Military History from 1815-1914

[Darman]

So while designing our system for gaming out wars at the strategic level I was doing some reading and took a book out of the library called The Art of War: Waterloo to Mons, by William McElwee.  The book attempts to explain the lessons that generals, admirals, and politicians alike ought to have been learning from the various wars and conflicts between the two world wars of the Napoleonic Era and the First World War. 
I was wondering how familiar any of you might be with any of the wars/battles that occur during this time period (the latter half of which time period I attempted to base the military simulation on), and if you thought there was anything important that happened. 

One thing that I thought was interesting was that at Koniggratz/Sadowa, the Prussians had the breechloading Dreyse needle gun, but it lacked the range to engage the Austrian infantry armed with rifled muzzleloading rifles.  The Austrian long-arms combined with a superior artillery arm allowed the Austrians to keep the Prussians at arms length until several Austrian corps commanders advanced off the heights and allowed themselved to be outflanked, thus turning the tide of the battle.  Hence, the Prussians learned that superior artillery is better than a superior rifle, however the rest of the world saw a Prussian victory and assumed the Prussian rifle was the reason.  In 1870 the French with their superior rifle, the Chassepot, were soundly defeated by the superior Krupp artillery of the Prussians. 

[Kaiser Kirk]

I'm primarily familiar with the American Civil war, but have read a little on WWI. Very shallow on various things like Spanish-American/Franco-Prussian/Boer/etc.  Oddly one of the things I have read about Konniggratz is that Austrian marksmanship was pitiful and that was blamed on the recruits only being given 20 rounds a year.

Having a superior weapon is not necessarily a winner. Knowing how to use that weapon properly and having trained men to do so is very important.

Take the Gatling on the wheeled artillery carriage used in batteries- not very flexible and outranged by regular artillery. Stick it on a mobile platform in a desert and you can mow down dervishes at Oduberan (bad spelling). The original tactics failed to employ the weapon to it's advantage. I believe the French had the Milletrause in 1872, but also employed it badly.

Lastly, you can be superior at the point of contact, but if locally outnumbered, outmaneuvered, or you have your supplies cut, you're in trouble.

[Logi]

I'm primarily familiar with political & financial processes especially those of China in the century of humiliation. One of the most important lessons there is something many countries take for granted, troop commanders that follow orders. Many commanders either took advantage of communication distances to slack off or seek to cut a deal with the enemy to preserve his own troop strength through the century.

There is also huge political/financial pressure against all new weapons and changes in the system, no matter how good they are. This sometimes is the result of the hidebound nature of all militaries, and other times it's due to competition with other branches (even ones that regularly practice "combined arms" exercises) for political/financial favors. This sort of rent-seeking behavior extends from the branches to all military contractors as well. These unwritten costs result in inefficiency being the nature state of militaries.

The huge input of political forces to a military campaign should not be understated as well. Just off the top of my head, China and the United States frequently had generals removed from their posts and thoroughly discredited when they did not please their political masters, no matter their results on the battlefield. Often this resulted in massive losses.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Good point, the political aspect does matter, though in the American Civil War it often meant folks appointed due to status and then retained. Plus even some "good" commanders...really weren't all that if you take a good look- though those are all debatable.

Benjamin Butler should never have been made a General, much less one with independent command. Ambrose Burnside supposedly argued against being promoted, he was anyhow, the Battle of Fredericksburg resulted in a nasty defeat, but he was then shoved over into an independent command because they couldn't turn around and demote him without it making the promotion look bad.

On new weapons, they tend to get used like improved versions of the old, and it takes a good commander to start realizing the differences and employ them to their best effect, which can take time. Even then lessons can be badly applied.

[Darman]

Oddly one of the things I have read about Konniggratz is that Austrian marksmanship was pitiful and that was blamed on the recruits only being given 20 rounds a year.

While I'm certain that the overall Austrian infantry had horrible marksmanship, the Austrian Army in the Austro-Prussian War was trained in the French tactics utilizing battalion, regiment, and divisional columns to storm into enemy positions.  The columns were screened and covered by skirmishers (jaegers, supposedly recruited from the estates and game preserves of the Austrian nobility, and placing an emphasis on marksmanship) and artillery fire.  As such, the Austrian artillery arm was supposedly hugely superior to the Prussian artillery.  Jaegars combined with artillery are the units mainly credited with stopping any serious Prussian assaults against the Austrian center.  The Austrian commander Benedek had learned in his earlier encounters with the Prussians that the column assaults the Austrians were trained to carry out only served to place his men at the mercy of the short-ranged, rapid-firing Prussian Dreyse needle-gun much more quickly than engaging in longer-range firefights.  So at Koniggratz he arranged his soldiers in defensive positions that theoretically would have helped defeat the Prussians.  (We'll never know since two of his corps commanders disobeyed orders and abandoned the entrenchments on the high ground in favor of attacking in their traditional infantry columns, allowing themselves to be caught in the flank by the army or the Prussian Crown Prince, which they didn't know was "marching to the sound of the guns" from that direction.  They were routed and their artillery on the heights was lost.)

[Kaiser Kirk]

Thanks, been a while since I read about that battle.
The Skirmisher-screened heavy columns is a Napoleanic trait- i.e. French as you've observed.
However, it's quite easy for both statements to be correct- the Jaegers would generally form a minority of the troops, while troops in column had a poor frontage:manpower ratio. So the Jaegers could easily be more accurate, but the majority of Austrian troops poorly trained and so kept in simple formations. Much later at the Somme, the British "new" army of draftees was not trusted with complex formations, so after a long bombardment, they went over the top in line abreast. Unfortunately, their wire cutters were ineffectual, their gas blew over their own formations, and as the creeping barrage moved on schedule, they got hung up and the Germans came out of the deep fortified dugouts and manned machine guns. But, since the cables to the rear were broken, the second wave was ordered to attack. As I *recall*, casualty rates were 80%+ in those waves.

Interestingly, those types of formations generally got butchered in the American Civil war, where defensive positions were heavily used. There was some success, notably at the battle of Spotsylvania, where a pre-dawn column assault by 3 Corps broke the Confederate positions in the Mule shoe. The Confederates fell back in disorder and started to rout.  However, heavy assaults failed at places like Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, Cold Harbor, The Crater, and others. Indeed, the beating the Federals took at Cold Harbor is sometimes blamed for their lack of aggression at Petersburg- it was lightly garrisoned, but well earthworked and they simply weren't charging a meat grinder again.

During the Napoleanic times, Jaegers had the option of a subcaliber ball for rapid but inaccurate fire, or a properly fitted ball which they had to slowly hammer down the barrel. This was of course not suitable for general infantry, so Jaegers tended to be specialist subformations.
The advent of the minie ball meant rifled muskets could fire at the same rate as a smoothbore musket, and so the lethal engagement envelope greatly expanded, and also meant that trained troops could easily bounce back and forth- something seen frequently in the mid-late period Civil War, where they also took to entrenching & fortifying rapidly.

[Darman]

Thanks, been a while since I read about that battle.
The Skirmisher-screened heavy columns is a Napoleanic trait- i.e. French as you've observed.
However, it's quite easy for both statements to be correct- the Jaegers would generally form a minority of the troops, while troops in column had a poor frontage:manpower ratio. So the Jaegers could easily be more accurate, but the majority of Austrian troops poorly trained and so kept in simple formations.

Absolutely.  I agree with everything you just said except for a nitpick that really doesn't change the ultimate reality of the situation: the Austrian line infantry were too well-trained.... they spent so much time drilling in parade ground formations etc that actual maneuvering on the battlefield apart from maneuvers also used on the parade field were beyond them.  Also, close-order drill was emphasized to the exclusion even of musketry practice.  According to the author, it wasn't uncommon for new drafts of recruits to be returned home shortly after arriving at the training depots because the regimental commanders preferred to keep the older drafts of trained conscripts who looked far better drilling on the parade field.  It may have been an exaggeration of the actual conditions, but it seems that it happened more often than most were prepared to admit. 

The author claims, and I can't argue too much with it because from my own superficial studies on these wars leaves me far from qualified to argue it, that the Prussians learned a lesson from the Austro-Prussian War: their superior rifles were good enough for the infantry, but were no match good field artillery, and that they only reason they won was superior tactics in concentrating their armies at the moment of battle, but also the happy accident that the 2 Austrian corps commanders disobeyed orders and attacked out of their entrenched positions and into the range of the Prussian rifles.  In the following four years the Krupp steel breech-loading artillery that saw very limited action in the Austro-Prussian War is brought into general service, and the Prussian field artillery commanders are trained to be far more aggressive than they were in 1866.  The French saw the triumph of the Prussian Army as a sign that they needed a far better infantry rifle, and developed the Chassepot.  The French didn't realize, because it wasn't as apparent to them after Koniggratz as it was to the Prussians, that artillery is actually the dominant arm.  So, equipped with the Chassepot, a few mitrelieuse grouped in batteries like field artillery, and old-fashioned muzzle-loading bronze field guns, the French Army in 1870 marched off to fight the Prussians armed with an inferior Dreyse rifle, but far superior Krupp field artillery.  Artillery once again triumphed over the superior rifle, although there were no fatal mistakes made that rendered the superiority of the artillery a mute point like had happened at Koniggratz. 

[Kaiser Kirk]

One odd tidbit from the cold war was that the Russians valued certain training evolutions - like disembarking from a BMP quickly. So Regiments would have select teams just for that drill so they'd dazzle at inspection.  I could certainly see the Austrians falling into that.

But overall, the idea of being too well trained has merit. The Europeans placed great emphasis in formation fighting, and somewhat sneered at the US Civil war as they didn't fight in close formation usually.  However, that war saw the first major troop movements by rail to battle fronts - starting with First Manassas.

Part of the military history lessons I took, oh, a quarter century ago, focused on basics like Mass, firepower, maneuver, etc. This applies both strategically and tactically. If you can concentrate your army on one wing of a foes, you can defeat them in detail. The Franco-Prussian war saw the Prussians mobilize quicker and get to the front quicker, giving them local superiority. They also, as I recall, were more flexibly organized with more organic artillery and less "grand batteries", and so could win at the point of contact. But I'm bit fuzzy on the 1866 and 1872 conflicts- never read a ton on them, and it was a long time ago.

Overall, If you can leverage your artillery's advantages, its a big boon.  The mid late 1800s were a transition time, as warfare moved on the % of casualties from artillery climbed.  Now, one thing you saw in the 1860s was also the transition from smoothbore "napoleans" to rifled artillery. The Napoleans were better vs. dense masses due to the ability to fire canister, and bounce solid balls along the ground through formations - but infantry rifles could outrange. Rifled artillery relied more on shells, but was extremely effective against brick fortifications (1850s-) and could outrange the infantry.

[Darman]

Absolutely, using your artillery at the right time and place, or even in the right manner, can be the difference between victory and defeat.  The Prussian artillery in 1866 viewed losing a gun the same way an infantryman would view losing his colors: it just wasn't honorably done.  The Austrians, however, were more aggressive and Austrian artillery batteries were known for futilely resisting til the end rather than limbering up and running away to avoid losing their guns. 

The opinion of European observers of the American Civil War seems to have been largely that while several new technologies were utilized, and there were some things to be learned or at least explored, for the most part the war was fought by amateurs, and the professionals of Europe had nothing to learn from mere amateurs. 

That being said, the Prussians saw mass use of railroads for the first time and undoubtedly this helped to influence their General Staff railroad section prior to 1866.  The British, too, saw something peculiar that they decided they needed to know: they saw the formation of a large army in a short amount of time from hitherto untrained men.  They were seeking to learn how the Americans, both North and South accomplished this, it was something the English government desired to learn so as to enable them to apply it to their own Territorial Army/Militia/Home Guard units: turning untrained civilian volunteers into halfway decent soldiers. 
One thing all the European nations learned, or believed that they had learned, were that field fortifications were useful.  However, they believed field fortifications were a crutch for the half-trained American volunteer, and that the lack of massed assaults was due to the inability of half-trained troops to perform maneuvers in the field as well as their reliance on trenches making them morally incapable of returning to the offensive.  In fact, this lack of "offensive spirit" is due more to the American experience of the deadliness of modern weaponry than to any defects in training, morale, or elan. 

[Kaiser Kirk]

Pretty much a correct summation. I think the Europeans formed their opinions early in the war, where the American green troops performed haphazardly.  That led to the European powers substantially underestimated the fighting capacity and training of the mid and late war troops.  I dislike using Picket's charge as an example, but the rebels were noted for dressing ranks as they came across under heavy fire - definitely not a trait of green troops.

As for field fortifications, an interesting tidbit was that General Lee was originally placed in command of troops in Virginia's west. He insisted they dig in all the time, leading to the troops to mutter and call him "Granny Lee". By 1864 that attitude had changed and they dug in fanatically. After the Federals escaped the trap at North Anna (injury & sickness in the ANV), you had Cold Harbor, where the Federals managed ~6,000 casualties in 30 minutes - frontal assault on fortifications failed miserably. Grant conceded he regretted ordering the second charge, as it didn't happen- morale had failed.

Now fast forward to the late 1800s and mobile 75mm shell firing guns had rendered breastworks obselete. Then leapfrog to Rommel's Infantry Attacks! in WWI and in his first engagements against the French you find him procuring sandbags prior to advancing, and immediately having his troops dig in...or fill the sandbags with dirt if the ground was unforgiving.  Later against the Russians and Italians he uses his heavy MGs aggressively as mobile artillery, bringing them up to support attacks and secure areas.

[Brockpaine]

Hence, the Prussians learned that superior artillery is better than a superior rifle, however the rest of the world saw a Prussian victory and assumed the Prussian rifle was the reason.  In 1870 the French with their superior rifle, the Chassepot, were soundly defeated by the superior Krupp artillery of the Prussians.

That lesson was imparted to a lot of the countries Prussia/Germany trained, as well.  For instance, the Chileans had the same experience in the War of the Pacific, as did the Bulgarians in the Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885).

[Kaiser Kirk]

Don't the Russians call Artillery the God of War or somesuch?

[Darman]

Infantry is the Queen of Battle, but artillery reigns as King.