The Reality of War: A Companion to Clausewitz

by Stewart Lygon Murray

Frontal Attacks

A third disputed point is his belief in the superior tactical efficiency, under favourable circumstances, of the Napoleonic method of breaking the enemy's line in the centre. Breaking the line by a frontal attack was, of course, much easier in Clausewitz's Napoleonic day than it is with the long-ranging arms of our day, and it is only natural that Clausewitz in his writings should give it the full tactical importance which it then deserved. His book would not be true to the tactical conditions of his day had he not done so, with Rivoli, Austerlitz, Salamanca, Eckmuhl, etc., before his mind. But it seems hardly correct to accuse him of over-partiality to frontal attacks, for he has examined both frontal and enveloping attacks most fairly, giving to each their relative advantages and disadvantages, and concluding: "The envelopment may lead directly to the destruction of the enemy's army, if it is made with very superior numbers and succeeds. If it leads to victory the early results are in every case greater than by breaking the enemy's line. Breaking the enemy's line can only lead indirectly to the destruction of the enemy's army, and its effects are hardly shown so much on the first day, but rather strategically afterwards,"[71] by forcing apart on different lines of retreat the separated fragments of the beaten army.

"The breaking through the hostile army by massing our principal force against one point, supposes an excessive length of front on the part of the enemy; for in this form of attack the difficulty of occupying the remainder of the enemy's force with few troops is greater, because the enemy's forces nearer to the principal point of attack can easily join in opposing it. Now in an attack upon the centre there are such forces on both sides of the attack; in an attack upon a flank, only on one side. The consequence of this is that such a central attack may easily end in a very disadvantageous form of combat, through a convergent counter-attack." Which is exactly our modern difficulty. "The choice between these two forms of attack must therefore be made according to the existing conditions of the moment. Length of front, the nature and direction of the line of retreat, the military qualities of the enemy's troops, and the characteristics of their general, lastly the ground must determine the choice."

Speaking generally he regards the concentric enveloping form of tactical attack aiming at the enemy's line of retreat as the most efficacious and natural. "On the field of battle itself ... the enveloping form must always be considered the most effectual."[72] And the eccentric or frontal counter-attack at the extended enveloping attack as the most efficacious and natural form of the defence, such as Napoleon's counter-attacks at Austerlitz or Dresden, or Wellington's at Salamanca. "And we think that one means is at least as good as the other."[73]

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Now I think that these extracts sufficiently defend Clausewitz from the imputation of too great a belief in frontal attacks, and considering the frequent success of such Napoleonic attacks in his day, he gives a very fair summing up of the relative advantages and disadvantages thereof, and indeed such as might be written in the present day. Indeed the quite abnormal conditions of the Boer war produced such a feeling against frontal attacks, and so much loose talk of their being extinct, that it is very useful to turn to Clausewitz for a reminder that breaking the centre, whenever the condition he postulates, namely over-extension of front on the enemy's part, is present, will always remain one of the two great forms of decisive attack open to a commander.

And as in our day the forces are so enormous that to reach the hostile flank becomes more difficult, and the extension of front becomes so gigantic (a front of several armies on a line of forty to seventy miles perhaps), it is well to consider whether breaking the enemy's centre will not again offer the most advantageous form for the final decisive act, coupled of course, as Clausewitz says it ALWAYS MUST be, with a strong flank attack. And in these gigantic battles of the future, such as Liao-yang and Mukden, which we must consider typical of the future, battles which must take several days, during which the troops in the first line become utterly exhausted and used up,​—​a decisive attack on the centre can well be imagined after the hostile reserves have been decoyed away over a day's march by a strong flank attack. As, for example, Nogi's flank attack round Mukden followed by Nodzu's decisive breaking the centre and capture of Mukden itself.

So that far from thinking Clausewitz's remarks about frontal attacks and breaking the line to be obsolete, it rather appears from the great Russo-Japanese battles that they are worthy of close study in view of the future.