Thread: American Civil War and the Tragedy of Missed Lessons
There was an even 100 years between the downfall of Napoleon in 1814 and the beginning of World War One in 1914. The American Civil War was the largest conflict fought in that intervening century. (1)
The Civil War featured incredibly large armies fighting in theaters that were very widely spread out, with major battles taking place from Pennsylvania to Texas. The war also displayed early use of new technologies like railroads, telegraphs, and mass produced rifles. (2)
While no foreign states became actively involved in the conflict, the war was witnessed by foreign military observers. Despite their front row view of this major conflict, Europe failed to learn important lessons about the trajectory of warfare. (3)
The Civil War provided a very clear look at the movement towards the high intensity trench warfare that would become the defining characteristic of World War One. (4)
At the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862, the Confederates absolutely mauled a much larger Union army, when the Union forces attempted frontal assaults on entrenched southern infantry. The loss ratios for the battle were a full 2 to 1 in favor of the south. (5)
Later in the war, the Union defeated the Confederacy in a long, grinding series of battles collectively known as the "Siege of Petersburg." This was a preview of World War One. Both sides made heavy use of trenches, forcing a slow and bloody battle. (6)
Petersburg was nothing like the set piece battles of the past that could be resolved quickly; the entire struggle took over nine months and was characterized by heavy artillery fire and extensive earthworks. Both sides took losses of over 30% of their total forces. (7)
The long, slow moving affair at Petersburg foreshadowed both the mass casualties and the agonizingly drawn out nature of WW1 meatgrinder warfare. The nine month battle was similar to battles like Verdun or Gallipoli, which stretched out over nearly a full year. (8)
European military observers saw battles like these, but it completely failed to register that war in Europe would soon be like this as well. They generally dismissed the use of fortifications as an aberration born from poor training of American officers. (9)
One Prussian officer who observed the war noted the widespread “use of shovel and axe, exploiting the skill every American has with these tools." His notion was that entrenchment was due to unique American characteristics, and a compensation for their poor tactical skills. (10)
One interesting Prussian argument was that trenches were devised as a way to keep officers and troops safe while they considered their next move - they were thus unnecessary for a Prussian army that could make quick decisions and react instantly in the field. (11)
The Prussians won an enormous victory over the French only six years after the end of the Civil War, and they did it by applying traditional Prussian offensive principles. The Franco-Prussian War allowed European military planners to ignore the American War. (12)
The general conclusion in Europe was that everything aberrant in the American War happened because the Americans were undisciplined and unprofessional. One French observer decided that “The war of secession has not furnished anything new worthy of study and imitation.” (13)
Europe got one more preview of the World War. In early 1905, Japan and Russia fought a colossal battle in Manchuria called the Battle of Mukden. This was one of the largest battles that had ever been fought, with nearly 300,000 men fielded on both sides. (14)
Mukden was notable for the astonishing, unprecedented amount of ordinance that was used. The Japanese alone fired almost 28,000 artillery shells per day during the ten day battle. Huge casualties were amassed to make small advances. (15)
As in the case of the American war, Europeans failed to learn lessons from the Russo-Japanese conflict. The war was dismissed as a contest between two "Asiatic", and by extension barbarous peoples, and thus the fighting could not be extrapolated to Europeans. (16)
The Europeans got a rude awakening in 1914, when they attempted to fight a traditional war of spirited and crisp offensive movement, and instead they got trenches and mud and endless shelling and ten million dead. (17)
Arrogance and the belief that there was little to be learned from wars between unsophisticated inferiors allowed Europe to wander blindly into a military and civilizational catastrophe. Talk about learning things the hard way. (18)
For more reading on this, I recommend "The Military Legacy of the Civil War: The European Inheritance" by Jay Luvaas. As far as I know this is the only work dedicated solely to the study of European observation of the American Civil War, and the lessons they chose not to learn.
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🧵 Starting a thread of random books that I like and recommend that people might find interesting.
This is comprehensive look at how the Soviet Union’s unparalleled systems and rules of state secrecy shaped the powers of the state. Harrison frames secrecy as the pivot of a tradeoff which gave the USSR a high degree of security at the expense of state capacity.
A really unique book that looks at “Shinto” - originally a variegated and decentralized collection of Buddhist and native Japanese beliefs, which the imperial government deliberately molded into a “religion” that was useful for creating good imperial citizens.
Nothing about this threat even makes sense. If you think that Ukraine is worth fighting a war with Russia, you wouldn't set some weird redline where you pledge to intervene *after* Ukraine has been defeated.
The French Army has eight combat capable brigades (2 armored, 2 mech, 2 light armored, 1 mountain, 1 airborne). French force quality is fine, but this is an expeditionary force that's not built to slug it out in Eastern Europe.
A quick note on combat engineering: Over the last few months, we started to hear Ukraine talk about ramping up the construction of fortifications as they faced a pivot to a strategic defense, in some cases specifically calling for a corollary to Russia's "Surovikin Line."
This will likely be very difficult for Ukraine, for a few reasons. At the core is the dearth of dedicated combat engineering in the AFU, in contrast to the Russian Armed Forces.
The Russian Army has a host of dedicated engineering units, including several prewar engineering brigades, as well as several new engineering regiments that have been formed since 2022.
Americans bragging about lend-lease always strikes me as rather funny, because you're basically taking pride in the fact that FDR was a naïve idiot with a communist-compromised administration who gave away hundreds of billions worth of equipment for free.
In real time, American officialdom and army leadership was actually extraordinarily upset about FDR's profligate generosity, when he started shipping off American readiness stocks while they were trying to prepare for war.
"America rules, look at how easily the Soviets tricked FDR into giving them a hundred billion dollars worth of gear."
At the moment, Russia is grinding forward almost everywhere on the front, creating a bit of ambiguity as to their intentions. The overall operational trajectory in Donetsk Oblast, however, is fairly clear. With Marinka captured, they will advance up the N15 line to Kurakhove. (1)
Kurakhove as an important center of support for Ugledar - artillery based in this area was critical in helping Ukraine hold Ugledar last year. Advancing up this line puts Ulgedar into a severe salient. (2)
Meanwhile, clearing Avdiivka creates space for Russia to advance up the H20 line - important for two reasons. First, it allows a two pronged attack on Kostyantinivka (supporting the advance from Bakhmut), and it bypasses the heavily fortified AFU positions around Torestk. (3)
The ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza have resurrected debates around old concepts like mobilization and force structure. A few years ago, these were just esoteric topics for military historians to chew on, but now they are back. (1)
Force generation and structure seem like a simple question of demographics - a question only of squeezing fighting aged males out of the population pyramid and getting them into uniform. It *feels* like all that should matter is the overall size and age of the population. (2)
But then we look at Israel and Russia. Both conducted a "mobilization", with Russia (population 140 million) calling up 300,000 reservists in October '22, and Israel (9 million) calling up 360,000 last month. Israel called up a larger force, with a fraction of the population. (3)