What price glory?

Steven Weinberg     NYRB  Nov 6, 2003 ISSUE

A Stillness at Appomattox: The Army of the Potomac, Vol. 3
by Bruce Catton     Anchor, 438 pp., $14.95 (paper)
The World Crisis, Vol. 4
by Winston S. Churchill     Scribner, 322 pp.(1964; out of print)
Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century
by Kelly DeVries     Boydell and Brewer,Univ. of Rochester Press, 216 pp., $29.95
Crusade in Europe
by Dwight D. Eisenhower     Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 608 pp., $19.95 (paper)
The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy, Bishop of Amiens
translated, ed. by C. Morton, H. Muntz   Clarendon Press, 149 pp. (1972; out of print)
War in European History
by Michael Howard     Oxford Univ. Press, 175 pp., $15.95 (paper)
Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy
by Richard M. McMurry     Univ. of Nebraska Press, 229 pp., $35.00

Winged Defense: Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power—Economic and Military
by William Mitchell     Dover, 320 pp. (1988; out of print)

Coral Sea, Midway, and Submarine Actions, May 1942–August 1942
by Samuel Eliot Morison     Book Sales, 307 pp., part of a fifteen-volume set, $12.99

A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages
by C.W.C. Oman     Burt Franklin, two volumes (1924; out of print)
The Art of War in the Middle Ages, AD 378–1515
by C. Oman, ed. by John H. Beeler    Cornell Univ.Press, 176 pp., $13.50 (paper)
Mohammed and Charlemagne
by Henri Pirenne     Dover, 304 pp., $12.95 (paper)
Hankey: Man of Secrets, Vol. 1, 1877–1918
by Stephen Roskill     Naval Institute Press, 672 pp. (1970; out of print)
The Victory at Sea
by William S. Sims     James Stevenson, 428 pp., $25.95 (paper)

The Bayeux Tapestry: A Comprehensive Surveyedited by Frank Stenton  
Phaidon, 182 pp. (1957; out of print)

Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany, 1944–1945
by Russell F. Weigley     Indiana University Press, 822 pp., $30.95
A World at Arms: A Global History of World War IIby Gerhard L. Weinberg  
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1,198 pp., $45.00
Medieval Technology and Social Change
by Lynn White     Oxford Univ. Press, 216 pp., $13.95 (paper)
The Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitiers
translated and edited by R. Davis, Marjorie Chibnall,  Oxford Univ. Press,248 pp., $92.50

War offers ample opportunities for most varieties of foolishness. Among these, there is one sort of folly to which war is especially well suited: the lust for glory. One can hardly ever be sure about a commander’s motives in any one case, but there are familiar signs of that lust: a readiness to accept a challenge to fight under unfavorable circumstances; a preference for taking action independent of allies or colleagues; an unreasoning predisposition for offense rather than defense; and an effort to seize a decisive role in winning victory. Examples come easily to mind. Antony accepted Agrippa’s challenge to fight by sea at Actium, though he was stronger by land. In 1421 the Duke of Clarence violated the orders of his brother, King Henry V, and died attacking five thousand French troops with 150 mounted men-at-arms and no archers. To recapture the glory he had won by riding around McClellan’s army in search of its flank during the defense of Richmond in 1862, J.E.B. Stuart in June and July of 1863 led his cavalry on a wild ride through Maryland and Pennsylvania, even though it left the Army of Northern Virginia without the reconnaissance it needed in the week before the Battle of Gettysburg. Admiral William F. Halsey Jr. commanded the Third Fleet to chase Japanese battleships and carriers while other Japanese battleships threatened American soldiers landing on the beaches of Leyte Island.

Though there always will be soldiers and sailors “seeking the bubble reputation, even in the cannon’s mouth,” it seems that the vainglory of individual commanders has lately become less dangerous in war, as improvements in the technology of communications and surveillance have increased the ability of commanders to control subordinates. But there is a continuing danger from an institutionalized vainglory. Sometimes a branch of the military may try to maximize its opportunity for glory, turning its back on other less glamorous tasks that are really needed. This can become an ideology, like the French army’s doctrine in 1914 of “l’attaque à outrance.” The military may even adopt weapons that serve more to enhance its glory than the likelihood of victory, and weapons themselves may become imbued with a glamour that stands in the way of sensible decisions about their use. One can find instances throughout history, and they extend unfortunately to the present day, with dangerous effects on our current defense policy.

 On February 1, 1917, Germany began a program of unrestricted submarine warfare. The effect on British shipping was devastating. During the first three months German U-boats sank 844 ships, at a cost of only ten of their submarines. According to Winston Churchill, “That was, in my opinion, the gravest peril that we faced in all the ups and downs of that war.”  2war 30soc

It should have been obvious that the solution to the U-boat threat was to require merchant ships to sail in convoy. As Churchill later explained in The World Crisis,

The size of the sea …