CHAPTER XII

CHANGES SINCE THE DAYS OF CLAUSEWITZ

In reading Clausewitz it is, first, the great principles of the nature of war founded on human nature, which alter not; and, secondly, it is his spirit and practical way of looking at things that we want to assimilate and apply to THE PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY, to which end it is necessary to read him always with the changed conditions of to-day in our minds, and think what he would have said under the circumstances. These changes are chiefly:--

(1) The improved net-work of roads. (2) Railways. (3) Telegraphs, wire and wireless. (4) Improved arms. (5) Aviation (6) Universal service armies.

THE IMPROVED NET-WORK OF ROADS

The improved net-work of roads in Europe (not, of course, in Manchuria, or in Afghanistan where we have to consider our future strategy, but in Europe), as General v. Caemmerer puts it, "now offers to the movements of armies everywhere a whole series of useful roads where formerly one or two only were available," easier gradients, good bridges instead of unreliable ones, etc. So that the march-discipline of that day when concentrated for battle, artillery and train _on_ the roads, infantry and cavalry _by the side_ of the roads, has disappeared. Such close concentration is therefore now not possible, as we move all arms _on_ the road, and an army corps with train, or two without, is the most that we can now calculate on bringing into action in one day on one road.

RAILWAYS

"Railways have, above all, completely altered the term 'base,'" remarks V. Caemmerer. "Railways carry in a few days men, horses, vehicles, and materials of all kinds from the remotest district to any desired point of our country, and nobody would any longer think of accumulating enormous supplies of all kinds at certain fortified points on his own frontier with the object of basing himself on those points. One does not base one's self any longer on a distinct district which is specially prepared for that object, but upon the whole country, which has become one single magazine, with separate store-rooms. So the term 'base' has now to be considered in this light."

It is only when operating in savage or semi-savage countries, where there are no railways, that the old idea of a base applies.

As we penetrate deeper and further from our own country into the enemy's, and as a small raiding party can demolish the railway line so as to stop all traffic for days or weeks, it becomes far more necessary than it ever was in Clausewitz's day to guard our communications. And armies become more and more sensitive to any attack upon their communications.

Also "such a line cannot easily be changed, and consequently those celebrated changes of the line of communication in an enemy's country which Napoleon himself, on some occasion, declared to be the ablest manoeuvre in the art of war, could scarcely be carried out any more" (V. Caemmerer).

Also concentration by means of several railways demands a broad strategic front, which produces that separation of corps or armies which prepares the way for strategical envelopment, and so on.

General von der Goltz, in his "Conduct of War," says: "The more recent treatises on the conduct of war on a large scale are principally taken up with the mobilization and strategical concentration of armies, a department of strategy which only began to play an important part in modern times. It is the result of a dense net-work of railways in Western Europe which has rendered it possible to mass large bodies of troops in a surprisingly brief time. Each Power tries to outdo its neighbours in this respect, ... which gives an opportunity to the strategical specialist to show off his brilliant qualities.... Consequently it is now frequently assumed that the whole conduct of war is comprised in this one section of it." This over-estimate is of course an error, which, however, requires to be pointed out.

TELEGRAPHS

The telegraph has very greatly reduced the danger of separation. The great advantage of the inner line in the day of Napoleon and of Clausewitz was that separated forces could only communicate by mounted messengers, so if the enemy got between them they could not communicate at all, nor act in concert. This the telegraph has completely altered, for as the field telegraph can now be laid as quickly as an army can advance, the most widely separated bodies of troops can every day arrange combined operations by telegraph through, if necessary, a point one hundred or four hundred miles in rear. So that to-day the chief advantage of the inner line has gone, while its chief disadvantage, the possibility of being surrounded, remains.

MAPS

We now possess complete detailed Ordnance maps of every country in Europe, kept up to date by the latest alterations, whereas in the days of Clausewitz maps were of the very roughest character, and quite unreliable in comparison.

IMPROVED ARMS

Smokeless powder, quick-firing and long-ranging artillery and rifles, the infantry field of effective fire being ten times, the artillery five times what it was in Clausewitz's time, have all to be borne in mind when reading the tactical part of his writings. In consequence, also, cover and the tactical use of ground are of far greater importance now than then, etc., etc., etc.

AVIATION

The recent wonderful developments in aviation will obviously almost revolutionize "Information in War." To what extent, it is as yet impossible to say. Each year will teach us more.

THE NATION-IN-ARMS

The nation-in-arms as the common foundation of all armies (except our own), brought up by railways, vastly increases the numbers in a modern battle from what they were in Clausewitz's day. Compare Austerlitz, Dresden, Leipzig and Waterloo, with Liao-yang and Mukden. It should be so with us also, for as General von der Goltz says in "The Conduct of War": "The BEST military organization is that which renders available ALL the intellectual and material resources of the country in event of war. _A State is not justified in trying to defend itself with only a portion of its strength, when the existence of the whole is at stake._"

In Great Britain the difference which the introduction of this nation-in-arms principle has made in our military strength compared with that of our future opponents, a difference relatively FAR GREATER AGAINST US than it was in Napoleon's and Clausewitz's day, is as yet hardly realized by the people, or by our statesmen. People forget the wastage of war, and the necessity for a constant flow of troops to repair that wastage. As Von der Goltz puts it: "It is characteristic of the strategical offensive that the foremost body of troops of an army, the portion which fights the battles, amounts to only a comparatively small fraction, frequently only _a quarter or even one-eighth_, of the total fighting strength employed, whilst the fate of the whole army throughout depends upon the success or failure of this fraction. _Attacking armies melt away like snow in the spring._" To condense his remarks: "In spite of the most admirable discipline, the Prussian Guard Corps lost 5000 to 6000 men in the marches between the attack on St. Privat and the battle of Sedan." "Napoleon crossed the Niemen in 1812 with 442,000 men, but reached Moscow only three months later with only 95,000." In the spring of 1810, the French crossed the Pyrenees with 400,000 men, but still Marshal Massena in the end only brought 45,000 men up to the lines of Torres Vedras, near Lisbon, where the decision lay. Again, in 1829, the Russians put 160,000 men in the field, but had barely 20,000 left when, at Adrianople, a skilfully concluded peace saved them before their weakness became apparent and a reaction set in. In 1878 the Russians led 460,000 across the Danube, but they only brought 100,000 men--of whom only 43,000 were effective, the rest being sick--to the gates of Constantinople. In 1870 the Germans crossed the French frontier with 372,000 men, but after only a six weeks' campaign brought but 171,000 men to Paris. And so on. The result of it all is simple--that a people which is not based on the modern principle of the nation-in-arms cannot for long rival or contend with one that is, for it can neither put an equal (still less a superior) army into the field at the outset (_vide_ Clausewitz's first principle), nor even maintain in the field the _inferior_ army it does place there, because it cannot send the ever-required fresh supplies of trained troops. Sooner or later this must tell. Sooner or later a situation must arise in which the nation based on the obsolete voluntary system _must_ go down before a nation based on the nation-in-arms principle. Circumstances change with time, and, as wise Lord Bacon said long ago, "He that will not adopt new remedies must expect new evils." May we adopt the remedy before we experience the evil!

THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL FORCES IN WAR

But though these changed conditions must, of course, _modify_ Clausewitz's details in many important particulars, still (to complete our circle and leave off where we started) I repeat that, as human nature never changes, and as the moral is to the physical as three to one in war, Clausewitz, as the great realistic and practical philosopher on the actual nature of war, as _the chief exponent of the moral and spiritual forces in war_, will ever remain invaluable in the study of war.

Consider what unsurpassed opportunities he had for observing and reflecting on the influence of enthusiasm and passion, of resolution and boldness, of vacillation and weakness, of coolness and caution, of endurance and hardship, of patriotism and freedom, of ambition and of glory--on war, either by his own experience or by conversation with other equally experienced soldiers, during that long period of almost endless wars between 1793 and 1815.

The fervour and enthusiasm and boundless energy of the Revolution, which drove the French forward, smashing everything before them, at the beginning; the ambition, military glory, plunder and greed, which animated them later on; the patriotism, religious and loyal devotion, and stern endurance, which nerved the Russian hosts then as now; that awful Moscow winter campaign, when human nature rose to its highest and sank to its lowest, when the extremes of heroic endurance and selfish callousness were visible side by side; the magnificent uprising of the spirit of liberty and freedom from intolerable oppression in Germany, which gave to the Prussian recruits and Landwehr the same driving force that revolutionary enthusiasm had formerly given to the French; the passing, therefore, in 1813 of the moral superiority, the greater driving force, from the French to the allies. Clausewitz saw all this; he conversed intimately with such men as Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, who saw and guided it, too. All his friends had seen it also. No wonder, then, that such an unexampled series of warlike phenomena deeply impressed his reflective mind with the supreme importance of the moral and spiritual factors in war.

His opportunities for long-continued observation of warlike phenomena were far greater than those of any writer since his day, and it is to be hoped they will remain so. For we have no desire to see another series of wars such as the Napoleonic. It is fortunate for us that there was then such a man as Clausewitz to sum up for us so simply and so clearly the accumulated experiences of those long, long years of carnage and devastation.

_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Book IV. Chap. 10.

[2] Book IV. Chap. 3.

[3] Book IV. Chap. 3.

[4] Book I. Chap. 8.

[5] Summary of Instruction to H.R.H. the Crown Prince.

[6] Summary of Instruction, p. 120.

[7] Book II. Chap. 6.

[8] Book II. Chap. 2.

[9] Prefatory "Notice" by Clausewitz.

[10] Book II. Chap. 4.

[11] Book II. Chap. 2.

[12] Book II. Chap. 2.

[13] Book II. Chap. 3.

[14] Book I. Chap. 1.

[15] By gaining Public Opinion, Clausewitz means, to force the enemy's population into a state of mind favourable to submission.

[16] Summary of Instruction to H.R.H. the Crown Prince.

[17] Book I. Chap. 1.

[18] Author's "Introduction."

[19] Book I. Chap. 1.

[20] Book VII. Chap. 5.

[21] Book VII. Chap. 21.

[22] Book VII. Chap. 21.

[23] Book VIII. Chaps. 7, 8 and 9.

[24] Book I. Chap. 1.

[25] Book VIII. Chap. 9.

[26] Book I. Chap. 7.

[27] Book I. Chap. 8.

[28] Book I. Chap. 8.

[29] Book IV. Chap. 1.

[30] Book IV. Chap. 3.

[31] Book I. Chap. 1.

[32] Book IV. Chap. 3.

[33] Book III. Chap. 15.

[34] Book VII. Chap. 13.

[35] Book I. Chap. 4.

[36] Book I. Chap. 5.

[37] Book I. Chap. 7.

[38] Book III. Chap. 3.

[39] Book III. Chaps. 16-18.

[40] Book II. Chap. 1.

[41] Book III. Chap. 11.

[42] Book III. Chap. 8.

[43] Book V. Chap. 3.

[44] Book III. Chap. 8.

[45] Book VIII. Chap. 4.

[46] Book III. Chap. 12.

[47] Book III. Chap. 13.

[48] Book III. Chap. 12.

[49] Book III. Chap. 13.

[50] Book III. Chap. 8.

[51] Book III. Chap. 11.

[52] Book VI. Chap. 28.

[53] Book V. Chap. 10.

[54] Book I. Chap. 1.

[55] Book III. Chap. 13.

[56] Book I. Chap. 3.

[57] Book VIII. Chap. 9.

[58] Book VIII. Chap. 9.

[59] Summary of Instruction to H.R.H. the Crown Prince.

[60] Book I. Chap. 3.

[61] This warning as to the consequences of allowing information to be published freely which would be helpful to an enemy was written five years ago. In the present war the prudent reticence of our Press, and its loyal co-operation with the Government in depriving the enemy of any helpful information, show that the lesson here insisted on has been learned.--Editor's Note.

[62] Book IV. Chap. 4.

[63] Book IV. Chap. 4.

[64] "Guide to Tactics," Vol. III. pp. 136-146.

[65] Book IV. Chap. 4.

[66] Book VI. Chap. 1.

[67] Summary of Instruction to H.R.H. the Crown Prince.

[68] Book VI. Chap. 5.

[69] Book VIII. Chap. 9.

[70] Book VII. Chap. 15.

[71] Summary of Instruction, "Guide to Tactics," par. 500.

[72] Book VI. Chap. 9.

[73] Book VII. Chap. 9.

[74] Book VII. Chap. 7.

[75] Book VII. Chap. 7.

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

Page 133: Paragraph ends with: "Otherwise," rather than with a period.