Tactics

Return to the Phalanx and the Legion, 1914.

The pic ture of the World War as painted by M. Bloch was exact be cause his colours were the tactics of the military schools, and his perspective the outlook of a war artist and not of a war artisan. His was not so much a remarkable forecast as a remarkable syn thesis derived from a remarkable analysis of the military theories of his day. The South African War showed that his deductions were well founded, and the war in Manchuria proved definitely that he was right, yet so obsessed were soldiers by the meta physical power with which in their theories they had endowed in fantry, that they had become completely hypnotized by the glint of their bayonets. The war might have been very different from the above picture if the means of waging it had been changed, or even if' the weapons it was fought with had been revalued and differently proportioned.

The controlling factor was, however, neither "famine" nor "the unlimited offensive," it was the industrial revolution, and it mat tered not what was done or said by the soldier during peace time, in war the military factors of this revolution would out. Soldiers, blinded as they were, could not see this; they could not see that science and industry were the controlling forces in the approach ing war. They talked of morale, but forgot "fear"; they advocated offensive action but neglected defensive power. They studied his tory not to discover truth but to prove their doctrines. They could not see that since cavalry had lost its power, tactics as an art had been thrown out of joint, and had retrogressed to the pha langial order. Further, they were oblivious to the fact that when phalanx met phalanx there would be no assault—for the assault was as dead as the charge. To hit at the decisive point had now become so difficult as to be tactically almost impossible. The act of annihilation had vanished, the acts of dislocation and dis ruption had vanished, all that was left of the battle were the acts of contact, of approach and of partial distraction. Therefore the war must be a war of attrition, of maximum slaughter and mini mum profit ; therefore M. Bloch was right.

When war was declared, once again did the phalanx meet the legion. The German phalanx was 250m. long, and the French legion was distributed in front of its left wing on a little more than half this frontage. The French grand tactics were absurd, namely, to attack the front of the phalanx, an operation which has nearly always ended in failure. Those of the Germans were simplicity itself, namely, to lap round the left flank of the French legion and attack it in rear. They failed because the right wing of the phalanx was itself attacked in flank at the battle of the Marne (q.v.) in 1914. At the battle of Tannenberg (q.v.) in the Russians were routed because they were attacked in rear ; and at the battle of Megiddo (q.v.) in 1918 the Turks were routed for a similar reason. The major tactical problem on every front was the rear attack, and to frustrate such an attack each front in turn crystallized out into a trench line, as M. Bloch had pre

dicted.

The Supremacy of Static Artillery, 1915-1917.

To break these entrenched fronts cavalry were useless, they could not charge them; infantry were useless, they could not assault them— though in 1914 and 1915 such attempts were foolishly made. More than 10o hundred years had gone by since Napoleon had said: "It is with artillery that war is made." No one had heeded him, no single soldier of eminence had definitely proclaimed that the gun was the superior arm. Since the battle of Ravenna, fought in 1512, whenever a supreme military genius had arisen the gun had proved the superior weapon on the battlefield. Gustavus proved this, Frederick proved this, Napoleon proved this, and Moltke proved this, yet on the death of each of these great cap tains the sprouting artillery cycle had been trodden into the dust by the officially minded soldier. At length, in 1915, 400 years after Ravenna, no professional feet were big enough to stop its growth.

In the spring of 19:5 the long delayed artillery cycle opened with the battle of Neuve Chapelle (q.v.), a brilliantly conceived attack but one on so restricted a front that it was doomed to failure. In the autumn of this year, surprise was set aside and re placed by method, method ultimately depending on shell produc tion. Little by little it was discovered that it was no longer the infantry who attacked but the artillery; that it was first neces sary to destroy the defences of the enemy before attempting to capture them. The supreme tactical lesson of 1915 was : "Artillery conquers and infantry occupies." Tactics were thus reduced to a matter of push of pikes, or rather—push of shells.

In 1916 infantry had become so immobile, that a rolling bar rage was introduced. Not only was it necessary to bombard an enemy's position for days on end, but to establish a wall of shells in front of the infantry, a shield of fire which slowly moved forward in front of the infantry. This wall replaced the old in fantry firing line, the infantry supporting it. The infantry attack was as dead as the infantry assault. All infantry could now do was to carry out the approach and the contact, and when the limit of gun range was reached, the approach ceased. Nevertheless the battle of the Somme (q.v.) in 1916 cost the British 475,000 casual ties, and the battle of Verdun (q.v.) in 1916 cost the French 350, 000 and the Germans 500,000. In 1917 this elephantiasis of shell fire reached its zenith in the third battle of Ypres (q.v.). To pre pare this battle the British massed 120,000 gunners, who in the initial bombardment, lasting 19 days, fired 4,283,000 shells, weigh ing 107,000 tons and costing L22,000,000. This battle lasted ap proximately three and a half months, and each square mile of mud gained cost the British army 8,2 2 2 casualties.