ABSTRACT
A strategic history such as this tries to avoid becoming unduly enmeshed in the details of either policy or military tactics. It is the role of strategy to direct tactics and operations to advance policy goals. But strategy can find itself bereft of attractive options when tactics or policy is unable or unwilling to adapt pragmatically to unexpectedly nonpermissive political and military contexts. A narrative of 1914-18 can be interpreted as a protracted and highly expensive education in the realities of modern warfare. Once the less than cunning plans of 1914 had failed, and the military skills of the two sides approached equality, though the Germans always retained a combat edge, victory could be achieved only by attrition in a flankless theatre of war. This chapter emphasizes the structure of the strategist’s problem from 1914 to 1918. The politicians would not lower their policy goal from the demand for victory, while the soldiers spent more than three years solving the tactical problem of how to advance in the face of modern firepower. They could not solve their operational-level problem of translating tactical successes into much wider advantage, because they lacked the mobility, including mobile firesupport, to do so. It followed that the strategist found little scope to exercise his trade. The combination of extravagant political objectives and tactical stalemate produced the greatest war in history to date.
