The Hall of Mirrors

War and Warfare in the Twentieth Century

Jim Storr

• Publisher: Helion and Company
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781912390854
• eBook ISBN: 9781913118495
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

The military scholar and author of The Human Face of War analyses the nature of 20th-century war and warfare in this wide-ranging study.
 
The 20th Century was possibly the most violent and turbulent century in history. The wars waged in those ten decades reshaped the globe and wreaked an incalculable toll on human life.  In The Hall of Mirrors, military analyst and historian Jim Storr explores what can we learn from war, and warfare, in the 20th century.
 
Rather than presenting a narrative history, The Hall of Mirrors takes a deep look at the nature of 20th Century war and warfare. Storr looks at the strategy, operational art, and tactics employed. He analyzes how technology developed, and how those technologies affected military events. He also considers the effect of individual human beings and organizations.
 
By 1919 the First World War was already over. Millions had died, empires had crumbled, new nations had been born. And yet the so-called Great War was merely setting the stage for another eighty years of crisis, conflict, and change; of alliances forged and broken; of apparent chaos that can appear futile, and yet has enormous consequence.

1

The Dawn of the Century

Two major wars were underway at the beginning of the century: one in South Africa, the other in the Philippines. The British had been fighting in South Africa since 1899. Things had gone badly at first. In what became known as ‘Black week’, in December 1899, the British suffered three tactical defeats. It took several months for the British to reinforce, go over to the offensive, and turn the tide of the war. The British eventually deployed 488,000 men in South Africa. The Boers, or Afrikaners, never fielded more than 80,000 men.

There was considerable criticism of the British Army, not least in the British press. Some of it was justified. Some of it reflected shock that the British Army had been defeated by irregulars. Some of it reflected a failure to understand the changing conditions of modern warfare. The battle of the Modder River in South Africa had taken place in the same week as the battle of Omdurman in the Sudan, fought largely against tribesmen armed with little more than spears. The need to adapt the techniques of warfare against a thinking and educated ‘western’ enemy was exposed.

The British were initially short of cavalry. Two cavalry regiments were based in South Africa, and a brigade was moved from India before the outbreak of hostilities. However four of the five regiments were besieged in Ladysmith, and therefore were not available for the early stages of the war. More cavalry was rushed to South Africa by sea, but the horses were not given time to acclimatize. The units, and their horses, were then heavily overworked. It is questionable whether they ever really recovered during the war.

There were, however, several British successes. There had been two successful local sorties in the siege of Ladysmith. Both were well-handled night attacks. On other occasions, undetected night approaches preceded successful dawn assaults. A tactical envelopment was attempted at the battle of Belmont, and succeeded at the relief of Kimberley. Cavalry succeeded admirably at the battles of Klip Drift and Elandslagte. There were, nonetheless, several poor commanders. That is not unusual in a major war fought after extended periods of peace. Younger officers stepped up to fill the gap very well. Accounts stressed the need for individual initiative at low levels. They detected a structural link between firepower, dispersion and initiative. These were the actions of a professional army which had not fought a ‘European’ enemy for many years. It identified and learnt many lessons; some small, some large.

The war was fought 6,000 miles from home, with support from around the world (troops from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and remount horses purchased in the United States). Only five years before, the French had needed British shipping to transport a force to Madagascar. In 1897 Germany had been unable to deploy a single battalion to Crete. In the Spanish-American War of 1898 the United States Army had logistic difficulties in Cuba, less than 100 miles from its own coast. Conversely the British Army had conducted 35 overseas campaigns since 1820. The Victorian Royal Navy had a uniquely global reach.

The reinforcements rushed to South Africa included several militia and yeomanry (cavalry) units. They showed some shortcomings, particularly in standards of training. That coloured the attitude of the Regular Army towards its reserves in the Great War.

It has been said that, at the time of the Boer War, the British Army had an ethos but no clear doctrine. That is, literally, true. However, Staff College teaching was based on the work of individuals such as Lieutenant General Sir Edward Hamley, Major General Sir Charles Callwell and Colonel George (‘G F R’) Henderson. Their books were published commercially, but they were the standard texts. They remained in use in various editions for several decades.

The British showed considerable restraint in South Africa. One particular concern was to not employ Indian troops, nor local indigenous fighting forces, aware of the impact that would have on relations with the Afrikaners. However, the British also relocated a considerable number of Afrikaners (mostly women and children) in internment, or what became known as ‘concentration’, camps. Neglect became widespread. That became known to the British public due to the activities of British civilian activists, and was eventually rectified.

The Afrikaner (or ‘Boer’) forces were irregulars, but they had a military history which went back to the Dutch East India Company of the 1650s. Several of their leaders were replaced in the middle stages of the war because they were found to be inadequate. Their successors were generally better educated but quite young. One of those replacements became the prime minister South Africa, General Jan Smuts.

On the other side of the world, the Philippine-American war had evolved out of the Spanish-American war of 1898. The Filipino population objected to what was seen as the American occupation of their country, and rebelled. The war had the character of a ‘guerrilla’, or small-scale, war. It might be more useful to consider it to be an insurgency, and therefore American operations as a counterinsurgency campaign.

There was a considerable amount of fighting and casualties on both sides. American social, political and economic development was probably more important than fighting in resolving the conflict. 500 American teachers relocated from the continental United States as part of the social development programme. They founded a number of the country’s more important academic institutions, several of which survive to this day.

Atrocities were committed on both sides. One American general was court martialled for just that reason. Reprisals were carried out, but at the time reprisals were not contrary to the laws of war. Just as in South Africa, elements of the local population were relocated into what became known as concentration camps. Once again, neglect and deprivation occurred. Over 120,000 American soldiers were involved in the campaign, of whom perhaps 6000 were killed. About 50,000 Filipinos were killed through American military action. However, cholera broke out amongst the indigenous population and a further 200,000 Filipinos died.

One notable aspect of the war was the service of a number of veterans of the American Civil War. One was Lieutenant General Arthur MacArthur, who had been awarded the Medal of Honor at the battle of Missionary Ridge in 1862. He became the commander in chief of the US army in the Philippines. General Douglas MacArthur, of Second World War fame, was his son.

The US Army adapted and evolved. Only 14 years earlier it had waged the last major campaign of the Apache wars. It had learnt the need to adapt its tactics and its operational approach against an irregular indigenous enemy. That lesson was relearnt in the Philippines.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Industrial Revolution was changing warfare dramatically. That was especially true at sea. The steam turbine had been invented in 1884. By 1900 it was being introduced to warships. The turbine was more compact than the steam reciprocating engines it replaced; it was reliable; it allowed greater speeds; but it led to huge increases in coal consumption. The need to stoke coal by hand could require up to 300 men per ship. Those features all had an important impact on ship design. By 1910 or so, battleships’ gun turrets were probably the most complex man-made structures on earth.

Lightweight internal combustion engines and developments in aerodynamics allowed man to undertake powered flight for the first time in 1903. Flying was embraced by armed forces rapidly and with enthusiasm. The first take-off by an aircraft from a warship occurred in Weymouth Bay in England in 1912. Armed forces continued to develop and deploy lighter-than-air craft. Tethered observations balloons were used at Ladysmith, and powered airships were in military service by 1914.

There had also been a revolution in military technology on land. Modern rifles were the product of several parallel inventions: effective locking breeches, smokeless propellants, the conoidal bullet and the box magazine. Together they allowed infantry soldiers to produce effective fire out to ranges of several hundred metres, and to do so lying down behind cover. Machineguns had been deployed from the 1860s. At the beginning of the century they were big, typically mounted on artillery carriages, and relatively vulnerable. Smaller, tripod-mounted designs such as the Maxim (the British Vickers) were beginning to enter service.

There had been similar advances in land-based artillery. Fast-operating and efficient breeches, coupled to effective recuperating mechanisms, allowed field artillery to fire accurately and rapidly over distances of several thousand yards. Coastal artillery had adopted further improvements, such as prediction of fire and corrections for the effects of charge temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind, and barrel wear.

The telegraph and (radio) wireless telegraphy allowed considerable developments to signalling, both on and off the battlefield. The telegraph was widely used between continents, between countries, and on to the battlefield. Despatch riders, runners and semaphore were employed forward from there. Wireless telegraphy was in its infancy but developing rapidly, particularly at sea.

In some ways, intelligence was in its infancy. Its importance was broadly understood, but since most enemy information came from horsed cavalry, there was not much of it. Analysis and dissemination were not well developed. Some nations had moderately well-developed strategic intelligence services, typically using networks of military attachés and sometimes spies. The British government, for example, had been systematically intercepting correspondence since the middle of the 19th century.

Industrialisation had affected logistics in several ways. Transport between continents was by steamship. Transport between and within countries was generally by rail. Thus the railway network might dictate the conduct of land campaigns; but also vice versa. Armies depended on railways for operational movements and supplies. Transport at divisional level and below was generally by horsed wagon.

Canning and refrigeration greatly improved the supply of food to the troops and therefore their health. Advances in field hygiene, inoculation and other forms of preventative medicine were beginning to reduce the incidence and the consequence of disease: in the armed forces of developed nations, at least.

Those nations’ navies were important and complex bureaucracies. Naval policy and spending was a significant public issue in several countries. So-called ‘navy leagues’ attracted both political and public attention.

Nowhere was that more true than in Britain. The naval budget was the single largest item of government spending. At the turn of the century Britain had a chain of coaling stations along its major shipping routes. About 44,000 Royal Navy seamen were stationed abroad, typically for three years at a time. In 1906 Admiral Sir John Fisher, the First Sea Lord (the professional head of the Royal Navy) introduced a revolutionary new type of warship. Named after the first ship of the class, HMS Dreadnought, it was designed around steam turbines, a main battery of big guns of one calibre (12 inches), a sophisticated fire control system, a high top speed, and a reasonable cruising range (albeit at relatively low speeds).

Dreadnought rendered practically all previous battleships obsolete. Fisher has been criticised for poor strategic decision-making in developing and deploying Dreadnought. That is naive. Britain’s fleet was as large as those of any two other nations combined. If it was to maintain its operational lead it could not ignore technical development. Britain proceeded to build Dreadnoughts faster than any other nation. If it had not developed the Dreadnought, another nation (probably Germany) would have.

Below the battleships came the cruisers. They were primarily designed to patrol the world’s sea-lanes. The Royal Navy had 121 cruisers in 1914. The next eight largest navies combined had a total of 177. The next class, destroyers, could only just remain at sea in bad weather. However, with a mixed armament of torpedoes and guns (of about four inch calibre), they could threaten battleships and cruisers whilst being able to destroy any ships smaller than themselves. Destroyer flotillas were a very useful component of fleets, although somewhat short-ranged. Submarines were in their infancy. Admirals were aware of their potential, but they were not yet particularly seaworthy nor seen as a major threat to warships.

Naval theory was well developed. The works of Sir Julian Corbett and Captain Alfred Mahan were studied around the world. That led to some uniformity of tactical and operational thinking. Tactics stressed the Nelsonian line of battle dominated by the battleship (and hence, increasingly, by Dreadnoughts), together with the necessary signalling and fleet manoeuvres.

Operationally, there was clear and mature understanding of issues such as control of the sea; the importance of maintaining a fleet in being (not least, to threaten the enemy’s control of the sea); the use of the sea to move armies to other countries and continents; and war on trade (for which a reasonably well-developed body of international law existed).

Battleships were expensive. Although Dreadnought rendered most previous battleships redundant, the latter were not immediately scrapped. Several continued to serve well into the Great War.

If manned flight was in its infancy, aerial warfare had not yet been born. It did, nevertheless, attract considerable discussion and attention. Armed forces and their governments were well aware of the military potential of aircraft. Aircraft had to be bought out of military budgets and therefore competed for procurement funds with other warlike equipment. In 1914 naval and military air forces were small; but considerable thought, experimentation and development had taken place.

Warfare on land was beset by particularly difficult problems. The firepower of infantry, particularly when entrenched, had been remarked upon as long ago as the American Civil War. There was considerable debate as to infantry tactics. In Britain it focussed on the appropriate dispersion between soldiers in the firing line. Armies typically consisted of large numbers of rifle-armed infantry and smaller proportions of cavalry and artillery. The tactical problems caused by rifled bullets, and the sheer weight of fire which riflemen and machine gunners could deliver, were recognized but nowhere near solved.

The demise of cavalry, caused by improvements to infantry firepower, had been foreseen as far back as the Crimean War. Some cavalry commanders were notably socially and professionally reactionary, but others were amongst the keenest reformers. It had been noted, for example, that in the final months of the Franco-Prussian war 12 out of 16 Prussian charges had been effective. The issue was not whether cavalry needed to adapt and evolve, but how. The cavalry of the 1900s was quite different from that of the 1870s, and better for it. Machineguns were seen as important cavalry weapons. A reasonably well-informed debate as to the balance between the mounted charge and dismounted rifle fire was underway, but consensus had not been reached.

Theory and doctrine were generally well developed. In the German army, military doctrine had developed and evolved from the writings of Clausewitz and Moltke the Elder. It did not ignore modern challenges; it sought to adapt and evolve practice accordingly. Exercises and manoeuvres were keenly debriefed and lessons incorporated into doctrine. For example, reckless charges were discouraged; the importance of field defences was acknowledged; and it was recommended that troops should practice attacking them in peacetime. As Chief of the German Greater General Staff, Moltke the Younger managed to prevent the Kaiser from getting personally involved in the annual army manoeuvres, thus generally improving their conduct and the lessons identified.

Some armies very much wanted to believe in the power of the offensive. The 1904 French infantry regulations considered that forward movement would prove decisive and irresistible. They were wrong. Where rationalistic military thought and aspiration triumph over empirical reality, the results are often tragic.

The British Army learnt enormously from the Boer War. Skill at arms improved dramatically, due to assiduous practice with live ammunition. A British soldier fired 250 rounds per year in training (a German conscript fired only 100 in two years). Cavalry doctrine, training, and horse handling all received considerable attention. New field guns were introduced: the 18 Pdr of 1904 had the heaviest shell weight of any field gun in general service in 1914. It was a direct lesson from the Boer war.

A general staff was introduced. Formal doctrine (in the shape of Field Service Regulations) was published, and then revised. The army reserves were reorganised into the Territorial Army, and a host of other improvements were put in place. The selection of battalion commanders was radically improved through an exam-based selection process which tested tactical competence. Officer education was reviewed, including allowing university entrants to gain commissions directly without attending officer academies.

The defence of the British Empire was reorganised. The Dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) were included, to the extent of training officers for a truly imperial general staff. Individual officers were exchanged between Dominion and British armies for two years at a time. Individual, unit and formation training was enhanced. For example, compulsory military training was introduced in Australia in 1911. The New Zealand Army conducted unit-level exercises for the first time in 1912 and formation-level exercises in 1913. All these measures had a direct bearing on the course and outcome of the Great War.

Hundreds of fortresses were in use around the world in 1914. France fortified its eastern border with Germany after the Franco-Prussian war. Germany had fortified its western border with France in Alsace-Lorraine. There were fortifications throughout Switzerland. Italy had fortified its borders with both France and Austria. Belgium had heavily fortified its eastern borders with Germany. Russia had fortified many of the cities in Poland along its borders with Germany and Austria-Hungary. Many British ports (including several in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand) had coast defence fortifications. The United States had fortified its east (and to some extent its west) coast, originally against the British, at vast expense. And so on.

Some of the fortifications were of modern design, using large amounts of reinforced concrete and often incorporating turreted guns. However, there was a systematic problem with obsolescence, often due to the sheer cost of building f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Introduction
• Note on Sources
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The Dawn of the Century
• 2 The Great War
• 3 Douglas Haig, Master of Manoeuvre Warfare
• 4 four Years of Warfare
• 5 Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• 6 The Proper application of overwhelming Force
• 7 ‘If You Do Not Destroy Them …’
• 8 Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat
• 9 The New World Order
• 10 99 Red Balloons
• 11 March and Fight
• 12 The Evolutionary Niche
• 13 ‘It Is Clearly Illegal …’
• 14 Business in Great Waters
• 15 The Hall of Mirrors
• Appendices
• Bibliography