Ja, this is another exciting episode of Out Of The Trenches where I sit here in the chair of wisdom,
and answer all your questions about the Great War
[intro music begins]
Nicola on facebook writes
Hi, first of all thanks for all the amazing videos--Cool--I love your channel.
I have a question on your special on the storm troops and their tactics.
I was under the impression that the whole "Auftragstaktik" was a doctrine
developed back in the days of Von Moltke the elder,
but you said it was instead a rebellion against the "Prussian orthodoxy",
so I'm a bit confused, now.
Can you tell me where that info came from? If i'm not mistaken I've read the claim that the debate
"Auftragtaktik" vs more rigid planning goes back to Moltke the elder
in "Quest for Decisive Victory" by Robert Citino. i can check the end notes and double
check with your sources if you think it will be useful
thanks again and keep up the great work. Greetings from Italy, Nicola.
All right.
well, let's be clear here.
The origins, if you want to call them that, of Auftragstaktik or "mission tactics"
go even further back than Moltke the elder and go back to the age of Napoleon,
and the Battle of Jena and Auerstadt in 1806
long story short, the Prussian army was beaten due to a lack of competent leadership
and the strict chain of command proved utterly useless when some generals were absent
or were out of touch. You couldn't get hold of them.
The lower officers refused to take the initiative and they just waited for orders that never came
and they let the French easily outmanoeuver them and win decisively.
This defeat led to a massive reorganization of the Prussian
bureaucracy and military command structure
under von Gneisenau and von Scharnhorst
In 1812 they introduced a new system of rules for the Prussian infantry
which revolved around the idea of mitdenkende Gehorsam or "thinking obedience"
during the Wars of the 19th century this concept, while supported by military
thinkers like von Clausewitz, was not entirely uncontroversial
and was mostly disputed by conventional tacticians who did not want troops to interfere in the grand scheme
the grand overall scheme of the battle plan
and who would rather specify their objectives.
While high ranking generals, from then on, enjoyed more freedom of initiative and command
the lower ranks of officers were still grilled in column tactics
because of the size of the army's body and the openness of the battlefield
Now, this was about to change further when Moltke the Elder was commanding as chief of staff of the Prussian army
Molke said "Diverse are the situation's
under which an officer has to act on the basis of his own view of the situation
it would be wrong if he had to wait for orders at times when no orders can be given.
But most productive are his actions when he act within the framework
of his senior commanders intent."
The Great War reawakened and reshaped those ideas in the form of two new German principles.
The deep defense and the storm battalions.
Trench warfare was fast and confusing and officers had to react quickly and with resolve.
The freedom of command was given to even lower rank officers to act on their own
either during defense or in attack out of reach of the higher command
it's true that the general idea of mission tactics was way older than the Great War,
but this war was the first that specifically focused more and more small groups of men that acted as self-reliant teams.
Officers could get killed, communications cut, units lost, but to fight on you had to rely on even low
ranking officers or veterans to act competently on their own.
some old-school thinkers in the hierarchy refused to accept the new reality that leading from horseback,
if you want to call it that, was out of style, but
form gave way to necessity.
The German army perfected the art of small unit tactics further in the 20th century
with the focus on the Feldwebel that would be adopted, for example, by the
US Army in their heavy reliance on the sergeant and the platoon
Ethan Summer says "Great show, I have a question. When troops went over the top,
how did they typically deal with their own barbed wire directly in front of their trenches?
Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Keep up the great work." Thank You, Ethan.
The barbed wire in front of their own trenches had gaps in it
usually they were set up so they were in the line of fire of machine guns to let
the enemy funnel in and then mow them down easily from the sides.
That was usually enough for small raiding teams to slip through going out,
but most lines of barbed wire we're not in place inmovable objects.
At least, if they were still intact and had not been destroyed by shelling.
You had specialized troops, often pioneers, that knew how to handle barbed wire emplacements.
They would go out, mostly in the cover of night, and then grab and drag them out of the way,
out over to the side.
This was mostly in preparation of a larger offensive were a huge amount of troops
had to go over the top all at once
There were, of course, variants of barbed wire and there were some that were like
nets on the ground. Now, this was very hard to get rid of, but these were
usually used to make some areas completely off limits
Steffan Amundson on patreon patron writes
"Hi, Indy! What setting during World War one do you think would be the best or
most impressive to bring into the Battlefield 1 game? Been following you
before the announcements. smiley face"
We are actually all very excited that we got so many new fans
because of the... when the trailer came out and then our trailer review came out, so
that's really cool, so glad we got you
Um, let's say, not a setting per se but I would be excited
to hear the sounds of the Great War you know, um, the drumming of old field guns,
the shrieking of forgotten tank engines, the the buzzing of the first
military aircraft gliding through the skies in pursuit of each other,
the cracking of old machine guns,
the hissing of shrapnel as its falling about to explode through the air. I mean
it's it's probably kind of morbid curiosity on my part but it is something.
Sound, it is something that is totally missing in the history of the Great War,
since it was just not possible, at the time, to record the sounds of the battlefield.
Now... okay not everyone plays video games and that's fine, but it is a medium that has
like movies, in a way, the potential to reproduce a world with all of its
features that would be otherwise just left to your imagination and if they do
somehow manage to get that game to be even somewhat close to being accurate
like the game Verdun did before
it would be a win for every history fan
Dan Carlin once said that he would love the idea of flying over one of those
ancient battlefield in a balloon just to witness what it was like maybe video games
are and will be the closest thing we get to fulfill this wishful thinking.
If you'd like to see our episode that was just about storm troops and trench
warfare, you can click right here for that.
Do not forget to subscribe and I'll try not to forget the call to action.
See you next time.