James Vandine takes me to task in issue 445 over denigrating the French in comparison to the Soviets. He quotes to Alistair Home with some effect about how the French could have performed had they had an equal amount of space to fall back before the Germans as did the Soviets. There is quite a bit of truth to this argument, but I still feel that the French had some systemic problems not shared with the Soviets.

The Soviets had some familiarity with a modem mobile doctrine from Tukachevsky's deep battle theories even if Stalin did order his execution and that of many of his followers. They also showed a willingness to learn from recent experience in France, Poland, and the Far East as demonstrated by their reformation of large mechanized units in 1940. Unfortunately the Germans invaded in the middle of their reorganization.

This was most decidedly not the case with the French. La Bataille Conduite was, by le grace d Dieu, the ultimate battle doctrine and the French refused to consider anything to the contrary. To be fair they had little hard evidence against their doctrine before 1939 as experience in Spain merely confirmed it. The Soviets benefited enormously from the example of the French in 1940.

This is not to say that the French couldn't and wouldn't have learned from their experiences had they the time, space, and manpower to pay the price of admittance to the school of mobile warfare as did the other Allied powers. But I do believe that most of the senior leadership would have had to disappear for that to happen.

General Juin's performance in Italy argues powerfully that this was indeed the case as his troops were, to my mind, the unsung heroes of the Italian campaign with their performance that guaranteed the success of Operation DIADEM by outflanking the defenders of Monte Cassino so that they were forced to evacuate the position. It's a pity that they weren't used to a greater degree earlier in the campaign. The xenophobia of Monty and Mark Clark undoubtedly played a large role in that decision.

Perhaps I was a little harsh on the French, but the smug, selfrighteous attitude exhibited by their senior leadership strikes a nerve with me. That's probably because commanders such as they are a soldier's worse nightmare. And I'm still a soldier myself, at least on weekends.

To Advance or to Disengage, That is the Question: Whether Itis Nobler to Suffer the Slings and Arrows of an Outraged Foe or to Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles, and by Retreat End Them?

James also notes that a retreat is commonly considered more difficult than a pursuit where as I take the opposite course. At a higher commander's level that's probably true since more work is required by a retreating commander to ensure that everyone falls back in good order, supplies are evacuated, etc. Conversely the commander's job is easier in a pursuit as his most difficult job is ensuring that he advances briskly and that he has enough supplies in the right positions to maintain that advance.

However at the lower echelons the opposite is true. Pursuers must be continually pushed to advance when their next contact with the enemy might be a round through the lead vehicle. Those retreating rarely need motivation to keep moving as they generally prefer not to end up in a PoW camp. Heck, read accounts of the Gulf War where the commanders at anny-level and above were euphoric over the early successes and were already in the pursuit mode while the division commanders were far less sanguine about things and more concerned about getting their people rested and resupplied than about advancing.

I may well tend to place more emphasis on the micro level of this as the more important since that reflects my personal experience, but the proof is in the pudding. Can anyone cite any instances of retreating forces that were caught by pursuers and forced to fight against their will in the Europa area? Remember that encirclements don't count. Monty couldn't do it to Rommel after El Alamein; the Allies couldn't do it to the Germans during Cobra and after the Falaise Pocket. The Germans couldn't do it to the Soviets after 1941 and possibly not even then though I have to do more research to render a conclusive judgment.

Introduction
Gunfire from the Wine-Dark Sea
Do Frog Legs Taste Better than Crow?
Old Johann Heinrich was an Eisenbahn Mann
Heavy Transports
The Jets Revisited