Part 4

No normal citizen of a democracy would willingly imperil this by a resort to war. Only when he considers, or it is suggested to him convincingly, that his honour, prosperity, or security are endangered by the policy of another nation, will he consent to the grave step of making war.

THE NATIONAL OBJECTIVE IN WAR

When, however, the fateful decision for war has been taken, what does common sense tell us should be the national objective? To ensure a resumption and progressive continuance of what may be termed the peace-time policy, with the shortest and least costly interruption of the normal life of the country.

What stands in the way of this? The determination of the hostile nation to enforce its contrary policy in defiance of our own aims and desires. To gain our aim or objective we have to change this adverse will into a compliance with our own policy, and the sooner and more cheaply in lives and money we can do this, the better chance is there of a continuance of national prosperity in the widest sense.

The aim of a nation in war is, therefore, to subdue the enemy’s will to resist, with the least possible human and economic loss to itself.

If we realize that this is the true objective, we shall appreciate the fact that the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces is but a means――and not necessarily an inevitable or infallible one――to the attainment of our goal. It is clearly not, despite the assertion of military pundits, the sole true objective in war. Clear the air of the fog of catchwords which surrounds the conduct of war, grasp that in the human will lies the source and mainspring of all conflict, as of all other activities of man’s life, and it becomes transparently clear that our goal in war can only be attained by the subjugation of the opposing will. All acts, such as defeat in the field, propaganda, blockade, diplomacy, or attack on the centres of government and population, are seen to be but means to that end; and, instead of being tied to one fixed means, we are free to weigh the respective merits of each. To choose whichever are most suitable, most rapid, and most economic, i.e., which will gain the goal with the minimum disruption of our national life during and after the war. Of what use is decisive victory in battle if we bleed to death as a result of it?

A single man can be beaten by the simple process of killing him. Not so a nation――for total extermination, even if it were possible, would recoil on the heads of the victors in the close-knit organization of the world’s society, and would involve their own ethical and commercial ruin――as we have had a foretaste from the attrition policy of the Great War. But besides being mutually deadly it is unnecessary, for a highly organized state is only as strong as its weakest link. In a great war the whole nation is involved, though not necessarily, or wisely, under arms. The fists and the sinews of war are mutually dependent, and, if we can demoralize one section of the nation, the collapse of its will to resist compels the surrender of the whole――as the last months of 1918 demonstrated.

It is the function of grand strategy to discover and exploit the Achilles’ heel of the enemy nation; to strike not against its strongest bulwark but against its most vulnerable spot. In the earliest recorded war, Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy, thus slew the foremost champion of the Greeks. As the Greek legend runs, Achilles, when a child, having been dipped by his mother, Thetis, in the waters of the Styx, his whole body became invulnerable save only the heel by which she held him. In the Trojan war, after Achilles had slain Hector in direct combat, Paris brought stratagem to bear, and his arrow, guided by Apollo, struck Achilles in his vulnerable heel. It is significant that Apollo, among his numerous attributes, was held to be the sun god, and the god of prophecy, for here surely he forecast the future of war, and shed light on the true objective――a ray of truth too dazzling for the vision of all but a few soldiers.

After dashing out the lives of millions in vain assault against the enemy’s strength, it might not be amiss now to take a lesson from the objective aimed at by Paris three thousand years ago.

Turning from myth to history, it may be useful to glance at two authentic examples of the use of the moral objective――which in each case changed the course of the world’s history.

HISTORICAL EXAMPLES OF THE MORAL OBJECTIVE

First, from the Punic Wars. In the struggle between Rome and Carthage for the domination of the ancient world, the two mother cities with their government and population form the vital points――the moral objective. Hannibal, the Carthaginian leader, lives in history as, with Napoleon, the supreme military executant of all time. Yet similarly he appears to lack the gift of “grand strategical” vision. His objective is the armed forces of the enemy, but even the annihilating victory of Cannæ does not bring him to his goal, because Rome itself stands unmastered. The apologists for Hannibal are legion, but they cannot obscure the truth that by his failure to gain Rome he ultimately lost Carthage. Scipio Africanus, his ultimate conqueror at Zama, suffers from the misfortune that his own claims to fame are overshadowed by his adversary’s dramatic victories and heroic stand in Italy for so many years, which appeal to the sentimental imagination. But Scipio’s appreciation of the principle of the objective is surely more profound. Instead of seeking a decision in Italy, where his troops would suffer under the moral influence of Hannibal’s repeated victories in that theatre, Scipio, in face of the most weighty protests, embarks for Carthage. His immediate objective is to free Italy, and he realizes that a threat to Carthage will so act upon the moral of the citizens that they will recall Hannibal. The result proves the soundness of his judgment. Then, by striking at the resources of Carthage in Northern Africa he accomplishes the next step towards the subjugation of the Carthaginian will, and so to Zama, the flight of Hannibal himself to the East, and the capitulation of Carthage. Scipio’s moral objective triumphs over the “armed forces” theory of Hannibal.

Turning to the history of the modern world, we have the example of the campaign of 1814, which ended in Napoleon’s abdication and relegation to the Isle of Elba. Never perhaps in his whole career does Napoleon’s genius shine so brightly as in that series of dramatic victories in February and March, 1814, by which he staggers the Allies, until, in pursuit of the delusive military objective, he over-reaches himself. He moves east to fall upon Schwarzenberg’s rear, drawn on by the theory of destroying the main mass of the enemy’s forces. By this move he uncovers Paris――and the Allies march straight forward to gain the true objective――the nerve centre of the French will to resist. Paris is the prey of war alarms and fatigue, in the very condition for a moral detonator to wreck Napoleon’s hold. The Royalist, de Vitrolles, tells the Czar Alexander that “People are tired of the war and of Napoleon. Consider politics rather than strategy, and march straight on Paris, where the true opinion of the people will be shown the moment the Allies appear.” Captured despatches also bear witness to the underlying discontent of the Capital. The Czar summons a council of war. Barclay de Tolly, the senior, urges that the forces should be concentrated, to follow and attack Napoleon. General Toll affirms that there is only one true course, to “advance on Paris by forced marches with the whole of our army, detaching only 10,000 cavalry to mask our movement.”

Barclay de Tolly disagrees and argues the example――so hackneyed in later years――of the occupation of Moscow. Toll points out that the effect of the seizure of Paris will be decisive economically and morally, and that there is no true parallel between the cases of Moscow and Paris――the nodal point of France.

The Czar decides for Toll’s plans, the army sweeps on Paris and enters in triumph after but the slightest resistance, while Napoleon is winning delusive successes in Lorraine. When the news from Paris reaches him, he thinks frantically of a counter-march, but the moral germ disseminated by the occupation of Paris spreads even among his generals and troops. Too late! So great are the moral repercussions of the act, that in a brief space Napoleon, with the people and his satellites turned against him, is forced to an unconditional abdication.

Some might suggest that the German failure to achieve victory in 1914 is a still more recent example of the truth that the moral objective is the real one. History may well decide that had the German Higher Command been less obsessed with the dream of a Cannæ manœuvre, and struck at Paris first instead of attempting to surround the French armies, “Deutschland über alles” might now be an accomplished fact.

On the island of Corfu is a giant statue of Achilles, with his heel transfixed by the arrow. Countless hours the ex-Kaiser spent gazing at this statue, yet its message apparently made no impression. “Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make ...”――blind.

THE MEANS TO THE MORAL OBJECTIVE

After this brief historical survey, let us turn to consider the means by which the moral objective, of subduing the enemy’s will to resist, can be attained. These means can be exercised in the military, the economic, the political, or the social spheres. Further, the weapons by which they are executed may be military, economic, or diplomatic――with which is included propaganda.

As war is our subject, the diplomatic and economic weapons, except in a military guise, are outside our purview. There appears little doubt, however, that the economic weapon in the struggle between rival national policies during so-called peace has possibilities still scarcely explored or understood. Again, the military weapon can be wielded in the economic sphere without any open state of war existing. In the Ruhr we saw the French aiming, by a military control of Germany’s industrial resources, to subdue the latter’s will to resist French policy, and with the further motive of a moral disruption between the German states.

What, however, are the ways in which the military weapon can be employed to subdue the enemy’s will to resist in war?

The question demands that we first examine how the moral attack takes effect, and how the will of an enemy people is reduced to such a degree that they will sue for peace rather than face a continuation of the struggle. Put in a nutshell, the result is obtained by dislocating their normal life to such a degree that they will prefer the lesser evil of surrendering their policy, and by convincing them that any return to “normalcy”――to use President Harding’s term――is hopeless unless they do so surrender. It is an old proverb that “So long as there is life, there is hope,” and this Ciceronian saw may be adduced to support the argument that in the case of people who fight best “with their backs to the wall” only death will end their resistance. This may be true of individuals, or even of considerable bodies of men; the annals of the Anglo-Saxon race afford examples――though such cases have almost always occurred when surrender was as fatal as continued resistance. As soldiers know well, time throws an heroic glamour over events of the past, and national pride leads to pardonable exaggeration of great deeds. Such résistance à mort is probably as rare as that mythical bayonet charge and hand-to-hand clash with cold steel so beloved of tradition and the painter of battle scenes. The latter myth was exposed by the long-dead Ardant du Picq, that French soldier-realist who refused to bow before the altar of the martial tradition. And the Great War finally dissipated it. Imaginative soldiers, especially those in the supply services, might write letters home describing such close quarter fights, war-correspondents safely behind the lines might retail such martial exploits for the benefit of a sensation-loving public, but the real fighting soldier soon found that two sides did not cross bayonets in mortal conflict. The weaker broke and fled, or else threw up their hands as token of surrender the moment they realized the actual shock could no longer be warded off.

The normal man, immediately he recognizes a stronger, directly he realizes the hopelessness of overcoming his enemy, always yields. Nor is man unique in this respect, as any study of animal life will confirm.

Armies and nations are mainly composed of normal men, not of abnormal heroes, and once these realize the permanent superiority of the enemy they will surrender to force majeure.

History, even Anglo-Saxon history, shows that nations bow to the inevitable, and abandon their policy rather than continue a struggle once hope has vanished. No war between civilized people has been carried, nor anywhere near carried, to the point of extermination. The living alone retain the power to admit defeat, and since wars, therefore, are ended by surrender and not by extermination, it becomes apparent that defeat is the result not of loss of life, save, at the most, indirectly and partially, but by loss of moral.

The enemy nation’s will to resist is subdued by the fact or threat of making life so unpleasant and difficult for the people that they will comply with your terms rather than endure this misery. We use the words “or threat” because sometimes a nation, directly its means of resistance――its forces――were overthrown, has hastened to make peace before its territory was actually invaded. Such timely surrender is merely a recognition of the inevitable consequences.

In what ways is this pressure exerted? Partly through the stomach, partly through the pocket, and partly through the spirit. In the “good old days” more forcible physical measures were practised, burning, pillage, and rapine. But in the present age the wholesale and avowed use of such persuasive aids is barred by the ethical code of nations――and press publicity, though, as the last war showed, still indulged in sporadically with or without the specious excuse of “reprisals.” But if the international conscience is too tender to permit this direct violence, it swallows its qualms where the people’s will to resist is undermined by the indirect method of wholesale starvation. Deprive individuals of food and there is an outcry, cut off the food supply of a nation and the moral sense of the world is undisturbed. Thus the naval weapon is pre-eminently the means of applying “stomach” pressure, because its blockade is indirect instead of direct, general instead of particular. As nothing more surely undermines moral than starvation, a blockade would seem obviously the best means to gain the moral objective were it not for two grave disadvantages. First, it can only be successful where the enemy country is not self-supporting, and can be entirely surrounded――or at any rate its supplies from outside effectively intercepted. Second, it is slow to take effect, and so imposes a strain on the resources of the blockading country.

Pressure through “the pocket” can be exerted directly by levies, confiscation, or seizure of customs――which require a military occupation――and indirectly by the general dislocation of business and the stoppage of the enemy’s commerce. Above all, as the military forces of a modern nation are but the wheels of the car of war, dependent for their driving power on the engine――the nation’s industrial resources――it follows that a breakdown in the engine or in the transmission――the means of transport and communication――will inevitably render the military forces immobile and powerless. Just as the engine and transmission of an automobile, because of the intricacy and delicacy of their joints and working parts, are far more susceptible to damage than the road wheels, so in a modern nation at war its industrial resources and communications form its Achilles’ heel. Mere common sense should tell us that if possible these are the points at which to strike.