Army - The New Germ War

While it is true that the French commander,
Gen. Joseph Joffre, had pleaded
with his British counterpart to attack
and take the pressure off the beleaguered
French forces fighting for their lives at
the fortress city on the Meuse, the area
in Picardy where Joffre wanted the
British Expeditionary Force and attached
French units to launch an offensive
was ill-suited for battle.
Haig, showing a glimmer of tactical
acumen, had wanted to attack in Flanders,
where the ground was better and
he believed he could be in position by
August. The French said this date would
be too late to help them defend Verdun
and save France. It was a hard argument
to disagree with, and the attack went
forward.
The fortress of Verdun had been attacked
by the German 5th Army on Feb.
21, 1916. The Schlieffen Plan had failed
but under guidance from German General
Staff chief Erich von Falkenhayn,
the Germans intended to grind the
French down until they sued for peace.
He had earlier authorized the first use of
gas as a weapon of war; what he had
failed to achieve by firepower, chemicals
and maneuver, he now intended to accomplish
by brute force. Attrition warfare
would continue for both sides until
America’s Army and the Allies turned
the tide in 1918.
The Germans may have said the Allied
generals were donkeys, but so were
they. The German attack on Verdun
failed and cost both the French and the
Germans over half a million casualties.
The sacrifices by British and French soldiers
at the Somme contributed to successful
defense of Verdun but as the soldier-poets
on both sides told the world,
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the battles of 1916 were not tactically
brilliant. Wholesale slaughter was the
result.
Lt. Col. Kelly Milton Morgan
Florence, S.C.
Exchanges, Reading Offer Insight
■ Retired Lt. Col. C. Richard Nelson’s
Front & Center article in the May
issue of ARMY, “Understand What
Makes Our Partners Tick,” is wise counsel
and especially important as we try to
broaden our coalition efforts to defeat the
Islamic State group and other threats.
I have long had the impression that
we don’t get maximum mileage out of
the various foreign exchange and liaison
programs in which we partake. Do we
actually have a viable system or mechanism
to evaluate and exploit the observations,
writings and resulting insights
from these sometimes several-year exchanges?
Learning from other armies and cultures
ties in with Nelson’s thoughtful
feature in the March issue, “Reading:
The Key to Critical Thinking.” The synergy
of combining learning from other
military cultures and professional reading
helped us immensely as we prepared to
join World War II. In early 1941, it was
clear to Army Chief of Staff Gen.
George C. Marshall Jr. that the U.S.
needed a comprehensive strategic plan
to guide the total war effort. The task
of writing it trickled down to then-
Maj. Albert C. Wedemeyer. The service
schools had not given him the sort of education
he would need for this task. His
competence as a planner emerged largely
from his conscientious professional reading
and study, a characteristic of many
officers of his generation.
Wedemeyer was also able to apply
what he had painstakingly learned as
an exchange student, particularly at
the strategic level, at the German general
staff college, the Kriegsakademie.
Although, as Nelson states, such an assignment
might pose a promotion risk
today, this particular exchange provided
valuable other-culture strategic
insights otherwise unattainable and had
a profound effect in shaping Wedemeyer’s
knowledge and critical thinking,
all of which ultimately enabled the
Victory Plan.
The payback to the War Department
and the nation from this exchange assignment
is unmeasurable, but only because
Wedemeyer so diligently applied himself
to it as part of his continuing military education
in concert with his professional
reading and formal military education.
The Center of Military History publication
An Unknown Future and a Doubtful
Present: Writing the Victory Plan of
1941, by Charles E. Kirkpatrick, tells this
fascinating story. Every soldier should
read it.
Col. William Florence, AUS Ret.
Springfield, Va.
September 2016 ■ ARMY 5