THEORIES UPSET

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 142, 15 August 1941, Page 3

THEORIES UPSET

MEN AND MACHINES

LESSONS FROM RUSSIA

So many. popularly-lield theories of war have been uuset in the present conflict by uncxpcetcil events that the business of warfare seems oncc more to be in the melting pot, ready to be moulded into new forms and formulas to suit the latest developments. Russian resistance to the most frantically violent German onslaught is demolishing the theory or cult ol the ever-successful blitzgrieg, just as the blitzkrieg itself appeared in France and elsewhere to have swept away the cult of trench warfare and Magi not lines. Tt is quite possible that the situation in Russia may resolve itself again into trench warfare, and thus the circle will be complete.

The issue in war depends on the relative strengths of the forces engaged, other tilings being, equal. Thai is, if two opposing armies are equally well equipped, equally well piao eil, and equally well fed, the victory wil 1 go to the army of the larger numbers. In Napoleon's words, "Victory is on the side of the big battalions." This seems to be the position in Russia. The Germans, for the first time, have come up against a force in almost every detail as weH equipped as their own, a force equity ly well trained, fighting on its own soil with a valour at least equal to that of the Germans, no less skjll. and, probably even greater resourc*in variety of tactics, under leaders who know their job. And lh<fc Germans have fought themselves a l , least to a standstill, because the

Russians have a superiority in numbers, and can bring up fresh troops to deal with exhausted enemies, who are hard put to it to fill up their depleted divisions.

Numbers Still Count

The lesson of this is that numbers still count. The cult of the machine that quickly superseded the cult of the Maginot Line is itself now being as quickly superseded. The Stalin Line, which has really been penotrated only at one spot—Smolensk—■ has proved of the greatest value io the Russian defence, just as the Maginot Line might have saved France had it extended all the. way from the sea to Switzerland, and not ended in the air at Montmedy where the Germans broke through. Had there been such a line and had .General Gamelin contented himself with' defending it, instead of rushing into Belgium and exposing his rear, the Germans might have been attacking still in a repetition of the trench Warfare of 1914-18. Why did the Germans themselves build the Seigfricd Line unless it was to protect their rear from the French and British while they dealt with Poland? The blitzkrieg method has never succeeded except against a vastly weaker enemy or vastly inferior

troops

The recent cult that wars can »>e won by machines alone with a handful of men to work them'will not stand examination. Every branch of war and every arm of the forces that ivage war have been mechanised by the same process that has led to a large mechanisation of civil life in peacetime, but men are needed in every department just the same.