OCR Specification focus:
‘Evolving tactics, including shock tactics and the ‘cult of the offensive,’ affected casualties.’
From 1792 to 1945, evolving tactics shaped warfare’s nature, determining the balance between attack and defence, influencing casualties, and redefining how battles were fought and won.
The Evolution of Tactics and the Offensive
Changes in tactical doctrine between 1792 and 1945 reflected shifts in technology, ideology, and experience. The emphasis on offensive action, often described as the ‘cult of the offensive’, was a recurring feature, shaping military planning and affecting casualty rates. Throughout this period, armies experimented with and adapted shock tactics, firepower coordination, and combined arms methods to achieve breakthroughs on the battlefield.
Defining Tactics and the Offensive
Tactics: The specific methods and manoeuvres used by armed forces in battle to achieve strategic objectives.
Offensive warfare: A military approach prioritising attack over defence, aiming to seize the initiative and defeat the enemy through aggressive action.
Tactics function at a level below strategy, focusing on how troops fight battles rather than how wars are won overall. The decision to favour the offensive or defensive approach influenced how battles unfolded and how armies adapted to technological and logistical realities.
Early Shock Tactics and the Napoleonic Legacy (1792–1815)
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, armies increasingly relied on shock tactics — the rapid concentration of force to overwhelm an enemy.
Shock tactics: Tactics designed to break enemy resistance through sudden, intense, and decisive assaults, often involving close combat or rapid advances.
Key features included:
Massed infantry columns advancing quickly to close with the enemy.
Cavalry charges exploiting breakthroughs and pursuing retreating forces.
Artillery bombardments softening enemy lines before the main assault.
Napoleon Bonaparte epitomised the offensive spirit, believing that decisive victories could only be achieved through bold attacks. However, this emphasis sometimes came at a high cost in casualties, as demonstrated at battles such as Austerlitz (1805) and Borodino (1812).
“Napoleonic shock tactics relied on rapid concentration and decisive manoeuvre to rupture an opponent’s line at the critical point.”
A West Point map of Austerlitz (1805) at 18:00 shows the offensive concentration and attack axes that produced a decisive rupture. Unit positions and arrows make the operational sequencing of the offensive clear. Labels go slightly beyond the syllabus by naming formations, but they directly illustrate offensive manoeuvre. Source
Mid-19th Century Shifts: Firepower Meets Offensive Doctrine
The Crimean War (1853–1856) and the American Civil War (1861–1865) highlighted a growing tension between offensive intent and defensive power. Rifled muskets and artillery increased the lethality of battlefields, making frontal assaults increasingly costly.
Despite this, commanders often clung to offensive doctrines:
At Pickett’s Charge (Gettysburg, 1863), Confederate infantry suffered catastrophic losses attacking entrenched Union positions.
European observers, however, often misinterpreted these lessons, focusing on offensive spirit rather than defensive resilience.
This period revealed that without adaptation, offensive tactics could lead to massive casualties — a theme that would intensify by 1914.
The ‘Cult of the Offensive’ and the First World War
Cult of the Offensive: A belief dominant before and during the early First World War that offensive action was inherently superior and decisive, regardless of technological change.
In the years leading to 1914, many European armies embraced doctrines emphasising attack:
French Plan XVII prioritised offensive operations to reclaim Alsace-Lorraine.
German Schlieffen Plan sought a rapid offensive to encircle France.
Commanders underestimated modern defensive firepower, particularly machine guns and quick-firing artillery. Early battles, such as the Battle of the Frontiers (1914), resulted in catastrophic losses for attacking forces.
Trench Warfare and Tactical Stalemate
The advent of trench systems on the Western Front entrenched defensive superiority. Yet the belief in offensive spirit persisted, producing repeated, costly assaults:
Somme (1916): British forces suffered over 57,000 casualties on the first day, largely due to overreliance on mass infantry waves.
Verdun (1916): Both sides launched repeated offensives, leading to massive attrition without decisive results.
Tactical Innovation: Overcoming the Defensive
By 1917–1918, armies began developing more sophisticated tactics to overcome entrenched defences. Key developments included:
Infiltration and Stormtrooper Tactics
German stormtrooper units used speed, surprise, and decentralised decision-making to bypass strongpoints and disrupt rear areas.
These tactics prioritised flexibility and initiative over rigid assault plans.
Combined Arms and Creeping Barrages
Combined arms tactics integrated infantry, artillery, tanks, and air power to coordinate attacks.
Creeping barrages advanced artillery fire just ahead of infantry, suppressing defenders without endangering attackers.
“The creeping barrage provided a moving curtain of fire shielding infantry as they advanced across no man’s land.”
A labelled barrage map used at Hill 70 showing timed artillery lifts ahead of the infantry assault. Coloured contour-like lines indicate successive barrage positions aligned to the infantry’s pre-set pace. This visual includes operational detail beyond the core concept (unit boundaries) but the barrage progression itself is directly relevant. Source
Such methods, evident in battles like Cambrai (1917) and the Hundred Days Offensive (1918), demonstrated how tactical innovation could restore mobility and offensive potential.
Interwar Doctrines and the Mechanised Offensive
Between the wars, military theorists and planners reflected on the lessons of 1914–1918. Many concluded that future offensives must integrate technology and mobility.
Key concepts included:
Blitzkrieg (“lightning war”): German doctrine combining tanks, aircraft, and mechanised infantry for rapid breakthroughs and deep exploitation.
Deep Battle: Soviet approach emphasising successive waves of attacks to overwhelm defences.
Blitzkrieg: A doctrine of rapid, concentrated attacks using combined arms to achieve decisive breakthroughs and disrupt enemy command and logistics.
These ideas directly challenged the attritional offensives of the First World War, aiming instead for swift victories through operational shock.
Second World War: Offensive Power Redefined
The Second World War (1939–1945) saw the most effective application of offensive tactics to date. Blitzkrieg campaigns in Poland (1939) and France (1940) demonstrated how mechanisation and coordination could achieve decisive results in weeks rather than years.
Air power played a vital role, providing reconnaissance, close support, and disruption of enemy movement.
Armoured spearheads penetrated weak points, encircling large enemy formations.
Infantry followed to consolidate gains and secure territory.
“Inter-war thinking culminated in combined-arms offensives—fast armoured thrusts, close air support and mission-type command—to penetrate and dislocate defenders.”
A U.S. Military Academy map of Fall Gelb (May 1940) with arrows showing German armoured thrusts through the Ardennes and the subsequent drive to the Channel. It succinctly visualises the speed and focus of the offensive. Some geographic detail is additional to the syllabus but clarifies the operational context. Source
However, offensive success still depended on logistics and sustained operational capability, as shown by Germany’s failure during Operation Barbarossa (1941).
Casualties and the Offensive: A Persistent Challenge
Throughout the period, offensive tactics carried inherent risks. Key reasons included:
Concentrated assaults exposed troops to defensive firepower.
Overconfidence in offensive spirit often ignored technological realities.
Breakthroughs, once achieved, were difficult to sustain without logistical support.
The evolution from massed infantry assaults to combined arms offensives reflected a long struggle to reconcile offensive ambition with battlefield realities.
FAQ
The Franco-Prussian War reinforced the prestige of offensive action. The rapid Prussian victories, achieved through decisive manoeuvre and mobilisation, encouraged many European armies to believe that swift, aggressive offensives could deliver quick wars.
However, the conflict also demonstrated the increasing power of defensive fire — breech-loading rifles and artillery inflicted heavy casualties on attacking forces. Despite this, military planners tended to focus on the successes of German offensive strategy, laying intellectual groundwork for the ‘cult of the offensive’ that dominated thinking before 1914.
Offensive tactics often depended on high morale and discipline to succeed, especially in mass infantry assaults or shock tactics where troops faced heavy fire.
Napoleonic forces relied on morale to sustain rapid advances and decisive charges.
During the First World War, maintaining discipline under machine-gun and artillery fire was essential for troops advancing across no man’s land.
Elite units like German stormtroopers in 1918 were carefully trained and psychologically prepared for high-risk infiltration missions, showing how morale and training shaped offensive effectiveness.
Resistance often stemmed from institutional culture and deeply held beliefs about warfare. Many officers believed offensive spirit and courage could overcome technological challenges.
Pre-1914 French doctrine glorified élan vital — the idea that moral superiority would triumph.
Some leaders misinterpreted past wars, emphasising bold attack over caution.
Bureaucratic inertia and reluctance to retrain large armies slowed the adoption of new tactics like infiltration or combined arms, even after disasters such as the Somme.
Artillery’s evolving range, accuracy, and power transformed how offensives were planned and executed.
In the Napoleonic era, massed batteries softened enemy lines before infantry assaults.
By the First World War, indirect fire and creeping barrages became crucial for protecting advancing troops.
In the Second World War, mobile artillery and self-propelled guns supported mechanised offensives, providing rapid, flexible firepower that complemented fast-moving armoured units.
Artillery shifted from a preparatory tool to an integral part of coordinated offensive operations.
The First World War was characterised by slow, attritional offensives and limited tactical flexibility, often involving repeated infantry assaults on entrenched positions.
By contrast, the Second World War embraced speed, coordination, and combined arms:
Blitzkrieg used tanks, aircraft, and motorised infantry in synchronised assaults to bypass strongpoints.
Greater emphasis on mobility and exploitation allowed for deep penetrations and rapid encirclements.
Close air support and mechanised logistics enhanced offensive reach and reduced reliance on static trench systems.
This shift marked a fundamental transformation in how offensives were conceived and executed.
Practice Questions
Question 1 (2 marks)
Define the term ‘cult of the offensive’ as it relates to warfare between 1792 and 1945.
Mark scheme (2 marks total):
1 mark for identifying that it was the belief that offensive action was inherently superior or decisive.
1 mark for noting that this belief influenced military planning and decision-making, often despite technological or tactical realities (e.g. ignoring the strength of defensive firepower).
Question 2 (6 marks)
Explain two ways in which developments in tactics between 1792 and 1945 influenced casualty levels in warfare.
Mark scheme (6 marks total):
Up to 3 marks for each explanation (2 explanations required).
1 mark for identifying a relevant development in tactics.
1 mark for describing how this development functioned or was applied.
1 mark for explaining how it affected casualty levels.
Examples of acceptable points:
The use of shock tactics during the Napoleonic era concentrated force to achieve breakthroughs but often led to high casualties when assaults failed against prepared defences.
The persistence of the cult of the offensive in the early First World War caused mass infantry assaults against machine guns and artillery, producing heavy losses.
The introduction of creeping barrages and infiltration tactics reduced exposure to defensive firepower, helping to lower casualties compared to earlier frontal assaults.
Blitzkrieg tactics in the Second World War used speed, surprise and combined arms to bypass strongpoints, reducing prolonged fighting and limiting casualties.
