Chapter V: The Critics

Except the conduct of military operations there is nothing so difficult as to appreciate them truly. A multitude of considerations affect the leading of armies and many of them evade the research of the historian. The critic therefore can rarely be sure that he has placed himself in the exact position of the general whose acts he is studying. If, for example, he supposes a commander to have been without information which in fact he possessed, his judgment may be founded upon a picture completely distorted. Such mistakes are made even by the most careful historians. The Prussian staff history of the campaign of 1866 alleges that the Austrian commanders were unaware of the Crown Prince's march westwards from the Neisse. The Austrian staff history shows that very good information on the subject had reached the Austrian headquarters as early as June 25, before any of the Crown Prince's corps had crossed the border. Where it is so difficult to avoid error it is rash to be dogmatic. But it may be permissible to raise a doubt as to the value of some of the judgments that seem to have become traditional concerning this campaign. Mr. O'Connor Morris, for example, in the _Academy_ of March 23, 1889, wrote:--"The strategy of Moltke is not perfection, as worshippers of success have boasted, but he never attempted, in his invasion of France, to unite widely divided armies, within striking distance of a concentrated foe, as he did at Gitschin, under the very beard of Benedek."[1] A similar criticism, without the sneer, may be found in the Belgian _Précis_. But neither writer has explained where the mistake lay. Even the Austrian historian declares that, given the Prussian positions on the Neisse and in Lusatia, the only sound course was the advance to meet at Gitschin. Was the error in the original dispersion of the forces along the frontier? If so, the critics should explain what alternative was practicable in view of the political conditions and of the geography of the theatre of war. Would it not be safer to say that the preparations for the campaign of 1866 show the influence upon strategy of a very complicated political situation? The opening of the campaign of 1870 presented in comparison a simple problem. There was a single enemy to be faced; and there was no motive for hesitation or delay. Moreover, the German staff could count upon beginning the campaign on the least favourable hypothesis with 330,000 men against 250,000.[2] Possibly in 1866 the strategists' task would have been easier, and posterity would have thought no worse of Prussian policy if the king had realized early in May that mobilization meant war, and had given Moltke from that time a free hand. But this again is a criticism easy to make twenty years after the event. The conflict was between Germans, and the general opinion at the time condemned the Prussian policy. Moreover, Prussia had then no important success on record since the decisive stroke at Waterloo. In these conditions the king's hesitation was natural enough, and even the anxiety to cover every part of Prussian territory is quite intelligible. Much must needs remain obscure, for it may be years before the personal history of the principal actors at this period is given to the world. Meanwhile, the function of criticism is to seek first of all to understand the events with which it deals.

It is of little purpose to read a summary of the movements of the troops during a campaign, and to be given a list of the mistakes made by the generals on each side. Such a system leads the reader to suppose that generals as a rule have been remarkably careless, weak, and ignorant, and entirely conceals from him the difficulties which always beset the conduct of operations. But where a measure adopted in the field is shown by the result to have been attended with risks or followed by disaster, the attempt to ascertain why it was employed invariably throws light upon the nature of war; and this method of study, though it offers little satisfaction to the vanity that likes to take a side and to distribute praise or blame, rewards, by quickening the insight and forming the judgment, the labour which it requires.

[1] If Mr. O'Connor Morris will mark on a map the positions of the Austrian and Prussian armies on June 22nd, the date of the order "to unite widely divided armies," etc., he will discover that the Austrian forces were distributed over an area not less extended than that which included both Prussian armies.

[2] _German Staff History_, 1870-71, vol. i. p. 74.