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Arms, Tactics and Strategy in the Persian War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
At all times arms, tactics and strategy must be in one sense or another interdependent. But in modern warfare I imagine it would be generally agreed that strategy was less mutable and more important than tactics or armament. Even here there are obvious and notable exceptions to the general rule. In the Austro-Prussian War, it was the superiority of the Prussian breech-loading needle-gun to the Austrian muzzle-loader which won the battle of Königgratz, and so justified the bold strategy of Moltke. In the late war, the heavy German and Austrian howitzers broke down with unexpected rapidity the resistance of the elaborate Belgian fortresses, and thus compelled the retreat from Mons; again, the use of tanks, both heavy and light, on a large scale was a decisive factor in more than one of the great struggles that led up to the final defeat of the Germans. Nevertheless in modern warfare such differences are in the main temporary and accidental; if, for instance, the Germans began the war with superior heavy artillery, before its close they were surpassed by the Allies; if they secured an initial advantage by the use of poison gas, here too the Allies in the end showed themselves superior to the inventors of this deadly instrument of war. The advantage gained by inventors is mainly that of surprise, and is therefore evanescent, not permanent. In the main the fleets and armies on either side are equipped in the same way, and (if we leave out of account the morale, numbers and resources of the nations engaged) victories are gained and wars decided most of all by strategy, the massing of troops at the right time and place, and secondarily by tactics, the best use of them in actual battle.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1923
References
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