Since the late 1970s, anglophone and German military literature has
been fascinated by the Wehrmacht's command system, especially the
practice of Auftragstaktik. There have been many descriptions of
the doctrine, and examinations of its historical origins, as well
as unflattering comparisons with the approaches of the British and
American armies prior to their adoption of Mission Command in the
late 1980s. Almost none of these, however, have sought to
understand the different approaches to command in the context of a
fundamental characteristic of warfare - friction. This would be
like trying to understand flight, without any reference to
aerodynamics. Inherently flawed, yet this is the norm in the
military literature. This book seeks to address that gap. First,
the nature of friction, and the potential command responses to it,
are considered. This allows the development of a typology of eight
command approaches, each approach then being tested to identify its
relative effectiveness and requirements for success. Second, the
British and German armies' doctrines of command during the period
are examined, in order to reveal similarities and differences in
relation to their perspective on the nature of warfare and the most
appropriate responses. The experience of Erwin Rommel, both as a
young subaltern fighting the Italians in 1917, and then as a
newly-appointed divisional commander against the French in 1940, is
used to test the expression of the German doctrine in practice.
Third, the interaction of these different command doctrines is
explored in case studies of two key armoured battles, Amiens in
August 1918 and Arras in May 1940, allowing the strengths and
weaknesses of each to be highlighted and the typology to be tested.
The result is intended to offer a new and deeper understanding of
both the nature of command as a response to friction, and the
factors that need to be in place in order to allow a given command
approach to achieve success. The book therefore in two ways
represents a sequel to my earlier work, Command or Control?
Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies,
1888-1918 (London: Cass, 1995), in that it both takes the
conceptual model of command developed there to a deeper level, and
also takes the story from the climax of 1918 up to the end of the
first phase of the Second World War.
General
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