I am just now reading a book titled ALONE by Michael Korda published by Liveright Publishing, a division of W. W. Norton Copyright 2017 by Success Research Corp.
This book is about the period between the Munich agreement and the beginning of Winston Churchill becoming PM. It is also comparing and contrasting the evolution in thought, and how the use of armored fighting vehicles was being envisioned.
Now here’s quote I am interested in, I am curious to read what folks on the Dope have to say about
Quoted under the fair use doctrine: “His (Gurderian’s) model was the great Thomas J “Stonewall” Jackson, whose Shenandoah Valley Campaign (US Civil War)
in 1862 provided the inspiration for German armored warfare tactictians.”
Korda doen’the provide a cite for that statement. A brief search of the internet doesn’t find anything to substantiate this statement.
I am interested in the factuality of the statement. I believe I know the history of the invasion of France and the tactis and operational aspects of the three oponents aout as well as any non-specialist.
Please don’t bring other personalities, battle maneuvers, war plans, disposition of forces, relative logistic capacities, state of readiness and training, morale and equipment; armored vechicials, non-armored, airborne, artillery mobility etc. In to the discussion. None of those things bear on the the question raised by the
quotation.
I don’t see a lot of connections between the two campaigns.
Jackson’s forces were mainly infantry, which meant they theoretically were slower than cavalry. Jackson maintained initiative by maneuvering his forces in surprising directions and attacking in unexpected locations. Guderian’s forces were based around tanks. His forces could travel faster than infantry. So he didn’t have to rely on the kind of surprise maneuvers Jackson did.
There were also substantial strategic differences between their campaigns. Jackson’s campaign was basically a raid. He was supposed to head up into the valley and scare the American forces so they would divert troops away from Lee’s main army. There was no follow-up planned for Jackson’s campaign. Guderian’s campaign was designed to be the central part of a war-winning strategy. His forces were supposed to get behind the French and Allied forces and cut them off from their supply lines. By separating the military units from their support, both would be left vulnerable. Both campaigns succeeded in their goals.
One major factor that did link the two campaigns was they both relied on superior geographic knowledge. Jackson was able to outmaneuver the American forces because he knew the local territory better; he was able to travel by roads and paths that the Americans didn’t know existed. And a key part of Guderian’s campaign was the knowledge that he could launch his attack through the Ardennes forest, which the French mistakenly believed was uncrossable by armored units.
I know that the US Civil War was studied intently by the German General Staff when preparing for World War I, and that Guderian would almost certainly have studied Jackson’s campaign as part of his education. I don’t know of anything supporting the idea that it was the inspiration for German armored warfare operations in WW2, they really seem to draw on Prussian tradition than anything else. I would suspect that if want to track down a source, look in Liddel Hart’s work, especially “Stratgey: The indirect approach” and “The German Generals Speak”. I wouldn’t rely on Hart, he seemed to mythologize the German Generals and “The German Generals Speak” has a lot of material from Wermacht generals presented uncritically that completely contradicts their own paper records. But he seems like the kind of writer that would have made a statement like that if anyone did, and might either be the source or have a better lead on the source.
I have seen a related claim in fiction; in Turtledove’s “How Few Remain” (an alternate history in which the South has won the Civil War), von Schlieffen is studying in 1890, Lee’s successful assault on DC; Turtledove might be twisting a real relationship between Jackson and Guderian into his fictional one between von Schlieffen and Lee.
The one Civil War General(besides obviously Grant) that the German’s studied was Nathan Bedford Forrest. Otherwise, Moltke the Elder was famously dismissive of it.
Please provide a site for statement re: Germans studied U.S. Civil War intensively.
AK84,
Please provide a site for your making an exception for Grant. Your statement about Von Moltke the elder is true, as far as I am aware it holds true for the entire Civil War.
Note to all: I don’t read German, all my information about German (and Nazi) activities is filtered through secondary sources, all written in English.
I regret, I neglected to provide a link to Gen. Guderian’s Wikipedia entry: en.m.Wikipedia.org/Heinz_Guderian. Apparently hand copying a link does not create one,
I checked yesterday to see if Guderian’s book, Achtung Panzer, contained references to Jackson. I’m surprised to find the book is apparently not in the public domain. At least, nobody has posted it online.
Maybe it’s the English translations. I did find one site that had the original German text online. But I don’t read German.
I think there must be a way to create links on an Android device like this Samsung Galaxy Surface Pro, but I has never figured out how to do that. I reckon I should be using my PC to browse the Dope, currently it is the only site I post to.
I didn’t get it from a web site in the first place, I’m not going to create a site or try to find whether it’s on one. If you want a cite for an offhand comment that is just background for my main statement, no thanks. I’m writing a quick message board post not an academic paper, and finding cites for minor comments is massively more work than I want to dedicate to it. If you don’t think that the German General staff studied the US civil war then you’re welcome to continue your search using that belief, I doubt any cite that I could find would shake it.
Sheridan was sent to observe the Franco-Prussian war and he was received as a distinguished guess by the King and heads of the army. They were very familiar with the Civil War and were rightly appreciative of Sheridan.
Sheridan isn’t noted either. There are no American works referenced in the bibliography and neither Americans nor American battles appear to be in the index. Indeed, going by those, he seems to ignore America completely.
Guderian’s ideas were a combination of Moltke and Fuller. Moltke was mostly influenced by Frederick the Great, but he also paid attention to the Civil War which was one of the reasons the Franco-Prussian war was so lopsided. Guderian would have been influenced by civil war generals second hand through Moltke.
You are the one who made the statement in your post 5: “I know that the US Civil War was studied intently by the German General Staff when preparing for World War I, and that Guderian would almost certainly have studied Jackson’s campaign as part of his education.” Since I am not aware of any such information, it is entirely reasonable to request the source of your information. Your post 12, where you say: “If you want a cite for an offhand comment that is just background for my main statement” Just confirms that the statement claiming knowledge of an influence that may or may not exist, is irrefutable on the basis of the information or lack thereof that you present. What it does do is add the air of the lack of credibility.
If you now provide a cite that supports you statement, I will acknowledge that I have been wrong.
Your main point that the prior experience of the German Army (Von Moltke the elder) along with the writings of Fuller and Hart is as far as I have read entirely correct.
You are the one who made the statement in your post 5: “I know that the US Civil War was studied intently by the German General Staff when preparing for World War I, and that Guderian would almost certainly have studied Jackson’s campaign as part of his education.” Since I am not aware of any such information, it is entirely reasonable to request the source of your information. Your post 12, where you say: “If you want a cite for an offhand comment that is just background for my main statement” Just confirms that the statement claiming knowledge of an influence that may or may not exist, is irrefutable on the basis of the information or lack thereof that you present. What it does do is add the air of the lack of credibility.
If you now provide a cite that supports you statement, I will acknowledge that I have been wrong.
Your main point that the prior experience of the German Army (Von Moltke the elder) along with the writings of Fuller and Hart is as far as I have read entirely correct.
And as this is a message board and not something I’m getting paid to do, it’s perfectly reasonable for me not to try to track down cites of information that I gathered years and decades ago from reading multiple sources that I don’t specifically remember (and likely don’t have access to now) to support an offhand comment that doesn’t significantly affect the main point. If operating under the assumption that Guderian would not have been exposed to the study of US Civil War actions as part of his training makes you happy, then go forth and continue your search under that assumption.
And what I will do is not lose one minute of sleep over whether some random on a message board who responds to my suggestion of where to look for information by demanding that I do extensive research to support an offhand comment considers me credible or not. I offered a suggestion as a favor to you, not because I’m obliged to convince you of anything.
It appears that we are at an irreconcilable impasse. It seems futile to continue in the vein we have been. Therefor I suggest we agree to disagree and walk away.