Well, at the moment I can’t find the best answers I wrote to the
questions I actually answered on the exam (the first three questions).
Luckily, you can gin up answers from Sumida’s lectures for all three.
What I did was to write down the questions I didn’t answer, or answered
roughly, and come up with semi-answers in case they were brought up
during the oral exam. Only some of them were, it was mostly a
free-ranging discussion of tidbits to see what I didn’t know. Since I
was trying to remember what I had already written, the text below is
choppy and unfinished in many places.
Timothy L. Francis
Historian
Naval Historical Center
email address: Francis.Timothy@nhc.navy.mil
voice: (202) 433-6802
————-
Questions I answered ok.
A1 – influence of finance on institutions and warfare.
B1 – c/c the 19th century military experience of U.S. & Prussia.
F1 – c/c the economic history of WW1 & WW2.
———————————————–
Questions I answered only partially.
D1 – The great difficulty is not accepting new ideas, but discarding old
ones. {John Maynard Keynes more or less} Apply this aphorism to the
historiography of military affairs, selctively {by case study} or
comprehensively.
I answered this in the exam by looking at it from a Keegan-esque
point of view. This part revolved around Keegan’s criticism of the
battle-piece (difficult for historians to get away from) and the
alternative criticism of Keegan when he said “it is not what armies are
but what they do that is important”. That is based on the the
assumption that the economic, financial, and social factors that create
military institutions are in some ways more important. Outcome of
battles due to factors external to the battles themselves. It was
extended to include van Crevald, who in Supplying War, made the case
that logistics affect military strategy to a far greater degree than
historians have been prepared to admit. While he is a myth-destroyer,
rather than an analyzer, the book illustrates several prime examples
where cherished myths have refused to give way to new concepts.
… and Sumida (Gould). You could even apply this to Keynes
(what he meant, i.e. economics).
E1 – (rough) Why did the European socialists fail to improve on their
excellent pre-war position in the decades following WWI, in particular
why did the German socialists fall behind the French, given their better
position in 1918?
I answered this a bit awkwardly. …. According to Hardach,
life (i.e. wages) did not improve during the war for most American
worker’s. European? Well Andrewski’s book (other than the omnipresence
of struggle, that people fight for real reasons, that there is a
relationship between military organization and social structure) notes
the relationship of mass mobilization and social change tending toward
“welfare statism”. European citizens rewarded with the vote for the
sacrifices of WWI. On the other hand you can have a leftist reaction to
the “right” crack-down such as Russia in 1917. Difficulties of fitting
fascism in here, since seemingly an alternative method to social
harmonization than liberal or communist ideology. Rather than rely on
liberal individualism, they relied on group cohesion and effort.
Milward?
The German case, as indicated by Craig, was that the socialist’s
suffer from being in power. Also because the majority of Germans were
far more fearful of communism than the military. When socialists took
over they were not united, they had to rely on the Army freikorps to
suppress extremists in January 1919, the communists were disorganized as
well. They took the rap for signing the Treaty of Versailles too, that
rankled both the army and the unsympathetic troops. They also, during
the Kapp Putsch, relied on a General Strike to defeat the Putsch but
then did nothing against the Army, in fact they used von Seekt to both
put down the resurgent communists and re-legitimize the army.
The French?
C1 – (additional) Historically, navies have been more capital intensive
than armies. Describe and analyze this condition and discuss its larger
implications.
I answered this by starting with the capital requirements of a
sailing navy given the hazards of the sea as transportation medium.
Mentioned N.A.M. Rodger’s concentration on dockyards,
professionalization, victualing requirements, medicine, raw materials
[the navy as social mirror of society]. Navy as largest economic
concern in Britain for example. Navy as Anaconda vs. Army as
caterpillar.
Then talked about industrialization of naval material – metal
construction, steam power, advanced ordnance. The adoption and
diversification of these by the end of the century – triple-expansion,
steel hulls, breech-loaders, steel armor, shells, torpedoes. Electric
and combustion-engine developments introduce airplane/submarine, and
attempts to solve gunnery equations; all increase complexity,
buraucratization (or should anyway), and financial burdens.
Larger implication is that only large industrially advanced
nations can afford this sort of thing and, if you are not in the first
rank, you need to make serious decisions regarding where you invest,
what you construct, since you can’t do everything (The Best Laid
Plans…). “The rich conserve, the poor innovate” (Pugh). Would also
seem then that there is no such thing as a naval strategy, there are
multiple types, all dependent on the particular circumstances and
contexts. Difficulties of avoiding main force confrontations at sea.
——————————————
Questions I did not answer.
B1 – Compare and contrast the (German?) general staff war planning prior
to World War I with that before World War II and/or the Franco-Prussian
War.
pre-WWI: Sidney B. Fay, the role of mass conscript armies and
railroad planning – Showalter?, van Crevald’s take that Schlieffen plan
could not work as planned – too far, couldn’t rail past Belgium due to
dissarray. Only trucks allowed them to get as far as they did.
AH-Serbia (Jelavich “Russia’s Balkan Entanglements”) is the key, desire
to punish Serbia – for agitation in Bosnia-H and resistance to Austrian
plans in the Balkans (Fay?); Sarajevo simply the excuse. Younger Moltke
supported A-H in this design, and essentially pledged German offensive
support. Schleiffen (Craig) – unlike elder Moltke, stressed the initial
thrust against France. No one thought in terms of a long war, all
believed it impossible for modern industrial nations to fight one, thus
initial plan a battle of annihilation followed by assumed surrender.
Even though Howard showed how nations could fight on. Very inflexible.
No real long term thought, ignored political needs.
Russian mobilization, felt couldn’t back down (Jelavich?).
Especially after AH mobilized on the frontier. A definite break-down of
civilian control, allowed military to influence decision for war.
French Plan 17? Brits?
pre-WW2: Milward-Citino – German planning based on a defensive
war in West, and only recent thinking about Poland. Although also
“planned”, i.e. theorized without equipment or inventories, on fighting
short, sharp wars with material on hand, no long term investment –
partly to take advantage of late-development/small investment but also
since a smaller autarkic base to fight the West. Forced into innovation
via restrictions of Versaille, since no large army, long-service
professionals, need to defend against Poland. Created predilections for
mobility, high skill standards, intense training, an affirmation of
tradition. How similiar is this to the American “renaissance” of the
late ’70’s & ’80’s? (self-imposed restrictions, large enemy) In
contrast both French & British thought in terms of long war of
industrial attrition, PSOC, Maginot, etc.
pre-FP: Howard, van Crevald, the Prussians planned to mobilize
on the frontier and fight a defensive battle as the French attacked.
The French sought to invade. German Staff better at coordinating
train-based mobilization, at different points, and at having trained
officers and men to “march separately, fight jointly”. Supply could
then be delivered along separate roads by supply troops. French
suffered from the professional army’s lack of experience with large
formations, all clogged together, with typical requisition supply
problems.
F2 – (rough) Compare and contrast the social and economic patterns of
the two postwar decades in Europe following the first and second world
wars. How does this give us a greater understanding of the success of
the second as opposed to the first?
Answer this with Hardach, Milward, Ruggie; unbalancing of
European state-system(?) through Versaille, reparations and loan
triangle burden, the Soviet Union, weak new nations in East, American
isolationism despite export boom – unilateral protectionist (tariff)
policies and decentralization of the international economy.
Delegitimacy of elites (?), unresolved border & nationalistic divisions,
general impoverishment of Europe due to wear, destruction, relative
decline; no economic controls, economic rivalry, even “economic
nationalism”, non-structural adjustment in industrial production
(producing same old basic products), and a debtor region.
vs.
Attempt at IMF, World Bank, and centralization of the world economic
system, Ruggie’s multilateral cooperation, openness, and domestic
intervention, more economic development in Europe as a whole, much
easier reconstruction of European market economy, attempt to restrict
unemployment, total occupation of Germany, foreign aid (less important a
la Milward), continued alliance of the West as a whole, the U.S. in
particular, an outside threat, the brutal but paradoxically successful
resolution to the ethnic question in Central and parts of Eastern
Europe. Milward.
Ruggie – postwar compromise (full employment and managed
economies) is “fraying”, due to declining productivity increases and
increased competition from newly developed low-cost areas of the world.
Also due to the sheer weight of the welfare state itself.
The PSOC, “Reconstitution”, the modern interdependent economy,
and denationalization; problem, according to Ruggie, is that the
Pentagon (Bush admin) could not decide what firms would be available
since companies diverged so in ownership, location, and nationality –
and very unsure whether any units, once defined, would exist when
needed.
A2 – Describe and analyze the effect of technological change on military
institutions from the fifteenth to twentieth century.
Primarily McNeill, also Roland [in the American case, at least
up until 1942, technology was not at the center of our experience.
Rather it was taken up as conflict demanded since there was no incentive
due to lack of outside threat]. Bjiker(?).
Technology cannot be an independent variable. It is always
inter-related with the financial, economic, strategic, and institutional
context of the time. Overall pattern of States, when financially and
institutionally cost effective, replacing expensive human combat skill
with skillfully engineered machines. These changes, implemented under
the pressures of competition (McNeill), spread gunpowder weapons among
the armies of Europe by the 16th century. This challenge and response
then forced changes in institution, ranging from the new infantry, to
mobile siege artillery, to artillery fortifications, that require
transformations in state finance and state administration.
Militarization of the Continental states allowed Prussia, building on
earlier reforms of Swedes, to use horse artillery while Gribeauval’s
artillery reforms introduce both technological, tactical, and
institutional changes in the French army. The same complexity issue
behind the professionalization of naval officers as well as the
artillery.
The fundamental issue of the post-Napoleonic period is weapons
technology. The small arms revolution, quick-firing artillery, and
steel navies are all responses to the Industrial Revolution, itself a
productivity revolution possible through incremental technical,
financial, and agricultural changes over the 18th century. These force
increases in scale, cost, and complexity of administration, bureacratize
the procurement and production process, and change the relationship
between state and society as resource extraction grows in importance. A
return to command over the market for mobilization (conservatives must
flinch), begun in naval affairs in late 19th century.
WW2 changed everything since it moved innovation to military
institutions, solidified a command economy of government managers
(Pentagon, Congress, defense industries, universities, for example), and
brought forced technological innovation to the front of strategic
thinking. “Demand pull, instead of supply push”. [Garrison State
article; Aaron Friedberg] In the American case the threat was supplied
by the Soviets, the luxury of free security is gone, and the technology
of war has been at the front end of American institutions ever since –
Roland.
There are reasons why new technology is not automatically
adopted, for example, reliability, cost, difficulty of use, training
requirements – the U.S. Army did not adopt the Winchester in late 19th
century because of an inadequate reloading system, and thus remained
with muzzle-loaders.
How do you suppose Sherry fits in here? Where does cultural
history belong, is it all interpretationa and perception, like so much
else in the world? How do you respond to them?
C2 – Discuss the major turning points in military logistics from the
U.S. Civil War to World War II. In your answer, pay attention to their
strategical or tactical consequences.
Military logistics have two components; resource mobilization
and production is the first stage, the movement and supply of forces the
second. Gordon: procurement from productive sources, similiar to
McNeill\Milward. Van Crevald: the practical art of moving armies and
keeping them supplied.
The major turning points in this are railways (although much
more useful for mobilization and strategic movement rather than supply –
they simply do not supply mobile units, Franco-Prussian & Civil War-East
Prussia for former), steamships (allows transport of troops, equipment,
and supply on a global scale – European colonial expansion into interior
of Asia and Africa now possible-Headrick’s, British able to fight Zulu
and Boer wars as well. Two world wars simply an expanded version of the
strategic movement of men and material), combustion engine (useful on a
tactical level for ground forces – trucks, airlift for supply of mobile
units and rough terrain. Never an exponential increase in speed of
advance because ammunition, POL, parts become such a huge % of army
needs, and thus huge increase in scale, in an industrial war (post
1914).
The story of (operational) logistics is thus the gradual
emancipation of armies (and navies) from the need to depend on local
supplies. These technologically-based supplies had to be manufactured,
before transportation, making an industrial base important. While
primarily important in naval logistics, the increasing complexity of war
in the late 19th century meant that only advanced industrial economies
could compete in this type of warfare. As both Milward and Hardach
illustrate, war became struggles of real resources, where mobilization
and control of production became just as important to waging war as
moving these materials to the fronts.
D2 – “Very often war is just an idea which begins, and ends as well, in
the minds of men.” [John Meuller, Retreat from Doomsday] Discuss this
statement with reference to how prominent statesmen and strategists in
the 19th and 20th centuries thought about the use of force in conflict
resolutions.
Mueller is right, in the sense that fighting a war is a
deliberate decision, a human choice, and as such can be reversed. Wars
are fought for many reasons, determined partly by the context of the
times. In the early 19th century Clausewitz, like everyone else, saw
warfare as a permanent factor in human existence. And he had just
participated in a series of national wars, of states in alliance with
society, where total war was the order of the day. War, Clausevitz
[Peter Paret] noted, was an extreme, and theoretically absolute,
solution to political conflict but one that was necessary given the
structure of the international state system. And there are still
political goals for which states will wage war, even major wars. This
has not really changed over the last two centuries.
The U.S. Civil War is one example, illustrating the concept that
sometimes there are disagreements, such as the 10th amendment, that two
opposing sides simply cannot defuse. Then, as before, there was little
to compromise over, at least in Lincoln’s view, and the issue came down
to who had the power to coerce the other. But the ability to exhaust
your opponent financially, and so end the war through economic collapse,
was becoming more difficult. The colonial and inter-European wars of
the post-Crimea period disguised this, by being easy or resolved
diplomatically through the mechanics of the Great Power System, but did
not change it.
Crimean war, Franco-Prussian war? Michael Howard?
The new technology proposed to make war short or apocalyptic. It turned
out to be the latter, especially in the sense that the old social order
was changed, the military unable to control the war through limitation,
thus losing out to civilians and social change. Perhaps nuclear war
would be the same?
The 20th century; WWI seems to be the turning point in Western
liberal opinion – the tremendous costs in lives, treasure, economic
disruption for seemingly inconsequential results, were a result of the
industrialization of war. Foreshadowed by the F-P war, states were
able, by total mobilization of the nation, to continue the conflict far
beyond that thought possible by Schlieffen, etc. Total mobilization
meant total goals – the technocrat Ludendorf.
This did not prohibit the liberal democracies from engaging in
warfare to end conflicts, it just raised the stakes over when force
would be used. Chamberlain and Roosevelt did not like the idea of
fighting wars, but saw defending certain political goals worth while.
Others, such as Hitler and Stalin, saw force as a solution to a problem,
not as an economic disaster.
But, on the other hand, Weigley notes that WW2 and the Cold War
just confirmed the American absolutist approach to war, clearly
illustrated in the Civil War. Geyer fills this in by stressing the
struggle of Japan, Germany, the U.S., and the S.U., to reorder the
world, not preserve the status quo.
War, or the threat of war, was seen as useful to protect or
implement large goals. Participation on the international scene by the
U.S. simply made this more likely, especially now that the Soviets are
gone. Vietnam simply Europeanizes our approach, making limited war,
with limited resources, appealing due to financial restrictions.
Nuclear weapons are at the heart of the thought that war is
simply an idea. They do not have to be fought, it is a choice. Nukes
change everything by making it risky, i.e. escalation.
E2 – (rough) “The impact of nuclear weapons has changed the way
policy-makers view strategy.” Discuss in relation to Europe, East and
West, since 1945.
Rosenberg and Friedburg believe it is institutional process on
the American side. For the Russians I have to go with David Glanz and
Ulam’s “The Rivals”; caution on conventional war as nuke levels grow and
incorporation of nukes into strategy leads to competition external to
Europe.
In U.S. case military policy came to rest on deterrence, based
on nuclear weapons and technologically advanced forces in being, itself
based on notion that U.S. could not, due to internal interest-groups and
ideology, become a planned garrison state and prepare for a large
protracted war, either nuclear or conventional. Capital-intensive
approach but affordable.
Especially since post-war strategy rested on the protection of
western Europe as part of the U.S. world-system. Technological
constraints limited strategic options but not committment to Europe.
Deterrence theory… pragmatic defense. The world, however, is
unusually safe due to nuclear weapons.
————————–
WW1; the problem of the new technology, the cohesion of the
ranks, and the shock attack. Annihilation attacks through artillery and
magazine rifles, intensified training and ever greater reliance on the
lower-level individual to supply his own internal cohesion,
de-legitimizes elites and creates impetus toward political concessions
to individuals.
Geyer – the shift from hierarchical structures to functional ones was a
drastic, even revolutionary step, because it shed more than a century of
military traditions within half a year (discussion of German Army
reforms of 1917), Ludendorf and Hindenberg as exponents of machine
culture. The Allies fought a war of “abundance” (increasingly relying
on overseas material), in the old style hierarchy with machines; the
Germans one of “scarcity”, requiring innovation and productivity
improvements due to inability to produce machines. The roots of the
inter-war approach. {Is it possible this may have something to do with
American reform in the late ’70’s?} Goals and means. This is a theme
that the national socialists returned to after ’33; although the
military was to begin in a subordinate position to the nation, a war of
a militarized and mobilized society. The struggle to challenge the
Army’s autonomy, and thus over strategy, began in 1937-38 over
Czechoslovakia.
Hitler had broken Germany from the confines of Europe for a
brief moment and create an entirely new strategy of war in ’38-’41 –
with a political-ideological strategy that was based on psychological
and capability factors rather than traditional analyses of military
strength; and by discarding comprehensive deployment planning and
replacing it with ad hoc opportunism. War no longer an exercise by
elites to regulate and adjust the disorders of national life, rather it
was order based on the limitless expansion of violence, run by
technocrats.
The military joined it because all rational planning thought by
’38 had concluded it was impossible for Germany to survive as an
independent power based on traditional calculation, much in the same way
as the Japanese viewed the world.
Paret
Howard
What does the following sound like?
“…emphasized the dissolution of front lines as well as the
transformation of the offensive thrust into a system of independently
operating, continuosly moving and shifting units that no longer followed
set operational patterns but was characterized by mobility and movement
in conjunction with firepower, and by the exploitation of tactical and
operational opportunities. In this system of freely moving parts,
command and authority began to take a different shape. The main task
became coordination through communication rather than actual deployment
and direct control of movement.” – AirLand Battle concepts? (or Geyer,
Makers p.560)