While reading about major successful and decisive battles and campaigns in WW I and II, I've noticed a reoccuring thing on the German side.
Usually there were done or rather led by a couple, closely working together and enhancing each others' strengthes and weaknesses or rather complementing each other. And I am curious wether this also happened in other armies?
The German pairs all with a rather contradicting tendency to be politically on the far right side (ultra-conservative, monarchistic or even proto-fascist like Ludendorff) but surprisingly open-minded when it comes to new military stuff.
All "couples" usually consisting of an old war-horse with experience, reputation and standing but with an open mind for their younger staff officer with those radical weird new ideas how to wage war.
On the German side:
WW I (Ostfront/East Prussia):
Paul von Hindenburg: old war-horse (left)
Erich Ludendorff: brilliant staff officer (right)
Hindenburg was the old, experienced general called out of his retirement into WWI and bringing in the standing and reputation and also the calmness of experience when things got hot and that once you have decided on a plan you have no other choice but to get thru with it and execute it calmly and precice even against backlashes. While Ludendorff brought in an extraordinary ability for ideas, strats and tactics how to wage and win battles but seems from descriptions to be also quite a bundle of nerves who probably would had bungled his own plans without Hindenburg's calmness ("slept very well during the battle" he said with a traditional prussian tone of understatement and with this also hinting at his staff officer's merit for the victory... and not mentioning that Ludendorff slept very badly).
The one without the other probably not by far as successful in WW I.
Notable battle: Battle of Tannenberg
Hindenburg later became the 2nd president of the Weimar Republic. Ludendorff, during the later part of WW I became the de-facto military dictator of Germany and at the end of the war the "architect" of the Dolchstoßlegende or Stab-in-the-back myth and how to shift the fault of the WW I defeat towards the Socialdemocrats (as ugly and utterly surprising as it was, one has to admit it was a genius strike).
August von Mackensen: old war-horse (left)
Hans von Seeckt: brilliant staff officer (right)
Mackensen an old Hussar officer of the old school, quite competent and fierce already on his own. Hans von Seeckt a highly cultivated and educated Prussian officer and very probably the brilliant mastermind behind "their" victories.
Notable battles: Gorlice–Tarnów offensive
Later on the Nazis liked to show off with Mackensen (while secretly suspecting him of still having monarchistic tendencies). Hans von Seeckt became the commander in chief of the German Army after WW I, anti-jewish to the bone and introduced at once a policy of not allowing any jews into the army. Unfortunately for the world also very intelligent and right from the beginning tasked his tiny Versaille treaty army to analyze the failures of WW I and how better to prepare and plan for the next war... and with this very probably responsible for why the later Wehrmacht was initially having the much better tactics and doctrines. After his retirement in 1926 he served as a military consultant in China to modernize Kai-Sheks army which almost resulted in an alliance between Germany and China (instead of with Japan). Despite his recommendation to all soldiers (with all the backing as the former commander in chief) to vote for the Nazis, in the later 30ies he got quite into troubles with them.
WW II
Gerd von Rundstedt: experienced general
Erich von Manstein (formerly Erich von Lewinski): brilliant staff officer
The image I had in mind (and unfortunately I wasn't able to find again) shows Rundstedt and Manstein sitting in the garden at a long table, white linnen, at a cup of tea, of course the cups are fine Prussian porcelain, in the background a quite big manor house, chatting with each other over some maps in front of them. And what are 2 cultivated Prussian noblemen usually chatting about? Yes, how to destroy the nation of Poland. They are working on Fall Weiss...
And again we have the reoccuring theme of an older well established general (von Rundstedt) paired with a younger brilliant strategist and in this case rather disliked by his fellow officers because of his tendency to always-know-better and mingleing into other officers' affairs and departments.
While the British have a rather weird tendency to herorise Rommel (and I strongly suspect mainly to cover their own shortcomings), there is probably no doubt that one of the best if not the best warstrategist of WW II is Erich von Manstein. He was the mastermind behind the invasion of Poland and France. Protegized and supported by Gerd von Rundstedt and without this WW II would had been a completly different story, perhaps not even developed to something called world war and overshadowing WW I.
Notice the former name of Manstein: Lewinsky... and, o wonder, he has been known to say: that Nazi racial theory is all fine and I am fully behind it but there surely should be exceptions for the ones who have shown over generations their, well how do you say this in English, ariarness(?) in many wars.
Fall Weiß: Invasion of Poland
Fall Gelb: Sichelschnittplan or Westfeldzug
For Fall Gelb this duo was "enhanced" by Guderian, the leading panzer specialist of Germany, responsible for designing in the early 30ies with the German industry the work-horses of the Wehrmacht thru all the war: Panzer Typ III and IV. And much lesser known but at least equally important, although only a few of them were built especially for him: Funkpanzerwagen (direct translation: Armoured Radiocar)
A special variant of the half-track in which he travelled with the front, as close as being often enough able monitoring his panzer with field glasses. The imgae shows Guderian surrounded by several radio- and enigma-crews transfering his orders in real-time to his also radio-equipped tanks and, as importantly, to the German airforce to send in support to bomb the rather superiour French tanks. Support from the airforce had response times ranging from 15-45 minutes. For this to work I can't really imagine how many meetings and beers he had with the responsible airforce commanders.
This image is THE incarnation of the Wehrmacht's
# mobility doctrine
# the combined arms doctrine having incorporated tanks and airforce
# leading from the front
# usage of 2-way-radios in every tank to highly enhance communication and response time.
Altogether allowing the Wehrmacht to move literally in circles around the mighty French forces.
Guderian was also clever enough not (only) to boast about the might of his panzer (like Göring all the time did with his Luftwaffe) but to rather make a point of their many vulnerabilities and how important it was for making them really to work to support tanks with mobilized artillery, mobilized infantry, support from airforce and that it would need 20 (!) lorries at average to support 1 panzer.
Guderian wasn't too fond of Hitler who then just bribed and bought him (as many other leading officers of the Wehrmacht) with presents: plain cash, a castle here and there, some land... But since Guderian couldn't stop his mouth, over the war he switched several times from the "saviour" of the army to enforced semi-retirement.
Addon:
Erwin Rommel, the so-called Desert Fox, for all intents and purposes a capable commander but in my humble opinion not really the genius he has been made into. And I think the main reason is that he lacked a complementing officer like in above examples. He was almost unable to delegate things. Often enough it wasn't even possible to contact him as the commander because he was off to lead a smaller part of his whole army on a charge without anybody of his staff leaving to know about his plans. Just this 2 negative attributes are a sure receipt for failure and surely not somebody you really want to serve with. But quite lucky for the British when later on he personally charged the whole Africa Corps into demise (again while his staff not able to even communicate with him).
So, are the pairings of old war-horse with younger radical brilliant warstrategist a unique German thing of WW I and II or is/was this also common in other armies?
Usually there were done or rather led by a couple, closely working together and enhancing each others' strengthes and weaknesses or rather complementing each other. And I am curious wether this also happened in other armies?
The German pairs all with a rather contradicting tendency to be politically on the far right side (ultra-conservative, monarchistic or even proto-fascist like Ludendorff) but surprisingly open-minded when it comes to new military stuff.
All "couples" usually consisting of an old war-horse with experience, reputation and standing but with an open mind for their younger staff officer with those radical weird new ideas how to wage war.
On the German side:
WW I (Ostfront/East Prussia):
Paul von Hindenburg: old war-horse (left)
Erich Ludendorff: brilliant staff officer (right)
Hindenburg was the old, experienced general called out of his retirement into WWI and bringing in the standing and reputation and also the calmness of experience when things got hot and that once you have decided on a plan you have no other choice but to get thru with it and execute it calmly and precice even against backlashes. While Ludendorff brought in an extraordinary ability for ideas, strats and tactics how to wage and win battles but seems from descriptions to be also quite a bundle of nerves who probably would had bungled his own plans without Hindenburg's calmness ("slept very well during the battle" he said with a traditional prussian tone of understatement and with this also hinting at his staff officer's merit for the victory... and not mentioning that Ludendorff slept very badly).
The one without the other probably not by far as successful in WW I.
Notable battle: Battle of Tannenberg
Hindenburg later became the 2nd president of the Weimar Republic. Ludendorff, during the later part of WW I became the de-facto military dictator of Germany and at the end of the war the "architect" of the Dolchstoßlegende or Stab-in-the-back myth and how to shift the fault of the WW I defeat towards the Socialdemocrats (as ugly and utterly surprising as it was, one has to admit it was a genius strike).
August von Mackensen: old war-horse (left)
Hans von Seeckt: brilliant staff officer (right)
Mackensen an old Hussar officer of the old school, quite competent and fierce already on his own. Hans von Seeckt a highly cultivated and educated Prussian officer and very probably the brilliant mastermind behind "their" victories.
Notable battles: Gorlice–Tarnów offensive
Later on the Nazis liked to show off with Mackensen (while secretly suspecting him of still having monarchistic tendencies). Hans von Seeckt became the commander in chief of the German Army after WW I, anti-jewish to the bone and introduced at once a policy of not allowing any jews into the army. Unfortunately for the world also very intelligent and right from the beginning tasked his tiny Versaille treaty army to analyze the failures of WW I and how better to prepare and plan for the next war... and with this very probably responsible for why the later Wehrmacht was initially having the much better tactics and doctrines. After his retirement in 1926 he served as a military consultant in China to modernize Kai-Sheks army which almost resulted in an alliance between Germany and China (instead of with Japan). Despite his recommendation to all soldiers (with all the backing as the former commander in chief) to vote for the Nazis, in the later 30ies he got quite into troubles with them.
WW II
Gerd von Rundstedt: experienced general
Erich von Manstein (formerly Erich von Lewinski): brilliant staff officer
The image I had in mind (and unfortunately I wasn't able to find again) shows Rundstedt and Manstein sitting in the garden at a long table, white linnen, at a cup of tea, of course the cups are fine Prussian porcelain, in the background a quite big manor house, chatting with each other over some maps in front of them. And what are 2 cultivated Prussian noblemen usually chatting about? Yes, how to destroy the nation of Poland. They are working on Fall Weiss...
And again we have the reoccuring theme of an older well established general (von Rundstedt) paired with a younger brilliant strategist and in this case rather disliked by his fellow officers because of his tendency to always-know-better and mingleing into other officers' affairs and departments.
While the British have a rather weird tendency to herorise Rommel (and I strongly suspect mainly to cover their own shortcomings), there is probably no doubt that one of the best if not the best warstrategist of WW II is Erich von Manstein. He was the mastermind behind the invasion of Poland and France. Protegized and supported by Gerd von Rundstedt and without this WW II would had been a completly different story, perhaps not even developed to something called world war and overshadowing WW I.
Notice the former name of Manstein: Lewinsky... and, o wonder, he has been known to say: that Nazi racial theory is all fine and I am fully behind it but there surely should be exceptions for the ones who have shown over generations their, well how do you say this in English, ariarness(?) in many wars.
Fall Weiß: Invasion of Poland
Fall Gelb: Sichelschnittplan or Westfeldzug
For Fall Gelb this duo was "enhanced" by Guderian, the leading panzer specialist of Germany, responsible for designing in the early 30ies with the German industry the work-horses of the Wehrmacht thru all the war: Panzer Typ III and IV. And much lesser known but at least equally important, although only a few of them were built especially for him: Funkpanzerwagen (direct translation: Armoured Radiocar)
A special variant of the half-track in which he travelled with the front, as close as being often enough able monitoring his panzer with field glasses. The imgae shows Guderian surrounded by several radio- and enigma-crews transfering his orders in real-time to his also radio-equipped tanks and, as importantly, to the German airforce to send in support to bomb the rather superiour French tanks. Support from the airforce had response times ranging from 15-45 minutes. For this to work I can't really imagine how many meetings and beers he had with the responsible airforce commanders.
This image is THE incarnation of the Wehrmacht's
# mobility doctrine
# the combined arms doctrine having incorporated tanks and airforce
# leading from the front
# usage of 2-way-radios in every tank to highly enhance communication and response time.
Altogether allowing the Wehrmacht to move literally in circles around the mighty French forces.
Guderian was also clever enough not (only) to boast about the might of his panzer (like Göring all the time did with his Luftwaffe) but to rather make a point of their many vulnerabilities and how important it was for making them really to work to support tanks with mobilized artillery, mobilized infantry, support from airforce and that it would need 20 (!) lorries at average to support 1 panzer.
Guderian wasn't too fond of Hitler who then just bribed and bought him (as many other leading officers of the Wehrmacht) with presents: plain cash, a castle here and there, some land... But since Guderian couldn't stop his mouth, over the war he switched several times from the "saviour" of the army to enforced semi-retirement.
Addon:
Erwin Rommel, the so-called Desert Fox, for all intents and purposes a capable commander but in my humble opinion not really the genius he has been made into. And I think the main reason is that he lacked a complementing officer like in above examples. He was almost unable to delegate things. Often enough it wasn't even possible to contact him as the commander because he was off to lead a smaller part of his whole army on a charge without anybody of his staff leaving to know about his plans. Just this 2 negative attributes are a sure receipt for failure and surely not somebody you really want to serve with. But quite lucky for the British when later on he personally charged the whole Africa Corps into demise (again while his staff not able to even communicate with him).
So, are the pairings of old war-horse with younger radical brilliant warstrategist a unique German thing of WW I and II or is/was this also common in other armies?
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