The First Minnesota Regiment—strong, nice boys, but gun fodder—went into the Battle of Gettysburg 262 strong. The carnage was cruel: to 85% came death or wounds. But at no time in the Civil War did any unit of more than 1,000 men suffer higher than 20% casualties. That was when war was still in the mule and carbine stage. But changes in war technique have not changed an old military axiom: you cannot expect a unit which has lost more than one man in five to continue effective. It must be withdrawn from action, given two months’ rest, completely reorganized. One reason that World War I fell into so many clinches and deadlocks was that the 20% Axiom was often ignored. The Lost Battalion, having been reduced from 660 men to 190, was yanked out, given two days’ rest, sent into the lines again. Never again can a commander who hopes to win a war afford to lose, as the 254th Bavarians lost on November 5, 1918, in the face of the fifth U. S. Army, all but seven of its 1,500 men. The morale of whole divisions, whole armies cracks under such strains.
In 1918, to get around the 20% Axiom, General Erich Ludendorff invented the tactic of “infiltration,” opposed to previous mop-as-you-go theories. He postulated that when various parts of an advancing line meet heavy resistance, they should halt; the others, finding weakness, should penetrate and, as the surrounded enemy capitulates, join forces beyond. Usable in big or little units, infiltration was the plan of Ludendorff’s big push on March 21, 1918, which almost licked the Allies.
Since World War I, tacticians have become increasingly conscious of the Axiom. Theme of every drill manual, every military article has been to cut casualties. French training doctrine admonishes not to attack unless you can throw over four pounds of steel and high explosive for every pound the enemy can deliver back. British instructors are beginning to teach their infantry not to dress right in ordinary drill because that makes them tend to line up on the battlefield—offering a much better target for machine gunners.
Adolf Hitler’s generals know what they are about. They have studied their Erich Ludendorff and their Giulio Douhet (an Italian theoretician who says that modern war must be fought with mass air attacks). They knew that their advance into Poland would be a pushover. Nevertheless their tactic was a Ludendorff infiltration, modified to suit a mechanized army. Long steel fingers reached into Poland’s flesh, then clamped together and squeezed the blood out. This they did with speed which was only less amazing than their efficiency.
How great that efficiency was Adolf Hitler last week revealed in his speech to the members of the Reichstag. “As I am now about to make known to you the number of our dead and wounded,” he said, “I request that you rise from your seats. . . . According to the casualty list of up to the soth of September 1939, which will not change materially, the total losses for the Army, Navy and Air Force, including officers, are as follows: 10,572 killed; 30,322 wounded; 3,404 missing. Unfortunately, of those missing a certain number who fell into Polish hands will probably be found to have been massacred and killed.”
Best estimate of German forces in Poland is 1,000,000 men. Even supposing that Herr Hitler understated casualties by 100%, they would have been only 8.5% of personnel involved—less than half the Axiom’s quotient. But his statement that he and his high command expected 20 times as many was pure Hitler balderdash. No general—no madman even—would send troops into the field expecting 85% casualties.
Other losses which last week were admitted to have been suffered, estimated to have been inflicted since the outbreak of hostilities:
>British Air Force casualties, according to official Air Ministry figures: 47 killed, 62 missing, nine wounded. Two of the dead, announced the Air Ministry, were shot, down in a German plane as it attacked the British fleet. They were evidently captives taken along by the Germans either for propaganda or reconnoitering purposes.
> German pursuit planes lost on the Western Front, according to a French bulletin: 24; French pursuit planes: eight; French reconnaissance planes: “several.”
> Total Allied planes lost, according to German claims: 72, of which 27 were said to be British, 45 French. This compilation, said the Germans, did not include the “high total number of planes lost by the British when two aircraft carriers were sunk.”
>Total German casualties on the Western Front, according to French estimates: 3,000 men, of whom 500 to 600 were thought to be dead, 2,400 to 2,500 wounded; 100 to 200 captured. French losses, said the same communiqué, were “considerably less.”
>Total casualties sent to the American Hospital in Paris, which was turned over to the French Army for its wounded: three officers, three men with bad colds.
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