BOOKS OF THE DAY
The Tortoise and the Hare
NEITHER author could appropriately be called either a tortoise or a hare ; but it is possible, without undue stretch of the imagination or of language, to call each author both. The emphasis in Captain Liddell Hart's book is all on the need for deliberation, for careful assessment of every possible factor before any blow is struck, but on the need then for striking it swiftly, by means of highly mobile armoured divisions disencumbered of any elements which may retard the speed of their movements. Strategicus, on the other hand, stresses the importance of the unknown in war, and that decisions must sometimes precede knowledge' but says that, once the com- manders have laid their stakes on a decision by battle, the relatively slow-moving infantry will be the main factor.
As the two books cover broadly the same ground, namely the general course of the war in 1941 and the first months of 1942, the diversity in their authors' outlooks leads to considerable differences in interpretation. Captain Liddell Hart, for instance, is inclined to criticise the Russian Command for committing too large a propor- tion of its resources to the battles in the early phases of the German invasion. "It 'seems fairly clear," he says, "that the Russians paid a heavy price for concentrating their masses so far forward, and that too large a proportion of their mechanised forces were lost in efforts to extricate the infantry masses."
Strategicus emphasises rather the delaying and destructive effect which these battles in the forward districts had • on the German armies—an effect to manifest itself in the Russian counter-offensives of the winter. Again while Captain Liddell Hart is doubtful of the wisdom of Marshal Timoshenko's Smolensk counter-offensive of September, 1941, on the score of its cost and of the small gains involved, Strategicus justifies it on the ground that it prevented Von Rundstedt from exploiting his success against Kiev. There is, too, a difference more of fact than of opinion in the accounts of the effectiveness of the scorched earth policy during the first few months of the campaign.
Captain Liddell Hart's is the more controversial of the two books. He has been an observer of the military machine for many years, and the expounder of policies which have received wider currency than understanding. There is, inevitably, in his book a good deal of restatement of former conclusion in the light of recent develop- ments. In spite of criticisms of Russian tactics and British strategy —" in trying to be strong everywhere, we accepted the risk of not
being strong anywhere "—he is concerned, and was concerned before the Russian winter offensive, to destroy the legend of Germany's invincibility. "In 1940," he writes, "the German Army
triumphantly applied the method that had been conceived in England between 1920 and 1930. It applied it with disastrous effect to the defenders of Western civilisation, but only because their armies had remained in the mental atmosphere of 1918."
Far from accepting the Germans as the logical exponents of a new technique of war, his contention is that, in the crucial matter of the organisation of ihe armoured division, they were, at the time of the campaigns in France and Poland, ten years out of date—but ten years less out of date than their opponents. Further, by a highly ingenious chain of reasoning, he argues that the Germans, instead of practising the unlimited offensive which is usually attributed to them, have in fact aimed at forcing their enemy to take the tactical initiative, by means of skilful manoeuvres designed to leave him no choice but to attack or be destroyed. His strictures on our bombing offensive, on our choice of generals, and his views on the best methods of undermining German morale are both interesting and provocative. They are all calculated to arouse arguments which cannot be pursued here. His thought on the conduct lof the war may be summarised as resting on one foundation : that "the only type of protracted offensive that can prove practicable is a psychological one."
Strategicus, in the arrangement of his book, follows much more closely the normal historical method. If he makes one or two rather surprising judgements as that "Russia had no idea of Hitler's inten- tions on the eve of die attack," and if he seems occasionally, as in the account of the fall of Hong Kong, to be .making bricks without straw, the book on the whole gives a remarkably clear and compre- hensive account of the war in the period under examination. Strategicus can be vigorous in criticism, as of British conduct of the Cyrenaica offensive of 1941-42, and dramatic in description, as of the attack on Moscow and the Russian rejoinder. But the main value of his book, making its conjunction with Captain Liddell Hart's so admirable a method of studying the period, lies in his balance and
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