Attrition

[PhilB]

I’m not convinced, Ilkley, that attrition was close to Haig’s heart through the Somme, Arras, 3rd Ypres and Cambrai!

 

[phil andrade]

10 hours ago, PhilB said:

I’m not convinced, Ilkley, that attrition was close to Haig’s heart through the Somme, Arras, 3rd Ypres and Cambrai!

 

 

Agreed !

 

If attrition had been close to his heart 1916-17, Haig must have been heartbroken in March 1918.

 

His subsequent claim that the Somme and Passchendaele were justified in attritional terms do not stand up scrutiny, unless we accept implausible statistics pitched by the British Official Historian.

 

Phil 

 

 

Edited 20 April , 2021 by phil andrade

[ilkley remembers]

18 hours ago, PhilB said:

I’m not convinced, Ilkley, that attrition was close to Haig’s heart through the Somme, Arras, 3rd Ypres and Cambrai!

 

 Well @Phil B there seems no doubt as to his offensive mindset, but at what cost and I suppose that It is hardly ground breaking to allege that Haig was prepared to continue campaigns despite the human cost. Better authorities than me testify to this trait on the Somme and at Passchendaele to name but two as he continued to batter solid German defences. Certainly I would argue that prior to the second half of 1918 Haig was unable to deliver a decisive blow against the enemy who during the the Spring Offensive used far more innovative tactics. Perhaps melding Clausewitzian emphasis on morale with a  High Victorian belief in courage ,stamina and discipline were not the war winning tactic that he presumed

 

7 hours ago, phil andrade said:

Haig must have been heartbroken in March 1918.

 

 Well it certainly resulted in the 'cri de coeur' "...With our backs to the wall.." etc etc in April.

[phil andrade]

50 minutes ago, ilkley remembers said:

 Well @Phil B there seems no doubt as to his offensive mindset, but at what cost and I suppose that It is hardly ground breaking to allege that Haig was prepared to continue campaigns despite the human cost. Better authorities than me testify to this trait on the Somme and at Passchendaele to name but two as he continued to batter solid German defences. Certainly I would argue that prior to the second half of 1918 Haig was unable to deliver a decisive blow against the enemy who during the the Spring Offensive used far more innovative tactics. Perhaps melding Clausewitzian emphasis on morale with a  High Victorian belief in courage ,stamina and discipline were not the war winning tactic that he presumed

 

 Well it certainly resulted in the 'cri de coeur' "...With our backs to the wall.." etc etc in April.

 

 

In 2007 there was a conference at the University of Kent, to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Third Ypres.  I attended it, as I had also attended one the previous year to mark the 90th for the Somme.

 

Robin Prior spoke about Passchendaele , and made a very striking comment.

 

I’ll try and recall it accurately, but must apologise if memory fails me and I get it wrong.

 

This is what I think that he said :

 

[i]. Haig was not an attritionist .  I wish to God that he HAD been.  He aspired to the more grandiose goal of breakthrough, and in so doing exposed his armies to excessive punishment.  It’s true that Third Ypres yielded a better casualty exchange rate for the British than had  the Somme : in the 1916 battle, the British had lost two men for every one German ; at Passchendaele they might have achieved a rate of three to two.  Even if attrition HAD been Haig’s aim, the offensive was a failure by that criterion. [/i]

 

I found Prior’s presentation compelling and persuasive.

 

Phil

 

 

 

 

[ilkley remembers]

On 20/04/2021 at 17:15, phil andrade said:

I found Prior’s presentation compelling and persuasive.

 

 

Apologies for not replying to your comment sooner @phil andrade but have spent the day in the bowels of the earth cleaning out the cellars that run under the house; a decision that I have come to regret.

 

Your recollections of Robin Priors talk are interesting not least because he seems to be reprising a view about Haig which was outlined in a book he co-authored with Trevor Wilson about the Battle of the Somme. If you haven't already read it then it certainly is worth looking at. The two Australian academics are highly critical indeed almost contemptuous of of Haig's handling of the battle. Curiously, however, they also see him as a sort of romantic, dreaming of great cavalry sweeps ranging across the battlefield and a belief in decisive battles where large tracts of ground are gained and indeed conclude that he is not an attritional general. To me this seems rather odd and the very antithesis of Prior and Wilsons other comments about Haig. Still it is an interesting observation and given the standing of the authors one which, perhaps, I shouldn't be so summarily dismissive. 

 

Edward 

[phil andrade]

Thanks for your input here, Edward.

 

It’s reassuring to see that my memory hasn’t let me down as badly as I feared it might have done !

 

What I feel is significant in Prior’s comment is the implicit endorsement of attrition as the way ahead....if only Haig HAD been an attritionist.

 

Let  Petain’s Malmaison offensive stand as the exemplar of how it could- and should- have been done.  Not that I remember Prior alluding to it, but I reckon it would make his point.

 

Phil

[Robert Dunlop]

Prior and Wilson have fundamentally misunderstood Haig's approach to planning the major battles. This has been covered in great detail before - I will dig out the references. In essence, Haig required that his senior commanders plan for multiple scenarios. One scenario was what to do if the German defences collapsed completely and abandoned the battlefield, opening up the opportunity to advance on Bapaume (in the case of the Somme) or deep into Belgium (in the case of Passchendaele) for example. Haig reviewed all of the proposed plans for the various major battles. His annotations can be found on many of the plans in the war diaries. These plans included what would be done in the event of complete failure as well as details of the objective lines and which units would hold and consolidate each line in turn, as well as the scenario where the enemy collapsed. 

 

I loved Jack Sheldon's comment that, with regards to the Prior and Wilson book 'Passchendaele: The Untold Story': "Never was a book more aptly named".

 

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

Phil, it is important to be cautious about interpreting the relative casualty rates of Pétain's Malmaison offensive or the Canadian attack on Lens. These actions 'succeeded' because the main German effort was drawn into the Battle of Third Ypres for example. By this stage of the war, the scale of this type of campaign was so significant that German rail traffic, for example, was almost completely focused on sustaining the German defensive efforts around Ypres. There was no capacity to mount the kind of counter-offensive that would have turned Malmaison into a much more costly enterprise from a French perspective. You can see this reflected in what happened during Plumer's lauded 'bite and hold' attacks during Third Ypres. During the drier weather, each 'bite' was very successful tactically and with relative low casualties. The casualty rate then increased between 'bites' as the Germans shelled the new salients. 

 

What happened with Malmaison was a foretaste of what would happen in the Last 100 Days. Foch realised that the infrastructure and logistics were so good by late 1918 that it was possible to mount continuous waves of major offensives across the whole front. This meant that Germans were unable to do what they did for Third Ypres, concentrate their defensive reserves in one sector. Manpower shortages were further degraded. German unit and personal accounts are replete with the accounts of the inability to rest and recuperate out of the line. These effects were not just due to the cumulative attritional effects of the Somme, Third Ypres, Verdun, etc. It was also due to the continued massive increases in industrial capacity and the constant upgrading and development of logistics.

 

It should be noted that Haig recognised the potential impact of the American involvement (as did the German High Command) on the numbers game. This realisation fed into the determination to continue Third Ypres.

 

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

This post attempted to draw together the various posts on pre-Somme planning:

 

Robert

 

[phil andrade]

Robert,

 

When the Battles of Lens and Malmaison were fought, didn’t the Germans counterattack vigorously ?

 

That’s the narrative that I’ve read. It also happened at Verdun, too, when another Petain offensive retook ground in the Mort Homme sector that had been taken by the Germans the previous year .  These were all conspicuously successful, and they seemed to follow a three “ L” formula : Limited, Local and Lavish ( lavish in terms of preparation, planning, ordnance munitions etc).

 

 I do take your point, though.

 

Without the strain imposed on the Germans in Flanders,  how would those  Artois, Aisne and Meuse attacks have  fared ?

 

I remember reading that the Germans were worried by the wear and rare on their artillery “ tubes” in the Ypres battles of 1917.  Things were being worn out and there wasn’t enough metal to replace the copper rings round the shells etc.  Attrition had so many aspects.

 

As you remind us, Haig had to countenance so many contingencies.  One of the more successful endeavours at Messines in June was not exploited as it might have been : quite devoid of the necessary “ thrust” mentality that Haig has been criticised for.

 

Phil

 

[Robert Dunlop]

It is important to understand the human cost of various battles. There is a higher level consideration, IMHO. War between determined foes that can sustain the effort over years demands a heavy toll on human casualties. It does not matter, ultimately, when and how the casualties occur during the timeline; the cost in human lives and health will be the same in the long run. There has been a tendency to think that 'better' generals (read 'more intelligent', 'more gifted', 'more innovative', etc) would have exacted a higher toll on the Germans with far fewer casualties for the British. My grandfather, who fought during the war as an NCO in the likes of Third Ypres, commented to me that the biggest problem, from his perspective, was that the Germans were really determined, tough, and well-trained. It took the same level of determination to win out in the longer term. In his mind, it was never about a specific battle.

 

The reason I raise these points, as well as the reason I have striven to understand how battles were fought, etc, is that we could fall into a trap that affects our appreciation of war today. If we think that a more intelligent, more gifted, more articulate, more innovative general could have made a huge difference in the casualty rates then we will be drawn to the likes of a general on CNN, pointing to a smart bomb going down the ventilator shaft in a building in Baghdad. How cool. How innovative. How distracting from the fact that overall impact of the 'wars' has been just as devastating as the Great War.

 

If we want a Great War analogy of what happens when these attributes take precedence then look at what happened with Général Nivelle...

 

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

15 minutes ago, phil andrade said:

As you remind us, Haig had to countenance so many contingencies.  One of the more successful endeavours at Messines in June was not exploited as it might have been : quite devoid of the necessary “ thrust” mentality that Haig has been criticised for.

Phil, we just have to be mindful of how the word 'thrust' is interpreted. Many have interpreted this concept of planning to mean 'push deep into enemy territory at all costs no matter what the opposition is like'. But this is not how 'thrust' should be read in IMHO. A better word is 'exploitation'. Or 'pursuit'. It is the concept that, if the enemy collapses and suddenly withdraws, there is the ability to follow-up.

 

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

1 hour ago, phil andrade said:

When the Battles of Lens and Malmaison were fought, didn’t the Germans counterattack vigorously ?

Locally, yes. But not the sustained counter-measures that were maintained throughout Third Ypres for example. There was no systematic movement of large numbers of resources to counter fully what had been achieved by the Allies in these battles. 

Robert

[PhilB]

Quote:-

“In essence, Haig required that his senior commanders plan for multiple scenarios.”

 

We’re told that, once battle has begun, effective control by the various HQs was drastically reduced. Does that mean that Haig would have started the battle having chosen his best option plan and with the intention to stick to it? Or did he hope to carry on the battle with options to switch from one plan to another from those prepared for him, as events dictated?

[phil andrade]

2 hours ago, PhilB said:

Quote:-

“In essence, Haig required that his senior commanders plan for multiple scenarios.”

 

We’re told that, once battle has begun, effective control by the various HQs was drastically reduced. Does that mean that Haig would have started the battle having chosen his best option plan and with the intention to stick to it? Or did he hope to carry on the battle with options to switch from one plan to another from those prepared for him, as events dictated?

PhilB,

 

Didn’t Haig’s decision to exploit initial success in the southern sector of the British attack, as opposed to bludgeoning away to the north along the Thiepval Spur  - as Joffre wanted- indicate that he was flexible in implementation of the plan for the Somme ?

 

Phil

Edited 22 April , 2021 by phil andrade

[Robert Dunlop]

Scenario planning is about multiple options that are equally probable, from a planning perspective. The goals are to identify common elements in the plans, such as providing logistics infrastructure, and the signals that identify which scenario is playing out. There isn't a need to fix on a 'best option' plan but there is a need to review the scenarios as time goes by. Some will be retired, some revised, and some new ones will evolve. This process was ongoing during the Battle of the Somme.

 

Robert

[PhilB]

I think we’re slightly at cross purposes. I was thinking of an inability to change plans in a single set piece like the Battle of Albert while you’re thinking of the whole Somme campaign! Clearly, with sometimes weeks between battles, one can change plans during a campaign.

[phil andrade]

On 22/04/2021 at 09:34, Robert Dunlop said:

It is important to understand the human cost of various battles. There is a higher level consideration, IMHO. War between determined foes that can sustain the effort over years demands a heavy toll on human casualties. It does not matter, ultimately, when and how the casualties occur during the timeline; the cost in human lives and health will be the same in the long run. There has been a tendency to think that 'better' generals (read 'more intelligent', 'more gifted', 'more innovative', etc) would have exacted a higher toll on the Germans with far fewer casualties for the British. My grandfather, who fought during the war as an NCO in the likes of Third Ypres, commented to me that the biggest problem, from his perspective, was that the Germans were really determined, tough, and well-trained. It took the same level of determination to win out in the longer term. In his mind, it was never about a specific battle.

 

The reason I raise these points, as well as the reason I have striven to understand how battles were fought, etc, is that we could fall into a trap that affects our appreciation of war today. If we think that a more intelligent, more gifted, more articulate, more innovative general could have made a huge difference in the casualty rates then we will be drawn to the likes of a general on CNN, pointing to a smart bomb going down the ventilator shaft in a building in Baghdad. How cool. How innovative. How distracting from the fact that overall impact of the 'wars' has been just as devastating as the Great War.

 

If we want a Great War analogy of what happens when these attributes take precedence then look at what happened with Général Nivelle...

 

Robert

 

This gets me thinking about military tropes from this and other wars.  A half a century before the Great War, two distinguished American warriors, engaged in their intense and bloody Civil War, opined in the one case “ War is all Hell and you cannot refine it”, and in the other “ War means fighting and fighting means killing “.  I suppose the Great War corollary is Mangin’s notorious comment “ Whatever you do, you lose a lot of men “. 

 

Winston Churchill stands out as a proponent of something more attuned to the argument that skilful generalship can suppress the  impulse towards the attritional killing match, by seeking to rely on manoeuvre rather than slaughter.  If I had my books to hand I would find the quote from his World Crisis.  He certainly repudiates the view that there was attritional efficacy in the bloodbaths espoused by Joffre and Haig between 1915 and 1917, but then he would, wouldn’t he ?

 

Phil

Edited 23 April , 2021 by phil andrade

[PhilB]

On 29/10/2005 at 12:13, AndyHollinger said:

I doubt there is a course at West Point, Sandhurst or any advanced War College called "Attrition 101" meaning the name has a dirty ring. In all my military training or reading all I've ever heard taught was how to win fast, sweeping victories. One studies Chancellorsville not Petersburg ...

I thought that Andy H got to an essential point here about attritional war. Basically the commanders knew little about it and accepted that wars were only won by Chancellorsvilles. And if that necessitated the odd Cold Harbor, well, so be it. Though, to be fair, possibly nobody amongst those running the war at the time knew much about attrition.

[phil andrade]

1 hour ago, PhilB said:

I thought that Andy H got to an essential point here about attritional war. Basically the commanders knew little about it and accepted that wars were only won by Chancellorsvilles. And if that necessitated the odd Cold Harbor, well, so be it. Though, to be fair, possibly nobody amongst those running the war at the time knew much about attrition.

 

The victor of Chancellorsville was , ironically, deeply perturbed by its attritional implications.

 

Though Chancellorsville was cited as his most brilliant victory, RE Lee was cast down by its Pyrrhic cost, and was determined to try conclusions by fighting a climactic battle on Northern soil because the prospect of more Chancellorsvilles was unbearable.

 

Hence Gettysburg.

 

Was Ludendorff motivated by the same sense when he launched the Kaiserslacht ?

 

Yes, I think so.

 

My point - at the risk of stating the bleeding ( literally) obvious - is that attrition is germinal to warfare in all its attributes, and perhaps especially so in the moments of triumph , as Chancellorsville attests.

 

Phil

[PhilB]

Hardly Pyrrhic, Phil, but you’re right about it not looking so good in attritional terms. However, it is interesting that Chancellorsville   Is famed by the military as a victory for movement and tactics rather than an attritional failure?

[Sasho Todorov]

59 minutes ago, PhilB said:

Hardly Pyrrhic, Phil, but you’re right about it not looking so good in attritional terms. However, it is interesting that Chancellorsville   Is famed by the military as a victory for movement and tactics rather than an attritional failure?

 

In large part because most military professionals want to believe warfare is movement and tactics. "Warfare as we want it to be" plays a huge part in military studies, with "warfare as we don't want it to be" thus being relegated to the spaces of "improperly conducted" warfare, vs. the reality of it being warfare as it is. A classic example of this, in my mind, is Desert Storm, which in reality is one of the most successful campaigns of attrition ever waged, yet is reduced to the three day pursuit that culminated the attritional campaign.

 

What's particularly annoying with fame of Chancellorsville is that it even fails really as a battle of maneuver. If Hooker doesn't lose nerve because of his concussion, Chancellorsville likely ends with the complete defeat of the Army of Northern Virginia on May 4th, as the Army of Northern Virginia had completely shot its bolt, and the Army of the Potomac was in a good position to exploit its solid beachhead and push onward.

Edited 23 April , 2021 by Sasho Todorov

[Robert Dunlop]

10 hours ago, Sasho Todorov said:

 

...Desert Storm, which in reality is one of the most successful campaigns of attrition ever waged, yet is reduced to the three day pursuit that culminated the attritional campaign.

Except that the campaign of attrition did not stop with the end of Desert Storm but continued on, if you consider the overall context rather than just the formally defined period of the battle.

 

Robert

[phil andrade]

12 hours ago, PhilB said:

Hardly Pyrrhic, Phil, but you’re right about it not looking so good in attritional terms. However, it is interesting that Chancellorsville   Is famed by the military as a victory for movement and tactics rather than an attritional failure?

 

Lee might well have regarded it as Pyrrhic, since the battle entailed the mortal wounding of Stonewall Jackson.

 

That brings me to suggest that attrition might be effected in qualitative, rather than just quantitative , terms.

 

No doubt we can find examples of this 1914-18.

 

The huge German casualties of March and April 1918, for example, contained a proportion of officers that far exceeded the usual rate for that army.

 

We’ve certainly benefited from some superb threads regarding the attrition of the BEF’s  Regular Army Officers in the first months of the war.  

 

Phil

Edited 24 April , 2021 by phil andrade

[PhilB]

11 hours ago, Sasho Todorov said:

 

In large part because most military professionals want to believe warfare is movement and tactics. "Warfare as we want it to be" plays a huge part in military studies, with "warfare as we don't want it to be" thus being relegated to the spaces of "improperly conducted" warfare, vs. the reality of it being warfare as it is.

Sums it up nicely!