The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871 (review)

Military historians will be delighted by the appearance of this clear, well-written, and effective operational history of the war, which is particularly good on the battles. Thus, Bazaine is presented as snatching defeat from the jaws of certain victory at Mars-la-Tour. Sedan is seen as a victory for Moltke's operational art and Prussian tactics. Departing from the Napoleonic tradition of gun lines laying down frontal fire, the Germans had operated in artillery masses: mobile batteries formed by enterprising officers who converged on key points, annihilated them with cross fires and then moved on with other masses. As Wawro correctly points out, the way in which the Germans managed to achieve this result against all the fog and friction of war was particularly impressive. Responsiveness under pressure was the key, and Wawro's account links well with that of Arden Bucholz in Moltke and the German Wars, 1864-1871 (New York: St. Martin's, 2001).

Already noted as the author of The Austro-Prussian War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Wawro updates Michael Howard's classic in a book that is particularly welcome as it does not stop with Sedan. There is no point asking for a work that the author did not set out to write, but it is a pity, nevertheless, that Wawro did not devote more space to considering this conflict in terms of the general art of war in the period. This would be a matter not only of the American Civil War but also of conflict elsewhere, especially in Latin America. Furthermore, although there is discussion of post-Sedan operations, these are still relatively neglected. This is a pity as the issues of these months, not least logistics and force-space ratios, were to affect German campaigning in 1914. Wawro presents German breech-loading, steel-tubed Krupps artillery as the crucial battle-winning tool, but argues that the tactical lessons of 1870-71 were less clear than the organisational ones. Instead, there was a general view that the moral force of attacking infantry would prevail on the battlefield, a view taken despite the experience of costly and unsuccessful infantry attacks in 1870-71 especially by the Prussians against French infantry armed with the Chassepot rifle: as a result German losses were thirteen times higher than in 1866. Wawro is clear on the damage done by the Chassepot, whose rounds had a tendency to tumble through the body, smashing bones, tearing tissue, and blowing exit holes four times bigger than the entire wound: German casualties mentioned the "razor pain" of the French bullet. As a consequence of these casualties, Wilhelm I did not initially accept that Gravelotte was a German victory, although it had in fact severed France from its principal army. The Russians sought to emulate the Prussians in 1878 but lost heavily to Turkish riflemen. Wawro is searching on Bismarck's limitations and concludes with an interesting passage on who actually won the war. He deserves congratulations for his fine narrative.