Deductions from the world war

Front matter

Deductions from The World War

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'? 1- xO^.

Contents

CHAP. ^AGB

Introductory Note . . . iii

Author's Foreword . . . ix

II The Psychology Of National And Massed Warfare

In the course of the present World War the soul of a war waged by means of great national armies has revealed itself as something special, something hitherto inexperienced. Its orgin may be traced back to the time of the French Revolution. The levee en masse of the French Republic is, to be sure, to a great extent legendary. It furnished hardly a quarter of the anticipated man-power. Clausewitz'^ remarks justly:

"If the whole War of the Revolution passed over without all this making itself felt in its full force and becoming quite

' General Carl v. Clausewitz. On War, vol. iii., p. loi. Kegan Paul, Trench, Tnibner, Ltd., London. [Vom Kriege. Skizzen zum VIII. Buck, 3 Kap. B.] 21 evident; if the generals of the Revolution did not persistently press on to the final extreme, and did not overthrow the monarchies in Europe; if the German armies now and again had the opportunity of resisting with success and checking for a time the torrent of victory — the cause lay in reality in that technical incompleteness with which the French had to contend, which showed itself first among the common soldiers, then in the generals, lastly, at the time of the Directory, in the Government itself. After all this was perfected by the hand of Buonaparte, this military power, based on the strength of the whole nation, marched over Europe, smashing everything in pieces so surely and certainly that wherever it encountered only the old-fashioned armies, the result was not doubtful for a moment/'

Yet Napoleon waged his victorious wars with a praetorian army. Only at the period of his decline did he utiHse the national strength to a fuller extent. After the overthrow of his army in Russia, he made what were for those days enormous levies in France, amounting in all to 1,237,000 men. Even at the time when his power was increasing, it was not so much the strength of the armies which he placed in the field that decided the issue as the fact that the other States were not at that time in a position to make good their losses by a continual requisitioning of the national strength.

The French people did not by any means flock enthusiastically to the Imperial flag. After the repulse of the invasion of 1792, their warlike ardour had been more and more extinguished. In the case of the increased levies of the last year of the First Empire, it was necessary to resort to violent measures in order to carry out the conscription. Hence, though the Napoleonic army was supported upon the national strength, it was never a national army in the true sense of the term.

On the other hand, the designation "national army" exactly applies to the Prussian army of the War of Liberation. The population of the diminished and impoverished Prussian State at that time numbered less than five millions, and of this number the Prussian army included in August, 1813, not less than 27i,(X)0 men. Moreover, the recourse to the provinces for the organisation of the Landwehr gave the army a special character. By the retention of universal military service even after the war, the Prussian army was differentiated from the armies of other States. In Prussia alone, after the great campaigns of the beginning of the nineteenth century, did a genuine fusion take place between nation and army. But even in 1870-71 ti'ie strain upon our national strength for the purposes of war was nothing like as great as in the present World War. We entered upon the Franco-Prussian War with the advantage on our side, and therefore it appeared to many unnecessary to requisition the national strength more extensively than had been done hitherto. Only reluctantly did Roon accede to Moltke's demand on December 8, 1870, for further supplies of troops, which were rendered necessary by the growing extension of the theatre of war and by the masslevies of the Republic in the second period of the war; and yet how niodest appears this demand compared with the conditions of the present day. It amounted only to the calling up of fifty-seven Landwehr battalions which were employed at home for guarding prisoners or for coast defence, and the transfer to Alsace-Lorraine of a number of reserve battalions. This proposal, emanating from the Chief of the General Staff, was to be sure the result of the increasing difficulties which the national war in France was causing, but although even at that time nation was contending against nation on French soil, yet the armies of the Republic consisted only of masses of men hurriedly scrambled together, who were again and again routed by the onset of the German troops, which, though far inferior in numbers, were vastly superior in fighting efficiency. Thus even the 950,000 men whom France still had under arms at the conclusion of the war could not alter the fate of the country.

"Gambetta believed," writes Arthur Chuquet,' "that the legendary marvels of 1792 and 1793 could be repeated. He overlooked the fact that it was the cowardice and lack of discipline of the volunteer forces of the First Republic which were mainly responsible for the defeat of the revolutionary armies, and that the

Republic at that time was saved, not by the heroism of its troops, but by dissension within the coahtion."

The campaign against the army of the Second Empire had demonstrated the superiority of our own army based upon the principle of universal military service. The campaign against the Republic revealed the hopelessness of the resistance of a completely improvised miHtia to disciplined troops. Nevertheless, no really new points of view in the realm of war psychology were revealed in this instance. Quite otherwise was it in the case of the American Civil War. Here the Southern States were very soon compelled to resort to universal mihtary service, and the Northern States to raise larger and larger volunteer levies, with a longer term of service. Like every other civil war, this was steeped in the hatred of both parties. In the Southern States the reaction of the national character upon military efficiency was revealed very clearly. They continued their resistance to the utmost limit. But Europe, up to the outbreak of the World War, had not witnessed any such phenomena in war. It was the adoption of universal military service by all the Great Powers, as a result of the German victories of 1870-71, which first introduced a new element into the conduct of war. This inevitably made itself all the more perceptible when the increased facilities of communication of modern times rendered the nations more closely coherent within their own borders and more accessible to the suggestive influence of the Press for good as well as for ill. That men have always been susceptible to suggestion is demonstrated by the spread of religious fanaticism, but the present age has increased this susceptibility still further. Even distinguished minds are subject to masssuggestion, as is shown in the case of numerous distinguished scholars and artists among our enemies. Neither judgment nor good taste availed to prevent them from joining in the general orgies of hatred directed against everything German.

Among the factors which have contributed in recent times to increase this susceptibility of the masses must be counted the political elections, which have everywhere stirred up passions and prejudiced sound judgment. They alone explain many events which have taken place in America. In the several States there are over twenty offices which have to be filled annually by means of public elections. And in these it is not the personal opinion of the voter that counts, but the party politicians and their whips. It is the ingenuity and unscrupulousness of the latter, as well as their expenditure of large sums of money, that decide the issue. It is, in fact, in the great democratic republics that we find the worst form of moral servitude. The widelydiffused but superficial education of the masses renders them peculiarly open to suggestion. The sense of unity of whole nations has been considerably enhanced by the fact that in present-day warfare the entire population is involved either directly or indirectly. The countries as a whole are implicated economically.

In 19 14 for the first time France opposed to our national army an army organised upon the basis of universal military service; an army, moreover, in which hatred against everything German had been kindled by the assiduous fostering through decades of the agitation for a war of revanche. The overwhelming impression of our initial successes, which had by no means been anticipated when Germany was attacked on all sides, inflamed these passions still further. The

Swiss writer Stegemann, in his history of this War,^ suggests that it may have been suspected in foreign countries that the preparedness of Germany's army and navy, which had been achieved during long years by infinite labour and feverish activity, was merely apparent and was associated with a degeneration of nervous force.

**To this suspicion the campaigns of this War have furnished a heroic answer. When the order of mobilisation was published, all trace of nervousness vanished. Even from a distance one could perceive the power and energy of a military organisation which was suddenly called from its tranquil development to perform the most exalted achievements. This gave nourishment to the theory that Germany had intentionally provoked the War. The thoroughness in execution which was really due to the character and constitution of the nation was misconstrued as the deliberate provocation of war.'*

As a result of the thoughtless adoption of franc-tireur methods of warfare in Belgium, with the support and approval of the authorities, the War acquired from the outset still more of the character of a struggle of nation against nation. The principle that war is directed only against the armed strength of the enemy- State and not against its population could not under these circumstances be upheld by our troops. They found themselves compelled to resort to severe measures of retaliation. Thus the War acquired a character of brutality which is otherwise very alien to the nature of our well-conducted German soldiers.

The self-assurance of the French army, which had already begun to waver, was restored after the Battle of the Marne. Subsequently the French authorities left no stone unturned in order, with the aid of a corrupt and lying Press, to sustain the confidence of the nation in an ultimate victory. The continued augmentation of the allied English army, the alleged inexhaustible reserves of Russia (in spite of all the defeats which she had suffered), the entry into the War of Italy, and, later, of Roumania as Allies, the munitions furnished by America, and finally her open partnership against us — all this had to be utilised again and again to strengthen the tissue of lies which France wove round herself more and more closely, so closely that the French finally lost all sense of truth. Thus the French army is inspired, even if not consciously so in all its members, with the feeling that it is not only a question of freeing the native soil from a hated invader, but also of a struggle for the future worldposition of France. The characteristics of the French soldier have always been a product rather of his race than of any military training. They explain the devotion and the contempt of death with which whole divisions have hurled themselves forward again and again in dense masses in hopeless attempts to break through.

The French national character exhibits striking contradictions. High and noble qualities exist side by side with base impulses. The French soldier exhibits heroic courage side by side with the instincts of a " Nettoyeur^*^ and, in the treatment of our prisoners, his conduct has been worthy of an apache. The French officers have completely lost that chivalrous sentiment which as late as 1870 found expression in the words of an old Frenchman: **The person of a prisoner is sacred." The French, both white and black, and their women no less, have not scrupled to jeer at and illtreat our prisoners in the most flagrant manner, and the Government of the Republic has in general furnished an example of unworthy treatment of prisoners. The naturally amiable and, under ordinary circumstances, good-natured Frenchman easily degenerates, as a result of his excitable temperament, into the very opposite. The history of the wars of religion and of the Revolution affords evidence of the fact. The human beast is always roused in him with surprising suddenness. His characteristic lightheartedness engenders in him a disinclination to think things out to a conclusion. This renders him very susceptible to influence, and prevents him from seeing through the tissue of lies presented to him in the newspapers. While the Frenchman had always displayed military aptitude, his training in time of peace upon the basis of universal military service had only still further developed his good military qualities, and he has never exhibited those failings which formerly and often erroneously have been attributed to French armies, such as lack of endurance in difficult situations, the inability to endure defeats, susceptibility to panic.

The effect of universal military service has manifestly been to discipline the whole nation, and to furnish an appropriate vessel for its always very strongly developed sense of unity. Those who judged the French nation by the customary standard of former days have been astonished at their conduct in this War. As England has developed into a Land Power only in the course of this War, it has been only by degrees that warlike enthusiasm has infected the masses of her people. England, great as have been her feats of organisation, has never been able to make up for the advantage with which France entered the War owing to her possession of universal military service. Since she took her time, and the nature of entrenched warfare made it possible, England was able, however, to furnish her numerous new formations with a training which was lacking in the armies of Gambetta. Nevertheless, the new English divisions could not attain either the coherence of the old troops of the expeditionary army first dispatched to France or the fighting value of the French troops. The English reached a high degree of technical efficiency, but their fighting tactics remained defective. Also, for all that tough courage peculiar to the Englishman, they lacked that spirit which can be engendered only by the consciousness of a lofty national purpose such as that for which the French were fighting. In place of her voluntary army England gradually built up for herself on French soil a national army; but, voluntary army or national army, it served only the ends of English politics and the economic war against Germany.

If the purpose of the War played only a minor part in the case of the voluntary army, it played a very considerable part in the case of the national army. If this purpose was not presented clearly and comprehensively to the understanding of every individual, the maximum amount of effort could not be expected from this army. In stirring up and working upon the feelings of the masses, England in fact showed no more scruples than France. Though the Englishman is less excitable by temperament, he is all the more obstinate in clinging to a notion which has once taken root in his mind. This stirring up of hatred has in his case, too, engendered distressing excesses as regards the treatment of German prisoners. In certain cases, even if not as a general rule, the English have shown themselves not behind the French in brutality.

Thus we had to wage war against enemies who were under the influence of a mass-psychosis. This has engendered phenomena such as Europe had not witnessed since the time of the wars of religion. Deeds of horror and senseless rage of destruction, such as are described for us in Simplicissimus, have again made themselves manifest. The notion that humanity as a whole had advanced spiritually was proved to be an error. The vast distance between civilisation and Kultur was clearly revealed.

After the Thirty Years' War an effort was made to alleviate, by careful training of the men, the horrors of war due to the outrages of the military rabble. Thus it was asserted in praise of Prince Eugene of Savoy that in the neighbourhood of his camp the peasant could till his field unmolested. Instead of war being made to feed itself, a complicated system of supplies was adopted. The result was that the war strategy of the weak voluntary armies of that time became fixed more and more into a conventional mould, from which Frederick the Great was the first to emancipate it, so far as the limited means available at that time rendered this possible. Subsequently, under Napoleon, war developed more and more into "true war," to use Fichte's expression. This transformation, however, could be fully effected only by means of universal military service. Universal military service holds sway over our age and for generations will not vanish. To it Prussia-Germany owes her advancement, and it was inevitable that, when all the Great Powers adopted it, the violence of war should again be augmented. We must not let the bright side of universal service blind us to its dark side. Henceforth the passion of war infected whole nations, and this passion was constantly inflamed anew by contact with that of the enemy. Therewith many of those barriers were overthrown by means of which

THE JVORLD WAR 41

the professional soldiery, preserving the chivalrous customs of the Middle Ages, had sought to check the excesses of war. Also the barriers which International Law had sought to oppose to the encroachments of war collapsed in the face of this new violence.

At the same time factors were introduced into the World War which could not fail to react upon the strategical and tactical conditions and which it will be impossible to disregard in the future. They call for a new standard in measuring the efficiency of armies. Thus the efficiency of the German troops far surpasses that which might have been expected according to the standard of earlier times. Even in regard to the operations at the Loire at the turn of the year 1870-71, the late Field-Marshal Freiherr von der Goltz wrote in his Reminiscences^:

' Die Operationen der 2. Armee an der Loire. Berlin, 1875. E. S. Mittler und Sohn.

"With the exception of a few stout hearts, everyone was sick of even the most successful battles. The fire of war still burnt, but with a dim and flickering light. The craving to enjoy at length the longed-for term of tranquillity was very widespread."

In these words is reflected the effect of an exhausting triumphal progress which the second army had pushed into the heart of the enemy country. Here, in fact, the thought might well intrude: Have we not now had victory enough.? And yet at that time less than five months of war had elapsed, and the course of the war had been extraordinarily successful. The troops had not undergone anything like such tremendous experiences as they have had in the present World War. In this War the consciousness that our national existence is at stake has raised us above ourselves.

All of us, leaders as well as men, have human weaknesses, and assuredly not all German soldiers are heroes by nature. But it is precisely in this — in the fact that the weak are carried along with the strong — that the educative force of this struggle for the existence of Germany is revealed. The weak could not do otherwise than strive to be heroes. Reverses, such as were occasionally inevitable in this long and tremendous War, have doubtless had a temporarily depressing effect upon the troops, and after efforts and a consumption of nervous force such as have never been experienced in any previous wars, the craving for rest has sometimes made itself felt. But even in the third year of the War, the fire of war did not merely flicker with a dim light, but was constantly rekindled to fresh flame. In Transylvania and Roumania and in Eastern GaHcia in 1917 the troops displayed an ardour equal to that of the first days of the War. The magic of victory enabled them to defy all the difficulties of the ground and all the inclemencies of the weather. They would not, of course, have been a national army, linked to the homeland by a thousand ties, if they had felt no desire for the conclusion of a long war, a war demanding ever fresh sacrifices, and if a calmer feeling had not taken the place of the enthusiasm of the first months. But it was just such a feeling that was necessary for the accomplishment of such gigantic achievements in the West and in the East. What was wanted was not enthusiasm, but the living heroic sense of duty on the German soldier. Moreover, there exists in our army a cool contempt for danger, such as elsewhere has only been exhibited in picked professional armies, and yet ours has remained a national army in the best sense of the word.

Clausewitz declares^:

' On War, vol. i., p. 47. [Vom Kriege. I. B., 3 Kap.]

"If we look at a wild warlike race, then we find a warlike spirit in individuals much more common than in a civilised people; for in the former almost every warrior possesses it, whilst in the civilised, whole masses are only carried away by it from necessity, never by inclination."

None the less, the inculcated sense of duty, the conscious will of the whole people, when, as in the case of this War, it is a question of safeguarding our most treasured possessions, and when the purpose of the War is clearly manifest, has brought forth even loftier achievements than mere warlike impulse, or, as in the case of the Japanese, the sense of the blessedness of extinction.

In fact, we cannot sufficiently express our joyful recognition of the high sense of duty and the power of resistance which our troops have everywhere displayed in the face of overwhelmingly superior forces, while at the same time we ought not to refuse our respect even for our enemies, above all the French. For they too were prepared and resolved every one to die for his country. On both sides was revealed a nervous force, a capacity of resistance to inclement conditions, with which no one had credited the civilised humanity of the present day, more especially in the face of the increased effectiveness of present-day weapons. Before the War it was looked upon as an understood thing that the efficiency of the older classes of recruits was only limited. Field-Marshal Count Schlieffen, who taught us how to manipulate a massed army, and who, because he was convinced of the great importance of numbers in war, was unwilling to abandon the employment of the older drafts in the front line: none the less declared, '*Landwehr and Landsturm, territorial army and territorial army reserves, can only to a

THE WORLD JVAR 47

very limited extent be reckoned as part of the nation in arms.*'

If the World War has not confirmed this prediction, It is due to the fact that such imponderable things defy any attempt to assess them. Hence It Is not to be wondered at that we encountered surprises in these matters. The improved hygiene and treatment of wounds of the present day have contributed greatly to maintaining the efficiency of the national armies. In the case of Germany, above all, medical art and science have achieved wonders. They have succeeded In preserving our army from those epidemics which have been the scourge of previous armies and In restoring to It almost 90 per cent, of Its wounded. Only by their aid has it been possible to maintain continuously the full strength of our troops and to carry on the war for so long.

The Russians have afforded us less cause for surprise than the rest of our enemies. True they brought up their masses earlier than had been anticipated, but these, as was to be expected, proved themselves very unwieldy, so that the superior mobility of our troops helped to restore the balance. Their unshaken resistance to the Russian mass attacks did the rest.

With the introduction of universal military service in the year 1874, the Russian army had acquired quite a new character. In place of the old soldiers with their long term of service, whose regiment had been their home, there were now levies of troops subject first to a sixyear and later to a four-year and threeyear term of service. Many conditions which had formerly contributed to the efficiency of the Russian troops were now abolished. The subordination of the peasants disappeared more and more, but it could not be replaced by that conscious and enlightened sense of duty which is possible only in an old civilised nation. If the Russian army was found wanting in Eastern Asia, this was due above all to the fact that it proved incapable of adapting itself to the conditions of modern warfare. It afforded no opportunity for the training of the individual soldier to self- reliance in war. In his report to the Tsar upon the Manchurian campaign Kuropatkin said:

*' Undoubtedly, universal military service has, from a moral standpoint, improved the mass of our troops, but in view of the low standard of civilisation of the individual men, it is difficult to infuse them with the notion of discipline. Belief in God, devotion to the Tsar, love for the Fatherland, still contribute to keep the soldiers firm in the ranks, and to make them brave and obedient fighters, but these feelings have in recent times been severely shaken and forcibly wrested from the heart of the Russian.'*

The unpopularity of the war against Japan was, in the opinion of the General, chiefly to blame for the often very defective resistance of the troops in battle. He writes:

"To-day more than ever, the moral strength of an army is governed by public feeling. Therefore, in order to be successful, a war must be popular, the whole people must strive for success in harmony with the Government. But the aims which we pursued in the Far East were understood neither by the Russian soldiers nor their officers."

In 1914, on the other hand, this condition was completely satisfied: at the beginning, the war was extremely popular in Russia. Moreover, the Russian army had learnt much from the Manchurian campaign, both as regards organisation and also as regards strategy and tactics.

It had been systematically organised and prepared for the war against Germany and Austria- Hungary. Nevertheless, the defects in the political organism of the Empire and in the national character could not be remedied in a decade. Kuropatkin expressed his conviction that, in a war against Germany and Austria-Hungary, Russia would certainly in the first instance be defeated. Only with time did he hope for a turn of the tide, thanks to the inexhaustibleness of Russia's reserves of men. His respect for the superiority of German training led Kuropatkin, when he was Minister of War, to declare that a war of conquest against Germany would be a calamity for the Russian Empire. The World War, no less than the March revolution of the present year, though in a different sense, has revealed that Russia was not really ripe for universal military service. Had it been otherwise, we and our allies might have been unable to defend ourselves against envelopment by overwhelmingly superior numbers.

More than once did the Austro-Hungarian army threaten to succumb before the far superior numbers of the Russian forces. At the beginning, the Austro- Hungarian army proved not strong enough to defeat the main body of the Russian forces in Galicia. Certainly the troops showed no lack of heroic selfsacrifice, and the engagements of August and September, 19 14, furnished signal instances of the splendid courage of the army of the Dual Monarchy, which was in fact filled with glowing enthusiasm for this contest of giants. Naturally, in view of the mixture of races comprised in the Dual Monarchy, it could not be kindled through and through with a common ardour to the same degree as the German army. Such a unity of sentiment as existed with us was impossible in its case. The AustroHungarian military leaders had to cope with difficulties arising from the mixture of races comprised in their forces, difficulties which did not exist in the case of ourselves or our opponents. Moreover, these brave troops had to suffer for the sins and omissions of which the Parliaments of the Monarchy had been guilty during past decades. The army was too weak in numbers, and equipped with far too insufficient an artillery, to enable it to resist successfully the Russian hordes and at the same time to cope with the Serbians. The weakness of their regimental cadres in time of peace had rendered impossible the training for actual battle-tactics. This fact was bound to result in a certain lack of unity and cohesion in the larger units.

If the Russians, in spite of their great numerical superiority, did not succeed in smashing the brave Austro-Hungarian army in the autumn of 19 14 at Lemberg and on the San, that speaks for the small ability and defective mobility of the Russian army, which, it is true, made progress in these respects in the course of the War. As a result of the reckless expenditure of the Russian troops, whose leaders were always spendthrift of the lives of their men, their army remained, notwithstanding their heavy losses and the defective training of the reserves, a redoubtable adversary.