CHAPTER XI

TACTICS

Some will probably feel inclined to ask what Clausewitz, who wrote more than eighty years ago, can possibly have to say about tactics which can be valuable in the twentieth century.

It was said by Napoleon that tactics change every ten years, according, of course, to the progress of technicalities, etc. Weapons indeed change, but there is one thing that never changes, and that is human nature. The most important thing in tactics, the man behind the gun, never alters; in his heart and feelings, his strength and weakness, he is always much the same.

Therefore, Clausewitz's tactical deductions, founded on the immense and varied data supplied by the desperate and long-continued fighting of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, permeated as they are by his all-pervading psychological or moral view, can never lose their value to us.

It is true, no doubt, that our rifles of to-day can be used with effect at a distance ten times as great as the old smooth bores of Clausewitz's day, our shrapnel five times as far as his cannon, and that cover and ground play a far more important part now than then, and so on. All these things, of course, considerably modify the tactics of Clausewitz. Not so much, however, as some text-books would lead us to suppose, which always seem to assume clear ground and clear weather. For, after all, how many combats are fought on ground where there is a very restricted field of fire (_vide_ Herbert's "Defence of Plevna," etc.), or at night? How many battles are fought during rain, or snow, or mist, or fog, which destroys all long range? Compare the tremendous fighting with "bullets, bayonets, swords, hand-grenades, and even fists," of Nogi's attempt to cut the Russian line of retreat at Mukden, with the hand-to-hand fighting of Eylau, Friedland, Borodino, or with the desperate efforts of the French in 1812 to open their line of retreat through Maro-Jaroslawitz, where all day the masses of troops fought hand-to-hand in the streets, "the town was taken and retaken seven times, and the rival nations fought with the bayonet in the midst of the burning houses" (Alison).

When it comes to push of pike, as in all great decisions between equally resolute adversaries it is bound to do, the difference between the fighting of Clausewitz's day and ours is but small. The most recent instances of all, the hand-to-hand fighting in Manchuria, take us back to the Napoleonic struggles.

Therefore, despite the eighty years that have intervened, the writings of Clausewitz are still valuable from a tactical point of view, always considering of course the difference in weapons, because of the human heart in battle.

His ideas on tactics have largely filtered through his German pupils into our textbooks, minus the psychological or moral note, so that it is not necessary to go at length into the subject, or give a number of extracts. It would be wearisome. I will, however, give a few passages at haphazard as illustrations.

FLANK ATTACKS

The endeavour to gain the enemy's line of retreat, and protect our own, on which so much learned erudition has been spent by various writers, he regards as a NATURAL instinct, which will ALWAYS produce itself both in generals and subalterns.

"From this arises, in the whole conduct of war, and especially in great and small combats, a PERFECT INSTINCT, which is the security of our own line of retreat and the seizure of the enemy's; this follows from the conception of victory, which, as we have seen, is something beyond mere slaughter. In this effort we see, therefore, the FIRST immediate purpose in the combat, and one which is quite universal. No combat is _imaginable_ in which this effort, either in its double or single form, is not to go hand in hand with the plain and simple stroke of force. Even the smallest troop will not throw itself upon the enemy without thinking of its line of retreat, and in most cases it will have an eye upon that of the enemy."[62] "This is a great _natural law_ of the combat," "and so becomes the pivot upon which ALL strategical and tactical manoeuvres turn."

RESERVES--DESTRUCTIVE AND DECISIVE ACT

The combat he regards as settled by whoever has the preponderance of moral force at the end; that is, in fresh or only partly used up troops.

The combat itself he divides into a destructive and a decisive act. During the long destructive act, or period of fire preparation, the troops engaged gradually wear each other out, and gradually almost cease to count as factors in the decision. "After a fire combat of some hours' duration, in which a body of troops has suffered severe losses--for instance, a quarter or one-third of its numbers--the _débris_ may for the time be looked upon as a heap of cinders. For the men are physically exhausted; they have spent their ammunition; many have left the field with the wounded, though not themselves wounded (compare, for instance, Eylau and the 1870 battles); the rest think they have done their part for the day, and if they get beyond the sphere of danger, do not willingly return to it. The feeling of courage with which they originally started has had the edge taken off, the longing for the fight is satisfied, the original organization is partly destroyed, and the formations broken up."

"So that the amount of moral force lost may be estimated by the amount of the Reserves used up, almost as with a foot rule."[63]

This goes on till, "In all probability, only the untouched reserve and some troops which, though they have been in action, have suffered very little, are in reality to be regarded as serviceable, and the remainder (perhaps four-sixths) may be looked upon for the present as a "caput mortuum."

Therefore the art of the commander he regards as "economy of force" during the destructive period; that is, to employ as few troops as possible, by taking advantage of ground, cover, etc., "to use a smaller number of men in the combat with firearms than the enemy employs," so that a smaller proportionate number of his own are reduced to a "heap of cinders" and more are left, more moral force, for the decision.

"Hundreds of times," he says, "a line of fire has maintained its own against one twice its strength" (_e.g._ the Boers).

To do this and yet obtain a good fire-effect demands very skilful handling of the troops, both on the part of the chief and subordinate leaders.

With the preponderance thus obtained the commander at last starts the decision. "Towards the close of a battle the line of retreat is always regarded with increased jealousy, therefore a threat against that line is always a potent means of bringing on the decision (Liao-yang, Mukden). On that account, when circumstances permit, the plan of battle will be aimed at that point from the very first." Or, "If this wear and tear and exhaustion of the forces has reached a certain pitch, then a rapid advance in concentrated masses on one side against the line of battle of the other" (_i.e._ the Napoleonic breaking the centre, of recent years thought almost hopeless, but revived in Manchuria with success, in the case of Nodzu breaking the centre at Mukden).

From what precedes it is evident that, as in the preparatory acts, the utmost economy of forces must prevail, so in the decisive act to win the mastery through _numbers_ must be the ruling idea.

Just as in the preparatory acts endurance, firmness and coolness are the first qualities, so in the decisive act boldness and fiery spirit must predominate.

"The difference between these two acts will never be completely lost as respects the whole."

"This is the way in which our view is to be understood; then, on the one hand, it will not come short of the reality, and on the other it will direct the attention of the leader of a combat (be it great or small, partial or general) to giving each of the two acts of activity its due share, so that there may be neither precipitation nor negligence.

"_Precipitation_ there will be if space and time are not allowed for the destructive act. _Negligence_ in general there will be if a complete decision does not take place, either from want of moral courage or from a wrong view of the situation."[64]

DURATION OF THE COMBAT

"Even the resistance of an ordinary division of 8,000 or 10,000 men of all arms, even if opposed to an enemy considerably superior in numbers, will last several hours, if the advantages of country are not too preponderating. And if the enemy is only a little or not at all superior in numbers, the combat will last half a day. A corps of three or four divisions will prolong it to double that time; an army of 80,000 or 100,000 men to three or four times." "These calculations are the result of experience."[65]

As General von Caemmerer points out, if these calculations were adhered to in present-day German manoeuvres, as they are now in all war games, tactical exercises, and staff rides, the dangerous dualism of their training, the difference between theory and manoeuvre practice, would cease.

ATTACK AND DEFENCE

I have left to the last the consideration of three or four disputed points in Clausewitz. In considering these I shall quote a good deal from General von Caemmerer's "Development of Strategical Science," as in such matters it is best to quote the most recent authors of established reputation.

The most important of these, and the most disputed, is Clausewitz's famous dictum that "the defensive is the stronger form of making war." "The defence is the stronger form of war with a negative object; the attack is the weaker form with a positive object."[66]

General von Caemmerer says, "It is strange, we Germans look upon Clausewitz as indisputably the deepest and acutest thinker upon the subject of war; the beneficial effect of his intellectual labours is universally recognized and highly appreciated; but the more or less keen opposition against this sentence never ceases. And yet that sentence can as little be cut out of his work 'On War' as the heart out of a man. Our most distinguished and prominent military writers are here at variance with Clausewitz.

"Now, of course, I do not here propose to go into such a controversy. I only wish to point out that Clausewitz, in saying this, only meant the defensive-offensive, the form in which he always regards it, both strategically and technically, in oft-repeated explanations all through his works. For instance--

"It is a FIRST maxim NEVER to remain perfectly passive, but to fall upon the enemy in front and flank, even when he is in the act of making an attack upon us."[67]

And again--

"_A swift and vigorous assumption of the offensive--the flashing sword of vengeance--is the most brilliant point in the defensive._ He who does not at once think of it at the right moment, or rather he who does not from the first include this transition in his idea of the defensive, will never understand its superiority as a form of war."[68] Von Caemmerer comments thus: "And this conception of the defence by Clausewitz has become part and parcel of our army--everywhere, strategically and tactically, he who has been forced into a defensive attitude at once thinks how he can arrange a counter-attack. I am thus unable to see how the way in which Clausewitz has contrasted Attack and Defence could in any way paralyse the spirit of enterprise." Von Caemmerer also justly remarks that, as Clausewitz always insisted both in strategy and tactics, neither Attack nor Defence is pure, but oscillates between the two forms; and as the Attack is frequently temporarily reduced to defend itself, and also as no nation can be sure of never being invaded by a superior coalition, it is most desirable to encourage a belief in the strength of the Defence, if properly used. In this I think that Wellington would probably have agreed. Certainly Austerlitz and Waterloo were examples of battles such as Clausewitz preferred.

Still, one must admit that Clausewitz's chapter on "The Relations of the Offensive and Defensive to each other in Tactics," Book VII.