Sherman

approach, a great captain will take even the most hazardous indirect approach, if necessary, over mountains, deserts, or swamps, with only a fraction of his force, even cutting himself loose from his communications, facing, in fact, every unfavourable condition, rather than accept the risk of stalemate. The decisive wars of history was followed a decade later by a second edition, entitled, The Strategy of Indirect Approach, which included the most recent campaigns in World War II. Subsequent editions dealt with the indirect approach as it had been applied in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, and, had Little Hart been alive at the time of the recent Gulf War, he most assuredly would have compared the so-called Hail Mary manoeuvre in Desert Storm to Sherman's plan to pry the Confederates out of their mountain fortifications around Dalton in May 1864, pointing out, of course, that General Schwarzkopf was reputed to have had a copy of Sherman's memoirs on his nightstand. Certainly he would have made much of the fact that FM 100-5, the current U.S. doctrinal manual supporting air-land battle, asserts that successful tactical manoeuvre depends on skilful movement along indirect approaches supported by direct and indirect fires, that the ideal campaign plan embodies an indirect approach that preserves the strength of the force for decisive battles, that the ideal attack should resemble what Little Hart called the expanding torrent, and that surprise and indirect approach are desirable characteristics of any scheme of manoeuvre. When a geographically indirect approach is not available, the commander can achieve a similar effect by doing the unexpected, striking earlier, in greater force, with unexpected weapons or at an unlikely place. On this point Sherman and Little Hart would have agreed. There is evidence that Little Hart's Sherman had an immediate if perhaps a somewhat superficial impact on the British Army. The principal exercises in 1931, stressing significant reduction in the scale of transport and the weight of the soldier's load, were known as a Sherman March, and in 1934 the first complete armoured force in the British Army conducted exercises in making deep thrusts into the enemy's rear areas. In 1932 a future German war minister and commander-in-chief conveyed to Little Hart that he had been greatly impressed by his exposition of Sherman's technique and was applying it in his own training methods. As later events would show, he was not the only German general to accept the idea of deep strategic penetration by armoured forces. Several months before the Allied landings in Normandy in 1944, Little Hart had an opportunity to talk with General George Patton, who claimed that before the war he had spent a long vacation studying Sherman's campaigns on the ground in Georgia and the Carolinas with the aid of my book, so I talked of the possibilities of applying Sherman methods in modern warfare—moving stripped of impedimenta to quicken the pace, cutting loose from communications if necessary, and swerving past opposition instead of getting hung up in trying to overcome it by direct attack. It seemed to me that by the development and exploitation of such Sherman methods on a greater scale, it would be possible to reach the enemy's rear and unhinge his position, as the Germans had ready done in 1940. I think the indirect argument made some impression. The way that, after the breakthrough, he actually carried out his plans in super-Sherman style is a matter that all the world knows. The listener might also bear in mind another of Little Hart's observations, written as he was finishing the book. The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battles is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men. The best history would be register of their thoughts and emotions, with a background of events to throw them into relief. This, in essence, is what Sherman attempts to achieve, and the listener should remember that this is as much a work of military theory, a very influential work, as a campaign history or military biography. It is, in fact, the best example of how the three can be combined. J. Louvas, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, November 1992