The Guns of August

I recently read The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. It dealt with the first month of WWI and was very good. You might recall that I did a little piece that dwelt on the First World War a while back. From this book I learned some of my assumptions were wrong but the main point: that railroads allow defenders to reinforce rapidly at any point thus preventing breakthroughs to develop to be sound.
First, the von Schlieffen plan was a surprise to the French and the British. I had assumed that it would be well known as it decades old—surely it would have leaked out? In fact the entire plan as an official copy had been bought from a German general, but the French staff discounted it (and other signs- For example; the German military controlled the railroads in Imperial Germany and had built railroads to the Belgium frontier for the purpose of supporting the mobilization and logistics required by the von Schlieffen plan.) as being implausible and most likely a German deception.
As for my point, two of the victories in the first part of the war were due to defenders shifting troops rapidly by rail. The Germans in the East shifted Corps from their position facing the first Russian army to flank the second Russian army in the south- annihilating it. Of course they were able to attack with one army momentarily uncovered because they were listening in on Russian communications (unencoded) and knew what the first army was going to do.
At the battle of the Marne, the French pulled a number of troops off of the line on their left as well as the Parisian garrison to rapidly exploit the hole in the German lines. One could not have imagines the Germans as being able to do something similar as their lines at that point were far away from abundant rails with their resupply and reinforcement.
On the whole the book was very excellent. One thing was missing, though: It mentions that in the month of August the Russians gained a decisive victory over the Austrians, capturing so many officers that the Austrians were crippled for the duration of the war. It did not go into any details of that battle, which was unfortunate in my opinion.
Also, the author states that after August (Really August plus a week or two) the war entered into a stalemate and attrition without anything interesting happening. I disagree. World War I is, among other things, very interesting because it is the first war where the strategy of technology is first consciously used with combatants deploying all kinds of new weapons such as gas, tanks, and vastly improving others such as planes, subs, siege guns etc. (The American Civil War had something like it but generally a bottom up sort of thing, not a top down). I highly recommend it for any military historian buff.

Lessons of World War One

Everybody learned the wrong lessons of WW1. In drawing on its experience the Germans tried to create an army that could win the battle of the Marne. The British and French on the other hand were more interested in winning the battle of the Somme. Because of fundamental changes in the underlying mechanics of warfare those battles would not re-occur.

As a bit of background: There are three basic types of warfare. The first is raid and counter-raid. This is the type of warfare that tribes usually use. The idea is essentially to wear your opponent down by killing him or destroying his means to make war. This is attrition warfare.
The next type of warfare is line warfare. You form a battle line of irresistible power and grind your enemies to dust and go right through them. You might get fancy with your skirmish line or how you present your line for advantages but the basic idea is just to power your way through your enemies. Once you crush your opponents’ army you can dictate terms. This originated amongst city-states.
The third sort is maneuver warfare. Here the idea is to attack your opponent where he is least prepared to receive the attack (such as the rear of the line or other targets.) Essential to this type of warfare is either taking advantage of the fog of war or being much faster than your opponent.
Fourth there is a special case which is siege or blockade. I call this a special case and not a type because it will be carried out by a line, or by raid or by seizing objectives before your opponent can react.

In World War 1 some say machine guns created the stalemate. Not true, artillery supplied by rails was always the dominant factor on the western front. More soldiers were killed by artillery than ever were by machine guns.

In practices lines could be broken; the Germans perfected the technique of rolling artillery barrages first gas and then explosives to break through lines. The Allies also broke lines on occasion.
In practice breaking a line didn’t change the stalemate because a new one would re/form just behind it. Logistical reasons made continuing the assault increasingly disadvantageous because artillery needs tons of ammunition to break lines. As you penetrate your line is in disorder, running out of ammunition as you get further away from the railhead. Your opponent rushes in reinforcements on his rails. Result: new line forms, repeat, until you can’t break their line anymore. Essentially, attempting to create maneuver warfare in this fashion is a failure because the enemy knows exactly where you are sending your maneuver troops (through the breakthrough) and they are able to send more men and material there faster than you are.
In fact, for this reason the Schlieffen plan was not maneuver warfare, it was line warfare. The allies knew about it and were prepared. The only maneuver that took place in that campaign came from the allies at the Marne winning them that battle. Since the Germans almost won through pure might, they would have been better off just going straight for Paris like von Moltke.