Armies decline after winning a war?

[MattC86]

Phew, How long have you got?

I was thinking we could get a debate of epic proportions going here, with expert witnesses and a few mud-flinging doctoral theses written. . .

First thing to remember was that the Tank Corps were full of Fuller supporters, and Swinton, Martel and Hobart were all in full swing. Read JP Harris "Men, Ideas and Tanks," for a pretty sound account of what actually happened.

Basically, I think they lost the plot. I think "Tanks" blinded them to some of the realities and "deep strategic penetration" was only ever going to be a pipe dream. Fuller and LH all drank their own bathwater. VI Germains pointed out that "mechanisation" was nothing new and it had to be rationally applied, and not over sold. - in contrast the Germans had no avant garde and came up with generally sound methods, based on experience and experimentation.

I wouldn't argue any of this - but wouldn't it be a rare moment indeed when an Army becomes unprepared for the next war because it went too far in developing new theory, equipment and methods? (At least within the realm of conventional warfare - US or IDF issues with tensions between maneuver warfare and COIN not included) I feel the Army in Decline concept is strongly linked with the "fighting the last war" theory, and all the tank advocates you describe were pushing strongly for major changes from the Great War. While they're predictions and prognostications may not have been entirely accurate, I still am not sure that pushing for mechanisation and promoting the tank - however "avant garde" their proposals may have been - had a major role in the May 1940 defeat.

- plus, point to note, the UK probably had the greatest proportion of Tank advocates anywhere in any army - yet we failed to produce any useable doctrine or even a good tank!

Indeed, yet despite all those advocates, the British Army still swung the gate into Belgium in 1940 to solidify the Franco-British line and return largely to Great War static conflict. I still equate this with blaming the revolutionaries for the problems of the masses.

Regards,

Matt

[Rifleman]

Among the reasons for the first count in most Armies are sloth (particularly intellectual laziness), dislike of change, dreams of past glories and domestic politics. There are many other factors but I believe those are the biggest impactors.

One example: we garrison as divisions of small brigades and those divisions are of a "type;" yet, we depoly and fight as big brigade combat teams under a division level HQ that might operationally control three or four different types of brigades.

[William F. Owen]

I was thinking we could get a debate of epic proportions going here, with expert witnesses and a few mud-flinging doctoral theses written. . .

Sounds good!

I feel the Army in Decline concept is strongly linked with the "fighting the last war" theory, and all the tank advocates you describe were pushing strongly for major changes from the Great War. While they're predictions and prognostications may not have been entirely accurate, I still am not sure that pushing for mechanisation and promoting the tank - however "avant garde" their proposals may have been - had a major role in the May 1940 defeat.

OK, so I didn't explain this well. The 1937 Army Doctrine was, for the most part, pretty good/excellent. Why it was not applied is another thing. (50% of our brigade commanders being less than perfect, didn't help).

Mechanisation happened. Everyone in the Army wanted change. The debate was how, how much and at what cost. The Tank bunnies over sold themselves and blew it, and what is worse they polarised the debates. Just like current debate, solid empirical fundamentals were ignored to promote agendas. They wanted revolution when evolution was required.

- and what we did go to France with, was pretty good, bearing in mind, no money!

[davidbfpo]

A British military commentator when doing a lecture on the French campaign in 1940, comparing the rival armies, made a small point on the gain for British Army in the defeat. The German blitzkreig method of war-fighting, at such a tempo in effect and time exhausted countless officers. Some collapsed, others died, many were captured and the Britsh Army gained by losing those un-suited to the new warfare.

In some reading years ago on the British Army, in particular the training at home before D-Day, there were veiled hints at officer exhaustion.

I mention this point as preparing for war, after a successful WW1, with the mixed inter-war experience, in "small wars", did not work. Whether it was a contributory reason for defeat in 1940, I simply don't know enough.

Having read this thread and others I do wonder if the US military having won two Gulf Wars, suffered a similar problem to May 1940? This time the tempo changed quickly and took time to adapt.

All this is from the comfort of a safe armchair.

davidbfpo

[jcustis]

David,

In my Sadler research, I see the same thing among the senior leadership based in Cairo during the N. Africa campaign. Only the strong survived, or at least stayed on in theater. It also took some enterprising young officers and other ranks to develop techniques to keep the enemy off balance (e.g. LRDG and L Detachment SAS) when the linear meatgrinder took effect.

[Granite_State]

I was thinking we could get a debate of epic proportions going here, with expert witnesses and a few mud-flinging doctoral theses written. . .

As someone who's at the tail end of one of those (should be working on it right now)....

My PhD is looking at British use of armor in small wars in the interwar period, so I naturally get sucked into all of the broader mechanization debates.

I basically agree with Wilf, and J.P. Harris' book is very good, best I've seen on the subject, only wish I could find a copy of my own to buy somewhere.

The biggest problem Britain faced in mechanical warfare and preparing for WWII, as Wilf said, was money. Army was the Cinderella service, third in line (fourth behind air defense sometimes), and after laying down some of the basic principles of mechanized warfare behind Fuller and co., lost the lead to the Germans due mainly to money. The 16 ton tank was cancelled, and when Britain finally began rearmament, they were way behind. One author (Beale in Death by Design) gave the estimate that something like 75% of British tanks were obsolete or even virtually useless by the time they reached British Army units in WWII. There's a reason Monty's tank at the IWM is a Grant, and Shermans, Grants and Stuarts made up a huge chunk of British tank forces in Africa and Europe.

The tactical problems, as I think Wilf said again, were largely due to the "RTC avant garde." The big difference between the British and the Germans in the Western Desert was that the latter embraced combined arms warfare, while the British had undue confidence in the powers of the tank fighting alone. British armored units had too little organic infantry, artillery, engineers, AT guns, etc. The culprits for this were men like Fuller, Hobart (in a big way) and Martel to some extent. Fuller had a long history of this kind of thing, check out Plan 1919 for example, had far too much faith in the tank and a limited appraisal or acceptance of its technical limitations.

Even though it doesn't make my thesis any easier, I think the revisionist view that the cavalry were not blinkered reactionaries who held the army back is basically accurate. Britain after all, despite the slow pace of mechanization, went to war with a fully mechanized army (unlike the Germans, who relied on the horse far more and even had horsed cavalry divisions left).

I also don't think Britain imperial commitments did much to retard preparation for major war. Even if the government waxed and waned on the continental commitment, the Army always saw itself as preparing to fight a major opponent, that being Russia in Asia for most of the period. And the practical experiences of small wars were invaluable; the Pathans were, after all, known as the "best small unit tacticians in the world." Witness some of the great minds that came out of the Indian Army, like Slim.

One historian even argued in an obscure little article in 1983 that the imperial frontier actually helped contribute to the British Army being the early leaders in mechanization, because small wars with limited numbers of men and huge distances to cover made them think in terms of mobility and speed (as opposed to say, the French).

There's also been some interesting stuff written, most recently in the January 2007 Journal of Military History, about cavalry being the "scapegoat arm" and its continued usefulness in war up to (and, according to at least one scholar there, including) WWI.

Also, I remember Williamson Murray writing in the Britain chapter of one of his Military Effectiveness books (worth finding in a library) that Britain would have been better off if it simply refought the last war, given the success of the Hundred Days and British combined arms warfare on the Western Front at the end of WWI. I think, if I remember correctly, he argued that Britain instead simply descended into myopia and avoidance of the issue. Not sure I agree with him.