Whether he actually defined a third interim level or used ‘strategy’ in a way that
today would mean ‘operational art’ is often debated. 17 Prussia’s current and
historical contexts, however, left little room for an operational sphere during
Clausewitz’s era. Only by the 1840s did the Industrial Revolution begin high-
lighting the limits of the tactical paradigm institutionalized since the Era of
Reform.
Those limits developed on two levels. The first was control. Even in the later
stages of the Napoleonic Wars, armies had metastasized beyond the capacities of
their nervous systems. That held for battles: Borodino, Leipzig, Dresden, and
even more for campaigns, as illustrated by the repeated fiascos of Napoleon’s
marshals when left to their own devices in Germany during 1813. 18 As popula-
tions increased and administrations improved, forces sent to war could expect to
grow larger and the entropy inherent to war making increase.
The second problem facing European armies was the growing effect of fire-
power. Flintlocks were giving way to percussion caps and muskets to rifles.
Cannon were growing deadlier both at long ranges and point-blank. As killing
zones became larger and deadlier, how could men and units best respond? Was it
still possible to manoeuvre effectively on the modern battlefield? Or would the
gridlocks already nurtured by a lack of control be exacerbated by concern for bare
survival?
Moltke was only one of a generation of staff officers and commanders con-
strained to address Prussia’s historical problem in new contexts. The state still
needed to fight short, decisive wars—more than ever as after 1848 the diplomatic
environments of Europe and the German Confederation moved away from
collectivity and cooperation. 19 One way of addressing the synergistic challenges
of control and firepower, implemented in France and Austria, was to improve
morale, training, and leadership. Prussia followed suit in the military reorganiza-
tion of the early 1860s, which essentially replicated the front-loaded system of
Frederick the Great. 20 Moltke was an artist and a novelist, a man of letters as well
as arms. Perhaps that creative element of his personality encouraged him to
expand his approach—to think outside the box on two levels. 21
The first was tactical. Moltke understood that Prussia confronted a paradox
that was approaching a dichotomy. The state’s policy and strategic requirements
for short wars depended on offensive action. But battlefields increasingly domi-
nated by firepower facilitated defence. The man who had only to stand his
ground, load, and fire had a basic advantage over the man who had to fire and
move. Whene ́lanmet steadfastness, firepower determined the outcome. His
advocacy of flank attacks was scarcely original. Their value was likely to be even
greater in the opening stages of a campaign—in the words of Confederate general
James Longstreet, inexperienced troops tended to be ‘sensitive around the flanks
as a virgin’. Frederick the Great’s famous oblique order was essentially nothing
more than a last-minute flank attack. But the increasing range of rifles and
artillery constrained the modern flanking movement to move wider and deeper
to envelop an enemy whose own reserves would be positioned further in the rear
to keep them out of range. The increased size of armies also meant the flanking
Prussian–German Operational Art, 1740–1943 39