to the full the inevitable errors committed by the enemy.18 General von Freytag-Loringhoven wrote: 'A mind that adheres rigidly and unalterably to original plans will never succeed in war, for success goes only to the flexible mind which can conform at the proper moment to a changing situation."9 Such a perception is entirely alien to the philosophy of combat as structured, where the emphasis is on steady progress based on centralised planning. The seizure of fleeting oppor-tunities, which would inevitably disrupt this process, is therefore rejected. The incompatibility of this philosophy with the effective seizure of tempo is clear.

The third hypothesis is that these differing philosophies of combat were expressed most clearly in the command systems employed by the two armies. It is argued that the German system was largely one of'directive command', while the British system was based on 'restrictive control' and 'umpiring'. Directive command is a command system in which decision-making is decentralised. Commanders at every level are assigned general tasks, allocated resources and then allowed to complete their tasks by means of their own initiative, within the context of the whole. Key charac-teristics are flexibility, independence and initiative. Restrictive control is based upon the centralisation of decision-making. Commanders are assigned detailed missions, which they must carry out exactly as prescribed. Key characteristics are rigidity, conformity and a reliance on exact orders.

The fourth and final hypothesis is that an army's philosophy of combat, and thus the command system which it employs, has a great effect upon the system of training and of tactics which it uses. The philosophy of chaos results in a demand for a very high level of training of both individuals and units and that the tactics used emphasise adaptability to circumstances and

5

COMMAND OR CONTROL?

rapidity of response. The philosophy of structure has a far lesser emphasis on training, except on the development of rigid obedience, and the result-ing tactics are characterised by standard solutions and detailed advanced planning.

In short, the difference in combat effectiveness between the German Army and the British Army may be best understood as a consequence of different philosophies of combat, as expressed in the command, training and tactical systems of the two armies.

An essential part of the argument is that it is the philosophy rather than the form of a system which is the key to its performance. On several occasions, the British sought to adopt the mechanics of certain parts of the German system, such as its system of elastic defence-in-depth in the winter of 1917-18. In each case, there was little understanding of the underlying philosophy. The result of such attempts to graft alien tech-niques onto a radically different philosophy was invariably a gross distortion of the system supposedly copied. The resulting hybrid possessed the advantages of neither philosophy and the disadvantages of both.

Finally, it should be noted that although the German command system was largely based upon the concepts of directive command, it would be incorrect to equate the two. Directive command is a theoretical system and as such it is a pure extreme. The German command system was a reality, employed by an organisation of millions of men. As such, it was a compromise between directive command and restrictive control, with individuals varying as to which system they favoured. It would therefore be erroneous to argue that the German command system represented direc-tive command pure and simple. One can state only that the German command system was largely based upon the concepts of directive com-mand and that this was the dominant, though not exclusive, philosophy. The same care must be taken with the relationship of the British command system with restrictive control.