[The Fog of War]
Clausewitz’s Rules of War
World War II Memories
130 I don’t want to get morbidly engaged with this military stuff, but it has got me quite excited. I’ve been having dreams and everything else. We were talking about the “fog of war.” The main reason is that the Book of Mormon sets this forth so beautifully, so clearly, so succinctly. One hundred and seventy pages is quite an essay on war, but it treats every aspect. It doesn’t leave anything untouched and it’s marvelous. Everything is in context. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll see this. He has been talking about the fog of war. This is very typical in the Book of Mormon. This that Clausewitz says is also an admonition to us: “War is the province of chance. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance and deranges the course of events.”
130 Clausewitz says, “Differences of opinion are nowhere so great as in war.” Look what it did when Mark Clark wanted to take Rome out of pure vanity, and General Alexander wanted to catch and trap the German Tenth Army up in northern Italy. Clark had to have his satisfaction and take Rome, which was not defended. The Germans promised they wouldn’t defend the holy city, and they didn’t. He had his glory, but it let the whole Tenth Army get up there to Normandy. It was a very foolish thing to do, but it was because the two generals disagreed. [Then there was] Monty versus Ike and Monty versus Patton as much as anything.
130,131 This is an interesting thing. I have a quotation here from B. H. Liddell Hart, who is by far the best known military commentator of our times. [He says] “I used to think the causes of war were predominantly economic.” Well, there’s a lot behind that too—they are economic. Everybody profits by them, except the poor civilian who fights them. He goes on, “Then I came to think that they were psychological. I am now coming to think that they are decisively personal, arising from the defects and ambition of those who have the power to influence the current invasion.”
131 This is certainly the Book of Mormon position. Behind every war there is some powerful personality. In this case it is Amalickiah and in another one Moroni. It’s a personal duel. It becomes so personal between Amalickiah and Moroni that it becomes a matter of drinking blood and this sort of thing.
131 “The strength of character leads to a degenerate form of obstinacy.” We have a beautiful case of it here. We are on Alma 49 and 50. When we read them presently you will see that all these cases are well illustrated, like when they refuse to give up the fort until all the officers of the army are killed off—utterly stubborn, this sort of thing,” Clausewitz says. “Arguments among the staff are terrible” (Moroni versus Pahoran; Patton versus Monty and Eisenhower). General Bradley said, “I never knew a general who was happy,” because when you get up there it’s all fierce competition and everybody is shooting for the top spot. Everybody is out gunning for everybody else. On that subject Clausewitz concludes, “We shall soon feel what a dangerous edifice war is, how easily it may fall to pieces and bury us in its ruin.” [This happens] even up to the moment when you think you are winning. After Moroni settles everything, then bingo comes a terrific counterattack, like the Bulge, that catches them completely off guard. It’s a dangerous thing. We mentioned Agincourt last time.
131 This is of extreme importance: Clausewitz says, “Decisions are based on reports, all of which have been lies, exaggerations, and errors. Most reports are false, and the timidity of men gives fresh force to lies and untruths.” The fog of war includes misreports of what happened, etc.. He says, “This difficulty of seeing things correctly is one of the greatest sources of friction in war among the commanders.” Thus Moroni has no idea what is happening to Pahoran, and Pahoran the same way, you see. What does a general do in a case like this? He says, “War in its plan is so often thwarted by the unexpected.” Of course, that’s the nature of it. Napoleon said, “The first duty of a general is never to be surprised.” But you are always being surprised. You can’t help it. You don’t know what’s going to happen.
131,132 War ... is so often thwarted by the unexpected that it must be left to talent.” It must be left to a person who has the talent for it. Frederick the Great and Napoleon had genius, of course—and Eugene, Marshall Saxe, and so many of them like that. The great generals were all eccentric geniuses. In fact, they only won wars by breaking rules.
132 The most prestigious medal in Europe is that which was given by the Austrians in the middle of the eighteenth century, and it remained right down through World War I. It was the Maria Theresian, the medal of Maria Theresa, which you got for some brilliant achievement and success while you were breaking rules. So there was a catch to it. When you got the Maria Theresian, you had to be shot afterward because you disobeyed the rules. This is military thinking and it’s true.
132 Then [Clausewitz] says this: “For that reason there is no other business in which a theoretical guide is more useless.” Less use can be made of a theoretical guide [in war] than in any other business. You can’t use the vade mecum [guide]. So Clausewitz says, less use can be made of a theoretical guide than in any other business. No, you can’t have a handbook for war, and yet there are manuals for everything in the army, as you know. But for this you can’t have a manual, though they try to use them. So Clausewitz says throw away the rule book. It depends on the genius of the commander
133 Clausewitz says the thing that is most surprising about war is that it’s surprisingly simple [This just keeps taking me back to the Book of Mormon all the time. He’s got it all in; he’s got the spirit of it too.] ... and that it [war] fools everybody. He says the most intelligent person is not going to be the greatest general. You want a man with a steady character who thinks very simply and very directly, like Suvarov or U. S. Grant. They were not complicated, nervous, ambitious men like Max Taylor or Frederick the Great. They are the ones who get through the long wars. They have an instinct for what is the right thing to do.
133 Here’s another of Clausewitz’s main doctrines, a central doctrine of strategy and tactics. This is basic. He says it’s hard for people to believe this, but the defense is a stronger form of making war always. “It’s contrary to the prevalent opinion, but the defensive form of war is the abstract stronger than the offensive. Absolute defense completely contradicts the conception of war.” If you are just on the defensive, you are not waging war. You are just sitting there. To wage war is to go forward and wage war.
133 Put off the confrontation as long as you can, but, of course, every defensive, according to experience, will have to change to the offensive sometime because that’s what war is. It’s extremely important always to bear in mind that the only advantage which the offensive possesses is the effect of surprise. If you are on the offensive you must effect surprise, because he is ready for you otherwise. Of course, that’s the great trick that was pulled by the two thousand sons. They surprised the daylights out of the Lamanites who were following. They never expected them to turn around like that. You have to be the innocent aggressor, yet you must make a surprise attack on someone else. It’s a very interesting thing, a contradiction here.
133,134 Max Taylor’s grand passion was the “reverse slope,” as if it were a new discovery. I had to preach “reverse slope” morning, noon, and night or the general wasn’t satisfied. The reverse slope was that you wouldn’t dig in on the top of a hill, like Bunker Hill, and look over the approaching enemy, giving you an advantage. He was coming up at you. Not at all. What you would do is get at the bottom of the hill and wait for him to come across the ridge. Especially that was so with armor, because they make a fine profile against the sky. That paid off magnificently. That’s what saved the day at Bastogne, because in one morning they were able to knock off forty-four tanks as they came across the hill. There was no way they could escape. They had to come down into Bastogne there on this bare hill. As soon as they would pop up [we would hit them. It was the same thing with troops. You can’t hide your profile on the top of a hill. It sounds contradictory, but it’s remarkable how well it worked.
134 Another conclusion from Clausewitz, “A negative effort must prefer a bloodless decision.” The less blood shed the better. That was Moroni’s feeling. “The only advantage of the negative object though is to delay a decision.” That’s cold war. He says there’s no point to cold war unless it leads to hot war, which it will always do. “It’s a game to switch to war after all. You can stall all you want, but everything is subject to the supreme law, the decision by arms. When it is actually demanded by the enemy such an appeal can never be refused. Accordingly, among all the objectives which may be sought in war, the destruction of the enemy’s forces always must be the one that overrules all the others.” So no matter how you spar, no matter how you wait, no matter how long you delay, no matter how strong your defensive position, this will be your objective. Sooner or later, you must destroy the enemy. For Moroni destroy meant they would just agree to go back home again. This is the idea of the war.
134 [Clausewitz says] “No conquest can be finished too soon. Spreading it over a greater period of time makes it more difficult [of course it does]. A speedy and uninterrupted effort toward a decision is essential to an effective war [go and just keep going until you have finished it off]. Until it takes place nothing is decided, nothing won, and nothing lost.” You may be winning up until the last minute. Then something will happen and you’ll be defeated. This happens in the Book of Mormon too. “The end crowns the work. War is an indivisible whole, so how often defeat has been snatched from the jaws of victory.”
134,135 He said it must be an uninterrupted effort, and there is the catch. If it drags on beyond a certain period, it can’t be uninterrupted. You have to stop and take your breath. You have to stop and regroup. You have to stop and resupply. You have to do something. So unless you win that first blow then you are in for a long haul. And nobody has ever yet won the first blow. That’s what they tried at Pearl Harbor. But there are always the slipups, always the delays. They didn’t finish off the navy; they didn’t know that two carriers were still out to sea, etc. That was a great blow. That was the nearest thing to the blitzkrieg that the Germans and Japanese were practicing at that time.
135 At Cumorah both sides lost, and it was a long war. This would be inconceivable to Clausewitz who said, “Once the great victory is gained, there should be no talk of rest, pausing for breath, or consolidating, but only pursuit.” Well, the Nephites were chased for fifty-five years. The Lamanites never let up that relentless pursuit, but was an off-and-on sort of thing. That’s the fatal flaw. Every campaign has to slow down somewhere, as everybody did in World War II, etc. [Clausewitz says], “Beware of confusing the spirit of army with its morale. The highest spirit in the world changes only too easily at first check to depression.” Nobody knew that better than Moroni. He saw that no matter how great the fury of the attacking enemy there was a time when there was hesitation. Then immediately he would propose conditions, and usually they would take him up on it. Zerahemnah didn’t; he said we will go on fighting. There is always a check that comes in the Book of Mormon when the tide turns suddenly. You have to sense when that time has come, and some men can do it.
135 Clausewitz’s last principle is important. “War is never an isolated act. In the real world war never breaks out suddenly and does not spread immediately.” Here we are going to have to disagree with him. He saw this in the princes’ wars and the gentlemen’s wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries fought by professional armies. But the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the nation in arms, beginning with Napoleon, is something different, and for a good reason which he applies, “Human organizations have, because of their inefficiency, always fallen short.” This is the answer. It’s the human factor that is always going to spoil everything. You are not going to get your ideal war or anything else because human organizations always fall short. Well, that’s an understatement. There is bungling, misunderstanding, and deficiency. You never get things mobilized instantly. He said, “These deficiencies operate on both sides and become a modifying influence.” Hitler won D-Day for us because he refused to mobilize and send his armor to Normandy. He wanted to send it to Le Havre.
137 You know that wonderful passage where he tells us how Amalickiah had special speakers go to all the towers throughout the country and whip up emotional resentment against the Nephites, to get the people worked up until they were willing to go to war. They were very reluctant after a long war, but this time he used that technique just like using TV. He kept hammering away at it with these speakers from the towers [Alma 48:1-3].
137 Once [war] starts, then there’s the desire for revenge. This is the big thing. And the Book of Mormon ends in an orgy of revenge. “Vengeance is mine [saith the Lord], and I will repay [Mormon 3:15]. In Mormon 4, against all the Lord had taught, they went out for revenge. He said, “But, behold, the judgments of God will overtake the wicked; and it is by the wicked that the wicked are punished.” You will not [get] revenge. That was the theme. Remember, Mormon said, when I saw that against all the Lord had taught them they were determined to avenge themselves upon their brethren, from that time I did utterly refuse to go against mine enemy. I became an idle onlooker to record these things for your benefit. So they must be for our benefit.
137 Well, what nobler motive can there be than to avenge the blood of their brethren? With that Mormon lays down his arms. He resigns as commander and says he will have nothing more to do with them. He utterly refuses to be avenged on his enemies. For one thing, the Lord has absolutely forbidden them to go seeking vengeance. So Mormon said in Mormon 3:14-15: “Behold the voice of the Lord came unto me, saying: Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.” Well, where does that leave us today, short of Zion?
138 Alma 49:6 6: “... they supposed that they should be privileged to come upon them as they had hitherto done; yea, and they had also prepared themselves with shields, and with breastplates [they were getting ready for the other war, the war that they had hitherto been victorious in]; and they had also prepared themselves with garments of skins, yea, very thick garments to cover their nakedness.” Notice, they had matched the Nephites’ armor. All the things they had hitherto done they were doing now, but that wasn’t enough because Moroni was ahead of them. Moroni was a real military genius. In verse 10 it tells us that Amalickiah stayed back at the base, confident in a quick and easy victory. “He didn’t care for the blood of his people. That happens too.
138 Alma 49:11,13 Notice the insight of verse 11. You don’t just go to war by improving the army that way and by improving the defenses. That wasn’t it at all. He shook up the whole administration of the government. Notice, he was given plenary powers here to do this thing in this crisis. So he shook up the government from top to bottom and got things moving. “... for Moroni had altered the management of affairs among the Nephites.” It wasn’t just the military preparation. He altered the management of the affairs. It was a government shakeup, probably from top to bottom. Then his chief captains thought they could make the city of Noah an object lesson in verse 13: ‘They marched forward to the land of Noah with a firm determination; yea, their chief captains came forward and took an oath that they would destroy the people of that city.” They were so mad because they had been turned back.
138 Alma 49:13-17 They took an oath that they would destroy the city. The man says here, “The supreme test of generalship is to have the enemy play the game your way.” Moroni was very good that way. He made Amalickiah do just the things he wanted him to do, while Amalickiah thought it was his own idea. That’s generalship when you can do that. This is possible to have the enemy play your game, making just the moves you want him to make under the impression that he is being very smart on his own. Moroni did just that. The attack on the city of Noah was according to his desires. They were drawn off. The city of Noah looked weak, and this is the one they would attack to take their vengeance and make an example of it. That’s exactly what Moroni was counting on. He knew his psychology, a very shrewd man here. Verse 15: “And now, behold, this was wisdom in Moroni; for he had supposed that they would be frightened at the city Ammonihah; and as the city of Noah had hitherto been the weakest part of the land, therefore they would march thither to battle.” And [Moroni’s] two generals were Teancum and Lehi, and they were “terrors.”
139 Alma 49:20-23 The Lamanites came to the city of Noah and they were again disappointed. That was terrible. He had devised a new ingenious type of defense for the city, a new type of gate for the Lamanites. They [had taken] their oath to wipe out the inhabitants of the city of Noah, so they made these savage, repeated assaults on the city. It was silly. There’s a description of siege and fortification. Verse 20: “Thus they were prepared, yea, a body of their strongest men, with their swords and their slings, to smite down all who should attempt to come into their place of security by the place of entrance.” They got trapped there because it was an L-entrance. You couldn’t go in directly. At the place of entrance Moroni had devised a clever kind of gate. This is the arch perversity of attacking strong places that can’t be held.. “... but behold, they were driven back from time to time, insomuch that they were slain with an immense slaughter.” They began to dig down their banks and they were swept off by the arrows. All the chief captains were slain, and more than a thousand Lamanites were slain. What stubbornness! “There was not a single soul of the Nephites which was slain.” They had the advantage of that battle.
140 Alma 49:30 Believe it or not, he [Moroni] won the war, and they had great peace and prosperity after because of their “diligence which they gave unto the word of God.” I’d say we’ll come down to earth next time, but I’m afraid we won’t. We’ll just dig in deeper. This next chapter is marvelous because this takes us back home during the war—how people not in the military behave during times of great stress.