Robert Foley

A Case Study in Horizontal Military Innovation: The German Army, 1916–1918

Abstract Using the German Army from 1916 to 1918 as a case study, this article demonstrates a different form of military innovation than has hitherto been analysed by literature on the subject. During World War I, the German Army innovated by spreading knowledge between units rather than up and downthe chain of command. Thus, this army used ‘horizontal innovation’, rather than vertical innovation to change how it fought in the midst of battle. Although combat in World War I is significantly different from operations today, horizontal innovation offers armed forces a means by which to transform themselves much more rapidly than the traditionally recognised forms of military innovation.

Dumb donkeys or cunning foxes? Learning in the British and German armies during the Great War

The idea that the armies of the First World War were incapable of learning is one of the most enduring myths of the conflict. This image of �lions led by donkeys� has proved difficult to modify, despite the sizeable scholarly literature on the tactical, technological and organizational adaptation and innovation undergone by all armies during the war. By examining the British and German armies as learning organizations during the war, this article contributes to the growing literature on wartime adaptation and innovation, as well as the wider literature on organizational learning in wartime. It demonstrates how the organizational cultures of these two armies shaped the way in which they learned, predisposing the British army towards radical, often technological, solutions to the tactical and operational challenges of the First World War battlefield, while inclining the German army towards incremental and tactical solutions to the same problems.

What's in a Name?: The Development of Strategies of Attrition on the Western Front, 1914–1918

On 26 September 1914, Gerhard Tappen, the operations officer of the German High Command, wrote in his diary: “More and more, it appears that we have before us field fortifications across the entire front—a completely new form of warfare.” The shock felt by Tappen about the unexpected shift from a war of movement to position warfare shortly into the campaign against France was echoed by his colleagues and by his opponents. For despite the evidence of the increased use of field fortifications in recent wars, most European soldiers had gone to war in August 1914 anticipating a rapid victory decided by great battles. Yet to their great surprise, a rough defensive line had been established stretching from the Swiss border in the South to the English Channel in the North by November 1914. Despite recognizing that the development of trench warfare represented a “new form of warfare,” the implications of its appearance were not immediately apparent to European soldiers. Although these early trenches were primitive in comparison to the complex defensive systems later in the war, when combined with modern, rapid fire weapons, trenches meant that territory could be held easily by a defender. Indeed, they were dug initially just for this reason—to allow the French and the German armies to shift units to the northern wings of their armies where both sides expected a decisive campaign to fall in September or October.