Prussian Napoleonic Tactics by Hofschroer

Prussian Napoleonic Tactics 1792-1815 is a refreshing departure from most Osprey books in that it wants to make a point. Although Peter Hofschoer uses a chronological approach to make it, at least it provides a starting point for discussion. 

Hofschroer is out to disprove the historical narrative of a decrepit and outdated Prussian army getting humiliated by Napoleon and Davout at Jena and Auerstädt and that national heroes like Gneisenau and Stein revamped the army so that it could redeem Germany from 1813 to 1815. You can see how well that fits in with 19^th and 20^th century nationalist historiography.

In the opposite corner, Hofschroer posits that reforms had been ongoing all the time since Frederick’s late reign and that the post-Jena reforms were therefor not so revolutionary. Hofschroer shows that the regulations indeed kept pace with developments elsewhere, for example the introduction of light infantry: riflemen were added to regular infantry units in 1787 and specialist battallions of Fusiliers in 1793.

But Hofschroer goes further by also showing that the tools provided by the regulations were used on the battlefield, in particular on the Revolutionary Wars and the 1806-7 campaign. Although it is hard to tell how representative the examples are, they show what the Prussian army was capable of. This suggests wider application and that Prussian soldiers were tactically on par with the French rather than mindless automatons.

But if the tactical capabilities of the Prussian army were not the problem in 1806-7 this means that the full weight of the defeat lies at the hands of the commanders. So what exactly changed between the Revolutionary Wars and 1806-7 and then the German Wars of Liberation? Because there seems a considerable continuity in commanders over time. Brunswick and Rüchel commanded both in 1792-5 and 1806-7, and with credit in the first period. Yorck and Blücher were also exponents of the Frederician army and seem to have done a reasonable job after 1807.

Given the size and scope of the book the answers to these questions are not found here. Considering the point Hofschroer wishes to make, it is not surprising that the focus of the book is on the period up to 1807. The later reforms and campaigns get only a third of the pages.

Apart from the different angle and the extensive examples, what are the other strong point of the book? It contains ample illustrations and maps, which are useful although in some cases the narrative is so complex that it would have been more informative to have a sequence of smaller maps. It is also not common for Osprey writers to extensively use of sources in languages other than English. So, in conclusion, this is a very good Osprey.

The Bitter Lessons of UN intervention - Can I do better?

The early 1990s were an incredibly hopeful time for keen young adults like me. The Berlin wall had fallen, the Soviet Union collapsed and the ideological conflict with accompanying doom scenarios of global nuclear war had disappeared like snow before the sun.It really felt like a new chance had come for a.world working united to end poverty, hunger and war. I even wrote a song or two expressing that naieve belief.

A lesser known edition of the famous book

We were soon to be disappointed. The disappearance of ideological conflict gave room for ethnic strife and unscrupulous warlords in failed states. The international community proved powerless to end it, even made it worse by intervening half-heartedly and then pulling out when things got tough.


So for me Yugoslavia, Somalia and Ruanda are the moral anchors when it comes to intervention by UN or NATO troops, and I am sure also for many of the leading politicians today. They are not much older than I am.

One of the most impressing and depressing books I've ever read was Deliver Us From Evil by William Shawcross. The book paints a depressing picture of the attempts of the international community (more or less reluctantly led by the United States) in the 1990s to effect the new world order that seemed to be in its grasp.

It is clear that after 9/11 the perspective has changed. There is something like a new world order emerging and not many people in the West like what they see. It has kept them from intervening for humanitarian reasons. And the experience in nation building seems not to have taught the U.S. very much in its so-called war on terrorism.

But there have been a few repeats in Western Africa and recently in Libya and Mali. Syria could go live any minute. The feeling that somethingmust be done is still alive, even if more muted than 15 years ago.

So what am I thinking a week before joining in the Crisis in Binni megagame? The game focuses on a humanitarian crisis in a fictional African country riven by civil war. Factions of warlords fight each other and probably refugees are stampeding in some unfortunate direction. The international community is waiting to jump in with a minimu of preparation and a maximum of photo opportunities.

I'm thinking how can I do a good job as a U.S. military commander. I'm not the one setting the goals of the mission, but I should try to get as clear a picture of my resources, so I can help my diplomatic counterpart, and my counterparts in other UN contingents to achieve those goals.

I will need to think of the security of my troops, try not to chose sides, try not to get into a messy situation. And all this with only a theoretical experience in AirLand Battle and fighting doctrinal wars over manoeuvre warfare. Most helpful.

So what advice have you guys got for me?

Crossing the Saverne Gap in three attempts

Memoir  '44 is a pretty good game. It may have it's limits as a simulation of WWII combat, but it creates a tense conflict.

First game: foolishly attacking through the centre

With the inherent advantage of the defender, the weight is on the attacker to methodically execute his attack. However, contrary to contemporary practice there isn't much you can do in planning, and you have to manage your hand as well as possible to create short busts of activity in each area of the board.

You want to know how I know? Well, I had to relearn it all.

Second game: much better start...

It took me three attempts to finally beat Michiel at the Saverne Gap scenario.

First try was a shambles, with no focus and bad dice rolls. I couldn't even kill a single German unit before my attack ground down in defeat.

Second game: ... but then lost focus and still got beat

The second time, at least I tried to shift the weight of my attack from flank to flank and centre. However, I missed the big learning point of this scenario, which is that you don't attack in the centre. So it went real close, but Micheal had the edge and won again.

Third game: left hook, right hook, out!

So in my third attempt, I dispensed with an attack in the center, although I occasionally  unloaded some fire on a forward post, but the real damage was done on the flanks and Michiel's sally with his panzers to the support of his left flank offered me a juicy target that I could destroy with ease. Victory at last.

Of course, Devers might have sacked me somewhere before my third attempt, but he was not as harsh a task master as Patton.

You've been Pavloved!

I just realised that I shrank back from the metal inside of the door of the dish washing machine.

When we were on holiday in Spain, the dish washing machine was not grounded, so i received a few nasty shocks over the week touching the metal parts.

That caution has apparently followed me home. Given that it's almost three weeks later, the conditioning is pretty quick and strong and lasting.

I need more walls!

Since last month I am the lucky owner of three large, historical posters. They're from a series of widely known school posters, used for history lessons in the old days (the first ones were printed over a century ago). They show episodes in the (military) history of the Netherlands that were considered important at the time..

The first I won in a quiz. It is a complicated story, but it all comes down to the question not being related to the event depicted on the poster. Thanks anyway, Peter. The poster is in fact of the relief of Leiden in 1574. This is probably around the current Lammenschans (ie redoubt). In the distance you can see the main churches.

The other posters I got from my old house mate and friend Mat. The first depicts the crossing of the frozen River Lek by the French Revolutionary forces in January 1795. This broke the defense of the regime of the house of Orange and gave way to the Batavian Republic, a French client state, but also the unitarian ancestor of the later Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The last poster deals with an equally cold episode from the Napoleonic Wars, as the Dutch infantry defends the crossings of the Berezina during the retreat from Moscow in 1812. by J.Hoynck van Papendrecht.

Birthday suggestions

One of the boons of publishing my birthday list is that I have gotten a few suggestions, so thanks Raymond and Mats, they are much appreciated and added to the list!

Walter Flex,  Vriend aan het front -  Bericht uit de loopgraven.
A translation of the 1916 original Der Wanderer Zwischen Beiden Welten.

Ammianus Marcellinus, Julianus, de laatste heidense keizer. Nadagen van een wereldrijk
Res Gestae, in de vertaling van Daan den Hengst. For Anglophones, that means that the Res Gestae by Ammianus Marcellinus have been translated into Dutch.

Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Waterloo
and another one I thought of myself. Not so much for historical input, but to get a view of how misinformed British readers can be about the battle

Struggle over the Legacy of Al-Andalus

The eight centuries of reluctant cohabitation by Christians, Jews and Muslims on the Iberian peninsula have acquired new relevance in an age of mass migration of Muslims into 'Christian' Western Europe. For some the level of harmony which was acquired can be taken as an indicator of our future ability to live together.

Luc Corly's De Spaanse conquista en reconquista 711-1492 tries to tackle this complex and tricky subject, in itself a brave thing. In my opinion, Corluy writes a pretty robust political and military history of the period, but falls short in providing lessons for the present and future.

One of the advantages of going to Antwerp in January was visiting a Belgian bookstore, which is different from going to a Dutch one, not least in the availability of books by Belgians (cultural imperialism means you find lots of Dutch books in Belgium but fewer Belgian books in the Netherlands). This book was advertised as the first account of the Muslim presence in Spain in the Dutch language and I bought this book in the knowledge that I would be visiting Andalusia in May.

Corluy describes the general political and military history of the peninsula, despite his insistence in the introduction that he wants to offer a broader picture. I’d say that over three quarters of his book still focus on this narrow topic. There is some explanation of the social order, and there are interesting side stories on the Celtic church and monastic orders. But there is no sense of the economic history, only a hint on the demographic trends and very little on how Christians, Jews and Muslims actually lived together or even apart. 

Personally, I love military history and I easily waded through war upon war upon invasion upon revolt. It’s given me one brilliant setting for a megagame (the fall of Toledo and the Almoravid invasion around 1085. Yes, this is also the period of El Cid) and provided a nice background to my visits to Ronda and Malaga. But the lack of social and economic context provides a problem for the conclusions he draws in the final two chapters.

Okay, I bought one book in Spain, a historical atlas. This is the situation in 1086

Corluy shows convincingly that the cohabitation of the three religions in Spain was no multicultural paradise. Whether the Christians or Muslims were in charge, the minorities were always treated a second or third rate people (see appendix). The quick expulsion of Muslims and Jews after 1492 shows that how fragile even that tolerance was. 

But at least during the 800 years before that, forced conversion or expulsion were the exception, not the rule. And if there wasn’t a harmonious convivencia, at least Christian and Muslim leaders co-operated against their co-religionists when it suited them politically. Also, when Christian and Muslim leaders felt it was useful (and they weren’t restricted by more fanatical co-religionists) they allowed greater freedoms to their minorities.

The Jews were obviously better off under Muslim rule. Biblically inspired anti-Semitism reappeared every once in a while in the Christian territories and especially in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. But Jews were in a sense indispensible as intermediaries between rulers and other minorities.

Regrettably, there is no comparison to the rest of ‘Christendom’ or ‘Islam’. Was life for religious minorities any better there than in Spain? Did the French treat the Albigensian heretics better than the Muslims were treated in Christian Spain? Was the dhimmi system in Spain tougher or more tolerable than in the Balkans or North Africa?

Surprisingly, for a supposedly scholarly work there is no source material included and no reference to literature in Arabic. This weakness is most evident in the last chapter, which is meant to wrap up the discussion about the possibility for Christians, Jews and Muslims to live together harmoniously.

Although I don´t dispute the quotes showing Muslim arrogance and sense of superiority (Christian mostly had the same attitude towards the Muslims), it is more than worrying that his main source is Bernard Lewis, without any opposing voice. Likewise, can the discussion between Spanish scholars on the islamic influence on Spanish culture be seen without any reference to the ultra/catholic tendencies of the Franco regime?

I fail to see the lust for plunder of the Muslims in Spain as excessive, as Corluy claims. There were times of increased importance of religion as a legitimation of warfare, under Al-Mansur and the Almoravids and Almohades. In the first case religious fervour was a way to compensate for the lack of legitimacy of Al-Mansur’s regime, and in the latter two cases it was inherent in the movements. But likewise the Castilians had their linea dura shortly after the capture of Toledo. The religious absolutism on both sides was more a sign of the premodern world view than with inherent aspects of those religions.

Lessons for the future?

Finally, I think that it is difficult to draw too many lessons from the past for the present. The Islam of today is not the same as that of five centuries ago, just like Christianity has changed. Also, the Muslims of today have not come as a small, conquering elite, but as a mass of powerless and uneducated immigrants.

Western society has much greater influence on their values now than it had in the age of reconquista: education, work, mass media and systems of political representation are very powerful means of socialisation. Even though small miniorities of Muslims might reject western society, many more accept it in broad lines. Even many orthodox slowly come to accept western concepts of individual liberty.

The main argument of Islamophobes (as opposed to people critical of current manifestations of Islam, for which there is ground enough) is that Islam is in some way unchanged and unchangeably aggressive and intolerant of other religions. The history of Islam shows that there is such a diversity of experiences there that
belies that argument. Just as the Crusades, inquisition, pogroms, savage wars of religion are matched by charity, lay devotion, truce of god etc. And that is even before Christianity is transformed (I'd almost say domesticated) by humanism and enlightenment and subjected to higher standards of humanity as it is today..

On the one hand mass immigration of Muslims into Western Europe is a thrilling opportunity to set an example of how different religions can live peacefully together, without one being subjected to the other. On the other hand, it could still go wrong. But the first step to success is to admit that Islam is able to change (like any other monotheist religion).

I hope this incites some of you to comment!


Appendix:On the social make up of conquista Spain

It is helpful to have an idea of the main groups in the population of Spain at this time, because there's more to it than just three religious groups. The small ruling class in Muslim Spain descended from the Syrian and Arab invaders of the early 8^th century. The North African Berbers had also played an important role in the conquest of Spain but had been forcibly kept from political power by the Arabs. They formed a group separate from the other Muslims and Christians. 

There was a considerable Jewish population in both Christian and Muslim territories. They could occassionally rise to important positions in Muslim administrations, but tended to remain marginalised in Christian states. Their lives seem to have been better generally in Muslim territories under the dhimmi system than in Christian areas.

The mass of Christian population worked the land in a servile state (which originated in the Roman/Visigoth age) with a small urban proletariat. In Muslim territories they retained the right to worship in their own way, but they were required to pay higher taxes under the dhimmi system and their rights were easily infringed upon when it seemed opportune. In the Christian territories at least they had more freedom to worship (within the restrictions of the church!) and a lower tax burden. There must have been a Christian middle class of some sort, even tough small.

Below them was the class slaves. In Muslim territories these were Christians and heathen, often captured from the Christian territories in the North or brought from Africa. In the Christian territories the slaves were captured Muslims.