…and modern strategy and understanding of logistics, but the title was getting a bit long.
If we sent a experienced modern generals back exactly 100 years ago to replace Sir John French and Joseph Joffrey as Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force and Generalissimo of the French Army respectively, what additions could we expect the experiences of a century of waging war to bring?
Assume our modern generals have been fully briefed and are charged, like those they replaced, with gaining an Allied victory. They can’t bring anything back but their uniform and themselves, no Reaper Drone strikes.
How much we can expect from modern generalship and hindsight? I’m guessing that they’d push for the development and deployment of tanks ASAP as well as bringing a modern understanding of aerial combat, but what of the boots on the ground? What would they do today to break the stalemate of the trenches?
If you brought in one innovative/inspiring modern military leader on each side, they’d still have to cope with the entrenched dogma that approved of sending attackers suicidally head-on against well-fortified defensive positions, deal with horrendously poor communications and be subordinate to clueless politicians.
Of all modern tactics employing hindsight, the best would be to send in a couple assassins to take out Kaiser Wilhelm and Count Berchtold, and prevent the whole mess from getting started in the first place.
The Germans weren’t the ones who started the first one, though. Also I’d have a bullet for Field-Marshal Haig, who killed more of his own men than the Hun could ever dream of.
That being said, the means of war of the era kind of led to the stagnant slaughter that happened historically - when you have heavy enough ground firepower to make any kind of infantry/cavalry advance suicidal but no airpower or tanks to throw a wrench at the deadlock, trench warfare is what happens.
The best tactician in the world will have a hard time solving “400m of open ground, machine gun nests and mines everywhere, all of the artillery raining down all the time”, especially if their own arms are not so much “combined” as “sort of adjacent-like” due to the state of 1920s comms tech.
Tanks were developed ASAP- on the British side at least they had top priority. The problem was that engine technology was not really ready to produce enough horsepower to move a tank along. The first tanks were a very marginal business, and shockingly unreliable. It took a lot of very fast development by people like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Ricardo to produce viable tank engines.
There is very little even the mosr brilliant time-travelling general could do to speed up that process.
If all they are bringing back is themselves, they aren’t bringing back anything more than a layperson would, and would probably find themselves being hindered by a career built around communications capabilities that did not exist in 1914-18. A modern understanding of aerial combat doesn’t help much when you’ve got Sopwith Camels to work with, and the FT-17 is a truly revolutionary tank with a rotating turret but would still break down every dozen miles or so. Communications would remain the killer though; without the radio there wasn’t much that could change. The British word for it, the wireless, gets to the heart of the problem. Once the troops went over the top, they may as well have disappeared to the dark side of the moon as far as the general’s ability to influence their actions and change pre-drawn plans went. Trying to reel communications wire across no-man’s land with the troops was an exercise in futility as the wire was going to be cut and cut quickly in numerous places by shelling, so the only way to convey information back and forth from the troops to HQ was by runner, who had to cross the killing zone of no-man’s land again to relay messages with information that could potentially be completely outdated and overtaken by events by the time it arrived at its destination - if it arrived at its destination at all.
Artillery tactics became quite advanced by the end of the war within the limitations of the lack of radios for example. Artillery would lay down a creeping barrage ahead of the advancing troops with the shells advancing forward at the pace of a walking foot soldier. With no radio it wasn’t possible to relay to them that the troops had become pinned down by enemy fire twenty minutes ago and the barrage was now a mile ahead of them.
I doubt it, though if you put in the caveat that whoever we sent back would be in charge and have the various military establishments behind them then I suppose it might happen. The problem is going to be that unless you sent them back several years before the war they would be fighting with the military that was already trained, equipped and had the entrenched mentality of the time, so no matter how good the general was it was still going to be ugly (one general isn’t going to make a large impact when you think of all the layers his commands have to go through, and how everyone from his field generals down to the lowliest private are going to carry out those orders). Maybe a bit less ugly (maybe this wonder general could stop the early massed infantry attacks, or limited them to just one or two if he couldn’t get his point across that they weren’t going to work), but still ugly.
If said general could go back to, oh, say 1900, though, AND if he or they would actually have the ability to command AND get the various allied governments behind them (and maybe they could bring a few training officers and sergeants / cadre with them as well) it might have made a difference. Of course, knowledge that the war was coming would surly change the war itself since I doubt you could keep it a secret.
Are we permitting these generals to take technical knowledge with them? I’m sure it would be no mean feat for one of them to show their contemporary colleagues how to knock up a small, cheap, portable two-way radio set which doesn’t weigh half a ton.
Honestly, I think the main cause of the stalemate of the Great War was the poor communications. Radios were bulky and unreliable. Telephone lines were vulnerable to destruction. And line-of-sight was simply not good enough any more. If the front line could have sent more accurate information to HQ, and HQ was capable of receiving more accurate information and adapting dynamically to the situation on the ground, a lot of the needless death on both sides could have been, if not avoided, then diminished.
I don’t think modern tactics would help much, but the tactics available in 1918 would have helped a great deal. Even back then, the notion of integrating all your available forces was gaining ground.
In 1914, the technology was just about available to a radio in an airplane. Now you’ve got real time aerial reconnaissance.
Artillery could co-ordinate with infantry to give a rolling barrage during attacks.
Infantry (not just a few specialists) could be supplied with hand grenades and training on how to use them.
You could tell all your chemists and engineers to work inventing making gas masks.
[QUOTE=Dissonance]
If all they are bringing back is themselves, they aren’t bringing back anything more than a layperson would, and would probably find themselves being hindered by a career built around communications capabilities that did not exist in 1914-18.
[/QUOTE]
Well, maybe more than the average layperson, since they would have studied military history at whatever military academy they went too, which would surly have included WWI. Like I said, it would hinge on whether they were brought back prior to the war or right at the start of the war as to whether they could make an impact. If they were brought back 10 years before the war, say, and if they could actually have the power to make things happen I could see a general having an impact. As you said, communications were certainly an issue, but a general with the ear of the government could focus procurement on radio development. Air craft development could also be pushed in a similar way, as could engine design. The general in question doesn’t need to know the technical details to know it’s important, and unlike the people of that time he at least knows what’s technically feasible and possible. There was no reason why the US didn’t develop air craft for it’s military, for instance, except that the generals of the time didn’t think they were more than toys. Same goes for more powerful engines and radio communications.
The most significant change that that took the Allies 4 years to learn was that the ‘big push’ breakthrough was never viable at any time, and its the adherence to the big push doctrine that directly led to so many casualties.
A modern General would change that immediately, having already seen the results and the solution.
In the 100 days after the Marne, the lessons of combined arms, limited objectives, rolling barrages were used to destroy the German army. Whilst it is true that this was a much weakened army, the same was true of the Allied armies as well.
The idea of one push along a broad front, instead of concentrated efforts along narrow fronts is the reason why the war lasted so long - its just not possible logistically to sustain such a massive attack, the Germans never ever got their military production on a truly war footing, whilst the British built entire factories dedicated to manufacturing ordnance.
Those were the Royal Ordnance factories, these were absolutely huge affairs, with anything up to 30000 workers and their own railway systems, these were constructed to deal with the shortage of shell ammo, put simply, both sides had the capacity to fire more shells than they had capacity to replace them, but the British did something about it- the Germans less so.
This was a mistake the Germans repeated in WW2, it my seem incredible but Axis arms production never outpaced just British manufacture, and that’s without even considering the production capacity of the remainder of the Allies.
The straight answer is “very little”. As others have said knowledge of strategy and tactics was not the problem - early 20th century conditions were. A modern general could maybe move things along quicker but the British still need to raise and large army and both counties need to build up their military production. What ever tactics are tried you still have to defeat a multi-million man German army (not to mention the Austrians and Turks) with the technology of 1914 (or what can be rapidly developed from it - knowing about man portable radios is not much use if the facilities to build the necessary robust valves (tubes) is not available, never mind transistors and microchips).
Also the German generals were anything but fools. If the British and French start using more advanced techniques - say 1917/18 predicted fire, hurricane bombardments and bite and hold limited attacks - the Germans will find a solution and respond in kind. A knowledge of the history of WWI won’t neccessarily serve to reduce the casualties, the generals of WW2 knew the problems but German casualties during Barbarossa casualties were heavier than those during the Verdun, the Somme, or the 1918 offensives.
My point is either of us could do this, and as far as I know neither of us has ever held a commission as an officer, much less the rank of general. A general from 2014 replacing a general from 1914 isn’t going to change anything that transplanting a layperson with an education in the military history of WWI until the present day with a man in the street in 1914 couldn’t change as well. Knowledge of modern military tactics and strategy isn’t going to be of any use to this time travelling general since they rely upon a means of communication that didn’t exist. Send 10,000 portable radios back in time and you’d make a much bigger impact than replacing a general of two from 1914 with ones from 2014.
Appreciate the replies. Just to pick up on a few specifics…
When the tanks would be deployed, could we realistically expect a modern commander to be able to use them more effectively due to the century of armoured warfare doctrinal advances? What I mean is, World War I generals were brought up with the idea of cavalry charges. A modern general would know far more in terms of the nature of an armoured thrust and the importance of mutual infantry-armour support.
I don’t know how many modern generals know the blueprints to a radio off the top of their heads, although maybe they could like the tank point place more emphasis its development and deployment, knowing how important it would become.
All good ideas, on the infantry point, what about the sub-machine gun (or machine carbine, as the Commonwealth called them)? Wiki says that the first one was deployed in 1918. They seem far more suited to close quarters trench combat than Lee Enfields and Lebels.
Even if said general knew enough to concentrate his available tanks and use them in a coordinated assault, most of the damn things would still have broken down within a relatively short distance and the enemy would have stalemated things by bringing up reinforcements faster than the attackers could exploit an opening (something that happened repeatedly in WWI).
Except for encouraging the Austrians to attack Serbia and themselves invading Belgium to kick off active hostilities, the Germans were indeed as the driven snow. :dubious:
Totally unfair on Haig. British army losses were comparable in numbers to all the major armies of WWI. Haig was no better no worse than most other military leaders of the time.
One option would be not to have used tanks quite so early, or as has been said, on not quite so broad a front. Would it have been a winning tactiic? Probably not, but any relative advantage would be welcome.
The creeping barrage would also have been used more effectively. I cant remember all of the specifics but the tactics of 1918 had advanced quite a bit from the tactics of 1914/15/16.
It’s not the idea that’s the problem - it’s doing it. You need enough guns of the right calibre, enough shells (and good enough quality control that they work reliably), accurate mapping of your batteries and the enemy lines, and - most important - gunners able to fire sufficiently accurately and infantry well enough trained and with sufficient confidence to follow really close to the barrage. Developing these takes time and a new commander in chief isn’t going to make much difference.
Fair enough, but wouldn’t the creeping barrage have been used earlier if commanders knew in 1914 what they knew in 1918? I realise a number of other variables were involved. Had the accuracy of gunners increased significantly by 1918?
Perhaps im underestimating the confidence and training required by infantry to carry out such tactics. Certainly confidence doesn’t seem to have been an issue. Thousands upon thousands walked to their death in no man’s land. Im not sure I can see a significant difference in the confidence needed to risk a creeping barrage. However, I suppose its one thing to carry out a creeping barrage; it’s quite another to carry out an effective creeping barrage. Many more practical difficulties would have been encountered in carrying out such a barrage than any armchair general can appreciate 100 years later.
Strategic rather than tactical changes were needed to shorten the war. Getting the U.S. involved earlier would have helped, the main German effort was against the Russians and we could have provided Russia with enough economic and military support to defeat Germany in the East. And the U.S. being serious about blockading Germany earlier would have sped their economic collapse which is what ended the fighting in 1918.