the particular that is different from strategy and tactics by either redefining
strategy or naming it as a superior form of tactics. For many, the British being
an example, these phrases have been adequate for their understanding of the
conduct of war well into the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the point at which
the operational art as a separate activity was practised was being recognized; the
operational level was being defined.
To some extent, this need for definition was a result of the need to explain,
instruct, and educate as the nature of war changed with revolution, conscription,
the steamship, the railway, and industrialization. Armies became bigger and more
strategically mobile. The staff work necessary to organize and maintain these
forces became more important and more complex. Many of those operational-
level skills mentioned earlier required well-trained staff to support the comman-
der if they were to be carried out. It was the Germans soon after unification who
first formally recognized the need for operational decision and staff work. The
German strategy was to be prepared to fight a war on two fronts, East and West;
each front with a different enemy, geography, and so on. Each needed a separate
allocation of objectives, forces, resources, priorities, and so on. Each was an
operation in its own right and could be influenced by the superior commander
by the movement of forces from the strategic depth of Germany or from one
operational front to the other. Thus, to a large extent, the Germans, following
Napoleon, saw the operational art in terms of the movement of forces from
strategic depth to mass effort on one front to defeat the opponent in time to mass
again on the other front to defeat the second enemy. In moving their forces, they
sought to strike the centre of the opponent’s strength from an unexpected
direction. The skill required to support the creativity of the design and the
dynamics of its execution being essentially organizational and logistic.
In the first half of the twentieth century, two inventions, the internal combus-
tion engine and radio communications, gave new opportunities for greater
dynamism in the expression of the operational art. The former led to powered
flight and cross-country fighting vehicles and the latter increased the ability of the
commander to collect information, act on it, and control and decide on
subsequent actions. By the middle of the Second World War, the Russians, who
were probably the clearest in their nomenclature, were organized and capable of
manoeuvre at the operational level. They had formed Operational Manoeuvre
Groups (OMGs). These were used with devastating effect at the Battle of Kursk
and halted the German offensive into Russia. The German accounts tell that
nothing was the same after that. The Red Army attacked west to Berlin in a series
of massive offensives conducted by a number of operational-level formations
simultaneously, the commanders seeking always to release the OMGs into the
rear of the German positions. The Western Allies were doing this too. For
example, by 1944 in North-West Europe the independent armoured brigades in
the Second British Army allocated to corps commanders and the firepower of the
Artillery Groups at that level were intended to fulfil a similar purpose to an OMG.
The Western Allies made greater use of air power. Just as the development of
warships created a capability for battles on the sea separate from those on land, so
Epilogue 231