Attrition

[truthergw]

There was nothing specifically new in the idea of attrition. The accepted stages of a battle were to engage the enemy and pin him to a front. To render the enemy incapable of retaliation through causing more casualties to him than he could afford while minimising your own casualties( that is the attritional phase)then once ascendancy has been attained to drive the enemy from the field and render him incapable of regrouping. The difference in WW1 was the idea of a battle which had inflicting casualties on the enemy as its aim. At Verdun, the enemy were pinned to this front by the political imperative of not losing Verdun. It was immaterial whether the German forces occupied the fortresses or the city. Their aim was to cause casualties so that an attack elsewhere could not be withstood and in fact if enough losses could be inflicted, cause the French to ask for terms. So the third phase of a classical battle was hopefully not required or implemented at another time and place without the preliminaries. This is the germ of the idea pursued by Bomber Harris in WW2 that it was possible to win the war without occupying territory. The idea failed at Verdun because the Germans could not inflict the casualties without incurring them in much the same ratio.

[phil andrade]

Antiquity furnishes us with another example of attrition. Fabius Cunctator exposed Hannibal to a form of attrtion by refusing to engage in major battle, and exploiting the vulnerability of Carthaginian logistics. Letting them "wither on the vine" or "twist in the wind".

Attrition of economic resources and morale on the Home Front was of paramount importance in The Great War. The recklessness of Ludendorff's offensives was inspired largely by this form of attrition.

The most effective form of attrition lay in combining relentles pressure of hardship and deprivation on the enemy's Home Front with successful onslaughts on the battlefield. The former was definitley and decisively achieved through blockade, the latter proved more elusive. The huge positional battles of 1915-1917 imposed dreadful attrition, but even more on the Allies than on the Germans, if we are to believe Winston Churchill's account.

Phil.

[PhilB]

The huge positional battles of 1915-1917 imposed dreadful attrition, but even more on the Allies than on the Germans, if we are to believe Winston Churchill's account.

Phil.

Which brings me back to the question of how should one fight a strictly attritional battle as opposed to a breakthrough & exploitation battle. Could the Somme have been designed otherwise as strictly attritional or is the threat of breakthrough necessary in atrition??

[salesie]

Does Haig's "one continuos battle" theory, as espoused in his final despatch, not put all this into perspective? In that, if we view the so-called individual battles of WW1 as being no such thing, view them as being the individual stages of the "classic old-fashioned" battle, but spread over years instead of hours/days, do we not get a greater understanding of the strategic, operational and tactical relationships involved?

Haig likened the German spring offensive to the last desperate assault by the Old Guard at Waterloo - in this context, it seems to me, that Mons and Le Cateau etc. could be viewed as WW1's Quatre Bra. WW1 in its entirety was a classic battle writ large - no wonder the attrition rate was so high in total numbers - but in percentage terms it was no different to what had gone before. It is my contention that attrition, in essence the killing of as many of the enemy as possible, is the aim of any battle/war.

Cheers-salesie.

[phil andrade]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Aug 16 2008, 10:15 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Which brings me back to the question of how should one fight a strictly attritional battle as opposed to a breakthrough & exploitation battle. Could the Somme have been designed otherwise as strictly attritional or is the threat of breakthrough necessary in atrition??

This is what Rawlinson suggested for the Somme , isn't it? Step by step advance, consolidation, deployment of artillery, and destruction of enemy counter attacks....an attritional recipe if ever there was one.

This is a feasible doctrine for a battle of attrition. It does not fulfil the role required in a coalition war, when policy determines that all Allies must impose maximum pressure simultaneously, with grandiose plans aiming for the knock out blow, which Brusilov came close to delivering in the East.

A strictly attritional battle is one thing; trying to comply with allied strategy is another. "We have to make war as we must", said Kitchener, " not as we would wish."

In hindsight, we can see clearly that limited attacks on the Western Front, especially if supported by the necessary quantity and quality of artillery, are effective in attritional terms : we only have to reflect on the "bite and hold" approach used by Plumer and Petain in later 1917 to appreciate that. To adopt that approach, however, would be to deny the very reason that the Somme offensive was designed for....the Entente, in the West, supporting a colossal Russian effort in the East - and a significant Italian offensive also - with the specific aim of breakthrough, exploitation and decisive victory achieved by concert of action. We have to look beyond the confines of the Western Front, and see the Somme as part of a vast Allied endeavour, as discussed at Chantilly at the end of 1915, if we are to put it into proper perspective.

It is arguable, of course, that, in order to make the enemy dance to your tune and commit himself to attritional fighting, you have to impose the threat of a breakthrough. Verdun comes to mind. Is it better to achieve the destruction of enemy manpower - and willpower - through a myriad of local, limited offensives which are realistic in their objectives, or is it prefferable to opt for the more grandiose scale of attainment? The former risks encouraging an excessivley limited approach, which might be tactically viable but works against the interests of coalition strategy, which depends on each partner going all out as part of a vast enterprise.

To fight the Somme as a strictly attritional battle entailed the abandonment of the scheme envisaged by the Allies at Chantilly.

Phil.

[Paul Hederer]

...It is arguable, of course, that, in order to make the enemy dance to your tune and commit himself to attritional fighting, you have to impose the threat of a breakthrough. Verdun comes to mind....

Phil,

Could you elaborate on this a bit? Are you saying with Verdun the Germans posed the threat of a breakthrough, or that it was series of limited offensives with realistic objectives?

Paul

[phil andrade]

...It is arguable, of course, that, in order to make the enemy dance to your tune and commit himself to attritional fighting, you have to impose the threat of a breakthrough. Verdun comes to mind....

Phil,

Could you elaborate on this a bit? Are you saying with Verdun the Germans posed the threat of a breakthrough, or that it was series of limited offensives with realistic objectives?

Paul

In candour, Paul, I don't know what to think about German aspirations at Verdun! The French appear to have envisaged the threat of a German breakthrough there, and in this regard they certainly danced to Falkenhayn's tune.

There is Falkenhayn's famous Christmas Memorandum stating his intention to bleed France white and knock England's best sword out of her hand ....quite a definitive recipe for an attritional battle in which breakthrough is not mentioned. The trouble is, some people claim that this was never written at the time, and was an invention.

I find that hard to believe. The way in which the Germans conducted the battle bears out the authneticity of Falkenhayn's memorandum. As we have discussed before, the committment of manpower was modest, although the expenditure of shells was phenomenal at the time. Economy of German blood and the slaughter of Frenchmen by overwhelming artillery were the hallmarks of his plan. The frontage of attack was limited - Petain himself reckoned that the Germans were wrong not to have extended the initial offensive to cover both banks of the Meuse. German casualties were modest compared with their losses on the Somme that year or in Champagne the year before, and insignificant when set against their casualties in March-June 1918.

I conclude that the Germans did not pose the threat of a strategic breakthrough at Verdun, and that their objectives, in territorial terms, were limited and realistic. Even they were astonished at how easily they captured Fort Douamont. The strategic ambitions of Falkenhayn's plan were as far reaching as his offensive was limited ( forgive the clumsy expression - I hope it makes sense!).

In territorial terms, the offensive was manifestly limited. How realistic was the objective? I would argue that the Germans succeeded in imposing a huge strain on French morale and manpower, and that the defence displayed was excessively prodigal.

This, to a degree, suggests that Falkenhayn was right to attempt this programme of attrition, and that the goal was not so very unrealistic. I am easily persuaded, however, and find myself vacillating every time I read a different account.

In the end, the Germans failed at Verdun, and the French emerged with an improved artillery performance and better tactics of dispersal, which made the battle counter productive for the Germans. The casualties were rather evenly balanced, although it's very apparent that the French lost a much higher number of killed/missing, a fact that should not be overlooked.

Phil.

[phil andrade]

There is Falkenhayn's famous Christmas Memorandum stating his intention to bleed France white and knock England's best sword out of her hand ....quite a definitive recipe for an attritional battle in which breakthrough is not mentioned.

Phil.

Paul, Much to my embarrasment, I have looked at that Memorandum, and breakthrough was indeed mentioned, although in a sense that re-affirms my argument:

"....To achieve that object the uncertain method of a mass breakthrough, in any case beyond our means, is unnecessary. We can probably do enough for our purposes with limited resources..."

This teaches me:

1. The Verdun offensive was limited in its use of resources.

2. It was supposed to be realistic, although the very reason mentioned above might have compromised this.

3. I must be sure to read documents before I discuss them on the forum !

Phil.

[AndyHollinger]

Which brings to mind ... A) does the document actually say what we thought it said - most of us learn this stuff through secondary resources and thus the original judgement about attrition might or might not be accurate

What did the document really mean. Lots of important figures write memos as CYA and have no intention of doing what is mentioned ...

This memo - which has become the stuff of general understanding is very, very important.

[phil andrade]

Which brings to mind ... A) does the document actually say what we thought it said - most of us learn this stuff through secondary resources and thus the original judgement about attrition might or might not be accurate

What did the document really mean. Lots of important figures write memos as CYA and have no intention of doing what is mentioned ...

This memo - which has become the stuff of general understanding is very, very important.

Forgive my ignorance, Andy, but am I right in assuming that CYA means "Cover Your Ass" ?

As to what Falkenhayn actually intended to achieve by Operation Gericht, I think Winston Churchill made a superb summary.

From his chapter on Verdun in his epic history of The Great War, this passage stands the test of time:

" Writing in August 1916, I tried to penetrate and analyse the probable motives which animated the Germans in their attack on Verdun.

< ....Suppose your gap is blasted - what then? Are you going to march to Paris through it? What is to happen, if you break the line of an otherwise unbeaten army? Will you really put your head into the hole?>

<No,> say Main Headquarters; < we are not so foolish. We are not seeking Verdun. Nor are we seeking to blast a hole. Still less do we intend to march through such a hole. Our aim is quite different. We seek to wear down an army, not to make a gap; to break the heart of a nation, not to break a hole in a line. We have selected Verdun because we think the French will consider themselves bound to defend it at all costs; because we can so dispose our cannon around this apex of their front as to pound and batter the vital positions with superior range and superior metal, and force our enemy to expose division after division upon this anvil to our blows.>...."

This is an extraordinary piece of writing, presented to the British public in a magazine circulated in November 1916. If Falkenhayn's Memorandum was an invention, how remarkably it is echoed in Churchill's (contemporaneous )perception.

Significantly, Churchill opined that the Verdun Offensive was a disastrous strategic miscalculation, and that Germany's proper course should have been to exploit their advantage in the East. On the other hand, he emphasised that the French reaction was prodigal and inflexible, and allowed the Germans to inflict heavier casualties than they themselves sustained....." To this extent therefore the tactical and psychological conceptions underlying Falkenhayn's scheme were vindicated."

Phil.

[Paul Hederer]

Hello Phil,

Sorry for the delay in answering. There are two schools of thought on the Christmas memorandum, and its writing. I'm of the opinion that it was written after the fact, as it could not be found in the archives by the German researchers after the war (and they spent some time looking) and Falkenhayn's contemporaries could not recall it. That being said, it does reflect Falkenhayn's thinking at the time, so shouldn't be considered a fabrication, but I think it was written to reflect the battle in the best light, or perhaps better said, most clever light.

I don't feel that the Verdun concept was flawed--pinning you enemy to one objective he can't give up and causing him to fight at a disadvantage is as old as time. The execution of battle was bad, and Falkenhayn tried to pull it off with too few troops. His gaze was wandering from Verdun along the rest of the front almost as soon as the battle started, looking for another place to attack, either another smaller effort, or a planned breakthrough. All depended on how the French reacted and an Allied relief offensive. As you pointed out the French reacted much as Falkenhayn expected.

Falkenhayn considered shutting down Verdun as early as April, and he badly wanted to get his heavy artillery from there for use in another effort. I really don't think Verdun was ever meant to be an all out effort--that was never the intent. Just an action to pin the French and engage the French army reserves--within a timeframe. Problem was, when the battle turned from a battle of limited objectives to a prestige battle all was lost. What was to have been merely a prelude in the German 1916 strategy became its main focus.

There is a certain historical myopia that seems to pervade writings about Verdun. The battle captures so much attention that its not seen as part of the bigger picture. Robert Foley is the only modern author I know of who has bucked this trend in his excellent book, "German Strategy and the Path to Verdun..."

The COS 5th Army, Von Knobelsdorf, deserves the lion's share of responsibility for what Verdun became.

Paul

[phil andrade]

Hello Phil,

What was to have been merely a prelude in the German 1916 strategy became its main focus.

Paul

Thanks, Paul. If Verdun was to have been the prelude, what was to be the main event?

Phil.

[Paul Hederer]

Thanks, Paul. If Verdun was to have been the prelude, what was to be the main event?

Phil.

Phil,

There were a lot of plans on the table. It's hard to even keep them all straight. Falkenhayn seemed to be favoring a double-pronged attacked at Arras.

Paul

[AndyHollinger]

Thanks guys ... IF the memo was written afterward ... maybe to confirm Churchill (if no one else) that V's big deal was a big deal.

[truthergw]

There certainly is some debate about what the memorandum said and when it was written. Interesting that it was challenged fairly early on. When we view the war and not the battles, Germany was heavily outnumbered. She survived by creating local superiority for herself. That being so, attrition seems a dubious tactic. It is after all, only a name for last man standing. A game the Entente were bound to win. Only in the gap between Russia dropping out and USA coming in, could an attritional policy have made sense but that is not when it was applied. The trouble with limited objectives is that it is easy for the enemy to run away and not fight and so not lose men.No attrition there, only the initial loss of troops in the first encounter which always favoured the defender. An attritional battle needs to pin the opponent and make him fight on your chosen ground. The threat of a breakthrough would do that. Once a wide enough breach had been made, a line was open to being rolled up from the flank, the much maligned cavalry could be introduced and attack against the rear etc.

[PhilB]

I’ve re-read this this thread from 2005-8. Some voices from the past there! Do any of our new members since then (must be several thousand) have anything to add on the subject?

[phil andrade]

Thanks for resurrecting this one, Phil.

 

It still passes muster, I think.

 

Forgive me for stepping in : you asked for the input of newcomers, and you get me instead !

 

Have you changed your mind about any of this ?

 

There’s a large degree of consistency in how I feel on the subject, which would normally reassure me....until I read a comment from Walter Reid which depicts consistency as that “ hobgoblin of small minds”.

 

In my small minded approach, I contend that three battles that exemplify successful attrition in that static phase of warfare in France and Flanders merit special attention : the Verdun French offensive in the summer of 1917 ; the contemporaneous Canadian attack at Lens/Hill 70 ; and the brilliant Malmaison offensive that Petain launched in October 1917.  None of these three have been given sufficient  acknowledgement.

 

Phil

[PhilB]

12 hours ago, phil andrade said:

Have you changed your mind about any of this ?

Phil

I don`t think so, Phil. I`m still bemused by the fact that, having settled early on to a war of attrition, it was fought by commanders totally untrained in attritional warfare and especially by cavalrymen to whom elan and the arme blanche are inbred. Surprisingly, too, attrition does not seem to have appeared in the Staff College (or any other) curriculum.

[Broznitsky]

15 hours ago, phil andrade said:

In my small minded approach, I contend that three battles that exemplify successful attrition in that static phase of warfare in France and Flanders merit special attention : the Verdun French offensive in the summer of 1917 ; the contemporaneous Canadian attack at Lens/Hill 70 ; and the brilliant Malmaison offensive that Petain launched in October 1917.  None of these three have been given sufficient  acknowledgement.

Phil, I would be interested in hearing more about your contention that Lens/Hill 70 was attritional.  Because Lens, the original target, was never occupied by the Imperials?

[phil andrade]

8 hours ago, Broznitsky said:

Phil, I would be interested in hearing more about your contention that Lens/Hill 70 was attritional.  Because Lens, the original target, was never occupied by the Imperials?

In attritional terms, the Canadian Corps achieved a striking success, in so far as disproportionately heavy loss was inflicted on the Germans .

 

Maybe it was a kind of Verdun in reverse, crammed into ten days instead of ten months.

 

German retention of a location at a pyrrhic price.

 

 Phil 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sasho Todorov]

The biggest thing I can add is that, with greater attention paid to the kinds of casualties, the idea of offensive attrition becomes significantly more understandable. A simple numbers vs. numbers game, as done by Churchill in the Blood Test, ignores that not all casualties are the same. In my studies of French, German, and UK medical statistics, a consistent 79-80% of all wounded men would be returned to the army, with 65-67% still fit for frontline infantry service. What this means is that irrecoverable losses were significantly less than total losses, and the impact of POWs are heavily magnified. To give an example, the 28,000 POWs captured during the first month of the 1917 Aisne campaign (a better organizing concept than the "Nivelle Offensive") had the same overall impact on the German army as a hypothetical group of 140,000 wounded on the army as a whole, or 85,000 wounded if purely measured on infantry. The impact of returning wounded is, to my mind, significantly understudied, given that by 1916, 85% of the men who would fight in the French army had already been enrolled, with returning wounded being a key source of replacements, while the Germans were dependent on returning wounded for 50% of replacements by 1916 as well.

 

The battle this shifts the most, in my mind, is Verdun. The significant German progress in overrunning French units during the initial months of the battle tilt to a large degree its overall impact. From February 21st to March 15th alone the Germans kill 14,000 French soldiers and capture 27,000 (splits based on my composition of the 1.4 million French death records for the war organized into divisions, corps, and then armies by day). In fact, I'd argue that, until the decision not to pull back to a more defensible line in June of 1916, Verdun was a fairly strong German strategic victory. It's only with the decision to stay in the danger zone between Douaumont and Souville, resulting in the October hammer blow which set up the massive victory of December 15th, that it's impact shifts.

 

Another battle that it changes a bit is the Somme, but this is more in the sense of understanding the balance of forces and of the balance between offense and defense. In my article for the WFA "Across from the Parade Ground Soldiers" I found that the French sector of the Somme inflicted 48% of all German losses for the whole battle, with the French not only taking fewer losses, but also "better" losses in the KIA/MIA/WIA breakdown. When combined with the German and French successes on the offensive at Verdun, the thesis shifts, in my mind, to viewing offense as the successful attritional method for permanently damaging an opponent's warfighting capabilities in 1916, with the balance then shifting back in 1917. I think this is obscured by the way in which WWI operational/tactical study is heavily centered on the BEF, who weren't exactly a tier 1 army in 1916 to say the least. Thus the "riddle of the trenches" narrative (a riddle mostly solved in the form it existed in at the time of the 1916 campaign season by the French and Germans) and the "learning curve", both of which are, to be blunt, more about the BEF's evolution from institutional incompetence to competence than actually about the capabilities of the armies of the time. 

 

In a more general sense, I think that the tactical and operational developments of 1918 have to be viewed in light of the attrition among the frontline infantry. I don't think the breach of defensive works that occurred then would have been possible for either side if they hadn't spent the past three years draining each others' trenches of infantry. You can move infiltrating parties forward because there were significantly fewer grenadiers and counter-attacking men available to either stop them from moving or throwing them back from their positions. Of course, the massive developments in artillery techniques are also critical, but the primary purpose of dumping high explosive on the enemy was to suppress his frontline fighters, and the fewer fighters left that you needed to suppress, the easier the task becomes.

 

Edited 16 April , 2021 by Sasho Todorov

[phil andrade]

Thanks Sasho.  You provide us with a meticulous assessment which needs to be more widely applied in the general surveys of the casualty exchange rates.

 

I note that the Germans recorded about 165,000 killed and missing in the 1916 Somme battle.  The Entente total was not very different from that.  The significant difference,  I think, is that half ( roughly ) of the German killed/missing total comprised prisoners, while the Anglo French killed/missing comprised only about one tenth as prisoners , and 90% of them were killed.

 

The attritional impact of losing prisoners is as irreparable as that of losing men killed ( barring exchange), with the important proviso that men taken prisoner were likely to live to return at the end of the war, while the dead are gone forever..  The evil reputation of the Somme in British folklore is attributable largely to this difference.

 

editing here : in defence of Churchill, his blood test survey does allow for an assessment of the casualty breakdown. He stipulated that the irrecoverable loss should comprise all those posted as killed or missing, with one third of the total wounded being added.

 

Phil

 

 

Edited 17 April , 2021 by phil andrade

[ilkley remembers]

Thanks for resurrecting this @Phil B it is an interesting thread and of the sort that used to be more common on the forum.

 

Scholarship has moved on since your original post not least because there has been a shift away from predominantly BEF approach to the Western Front and a better appreciation of French and especially German actions and motivations.

 

I do think that the German High Command had a greater awareness of the strategy of attrition than either the French or the British and after the failure of the Schlieffen Plan were faster to adopt to a linear form of warfare. Before 1914 there appears to have been significant discussion about the merits of this type of strategy and its effect on battlefield tactics. Falkenhayn apparently had a a clear understanding of attrition and his rise to overall command probably the result of this knowledge. Several authorities have noted his particular interest in the writings of academic historian Hans Delbruck who advocated a attrition as a means of defeating the French and the Verdun Offensive was its apotheosis.

 

Falkenhayns fall from grace heralded the arrival those exponents of decisive warfare, Hindenburg and Ludendorff whose eventual attempt to return the conduct of the war to one of manoeuvre led to the defeat of the German Army in 1918 as their ability to endure failed.

[PhilB]

1 hour ago, ilkley remembers said:

I do think that the German High Command had a greater awareness of the strategy of attrition than either the French or the British and after the failure of the Schlieffen Plan were faster to adopt to a linear form of warfare.

Possibly because the Germans realised they were more vulnerable to a long attritional war? Your comments indicate the importance of pragmatism in generals who should ideally be able to switch from attritional warfare to offensive warfare as the situation indicates.

[ilkley remembers]

9 hours ago, PhilB said:

Possibly because the Germans realised they were more vulnerable to a long attritional war?

 

An interesting view but was it a response to a perceived vulnerability or a deliberate choice? Robert T Foley, German Strategy and the Path to Verdun, tends to suggest the latter and supports the view that the change from manoeuvre to an attritional strategy was both deliberate and pragmatic. It was also something which was the subject of much intellectual debate amongst the German officer corps prior to 1914; an argument which in the two years after the demise of the Schlieffen Plan was won by Falkenhayn.

 

I'm sure that as you say generals should be able switch between attritional and offensive strategies, or at least good generals should. Its interesting to consider which category Haig fits into given that attrition was largely imposed onto him in 1914/15 ,a concept which he seems to have remained close to his heart to until a war of movement was imposed after March 1918.