Dispatches On War (Part IV)

Re: # 29
My take is about the same as yours - CENTCOM was, I believe, essentially ``out of the loop.`` Tommy Franks, as a good soldier, simply followed orders. Those orders would certainly have required him to plan the military engagement. I doubt that he took, or that he was asked to take, any key role in the decision to invade.

Re: # 31
Yes, I could as easily have said ``The Act of Settlement of 1701,`` or any other parchment. ``Constitution`` was mentioned in an earlier posting and it seemed to me more clarification wouldn`t hurt. I only wanted to point out that the British constitution is UNcodified and a part of the government while that of the U.S.A. (and most since, including that being debated in Iraq) is codified and - in theory, anyway - superior to government. But I`m beating a dead horse.
Of more importance to me is whether or not you might undertake a careful, objective analysis of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, particularly the passions, ambitions and ``grandiose schemes`` of the players. There is a great deal about this vile U.S. adventure in Iraq that recalls for me the U.S. invasion of Mexico, labeled by Gen. Grant the most unjust war ever perpetrated by a strong nation against a weaker. Do you suppose Gen. Powell`s conscience will eventually induce him to say the same about Iraq?
mirmir

Re: #29

Ummmmm, don`t look now but wasn`t Tommy Franks the Commander of CentCom? So how could CentCom be ``out of the loop?`` The entire Afghan and Iraq plans were Franks` creation, i.e., CentCom`s. You could make a case that the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs were out of the loop; that Shinseki was deliberately ignored because he wasn`t in line with Rumsfeld`s and Wolfowitz`s views BUT how can you say what you just did? It`s this kind of sloppy thinking that is the hallmark of the antiBush people. There are many valid reasons to oppose the War in Iraq but you just demonstrated that your opinions can be ignored completely since you have no idea what you are talking about.

Re: # 28

Thanks for the correction; duly noted! :)

As to the Magna Carta, please keep in mind that it was a compact, between the barons of England and the monarchy in England to delimit the lands and arrive at a power sharing arrangement. It was not really a document about representative rights for the peasantry. Still, it came to be known as the ``supreme law of the realm`` and did, gradually establish the principle of a unique monarchial system in England, which later through the laws of parliament would turn into a constitutional monarchy.

Ciao

Re: # 29

I would concur, with this analysis.

Ciao

War after the Napolianic campaigns was seen as grandoise and therefore something to be glorified. This is what poets and writers did. Clausewitz gave it a new name by calling it TOTAL and ABSOLUTE. However, he cautioned that this was just an ideal as no war could be total.It would destroy everything. In his concept, the war would always remain subservient to policy and therefore limited to the subservience of the enemy`s will. If enemy`s will is compromised, the ends of politics are met.

Unfortunately, these words were lost in the translations that followed, and the German General Staff ignored the primacy of policy and the logic of ends means relationship and prosecuted WW1 through a faulty plan. They wanted a total war which ended at Versailles.

Advent of nuclear weapons again raised the question of total annhilation and Absolute War in the concepts of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and Massive Retaliation. It was in Korea that McArthur wanted to use nuclear weapons to put an end to the conflict. A need was therefore felt to put these weapons of mass destruction directly under civil albeit political controls because just like war was thought to be too sensitive an issue to be left in the hands of the generals, nuclear weapons were even more sensitive to be left in the hands of the generals. This changed the concept of nuclear warheads in Europe which were gradually removed. But a nuclear strategist Ken Booth argued that the danger in this was that Civilians could now alter the course of the battle and bypass the entire military instrument. He called such would be trigger happy civilians as Neo Clausewitzians and Absolutists.

Technology since has developed even further. It now gives politicians and civilians direct role in the war, just like Bush and Rumsfield bypassed the entire CENTCOM and carried out engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan with CENTCOM out of the loop.

The question is, Are Bush and Rumsfield the first neo Clausewitzians/Absolutists?

Ferozk...

Did you intend ``succeeding`` instead of ``preceding?``

``The Battle of Somme would have a profound influence on the British life and in a larger sense, how the preceding generations would view war, an outlook that would be our legacy.``

mirmir

Ferozk...
This series of articles gets my vote, too, as the best I’ve come across on Chowk.
A further note on constitutions. The uncodified constitution that constitutes the British government consists of both written and unwritten provisions while the codified constitution of the U.S.A. - perhaps the first and certainly the oldest of that kind still in force - is wholly written. The most fundamental difference, though, concerns their status. The British constitution is not superior to the government. That allows parliament to change it, even amend the Magna Carta of 1215, if it wants. The constitution of the U.S.A., being superior to the government, can only be changed by that body that wields ultimate power – the people.
I appreciate the attention you gave to the character and ambitions of Urban II. I only wish that you had given more attention to other strong personalities - those “bold, audacious men of action” - instrumental in the initiation and prosecution of wars. History (excluding natural history) is simply man’s attempt to remember and record what earlier men have done. Men’s actions are ruled by their passions, their ambitions and, all too often, by their frailties. History, I believe, should be written more from a biographical perspective than it ordinarily is.
The horror and tragedy of Vietnam hasn’t prevented the U.S.A. from prosecuting war. Memories are short, people are easily led, men harbor grandiose schemes and, not least, wars are hugely profitable to some few powerful and influential people (Halliburton; Kellogg, Brown and Root in Iraq). Any careful, objective analysis of the Iraqi invasion would, I believe, tell us a great deal about war in general and about the passions and ambitions of those who prosecute them. Perhaps you will undertake such an analysis when the smoke clears (if it ever does) in Iraq – I sincerely hope that you do.
mirmir

Re: # 22

Thanks, again, for a very interesting post.

As to your comments, I think that in the case of the war poets or any group of men thrown into violence, the foremost bond of loyalty is to each other; the espirit d` corps. Hence, to the men in the ``front of the front line trenches``, the overall strategy of the war was not as important as staying alive and thus, their sense of duty was to their friends and comrades and not so much as to the cause, for which they were fighting. There was no general animosity, between the armies and the spontanous Christman Truce, where the soldiers left their trenches and mingled, with each other hints to this idea. The fact that the officers made sure such an incident did not occur again, suggests that politics in the trenches had not lost its humanity as it had in the GHQs. Just, because the war poets served in an army does not lessen their revulsion to the horrors of the war and neither does it make their sentiments any less meaningful.

The fine balancing act, between the insanity of the war and staying sane in the the midst of all the maddness is a very human phenomena and it is a bit churlish to decry these men as ``misfits`` simply because they questioned the wisdom of what they, themselves, were doing. Soldiers in all wars have questioned their actions and yet have fought honorably and I would hope, that in future all soldiers would question their actions, because atleast it shows a humanity and such questioning soldiers are better than those who simply ``follow orders``.

As to the debate, within the Wehrmacht, the debate was more inclined towards the prevention of a two front war and the German army was ready for combat in 1939, but as you stated, the inclusion of England into the war, on the side of Poland, was unexpected. As to the year 1944, I think (harking back to my undergraduate time) that this was the year stated by the German navy as when it would be ready for war - having enough capital ships to aid the army operations. The German army was primed for war, but it was the political choices of Hitler, which led to its over-extension and Hitler`s overruling the German generals, which created problems.

On the issue of the Italians, the key should be their willingness to fight and not how, well they marched on the parade ground. Despite their marching powress, the average Italian soldier did not share any of Mussolini`s visions of a revived Roman Empire. The Italians would dispose of Mussolini twice in the course of the war and would seek to make peace term, with the Allies. This does not bode well for their fighting spirit or they eagerness of war under the facists.

Fuzair, I think you have misread my comments about Churchill. I had stated that he was haunted by the images of Somme and I never, as you seemed to have alleged, stated that he was a pacifist. Churchill was an ardent imperalist and he never missed an opportunity to fight, and he fought, with the British army in Sudan; against the Pathans, with Malakand Field Force; against Boers in South Africa. In all of these actions with the exception of the Malakand expedition, the interesting thing is that he was not soldier, was but was a war correspondent. Yes, I am aware of his command of a battlion in the First World War and I also remember one of his first commands to his officers and men: ``Gentlemen, we are now going to declare war on mice!``

Churchill`s non-willingness to make a peace treaty, with Hitler`s Germany was more a political choice than a military one, because his condition for peace was the continuation of the British empire and the Royal Navy, while agreeing to German domination of Europe. Churchill, was not haunted by his past, as you seem have wrongly attributed to me, but he was haunted by the British public`s reaction if there had been another massacre on the scale of Somme or political-strategic folly like the Dardanelles operation. In any case, Somme did influence his choices in the Second World War and we can disagree on the nature of those choices. However, the over-arching fact is that after Somme and the blood bath of the First World War, the public opinion did not look at war, with the same eyes of innocence and eagerness as it did before and in that sense; battles like Somme did change the popular opinion of war.

Agreed that one should not generalize over the misfits, but neither should one ignore them for sake of ``discipline in the ranks``. Tragedies have happened, when people have followed orders and had it not been for the misfits of wars questioning the nature of the war they were fighting; war would have lost what ever last shred of humanity it might have posessed. It is the misfits, who make sure that there is some semblance of decency and justice left in war, when they question the wrong acts committed in the name of war. I hope, the misfits never stop pricking the conscience of humanity in any war, because if they did; then wars would simply make us into unthinking killing zombies.

Ciao

Re: # 24

Please do!

Ciao

Somme through the eyes of a generation is more about misery and images clouded by it. But the reality is, how that generation of Generals misread Clausewitz, and the impact, technology and the social dimension of strategy would have on it. As brought out by Fuzair, the lessons of the American Civil War were soon forgotten in WW1 but again in WW2. Perhaps the full grasp of the dimensions of Strategy came to fore after the Korean war, but forgotten once again in the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. So the transition to modern war that began with Napoleon methamorphised in Korea; who knows still behind its time. Towards its end a new generation of ABSOLUTIST were born. I would love to elucidate if a friend cathches on this point.

just popped back in because i`m curious, especially reading the exchange between fuzair and feroz. . . have either of you read pat barker`s regeneration? i read it a few years back. . .

just some of the reviews/synopses from amazon.com:

Amazon.com
Regeneration, one in Pat Barker`s series of novels confronting the psychological effects of World War I, focuses on treatment methods during the war and the story of a decorated English officer sent to a military hospital after publicly declaring he will no longer fight. Yet the novel is much more. Written in sparse prose that is shockingly clear -- the descriptions of electronic treatments are particularly harrowing -- it combines real-life characters and events with fictional ones in a work that examines the insanity of war like no other. Barker also weaves in issues of class and politics in this compactly powerful book. Other books in the series include The Eye in the Door and the Booker Award winner The Ghost Road.

From Library Journal
In 1917, decorated British officer and poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote a declaration condemning the war. Instead of a court-martial, he was sent to a hospital for other ``shell-shocked`` officers where he was treated by Dr. William Rivers, noted an thropologist and psychiatrist. Author Barker turns these true occurrences into a compelling and brilliant antiwar novel. Sassoon`s complete sanity disturbs Dr. Rivers to such a point that he questions his own role in ``curing`` his patients only to send them back to the slaughter of the war in France. World War I decimated an entire generation of European men, and the horrifying loss of life and the callousness of the government led to the obliteration of the Victorian ideal. This is an important and impressive novel about war, soldiers, and humanity. It belongs in most fiction collections.
- C. Christopher Pavek, National Economic Research As socs. Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
In this fact/fiction hybrid, Barker (Union Street, 1983, etc.) turns from the struggle for survival of northern England working- class folk to the struggle back to sanity by British officers unhinged by WW I trench warfare. Craiglockhart War Hospital, a grim psychiatric facility outside Edinburgh, is the setting. The framework is the arrival of Siegfried Sassoon at Craiglockhart in the summer of 1917, and his discharge back to France in November. Sassoon is treated by the eminent neurologist (and Army captain) William Rivers, whose job is to restore his damaged warriors to fighting condition. Sassoon is a relatively easy assignment. Despite his public statement protesting the war, Sassoon is no pacifist; this complex poet feels at home in the Army and is an exceptionally courageous officer, beloved by his men, to whom he feels a blood-debt that can be paid only by his return. For all the sparring between Sassoon and Rivers, only a hair separates them, for the latter is also a man of enormous integrity, profoundly troubled by the horrors his patients must endure. And it is these horrors (not the clipped exchanges of Sassoon and Rivers) that linger in the mind: Burns`s vomiting nightmares caused by a mouthful of decomposing German flesh; Prior`s being rendered mute after handling a human eye. At the center is Rivers, a model therapist, whose unstinting support may give even the wretched Burns a chance at a normal life. Barker has also provided some workmanlike off-base romance for Prior, her one developed fictional character; but the heart of the work, where the big fish swim, is Rivers`s consciousness, his insights into front- line behavior enriched by his anthropological straining. Don`t look here for the dramatic sweep of a war novel; instead, you get a scrupulously fair reconstruction of Craiglockhart, plus a moving empathy for both doctors and patients. The extent of that empathy earns Barker`s work a place on the shelf of WW I literature. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Feroz:

Your comment:
``The war poets serving in the army does not mean that they were always keen about the objectives they were fighting and dying for, as you have suggested.``

While they may not have been foaming at the mouth jingoists, they did feel there was a sense of duty, of obligation, to their country or just to their battalion. The sense of despair that you are talking about should lead to either complete apathy and depression or to a manic love of violence and death. While some of the poets, notably Sassoon, were certainly certifiable, most of them did their duty. Men who are so shattered by their experience do not, I think, behave this way.


``The debate within the German army itself, before the re-occupation of the Rhineland suggests that the Wehrmacht was not entirely behind Hitler`s gamble and even prior to Poland, there was a dissent within the ranks about the course set out by Hitler.``

Absolutely true BUT the debate was not on whether or not to fight a war but on WHEN to fight it; i.e., was the German military strong enough to prevail? IIRC, Hitler had promised OKH (I think) that the war would not start before 1942 (or 1944? not sure of the date here). With this they were perfectly satisfied. Starting it in 1939 was of concern. In any rate, Hitler thought they would take Poland the same way they took Czechoslovakia: without a fight.


As for the Italians, not being happy about fighting a war (and being bad soldiers, barring a few exceptional divisions) is very differnt from being pacifists. The Italians were willing to militarize, march around, boast, etc., just not willing to really fight.


As for Churchill`s reluctance, given the Dieppe fiasco (Mountbatten`s doing), do you blame Churchill for being reluctant to embark on another, much larger scale, such enterprise? I notice that he was so horrified about the Somme that he willingly sacrificed the Empire to keep fighting Germany after the Fall of France (here I agree with Niall Ferguson`s take). Rather than negotiate a peace with Germany, and save the Empire, he decided to keep fighting and risk an invasion of Britain. Is this the act of a man who is haunted by his past? Remember, Churchill actually commanded a battalion in the trenches (in addition to his service in the Boer War and minor colonial campaigns). He knew what war was like, yet he did not want to negotiate a peace.

Yes, sometimes misfits are more interesting than the ``norm`` BUT the misfits are outliers and one should not ever generalize from them!

Regards.

Re: # 6

Ijaz, I think, I will have to disagree with you and state that it would seem that the French Army of 1914 was more influenced by the writing of a Swiss mercenary Baron Jomini than it was by Clausewitz. To borrow a page from Romair, I do not think that any army in the Great War paid too much attention to Clausewitz and in fact; they seemed to have violated his most basic warnings on the nature of war itself.

As to Helmut von Molkte the Junior, his weaking of the Schlieffen Plan was crucial, but one should not overlook the tactical misjudgement of the General Alexander von Kluck, who instead of wheeling behind Paris, turned before it and thus, presented the French army garrision in Paris his exposed flanks, which were counter-attacked at Marne. Also, the spirited resistence of the Belgians under their King Albert to the Germans really disjointed the schedule of the Schlieffen Plan and in this regard, the ``battle of the frontiers`` bought the French additional time to prepare a response and would allow the British to deploy in France.

Ciao

Re: # 16

Malik, your comment about the ``invaders`` seeing their handiwork on the TV did suggest a bias in your comments and I might have jumped to a conclusion, but you did provide the spring for my leap!

Ciao

Re: Fuzair # 18

This was a very interesting post from you! :)

I do remember the walls listing the dead from the Great War; being a product of British public school system myself, I still remember the assemblies marking Armistic Day and wearing poppies, but that is another story...

I am not reading too much into Somme, but merely using it as a pivot which influenced and shaped a perception about war. Granted that maybe Somme was a stepping stone, amongst many, but its impact was significant nevertheless. However, I do differ with you that after Somme and generally, the British soldier though obedient was cynical of his superiors. Whether this was the professionalism of the British army, or it was sense of a still remaining scrap of patriotism can be further debated. The war poets serving in the army does not mean that they were always keen about the objectives they were fighting and dying for, as you have suggested.

As to the Italians and the Germans, a distinction needs to be made between the soldiers and the civilian society. Yes, the German and the Italian facist political parties were not too shy about another war in the interwar period, but the civil society was not as eager to cheer their troops in 1939 as they were in 1914. Also, after 1918, the German general staff circulated a belief that Germany was ``stabbed in the back`` and thus did not lose the war, so there was another dynamic working to negate the influences/horrors of the First World War. Italy, in the First World War, was on the winning side, but the average Italian soldier was not a very active participant in Mussolini`s campaigns in the Second World War. In India during the Second World War, while the German PoWs were planning escape; the Italians were playing football! This is not exactly a ringing validation of a war ethos, which you are suggesting that the Italians had! :)

Despite Goering`s war egoism, there were many serving German officers who were not too happy with starting another war. The debate within the German army itself, before the re-occupation of the Rhineland suggests that the Wehrmacht was not entirely behind Hitler`s gamble and even prior to Poland, there was a dissent within the ranks about the course set out by Hitler.

As to Churchill, Somme still haunted him and we know of this, from his correspondence with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower on the opening of the second front in Europe. Churchill, much to the annoyance of the Americans, was seen as dragging his feet over the timing of the invasion of Europe, because as he reminded Eisenhower, he was horrified of another Somme and seeing the channel red, ``with the flower of the British youth``.

In any case, it is the misfits who are a lot more interesting than the ones, who simply melt into the crowd. :)

Ciao