Blessed are the merciless for they have inherited the earth.
Once I interviewed a psychopath who was in prison. He was in his forties, charming, intelligent, sun tanned, lean, and all went well. As I was leaving, as we were shaking hands, eyes locked, he said to me, “its good I met you in here, Richard, because if I met you outside, I’d kill you in a minute,” and gave a friendly laugh.
I thought of that when lately I was thinking of the causes of WWII, and Hitler. You see the images of Hitler on the American Heroes Channel, (talk about misleading hyperbole), with his mustache, and you suddenly realize that we have to brush aside the idea that he was some mythic figure with supernatural powers. He was a man just like me and you. If you study his face without its mustache, you see that he has high forehead crowned by hair, and a thin, triangular face. It is not a handsome face, but a grim and unwelcoming face. The trouble starts when you study his mouth. That is where his innate cruelty is expressed very clearly. It is a sinister mouth. The lips are misshapen and vulgar, belligerent, with a hint of a sneer. Studying the mouth is worthwhile.
The difference between Hitler and the rest of us is that he was a psychopath who was brilliant, charming, equipped with a photographic memory like Napoleon, and, who, if you got in his way, would have you killed in a minute like my inmate. He was completely unscrupulous.
Hitler as a human being is utterly reprehensible, but as a strategist he is worth considering, especially when we consider IS and its methods.
Part of the gift of imagination is to be able to foresee effects. It we take an action what will its results be? What are the effects that a policy engenders? What are the consequences? What are the new things to which such a policy gives birth? What new formations or entities will it encourage” What elements does it contain that will it lead to failure? To have no idea of these is to open the path to disaster. Ready made assumptions kill imagination and dull the mind to the consequences of what they have enacted.
The habitual image of Nazi military operations is that of the juggernaut, allegorical reference to the Hindu Ratha Yatra “temple car” which apocryphally was reputed “to crush devotees under its wheels,” according to Wikipedia. In other words, Hitler’s military was depicted as something mercilessly destructive and unstoppable.
The juggernaut image is mistaken and misleading. Hitler was very far from conceiving any sort of military “steamroller” when he first came to power. That wasn’t his strategy. The punitive measures of the Versailles Treaty had destroyed the German standard of living. Germany had been defeated in the war, and she had lost much territory, but she had not been destroyed, and her nationalists took into account Germany’s geographical position, its industrial power and population and began to work to restore its economic and political stability. Rebuilding its military remained in the background.
Britain continued its blockade of Germany for a year after the German surrender, an act that left many Germans to starve. The country was in chaos. The British blockade, plus the way the Allies saddled the cost of the war on Germany, had helped to collapse of Germany’s economic system. That collapse had destroyed the basis for the political support for the Weimar Republic. The result was that people hungered for more radical political order to restore the country’s prestige. National Socialism was the answer. (I know these assertions can be argued, and numerous books have been written about them and I am picking and choosing among my library to make an argument.)
Unfortunately, the Versailles Treaty ended up doing just the opposite of what it intended to do. It had tried to weaken Germany physically but helped to build it up geographically. The treaty used Poland, Romania, and Hungary as a kind of cordon sanitare but in fact, those states would position Germany to dominate central Europe. As Henry Kissinger said, The Treaty was too sweeping and too begrudging at the same time,
What is fascinating is to watch how Hitler would reverse the French domination of central Europe set up by the Versailles Treaty. Clausewitz maintained that “All wars can be considered acts of policy” (Clausewitz, 88) and therefore the military cannot not operate independent of the political aims. But he seems to believe that, “The bloody solution of the crisis, the effort for the destruction of the enemy’s forces, is the first born son of war.” He also said that, “Only great and general battles can produce great results.”
“Let us not hear of generals who conquer without bloodshed.”
But the one quote is the one Hitler seized on. “There is only one single means, it is the fight.” He modified this: “The object of combat is not always the destruction of the enemy’s forces...its object can be attained as well without combat taking place.” Hitler’s strategy of nibbling away that the opponent’s flank seems to be his plan. . The armed defenses of the West were formidable, and he deeply respected them. How to get around them or neutralize them or bypass them -- that was the dilemma. Hitler knew that a country’s geography was its fate and he had a keen sense of geography as strategy.
One of Hitler’s chief goals when he came to power was to ensure Germany’s food supply by expanding to the East. There could be no restoration of the German nation if its people were left to starve.
He knew clearly that Germany was an underdog in the world order. The statement seems s obvious that you could trip over it, but it is true and should be considered. Nor only was he an underdog, but he wanted, above all things, to avoid another big war.
When you are an underdog, what methods do you use to nullify opposing forces that were stronger than yours? Hitler clearly saw the answer. Hitler’s guiding concept was not to destroy the enemy’s forces, but to unnerve them. You used paralysis, not force. You subdued your enemy at the lowest cost of your resources by using indirect means such as Fifth Columns and sympathizers in the countries you targeted. You did this while inflicting the minimum injury to the post war order. You struck at weakness, not strength -- striking at strength was too expensive. Oblique action, propaganda, economic pressure, diplomacy, and subversion were the chief instruments of strategy to break the strategic encirclement of Germany.
According to military historian, Basil Hart, a man killed in battle is one-man less on the face of the Earth, but a man unnerved is a virus infecting his surroundings with disorientation, fear and terror. Hitler once said, “Our real wars will be fought before military operations begin.” You destroy the enemy from within “to conquer him through himself.” one of his strategists said. Your aim was to undermine your opponent’s balance, his psychological and physical resources, in preparing for his overthrow. His rule was never to use your own forces but let the bulk of the work be done by German sympathizers who lived in the countries Hitler wanted to conquer.
(Clearly unnerving your enemy is a centerpiece of ISIS’ strategy, and what willing aides they have in the media.) Hitler wanted for his enemies to capitulate without a battle.
The data that support these statements come from Hart’s History of the Second World War. In his book on earlier book, “Strategy” Hart had already done a wonderful insightful dissection of Hitler’s use of Fifth Columns in the invasion of Denmark and Norway and later in the invasion of France.
Food Supply
Foodstuffs for Hitler became a primary issue.
Germany in the 1920s and 30s was starving, as we said. That was Hitler’s most pressing concern. Hitler wanted to expand east to guarantee Germany’s the food supply. He wanted to restore the German nation -- that was his chief purpose, but at the time, he mostly he wanted to secure Germany’s food supply.
As many expected, in1935, Hitler threw off the arms limitation of the Versailles treaty. Hitler went into the Rhineland to endure the safety of the Ruhr which had been occupied by France in 1923. This action made Hitler’s general’s jittery and had most of them sucking their knuckles, but it worked.
In 1936, when Hitler sent aid to the Spanish dictator Franco who was attempting to overturn the Spanish government, Hitler knew that he was positioning Germany at the underbelly of France and the U.K., but his generals were alarmed and aid was trimmed back.
Hitler always wanted to attack weak or isolated countries while throwing the burden of attack on his opponents. Hitler more, than most leaders of the West, had a great respect for the strength of Western defenses, and he wanted lure the West into the burdens of attack. If the Allies declared war, they would be forfeiting the advantages of defense, without the necessary resources to make it stick. If they tapped at the Siegfried Line, it would do nothing and it would forfeit their prestige. If they attacked on a large scale, they would only pile up losses. The British talked big but lacked a big stick.
It is the opinion of Hart and Henry Kissinger that Britain’s contemptuous carelessness, the fact that its leaders were so sunk in such idiotic complacency when it came to Germany, that their leaders helped to cause WW II. In 1937, Lord Halifax, the second in office under the Prime Minister, had a meeting with German leaders in Berlin, where he told the Germans that the British were happy to give them free hand when it came to German expansion in the East. The British distrusted the Poles, and on the whole didn’t care about the countries of Eastern Europe. In addition, Russia had always been a traditional enemy of UK; and the British they detested the Soviet regime on religious grounds and wanted no part of it.
Hitler marched into Austria in March of 1938, uncovering the flank of Czechoslovakia. This action destroyed the “iron curtain” as it was then called – the security girdle forged by the French after WW I.
In September 1938, he secured by the Munich Agreement that granted the return of the Sudetenland which meant the paralysis of Czechoslovakia. Poland had taken a slice of the Czechoslovakia and Hungary had threatened its rear. The British had given a guarantee of assistance to the Czech’s, but when the country broke apart, the British thought the guarantee null and void.
In March of 1939, Hitler occupied the rest of the country which laid open the flank to Poland.
All the while France and Britain slumbered in self complacency and had surrendered to comfort and inertia. They were unalert, stupid and unthinking. None of these moves by Hitler produced much alarm. In fact, at one point Russia offered Britain a security agreement to safeguard Poland but Britain had refused, bored.
In March of 1939, optimism of Europe was reckless and giddy. The British believed their rearmament programs along with America’s, plus Germany economic catastrophe would steer Europe away form war. Britain was even thinking of signing a commercial treaty with Germany.
But what had these moves by Hitler done? Germany had not only destroyed the French domination of central Europe and the strategic encirclement of Germany, but had reversed it in his own favor. Germany still had little fear of a widespread war.
Then came the tragic British misstep. Hot heads in the UK suddenly issued a guarantee of support to Poland and Romania without consulting with Russia. This sudden move, this sharp reversal of attitude, was bound to be seen as a provocation to Hitler, and it was.
Russia they had already refused to help the Poles, and the Poles hated the Russians and didn’t want their help. But incredibly, Britain had placed its destiny and its whole idea of the balance of power in the hands of the Poles whose government was corrupt and shaky. This blind, impulsive reversal of attitude was not only ill thought out, but it had lacked military forces to enforce it.
Both Poland and Romania were strategically isolated. Poland and Romania were inaccessible. Safeguarding them without military backing was surely going to be seen as a provocation and a huge temptation for Germany because the French and British had no military strength there. No one had thought of how to defend the Poles. What was also ignored was that Polish forces were out of date and yet they were boasting that war with Germany would be a mere “a cavalry ride to Berlin.”
Poland was governed by very dubious people. Later, Churchill called Poland a “hyena appetite” who had just joined in the pillage of Czech a few months before, yet he had given his support to Chamberlin nonetheless. Rather than checking Germany by a strong attack by the West, the French and British stood by unprepared when Hitler broke the weak front in the East.
Hart argues that the only sound policy for British would be one of sanctions combined with economic and diplomatic boycott while sending arms to the victims of aggression. But that would take time. He thought that the guarantees to Poland and Romania were ill conceived and strategically ineffective. They might have spared themselves the humiliation of declaring war when they could not make it stick.
While Britain had begun wary negotiations with Stalin, Hitler in August of 1939 concluded the Nazi Soviet Pact that divided Poland. Hart says the first French offensive on the Siegfried Line failed miserably, rattling the neutral countries. In no time, Hitler now consolidated his military gains. While the French and British were thinking of how the neutral countries adjoining Germany night be a way to get on his flank, Hitler turned the allies flank by invading no less than five neutral countries, being free from any scruples.
Again, Hitler wanted no big war. His plan was to pounce on “Scandinavia countries and the Low Countries and offer a peace to the British before he turned east. Denmark and Norway were next. He wanted to neutralize the North Sea and the English Channel and put sub and aircraft bases along the Atlantic coast. The British were relying on their Navy and overlooked a land uprising in Norway supported by Germany. It was not German forces, but locals, supported by German forces who captured Norway and Denmark, and Hitler would not have attacked (he wanted Norway neutral) until the British began to mull over plans to lay mines and invade it themselves. Holland, Belgium, France were infested with German sympathizers. JNC Fuller said at the time of the German attack in May of 1940, there was “treason in the French Army from top to bottom.”
The lack of any Fifth Column in Russia would prove to be a major setback for Hitler.
Throughout all these moves, Hitler still clung to his basic precept of expanding to the East.
Enough.
America is extremely lucky to have flanks that it could defend. We rely on Canada, on our oceans, and our weak flanks are Mexico and Cuba. Missiles of course, changed the strategic picture forever. Nothing was out of reach of an attack.
I keep thinking of Obama’s policy of establishing a new Iraqi army to defeat ISIS and the first thought that occurs is that what we trying to do is establish an Iraqi Army to defeat forces that U.S. forces couldn’t defeat. The failure of such forces is almost a given.
But what about the question of flanks in countries adjoining ISIS?
What are the targets for IS? That’s the puzzler. I will try to write more.
All
I do not usually comment on SST guest author's essays but, in this case Richard and I have discussed this and so I will.
I have a problem with his evident interpretation of Clausewitz. Richard appears to subscribe to the idea that KvonC is so focussed on the combat parts of war that this is really all he is about. This view of the essentially incomplete book, "Vom Kriege" was very popular in the 19th and early 20th Centuries but is now thought of as inadequate by many, including me. In those days such terms as "The Mahdi of Mass" were applied to KvonC. He was a much subtler thinker than that.
He is a philosopher of war, a philosopher of war as a specialized act of will by which one polity seeks to compel another to accept the aggressor's wishes. In that process KvonC sees ALL WAR as "merely the continuation of policy by other means." To the end of continuing the originating policy by force, KvonC believed that successful war was possible only through the willing unity of what he called the trinity of "people, state and army." Without that unity of all the elements of society, he thought success to be very unlikely.
KvonC believed that once the army part of the trinity was employed then it must be seen that "war is ... an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." and that "only great and general battles can produce great results," but that does not mean that he thought that THE WAR as a whole was simply a matter of great and general battles. KvonC thought of "absolute war," a favorite term for him, as "the way Napoleon waged war." (Michael Handel said this to me). Because of his Napoleonic context KvonC tended to think in terms of the kinds of battles and campaigns that Napoleon waged Austerlitz being the greatest example. But, as I wrote earlier "Vom Kriege" is essentially an unfinished work. He intended to write much additional material on what he (and Vo Nguyen Giap) called "people's war." Unfortunately, life is short and he never wrote that part except for a lot of notes that he left behind. If he had done so then it might have been clearer that Napoleon's experiences in Spain and Russia with guerrillas had a lot more relevance than some have thought is implied by the existing text, and that great battle like Gettysburg or Eylau are not necessarily the only path to victory. My point is that KvonC saw war as a full spectrum social experience for a country or people, and not as simply a matter of battles lost and won. pl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz
Posted by: turcopolier | 27 February 2015 at 12:02 PM
Thank you Richard for this insightful piece, as always. Hope you won't mind me disagreeing with you on some minor points, even though I understand your baseline and the necessity to choose among various theories about WWII and Nazi Germany the one that has your favour.
I find the analogy with early German strategy to bypass Allied superiority quite interesting. When looking at ISIS' actions in the ME, it reminds me of what Muhammad Ali said before his fight against Sonny Liston: "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can't hit what the eyes can't see" (apologies for quoting the great Ali in same sentence as ISIS, but you get what I mean).
There definitely was something similar at work in Germany between 1933 and 1939. However, once has to consider that Hitler was a man driven by an idea and that reality always came second to that idea. As a visionary, he was able to secure gains nobody thought possible. But his great strategic aim was to avoid what was Germany's undoing in WWI, that is a "two front war". Beating the Anlgo-French was always going to be a priority before turning eastward, for his great enterprise of "Drang nach Osten", in a reset of 14th expansion by Teutonic Knights, or claiming back what he considered ancient Germanic tribal areas, if you go as far as (pre-)history.
That is where the balance between rationale thinking for tactical gains and genocidal strategic ideology went missing. At one point, even though there should have been a reality check, the fantasies of a fourth "Reich" that would last for a thousand years took precedence and led to blunders of epic proportions.
Whether ISIS will itself be victim of such hubris and delusions of grandeur remains to be seen. Regarding the Flanking strategy though, one has to accept the premise that it is definitely within ISIS reach to create such a flanking move aimed at putting pressure onto Baghdad through advances both in the West (in a south-east push) and in the East (through a much more difficult push towards Iranian border and Kurdish areas). I can't see that happen, except for a political agreement with the Kurds, in particular Talabani's PUK party, as Barzani's KDP is more hostile to ISIS.
Whether or not ISIS manages to reach its strategic goals in Iraq might actually be crucial to the survival of its leader Abubakr al-Baghdadi. Keep in mind that the ME has a tradition of political assassination and "coup d'état", contrary to the militaristic German State of Prussian inspiration. Caliphs, tyrants and dictators have been routinely sent to the afterlife in the ME. Not so in Germany, which is also one of the reasons why Hitler managed to stay in control until the bitter end.
That being said, I fully agree with the baseline of your piece, regarding the necessity to contemplate the consequences of actions, before deciding about a course of action. For every action, there's a reaction ... Being able to anticipate those possible reactions, 3-4-5 moves ahead, with all the contingencies that they entail, that is what makes a real statesman or shrewd politician.
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 27 February 2015 at 12:37 PM
Sorry Pat, had already posted a first comment on Richard's piece, before I saw yours, but I concur with your assessment.
The fact that Clausewitz' conceptions are coming back nowadays is certainly related to politicians wanting to consider war as another way of achieving their political goals with regards to foreign policy or vital/national "interests", whether for good or bad.
The prospect of MAD had prevented any such thinking from materializing in Europe during the cold war made, but today, some people think they can revert to this summarized version of Clausewitz' thoughts about war as a continuation of politics by other means.
What they fail to apprehend is, as you mention, the fact that war is not happening in a vacuum in which only the military assets you put in place have a bearing on the outcome, but war is seen by Clausewitz as an entreprise encompassing all aspects of society.
In this sense, he is one of the first military thinkers who entertained the idea of "total war". The industrialisation would add to this concept another dimension, which culminated into Europe's tumbling into WWI.
However, Clausewitz didn't not just write about "grand war" as such, but also about what he called "small war", when he worked on this concept with Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. This concept of "small war" is often overlooked, but is not very distant to what we would call "asymetric warfare" today and it could be linked to communist works about "people's wars" as incarnated by Giap's campaigns answering the "total war" unleashed upon him by his adversaries with the "total mobilization" of the people.
A very interesting subject, as current events show that making the wrong diagnosis, even based on brilliant thinkers, can only lead to administering the wrong cure.
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 27 February 2015 at 12:57 PM
Patrick Bahzad
When I was a student at the War College there was a brief period in which KvonC was in fashion, but the Fulda gap beckoned as as a summons to a very simplified form of attritional combat leading to eventual escalation to nucs and he soon fell from favor except with strange people like me. Is the material on "small war" available in English or French? pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 27 February 2015 at 01:03 PM
It is available in French, as we never totally stopped studying it, considering the kind of engagements we had during our colonial or post-colonial wars, but I can check if the "Ecole de guerre" has an English version of it.
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 27 February 2015 at 01:17 PM
(I know these assertions can be argued, and numerous books have been written about them and I am picking and choosing among my library to make an argument.)
~~~~~
Well, THAT part can't be contested. The Nazis were indeed concerned about a repeat of WW1 hunger, and worked to ensure it wouldn't happen again. After the blitzkreig victory in the West, that was guaranteed. For the remainder of the war Germany lived 'high on the hog' with confiscated foods from the conquered lands. Attacking the USSR was about a German Empire and nothing else.
"Then came the tragic British misstep. Hot heads in the UK suddenly issued a guarantee of support to Poland and Romania without consulting with Russia. This sudden move, this sharp reversal of attitude, was bound to be seen as a provocation to Hitler, and it was."
I'm sorry, but this is just plain silly.
Posted by: Zachary Smith | 27 February 2015 at 01:18 PM
Patrick Bahzad
I would like to see these documents. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 27 February 2015 at 01:36 PM
If you interested in the French version, I have that at home somewhere, so could send it right away ! for English translation, as mentioned, would have to get back to "Ecole de Guerre" library and ask.
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 27 February 2015 at 01:46 PM
OK Pat, will send by mail ! few hundred pages of it though ;-)
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 27 February 2015 at 01:47 PM
Patrick Bahzad
Will be glad to reimburse for expense. Perhaps there is a digital version in either language? pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 27 February 2015 at 02:10 PM
Pat, Just sent you all I got here as PDF or Word onto your email ! Hope it came through !
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 27 February 2015 at 02:22 PM
You can get it scanned and send the electronic PDF file.
It would be very large.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 27 February 2015 at 02:36 PM
War and certainly modern warfare is so complex IMO that few but professional soldiers understand it and many professional soldiers fortunate for me contribute to this blog.
But there may be a fundamental flaw in the thinking of KvonC and later theoreticians of warfare. Is almost a foregone conclusion that at least two lessons of WWII have proved lasting. First that the apparatus of the nation-state can if fully developed control large populations whether in peace or war. And the absence of open fully militarized warfare is certainly not peace.
Sir John Keegan in his ON WAR identifies many age-old factors in humans that can lead to warfare. IMO nuclear weapons have almost nothing to do with the human traditions of warfare.
But neither does the actions of ISIS/DAESH have anything to do with the modern state.
And the second transformational change since WWII is that the real elements of a nation-states power may no longer have much to do with traditions of human warfare.
The past is not prologue!
Posted by: William R. Cumming | 27 February 2015 at 03:13 PM
Babak
There are services like "We Transfer" that will send gigabytes of files free. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 27 February 2015 at 03:34 PM
For some of our wars today, the question, enemies, foreign or domestic, comes to mind.
As a means to assert control, quash dissent, bait-and-switch policy formation, transfer wealth, sabotage future governance by not funding the wars, etc, etc, which I know are pressing concerns for many domestic politicians, aside from war rabid true believers.
Posted by: Charles I | 27 February 2015 at 04:12 PM
I have nothing to add, but thanks to all for an interesting discussion. Perhaps time to pull my copy of "Strategy" off the book shelve.
I have an interesting shelve organization, "Strategy" sits next to "Terror out of Zion."
Time to reread both
Posted by: Tigershark | 27 February 2015 at 11:30 PM
Col.,
"...it might have been clearer that Napoleon's experiences in Spain and Russia with guerrillas had a lot more relevance than some have thought is implied by the existing text..."
Is this a factor that can be used against ISIS in their attempts to control territories in the proclaimed Caliphate? Doesn't the existing natural tendencies within Sunni Islam that generates the ISIS adherents give them an additional source of recruiting should guerrilla warfare be used against them or does successful action influence such potential recruits to find another outlet for their action?
Posted by: Fred | 28 February 2015 at 08:31 AM
My dad, who was in Germany in 1937, spoke fluent German, and heard some of Hitler's speeches in person said that in person (and in German) he was electrifying, charismatic. The old film clips we see and most of us can't understand fail to convey that.
Posted by: Dave Schuler | 28 February 2015 at 08:39 AM
Dave Schuler:
"The old film clips we see and most of us can't understand fail to convey that."
They conveyed it to me when I listened to tapes of some of those speeches a while back. This, however, may be related to the fact that more than half a century I was marginally fluent in German and over the years have retained a feel for the cadence of the language. Sadly the fluency has almost completely withered away from disuse.
Posted by: ex-PFC Chuck | 28 February 2015 at 11:59 AM
There is a dimension missing from this piece; Hitler had a great deal of British and American admirers both for his transformation of Germany and as the proverbial "Bulwark against Communism", I venture to suggest that the road to World War II was hardly as linear and easy to see and perhaps avoid as is suggested, nor were the main players ignorant dolts.
I suggest that one might read "FIve Days in London: May 1940" and "Burying Caesar"about the struggle for the control of the British Conservative party to understand a little more about the complex interplay of personalities and viewpoints among the various decision makers.
What we might be able to say is that if Halifax had bested Churchill in the leadership contest, Hitler may have then succeeded in negotiating some sort of rapprochement with Britain and France that would have given him a free hand in the East.
To put that another way, there were those in Britain and America who would have been quite satisfied to watch Germany and Russia fight.
What concerns me today are the Washington idiots who think that the contest we have fomented between Ukrainians can be quarantined.
Posted by: walrus | 28 February 2015 at 03:50 PM
Fundamental problem: Mistakes c. 1800 only wiped out a few million people, mostly with starvation/disease, as the most serious weapons were the mortar or the ship-mounted cannon battery. The Earth was more forgiving. Mistakes c. 2015 can wipe out entire species. So applying 1800 philosophy to 2015 situations is wrong. Peace is cheaper than war. Cooperation is cheaper than dominance.
Posted by: Imagine | 28 February 2015 at 04:46 PM
Napoleon/Hitler might have been psychopathic. It can't be known for certain. They showed behaviour we could say was psychopathic, but it's also possible that we might not fully understand or know that facts that were motivating their actions.
Napoleon's favourite book...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther
Napoleon's reading habits
http://shannonselin.com/2015/02/napoleon-like-read/
http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/napoleon/c_read2.html
Napoleon's Portable Library
http://tumblr.austinkleon.com/post/88297744546
Some of Hitler's paintings...
http://www.bytwerk.com/gpa/hitlerpaintings.htm
Complicated individuals.
Posted by: C Webb | 01 March 2015 at 08:03 AM
Sorry talking in riddles to me there ! We're talking about strategic principles in operations of war, not about contingencies related to period of time you referring to. Mistake !
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 01 March 2015 at 09:51 AM
Dave Schuler,
Typically, we only see clips of what Hitler was like at the climax of a speech. Taken out of context, he often seems like a lunatic.
It's a long time ago, but I went to a full screening of Triumph of the Will. If I remember correctly, it has a full speech that is quite different from what you usually see, and much more effective. And as ex-PFC Chuck says, fluency in German helps.
Posted by: shepherd | 01 March 2015 at 10:51 AM
If war is the continuation of politics, then a party is defeated when it's policy is neutralized.
Was America defeated in Iraq? In RVN?
What is ISIS' policy goal?
What do we need to do to frustrate ISIS?
Why would we want to do more -- economy of force, anyone -- than frustrate ISIS?
Posted by: Thaumaturgist | 02 March 2015 at 11:41 AM