Some months ago, a fellow veteran and colleague recommended that I read William Manchester’s The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty That Armed Germany at War. It’s especially delightful when an author has researched the topic in detail, but also writes with riveting clarity, richly describing the actions of characters, their thoughts, biases, peculiarities, and impact. Manchester does this in The Arms of Krupp.
I’m about a third through this erudite tome, arriving at the place where Manchester describes Gustavs Krupp’s effort to arm Germany for World War I (WWI). Until now it’s been largely about the family’s relationship with Germany’s rulers and powerful elite. But this week I found myself reading Manchester’s description of the generation that fought WWI. Indeed, both leaders and soldiers found themselves with one leg in the 19th Century and the other in the 20th. It made me think of us today as our American military is astride two centuries with many challenges ahead. There is much to learn from reading Manchester’s description of WWI.
I was struck by his characterization of European leaders at the time. He described them as being “gyved in the horsy past, while signs increased that the machine age had arrived.” That was a reality they just didn’t seem to grasp. For example, they were very wedded to cavalry and infantry charges and skeptical of the machines of war that would change combat forever.
Manchester notes that England’s Sir Douglas Haig, a Field Marshall, was dismissive of the machine gun as “a much overrated weapon.” French General Ferdinand Foch, who served as the Supreme Allied Commander during WWI, had opined that airplanes were “silly.” Amazingly even Germany’s Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg mocked the tank as a “toy” while arrogantly insisting that “German infantry can get along quite well without those peculiar motor cars.” Germans Erwin Rommel, Heinz Guderian, and Oswald Lutz—WWII advocates of armored warfare—would have thought that idea particularly “peculiar.”
Ironically, it was military leaders of the WWI era who were blinkered in noticing how innovation had branched forth, despite its baneful roots, to produce an abundance of lethal fruit. Manchester is at once eloquently and profoundly accurate in making the point.
“Europe lay half in one period, half in the other…. rooted in the folklore of the past. It’s traditional leaders—the emperors, princes, potentates, and field marshals—were the most conservative men in society, the least capable of understanding the new mechanized war they had to lead.”
Theirs was a condition of outdated predilections and persistent obscurantism. They preferred the dressy trappings of the military over the changes necessitated by the trenches, craters, and the smoldering and barb-wired landscapes of the modern battlefield. They were oblivious.
“Junkers cherished their monocles, spotless white gloves, black and silver saber knots, and concrete Kommandantur with Prussian eagles molded above the entrances, while the yearning of the French for la gloria, continued to be almost as great as their talent for self-hypnosis.
Nor were the British officers spared by Manchester’s criticism. Whether ill-focused on the superficiality of parade ground formality or lamenting the rising number of young WWI officers who were not considered “proper gentlemen,” both in manner and advice, the upper crust was thinly deficient.
“They strode around in gleaming field boots and jingling spurs and toured the lines in Rolls-Royces, cursing bad march discipline…. The new fellows were sharply reminded to keep servants in their dugouts, strike slack privates on sight, and make certain that the senior company was on the right before going over the top.”
Their linear tactical sense was appallingly outdated. Even American leaders fell short.
“The epauletted marshals placed their main reliance in great masses of cavalry—as late as 1918 General John J. Pershing U.S.A. would be cluttering up his supply lines with mountains of fodder for useless horses—and their staffs rarely visited the front, where a very different kind of war was being fought.”
These imperceptive leaders were unworthy of the youth of their age, both those innocently optimistic and those instinctively brave who became cannon fodder.
“To the most idealistic youth the world had ever known, this hideous life became a crisis of spirit…They were the most sensitive. Most men fought stolidly. They had been bred to valor, taught fealty to the tribal deities of Gott or God, or Dieu, and with numb certitude they sacrificed themselves to a civilization that was vanishing before them.”
WWI was a lesson in arrogance and senseless slaughter. American leaders—both elected and commissioned—must read this history to avoid the mistakes of the past. But as they do, they cannot be satisfied to simply read between the lines of history. Fortunately, Manchester insists on describing it with such precision that it’s impossible to miss the point.
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