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Y315: The Changing Nature of Warfare 1792–1945

The impact of factors directly related to the conduct of war: Generalship and its impact

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on Generalship and its impact, the development of strategy, the aims of campaigns and their determination, the development of tactics, shock tactics, cult of the offensive.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

Distinguish between strategy and tactics.

Who and when

How did Jomini's approach to war differ from Clausewitz's?

Numbers

Which French officer's pre-war lectures did most to popularise the doctrine of the all-out offensive?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Distinguish between strategy and tactics.

    Model answer

    Strategy is the overall plan for using armed force to achieve the war's political aims, while tactics are the methods used to win an individual engagement.

  2. 2

    Name the qualities that made Napoleon's generalship so effective.

    Model answer

    He combined speed of march, the concentration of superior force at the decisive point, the use of self-contained corps that marched apart and fought together, and a personal authority that inspired his troops.

  3. 3

    Who wrote On War, and what was his most famous claim about the nature of war?

    Model answer

    Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian officer, argued that war is the continuation of policy by other means and can never be separated from its political purpose.

  4. 4

    What did Clausewitz mean by friction?

    Model answer

    He meant the accumulation of small difficulties, delays, mistakes and uncertainties that make even simple operations hard to carry out in war.

  5. 5

    How did Jomini's approach to war differ from Clausewitz's?

    Model answer

    Jomini treated war as governed by fixed geometrical principles such as interior lines and concentration on decisive points, whereas Clausewitz stressed uncertainty, chance and the primacy of politics.

  6. 6

    Define shock tactics.

    Model answer

    Shock tactics are massed close-quarter assaults, such as the bayonet charge or the cavalry charge, intended to break the enemy's formation and will by physical and psychological impact.

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