offensives would fail if the infantry could not penetrate the enemy’s wire. In the absence
of tanks, the wire would have to be cut by the artillery, and failures in that task were
legion from 1915 to 1917.
Both sides had to learn how to use aircraft, and they needed to build planes that were
militarily effective. From Verdun in early 1916 onwards, every major offensive was
accompanied by combat on a large scale in the air. In 1917 and 191 8 the belligerents had
achieved generally effective integration of air power with their ground assets in the
combined-arms concept mentioned above. In 191 8 the Germans, for example, formed
dedicated ground-attack squadrons that supported their infantry by flying at almost zero
altitude to strafe the enemy. In this war, as in 1939–45, the close ground-support mission
was extraordinarily dangerous to perform, as well as being subject to friction from the
weather and from the smoke and dust of battle conditions. By the final year of the war,
both sides were employing aircraft in all the ways that were to become familiar in World
War II. The only exception was with regard to the massed paratroop drop, but even that
was planned by the Allies, had the war continued into 1919.
Whereas the story of military innovation in the nineteenth century pre-eminently
pertained to the infantry and its weapons, the like story of 1914–1 8 , as emphasized here,
related pre-eminently to the artillery. However, both sides had to learn new infantry
tactics, for defence and attack, in order to survive on a battlefield dominated by guns.
Also, the infantry had to acquire the skills and the equipment needed to exploit the novel
opportunities granted by unprecedentedly precise gunnery. While it is probably true to
claim that the Germans pioneered and exploited most fully the concept of infantry
infiltration tactics (so-called ‘Hutier tactics’, named after General Oskar von Hutier, who
used them first at Riga on 1 September 1917), in point of fact the French and the British
were working from the same tactical page at more or less the same time. The Germans
were not by any means alone in effecting a revolution in tactical doctrine for the infantry.
Recall the familiar, dreadful image of dressed ranks of overburdened Tommies plodding
doggedly towards the German lines until they were mown down by machine-gun fire.
That is not a myth, but it bears little relation to battlefield tactical reality in 1917 or 191 8
(or even in 1916, after 1 June). Both sides developed their assault infantry into all-arms
combat teams, equipped with light machine-guns, grenade-throwers and flame-throwers,
as well as some rifles. The infantry sought cover, and moved stealthily or rapidly. It
advanced dispersed, and depended critically upon the closest of cooperation with the
artillery. Such standard practice of 191 8 was a light-year removed from ground warfare
in 1914.
It is worth repeating two limiting features of warfare in 1914–1 8 from which much
else flowed. First, uniquely in history, commanders and their troops lacked reliable,
prompt tactical communications. Radio did not exist below the level of corps head-
quarters. The field telephone could not accompany soldiers in the attack, at least not
reliably. It was always liable to be blown away, or otherwise cut, in this artillery-
dominated war. Second, the troops lacked tactical mobility. They could advance or retreat
only at walking or crawling speed. These limitations meant that generals could not know
in real time how their troops were progressing. Also, there was no way in which a
successful break into or break through the enemy’s defences could be exploited rapidly.
Tactical victories could be no more than that, because the enemy nearly always was able
to outpace exhausted attackers with the rapid insertion of counter-attack formations
World War I: modern warfare 93