The cult of the offensive refers to a strategic military dilemma in which leaders believe that offensive advantages are so great that a defending force would have no hope of repelling the attack and therefore choose to attack. It is most often used to explain the

causes of World War I The identification of the causes of World War I remains controversial. World War I began in the Balkans on July 28, 1914, and hostilities ended on November 11, 1918, leaving 17 million dead and 25 million wounded. Moreover, the Russian Civil ...

and the subsequent heavy losses that occurred year after year, on all sides, during the fighting on the Western Front. The term has also been applied to pre-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

air power doctrine that held that "

the bomber will always get through "The bomber will always get through" was a phrase used by Stanley Baldwin in a 1932 speech "A Fear for the Future" given to the British Parliament. His speech stated that contemporary bomber aircraft had the performance necessary to conduct a s ...

" and the only way to end a bombing campaign was to bomb the enemy into submission. It is also often used to explain Israeli strategy during the 1960s and 1970s, as demonstrated in the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Ju ...

in which Israeli forces attacked and routed much larger enemy forces in a lightning attack.

Military theory

Under the cult of offensive, military leaders believe that the attacker will be victorious (or at least cause more casualties than they receive) regardless of circumstance and so defense as a concept is almost completely discredited. This results in all strategies focusing on attacking, and the only valid defensive strategy being to

counter-attack A counterattack is a tactic employed in response to an attack, with the term originating in "war games". The general objective is to negate or thwart the advantage gained by the enemy during attack, while the specific objectives typically seek ...

International politics

international relations International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such a ...

, the cult of offensive is related to the

security dilemma In international relations, the security dilemma (also referred to as the spiral model) is when the increase in one state's security (such as increasing its military strength) leads other states to fear for their own security (because they do not k ...

and

offensive realism Offensive realism is a structural theory in international relations that belongs to the neorealist school of thought and was put forward by the political scholar John Mearsheimer in response to defensive realism. Offensive realism holds that th ...

theories. It stresses that conquest is easy and security difficult to obtain from a defensive posture. Liberal institutionalists argue that it is a commitment problem and that a

preemptive war A preemptive war is a war that is commenced in an attempt to repel or defeat a perceived imminent offensive or invasion, or to gain a strategic advantage in an impending (allegedly unavoidable) war ''shortly before'' that attack materializes. I ...

that results from the security dilemma is fairly rare.

World War I

The cult of the offensive was the dominant theory among many military and political leaders before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Those leaders argued in favor of declaring war and launching an offensive, believing they could cripple their opponents, and fearing that if they waited, they in turn would be defeated. The dominance of this line of thought significantly contributed to the escalation of hostilities, and is seen as one of the

. Military theorists of the time generally held that seizing the offensive was of crucial importance, hence belligerents were encouraged to strike first in order to gain the advantage. Most planners wanted to begin

mobilization Mobilization is the act of assembling and readying military troops and supplies for war. The word ''mobilization'' was first used in a military context in the 1850s to describe the preparation of the Prussian Army. Mobilization theories and ...

as quickly as possible to avoid being caught on the defensive. This was complicated as mobilizations were expensive, and their schedules were so rigid that they could not be canceled without massive disruption of the country and military disorganization. Thus, the window for

diplomacy Diplomacy comprises spoken or written communication by representatives of states (such as leaders and diplomats) intended to influence events in the international system.Ronald Peter Barston, ''Modern diplomacy'', Pearson Education, 2006, p. ...

was shortened by this attitude, and once the mobilizations had begun diplomacy had the added difficulty of having to justify cancelling the mobilizations. This phenomenon was also referred to as "war by timetable". The German

Schlieffen Plan The Schlieffen Plan (german: Schlieffen-Plan, ) is a name given after the First World War to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, which began on ...

is a notable example of the cult of the offensive. Supported by offensively-minded officers such as

Alfred von Schlieffen Graf Alfred von Schlieffen, generally called Count Schlieffen (; 28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913) was a German field marshal and strategist who served as chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1906. His name lived on in t ...

and

Helmuth von Moltke the Younger Graf Helmuth Johannes Ludwig von Moltke (; 25 May 1848 – 18 June 1916), also known as Moltke the Younger, was a German general and Chief of the Great German General Staff. He was also the nephew of '' Generalfeldmarschall'' ''Graf'' Helmuth ...

, it was executed in the first month of the war (with some historians maintaining it was nearly victorious,Dupuy, Trevor N, ''A Genius for War: the German Army and General Staff, 1807-1945'', Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977 though others claim the Plan never had any chance of success.) A French counter-attack on the outskirts of Paris, the Battle of the Marne and unexpectedly speedy Russian mobilisation and attacks, ended the German offensive and resulted in years of

trench warfare Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. Trench warfare became ar ...

. It was not only Germany who followed the cult of the offensive; the French army, among others, was also driven very strongly by this doctrine, where its supporters included

Ferdinand Foch Ferdinand Foch ( , ; 2 October 1851 – 20 March 1929) was a French general and military theorist who served as the Supreme Allied Commander during the First World War. An aggressive, even reckless commander at the First Marne, Flanders and Ar ...

Joseph Joffre Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre (12 January 1852 – 3 January 1931) was a French general who served as Commander-in-Chief of French forces on the Western Front from the start of World War I until the end of 1916. He is best known for regroupi ...

and Loyzeaux de Grandmaison. World War I was dominated by defensive firepower but the onus on the Entente was to conduct an offensive strategy, that caused mass casualties and mutual exhaustion. German armies prepared elaborate defensive positions on the western front with

trenches A trench is a type of excavation or in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide (as opposed to a wider gully, or ditch), and narrow compared with its length (as opposed to a simple hole or pit). In geology, trenches result from erosi ...

, barbed wire and concrete strong-points backed by

artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during siege ...

, rifles and

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...

s which until 1917, were sufficient to inflict mass losses on attacking

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and mar ...

and restrict the Franco-British armies to minor gains in ground. Tactical development on the Western Front in 1917 began to return mobility to the battlefield and a form of semi-open warfare developed. Much inter-war military thinking was influenced by the cost of offensives fought for strategic reasons, in circumstances of defensive operational and tactical dominance. In World War II, the

Western Allies The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy ...

from 1939–1940 avoided an offensive, intending to wait until Franco-British rearmament had matured and the blockade of Germany had undermined its war economy, then in 1941 or 1942, resume the firepower warfare of 1918.

Notes

External links

* {{YouTube, oFCujCmp1RQ, Online Lecture of the Cult of the Offensive Causes of World War I Military doctrines Military strategy Causes of war

Military theory

International politics

World War I

Notes

Further reading

External links