Mission Command Analysis: The Battle of the Marne - Essay Example

Mission Command Analysis Introduction The Battle of the Marne otherwise referred to as the Miracle of the Marne was the first battle of the World War I that took place between the 5th and 12th days of September in 1914. This battle resulted in one of the Allied victories against the German Army under the command of Chief of Staff Helmut von Moltkei. The battle led to effective termination of the thirty days long German offensive that led to the opening of the war and had set out in the outskirts of Paris. The major events that caused the Marne Battle were; on 3 August in 1914, the Germany army invaded Belgiumii. Their movement across the Western part of Europe was swift and surprisingly in accordance with the identical Schlieffen Plan. The British Expeditionary Army swept aside the Germany Army with relative ease since the former had retreated from at the Mons Battle. For quite sometime, General French wanted the BEF to take off to the Coast but Lord Kitchner forbade the move ordering that BEF had no obligation towards separating from the French Armyiii. As a result, the French retreated and headed towards the Marne River. It was at this location where both the French and German armies fought their first major battle. The task of this argumentative paper is to give a Mission Command Analysis of Cos Helmuth von Moltke during the first Battle of the Marne in World War Iiv. Analysis of the Commander’s performance The aftermath of the Marne Battle witnessed large losses where the Allied casualties amounted roughly to 263,000 while those of Germans were similar. In the wake of the Marne Battle, Helmut reportedly sent information to Kaiser Wilhelm II saying, “Your Majesty, it appears that we have lost in this battle”. Similarly, he lost his authority as Chief of the General Staff on the 14th day of September upon losing in the battlev. Given the result of the battle, it is now easy to analyze how the commander performed during the battle. With reference to the aspects of command, which include intelligence, sustainment, protection, fires, and movement as well as maneuver Commander Helmuth von Moltke performed badlyvi. The German Army had the intelligence to maneuver and move towards defeating their opponents. However, due to their commander’s divided interests, the army experienced strategic defeat. According to the Schlieffen Plan, the German had devised a means of creating offense and at the same time setting up a concrete defense. Even though with regard to many historians the Helmut’s failure is a matter of intense debate, it is contended that it is his mode of command that led to the weakening of the war fighting function Plan and led to his army’s strategic defeatvii. Deriving prove from the available records, it shows that Helmut concerned himself too much with Russia hence moved many resources towards the east. In fact, documented evidence reveals that he moved 180, 000 men towards the east a long time before the warviii. Additionally, he transported many thousands of extra men from the crucial right wing towards the left wing, which was facing France in Lorraine and Alsace. Far more controversially, it is agreeable that Commander Helmut contributed highly to the failure of the German Army since on the 28th day of August 1914; he sent a cavalry division and two corps to reinforce Hindenburg and Ludendorff just a few days prior the epic victory of the Tannenberg Battleix. Some historians view these series of moves as responsible for a wide margin of the tragic failure of the only plan, Schlieffen, which could lead the German Army to victory. Division was yet another factor that makes him the worst of all military commanders that German had ever produced during the warx. It appears that, this commander had planned methodologies of protection, acquiring firearms, and sustaining the war but he failed to control his army wisely making it relatively easier for the enemy to locate access into the defensive sites. This makes it clear that most of the decisions and moves that he made or took turned to be a precise failure. The commanders of the First and Second Armies of France were not in good terms and faced persistent misunderstandings. As such, they paved a strategic loophole for any enemy to attack Paris. However, Helmut being such a foible planner, he failed to utilize the strategic space and left it for the French troops t o exploit. This is a direct cause of Helmut’s failure and came in as an outcome of failure to apply one of the six steps of command performance, which is visualizing the end state, nature, and design of the operationxi. A number of historical analysts are content that the commander’s failure to visualize the outcome circumstances of Alexander’s and Karl’s lack of coordination made him a failed command performer. Research findings tell us that the Schlieffen School does not agree with the fact that Helmut failed as a commander because he did not figure out the end state of Frenchmen invasion of the gap created near Paris. As such, most writers reveal that Helmut had already lost control of the invading armies during the month of Augustxii. This means that he was unable to answer or react during the commencement of the First Battle of Marne since it developed at the wake of September. Whilst Helmut did not have any contact with his ground soldiers, it appeared that he had lost the battle. S.L.A Marshall, a renowned historian asserts that Helmut failed as a commander since he did not employ the common doctrines of Germans. Most German leaders had always stressed on personal initiative on the side of the subordinate soldiers rather than other armies. Commanders must have systems to help them exercise control over their subordinate soldiers. Nevertheless, in this vein, Helmut lacked the science of control and did not allow the mission stated in the Schlieffen Plan to command war-fighting function. As a result, he could not blend in to the art of war whereby leaders command using the science of control and emphasize on the human aspects of commandxiii. Moreover, it is arguable that Helmut performed badly as a commander due to choices presented to him. This follows the note that the multitude of strategic choices and options he faced contributed to his poor judgment that facilitated his falls as a commander. Having been unable to find out the main cause of the problem hampering his role, he failed to intercede the opportunity presented to him by disunity between Karl and Alexander. The danger of invading Russia in the East of Prussia is yet another reason that led to Helmut’s failure. Due to the multitude of options that he had Russian invasion being one of them made it difficult for him to succeed as he faced divided decision. In Berlin, Helmut served as another failure of command since he could not manage to organize and forward the reserves. He too could not control the Territorial Army corps that corresponded to the others at the front. Nonetheless, what made him lose severely is his inability to evaluate resources and the size of his Army compared to his enemies. For instance, sources establish that the French Army was a bit larger as opposed to the German Army. The French Army and Allies comprised under the command of Joseph Joffre comprised of 700,000 men, 41 infantry divisions, and 8 cavalry divisionsxiv. The same sources highlight that the German Army under Helmut von Moltke command comprised of 535,000 men, 23 infantry divisions, and 5 cavalry divisions. Statistical analysis of the data sum up the ideal power of the German Army to be strong but technically weak due to issues related to the size of the armyxv. As elaborate, it was not a wise decision for Helmut to underestimate the power of the allied forces and with that vein; he failed to visualize the impacts of war fighting functions making it relatively easy to fail as a commanding officer of the German Army. A successful commander would come up with a lead, an assessment of time, resources, and space needed to extract means of defeating the enemy. This was not the case with Helmut von Moltke. Fact-findings reveal that in order to win a battle soldiers need adequate space to set tactics of creating offense and defense and at the same time predicting the outcome of an unexpected attack by the enemy. Research results show that French forces did not have the ability to hinder seriously German forces during their retreatxvi. Due to lack of Helmut’s inability to create space for movement, maneuver, and protection, his army ran out of land for maneuvering and movement as armies including that of French continued attempting to outflank each other towards the northern flank. Their attempts persisted until they all lacked land to maneuver. These instances of running out of land to move and maneuver as well as protection depict presence of failure characteristic on the side of Helmutxvii. To add on to his cases of failure, Helmut began swerving both the Fist and Second Armies of German towards the South East creating a big space from Paris. Historical analysts declare this move as incompetent and unrealistic following the fact that Helmut swerved his armies mainly due to the need to envelop the French armies, which were retreating. Agreeably, this is a failure motive because since did responsible military leader swerve his army from the strategic attacking positions to counter attack a retreating army! It is arguable that Helmut failed because of his concurrent actions of dispositions of his armyxviii. Change troop positions made it easier for the French and British forces to push German troops towards vaunted areas where their Schlieffen plan could not work effectively any more. Political analysts of the time refer to Helmut as a weak willed soldier who had very little talent in fighting. As such, he could not understand the problem posed by operational environment surrounding the First battle of Marne. Additionally, in his decisions there was lack of visualized or conceptualized prediction of the enemy despite the fact that he knew the kind of enemies he was up to fight. Following his moves towards implementing the Plan, the trenches he instructed soldiers to dig could not hold the British expeditionary forces or the French Army for a long time and as a matter of course, they pushed his army on two frontsxix. This accumulated to lack of stability and civil support given the point that he had no running estimates or elements of operational design. With regard to how most analysts of war describe the command performance of von Helmut, it is clear that as a German military commander, he did not perform according to what soldiers, civilians, and other concerned individuals expected him to perform. He failed to shape the fighting operations and could not make decisive modes of setting up operations. Consequently, his army had difficulties in meeting the sustaining measures of operating in the First Battle of Marnexx. Actions taken by Helmut contributed towards the defeat suffered by the German troops. As a result, the effects of Marne Battle prevailed to the beginning of the First World War. If only he could visualize the outcome of the war, German troops would not encounter difficulties in their attempts to take part in the World War I. In conclusion, the impacts of Helmut’s mission command and performance led to the defeat of the German Army. At some point, we see von Helmut informing Keiser Wilhelm that he has lost in the battle. His words count as a sound and tangible evidence showing that his actions and decisions had resulted to loss in the battlexxi. Most damning, the effects of his failure had devastating results as they ensured that German was merely unable to exert stringent power, authority, or ability during the start of the World War I. My analysis regarding the significance of the battle and Helmut’s performance point out that German had the ability to win the war due to its ideal plans and plenty of strategic options presented to the leader. Read More