Carver,
The Apostles of Mobility, pp 31-54.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
This study theme is designed to familiarise the student with the development of weapons and military thought in the period between the two world wars, 1919-1939. Upon completion of the series of lectures and after studying the prescribed material, the student should be able to explain the following:
a. J.F.C. Fuller and B.H. Liddell Hart’s theories on mechanised land warfare. (Carver, pp 31-54; Strachan, pp 152, 155-157).
b. Douhet, Mitchell, Seversky and Trenchard’s theories on air warfare. (Paret, pp 629-635; Strachan, pp 152-157).
c. The development of the four new weapon systems. (Jones, pp 489-497).
d. The tactical and strategic employment of aircraft. (Jones, p 501; McInnes and Sheffield, pp 43-48).
e. The reaction of navies to the new weapon systems. (Jones, pp 502-504).
f. The interpretation by the various powers of the ‘lessons’ of the First World War and the divergent doctrines of the various armed forces. (Strachan, pp 150-164; Jones, pp 504-507).
g. The vicissitudes of the Union Defence Force during
the inter-war period. (Notes.)
TIME
Five lectures are set aside for this study theme.
INTRODUCTION
t should be clear to you that the inter-war years were not peaceful. After the conclusion of the Paris Peace Treaties, a number of countries remained in a state of at least partial mobilisation. There were a number of flashpoints around the world, some resulting from the treaties signed at Paris. The complexity of the state of affairs, internationally, makes it difficult for modern historians to say with any certainty when exactly the war began. Did the war start with the familiar image of German soldiers lifting the frontier barrier on the Polish border in 1939? Or did it actually commence with the advance into the Rhineland in 1936, or the annexation of the Sudetenland, or Austria, or Czechoslovakia? For the Jews, as a people, one might decide upon 1933 (the year Hitler came to power) or 1935 (the year when the race laws were promulgated) or the Kristalnacht in 1938.
Ian Buruma surmises that many Germans attempt to side step the issue by referring to the Hitlerzeit (Hitler era) instead of "the war." "The war" as a concept is generally reserved for the images of soldiers freezing on the Eastern Front and the strategic bombardment of German cities.
In the Far East, ‘different’ World War was fought. "In Japan, the establishment of a puppet state in Manchuria in 1931 was a hostile harbinger of much to come. But the invasion of China proper began in 1937 with a shoot-out near Beijing, and the Pacific War started with the attack on Pearl Harbor in four years later. Incidentally, only Japanese of a liberal disposition call World War II the Pacific War. People who stick to the idea that Japan was fighting a war to liberate Asia from Bolshevism and white colonialism call it the Great East Asian War (Daitowa Senso), as in the Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. People of this opinion separate the world war of 1941-1945 from the war in China, which they still insist on calling the China Incident. Liberals and leftists, on the other hand, tend to splice these wars together and call then the Fifteen-Year War (1931-45). Hayashi Fusao, the author of In Affirmation of the Great East Asian War and definitely not a libreral, argued that the struggle against Western imperialism actually began in 1853, with the arrival in Japan of Commodore Perry’s ships, and spoke of the Hundred-Year War."
The inter-war period also saw a number of technological
developments that obviously impacted upon the development in weapon systems
and the evolution of military theory. The most important new weapon systems
were the tank and the aircraft; both of which appeared as the First World
War was ending.
BRITISH THEORISTS ON MECHANISED LAND WARFARE
Carver,
The Apostles of Mobility, pp 31-54.
Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War, pp 152, 155-157.
Study the respective contributions made by Major General J.F.C. ("Boney") Fuller and Captain Sir Basil H. Liddell Hart, to the development of mechanised warfare. Pay special attention to:
Paret,
Makers of Modern Strategy, pp 629-635.
Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War, pp 152-157.
Lyons, World War II; A Short History, p 69-70.
In 1943, Edward Warner published a criticism of the early air-warfare theoreticians: Douhet, Mitchell, and Seversky. Warner opined that, essentially, the early debates did not revolve around the employment of air forces. To his mind they dealt (instead) with the acceptance or rejection of the ‘fundamental doctrine’ that aircraft could destroy any land target and - as a result of speed and height - were also immune from reprisal from land forces. Thus aircraft were the dominant instrument of war.
According to Warner, the theory of Guilio Douhet (1869-1930) could be translated into five key points:
Unlike Douhet and Mitchell, Alexander de Seversky (1894-1974) was not an air theorist per se. Seversky’s popular thesis entitled Victory Through Air Power (1942) together with a Walt Disney film released in July 1943, brought him fame greater than his contribution to the theory of air power. Favouring air power over all other means of warfare, Seversky, in effect, said nothing new.
Sir Hugh (later Lord) Trenchard (1873-1956) was, as British Air Chief of Staff from 1919 to 1929, became creator of the Royal Air Force. Failing to gain entry into the Royal Navy, he was commissioned into the army in 1893 and served in India and South Africa (during the Anglo-Boer War). Having attained a pilot’s license in 1912, he became RFC commander in France, where he organised fighter battles against the Germans, the latter equipped with a superior Fokker monoplane. In the same theatre, Trenchard developed the use of bombers aimed at military targets in Germany and France.
Trenchard envisioned a two-fold purpose for strategic bombers. These were to destroy the enemy’s:
The mechanised warfare theorists, Fuller and Liddell Hart, recognised the potential co-operation between land and air forces in armoured warfare. Liddell Hart predicted the use of dive-bombers as a substitute for artillery.
During the inter-war period (1919-1939), a number of developments took place in various countries in terms of the deployment of air power. Take a look at these developments and their shortcomings, with regard to the following states:
DEVELOPMENT OF FOUR NEW WEAPON SYSTEMS
Study Jones, The Art of War in the Western World,
pp 489-497. Ensure that you fully understand the nature
of the technological change and how this impacted upon the relationship
between the four basic weapon systems.
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TACTICAL & STRATEGIC USE OF AIRCRAFT
McInnes
and Sheffield, Warfare in the Twentieth Century, pp 43-48.
Jones, The Art of War in the Western World, p 501.
Aircraft, as a new weapon system, were applied and tested by a number of Western states during the inter-war period. Aircraft proved the supreme weapon system in dealing with massed "feudal" armies. Our first case study is close to home. What become known as the Bondelswart Uprising occurred a brief three years after the end of the First World War; and immediately showed the value of a tactical air force to a still sceptical public.
The Bondelswart tribe, located in modern Namibia, protested against a South African government decision not to concede certain land claims. A force was raised in May 1922, when the captain of the tribe refused to deliver a number of his followers who were allegedly guilty of misdemeanour and theft. The force initially comprised two field guns and one hundred mounted troops. This force surrounded and bombarded Haib, the Bondelswart stronghold, on 29 May. On 30 May the settlement surrendered after their leader, Abraham Morris, together with approximately fifty followers had escaped through the cordon. Morris hoped to join Nicolaas Christiaan and his men, and make a stand in their ancient stronghold - the Fish River Canyon. In an attempt to prevent the insurrection from spreading to the Richtersveld, an airstrip was prepared near Steinkopf and two aircraft dispatched to the area from Pretoria. On 2 June, one of these aircraft spotted smoke in a saucer in the mountains; and the Bondelswart were bombed and machine-gunned from the air. Some 20 were killed and more wounded: the survivors learned to hide by day and move at night. They ate their last donkey on 4 June and in a skirmish with ground troops on the same day, Morris was killed. What remained of his followers surrendered on 7 June. Over the following weeks, the two aircraft made intimidation flights over all the reserves around Keetmanshoop.
The Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-36) presents us with a second case study on how a developed country could exploit its technology and, with relative ease, conquer a foe with less-developed weapon systems at its disposal. Again aircraft played the premier role and, without anti-aircraft guns, the Ethiopians proved defenceless. One of South Africa’s official historians, James Ambrose Brown, wrote as follows:
"The build-up of Italian air-power had begun when Mussolini decided that 1935 was to be the year of destiny in East Africa. Air bases and assembly workshops were erected in the colonies of Eritrea and Somaliland.
"Soon Abyssinia was surrounded by a chain of airfields from which bombers could operate. Reconnaissance aircraft penetrated the territory to be invaded and the first accurate maps were produced. Vast supplies of munitions and fuel were moved forward on new highways. Asmara, in 1935 a small town of 3,000 people, grew to a population of 17,500 in twelve months. Great concrete runways and hangars emerged from the empty landscape at Gura and Asmara; at Mai Edaga the Caproni ‘Colonial’ bomber and C.R.42 fighter were assembled at a rate of six a day.
"Against the Regia Aeronautica the Abyssinians were powerless; barefoot levies in white cotton shammas were unprepared for the terror from the sky - though they did manage to shoot down eight aircraft with a few modern weapons obtained late in the campaign. Against medieval armies Italian aircraft were used in the role of cavalry. On a single pursuit action they made no less than 546 sorties; in an operation at Amba Alagi in which 250 aircraft were used, 40 tons of bombs were dropped in five hours. These were the most intensive aerial bombardments the world had yet seen.
"The conquest complete, the Emperor fled. The Italians moved in to consolidate their victory. A great new airfield was constructed at Addis Ababa and others were built across the far-flung table-lands in every province; and the work of subjugation went on."
THE NAVIES RESPONSE TO THE NEW WEAPONS
Jones, The Art of War in the Western World, pp
502-504
After the First World War naval architects realised that ships’ armour was totally inadequate against long-rage gunfire. Their remedy to improve defence comprised the:
THE "LESSONS" OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR & THE DIVERGENT DOCTRINES OF THE VARIOUS ARMED FORCES
Strachan,
European Armies and the Conduct of War, pp 150-164.
Jones, The Art of War in the Western World, pp
504-507.
Lyons, World War II; A Short History, pp 67-71.
The First World War was of an unprecedented nature. Although the dominance of the trench was taken as proof that the defence was the superior means, many soldiers were keen to restore power to the attack. Analyse the so-called "lessons" of the First World War as identified by the various armed forces. How did these "lessons" influence the development of strategies and tactics in the inter-war period? Remember the dictum that most countries initially prosecute a war based upon their experiences of the previous war.
Consult the
class notes.
You need only read this tutorial letter for this part of the study theme. Kindly note, however, that the pages which follow are still under construction. They are included in their imperfect state to help you and avert the need for you to go to the literature (which, on this topic, is vast and fragmented!). Any suggestions regarding improvement will be greatly appreciated.
FURTHER READING
Brian Bond, ‘The Army between the two world wars, 1918-1939’ in D. Chandler and I. Beckett (eds), The Oxford History of the British Army (Oxford and New York: OUP 1996).
Robin Higham, The Military Intellectuals in Britain, 1918-1939 (Westport: Greenwood, n.d.).
David French, ‘CIGS: Unsung Leadership 1918-1937’, Army Quarterly & Defence Journal 126(3) 1996.
David French, ‘Failures of the Inter-War Years’, Army Quarterly & Defence Journal 127(2) 1997. Leadership in the British Army from 1918-1937 was good in parts. Looks at the reasons why the BEF were chased out of France in 1940, but their explanation does not go far enough. The Army was given insufficient priority.
Furthermore, Volume 18(1), March 1995, of The Journal
of Strategic Studies is devoted to the theory and practice of air power.
This is available in the library.