The 33 Strategies of War (47 page)

REVERSAL

Dividing your forces as a way of creating mobility can be a powerful strategy, as Napoleon demonstrated with his flexible system of corps, which let him hit his enemy unpredictably from many different angles. But to make his system work, Napoleon needed precise coordination of its parts and overall control over their movements--and his goal was ultimately to bring the parts together to strike a major blow. In guerrilla warfare a commander will disperse his forces to make them harder to hit, but this, too, demands coordination: a guerrilla army cannot succeed if the parts are unable to communicate with each other. In general, any division of your forces must be temporary, strategic, and controlled.

THE PLOUGHMAN'S QUARRELSOME SONS

A ploughman's sons were always quarrelling. He scolded them to no avail--his words did nothing to change their ways. So he decided to teach them a practical lesson. He asked them to bring him a load of firewood. As soon as they had done this he gave a bundle to each and told them to break it all up for him. But, in spite of all their efforts, they were unable to do so. The ploughman therefore undid the bundles and handed each of his sons a stick at a time. These they broke without any trouble. "So!" said the father, "you too, my children, if you stay bound together, can be invincible to your enemies. But if you are divided you will be easy to defeat."

F
ABLES
, A
ESOP
, S
IXTH CENTURY B.C.

In attacking a group in order to sow division, be careful that your blow is not too strong, for it can have the opposite effect, causing people to unite in times of great danger. That was Hitler's miscalculation during the London Blitz, his bombing campaign designed to push England out of World War II. Intended to demoralize the British public, the Blitz only made them more determined: they were willing to suffer short-term danger in order to beat him in the long run. This bonding effect was partly the result of Hitler's brutality, partly the phenomenon of a culture willing to suffer for the greater good.

Finally, in a divided world, power will come from keeping your own group united and cohesive, and your own mind clear and focused on your goals. The best way to maintain unity may seem to be the creation of enthusiasm and high morale, but while enthusiasm is important, in time it will naturally wane, and if you have come to depend on it, you will fail. Far greater defenses against the forces of division are knowledge and strategic thinking. No army or group can be divided if it is aware of the enemy's intentions and makes an intelligent response. As Samuel Adams discovered, strategy is your only dependable sword and shield.

When you attack people directly, you stiffen their resistance and make your task that much harder. There is a better way: distract your opponents' attention to the front, then attack them from the side, where they least expect it. By hitting them where they are soft, tender, and unprotected, you create a shock, a moment of weakness for you to exploit. Bait people into going out on a limb, exposing their weakness, then rake them with fire from the side. The only way to get stubborn opponents to move is to approach them indirectly.

The Emperor
[
Napoleon Bonaparte
]
, while he was quite prepared "to break eggs to make omelettes," as von Clausewitz puts it, was always eager to gain total victory for a minimum expenditure of manpower and effort. Consequently he disliked having to force a full-scale, fully arrayed frontal battle--that is to say, marching directly against the enemy to fight him on ground of his (the adversary's) choosing, for such battles were inevitably expensive and rarely conclusive (Borodino in 1812 is a case in point). Instead, whenever possible, after pinning the foe frontally by a feint attack, he marched his main army by the quickest possible "safe" route, hidden by the cavalry screen and natural obstacles, to place himself on the rear or flank of his opponent. Once this move had been successfully achieved, he occupied a natural barrier or "strategical curtain" (usually a river line or mountain range), ordered the blocking of all crossings, and thus isolated his intended victim from his rear depots and reduced his chances of reinforcement. Thereafter, Napoleon advanced relentlessly toward the foe's army, offering him only two alternatives--to fight for survival on ground not of his own choosing, or to surrender. The advantages afforded by such a strategy are obvious. The enemy army would be both taken by surprise and almost certainly demoralized by the sudden apparition of the enemy army in its rear, cutting its communications.

T
HE
C
AMPAIGNS OF
N
APOLEON
, D
AVID
G. C
HANDLER
, 1966

TURNING THE FLANK

In 1793, Louis XIV and his wife, Marie Antoinette, the king and queen of France, were beheaded by order of the new government put in place after the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette was the daughter of Maria Theresa, the empress of Austria, and as a result of her death the Austrians became determined enemies of France. Early in 1796 they prepared to invade the country from northern Italy, which at the time was an Austrian possession.

In April of that year, the twenty-six-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte was given command of the French army in Italy and charged with a simple mission: to prevent these Austrian armies from entering France. Under Napoleon, for the first time since the revolution not only were the French able to hold a defensive position, but they successfully went on the offensive, pushing the Austrians steadily east. Shocking as it was to lose to the revolutionary army, it was downright humiliating to be defeated by an unknown general on his first campaign. For six months the Austrians sent armies to defeat Napoleon, but he forced each one to retreat into the fortress of Mantua, until finally this stronghold was crammed with Austrian soldiers.

Leaving a force at Mantua to pin down the Austrians, Napoleon established his base to the north, in the pivotal city of Verona. If the Austrians were to win the war, they would somehow have to push him out of Verona and free up the starving soldiers trapped in Mantua. And they were running out of time.

In October 1796, Baron Joseph d'Alvintzi was given command of some 50,000 Austrian soldiers and the urgent mission of expelling the French from Verona. An experienced commander and clever strategist, d'Alvintzi studied Napoleon's Italian campaign carefully and came to respect his enemy. To defeat this brilliant young general, the Austrians would have to be more flexible, and d'Alvintzi thought he had the solution: he would divide his army into two columns, one under himself, the other under the Russian general Paul Davidovich. The columns would separately march south, converging at Verona. At the same time, d'Alvintzi would launch a campaign of deception to make Napoleon think that Davidovich's army was small (it was in fact 18,000 men strong), merely a holding force to protect the Austrian lines of communication. If Napoleon underestimated Davidovich, the Russian general would face less opposition and his way to Verona would be smooth. D'Alvintzi's plan was to trap Napoleon between the jaws of these two armies.

The Austrians entered northern Italy in early November. To d'Alvintzi's delight, Napoleon seemed to have fallen for their trick; he sent a relatively light force against Davidovich, who promptly gave the French in Italy their first real defeat and began his advance toward Verona. Meanwhile d'Alvintzi himself advanced all the way to a point not far from Verona and was poised to fall on the city from the east. As he pored over his maps, d'Alvintzi took pleasure in his plan. If Napoleon sent more men to stop Davidovich, he would weaken Verona against d'Alvintzi. If he tried to block d'Alvintzi's entrance from the east, he would weaken Verona against Davidovich. If he sought reinforcements from his troops at Mantua, he would free up the 20,000 Austrian soldiers trapped there and they would gobble him up from the south. D'Alvintzi also knew that Napoleon's men were exhausted and hungry. Having fought for six months without rest, they were at a breaking point. Not even a young genius like Napoleon could escape this trap.

A few days later, d'Alvintzi advanced to the village of Caldiero, at Verona's doorstep. There he inflicted another defeat on the French troops sent to stop him. After a string of victories, Napoleon had now lost two battles in a row; the pendulum had swung against him.

As d'Alvintzi prepared for his final pounce on Verona, he received confusing news: against all prediction Napoleon had in fact divided his army in Verona, but instead of sending parts of it against either d'Alvintzi or Davidovich, he had marched a sizable force somewhere to the southeast. The next day this army appeared outside the town of Arcola. If the French crossed the river to Arcola and advanced a few miles north, they would directly cross d'Alvintzi's line of communications and of retreat, and they would be able to seize his supply depots at Villa Nova. Having this large French army to his rear was more than alarming; d'Alvintzi was forced to forget about Verona for the moment and hastily marched east.

He had retreated in the nick of time and was able to halt the French before they could cross the river and attack Villa Nova. For several days the two armies settled into a fiercely contested battle for the bridge at Arcola. Napoleon himself led several charges and was nearly killed. A portion of the troops blocking Mantua were dispatched north to reinforce the French at Arcola, but d'Alvintzi's army hunkered down, and the battle turned into a stalemate.

On the third day of fighting, d'Alvintzi's soldiers--their lines thinned by relentless French attacks--were preparing for another battle for the bridge when they suddenly heard trumpets blaring from their southern flank. A French force had somehow crossed the river below the bridge and was marching toward the Austrian flank at Arcola. The sound of trumpets was quickly replaced by shouts and the whizzing of bullets. The sudden appearance of the French on their flank was too much for the wearied Austrians; not waiting to see the size of the French force, they panicked and fled the scene. The French poured across the river. D'Alvintzi gathered up his men as best he could and managed to lead them east to safety. But the battle for Verona was lost, and with it the doom of Mantua was sealed.

Somehow Napoleon had managed to snatch victory from defeat. The battle of Arcola helped forge the legend of his invincibility.

Now came the critical problem of judging the correct moment for the enveloping force to reveal its disconcerting position on the enemy flank. For maximum effect, it was important that this should not occur before the enemy had committed all or most of his reserves to the frontal battle, and this need for accurate timing of the flank attack called for the greatest judgment on the part of Napoleon and his key subordinates. The former had to judge the moment when all the enemy troops were indeed committed to the frontal battle (and with the billowing clouds of black-powder smoke obliterating the scene this was no easy matter); the latter had the task of keeping their eager troops "on the leash" so as to avoid any premature attack disclosing their presence. Then, when the exact moment came, Napoleon would give the signal.... Then the
attaque debordante
would spring to life. A roar of cannon away on his hitherto secure flank would cause the enemy to look apprehensively over his shoulder, and before long the spyglasses of his anxious staff would be able to detect a line of dust and smoke crawling ever nearer from the flank or rear. This threat to his communications and line of retreat could not be ignored. The enemy general might now theoretically adopt one of two courses (but in practice only one). He could either order an immediate general retreat to slip out of the trap before it shut behind his army (although this was generally out of the question, as Napoleon would of course launch a general frontal attack against all sectors of the enemy line to coincide with the unmasking of his flanking force and thus pin the foe still tighter to the ground he was holding); or he would be compelled to find troops from somewhere to form a new line at right angles to his main position to face the new onslaught and protect his flank. As all reserves were (ideally) already committed to battle, this could be easily and quickly effected only by deliberately weakening those frontal sectors closest to the new threat. This thinning out of the enemy front is what Napoleon termed "the Event"--and was of course exactly what he intended to have happen. The curtain on the first act would now fall; the enemy was reacting as required; the destruction of the cohesion of his line, the final ruination of his equilibrium, could now be undertaken with practically a guarantee of ultimate success.

T
HE
C
AMPAIGNS OF
N
APOLEON
, D
AVID
G. C
HANDLER
, 1966

Interpretation

Napoleon was no magician, and his defeat of the Austrians in Italy was deceptively simple. Facing two armies converging on him, he calculated that d'Alvintzi's was the more imminent danger. The fight for Caldiero encouraged the Austrians to think that Verona would be defended through direct, frontal confrontation. But Napoleon instead divided his army and sent the larger portion of it to threaten the Austrian supply depot and lines of communication and retreat. Had d'Alvintzi ignored the threat and advanced on Verona, he would have moved farther away from his critical base of operations and put himself in great jeopardy; had he stayed put, Napoleon would have squeezed him between two armies. In fact, Napoleon knew d'Alvintzi would have to retreat--the threat was too real--and once he had done so, he would have relinquished the initiative. At Arcola, sensing that the enemy was tiring, Napoleon sent a small contingent to cross the river to the south and march on the Austrian flank, with instructions to make as much noise as possible--trumpets, shouts, gunfire. The presence of this attacking force, small though it was, would induce panic and collapse. The ruse worked.

This maneuver--the
manoeuvre sur les derrieres
, Napoleon called it--would become a favorite strategy of his. Its success was based on two truths: First, generals like to place their armies in a strong frontal position, whether to make an attack or to meet one. Napoleon would often play on this tendency to face forward in battle by seeming to engage the enemy frontally; in the fog of battle, it was hard to tell that really only half of his army was deployed here, and meanwhile he would sneak the other half to the side or rear. Second, an army sensing attack from the flank is alarmed and vulnerable and must turn to face the threat. This moment of turning contains great weakness and confusion. Even an army in the stronger position, like d'Alvintzi's at Verona, will almost always lose cohesion and balance as it turns.

Learn from the great master himself: attacking from the front is rarely wise. The soldiers facing you will be tightly packed in, a concentration of force that will amplify their power to resist you. Go for their flank, their vulnerable side. This principle is applicable to conflicts or encounters of any scale.

Individuals often show their flank, signal their vulnerability, by its opposite, the front they show most visibly to the world. This front can be an aggressive personality, a way of dealing with people by pushing them around. Or it can be some obvious defense mechanism, a focus on keeping out intruders to maintain stability in their lives. It can be their most cherished beliefs and ideas; it can be the way they make themselves liked. The more you get people to expose this front, to show more of themselves and the directions they tend to move in, the more their unprotected flanks will come into focus--unconscious desires, gaping insecurities, precarious alliances, uncontrollable compulsions. Once you move on their flanks, your targets will turn to face you and lose their equilibrium. All enemies are vulnerable from their sides. There is no defense against a well-designed flanking maneuver.

Opposition to the truth is inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of resistance can be diminished--by giving thought not only to the aim but to the method of approach. Avoid a frontal attack on a long-established position; instead, seek to turn it by flank movement, so that a more penetrable side is exposed to the thrust of truth.

--B. H. Liddell Hart (1895-1970)

OCCUPYING THE FLANK

As a young man, Julius Caesar (100-44
B.C.
) was once captured by pirates. They asked for a ransom of twenty talents; laughing, he replied that a man of his nobility was worth fifty talents, and he volunteered to pay that sum. His attendants were sent for the money, and Caesar was left alone with these bloodthirsty pirates. For the weeks he remained among them, he participated in their games and revelry, even playing a little rough with them, joking that he would have them crucified someday.