Ivan S Bloch wrote in 1899 that smokeless powder, bolt-action rifles, new machine guns and powerful artillery had sparked a revolution in modern warfare that no-one had noticed.
It's interesting how sometimes it takes an outsider to state the obvious facts that people within that particular field have institutional incentives to ignore or not perceive. A general who wants to make a career amongst other generals needs to think in terms of finding solutions to problems. Making dire predictions about how horribly everything is going to fall apart once the war starts will not help you get promoted. In that way, sometimes the expert is precisely the kind of person who shouldn't be listened to.
I do think, though, that the offense vs. defense narrative misses the point a bit. Reading accounts of what it's like sitting through an artillery barrage prior to an assault makes me wonder how it was possible for those trenches to be held at all: imagine enduring hours of the closest thing to hell imaginable, with no sleep, no food, no contact with the world outside your bunker, and no relief from the deafening noise, trying to stop that one guy who's dangerously close to losing his mind completely from running out the door and getting annihilated, and then, the moment the barrage is over, you have to run outside, throw yourself down behind what little "cover" remains and somehow fend off a wave of soldiers who are all rested, fed, and armed with grenades. Then, if you win, you have to immediately counterattack without the luxury of a preparatory barrage, or even a moment to catch your breath. It really isn't surprising at all that there were quite a few times when the defenses did fail catastrophically.
I think a better way to understand WW1 is in terms of battlefield density. WWI's battles took place in a very compressed space, where there was almost no way to avoid direct confrontation with the enemy. Compare this with WWII, which was characterized by air power (the battlefield expanding upward) and vast movements of armoured columns striking at points of weakness. This makes it easier for commanders to leverage their strength against the enemies weakness, leading to much more movement and dynamism. This obviously favors well-coordinated offensives, but a stupid offensive can fail with even more significant negative consequences for the attacker than would have been the case in WWII.
An interesting thing is that Engels, in the early 1890s, also observed that thanks to the growth of discrepancy between government forces and insurgents, the days of the barricade was gone, as in these conditions so long as the army was willing to follow its orders, the insurgents resisting was simple suicide.
The tank and blitzkreig came to skirt around heavy opposition... did the armies of WW1 merely make contact and then dig in... and once their positions were established they could engage...?
Hi Peter - After the Battle of the Marne the British-French forces - which had won that fight - had to consolidate their positions and so dug what they thought would be temporary trenches. The Germans were able to regroup and dig in at Flanders in what turned out to be excellent defensive positions - and so emphasised the “preponderant power of defence over attack”. The Gallipoli campaign was partly an attempt to outflank the Germans but it was a disaster for all kinds of reasons. Professor John Bourne says that for WW1 commanders the western front experience was like “learning to drive by having a series of road crashes”. By 1918 the Allies had constructed enough tanks to be able to force their way through the trench line but the infantry still had an important role to play - cheers DM
It's interesting how sometimes it takes an outsider to state the obvious facts that people within that particular field have institutional incentives to ignore or not perceive. A general who wants to make a career amongst other generals needs to think in terms of finding solutions to problems. Making dire predictions about how horribly everything is going to fall apart once the war starts will not help you get promoted. In that way, sometimes the expert is precisely the kind of person who shouldn't be listened to.
I do think, though, that the offense vs. defense narrative misses the point a bit. Reading accounts of what it's like sitting through an artillery barrage prior to an assault makes me wonder how it was possible for those trenches to be held at all: imagine enduring hours of the closest thing to hell imaginable, with no sleep, no food, no contact with the world outside your bunker, and no relief from the deafening noise, trying to stop that one guy who's dangerously close to losing his mind completely from running out the door and getting annihilated, and then, the moment the barrage is over, you have to run outside, throw yourself down behind what little "cover" remains and somehow fend off a wave of soldiers who are all rested, fed, and armed with grenades. Then, if you win, you have to immediately counterattack without the luxury of a preparatory barrage, or even a moment to catch your breath. It really isn't surprising at all that there were quite a few times when the defenses did fail catastrophically.
I think a better way to understand WW1 is in terms of battlefield density. WWI's battles took place in a very compressed space, where there was almost no way to avoid direct confrontation with the enemy. Compare this with WWII, which was characterized by air power (the battlefield expanding upward) and vast movements of armoured columns striking at points of weakness. This makes it easier for commanders to leverage their strength against the enemies weakness, leading to much more movement and dynamism. This obviously favors well-coordinated offensives, but a stupid offensive can fail with even more significant negative consequences for the attacker than would have been the case in WWII.
Good points, well made!
An interesting thing is that Engels, in the early 1890s, also observed that thanks to the growth of discrepancy between government forces and insurgents, the days of the barricade was gone, as in these conditions so long as the army was willing to follow its orders, the insurgents resisting was simple suicide.
The tank and blitzkreig came to skirt around heavy opposition... did the armies of WW1 merely make contact and then dig in... and once their positions were established they could engage...?
Hi Peter - After the Battle of the Marne the British-French forces - which had won that fight - had to consolidate their positions and so dug what they thought would be temporary trenches. The Germans were able to regroup and dig in at Flanders in what turned out to be excellent defensive positions - and so emphasised the “preponderant power of defence over attack”. The Gallipoli campaign was partly an attempt to outflank the Germans but it was a disaster for all kinds of reasons. Professor John Bourne says that for WW1 commanders the western front experience was like “learning to drive by having a series of road crashes”. By 1918 the Allies had constructed enough tanks to be able to force their way through the trench line but the infantry still had an important role to play - cheers DM