Germany and the Next War

by Friedrich von Bernhardi

We arrive, then, at the conclusion that, in order to secure the superiority in a war of the future under otherwise equal conditions, it is incumbent on us: First, during the period of preparation to raise the tactical value and capabilities of the troops as much as possible, and especially to develop the means of concealing the attacking movements and damaging the enemy's tactical powers; secondly, in the war itself to act on the offensive and strike the first blow, and to exploit the manoeuvring capacity of the troops as much as possible, in order to be superior in the decisive directions. Above all, a State which has objects to attain that cannot be relinquished, and is exposed to attacks by enemies more powerful than itself, is bound to act in this sense. It must, before all things, develop the attacking powers of its army, since a strategic defensive must often adopt offensive methods.

This principle holds good pre-eminently for Germany. The points which I have tried to emphasize must never be lost sight of, if we wish to face the future with confidence. All our measures must be calculated to raise the efficiency of the army, especially in attack; to this end all else must give way. We shall thus have a central point on which all our measures can be focussed. We can make them all serve one purpose, and thus we shall be kept from going astray on the bypaths which we all too easily take if we regard matters separately, and not as forming parts of a collective whole. Much of our previous omissions and commissions would have borne a quite different complexion had we observed this unifying principle.

The requirements which I have described as the most essential are somewhat opposed to the trend of our present efforts, and necessitate a resolute resistance to the controlling forces of our age.

The larger the armies by which one State tries to outbid another, the smaller will be the efficiency and tactical worth of the troops; and not merely the average worth, but the worth of each separate detachment as such. Huge armies are even a danger to their own cause. "They will be suffocated by their own fat," said General v. Brandenstein, the great organizer of the advance of 1870, when speaking of the mass-formation of the French. The complete neglect of cavalry in their proportion to the whole bulk of the army has deprived the commander of the means to injure the tactical capabilities of the enemy, and to screen effectually his own movements. The necessary attention has never been paid in the course of military training to this latter duty. Finally, the tactical efficiency of troops has never been regarded as so essential as it certainly will prove in the wars of the future.

A mechanical notion of warfare and weak concessions to the pressure of public opinion, and often a defective grasp of the actual needs, have conduced to measures which inevitably result in an essential contradiction between the needs of the army and the actual end attained, and cannot be justified from the purely military point of view. It would be illogical and irrelevant to continue in these paths so soon as it is recognized that the desired superiority over the enemy cannot be reached on them.

This essential contradiction between what is necessary and what is attained appears in the enforcement of the law of universal military service. Opinion oscillates between the wish to enforce it more or less, and the disinclination to make the required outlay, and recourse is had to all sorts of subterfuges which may save appearances without giving a good trial to the system. One of these methods is the Ersatzreserve, which is once more being frequently proposed. But the situation is by no means helped by the very brief training which these units at best receive. This system only creates a military mob, which has no capacity for serious military operations. Such an institution would be a heavy strain on the existing teaching personnel in the army, and would be indirectly detrimental to it as well. Nor would any strengthening of the field army be possible under this scheme, since the cadres to contain the mass of these special reservists are not ready to hand. This mass would therefore only fill up the recruiting depots, and facilitate to some degree the task of making good the losses.

A similar contradiction is often shown in the employment of the troops. Every army at the present time is divided into regular troops, who are already organized in time of peace and are merely brought to full strength in war-time, and new formations, which are only organized on mobilization. The tactical value of these latter varies much according to their composition and the age of the units, but is always much inferior to that of the regular troops. The Landwehr formations, which were employed in the field in 1870-71, were an example of this, notwithstanding the excellent services which they rendered, and the new French formations in that campaign were totally ineffective. The sphere of activity of such troops is the second line. In an offensive war their duty is to secure the railroads and bases, to garrison the conquered territory, and partly also to besiege the enemies' fortresses. In fact, they must discharge all the duties which would otherwise weaken the field army. In a defensive war they will have to undertake the local and mainly passive defence, and the support of the national war. By acting at first in this limited sphere, such new formations will gradually become fitted for the duties of the war, and will acquire a degree of offensive strength which certainly cannot be reckoned upon at the outset of the war; and the less adequately such bodies of troops are supplied with columns, trains, and cavalry, the less their value will be.

Nevertheless, it appears to be assumed by us that, in event of war, such troops will be partly available in the first line, and that decisive operations may be entrusted to them. Reserves and regulars are treated as equivalent pieces on the board, and no one seems to suppose that some are less effective than others. A great danger lies in this mechanical conception.

For operations in the field we must employ, wherever possible, regulars only, and rather limit our numbers than assign to inferior troops tasks for which they are inadequate. We must have the courage to attack, if necessary, with troops numerically inferior but tactically superior and more efficient; we must attack in the consciousness that tactical striking power and efficiency outweigh the advantages of greater numbers, and that with the immense modern armies a victory in the decisive direction has more bearing on the ultimate issue than ever before.

The decision depends on the regular troops, not on the masses which are placed at their side on mobilization. The commander who acts on this principle, and so far restricts himself in the employment of masses that he preserves the complete mobility of the armies, will win a strong advantage over the one whose leader is burdened with inferior troops and therefore is handicapped generally, and has paid for the size of his army by want of efficiency. The mass of reserves must, therefore, be employed as subsidiary to the regular troops, whom they must relieve as much as possible from all minor duties. Thus used, a superiority in the numbers of national reserves will secure an undoubted superiority in the actual war.