Types of Battle Action
A battle must practically always be of the nature of Attack and Defence, but the attitude originally assumed by either of the opposing forces may be reversed during an engagement. A vigorous counter-attack by an army offering battle in a defensive position may throw the adversary on the defensive, while an assailant may fight a delaying action in one part of the field, although in another part his action may be essentially offensive. There are three distinct systems of Battle Action: the entirely defensive; the entirely offensive; and the combined, or defensive-offensive system.
THE DEFENSIVE BATTLE has seldom effected positive results, except, perhaps, at Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), where Meade permitted Lee to break his forces against a strong position, with the result that the Army of Northern Virginia had to withdraw, and the invasion of the North came to an end. It must, however, be borne in mind that General Lee was badly served by his subordinate, and General Meade’s success was largely due to this factor. On the second day of Gettysburg (July 2, 1863), General J. B. Hood’s 1st Division of General J. Longstreet’s I. Army Corps was deploying round the left of the Federal Army south of the Round Tops. He saw a chance to strike and requested permission from Longstreet. Hood’s plan was the only one which gave a reasonable chance of decisive victory with the troops available. Longstreet, in obedience to the letter of his orders, but contrary to their spirit, refused to sanction Hood’s advance. Longstreet’s failure to seize a fleeting opportunity sounded the death-knell of the Confederate cause.
Burnside was defeated at Fredericksburg (December 10-16, 1862) by purely defensive tactics, but Lee had intended to follow up his victory by a decisive counter-blow, which Burnside escaped by extricating the Army of the Potomac before the blow fell. Success, even to the limited degree achieved by Meade or Lee, seldom follows the adoption of purely defensive tactics. “There is no such thing as an ‘impregnable position,’ for any position the defence of which is merely passive is bound to be carried at last by a manoeuvring enemy” (Marshal Foch).
THE OFFENSIVE BATTLE.—The Entirely Offensive system has been employed by many of the greatest commanders, including Marlborough at Blenheim (August 2, 1704), Ramillies (May 23, 1706), and Malplaquet (September 11, 1709); Frederick the Great, notably at Leuthen (December 5, 1757); Napoleon, Wellington, and Grant, as also by the Prussian generals at almost every engagement in the campaigns of 1866 and 1870-71. The disadvantage of the system is that lack of success may entail not only a local disaster but the wreck and annihilation of the whole army.
At the Battle of Blenheim (August 2, 1704), Marlborough, “the greatest captain of his age,” had concentrated his forces with those of Prince Eugene of Savoy the previous day and commanded an army of 56,000 men with 52 guns. He was confronted by the joint armies of Marshal Tallard and the Elector of Bavaria, amounting to 60,000 men with 61 guns. It was necessary for Marlborough to attack before Villeroy joined the enemy, or to withdraw until a more favourable opportunity presented itself. The right flank of his opponents rested on high hills, which were protected by detached posts, and the left flank on the Danube, while opposite the centre was the marshy valley of the River Nebel, with several branches running through the swampy ground. Marlborough decided that a battle was absolutely necessary and he attacked the next day. Like Hannibal, he relied principally on his cavalry for achieving his decisive success, and this predilection was known to the opposing commanders. He attacked the enemy’s right and left wings, and when heavily engaged with varying fortunes launched his decisive attack against the centre, where the difficulties of the ground caused it to be least expected. Marlborough lost 5,000 killed and 8,000 wounded. The vanquished armies were almost destroyed, at least 40,000 being accounted for, with 12,000 killed, 14,000 wounded and missing, and 14,000 prisoners.
THE DEFENSIVE-OFFENSIVE BATTLE.—The Defensive-Offensive system consists in taking up a position which the enemy must attack, and in delivering a decisive counter-stroke when the adversary has exhausted his strength. This system has been employed in almost every campaign. By such means Napoleon achieved his classic victories of Marengo (June 14, 1800), Austerlitz (December 2, 1805), and Dresden (August 27, 1813); and Wellington his Peninsular victories at Vittoria (June 21, 1813), Orthez (February 27, 1814), and Toulouse (April 10, 1814), in addition to his final triumph at Waterloo (June 18, 1815); and it was the method adopted by Marshal Foch in the decisive campaign of 1918, which endured from March until the Armistice in November.
At the Battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815), the decisive counter-stroke was delivered, in accordance with Wellington’s pre-arranged plan, by a force coming from a distance to the scene of action. On the morning of June 17, when Wellington resolved to make a stand at Waterloo, he was aware that the Prussians, who were mostly young troops, had been beaten at Ligny; that Napoleon had, before that battle, over 120,000 men, and that he himself had, all told, 68,000, of whom 31,000, including the King’s German Legion, were British. Yet he withdrew from Quatre Bras with the full determination of standing at Waterloo and of fighting Napoleon’s army, if Marshal Blücher would come to his assistance with one Army Corps. Napoleon attacked on June 18 with 72,000 men and 246 guns, against Wellington’s 68,000 men with 156 guns, at 11 a.m., but he was unable to shift the line or break through the squares. At 4.30 p.m. one of Blücher’s corps was delivering the promised counter-attack against Napoleon’s line of communications. Soon after 9 p.m. Wellington and Blücher met at La Belle Alliance, Napoleon’s headquarters before the battle, and the pursuit was in full swing.
Opportunities for restoring the battle and for turning impending defeat into a crushing victory are frequently offered during an engagement. General Lee’s thin lines at Antietam or Sharpsburg (September 17, 1862), slowly fed by men jaded by heavy marching, were sorely pressed, but there was a lull in the Federal attack when Hooker’s advance was checked. Had General McClellan at that moment thrown in “his last man and his last horse” in a vigorous reinforcing attack, Antietam would not have been a drawn battle, and Lee would not have retired at his leisure into Virginia. Lee’s great victory at Chancellorsville (May 2-3, 1863), although marred by the accident which deprived him of Stonewall Jackson, was a striking instance of the success of the Defensive-Offensive system at the hands of a great commander, who defeated 90,000 troops with less than half that number, by a containing defence with 13,000 men and a decisive counter-stroke with the remainder.
But while this combined system is regarded by most authorities as the best, when circumstances warrant its adoption, it is the highest test of generalship to seize the right moment to pass from the guard to the thrust. This is the problem which confronted Marshal Foch, the generalissimo of the Allied Forces, during the great German offensive movement on the Western Front in 1918. The defensive rôle endured from March 21 until July 17, 1918, and although many local counter-attacks were made along the whole battle front, the Allies did not pass from the guard to the thrust until the decisive counter-stroke was commenced in the Second Battle of the Marne (July 18, 1918) on a front of 27 miles from Fontenoy to Belleau, which drove the Germans back across the Marne on July 20.
THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE MARNE (July 18, 1918).—The great German offensive of March-June, 1918, was renewed on July 15, when the artillery preparation opened shortly after midnight and troops were poured across the Marne in small boats and over pontoon bridges. The attack was not unexpected. Adequate reserves were ready and in place, and a heavy counter-bombardment on the German troops in their positions of assembly, close to their front-line trenches, caused heavy casualties. The Germans succeeded in penetrating the French and American positions in parts of the 50-mile front to a maximum depth of 4 miles south-west of Reims, but on the Plains of Champagne little progress was made and the attack lost its momentum. During the attack of March 21, 1918, the advance was not held up until it was within striking distance of its ultimate objective, and the offensive on the Aisne in May, 1918, secured an advance of 12 miles. Captured documents showed that the attack of July east of Reims was intended to reach the Marne at Eperney and Chalons, an advance of 21 miles. A feature of the earlier days of the battle was a spirited counter-attack near Fossoy (on the extreme left of the German forces) by a division of the American Army which thrust the Germans behind their first line and captured upwards of 1,000 prisoners, the ground regained in the river bend being consolidated and held by the American division. The battle continued for three days before the German attack was brought to a standstill, and at 4.80 a.m. on July 18 a counter-attack by the French, American, and Italian forces changed the whole aspect of the campaign, and led to the final triumph of the Allies and to the downfall of the Central Powers.