French Plan XVII and Elan
robo
'Elan' and it's influence on French military planning during WWI?
Thanks,
Rob
cliff wright
Most of what I learnt about the strange French concepts of "Elan" or
"Dash" and the associated one of "Cran" or roughly "Guts" were from the
late Barbara Tuchman's well known work "The guns of August" published
back in the 1960's or 70's.
I rather doubt that they originated with Bergson whose works I am not
familiar with I must confess.
From my reading I suspect that they actually date back to Medieaval times.
In fact they were probably what kept a lot of stupid French "nobility"
charging the English archers again and again!!!
Certainly they were alive and well during Napoleonic times even as the
British armies shot down the massed French columns who were hardly
capable of shooting back, until they deployed into line.
The concept of "Elan" started WW1 with a "dashing" invasion of
Alsace/Lorraine which cost France well over 250,000 casualties and
gained practically nothing
When Elan was combined with mud, barbed wire, machine guns, artillery
and nice contrasting red trousers to give the Germans a good aiming
point, well the results should have been obvious.
Despite this France produced in 1916/17 the infamous General Nivelle,
who's "PLAN" apparently consisted of no more than yet another massed
attack, but without an artillery barrage.
Thus we had mutinies in the French army and the British getting involved
in their own massacres on the Somme.
Frankly I see Elan as a typical cavalry generals notion.
Wasn't it Wellington who described the function of cavalry as
"To lend tone to what would otherwise be a mere vulgar brawl".
No doubt there may be many better experts on WW1 French command
decisions. I hope we hear from them!
Regards Cliff Wright.
Stephen Mauris
(cleverly) XVII-B. I risk missing the details (are they important?), but
the essence of the plan called for a preemptive strike against the
mobilizing/mobilized German forces across the border with the french combat
forces in the eastern side of the country. In fact, von Moltke and his
staff saw plainly the routes that the French could use to make such a plan
work, but they actually hoped the French would do so.
German counter-plans called for Crown Prince Rupprecht to delay the French
and enable them to penetrate into the Ruhr while the remaining German forces
assembled and prepared to counterattack. The idea was to take the French
"in a sack." Rupprecht was supposed to fix them in place while the rest cut
them off and bagged the *majority* of French combat forces, i.e., the ones
that were concentrated in the east. There would still be reserves to
mobilize, but the French had not quite worked out how to integrate their
reserves.
If I recall correctly, so caveat lector, the French plan also called for
cutting across a tiny portion of Belgium. That seems to me to be the
clincher against English involvement on the side of the French. While
England would never have allowed the GErmans to be the sole guarantors of
Belgian neutrality (that would mean letting German naval power directly
adjacent to the Channel), they might have cobbled up something with the
Germans. Surely, they would not have allied with the French.
Nonetheless, I think Russia would have gone to war and invaded Prussia from
Russian Poland. Whether or not Germany could have, by then, handled French
forces is a point of debate. I assume there would have been similar
security forces in the east as in OTL; the situation in the west would
probably have enabled more forces to move east and deal with Russian armies.
--Steve
"cliff wright" <c.c.w...@paradise.net.nz> wrote in message
news:47cd26aa$1...@clear.net.nz...
mike
> I read in Keegan's book on WWI that there was a variant of Plan XVII, called
> (cleverly) XVII-B. I risk missing the details (are they important?), but
> the essence of the plan called for a preemptive strike against the
> mobilizing/mobilized German forces across the border with the french combat
> forces in the eastern side of the country. In fact, von Moltke and his
> staff saw plainly the routes that the French could use to make such a plan
> work, but they actually hoped the French would do so.
Plan XV of 1903 was to let the Germans attack thru the expected
South of the Meuse path(not crossing), and as the Germans
beat against the recently updated forts, would counterattack with
Mobilized Reserves.
Plan XVII of 1909,modified in 1911, the counterattack would swing
thru Belgium, permission or no, to cut off the German spearhead,
while a quarter million Men were near Paris to deal with any
German breakthru
After a shakeup of the French High Command, Joffres's Plan was to
not Counterattack, but cross the Border and regain A-L , and force
German coming to Terms as the French armies cooled their heels
in the Rhine
**
mike
**
Stephen Mauris
violation, but I no longer have the book, so it was my word for it (maybe I
should run for office).
"mike" <mara...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:094360f7-5ae2-439c...@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
yuriy....@gmail.com
what exactly do you need? There are plenty of direct references of French generals to Bergson; and conceptually Plan XVII fits Bergsonian philosophy.
Is your interest still actual?
Cheers,