The pitfalls of planning

In the course of our inquiries so far, we have deliberately concentrated on a number of the most spectacular mobile campaigns of all time, and though some of these ended less happily than others, there does not appear to have existed any very clear connection between the amount of preparation involved in a campaign and its success or lack of it. For example, Marlborough's march to the Danube certainly entailed incomparably less administrative difficulties than did the least of Louvois’ sieges - which was probably one reason why he undertook it in the first place. Two of Napoleon's most successful campaigns - those of 1805 and 1809 - were launched with almost no preparation at all, while although his war against Russia was prepared on a scale and with a thoroughness unequalled in the whole of previous history, this did not prevent it from becoming a monumental failure. In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War came as a surprise even though military preparations for it had been going on for years, with the result that there was little connection between the course of the campaign and Moltke's plans. Nothing daunted, a generation of staff officers before 1914 spent every minute - including even Christmas Day - planning the next war down to the last train axle, yet when war came it was totally unexpected, and the meticulously prepared plans led to nothing but failure. Twenty-five years later, the entire German invasion of Russia was nothing but a huge feat of improvisation with a preparation time of barely twelve months - not much in view of the magnitude of the problem. Rommel's African expedition was launched without so much as six-weeks’ preparations and with no previous experience whatsoever, yet is commonly regarded as one of the most dazzling demonstrations of military skill ever.

Given the very short preparation times allowed to many of these campaigns, it is not surprising that they had to be conducted on a logistic shoestring. Napoleon in 1805 did not succeed in obtaining even one half of the wagons with which he intended to equip his army. In August 1914, the outbreak of war caught the Great General Staff in the middle of a major reorganization involving the complete overhaul of the gigantic railway deployment plan.