Guderian: Panzer General

by Macksey, Kenneth

  In due course Guderian would qualify as an interpreter in French and he also became fluent in English. By frenetic application he passed the Academy exam at the first attempt and was thus the youngest at twenty-five of the 168 officers selected to attend the three years’ course starting at the War Academy in Berlin on 5th October 1913. This was a clear indication of his maturity. But first there was another matter of high priority to be settled. Parents bowed before Guderian’s wave of success and consented to an early marriage. On 1st October he wedded Margarete. Not for nothing in the years to come was he to earn the nick-name Schnelle Heinz (Quick Heinz). Nor by chance did he adhere to one of Moltke’s dicta he liked to quote: ‘First reckon, then risk’. He would win renown for his contradictory juxtaposition of methods, a compound of studied contemplation on the one hand with sudden impulse on the other. But his marriage was a deeply contemplated step and of fundamental importance. Margarete, with her peaceful soothing nature, adapted herself to his moods and aspirations and provided the perfect foil for the young officer who had already won a reputation for bursting energy and frightening impetuosity. Of her he wrote that she was a ‘perfect helpmate’ and their first son was to tell the author that she was absolutely essential to her husband. In fact this need of his for a cool partner and chief of staff was to become an absolute necessity to the German Army, too, as his career progressed. Of still greater importance were the evolving ambitions of Margarete who, as time went by, came to believe in her husband’s great destiny and whose influence upon him, as will be seen, was not only designed to encourage but to guide his footsteps along safer paths when, in tempestuous moments, he threatened to throw everything away. And the wedding itself held pointers to the future: in attendance was the admired Bode win Keitel (a second cousin of Margarete) whose brother, Wilhelm, would one day become Adolf Hitler’s principal staff officer: both Keitels were destined to have their impact on Guderian’s destiny in the years to come.

  At the War Academy still more strong characters in the drama of Guderian’s life began to assemble. Among his contemporaries was Erich von Manstein who, of them all, came closest to understanding the philosophy and methods that, later, were to be preached and practised by Guderian. The senior member of the board of directors was Oberst Graf Rüdiger von der Goltz who, according to Guderian, exerted even profounder educational influence upon the younger officers than the director himself: six years later von der Goltz was to have a direct effect upon his erstwhile student. The first year at the college concentrated chiefly upon improving the general knowledge of the students. Guderian says that tactics were the main subject along with military history ‘… with special emphasis on the opening of the campaign in 1757, with the advance into Bohemia in separate groups and their juncture for the Battle of Prague. The campaign of 1805 was discussed subsequently’.

  Study of the past was terminated sharply when the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo on 28th June threw the future into turmoil and uncertainty. At that moment Guderian, with the other infantry and cavalry members of the course, was serving an attachment with the field artillery for a period ‘long enough to guarantee that the students gained a real insight’. The German Army always had been a protagonist of practical work in the absence of a war of its own, despite its delight in the developing of theories. Now the war which Kaiser Wilhelm II had provoked was upon them and the theories would be put to the test.

  On 1st August mobilisation was declared, the course at the War Academy was dissolved before Guderian could complete his attachment and he was ordered to join the unit with which he was to go into battle. It was not, however, the parent regiment to which his heart belonged – the 10th Jägers. Because he had last served with 3rd Telegraph Battalion, his place in the mobilisation plan was in charge of Heavy Wireless Station No. 3, attached to the 5th Cavalry Division in I Cavalry Corps which was part of the Second Army. War came at a bad moment for the Guderians. The political tensions which had raised Europe to fever pitch throughout the preceding decade were as nothing to the strain imposed by the knowledge that Margarete was expecting their first child within the month.

  Although the officer of twenty-six who went to war that August may not have been fully prepared for his task and had a backward look at his home, it is doubtful if many of his age were any better trained at that time. He had formulated a philosophy to which he had generally adhered since analysing himself prior to joining the battalion. In the diary, which was reserved more for reflections than a day-by-day record, he had written in 1908:

  ‘I am a peculiar fellow. Sometimes I feel uplifted and believe that everything must go right and nothing wrong. The longer one lives the more one comes to realise that these are illusions. Sometimes little things cause despondency. Perhaps I will manage to discover the source of wisdom so that everything becomes easy. Yet I do not believe it is good to acquire too much equanimity otherwise one would become careless.’

  Absorbed as he was in the essential disciplines of the good soldier -high patriotism, a strict sense of duty and honour besides the basic tricks of his trade – he had not in the process, particularly when on field exercises, reduced an acute and fearless critical sense which he exposed both in manner and writing. To disguise personal feelings was almost an impossibility for Guderian, though the cutting edge of his temperament was frequently sheathed in banter.

  During the manoeuvres of spring 1913 he had been involved in one of the earliest trials of a wireless detachment working with cavalry and, in co-operation with the 5th Cavalry Division under Generalmajor von Ilsemann, had gained valuable experience but also a feeling of disquiet at the way the exercises had proceeded. Often he was left out of touch with the division because insufficient thought was given to the Section’s part in projected operations. As a result the wireless detachment usually lacked orders and frequently was out of touch. He wrote a strongly critical report which reached the general but, as Guderian remarked, ‘… it disappeared into his desk’. The fact remained that Guderian’s detachment had failed to give the service of which it was capable and, due to excessive and unnecessary movement, its horses and the men (in that order of priority since, without the horses, the heavy radio and its batteries could not be moved) had become exhausted. This was the general under whom he was to serve in his first campaign.

  The difficulties of co-operation between signal detachments and their parent headquarters were by no means restricted to Guderian’s level, however, or to this particular commander. A failure to resolve basic misunderstandings between an infant technological weapon system (as wireless undoubtedly was, even if not recognised as such) and the General Staff’s established practices lay at the heart of the trouble; yet it was merely typical of the problems normally associated with initiating any new and powerful weapon to best effect in the teeth of reactionary and entrenched practice and opinion.

  In 1914 the newly created wireless arm had neither the confidence nor the sympathy of the General Staff and consequently was deprived of information about strategic intentions and denied its full potential. Moreover its Chief was not a man to press his claims too heavily. In consequence forward planning of signal services to match operational requirements went by default. The equipment, which was heavy, incapable of operation on the move and none too easy to tune, was given little chance of achieving its best performance by a procedure which demanded that ‘out-stations’, such as Guderian’s, had the responsibility of establishing contact with the central control set. This was far too time-consuming for units which were in contact with the enemy. The ether became jammed by competing out-stations struggling to break through to Control which, in turn, complained that there was insufficient time to pass a mass of information and orders to stations which switched off as they pleased. The Control Station did not command the networks; breakdowns occurred more frequently as the intensity of operations increased. There was chaos and waste on a vast scale and so fighting formations were delayed in reaching the critic
al points at the right moment and in good order.

  These things Guderian witnessed as part of his induction to war, at a moment when he was malleable to sharp impressions.

  2 Factors for the Future

  To understand the reasoning which prompted the arguments that Guderian was one day to use in support of mechanised armies one has only to follow his career throughout the First World War, and in its immediate aftermath on the eastern frontier of Germany. Fate was to carry him to almost every front where the definitive actions took place. Thus he was able to witness and, in comparatively remote circumstances, register and store away acute personal memories, particularly concerning the atrophy of mobile warfare and the consequent onset of the stalemate which was to kill all hope of a quick end to the conflict.

  The German Army went to war in 1914 under the direction of Helmuth von Moltke the Younger – a Chief of Staff who, though the nephew of his great namesake, was a paler character by far. Likewise the plan of campaign which he adopted was a thinner version of the one created by his predecessor, Graf Alfred von Schlieffen, an officer whose commitment to the study of war was such that he thought of nothing else. The army of Schlieffen’s design was modern and contained two weapons which, it was hoped, would give a margin of technical advantage sufficient to overcome the enormous defensive fire power and elan of its enemies. Heavy mobile artillery was intended to crush all kinds of fortifications and demoralise armies in the field; radio communications would enable information and orders to pass swiftly to and from command posts to the extremities of the battlefield and thus enable commanders to exert detailed control of the battle from remote locations. The sort of initiatives at the lower levels of command, which Moltke the Elder had found it essential to encourage, were being stifled. At the same time all-embracing envelopments in the quest for a modern Cannae, such as Moltke had accomplished at Sedan in 1870, was Schlieffen’s aim, the mobility to be achieved by an even more extensive use of railways than Moltke had dreamed of. By a strange omission the method which might most extensively have increased the flexibility of the German Army’s mobility was largely omitted from Schlieffen’s plans and those of Moltke the Younger. Motor vehicles, fast becoming popular and in greater supply, were provided in some quantity but even so were neither sufficient in number nor efficient in performance. In 1923 Generaloberst von Kluck, who commanded the First Army in the march on Paris, and whose army was the principal sufferer from logistic failure, was to write that these systems needed to undergo a further test. In due course a young officer in 3rd Wireless Section would see to that.

  The German plan of attack into northern France, via Belgium and the Ardennes, committed the four principal armies involved to long marches in trying conditions of summer heat and dust. Once they had departed from the railheads adjacent to the frontiers it was the endurance of men on their feet and horses on their hooves which would decide whether or not the momentum of the marching masses could be sustained. Generalleutnant von Richthofen’s I Cavalry Corps, of which 5th Cavalry Division was a part, and Guderian’s 3rd Wireless Section the tentacle for its vital communications, was to have an almost unique opportunity to tour the battlefields leading to the River Marne. For it began its progress into France within the boundaries of the Third Army, having marched to Dinant through the Ardennes in the first fortnight of August, and was then to pass across the rear of von Bülow’s Second Army to enter the battle at the junction between Bülow’s force and the strongly reinforced mass of manoeuvre, residual in von Kluck’s First Army on the right wing, where it bore down past Mons towards Le Cateau and Paris. The arrows marked across the maps indicate that I Cavalry Corps marched 160 miles before it began to come seriously into action on 31st August, and that therefore it may already have travelled well over 200 miles when allowance is made for diversions. Guderian stayed with 5th Cavalry Division at Dinant between the 17th and 20th and thus was witness to the mass of horsemen, marching men, guns and transport columns passing smoothly in well-regulated columns of march through the intricate lanes and across the River Meuse – a spectacle which would have excited the least responsive military mind but which, upon him, was to leave indelible impressions of the logistic feasibility of moving such numbers through this notably difficult terrain. His detachment had to move greater distances than the rest of the division because, due to its unique nature, it was in constant demand and therefore switched from one division to another besides the 5th Cavalry. Frequently it was wastefully employed through lack of forward planning: either it was without clear orders or it was sent on tasks from which it might have been spared. More than most elements of First and Second Armies, which soon began to suffer from exhaustion, the horses and men of 3rd Wireless Section, dragging their heavy long-range set (with its transmission range of 150 miles), were in dire straits.

  German cavalry as a whole ran into trouble. II Cavalry Corps, pushing ahead as flank guard of First Army into Belgium, had soon complained of a fodder shortage and suffered a severe rebuff at Haelen on 12th August when they had been mown down by machine-gun and rifle fire from weak Belgian detachments. Never again would German cavalry advance with the supreme and gallant confidence of arrogance as that with which they began the war, though for a little longer the fascination of cavalry power held good. On 31st August, when the Fifth French Army stood its ground to the south of the River Serre and the British Expeditionary Force continued in withdrawal, a gap opened between the two armies. Richthofen was directed by radio from Second Army into the gap and told to turn east in order to seize ground between Soissons and Vauxaillon, thus cutting off the French Fifth Army’s retreat. It was due to the contribution made by radio communication that the French were almost as quickly aware of this order as was Richthofen: most German radio traffic was either in ‘clear’ or in code and the French had broken the German code within forty-eight hours of the outbreak of war. Thus Guderian was unwittingly wielding a double-edged weapon, for little thought had been given to signal intelligence’s manifestations.

  A grim race ensued on the French part to despatch infantry by rail and cavalry by road to block the German thrust before it reached its objective. German progress was monitored as their radio reports from the leading troops came in. There was rising panic when the British failed at once to send a division to head off the German spearhead. But the Germans were advancing fast because there was no opposition, yet beginning, as they got deeper into the ‘gap’ (so precious to cavalry in the implementation of its power), to complain bitterly that their horseshoes were worn out: a radio message (duly monitored by the French) asked for four lorry loads of shoes and, above all, nails to be sent to Noyon, at the starting point of their sweep. This habit of exposed forces in mobile operations to find excuses that might save them from further exertion was a psychological mannerism which Guderian would remember. In fact the whole Corps safely reached the area north of Soissons, well in the French rear, but then was pulled back; ostensibly because the higher command wished it to continue the advance to the south and maintain contact with First Army which was well ahead on the right; partly because enemy forces threatened and compelled the cavalry to dismount in order to fight; largely because they did not recognise the opportunity. The only material aid they gave to their own side was cursory information about enemy forces in Soissons.

  Richthofen, a commander who understood mobility, had actually created the opportunity dreamed of by cavalry men and so outpaced the enemy that they were unable to devise defensive measures fast enough to bar his way. But since he allowed himself to become divorced from radio, his advantageous position was unknown to those above him. In any case, he lacked an instrument that was capable of survival on the modern battlefield. His regiments, unprotected against fire, simply could not press home the advantages which his generalship had gained. When Guderian came to write Achtung! Panzer! in 1937 he quoted from the Reichsarchiv in its conclusions that ‘… nowhere had they [cavalry] managed to penetrate and gain insight into activities behind th
e enemy lines’. The judgment was sweeping and, as the action at Soissons suggests, perhaps a little unfair, but it was duly recorded as a precedent for use in shaping the future as horsemen began to pass into the shades of war.

  The series of command vacillations which produced a German crisis at the Battle of the Marne could not be solved by Moltke from Luxembourg where he sat at the centre of a network of overloaded communications. Radio and telephone messages failed to compensate for close personal contact near the front – and that Moltke eschewed until the battle was lost. But personal contact was frequently at a premium everywhere. On 5th September, I Cavalry Corps was leading Second Army deep into another gap which had opened between the British and French and had pushed its leading elements across the Grand Morin ‘… continuing in its efforts to take the initiative’, as the Reichsarchiv says. Guderian was with them and, had he known it, at the head of a formation which had completely broken through an Anglo-French line – the last time that was to happen until he personally repeated the performance twenty-six years later. But again nobody on the German side recognised the opportunity and for the reason, as usual, of Richthofen’s isolation from Second Army. Meanwhile his men, faced with the lightest opposition, were invariably compelled to forfeit momentum while they took dismounted action. On the following day First Army’s readjustment to curb the threat of the French, taking them in flank from the west, brought to Guderian’s notice, for the first time, a feeling that things were going wrong.