The History of American Military. Richard W. Stewart
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moved hundreds of miles through the Saudi Arabian desert in a “great wheel” to attack the Iraqi flank. Attempts at direct assault, rather than maneuver, have often led to bloody and indecisive actions. In the Civil War, Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside of the Army of the Potomac conducted one of the bloodiest and most useless attacks of the war when he launched his army in a massive frontal assault against Confederate positions on Marye’s Heights at Fredericksburg in 1862. Even a successful maneuver can be subject to criticism—witness the controversy over General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower’s decision to advance across Europe along a continuous broad front rather than permit one of his major forces to thrust deep into Germany during World War II. Nevertheless, a well-organized and controlled force can often maneuver successfully to achieve victory over a larger, but more ponderous, enemy force.
The principle of mass, often called concentration, probably offers more examples of successful and unsuccessful application than any other. Eisenhower’s invasion of the Normandy beaches in 1944 is a brilliant example of the massing of all elements of combat power at the decisive time and place. Conversely, those commanders who fail to mass enough forces or combat power often suffer defeat. On the second day at Gettysburg in 1863, General Robert E. Lee attacked the supposedly “undefended” high ground on the Union left at Little Round Top, but late in the day and with insufficient strength. However, earlier in 1863, Lee’s division of his army at Chancellorsville into three separate elements is a classic success. He left one portion to engage the enemy in a holding battle at Fredericksburg while striking with the rest against the advancing Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker. After halting Hooker in his tracks, Lee divided his army again and sent Lt. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson around the Union right to launch a surprise attack on the enemy flank. The risk involved in this violation of the principle of mass was carefully calculated and brilliantly executed.
The successful application of economy of force has usually resulted in brilliant gains. MacArthur’s “island hopping” strategy in World War II is an excellent example of economizing force by bypassing Japanese island strongholds and isolating them with air and naval power, while using the freed-up forces to strike elsewhere and keep the enemy off balance. No principle of war is probably more important today, in this era of limited war, than restraint in the use of force and the precise calculation of only the exact amount of force needed.
Unity of command was successfully achieved for the Union under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, but only in 1864 after three years of confused leadership and divided objectives. In World War II, the interservice conflicts between General Douglas S. MacArthur and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, each engaged in major offensive operations against Japan along two disparate axes of advance, indicate that this principle can in some respects be violated and military victory gained. But often lack of unity of command leads to misunderstandings, wasted resources, and confused objectives.
Security and surprise are obvious necessities and closely related. In the Civil War at Antietam, there were security violations on both sides. General Lee’s orders for the concentrations of his forces were wrapped in some cigars and found by a Union soldier. Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, the Union commander, failed to reconnoiter the approaches to the battlefield before the action took place. The success of the Chinese Communist intervention in Korea in November 1950 resulted both from a United Nations security failure and from a carefully planned surprise movement into Korea by massive Communist forces. Surprise can achieve startling results; security lapses can also achieve startling results—for the other side.
Of all the principles of war, none is now probably harder to follow above the battalion level than the principle of simplicity. Modern warfare, involving mechanization, electronic equipment, airborne and amphibious operations, joint or even combined operations with foreign forces, is inherently not simple. Even the ostensibly easy movement of a small tank-infantry-artillery team cannot be termed simple. In counterinsurgency operations or nation-building missions the integration of military with political, economic, sociological, and psychological factors often leads to an even higher degree of complexity. But a commander has to do all he can to make elements of the overall plan clear, concise, and direct. Even tactical operations can sometimes become too complex for the commanders to execute. Washington, fresh from a series of brilliant maneuvers at Trenton and Princeton, planned to use a complex attack against a British outpost at Germantown in 1777. His plan involved coordinating the movement and convergence of four columns of inexperienced troops moving over different roads at night. Columns got lost, delayed, and confused. Washington thus lost the advantage of surprise and failed to mass his forces; he was forced to retreat in defeat. The plan proved too complicated for successful execution.
The growing complexity and variety of modern warfare has led students of military affairs to take a fresh look at these principles. Since World War II a debate has been raging in military literature over the precise meaning and application of the principles, a debate fed by the new circumstances of nuclear and counterinsurgency warfare. The discussion revolves around four major questions: Are the present principles too exclusive? Are they too inclusive? Does modern insurgent and nuclear warfare make them obsolete? To what degree does technology change any of the principles? To some extent this is a debate over semantics. The defenders point out that the principles are as valid in modern as in ancient warfare; that each age must make its own applications of the “fundamental truths.” Critics argue that they are not immutable scientific laws of universal applicability; that they require constant reexamination; that no two military situations are ever completely alike; that the principles are merely methods and common-sense procedures adopted by great captains in the past; and that changes in the conditions of war alter their relative importance. Moreover, some claim that new technology, computers and weapon systems, have destroyed whatever validity remained in the principles. The principles, these critics conclude, are no substitute for imaginative thinking, logical analysis, broad professional knowledge, and highly developed qualities of leadership.
Perhaps the key point to remember, whatever the outcome of the ongoing debate among the theorists, is that war remains fundamentally an art. Dennis Hart Mahan, famed West Point professor and teacher of the Civil War generals, put it well: “In war as in every other art based upon settled principles there are exceptions to all general rules. It is in discovering these cases that the talent of the general is shown.” Even the defenders of the principles stress that the art of war lies in their interpretation and application. Within limits, the principles of war nevertheless remain a useful tool for analysis, a general frame of reference, and a checklist for examining past campaigns. Themselves an inheritance from the past, these adages offer no substitute for real historical inquiry or for thinking and action on the part of the officer. They represent generalizations and premises rather than fixed immutable rules. They provide general guides that on the whole have in the past led to military success. As in the past, the victorious captain will have to adapt concepts or improvise others most suitable to the particular circumstances facing him.
All theorists agree that in the final analysis the art of war is what men make it. To quote Mahan again, “No soldier who has made himself conversant with the resources of his art, will allow himself to be trammeled by an exclusive system.” He must be flexible. He must learn to deal with men. Moreover, Napoleon stated that in war, “The moral is to the physical as three to one.” The ability to penetrate the fog of war and make the correct decision is the heart of leadership, and leadership is at the heart of war. Indeed, flexibility and leadership might well be added as tenth and eleventh principles, basic concepts inherent to all the others. It is not surprising, therefore, that the qualities that make for good leadership have long interested the Army and that a whole body of literature has grown up about the theoretical and practical foundations of this phase of the military art.
The military like other professions has developed its own language to allow easy communication. Aside from the principles of war, it is useful for the student of military history to become familiar with other terms commonly encountered in the literature. In the theory of warfare, strategy and tactics have usually been put into separate categories. Strategy deals with both the preparation for and the waging of war and has often been defined as the art of projecting and directing campaigns. To tactics, its close partner, military jargon has reserved the art of executing plans and handling troops in battle. Strategy is usually regarded as the prelude to the battlefield, tactics