Von Schlieffen - Cannae.pdf - Strategia - materiały po ang - kyclawok

GeneralFieldmarshal Comr ALFREDVON E%XLIEFFEN

TEE COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF SCHOOL@‘RESS

FORT LEAVBWWO~E, KANWS

1525-S-l-31--1M

I.931

U.S. ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL

STAFF COLLEGE PRESS

In September 1991, the commandant of the U.S.

Army Command and General Staff College at Fort

Leavenworth authorized the establishment of the

Command and General Staff College (CGSC) Press. The

CGSC Press has the following missions:

0 To provide an outlet for the professional

publication of monographs and book-length works on all

subjects of interest to professional officers.

0 To aid in professional military education at all

levels of the U.S. Army and other military services,

foreign as well as domestic.

l To promote and support the advanced study of the

theory, history, and practice of the military art by

professional officers and other military experts.

0 To promote and support the professional

development of the CGSC faculty and faculties of other

institutions of higher military education in the United

States and abroad.

PREFACE

In the early 198Os,the Combat Studies Institute received a

request for a study of all the cases in the past where armies

fought outnumbered and won. The point was to distill the

necessary ingredients that culminated in these armies’

victories. The flaw in this procedure, however, was that it

failed to consider the preponderant number of cases where

armies fought outnumbered and lost. A widened focus would

have eliminated a number of possible false conclusions.

A similar exercise was conducted eighty years earlier by

Count Alfred von Schlieffen, the revered chief of the German

General Staff. Convinced that Germany, surrounded by

powerful enemies, would have to fight outnumbered and win,

Schlieffen believed the key to victory could be discovered in an

account of the Battle of Cannae, written by the German

military historian Hans Delbrtick. Therefore, Schlieffen

ordered the historical section of the General Staff to produce a

set of “Cannae Studies” that would demonstrate that the

principle of double envelopment practiced by Hannibal at

Cannae was the master key to victory in battle.

During the interwar years, the Command and General

Staff School Press published two editions of a translation of

Schlieffen’s classic study. The current printing by the newly

formed Command and General Staff College Press is meant to

afford a new generation of army officers an experience of this

famous work of military theory. In so doing, it is probably not

remiss to caution readers that Hannibal’s victory at Cannae

still did not produce a strategic success, even though it was a

tactical masterpiece. Hannibal lost the war with Rome.

Likewise, Schlieffen’s operational concept collapsed in World

War I in the face of logistic and time-space realities he had

chosen to discount because he believed they were inconvenient

to his needs. The lesson to be learned from Schlieffen’s

experience is that history misapplied is worse than no history

at all.

kfiiLLJ@k

RICHARD M. SWAIN

Colonel, Field Artillery

Director, Combat Studies Institute

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword._.__...._____,

.___.___....__._............

____._____

_..___.I

____...._...._______.

___

_._____.__.

Introduction _____...___

________.___..__

_____._.._..

____.._._

_._____

___.._

____

..___.

____.__

__.__._._________

I_____._.

vii

List of Maps.__-....__.__.-.__.._..-..*....._-._..-......._....-...----...-..-.....-.-..--.

_._.._.........I_...

CHAPTER I

THE BATTLE AT CANNAEL

__.____

..___._.____.____.__.-..--...“..

______

_.._

___._______

____.___...__-__._

CHAPTER II

FREDERICKTBE GREATANTJNAPOLEON.............................

_._..__.__.___

_..___-___

CHAPTER III

TEE CAMPAIGNOF 1866

The Prussian and Austrian Concentration ._..__.._..._

_....__.

_.._

I_.._...._......

_._._

_...__ 60

The Campaign in Bohemia of 1866 untii the evening of June 3&h.......... 85

KSniggratn. _._..___

__._...._......_....

_.._

._._

.._.__

_._____._..._...

____...__.___._.___..~.~....~~~...~

._......._

............_...__.

___...

__.._....._._.

.. ...131

CHAPTER IV

THE CAMPAIGNOF181Wil

From the concentration of the armies to the retreat of the French

acrossthe Moselle__.________.__

.._____.___._

_........_..__..

_._._

.__.

__..___

_....__

._..____

_____..

180

The advance of the Germans to and acrossthe Moselle. The Battles

of Colomky-Nouilly, and Mara la Tour.. _._._.__..

_I.._.___.__.__

......._

...._.__.

193

The Battle of Gravelotte-St. Privat __.___

_____.___.__._._.____

____.____

___

____.________._

____._

220

The Battles of Beaumont and Sedan.............______

___._.._

.______

__.~

__._.....__..___

_____

‘257

ii.3

______

~__._

The Campaign of 1866in Germany.........____

_._

____

FOREWORD

This book was first brought to the attention of this

School in 1916 by a lecture delivered by Colonel Wilson B,

Burtt, Infantry, as to the observations of the United States

military mission headed by General Joseph E. Kuhn on its

visit to the German armies in 1915 and 1916. It was sub-

sequently translated at The Army War College and indi-

vidual officers in attendance there sought copies. At various

times efforts were made to have it published in English.

The stumbling block, both commercially and officially, was

the necessity for reproducing some one hundred maps or

sketches and without these t,he text would lose much of its

military value. Furthermore, it was necessary to obtain

the authority of the heirs of the author as well as that of

the publishers. Thanks to their courtesy this has been

satisfactorily arranged. This School has now undertaken

this task, without any expectation of profit, in order to

make available in English to the officers in attendance here

a truly great modern military book. It is great because of

the position and prestige of the writer and its influence

on the conduct of the World War. It is modern since no

one can attempt an understa,nding of many of the phases

of the last war without the background of the miIitary

theories herein presented. Furthermore, these theories

must be weighed, whether accepted or denied, in whole or

in part, in the major conceptions of a future war should,

unhappily, such occur. I have read and re-read my typed

copy from the War College days with a set of photostat

maps, certainly to my advantage because of the clear con-

cise statements of the military campaigns which serve as

the background and occasion for the presentation of the

author’s theories. Whether the theories are correct or not,

each one must judge for himself. In any case they should

be known and understood by offcers attending this School.

STUART KEINTZELMAN,

Briyadier Genera.E,U. S. Army,

Commandant.

Von Schlieffen - Cannae.pdf

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