Table of contents -- Chapter III
Article XXIV. The Old System of Wars of Position and the Modern System of Marches.
Summary
Full Text
Mendell and Craighill Translation[1]
By the system of positions is understood the old manner of conducting a methodical war, with armies in tents, with their supplies at hand, engaged in watching each other; one besieging a city, the other covering it; one, perhaps, endeavoring to acquire a small province, the other counteracting its efforts by occupying strong points. Such was war from the Middle Ages to the era of the French Revolution. During this revolution great changes transpired, and many systems of more or less value sprang up. War was commenced in 1792 as it had been in 1762: the French encamped near their strong places, and the allies besieged them. It was not till 1793, when assailed from without and within, that this system was changed. Thoroughly aroused, France threw one million men in fourteen armies upon her enemies. These armies had neither tents, provisions, nor money. On their marches they bivouacked or were quartered in towns; their mobility was increased and became a means of success. Their tactics changed also: the troops were put in columns, which were more easily handled than deployed lines, and, on account of the broken character of the country of Flanders and the Vosges, they threw out a part of their force as skirmishers to protect and cover the columns. This system, which was thus the result of circumstances, at first met with a success beyond all expectation: it disconcerted the methodical Austrian and Prussian troops as well as their generals. Mack, to whom was at[Pg 136]tributed the success of the Prince of Coburg, increased his reputation by directing the troops to extend their lines to oppose an open order to the fire of skirmishers. It had never occurred to the poor man that while the skirmishers made the noise the columns carried the positions.
The first generals of the Republic were fighting-men, and nothing more. The principal direction of affairs was in the hands of Carnot and of the Committee of Public Safety: it was sometimes judicious, but often bad. Carnot was the author of one of the finest strategic movements of the war. In 1793 he sent a reserve of fine troops successively to the aid of Dunkirk, Maubeuge, and Landau, so that this small force, moving rapidly from point to point, and aided by the troops already collected at these different points, compelled the enemy to evacuate France.
The campaign of 1794 opened badly. It was the force of circumstances, and not a premeditated plan, which brought about the strategic movement of the army of the Moselle on the Sambre; and it was this which led to the success of Fleurus and the conquest of Belgium.
In 1795 the mistakes of the French were so great that they were imputed to treachery. The Austrians, on the contrary, were better commanded by Clairfayt, Chateler, and Schmidt than they had been by Mack and the Prince of Coburg. The Archduke Charles, applying the principle of interior lines, triumphed over Moreau and Jourdan in 1796 by a single march.
Up to this time the fronts of the French armies had been large,—either to procure subsistence more easily, or because the generals thought it better to put all the divisions in line, leaving it to their commanders to arrange them for battle. The reserves were small detachments, incapable of redeeming the day even if the enemy succeeded in overwhelming but a single division. Such was the state of affairs when Napoleon made his début in Italy. His activity from the beginning worsted the Austrians and Piedmontese: free from useless incumbrances, his troops surpassed in mobility all modern armies. He conquered the Italian peninsula by a series of marches and strategic combats. His march on Vienna in 1797 was rash, but justified by the necessity of overcoming [Pg 137]the Archduke Charles before he could receive reinforcements from the Rhine.
The campaign of 1800, still more characteristic of the man, marked a new era in the conception of plans of campaign and lines of operations. He adopted bold objective points, which looked to nothing less than the capture or destruction of whole armies. The orders of battle were less extended, and the more rational organization of armies in large bodies of two or three divisions was adopted. The system of modern strategy was here fully developed, and the campaigns of 1805 and 1806 were merely corollaries to the great problem solved in 1800. Tactically, the system of columns and skirmishers was too well adapted to the features of Italy not to meet with his approval.
It may now be a question whether the system of Napoleon is adapted to all capacities, epochs, and armies, or whether, on the contrary, there can be any return, in the light of the events of 1800 and 1809, to the old system of wars of position. After a comparison of the marches and camps of the Seven Years' War with those of the seven weeks' war,—as Napoleon called the campaign of 1806,—or with those of the three months which elapsed from the departure of the army from Boulogne in 1805 till its arrival in the plains of Moravia, the reader may easily decide as to the relative merits of the two systems.
The system of Napoleon was to march twenty-five miles a day, to fight, and then to camp in quiet. He told me that he knew no other method of conducting a war than this.
It may be said that the adventurous character of this great man, his personal situation, and the tone of the French mind, all concurred in urging him to undertakings which no other person, whether born upon a throne, or a general under the orders of his government, would ever dare to adopt. This is probably true; but between the extremes of very distant invasions, and wars of position, there is a proper mean, and, without imitating his impetuous audacity, we may pursue the line he has marked out. It is probable that the old system of wars of positions will for a long time be proscribed, or that, if adopted, it will be much modified and improved.
[Pg 138]If the art of war is enlarged by the adoption of the system of marches, humanity, on the contrary, loses by it; for these rapid incursions and bivouacs of considerable masses, feeding upon the regions they overrun, are not materially different from the devastations of the barbarian hordes between the fourth and thirteenth centuries. Still, it is not likely that the system will be speedily renounced; for a great truth has been demonstrated by Napoleon's wars,—viz.: that remoteness is not a certain safeguard against invasion,—that a state to be secure must have a good system of fortresses and lines of defense, of reserves and military institutions, and, finally, a good system of government. Then the people may everywhere be organized as militia, and may serve as reserves to the active armies, which will render the latter more formidable; and the greater the strength of the armies the more necessary is the system of rapid operations and prompt results.
If, in time, social order assumes a calmer state,—if nations, instead of fighting for their existence, fight only for their interests, to acquire a natural frontier or to maintain the political equilibrium,—then a new right of nations may be agreed upon, and perhaps it will be possible to have armies on a less extensive scale. Then also we may see armies of from eighty to one hundred thousand men return to a mixed system of war,—a mean between the rapid incursions of Napoleon and the slow system of positions of the last century. Until then we must expect to retain this system of marches, which has produced so great results; for the first to renounce it in the presence of an active and capable enemy would probably be a victim to his indiscretion.
The science of marches now includes more than details, like the following, viz.: the order of the different arms in column, the time of departure and arrival, the precautions to be observed in the march, and the means of communication between the columns, all of which is a part of the duties of the staff of an army. Outside and beyond these very important details, there is a science of marches in the great operations of strategy. For instance, the march of Napo[Pg 139]leon by the Saint-Bernard to fall upon the communications of Mélas, those made in 1805 by Donauwerth to cut off Mack, and in 1806 by Gera to turn the Prussians, the march of Suwaroff from Turin to the Trebbia to meet Macdonald, that of the Russian army on Taroutin, then upon Krasnoi, were decisive operations, not because of their relation to Logistics, but on account of their strategic relations.
Indeed, these skillful marches are but applications of the great principle of throwing the mass of the forces upon the decisive point; and this point is to be determined from the considerations given in Article XIX. What was the passage of the Saint-Bernard but a line of operations directed against an extremity of the strategic front of the enemy, and thence upon his line of retreat? The marches of Ulm and Jena were the same maneuvers; and what was Blücher's march at Waterloo but an application of interior strategic lines?
From this it may be concluded that all strategic movements which tend to throw the mass of the army successively upon the different points of the front of operations of the enemy, will be skillful, as they apply the principle of overwhelming a smaller force by a superior one. The operations of the French in 1793 from Dunkirk to Landau, and those of Napoleon in 1796, 1809, and 1814, are models of this kind.
One of the most essential points in the science of modern marches, is to so combine the movements of the columns as to cover the greatest strategic front, when beyond the reach of the enemy, for the triple object of deceiving him as to the objective in view, of moving with ease and rapidity, and of procuring supplies with more facility. However, it is necessary in this case to have previously arranged the means of concentration of the columns in order to inflict a decisive blow.
This alternate application of extended and concentric movements is the true test of a great general.
There is another kind of marches, designated as flank marches, which deserves notice. They have always been held up as very dangerous; but nothing satisfactory has ever been written about them. If by the term flank marches are understood tactical maneuvers made upon the field of battle in [Pg 140]view of the enemy, it is certain that they are very delicate operations, though sometimes successful; but if reference is made to ordinary strategic marches, I see nothing particularly dangerous in them, unless the most common precautions of Logistics be neglected. In a strategic movement, the two hostile armies ought to be separated by about two marches, (counting the distance which separates the advanced guards from the enemy and from their own columns.) In such a case there could be no danger in a strategic march from one point to another.
There are, however, two cases where such a march would be altogether inadmissible: the first is where the system of the line of operations, of the strategic lines, and of the front of operations is so chosen as to present the flank to the enemy during a whole operation. This was the famous project of marching upon Leipsic, leaving Napoleon and Dresden on the flank, which would, if carried out, have proved fatal to the allies. It was modified by the Emperor Alexander upon the solicitations of the author.
The second case is where the line of operations is very long, (as was the case with Napoleon at Borodino,) and particularly if this line affords but a single suitable route for retreat: then every flank movement exposing this line would be a great fault.
In countries abounding in secondary communications, flank movements are still less dangerous, since, if repulsed, safety may be found in a change of the line of operations. The physical and moral condition of the troops and the more or less energetic characters of the commanders will, of course, be elements in the determination of such movements.
The often-quoted marches of Jena and Ulm were actual flank maneuvers; so was that upon Milan after the passage of the Chiusella, and that of Marshal Paskevitch to cross the Vistula at Ossiek; and their successful issue is well known.
A tactical maneuver by the flank in the presence of the enemy is quite a different affair. Ney suffered for a movement of this kind at Dennewitz, and so did Marmont at Salamanca and Frederick at Kolin.
[Pg 141]Nevertheless, the celebrated maneuver of Frederick at Leuthen was a true flank movement, but it was covered by a mass of cavalry concealed by the heights, and applied against an army which lay motionless in its camp; and it was so successful because at the time of the decisive shock Daun was taken in flank, and not Frederick.
In the old system of marching in column at platoon distance, where line of battle could be formed to the right or left without deployment, (by a right or left into line,) movements parallel to the enemy's line were not flank marches, because the flank of the column was the real front of the line of battle.
The famous march of Eugene within view of the French army, to turn the lines of Turin, was still more extraordinary than that of Leuthen, and no less successful.
In these different battles, the maneuvers were tactical and not strategic. The march of Eugene from Mantua to Turin was one of the greatest strategic operations of the age; but the case above referred to was a movement made to turn the French camp the evening before the battle.