FirmhandKY
Posts: 8948
Joined: 9/21/2004
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NG,
I guess we are re-fighting the Great War, huh?
My point was - and still is - that the will to win is the most important aspect of winning a protracted war. That is your ultimate target.
That doesn't mean that feats of battle are immaterial. But on the national level, the most important effect is in the minds of the commander, and his political leadership - which is how we got into this discussion.
Because the will of the Congressional leadership is the target of this war. The soldiers and battles in Iraq are simply the stage used to attack this more important target.
If the will to win is there in American political leadership, and the people, there is nothing the Iraq insurgents and AQ can hope to do to win the war on the battlefield.
And they know this, and have had an information strategy from day one. Hell, that's what "terrorism" is all about: destroying the will of the opposing side.
Our "rebattle" of WWI won't settle anything, because you have your mind made up. The German's didn't win. They did quit. Which is saying that in the minds of the political leadership, the population, and the commanders there was no longer a "will to win", even if it was possible to win, based on what we know today.
I say there was a possibility for them to win. Or, a possibility for the Allies to quit. If Ludendorff had succeeded in cutting the Entente's rail links in his last major offensive, before the Americans got on the scene you might be speaking German as your native language.
It didn't happen that way, but I've seen very good arguments that there was no unsurmountable logistical or tactical reasons that the Germans couldn't have prevailed.
Remember. It is the winners who write history, not the losers. Especially in "simplier times", war time propaganda is often used to maintain the will of the people. Often, such propaganda and myths become part of the common cultural knowledge of the victors.
Just as you think that Americans are nut crazy patriotic because of some of our national myths, do not fail to understand that you have your own national myths. There seems to be one that you are displaying here, that says the outcome of the war "never in question" - the Allies were simply too powerful.
This discounts the material and manpower that the Germans still had, and also discounts the deep dissatisfaction of the soldiers and leaders - esp the French - during the war.
quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
Passing it off as a point of view is like the Captain of the Titanic passing off men, women and children jumping in into lifeboats as a point of view. Firmhand, you're wrong.
Unnecessarily snide.
quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
Tanks were introduced in 1916 and they were rubbish. Once the war became more mobile (March 1918 onwards), and the allies got the hang of them, they did some damage. The Aussies were the first to master them. Tanks pouring forward with men closely behind. It sounds common sense to us now, but at the time they weren't sure how to get the best out of them - until the Aussies cracked it. The Germans had no answer and they played a part in driving the Germans back.
I don't think I said tanks were "ineffective". They were becoming important, but tanks of 1917-1918 were nothing like the modern battle tank. Very limited mechanical reliablity. Very limited range. Very limited armor. Very limited understood tactics.
The Germans took a human approach to breaking the stalemate - and it worked. The Allies took a mechanical approach - and it worked.
The Germans had some tanks, and once they saw the effectiveness of the Entente's, they may have been able to produce more of their own in a short time. As well, because of the limited speed, range, and reliability of WWI tanks, it's certainly not out of the question that allowing an armored force to penetrate your lines, and then cutting them off from resupply would have give the Germans quite a few of the Entente's early tanks for themselves.
But ... they weren't the decisive factor in winning the war. Ludendorff, the political leadership, and much of the German armed forces lost the will to win much as the French had a year earlier.
The decisive factor was the psychological pressure on the German leadership of American entering the war with another million troops.
The timing for that last gasp of German offense was out of fear of the coming arrival of the Americans. Ludendorff attacked when he thought he had "enough" soldiers, but the Germans still had over a million men on the Eastern Front.
His attack was wildly successful. Too successful. He used the cream of the German's stormtroops in breaking the lines, and left himself exposed to counter-attack. Picture his mind: Fear of the future. Stunning success. Stunning failure. He, his leadership, the German armed forces and the population lost the will to continue.
Some quotes from the Encyclopædia Britannica:
On the German side, between Nov. 1, 1917, and March 21, 1918, the German divisions on the Western Front were increased from 146 to 192, the troops being drawn from Russia, Galicia, and Italy. By these means the German armies in the west were reinforced by a total of about 570,000 men. Ludendorff's interest was to strike from his temporary position of strength—before the arrival of the major U.S. contingents—and at the same time to ensure that his German offensive should not fail for the same reasons as the Allies' offensives of the past three years
...
This offensive had yielded the largest territorial gains of any operation on the Western Front since the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914 ... [and] ... the collapse of one-third of the British front:
Thus far Ludendorff had fallen short of strategic results, but he could claim huge tactical successes—the British casualties alone amounted to more than 300,000. Ten British divisions had to be broken up temporarily, while the German strength mounted to 208 divisions, of which 80 were still in reserve. A restoration of the balance, however, was now in sight. A dozen U.S. divisions had arrived in France, and great efforts were being made to swell the stream.
...
Overtaken by the inordinate fruition of his own offensives, Ludendorff paused for a month's recuperation. The tactical success of his own blows had been his undoing; yielding to their influence, he had pressed each too far and too long, using up his own reserves and causing an undue interval between blows. He had driven three great wedges into the Allied lines, but none had penetrated far enough to sever a vital rail artery, and this strategic failure left the Germans with a front whose several bulges invited flanking counterstrokes.
Meanwhile, the Allies were now receiving U.S. troops at the rate of 300,000 men per month. ... Having recovered the initiative, the Allies were determined not to lose it,
The British 4th Army, including Australian and Canadian forces, with 450 tanks, struck the Germans with maximum surprise on Aug. 8, 1918. Overwhelming the German forward divisions, who had failed to entrench themselves adequately since their recent occupation of the “Michael” bulge, the 4th Army advanced steadily for four days, taking 21,000 prisoners and inflicting as many or more casualties at the cost of only about 20,000 casualties to itself, and halting only when it reached the desolation of the old battlefields of 1916. Several German divisions simply collapsed in the face of the offensive, their troops either fleeing or surrendering. The Battle of Amiens was thus a striking material and moral success for the Allies. Ludendorff put it differently: “August 8 was the black day of the German Army in the history of the war . . . It put the decline of our fighting power beyond all doubt . . . The war must be ended.” He informed Emperor William II and Germany's political chiefs that peace negotiations should be opened before the situation became worse, as it must. The conclusions reached at a German Crown Council held at Spa were that “We can no longer hope to break the war-will of our enemies by military operations,” and “the objects of our strategy must be to paralyse the enemy's war-will gradually by a strategic defensive.” In other words, the German high command had abandoned hope of victory or even of holding their gains and hoped only to avoid surrender.
quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
The French army mutined at Verdun in 1916, but they didn't collapse. They didn't go on the offensive again until late 1917. By the time the Allies drove the Germans back (post March 1918), the French were as game for it as anyone - particularly with the numerical advantage and the Germans buckling.
...
The French Army mutiny happened before the US entered the war. They mutinied after Verdun in 1916. If anything they relied on the British Army who did not mutiny - the British generals shot anyone who went anywhere near mutiny.
Verdun:
1917 May 3 - French mutiny began with 21st Division, ringleaders shot, Division sent into battle and was destroyed, next the 120th Regiment refused then the 128th, 20,000 deserted, mutineers advanced on Paris, mutiny spread to 54 divisions, but Germans and British unaware.
1917 May - Petain replaced Nivelle as commander, visited 100 divisions in person, promised no more Nivelle-like offensives, said he was waiting for the Americans and their tanks, began reforms: more leave, station canteens, lavatories, showers , beds, better cooks, better pinard wine, but French army was never the same after the Mutinies.
French Morale:
On 3 May the weary French 2nd Colonial Division, veterans of the Battle of Verdun, refused their orders, arriving drunk and without their weapons. Their officers lacked the means to punish an entire division, and harsh measures were not implemented. The mutinies afflicted 54 French divisions and saw 20,000 men desert. Instead, appeals to patriotism and duty encouraged the soldiers to return to defend their trenches, although they refused to participate in further offensive action. By 15 May Nivelle was removed from command, replaced by General Henri Philippe Pétain, who suspended large-scale attacks. The French would go on the defensive for the next year, leaving the burden of attack to Britain and her Empire.
quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
Firmhand, I suspect you have an irrational dislike of the French and it's clouding your judgement. If the French were going to sue for peace they would have done it at Verdun when around 350,000 French were killed and had to withstand the German onslaught. They kept chipping away at it however because they were fighting on their homeland with a huge British, Canadian, Aussie army etc to support them - they could see hope and necessity.
Even granting your point, it doesn't change my reasoning, nor my examples. I didn't say the French will snapped. I said it was dangerously low - and it was. Without the promise of fresh American troops, it is possible that the mutiny would have spread.
And, you are missing my point. The will to win is what is important. When half of your Army mutinies, you have a very serious problem with "the will to win".
quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
Of course there was a psychological boost of 1 million fresh troops, and this is another reason why the war turned against Germany (you're arguing against your own point here).
No, I think that was my point. The Allies prevailed because of their morale didn't sink as low as the Germans. The Germans didn't "lose". They quit.
quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
German troops had poured in from the Eastern Front pre March 1918.
The Eastern Front still had over a million German soldiers under arms when Ludendorff started his offensive.
quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
The German navy is irrelevant. They fought one battle during the war and stayed in a harbour for the rest of it because they were fully aware that they couldn't match the British navy.
Again, you are missing my point.
The sailor's revolt, and the larger German revolution it helped start, was a result of the lack of faith in winning the war. Simple.
I'll see if I have time to address your other comments at a later time.
FirmKY
< Message edited by FirmhandKY -- 3/28/2007 6:05:41 PM >
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