Campaign design has to require the
player/commander to consider the destructive influence that marches have upon
an army...
Clausewitz
wrote: “it is so great that it may be regarded as an active factor in (an
army’s) destruction, just as much as combat might be.” One single moderate march does not wear down an
army, of course, but a succession of even moderate marches is certain to cause
increasing attrition and a succession of severe ones will quickly take a severe
toll.
On
campaign, imperfect availability of food and shelter, bad broken-up roads, and
the necessity of being in a perpetual state of readiness for battle
(mental/physical fatigue), will be the factors creating an excessive strain
upon the player’s forces, causing “men, cattle, carriages of every description
as well as clothing to be ruined.”
In
the Napoleonic period, common assumption was that a long rest was not good for
the physical health of an army, because there was more sickness than during
moderate activity. No doubt sickness did
occur exponentially if soldiers were packed too close in bivouac or confined
quarters; but the same thing occurred when de facto close quarters were taken
up on the march, which by necessity they often were, and the supply of dust
free air and clean water behind the head of a column was infrequent in movement
or at halt. Units at the head of a march tended to suffer from these effects
less than those that followed.. Weather, another necessary variable to
attrition, producing extremes of condition, wet, dry, or cold, exacerbates the
problem and its effects.
“ Only
think for a moment, when the organism of a human being is in a disordered and
fainting state, what a difference it must make to him whether he falls sick in
a house or is seized in the middle of a high road, up to his knees in mud,
under torrents of rain, and loaded with a knapsack on his back; even if he is
in a camp he can soon be sent to the next village, and will not be entirely
without medical assistance, whilst on a march he must be for hours without any
assistance, and then be made to drag himself along for miles as a straggler.
How many trifling illnesses by that means become serious, how many serious ones
become mortal. Let us consider how an ordinary march in the dust, and under the
burning rays of a summer sun may produce the most excessive heat, in which
state, suffering from intolerable thirst, the soldier then rushes to the fresh
spring of water, to bring back for himself sickness and death.”
The
point of this is not to recommend less activity in a campaign; the army is
there for use, and if the use wears away the army “that is only the natural
order of things.” The player/commander simply needs to understand and plan that
the more rapid and prolonged movements, the more incessant the activity, the
greater the cost to the effectiveness of his forces. No movement at all will
have its own problems of supply and disease related attrition, as it becomes
more protracted as well. An army is a
tool worn away by use, and rusted away by inactivity. A good model for computer
aided campaigning factors these variables to greater or lesser abstraction by
preference, but necessarily does account for them.
Clausewitz also explains: On long marches outside (to
get to) a theatre of war, the conditions under which the march is made are usually
easier (until the urgency of impending operations becomes a factor) and the
daily losses of the army smaller. However
because of the distances, men with the slightest sickness are generally lost to
the army for some time, as it is difficult for convalescents to overtake an
army constantly advancing. Amongst the
cavalry the number of lame horses and horses with sore backs rises in an
increasing ratio, and amongst the carriages many break down or require repair.
It never fails, therefore, that at the end of a march of 100 miles or more, an
army arrives much weakened, particularly as regards its cavalry and train, as
these are the ‘machines’ most difficult to repair on the move. If such marches are necessary in the theatre
of war, that is, within the potential reach of the enemy, then that acute need
for readiness and its attendant fatigue is added to all the other forms of
attrition, and from the two combined the losses with large masses of troops,
and under conditions otherwise unfavorable may amount to something incredible.
A couple of examples to illustrate:
“ When
Buonaparte crossed the Niemen on 24th June, 1812, the enormous centre of his
army with which he subsequently marched against Moscow numbered 301,000 men. At
Smolensk, on the 15th August, he detached 13,500, leaving, it is to be
supposed, 287,500. The actual state of his army however at that
date was only 182,000; he had therefore lost 105,000. Bearing in mind that up
to that time only two engagements to speak of had taken place, one between
Devout and Bagration, the other between Murat and Tolstoy-Osterman, we may put
down the losses of the French army in action at 10,000 men at most, and
therefore the losses in sick and stragglers within fifty-two days on a march of
about seventy miles direct to his front, amounted to 95,000, that is a third
part of the whole army.
Three
weeks later, at the time of the battle of Borodino, the loss amounted to
144,000 (including the casualties in the battle), and eight days after that
again, at Moscow, the number was 198,000. The losses of this army in general
were at the commencement of the campaign at the rate of 1/150daily,
subsequently they rose to 1/120, and in the last period they increased to 1/19
of the original strength.
The
movement of Napoleon from the passage of the Niemen up to Moscow certainly may
be called a persistent one; still, we must not forget that it lasted eighty-two
days, in which time he only accomplished 120 miles, and that the French army upon
two occasions made regular halts, once at Wilna for about fourteen days, and
the other time at Witebsk for about eleven days, during which periods many
stragglers had time to rejoin. This fourteen weeks' advance was not made at the
worst season of the year, nor over the worst of roads, for it was summer, and
the roads along which they marched were mostly sand. It was the immense mass of
troops collected on one road, the want of sufficient subsistence, and an enemy
who was on the retreat, but by no means in flight, which were the adverse
conditions. Of the retreat of the French army from Moscow to the Niemen, we
shall say nothing, but this we may mention, that the Russian army following
them left Kaluga 120,000 strong, and reached Wilna with 30,000. Relatively few men were lost in actual
combats during that period.
One
more example: from Blucher's campaign of 1813 in Silesia and Saxony, a campaign
very remarkable not for any long march but for the amount of marching to and
fro. York's corps of Blucher's army
began this campaign on the16th of August about 40,000 strong, and was reduced
to 12,000 at the battle of Leipsic, 19th October. The principal combats which
this corps fought at Goldberg, Lowenberg, on the Katsbach, at Wartenburg, and
Mockern (Leipsic) cost it on the authority of the best writers, 12,000 men.
According to that their losses from other
causes in eight weeks amounted to 16,000, or two-fifths of the whole.”
Campaign
rules that do not reflect basic non combat related attritions can’t be
considered to be properly representative of warfare in this time. In a good
model, a player/commander must have to expect, and take into account great wear
and tear of his forces in movement, and a weakening in inaction. Both mean that commanders should have to
consider the requirements for rest, repair, rehabilitation and reinforcement as
well as the attritions themselves. This is the sort of record keeping that the
computer system is ideally suited for; to take the place of the ‘staff’ work
that bogs the player/commander down, and allows him to simply plan for these
considerations and focus on the more ‘fun’ aspects of the campaign!
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