V
The Engagement

Joseph Wheeler


'Fighting is the central military act; all other activities merely support it.'

Engagements are battles. The object of battle is the destruction or defeat of the enemy. Strategy is the use of force, the heart of which, in turn, is the engagement. Only great tactical success can lead to great strategic ones. This is the simple concept, and the basis for all other discussion on the subject.

This principle holds true even if no actual battle occurs - the mere possibility of inflicting a great defeat on the enemy can achieve strategic results. This does not reduce the importance of the battle. As an example, consider an endgame situation where Italy, Russia, and a third power are the only significant powers left. The Balkans are occupied by I A Trieste, I A Serbia, I A Bulgaria, I F Greece, I F Ionian, I A Venice R A Vienna, R F Black Sea, R A Armenia, R own Budapest, R own Rumania T A Constantinople, T F Eastern Mediterranean, T F Aegean Sea

Italy's strategic goal is to ensure that his coalition with Russia is maintained, and to gain substantially from their joint attack on Turkey. His immediate goal is to ensure that the Russian F Black Sea supports I A Bulgaria -> Constantinople rather than R A Armenia -> Ankara. In this situation, a wise Russian player will gladly pledge support to the Italian movement, even though this means that his own move is not guaranteed. This decision is heavily influenced by the fact that the Italian is well placed to win a battle with Russia in the Balkans, while the Russian stands only to lose his centers. Even though neither side really desires to fight, Italy can convert the situation into a strategic victory merely from his ability to fight while his opponent can not.

'All war presupposes human weakness, and seeks to exploit it.'

The secret to achieving tactical success is not to formulate a rigid plan based on the assumption that the enemy will always make the best possible moves. It is far more productive to assume that your opponent will make mistakes, and position your own forces so as to be able to take advantage of those mistakes. It almost always pays to be flexible and open to changes in your strategy as opportunities arise. In the world of Diplomacy, this typically means avoiding committment to one war or another until the last possible moment, striking only when an opponent has exposed himself to a crippling blow. Once war has been joined, don't be afraid to take chances - make bold and energetic attacks all along an opponent's territory until he slips and allows one through.

'The energetic conduct of war has always contributed most to its glory and success.'

Complex operations take time, and this time must be available without a counter-attack on one of its parts interfering with the development of the whole. If the enemy decides on a simpler attack, one that can be carried out quickly, he will gain the advantage and wreck the grand design. This does not mean that the simple attack is the best. It means that one should not swing wider than latitude allows. Rather than try to outbid the enemy with complicated schemes, one should rather try to outdo him in simplicity. Consider an Italo-Turkish war early in the game. If the Italian formulates a complex plan involving the movement of his armies over or through Austria, his plans can quickly fall to pieces if the Turkish player strikes quickly and boldy straight through the Ionian axis. Italy may soon find that his armies are too far away to help in the main battle, and his fleets are inadequate for the job.

'The decision can never be reached too soon to suit the winner, nor delayed long enough to suit the loser.'

A victory is greater for having been gained quickly, defeat is compensated for by having been long postponed. A Russian who invades Austria early will find his victory meaningless if it takes him eight years to complete. By the time he finally cracks the Austrian shell, he will find that other powers have been growing far faster than he while thus engaged. The Austrian may not be much better off, but the longer he delays the Russian victory the greater the likelihood that he can convince an outside power to lend him assistance.

'Loss of order and cohesion often makes even resistance of individual units fatal for them.'

It is vital to tactical success that your units be kept tightly packed at the front in mutually supporting positions. When your front-line units become disordered, it is a trivial problem for an experienced player to exploit their weaknesses one by one. Consider the following set-up:

F A Holland, F A Ruhr, F A Munich, F A Belgium, F F North Sea
R A Silesia, R A Kiel, R A Vienna, R F Denmark, R A Sweden, R A Norway

Here, Russia has more units, but the French units are better positioned for mutual support. France can easily ping Denmark and Silesia for a guaranteed occupation of Kiel, and the units can easily maintain their solid formation as they advance. It would take the Russian player at least a year to put his forces into a usable formation, and by then he will have lost at least one center.

'A battle fought with parallel fronts and without an eveloping action is not so likely to bring great results as on in which the defeated army has been turned, or made to change his front.'

Continuing the example above, the French player's best chances for long-term success lie not in continuing to roll his forces forward in a single line, but in finding ways to isolate and turn Russian units. This can be accomplished in two ways - both involve slipping fleets around Denmark into the Baltic Sea and adjacent spaces. The first tactic he can use is to put pressure on Berlin, and then swing his armies east and south, to march across the Berlin/Warsaw/Vienna axis. This makes the Scandinavian units useless, allowing France to apply a disprportionate force on the Russian units in the south. The second tactic is to hit Denmark, then Sweden, then Norway from the south. This tactic isolates Scandinavia, and makes the trapped in the Berlin/Warsaw/Vienna axis useless. In both cases, a disproportionate force is applied in the direction of thrust, and the other front is easily contained with an inferior force maintained almost entirely by new builds gained in the battle. Hitting supporting units from a direction other than that of the main advance effectively turns these units, rendering them incapable of supporting actions in the main battle.

The end lesson here is that the battle is paramount to strategic thought. While our goal is to achieve success without battle, this goal cannot be achieved unless we are prepared for battle. To end with the words of Clausewitz:

'We are not interested in generals who win victories without bloodshed. The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but not provide an exceuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms.'

Read the next article (War Plans)

Joseph Wheeler
(corwin@wam.umd.edu)

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