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THE
EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY
THE EVOLUTION
OF
MODERN STRATEGY
FROM THE XVIIIth CENTURY TO
THE PRESENT TIME.
BY
Lieut. -Colonel F. N. MAUDE,
F.S.C.y LATE R.E.,
COMMANDING 1ST HAMPSHIRE ROYAL ENGINEERS (VOLUNTEERS).
\}\'^i V
>•••••
• »..:. ^ » . • • • •
LONDON :
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
23, COCKSPUR STREET, S.W.
1905.
^3f
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED
LONDON AND BECCLES.
PREFACE.
For the last twenty-five years I have formed one of a group of
British officers who have been as intensely keen to fit themselves
for command, and to prepare the men under them for War, as any
men in any nation under the sun. This group was, and still is,
far more numerous than the British public imagines, and those
members of it, who have been fortunate enough to obtain and to
recognise their opportunities, have won for themselves the respect
and admiration of all competent critics, of whom, unfortunately,
there are few enough within our own islands.
Wherever men met, in clubs, messes, railway carriages —
particularly railway carriages — we foregathered and talked, not
"shop" but "War," with the single, whole-souled idea of being
ready when the call should come, and so far from finding that
this interest in our duty was considered "bad form," I, at least,
personally found that it made me everywhere a welcome guest.
As, in addition to my own, I was a dining member of seventeen
different messes of all arms, and besides my club in town, belonged
to half a dozen others in different parts of the world, I think I
may claim abundant opportunity for the formation of my opinion.
Many of us had enjoyed, or rather made for ourselves, opportuni-
ties for becoming acquainted with foreign armies, and in proportion
as to the use they had made of their time, they brought into the
service a different attitude towards the fundamental considerations
which lie at the base of all warlike operations than that which had
hitherto prevailed amongst the senior officers.
Those who had fought through such campaigns as those against
the Sikhs', the Crimea, and the Mutiny, saw in Warfare only the
collision of the rival interests of governments, in which armies alone
were concerned, and in which the nations, as nations, had but little
interest — the old eighteenth-century standpoint, in fact, which sur-
vived quite naturally under the peculiar nature of our surroundings.
M176640
vi PREFACE,
Those trained in the foreign schools saw deeper into the heart
of things, and knew that when, as in France and Germany, the
terms " Army " and " Nation " had become synonymous, the whole
conduct of warlike operations must undergo profound modification.
To reconcile the two schools was no easy task, for to express
the difference one needs two entirely distinct vocabularies, and
there was only one. Hence both sides constantly used the same
words to express fundamentally different ideas, and it took far
more time and opportunity for study than falls to the lot of most
of us in the first twenty years of one's service, to recognise wherein
these differences really lay.
Had it been possible to gather the pick of us together under
one roof, and subject us to the guidance of a body of instructors,
who had themselves preserved the continuity of tradition from the
Napoleonic times as in Prussia, progress would, I think, have been
both rapid and secure ; but, unfortunately, the machinery for this
purpose did not, and still does not, exist, and when we asked for
bread we were officially tendered an inferior concrete, a jumbled
up mass of ideas derived from [practice in varying climates, and
conditions imperfectly held together in a matrix of semi-digested
historical tradition.
Being thus left without superior guidance, there was nothing for
us but to work back to some common point of origin from whence
both schools arose — i.e, some period in which all European nations
made War with armies of similar organisation under similar circum-
stances — and then trace out at what point, and owing to what
alterations, our paths began to diverge.
Following out this line of investigation, it became clear that
" organisation " was the disturbing cause. When the French
Revolution brought home to every unit in that nation that he or
it was personally most vitally concerned in the issue of the great
struggle in which they were engaged, an entirely new driving force
made its appearance, which modified in the most startling manner
the practice of the leaders in the field — i.e, the Art of Strategy.
Clausewitz was the first to define War as an extreme form of
human competition. In other words, he did for the nation what
Darwin subsequently did for individuals, viz. he showed that War
was nothing more or less than the " struggle for the survival of the
fittest " on the national plane, and once this idea is clearly grasped
in its entirety the whole of the confusing problems involved in the
PREFACE. vii
raising of troops for War, their organisation, training, and employ-
ment in the field all fall into their proper places, and can be
treated by ordinary scientific methods of research identically like
any other matter susceptible of adequate analysis. The degree of
accuracy in the solution attainable depending upon the number and
reliability of the observations available, and the skill and trained
judgment with which these are handled.
Now this is a method we have never attempted to apply, nor is
it within the power of a single individual to do so, for the amount
of material to be collated is enormous, and it would need a large
staff of scientifically trained men to handle ; and hitherto neither
our schools, universities, or the Army itself has been able to train
and select the type of man fitted for such work in sufficient
numbers.
The introduction of short service some thirty years ago, how-
ever, threw open the doors for all practical reforms, and sound
reform must have " grown itself " had the Public only been content
to wait. By throwing greatly increased responsibility on the junior
ranks it had compelled them to master the alphabet of their pro-
fession, and to use their brains before these organs had become
atrophied by disuse, as had formerly been the case, and by degrees
it was becoming apparent that the Army was a career in which
brains would tell in the end just as in any other. But continuity in
the conditions was just the one thing needed to give these men
time to work their way to the front, and just at the critical moment
we were struck in rapid succession by three most fatal blows, viz.
1st, the adoption of the three years' term of service with the
colours ; 2nd, the Report of the South African Commission with
its sequels ; and 3rd, the recurrence to what is practically the long
service ideal, which fundamentally alters the whole condition of our
military existence, and which, if it ever takes root, will divorce the
regular Army from the nation, and sap the driving energy which
was giving us the new race of officers we required. The mere fact
that reform was attempted before, to quote Clausewitz, **the
sensuous impressions of the battlefield had had time to yield to the
results of mature reflection," proved the incapacity of the Public, as
at present educated, to deal with such a problem. We ought to
have had, twenty years ago, a properly organised General Staff to
have dealt with the question ; but, failing that, the only thing to be
done was forthwith to create one, and furnish it with a Military
viii PREFACE.
History Section to collect material in sufficient quantity to check
the tendency which exists after every campaign to treat its ex-
periences as the last word to be said on the whole subject.
There is an idea in the public mind that an efficient Army can
be produced if only departments are organised on a certain pattern
— in other words, that it is the form and not the spirit which
signifies. Recent events in Russia sufficiently refute this assump-
tion, for here we see a staff organised, with almost Chinese fidelity,
on the Prussian plan, producing results in diametric opposition to
those achieved by their model. The truth really is, that no matter
what departments may be called or how they are arranged, the
daily output of work depends on the trained ability of its members,
and the strength of the sense of " Duty " each brings to his
task. If and in so far as the work done by the several branches of
the War Office has fallen behind the standard the Public had a
right to expect, the cause lay in the fact that, it being impossible
under the conditions of long service either to train or select men of
ability, personal interest was the determining factor in a man's
career, and hence the internecine strife between the Departments,
and the triumph of the Adjutant-General and chief Supply Officer
over the real Staff Officer, viz, the Quarter-Master General.
No man could afford to look sufficiently far ahead to hold the
balance between the several interests, and hence since in Peace the
most important work is done in the Adjutant-General's Department,
and in small Wars supply is the chief element of success, these two
branches throve at the expense of the others, and when a relatively
great War arose, neither the Quarter-Master General's or the Intel-
ligence Departments had weight or position enough to make their
influence sufficiently felt.
The only corrective for this state of affairs lies in the creation of
a Military History Section of the General Staff, through which all
the higher Staff Officers should be passed, so that all at all likely to
occupy eventually responsible positions, would have had the oppor-
tunity of learning how the scientific historian works, and thus of
estimating the value of the data collected and conclusions
formulated.
It is enough to turn over the evidence given before the South
African Commission to see how badly such an institution was
needed. Men who had been really grounded in military history by
having been made to help in the collection and appreciation of the
PREFACE. ix
data from which it is written, could never have fallen into the
astounding inaccuracies of statement and hasty generalisations these
pages reveal. It would need a whole treatise to expose all these
mistakes and their consequences, and the task would bring one into
collision with so many old friends and comrades, that I have not
the slightest intention of undertaking it, it will suffice for my pur-
pose if I select the most widespread fallacy resulting from the
whole, viz. the exaggerated importance that has come to be attached
to the value of good individual shooting in modem Warfare.
Good shooting in action is conditioned by the state of the firer s
nerves at the moment he pulls the trigger — and this quite obviously
is determined by the impression produced on the soldier's mind
by the appearance of the target his General is skilful enough to
secure for him. For instance, if our men had never had a less favour-
able target than a mob of Boers driven into a hollow square around
their led horses, they would have made quite as high a percentage of
hits as did the Boers when the conditions were reversed. As it
happened, it was the Boers who always had the good targets and
we who had the difficult ones, and since there was not the smallest
grounds for supposing that the leading of the former was better
than that on our own side, it would have become clear that we
had to deal with a new disturbing influence ; and by a process of
elimination, the conclusion must ultimately have been arrived at,
that this disturbing influence could only be the excess of mobility
on the Boer side, from which all else logically followed. Since,
however, owing to local conditions, we could not outclass the
enemy in this respect, the policy we ultimately adopted — viz. to
crush them by sheer weight of numbers — was the only conceivable
solution ; and hence it would have been found quite unnecessary
for any one to have questioned the courage of our troops, for,
after all, that is what complaining of their shooting amounts to.
Further, the principal factor of success in War, whether modem,
mediaeval, or pre-historic, is confidence between men and leaders,
which evidently in our case only existed sporadically. Yet I
contend that, in the great majority of cases, such want of mutual
confidence was unmerited on either side.
Had both officers and men been so far grounded in military
history as to understand how the factor of mobility was bound to
affect the problems they were called on to solve, the leaders would
not have complained of the men's bad shooting, or the men of their
X PREFACE.
leader's want of capacity. If a general distrusts his men, not only
are his decisions hampered and the strain of command enormously
increased, but the men are quick to notice the want of confidence,
and to react under the suspicion in a variety of ways, which still
further increase the difficulties of the general's position.
Nothing, to my mind, proves the extraordinary capacity of the
British soldier and his regimental officers better than the staunch-
ness with which they stuck to one another throughout these trying
years ; but the strain was there none the less, and I see no reason
why it should be imposed on them in the future, when it can so
easily be mitigated.
It was in the hope of contributing somewhat towards this
mitigation that I commenced these pages in serial form. It would
have been far more satisfactory to have attempted a closely
reasoned treatise, unbroken by allusions to questions of the day,
and working up to a final presentation of conclusions ; but the need
seemed to me urgent, and both time and opportunity for more
thorough research were alike lacking. I therefore gladly embraced
the offer of my friend, Lieut-Colonel Alsager Pollock, Editor of
the United Service Magazine, to contribute my ideas in monthly
letters to his pages, and now beg to return him my sincerest thanks
for the chance thus afforded to me of laying my views before the
public. As they stand they are necessarily incomplete and im-
perfect, but I trust they will suffice to show something of the field
for research and scientific investigation the study of military history,
as a path to the exercise of command — which is strategy — discloses,
and thus to entice some of the really strong intellects of the Army
into its pursuit.
That the Army always has attracted such men, and in con-
siderable numbers, is sufficiently demonstrated by the numbers of
ex-soldiers who have achieved exceptional eminence as engineers,
scientists, mathematicians, organisers of labour, etc. The misfortune
has been that it has not known how to retain them ; and the reason
I submit in explanation of the fact, I have derived from the study
of several typical cases.
I have found that the scientific habit of mind simply recoiled from
the empirical form in which all military subjects have been presented.
It has always been a question of opinion, never of observed fact,
and the class of mind which can really grasp and handle the
aggregates of facts and figures with which military history deals.
PREFACE. xi
is disgusted with a subject that gives no scope for the exercise of
their faculties. Finding no outlet here for their energies, they have
turned aside to bridge-building, irrigation, astronomy, or quaternions,
often with most conspicuous success for themselves, but loss to the
country. But had it been made clear to them, as in the Prussian
school, that the Art of Strategy is based on the sciences of
organisation and tactics, both of which are essentially subjects for
the exercise of the highest order of mathematical ability, and,
above all, had there been the slightest indication twenty years ago
that such intellectual exercise would have met with the slightest
recognition, whilst our scientific lists might have been the poorer
by several eminent names, the Army would have been out of all
proportion more efficient, and the nation so much the stronger.
That generation is, I fear, lost to us ; but as the work of
reorganisation goes on, and when at length the great cycle of War
breaks over us, our generals and politicians, I feel assured, will find
out the danger of relying on empirism as opposed to scientific
method so vividly, that the demand for the true mathematician will
soon exceed the supply, and the men who by organised scientific
method can help our generals to secure ultimate victory, will find
themselves the recipients of the empire's most substantial rewards.
If by these pages I succeed in attracting only a few of the
rising generation who, to my knowledge, exist in quite adequate
numbers at Chatham and Woolwich, to take up these subjects in
the spirit and with the thoroughness they deserve, I shall have
amply attained my object, and any assistance I can give them I
will most freely place at their disposal.
F. N. MAUDE,
Lieut-Colonel^ P.S.C.j late R.E,
February 6, 1905.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Introductory.
Great difficulty in the study of strategy due to the use of terms which denote variable
quantities not concrete things — Study of "the struggle for existence," i.e. War
on the Continent — The French Revolution originated the "Nation in Arms"
— Conditions of the coming struggle — Origin of protective tariflfs — Our present
danger — A land army only can decide — War and the labour market — Given
men the Army will evolve itself — Example, the American Civil War, 1862-64
— Need of intelligent obedience — Waterloo — Our bed-rock qualities — Ignorance
of the consequences of defeat — Derrecagaix and Clausewitz's views on War —
The use of force is absolute — Philanthropy in War a pernicious error — War
indemnities — Effect on capital — On workmen — Surrender means national star-
vation, worse than the sufferings caused by War — Function of the "Volunteers "
— The Parisian Commune — The food question — Influence of our officers —
Dependent on custom and habit — Numbers in War — Discipline and its sanction
— Effect of national ignorance of War in the past — Influence of the " Volun-
teers " not " political " — Numbers, not efficiency, our chief need — Effect of
national ignorance on operations in the Boer War
CHAPTER II.
The British public and the British subaltern — The differences of conditions under
which civilians and soldiers work — The cause of routine — Simplicity of military
conditions three centuries ago — Origin of military terms — Hard fighting, not
manoeuvring, the primary condition of success — The early Militia levies had no
communications — Origin of standing armies — Use of armour and consequent
slowness of motion and growth of impedimenta — The Thirty Years' War —
Armour is abandoned — Increase of manoeuvring power — Death of Gustavus
Adolphus — Desolation of country paralyses all army movements — Influence of
mercenaries — Contrast the soldiers of Cromwell — Origin of the *' laws of War "
— Expediency not humanity — Dissolution of armies at close of the Thirty
Years' War — Cause of Wars in the eighteenth century— Nature of armies —
Origin of term "strategy" — Marlborough and the ne plus ultra lines — His
real claim to our admiration — Influence of French literature — Frederick the
Great and Napoleon — Their power of command — Defence of the British officer
— His intelligence revolts at the teaching provided for him . . . .15
CHAPTER III.
Marlborough's march to the Danube ; a violation of established rule, but the act of
a genius in War — Forging of the Prussian Army — Its influence on the conduct
of operations — Contrast between the topography of the Netherlands and Silesia
— Origin of the "magazine system" — Cost of enlistment and training of the
soldiers — Frederick's Wars not sufficiently studied in England — Skill of our
generals in "small Wars" — The chief obstacles to a leader's success — Gradual
change in Frederick's methods — Result on military thought — The school of
manceuvrers — Poverty of Prussia — Consequences for the army — The "foreigners'*
xiv CONTENTS.
paCr
and " Landeskinder " — * Barry Lyndon ' — Codes of punishment — Limits of
discipline — Desertion — These conditions common to all contemporary armies
— Result when opposed to the French Revolutionary Armies — Influence of
"starvation" as a "driving force" — Internal condition of France, 1790 —
Creation of the new French Army — Their mobility, and its consequence when
opposed to the slow moving forces of the Allies — Comparison with the Boer
War — Origin of '* cordon system " — Object of present chapter — Difficulties
created by our present system .25
CHAPTER IV.
The French Army from 1792-1796.
Importance of the study of French memoirs of the Revolutionary period to British
officers — The code of punishment in the armies of the Revolution — State of the
Army of Italy when Napoleon assumed command — The campaign of 1796 in
Italy — The five plans for its conduct — Positions occupied on Napoleon's arrival
at Nice — The Austrian Army and its inherent weakness • • • • 33
CHAPTER V.
Bonaparte's instructions from the Directory — The Austrians assume the offensive —
Combat of Monte Legino — Bonaparte issues his orders — His generals obey
to the letter — Defeat and rout of d'Argenteau — Provera at Cosseria — Beaulieu
receives news of Argenteau's defeat — Wukassovitch's detachment and his
unfortunate mistake — French discipline breaks down at Dego — Bonaparte
rallies his troops and retakes Dego — Beaulieu's continued inaction — Bonaparte
turns on the Sardinians — Ceva — The Biccogna — Critical situation of the French
— Colli withdraws from his entrenched position — Criticism — "Interior lines"
— Willisen's definition of " strategy " — Bonaparte's best sources of supply —
Clausewitz's views on "retaining" forces — Application to situation before Dego
— Napoleon's true merit 42
CHAPTER VI.
Moreau and the Archduke Charles in Germany, 1796 — The Archduke's limitations
compared with Napoleon — ^Jomini and the French plan of campaign — Real
nature of the miscalculation of the French Government — "Exterior lines of
operations" — The campaign of Marengo — Bonaparte's preparations — The
"Army of Reserve" — Concentration on Geneva — Comparison with modern
conditions of transport — Sea-power — The object of national armaments — Bona-
parte's feverish energy — What is an "army" — Comparison between 1800 and
1870 — Did Bonaparte originate the idea of using Switzerland as a "re-entrant
base" — Physical difficulties of the march over the Alps compared with modern
exploits — Value of the St. Gotthard as a line of communications — Suggested
War game — The Austrian collapse after Marengo 52
CHAPTER VII.
The Campaign of Ulm, 1805.
Advantages of a re-entering frontier — The works of MAL Alombert and Colin —
The Grand Army — Napoleon's supreme influence over it — The Staff — Pro-
portion of veterans — The Hussars — The discipline of the infantry — Age of the
officers — Instruction at the depots — The artillery and engineers — Horse supply
— Inadequacy of transport arrangements — Terrible weather encountered —
Sufferings of the troops— Even Vandamme complains— Marmont's letters —
Berthier's reply — Hunger as an incentive to marching — Davout's letters —
Condition of the Guard — Captain Bugeaud's testimony — Fezensac's description
of the hardships — Napoleon's letter to Luchesini — His "strategical deploy-
ment " — Importance of Wiirzburg — Navigation of the Main — Bamberg — Berna-
dotte's march from Gottingen to Frankfurt — Consequent delay of Davout's
corps — Feeling against the French in Hannover .,.,,. 63
CONTENTS, XV
CHAPTER VIII.
The Campaign of Ulm, 1805 {continued).
PAGE
State of French Army on arrival on the Rhine— Comparison with 1870 — The
Austrian Army — Its commanders — General Mack — His reforms — The requisi-
tion system — Its effects — Progress of the campaign — Mack's reason for pressing
on to Ulm — French violation of Prussian neutrality — Mack's views — His
mistakes — Reorganisation of his army — Mack's opportunity — He believes the
French in full retreat — Secrecy and despondency in War — loth October —
French Stafif blunders — 14th October — Elchingen — Conduct of the Archduke
— State of the roads prohibits rapid movement— Wemeck's surrender — Mack's
unfortunate faith in Russian promises 74
CHAPTER IX.
Poland and East Prussia : influence of their topography on Napoleon's movements
— The "magazine system" again — The Russian Armies — Eylau and Friedland
— Introduction of the case-shot preparation by. '* massed " batteries — The effect
of this innovation on strategy — Spain and Portugal — The British system of
supply — The Duke of Wellington's merit as a *' strategist" — The campaign of
1814 — Its interest rather diplomatic than military — Bar sur Aube — Sezanne —
The question of obstacles — ' Hamley ' — Practice in the writing of orders — Intelli-
gent confidence in one's leaders — Character and initiative — Waterloo : the
cause of Napoleon's failure 85
CHAPTER X.
Influence of the Napoleonic legend — His memoirs — The St. Gotthard Pass—
Wiirsburg — Essential cause of Napoleon's failure — Military reform in Prussia —
Scharnhorst — Clausewitz— His training — The permanent value of his work —
War, the "struggle for the survival of the fittest" — Frederick's system
compared with the French school — Clausewitz's purpose to train average men
for the responsibilities of high command — He was the first to introduce
"scientific method" into military research — Influence of short service — Com-
petitive examinations — Continuity of tradition — The Prussian General Staff"—
Influence of " mobility " — The study of military history .... 95
CHAPTER XI.
Effect of alterations in armament on strategy — The " case-shot " attack — Becomes
impossible in America against long-range small arms — The consequences
disastrous to the Federals — Richmond as an "objective " — The Austro- Prussian
campaign of 1866 — The Franco-German War — French fail to make use of the
advantages of their new infantry weapon — Fatal influence of Marshal Niel's
views — Napoleon III.'s reliance on Austrian and Italian assistance — The new
French official account — German comments — Critical moment in the strategical
deployment of the German armies — Want of "driving energy" in the French
Army — Comparison with 1800 and 1805 — Breach of continuity in warlike
tradition — Effect of rumours on French staff— Lorrach and Duttweiler — Absence
of maps on the French side — Transport and supply — Result of requisitioning —
Commencement of hostilities before declaration of War .... 104
CHAPTER XII.
Moltke's memoir of 1869 — Influence of universal service on the temper of the
German nation — Absence of confidence of the French nation in its leaders —
German miscalculations — Errors in execution of Moltke's deployment — The
Crown Prince and Von Blumenthal — Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles —
Events take the supreme direction out of Moltke's hands — The German armies
"fight themselves" — " Readiness to assume responsibility " the secret of their
success — Want of this readiness on the French side — The crisis of Gravelotte —
Result of Clausewitz's teaching — The Boer War and political considerations . 114
xvi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIII.
PAGE
The object of military education — The "spirit of the age" — Influence of numbers
on degree of literal obedience required — The true purpose of our armaments —
The "strategy" of the eighteenth century doomed — Influence of superior
mobility — Steps necessary to secure it — The training of infantry to spade work
— Improved means of transport on roads — Supply of provisions — Co-operation
of business men — Our danger in War-time from the "unemployed" — The
dangers from the Press — How to combat them — The purpose of a Great General
Staff— Importance of training in the writing of orders— Decentralisation and its
safe limits — Concluding reflections . . . . . . . .124
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN
STRATEGY.
CHAPTER I.
Introductory.
Great difficulty in the study of strategy due to the use of terms which denote variable
quantities not concrete things — Study of " the struggle for existence," i.e. War on
the Continent — The French Revolution originated the "Nation in Arms" — Con-
ditions of the coming struggle— Origin of protective tariffs — Our present danger —
A land army only can decide — War and the labour market — Given men the Army
will evolve itself — Example, the American Civil War, 1862-64 — Need of intelligent
obedience — Waterloo — Our bed-rock qualities — Ignorance pf the consequences of
defeat — Derrecagaix and Clausewitz's views on War — The use of force is absolute —
Philanthrophy in War a pernicious error — War indemnities — Effect on capital — On
workmen — Surrender means national starvation, worse than the sufferings caused by
War— Function of the "Volunteers " — The Parisian Commune — The food question —
Influence of our officers — Dependent on custom and habit — Numbers in War —
Discipline and its sanction — Effect of national ignorance of War in the past — Influence
of the "Volunteers" not "political" — Numbers, not efficiency, our chief need —
Effect of national ignorance on operations in the Boer War.
The great stumbling-block in the path of the would-be student of
strategy arises out of the fact that whereas books and treatises
invariably use expressions which are intended to convey definite
concrete conceptions, such as "armies," "infantry," "cavalry," etc.,
none of these " things " are in fact " constant quantities," but repre-
sent " variable " measures of fighting magnitude, changing daily,
even hourly in value, and often according to no known law which
might enable their commander to anticipate and hence provide
means to meet their variation.
Were it otherwise, if for instance an army of say 200,000 fighting-
men always represented a fixed number of units of fighting-work,
neither more nor less, how infinitely simple all strategical combina-
tions would become. There is not a militia candidate who could
not tell you, and rightly too, what Napoleon should have done in
the Waterloo campaign to ensure a crushing numerical superiority
over Wellington on the battlefield of the i8th June, and the same
holds true of hundreds of other instances, in which, nevertheless,
B
' ^^2^ WiiU^ 'evolution of modern strategy.
War-trained leaders of acknowledged capacity have failed to bring
off combinations which appear to us now, by the light of subsequent
knowledge, to have needed but the simplest exercise of their arith-
metical faculties, involving purely elementary efforts of addition and
subtraction, to find the required result.
If, then, we find the greatest captains of all ages constantly
making these astounding mistakes, the inference lies not far away
that far deeper and more recondite causes than mere numerical
relations, or even the distribution of masses in time and space,
exist to disturb their calculations, and it is to the determination of
these sources of error that the military thinkers of all Continental
armies are at present devoting their time and attention.
Of this great movement, we in England know but very little.
The conditions under which our many minor campaigns have been
waged, the freedom of our nation as a whole from the pressure of
foreign invasion, have combined to obscure the true nature of a
modern " struggle for existence " between two great races from our
statesmen, pressmen, and soldiers, to such an extent, that but for our
naval supremacy our existence as a nation would not be worth six
weeks purchase against any one of the four great land powers of
Europe, could they bring their forces to bear upon us.
This assertion contains no reflection either on the courage, skill
at arms, or intelligence of our men or officers, on the contrary, on
all these points I am an optimist, and believe our men markedly
superior as fighting units to those of any other race, and know of
nothing in military history to disturb my opinion ; but even if we
could meet our enemies corps for corps and unit for unit, I still hold
that our defeat would be certain, simply because we have not yet
begun to realise the change that has come over Warfare, not as a
consequence of modern weapons of destruction, but of the social
upheaval initiated on the Continent by the French Revolution, of
which improved armaments, increased commercial competition, and
all the latter implies are themselves but consequences.
The French Revolution introduced a new factor into strategy,
viz. the conception of a "Nation in Arms," and crude as the
execution of this conception actually was, its pressure sufficed to
forge and weld the scattered provinces of Germany and Austria in
turn into nations, which year by year have grown and thriven till,
in spite of many vicissitudes, each nation has become a coherent
entity, and in each " the army is the nation," or vice versd^ so that
each constituent unit in the nation has its place in the fighting
organisation, and is pledged to bear its part in the great " struggle
for national existence," whenever it may happen to break out.
From this process of concretion, still in progress in many parts
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 3
of Europe, but practically completed in France and Germany, we
escaped by reason of our insular position, and the consequences are
evident in every line of every utterance, written or spoken of our
statesmen, our soldiers, and particularly of our press, almost all of
whom still use the time-worn terminology of the eighteenth century
unconscious of the profound change in signification these phrases
have undergone, so that the nation, as a whole, remains in a fool's
paradise, supremely unconscious of the nature and magnitude of
the struggle for survival, it must sooner or later be called upon to
face.
A short digression is here inevitable to trace the future as I see
it, and which I contend we must be prepared to face.
Every great power has long since outgrown the capacity of its
own soil to furnish the amount and quality of sustenance each con-
stituent individual, which in their aggregate make up a " Power,"
has learnt to consider indispensable, hence, each power has thrust
out trade tentacles to suck up and bring into the central organism
the commodities of which it stands in need. They can no longer
supply themselves by plunder, but have to do so by means of trade,
and trade implies manufacturing industries on a scale not only
adequate to supply internal needs, but to leave a large and cheap
surplus for exportation.
But everywhere these powers find that we have been beforehand
with them, and to protect themselves they have been forced to erect
prohibitive tariffs, under shelter of which they have been enabled to
undersell us in what we have hitherto considered as our own
markets. In turn, we, tired of being made the " dumping ground "
for other nations' surplus products, and having our hands tied by
the fatuous imbecility of our free trade fanatics, are now com-
pelled to revolutionise our fiscal policy, and thus to bring ourselves
into collision with what are now vested interests all over the
world.
It seems to me, that whatever view our electors may take of the
question about to be submitted to them, the seeds of War have been
already sown ; if Mr. Chamberlain's proposals are accepted, the
Continent will not take them sitting, and if they are rejected, it will
only be a very short time before our own people fight for free
markets as they fought the Dutch, the Spaniards, and the French
before.
No doubt the actual issue will not present itself with this brutal
directness ; but as pressure of competition is more and more
brought home to all peoples, the temperature of the masses will rise,
recent events have shown it to be pretty high already, then will
occur friction at some frontier post or port, some insult to the flag
4 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY,
or our sovereign, that will fan the heat to boihng point, and the
pent-up forces of national enmity which are daily gathering
strength as each British industry goes under, will flash out beyond
the control of the Governments, and before diplomacy can step in,
the whole force of the explosion will be upon us.*
Whenever and wherever it may overtake us, one thing remains
a reasonable certainty, the final decision, the knockout blow, can
only be given by the shock of land forces, for the reason the Sultan
of Turkey neatly expressed in the remark that " Ironclads cannot
climb hills." f No nation, least of all ours, possesses patience
enough to endure the strain War must place on industry, till
starvation does its slow and relentless work, and since the command
of the sea will almost certainly after a time fall to us, we shall have
to go to the Continent to reap the harvest our fleets will have sown.
The details of such a struggle are too long for a mere intro-
ductory chapter ; but I base my predictions on the facts that our
racial cohesion is stronger than that of any other nation on the
Continent, by reason of our geographical position, which gave us two
hundred years' start in the race : our wealth and credit is markedly
superior, and our resources for both manning and building fleets,
taking the whole Empire and the shipyards of America into con-
sideration, must give us command of the sea in the long run, for
even if all our ironclads go to the bottom of the sea in the first
great encounters, they will not go alone, and once they are all out
of the way, any ship that can carry a few brave men, and a couple
of quick-firers, even 15-pounders, will become a fighting-ship from
sheer force of necessity, and then our enormous numerical strength
in such vessels will soon begin to tell, even as it did in the past.
Then will come the time for the land forces, and since, to meet
the strain on the labour market, and secure an equitable system for
the distribution of such food as remains at our disposal, we shall
have to enrol in one form or another upwards of three million men,
we shall easily be able to raise a first line fighting army of say
one and a half million to send abroad if necessary.
This effort may sound gigantic, and many of my readers no doubt
will hold their breath at the very idea ; but it will still be relatively
small compared to what we actually accomplished only a century
ago, and smaller too than what both the Americans and French
achieved, the former in 1862-66, the latter in 1792 and 1870
respectively, neither possessing at the time anything approaching
the same military resources that we at present control.
Once we get the men, the army will make itself; but the
* Written two years before the "North Sea" incident.
t On the occasion of our naval demonstration at Dulcigno, 1880.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 5
degree of success which will attend its first efforts will depend on
the average of sound military knowledge which it will be possible
to disseminate throughout the nation during the time of prepara-
tion which may still be left to us.
The great object lessons for us to study in this respect are the
American Civil War, above referred to, and the story of the French
Revolution, for nowhere else can we find examples both of what
nations can do with sufficient driving power behind them, or of the
awful cost in men and suffering the Warfare of untrained masses
involves, as a consequence of want of military knowledge. No
skill on the part of the leader can compensate for the evils of this
ignorance, for until men have been educated to yield intelligent,
not merely willing, obedience, it is impossible to combine their
efforts on any one spot ; and in the absence of this power of
combination. War becomes merely a matter of mutual butchery,
from which the side whose men will face the bloody slaughter
without panic reaction — not the most numerous army by any means,
as our experience in India long since sufficiently established —
will in the long run emerge victorious. This quality the British
race undeniably possesses in the highest degree, for whether raw
soldiers, half or fully trained, they have proved themselves never
more dangerous than when by all the rules of the game they
should have been defeated.
This is no mere opinion, founded on the patriotic brag which
too often disfigures all military history, our own as well as those
of other nations, but results from a careful consideration of our
records from the earliest times downward ; but a word of amplifica-
tion is necessary to prevent the idea being applied too literally.
It is not meant that British troops are invincible or have never
given way to panic — we have had panics enough and defeats
likewise, but generally, and taking all circumstances of each case
into consideration, a greater percentage of our men have rallied
afterwards, within less time than observers of other nations
believed to be possible, and the consequences of such incidents
have remained more local than in other armies. Since the same
tendency asserts itself equally in the disasters and panics of civil
life, whether on foundering ships or in theatre fires, the presumption
is strong that it is primarily a racial characteristic and not the
consequence of any particular system of military enlistment or
training.
Moreover, taken in the bulk, our men, though never repre-
sentative of the average national intelligence in the same degree
as the armies of other nations — the French from 1 792-1 806, or the
Germans from 18 13-15, and again in 1866 and 1870 for instance
6 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
— have always shown a capacity to rise to the occasion and to
understand the importance of the stakes for which they have been
fighting. Often they have gone into action in a spirit of almost
indecent light-heartedness, as if War were merely a glorified form
of sport ; but when the fate of the Empire has been dependent
on their prowess, they have felt it out as if by instinct, and
astonished their own officers by their staunchness.
This is what an old Peninsular veteran * says of them in
describing the final struggle of Waterloo, of which he was himself
an eye-witness.
" There was plenty of despondency and want of confidence as to
results in the army on the evening of the battle of Waterloo ; but
it never shook :-the resolution of the men. On the contrary, it
brought on that stubborn and resolved kind of fierceness that, after
any desperate and protracted resistance, seizes on the minds of
British soldiers, and makes them callous to all but the desire of
destroying their enemies. On ordinary occasions, when soldiers
assist their wounded officers or comrades to the rear, they return,
when they do return at all, leisurely enough ; but at Waterloo
many of them refused to quit the ranks, and others actually left
wounded officers in the road and then returned to their posts."
Yet this army was only half War trained, and far inferior as a
sample of the character and intelligence of the race to the one we
shall put in the field when next the occasion arises. Is it anticipating
too much to suggest that they will not fail us in the future either }
These are the bed-rock qualities which ultimately decide the
fate of nations ; though they cannot avert defeat, they are a
guarantee of recuperation, and though I do not hesitate to
prophecy defeats as bloody as those of Gettysburg, the Wilder-
ness, and Cold Harbour, I am convinced that the same strain in
the blood that brought both Federals and Southerners to face
the same chances of slaughter again and again after the battles
I have named, will enable us to revise both our tactics and strategy
in face of the enemy, only the number of such defeats and the
cumulative misery of the nation will be in precise proportion to
the intelligence we now show in preparing in advance for this,
probably, final effort, for final it will be as regards the British
Empire if we allow the War to end on any but our own terms.
To my mind, this ignorance of the inevitable consequences of
defeat is at present our gravest danger, and is directly traceable to
our want of national military training by which we have been left
a century behind the rest of Europe in the knowledge of what
War really is. The French paid the price of such ignorance thirty
* Major-General Michel, 'Thoughts on Modern Tactics.' 1839.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 7
years ago, and it will be interesting here to cite the words of one
of their ablest writers * on this very head, since every word of it
applies with twofold force to our own case, for our ignorance has
had a couple of centuries in which to solidify and accrete.
"This state of things is the graver from the fact that the
normal idea of the rights of States is obscured by the proceedings
of the War of 1870, by the brutal maxim thrown then in the face of
the world, might is superior to right, which seems to have become
the only law recognised in international relations. It is more than
ever necessary then to know what War is, and what we as French-
men ought to expect from this act of force and violence."
Then follows a recapitulation of the current ideas on Inter-
national Military Law, much as the eighteenth century left them,
and as we still accept them, which are contrasted with the views
in vogue in Germany in the following forcible passages.
" The opinions which follow were expressed by Clausewitz at the
beginning of the century.f They constitute the foundation of the
convictions held by the German officers, and this fact of itself obliges
us to recognise their force in our turn, under penalty of being one
day exposed to a cruel and terrible awakening from our delusions.
"Moreover, they have a practical side, to which we cannot
close our eyes, and with which each of us ought henceforth to
be thoroughly imbued, if he wishes to be prepared for the re-
quirements of the future.
" War is a duel between nations.
" It is an act of violence as natural and as legitimate as all other
acts resulting from international relationship, such as those per-
taining to commerce, industry, etc.
" It is an act which exalts the people which successfully engages
in it.
" War has only one aim — to overthrow the enemy and render
him incapable of continuing resistance.
" Under another aspect, it should destroy his will, and make it
submissive to ours by the annihilation of his moral power. But in
order to impose a law upon the enemy, it is essential to render him
incapable of defending himself.
" War has but one means of action : force. No other exists.
Its exercise should be manifested only by death, wounds and
destruction.
" Moral force should serve only to render the employment of
physical force more efficacious.
* Colonel Derrecagaix. Part I. * Modern War,' p. 23. American translation.
t Colonel Derrecagaix omits to say that they were deduced by Clausewitz from
personal observation of French Revolutionary and Napoleonic practice.
8 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
" The use of force in War is absolute.
" It is an error to believe in other modes of action.
" For armies, ordinary rights place but an insignificant restraint
upon the aims and rights of War.
'' These ordinajj rights should never be permitted to weaken its
energy.
''Every idea of philanthropy in War is a most pernicious error,
"He who uses physical force to its fullest extent, without
sparing blood, will always acquire superiority over an adversary
who does not act in the same way, and will impose his law upon
the latter.
" To introduce a principle of moderation into the philosophy of
War, is to commit an absurdity.
" If civilised nations do not slay their prisoners, nor destroy
cities and villages, etc., it is not through humanity ; it is because
intelligence has more part in War than formerly.
'' Civilisation has developed this intelligence, and has revealed
to them a better use of force ; that is to say, by contributions
raised from the enemy y a?id the treaties he is forced to conclude, victory
is made to yield a greater profit.
" War is an act of violence in the employment of which there
are no limits.
" The operating powers in War are force of will and the material
resources at disposal.
"In order to conquer, these forces must be strained to the
uttermost.
" Such are the utterances of Clausewitz — of that remarkable
man whom the Germans with reason call their immortal Clausewitz,
but whom they reproach with having introduced a little too much
poetry into his ' Treatise on War.' "
The sting of this passage lies for us in the words " by the
contributions raised from the enemy and the treaties he is forced
to conclude."
Judging by the contribution levied on France in 1871, one
thousand million sterling would not be an exorbitant demand to
make upon us, and we may be sure that steps would not be
neglected to hinder the re-creation of our maritime supremacy — on
the lines suggested by Napoleon's limitation of the numbers of the
Prussian Army after Jena, but far more difficult to evade than the
former. You cannot build ironclads in secrecy — and shorn of our
Navy, with the load both of indemnity and the expenses of the
War, probably by direct and indirect losses not less than another
1000 millions, what prospect of resurrection could even the most
hopeful patriot discern ?
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, g
We could not raise 2000 million at 3^ per cent. ; even 6 per cent
seems moderate ; and what margin of profit would remain to our
manufacturers with another 120 million of taxation added to the
burdens under which they already complain ?
Capital, having no country, would seek more favourable con-
ditions, but could our workmen follow it ? Would any nation, even
the most patriotic of our colonies, welcome the irruption of some
six to eight million of our artisans with their wives and families,
even if the money is forthcoming to move them ? Judging by the
tendency of recent legislation in Australia, the answer must be
in the negative, for human nature remains much the same every-
where, and no democratic Government has yet arisen strong enough
to see where its true interest lies.
The best men undoubtedly would go ; but what of the less fit
who remained behind } There would ensue an intensified struggle
for the survival of the individual, a prolonged agony of partial
starvation to which the worst that War could bring would be but
child-play, for in War at least the sense of community in suffering
is an enormous alleviation, but in peace, and particularly after such
a peace, when the ablest have gone, and the whole nation is sick
with shame at its own cowardice and want of endurance, there is no
one to control the people who are left to the mercy of the most rabid
demagogues.
We see the consequences of industrial failure relentlessly
working out to their logical conclusion in Ireland nowadays, and
having lived in two conquered countries and seen famine at
close quarters in India, I venture to predict, making due allowance
for the peculiar racial individuality of our own country, that our
dying agony will be more awful and appalling than that of any race
in history. " Every one for himself, and the devil take the hind-
most," is an excellent motto for material prosperity when wages are
high and work plentiful, but it means " hell " when real privation
approaches, and neither caste, family aff'ection, or even serious
religion, is left to distribute the load of calamity over many pairs of
shoulders.
Here, at least, is a field for work in which all who hope for
military efficiency can join without prejudice as to the ultimate
form which it may take — for until this bed-rock foundation is reached
neither Navy or Army can protect us. We must be clear in our
own minds that •' surrender " means an intensification long drawn
out of the worst that War can bring. It will be easy enough to
obtain recognition for this truth now, whilst we still have peace,
and we can at least make it flesh and bone of all the thousands
who yearly, in one capacity or the other, pass through the ranks
10 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
— if only of the Volunteers ; but with hundreds of thousands of
starving workmen in the street, a Government judged to be incom-
petent because the inevitable has at last come to pass, and the
floodgates of demagogic eloquence and press hysteria fairly opened,
it will be a very different task.
I would earnestly implore my readers to study for themselves
the whole history of the outbreak of the Commune in Paris, and
note the closeness of resemblance in the conditions of the two
problems. For a time we shall be as a beleagured city — enormous
prices and no wages — like every other beleaguered city we shall have
to find work for the many without pauperising them. The
Parisians were successful for a time, as theirs was a visible enemy
close at hand, whose presence demanded labour on the fortifications
and service in the ranks, but we shall have no visible enemy, only
the clamour of the mob howling for that " surrender " which in their
ignorance they believe will give them bread.
The two Royal Commissions now sitting — the one on Food
Supply, the other on the Militia and Volunteers — have a glorious
opportunity if they have Statesmanship to rise to it. For the
solution of the latter problem carries with it the solution of the
former, if only the matter be taken in time.*
There is food enough in the country, and there always will be ;
for all the navies in Europe could not establish an effective blockade
of these islands without suffering losses in collision with our own,
which, even if they were victorious, would send all their ships into
dock for months ; the difficulty lies in its distribution, and the
solution of that, as I have already stated, lies in the enrolment of
every able-bodied man — in the auxiliary forces first, so as to give
each a vested interest in the established Government which alone
guarantees him food for himself and family. These men, being
provided for from day to day, whilst they will have no sufficient
incentive to prolong the duration of the struggle like the old time
" Condottiere," will at least have time to look about them, and
decide where their real interest lies. They will not be accessible
to the demagogue ranter, but will be directly under the influence
of the bom leaders of the people, i.e., the fighting families of the
race, who, generation after generation, have upheld the honour of the
country in every quarter of the globe, and which by natural selection
have differentiated out into a "caste" almost as well defined as
the "Khsytrias" of Hindustan. These men may be as intellectu-
ally inferior as our literary authorities represent them, but at least
"National Surrender" is a conception not to be found in their
vocabulary, and in their presence the thought will never even arise.
^* Written in November, 1903. Needless to say, they did not rise to it.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, ii
People do not realise the enormous power an officer can still
exercise without even opening his mouth. Provided he possesses
anything of the inborn power of command common to most of his
class — his mere presence will hold and control a whole mass of
sedition. His uniform (provided it is not khaki) embodies the
whole fighting traditions of the race, and the fighting spirit is still
the strongest element in human nature.
But the power grows with habit and custom, and the greater
the numbers prepared in peace to submit to its influence, the less
dilution will it suffer when under pressure of War, the ranks are
crowded with fresh recruits ; hence, numbers enrolled in peace,
not efficiency, is the point to aim at, for with the collective esprit
de corps numbers alone can guarantee, discipline sufficient to secure
tactical efficiency can be soon achieved. But with weak cadres and
high peace efficiency, the influx of men will so lower the standard
of possible discipline, that efficiency may never be attained at all, or
only at the cost of discontent and latent insubordination which will
hand the whole body over to the mercy of the radical agitators.
All this may appear at first sight to have no practical bearing
on " Strategy," but on closer inspection I think it will be found to
lie at the foundation of the whole question.
Numbers alone in War count for little ; men must be educated,
as pointed out above, to yield intelligent obedience, but you
cannot educate without the power to enforce obedience ultimately
in the background. Nowadays this power comes solely from the
people ; hence, unless you have popular feeling on your side, it is
impossible to create the armies which form the raw material with
which the strategist works, and the strength of the popular feeling
supporting the general in the exercise of the disciplinary powers,
by which he tempers and adjusts the fighting-machine, is the one
dominating condition underlying his whole activity.
Our history gives abundant instances of the helplessness of the
bravest and most devoted troops when abandoned by the Govern-
ment, i.e. by the nation ; and France, America, and Germany all
show what armies, by no means of the best, can achieve with the
driving power of a great nation behind them. But there is this
essential difference between their position and ours. With them
the fighting lay within their frontiers, and actual contact with the
concrete visible consequences of War, stung them to resentment
and effort, so that the race was willing to submit to any curtail-
ment of personal liberty which was necessary to secure the
ejectment of the invader. We shall suffer famine and pestilence,
but there will be no burning homesteads, ravished women, and
murdered children to arouse the true fighting passions of the race,
12 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
and history shows that it needs direct object lessons of this drastic
nature to raise patriotism in a peaceful population to a temperature
high enough to take the imprint of discipline and keep it amid
hunger, cold, and misery, in the bivouac, and under heat and burn-
ing thirst on the battlefield, when the shells are throwing great
fragments of warm, living flesh around, as at Spion Kop.
In other nations the sense of the need of submission to
discipline has become hereditary ; with us it has almost to be
recreated from the beginning, and the essential need of our
machinery is, to use a metaphor, a boiler in which to generate the
driving force of national opinion, and insure a pressure sufficient
to keep in motion against all friction the fighting forces, whether
land or sea, in face of the enemy.
This function the Volunteers fulfil almost in precise proportion
to the numbers which are at any moment present with the colours,
or have passed through the ranks. For they represent the largest
united voting power in the country ; they will have arms in
their hands, and may be trusted to resist "surrender" down
to the youngest drummer boy in the ranks, provided always,
as the lawyers say, their officers feel their responsibility and act
up to it.
This responsibility involves no interference in political fields,
indeed, it precludes it — all that is necessary is the courage and
determination to enforce law and order, for as long as law is
maintained there will be no necessity for the expression of opinion.
Surrender could only be enforced on a Government by fear of
revolutionary proceedings on the part of the mob howling for bread,
and if the mob-leaders knew there were a solid three million votes
to be cast against their policy they would not be likely to challenge
the issue. If the Government then in office were weak, dissolu-
tion would only bring in a stronger one, for the three million votes
against surrender would assuredly make themselves felt at the
polling booths, and the change of Government then could only be
for the better.
The essential point, it will be seen, turns upon numbers which
can be counted in the Volunteer ranks, not on efficiency which
cannot be measured by any peace time standard of War Office
design, for numbers are necessary to encourage the growth of that
Esprit de corps in existing formations to such an extent that the
inroad of fresh elements in War time will not swamp the un-
expressed, but latent will-power of the mass, which by habit is all
on the side of law and order. There must be weight enough in
the body to absorb the momentum of the fresh arrivals, and not
to be disintegrated by their impact. If this sufficient weight is
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 13
guaranteed, then continuity of War policy follows, and as a con-
sequence our strategists have something solid to build upon.
If, on the other hand, in the race after peace time efficiency we
lose the weight, our foundation is gone, and no well-considered
policy is possible, as recent events in South Africa have sufficiently
demonstrated. It is easy now to fling mud at the reputations of
our politicians and generals, but I would ask any one inclined to
criticise harshly, to put themselves first in their scapegoats' place
and ask what other course either could have adopted. The
poUtician could not promise the soldier troops till he knew whether
the country was behind him, and the soldier could make no plans
till he knew what material was available.
Had our politicians and soldiers studied " Strategy," which term
I use here in its ordinary accepted sense, they would never have
indulged in the campaign of mutual recrimination with which the
gaiety of Continental general staffs has been surfeited, but would
have held the position I have above indicated with even more than
Boer-like tenacity, nor can I see by what effort of logic they could
have been dislodged. I know, as a fact from private sources, that
some of the ablest thinkers in Germany actually did consider it
impregnable until the controversy began, and entertained as a
consequence a very high degree of respect for the apparent skill
our generals showed in "adapting the means at hand to the
attainment of the object in view." * Now, unfortunately, this
respect is no longer possible in the light of the revelations of the
War Commission, and by so much has the "prestige," i.e. the dread
of the unknown, and incalculable factors on which victory and
defeat depend, which for so long has stood between us and
foreign aggression, been diminished ; it may, therefore, be of
national service to show that automatically this British constitution,
which we have been told " is'not adapted to War," has evolved by
spontaneous growth a guarantee against a similar lack of driving
power when a really great national emergency again arises.
It ought to be matter of common knowledge, taught in every
Board School, that our enemies have for years counted on the
internal troubles, certain in their opinion to be evoked by War, to
destroy the continuity of our naval and military operations under-
taken in defence of the Empire, but that the action of natural
forces developed by free institutions has enabled the organism of
the State to adapt itself to its environment, and produce a counter-
poise to the threatening danger, which may be relied on to meet
the emergency precisely in proportion to the intelligent apprecia-
tion of its purpose, and the sense of duty which exists in each
* Moltke's * Definition of the Art of War.'
14 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
individual unit of the nation. If this sense of duty is deficient, no
efforts of our generals or soldiers can save us, we shall take the
field with sawdust cartridges and brown-paper boot soles, and with
an insurgent population behind us, our fate will be settled before-
hand ; but if, on the other hand, Nelson's last signal was not
hoisted in vain, then we possess in our existing organisation the
guarantee of ultimate victory as certain now as it proved a century
ago.
CHAPTER II.
The British public and the British subaltern — The diflferences of conditions under which
civilians and soldiers work — The cause of routine — Simplicity of military conditions
three centuries ago — Origin of military terms — Hard fighting, not manoeuvring, the
primary condition of success — The early Militia levies had no communications —
Origin of standing armies — Use of armour and consequent slowness of motion and
growth of impedimenta — The Thirty Years* War — Armour is abandoned — Increase
of manoeuvring power — Death of Gustavus Adolphus — Desolation of country
paralyses all army movements — Influence of mercenaries — Contrast the soldiers of
Cromwell — Origin of the '* laws of War " — Expediency not humanity — Dissolution
of armies at close of the Thirty Years' War — Cause of Wars in the eighteenth
century — Nature of armies — Origin of term "strategy" — Marlborough and the ne
plus tiltra lines — His real claim to our admiration — Influence of French literature
— Frederick the Great and Napoleon — Their power of command — Defence of the
British officer — His intelligence revolts at the teaching provided for him.
In the eyes of the British Public — at least judging by the kind of
literature (!) it paid the daily Press to publish during the recent
war in South Africa — the British subaltern is the most feckless,
idle, and stupid person in existence, an habitual shirker of his
work and duty ; the direct antitype of the conscientious, able, and
devoted young gentlemen who may be seen everyday journeying
into the city in carefully brushed tall hats and frock coats, the
future merchant princes of our happy Island. Without going into
the question of the ethical instinct of duty which leads to such a
disproportionate sacrifice of life amongst the juniors in all our
little expeditions — one is tempted to ask why it is that these
young men, all of them the survivors in an intellectual struggle
many times harder than any the average business men are called
on to undergo, should so suddenly collapse the moment the strain
upon them is relaxed and they become commissioned officers in
His Majesty's Army, assuming for the moment that this collapse
actually happens.
In everyday civil life the conditions of a man's occupation are
continuous, the duties he performs to-day remain substantially the
same to-morrow and the next day, and any marked deviation from
the prescribed order of conduct brings its own punishment, often
with startling rapidity. If a young doctor mixes a few drachms of
arsenic in a prescription by carelessly taking up a wrong bottle, the
i6 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
patient's internal economy soon reveals the error, and a coroner's
inquest does the rest — that young doctor is eliminated. If an
engineer or architect miscalculates the strain on his girder or foun-
dations, down comes the bridge or house, and again there is a
young gentleman out of employment and likely to remain so.
But in peace such drastic and dramatic consequence can hardly
result from dereliction of duty in any Army — though, they may in
the Navy — hence a man does not work with the fear of consequences
immediately before his eyes, nor is it easy to trace the direct
sequence between cause and effect. The tendency, therefore, is to
settle down into a routine method of performing duties which will
satisfy the demands of the Inspecting Officer, and leave the future
to take care of itself. Even men of the utmost keenness and of
high intellectual ability — in the absence of the special guidance to
which I shall presently refer — are bound to succumb to routine
more or less, since so great is the complexity of modern military
problems, so endlessly interwoven are the threads of ultimate fight-
ing efficiency, that only years of the collective industry of many
trained minds can suffice to grapple with all the many emergencies
which may arise, and even then they can only formulate " princi-
ples " to guide action, never "orders," i.e. "methods " to limit the
responsibility of the executive officers in each grade of the military
hierarchy.
Three centuries ago this complexity hardly existed, the con-
ditions of social existence, of armament and of the maintenance of
armies changed so slowdy that there was not much difficulty in
laying down fixed rules of conduct for all probable contingencies,
and as the existence of such fixed rules saved a world of trouble
and relieved the commanders of an immense amount of responsi-
bility, the search after them became almost a popular pastime.
From the literature thus evolved, certain catch phrases and
terms came into general use, and were employed to explain the
successes or defeats of certain popular leaders, the use of the learned
term being considered the same thing as the explanation of the
phenomenon which in point of fact it very rarely is.
Still, the conditions of collision being simple, and the leaders
essentially practical men brought up in a school of continuous War-
fare, honours remained usually easy until the average general found
himself confronted by an adversary of considerably greater ability,
who, seizing on the new factors of fighting power, the consequence
of the slow evolution which is always at work in society, made a
better " application of the means at hand to the attainment of the
object in view," and the theoreticians had to deduce fresh theories
to square with the new facts.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 17
Omitting all references to the exploits of the Greeks and
Romans, the sequence of events in Europe has practically been as
follows.
The early Militia levies had no transport, and hence required no
lines of communication. They came together, each man carrying
a few days' rations and supplementing them by what they could
pick up in the country they moved through. Hard fighting alone
decided the issue, and the word " Strategy " was not even invented.
But it was soon seen that skilled disciplined fighters possessed an
enormous superiority in man-killing power over raw levies, greater
by far than they have ever enjoyed since ; and since a small body
of men can find provisions where a larger one would starve, they
could keep the field very much longer than the levies to which they
were opposed, and being practically invulnerable to their antagonists,
could hunt the others down, very much as a small column of British
troops, carrying its own supplies with it, can ultimately reduce an
Afghan frontier district ; hence every king or potentate, who could
afford it, soon surrounded himself with bands of these highly
specialised fighting machines. Their numbers still remained rela-
tively small, because they had to be proportionate to the food
supplies of the district in which they operated, and, again, when
they encountered one another the result only depended on hard
fighting ; manoeuvring was still practically out of the question.
But as the power of projectile weapons grew, the need of keep-
ing out the bullets or bolts increased likewise, and the weight of
defensive armour made the men very slow. Still, as during the
sixteenth century warfare raged principally in very fertile, highly
cultivated tracts — Belgium, the north of France, Lombardy, and so
forth, the disadvantages of this slowness of movement did not
at once become apparent, and the slower the movement the greater
became the tendency to overload the troops with transport
columns.
Then came the Thirty Years' War, soon transferred to a
theatre where supplies were less concentrated. The Swedes, by
far superior drill and discipline, obtained marked tactical ad-
vantages, and as a consequence shed their armour from them.
With lighter loads they could march farther and faster, thus being
able to subsist a larger Army on the same resources, and the
period of manoeuvring began.
How far this tendency would have then travelled had Gustavus
Adolphus not been killed it is difficult to say; but his death
brought on a reaction, and matters soon reached a deadlock.
Movements became slow, as there was no longer the driving
energy of his genius to conduct them, time was given to the enemy
C
i8 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
to fortify himself, and wearisome sieges took the place of his
relatively rapid marching campaigns.
Again, armies became stereotyped in the mould of the pro-
fessional mercenary soldier, who, being paid and fed from day to
day, had no personal interest in the termination of hostilities, and
the War dragged on its slow length until the expense and ravages
of these mercenaries rendered combined operations no longer
possible. Large armies would have starved in the devastated
countries, small detachments could effect nothing against the
entrenchments everywhere thrown up for protection against them.
At this point it is worth while calling attention to the difference
in the conduct of War which at once made itself apparent when the
personal incentive to get back to peaceful pursuits formed a
leading factor in the composition of the whole Army. During
the great Civil War the impatience of Cromwell and the bulk of
our Armies on both sides to end the struggle by a decisive victory
was so great as to actually shock the old veterans of the Swedish
school, who were all for the slower and less risky methods of the
Continent ; but our men had their way, with the result, which
Hoenig has so well brought out in his ' Life of Cromwell,' that the
Art of War went up at a bound in England to much the same point
to which Moltke raised it in 1870 — rapid marches, decisive battles,
and enveloping movements such as Worcester, which he indicates
as the prototype of Sedan, his inference being that it is the
character of the individual units of the Army that primarily
controls the execution of the commander's designs. In other
words, that a general does what he can, not what he would like
to, a point I hope to develop at greater length hereafter.
The long series of campaigns known as the Thirty Years' War
had been waged primarily for " religion," not for " conquest ; " and as
soon as men ceased killing one another for the love of God, a
curious transition took place which deserves special notice, as it
forms the foundation on which all English theories of humani-
tarianism in War and international law have been reared.
It is generally taught in our text-books on the latter subject
and implicitly accepted by our statesmen, that the so-called " laws
of War " originated in the revulsion of humanity at the horrible
barbarities which had characterised the conduct of operations and
culminated in the sack of Magdeburg and similar atrocities, and it
is the fact that, more or less, all nations had tacitly agreed to the
code of Grotius contained in his "De Jure Belli ac Pacis." Actually,
however, it was "expediency," not "humanity," that decided the
concession ; and since it is " expediency " that alone conditions
the degree of violence which can be usefully employed in War, it
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 19
will be as well to see how the change arose and why modern War,
as shown in the long summary of Clausewitz's views in the previous
<:hapter, has shown such a marked tendency to revert to more
(primitive brutality.
When active hostilities in the field came, as above described, to
an end, owing to the mutual exhaustion of both forces, all central
Europe lay at the mercy of armed bands of mercenaries who were
•determined not to starve as long as they had arms in their hands.
To suppress the ravages of these hordes it became expedient for
the reigning princes to take a part of these men into their service
and employ them in hunting down the others.
This was the true origin of the " standing armies " such as they
continued on the Continent until after Jena, and of which our own
long-service Army survived into the seventies.*
At first the nations cheerfully paid blackmail to the few to be
quit of the many ; but when things settled down, and the memories
•of past services were forgotten, the charge was heavily felt by the
taxpayer, and it became necessary to shift the burden of their
maintenance on to other shoulders.
The national politics of the period were those of the landed
proprietors of to-day. Each king wanted to extend his boundaries
— honestly, if possible — for the greater his landed estates the
-greater his revenue, and in the absence of any court of appeal with
•executive power behind it, the troops came in usefully to enforce
a covetous prince's claim ; but the wealth of the acquisition
•depended on the labour available to cultivate it, and hence it
became " expedient " not to frighten the labourer away from the
•soil. For the next two centuries this system prevailed and, though
•broken through now and again, when momentary " expediency "
•dictated an opposite course — e.g. when the French devastated the
Palatinate and Marlborough let loose fire and sword in Bavaria — it
formed the ruling condition which overrode all other military con-
siderations until the French Revolution brought matters in practice
{though not in theory) down to more natural bearings.
This, briefly, is the origin of all the claptrap theories of our
* There had of course been a nucleus of royal guards and other troops for a long
•period before all over Europe, but essentially the difference lay in this, that the bulk of
an army in the field was contract labour for the "job," raised precisely as a modem
contractor raises men for his special work, and once the task was finished the State incurred
no further liability for pensions and so forth. Either they were disbanded on the spot
with as little consideration as a humane modern prince of commerce shows when he sacks
.his workmen, or they followed the fortunes of their leader to whatever court might be
in need of his services. They were true only to the man who paid them, and owned no
allegiance either to country or people ; they were, in fact, devoid of all sense of nationality
•or patriotism— a very important point to note, as this tradition perpetuated itself for
:.s:enerations afterwards.
20 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
historians, international lawyers, and statesmen, who seem to
imagine that their Continental opponents are wandering in the same
dark ages as themselves, and who believe that War is still only
a quarrel between the Governments, and not, what it has since
become, a "struggle for existence between the races," the only
sure starting-point for all efficient organisation.
One point, however, they invariably overlook. Whilst agreeing
with the unfortunate Prussians, whose ignorance of things as they
really were brought upon them the awful calamities of 1806 to
181 5, that warlike operations should not be allowed to interfere
with the peaceful pursuits of the honest citizen, they entirely
fail to perceive that not even in the palmiest days of sentimental
humanitarianism run mad, did any army in a position to prevent
it, allow food to enter a beleaguered city ; but the distinction
between a beleaguered island and a starving city is not easy to
see. Are our Continental neighbours likely to forget that we
fought the *' Glorious First of June " (1794) on purpose to prevent
the entry of a food convoy into French harbours }
Reverting now to the more purely military side of our subject,
it happened that the scene of the next great series of Wars, after the
Thirty Years' War and our own Great Rebellion, was again chiefly
laid in the very fertile plains of the Netherlands, already bristling
with fortifications and susceptible of a step by step defence. In
such a district mobility has small scope, and the feeding of the
troops presents relatively little difficulty. The recruiting, organisa-
tion, and armament of the men being all on the same plan, a
deadlock in the strategic situation soon ensued.
The armies lay sheltered behind miles of formidable storm-
proof fortifications, and owing to the shortness of range, and want
of shell power, it was impossible to bring upon any one point of
their development, a concentration of fire adequate to prepare the
way for an assault.
Under these conditions, the skill and cunning of the leader in
feints, ruses, and the dissemination of false intelligence, practically
alone decided the result, and it was at this time that the word
*' Strategy " first made its appearance as a generic term to cover
all these manifestations of intellectual activity on the part of a
general.
Curiously it was this intellectual side of a leader's personality
which alone attracted attention. Of the " Willenskraft "—as the
Germans call it — which inspires troops with their leader's energy,
enabling them to overcome internal resistances and sacrifice them-
selves body and soul at his behest— that quality which found its
highest expression a century later in Napoleon— there is nowhere
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 21
the slightest appreciation. Though, at least in the case of Marl-
borough, it must have been there in a very high degree, yet it is
only in the cunning by which he masked his ultimate designs that
contemporary commentators find a cause for admiring surprise.
When by a forced march, involving almost unparalleled exertion
from the troops, he doubled back on Aubanch-ceuil-au-bac,* and
forced the celebrated ne plus ultra lines, it is on the cunning of the
trick that his panegyrists love to dwell, though the trick was little
more than the sharpness of a cute schoolboy heading a raid on a
neighbour's orchard ; the resolution of the man to stake everything
on the spirit he had himself inspired in his men by years of the
most strenuous effort on his part to understand, alleviate, and
appreciate their difficulties, which alone, in fact, confers on him the
stamp of the greatest leader of his day, passes unnoticed and is at
most referred to as characteristic of the amiability of his tempera-
ment and care for the men under his command, to be imitated,
certainly, but not to be spoken of in the same breath with the in-
genuity which put his opponents off their guard.
The explanation may probably be found in the fact that, in the
absence of any strong racial feeling, military society was more
cosmopolitan than it is now, and the French not only did most of
the memoir-writing, but theirs was also the language of civilised
intercourse all over Europe. They could hardly praise the leader-
ship of their adversary without detracting from the merits of their
own men, and further, whereas the trick was obvious and its success
a sufficient justification, the devotion of the men which made it
possible was known only to those who had actually seen the inci-
dents of the march and knew the superhuman efforts it had entailed.
Moreover War was so chronic, and generally the gap between
men and leaders so great, that far more was taken for granted as
to the men than is nowadays the case. Soldiers, with years ot
active service behind them, did not consider it necessary to explain
that bloodshed and suffering are the usual consequences of the
collision of armed forces, and the public being divorced from the
soldier's life, failed to realise that after all the soldier's uniform
covers a very human heart, which requires more training than a
mere martinet can give, before it can be relied on to stand up to
death and mutilation without serious misgiving.
When troops conquered, well and good, they had merely done
what they were paid to do ; when they broke and ran, they were
cowards, and no one wrote letters to the daily press on the
psychology of the battlefield to palliate their disgrace.
* See the admirable description of this operation in Fortescue's * History of the
British Army,' vol. ii.
22 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY,
Be this as it may, the net result of nearly half a century of
continuous fighting was to establish a new word in all dictionaries,
embodying a meaning which the philologist will hardly unre-
servedly sanction. For " Strategy " from its root means only the
" Art of the leader," and in that " Art " a knowledge of and aptitude
for tricks and chicane plays a very subordinate part indeed, as I
propose in this and the following chapters to show.
The writings of this period became in course of time, as was
only natural, the classics of the next, and it was from them that
Frederick the Great, and after him Napoleon, derived their early
military education. For them it mattered little ; they were above
restraint ; when words or ideas clashed with their intentions, the
words had to go under — their will was law ; but it was otherwise
with the swarm of commentators which in turn their exploits
awoke. These had to find explanations for their heroes' performances
by reference to fixed and established standards, and being, as most
of us are, quite unconscious of the profound modifications of con-
ditions always in progress around us, they sought to justify the
success, due solely to genius of the highest order, which is simply
the intuitive power of grasping things as they are, by seeking a
conformity with time-honoured prescriptions which was entirely
non-existent at the moment in the chief actor's brain.
Anticipating a little, it is safe to say that both Frederick and
Napoleon won their campaigns by sheer force of overmastering
" will-power,'* a power which arose spontaneously within them as
circumstances confronted them. It was the extraordinary power
of their own personality which was at the time as great a secret
to them as it has remained to us, and which they were quite in-
capable of explaining. No great commander knows why men are
willing to die more readily for him than another, and being com-
pelled to justify his victories, he unconsciously falls back on the
terminology of his school-books, only using the old words in the
fresh meaning his acts have conferred upon them, leaving posterity
to find out and explain, if they can, their new meaning. His
biographers, unaware of the unconscious modification in the terms
he uses, still interpret them in the old way, and thus in process of
time a confusion of thought arises which requires a fresh genius^
but of a different order of mind, to clear away.
One thing, however, is certain, viz. that neither Frederick nor
Napoleon owed their successes to the same proximate causes which
had determined the issues of former campaigns, for the conditions
of Warfare meanwhile had completely changed, and the new circum-
stances left no room for the successful application of the " Strategy "
of former days. It took the defeat of Jena and years of subsequent
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 23
suffering to open the eyes of the Germans to all that these changes
meant ; and Sedan with its sequels was required to bring the same
knowledge home to the French Staff; what extent of disaster will
suffice to liberate us from the bonds these antiquated traditions still
throw around us, I hardly venture to contemplate, but of one thing
at least I am certain, viz. that until we boldly cut adrift from all
our effete old nomenclature, and adopt clear and intelligible mean-
ings for the words we are compelled to use, the study of the
direction and leading of troops in War will never be popular with
British officers.
It is not that they are stupid or wanting in soldierly keenness ;
on the contrary, they come to us generally with most praiseworthy
anxiety to learn ; but when they are confronted with the illogical
maunderings that make up the bulk of our text-books on Strategy,
their clear common-sense sees through the attempted imposition,
and, according to temperament, either they say, " No fellow can be
expected to follow this reasoning," or, " This is obvious nonsense*
and it is sheer waste of time to try and do anything but cram it."
This at least is the outcome of my experience, extending over a
good number of years, in which I have had Staff College candidates.
Regular Officers, Militia and Volunteers under my charge, and it
is to their exceedingly direct and often scathing criticism that I owe
nine-tenths of my own acquaintance with the subject. I have never
found any difficulty in bringing home to them the principles taught
by Clausewitz and Moltke, and with such pupils one might go far
indeed ; but there is always the haunting dread of the text-book
" fetish " behind one : " It is not in the book, and if I do not write
down what is in the book I shall get no marks." Actually the fear
is groundless. Examiners for the most part nowadays are only too
glad to welcome clear original thought reasonably expressed, and
well know the distinction between a " drill-book " and a " text-
book," and if once this tradition of parrot-like repetition could be
broken, I make no doubt that progress would be rapid and
continuous.
CHAPTER III.
Marlborough's march to the Danube ; a violation of established rule, but the act of a
genius in War — Forging of the Prussian Army — Its influence on the conduct of opera-
tions — Contrast between the topography of the Netherlands and Silesia — Origin of
the " magazine system " — Cost of enlistment and training of the soldiers — Frederick's
Wars not sufficiently studied in England — Skill of our generals in "small Wars" —
The chief obstacles to a leader's success — Gradual change in Frederick's methods —
Result on'military thought — The school of manoeuvrers — Poverty of Prussia — Con-
sequences for the army— The " foreigners " and " Landeskinder " — ' Barry Lyndon '
— Codes of i^unishment — Limits of discipline — Desertion — These conditions common
to all contemporary armies — Result when opposed to the French Revolutionary
Armies — Influence of "starvation" as a "driving force" — Internal condition of
France, 1790 — Creation of the new French Army — Their mobility, and its conse-
quence when opposed to the slow moving forces of the Allies — Comparison with
Boer War — Origin of "cordon system" — Object of present chapter — Difficulties
created by our present system.
As we have seen in the previous chapter, when the War of the
Spanish Succession came to an end in the Netherlands, the methods
of War had crystallised into certain definite forms, conditioned by
the local circumstances, system of recruiting and tactics, common
to all the contending forces, and above which only exceptional
leaders, such as Marlborough, Eugene of Savoy, and Villars, could
rise superior.
Marlborough's march to the Danube is in itself the best
evidence of how little attention was paid to the " science of com-
munications," * and was really a retrogression to the old Thirty
Years' War type, a march of a relatively small army through a
relatively rich district, in which as long as the troops kept moving
money would draw provisions. His ability as a " strategist," i.e. a
" general," was shown by the conduct of his adversaries, who were
so tied and bound by the prejudices of their own period that they
not only failed to anticipate his purpose, but declined to believe
that he was really in motion until too late to prevent its execution.
It was a perfect example of "the practical adaptation of the
means at hand to the attainment of the object in view," t and as such
establishes beyond question or cavil his reputation as a great
"strategist ;" but judged by the rules laid down by the writers of
his own and subsequent periods, until in fact Clausewitz evolved
*■ Willisen's definition of the Art of War.
t Moltke's definition of the Art of War.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 25
a more rational standard, it appears as the most hare-brained flank
march the mind of man ever devised. Success was its sole justifi-
cation, but what is the practical use of a theory which fails to
explain such success ?
Meanwhile, whilst the practical soldiers and strategists of the
period were at work framing rules to lighten the load of re-
sponsibility for incompetent soldiers in the future, the Prussians,
on their peace-time parade grounds, were forging a new weapon
of War, destined in due course to destroy all their elaborate
structures. They were training an infantry by rigid drill to a fire
discipline, against which only overwhelming numbers could prevail.
For details of their methods, I must refer the reader to papers
on the Evolution of Cavalry and Infantry, which originally appeared
in the Uftited Service Magazine dm'mg 1902 and 1903 — the purport
of which is to show how Frederick the Great, inheriting from his
father only an infantry capable of developing an unprecedented
fire power, built up on this foundation a fighting Army, whose
efficiency was such that against anything approaching a numerical
equality its victory was a foregone conclusion. The difficulty
remained to bring this Army unweakened by privation in face of
its enemy, for in the districts in which his campaigns took place,
all the conditions of the Netherland theatre of operations were
entirely lacking. Instead of fertility, short lines of communications,
fortresses, etc., his field of action lay in barren roadless districts,
almost destitute of fortifications, and covering an area very many
times greater than anything the critics and schoolmasters of the
day had ever contemplated.
Only one thing was common to both, viz. the exaggerated respect
it was found expedient to pay to the rights of private property, when
operating in an enemy's country ; in one's own it did not so much
signify. These causes led to the evolution of the much ridiculed
but little understood " magazine system," which, however, was a
practical solution of the problem which confronted the Prussians,
and distinctly comes within the scope of Moltke's above-quoted
definition.
Essentially, the Prussians could not afford to expend a single
man unnecessarily, for each trained soldier represented a cash
investment of the nation's capital, great out of all proportion to the
total wealth of the State.
The actual cost of enlistment and maintenance during the two
years' training needed to bring him up to the standard of drill
necessary for the execution of the volley-firing tactics of the times,
has been variously calculated and appears to have been about
£100, about the same as one of our own eighteen-year-old recruits
26 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY,
costs us before he is fit or considered fit for service in an unhealth>^
semitropical country ; but whereas Sir R. Giffen calculates the
wealth of this Empire in 1903 as not less than twenty -two thousand
millions sterling ; it is very doubtful whether all the gold and
property in Prussia at that time was worth twenty-two millions, and
whereas our present white population is about fifty millions, six
millions would be an outside estimate for the inhabitants of Prussia
in 175 1.
It was obviously worth while to take some care of such men,,
and since in the relatively roadless but practicable districts iri'
which the War was waged, it did not much matter where you fought
the enemy, provided you beat him, the slowness entailed by the
magazine system was of little consequence.
Still, though the general conduct of operations was slow, when
a crisis arrived, and within the margin of time allowed by the
magazine system, the Prussian Army was relatively very mobile,,
and its marches and manoeuvres once within striking distance oi
the enemy were generally very rapid.
It is unfortunate that Frederick's Wars have met with such
superficial study in our own country, for however necessary accurate
knowledge of the Napoleonic methods — which knowledge, I may
parenthetically remark, we have never possessed — may be for the
comprehension of modern European Warfare, our more normal
employment lies in countries and under conditions which conform
far more closely to the Frederican period. Roadless countries,
scarcity of supplies, necessitating endless convoys and detachments,,
and British soldiers worth perhaps ;^iooo a-head to the nation
before they actually reach the fighting-line, necessitate a very wide
departure from contemporary Continental practices for the achieve-
ment of economical results, and I fancy that if some of our
Continental critics could put themselves in our places they would
accord a higher meed of praise to our Indian and African exploits
than they have hitherto seen fit to do.
Actually nothing has served to confirm me more in the high
opinion I have always expressed as to the innate capacity for
leadership existing in our race, than the intuitive skill which our
average column and detachment commanders have generally shown
in adapting their action in the field to things as they find them,
without being misled by the false teaching too often inculcated in
our text-books. The slow methodic collection of supplies, then
the swift and sudden, often most daring manoeuvres around
the enemy's flanks, characteristic of almost all our Afghan and
frontier expeditions during the last thirty years, form a record
which I feel certain the Prussian " General Stab " would be the first
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 27
to appreciate if they were able to realise even dimly the difficulties
with which we have to contend.*
The diffusion of this more accurate knowledge would in itself
be the simplest and most economical way of increasing our
collective efficiency, for, after all, that is limited by the amount
of available character in the leader's head free to overcome
internal resistances, and which in " small Wars " are often far
greater than the external resistances opposed by the enemy. In
an Army where each man understands the nature of its com-
mander's difficulties, and the spirit in which he faces them,
every one works with a will and an absence of all disposition
to carp. But where every subaltern tries to apply his recently
acquired text-book strategy to conditions which that strategy was
never devised to face, there is an undercurrent of distrust and
dissatisfaction in the air, which the special correspondent is quick
to note and disseminate, to the destruction of national confidence
in the General, who may thus find his hands tied at the very
moment he requires full freedom most. Correspondents are not
altogether free agents, but only report what the camp thinks ;
hence, if the dominant note of the press correspondence of any
campaign is despondent and hypercritical, it is a safe inference
that the General is working under difficulties.
As long as the numerical disproportion against Frederick the
Great was not too crushing, his strategy was bold to the verge
of rashness, but always conditioned by confidence in the fighting
value of the troops he commanded. He formed front to a flank
or across his enemy's communications without apparent hesita-
tion. But when at last he was confronted by two Armies, each
individually numerically superior to his own, seeing that his
country could not supply the waste these constant battles
occasioned, he had recourse to manoeuvring, and ultimately to field
* Shortly after the Afghan War I met a Prussian officer who had fought in 1866 and
1870, chiefly in the Black Forest and amongst the Jura and Vosges mountains, and who
has since risen to a considerable position in his own Army. He held a most fair and
judicial attitude towards things English, but could not help criticising the apparent slow-
ness of our operations in Afghanistan, which he had followed most attentively. We were
in the West Riding of Yorkshire, so I took him for walks up some of the torrent beds
amongst the millstone grit districts between the Aire and Wharfe, then into the
mountain limestone of Craven, and took him through some of the '* Tangi's," such as
Goredale Scar, Coniston, near Kilnsea, and so forth, and asked him to consider what
delays the march by such tracks would entail even to a European Army, then to double
at least the actual magnitude of the physical obstacles, and in his imagination to fill them
up with, say, 10,000 fighting men, 15,000 followers, elephants, camels, byles, mules,
etc., and finally to calculate the marching time for ten miles of such a road. He loyally
admitted that he had been mistaken in his estimate, and when subsequently I stayed with
him and his regiment in Germany, I found a very different appreciation of our perform-
ances than I had hitherto met with in other garrisons.
28 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
entrenchments, not because he regarded this policy with favour, but
because he calculated, and as the event proved with correctness,
that the threat of battle in itself would suffice to impose caution on
his adversaries and thus indirectly compass his purpose.
Unfortunately for his posterity, it happened as it always
happens, that the recollection of his later campaigns outlived the
glory of his earlier victories, and his Generals, anxious at all costs
to economise the troops for which they were personally responsible,
raised this cult of manoeuvres without fighting to the dignity
of a dogma, not seeing that they were trading on the reputation
won for them by their leader, and that some day they might
encounter an Army and General who might refuse to take them
at their own valuation. For the time, however, the system
answered, and in the last campaign in Bohemia (1778) the
Prussians never required to fire a single shot, the Austrians
being successfully imposed upon by mere ** bluff." A worse
school of training for the troubles to come could hardly be
imagined, and as if this was not enough worse had yet to come.
The poverty of Prussia, after the Seven Years* War came to
an end, was so terrible that the King was compelled to turn all
his energies to the agricultural and commercial development of
the country. The Treasury being too impoverished to pay the
whole Army, only about one-third of the men were kept with
the colours the whole year round, the others only being called
up for a month's training in the spring, and a fortnight in the
autumn. But the mere preparation of the companies for the
platoon firing, on which the Prussian tactics essentially depended,
in itself required three times that amount of time, and as for the
squadrons, the whole year barely sufficed to attain that ''uncon-
ditional control " of their horses, on which Seydlitz had relied.*
To encourage the commercial regeneration of the country,
great concessions were made to many of the cities and townships ;
the effect of this was still further to reduce the recruiting area,
and thus render the retention of " foreigners " in the ranks still
more necessary than even before.
These " foreigners," however, were the last remnant of the former
" mercenaries " — men who had been originally induced to desert
from their own colours, or kidnapped, or entrapped by the wiles
of the recruiting agents, who spread their nets far and wide,
even into England. Thackeray's ' Barry Lyndon ' sufficiently
depicts the type, and the condition of affairs his pages reveal is
* See von der Marwitz, quoted in * Cavalry, its Past and Future,' which originally
appeared in the United Service Magazine. For the Infantiy, see Max Jahns and the
publications of the General Stab, No. 28.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 29
but little in excess of what even reliable Prussian authorities
admit. Such men required a hand of iron to keep them in
restraint, and furnished the excuse, not merely for the brutalising
punishments, for these were common to all countries at the time,
but also for the attitude adopted towards the private soldier by
the civilians, to which the King, in the interests of commercial
development, felt himself compelled to acquiesce ; but cruel and
degrading to humanity as these were, it must be remembered that
they were little more stringent than the restraints to which our
own men have had to submit until within the last twenty years,
and which some of our magistrates, publicans, clergy, and other
old women would like to see laid upon them again.
Such a code of punishments and such conditions always
produce the same results in a long service Army, unless active
service, or, failing that, frequent changes of station alleviate the
sufferings of the soldier. Life becomes unendurable to officers
and men alike, and both combine to evade all but the absolute
letter of the law. True discipline goes to the wall, and though
regiments may show a faultless turn-out on parade and march
past like a wall, it needs but a touch of misfortune, once the
absolute fighting blood has cooled down, to ensure the most
wholesale desertion from the colours.
There is a certain point very easily reached, beyond which the
discipline of repression and punishment cannot go in War time,
for the few in whose hands the enforcement of punishment lies are
soon overpowered by the numbers of offenders, and you cannot tell
off half the Army into firing parties to execute the remaining half.
Desertion was the scourge of all such armies, and the pre-
cautions necessary to be taken to prevent the men escaping
both from the line of march and from their sleeping quarters,
not only took up most of the officers' time, causing them more
anxiety than the proximity of the enemy, but practically necessi-
tated encampment, and thus added enormously to the length of
the baggage columns and proportionately reduced their mobility.
Speaking generally, these conditions were common to all
armies ; everywhere it was the policy of the State to degrade
the soldier below the civilian, and with the leaven of unrest
spread by the French pre-Revolutionary pamphleteers seething
below the surface, no ruler, however enlightened, could dare to
enforce proper respect towards the national uniform ; chiefly because
the idea of nationality had hardly as yet come into existence,
and Wars were still held to be the "Sport of Kings," in which
the civil inhabitants of a State had no concern. Officers and
men, taken as a body in all countries, were as keen and zealous
30 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
in the performance of their duties, and intellectually as much
above the average of the classes from which they were drawn, as
nowadays ; but, like us, they were the outcome of their surroundings,
and when fhe outbreak of the French Revolution brought them
face to face with conditions it had never occurred to the wildest
dreamer to contemplate, they had to improvise tactics and strategy
to meet the changed circumstances, precisely as we have so recently
had to do in South Africa.
Into the question of the Evolution of the French Army of
the Revolution I have entered in considerable detail in previous
papers.* The only special point requiring to be accentuated here
is the influence " starvation " exercised as a " driving force " on the
whole series of campaigns until the proclamation of the Empire.
The internal condition of France in the years preceding 1792
had been one of chronic scarcity, aggravated by excessive taxation
— the letters of Mr. Arthur Young, an English traveller, and
careful observer, especially of agricultural affairs, are the best
evidence on this point — and community of suffering had brought all
classes of society and all provinces of the country into closer touch
with one another than had hitherto been the case. M. Taine has
most conclusively shown how this community of suffering ultimately
precipitated the outbreak of the Revolution by making the ruling
classes, as a body, more tolerant of the seething disaffection of the
people, and thus bringing about a relaxation of the stringency of
the laws by which they had hitherto been kept under. There was
executive power enough behind the judges, had they cared to
employ it ; but their humanity shrank from the performance of
their duties, and thus unconsciously the door was opened for the
spread of the revolutionary agitation.j
When, therefore, the impulse to closer union was given by the
invasion of French soil by the Allies in 1792, there was in existence
a nucleus, around which the units of the population could accrete,
which had never existed in previous Wars, and, to use a chemical
metaphor, the nation of France crystallised out of solution in
regular military order, there being no other form available for
it to take, or, indeed, for any other nation under similar
circumstances.
The almost unanimous reply of the nation to the call to arms,
♦ Vide * Cavalry, its Past and Future,' and • The Evolution of Infantiy Tactics,' in
the United Sei-vice Magazine from January to May, 1903.
t The same process is in active operation at the present moment in Russia, and the
end is not difficult to foresee. And, as a necessary sequence of the fourfold rise
in price of foodstuffs which' a declaration of War must entail upon us in these islands —
thanks to our Marine Insurance practices — we are likely to find ourselves confronted in
ihe not far distant future with identically the same difficulty.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 31
however, intensified the previous pressure, for all the valid males
being withdrawn from agricultural pursuits the famine became
worse than ever, so that those who deserted when their first flush
of enthusiasm had expired under the chilling influences of wet
bivouacs and the kindred hardships of the march, found their last
state worse than the first when they regained their villages, and
gladly went back to their colours, where, at least, they had the best
and surest chance of securing sufficient sustenance.
Had France been normally prosperous, provincial jealousies
would have kept the nation apart, as frequently on previous
occasions the centre and south of the country had looked on at
the sufferings of the northern districts ; but hunger drove them to
make common cause, and thus the Allies found themselves
confronted by hordes far in excess of anything they had anticipated,
and rendered far more mobile than any existing standing Army by
reason of the very penury of the central government, which they
had relied on as the chief factor towards the attainment of a speedy
and satisfactory peace.
Where the Allies marched with heavy trains of tents and
provisions, rendered necessary, according to tradition, to prevent
desertion, the French, having no tents and no desertion, spread
themselves for subsistence, best attained by hunting together in
handy packs, and thus completely mystified their more regular
opponents, by the uncertainty of their movements and the
consequent impossibility of predicting their intentions.
To men without trains or commissariat, and held together by
the bonds of common necessities, districts were passable into which
no regular Army could think of penetrating, and the constant
appearance of armed parties from unexpected directions had
upon the outpost services of the Allies much the same mystifying
effect that similar circumstances induced in our own case in South
Africa.
The parallel in the two cases is most singularly close and
deserves far more attentive study than it has hitherto received.
The French could not, of course, move as rapidly as our recent
opponents ; but they had an absolute numerical superiority, and
having no trains, and practically no bases, they gave no tangible
target to strike at.
Out of these conditions the so-called " cordon system," which
was only our " small column " system under another name, quite
naturally arose.
Since magazines, convoys, etc., had of necessity to be protected,
and a small column of regulars being at first much more than a
match for the irregulars, such small columns were everywhere
32 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
disposed, and since the concentration of these small bodies was
always a matter of difficulty, and in the absence of a definite
object to concentrate against promised no results, the attempt was
naturally seldom made, so that the initiative passed tacitly over
to the French, and when their purpose of concentration was fully
declared, it was too late for the counter-concentration to act.
For the Allies to have copied the French would have been as
impossible as for us to have copied the Boers, nor was there even
the same incentive, for their fighting forms and methods were
intrinsically far superior to those employed by the French, and
their ultimate defeat was occasioned solely by political treachery.
But this defeat shook the faith of their company officers and men,
whilst it strengthened the confidence of the superior officers in
their tactical methods, so that when Bonaparte appeared on the
scene, the weapons failed in the hands of the leaders, and their
combinations broke down because the men no longer fought with
the same consciousness of superiority, whilst the French, rendered
confident by success, had learnt in War to adapt the very same
methods that had previously been employed against them.
The same process is again apparent in South Africa. When
our cavalry had given up the idea of charging in ordered lines,
simply because there was never anything tangible to ride at, the
Boers learnt to order their files and charged home with ever
growing determination as the War went on. Fortunately for us
they had neither time, resources, nor a Napoleon to guide them.
The whole end, aim, and purport of this present chapter is to
establish a plea for wider and less prejudiced reading of military
history as a preliminary to the study of strategy, and is meant to
enforce the accuracy of Moltke's above-quoted definition. "The
art of War consists in the practical adaptation of the means at
hand to the attainment of the object in view."
To attempt to teach strategy always and solely on Napoleonic
lines serves only to disgust the indifferent and turn the zealous
into pedants — for the conditions, i.e. " the means at hand," are
constantly varying, and combinations practical and brilliant with
one Army may prove worse than disastrous with another. In
Continental Armies not much harm may be done, the conditions
are too uniform ; but for us the danger is great and imminent,
not so much that our leaders will fall into pedantic pitfalls, but
because of the difficulty they may find in getting their ideas
appreciated and put into execution by their Staff and the regimental
officers under them, who, crammed with Hamley and kindred text-
books at their colleges, see in every departure from established rule
cause for questioning the capacity of their chief.
CHAPTER IV.
The French Army from i 792-1796.
Importance of the study of French memoirs of the Revolutionary period to British
officers — The code of punishment in the armies of the Revolution — State of the
Army of Italy when Napoleon assumed command — The campaign of 1796 in Italy
— The five plans for its conduct — Positions occupied on Napoleon's arrival at Nice
— The Austrian Army and its inherent weakness.
As I am writing these pages * the issue of Peace or War between
Japan and Russia is still in the balance, if it inclines to the latter no
man knows how far the results may spread, but even if the danger
is for the time averted, the pause marks but a step in the direction
of the great cycle of convulsion that civilised society is now
approaching. Short of exercising our strength to absolutely forbid
War, which we certainly shall not do, no step that we can now take
will " save our face " in the East, and once our " Izat " is shaken
trouble will arise in every quarter, whilst in Europe the menace of
growing navies grows ever stronger and stronger.
With the bonds of discipline within the Army so relaxed that
the word is almost meaningless, and against the growing power of
the press to influence the public mind against all real leadership,
the lot of our officers in the Great War, when it does burst, will be
far from enviable, and I would earnestly advise those who will have
to face it, and have spirit enough to see in the coming trials their
opportunity, to study carefully the makings of national armies
which have arisen on the wreck of older formations, that of the
American Colonies under Washington, and that of the French
Revolution as examples.
For though it is to the last degree unlikely that matters with
us will ever be quite so serious, yet there are ample indications, in
the events of the past five years, that our officers in the future will
have their work cut out for them to keep their position in front of
their men.
But what men have done that men can do, and if both American
and French gentlemen have had to submit, twice over within a
* January, 1904.
D
34 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
century, to the supreme degradation of re-election as officers at the
hands of their men, perhaps we can survive the lesser troubles that
are before us.
Let them read again and again such works as the ' Memoirs of
General Thiebault,' the books of M. Chuquet, and the recent publi-
cations of the French General Staff, and learn to realise what a
very rough process the " survival of the fittest " becomes, when an
excited democracy once lays hold of the reins of military power.
I have little doubt the majority will succeed, but their sufferings
will be less in proportion as they have learnt from the examples of
their predecessors.
These books, and the many similar records, are also interesting
for the light they throw upon the persistence of the causes tending
always to the readaptation of a severe military code of punish-
ment, however much opposed to restraint may be the nations from
which the armies are recruited, and as the point has a special
bearing on the action of a Commander in planning and executing
a campaign, it will be a saving of time to consider it here.
The code of punishment in all regular armies of the eighteenth
century was, as is well known, very severe, and nothing could have
been further from the minds of the first enthusiastic French volunteers
of 1792 than submission to such a scale of degrading punishments.
Flogging of all kinds was abolished, and the death punishment
only retained for extreme cases ; but no sooner did the free and
independent soldiers find out from experience the consequences
that neglect of military duties, such as sleeping on a post, dis-
obedience of orders, minor cowardice, entailed upon themselves,
than they immediately instituted a barrack-room scale of their own
which was many times harder than the law because administered
by interested parties, and without the security trial by a man's
superiors in birth and station invariably ensures.
Still it had the advantage of promptitude, and eliminated
strictly military offences from their armies, so that after the first
few years of trial and error, under leaders of average capacity, the
Army was ripe in every respect but one for the hand of its master
— Napoleon. If a combatant order was given, it was obeyed to
the limit of human endurance, but an administrative one, or one
relating to offences against property, took its chance according to
circumstances, and, as we shall presently see, it was laxity in
these latter laws which ultimately brought ruin upon the whole
nation.
Into Napoleon's early history it is unnecessary here to inquire,
it is sufficient to point out that he had enjoyed a first-rate education
for the period, and though hardly a strong mathematician according
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 35
to present standards, he possessed an essentially mathematical and
scientific mind, reasoning always from "facts" and not from
opinions, and viewing War and all its problems, to use his own
expression, as " a calculation of probabilities," not as a matter
capable of " exact prescription," which happened unfortunately for
them to be the standpoint of his earlier adversaries.
His first command was not at Toulon, as usually asserted, but
at the siege of Avignon, and came about in the following manner.
Having been sent up from Nice to expedite the despatch of guns
and stores for the coast batteries of the Riviera, he met a column
of Revolutionaries, under the command of the patriot and painter
Carteaux, marching to reduce the Royalist insurgents in Avignon,
and these having no gunner officer with them, invited him to join
them and take command of their artillery, which amounted to two
i8-pdr. guns and 16 gunners. In this position he so won the hearts
of the patriots, that meeting them again a few weeks later, on a
chance visit to the camp at Toulon, he was again invited to take
over the command of the artillery which had been got together for
the siege of that place, and which at the date of his arrival, i6th
September, 1793, amounted to only two 24-pdrs., two i8-pdrs., and
a couple of mortars.
The claim advanced for him by his admirers of having been the
first to suggest the attack on the British fleet in the roads instead
of the formal siege of the landside of the fortress, has long since
been shown to be untenable by the publication of the report of the
Representatives of the People present with the Army, and dated
the 13th September. This distinctly lays down the procedure
afterwards adopted, and probably the extent of his real service was
measured by the astounding energy and driving capacity he
developed, by which alone an adequate artillery force was at length
collected for the execution of the predetermined plan.
Certainly the siege made his name and won him such golden
opinions from the Representatives of the People, Robespierre the
younger, and Salicetti, that immediately after its termination he
was offered the command of the artillery of the Army of Italy, and
thus gained the opportunity of studying the theatre of operations
of the campaign which first revealed his extraordinary capacity as
an executive leader.
As this campaign is unanimously accepted as the starting-point
of modern strategy, and as the wealth of criticism to which it has
been submitted has obscured the true issues involved to an almost
unprecedented degree, it will be as well to recall the exact stand-
point of such contemporaneous critics, so as to show how unavoid-
able such errors as they committed must necessarily be, whenever
36 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
it is attempted to bring hitherto unperceived factors of success into
line with predetermined principles.
A great commander had suddenly arisen, he was obviously
great, judged by the results of his deeds, and all the world wanted
to know how the experts explained his greatness. So the experts,
trained habitually in those days (and frequently even now) to
judge by opinion and not by fact, looked up their precedents and
endeavoured to wheel his actions into line. A great commander
hitherto had always had a "plan of campaign," as this was a
necessity of existence in the days of the magazine system — conse-
quently they looked for his " plan of campaign," and as it happened
they found one, and having found it, they lost themselves in
ecstasies over the conception whilst entirely overlooking its real
merit — viz. its execution.
There has been so much discussion about this plan of campaign,
and the majority of the disputants have so misapprehended the
point really at issue, that it will be well to give its history briefly.
As already stated, Bonaparte's energy had attracted the par-
ticular notice of Robespierre the younger, and Salicetti. There
appears to have been considerable intercourse between the three,
and several projects for operations were put forward, officially by
the two representatives.
The first was dated 20th May, 1794, and though it bears very
little of the Napoleonic stamp, such as the world came soon to
know it, it was acknowledged as his work by him, and is contained
in his published correspondence.
It provided for a combined operation between all the columns
of the Army of the Alps and the Army of- Italy, who were to
advance concentrically from points on the arc of a circle embracing
nearly 180 degrees and fully 120 miles in perimeter.
How, under existing difficulties of communications unity was
to be imparted to all these columns, does not appear on the surface,
and the whole scheme strikes one nowadays as a " cordon "
manoeuvre of the worst kind ; but since not only the generals in
command of the two armies, but the Representatives of the People
with each, had to give their united assent, the situation was changed
before this harmony was established, and a new plan had to be
devised to meet the fresh requirements.
This new plan was dated 20th June, 1794, and this again shows
the same tendency to undue subdivision and over regulation. It
was also drafted by Napoleon, and Robespierre himself undertook
to submit it for the approval of the Committee of Public Safety in
Paris. As this, too, was never put into execution, it is needless to-
go into details.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 37
A third plan now follows, still stretching far too much into
futurity to satisfy the modern standpoint of criticism, but
characterised by such clearness of thought and power of expression,
that as a "political," not ''military," plan, it stands unrivalled.
But, again, it had very little to do with the campaign as ultimately
carried out, and never received the sanction of the directing
authorities, for whilst still on its road to Paris, the revolution of
the 9th Thermidor (27th July) broke out, and Robespierre with all
his party were hurled out of power. In anticipation of further
disturbance in the interior arising out of this event, a stop was put
to all military operations in the South, and Bonaparte himself paid
the penalty of his friendship with the fallen by being placed under
arrest on a charge of suspicious conduct at Genoa, which might
easily have cost him his head. Fortunately the accusation against
him could not be maintained ; it is, in fact, probable that he was
arrested and accused on the spot merely to preserve him from the
greater danger of being summoned under suspicion to Paris, and
no incriminating documents being found in his rooms, he was soon
released, but he had lost his position.
Nevertheless, he remained at the front, and appears to have
exercised more influence over the conduct of the Army than its
actual commander, Dummerbion ; for on the 28th August — four
days after his release from arrest — the Representatives of the People
notified the authorities that in consequence of renewed activity
on the part of the Austrians and Sardinians, instant action was
essential, and on the 19th September the troops took the field.
This time the enemy was anticipated, and much the same chance
on nearly the same ground, was afforded the French to beat them,
as the year afterwards, when under Napoleon's direct command.
But though it seems that the whole Army was much struck by the
rapidity of movement and certainty of combination imparted to
their several columns, and all gave the credit to Bonaparte, he was
not yet supreme, and Dummerbion's energy failed him at the critical
moment. Nothing decisive took place, and by degrees the armies
separated and drifted back nearly to their former positions, and
Bonaparte was sent to organise an expedition by sea against
Corsica.
This undertaking was frustrated by the ever present and
watchful British Fleet, and after months of relative inaction, the
unfortunate man was transferred to the Army of the West to serve
under Hoche, and started for Paris, accompanied as usual by his
two faithful adjutants, Junot and Marmont, in anything but an
exalted frame of mind. He did not hurry himself about joining ;
Hoche was his junior, and he did not like the prospect of serving
38 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
under him, so he dawdled about the capital, literally nearly starving-,
and evading compliance with his orders in a manner altogether
inexplicable to the modern military mind. His ruling idea seems
to have been to make use of his thorough and intimate knowledge
of the topography of the Apennines, and the dreary inactivity of
the men on the spot, soon offered him a chance. In August he was
at last successful in obtaining employment in the Topographical
section of the Headquarter Staff, and simultaneously the character
and style of the official letters fired off at the heads of the un-
fortunate men on the spot show a marked alteration in poignancy.
It is customary to attribute these all to his inspiration, but the fact
appears to be that there was little new in the ideas which were
obvious and almost common knowledge to many. The change was
only in the incisive style.
It appears to have been the old story. On the map it is
always easy to beat an enemy, provided he will sit still, and your
own troops can move, but on the spot it seems more doubtful
whether the enemy will be so obliging, and every one is quite
positive that his own men are not yet fit to move, and this principally
through the fear of responsibility that presses on every mind. It
will be all right when new shoes are served out, but by the time the
new shoes arrive, the gaiters or some other essential article of the
men's kit has worn out, and there is a further delay. It needs a
master mind to say as Napoleon very shortly afterwards did say,
that as long as there are the enemy's magazines in front, even men
without arms can be sent into action, if the will is there to drive
them. But that will was wanting, and the armies starved.
His stay at the office was, however, short. His first chief,
Pontecoulant, lost his appointment on the ist September, and very
shortly afterwards his successor turned Bonaparte out for his
insubordinate and overbearing manners, and, because he hesitated
to join the command previously assigned him in the West, on
the 17th his name was removed from the list of generals.
Then came the turn in his fortunes. Barely more than a fort-
night afterwards there ensued the rising of the 1 3th Vendemaire
(5th October), and Barras who, as " Officer Commanding the Army
of Paris and the interior," found it his duty to put it down, suddenly
remembered Bonaparte, and made him his second in command,
and with a few " wiffs of grape-shot " the fame of the latter was
made.
His reward was the command of the Army of Italy, his com-
mission being dated the 2nd March, 1796. On the 9th he married
Josephine de Beauharnais, and on the nth he started for the front,
reaching Nice on the 26th, where he was joined by Berthier coming
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 39
from the Army of the Alps who had already been applied for by
Scherer, Bonaparte's predecessor, for the position of Chief of the
Staff, and thus began the long partnership between the two, the
one the necessary complement of the other, which endured until
the days of Elba.*
Now followed what I have always considered Bonaparte's most
remarkable achievement.
He was already known and respected by men and officers as a
most able and energetic officer, but between that and getting him-
self loyally accepted by the veteran and distinguished soldiers whom
he superseded as Commander-in-Chief in the field — he being still
in his twenty-seventh year — and all within the space of a month,
seems to me one of the most astounding triumphs of personality
ever attained by man. Pitt's early success was sufficiently striking,
but he had to deal with civilians in matters where common sense
had most to say, not with tried leaders in the field, who had won
their spurs in face of the enemy, not so much by commanding
mental ability, as by extraordinary force of character, not untinged
by obstinacy. With them it had been a case of diamond cut
diamond ; what then must have been the temper of the metal of
Napoleon's genius to which they all succumbed ?
I dwell on this especially, because there are a vast number of
minds which imagine that by copying Napoleonic methods with
fidelity, a man may himself become a second Napoleon. I, too,
urge the importance of studying the Master's methods, but would
suggest that before endeavouring to apply them, a man should be
sure that he possesses the determination of character necessary to
carry them through against all opposition, as without such gift
most pitiful failure must be the certain result.
The state of the French Army on his arrival has become matter
of common knowledge ; w^ithout pay for months, ragged, shoeless,
and famished, the men were in a truly desperate condition. It
seems doubtful now whether the celebrated appeal to be found in
Jomini and Thiers ever was issued by Bonaparte, at any rate no
trace of the original has as yet been discovered, but it would appear
that on his round of inspections made to make friends with his
* Those specially interested in Napoleon's life and his relations with Josephine, should
study the analysis of the events between the 13th October and the date of his marriage
in the pages of Major Kuhl, of the Prussian General Staff, to whose work I am mainly
indebted for my facts in this article. Only on one point is the evidence, which has since
become available, against him, viz. in his suggestion that the relations between Barras
and Josephine were of an improper nature. This has been most indignantly repudiated
by Madame Tallien, who states in her recently published memoirs, that during the whole
time, Barras was living with /icr^ and on this and all it implies she certainly ought to be
" best evidence."
40 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
generals, and to ascertain for himself the condition of the troops, he
did issue a number of stirring appeals, both to their patriotism and
cupidity differing but little in their contents to the one for which he
has been made responsible, and which, whether genuine or not,
certainly struck the right note to ensure the immediate response of
the starving Army, though at the same time it called into being that
spirit of cupidity and licence which was to prove its ultimate ruin.
At the time the Army of Italy occupied the crests of the
Maritime Alps and Apennines, from the Col di Tenda in the
West to Voltri, near Genoa, on the East, a stretch of at least sixty
miles,* and the plan of campaign which had been sanctioned by
the Directory, and was certainly drawn up by Bonaparte himself,
aimed at a rapid advance through the Gap of Savona along the
Cairo- Acqui Road, which formed the line of junction of the two
opposing armies — the Sardinians and the Austrians, whose lines
of communication ran, the former to Turin, the latter eastward to
Piacenza. As the road through this gap is the only one in the
whole chain of mountains practicable at this season of the year for
heavy wheeled traffic, and siege-guns were considered a necessity
for the reduction of the fortified places which might be expected
to offer resistance, there would seem to have been no other alter-
native possible, and there was certainly no strategic novelty in the
conception of massing troops against one enemy whilst holding the
other with a containing force. Nor does one see any indication of
dazzling genius in the idea that the line of junction of two allies
is generally the line of least resistance.
But what does strike the imagination when one comes to the
opening of the campaign itself, is the instant resolution to strike,
when at the critical moment, some days before he was ready to take
the field, the Austrians took the initiative, and led off with a first
success, quite big enough to have paralysed the energies of any of
his predecessors.
It must not be forgotten that both the Sardinian and Austrian
forces were commanded by men of considerable eminence, and by
no means so old as is usually supposed. The troops, too, were
good long-service forces, raised essentially by voluntary enlistment,
tempered by the ballot in the background, and during the two
previous years accustomed to give a very good account of them-
selves before the French.
Their essential weakness lay in the want of a properly organised
system for the rapid circulation of orders, an inheritance from by-
gone days, perfectly intelligible when bodies of such numbers would
have camped and fought on a limited area, but most dangerous as
* See the map in Hamley's ' Operations of War,' or any atlas.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 41
soon as the conditions imported by the growth of the " Cordon "
system, to which reference has already been made above, scattered
the units over a very wide front, with difficult communications over
intervening ridges to further delay transmission.
Neither in the Austrian or Sardinian armies was there any
intermediate grouping of units in permanent organisations below
the Commander-in-Chief. Though detachments, often of the
strength of a modem division, were frequently employed, these
consisted essentially only of a number of battalions, liable to con-
stant transfer almost from day to day, each of which reported and
received its orders direct from headquarters. As no increase in
the clerical staff had been authorised to suit these new conditions,
the delays which ensued were endless, and the time of even the
generals was wasted in writing and copying orders which should
have been done by their clerks.
The French were not more mobile in the ordinary sense of the
term than their opponents ; indeed, probably the well shod and
equipped Austrian battalions could march both faster and further
in a day than the corresponding units of their adversaries; but
when it came to moving bodies over a wide area, the transmission
of orders, thanks to the divisional system which by now had taken
firm root in the French Army, was so much more rapid that they
were always able to anticipate their opponents with masses at the
decisive points.
CHAPTER V.
Bonaparte's instructions from the Directory — The Austrians assume the offensive —
Combat of Monte Legino— Bonaparte issues his orders — His generals obey to the
letter — Defeat and rout of d'Argenteau — Provera at Cosseria — Beaulieu receives
news of Argenteau's defeat — Wukassovitch's detachment and his unfortunate
mistake — French discipline breaks down at Dego — Bonaparte rallies his troops and
retakes Dego — Beaulieu's continued inaction — Bonaparte turns on the Sardinians —
Ceva — The Biccogna — Critical situation of the French — Colli withdraws from his
entrenched position — Criticism — " Interior lines" — Willisen's definition of "strategy "
— Bonaparte's best sources of supply — Clausewitz's views on " retaining " forces —
Application to situation before Dego — Napoleon's true merit.
As already related, Bonaparte arrived at Nice on the 26th March,
1796, and immediately proceeded to infuse life and vigour into all
departments of the French Army, more particularly the supply
services, which were in a disgraceful condition of corruption.
His first instructions from the Directory, dated 2nd March, and
sent off on the 6th, clearly indicated the Austrians as the primary
objective; but a subsequent despatch gave him somewhat wider
discretion with regard to his conduct against the Sardinians, in-
dicating the capture of Ceva, as a necessary, or at least advisable,
precaution to adopt prior to an advance against the main body of
the Austrians in the direction of Acqui, about north by east of
Savona.
Actually he carried out neither plan in its entirety, and since
he was certainly primarily responsible for the drafting of both,
one sees how little weight he himself attached to a plan of campaign
drawn up in advance, and not framed to meet the day to day
circumstances as they presented themselves.
It was the Austrians who assumed the offensive, advancing on
the morning of the nth April against the exposed right wing of
the French Army, in accordance with a plan involving the co-
operation of the British Fleet, which from the standpoint of the
time, and even nowadays, must be admitted to have been thoroughly
well conceived, and which even against Bonaparte only narrowly
missed being a decided success.
The French having pushed forward their right to Voltri, rather
more than halfway between Savona and Genoa, the Austrians
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 43
moved against them in two columns — one westward along the
Riviera on Voltri, the other directed well in rear of the enemy's
position over the crest of the Appenines by Monte Legino. Had
this latter column proved successful in its mission, about a brigade
of French troops must have been taken prisoners, and a strip of
country, some fifteen miles by five in area, been secured, almost
without bloodshed, a result which would have been considered at
the time as a true triumph of strategical art.
Further, this advance would have concentrated the bulk of the
Austrian Army on the prolongation of the enemy's wing by a very
neat concentric advance, and a threat of landing from the sea in
rear of every successive position between Savon a and the Var
would have sufficed to compel the French to evacuate each in
succession till they were all safely driven within their own frontier,
and all this was to be gained practically without bloodshed — quite
in accordance with the sentiments of our modern humanitarians.
Unfortunately the extraordinary obstinacy displayed by the
garrison of the little redoubt on Monte Legino, which was not
commanded by Colonel Rampon, and did not heroically swear on
their weapons to die at their posts, but merely fought with the
stubborn courage and discipline that comes from years of active
service training, spoilt the whole of the Austrian combination and
gave Bonaparte his great opportunity.
As the sound of the cannon rolled in from the east and stragglers
wounded and unwounded (including the above-mentioned Colonel
Rampon) brought the usual tidings of dismay, Bonaparte seized
the whole situation and sent out his orders with the energy and
inspiration of the real strategic genius.
Any average General of the period, face to face with the circum-
stances of the moment, would first have remembered the hopeless
condition of his own Army, their want of boots, muskets and ammuni-
tion, the proverbially uncertainty of execution of orders issued by
night, and whose execution was to be commenced before daylight,
etc. ; but Bonaparte never hesitated. Sending the nearest troops at
hand, La Harpe's Division, to the direct support of the threatened
garrison, he called on his other Divisional Generals, Massena and
Augereau, to march at once with every available man to intercept
the Austrian line of retreat.
The order was obeyed to the letter, men without muskets,
ragged, shoeless, all fell in and started towards the enemy. For
La Harpe's Division a convoy of boots had only that evening
arrived, but he did not wait for their distribution. Forming the
waggons up at the issues from the several villages where the troops
lay, the boots were handed out to the men as they passed, to be
44 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
slung over their necks, fitted, "swapped," and otherwise adjusted
as opportunity might offer, and thanks to this fiery energy, the
joint result of their leader's character acting on minds trained to
" combatant " discipline by the " ambulatory guillotine," when day-
light came the whole force was well on its way down the northern
slopes of the Appenines. Fortunately for the French the morning-
clouds hung late that day over the crests of the mountains, and
quite unaware of the dangers of delay, the Austrians waited for
better light to advance. About nine the mists began to disperse,
and the attack on the redoubts was begun ; but in the last half-
hour fresh reinforcements had arrived, and the Austrians were
again checked. Then the fog lifted, and for the first time they
realised the danger of their position. Fresh troops in front of
them and far away to the westward streaming down the mountains,
they descryed French columns aiming well in rear at their exposed
communications. The game was evidently up, and they com-
menced a withdrawal, which ended in something approaching a
rout, as their losses the previous day had been heavy, and the
cold of the bivouac on the bleak mountain-tops intense. Argenteau,
who commanded the right or turning column, himself seems to
have completely lost his head, as he reported his misfortune in the
following words to Beaulieu, his commander-in-chief: "For God's
sake send help. Yesterday I was completely successful ; to-day I
am as completely defeated."
The nearest Sardinians under General Colli were still too far
away to be of any assistance, but their General sent a couple of
battalions under Provera to Cosseria, on the flank of the French
advance, and to drive these off, Bonaparte, on the night of the
1 2th April, directed Augereau's column, whilst Massena and La
Harpe continued to press on towards Dego.
At daybreak next morning Provera, finding himself in presence
of a great numerical superiority, shut himself up in the old " storm
free " castle with some 800 men, and allowed the others to fall
back into the mountains. Here he was summoned to surrender,
but rejected the demand with energy ; he was then assaulted, but
the assailants, being without heavy artillery, were easily beaten off.
Some hours later the summons was again renewed, and again sent
back, and the assaulting columns met with no better result. Here
Bonaparte intervened in person, and for a third time sent the
troops back at their goal, only to see them beaten off as before.
Bouvier, w^hose work on this campaign, published some three years
ago, under the auspices of the French General Staff, may be con-
sidered the standard authority for the French side, calls special
attention to the determination this triple assault discloses, and
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 45
notices the marked effect it had on both officers and men. At that
time probably no other General would have dared to demand such
evidently useless attacks from their men ; and the mere fact of his
doing so, stamped him, throughout the Army in spite of their failure
and, for that time, heavy punishment, as the one leader amongst
them all whose will was not to be denied and who meant to have
obedience at all costs.
Curiously, General Sherman, in one of the many fights which
marked his progress to Atalanta in 1863, took exactly the same
means of " ingratiating " himself with his men. Having success-
fully manoeuvred the Confederates out of their position in several
successive encounters, he suddenly sent his troops full at the
front of the opposing intrenchments, to teach his men obedience,
as he said, and to demonstrate to his enemy that he was not afraid.
He was beaten off with pretty bloody slaughter, but he certainly
did not lose the confidence of his army or forfeit the respect of his
enemies ; such are the lengths to which really strong characters
will go when it is necessary to bring home to relatively undisciplined
troops their unconquerable determination to compel victory.
At 8 A.M. on the following morning (14th) Provera, being
without food or water, surrendered, but his brave resistance had
gone near to wreck Bonaparte's whole plan of campaign, for both
Massena and La Harpe had been constrained to suspend their
advance on Dego, and but for the extraordinary slowness which
characterised the circulation of intelligence and orders in the
Austrian Army, alluded to in the previous chapter, the next day
might have proved disastrous to the French arms.
Beaulieu only received news of Argenteau's success of the nth
on the afternoon of the 12th, though not fifteen miles away, and
at what time the report of the defeat of the morning arrived cannot
now be traced, but all through the night of the 12th and 13th he
was sending couriers to Colli, and ever}* one within reach, to
concentrate on Dego. Colli, however, was too much disturbed, for
his right wing, threatened by the advance of Serurier's Division
down the valley of the Tanaro, to comply with these appeals, and
only one of the others reached its destination in time to be of any
service ; but owing to a typical blunder in the interpretation of
orders, even this was of little ultimate avail.
A brigade of three battalions, commanded by Wukassovitcb,.
a fighting General of the best type, was lying at Fajallo, and
received its orders during the night of the 12th and 13th. Start-
ing at once, it marched all day, overcoming all kinds of natural
hindrances, swollen torrents, and almost impracticable hill paths
towards the sound of the guns at Cosseria ; reaching Sassello, only
46 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
some six miles from Dego, about nightfall and reporting its arrival
to Argenteau at once. In reply it received an order, dated 14th
April, I A.M., directing it to pick up four other battalions already
at that spot and to push on " to-morrow," meaning next daylight,
on Dego. Wukassovitch receiving the orders about daylight,
naturally made no allowance for the conditions under which it
had been written by a tired man looking forward to a night's rest
before another day's work, and obeyed it literally, giving his weary
men a much needed rest, but one scarcely justifiable under the
actual circumstances ; for with the fall of Cosseria at 8 A.M. of the
14th, Massena and La Harpe were at once set in motion on Dego,
and being in great numerical superiority they managed to capture
the place about 3 P.M. in the afternoon, in which, judging by
subsequent events, they would hardly have succeeded had
Wukassovitch and his seven battalions been already on the spot, as
they might easily have been, but for the above-mentioned mistake.
Having captured the town, French discipline completely gave
way. In their defence it must be admitted that the men were
starving, they had outmarched even such supplies as they had
found in the barren mountainous district they had traversed ;
but even this excuse hardly palliates the horrors of the sack,
or the drunken orgy to which all ranks apparently gave them-
selves up. Outpost duty was entirely neglected, and the whole
place seems to have been given up to a drunken sleep, when
suddenly about daybreak Wukassovitch's brigade burst in upon
them, and in a few minutes the two French Divisions were flying
in panic along the road towards Millesimo by which they had
advanced.
Here at last the exertions of their Generals, and of Bonaparte
in person, succeeded in restoring order, and in the afternoon it
became possible to lead them again against Dego, where in the
meanwhile Wukassovitch had firmly established himself, and sent
out appeals for help in every direction. Unfortunately these were
not responded to in time, the fatal slowness of the Staff service
again interfered, and after a most gallant defence, Wukassovitch
was finally compelled to evacuate the town — but not until he had
inflicted very heavy punishment upon his pursuers.
Again, as the day before, success proved too much for the
discipline of the French soldiery, they broke out again into drunken-
ness and plundering, and by morning had reached such a pitch
of disorganisation, that even Bonaparte himself could not call on
them for pursuit, and at this critical moment a whole day was
.allowed to pass without action.
He had left Augereau the morning before (15th April) to
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 47
watch Colli before Ceva, and had intended to reinforce him with
La Harpe and Massena's divisions, and with these forces united to
storm the enemy's fortified position, but all dispositions had to be
cancelled, and Augereau, either in ignorance of what had occurred
or out of overweening self-confidence, attacked Colli single-handed
with quite inadequate numbers, and was badly beaten, panic as at
Dego again breaking out
Meanwhile Beaulieu remained inactive, there were troops enough
within call to have done much to turn the scale, and even a show
of activity must, under the circumstances, have gone far to redress
the balance in his favour ; but not a move was made, and Bonaparte,
learning from reconnaisances that nothing was to be feared from
his immediate antagonists, got the upper hand of his marauding
soldiery, and turned them next day (17th) upon the Sardinians,
leaving only La Harpe's Division as containing force.
The attack as planned was to have been concentric, overlapping
each wing of the enemy, and aiming well in rear at his communica-
tions, and it may be noted here as characteristic of all attacks
throughout this campaign which succeeded, the reason being that
the French had practically no artillery, and without artillery pre-
paration were hardly a match for the disciplined soldiery opposed
to them, except on condition of threatening their flanks.
As soon as Colli saw what was threatening, he promptly
retreated, and occupied a very strong position along the left bank
of the Corsaglia — an affluent of the Tanaro.
Ceva ranked as a fortress in those days, and Colli had left a
sufficient garrison within it, but though in all his previous plans of
operations, Bonaparte had laid great stress on its capture, and
indeed had selected the pass of Savona, Cairo, Dego, principally
for the facility it offered for bringing up the artillery necessary for
its siege ; face to face with the obstacle, he promptly abandoned his
design, and leaving only a handful of men to watch it, pressed on
in pursuit of the true objective, the field army, a step no other
leader of the day would have dared to undertake ; and thereby
deprived Colli and Beaulieu of the time margin which both counted
on in order to come to one another's help.
The attacks on the heights of Biccogna, as the position above
the Corsaglia was called, was to have been delivered on the after-
noon of the 1 8th, but through straggling or owing to the difficulties
of the roads, the French troops were not up in time, and the
attempt had to be postponed to the following day.
Even then there was no time to turn the position systematically,
and owing partly to the swollen state of the river, partly to the
want of adequate artillery, but perhaps mainly owing to the want of
48 THE EVOLUTION OE MODERN STRATEGY,
discipline in the French troops, who, having achieved a temporary-
success, broke their ranks and straggled in search of plunder, all
efforts failed, and the night closed down on one of the most critical
situations in Bonaparte's eventful career. For when the reports of
his Divisional Generals came in, it became apparent even to him
that for the moment the men could do no more. Serurier's message
concluding with the words, "without bread the troops will not
march," and the others more diplomatically conveyed the same
impression.
The 2 1st was to have been spent in bringing up fresh rein-
forcements, particularly of artillery ; but when morning dawned it
was found that, as at Ceva, Colli had withdrawn to a position in
rear, and whilst still engaged in settling himself therein, he was
attacked by the pursuing French, and driven back in considerable
confusion.
Practically, this settled the campaign, for the last chance of
gaining time enough to ensure co-operation with the Austrians had
now lapsed. The Sardinians deployed three times in more or less
favourable positions to check the French advance, but a threat at
their flanks and the show of a frontal attack invariably sufficed to
insure their retreat ; and as the troops were worn out with constant
night marching, and profoundly disheartened by successive defeat,
the King ultimately accepted the terms offered him, and concluded
a separate treaty of peace without reference to his ally, who, now
too late, was again beginning to show signs of renewed vitality.
In the space at my disposal, and without adequate maps for
illustration, it is difficult to convey the series of strategical situations
evoked during the campaign ; but a reference to ' Hamley's Opera-
tions ' — or any good map of the campaign will, I think, suffice to
show not only that neither at the commencement of the campaign
nor during its progress did the relative positions of the opposing
forces affect the ultimate result. The divergent interests of the
allied forces, purely a moral consideration, was throughout the
determining factor.
Eliminate this, assuming also equal resolution and celerity of
despatch of business in the Allied Headquarters, and it is clear that
the tables might have been turned on the French again and
again.
As in all cases of " interior lines," the matter resolved itself into
a question, of which force could be trusted by its leader to fight
the hardest — the old question of the nut and the crackers ; if the
crackers are the strongest, you break the nut ; if the nut is the
hardest, it bends the crackers.
Strategy has been defined by Willisen, a German author of
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 49
considerable repute some years ago, as *'the science of communica-
tions," and this 1796 campaign has often been cited as an illustration
of this definition.
With all due deference to established authority, I submit that,
after the question of divergent political interests referred to above,
the essence of each situation is to be found in the nature of the
supply problem in each Army, which enabled the French practically
to disregard their communications, but compelled the Austrians
and Sardinians, both tied by tradition and the nature of their
recruitment, to place the safeguarding of their magazines above
all else.
Bonaparte's best and most promising source of supply lay in
his enemy's encampments. If they had conquered the ground on
which the French had bivouaced, they would have found nothing ;
whereas, he occupying theirs, would have obtained food, clothing,
boots, arms, and ammunition.
Clausewitz always maintained that in this respect the Directory
saw more clearly than Bonaparte, and that had he followed their
instructions,* he would have escaped his two most serious dangers —
before Ceva, and the Biccogna.
Clausewitz uniformly condemns the use of a "retaining" or
"containing" force when acting on interior lines, and justifies his
position by first principles and his knowledge of human nature.
The first principle in the conduct of War is to be " as strong as
possible at the decisive point ; " but if the containing force is not
drawn in to that point, then obviously one is not as strong as one
might be, and the last " closed battalions " the retaining force repre-
sents might make all the difference between a mere drawn battle
and a crushing defeat. The point is to make your decision quickly,
and throw every available man, horse, and gun against the chosen
wing for attack, whilst distance alone renders the enemy's inter-
ference diflficult, if not impossible.
Apply this idea to the situation before Dego on the day of
Cosseria. Provera alone with his two thousand men at the outside
was negligible ; but the same troops that spent their strength
uselessly in assaults on the old castle of Cosseria might, joined
with those of Massena, have crushed the Austrians in Dego some
hours sooner, and by a vigorous pursuit have carried the French
over the inhospitable mountain districts and out into the fertile
plains, and upon their enemy's magazines in almost as many hours
as they actually took days to reach, even relative plenty.
Now all the French difficulties arose primarily from want of
♦ At the time Clausewitz wrote, Bonaparte's share in preparing these schemes had
iiot been made public.
E
50 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
provisions and of discipline. If Dego had been evacuated, as it
probably would have been, at the mere appearance of overwhelming
numbers, at any rate at the first rush instead of after prolonged
fighting, it is at least probable that the discipline, at least of the
intact reserves, would have been maintained — the pursuit would
have been pushed, and once in possession of the enemy's stores,
it mattered nothing what the Sardinians might have done with the
communications, for in point of fact there was practically nothing
to cut off.
It is quite certain now that a vigorous pursuit was all that was
needed to insure a rapid withdrawal on the part of the Austrians,
and Clausewitz maintains that even in default of positive evidence,
there was a strong presumptive case based on the known facts of
human nature; but tradition was still too strong even for a
Napoleon, and he allowed himself to be misled into withholding
two whole divisions for two days, whilst his subordinate, Augereau,
was being badly hammered before Ceva, and then turned back into
the mountains where he ran the very serious risk of downright
mutiny arising from privation, and suffered two severe checks
before he reached a region where it was possible for him to give
the men that subsistence from the country which he had led them
to expect in his proclamations.
This is by no means the only instance in which Clausewitz blames
Napoleon for the same lack of strategic insight, and the Waterloo
campaign is perhaps a better known instance of his opinion. Here,
again, he proves, and I think to demonstration, that if instead of
dividing his force before Quatre Bras and Ligny, Napoleon had
thrown the whole upon Blucher, overpowered and pursued him, living
on his magazines and using his ammunition (he could not use ours,
the bore of Brown Bess was the larger), he might well have reached
the Rhine, with political consequences of incalculable magnitude,
before our somewhat slow moving Army could by any possibility
have overtaken him ; and in this view each successive study of this
campaign has only served to confirm my own opinion.
We were slow — the slowest Army in Europe — because we still
lived by the magazine system. Napoleon had mobility, and failed
to make the most of it.
Yet in that 1796 campaign Napoleon earned from his troops,
and deservedly, the title of the greatest leader the world perhaps,
France certainly, has ever seen ; and I submit that the reason was,
not because of the skill with which he ordered his Divisions about,
many lesser men had shown equal skill, but because throughout a
time of unexampled strain, by his indefatigable zeal, unwearied
activity and astounding tact, he everywhere brought order out of
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 51
chaos, and convinced every one, his seniors, contemporaries, and
even his recruits, that here at last they had to deal with the true
strategist ; the living embodiment of the highest " art of the
Leader " which " art " is not evinced in the mere dictation of orders,
or even in the sifting of intelligence, but by superior will-power
impresses itself as irresistible on friend and enemy alike.
CHAPTER VI.
Moreau and the Archduke Charles in Germany, 1796— The Archduke's limitations
compared with Napoleon — Jomini and the French plan of campaign— Real nature
of the miscalculation of the French Government — ** Exterior lines of operations" —
The campaign of Marengo — Bonaparte's preparations— The ** Army of Reserve" —
Concentration on Geneva — Comparison with modern conditions of transport — Sea-
power — The object of national armaments— Bonaparte's feverish energy — What is
an **army" — Comparison between 1800 and 1870— Did Bonaparte originate the
idea of using Switzerland as a " re-entrant base" — Physical difficulties of the march
over the Alps compared with modern exploits — Value of the St. Gotthard as a line
of communications — Suggested War game — The Austrian collapse after Marengo.
Whilst countless commentators have wearied their readers with
their views on Bonaparte's campaign of 1796, the equally brilliant,
and for British purposes far more useful, exploits of the Archduke
Charles during the same year in the valley of the Danube and
upon the Rhine have received but scanty attention even in the
country of the victors, where until within the last ten years no
adequate study of this, the most instructive of all their many
campaigns, had even been attempted.*
Where in Italy Bonaparte had only been handling somewhere
about 30,000 men in a mountainous region some fifty miles square,
Moreau and the Archduke in Germany had been at the head of
armies, numerically not insignificant even in the present day, and
moving in a district complicated by forests, rivers, and mountains
fully four times as large in area, and whereas, in the former, the
victor owed his successes mainly to the absence of the supply
difficulty ; in the latter, the Archduke was almost as much
hampered as Wellington in Spain, by the necessity of conciliating
the inhabitants of the region in which he was moving.
I would wish particularly not to be misunderstood on this point
of supply. Neither Bonaparte nor the Austrians could afford to
neglect their communications altogether, but whereas victory
solved all difficulties for weeks for the former, the Austrian
magazines being generally well provided, the French when defeated
* See * Geist und Stoflf im, modernen Krieg,' by C. von B. K. Vienna, 1893. The
Archduke himself has given an excellent study of the campaign, but he had hardly the
necessary information of his opponent's army to render it final.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 53
left nothing but a desert waste to the conqueror, who thereby found
his freedom of movement curtailed almost in direct proportion to
the freedom and rapidity of movement the other gained.
In pursuing Joubert after his victory at Wurzburg, neglecting
for the time the threat of Moreau's presence in his rear, and harass-
ing him till the loosely knit French Army became a mere rabble,
then returning in time to threaten Moreau's retreat to the Rhine,
the Archduke showed greater boldness than Bonaparte and more
real insight into the true nature of War ; but this alone will not
suffice to place him in history on the same level as a "strategist,"
a master of the art of leading armies, because he was lacking in
that extraordinary driving power which characterised Napoleon,
and could not exact from his followers of all ranks that extra-
ordinary self-abnegation which seemed to permeate all ranks of
the French Army when under their leader's eye.
The Archduke was a master in the art of moving armies about,
Napoleon in the art of making them fight, and of the two the latter
seems to me the greater gift.
The success of the Austrians, however, by no means suffices to
condemn the French design. The special circumstances of the
case must be taken into account ; but this is just what the average
commentator, from the days of Jomini onwards, has always declined
to undertake. To him the French were foredoomed to failure by
the form of their operations — an advance on exterior lines. I submit
that this form was not a matter of free choice, but of necessity for
the French Government, and that nothing known or which could
reasonably have been known to their authorities at the time of its
conception justified any want of confidence in its ultimate success.
A French Army in those days needed a vast area to subsist
upon, and if both their armies had been moved on one line, the
probabilities are that it would have starved before it could have
caught up with the retreating Austrians, who, being numerically
much the weaker, must have fallen back to pick up reinforcements.
By the lines selected, the French moved through the richest
country available, and each wing was not only strong enough to
give a good account of itself, but quite as big as any General of the
time could handle in action or on the march with effect.
Against any other Austrian leader but the Archduke, the plan
promised almost certain success, and his qualifications at the time
of its inception were quite unknown even in his own Army ; but
even he would have failed if the French had possessed the cohesion
of regular troops and been better served by their cavalry, for at the
crisis of the campaign it was the superiority of the Austrian horse-
men in the duties of reconnaissance and screening, helped by the
54 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
fact that the great colh'sion took place in districts which especially
favoured the latter and hampered the former, which alone enabled
the Archduke to withdraw unperceived from the front of one
enemy and concentrate his whole force upon the head of the other.
The real miscalculation of the French Government lay in their
over-estimation of the strength of their materials. Their armies
were not homogeneous enough, their leaders not energetic enough for
their task. Had the latter been able to impress on the former but
a mile a day additional mobility, the weight of numbers must have
told, and the Archduke would have been crushed between hammer
and anvil.
To attempt to establish as an axiom on these and similar data
that exterior lines of operation necessarily place an army at a
disadvantage seems to me a negation of all true scientific reasoning,
which is careful always not to generalise from insufficient examples.
A broader survey of the facts is needed before a sound conclusion
can be arrived at.
If double lines of operations were under all circumstances un-
desirable, what becomes of all the chapters and arguments by
which Jomini and his faithful followers, amongst whom Hamley
may be assigned almost the first rank, seek to bolster up their
theories as to the advantage of a re-entering frontier, as demon-
strated in the campaign of Marengo, 1880, Ulm, 1805, and more
recently in Bohemia, 1866 } In all three the exterior lines were
successful ; but can any one suppose that the existence of a mere
imaginary line drawn across a map can seriously modify the result
of collision between two fighting forces t
A more detailed survey of the facts is necessary before one
proceeds to any generalisation, and, as much new light has been
shed on the subject by recent historical investigations * — light which
enables us to view Napoleon from quite a different standpoint than
that of a mere conjurer with words and phrases — I propose to deal
with his campaigns at somewhat greater length.
When Napoleon returned from Egypt in 1799, he found on
every frontier his work of conquest undone. In Italy the Austrians,
to whose armies for the time Suvaroff had succeeded in imparting
some of his own energy and resolution in attack, had swept the
French back behind the Alps, leaving only Genoa, where Massena
still held out, as a rallying point, and in the north also the French
were behind the Rhine ; only Switzerland still remained under the
control of the Republic, though it would be hardly accurate to
describe it as friendly.
* See the recent publications of the French General Staff, especially de Cugnac's
' L'Armeexie Reserve,' 1800.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 55
The finances of France were almost at as low an ebb as in 1796,
and it seemed to Europe that her last reserve of men and horses
had been expended during the previous struggle.
Only one man even in France thought differently, and whilst
the Austrians, after Suvaroff's withdrawal, had relapsed into their
habitual lethargy, he was at work creating out of the most un-
promising materials a new army, which in his hands became
destined to reverse the tide of ill-fortune.
I have always considered this as by far the greatest triumph his
creative energy ever accomplished, for he was not yet emperor and
had still to fight against ignorance, incompetence, and political
intrigue, practically alone, with no trained staff to help him.
Though the ranks of the armies had been terribly depleted,
there were yet men and units in France who, under one pretext or
another, had managed to adhere to the depots, and taking the
Army List and distribution returns, he proceeded to " dig out " every
man he could find still available for service. Once these had been
" rounded up " they appear to have accepted their fate with sufficient
cheerfulness — for the moral of the " Army of Reserve " was un-
deniably above reproach — and though the temperament of the nation
may account for this in part, the fact that the pinch of hard times,
as in 1792, was again beginning to exercise its customary effect
on human nature, furnishes probably the stronger half of the
explanation.
These units he proceeded to concentrate by a series of route
marches, embracing every post-road in France, on a general line of
cantonments from Dijon to Geneva, and one must study the maps
and original orders given in Captain de Cugnac's * L'Armee de
Reserve,' my principal authority for these pages, to realise the
astounding capacity for detail labour this whole proceeding involved.
Of course he had assistants, but from the exceedingly confidential
nature of the matter they must have been few, and he himself must
have carried the thread of the whole design in his own brain through
all the turmoil, danger, and excitement of his day-to-day life, for
the year was a critical one in his fortunes, and though First Consul,
he was by no means secure in his seat.
The execution of this concentration took time, of course ; many
units had 600 miles to march, and long before the heads of the
columns could reach their ultimate destination, it was allowed to
leak out by the secret police that a great^army was concentrating at
Dijon, further that a visit there would well repay any foreign secret
agent, for Bonaparte himself was about to review the gathering.
Following the hint, the secret agents, all or most of them well
known to the police, journeyed down to Dijon and saw General
56 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
Bonaparte review an exceedingly mixed force — of boys, old men,
and cripples, not 10,000 strong, who had been collected for the
occasion and dignified with the title /r<? tevi. of "Army of Reserve."
They sent off their " secret and confidential " reports in all
haste, and this time these were not interfered with in the post ; and
presently all the Courts in Europe were laughing over stories and
cartoons ridiculing the " Corsican's " ridiculous bombast in styling
such a collection an army ; but hardly had the authors withdrawn
from the scene, having been carefully induced to move by the same
secret police, than the heads of the real columns began to arrive,
and in the first days of May a very sufficient Army of Reserve took
up its allotted position.
Practically this " ruse " determined the result of the campaign,
for so convinced were the Austrians of the truth of the information
they received, that to the very last, even when the whole Army was
on Italian soil, and almost in their rear, they refused obstinately to
credit the reported strength with which they had to deal, and hence
the hesitancy which marked their preliminary concentration.
Except in the wilds of Manchuria, such a scheme would seem
to have but little chance of success nowadays, and it would seem,
from Mr. Balfour's statement of our Naval and Military policy,
made in the debate on the Army Estimates, 9th May, that some
such calculation lies at the base of his recent change of opinion as
to the possibility of a " surprise raid " upon our coasts. If, however,
the increased power of rapidly moving troops conferred by railways
and telegraphs be considered, the conclusion seems hardly a sound
one, and rather suggests want of information and deficiency of
grasp on the part of his strategic advisers.
The French Army and War Office of to-day is in a very different
condition of readiness to what it was a century ago, and it would
seem to me a very simple matter to arrange in peace time for the
despatch of, say, 1 50 trains from almost as many inland stations by
upwards of ten separate double lines of railway to deliver their
contents along a front from Dunkirk to St. Malo between 6 p.m.
and midnight on any particular day of the week without exciting
diplomatic attention ; nor would it take much finesse to decide on
a line of operations which would suffice to occupy very fully the
attention of our Navy during the critical six to eight hours these
troops would require for their sea-passage. Once on shore, how
long would it take our new "Districts" to concentrate for the
defence of London ? Should we prove very much quicker than the
Austrians }
The point is this : all history teaches that the maintenance of
peace depends, not on the knowledge of facts as the}^ are, but on
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 57
the view taken of some few of these facts from opposite standpoints.
How those facts which are known strike the respective observers is
ahnost entirely the consequence of the previous training their minds
have already received, and I submit that no foreign statesman or
soldier, trained to view War from the Napoleonic standpoint, in
contra-distinction to ours, the "Nelsonic," to coin a word, could
hesitate in his answer if called on to give an opinion.
I hold the " sea-power " standpoint as firmly as any man in the
country, and would give very little for the chances of success of
such an enterprise ; but even if we sank every transport within a
mile of their beach, the War would have begun and we should be
in for a bloody struggle of endurance which could not last much, if
at all, less than two years, and which would cost us one thousand
million even if we were successful.
My impression has always been that the object of our
expenditure on armaments is to preserve peace unbroken. Our
present policy seems to me expressly calculated to invite aggression.
No officer occupying the position of the French generalissimo
could, if called upon by his Government, declare on his honour
and conscience that the Army under his command was incapable
of attempting by surprise raid the capture of London, for to do
so would be to confess that he and those under him had neglected
their duty. Only six weeks ago * a mere stroke of the pen on our
side would have sufficed to give him the necessary facts to decline
the responsibility. Since the Prime Minister can hardly change
his mind for the third time, I confess to awaiting the future with
no little anxiety.
Reverting again to the main current of our story, even when
the Army had been thus successfully concentrated, it was very far
from being a mobilised field force in the present sense of the words.
Though organised in divisions, it was almost without field artillery,
its trains were chaotic, and its ammunition supply ludicrously
inadequate.
Though everything had been foreseen and ordered by Bona-
parte, there was then as always a difference between giving an
order and getting it obeyed ; and now comes a fresh display of
that marvellous capacity for work and the development of energy
in others which formed the dominant characteristic of this unique
nature. Again, one must turn to the pages of de Cugnac and read
the sheaves of orders and despatches that flowed from his pen.
Instructions to send on ammunition by post relays, to pick up
so many hundredweight of lead in one arsenal, so many pairs of
boots in another. To form factories for the manufacture of cartridges,
* Written in March, 1904.
58 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
and the baking of biscuit at Geneva. Orders to seize every boat
on the lake to provide transport for provisions, in fine, orders to
every subordinate to carry out and complete the duties which each
ought to have done without any reminder.
Ultimately by the 14th May a sufficiency of stores and munitions
were collected for the movement to begin, and if space permitted
it would be interesting to give in detail the whole list of deficiencies
which even then remained to be made good.
It raises the whole question of when an army passes from the
stage of being a mere aggregation of individuals and becomes a
concrete fighting entity. In view of the many discussions of recent
years on army organisation, it is well worth considering this point
at some length.
Neither the dictionary nor even the Encyclopcedia Britannica can
help us to solve the riddle. Theoretically an army becomes an
army from the moment the orders appointing a commander, staff,
and naming its units are issued, and it remains one until a similar
edict decreeing its dissolution appears ; but the range of its fighting
value meanwhile may vary almost indefinitely, and this is a point
that statesmen who are not soldiers and soldiers who are not
statesmen are both apt to overlook.
The former, having decreed the constitution of a field force,
forthwith imagine they have created a counter of definite value in
the game, and expect it to justify its existence by deeds forthwith.
The latter, knowing all the thousand and one details that remain to
be adjusted before ideal efficiency is attained, hesitate to act before
all things are perfect, and by hesitation lose the whole chances of
a campaign.
Thus, in 1870, a first victory was the one and only chance of
the French Army, and a comparison of the numbers available on
both sides up to the 3rd August show that more than the chance,
almost the certainty of winning such a victory existed, had the
different Corps and Division Commanders been ready to move.
But they were not, or considered that they were not. One had
no water-bottles for his men, another no " flannel bandages " (?
" cholera belts "), a third wanted to put his men through a course
of musketry with the new rifle, etc., etc. Surely, as the French official
account now in course of publication points out, had the uncle, not
the nephew, been in chief command, he would have made short
work of all these objectors.
The driving energy, that all-conquering will-power which accepts
no excuse for failure, knowing well that men have marched and
conquered, shoeless, ragged, and starving, was needed to set the
men in motion, and what such energy can accomplish this
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 59
marvellous campaign of Marengo remains as an example ; but it
must be studied in de Cugnac's pages, not Hamley's.
Almost to the day the Army started, but so short of musket
ammunition that a special order was issued prohibiting the use of
ball cartridge for the training of the recruits in musketry, though
many had only the day before received their arms for the first
time ; and to teach a man to load his weapon in those days was
not quite such a simple process as it has since become.
Does not the ability combined with the iron resolution needed
to judge exactly the moment at which the fighting value of this
army would suffice for its task and to launch it forward for its
performance, undismayed by the cloud of uncertainties which still
encircled the future, suggest rather more of the " art of the leader "
than the mere recognition of the advantage to be derived from
falling upon the enemy's communications — a trick obvious to every
schoolboy at play.
Actually, there is no evidence to show that this idea of drawing
advantage from the possession of Switzerland, i.e. from the angular
base, was originally the conception of Bonaparte at all. On the
contrary, the plan had been in the air for months beforehand,
indeed, ever since Switzerland fell under French control. De
Cugnac's work and the despatches on which it is founded can
leave no doubt on the point, which, of course, lay equally at the
bottom of Moreau's simultaneous invasion of South Germany ; but
whereas Moreau took over an army organised and equipped in all
except one essential detail (horses for his pontoon train), Bonaparte
had to find, organise, and equip his own, and that, too, with such
rapidity that the secret could not leak out.
That an army could cross the Alps admitted of no doubt what-
ever, they had done so repeatedly for centuries, and only in the
preceding year MacDonald and SuvarofF both had succeeded in
surmounting them by more difficult pzisses and in far more severe
weather.
The men who marched from Gilgit to the relief of Chitral, or
who are even now forcing their way into Thibet,* at an altitude nearly
double that of the summit level of the St. Bernard, would laugh at
the physical obstacles of the route even as they stood in those days ;
but how many men have we had since the days of Sir Charles
Napier who would have dared such an effort with such an army,
and with no better information than lay at Bonaparte's disposal }
The only moves of modern times which can be placed in
approximately the same category are Sir Donald Stewart's march
from Candahar to Cabul, and Lord Roberts' move in the reverse
* Written in March, 1904.
6o THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
direction ; but in each case the fighting superiority of our force was
incontestable, the country easier, and both were assured of abundant
supplies on arrival at their destination. Bonaparte had to take his
supplies from his enemy first, and, as matters actually turned out,
to capture both the guns necessary to complete his equipment,
together with their ammunition also, for the protracted defence of
Ford Bard cut off his artillery and ammunition columns for some
ten days ; and his advance guard, under Lannes, actually entered
the plains of Italy and stormed Ivrea without any guns at all.
Reading his St. Helena despatches, I have always been reminded
of the story of BlUcher who, having won a brilliant victory over the
French, very much to his own astonishment, said to his Chief of
the Staff, Gneisenau : " Now sit down at once and show them that
we can not only win a battle, but explain how we did it." It has,
in fact, always seemed to me that having won a most glorious
campaign, Napoleon felt bound to put himself right in the eyes of
the " strategists " with their " science of communications," by calling
their attention to the care with which he moved to Milan in order
to establish an alternative line of retreat and supply in case of
disaster. But what kind of a line of retreat or supply would the
St. Gotthard have been for a beaten French Army ; there was
no St. Gotthard railway in those days, the pass was even worse
than the St. Bernard ; what stores were there awaiting his arrival
at Zurich, and what would have been the attitude of the Swiss
mountaineers, particularly the German-speaking ones, to a French
force in disordered retreat, Napoleon does not say , but the French
would have been fortunate indeed had they behaved much better
to their oppressors than the Afghans did to us between Cabul and
Jellalabad in 1842.
This excentric movement on Milan not only sacrificed Massena
in Genoa, to relieve whom had been the object of the march, but
set free the besieging force under Ott, and gave time for Elsnitz,
who was then opposed to Suchet on the Var, to retreat and rejoin
the main army, the two together very considerably outnumbered the
reinforcement Moncey brought to the French main body at Milan.
The whole movement is so opposed to the Napoleonic practice,
that one can only suppose a yielding to overwhelming necessity,
that necessity being the provision of subsistence and ammunition
for his exhausted men out of the rich Austrian stores which had
accumulated at Milan.
It would be an interesting experiment to prepare a War game
map, altering the names and eliminating all political considerations,
then give the situation as it appeared to Bonaparte on the 24th of
May, to a series of players trained in the modern school and see
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 6i
what the consensus of opinion would make of it. I have little
doubt what the result would be : a concentration against the
nearest fractions of the enemy's field army with a view to defeat
them in detail before they could reunite. Surprise is so evidently
the essence of the operation that no one would dream of sacrificing
the opportunity as Napoleon actually did ; the presumption, there-
fore, as I have already stated, is very strong that the compelling
force to which even his will had to bow must have been of a very
unusual nature.
It is unfortunate that the Austrian records of this campaign are
unusually scanty ; but quite recently the Staff at Vienna have
published two monographs, the first by Count Neipperg, who was
on the Staff of General Melas, the second by the Prince of Hohen-
zollern, who throughout the campaign was with General Ott. Both
contain much which is of interest with regard to the internal con-
dition of the Army ; but neither gives sufficient explanation of
the extraordinary slowness with which information and orders
circulated within the Imperial Army.
When one considers that no point in the whole theatre of
operations was more than seventy-five miles from headquarters —
and that four days should have been ample to mass the whole
90,000 men that Melas commanded anywhere in the vicinity of
Alessandria, one is absolutely amazed at the appalling lethargy
which let some twenty days, from 24th May to 14th June, slip by
in inaction. The truth seems to be that up to the very last the
Austrians did not believe in the existence of the Reserve Army at
all, but thought they had still only to deal with the small column
methods of the previous decade — small commands which could be
brushed aside whenever their concentrated Army chose to move —
and their initial success at Marengo, in spite of all their blunders,
goes far to justify this view. After all, it was only a relatively small
column — 22,500 (less Desaix on detachment) — which opposed them
that day, and the Austrians ought to have crushed it beyond hope
of rallying long before Desaix returned to the ground, in which
case the state of the French would have been a good deal more
hopeless than that of the Austrians ; for there was not a peasant
in Lombardy after the French excesses of 1799 who would not
have risen against them once committed to a retreat.
Neipperg's diary shows quite clearly that Melas was absolutely
" bluffed " into surrender by the astounding audacity with which
Napoleon lied. The Imperial Army was still far more numerous
and better in hand than the French, and might easily have renewed
the attack next day or slipped away to Genoa, where their supply
and transhipment to any point of the coast, thanks to our fleet,
62 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY,
was assured, but their commander's nerve had given out, and his
imagination entirely failed to grasp the enormity of the falsehoods
with which he was confronted ; nor is it easy to blame him, for the
effrontry with which the French officers carried off their claims was
and remains unparalleled.
With not 5000 men in hand, and the bulk of their Army still
flying in panic twenty miles to the rear, they spoke as if still at the
head of victorious masses, and the Austrians may well be forgiven
if they failed to " go one better."
Note. — With reference to de Cugnac's work, so often referred to above, I would call
special attention to Major-General Furse's book, * Marengo and Hohenlinden.* This
is the first attempt in our language to utilise the value of the material published by the
French Staff, and deserves the closest attention of all students of Napoleonic times. It
has further the great advantage of being written by a practical soldier.
CHAPTER VII.
The Campaign of Ulm, 1805.
Advantages of a re-entering frontier — The works of MM. Alombert and Colin — The
Grand Army — Napoleon's supreme influence over it — The Staff — Proportion of
veterans — The Hussars — The discipline of the infantry — Age of the oflScers — In-
struction at the depots — The artillery and engineers — Horse supply — Inadequacy of
transport arrangements — Terrible weather encountered — Sufferings of the troops —
Even Vandamme complains — Marmont's letters — Berthier's reply — Hunger as an
incentive to marching — Davout's letters — Condition of the Guard — Captain
Bugeaud's testimony — Fezensac's description of the hardships — Napoleon's letter to
Luchesini — His '* strategical deployment" — Importance of Wiirzburg — Navigation
of the Main — Bamberg — Bernadotte's march from Gottingen to Frankfurt — Conse-
quent delay of Davout's corps — Feeling against the French in Hannover.
There are probably very few officers in the British Army who
have not at some period or other of their military career been
confronted with an examination question on strategy, couched
somewhat in the following terms : —
" What are the advantages conferred on an invader by the
possession of a re-entering frontier ? Illustrate your answer by a
sketch and description of the campaign of Ulm (1805)."
The question recalls the skeleton map at the end of Hamley's
* Operations of War.' The Main, with its curious double S curves,
running along the top of the page and meeting the Rhine almost at
right angles to the west ; whilst from Bamberg, Wiirzburg, Mayence,
and Strasburg dotted lines converge on the course of the Danube
between Donauworth and Ingolstadt, conveying the impression
that the columns of the Grand Army had been quietly awaiting,
secure behind the formidable obstacles indicated, the signal to
spring upon their devoted prey, which in a climax of intellectual
imbecility had elected to remain inert and lifeless under the walls
of the celebrated fortress, which has given its name to the
campaign.
Probably ninety-nine out of every hundred further believe
that Bamberg and Wiirzburg were two imposing entrenched camps,
teeming with stores and provisions, which the "friendly" North
Germans brought gladly to the French commissariat in exchange
64 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY,
for coin of the realm, and from the pages of our text-books, and
the ordinary acceptation of such words as "base," " frontier," " lines
of communication," etc., I confess I cannot see what other
conclusion could be reasonably arrived at.
Nothing, however, could be less like the reality than this
picture, for, if the true development of the plan of campaign is
followed— and, thanks to the labours of MM. Alombert and Colin of
the Historical section of the French General Staff, it has now been
rendered readily accessible to all — it will be found that the line of
the Main, as a section of a friendly frontier, never played any part
in Napoleon's conception of his design at all, and by the nature of
things exercised no influence on the course of events.
Pursuing the general trend of my investigation, viz. to make
it clear that " strategy " is the " art of the leader," and consists, to
quote Moltke's definition, in " the practical adaptation of the means
at hand to the attainment of the object in view," I propose to
devote some little space in the first place to making clear to the
reader the nature of the " means at hand " to each of the two
leaders engaged, for in no other of his campaigns with which I am
acquainted did Napoleon control from the outset such an over-
whelming superiority of force, both moral and numerical.
Marengo had established his reputation on such a pinnacle that,
henceforth, his orders met with a readiness of unquestioned
obedience in excess probably of anything known in history before
or since. It was not merely that he had the right as Emperor to
command ; but it was the trust and confidence of all ranks in his in-
fallibility that procured for him a zealous service up to the limits of
human capacity for endurance, which far transcends, in the energy
it communicates to the motion of masses of men, the momentum
imported by perfunctory obedience to constituted authority.
This alone was a new factor in warfare of far more importance
than changes in weapons or equipment. Yet, notwithstanding
this new power, he came within an ace of failure, and it will be
interesting as a contribution to prevailing fallacies as to Army
Reform to study the material at his disposal.
The Grand Army had been formed on the shores of the Channel,
its units duly assigned to their respective brigades, divisions, and
corps, but already its size was beyond the power of one man's
control, and no adequate material for the formation of a " General
Staff" as yet existed.
There were, indeed, a considerable-number of War-experienced
men accustomed to the office work of the field, excellent as
individuals, but not trained in the same school to view matters
from the same standpoint, or to work in harmony with one
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 65
another; but even these were insufficient in number, whilst no
arrangements whatever existed for the education and subsequent
selection of men to fill its junior ranks, and in default of such a
school, selection tempered by favouritism produced a plentiful crop
of the typical "brass hats," — men who, insufficiently taught to
appreciate the true needs and capacity of the men in the ranks,
issue orders which can only be obeyed at the expense of their
fighting efficiency, or circulate them with such carelessness that
they always arrive late at their destination.
The actual composition of the Army as regards the rank and
file was excellent. From the inspection returns of the year
XIII., preserved in the Archives, it appears that 50,538 out of
115,582 had already seen service, though this number was very
unevenly distributed amongst the different arms of the service.
The sappers coming first with yy per cent, of their strength, then
the light cavalry and the infantry, averaging 42*5 per cent
The number of men over ten years of service varied consider-
ably — in the 17th Line there were 918 out of 951, in the 13th Light
Infantry 540 out of 569, down to the 14th Line 267 out of 741.
Generally, 25 per cent, of the Army had fought all through the
campaigns of the Republic, a second quarter had been through
Marengo and Hohenlinden, and the remainder had been incor-
porated since 1801.
Nearly all the officers and non-commissioned officers had seen
service, and in each regiment there were still some sturdy survivors
of the old Royal Army, some with forty years' Colour service.
The Hussars had retained their old traditions, they had
received very few conscripts, but had kept up their numbers by
voluntary enlistment, generally from Alsatians and other German
families ; one half, however, of their officers were quite illiterate,
and many did not even know the words of command in French.
Marbot's description, written in 1799, is still substantially accurate
in 1805.
The other arms had become more republican ; particularly the
infantry, who seem to have been a pretty rough lot from the
unmerciful fashion in which they harassed their recruits. Hence,
desertion was pretty rife — from 5 to 8 per cent, per annum. The
old soldiers also deserted freely ; but this seems to have been merely
a republican way of taking furlough, as they generally rejoined
after a few months' absence — evidently the punishment must have
been merely nominal. The complaints, however, against the want
of physical development in the recruits are ceaseless, yet at that
time the strain on the population was by no means excessive,
though it soon after became so.
F
66 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY,
The composition of the officers present with the Grand
Army is of peculiar interest. The total number was 5000; of
these about 100 came from the new officers' school at Fontaine-
bleau, aged from seventeen to twenty-one, 500 to 600 from the
original volunteers of 1792, or from the conscripts raised since
1785. These were mostly picked men, selected for their general
standard of instruction and social position, like " de Fezensac," or
for distinguished conduct in action, as " Dulong," commanding a
battalion at twenty-five ; but mostly they are still lieutenants
in 1805.
In spite of this element of youth in the cadres, the average age
of the sub-lieutenants is thirty-two, and those of the lieutenants
thirty-seven, whilst those of the captains and superior officers is
only thirty-nine ; but there were more than ninety lieutenants over
fifty years of age, and four over sixty. " Men were already
beginning to grumble in the Grand Army, and it looks as if a few
more years of peace would have destroyed it."
** This is not its only fault. It is very poorly trained to
manoeuvres, almost all the professional officers of the old Royal
Army have disappeared, and the few who remain have attained
high rank, whence they exercise little influence on the instruction
of their men," and drill has become exceedingly neglected. This,
by the way, almost invariably happens in an army which has
practically grown up on the battle-field and fought with almost
constant success. Men feel that they are " good enough," and
having never felt the need of iron discipline in disaster, object to
what they consider merely unpractical playing at soldiers. It is
the " school of defeat " that turns out the better fighting men and
leaders, and hence the curious swing of the pendulum that has so
often occurred between races of approximately equal fighting
capacity.
The recruits were supposed to be drilled at the depots, but, as
usual, all the most infirm and useless officers had been relegated to
those positions, and the instruction given appears to have been very
indifferent indeed. The cavalry were poorly mounted, and only
here and there in the confidential returns is an officer mentioned
as showing keenness or knowledge of equitation, proving how low
the standard had fallen since former days.
The Artillery and Engineers had suffered least from the
Revolution, and the former remained to the last the Slite of the
Army, but the Engineers as a body seem to have been about the
standard of our military foremen of works, good at estimating and
at the drawing-board, but with no broad grasp of the principles of
their profession.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 67
The analysis of the ages and service of the 141 general officers
is very interesting — unfortunately too long to give in extenso here.
They vary from one of twenty-nine years of age to one of fifty-
eight, but the mean is about forty. One-quarter had served as
officers of the old Army, one-quarter in its ranks, and the re-
mainder came chiefly from the levies subsequent to 1791.
The most crying need of the Army, however, was horses, both
Cor cavalry and transport. Many Dragoons, in fact, had to take the
field on foot, trusting to pick up mounts on the way, and had not
succeeded in this task when Ulm finally fell, a circumstance which
proved almost providential for the French, for these dismounted
horse-soldiers, not having been able to keep up with the rest of
the Army, found themselves right across the line of the attempted
Austrian withdrawal near Heidenheim, on the road to Bohemia ;
and it was to them that Werneck, commanding the escaping corps,
confused and intimidated by the multiplicity of the uniforms by
which he appeared to be surrounded, and, of course, not knowing
that these were the laggards of the main French Army, ultimately
surrendered the wreck of his force at Neresheim on the 15th
October.
The extraordinary weakness of the transport alluded to above
seems to my mind a convincing indication of the reality of
Napoleon's intention to invade us. No transport would be re-
quired for a raid on London, hence none was provided, and it was
only in May, 1805, when the alternative of war against Austria
came more clearly in sight, that an effort was made to supply the
deficiency by the completion of a contract with the " Compagnie
Breidt " for the " provision of 30 brigades of waggons, of which,
however, only 6, with 163 carriages, were actually ready in time." *
The deficiencies had to be made good by requisition, and as the
service was most unpopular, the drivers, taken by force from Alsace
and Baden, lost no opportunity of deserting, taking, of course,
their horses with them.
Under these untoward circumstances, supply and transport
broke down utterly, and almost from the first entry into Germany
the troops had to live on the country, with the usual consequences
that discipline went to pieces, and scenes which recall the horrors
of the Thirty Years' War marked the progress of the French
columns. The diaries of French officers, of men like Thiebault and
de Fezensac, show how they loathed the whole business ; but they
were powerless to check the evil ; and we find even that iron soldier
"Davout," whose corps was always the best disciplined in the
* *Studien zur Kri^sgeschichte u. Taktik.,' Part III., p. 13, note. General Staff,
Berlin.
6S THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
Army, writing imploring letters to the Emperor begging for
permission to shoot some of the marauders.
The matter is of so much importance for my general argument
that I transcribe almost verbatim the pages on this subject from
M. Colin's work.*
After directing attention to the extraordinary inclemency of
the weather, a continuous downpour of rain, snow, and sleet, which
lasted almost without interruption from about the 6th to the 25th
October,t breaking up the roads and rendering marching almost
unpracticable, he continues : " The troops, exhausted by these un-
interrupted marches, rarely found sufficient food, and a regular
distribution of rations was a most unusual event." It was all very
well for the Emperor to issue orders (7th October) recalling that
"one should always have four days' bread in reserve ; " but where
was the bread to come from ?
On the 9th October, General Bourcier writes : " It is with the
utmost difficulty that my Division has so far been able to provide
itself with subsistence. For several days they have had neither
bread nor meat, and only most scanty supplies of forage, particularly
of oats. The villages I have had to occupy have been completely
cleared out by preceding columns."
" The same day Suchet was still able to issue bread to his
Division, thanks, no doubt, to the measures taken by Soult (his
corps commander) ; but the remaining Divisions of the 4th Corps,
from his own report, had to go without ; and, worn out by the awful
weather, had to halt at Augsburg to receive two days' rations."
" The troops are exhausted by fatigue," wrote Vandamme,
"and suffisr particularly from want of food. It is most urgent
that we should at last receive some issues of provisions."
Fortunately a convoy of 4000 rations and a magazine of corn
and oats fell into their hands about the following day.
On the same date Marmont also wrote : " The troops would
have marched at once, and should have slept at Pornbach if the
cruel hunger from which they suffer had not rendered it indis-
pensable to halt in order to distribute to them some provisions.
They are to receive a third of a ration of bread and some potatoes,
after which they will resume the march and, I hope, make good
three leagues on the road to Pfaffenhofen."
Next day he writes to Berthier : " I have the honour to recall
to your recollection our want of food ; it is extreme."
♦ * La Campagne de 1805,' Introduction, vol. iii. p. 5.
t From personal knowledge I can state that such weather in this district in October
is absolutely unprecedented. October there is usually almost as perfect as in the Indian
plains.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 69
This state of destitution in which most of the corps now found
themselves does not appear to have astonished the Emperor, for
in answer to Marmont's complaints Berthier writes on the nth
October : —
" In all the letters which M. le General Marmont writes to me,
he speaks of * provisions.* I must repeat to him that in the War
of Invasion now being prosecuted by the Emperor there are no
magazines ; it is the duty of the generals commanding the corps
to provide themselves with the means of subsistence in the country
they traverse. The General Marmont has received the orders to
provide himself with four days' bread and biscuit in advance ; he
cannot, therefore, count on anything but the resources he procures
for himself, as all the other Corps of the Grand Army do likewise,
and no one knows better than General Marmont the manner in
which the Emperor makes War.'*
This letter deserves study, as it reveals in the clearest maaner
the " driving force " Napoleon knew how to apply. As M. Colin
points out, " it would be indeed a difficult task to reconcile a satis-
factory system of supply with the extreme mobility absolutely
essential to the methods of the Grand Army," but be this as it
may, the fact remains that the extreme privations undergone by
the troops brought in their trains maraud, pillage, and the break-
up of discipline.
Davout writes on the nth October to Berthier : —
" I have the honour to represent to your Excellency that it has
become absolutely necessary to take prompt measures to put a stop
to the marauding and pillaging, which have reached the limits of
excess ; the inhabitants of the districts see with the keenest anguish
that at the moment when their Prince and Army are making
common cause with us, they are receiving worse treatment than
when allied with Austria against us. I have the honour to solicit
your Excellency to procure for me the authority of his Majesty to
shoot a few of these scoundrels — terrible examples are necessary
to stop this evil, which is constantly growing."
To this he received no reply — and the fact, taken in conjunction
with Berthier's letter to Marmont, reveals only too clearly the
Machiavellian insight of the Emperor. Hunger was the " driving
force " — what matter if the inhabitants suffered, the weakly men
amongst the troops died ? The survivors had to hunt for their
dinners like wolves in a pack ; thus, and thus only, could *' mobility,"
the secret of his " strategy," be imparted to the mass.
Even in the Guard, M. Colin thinks matters were not much
better, and cites a letter from Captain Bugeaud, afterwards the
celebrated " Pere Bugeaud," written to his sister, in support of this
70 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
view. I translate it literally, as it seems to me hardly sufficient to
support the charge.
" Judge for yourself whether when io,ocx) men arrive in a village
it is easy for each to find something to eat. What troubles me
most are the vexations and acts of theft committed on the
peasants ; their poultry, their wood, their lard, all is taken with or
without their leave. I do not do these things myself, but — when
I am very hungry I tolerate in secret and taste my share of the
spoil." Personally I would not condemn the Guard on such
evidence, but the whole tone of the correspondence above cited
prepares one to accept the better known accounts of Thiebault
and Fezensac. The former in his Memoires (vol. iii. p. 427)
writes; "The night following our departure from Memmingen
struck a heavy blow at our discipline, and it was not long before
we experienced the results. The men of the Corps who hitherto
by their good conduct had shown themselves worthy of having
been members of the Camp of Boulogne became pillagers, and even
began to rob the peasants of their money. They had a sayings
'The enemy is like a sheaf of corn, the more you beat him the
more he shells out,' and this extortion of money by violence
became a settled habit."
Fezensac sums up the whole story of these sufferings and dis-
orders in the following passage, which to my mind conveys a
picture of facts governing Napoleon's strategy absolutely indis-
pensable for the student's. guidance.
" This short campaign proved for me an epitome of all which
were to come after it. The extremity of fatigue, the want of food^
the terrible weather, the disorders of the marauders, nothing was
wanting, and in one month I tasted a sample of what was to be my
destiny during the whole of my career. The brigades, even the
regiments, were sometimes dispersed. The order to reunite arrived
late, because it had to filter through so many offices. Hence the troops
were marching day and night, and I saw for the first time men
sleeping as they marched. I could not have believed it possible.
Thus we reached our destinations without having eaten anything
and finding nothing to eat. It was all very well for Berthier to
write : * In the War of Invasion, as the Emperor makes it, there are
no magazines ; it is for the generals to provide themselves from the
country as they traverse it,' but the generals had neither time nor
means to procure regularly what was required for the needs of
such a numerous army. It was an authorisation of pillage, and
the districts we passed through suffered cruelly. We were often
hungry, and the terrible weather intensified our sufferings. A
steady, cold rain, or, rather, half-melted snow, fell incessantly, and we
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 71
stumbled along in the cold mud, churned up by our passage,
almost up to our knees — the wind made it impossible to light fires.
On the 1 6th October the weather was so infamous that not a soul
remained at his post. One found neither sentries nor pickets ; even
the artillery remained unguarded. Every one sought shelter as
best he could, and never again, except in Russia, did I see the
Army suffer so much, or in such disorder. . . . All these causes
developed insubordination and marauders. When in such weather
the troops entered a village, it was hard to get them out again —
hence the number of stragglers roaming about the country became
considerable. The inhabitants were exposed to ill-treatment of
all descriptions ; and the wounded officers, left behind, who tried to
assert their authority, were openly defied and threatened by the
marauders. All these details are unknown to those who read the
history of our campaigns, one sees only a valiant army whose soldiers
vie with their officers for glory, and the price of suffering paid for
the most brilliant successes is forgotten." M. Colin concludes :
" Such was the condition of the Grand Army in October, 1805,
and thus we must picture it, in following day by day its forced
marches and its victories."
Resuming now the thread of events. Though after the
publication of Captain Desborde's * Projets des debarquements et
invasions sur L'Angleterre,' there can be no doubt of the reality of
Napoleon's designs against England in the beginning ; the progress
of diplomacy, doubtless instigated from this side of the Channel,
and which found expression ultimately in the alliance between
Russia and Austria, soon compelled the Emperor to frame an
alternative line of action, and that this was conceived in its broad
outlines at an early date is shown in his letter to Luchesini, the
Prussian Ambassador, dated 27th November, 1803, in reply to an
attempt on the part of that country to induce him to consent to
the neutralisation of the Southern States. In this he states : " It
is on the road from Strasburg to Vienna that the French must
force peace on Austria, and it is this road that you wish us to
renounce."
To this idea he clung all along, until, having set his troops in
motion on the 25th August, in the expectation of reaching the
Inn before the Austrians, news reached him on the 26th which
pointed to the preparations of the latter being far more advanced
than he had supposed, and led him to transfer the weight of his
forces more to his left than he had at first intended, to meet any
possible interference of the Russians coming from the frontier of
Bohemia.
In this first project for his "strategical deployment," based on
72 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
the information then to hand, it was anticipated that Bavaria could
be occupied and covered before the Austrians could mobilise, and
his ruling idea was an advance on as broad a front as possible,
for convenience of subsistence, beyond the line Wiirzburg-Ulm,
both of which he counted on reaching before the enemy, and no
destination was assigned, to the Bavarian Corps under Wrede,
as it was impossible to foresee what might happen to it. In all
probability it would be found in peaceful occupation of its own
cantonments, ready to act as an advance guard to the French
Army on the march towards the Inn.
Actually the sudden irruption of the Austrians very nearly
overwhelmed it long before the Grand Army arrived, and it was
only by a clever ruse that Wrede succeeded in withdrawing it
northwards, ultimately concentrating it around Bamberg.
In all this there is no trace of a notion of the advantage of a
" re-entering base," over which successive generations of our Staff
College students have ever since stumbled.
As for Wiirzburg, or its existence as a fortress capable of
serving as a base in any sense to the troops which merely
marched through it, the idea is ludicrous to any one who has ever
seen the place. It was at the time a rather substantially fortified
mediaeval " schlosz," overlooking a small German town of perhaps
8000 inhabitants, and, owing to its situation, overlooked by high
mountains within easy range of its exposed masonry, the place
had no military value whatever. Nor had it occurred at this time
to the Emperor to utilise the Main as a line of supply, for it was
not till the i6th September that he at last despatched an officer,
" Desalles " by name, to find out amongst other things whether
the Main was navigable, and if so, how many days it required to
work up the stream from Mayence ; it was only some days later
that he learnt that, even when the weather was favourable, it
usually took from eight to ten days to make the transit — but that
the water would be at its worst within a fortnight. It is, therefore,
to the last degree improbable that a single boat-load of stores
reached the place till after Ulm had fallen ; and though orders were
subsequently issued to provide bakeries, etc., in great numbers,
it was days before these could be built, and when built the local
bakers professed themselves quite unable to understand the use of
these new-fangled French ovens.
As pointed out above, the Bavarians went to Bamberg because
they had to, no other line of retreat being open to them ; but
Bernadotte's Corps (the 1st) had been for some time at Gottingen,
and ultimately did actually march through Wiirzburg. The two
facts together probably led to the idea that Napoleon from the
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 73
first had included this march in the scope of his design ; but
curiously though the facts are as stated, Bernadotte did not march
by the straight road connecting the two points, as one would have
anticipated, but actually moved due west from Gottingen till he
struck the great road from Cassel to Frankfurt, and would have
entered that town had he not found it already occupied by Davout's
columns. To avoid confusion, he was switched off by Berthier on
to the Hanau-Aschaffenburg road, and had to make such severe
marches over difficult roads that, though he reached Wiirzburg on
the assigned date, his men were so done up that they had to be
given three whole days of rest. It seems to me, therefore, that
at this date no importance whatever can have been attached to
the flanking position at Gottingen, first, because it flanked nothing
— the Austrians were not yet in Ulm — and, secondly, if it had been
important, Bernadotte's orders would have been far too precise to
admit such freedom of movement.
The truth would appear to be that Bernadotte's position in
Hannover was, under the circumstances, an element of weakness
rather than of strength. He had been sent to occupy that country
as an act of War against Great Britain, and his presence not only
gave umbrage to Prussia, but was intensely resented by all the
North German States.
Feeling was so strong against the French that his corps was
very nearly in the position of a besieged garrison, his officers had
to be ordered to move about in civilian dress to avoid possible
insults to the uniform which it would be impossible to ignore and
unwise to attempt to resent, and he evidently felt, when at length
the orders to move arrived, that any attempt to move through the
difficult defiles due south to his objective might lead to acts of
hostility which would not only compromise his own safety, but
add enormously to the risks attending the whole operation. Under
these circumstances he considered it wiser to fall back straight
towards the main Army, as the inhabitants were far more likely
to welcome this as a sign of evacuation, and would facilitate his
withdrawal instead of opposing it.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Campaign of Ulm, 1805 (continued).
State of French Army on arrival on the Rhine — Comparison with 1870 — The Austrian
Army — Its commanders — General Mack — His reforms — The requisition system — Its
effects — Progress of the campaign — Mack's reason for pressing on to Ulm — French
violation of Prussian neutrality — Mack's views — His mistakes — Reorganisation of
his army — Mack's opportunity — He believes the French in full retreat — Secrecy and
despondency in War — lOth October — French Staff blunders — 14th October —
Elchingen — Conduct of the Archduke — State of the roads prohibits rapid movement
— Werneck's surrender — Mack's unfortunate faith in Russian promises.
Returning to the concentration of the Grand Army, which may
be considered as complete on the 26th September. The rapid
marching had told on all the troops. There had been much
desertion coming through France, and the Cavalry and mounted
arms not being able to forage, as in an enemy's country, had lost
condition materially.
Marmont's Corps, coming from Holland down the Rhine, had
started short of horses, and though contracts had been entered
into for supplying them along the line of march, the contractors
were not very punctual in the carrying out of their engagements.
Boots had been worn to pieces over the four hundred miles of
country already traversed, and the new ones ordered to be in
readiness at the frontiers had not yet arrived. Great-coats and
other clothing were also deficient, and, as already mentioned, only
six out of thirty brigades of transport were on hand.
By the side of the whole list of deficiencies, the position of the
French in almost the same districts, in 1870, seems comparatively
luxurious, for each division then had more transport than one of
Napoleon's Corps ; but the energy which compels obedience was
lacking, with results familiar to all, and surely this energy, which
overcomes all difficulties, gives a higher title to our admiration
than the intellectual ability needed to solve War's very simple
problems. " Im Kriege ist alles einfach — aber das einfache is
schwer," wrote Clausewitz, which merely means that the wise
commander adopts the simplest plan for the attainment of his
purpose, because even then the difficulties of execution will tax
his energy to the utmost.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 75
The condition of the Austrian Army at the outbreak of
hostilities deserves more than a passing reference. Though her
men had fought bravely enough, and fully justified the methods
of their training regimentally, ten years of Warfare with the
balance very decidedly against them had seriously undermined the
confidence of all ranks, and completely destroyed it as regards
the civilian ministers. Every one was clamouring for reform, of
course, on French lines, just as in England at the present moment
the public are looking for salvation to the Boer methods ; and, alike
in both cases, no attention whatever is, or was, paid to the advice
of experienced soldiers who recognised the absence of the essential
" driving force," which alone conditioned Boer or French successes.
As I have already shown, "mobility" was the key-note of
French efficiency. This mobility was derived from an almost entire
absence of supply arrangements ; and this want of organised supply
brought in its train a whole host of evils, even in an army having
in its ranks a far higher average of intelligence and patriotism
than were obtainable under the existing conditions of enrolment in
any country in Europe.
The civilians saw only the success ; the soldiers, who had done
the fighting, alone realised the price at which it was bought, and
were able to appreciate the consequences which blind imitation
might bring in its train. Since, however, reform there had to be,
they cast about for some one to cdixry it through. And to find such
a man, they had to go outside the charmed circle of hereditary
caste influence ; which in Austria, as elsewhere, taken as a whole,
was conservative to the verge of imbecility. The Archduke
Charles, though undoubtedly a man of conspicuous ability, was
after all a creature of his time, and sought salvation mainly in the
strategic shibboleths in which he had been trained ; though to do
him justice, he could generally throw them overboard when the
time came for decisive action ; and, of course, his followers, without
his ability, were many times more narrow-minded than he. Good
men in executive positions, they had all been taught to fear, not
accept, responsibility ; and with such men as leaders, not even
Napoleon could have guaranteed success.
The need for action was, however, imperative. Russia, backed
by England, was clamouring for her decision, and since the Arch-
duke refused to write anything but most despondent memoirs, the
civilian ministers fixed their eyes upon a man whose previous
career, extraordinary diligence, and apparent disregard of
difficulties gave promise, to them, of brilliant success. But
diligence is not synomymous with ability ; and a disregard of
difficulties, even when united with undeniable personal courage in
y6 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY,
face of the enemy as a young man, does not necessarily imply
indomitable strength of character in riper years when in chief
command.
This man, whom they destined to be the country's saviour, was
the unfortunate " Mack," upon whose unlucky shoulders it is still
the custom to fasten the burden of the sins of omission accumulated
by a whole previous generation, too careless and pleasure loving to
view War as it really was, and is — the struggle for the survival of the
fittest.
He had risen from the ranks, and made a most brilliant career,
all the more remarkable when we consider the intense caste spirit
of the Austrian nobility. But his industry and fatal facility of the
pen had attracted the attention of the Emperor, and when it was
found that he was ready to recast the whole army, almost in face
of the enemy, his services were eagerly accepted.
It must be admitted that his ideas were not bad. The needs
of the moment were Mobility, Artillery, and Corps commands. To
secure mobility, he laid down that troops must live on the country,
like the French, then they could dispense with at least one half of
their trains, and the horses thus set free could be handed over to
the Artillery. His idea of Corps commands was less satisfactory,
for, as the event proved, he did not in the least understand what a
Corps was, or what decentralisation means. To make a Corps or
divisional command efficient, you must first have a staff trained to
accept responsibility ; to invert the process, is merely to make
confusion worse confounded. But there were no officers in Austria
trained to responsibility, and hence Army Headquarters still had to
issue detailed orders to every battalion — the system which had cost
them, as previously explained, the defeats of 1796 and 1800 in Italy.
The evil of recourse to requisitions lay in this, that you can-
not alter the spirit of a whole army merely by the publication
of a general order — a point too frequently forgotten. It was all
very well to tell the men to steal and rob, for that is, of course,
what it comes to in the end ; but the same men had been brought
up to an altogether exaggerated conception of the rights of private
property in the field, and needed a senior officer to stand over
them, and tell them both when and what to steal, and how to
find it.
With the French, plunder had become an instinct of self-
preservation. Like Sikhs in an Afghan village, they knew exactly
where to look and how to persuade ; they could suck more nutriment
out of a square mile of ground than any other troops in Europe,
and they had as little sympathy with the poor Bavarian, or German,
as the Afghan for the Hindoo. But the bulk of the Austrians were
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 77
of German extraction, and, as such, more inclined to pity than to
beat the unfortunate villagers upon whom they were directed to
batten.
Ultimately things were brought into train. The Archduke was
almost compelled to take a more hopeful view, and a plan of
operations was mutually agreed to by Russia and Austria, according
to which the former agreed to join the latter with 100,000 men on
the river Inn about the middle of October ; and the Austrians
undertook to operate with their main army south of the Alps,
under the Archduke, and with a smaller force of 80,000 men
between the Alps and Danube. A further army was to be
mobilised by Russia, primarily to bring diplomatic pressure on
Prussia to join the coalition, but ultimately to advance through
Bohemia into the north of Bavaria, and it was the news of this
concentration, somewhat distorted in transmission, that led Napoleon
at the very outset of his movement {i.e. on the 26th August) to
direct his troops from Boulogne and the Netherlands further north
than orginally intended, towards Wlirzburg. Generally, the plan
of the Allies may be described as an advance in echelon of armies
from the left.
Mack was appointed what we should now call " Chief of the
Staff" * to the Army of the Centre, responsible directly to the
Emperor, and the Archduke Ferdinand, aged twenty-five, was
sent with him, practically as the Emperor's representative, though
nominally in chief command. It having been determined that the
army was to live by requisition, it became necessary to assign it a
district, other than their own country, upon which to live, and this,
together with the desire to secure the support of the Bavarian
Army, led to the premature advance towards the Iller. But, as
already stated, the Bavarian Army escaped, and the Austrians
did not take naturally to requisitioning, and thus from the very
beginning an excessive strain was thrown on such transport as
existed, which rapidly broke down under the strain of the terrible
weather, from which both armies suffered. Hence the mobility of
the Austrians fell off to an unusual extent, whilst similar sufferings
from hunger were inspiring their enemy with almost wolf-like
energy and celerity. The French knew from experience that
forward movement could alone supply their necessities ; the
Austrians from experience looked backward for their supply
columns. This contrast must be borne in mind in judging the
almost unexampled slowness of the Austrian movements.
Reverting now to the actual course of the campaign. Napoleon's
progress, from the date his Cavalry patrols picked up contact with
* His title then was " Quartermaster-General."
78 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
the enemy, followed naturally and logically from the reports he
received. Finding his right opposed whilst his left was clear,
he checked the pace of the former and let the latter swing round,
closing them to meet resistance, extending them again for
subsistence ; but only regulating their marches as far in advance
as it was safe to do so — precisely as all modern authorities advise
— and not till the information received made it perfectly clear that
the Russians could not interfere, did he conceive the idea of
crossing the Danube and interposing between the separated portions
of his enemy's front.
He certainly did not foresee Mack's continued inaction, for he
was quite unaware of the motives which dictated it, and as these
have never to my knowledge been presented in an English garb,
it may not be amiss to enlarge upon them, as they certainly place
Mack's conduct in a far better aspect than it has hitherto been
regarded.
Mack, it appears, had been seriously misled by the accounts of
the Austrian secret agents in France, who had represented the
whole condition of the country far more unfavourably than turned
out to be the case ; and in particular, had underrated the strength
of the Grand Army by nearly one half ; and since the French had
generally disseminated false information on this head before, he had
no reason to doubt the statement he received.
Further, he had been led by his own Government to believe
that England meditated an immediate diversion, both naval and
military, on Boulogne ; and he actually received information very
early in October that this attack had been successfully undertaken.
Since England had been foremost in urging on the War, and such
a diversion was obviously sound in principle, he, as a soldier,
may be pardoned if he failed to fathom the depths of fatuous
imbecility of which a civilian ministry is capable. Gordon was not
the first, and will not be the last, brave man to be betrayed by his
confidence in ministerial honour.
Lastly, when the news of the violation of Prussian neutrality, by
the passage of French troops through the territory of Ansbach,
reached him, as it did in a very few hours after the event, he
believed, and very naturally, that the Lord had really delivered his
enemy into his hands. He knew the temper of the Prussian Army
well, and was aware that every officer's hand was itching to draw
the sword, and since even the King of Prussia's own wife failed
to grasp the full extent of poltroonery that unfortunate monarch
was capable of, he can hardly be blamed for a similar error of
judgment.
Now let us reconstruct the strategical problem as it appeared
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 79
to him at the moment when Napoleon's left wing and centre were
sweeping down on the Danube on his rear.
His rear was the Russian front, and the Russian Army was to
be about 100,000 strong, and due on the Inn, only eighty miles
away, about the 20th October.
If the Russians advanced whilst he. Mack, stood still, he
became the anvil on which the Russian hammer would crush the
Grand Army. And as it happened, he had to stand still, because he
had eaten up all the supplies in the district he had traversed, as the
French were soon to discover to their cost, and could not have
retreated even had he desired to do so.
He had, however, under-estimated several points. First, he had
not allowed for the extraordinary marching power the French
actually developed, nor on their peculiar talents for extracting
nutriment out of places where his own men had starved ; and finally,
he had counted on the punctual arrival of the Russians, as of
course, he had every right to do.
These were his military external miscalculations ; but others,
social and internal to the Army, were still to come and were
rapidly developing. The Army, accustomed to regular magazine
supply, felt the hardships requisitioning entailed very severely — far
more so than the French, who were used to the system, and knew
too well the futility of complaint. The men grumbled to their
officers, the officers took the part of the men, and finally the
generals carried all their woes to the Archduke's entourage, who,
in turn, were only too glad to have a handle of offence against the
underbred ranker upstart, and under these influences the Arch-
duke began to turn restive. To put a stop to these evils, which
threatened to make command impossible, Mack determined to
reorganise the Army, redistributing the regiments amongst all the
corps, and rearranging these to get the controlling power into
better hands. In referring to this reorganisation, M. Colin is
hardly fair to the general, for he represents the step as merely
taken as an idle whim, to gratify Mack's imaginary passion for
interference ; and throughout he takes the part of the young Prince,
who, to my mind, appears to have played the part of an intractable
young prig, lending a ready ear to all Mack's detractors, and
ignoring the responsibilities which the Emperor had imposed on
the latter, together with the respect undoubtedly due to his riper
experience. The situation was, in fact, closely analogous to,
though even more difficult, than Bazaine's position vis-a-vis with the
Imperial Staff in Metz, and it seems astonishing that M. Colin can
have overlooked the resemblance.
This reorganisation consumed very nearly a week of very
8o THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
precious time, and meanwhile reports were pouring in that left no
room for doubt as to Napoleon's crushing numerical preponderance,
or of its almost inexplicably rapid approach. The position of
anvil to the Russian hammer was clearly no longer tenable ;
but Mack still thought, very much as Nelson had done at sea
during his long continued chase of Villeneuve, that, however
great the odds, he would still be able to inflict sufficient punish-
ment on his adversary to keep him quiet for the remainder of the
season, and calculated that under all circumstances — of supply,
dissatisfaction in the Army, etc. — he would be able to hit harder with
a force recuperated by rest, than with one exhausted by hard
marching and scanty food, and it might have been well had he
stuck to this decision. At the last moment, however, the French
gave him an opening he would have been almost more than
human to have resisted. They left the whole of the north bank of
the Danube bare, and there was nothing to prevent Mack's retreat
right across their lines of communication towards Bohemia and the
Saxon frontier, where he might well count, not only on the support
of the second Russian Army, but on a most friendly reception
from the whole of the north Germans including Prussia, whose
orders for mobilisation were, in fact, already issued.*
This opening arose from a misconception on the part of
Napoleon of his adversary's position and frame of mind, quite as
much at variance with the real facts, as any of which the unfortunate
Mack was guilty. He had formed a fixed idea, almost from the
moment of his passage of the Danube, that the Austrians would
try and escape by marching south towards lake Constanz and the
Tyrol, and was urging on Soult by forced marches to intercept this
line of retreat.
Actually, though a small force under Jellachich did make its
escape, not without heavy losses, by this route, the idea of taking
the whole Army out by this way had never entered Mack's head,
who knew only too well the want of resources in that district. But
curiously, the news of the fighting in which Jellachich's force became
engaged, served only to confirm him in his decision to march out to
the north-east. The idea sprang quite naturally from the false
information he had already received, and deserves, to my mind,
far more serious consideration than has been accorded to it.
Though Mack by this time knew that the strength of the Grand
Army had been falsely reported to him, he still firmly believed in
the British diversion at Boulogne and rumoured risings in France.
* I cannot trace whether this was actually known to Mack at the time ; but there
was free communication with Ulm and the Prussian frontier, which was not more than a
day's ride distant, and hence may well have been the case.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 8i
When, therefore, he learnt of the French movement towards the
west — Soult, of course, had attacked from the east — he pictured to
himself Napoleon in full retreat back to France, by the only line on
which he could hope to find adequate subsistence, for his devastation
of the country to the north was by this time common knowledge
to all south Germany.
With his own Army in its semi-mutinous plight (i,e, as regards
its commanders), he could not hope to oppose successfully the on-
set of the whole French Army, and hence his resolution to move
towards Prussia was strengthened, not shaken, by the rapidity of
Soult's movements. He issued a general order to his troops in
which he stated that the French were in full retreat for their own
country, and whilst still maintaining secrecy as to his proposed
movement, led them to understand that stirring events were toward,
and arranged for a general concentration around Ulm. Read by
the light of subsequent events, the order appears bombastic ; but I
have little doubt that had success crowned his efforts, we should
now be as lost in admiration of his skilful concealment of his
intentions and soldierlike appeal to raise the drooping spirits of
his men, as we are taught to be over Napoleon's infinitely ex-
aggerated bulletins announcing victory to his troops before the
battle. Compare, for instance, the orders issued on the nights
preceding Austerlitz and Jena, and think how these would have
been held up to ridicule had not the events justified the
prediction.
Historians always forget that secrecy is the very essence of a
successful stratagem, and that no word of despondency or retreat
should be allowed to leak out in preliminary orders. A small
Army confronted by a larger one, must always be at a great dis-
advantage if defeated, and the confidence the leader shows in the
fighting spirit of his Army is simply a measure of the strength of
his character. Rewrite Napoleon's pre-Jena order of the day in
accordance with the facts as we now know them. " Soldiers,
during the last three days I have lost the Prussian Army and
found part of it again where I did not expect it ; where the other
part may be, or how large a fraction it is of the whole, I know as
little as you do. But of the following facts I am absolutely certain.
There is a hostile barren and mountainous frontier ten miles
behind us, and our only possible retreat lies through some 500
miles of country which we have stripped bare of every resource,
and whose inhabitants will cut up every single straggler they can
possibly lay hands on. The issue of the battle lies in your courage
and determination, and if you do not do your duty better than I
have done mine, * we shall never see our darlings any more.' "
G
82 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
Such an order would, I take it, hardly have conduced to victory,
yet that is about what Mack's critics, after the event, would have
had him produce before it.
Ultimately, on the loth October, the decision was taken to
march north on the following day, and the troops moved out next
morning ; but the terrible weather had rendered roads, normally
reliable, almost entirely impracticable. A whole stretch overhang-
ing the Danube gave way under the passage of the guns, and
a number, with their teams and limbers, crashed over into the
swollen river beneath. The fields were almost swamps, and hours
were consumed in covering distances which usually might have
been traversed in minutes. At length the right wing fell suddenly
upon Dupont's Division, peacefully encamped near Albeck, and,
apparently, completely surprised it. Something like a stampede
resulted ; but the Austrians were in too great disorder, owing to
the lengthening of their columns, to take advantage of it, and a
remnant of the French being rallied, still held on to some ground
in the vicinity when night put an end to the struggle, thus enabling
Dupont, who had not studied the art of despatch writing under
his great master for nothing, to claim a victory. The Austrians,
leaving a few outposts in observation, fell back about halfway to
Ulm.
Then followed, on the part of the French, a series of Staff*
blunders and miscalculations as to the time of the delivery of
orders, far too intricate to unravel in the space at my disposal, but
the upshot of which was to leave the Austrians in undisputed
possession of the north bank for the two following days. Un-
fortunately for them, they were in no case to profit by the
opportunity.
On the 14th, the French had corrected their errors, and Ney was
marching in all haste with his whole corps for Elchingen. The place
was weakly held by the Austrians at the moment, and by a most
brilliant piece of daring, the bridge was captured and troops poured
over it before the Austrians, already on their way since early morning,
could arrive to dispute its possession. A very obstinate fight ensued,
* It is usual to seek to fasten the responsibility for these failures either on Ney or
Murat, according to the writer's sympathies ; to me it seems merely a case of indifferent
staff training and want of proper precautions — sending one officer to deliver several orders
and the like. Actually, the important order had only about five miles to traverse, and
the steeple of the village where it should have been delivered was clearly visible from
the point of despatch, the intervening country being perfectly practicable ; but the officer
by whom it was despatched, not being informed of its contents and having several others
to deliver as well, chose to take it on his way back, lost his way in the Danube morass
in the dark, and ultimately found himself within three miles of his destination at daybreak,
but unable to get there without going back to his starting-point and making the road he
should have taken the first time.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 83
ending, as usual, in the defeat of the Austrians — a defeat directly
traceable to the growing spirit of mutiny amongst the leaders.
Mack, in his defence, states that, on news of the attack being
received, the Archduke left headquarters without giving him notice,
taking with him the bulk of the Staff, and obstinately kept at a
distance of a couple of leagues from him all day, giving orders and
interfering in the details of the fight. Nevertheless, though locally
defeated at Elchingen, one half the Army only had been engaged,
and the remainder, under Werneck, halted outside the radius of
French observation, continuing its movement towards Neresheira
next morning, and there would seem still to have been a good
chance for the bulk of the Army at least to withdraw. But at this
point the strength of men and horses gave out Though there
was still food in Ulm, only about seven miles distant, it was as
impossible to get at it, as it was for our troops on the Plateau of
the Crimea to traverse the two miles of mud which lay between
them and their ships in Balaclava. Moreover, intrigue and dis-
sension in the higher ranks had done its work, and all discipline
above the company commands had disappeared.
Werneck still struggled on for two days further, and was joined
by some Cuirassiers with the young Archduke by the way ; these
latter succeeded in making good their escape, but the Infantry^
worn out by hunger and pursued by Murat with his usual relent-
less energy, ultimately allowed themselves to be deceived by the
false statements of French Parlhuentaii-es, and laid down their arms
to a force they believed to be overwhelming, but which actually
consisted only, as has been already stated, of the stragglers of the
dismounted dragoons left behind to protect the convoys on the
lines of communication.
We need not pursue the fate of the garrison of Ulm and its
unfortunate commander further, it is sufficiently well known in its
outlines to every one. The only points calling for attention are
the persistent faith in Russian promises, revealed in Mack's effort
to secure fourteen days' delay in the actual surrender, and the
treachery by which this clause, after being admitted, was finally
evaded by the conqueror. All may be fair in love and War, but
such acts of perfidy leave an unpleasant savour ever after.
The point on which to fix one's attention is, after all, the
bearing of these events on the general principles of War as taught
in our schools, and from this standpoint I fail to perceive any
foundation for the deductions so freely drawn. That 200,000 men
under a brilliant leader, trusted by his men as no commander
before or since, should beat 80,000 under an average man, who
started with the feeling of his Army against him, seems to me a
84 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
foregone conclusion. Why then drag in theories as to angular
bases, the line of the Main, and so forth, to account for the obvious ?
But the fact that in spite of all adverse circumstances these 80,000
very nearly did escape from the toils of the 200,000, seems to me
conclusive proof of the superiority of troops bred up in tradition of
hereditary and regimental discipline over the looser organisation
of revolutionary France.
CHAPTER IX.
Poland and East Prussia : influence of their topography on Napoleon's movements — The
"magazine system" again — The Russian Armies — Eylau and Friedland — Intro-
duction of the case-shot preparation by "massed" batteries — ^The eflfect of this
irmovation on strategy — Spain and Portugal — The British system of supply — The
Duke of Wellington's merit as a "strategist" — The campaign of 1814 — Its interest
rather diplomatic than military — Bar sur Aube — Sezanne — The question of obstacles
— *Hamley' — Practice in the writing of orders — Intelligent confidence in one's
leaders — Character and initiative — Waterloo : the cause of Napoleon's failure.
The campaign of Ulm, dealt with in the two previous chapters,
is of special interest because it marks the maximum of what
could be attained by the Emperor's method of making War
"without magazines," relying on the increased resources daily
rendered available for the troops by the area swept over in their
rapid marches.
As we have seen from the complaints of his marshals, he
touched about the high-water mark of the attainable in the work
he succeeded in getting out of his men. In the subsequent cam-
paign of Austerlitz the same degree of mobility, combined with
certainty in the execution of orders, could not be kept up, and
though in his movements to Jena * in good weather, and at the most
favourable season of the year, the rate was momentarily exceeded
up to the decisive collision, after which date he lived on the
enemy's accumulations, he never again approached it when in
command of approximately equal numbers.
Immediately after the occupation of Berlin his forces moved
into Eastern Prussia, thence into Poland, and then the weak points
of his system began to develop. Even before they had reached
the Passarge it became evident to him that it was not enough to
tell the troop commanders to provide themselves with four days*
rations in order to ensure its being done. He had to turn his
attention to the methods of the Frederician magazine and convoy
system, but then he began to learn, as Mack had learnt in the
preceding year, that it is one thing to order a system and quite
♦ For the strategy of the Jena campaign, see 'Cavalry, its Past and Future,' by the
author.
S6 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
another to educate an army to carry it out. As the Austrians,
accustomed to magazines, could not take readily to requisitions,
so the French, accustomed to requisitions, could not adjust them-
selves to magazines, and, least of all, to the convoy duty these
entailed. The country was alternately either deep sand or deeper
mud, made roads almost non-existent, and the French, being poor
horse-masters, and altogether unaccustomed to the niceties of
baggage packing, where every pound counts, broke down the poor
little horses of the country as fast as they captured them.
The Russians, however, were at home in these surroundings,
and for once French mobility failed. They could not concentrate
in adequate numbers at the decisive point, and at Eylau they only
escaped disaster because their opponent had not the battlefield
instinct of the Emperor. Practically both sides were beaten, only
the Russians gave way in what for them should have been the
moment of victory. During that winter campaign the sufferings
of the French reached the limit of the endurable, and from that
time forward the French armies began to wane.* Heilsberg was
again a defeat, but then came to Napoleon a tactical inspiration
which enabled him for years to command success on the battle-
field, though he could no longer ensure it by the strategical
direction of his troops.
This inspiration was the direct consequence of the appalling
slaughter inflicted on Augereau's (Vllth) corps by the Russian
case-fire from their massed batteries, an incident already referred
to in my previous letters contributed to the United Service Magazine
(1903) on the "Evolution of Infantry Tactics." Whether the idea
originally emanated from Napoleon, or was suggested by Senarmont,
is, I believe, still a matter of opinion ; but after Heilsberg the French
began to make a practice of massing their Artillery and galloping up
to case-shot range to prepare the way for their Infantry, and Fried-
land, the final action of this campaign, was the first time in which the
power of the new form of attack was thoroughly demonstrated. Of
course case-shot had often been employed before, but only locally,
and not as a comprehensive idea. At the outset of the Revolution
the batteries were still far too deficient in mobility, and unaccus-
tomed to combined manoeuvres, and as, whilst the French Infantry
developed their skirmishing tactics, their enemies widened their
fronts to avoid being out-flanked, targets for the full develop-
ment of artillery power were rarely met with until, all the old
Regular Armies having disappeared, their places were taken by
bodies of armed men who could no longer fight in line, but
* See "The Napoleonic Conscription" in * Cavalry v. Infantry,' by the author,
published by Messrs. Hudson & Kimberley, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, Z7
had to be brought forward in dense columns if they were to be
used at all.
From this time forward battles assumed the stereotyped
form so often referred to in these pages,* and the last trace of
" strategy " in its eighteenth-century significance vanished. Hence-
forward, omitting the campaign in Russia in 18 12, as an exceptional
case, armies marched straight for one another by the straightest
roads on the broadest possible front for subsistence, on the
narrowest for fighting, and communications were only threatened
when a great excess of numbers enabled one to overlap the other
without incurring danger of defeat.
Meanwhile in Spain and Portugal other forces were at work
which conditioned the nature of the struggle. It is beyond all
doubt now that Napoleon never really grasped the peculiarities
either of the theatre of war or its inhabitants, nor had he taken to
heart the lessons of 1807 in Poland. He could not bring himself
to believe in the utter sterility of what was generally reputed a
rich country, and his marshals found it entirely impossible to
conform to his instructions to live on the country. To subsist
they had to separate, and if forced to combine to fight, a few days
of concentration brought them to the verge of starvation.
This was where the strength of our system, which was the old
Frederician system, of convoys, open markets, and magazines, made
itself felt. Once it had become adequately organised, and money
enough was forthcoming to keep it going, it will be found that all
the Duke of Wellington's great successes were based on an exact
calculation of the time it would take the enemy to concentrate to
interfere with his designs, and the admirable use he made of this
time allowance.
Probably no leader in history has ever gone down to the
bed-rock facts of the situation or seen more clearly all they implied.
By a rapid approach he invested the fortress indispensable for his
further movements, besieged it with all vigour to reduce its fire
power and the distance without cover to be traversed, and then
when the advance of the French relieving army was almost within
striking distance, he assaulted the breaches, sparing no loss of life
to succeed. For the rest he relied on the fighting power and
discipline of his men, and even when out-manoeuvred — as he
frequently was — his tactical quickness and the perfect cohesion of
his relatively well-fed forces always sufficed to cut through the
enveloping net his antagonist strove to weave around him.
But just as our tactics drew no attention from the other armies
* See •' Evolution of Infantry Tactics," by the author, which first appeared in the
United Sen-ice Magazine^ 1902-03.
8S THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
too busy with their own concerns to attend to ours, our strategy
and its secrets remained unnoticed, and all eyes were centred on
Napoleon's last great efforts to keep back the allies from Paris.
This penultimate effort of his, grand as it undoubtedly was,
has never been subjected to the searching analysis it deserves in
this country, partly because we have been content to take our
information from contemporary French authorities, blinded by
their devotion to their great leader's name, and quite unaware of
the system of political intrigue which underlay all his calculations,
partly also because in considering the influence of the topography
of the district in which it was fought, we have entirely overlooked
the very considerable part played by the inhabitants in aiding the
defence and hampering the attack, a part which it is submitted
had far greater effect on the course of the struggle than the
direction of the rivers as obstacles.
In fact, the conditions in 1814 bring us nearer to the Boer War,
in its essence, than any other campaign ever fought in Europe.
The French armies were small, and, being in their own country,
were far more mobile than the invading hosts ; for the friendly
inhabitants facilitated their movements and concealed their where-
abouts by every means in their power, whilst revealing and
hampering those of the invader, who made also the fatal mistake
of forgetting that it is not expedient to push the law of force to
its utmost extremity. During the same year, where we in the
south of France respected private property and paid ready money
for supplies, thereby winning the inhabitants over to our side, the
Cossacks and Prussians behaved like devils incarnate, with the
result that no isolated riders or weak detachments were safe, and
every vestige of food was buried or hidden in the forests the
moment the enemy came in sight.
To this must be added, as Marwitz in his invaluable diary has
so often pointed out, the fact that the Prussian Cavalry horses
were so completely broken down and the men so indifferently
trained that modern scouting was an absolute impossibility, and
though the Cossacks could move, they were far too unintelligent
to send in either useful or reliable information. And over all lay
the dread of the Emperor's personality — if in 181 3 his presence
had been estimated as worth 40,000 additional men, in 18 14 it
was nearly double that figure. Whenever he appeared before the
Austrians, the latter ran, and it was all that Bliicher could do to
prevent the Silesian Army running too.
To prove that this was the case, it is only necessary to take
the situations as given in ' Hamley ' — almost any one will serve the
the purpose — and analyse it as between troops of equal quality and
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 89
equal mobility. It will be found that, in spite of all the obstacles
the student of ' Hamley ' is compelled to stumble over, a vigorous
offensive must have immediately led to decisive results.
The situation at Bar sur Aube on the morning of the battle of
Brienne will perhaps best serve our purpose (Hamley's * Operations
of War,' Chapter XIV.).
If in the above situation one eliminates the names Napoleon,
Blucher, Schwarzenberg, and substitutes Red force v. Blue force,
as in a War game, the odds are at least one hundred to one that
the orders issued by the numerically superior side would ensure
the surrender or retreat of the weaker within a very few hours,
and the same would be the case in almost any other situation the
campaign discloses. But in practice the weaker was almost
invariably successful, and it is only when one comes on the trail
of political intrigues and personal jealousies by which the allied
headquarters were riven that the explanation becomes apparent.
Blucher, for instance, was surprised and nearly captured by
Napoleon on the night of the loth February at Sezanne, not because
the Silesian army did not understand outpost duties, but because
the whole of Pahlen's Cossacks, some io,cxx) in strength, assigned
to Blucher, and entrusted by him with the special mission of
guarding his exposed flank, had been withdrawn by Schwarzenberg
some forty-eight hours earlier, and the notification of their with-
drawal did not reach him till the moment of the attack itself.
Whenever, throughout the campaign. Napoleon felt himself in
difficulties, he wrote a pitiful appeal to his father-in-law, the
Emperor of Austria, who for obvious reasons did not wish the
extreme humiliation of his daughter's husband, and if direct
orders could not be given to relax the pressure, other influences
and implements were always at hand to assist him in attaining
his ends.
It was only when at length Blucher and Gneisenau took the
bit between their teeth, and, neglecting every established rule of
the game, safety of communications, and so forth, marched straight
on Paris, confident in their power to overrun by sheer hard fighting
any force that might be placed across their path, that the campaign
was brought to the only conclusion which could satisfy the nations,
though the situation was by no means pleasing to their rulers.
Yet out of this campaign there has been pieced together a
marvellous theory of the value of obstacles, which has proved, I
am inclined to think, the greatest stumbling-block in the path of
rational military study ; simply because the reasons alleged in
support were so repugnant to common sense that the great majority
refused to consider a science which could postulate such absurdities.
90 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY,
I do not suggest that this refusal formulated itself in the average
staff-college student's mind in quite such a direct form ; had it
done so, the evil would have minimised itself, but actually our
average young officers are far too modest to trust their own judg-
ment in such matters, and finding themselves in opposition to the
views of the text-book, which by tradition had acquired the weight
of revelation, they reasoned : " The book says it is so, and who
am I that I should dispute the conclusions of such an able author ?
Since it is quite evident to me that I never shall be able to
understand his conclusions, I must be very stupid, and it will be
mere waste of time for me to pursue the subject any further."
This, at any rate, was for many years my own attitude towards
the subject, and dozens of my friends have owned up to it likewise.
It was only when chance threw me amongst men who had never
heard of * Hamley,' but had marched and fought all over the ground
and studied War under very different masters, that I was at length
able to free myself from the chain of illusion and see things as
they are, and not through a mist of misinformation.
As between equal forces, obstacles cut both ways. If a hundred
men can defend, say, a bridge against a thousand for a given time,
when facing in one direction, it can be held equally well against
similar odds in the other. This is considering the bridge only.
Taking it with its topographical surroundings, re-entrant angles,
higher banks, etc., these alternate from side to side, so that on a
strategical front they usually balance one another, and the net
gain results to the side which can make the best use of the delay
the passage of the obstacle must entail. This brings in the question
of mobility or of greater numerical strength, which, if sufficient,
can be substituted in the equation for mobility, and the practical
solution of the problem is merely to turn the advantage of delay
against the adversary, by holding him in front with the least
possible force and turning his flank with the remainder, which
brings us back to the old original formula of concentration on the
decisive point, nothing more and nothing less.
Stated in this form, every average subaltern learns to solve it
in a few weeks. I have tested the point of late years over and
over again. I have taken some well-known military situation,
eliminated the awe-inspiring names, and given it to my pupils to
solve with just as much military information as was available to
the actual combatants, and in at least 95 per cent, of cases the
solution has invariably been that actually adopted when political
considerations did not intervene.
After a few weeks' practice they have worked with the pre-
cision of machinery, their departure from the normal being merely
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 91
the result of the spirit of the arm to which they happened to
belong ; but I do not suggest that I have made them " generals,"
or anything in the least approaching that ideal, but at least I have
made the majority into rational subordinates, who, knowing the
difficulties and limitations of those whose business it is to give
orders, are prepared to obey readily, and not to oppose, even the
passive resistance of their own opinions, to the realisation of their
commander's intentions.
For this reason I welcome the new orders for the examination
of officers with all my heart, and see in it the surest promise of
advance in efficiency that all the talk of reform has as yet brought
with it.
In the old days, we are told, that blind obedience was the soldier's
first duty, and were led to believe that it actually was obtained under
the old regime ; but we may be permitted our doubts on the point,
for I imagine human nature in the last three centuries has remained
always a singularly constant factor, nor have those armies in
which blind obedience was most strictly enforced always justified
expectation. What was probably intended by the phrase was
" blind confidence " in the leader, and that quality grew automati-
cally in days when campaigns lasted seven years and upwards.
Our problem is to develop intelligent confidence in peace-time,
so as to eliminate the internal friction which automatically develops
in an army from the clash of conflicting points of view and varying
standards, both of knowledge and intelligence. This is the special
danger of the Volunteer Force, to which men bring what they
believe to be their inherent right of private judgement, as can
easily be seen if we endeavour to realise the mental attitude of the
individual — say a company commander, detailed to occupy a portion
of a line which in the interests of the many must occupy a certain
general direction, but which in itself is locally defective, and
glaringly so, as must often be the case.
The only way to make that man realise that he has not been
gratuitously sacrificed to the crass imbecility of an incompetent
staff is to train him to understand the limitations under which
that staff is by the nature of things compelled to work, and then,
by filling his mind with the accumulated experience of others, i.e,
with military history, enable him to see that his duty lies in the
subordination of himself to the welfare of his comrades, and not
in the display of his personal tactical ability.
You require to develop character, not to develop initiative. Of
that there is generally enough and to spare, and it seems to me
that by the present system of teaching men to understand their
exact importance in the whole hierarchy and the difficulties by
92 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
which the exercise of command is trammeled, we shall, when the
emergency arises, find that the latent spirit of self-sacrifice and
duty to which the nation unquestionably owes its greatness and
triumphs in the past will sufficiently respond.
The mere acquisition of technical detail went all in the
opposite direction — its mastery in any one case is always too
obviously simple ; the difficulty has always been to secure the co-
ordination of many to varying circumstances, and that we shall
only reach when we have shown the individual the whole secrets
of the machinery, and made it clear to him that in the interests of
the whole it is often necessary to sacrifice a part.
The Waterloo campaign has been so widely discussed in this
country that its details may be taken as common knowledge.
There are, however, certain points of view bearing on my ruling
contention which have hitherto not received the attention they
deserve.
Broadly speaking, we may say that Napoleon, in this instance,
failed because he designed a work which made demands on the
strength and finish of his material beyond the power of the latter
to supply. His staff had been so disorganised by recent political
events that it failed conspicuously to transmit punctually to the
troops the orders they should have received ; and which, being
received, must in all human probability have turned the scale in
his favour.
But it was Napoleon himself who said that "war is essentially
a calculation of probabilities," and from the lips of a mathematician
the remark imports a great deal more than meets the layman's
eye. He knew — no one better — that for a given staff there is the
mathematical certainty of a certain percentage of failure to exactly
interpret and execute the commander's intentions, due to the
fallibility of the human material ; and his dicta that you can
never be too strong at the decisive point, and that you should
never risk a battle until you had ninety-nine chances out of a
hundred in your favour, make it sufficiently clear that he habitually
allowed for error in the execution of his plans, recognising that a
certain percentage of such error was inevitable under the
conditions which he knew to prevail in his staff service, and which
he personally was powerless to prevent.
It seems to me, therefore, that in this instance he was misled
in his calculations by the overwhelming confidence he had learnt
to place in his own tactical genius on the battlefield. It was the
fact that at that period no Continental army or leader had the
remotest chance of success against the combined powers of the
three arms, handled as Napoleon alone knew how to handle them.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 93
His art lay in his consummate power of getting the utmost out
of his men in the fighting-line, and thus retaining the largest
possible fraction in reserve, and in this no one of his rivals could
approach him. This gift literally was worth the 40,000 men his
presence was usually considered to outweigh — and Ligny is the
best possible proof in point.
But he had never had personal experience of Wellington and
the Peninsular tactics, and to my mind this explains everything.
On the 1 6th, at Ligny, within six hours he had inflicted a crushing
defeat on the Prussians, and he counted on smashing Wellington
in the same time, whilst he did not believe it physically possible
for Blucher to make his presence effectually felt before that time
expired. He expected to find the British troops drawn up like
the Prussians, in heavy masses, on the exposed slope of their
position, and seeing only the Belgians to the east of the Brussels
Road, a line of guns to the west, and the chateau of Hougoumont
with a few reserves behind it, he concluded Wellington was
retreating, and he had only a weak rear-guard to deal with.
From this standpoint his indifference to the menace of the
Prussians, or to the whereabouts of Grouchy, is seen to be entirely
in keeping with the situation. The rear-guard could be pushed
aside, and if Grouchy held, as he actually did, about 20 per cent,
more than his own numbers, by his march on Wavre, then the
Emperor had ample reserves in hand to deal with the army he
had beaten forty-eight hours previously, and which we now know —
thanks to the revelations of Grolman's biography — was in fact
formed up, and watching the battle, undecided whether to join in
or leave us to our fate, until, in Blucher's own presence, Grolman
himself gave the order to advance.*
♦ With reference to the Emperor William's speech at Hannover, which aroused
so much attention in England at the time, the following extract from the ' Life of General
Carl von Grolman,' which appeared for the first time in 1895, ^s of particular interest.
The advance-guard of the 4th Corps reached St. Lambert at 10 A.M., the main body at
I P.M., and the 14th Brigade at 3 p.m.
'• The battle between the French and British had been raging since I P.M.
** Billow, as we know, had the order to attack at once under these conditions. To do
so he had to cross the diftkult defile formed by the Losne stream, and then to deploy on
the further side. This proceeding would be greatly faciUtated by the occupation of the
wood of Frischermont, which, fortunately, the French had left unguarded ; indeed,
successful deployment depended on this occupation. Nevertheless Biilow took no steps
to effect this operation, although at one o'clock he had already three brigades in hand,
and by three the whole of his corps was on the ground. Meanwhile, one could see the
development of the French attacks, which the British withstood with unparalleled
heroism.
"Major von LUtzow, of the General Staff, had been for some hours in the wood of
Frischermont, waiting in vain for some effect to be given to his repeated requests to
occupy the wood, and, at last, leaving a detachment to continue the observation of the
enemy, he rode back to St. Lambert, where he found the Field Marshal and Gneisenau,
94 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
To assume that Napoleon handled his troops as he did in the
full knowledge we now possess as to their position at each hour in
the day, is to make him out an irresponsible madman, which we
certainly know he was not ; but to view him as led away through-
out the campaign by his overweening confidence in his power to
compel the tactical decision in his own favour at the time and
place of his own choosing, gives us a key to his thoughts, orders,
and messages which unlocks the whole mystery which so long has
shrouded this most dramatic event.
to whom he reported the situation, and begged for immediate action, but no decision was
come to. Fortunately, at this moment, Grolman, who had been left behind in Wavre,
rode up, and on hearing the state of the case from Major von Liitzow, at once said,
' Aber, imarsch marsch ; in des Feld MarschalFs name befehle ich to fort iiber das
defile's zu gehen.' (Attack at once ; in the Field Marshal's name I order you to cross
the defile.) The order was at once obeyed."
Comment is needless, but the importance of the admission these lines contain lies in
the fact that the author, General von Conradi, throughout displays a marked bias
against England.
CHAPTER X.
Influence of the Napoleonic legend — His memoirs — The St. Gotthard Pass — Wiirzburg
— Essential cause of Napoleon's failure — Military reform in Prussia — Scharnhorst —
Clausewitz — His training — The permanent value of his work — War, the "struggle
for the survival of the fittest " — Frederick's system compared with the French school
— Clausewitz's purpose to train average men for the responsibilities of high command
— He was the first to introduce " scientific method " into military research — Influence
of short service — Competitive examinations — Continuity of tradition — The Prussian
General Stafi"— Influence of " mobility" — The study of military histor}'.
Though Waterloo brought with it the downfall of Napoleon, it by
no means diverted attention from the extraordinary man who for
so long had defied all Europe in arms. Every mind was turned
towards the solution of the strategic puzzles he had prepared, and
the methods of his adversaries received but scant attention.
Moreover, the course of his wars had made and unmade hundreds
of reputations, and the latter sought to justify their failure by
attacking the principles and conduct of the former. Hence for
years the libraries groaned under a perfect plethora of accusatory
and self-justificatory memoirs in which confusion of thought made
matters worse confounded, and to aggravate our troubles, the great
genius sought to justify himself by endeavouring in a series of most
mendacious self- exculpatory volumes to explain his career by
reference to those very principles of a bygone science which he
had himself most persistently violated, and never regarded except
when untrue to his own doctrines. I allude especially to his long
expositions as to the care he habitually devoted to his lines of
communication.
With most of these I have already dealt in previous chapters,
but to make the sequence of my argument clearer, I will refer
again to the alleged opening up of fresh communications with
France in the Marengo campaign by the occupation of the St.
Gotthard Pass, and to his orders for the establishment of inter-
mediate fortified bases at Wiirzburg and elsewhere during 1805
and 1806. In the former case, as I have pointed out, the line
could only be of use as long as the French were victorious, for the
Swiss would have risen against them en masse in the event of
serious defeat, and the latter were of no value as long as things
96 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
went well in front, whilst every valid man absorbed by them for their
defence was one man less in the fighting-line, where alone the
decision lay. As police stations they were doubtless very necessary
indeed, but their adoption was a departure from Napoleon's cardinal
maxim, that one can never be too strong at the decisive point, and,
as the event proved, they were useless in defeat, because they were
never strong enough in themselves to arrest the advance of the
pursuing armies.
In the dust clouds raised by these almost purely personal dis-
cussions, the essential cause of his ultimate defeat, [viz. the fact
that the numerical strength of the forces the French Revolution
had called into being, far exceeded the power of control which
could be exercised by a single man without trained expert assistance,
was entirely overlooked, and whilst men continued to discuss what
might have been had mistakes not been made, they entirely
neglected to organise the training of their men and officers so as
to eliminate or reduce the percentage of mistakes which in the
nature of things must be made.
Meanwhile, in Prussia — in which country all real German
military reform originated, a point too often forgotten — the art of
defeating one's enemy in the field was being studied from a very
different standpoint. The Prussian Army had been by no means
so dead to the necessity of military study in the years before
Napoleon's appearance as it has been the custom to imagine.
Its reputation had attracted some of the most brilliant intellects in
the North of Germany, of whom Scharnhorst was the chief ; and
they had all received a very sound education not merely in military
matters, but in philosophy, mathematics, and, indeed, in all sciences
which tend to develop a man's intellectual power.
When these men came face to face with the realities of War,
and twenty-five years in the school of defeat gave them ample
opportunities, they were not satisfied with superficial explanations
founded on text-book cram, but wanted to get down to the very
heart of things and to know why armies fought at all.
This was practically the question propounded by Scharnhorst
in his early pamphlet, entitled ^Die Ursachen der Siege der
Franzosen im Feldzug 1792-3,' which seized hold of the central
idea of a " nation in arms," and may be said to to have underlain,
consciously or unconsciously, all schemes of Army Reform pro-
pounded and discussed before Jena, and out of which Scharnhorst
ultimately produced his " Universal Liability to Service Act," which
persists in all essentials to this day.
But Scharnhorst did not live to see the full development of his
system, and after his death it was von Clausewitz upon whom
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 97
devolved the task of sifting out and arranging the teaching of the
past campaigns. For this his previous training had admirably
fitted him. He had been on the Prussian Headquarter Staff all
through the disastrous campaign of Jena, and had afterwards
served with the Russian Army in 18 12, and again with his own in
1 81 3, 1 8 14, and 181 5. He had thus enjoyed ample opportunities
of seeing how things ought not to be done, and having trained a
naturally clear and powerful mind by the systematic study of
philosophy in the school of Immanuel Kant, he went down to the
bed-rock of his experiences and formulated in accurate language
the limitations of human knowledge as applied to the conduct
of War.
He died with his work unfinished, but his works published after
his death were seized upon by every thinking Prussian officer as
the exact expression of his own thoughts, and became at once the
standard book on War for his generation.
Most English readers find it difficult to understand either the
popularity his book enjoys abroad or to realise the profound think-
ing it contains ; but we as a race had never been through the
same school of defeat and been compelled to go down to the very
foundation of things as had the Germans. With them each man knew
from his own experience the whole depths of human weaknesses
and passions, and realised the limitations on action these imposed.
They had seen what they believed to be the most perfectly
disciplined and trained armies in existence, led. by masters of the
old eighteenth-century game, beaten and shattered by Republican
and Imperial troops alike ; they had seen patriotism fanned to
a white heat, but wanting the welding, discipline alone can give,
melt away before the astounding power of Napoleon's genius, and
they all felt that something more than abstract geometrical re-
lations between lines and bases was needed to give a satisfactory
explanation of these many and varying phenomena.
This was exactly what Clausewitz's work, even in the unfinished
state in which he left it, supplied. Every one felt that at last
some one had put into words what all had been unconsciously
thinking, and thus the book achieved perhaps the most remarkable
success ever attained by any military work in its own country.
To analyse it in detail is beyond both my power and space, but
its essence lies in this, that it views War as the " struggle for the
survival of the fittest " amongst the races, and shows how the
human element in it dominates practically all other considerations.
The will to succeed and the courage to endure are the two essentials,
and given these. Victory may be achieved under the most adverse
conditions.
H
98 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
In Frederick the Great's time everything had been sacrificed to
the idea of economy of human life. The soldier cost money, and
no State had any to waste. The essence of the art of War con-
sisted in bringing the greatest number of individuals face to face
with the enemy and handling them as a unit under the control of
the one man best fitted to wield them. It did not pay to send
imperfectly drilled troops into the field, for not only did they eat
as much as well-trained ones, but their inefficiency endangered the
execution of the chief's design, on which the success of the whole
depended ; nor it did not pay to over-march them or exact avoidable
privations from them, because this brought them on the field too
exhausted to fight their best ; and though a genius like Frederick
could hit the happy mean, and in fact never hesitated to call on his
men for their utmost, lesser men mistook the ends for the means,
and, having devoted their whole attention in peace time to perfect-
ing the machine, when they took the field were afraid to use it for
fear of spoiling its appearance.
The French, however, started with the root idea that a musket
and bullets were all a man needed to kill his opponent, and cared
nothing for the cost of life. Men they had in abundance, but no
money ; and the whole history of the twenty-three years' fighting,
from 1792 to 181 5, was simply a record of successive experiments
to determine what value of each of the many factors which go to
make an army — numbers, skill-at-arms, drill, equipment, transport,
etc. — would give when combined the greatest possible product.
The solution arrived at by Prussia was the three years' short
service army, which gave numbers enough, without over-straining
the wealth-producing power of the population, to meet their possible
enemies on a reasonably broad front-
There does not seem to have been any inkling of the extra-
ordinary economic advantages which were to accrue to the country
from this adjustment of the length of service, or of the marvellous
way in which the short term of service was to develop the in-
tellectual capacity of the whole body of officers ; but accidentally
the Prussians lit on a solution of their problem of defence which
facilitated most wonderfully the second great principle which
Clausewitz had in his mind.
The French Revolution had shown that campaigns were no
longer decided by the tactical skill of a single leader handling his
army as a fighting unit as in Frederick's day. For the over-
powering " blow " of the old line in the hands of a master, in which
everything and everybody co-operated towards a single aim, the
looser style of fighting evolved as a consequence of the lack of
cohesion and training in the hordes of men with muskets the
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 99
Revolution turned out, introduced the idea of " attrition " — the
gradual wearing away of the enemy's strength in a series of partial
encounters, in which victory fell to the side which could turn out
not the best general, but the best average of generals capable of
handling forces not exceeding about 25,000 men. Certainly Clause-
witz and his school fully realised what Napoleon's personal presence
always meant, but they knew, too, that such men were exceptional,
born, not made, and elected as the safer course, to devise a method
of training average men to give a uniform average of sound leading
as the best antidote to the exceptional merit of a bom leader.
Without Clausewitz's book, however, this system would have
been impracticable, for there would have been no scientifically
prepared groundwork to build upon ; and it is the consequence of
our neglect to study his works that for so many years the best
intellects the Army could produce — and they are second to none
in any other branches of investigation — have failed to turn out
anything but an empiric solution of all warlike problems, which,
like all empiric methods, is liable to be upset by the last newly
discovered fact or incident.
We laughed loudly over the poor old Boer women who painted
their babies green to cure them of measles ; but our own methods
in tactics and strategy are not more scientific. Green happens
to be a peculiarly good colour for reducing fevers ; the only mistake
they made was in laying it on in the form of paint. Invisibility
in War at times also happens to be a good thing, but when it leads
to the painting of horses "khaki," you are pushing the principle
too far ; and the same may be said of the abuse of " cover," of
" extended order," and most particularly of the sacrifice of mobility
in the Cavalry in order to secure fire power. Such errors would
be absolutely inconceivable in an Army trained on Clausewitz to
recognise the inherent " polarity " in all military practice. There
is no '* absolute " good or bad in War, only a " relative " relation of
better or worse, according to the action of the other side.
A " Staff College " had been in existence in Prussia for many
years, but its teaching had been as everywhere else, and still with
us, almost entirely " empiric." Under Clausewitz's influence it
became " scientific," in the true sense, beginning from an absolute
foundation of facts, and eliminating all " opinion " which could not
stand the stress of analysis. This was the very reverse of
" pedantry " in spirit, though in actual application it might easily
have degenerated into that condition, but for the check auto-
matically introduced into the working of the educational machine,
by the action of the short-service principle.
In the old Prussian Army, with long service, recruits had been
100 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
few in number, and their training, particularly the minor tactical
side of it, had been left by tradition in the hands of the veteran
N.C.O.'s and soldiers, who, as long as War seemed imminent, had
the best of all incentives, their own security in face of the enemy,
to see that their pupils thoroughly understood their work. They
knew too well by experience the dangers to which sleeping on
sentry-go, dullness and stupidity on advance guard duty, etc.,
might expose them. But, as the risk of War became less evident,
and the generation of old soldiers passed away, the exigencies of
the parade ground and barrack square absorbed their attention,
and the young soldier was taught, not how to exercise his wits
against an actual enemy, but how to get through his day's work
with the least chance of bringing down extra duties and drills
upon his company or squadron, and by degrees the N.C.O.'s became
a screen between the officers and men, with the one and only
object of maintaining the existing standard of appearance with
the least possible trouble to every one concerned. Thus the young
officer — exactly as was the case in our own service not many years
ago — found, not only no obvious incentive to work with and
through his men, but if he tried to do so, was met with passive
obstruction from all ranks, who liked the existing condition of
affairs because it saved everybody trouble, and had no desire to
see it disturbed.
Hence there existed no means of selecting as recruits for staff
training men who not only had brains capable of development, but
also a practical knowledge of the men and their needs, and in the
absence of such recruits, officers were chosen either for clerical
industry and amenability to empiric methods, or by downright
favouritism — precisely as happened in this country not very long
ago.
Compulsory short service without substitutes, however, com-
pletely upset the whole arrangement, for now the officers were
compelled to train their own men, and as these were both
physically and intellectually above the average of the nation,
they were compelled to exercise their own intellects to gain the
men's confidence, and again, without the sound common sense of
Clausewitz to support them, they could not have taught so as to
carry conviction to the minds of their pupils. With ten years'
training in such a school, officers soon learnt to understand the
practical human-nature elements of Warfare, and probably mainly as
a cause of the excessive stagnation of life in their small unchanging
garrison — a well-recognised evil half a century before Lieutenant
Bilse achieved his unenviable notoriety — commanding officers had
little difficulty in discovering the real character and grit amongst
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. loi
their young officers, and recommending the best for further training
at the Staff College.
Hence it became possible to dispense with competitive exami-
nations and to substitute a qualifying test only, and it is this
qualifying test, as opposed to the competitive one, which is the
essential cause of the excellent results obtained by the Prussian
General Staff considered as a whole. It gives them command of
a supply of practical men whose wits are sharpened and characters
strengthened by perpetual intimate contact with human nature,
and eliminates that most dangerous breed, who, disliking contact
with the everyday conditions of their existence, seek to escape
from it by devotion to the study of books whose meaning they
cannot fathom, because they are ignorant of this very knowledge
of men as they really are, from the best opportunities of acquiring
which they are most anxious to escape.
Given a competitive system, and such men are almost bound
to survive to the exclusion of better soldiers, for their clerical and
studious habits soon bring them to the front on their office stools,
from which lofty elevation they in turn condition the subjects to be
studied and the books to be issued to succeeding generations, with
the ultimate result that after half a century intellect is eliminated
from the competitive examinations and cramwork, pure and simple,
becomes the standard. Fortunately our constant sequence of
small Wars has prevented our reaping the whole fruits of such a
system ; but I think that no one who can recall what our Staff
College education of fifteen years ago had become will question
that we have had a very narrow escape.
Since then, however, the virtues of short service, even with a
voluntary system, have asserted themselves, and, given reasonable
continuity in the conditions, success is still within measurable
distance of achievement, though by how many years it may have
been thrown back by the hasty and ill-considered changes of the
past few years it would be difificult to estimate.
The essence of Prussian excellence lies in their continuity of
tradition. For nearly a hundred years now the process above
described has been in operation, and the intellectual pick of the
Army has received a practical training, thus there has grown up
in the country a very large body of expert military opinion, in
whose judgment the nation reposes unlimited confidence.
When the General Staff speaks, the majority of the public,
having served in the ranks, knows that the subject has been
approached from every possible side, and the last word has been
said ; and if a minority of Socialists and other discontented people
raise objections, the ex-soldiers, who are always in a majority — for
: t •» e
102 THE E VOL UTION OF MODERN STRA TEG K
nearly two-thirds of the whole population have been through the
ranks — treat these opinions with dignified contempt, as the utterances
of creatures who, not having been found fit to serve, are really not
healthy men at all, and therefore not fit to give an opinion on
military subjects. It is exactly the attitude of the ex-public
school boy to the ex-private school pupil, when the latter attempts
to reform our educational arrangement. Yet, trivial as the circum-
stance may seem, it lay at the root of the German strategical
conduct of the War of 1 870.
The German Staff, being only human, made mistakes in spite of
their training, and knew that a certain percentage of mistakes
were inevitable ; but secure in the knowledge of this weight of
opinion backing them, they carried out undisturbed their ideas,
without fear of the possible consequences local mistakes in execu-
tion might involve in the nation behind them — the exact opposite
of the position of the French Government, to whom the vox populi
meant vox dei in its fullest significance, — after South Africa, we can
afford to sympathise with them. This was the broad principle which
underlay the German victories in France, the fact that the military
chiefs enjoyed the full confidence both of the Army and the nation
— the two being, in fact, almost synonymous terms. In detail, the
principal consequence of this training was to add enormously to the
mobility of the armies they directed.
It does not appear that " mobility," per se, had ever appealed
specially either to Clausewitz or his colleagues. With European
armies, all with much the same proportion of Cavalry, Artillery,
and Infantry, there seemed no possibility of appreciably varying
the rate of movement. Their principal care was rather directed to
the elimination of the friction resulting from the effort to direct
large masses towards a common cause. They had seen again and
again how both the Austrians and themselves had thrown away most
brilliant opportunities, partly because their leaders could not decide
rapidly as to what course to pursue, but mainly perhaps because
when they had decided it took them so long to issue orders to their
subordinates that the chance had passed before the Army had
begun to move, and to remedy this they went a step beyond their
Napoleonic model, and not merely organised their armies in Corps,
Divisions, Brigades, and so forth, but deliberately trained a Quarter-
master-General's Staff to handle them. Since they could not keep
the Army always at War to supply this staff with practical experience,
they provided the best expedient they could in the shape of autumn
manoeuvres, and to prevent men growing up with the idea that
manoeuvres and War were the same thing, they compelled them to
study and understand military history in its widest sense, which is
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 103
a very different subject indeed to the superficial generalisations on
insufficient and inaccurate data which masquerades under that name
in our educational curriculum.
Hence, when the campaigns of 1864-66 and 1870 ensued, though
there were still in the higher ranks a few survivals of Napoleonic
times for the most part too old to learn new tricks, each of these
had at his right hand a picked and trained intelligence, accustomed
to sift the true from the false, and to decide rapidly, on sound
general principles comprehensible to all, what orders to issue to meet
the special emergency. Their manoeuvre training gave them the
necessary grasp of the situation, and their military history study
the knowledge of the strength of their materials, i.e. prepared them
to estimate the phenomena inseparable from War, the confusion of
the battlefield, the excitement of victorious troops and the
depression and exhaustion of defeated ones, at their due and
proper value in relation to the work remaining to be done and the
sacrifices still necessary to secure the ultimate result.
This is the true purpose of the study of military history, and
the end cannot be gained by confusing the subject with what we are
pleased to call "strategy." The simple combinations which are
discussed with such tedious elaboration in the pages of * Hamley's
Operations of War,' for instance, in so far as they are true at
all, can be grasped by 90 per cent, of the subalterns of every Army.
The difficulty of enforcing their execution in a peace-trained force,
in which the junior ranks know nothing of the all-absorbing
excitement and extreme tension of mind, soul, and body involved,
is quite another matter, and the only guarantee possible that the
phenomena of War, when encountered, should be judged in their
proper proportion lies in a dissemination amongst all ranks of a
knowledge of what these things are and how they have been
conquered, or the reverse, by their forefathers in days gone by.
" What men have done that men can do " is a saying intelligible
to every one ; and if in a regiment when face to face with a difficult
situation, every man more or less remembers how the same regiment
met and overcame the same or similar difficulties, they, as a
corporate body, will bear with ease dangers and hardships, which
without such knowledge would fill them with the deepest
despondency.
CHAPTER XI.
Effect of alterations in armament on strategy — The " case-shot " attack — Becomes im-
possible in America against long-range small arms — The consequences disastrous to
the Federals — Richmond as an ** objective" — The Austro-Prussian campaign of
1866 — The Franco-German War — French fail to make use of the advantages of their
new infantry weapon — Fatal influence of Marshal Niel's views — Napoleon III.'s
reliance on Austrian and Italian assistance — The new French official account —
German comments — Critical moment in the strategical deployment of the German
armies — Want of "driving energy" in the French Army — Comparison with 1800
and 1805 — Breach of continuity in warlike tradition — Effect of rumours on French
Staff — Lorrach and Duttweiler — Absence of maps on the French side — ^Transport
and supply — Result of requisitioning — Commencement of hostilities before declaration
of War.
During the whole period we have hitherto been considering, the
conditions of armament remained virtually the same. In the
American Civil War (1862-64), though the weapons on both sides
were substantially of equal power, the relation between the three
arms was completely upset, owing to the introduction of the long-
range infantry rifle, which by its accuracy at long distances entirely
destroyed the possibility of the Napoleonic attack, in which
previously all strategy had culminated.
It will be seen by a reference to Chapter IX. that, relying on
the power of his Artillery to blow a hole with case-shot in any
battle formation which he conceived it possible to oppose to his
men, the Emperor had simplified his strategical procedure to the
utmost, suppressing all finesse and attempts at deception, and
aiming only at the most rapid possible concentration of masses on
the decisive point ; and since armaments are more readily changed
than ideas, even when the weapons changed, his principles were
maintained, with consequences which proved most disastrous on
the battlefield.
Without the aid of the guns, which could now no longer unlimber
at case-shot ranges, the power of the attack everywhere shattered
against the unshaken fire-power of the defenders' Infantry ; and an
entirely new time factor was thus introduced into all calculations.
The enormous numerical superiority the Northern States could
oppose to their opponents ought to have sufficed to crush down all
resistance in a very short period of time, but Isnowing little of War,
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 105
other than was to be found in the pages of their text-books, the
Union generals too often concentrated their masses upon impossible
tasks, instead of utilising them in the preparation of impossible tasks
for their adversaries. That great difficulties stood in their way
is of course admitted. Intrinsically, at first, each arm of the
Confederates was a better fighting machine than the corresponding
arm of the Unionists, and their whole Army possessed a higher
degree of mobility ; but making all reasonable allowances for these
advantages, it should not have taken two years, and odds at length
as great as five to one, to cover the 100 miles from Washington to
Richmond.
A further fundamental mistake made by the Unionists lay in
their choice of Richmond as an objective, whereas the enemy's
Field Army should have monopolised all their efforts ; but though
this error has attracted much criticism, particularly in Germany, I
find it difficult to accept the conclusion that under all circumstances
this course is imperative, and recent experience in South Africa
confirms my impression, from which, indeed, Napoleon himself
departed in one of his most successful campaigns, viz. that of Jena.
If the enemy can always outmarch you, it is impossible to over-
take him, and it seems to me, therefore, that under such circum-
stances, the only possible way of bringing him to action is to
advance against whatever point or position he is absolutely com-
pelled to defend. Only when the balance of the three arms is such
that for the time the defence has an advantage, then the advance
must be made in such a manner that he is compelled to attack you
— not the other way about ; and this is where the majority of the
Northern leaders, especially Grant, most constantly failed, e.g. at
Cold Harbour. If 10,000 Federals could not turn 1000 Confederates
out of a position by a frontal assault, then it is improbable that
10,000 Confederates could have carried a line of works against
1500 Federals ; hence, by leaving a relatively small body of men in
the Confederate front to act as a retaining force, a relatively large
body would have been set free to operate against the latter's flanks,
with the final result of a complete surround, with consequences as
fatal as at Sedan. Doubtless the want of roads and other com-
munications retarded such a consummation, but if the Federals
could have learnt to strip themselves of superfluities, and march as
light as their opponents, the end might have been attained in half
the time at a quarter of the cost
In the Austro-Prussian campaign of 1866, again tactics, not
strategy, conditioned the issue. The breech-loader as against the
muzzle-loader had an enormous retaining effect, which has generally
been ignored in the discussions which have raged on the campaign.
io6 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY,
On the night of Koniggratz, no matter what the previous faults of
the Austrians may have been, they possessed an undeniable
strategic advantage over their enemy, and had both armies been
equipped with weapons of the same relative, not necessarily absolute,
power, as in the Napoleonic times, the result could hardly have been
doubtful, for the Prussian centre must have been defeated before
either the Crown Prince or the Elbe Army could have arrived.
But the Austrian combination of muzzle-loading rifles and artillery
with imperfect shrapnel was not enough to compensate for the more
rapid fire and greatly reduced target the breech-loader enabled the
Prussians to expose, and time was thus gained for the latter's wings
to arrive.
Generally, throughout the campaign, if the two Infantries had
been equally well armed, the chances are great that the Prussian
flanking corps would always have arrived too late to avert disaster,
as did indeed happen at Trautenau. The Austrians were throughout
handled in conventional fashion, ignoring the change in the time
factor introduced, not by the breech-loader qtid breech-loader, but
in the fact that it was present on one side only, and not on both.
In the Franco-German War, though now both armies possessed
a breech-loader, the difference in the power of the weapons was
greater than perhaps has existed between any European armies in
history, but, unfortunately for the French, they entirely ignored the
nature of the advantage their superior weapon conferred. It would
have been better for them had they ignored the weapon in their
tactics altogether, and fought almost precisely as they had fought
in the old Napoleonic days, and did fight at Solferino, for their mis-
takes would rapidly have corrected themselves ; and though they
would certainly never have succeeded in overrunning the Prussians
with cold steel as they overran the Austrians, yet at whatever distance
their rush would have been stopped, the men would have flung them-
selves down and fired, and with the far flatter trajectory and greater
rapidity of fire the chassepot possessed, they would have had every
chance of beating down their opponents' fire-power sufficiently to
allow of their further advance under the impulsion of their following
columns. It would have been bloody work, and very unscientific,
but probably would have proved efficacious.
Had they studied the question from our present standpoint,
they would doubtless have seen that the possession of a longer-
range weapon and of a shrapnel shell, imperfect though the
latter was, gave them, as long as they fought on the offensive,
the power of choosing their own preparatory ranges. At 3000 and
1 500 yards their gunners had decidedly the best of it (a fact of
which the Prussians were well aware), and at 500 the spread of
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 107
their infantry projectiles was probably about one-tenth of that
of the needle-gun bullets. A first artillery position at 3000 yards,
followed by an infantry preparation at 500, which distance they
could have reached with almost nominal loss from infantry fire,
would have enabled them to secure the degree of fire superiority
on which all subsequent advance depends ; and had the French
Infantry once felt their own power of attack, their following masses
would have proved hard indeed to stop. But, unfortunately for
them, theory stepped in at the critical moment to deprive them of
the surest guarantee of success their nation possesses, viz. the
extraordinary energy with which they have always attacked.
The ruling idea which prevailed before the War amongst the
highest circles as to the use of the new weapon, emanated from an
engineer, Marshal Niel, and the school of fortress Warfare. Trusting
to the great increase in the rapidity of its fire, the Infantry were to
await the attack of the enemy behind entrenchments, overwhelm
him with bullets, and then charge out in counter-attack with the
bayonet ; and this unfortunate conception paralysed French strategy
from the outset, for in order always to be ready to fire, they had to
abandon all the secrets of mobility they had acquired during the
Revolution and under Napoleon, and go back to the methods of
marching, camping, and entrenching, which had characterised the
Warfare of the previous century.
At the very moment when a vigorous offensive might have
overwhelmed the Prussians, still in process of concentration, as,
indeed, Moltke seems to have anticipated in his orders to the First
and Second Army from the ist to 3rd August, they were marching
about from one entrenched camp to another, wasting the time and
energy which should have been devoted to advancing in digging
trenches, which only rivetted them more firmly to the ground.*
The fundamental cause of the French collapse in the opening
period of the campaign has been very generally ignored in all
English accounts of the War. Yet it is essential that it should
be known, if the true lessons the campaign teaches are to be
apprehended. At the time the Prussian official history was
compiled, it was not politic to tell all that was known, and even
now some links in the chain are still wanting.
The French had been in secret communication with both Austria
and Italy for some months previously, and had elaborated a gigantic
scheme of campaign, in which all three powers were to co-operate.
How far negotiations with Italy had proceeded I have never been
able to ascertain, but it is certain that Napoleon had planned his
* See the introductory chapters of the new French official history of the War for
details of these camps and precautions and the comments thereon.
io8 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
intended rapid irruption into south Germany in full reliance on the
appearance of an Austrian Army, which, joining him in Bavaria,
was to advance in combination with him upon Jena ; but the time
of the Prussian mobilisation had been most grievously miscalculated,
and long before even the French mobilisation had been completed,
it became evident that Austrian intervention would be too late.
With the hope of Austrian assistance went also all prospect of
Bavarian co-operation, and it would seem that the French secret
agents had in both cases allowed themselves to be most terribly
deceived as to the intensity of national feeling in both countries.
All hope of Austrian co-operation had not been abandoned on
the 1st August, and it was evidently in order to show that he, at
least, was resolute to carry out his part of the contract that the
movements of the French Rhine Army, which culminated in the
engagement at Saarbrlicken on the 2nd August, were initiated.
This, however, was even less than a half-measure, and the
French official account asks why, if the troops were to move at all,
the bull was not seized by the horns, and every available corps, four
in all and the Guard, concentrated at once upon the German First
Army, which stood for the moment isolated, and could not expect
support from the Second Army till the 3rd August at the earliest.
The German commentators on this suggestion seem to think
that nothing would have suited their purpose better, but they
cannot get over the fact that the First Army would have had to
face odds of two to one at the least, nor do they, very naturally,
take the same view of the moral and political consequences which
must have accrued to the French from gaining a first victory.
Undoubtedly, in the long run, better organisation and superior
numbers must have told in the German favour ; but Germany
was not as yet consolidated by success, and probably if a referendum
for and against union, under the leadership of Prussia, had been
possible the majority for the latter before the War would not have
been large. Even within the Army the men had not yet shaken
down. The proportion of reservists to men with the Colours was
very high. Officers had not yet found themselves with the War-
strength companies, or in the new places into which mobilisation
had flung them, and if such scenes as Meckel relates in the
" Midsummer Night's Dream," and Hoenig in the " Fighting round
the Quarries of Rozerieulles on the i8th August," actually did occur,
it does not need much imagination to picture what would have been
the consequences of a thorough defeat and energetic pursuit.
That Moltke was not unaware of the risk is evident from the
precautions he ordered to cover the critical moment during which,
owing to the difficulties of the passage through the defiles of the
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. IC9
Hardt, the First Army would remain unsupported. But, curiously,
whilst one of these, viz. the advance of the Third Army on the
31st July, could not be immediately carried out, as its concentration
was not yet sufficiently advanced, the second one, which involved a
defensive attitude for the Germans, would have given the French
the very opportunity they most needed for developing the full
power of their superior long-ranging infantry weapon.
Why was not this opportunity seized ? The answer can only be
that the French Army, from the highest to lowest, had forgotten
what War for existence really entails. Siege work in the Crimea,
detachment service in Algiers, and the dilatory ineptitude of the
Austrians in Italy, had all alike contributed to make them forget
the value of time — in other words, mobility — and the absolute need
for " driving energy" on the part of the commanders. It is true that
their mobilisation had been slow, and stores were still deficient,
but men, rifles, and ammunition were on the spot, and with these
available, the very critical nature of the whole position, political
and military, would have impelled a great commander to take
great risks.
Let the reader turn to the lists of deficiencies in men and
material given in the pages of the French official, compare them
with the state almost of destitution which existed in Napoleon's
Army of Reserve in 1 8co, or even with the condition of affairs in
the Grand Army on the Rhine in 1805, and ask himself whether
Napoleon the Great would have allowed his initiative to be lamed
by such trifling excuses. Water-bottles, flannel bandages — pre-
sumably cholera belts — and ambulances may be useful accessories
to efficiency, but they are not indispensable, for, with a great
leader at their head, men have marched to victory even shoeless
and ragged.
This same forgetfulness of the teaching of War appears on every
page of this new official account, and points most clearly to the
need of the thorough organisation of a teaching organ in every
peace-trained army. With the actual instructions issued from
headquarters to the troops there is not much fault to be found —
vigilance, reconnaissances, all were ordered, but the form in which
they were ordered suggests that everybody knew how these things
should have been carried out, whereas, in fact, the whole spirit of
the old Revolutionary and Napoleonic traditions on these matters
had entirely faded out of the lower ranks.
When Napoleon, through Berthier, told one of his marshals
" to show his Cavalry," the latter knew at once what to do. He
massed all his light horse and dragoons together, and sent them
miles ahead towards the enemy, to find out and report what was
no THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY,
going on. In 1870, when the " Major-General " * issued the same
instruction, independent cavalry regiments trotted a few miles
towards the frontier and returned.
Similarly, when in the old Imperial armies orders were issued
to institute an intelligence service, every one at once knew what to
do — the Marshals knew where to look for experienced officers, and
the latter knew how to deal with spies and question inhabitants.
In 1870, no one, when called on, seems to have had any idea of his
work at all, as a perusal of the reports sent in will abundantly
show. They do not seem to have known where the enemy's corps
were originally quartered, what railways led from thence to the
frontier, or how long they would take by these lines to traverse a
given distance. Hence, they were entirely at the mercy of camp
rumour, which even an ordinary tourist's guide-book would have
sufficed to explode.
Thus, quite at the commencement of the concentration, a
rumour sprang up in the French right wing that a Prussian army
of anything up to 80,000 men was collecting at Lorrach, an obscure
little village on the Rhine between Basle and Schaffhausen, served
only by a single line, which in those days ran only to Constance,
and had no through communication with Bavaria at all, and still
less with Prussia. No one stopped to inquire as to how the
Prussian army could have arrived there without wings, but the
story was passed on from office to office till it reached head-
quarters, where, to do them justice, they gave it no more attention
than its importance deserved ; but another, equally groundless, and
far easier to disprove, had the means at hand been employed,
seems to have exercised a very considerable influence on the minds
of the French chiefs.
There is a little place called Duttweiler, some fifteen miles
north of Saarbriicken, and not in direct railway communication
with any portion of Germany at all — a more unlikely spot for a
great concentration it would be almost impossible to imagine.
About the fourth or fifth day of mobilisation, a relay post of
cavalry, an N.C.O., and a few troopers for forwarding despatches
was established there by the Prussians, and the rumour of their
presence, gathering weight as it went, soon reached the frontier,
where it was picked up by the French intelligence officers in the
form of a " great gathering of the enemy," " 40,000 Prussian troops,"
and so on till it reached the portentous number of 100,000, and in
this form duly reached headquarters, frightening every one as it
went ; and its influence seems to me plainly traceable in the
reports of all officers except the few who were in actual possession
* It will be noted that the title of* Major-General " had survived.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, iii
of the Emperor's ideas of co-operation with the Austrians. All
through the days this rumour circulated, the French cavalry were
at hand in overwhelming superiority ; it needed only the advance of
a single division to have cleared up the situation, yet not a man
was moved, though certainty on this point was at least most
desirable.
A word or two on the question of the map supply may here be
interpolated. It was not the case that the country had not been
mapped, as is generally supposed ; on the contrary, it had been
surveyed very completely, and the sheets of the 8ir>wir n^^P) which
can still be purchased, must have been available somewhere. But
these sheets appear to have been treated as highly confidential, for
I find a covering letter printed in the correspondence notifying the
despatch of three copies to each corps commander, with a note
that if the number is insufficient, more will be supplied ; but from
the rest of the book I gather that practically, until these three
copies arrived, the only maps available to the officers on the spot
were those in the private possession of General Ducrot, command-
ing a division in the ist corps, who knew the country so well that
he hardly needed one, and some rough lithographs, carelessly
traced from Reymann's 3 6o,^oU "^^P ^^ central Europe, which was
on sale at the time in nearly every bookseller's shop in the con-
tinent, with a copy of which, purchased in 1864, I have since
repeatedly gone over the ground and found it, for its scale wonder-
fully reliable ; but even the guide-books and railway maps
contained very reasonable information, had it only occurred to the
French officers to buy them. As an instance that even on the
Prussian side maps were not always forthcoming, may be cited
the case given by Von Verdy du Vernois in his " Study of the
Events on the Frontier from the 17th July to 2nd August, 1870,"
in which he states that it was impossible to find a map of the
district around Saarbriicken for the guidance of the young officer
charged with the destruction of the railway near Saargemiind,
distant not ten miles away, although the regiment to which he
belonged had been quartered in the town for years before the
War.
A word is still wanting to explain the conditions of the
transport and supply arrangements on both sides at the commence-
ment of hostilities. Both armies started with the intention, derived
from previous Napoleonic experiences, of "making War support
War," as far, at any rate, as was possible. In other words, they
meant to work the requisition system for all it was worth ; but
both had lost the spirit and practice which alone renders it
practicable.
112 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
The French troops arrived in their positions almost destitute
of commissariat waggons and horses, and immediately proceeded
to select all the most suitable of each from the country-side to
supply their deficiencies. For the most part they also drew their
food from the same sources, but, except locally, they had not nearly
exhausted it when the German advance began.
The latter now commenced to requisition on what they
believed to be the Napoleonic method. Each commander, as
he arrived, took not only all that he needed, but, to be on the
safe side, two or three days' supplies, with horses and carts to
convey them in addition ; his successor on the road did the same,
till presently every column was accompanied by a crowd of vehicles
and driven cattle, which were constantly breaking down, and
generally in everybody's way. The old Grand Army had known
better than that, for, by long experience, its intendants knew just
how much the combatant generals would tolerate, and dreaded the
Emperor's displeasure if they exceeded. But to the German
generals this experience was new, and they did now know when
to intervene, till the evil reached such a climax, that it is gravely
stated in a monograph by the General Staff in Berlin on the
supply of their army during 1870,* that had the French not
already cleared off a considerable proportion of the available
transport, it is doubtful whether Gravelotte could ever have been
fought, since, as it was, the block of vehicles in the defiles leading
up out of the Moselle valley was so intolerable that the movement
of the troops, and particularly of ammunition columns, was most
seriously interfered with.
There were yet some other points on the German side which
require to be dealt with before a correct general idea of the
conditions under which the two armies faced one another on
the frontiers can be arrived at. The War came upon that nation
absolutely as a " bolt from the blue," and though everything that
foresight could devise had been arranged and provided for, this
suddenness engendered an outbreak of nerves throughout the Army,
which, had the French availed themselves of their superior cadres
and struck at once, might have proved most prejudicial.
Von Verdy du Vernois' * Studies,' etc., above alluded to, is the
authority to be consulted on this head, and from his pages it is
evident that a very large number of persons along the frontiers
completely lost their heads, and saw French armies advancing
where no armies could be. The wave of enthusiasm which
passed over the country as the reservists fell in and entrained
* • Studien zur Kriegsgeschichte,' No. I. Das Franzosischen Fuhrwesen zur begrinn
des Krieges 1870-71.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 113
at the stations not only led to an incredible consumption of beer
and liquors, which affected most prejudicially the marching
qualities of the troops during the first few days (the Prussian
official explicitly refers to the matter), but the resulting noise and
confusion at the entraining stations caused the railway officials
to lose their heads, and after the first forty-eight hours the
carefully arranged time-tables broke down, and the trains were
forwarded as they came to hand. This was never officially
admitted, but it was a fact well known to all our railway people,
who have means of finding out these things, very soon after the
event. The matter is of importance, for us, because for many years,
indeed, long after our Indian railways had beaten the German
record of transportation in 1870, we were still officially taught to
regard the German figures of twelve to eighteen trains a day for a
single, and twenty-four for a double, line of railway as the safe
maximum attainable.
Another trouble, which, in the event of a sudden French
offensive, might have had most serious consequences, lay in the
overlapping of the headquarter system of intelligence with the local.
Whilst the former were, on the whole, kept well informed of events,
the latter were often entirely in the dark, and the evil was
aggravated by the constant supersession of the local commanding
officers by the arrival of superiors to take up their commands.
Instances of this are frequent in Von Verdy's pages. Thus at
noon on the 3rd August, we find Moltke telegraphing to find out
whether there really had been an engagement at Saarbriick on the
previous day or not. What might have happened had the French
boldly crossed the frontier may well be left to the imagination.
Finally, there is a lesson which may well be taken to heart, as
it reveals on how slight a thread the issues of Peace or War may
hang at critical moments. The officer commanding the cavalry
regiment on the extreme German right of the frontier mistook the
orders for mobilisation as orders for the commencement of hostilities,
and forthwith sent his men into French territory, where, before the
mistake was discovered, they had committed numerous acts of
hostilities. Actually the French forwarded a protest, but events
then marched so rapidly that nothing further was ever heard of the
matter. Imagine a similar error on the part of a hot-headed young
naval lieutenant in command of a submarine or destroyer, and
contemplate the possible consequences.
CHAPTER XII.
Moltke's memoir of 1869— Influence of universal service on the temper of the German
nation— Absence of confidence of the French nation in its leaders— German mis-
calculations—Errors in execution of Moltke's deployment — The Crown Prince and
Von Blumenthal— Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles— Events take the supreme
direction out of Moltke's hands— The German armies "fight themselves"—
"Readiness to assume responsibility/' the secret of their success— Want of this
readiness on the French side— The crisis of Gravelotte— Result of Clausewitz's
teaching — The Boer War and political considerations.
In marked distinction to the far-reaching plans of- campaign
formed by Napoleon III. — plans which should have eventuated in
a second Jena, but actually led him to Sedan — is Moltke's memoir,
prepared in the winter of 1868-69, on which the "strategical
deployment " of the German armies in 1870 was based.
Looking at the map of the Franco-German frontier, here — if
anywhere — one would have expected to find a subtle discussion of
the relative advantages and disadvantages of a re-entrant frontier
line — of double lines of operation, and all the other time-worn
jargon of the eighteenth-century school on which Hamley's
** Operations of War," for decades the text-book of the British
Army, is founded. In actual fact there is not a word about any of
these matters, and only in the words, " Only the layman who be-
lieves that he can trace throughout the course of the campaign, the
prosecution of an original plan arranged beforehand in all its details,"
can one detect an allusion to these time-worn shibboleths of our
military faith, which for so many years have confused the minds
of successive generations.
The whole problem is herein reduced within the limits of the
** knowable," and no step beyond the moment of collision is
allowed to influence the decision ; all efforts being limited to the
concentration of every available man, horse, and gun in three
armies within supporting distance one of the other, before the
enemy's possible action could interfere with either. With these
three armies in hand — then, broadly speaking, it did not matter
what the enemy did — numerical odds must settle the matter in the
German favour.
But this simplicity of action was not arrived at without risk of
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 115
great sacrifice of local and individual interests, and it is open to
question whether any other country, less trained to the considera-
tion of military problems, and hence not so ready to accept with-
out question the decision of the superior authority which alone
held full information, would have stood the strain.
All Germany south of Rastadt and two-thirds of the Palatinate
had to be denuded of their local garrisons, and for a fortnight at
least lay open to French incursion ; but not an editor raised his
voice. Imagine what would happen in this country if, with no
fleet to protect us, on the outbreak of War, our much-abused War
Office decreed the withdrawal of all our southern garrisons behind
a line drawn from Lincoln to London, and thence to Plymouth.
Ink, even red ink, would not suffice to convey the vitriolic abuse
of all responsible authority which would flow spontaneously from
every editorial sanctum in the three kingdoms. Yet, as a fact,
orders to this effect once — just a century ago — did lie dormant in
the pigeon-holes of the Horse Guards, and would again become
necessary if the fleet should fail us. But would any Government
in these days of an enlightened, but undisciplined, democracy dare
to incur the odium of their issue ? The pages of the recent Royal
Commission relative to the occupation of Dundee, with its sequel,
Talana Hill, suffice to convey the answer.
The French, on their side, had no such confidence in constituted
authority, and from the very first their leaders did not dare to take
steps which their military judgment approved, for fear of the people
behind them. Once it had become apparent that the troops were
not fit to assume the offensive, a withdrawal and concentration to
the southward — even if it went as far as the Paris-Belfort railway —
was the only safe course open to them. The Germans could not
have marched on Paris leaving the French Field Army intact upon
their flank, and, to follow the latter up with safety, would have had
to make considerable detachments to mask Metz and Strassburg,
which would have gone far to redress the balance of numerical
superiority in favour of the French. The sacrifices such a move
would have entailed would have been no greater than those which
the Germans had already risked, but so far were they from being
-capable of such resolution, that they actually forbore even to
attempt to seize the openings the Germans gave them, and
maintained their troops in a long disseminated line parallel with
the frontier, some time after the need of concentration had become
apparent and had indeed been repeatedly discussed.
This was where the influence of Scharnhorst's system and
Clausewitz's subsequent work first made itself felt. On the one
hand, an Army which only the personal magnetism of Napoleon
ii6 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
the Great could have moved ; on the other, a Nation in arms, which
proved itself manageable by very ordinary men. On the one
hand, a system so sacrificed to intense individualism that no two
commanders could act in unison ; on the other, individuality so
trained and subordinated by a common education that, in spite of
an almost total absence of anything approaching genius, the sum of
individual intelligence and good will overcame the internal resistance
of the machine, and, in spite of mistakes and imperfections in the
subordinate commanders, always ended by bringing a sufficient
numerical superiority to bear on the decisive points.
Had we focussed our attention on this one point, a sound
national military education, instead of disseminating it over minutiae
of tactical forms, spiked helmets, and other trifles, we might have
been spared many a disillusionment on the South African veldt.
Broad and simple though the foundations were on which the
subsequent operations of the Germans were based, they were not
filled in without considerable misunderstandings and shortcomings,
indications of which may be read between the lines of the Prussian
official history, and though much may be gleaned to elucidate these
aberrations from the pages of subsequent writers, e.g. Cardinal von
Widdern and Von Verdy, much remains to be explained, the truth
about which will never be known until it is revealed on what data
Moltke actually based his estimate of the rate of a possible French
advance.
It all seems to me to turn on this point, viz. that the French Army,
being ready in men, guns, horses, and cartridges, and deficient only
in cholera belts, water-bottles, cooking-tins, etc., would they elect to
wait for the latter, or resolve to strike, as they had so often done
before, without them.
To adopt the latter alternative needed a " man," and a great
one. But did the Prussians really know that no such leader was
forthcoming, and if so, who told them } For this is always the
most difficult point to arrive at. It is easy to collect data as to
numbers, arms, and equipment ; but it needs an equal, if not a
greater, mind, and also opportunities, to estimate correctly the force
of a possible antagonist's leadership. The French Marshals were
all practical soldiers, with far more War experience than any of
the Prussians could boast. Who were the Prussians who summed
them all up with such certainty as to be ready to stake the fate
of their country on their opinion. It is quite certain that no junior
officer's report could have been taken in a matter of such importance.
Yet Moltke's opportunities had been of the briefest, and his
confidence in his power of diagnosing the potential capacity of a
possible antagonist must have been great indeed if he accepted
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 117
the risk with no better security. Possibly he was helped in his
judgment both by Bismarck and the King, who had each enjoyed
far ampler means of forming their opinions — but in what pro-
portion the merit of this correct estimate is to be assigned I know
of no written evidence to justify an opinion. Little less marvellous
was the accuracy with which he gauged the executive powers of his
own subordinates, though, as above pointed out, they mostly fell
short of his demands.
The concentration did not work out with the precision he had
expected, and if one of his commanders failed in energy, the latter
by excess of that quality completely took the leadership for the
moment out of Moltke's hands.
The first case occurred on the 30th July, when, in view of the
possibility of the French taking advantage of the temporarily
exposed position of the First Army, orders were sent to the Third
Army to assume the offensive next morning. Now it is only
reasonable to suppose that no such demand would have been
made by Molke, had it appeared from the original time-tables,
drawn up under his supervision, that the obstacles to movement
would be insuperable. But the Crown Prince, in reply, alleged the
unreadiness of his command, by reason of the absence of his
trains ; and his Cavalry division was, as a fact, not cissembled as a
unit till the morning of the 4th August. Blumenthal, Chief of the
Staff to the Crown Prince, was not a man to make unnecessary
difficulties, and since he had to deal with two Bavarian corps, cis
well as the Baden and Wiirtemberg divisions, whose organisation
was very far from being as perfect as the Prussians, the impediment
to movement may have been very great indeed. Still it is difficult
to believe that with the driving energy of a great leader the friction
could not have been overcome ; at any rate, here is a point well
worth the attention of future historians. Could the Crown Prince,
on the evening of the 30th July, have put together a force of
all arms capable of offensive action in the course of the 31st?
If it was feasible, as I believe it was, then the Crown Prince stands
condemned of want of energy. If it was not, then Moltke, Von
Verdy, Von Blumenthal, and the Crown Prince must all of them
have made mistakes in their several positions — Moltke in ordering
what he should have known was impracticable in its entirety ; von
Verdy in not pointing out that partial compliance was better than
none at all ; and the two latter in refusing all obedience and giving
an untenable excuse.
The contretemps in the case of the First Army was of a more
serious nature, and exercised very wide-reaching influence on the
subsequent course of the campaign.
ii8 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
Steinmetz's command consisted of the Vllth, Vlllth, and 1st
Army Corps, and the two former being close at hand, headquarters
Cologne and Coblentz respectively, were the first Prussian troops,
other than the weak frontier guard, to arrive within striking distance
of the French, their mission being to assume the offensive should
the French attempt an attack upon the heads of the columns of
the Second Army whilst these were emerging from the defiles
of the Haardt.
When, on the 2nd August, the French attacked Saarbriick, it
was considered by the Headquarter Staff that this movement could
only be a prelude to a further offensive against the Second Army,
whose position for the moment was exceedingly critical. The First
Army was therefore moved somewhat to the eastward into can-
tonments, which not only brought them nearer to the enemy,
but across the high-roads reserved for the special use of the Second
Army in the case of its further advance.
This point appears to have entirely escaped the attention of
headquarters, for Steinmetz's positions were approved, and he was
told to stand fast in them until at length the advancing columns
of the Second Army invaded their bivouacs and a brisk interchange
of telegrams took place.
It appears that it was the temper of Prince Frederick Charles
which gave way first, for he sent a positive order to the offending
division to clear out of his way, couched in language which he had
absolutely no right to employ to any one not under his immediate
command.
Steinmetz's report and request for instructions was quite
moderate in tone, though, as a fact, he was intensely annoyed,
for he saw in Prince Frederick Charles' attempt to squeeze him
out of the fighting-line an unsoldierlike desire to assert his royal
prerogative at a comrade's expense, and the idea made him very
indignant, as it naturally would.
Possibly it was this indignation which prevented either him or
his staff from looking at the map carefully before he reported to
Von Moltke the impossibility of complying with the Prince's re-
quest, on the ground that the former cantonments of the Vllth
and Vlllth Corps had been filled up by recent arrivals of the 1st
Corps and 1st Cavalry division, and that further advance of the
Second Army would squeeze him out of the front altogether. In
reply, however, he only received a pre-emptory order to clear the
roads, and he proceeded to do so in a manner so characteristic of
the man that one marvels that Von Moltke had not anticipated
and vetoed the movement. All this took place on the morning of
the 5th August, and in the evening he issued orders which certainly
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 119
had the effect of clearing the roads at the places named, but also
placed the whole of the Vllth Corps in front of the Second Army as
a species of advance-guard, and it was the execution of these orders
that brought about the engagement of Spicheren next morning,
which, though a success for the Prussians, brought about hopeless
confusion in the advance of both First and Second Armies, which
took days to straighten out again.
Looking at the map, there seems not the slightest reason why
the First Army should not have gained ground enough for its
purposes by a short march south-westward, by the two roads lead-
ing respectively through Sierck and Saarlouis, and such a move-
ment would have placed them on the extreme French left in a
very good position for realising Moltke's original directions in
which he allowed himself to hope for the " eventual co-operation
of all three armies in a decisive battle ; " and probably this was
the solution of the difficulty Moltke had expected Steinmetz to
adopt ; but temper had evidently clouded the latter's judgment,
as happened again with such terrible results at Gravelotte, and a
miscalculation of the strength of his materials took the direction
out of Moltke's hands for many days.
For Moltke had undoubtedly calculated on utilising to the
utmost the defensive powers which he all his life attributed to the
breech-loader. His first idea had been a defensive position
against a possible French inroad in the vicinity of Baumholder,
Tholey, St. Wendel. Such a position had been already recon-
noitred by the staff, and doubtless he hoped by a strategic offensive
in the future to compel the French to attack him on ground of his
own choosing. But now events took charge, and the two victories
on the same day (at Spicheren and Woerth) so far broke what
remained of the offensive spirit of the French Army that they
never attacked again. The German cavalry spirit now asserted
itself, and within a few days they improvised a service of recon-
naissance which never gave the enemy time to recover himself,
threatened all their flanks, and compelled the following infantry
to attack if they wished to fight at all.
Given the offensive spirit which breathed in the ranks of the
whole Prussian Army, events must have followed one another much
as they actually did up to the battle of Gravelotte without any
further direction on the part of the Headquarter Staff. The
cavalry found the enemy and the nearest infantry commanders
conformed on their own initiative, and it is doubtful whether, with
the means of intercommunication then in use — field telegraphs were
very elementary judged by modem standards, and the whole
system for the circulation of information and dissemination of
120 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
orders still in a rudimentary condition — headquarter interference
with the troops in actual presence of the enemy would not have
done more harm than good, for, in as far as it was attempted, it
invariably arrived too late.
The new French official account, indeed, asks whether this is
strategy to let, as they phrase it, the movements of the enemy
dictate your operations ; but in this they seem to have misin-
terpreted the whole tendency of Clausewitz's school, which is,
primarily, to grow an army that can work itself in War the moment
the enemy develops sufficient resistance. A defeated army in
its own country has always greater freedom of operation than its
adversary ; at any rate, until driven up against the confines of its
territory, it can choose whether to run or fight, and superior mobility,
on a scale which can hardly exist as between European armies of
similar organisation, can alone deprive it of this freedom.
But this superiority was only obtainable by the Germans by
reason of their trained intelligence, which enabled them to act in
anticipation of orders. If the man on the spot had not attacked
at Borny (14th August) the moment he saw signs of withdrawal in
the French lines, I'Admirault's corps would have got clear across
the Moselle that night, and all the confusion in the streets of Metz
resulting from the fight, having been eliminated, either the whole
army less the garrison of Metz would have escaped altogether to
Chalons, or the pursuing Prussians would have found a fourfold
superiority at least against them on the i6th.
This readiness to accept responsibility in the junior commanders
no doubt often led the troops immediately at hand into almost
impossible situations ; as, for instance, at Vionville, and two days
later in the case of Manstein's premature attack on the French
camp at Amanvilliers, which took the whole conduct of the battle
of Gravelotte-St. Privat out of Moltke's hands ; but the same spirit
in their comrades alongside of them brought ready help, and at the
end of each day the balance of advantage remained with the
Germans, whilst on the other side its conspicuous absence robbed
the French of such chance of ultimate success as from time to time
the fortune of War disclosed to them.
If on the 1 6th August lAdmirault could have stifled all selfish
feelings and boldly assumed the responsibility the defeat of Wedell's
38th Brigade fairly thrust upon him, victory for that day was at
least secure. If on the i8th, I'Admirault, Frossard, and Le Boeuf,
without waiting for orders, could have backed one another up at
the climax of the fight so graphically described by Hoenig,* the
* • Twenty-four Hours of Moltke's Strategy,' translated by the late Colonel Walford,
R.x\. Published by the R. A. Institution, Woolwich.
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 121
ultimate decision of the campaign might have been delayed in-
definitely, for defeat to the German right wing at this juncture
would have meant little less than disaster.
But the chance was allowed to escape, and the resolution of the
German leaders, in shirking no losses to compel victory, had its
due reward.
It is interesting to consider what might have happened had the
nerve of either the King or Moltke failed after the engagement of
Vionville, and the French been allowed time to recover from their
first shock. To begin with, the French lay with upwards of
100,000 men concentrated over against the weakest wing of the
Germans, whose sufferings in the intense heat which prevailed on
the waterless plateau overlooking the Moselle must soon have
become acute. The troops of the French Army were still far from
being beaten, as the brilliant elan with which they made their
counter-attacks on the i8th, equal to anything they had ever done
in Napoleon's time sufficiently proves ; and there was nothing
intrinsically insuperable to prevent them attacking southward from
the direction of Plappeville with their Ilnd and Ilird Corps, whilst
the IVth, Vlth, and Guard marched down the defiles which led
to the valley of the Moselle, to Metz, and then debouching under
cover of the fire of St. Quentin, across the German communications,
fought their way through to Nancy.
The feasibility of such a movement has often been discussed
and approved for the two days following the battle of Gravelotte,
but, then, I submit the time had gone by, the block of transport
east of the defiles of Gorze had been removed, and the Germans
were morally improved by two brilliant victories* The chance
could only have come to the French had the latter faltered before
the decision. If once the leaders had shown weakness in presence
of the truly appalling losses of the i6th, 25 per cent, of the numbers
engaged, despondency would have been spread broadcast, and
100,000 men would no longer have sufficed to accomplish what
30,000 could safely have been trusted to undertake forty-eight
hours later.
From all this, however, Clausewitz's teaching saved them. With
every mind in the army, certainly in the commissioned ranks, con-
centrated on the true objective, " the enemy's field army," and on its
destruction, the work of finding, holding, and final crushing of that
army would have accomplished itself even without Moltke's initial
impulse — not that the battle need have taken the form it actually
did take, but the corps would have marched to the sound of the
guns, and no physical obstacle of distance or the ground intervening,
a twofold numerical superiority would have been bound to tell.
122 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
Southward, on the assumption indicated above, distance would have
prevented these numbers being brought to bear.
The redistribution of the German armies after Gravelotte, and
the allotment to them of their tasks, was more a matter of organisa-
tion, and certainly called for nothing in the nature of genius.
There was still a field army to be hunted down, and the steps to
find it were quite obvious. When at length its position was with
certainty established, the change of front to the right grew naturally
out of the situation, and only resolution to demand the utmost out
of the marching troops was needed to complete the design. It is
here that weaker leaders would have faltered ; they would have
complained that the discipline of their men was being destroyed
by these unheard-of exertions, that stragglers were dropping behind
by the thousand, that the men were physically too exhausted to
stand up to an enemy, and so forth, in the way irresolute sub-
ordinates always have done since the beginning of time, as, indeed,
their own forefathers had complained over this very ground not
eighty years before (Valmy, 1793) ; but the younger generation
had learnt its lesson better, and knew that endurance on the march
was strategically at least equal to courage in face of the enemy.*
It would take me far beyond the limits of my space to attempt
to unravel the movements of the contending forces subsequent to
Sedan. Moreover, the work as regards the operations on the
Loire has already been most brilliantly done by Lieut-Colonel
Lonsdale Hale, R.E., in his 'People's War in France.' All ap-
proach to equality in fighting value between the two combatants
had so completely disappeared that the Germans could accept
battle with confidence in any and every position, practically un-
troubled by such questions as lines of retreat.
Numbers, indeed, played again for the French somewhat the
same part as they had done in the days of the first Revolution ;
but there was no longer the same driving force of inflamed public
feeling ready and able to send unsuccessful leaders to the guillotine,
and the nation itself had not the same incentive to endurance
which had animated their ancestors. They did not want to be
beaten by a race they despised as they despised the Germans, but
they did not care as individuals to make the sacrifices by which
alone success could be reconquered.
Over and over again a little more persistence in their efforts
might have placed the Germans in most critical situations, but the
disciplined endurance of the latter held them together against
losses and sufferings to which new levies could not be expected to
* See Prince Hohenlohe's admirable description of the march to Sedan in his
* Letters on Strategy.'
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 123
stand up. The Germans "made the best practicable use of the
material at hand to the attainment of the object in view," and this
is Moltke's definition of the "Art of War," in other words,
•' Strategy."
Judged by the same standard, our strategy in the Boer War
was equally justified by ultimate success, whereas that of the
Boers emphatically was not. Had they understood the full value
of the mobile material at their disposal, we ought to have been
swept into the sea within three weeks of the outbreak of hostilities,
and whether under the special circumstances of the case we
could ever have reconquered our positions, every one may attempt
to decide for himself. Given, however, the defective mobility of
our own material, it seems to me difficult to find fault with the use
we made of it, and the various excuses put forward by the several
actors in the campaign before the Royal Commission seem to me
only so many attempts to justify common-sense action, and to
bring it into line with preconceived theory.
Political considerations from the first forced the soldier's hands,
but each within his own sphere of action dealt with emergencies
as they arose, and in so far as he failed, failed only by reason
of the defective material — defective only in point of mobility — with
which he had been supplied. Until our politicians and generals
took to washing their dirty linen in public, the Berlin critics con-
sidered the conduct of the Dundee detachment and the occupation
of Ladysmith as altogether admirable. Our troops, until the
arrival of adequate reinforcements, were clearly in a desperate
situation, but as long as it was possible they hit out and inflicted
punishment on their enemy ; then the occupation of Ladysmith
drew the attention of the Boers away from the seaboard, where the
decision actually lay, and, thanks to the stores already accumulated
in that place, time was gained for sufficient reinforcements to arrive.
More was not necessary, and if the conduct of operations on our
own part seemed a little slow, well, they remembered Moltke's
remark that " English officers did not go to the front in first-class
carriages," and made all due allowances. Even our tactical errors
they condoned until we ourselves began to criticise. Colenso
would have passed as a simple reconnaissance in force which failed
in its purpose — no unusual thing in War — had we but taken the
matter as all in the day's work and said nothing about it. But
when the storm of recrimination burst out, and every one began
to give his reasons, the bottom fell out of the whole concern, and
foreigners learnt with amazement the extraordinary ineptitude of
our whole system of military education.
CHAPTER XIII.
The object of military education— The "spirit of the age" — Influence of numbers on
degree of literal obedience required — The true purpose of our armaments— The
•* strategy " of the eighteenth century doomed — Influence of superior mobility —
Steps necessary to secure it — The training of infantry to spade work — Improved
means of transport on roads — Supply of provisions — Co-operation of business men —
Our danger in War-time from the ** unemployed " — The dangers from the Press —
How to combat them — The purpose of a Great General Staff — Importance of training
in the writing of orders — Decentralisation and its safe limits — Concluding reflections.
If strategy be correctly defined as " the art of the leader," what
possible use can there be in trying to teach the subject to last-
joined subalterns or cadets, few of whom, in the nature of things,
can ever hope to apply such knowledge ? More or less in this form
the question is constantly put, even by men of experience, who
have been absorbing strategy themselves all their lives, without
being aware of the process.
The answer is that the great soldier, unlike the ordinary artist,
works with living materials, not dead ones, and if these materials
do not meet his desires half-way by ready and intelligent obedience,
his difficulties may rapidly rise to the insurmountable. But intelli-
gent obedience can only be rendered by men who not only
understand their own position in the machinery, but whose imagi-
nations have been trained to apprehend the cumulative effects of
many almost infinitesimal deviations from the line of conduct laid
down by regulations, and thus to realise the need for exactitude
and punctuality in all things which lies at the very root of all
military undertakings. Nowadays, wilful disobedience or neglect
of orders is so rare as to be hardly noticeable, but it needs very
little acquaintance with contemporary military literature to see how
incredibly great is the difficulty of moving large bodies of men,
because the habit of precise and accurate obedience has been
largely lost, and every one tries to exercise his independent
intelligence.
Those who saw the different types of soldiers working side-by-
side in South Africa — regulars, militia, colonials, and the latter-day
levies — will understand what I mean, and all will, I think, admit
that, even with the best of them, the punctual movement of masses
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 125
under the conditions of congestion prevalent in Europe — 60,000
men on a single road, for instance — would have been almost
impossible, not for want of good will, but because the "little
things " which go to reduce friction in an army, and whose presence
or absence only asserts itself in large concentrations, had grown
rusty by disuse in time of peace.
The " spirit of the age," i.e. the opinion of the average half-
penny newspaper reader, is all against what it regards as useless
pedantry, simply because its education has been neglected, and it is
unable to realise conditions it has never seen ; and in deference
thereto, discipline in " little things " is relaxed, until the maintenance
of punctuality and order becomes well-nigh impossible, and the
mobility of the whole Army suffers because the effect of even
apparently trifling irregularities is cumulative in a ratio more nearly
geometric than arithmetical.
The great difficulty, however, of getting these things regulated,
eliminating the useless pedantry and retaining all that is good, lies
in the fact that the exact amount of attention to detail requisite,
varies not only with the numbers engaged but with the theatre in
which the operations take place, and deviations from the regulations,
perfectly practicable and sensible in the Boer War, would, in fact,
be found fatal if tolerated in Europe.
What is most required at the present moment is a definite
pronouncement from the highest quarter as to the purpose for
which our military forces are maintained. What such pronounce-
ment might be I have, of course, no better means of knowing
than the ** man in the street ; " but assuming it to be based on
a study of our evolutionary history, I think there can be little
doubt of what it ought to be, and I should phrase it somewhat as
follows : —
"The land forces of this Empire exist for the purpose of
compelling any possible enemy or enemies to submit to our will.
" The fleet alone cannot accomplish this object, because
* ironclads cannot climb hills.' Hence we need an organisation
capable of very great expansion, and regulations — tactical,
logistical, etc. — capable of enabling the Army, this organisation,
to meet any European army or part of it in its own country on
equal terms."
Defeat in a great European War would probably lead to
disaster. Defeats such as Maiwand, Isandlwana, Magersfontein,
etc., hardly ruffle the surface of the Empire's existence. Hence our
regulations must be adapted to meet the greatest strain that can
be put upon them. If they are well adapted for that purpose, it
signifies little if they work a little stififly in smaller ones. In any
126 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY,
case, no one regulation, whether for drill, training, equipment, or
clothing, can possibly be equally well adapted for all purposes,
therefore let us choose the highest, and leave it to the judgment
and intelligence of the " man on the spot " to adjust himself to his
surroundings, but do not gibbet him in the public press if he takes
a few weeks and loses some lives in the process.
The regulations of all sorts in vogue in all European armies
thirty years ago were the outcome of centuries of nearly continuous
Warfare, and, eliminating the accretions due to more or less pro-
longed periods of peace, they were undeniably well suited to the
conditions under which War was then waged.
Neither Napoleon's or Blucher's men carried a superfluous
shirt or boot in 1814, and if, according to our present lights, the
loads, both on man and horse, appear excessive, it is because we
have not had the experience of prolonged marching campaigns to
bring home to us just how much it pays to make the individual
carry when moving in very large bodies.
Since those days, however, and more particularly in the last
thirty years, through the invention and development of the telegraph,
motor-car, in its various forms, etc., the means of intercommunica-
tion between the man at the front and the intermediate depots has
increased to such a degree that it seems to me that the time is ripe
for a complete overhaul of every weight carried, with a view to
their reduction to the lowest possible terms which the technical
skill of the country warrants, for, as I have endeavoured to establish
in all my foregoing chapters, as between troops of equal fighting
value, mobility is the ultimate deciding factor.
The days of eighteenth century tricks and stratagems are past
and done with. In Europe, at any rate, there is no longer room to
indulge in them. The essence of successful leadership in future
will be — after the strategic deployment, in which forethought,
not leadership, is the main point, is completed — a rapid and
sustained advance which will overrun all opposition by its very
momentum. Napoleon's march to Jena, in 1806, is the prototype;
he made mistakes, and glaring ones, but the rapidity of all his
movements left his opponents no time to profit by them.
I have specified Jena, but, indeed, any one of his campaigns
would suit my purpose equally well, for if military history teaches
anything, it is that ordered mobility must tell. The army that
every day reaches points five miles further in advance than its
adversary expects, so completely upsets its plans and destroys his
" moral " that victory follows almost as a matter of course.
When armies are stationary, rumour is equally rife in both,
generally equally fantastic. From the 17th July to 4th August,
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 127
1870, there is little to choose between the wild-cat yams current in
either camp. Both saw armies where there were none, but the
moment the Germans gathered momentum, the wild-cat stories
ceased until, during the siege operations round Paris, their move-
ment came to a standstill, when rumour again asserted its power,
as Colonel Lonsdale Hale, in his ' People's War in France ' has
so admirably shown ; and so it will always be, for the cause has its
roots deep down in human nature, and no inventions of science can
ever prevail against it.
To attain this excess of speed, which alone guarantees against
uncertainty and panic, every effort will have to be strained, and, in
my opinion, the nation that first organises all its resources to the
attainment of the highest collective mobility will enter a campaign
with at least five chances to four in its favour. Now, all modern
inventions applicable to transport purposes on land depend
primarily on good roads, and their maintenance is chiefly a question
of adequate manual labour power. No technical knowledge is of any
service unless pick and shovel are available in capable hands for
execution. As a first step, therefore, I would train every dis-
mounted man in the Army to sustained and heavy, excavating
work — not merely the execution of fiddling little shelter-trenches,
but honest navvies' work, precisely as the sapper recruit is, and
always has been, trained at Chatham. What is wanted is strong
back-muscles and horny hands, which can put in eight hours' work
at a stretch without needing EUiman's embrocation to cure the
aches and pains ; and in securing this standard for the Army, I
should also rid it of its worst recruiting agent, the dissatisfied
reservist, who cannot keep a job because he has never learnt that it
is within his power to stick to one. If England is not big enough
for such training, then I would lend the battalions as units to
Canada, the Cape, and Rhodesia, who would gladly pay them
good working pay to help to develop their resources. Such work
would not be unpopular, for it would be both healthy and useful ;
and I have never myself seen a working party, either at home or in
India, that did not develop a wholesome pride in its task as soon
as its purpose was made obvious to them.
Having thus got the means of both making and maintaining
the communications I needed or might need, I would next turn
my attention to the different types of motor service required. The
modem steam or oil "lorry," weighing, fully loaded, about four
tons, would follow up my cavalry divisions, conveying all their spare
gear — reserve ammunition and the men's food. The horses must
still fend for themselves, since the weight and bulk of forage
supplies cannot by any known process be materially reduced ; but
128 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
whereas a cavalry which, owing to its carrying lo stone of dead
weight, can only sweep over an area, say, 50 x lo miles a day, one
with only 5 stone could cover, with an equal exertion, 75 x 20,
and the chances of the latter for picking up adequate corn and hay
would be directly as the areas swept over, i.e. as 3 to i.
Again, in proportion as you can move the faster, the amount of
ammunition needed to effect a given purpose is reduced, for excess
of pace enables you to choose your target ; and as the Boer War
sufficiently shows, if the skill is there to utilise the speed, each
bullet has a tenfold better chance of finding a useful billet than
when the opportunity of selecting the target is denied you. Where
a slow-moving, half-trained mounted-infantry unit would hardly be
able to defend itself with 150 rounds a man, a smart cavalry unit,
able to round its adversary up, would be amply supplied with only
thirty rounds, a saving of dead weight to the horse of at least half
a stone, and the same principle works through all three arms, in
proportion as the mobility exists and the skill to employ it.
No nation requires to study this point more closely than we, for,
by the nature of the case, we shall have to improvise enormous
armies. I estimate them for the first line at no less than a million,
and no country has anything like the same difficulties as regards
horse supply to anticipate — not on the score of transport across the
"narrow seas" — this, perhaps, would hardly matter — but simply
because the true roadster is practically extinct, and the ''bus"
horse, our sheet-anchor in South Africa, is doomed.
It is almost a commonplace in modern continental works,
dealing with the conduct of the monster armies of the day, and
particularly in German ones, to find the food supply of the men
treated as the limiting condition — indeed, the almost insuperable
one, but I confess I cannot share this view. Thanks to the
progress of scientific investigation, the art of the preservation of
foods in a raw state, reduced in bulk and weight by desiccation, has
reached such a pitch that the question no longer possesses any
practical difficulty. I have myself seen and practically lived on
rations of mixed meat and vegetables, of which eight days' supply
weighs only one pound, so that a single mule would carry, pack-
saddle included, a day's rations for a War-strength battalion, or a
<single lorry, loading up two tons, and capable of moving forty miles
on a decent road in eight hours, about 32,000 rations, or enough
for a cavalry division of 2000 sabres for nearly a fortnight ; and
therefore anticipate but little trouble on that particular head. But
even setting this on one side, and considering the problem solely on
the basis of existing data, I cannot help thinking that even if the
armies of the present day, which may be put in on one field, have
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
grown to be almost ten times as numerous as those in Napoleon's
time, the means of distribution, including roads, and of conveying
orders and instruction, i.e. the telegraph, telephone, etc., have
increased their efficiency in even greater proportion.
It is one of the difficulties of all armies, more or less — rather more
in our case, owing to our particular conditions — that the soldier drifts
out of touch with civil life almost in precise proportion as he rises
in the service, and thus fails to appreciate the astounding develop-
ment civilian distribution services have attained, and I would
suggest that an ambitious young Staff College candidate could
make no better use of his time than by spending a few weeks of
his leave in studying the methods of the traffic departments of our
great railways, or the parcels delivery system of some great
co-operative store, such as the Army and Navy.
In Germany, provision has long since been made to secure the
co-operation of the principal business men in the country specially
qualified to advise on all questions relating to the supply and
equipment of the Army, and in 1870 the assistance these firms
rendered proved invaluable. In 1899 a number of our own
principal people concerned in the purchase of foods and their dis-
tribution offered their services to assist the War Office, as they
were scandalised at the appalling technical blunders in purchase,
packing, etc., of supplies ordered ; but their motive was misunder-
stood, and, anyhow, for want of prevision, it was then too late to
alter established custom, hence the offer was not accepted, with
consequences too familiar to the income taxpayer to need further
notice. Now would be the time to approach them again, and they
might easily be organised into a form of consultative and advisory
board, somewhat after the model of Railway Staff Corps, which
consists of all the traffic managers of our principal railways.
There remains, however, one gap in our organisation for War,
whose existence threatens the foundations of our whole fighting
power both on land and sea, but which, since it does not come directly
under the War Office or the Admiralty, is exceedingly liable to be
overlooked until too late. I allude to the organisation of a branch
under the Home Office for the special purpose of providing non-
pauperising employment for the hundreds of thousands who will
be thrown out of work automatically on the declaration of hostilities.
The subject is too vast to do more than indicate the need in these
pages ; but it appears to me that, if taken in time, it presents no
practical difficulties to men of the type of those who, again and
again in India, have fed millions under conditions for distribution
immeasurably more difficult than those in this country.
It is possible that the action of Mr. Long, indicated by him to
K
ISO THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
a recent deputation which approached him with reference to the
question of the " unemployed " during the present winter, may
lead to the formation of a nucleus from which great things may
spring, but the difficulty arises from a standing misconception
which exists in this country as to what may be defined as " pay-
ing " and " not paying " enterprises respectively. A commercial
company must pay a dividend to attract capital ; but an immense
amount of wealth has actually accrued to the country at large by
undertakings which have never paid their shareholders a farthing.
Thus the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway has never paid a
dividend on its ordinary stock — probably never will — but its value
in economising transport charges to the farmers, etc., in the district
it traverses has been enormous. In Germany, this side of the
question has been statistically studied, it has been carefully estimated
what the saving to the farmers, arising from the existence of a non-
dividend paying line traversing an agricultural district, amounts to
on the average, and the result shows that for the good of the
community — not of the shareholder — railways, roads, or canals may
wisely be undertaken even when there is no prospect of a direct
return on the cost of construction.
If, now, in peace time, the several county councils were to
look round their districts and note where, by the application of
labour, irrespective of cost, improvements in communications, leading
to a diminution in the actual cost of transport, would be effected,
much would be accomplished towards removing the danger of
panic and bread-rioting, the dread of which will certainly paralyse,
in War-time, the energy of any Government our electoral system
is ever likely to give us. And they can afford to disregard
*' cost," because, if we win, it can and will be charged to the in-
demnity paid by the enemy. If we lose, then the gain in efficiency
of transport remains, and we shall the sooner recover from our
misfortunes.
If, when driven into War, as we certainly shall be, sooner or
later, our generals know that they have a united nation behind
them, and are not driven prematurely to attempt decisive action to
avert popular disturbances — disturbances our enemies will strain
every nerve to bring about — as we always did in the past, and if,
further, they know that all that technical skill can accomplish has
been done to provide them with reliable transportation — in which
term I include both roads and conveyances — I do not anticipate
that supply will in any way hamper their mobility.
The danger will more probably come from the friction and
delay — more or less inevitable in the transmission and preparation
of orders — which will arise from the exceedingly low average of
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY, 131
military education throughout the nation. It is not merely the un-
known factors presented by the exercise of their independent will
by our opponents which create this friction, but the standing
difficulty which arises from the dissemination of preposterous
tactical and strategical fallacies by our daily press.
Even to suggest how to combat this evil would entail a whole
series of articles, but this much, at least, may be indicated : the
trouble arises from ignorance, not from ill-will, and might be
alleviated, if not overcome, if editors were taken more into the
confidence of the directing minds of the Army.
The great difficulty, however, lies in the fact that even amongst
these directing minds, still less in the Army at large, there is
nothing approaching an agreement of opinion on tactical and
strategical points, which alone, in the absence of technical training,
can be accepted by a man in an editorial position as proof sufficient
to act upon. It is the great weakness of our position, resulting
from causes I have in these pages so often handled at length, that,
owing to the nature of our training, practically no two officers think
alike, and in despair at the hopelessness of finding agreement
amongst the experts, the layman, be he either statesman or editor,
has to accept the opinion of one or the other, with nothing but
common sense to guide him.
It is the main purpose of a " Great General Staff" to create
such a consensus of trained expert opinion that, in all vital questions
of efficiency, the mass of the nation may receive, through recognised
public channels, the information they require ; and from the marked
success which has of late attended the Staff College, the training
ground of the General Staff (here I speak of what I know), I am
confident that, with adequate funds, we could soon build up an
organisation adequate to meet our needs, and second to none in
efficiency.
Meanwhile, the education department, in its recent schemes for
the examinations for promotion in all ranks, has initiated a reform
which will go far to smooth the way of the Great General Staff
when at last it shall be called into existence. I allude especially
to the tactical schemes, which form an essential part of all such
examinations.
It would be difficult to overestimate the value of these exercises,
even in our present inchoate stage, when, before certain boards,
the better a man's work, the more probable his disqualification.
The reason for this lies in the fact that, whatever the board may
turn out to be, the candidate must prepare himself for the best,
and nothing trains a man's judgment better than thinking out the
orders necessary to meet a given situation, and submitting his
132 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
ideas to the criticism of any one possessing, by mere length of
service, a little more practical experience.
Over and above the advantage accruing to the individual from
both learning to think and acquiring the habit of reducing his
thoughts to writing, the ultimate gain to the Army in mobility,
which must ensue when the system has taken firm root in the
services, will be enormous. Mobility, as we have seen in the case
of the Austrian armies in Napoleonic days, is not so much a
matter of marching power, but, with large forces, is dependent on
the time and certainty with which the orders for movement are
drawn up ; and to secure this rapidity, decentralisation is imperative.
Now, though it is probable that not one man in a hundred can
write absolutely ideal orders for anything, it is a matter of experience
that, with reasonable practice, probably ninety-five out of a hundred
will write practical orders good enough to be readily understood if
the number of units with which they have to deal is not too great,
and " provided always " that their recipients also have themselves
been trained to appreciate the difficulties and conditions under
which orders in the field always have to be given.
It is only when this last clause of the matter is fully realised
that intelligent co-operation can be secured, and this not so much
because orders may be hard to interpret, but because of a tendency
in human nature, which is far too often overlooked, but which is an
inevitable consequence of all decentralisation, and becomes greater
almost in precise proportion to the keenness and intelligence of the
subordinates to whom the order is addressed.
No order for movement can ever be executed without incon-
venience to some one, and the warmer one's feeling for the men
under one's personal command, and the keener one's intelligence in
judging the situation from one's own standpoint, the graver seem
the objections to obedience at the precise time and in the precise
manner prescribed for one. With regular troops, of course, dis-
obedience is out of the question ; the thing ordered is done, but
often in a grudging spirit, and with a shrug of the shoulders that
helps to shake the confidence of the men in the wisdom of their
superiors. Then follow grumbling letters home, which somehow
always get into the newspapers — for proud parents always like to
advertise in print the superior qualification of their offspring for high
command ; and when a sufficient mass of these documents have
appeared, some ignorant editor calls on the Government to dismiss
the incapables, a demand which no politician in need of votes
can afford to neglect for long. In regard to tactical action, the
danger is even greater, and, of course, greatest when dealing with
Volunteers or Colonials.
i
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 133
Let us take, for instance, a very common instance, the orders
or the occupation of a position extending for perhaps thirty miles,
and applying to three or four army corps — or " commands " I
suppose we must now call them. It is, of course, utterly impossible
that Army headquarters can select in detail a position for each of
the many hundred units concerned. It can only give a general
alignment, which again is divided and subdivided by each of the
sub-commands through which it has to pass, and each of which hcis
to balance local considerations with general ones, and often, to
fulfil the requirements of mutual support, local advantages have
to be sacrificed ; so that ultimately Captain X finds himself in,
tactically, a very tight hole indeed. If, then. Captain X is a real
soldier, who is ready to play the game, he takes it as all in the day's
work, and certainly does not let his men see that his position
disconcerts him ; but if, as very often will happen in a great War,
Captain X's only qualifications for command are certificates of
having studied minor tactics, he will very probably protest against
being placed in such a difficult position, and make it quite clear to
his subordinates that he would never have placed them in such a
precarious place, ignoring the fact that to alter it might entail
alterations in the whole of the rest of the alignment, and place
ninety-nine other companies in still worse straits. To many this
warning may appear superfluous — indeed, the suggestion will
probably be warmly resented ; but I would beg would-be critics
to turn back to the private letters, diaries, etc., which the South
African War called into existence, and ask them to re-read such
articles from the senior officers' standpoint. The keenness and
intelligence of the writer is often quite conspicuous ; but his in-
ability to distinguish the wood for the trees is still more glaringly
evident. At its beginning we were deluged with letters from
colonials inveighing against the crass imbecility of our staff officers,
often men whom it was easy for me to trace, and who have since
abundantly justified the high expectations I had previously formed
of them ; but as the War went on, opinions underwent a change,
and in the end the British staff officer thoroughly won the allegiance
of all ranks and conditions — but only think at what cost of mis-
understanding and friction. As it happened, we could wait ; but
in the next War our enemies may not be so accommodating as to
afford us the time. We can cure the evil in peace if we give our
minds to it ; and the new departure in examinations is the first
step in the right direction, only it must be understood and worked
in the proper spirit.
Our forefathers in Marlborough's time recognised the draw-
backs inherent in decentralisation, and met them by allowing their
134 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY.
subordinates no latitude at all. In view of the restricted areas and
numbers with which they were concerned, they were probably right ;
but with the enormous access of numbers in arms the outbreak of
the French Revolution called into being, and still more the greatly
increased areas over which the range of modern weapons compels
us to operate, decentralisation has become inevitable, and with it
its corollary, viz. military education ; but the term must be accepted
in its broadest sense, and we must realise that even the subaltern,
nay, the very private in the ranks, must be taught to understand
the mechanism of War, so as to be able to reduce in his own person
the friction which clogs even the simplest evolutions desired by the
leaders to its lowest possible expi:ession.
To achieve this end, we want yet one further link in our educa-
tional chain, viz. provision for the intelligent instruction of our men
in military history. "What men have done, that men can do" is
a saying which can be made to appeal to every rank, and even
when, by dint of much practice, we have all become past masters
in the writing of orders, their execution will still make demands
upon all the resolution and heroism of which the recipients are
capable.
If men have marched shoeless and in rags in the past, if
regiments have stormed positions, leaving 60 per cent, killed and
wounded in their track, and did not complain, they can do so again,
for human nature changes very slowly ; but they must be taught
that these things are expected of them by the people at home,
and since knowledge of things military springs first from the
Army, it is in the Army that the beginning must be made.
The nation, in 1899, had sunk to such a depth of military
ignorance that it really did not know that bloodshed was a usual
consequence of the armed collision of combatants. Hence the
outbreak of hysteria with which they received the news of our
casualties in the early engagements of the War, and, as a conse-
quence, the reluctance of too many of our generals to risk decisive
action. But as against a European enemy, what use could any
general make of such subordinates .? Even Napoleon could have
won no victories had he been held to account for the lives of his
men in such fashion by his countrymen ; and unless we take steps
in time to bring home to the nation — and we can only do this
through the Army — that, in the words of Clausewitz, " One should
teach the soldier how to die, not how to avoid dying," all tactical
and strategical training will be in vain.
Fortunately, the present War is bringing with it the swing of
the pendulum ; but this same War may also involve us, and should
that happen, not the least of the contributory causes will prove to
THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY. 135
be the absolute conviction almost all foreign armies have acquired,
that British soldiers and generals have lost their fighting value,
and that with such men and leaders we can no longer hold India
against Russian invasion.
I do not share this view, but I am in a position to know that it
exists.
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
GENERAL LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA— BERKELEY
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY