a silent role of influence over the narrative and argument. However, so rich – indeed
extreme – was the strategic history of World War II that it is useful to employ the themes
directly at this juncture.
The first theme is the relationship between continuity and discontinuity. The years
1939–45 demonstrated both in abundance, as well as much misunderstanding of both.
On the one hand, despite widespread mechanization and motorization, the continuities
in ‘best practice’ in warfare, emphasizing combined arms, far outweighed the discon-
tinuities. Modern warfare was invented and developed between 1916 and 1918, not 1939
and 1941. On the other hand, at the political level, World War II registered a massive
discontinuity with World War I. Nazi Germany was not simply out to reverse the verdict
of 1918. While there were some continuities of territorial ambition, as one would expect,
Hitler’s vision of a uni-racial superstate that would establish global dominance by war
was a sharp discontinuity even from the outer boundary of German ambitions, let alone
intentions, in 1914–18.
The second theme pointed to the close and essential connection between politics
and war. Again, World War II reveals the key significance of this nexus. The war was
solely about a violent bid to realize Hitler’s political vision, and that vision was the heart
and soul of the quasi-religion of Nazi ideology. Often it can appear to be the case that
the proper relationship between war and politics is reversed in practice: politics seems
to serve war, rather than vice versa. It is true that war has a ‘grammar’ all its own, as
Clausewitz claims (Clausewitz, 1976: 605), and even that its course will be shifted by
military contingency. But a strictly military history of World War II would lack integrity;
it could make no sense. The entire black episode was driven by politics. For an unusually
clear example of this theme in action, once Stalin was convinced that Russia could not
lose the war, he directed his country’s military effort more towards the shaping of post-
war Europe than to defeating the Wehrmacht as rapidly as possible. Stalin, at least, was
not confused about the superiority of the political over the military, always provided the
military context is permissive.
The third theme is the strangely ill-understood relationship between war and warfare.
Germany was supreme at warfare, but hopelessly incompetent at war. Merely to cite 1918
and 1945 points to conclusive proof of this claim. On the evidence of World War II,
Germany had a clear state ideology which inspired policy. Also, it had an excellent
military machine that was highly skilled tactically and, generally, operationally. But
between the elevated heights of ideology and policy, on the one hand, and expert military
behaviour, on the other, there is the difficult realm of strategy, especially grand strategy.
Time after time in Russia, German military prowess and increasingly scarce assets were
committed to operational tasks that could not yield strategic benefits proportionate to
their costs of attainment. At the level of grand strategy, in both world wars Germany’s
soldiers were handicapped severely by their politicians’ inability to assemble politically
an array of allies that looked like a potentially winning team.
Theme four is civil–military relations. In World War II, Hitler was unique among the
warlords in not allowing a true dialogue between civilian policy-makers and soldiers.
Stalin and Churchill could be ruthless and unreasonable, but both were open to persuasion
and would change their minds when confronted with powerful arguments or incontroverti-
ble evidence. Not so Hitler. In both world wars, German war-making was handicapped
fatally by the absence of genuine debate between civilian leaders and the military.
154 War, peace and international relations