The Prussian Way of War

Here is something thought provoking:

Consider, if you will, this practically forgotten scene from the pages of German military history:

They came up out of the dark forests, mounted and mobile, driving deep into the flank and rear of their enemy. The shock and surprise of their sudden assault carried all before them. So rapid was the advance that it overtook every attempt by their defenders to form a cohesive position. The attackers were not simply faster than their opponents. Moving in a compact, mobile column, they were also more agile, more flexible, and far more responsive to the commands of their officers.

This great mobile column chopped the bewildered enemy force in front of it into uncoordinated segments, each with little more on its mind than flight. It was a near-perfect marriage between the best available technology, a flexible system of command and control, and officers who understood the possibilities of both. It was war in a new, faster tempo.

And now, a quiz: from whence comes this scene?... the Tannenberg campaign of 1914?... the invasion of France in 1940?... Operation Barbarossa?...

Any of the three would certainly be a good guess, but each would be wrong.... Friedrich Wilhelm I, the "Great Elector" of Brandenburg... winter campaign of 1678-9.... The routed enemy was Swedish, and the mounted force launching the devastating mobile assault and pursuit was actually riding sleighs...

[...]

[T]here is indeed a German way of war and... it had its origins within the Kingdom of Prussia.... Prussian, and later German commanders, sought to maneuver their operational units... in a rapid and daring fashion. The Germans called it Bewegungskreig... the war of movement on the operational level.... Such a vigorous operational posture [required]... an army with an extremely high level of battlefield aggression, an officer corps that tended to launch attacks no matter what the odds, and a flexible system of command that left a great deal of initiative, sometimes too much, in the hands of lower ranking commanders.

Thus the Germans evolved a certain pattern of war making.... Other nations... evolved different patterns. Need to land a larg amphibious force on foreign shores? Call the Americans. Interested in deep strikes and consecutive operations on a vast scale of men and materiel? Study the Red Army in its prime. War as a means of colonial aggrandizement? Look to the British. Levels of firepower large enough to turn the enemy homeland into a parking lot? It's back to the Americans...

This is the beginning of Robert Citino (2005), The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas: 0700614109).

Comments

[radek]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Sleigh_Drive

[Delicious Pundit]

For a second there I thought he was talking about the World Cup. The Brazilian Way of War, anyone?

[Steven Rogers]

Actually, my guess was that I was reading a description of the hosing the Teutonic Knights suffered from the Mongols in the 1200s.

That sort of pounding tends to drive important lessons about warfare home. If you survive the class, that is.

[Kieran]

For the first few sentences I thought it was a description of a different German army -- that of Arminius -- and its annihilation of the Legions of Varus in the Teutoburg Forest, in A.D. 9.

[Kieran]

Except those guys didn't have horses.

[Gene O'Grady]

Well, someone beat me to the Hermannschlacht. I had one of the strangest experiences of my life a couple years ago at a Swiss Bank sponsored modern art exhibit in Portland where an artist had titled his painting, for no apparent reason, something referring to Hermannschlacht, and I had to explain what that was to two bewildered German tourists who had never heard the phrase.

Of course, lest we adopt nationalist explanations the other campaign that occurred to my mind was Napoleon's annihilation of Mack's army around Ulm in 1805.

[radek]

"Except those guys didn't have horses."

But did they have sleighs?

[wcw]

I really don't see the Varusschlacht (Hermannschlacht, whatever you call it; the museum goes by the former name, http://www.kalkriese-varusschlacht.de/ will inform). Didn't the German tribes build and partly fight behind a miles-long mud wall? Not so much a mobile incursion against an enemy force as a deft and slow-running ambush, it seems to me.

[radek]

...and I don't think the Teutonic Knights and the Mongols ever went at it one on one. You might be thinking of the Battle on Ice where they got whooped by Aleksander Nevsky (of Novgorod) or Grunwald (Tannenberg) where there were some Tatars fighting on the Polish-Lithuanian side.

[Steven Rogers]

Radek,

I was referring to Lignica/Liegnitz in 1241. The Teutonic Knights were part of a coalition that got whipped-but-good by the Golden Horde.

[J. Michael Neal]

And, of course, every style has its blindspots. For the Germans, it's been mismanaging logistics and shortchanging the less mobile portions of the army, both of which have gotten them in trouble as they launched initially brilliant mobile offensives.

[Wombat]

Perhaps the Prussians learned from the Swedes. The Swedish Army that first intervened in the 30 Year's War was trained by Gustavus Adolphus to incorporate maximum tactical flexibility by fully integrating infantry (musketeers and pikemen) and artillery, and using cavalry as the strike arm.

[Roger Bigod]

One of my relatives was a Field Marshall for Frederick II. He had to flee Scotland because his family made an disastrous political choice. He served the Spanish, then Russia, then Frederick II.

[rea]

Ah, James Francis Keith, killed at Hochkirch in 1757 . . .

[r4d20]

"Prussian, and later German commanders, sought to maneuver their operational units... in a rapid and daring fashion."

Yeah, but the Germans hardly invented this. What they DID do was re-discover a concept that had atrophied with the rise of gunpowder.

Early gunpower weapons were used to protect the flanks of large formations of pikemen. The tactics used were tactics appropriate to large, clumsy, and slow formations of pike - everything had to move slow and methodical to keep the formations from falling apart and units from getting out of position and exposing the whole line.
As time went by, and firearms got better, more and more pikes were replaced by guns until, with the invention of the socket-bayonet, the pikes were dropped completely. The conditions were ready for a more "mobile" form of war, similar to one practiced by many mobile armies in history, but old traditions and "rules" were an obstacle. It was in this environment that Frederick invented new methods of drill and tactics that allowed him to resurrect established ways of war that were adapted to the new environment of war with firearms.

[andres]

Actually, by WWII the Germans had perfected this mode of warfare which consisted of infiltration, disrupting the enemy's rear areas so they couldn't coordinate effectively, and then using combined infantry/armor attacks on all flanks to destroy encircled enemies before the infiltrating formations themselves ran out of gasoline and ammo. The tactics of Frederick the Great were quite similar, though without the noise and gasoline fumes.

If other countries had studied this method assiduously, they would have defeated it soundly long before WWII. As it was, it took the Russians millions of casualties before they hit on the correct approach: (1) at the micro-level, have enough trained snipers to put a bullet in the head of any German officer displaying initiative, (2) at the macro level, have strong mobile reserves that can counterattack the enemy's lead armored formations, especially if these have bogged down attacking strongpoints.

Of course, instead of all that fiddling around, one can take the US approach, which is to have enough aircraft-mounted firepower to blast anything on wheels that moves. Much simpler method, if you ask me.

[Steven Rogers]

Andres,

Not exactly disagreeing with you, but I think that although airppower got the publicity, artillery may have done more of the heavy lifting. The British and American armies had the best artillery arms in WWII.

[Scott Martens]

"La Prusse n'est pas un État qui possède une armée, c'est une armée qui a conquis une nation" -- Honoré Mirabeau

I would argue that however much German forces had a distinctive style, the real uniqueness of the German military was what Mirabeau put his finger on: Prussia was not a state that had an army, it was an army that had a state. This political difference made all the difference in the world. Staff command and highly autonomous commanders - the great German military invention - drastically undermined the traditional means that the state had to control its military: by appointing new leadership. It entrenched command structures institutionally in much the same way that constitutionally defined power structures and parliaments entrench political structures. It made no sense for states that viewed their militaries as adjuncts to political authorities to use staff command or to allow so much freedom to officers on the field. It made all the sense in the world to a state that viewed political authority as adjunct to military power.

[Johnny]

The German's invincible reputation in the first few years of WW2 was a combination of German proficiency and Allied incompetence. Poland had no chance but put up a decent fight considering their inferiority in weaponry and troop nimbers, but it was the invasion of France that really cemented the reputation, but their quick success had more to do with French and British incompetence than German superiority. Germany's fast drive through the Ardennes that split the Allied forces was incredibly risky in that a coordinated allied counter attack deep in the flanks could've cut off the German spearhead and left the best German armored forces cut off and out of gas and ammo within a few days.

The fortunate result of these debacles was that Hitler developed a superiorty complex about his own genius and way overestimated his forces capabilities, hence the Russian invasion, an endeavour almost doomed to failure from the start, despite early Russian incompetence. Hitler also wasted valuable resources in North Africa, a campaigned nearly doomed from the start and which would gain him little strategic value even if successful. His inclination to never retreat was also ruinous, costing whole armies in Stalingrad and in the Falaises gap in France.

Hitler also had a fetish for always developing new and better weaponry and often wasted his limited resources on these at the expense of proven and cheaper to make weapons, while at the same time, neglecting the most basic of things like making a better infantry rifle in large #s. Most damaging though was, German armament reseatch was largely a haphazard and unorganized system that stopped and started based on whatever whim Hitler had at any one time. By comparison, Allied R&D and armament improvement was highly organized and judiciously didn't waste much time and effort on (a) improving what already worked, or (B) was too advanced to be of practical use within the expected time span of the war.

The ultimate examples are, things like the production of American submachine guns. Starting out, the Thompson submachine was a great gun, but it was over-designed and expensive to produce. so the Americans redesigned it, making it cheaper to produce, and to top it off, by the end of the war, they were making the even cheaper but still effective grease gun. Conversely, Rather than focus on making the reliable and effective Mark 4 tank in massive #s, Hitler wasted massive resources building two separate "super tanks" that were so complicated and difficult to manufacture, that he could never produce them in mass quantities. And to top it off, he then produced another variant, the king tiger, that was so heavy few bridges in Europe could take the weight, and those that could were continuously bombed by the allies.

As for the Russians, they survived their early incompetence thanks largely to winter and an inadequate German supply operation, but Stalin, unlike Hitler, eventually learned from his disastrous mistakes and let the proffessionals make most of the cruical decisions as the war went on. The Russians got better at retreating, slowing the Germans down, extracting more casualties, letting German attacks run out of steam, and then launching massive counter attacks on the German flanks. Late in the war, Stalin did have an obsession with taking Berlin by May Day, which costs his forces huge casualties when a simple siege would've been the better choice.

The Americans and Brits were excellent at limitting their ambitions to what their logistical capabilities were at any one time, thus, unlike the Germans, they never lost massive armies due to encirclement or an inability to reinforce them in an emergency. They were also adept an inflicting a maximum number of casualties for the least amount of cost. The Brits were excellent in matters of espionage and making great use of new technology. The Americans in particular were excellent at maximizing their industrial capacity to it's fullest and unlike the Germans, spread their Inustrial capacity around and didn't overemphasize new weaponry at the expense of logistical support items.

And finally, the Brit and American air forces launched a horrific and relentless strategic air campaign that over time destroyed the luftwaffe and laid to waste Germany's oil supply network and its' transportational system so that, although German industry could still make weapons and munitions, it had a difficult time getting them to where the battle was.

[Cranky Observer]

> Rather than focus on making the reliable
> and effective Mark 4 tank in massive #s,
> Hitler wasted massive resources building
> two separate "super tanks" that were so
> complicated and difficult to manufacture,
> that he could never produce them in mass
> quantities.

Yes and no. The other factor involved was that the most powerful German industrialists reflected the Nazi regime: overconfident, overproud, arrogant. As a result even those that had talent tended to misuse it on follies. Hitler himself sketched out some fairly good tanks, and personally ordered the necessary improvements to the Mark III and Mark IV, but his industrialists (not least of them the Porsche family) not only failed to carry out his orders but came back with the designs for the ego-stroking King Tiger and worse.

To me it seems that as long as the Nazis' opponents kept fighting back for a reasonable length of time the Reich would have eventually failed due to the structural problems that were a reflection of the structural problems of the Nazi mode of thought. But I do also wonder what would have happened if the Stalingrad campaign had succeeded and the Nazis captured the Caucaucs region. Would Stalin have been deposed and the resulting Soviet government sued for peace? And if so, would the Nazi regime still have rotted from the inside? Or without the Soviet pressure and counterattack would it have been able to reach equilibrium?

Cranky

[Roger Bigod]

To return to the original premise, was there really a Prussian way of war? Did Frederick carry out traditional Prussian tactics, or did he impose some personal combination of Enlightenment rationality and authoritarianism? Apparently tactical doctrine wasn't nation specific, since a Scot soldier of fortune could walk in, perform as Field Marshall and keep the job.

[RKKA]

"As it was, it took the Russians millions of casualties before they hit on the correct approach."

Actually, their correct approach from the beginning of hostilities was to break up the German combined-arms team, separating the infantry from the tanks and artillery so they could then beat up on the infantry. General Halder, Chief of the German General Staff, noticed this Soviet strategy in the initial days of the war. And German infantry casualties, especially for small-unit leaders, were heavy from the start. And over time, the Red Army would get better at it.

"Of course, instead of all that fiddling around, one can take the US approach, which is to have enough aircraft-mounted firepower to blast anything on wheels that moves. Much simpler method, if you ask me."

Of course, it really helps to have a collossal industrial base separated from Germany by thousands of miles of ocean, and a German Army reduced to a shadow of the power and skill it had in 1941, when you are executing this strategy.

[J Thomas]

And an unlimited supply of aviation fuel.

[radek]

Steve - at Legnica there were Templars. There might have been some Teutonic Knights there too but that part has never been conclusively established. And interestingly, for a long time the Battle of Legnica was seen as a victory for the Poles and Germans, even though Henry the Pious died, as supposedly it stopped the westward advance of the Mongols - actually the Great Khan died and the Mongol commanders decided to turn back to fight out the succession rights.

[radek]

As far as WW2, recently I read "The Blitzkrieg Myth" by John Mosier. I don't think I really bought it, but it was definetly interesting.

The revisionism:
Poland had a chance until Soviets invaded, French kicked some serious ass (at Gembloux Gap) and were doing alright until the politicians and the Brits panicked, which in turn caused the Belgians to surrender, otherwise it could've been static warfare all over again, the Blitzkrieg didn't really work as it was a logistical nightmare, rather it was the initiative of the German officers that won them battles, Patton and Rommel are both overrated and no wonder their tanks kept running out of gas, what worked was a 'broad front offensive' rather than a 'panzer thrust'.
And yeah, the Tigers and Panthers sucked when it comes down to it.

[andres]

I didn't "buy" John Mosier either. But in all fairness, he didn't say Patton and Rommel were overrated, just that they didn't have any respect for the _theory_ of blitzkrieg warfare and adopted a much more pragmatic "whatever works" approach. In that sense, Rommel's failure was due to logistical factors beyond his controls rather than any error in tactics.

Anyway, the problem was not that blitzkrieg was an incorrect strategy but that neither the western Allies nor the Soviet command had initially adopted a correct counter-strategy. If they had, the allied victories at Kursk and Falaise might have come much sooner than they actually did.

"And yeah, the Tigers and Panthers sucked when it comes down to it." Err, no. Time and again, you read accounts of one Tiger or Panther knocking out at least half a dozen Shermans or T-34s before being eliminated or damaged by an airstrike or artillery barrage. The problem was that Germany just couldn't make enough of them and would have been much better off concentrating on mass-producing the PzKfw IV.

[Johnny]

In the end, probably the biggest change between the beginning of the war and the end of the war for the Germans, besides the loss of so many men in Russia, was that the luftwaffe was largely decimated by persistant American daylight bombing. It wasn't so much the bombing, it was losing their pilots and fighters attacking the bombers, and particularly with the introduction of the P-51 with its "Berlin and back" fuel range, the tide in the air war turned dramatically, and without adequate pilots, planes and fuel, by around mid 1944, American, Brit and Russian air forces could launch behind the line air-to-ground attacks that decimated German supply columns and largely reduced the Germans to static fighting during the day, and only at night could they move in great #s, which greatly reduced their ability to perform blitzkrieg attacks... The battle of the bulge was an abberation simply because the weather prevented air attacks... as soon as the sky cleared, British and American planes pounced on the Germans.

[Johnny]

"Would Stalin have been deposed and the resulting Soviet government sued for peace?"

I don't think so, in the end it was a battle over land, the Soviets weren't about to give up everything west of the Volga no matter what. They would've kept fighting. They had a large industrial base East of the Urals and would stlll have been a capable fighting force.

Hitler might have actually had a chance if he'd made a deal with the Ukranians and brought them in as allies and promised them freedom if they helped fight the Russians... Of course, in Hitler's mind, The Ukranians (a) were an inferior race occuppying the land he wanted, and (b) The Ukranians weren't likely to believe any promise Hitler made to them.

[Wombat]

Frederick the Great combined iron discipline and technological improvement (iron ramrods) which allowed more rapid fire and movement. This also allowed his tactical innovation, the oblique order of attack. Simply put, this sought to bring a preponderance of force (and fire) on the flank of the defender.

Given the lack of visibility on most battlefields once the shooting started, and the suprisingly poor quality of Prussian cavalry for anything except shock tactics, most of Frederick's battles devolved into slugging matches, oblique order attacks or no. Usually Prussian discipline prevailed, but at great cost in casualties, which they could not afford.

[radek]

Andres, you're right - both with respect to Rommel/Patton and the Tigers/Panthers. By 'when it comes down to it' I meant that they weren't cost effective, not that they couldn't pack a punch.

[RKKA]

"Hitler might have actually had a chance if he'd made a deal with the Ukranians and brought them in as allies and promised them freedom if they helped fight the Russians..."

A common chimera, but with what are the Ukrainians to be armed, and with what are they to be supplied?

You see, due to the limits of the rail net in the occupied USSR, the force the Axis sent could not be supplied, and so it had to feed and shelter itself at the expense of the occupied population, who had little enough to begin with. Their logistical problems are not solved by giving the Axis a bigger force to arm and supply.