The evolution of modern strategy from the XVIIIth century to the present time

F. N. (Frederic Natusch) Maude

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• Strategy

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• Publié par: les_archives_du_savoir
• Nombre de lectures: 6
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

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http://www.archive.org/details/evolutionofmoderOOmaudrichTHE
EVOLUTION OF MODERN STRATEGY:
THE EVOLUTION
OF
MODERN STRATEGY
THE XVIIIth CENTURY TOFROM
PRESENT TIME.THE
BY
MAUDE,Lieut.-Colonel F. N.
R.E.,F.S.C.y LATE
(VOLUNTEERS).COMMANDING 1ST HAMPSHIRE ROYAL ENGINEERS
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>•••••
•»»..:. ^ . • • ••
LONDON
AND SONS, LIMITED,WILLIAM CLOWES
STREET, S.W.COCKSPUR23,
1905.^3f
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED
LONDON AND BECCLES.—
PREFACE.
For the last twenty-five years I have formed one of a group of
British officers who have been as intensely keen to fit themselves
for command, and to prepare the men under them for War, as any
inmen any nation under the sun. This group was, and still is,
far more numerous than the British public imagines, and those
members of it, who have been fortunate enough obtain and toto
recognise their opportunities, have won for themselves the respect
and admiration of all competent critics, of whom, unfortunately,
there are few enough within our own islands.
Wherever men met, in clubs, messes, railway carriages
particularly railway carriages—we foregathered and talked, not
"shop" but "War," with the single, whole-souled idea of being
ready when the call should come, and so far from finding that
this interest in our "bad form," I, at least,duty was considered
guest.personally found that it made me everywhere a welcome
As, in addition to my own, I was a dining member of seventeen
different messes of all and besides my club in town, belongedarms,
to half I think Ia dozen others in different parts of the world,
may claim abundant opportunity for the formation ofmy opinion.
Many of us had enjoyed, for ourselves, opportuni-or rather made
in proportionties for becoming acquainted with foreign armies, and
as to the use they had made of their time, they brought into the
considerationsservice a different attitude towards the fundamental
hadwhich lie at the base of all warlike operations than that which
hitherto prevailed amongst officers.the senior
Those as those againstwho had fought through such campaigns
only thethe Sikhs', the Crimea, saw in Warfareand the Mutiny,
alonecollision of the which armiesrival interests of governments, in
but littlewere concerned, and in which the nations, as nations, had
which sur-interest—the old eighteenth-century standpoint, in fact,
vived our surroundings.quite naturally under the peculiar nature of
M176640— —
PREFACE,vi
heartschools saw deeper into thetrained in the foreignThose
as in France and Germany, theand knew that when,of things,
" "" " Nation had become synonymous, the wholeterms Army and
warlike operations must undergo profound modification.conduct of
was no easy task, for to expressTo reconcile the two schools
needs two entirely distinct vocabularies, andthe difference one
Hence both sides constantly used the samethere was only one.
ideas, farwords to express fundamentally different and it took
for study than falls to the lot of mostmore time and opportunity
years of one's service, to recognise whereinof us in the first twenty
these differences really lay.
possible to gather the pick of us together underHad it been
the guidance of instructors,one roof, and subject us to a body of
who had themselves preserved the continuity of tradition from the
times as in Prussia, progress would, I think, have beenNapoleonic
both rapid and secure but, unfortunately, the machinery for this;
still does not, exist, and when forpurpose did not, and we asked
tendered an inferiorbread we were officially concrete, a jumbled
up mass of ideas derived from [practice in varying climates, and
inconditions imperfectly held together a matrix of semi-digested
historical tradition.
Being thus left without superior guidance, there was nothing for
back some common point of originus but to work to from whence
schools arose i.e, some period in which all European nationsboth
similarmade Warwith armies of organisation under similar circum-
stances—and then trace out at what point, and owing to what
alterations, our paths began to diverge.
Following out this line of investigation, it became clear that
" organisation was the disturbing" cause. When the French
Revolution brought home to every unit in that nation he orthat
it was personally most vitally concerned in the issue of the great
struggle in which they were engaged, an entirely new driving force
made its appearance, which modified in the most startling manner
the practice of the leaders in the field i.e, the Art of Strategy.
Clausewitz was the first defineto War as an extreme form of
human competition. In other words, he did for the nation what
Darwin subsequently did for individuals, viz. he showed that War
"was nothing more or less than the struggle for the survival of the
fittest " on the national plane, and once this idea is clearly grasped
entirety the whole of the confusingin its problems involved in the