Happy Veterans Day

Posted on November 11, 2011 by MHUS

Veterans Day POster

Today is Veteran’s Day in the US and Armistice Day in Britain and France. It is a day to remember the end of the fighting in World War I on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. It is also the day set aside in the US to remember all veterans, not just those of World War I but also those that served in our nation’s other wars and those that served during peacetime. It takes something special to serve your country and a little bit more to do so voluntarily. There is always the possibility of going to war and giving your life for your country while in the military. I hope that everyone takes a moment today and remembers the sacrifices of all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who have served and fought for the United States. If you meet a vet today, shake his hand and thank him for his service. Remember, less than 1% of the US public serves, yet they do so to protect that other 99%.

US Department of Veterans Affairs site about Veterans Day

Battle Analysis-Sedan, 1870

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

The Battle of Sedan, fought on 1 September 1870 displayed the superiority the Prussian Army had attained over the French in the nearly sixty years since their devastating defeat at Jena in the Napoleonic wars. The battle was notable for several developments in warfare, which were showcased by the Prussian and French army’s different abilities to effectively utilize the new technologies and methods existing. The most dominant military technologies of the time were railroads, repeating rifles, and modern cannon.

Map of Battle of Sedan - Image Courtesy: http://www.marxists.org/glossary/events/f/pics/sedan.gif

While the French had at their disposal the Chassepot rifle which was superior to the Prussian needle-gun, their artillery was inferior in both quantity and quality to the Krupp guns deployed by the Prussians. The Prussians made superior use of the railroad in the deployment of their armies but that had little to do with their successful encirclement of the French army at Sedan, as the Prussians had largely been road bound and foot marching since crossing the French frontier at the beginning of August. The French failures of command and poor planning prevented them from retreating from Sedan thus forcing them to stand and fight the numerically superior Prussian army.

The Germans under Moltke proved to be energetic in their attacks and ruthless in the use of their superior artillery to bottle up the French and prevent their movements within the Sedan pocket. As the German armies approached Sedan, Moltke ordered his corps to probe the French and begin to march to encircle the French in the city. The Prussian armies quickly attacked to force crossings of the Meuse at Bazailles and Donchery. After the Prussians forced the crossing of the Meuse on 31 August, they moved rapidly to complete the encirclement of the French Army of Chalons and by that evening, the French were surrounded.

Like many battles of the war, the Prussians joined battle on the next morning not through any plan but through the actions of a lone commander acting on his initiative. At around 0430 on the first, the I Bavarian Corps mounted an attack to retake the bridge at Bazailes. As the Saxons moved up on the Bavarians flank in the early morning, they emplaced their artillery and began to attack also. The engagement rapidly spread from there to become a general attack on the surrounded French Army.

The Prussians made excellent use of their artillery to force the French to halt movement within the pocket. The effectiveness of Prussian artillery was a foretaste of what modern quick-firing artillery could accomplish. The Prussian army continued to make frontal infantry assaults even in the face of the tremendous casualties inflicted by the French using their superior rifles. The Prussians could have just as easily dominated the pocket with their artillery and thus saved themselves many of the 9,000 casualties they suffered during the battle.

Strategically the Battle of Sedan was a masterstroke for the Prussians as it removed the last trained French field army from the war. There were operational errors committed by Prussian generals who ignored or imperfectly followed orders but overall The Elder Moltke was shown to have a superior grasp of strategy than his French opponents. The major errors on the part of the Prussians were in their tactical use of infantry, artillery, and cavalry. They suffered needless casualties by not using their larger gun-line equipped with superior weapons to dominate the French before committing their infantry to battle. They were saved by their larger numbers and the yeoman’s effort put forth by the better-trained gunners of the Prussian army.

The battle could have been won more cheaply if Moltke had had better control of his subordinates and thus better control of the timing for beginning the battle, the impulsiveness of the Prussians cost them needless lives. The Prussian army did not use true combined arms tactics but with a larger and more disciplined army, their mistakes were not as detrimental to success as were the mistakes of the French.

Napoleon & the French Army of Italy 1796

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

The French Army in Italy was a failing army but was revitalized in 1796 by the arrival of Napoleon and his dynamic leadership style that allowed his soldiers to realize their potential. The soldiers were unpaid and underfed; they were clothed in rags and often had no shoes. The artillery park was not maintained properly and the cavalry had unsuitable mounts, if any. The soldiers in the army were suffering from malnutrition and illness to such a degree that out of a paper strength of 42,000 only 30,000 soldiers were considered battle ready.[1] The hospitals were overflowing and non-battle deaths numbered in the hundreds per month. Napoleon’s arrival in March of 1796 was to initiate a turnaround in this army that would see it become the elite fighting force of the French army.In 1795 Napoleon had drawn up plans for the invasion of Italy which he had forwarded to the Directory that approved and forwarded them to General Laono Scherer the commander of the army in Italy.[2] Scherer replied to the Directory “that the man who had drawn up the plans should carry them out.”[3] Shortly thereafter, infuriated by the Directory’s pressure, he resigned and Napoleon was appointed to replace him.[4]

Napoleon arrived in Italy and took command on March 27^th, 1796. The conditions he found upon arrival were atrocious; the army was unpaid, underfed, and falling apart. In fact, on the day of his arrival he had to deal with a battalion that had mutinied. He reacted forcefully, court-martialing the commander and disbanding the unit.[5] Napoleon showed his skills by turning the mob that was the French army in Italy into an effective force in less than six weeks.

Napoleon did much to reform the army; he demanded that the Directory send him money to pay the soldiers and when they failed to do so he used his own methods to get money to pay them. He had his generals scour the countryside for funds and secured loans to pay his troops. It was also at this time that he showed the strength of his oratory and presaged his future policy of living off the land in conquered territory. His pronouncements to the troops on March 27,^th 1796, read, “Soldiers, you are naked, ill fed! The Government owes you much; it can give you nothing. Your patience, the courage you display in the midst of these rocks, are admirable; but they procure you no glory, no fame is reflected upon you. I seek to lead you into the most fertile plains in the world. Rich provinces, great cities will be in your power. There you will find honor, glory, and riches. Soldiers of Italy, would you be lacking in courage or constancy?”[6]

When Napoleon arrived in Italy he did not get to pick the divisional commanders or army staff; he had to use the men already in those positions. It is a testament to the overall quality of the Republican armies that most of the officers would prove to be excellent soldiers when given proper leadership. The outstanding officers, who would truly come into their own under Napoleon, present in Italy included five future Marshals of the Empire Massena, Augerau, Serurier, Marmont, and Berthier, possibly the most able Chief-of-staff in history. All of these officers had done well under the Republic but they were to show their true abilities under Napoleon.

The French forces in Italy were in a bad position when Napoleon took command they had invaded Italy in 1795 and moved up the coastal plain from Nice (see map 1). They were positioned in coastal enclaves but the French with 33,000 were outnumbered by the combined Sardinian and Austrian armies of 56,000. Napoleon’s plan for continuing the invasion would rely on the judgment and execution of his soldiers and subordinates for success. He would attempt to use the Army of Italy to split the forces opposing him and use the resulting opportunity to defeat them in detail or force their retreat.

A little over a month after taking command Napoleon had done what he could to remedy the army’s situation and planned an offensive to begin on April 15^th , 1796. The Austrians got the jump on him, however, and attacked him on the 12^th near the villages of Bric Castlas and Montenott on the road to Dego from Savona. Napoleon reacted by ordering Laharpe to conduct a frontal assault on Montenott while Massena would maneuver to take the Austrians under Argentau in the Flank near Bric Castlas. This maneuver worked flawlessly and the Austrians were routed with Argentau withdrawing to the north. Out of some 4,000 Austrians engaged, Argentau could only muster some 700 the following day they were so thoroughly routed.[7]

On the 13^th, the French continued their advance to Dego but were stopped short of the town when Massena found it occupied by the Austrians with about 4,000 troops. On April 14^th , 1796, the French began their assault on Dego using what would become a signature tactical strategy for Napoleon. He ordered the division of Augerau to hold the enemy with frontal attacks while Massena would maneuver to take the Austrians in the flank. After a hard fought battle, a brigade from Massena’s division took Dego at the end of the driving the Austrians out. During the night, the French soldiers gave themselves over to plunder and looting so that when the Austrians under Vukassovich counter-attacked with five battalions on the 15^th they were driven from the town, forcing Napoleon to redeploy Augerau’s division to retake the town in essentially the same manner as the previous day.[8]

This was Napoleon’s first campaign in independent command and it showed several things that would prove true during the next twenty years. Napoleon had shown what French soldiers could do when adequately led, motivated and supplied. Although there was one breakdown in discipline that could have been disastrous, Napoleon dealt with it without the episode affecting his entire army.

The French army of Italy was homogenous in quality with other French armies before Napoleon took command; it had enjoyed limited success but with uninspiring leadership and little attention paid to taking care of the troops was beginning to fade away into uselessness. Napoleon arrived and immediately took the situation in hand, working to improve the soldiers’ situation through better supply and giving them more motivation. One of the hallmarks of Napoleon and his successful subordinate’s command style is that they led from the front accepting the same dangers as their men.

Napoleon also had his army live off the land as they conquered new territory which was his only reasonable recourse given his lack of support in this area from the Directory. While Napoleon was undoubtedly one of the greatest military commanders of all time leadership ability alone is not enough. Much as you don’t pound a nail with a hot dog, good soldiers are necessary for success in wartime and that is what Napoleon had. It is the combination of competent and motivated soldiers with exceptional leadership that let the French achieve what they did.

Principalities of Northern Italy in 1796-University of Texas at Austin Library, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, Historical Maps of Europe, Northern Italy, 1796 (for the campaigns of 1796-1805), @ http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/history_europe.html#I

Napoleon did what no other French commander could have done in 1796. He took a failing army and, by providing leadership and care for soldiers’ needs, combined with solid tactical and strategic thought, turned it into an excellent offensive machine. By the spring of 1797 he would have conquered all of northern Italy, invaded Austria and forced the Austrians to sign an armistice the Treaty of Campo Formio the ending the wars of the First Coalition.

Bibliography

Alexander, Bevin. How Great Generals Win: A Military Historian Appraises the World’s Greatest Commanders, from Hannibal to MacArthur. New York, W.W. Norton & Co. LTD, 1993.

Asprey, Robert. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. New York: Basic Books, 2000.

Bubelis, Raimund, Pearce, Glenn, eds.. Napoleonic Miniatures Wargame Society of

Toronto, Italian Campaign : 1796-1797 : Defeat of Piedmont. http://www.napoleonicminiatureswargame.com/piedmont.html

Burbeck, James. The French Revolt and Empire. The War Times Journal Online http://www.wtj.com/articles/napsum1/

Burnham, Robert. ed., The Napoleon Series, www.napoleon-series.org

Chandler, David G. ed., Napoleon’s Marshals, New York, Macmillan, 1987

Connelly, Owen Blundering to Glory: Napoleon’s Military Campaigns. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1987.

Delage, Irène, Huguenaud, Karine, Hicks Peter eds., Napoleon.org, The Fondation Napoleon, www.napoleon.org

Durant, Will & Ariel, eds. The Age of Napoleon: A History of Civilization from 1789 to 1815, The Story of Civilisation Vol. IX, New York, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1975

Forty, Simon & Swift, Michael, ed. Historical Maps of the Napoleonic Wars, New York, New York, Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2003

Godlewska, Anne Marie Claire, Schauerte, Paul, Paul, Godlewski, Al-Nasir Hamir, de Villele, Marie-Anne Corvisier, Ponnou, Claude eds., Atlas of Napoleonic Cartography in Italy, http://geog.queensu.ca/napoleonatlas/

Holmes, Richard ed., The Oxford Companion to Military History, New York, Oxford University Press, 2001

Kreis, Richard, The History Guide, Napoleon’s Proclamation to His Troops in Italy (March-April 1796), http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/nap1796.html

Moore, Richard, The Napoleonic Guide, www.napoleonguide.com

Napoleon, His Army and Enemies.
Armies, Campaigns, Battles, Tactics, Commanders, Napoleon’s Lightning Italian Campaign.
1796 – 1797, http://web2.airmail.net/napoleon/italian_campaign.htm

Newark, Tim ed., Rifleman: Elite Soldiers of the Wars against Napoleon, London, U.K., Publishing News Ltd., 2000

University of Texas at Austin Library, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, Historical Maps of Europe, Northern Italy, 1796 (for the campaigns of 1796-1805), http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/history_europe.html#I

Endnotes

[1] Asprey, Robert, The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, (New York, Basic Books, 2000), p. 125

[2] Chandler, David G. ed., Napoleon’s Marshals, (New York, Macmillan, 1987), p.272

[3]Asprey, p.126

[4] Napoleon, His Army and Enemies.
Armies, Campaigns, Battles, Tactics, Commanders, Napoleon’s Lightning Italian Campaign.
1796 – 1797, http://web2.airmail.net/napoleon/italian_campaign.htm

[5] Asprey, p. 125

[6] Kreis, Richard, The History Guide, Napoleon’s Proclamation to His Troops in Italy (March-April 1796), http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/nap1796.html

[7] Bubelis, Raimund, Pearce, Glenn, eds., Napoleonic Miniatures Wargame Society of Toronto, Italian Campaign : 1796-1797 : Defeat of Piedmont, http://www.napoleonicminiatureswargame.com/piedmont.html

[8] Burnham, Robert ed., The Napoleon Series, www.napoleon-series.org

The Fronts of World War I in 1917 & 1918

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

The tactical and strategic situation at the beginning of 1917 was little changed from that at the beginning of 1916. All that the offensives on the Western Front had managed to accomplish the previous year were minor changes in the trace of the trenches and massive loss of life. Both the British and French planned further offensives in the west during the years but events would intervene to ensure that only the British committed themselves to large-scale offensives on the Western Front in 1917.

The spring and summer saw the French army undergo a crisis of confidence that has come to be known as the French mutinies, thought they were not mutinies, as the term is generally understood. After the abortive assault on the Chemin des Dames ridge in April 1917, a large part of the French army refused to go on the offensive. Although the mutineers continually made it plain that they would defend, what they would not do, was attack.

German shell bursting between advancing French troops: Image Courtesy www.firstworldwar.com

Keegan theorizes that at that point in the war the infantry collectively decided their chances of survival were less than even and that this precipitated the mutinies.[1] This theory holds that French had suffered as many dead in battle as their pre-war infantry strength and somehow the infantry sensed this, it led to their refusal to fight. This glosses over many of the grievances the French infantry had, which included the pay, rations, and leave policy of the French army. These last reasons are enough on their own to account for the low French morale; there are numerous examples of sacrifice in history, but few examples of an army that subsisted entirely on horrible rations or low pay with little chance of leave. Even Alexander the Great’s army finally demanded to return home after an unbroken string of victories and the carving of an empire, the French army of 1917 hardly had a string of victories to show for its exertions.

The British however, did launch a series of attacks on the Western front during the year, at Arras, Messines Ridge, and a major effort in Flanders, the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as Passchendaele. The British attacks were launched largely because General Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had the feeling that while the French would not fight, something must be done. This led to the launching of Third Ypres between June and August 1917. This attack was designed to sweep all the way to the channel coast and liberate a large parcel of Belgian territory south of Brussels. Passchendaele ended in failure, with the British suffering 70,000 dead and 170,000 wounded for marginal gains in the Ypres salient.

The year of 1917 would be one of crisis for the Allies, not only did the French suffer a moral collapse, but the Italians and Russians experienced their own crises as well. The Russian collapse began in the rear of the armies and spread forward. In late February 1917, the civilians in Petrograd rioted due to food shortages and the Petrograd garrison refused to put down the demonstrations. The people set themselves up in local councils or Soviets, under many different political groups among them the radical Marxist Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, who agitated for an end to the monarchy. The Tsar abdicated on 2 March and his handpicked successor refused the crown while the Duma refused to accept the Tsarevitch thus leaving Russia without a head of state.[2]

A leader of the Provisional Government emerged in the person of Alexander Kerensky who attempted to continue the war. Kerensky launched an offensive in June but it failed and the army rapidly began to disintegrate in the face of German and Austrian counter-attacks. Kerensky barely managed to suppress a revolt at Petrograd in July but his days were numbered, as the political currents in the country were unpredictable. Throughout the summer, the Bolsheviks were constantly working to undermine the Provisional Government and planning a revolution of their own.

In September, the Bolsheviks made their bid for power and the country descended into chaos. Initially they were successful with Bolshevik units using the nation’s rail network to rapidly gain control of Russian population centers. Simultaneously, the Russians declared an armistice and began to negotiate with the Germans at the fortress town of Brest-Litovsk in Poland for an end to hostilities. The Germans presented their demands and set a time limit and when the Russians prevaricated, the Germans attacked all along the front in February 1918, and in a panic the Bolsheviks let the Germans dictate terms and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918, ceding a huge amount of Russian territory in return for peace.[3] The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ended Russia’s role in the First World War, though the Russian Civil War would drag on until the 1920’s.

The collapse of the Italian army was of a different nature entirely than that of either the French or the Russian armies. The Italians had been pounding along the Isonzo front in the Alps since 1915, mounting 12 offensives, an average of one every three months for the gain of only sixty miles.[4] The Italians had driven up the valley floor but failed to adequately secure the peaks on their flanks. There was also a systemic failure and societal failure in the Italian army; the officers were mainly northern Italians, while the lower ranks and especially the infantry were largely made up of poor peasants from the agricultural south. This, along with the draconian discipline imposed on the peasant infantry, made for poor cohesion in the Italian army.

The German and Austrian armies attacked at Caporetto on 25 October 1917, and rapidly achieved a breakthrough. The Italian units in the front lines cracked by the third day and what had been a retreat quickly turned into a rout. Entire units surrendered enmasse to the advancing Austrian and German troops. The Italian retreat did not end until 3 November, when they reached the river Piave, a distance of eighty miles from their initial positions.[5]

The year was not all bad for the allies though as 1917 was the year in which America entered the war on the Allied side. America had maintained a policy of neutrality despite several provocations, including the sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania in 1915, after which the Germans ceased unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmerman affair with Mexico. The final straw that ended American neutrality was the German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917, the U.S. formally declared war with Germany on 6 April 1917. The Germans had calculated that they could bring England to the brink of starvation and end the war before the American presence made itself felt on the continent, unfortunately for them, they were wrong. Soon after declaring war the Americans began shipping soldiers to France and enacted universal conscription, 318,000 American troops had arrived by March 1918 in Europe without the loss of a single soldier while crossing the Atlantic.[6] The American Army would not become a decisive factor until later in 1918, though individual American units were used in stopping the German offensives in the spring of 1918.

The Germans had hoped to starve the English out of the war, but with the intervention of America and the addition of her navy, transatlantic shipping was finally rationalized and a convoy system was worked out which prevented a collapse on the English home front. After the failure of the submarine offensive, the Germans once again turned to their army. The fall of Russia had released almost a million veteran troops for use in the West. Ludendorff planned a great spring offensive to cut the British off in Flanders and finally rupture the front separating Britain from her allies.

The first German offensive opened in March 1918, and caused a crisis at the front, the allies retreated over forty miles, and the Germans were only seventy-five miles from Paris when they were stopped. Ludendorff tried several more assaults that were tactically successful, but failed to break the front. After the final offensive in July, all the Germans had managed to accomplish was the loss of over 1,000,000 irreplaceable casualties, and extension of the German lines, which stretched the army thin in trying to defend.

The allies counterattacked in August and were spectacularly successful, driving the Germans all the way back to the start line of the spring offensives and beyond. In October, a new civilian government was formed to seek an armistice and the Kaiser abdicated on 9 November and went into exile in Holland. The allied attacks continued and they were within fifty miles of the German border when the armistice was signed on 11 November 1918. The First World War was over but its effects would be felt for the next 30 years and the problems it created would cause a new, more destructive war, while some of the problems remain unresolved to the present.

[1] Keegan, John, The First World War, pp. 329-332

[2] Ibid, p. 336

[3] Ibid, p. 342

[4] Ibid. pp. 344-345

[5] Ibid, p. 349

[6] Ibid, p. 372

Medieval Armor was heavy; Is this a Surprise?

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

I ran across this article on discovery news today: Heavy Armor Led to French Knights’ Loss.The article immediately irritated me. Perhaps it was the way the article was written or perhaps it was the content of the interviews with the guys who did the study. The gist of the story is that some English researchers had some medieval reenactor volunteers don period medieval armor and do various exercises on a treadmill while their various bodily functions were measured such as breathing, heart rate, etc. The article makes out as if it is a surprise that one, medieval suits of plate mail were heavy and two, that knights tire rapidly while walking in them. Does not common sense say that both things are true? Anyone who has ever had to carry a heavy backpack knows that carrying something heavy tires you out faster. That medieval plat armor was heavy is not a new discovery either. Keegan points this out in The Face of Battle and it is widely remarked in many books on medieval warfare.

This is the standout quote from the article for me:

“Together with numbers and condition of soldiers, equipment availability, battle strategy, and terrain, the high energetic cost of movement in armor could have contributed to the outcome of medieval battles,” the researchers concluded.”

Those are the concluding lines from the article. All I could say to that was wow.

I suppose it is good to have experimental confirmation of inductive reasoning but I have to wonder if this knowledge or proof actually changes the conclusions of the reasons for victory and defeat in medieval battles. I cannot think of any off the top of my head where fatigue would have played a part that it is not already accounted for in the standard analysis of the battle including at the Battle of Agincourt. I have to wonder about what is the usefulness of this “new” knowledge then?