 So welcome, everyone. Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed your afternoon coffee break. We've reached panel four on our itinerary, so the impact of a Franco-Prussian war military thought. Now, for those who have just logged in during the course of the day for the first time, it's a regret that I have to inform you that our first plan speaker, Dr. Julian Asconjari, couldn't make it this afternoon, and he's going to present a paper on the intellectual legacy of a Franco-Prussian war, so it'll be kind of more of an Anglo-German bent to this panel. But, David, I'll hand over to you at this point to the speakers and to the chair. Michael, thank you very much. I hope people can see me. I've got a, just so people know, I've got a slight issue with my iPad, but I hope the IT is working all right. But welcome to panel four. We've got a highly impressive pair of presenters this afternoon, both true experts in their field. And as a consequence, we have an enlightening session in prospect. I suppose to say just a few words by way of personal introduction for each of the presenters, and then hand over to Dr. Robert Foley to present his paper and then ask Rob Johnson, Dr. Rob Johnson to deliver his subsequent to those presentations will have the usual Q&A. Dr. Robert Foley is a reader in defence studies at KCL and based at the Joint Services Command Staff College. He's an expert in Wilhelmina German military thought and history. His German strategy and the path to verve down, Erich von Falkenheim and the development of attrition, 1870 to 1916 published by Cambridge University Press in 2004, was notably awarded the Royal Historical Society's Gladstone Prize. He's also published Alfred von Schlieffen's military writings published by Cass in 2004, and the Somme and Eyewitness History with HB McCartney published in Folio Society in 2006. In addition to being the author of numerous articles in international journals, and having been head of the Defence Studies Department and Dean of Academic Studies at the Joint Services Command and Staff College for the last five years. Robert is now completing his, and I'm using his word, is long overdue German Army in the First World War, which will be part of Cambridge University Press' armies of the First World War series. Well, Rob Johnson is director of the changing character of War Centre at Oxford University, and is also a senior research fellow at Pembroke. I'm a joint professor of the Norwegian Defence College Oslo, and of the Rennes School in France. Rob has published extensively on the 19th and 20th centuries military history with specific studies on the British armed forces. Amongst works relevant to this particular conference are technological determinism in the myths of war, chapters and articles on the Northwest frontier, the Anglo-Persian War, and an edited volume on the British Army. And his primary research interests are in strategy and the changing character of war. I'm going to take half a minute to embarrass Rob, because what's not mentioned in that list is that Rob was a co-editor with Professor Janna Harland-McLaury, based in Oslo, of a major volume published recently by Hearst, entitled Military Strategy in the 21st Century, The Challenge for NATO. It's a volume which is enjoying significant international acclaim. So I think in terms of publications, we're pretty much bang up to date. That's enough from me, you're not here to listen to me, you're here to listen to the two robbs. If I should like very much to invite Dr. Robert Foley to deliver his paper. Robert, over to you. Great. Thank you very much, David. I hold on and I know I guess I'm coming through. Thank you very much. I appreciate those kind words as well. And I'd like to say thank you to everyone for the invitation to speak at this conference. I've really enjoyed the papers today. And I've really enjoyed returning to an area of history I haven't explored in quite a long while. I don't have a PowerPoint, and I apologize for the earphones that I've got on, but my daughter has returned from school and it's piano practice going on downstairs. So I hope this might kind of keep it a little bit in train. As some of the other speakers have done today, I'd like to express my debt of gratitude to Sir Michael Howard. Not only did my research benefit greatly from his wisdom, but the material on the Franco German war amassed in the Library of Kings College London while he was there was invaluable to my work as well. It's really hard to overestimate the impact of the Franco German wars on Franco German war of 1870 and 71 on German military fault. This particular war cast a long shadow that shaped German military actions in the next Franco German war beginning in 1914. Of course, the results of 1870 and 1971 fundamentally shaped the new German Empire strategic situation, creating a near permanent animosity between France and Germany. Even as the Treaty of Frankfurt was being negotiated, German strategist look forward to a future conflict between these two states. And as we heard this morning about multi just desire for defeat to France once and for all. The military requirement for the annexation of access Lorraine, perhaps against Bismarck's better judgment helped ensure that this future war would happen. While at the same time it provided protection for this new empire. Thus the war contributed to the topos of an inevitable war as Wolfgang Mumsen termed it some years ago, that pervaded German military thinking between 1871 and 1914. The war also provided the first and last, but certainly the most formative experience of combat for many commanders who would lead the German army in 1914. The nephew of the man hailed by Germany as a victor of the war in 1871, and we'll go Maltke served as lieutenant in a in the Grenadier regiment number seven. In the Burg to part in the battle of some play that as a lieutenant in the third guard regiment suffice, and later witness the Kaiser proclamation in Versailles. Indeed, most, many if not most of the non royal senior leaders of the German army in the First World War were junior officers in the wars of unification, and most never saw combat again before the outbreak of war in 1914. Then Joe Reagan, Carl von unim, Carl von Budo, Alexander von kluge, Augustin Mockensen, as well as many others are good examples of this. Thus, the Franco German war of 1870, 71 played a key role in shaping their ideas about how wars could and should be conducted at the tactical level. to the battles of Mars, the Tor, Gravelat, Saint-Privat, made a deep impression on these German soldiers, just as we heard in, or as we just heard in Mark Hewittson's paper. We also know that the war, and particularly battles like Saint-Privat, spurred tactical innovation within the German army. In the years after the war, rivers of ink were spilled by German military theorists, advocating, competing tactical doctrines. Indeed, J. Le Vos quipped that one could spend years of one's life, the worst years, in J. Le Vos's view, working through this literature. Many, if not most of these works, based themselves in the events of 1870 and 1871. Perhaps my favorite example of this is the dueling Midsummer Night's Dream by Jakob Meckl, and Winter Night's Reality by, I believe, Albertan Bobroslawski, which argued for and against open and close-water infantry tactics. This morning, Michael Rowe talked about the War of 1870 and 71 as a war of transition, connecting back to the Napoleonic Wars through Wilhelm I and Karl von Steinmetz, but it also certainly connected through to the First World War in both personnel and ideas. But what I'd like to do today, though, is to focus on three ways in which the experience of the Franco-German War of 1870 and 71 had the most impact, in my view, on German military thinking. These are three areas in which Mids developed that hampered the German army's ability to analyze the events of 1870 and, in particular, 1871. And we can also see the impact of these myths on the actions of the German army in 1914 and indeed throughout the First World War and perhaps beyond. These myths are concerned, first, with the significance and importance of the concept of decisive battle. Second, with the effectiveness of the German command structures and systems. And third, with the idea of the German army as a Volksheer or a People's Army, representing a Volk and Waffen or a nation in arms, and that this had led to victory in 1871. I use the term myth here because I believe we can see the way in which these truths were deliberately simplified and distorted for other ends. The myths were created or at least fostered by the German army itself in the years after the Franco-German War in 1870 and 71. And these myths served important internal functions. They papered over some fundamental divisions and differences within the army and government and thereby preserving the illusion of unity at least outwardly. However, while this may have succeeded in avoiding some challenging questions, the longer-term impact of these myths was to freeze these differences in place and mean that the army and its government did not address some fundamental questions before the outbreak of war in 1914. Now the first myth I'd like to look at is this idea of the significance and the importance of the decisive battle or unscheidung schlacht. And this has been well covered by others, Judo Wallach, for example, but it's important means that we need to really look at it here. Indeed, the concept of unscheidung schlacht was even challenged at the time by Hans Delbrook and some others, indicating that its significance was recognized by contemporaries as well. The battles of Metz and Seidon were rightly celebrated as great victories over the army of the French Empire in the years after 1871. However, the celebration, together with the celebration of battles like Conagrakes, developed in time into a myth of the decisiveness of battles. The lesson, if you will, taken from this, was that the battlefield action could and would lead to meaningful political effects, even if in reality, Metz and Seidon did not win the Franco-German War. In other words, the future war would be decided by a handful of large battles. Muldke himself wrote in his instructions for higher commanders, first published in 1868 and revised in 1885 and again in 1910, quote, the goal in war can never be more completely reached than through combat and its main objective only through the destruction of the enemy's main strength in the open field, therefore through battle, unquote. Now, what this meant was that the army struggled to move beyond a tactical approach to warfare, even when it was clear from experience that this would not be sufficient. Strategy followed and was shaped by tactical actions rather than providing the lead. And again and again, German military theorists and strategists returned to the idea of battle as a decisive component of any future war. We can see this very clearly in the writings and plantings of Alfred von Schliepen, for example. And this concept was at the heart of all German war plans between 1871 and 1914. It also helped to foster the short war belief that dictated German strategic decision-making in 1914. Now, I'm well aware, of course, of the research of Stichforster and Anika Mumbauer and others that indicated growing recognition of the problems of short war under modern conditions. But despite the clear cognitive dissonance of the two Muldkes, neither did much to challenge the fundamentals of the war plan and construct around the principle of decisive battle. And the core of the so-called Schlieffen Plan of 1914 was the rapid destruction of the French army. Another implication of this focus on the decisive battle was that the German army placed all its efforts in training in preparation for such actions. The literature referred to earlier was largely focused on how to fight these decisive battles more effectively. The army largely ignored with some notable exceptions and we can go into this perhaps in questions. The second half of the Franco-German War. Hence, it was unprepared for the Kleine Krieg or the partisan war that arose in Belgium in 1914. And this, I think, goes a long way to help us understand some of the German actions in Belgium and Northern France in 1914. And it was also completely unprepared for the long nutritional struggle that was the First World War. And itself, it struggled to develop a new approach to this conflict. Now, of course, the German army was not alone in its emphasis on the importance of battle, but its experience of the second phase of the Franco-German War presented a missed opportunity to learn about the character of a people's war, an opportunity that some German authors in the interwar period highlighted but wasn't picked up by the army as a whole. Now, the second method I'd like to look at is the effectiveness of German approaches to command. And there are two elements in my view to this. The first is command within the army and then there's a second command of the army. And looking at the idea of command in the army to start with. Now, this, what I'm talking about here is what we'd later refer to as the idea of Alftraub's tactique or Führung nach direktiv or Weizungs Führung, some of the other kind of terms that were used to describe this. Not officially at the time, but I think capture some of these ideas and some of what I wanted to get after here too. Now, we've heard today how the war had demonstrated some serious problems of command at the highest levels within the army. In the initial stages of the war, Carl von Steinmetz, the commander of the First Army, disobeyed multiple's orders and advanced on the French at Spickeren on the 6th of August of 1870 and was only saved from disaster by the quick thinking of the Prussian Prince Carl's, Friedrich Carl's Second Army. Now, I think this as well as other actions like this reinforced in Moltke's mind the idea that no plan survives contact with the enemy or indeed one's own army. Moltke later wrote of Steinmetz and the French at Spickeren, quote, the battle had certainly not been anticipated, but generally speaking, the tactical victory rarely fails to coincide with a strategic policy. Success in battle has always been thankfully accepted, unquote. This approach to command, I think had important implications for German war planning. German war plans, despite being more complex and detailed by 1914, were really deployment plans or Aufmarsch plan. The Aufmarsch plan only sketched out initial deployments and initial engagements. How a campaign would unfold would in part be determined by events and by the actions of the enemies and one's own armies. So Moltke is trying to embrace the good elements of what he saw as an inevitable part of war that you couldn't plan too far ahead and that therefore you just had to kind of trust your forces and your army as much as you could. And we can see this at work as late as March, 1918 when Ludendorff brushed aside calls for operational objectives and said that really what he wanted to do was kick in the door and then see what would happen. Further, with no real exploration of the disobedience of Steinmans and others, the German army was never able to explore some of the challenges that arise from this particular approach to command and some of the challenges of how you conduct modern operations in even more complex armies later in this time period as well. It also meant of course that there was no exploration of different levels of command and there's no level of command above army in the German army in 1914, despite the fact that it could have benefited from the idea of an army group and this may have come out from a further exploration of command within the German army in particularly the second phase of the Franco-German War. Now the second element of command relates really to the idea of high command. Now we heard earlier about the structure of the higher command in the Franco-German War, this triangle of command that developed with Kaiser Wilhelm, or sorry, Wilhelm I at the top balancing the kind of competing ideas of Bismarck and Moltke. And in some ways, the Franco-German War represents the high point of the development of this style of command where Wilhelm acts as commander-in-chief, both of the national government as we've heard but also the army as well. And Wilhelm was responsible for balancing this advice from these key advisors, particularly Moltke and Bismarck but also Ruhn as well and making all major political and military decisions. But we've heard about some of the disagreements between Bismarck and Moltke over the prosecution of the war. And we can see this most clearly in the prosecution of the second phase of the war and the decision to bombard Paris for example. And these frictions may have been fairly open secrets within the German army and the government after the war but they were largely swept under the rug and did not seem to have led to any serious discussion about how an approach to command in any future conflict. Indeed, Moltke the elder himself explicitly denounced the concept of the Kriegsrat or Council of Wars as a means of exercising command. And he pointed in his sort of an appendix to his history of the Franco-Prussian War to the role in which the Kaiser played this or the role that Wilhelm I played in making these decisions and how these decisions were his alone rather than anybody else's. And I think this is important because what he's doing here is he's reaffirming the issue of Commando Gavalt or power of command of the king and emperor. And he's reaffirming this structure, this Troika of commanders that in his view was still an effective means of commanding within war. And he wrote this appendix to his history of the war, I believe and it's in about 1885, perhaps even a little bit later. So even fairly late in a timeframe he still sees this as an effective means of command. And I think from this we get that Moltke the army never examined how to establish a structure of high command that was independent or perhaps better said less dependent or perhaps better said less dependent on personality. And indeed this power of the myth of high command was strong. In 1906, Wilhelm II appointed Helmut von Moltke the younger as his chief of the general staff in part because of the symmetry with his grandfather in 1870. And if there'd been a Bismarck or a ruin available I've no doubt that Wilhelm II would likely have appointed them as well. But more seriously, below the surface we can see a strong current within the army aimed at keeping civilians out of military decision-making. Again, a kind of product I think of the particularly the second phase of the Franco-German War. And we can see how the Frank and we can see this in how the Prussian minister of war was progressively sidelined throughout the history of Wilhelm I in Germany. And we could also see this in how the chief of the general staff became more secretive about war plans over time. We've got fairly little evidence about Moltke the elder's relationship with Bismarck after 1871 but he seems unlikely to share details of his future war plans. And certainly his successors, Walderse and Schlieffen and to a lesser extent Moltke the younger did not keep Bismarck's successors well informed about their own war plans. In part, this may have been an example of the power struggle within the army and the general staff's desire to expand its influence at the expense of the other army institutions but it meant that the German army went to war in 1914 with various elements of its national power unable to cooperate effectively. Now the third myth I'd like to look at is that the German army had effectively harnessed the power of the people in arms. And there were very good domestic political reasons for portraying the victory over the French as a victory brought about by the people of Germany. Indeed Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels famously wrote that German quote unity had been found in the barracks unquote and mobilization of German and later French troops was impressive and seriously outstripped previous wars during the Franco-German war. We should not forget however, that the victories of the wars of unification represent a victory of the conservative view of the on the first and rune about army organization over those supporting a land there or a more militia approach to defense. The wartime victories particularly over France proved the effectiveness of short-term conscription backed by various classes of reserves and soon became the model across the rest of rest of Europe. Despite the popular view as the German army is being evoked here however, it never came close to this. The army or perhaps better said armies of the second German empire remain armies of the ruler swearing to follow the orders of the old best at Kriegsheir the supreme commander and swearing an oath of allegiance to their contingents here the head of their contingent element of their army. Moreover, the German empire was never able to make effective use of its growing manpower. The size of the German population grew to more than 65 million in 1911 from 41 million in 1871. However, German military only conscripted about 40% of those eligible every year and the rest received little or no military training. In August 1914, there are almost 10.5 million men libel-enabled for conscription. However, of these some 5.5 million had not received any military training at all. The German army mobilized about 3.8 million men in August 1914 or about 36.5% of their available cohort. Now this compares to about 85% of the French manpower who were conscripted in the same period. The general staff had desired expansion of the army for a considerable time but this was generally blocked by the ministry of the war. And again, this is in part because the general staff is focused on external enemies and a desire to win decisive battlefield victories. The ministry of war, however, was focused more on internal enemies and the reliability of the army. In other words, maintaining the army as contingents here rather than creating a Volksheir. Relations between the general staff and the ministry of war were so bad by 1914 that the general staff did not even inform the ministry of war about the creations of six Erzatz divisions in August 1914. And the ministry of war only found out about these from the military cabinet where the officers were assigned to this. And this brings us back to the pernicious influence of the myth of command. Even in 1914, limited cooperation between the two most important institutions within the German army are a result of this divisions of command. Of course, this probably wouldn't have mattered if the myth of decisive battle had been a reality and the war had been concluded quickly. So I mentioned as well that there are some enduring kind of strengths of these myths. These myths shaped German decisions and actions not only in 1914, but throughout the First World War. And indeed, we can sort of explore some of that and we've mentioned some of that earlier today as well. And through these myths, we can see the shadow of 1870 and 71 in 1914 to 1918. So first, this idea of decisive battle. The heart of the great German, this was at the heart of a great German strategy stride in the First World War. Falkenhayn recognized battle itself was no longer decisive politically. Well, Hindenburg and Ludendorff held to an older concept. Hindenburg later wrote of how he expected the war to be won by one or more Saddam-like battles. Ludendorff's offensives in 1918 were also purely military affairs and aimed at a battlefield solution to Germany's strategic problem. Decisive battle also meant that the Imperial German army never carried through its conceptual development to enable effective linking of tactical action with strategic effect. Falkenhayn tried to do this if we're done, but his concepts were muddled and not understood by his subordinates. Because he remained a student of decisive battle, Ludendorff embraced Malka's approach of having tactical events dictate or at least guide strategy. On more than one occasion, he lamented what he saw as too much focus on operations and or strategy. Command, German command at the higher levels was a mess in the First World War, in large part because of the questions of command never raised during the Franco-German War. The questions of command raised during the Franco-German War had never really been addressed. Until 1918, there remained deep divisions within the various institutions within the army that made its effective and efficient running difficult, especially between the general staff and the Ministry of War. We're over in 1914, the lack of an army group level of command designed to execute various lines of operation of the German war plan, created problems in controlling the various armies of the Western Front and contributed to the defeat of the Battle of the Marne. Most significant, of course, the German command in the First World War was the inability of the various elements of the government to work together effectively. This began during the initial campaigns of 1914 and ran through the entire war, culminating perhaps with a silent dictatorship of Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Finding this idea of nation and arms, the lack of manpower and units in 1914 meant that the German army went to war without what the general staff wanted for its operations and was deficient to the time that might have made a real difference. Now, of course, these events cannot be laid completely at the door of the myths arising from the Franco-German War of 1870 and 71, but the problems created by these myths certainly meant that the German army was not as well prepared as it might have been to fight its war in 1914 and throughout the war in 1918 as well. Thank you very much. Great, Robert, thank you very much. I think I hope I've actually sorted out my IT problem. I hope people now can hear me. I won't comment at this stage. I will pass over to Rob Johnson and then after Rob has concluded his remarks just by way of kicking off Q&A, make one or two comments. So without further ado, if I could ask Rob to begin his presentation, that will be smashing. Well, thank you very much indeed, David, and do let me know if you can hear me clearly. Yeah, that's great. Well, let me first of all thank you, Michael, Mark, Danny, Joe, King Storch London in particular for running this event. I think it's a very, very good event and it's great that we're doing it right now. I'd also just like to thank the chair for his generous remarks at the very beginning. Of course, he is an author of the book. He mentioned about military strategy in the first century. So thank you very much indeed, David. There is a paper that I have produced. If anyone would like to help me by reviewing the paper, I would be very grateful. I think the whole purpose of academic events like this is to help us really kind of sustain and raise the quality of what it is we're trying to produce. Let me begin though with a generic question that I think affects all of the papers we've heard and indeed the work we do when we look at conflicts like the Franco-German War. And the first question is this, what do nations, armed forces, learn from the experience of others? We just heard Rob talking very expertly about what the Germans learned about their own experience. What did they learn from others? And what do they adopt and what do they adapt and why do they choose those particular elements? It's an interesting question for us to consider. First thing to say about this war, the British is that it was the old, or perhaps the better word is reminded the British, of the need for urgent modernization and investment in their land forces. But on my upfront here, this conflict was less influential than the Crimean War of the 1850s or indeed the South African one subsequently in 1899-92. And it's for the simple reason that the defense of the United Kingdom rested on the Royal Navy, not on the army. The defeat of France made actually very little difference to the Royal Navy's strength or indeed therefore by extension, the strength of the United Kingdom. The really important lesson for the British was that at the time for the British was that the British did not need any continental land commitments for its national defense. It was a maritime power. And perhaps this was the era of 1914. Perhaps they've never seen this obviously but that's something that we'll pick up and discuss later. Now, most of the scholarship on what the British army learned from the Franco-German War has dwelt on the liberal reforms of Sir Edward Cardwell and his assassins. But as John Gooch has stated some years ago now that it was coincidental the occasion of this war with the reforms that took place in Britain, reforms in other words were already underway. The Crimea, John Gooch points out was far more influential. And we have to say when we look at the actual evidence of the British army after 1871, it was not on the French or Prussian model. It was largely consisted of garrisons around his empire with flying columns for colonial operations. When you look at their performance, field crafts, skillet arms were very poor, staff work remained bad, there were inadequate scales of equipment and ammunition. There was little modern artillery, machine guns until much later. And the mobilization scheme that Britain put together in 1875 was abandoned in the early 1880s. There was no conscription and there were far too reserves because Britain relied on all violence. And the changes that did take place, largely the lessons like the battlefield lessons largely came from colonial wars, but of course were usually inappropriate for war against a near peer adversary. If we had longer, we could talk a little bit about British views of the war generally, when the war broke out, generally the favour of the Prussians. There were lots of old suspicions about Napoleon III and his adventurism of the 60s, which we heard about earlier. The British though expected a long war. The Frenchman, the Israeli and the House of Commons made this particular point. And there was great concern, I'm sure many of you know that France might invade Belgium, which would necessitate British military intervention at least on a challenge of circumstances. Before Paris, to some extent, changed British public opinion. There was pretty wild speculation that Germany might invade Britain, which was of course captured most famously by Colonel George Chesney's battle of Dawking, which was serialised by Blackwoods. The whole thing was predicated on the threat posed by the new engines of war, particularly torpedoes and mines, against the Royal Navy. The destruction of the Royal Navy would leave Britain open to invasion. Again, emphasis here was maritime, not land forces such. What about the army, the military observations of the year? Well, first of all, not surprisingly, they made observations about frontal assaults being extremely costly, as we've heard about, gravel or something like that. One of the aging documents I have in my own possession here is the honourable Alison Wynne's book, What I Saw of the War, which was published actually in 1870. And the copy I have is the 1871 edition. Another observation on the war itself was a lot of British military discussion about Maudske having crossed the Moselle prematurely. There's a lot of discussion about the advance of Paris, whether actually British, whether the German forces should have invested the city or not, much debated. However, there were observations and lessons for the army after them, which I think have much greater weight. First of all, the proscianisation of drill books. Many of you are familiar with this, which is Wals's soldier's pocketbook for field service. Clearly, references here to musket tree and the course of skill of arms, the use of loose skirmish formations, the swarm assaults by infantry have often been attributed to Wals's observations about the Franco-German war. Fact of the matter is though, these tactics were already in use in the Northwest Frontier of India, for example. The army in India was already using all these particular types of tactics. Others talk about weaponry. The Martini Henry rifle was introduced, a breech loader of course in 1871. But of course, this only replaced the first breech loader, the Snyder. So again, the reforms since it was a breech loader, weapon were all the way. What about theories of war? Well, there were some translations of French and German work after the war was over, but the British military preferred military history as opposed to anything that might be theorised about war. Theories were seen as unhelpful, or the continental, and what British preferred was the sort of military pragmatism. There were lots of observations about morale. But again, the British army already emphasised control, discipline as its primary characteristic, at least that's the way they saw themselves. And in the Franco-German war, what they saw was an endorsement of this particular ethos, it's what they had expected. And they expected their end soldiers to exhibit spirited morale in attack and doggedness in defence. Of the defeat of France, the British military observed that this had led to revolution and civil, or as they put it, moral collapse, regular troops forced into bitter, strict fighting. And here there were echoes to the British, again, of older events, the Indian mutiny unrest in Ireland. That was what was being commented on and that the, rather than the stuff in France. Then there's logistics, the logistical tale of both the French and the German armies got larger and more complicated, needing more efficient staff work. The British had learnt this lesson the hard way themselves during the Crimean War, as well as famously. The Royal Navy had kept the army supplied and therefore mobile. The consequence of that was the staff work remained pretty ad hoc for the British army. Some things were, of course, introduced, the telegraph system was introduced in the Crimean War and that meant more political direction, or as well as the British military put it as interference. Final couple of things in terms of observations on the war itself, offensive action. There was a great deal of praise in British military writing, what was offensive and concentric operations. This was already a trait, again, in colonial campaigning, went on being important, where relatively small spaces were faced with much larger territories and larger numbers of adversaries. Being on the attack was seen as the most pragmatic and sensible way of asserting sort of moral effects on one's opponents. The British made references to the animating value of the en blanche, which could be attributed to the Franco-German War, but again, I think it's already insistence. I won't dwell on the other concepts in interest of time. Let's just say something there about this idea that the Crimea had created many more lessons for the British. The British were not planning on a continental war, so I think that the lessons of Franco-German War were rather limited to the British. Britain was a naval power, as I say, with the emphasis on free trade and diplomacy to reduce the likelihood of war in the first place. If there was going to be war, Britain would form coalitions. It wouldn't fight on its own, as France had done. It would limit a major war to the continent by sea control. If it did emit an expeditionary army's references to the continent, it would do so only in coalition with local allies, and it would only be possible with naval supremacy, bringing them back to the same arc in maritime focus. If there was to be a war, Britain would engage in a blockade by the Royal Navy, and while Europeans were rather focused on Napoleonic-style battles, as Rob has just been telling us, Britain had a much limited view about battles. They rather felt that the idea was to constrain and erode any adversary on the continent by protraction and by coalition, not by engaging in a decisive battle necessarily. Griming war lessons on land have been about making sure you have technological superiority through, for example, the percussion rifle and the ammunition, and a great deal of emphasis on logistics and services. It would require technological support, too. In terms of manpower, we know that the volunteer services, the volunteer movements were there to augment the militia and yomenry, a home defense, but they emerged in 1852, long before this particular conflict. And frankly, observations of the Guard Mobile were pretty critical. They felt that they were poor relations to the regulars. The central focus of the literature, as I said at the beginning, has been on the card well reforms. I don't want to do a retrade of this very well aspect of British military scholarship. The Enlistment Act of 1870, the Localization Act of 1873, the Instruction of the 12 Years Service, the 60 Years and Regulars of the 60 Years Service, seemed to be an emulation of the Russian model. But let's look at this, because ultimately the card well reforms failed. The British army remained on demand throughout the later 19th century. In Egypt, for example, the Egyptian campaign of 1892, Britain needed to call out 10,000 of its reserves just to bring the battalions up to time's strength. And issues like the abolition of purchase, that system had already been discredited and was out of fashion with the climbing. The compensation scheme, by the way, cost the taxpayer seven million pounds. So this was conceived as a political disaster rather than a success story. There was no general staff because the fears of the elite. And we have to say, when it even comes to the War Office Act of 1870, better barracks, you know, canteens, food, the abolition of spogging. Again, all of these were Crimean legacies rather than legacies, observations of the Franco-German War. Again, if I had more time, I'd love to articulate a little bit more about colonial wars and their influence and the shaping of the British military thinking rather than the Franco-German War. But I've already mentioned offensive action. Could talk a little bit about the use of artillery. You're always forward, always close. Was that a German influence? Not really. It was really to do with the need to have contained forces when you don't have forces strung out and by the March you become vulnerable to attack. By ambush, even things like field craft or the adoption of car key, these were colonial observations. They weren't from the came from the war in Europe. Sigana Walze was clearly very, very influential in trying to modernise the army. He did make observations clearly about the Franco-German War. And I have to say that in many ways, those reforms were rather ineffective. Just taking one example, there were only 32 officers past staff college every year, far too few to actually man the sort of psychosis that would be common to a German army sector. If we look at the other areas, again, I'd like to talk to you about the 1885 war scam with France, issues like the Eastern Crises and the Audra affair. The fundamental thing here is that the Royal Navy gave the British companies to do with continental crises like this. Salisbury famously described the British. She said, we are fish. We're not going to engage in this kind of wars. The Royal Navy could exercise influence globally. It could protect commerce. That was the priority. The public and the British government successfully were not interested in trying to influence European affairs when their interests were so global other than through diplomatic means. Britain as a result was very slow perhaps to recognise the tendencies that were going on within the French and German armies. There was professional interest in the late 19th century, but really they weren't re-adopting the observations that they made. Scale of the British army were very, very small. It only got bigger because of the Russian landward threats to India, not because they were seeing in the Franco-German war. And by the way, I should just mention here, David French's work showing the British army was not as small so often it's pointed out to be by others. After the Crimea, the army, if you include the Indian army, the army in India, numbered 468,000, which compares to the French numbers of about 470,000 and the Russian 200,000 for Austria's 350,000. So we need to put these things back in context. The difference, the British army was dispersed, 26,000 British soldiers in India, 50,000 in the Dominican Republic, where the rest of the colonists so hugely dispersed and therefore didn't appear on the French or German model. There were of course further reforms in the 1880s, commissions in the inquiry by Derby, by Hartington, which found that Britain was under spending on its armed forces. There was no unified command system. There was no unified single intelligence service, no long-term planning, but the British government rejected all the recommendations for those reforms, those inquiries. There were advocates for change who observed the war, like Sir Charles Delt, H. O. Arnold Foster, Lord Walsy himself, but still no fundamental reform. And in 1895, Lord Lansdowne attempted minor changes to the armed forces, particularly the British army, to increase the army's size, to improve its terms and conditions of service, but ultimately he was keen to keep costs down and therefore it's actually achieved very, very limited indeed. So the real changes were a result of the South African War, where Britain's armies deficiencies were exposed brutally in events like Black Week in 1895. Staff work was very poor. The artillery was in short supply. Fieldcraft failed. There was a continued emphasis on cavalry because the great distances of the transfer and cape and offensive operations seemed to have won for the British army, but they were far too small. They needed 450,000 men to deal with just 70,000 Afro-Carna fighters. 90% of the reserve had been fought out, exceeding all the planning assumptions of the 18 miters. So let me conclude. British army did not derive significant lessons on the Franco-German War. And those observations it did make, it didn't apply them, despite the efforts of them like Sigana Orsey. Why was this? Ultimately, liberal governments opposed large army, a large army and large expenditures on the army. Conservative governments too wanted to produce spending on the whole and both conservative and liberal governments regarded the primary defense through diplomacy, first of all, then through commerce, the philosophies, thirdly through the war, control the oceans and the approaches to the West Kingdom. Then next on the list would be prosperity. That was put above a large standing. So ultimately the Crimean War was much more influential in making changes to the army and its thinking, but both produced that war and indeed the Salvation War later. To some extent produced inadequate levels of change. When Britain went to war in 1914, it did so with the munitions industry that was too small and with manning that was far too small. And therefore, given the army they had in 1914, it remains the legacy of that Franco-German War for the British that it was absurd for the British to commit to a continental land war in Europe with the forces that actually possessed was Henry Wilson's tragic mistake. The irony of course of that being at deployment was it was precisely because of French military weakness in the Franco-German War that led to the British extra-district force being sent at all. British army's problem therefore was not its size but its use. It was the wrong force task that it was given. And perhaps that remains in the lasting legacy of that conflict in British. And as a personal note, I just wanted to point out my other proxies here. Cassel's volumes, two volumes of the Franco-German Wars, like a German, not a Russian, like a Russian war produced in 1872, was indeed the first book that I read as a young man, other than children's books. And the first book I read at University, is Michael Howard's Franco-German War. Thank you very much. Rob, thank you. Thank you both. Rob, time is two if I can use that phrase. If I might make a couple of comments, first relating to Robert, Robert Foley's presentation and then to Rob Johnson's. And we've got a number of questions. So I shan't tarry that they'll be more important to get round to those questions. But thank you, Robert, for a very persuasive treatment of myths and bringing out their essential quality, which is that of being pernicious. I think across the whole compass of those topics which you addressed and pernicious because they promoted a crucial distortion which brought with it a significant penalty. And as somebody who has a particular interest in strategy and strategic leadership, your comments are about the entscheidance, flakht or decisive battle. And that a consequence of that was the effect of placing primacy on the operational approach at the expense of the strategic, I think was, I have to say, notable. A final comment I would make at this point and it will be linked to a question that Szechu Storm has placed, but we'll come on to the question if we may in a little while, was that the elements of national power were not cohesive. And the First World War began with such significant penalty and there'll be a bit of elaboration on that with Szechu's question. The Rob really struck their important comment, I think, about the colonial conflicts and there is a link here to the comments made by Olivier in panel one this morning when he talked about the challenge for France being to bridge the experience of colonial and expeditionary engagement to conducting high-intensity combat as represented by the Franco-Prussian War. And interestingly, I've had the benefit, I have to say to colleagues attending this, to have read Rob's excellent accompanying paper and having studied it. So there are a couple of things I might mention which are in that paper. And the point you make, I think, of fundamental importance, Rob, is when you say the conclusion we must draw from this period is that the British Army's record of colonial engagement bestowed experience on its personnel but did not expose them to the realities of modern warfare against a peer state. And so the observation you made also about a concentration on maritime power and the projection of maritime power which meant it would be possible to avoid commitment to a European land war. The, I think, a very resonant concluding observation you make is the fault in learning was therefore not a military one, rather it was a political or strategic one. And I think you also mentioned in connection with that, therefore a comment of Woolsey's that any British misfortunes in colonial wars or military engagements had occurred from a close literal adhesion on the part of the colonels and generals to the dry as dust rules taught in every work as military science. And I think, and linked to that, you refer to successive foreign secretaries made much of needing to judge each crisis on its merits. Rather than trying to determine iron laws in British policy. And very briefly, I think what I distill from that is the importance of recognizing the essential quality of an adaptive approach when it comes to strategy. And central to that approach has to be dynamic, non-prejudiced learning. That's enough from me. And if I can now move to Q&A and if people will, colleagues will forgive me since I did mention Hugh having made a comment relating to an observation I made. Hugh, the question you put about Prussian ministers of war being generals would you like to present that question? If not, I'm happy to read it out. I don't know whether Hugh has picked up on that. Okay, if he does come in, fine. Otherwise, I'll pose it. And Hugh, you direct this to Rob, Rob Foley, I should say. Given the Prussian ministers of war were themselves generals, von Einem included, why were tensions so great between the ministry and the general staff? Is the requirement to keep the army politically reliable sufficient? It's a good question. I don't think it's the only reason but I think it's an important reason. And I think there's a whole host of different reasons that some of which I touched a little bit upon. I think there's great competition within the army, within the different institutions within the army and there's a rivalry between the general staff and the ministry of war that I think leads to tensions and frictions there to begin with. I mean, Gordon Craig has kind of famously pointed out the sidelining of the Prussian ministers of war in part because they had to answer questions in the Reichstag and the less they knew the better, I think is one kind of area to things. I think the ministry of war is also concerned about cost. I think Rob's point about the navy is an important one. What I haven't talked about is the rise of the German navy during this period too. Navies are expensive and it's hard to have a large navy and a large army. And I think ultimately this helps to stop the general staffs push for kind of an expansion of the army in its tracks because it's gonna cost a lot of money and it's gonna cost a lot of political capital to bring the Reichstag around to supporting army expansion as well. I think there's very little political will within the German government represented in part by the Prussian minister of war to kind of enable that and have that come out. I also think we could look at personnel to a certain extent, the extent to which the ministry of war is staffed by the people who didn't make it in the general staff. I'd have to go a little bit deeper into it but I think, although they had general staff training most of these officers were never picked up as general staff officers. So that may have played a role in some of these tensions there as well. Hope that answers the question. Great, thank you very much. I'll go with the more. Yeah. Sorry. Okay, well we've got a number of questions from Jay Phillips. The first one referring to the unexpected finality of Koenigratz and Zidane and then going on to a question relating specifically to the general staff. Would you like to put those questions? I think both were, look as though they're being directed to Robert Foley. They have indeed. Thank you very much. The finality of Koenigratz and Zidane I think has to some extent misled historians to reading backwards into the thinking of Malka that this was the intended outcome. Whereas I believe it to be apparent that Malka knowing that no plan would survive the first contact and simply put the machinery and the troops in place in order to give the commanders the ability to win. And the classic one of that in my mind was the Battle of Gravelot, Sam Privat when at the end of it and unfortunately situated down at the bottom end of Gravelot. He walked away from the decisions and at the end of the day thought they'd lost. And it wasn't until much later that he learned that actually they'd won through what had actually been a great delegation to the Saxon Corps and the others to go and do the enemy over at Sam Privat. So my question is, do you think that military historians think are guilty of thinking backwards into Malka as opposed to actually looking at the realities of what actually happened? Thank you. I mean, it's a good and interesting question. And I think all historians sometimes face this issue of we know the outcome therefore we can work back through these things. And I think you're right. I think that that Malka himself would have understood these battles as he was setting the conditions. And a lot of the interpretation of Malka's actions after the war are around this. And Malka and the definition of strategy or operations as it came later to be known was about movement off the battlefield. And it was about putting the right forces in the right place at the right time. And that would create the conditions for success. And that it would be your tactical commanders who would have to carry through that success. I mean, Malka I think is very open about this. He talks about strategy as a system of expedience. And no plan survives contact with the enemy. All of these types of things are I think his way of trying to get after that uncertainty that comes about in conflict and war. I think the challenge really comes later. And it comes when the Germans are trying to do much more complex things. I mean, ultimately, kind of grades, Sedan, Nets, they're fairly simple affairs. You're talking about a few armies with hundreds of thousands of men. Once you get to 1914, we're on the Western front you've got two and a half million men and seven different armies carrying out at least three different lines of operation. That's when I think it becomes a lot more challenging to continue with that kind of approach of a hands-off system of expedience. So that's what I was trying to get after with the point I was making about command and Malka. Thank you very much. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Thank you very much indeed. We've got several more questions and one from Jim Dingaman, Dale Addison and Frank Hoffman. If I could take them in the following order, Dale, Dale Addison, you put a question there which sort of spans both the Franco-Prussian and the Boer War. Would you like to put that to Rob Johnson? Yes, I would. Can you hear me? I can. Yes, OK. Well, the question is if you reverse to the use of Frank and irregular forces, which seem to have caused considerable damage to the invading Prussian forces. And the fact that the Prussians went all out to eradicate these units as quickly as possible. We were talking earlier about the influence of the British military, so I just wondered if it was considered a possibility that by not studying the dangers of Frank and the irregular forces during the Franco-Prussian War, does that go in some part to explain some of the British losses during the First World War, which really came down and in many parts came down to good use of camouflage and concealment, good organisation and above all accurate rifle shooting within the bounds of the geographic area. That's a great question and observation. I mean, the interesting thing for me is that British Army had plenty of experience of dealing with irregular forces when it's various colonial campaigns in Africa and Asia, particularly taking example of Africa. You know, for example, the Khawaza. Actually, I think there's a sort of thoughtful stop in that name somewhere in Southern Africa had conducted very effective guerrilla operations against the British in the period even preceding the one you were talking about in the first Anglo-Guerrilla war. There were interesting observations made by most officers, euphemisms and colonial campaigns, but they generally the consensus was that offensive operations were the preference. And it was all sort of encapsulated at the end of the century, famous to be a Charles I would call well, who advocated that offensive operations being on the attack would actually make guerrilla warfare less like because you could inflict such a blow that they wouldn't they wouldn't get up again. They wouldn't want to continue resistance. And if you couldn't do that because they were so elusive, you said, then you must seize what they prize most. And effective, that meant either their resources or it could be some icon or it could be a central crowd that they they gathered around and their governance system depended on. So that's where largely that came from. You know, they I think it was just general agreements in many European armies that actually, you know, guerrilla warfare was a real problem, a real form as class is put it. You know, a fall in the side of a regular army and the decisive operations were constructed for the very reason of trying to prevent that kind of thing. I hope that answers your question. Yes, that's fine. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Rob. Could we perhaps go now to Frank, Frank Hoffman? You've your question, I think, would be directed to both. And it actually relates to the Russo-Japanese war and obviously against the background of the the Franco oppression. Frank, would you like to ask your question? Sure. And say hello to both Roberts, who are both dear friends. I enjoyed their presentations. I think their papers are fantastic and they're very much related to work I have going on right now for the Pentagon, trying to study, you know, learning from institutions, both, you know, of which our distinguished guests are experts at. But I'm particularly interested in what they think the Americans, the British and the Japanese, you know, learn from the Franco-Prussian war. I'm in studying the Japanese right now in the Reformation period. And it just seems to be a lot of references to German advisors, German concepts, German canon, decisive battle. All the things that Bob Foley talked about seem to be present. I just wonder if they have any observations on what others learned from this war, not just the French and the Germans or the British. Yeah, I mean, I think you're spot on. I mean, sort of Jakob Mechel, who wrote the book of mid-summer nights or sorry, a summer night's dream about sort of the tactical developments of the war and many others. I mean, he was a prolific German military author in the interwar period and veteran of the Franco-German war was the lead advisor to the German delegation reforming the Japanese army. So, you know, this is this is where that that influence kind of comes in. So the Japanese in particular are taking that, they're translating German doctrine, sending students to the Kriegs Academy in, you know, in Berlin. And this is... Doesn't come though. Sorry, say again. And so this is a kind of mechanism for how, you know, these ideas are transferred. Germans are pretty bullish about sending out delegations. So South America as well. There's a big one in Chile, for example, the Ottoman Empire. There's another kind of, you know, obviously big German delegation in the Ottoman Empire. Yeah, so they're moving these kind of ideas kind of through the different services or sort of the different countries in that way. And of course we see after the German victory a great kind of almost superficial kind of taking on of Prussian military and German military kind of things. So uniforms change, even in the British army, you know, you get a kind of great kind of proselytification of, you know, of the ceremonial as an attempt to kind of take on these things. And a lot of this work is, you know, that was produced during this period that I mentioned from Jay Luvos is translated into American. It's translated into, sorry, into English, I should say. And so this is a mechanism for how these ideas are kind of spreading around the world. Of course, this isn't the place to go into it, but the Germans would learn a huge amount from the rest of Japanese with a lot of confirmation bias built into it that, you know, they're taking away the lessons that they want about sort of things like a flank attack and encirclement and the fact that offensive action still works. And they've made the right idea of investing in how it serves rather than kind of cannons, you know, all of these different kind of functions as well. I'm delighted that the Picklehalber has already got a big adoption in 1978, I think, if I'm from France's book published in 1950 about British military uniforms. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, Frank, the sort of general takeaway point about this is that if you have longer periods where there aren't very many major wars going on and then one comes long and there's an army that's successful, it's probably not that surprising that everyone can latches onto this and thinks, what was the formula? You know, the way that, for example, the 1967 war, you know, Arab-Israeli war, became the sort of core celebra for armies and neighbors and their forces to say, how did they do that? How do we replicate that? And we know that that's very influential. I think some of the points that have been made over the years by a number of military historians has been, you know, the extent to which though armies copy and adopt or whether they really adapt to their own uses, what it is they're observing. So of course, a lot of armies like Japanese army adopt a uniform which is not similar from a Prussian uniform, you know, so do the South Americans. If you look at all the South American armies by the 80s, 70s, 80s, they're all wearing Germanic uniforms. The fact is that they're not organized like a German army and they don't have same system of general staff and so on and so on. And I think, you know, you could do this with the, whether the British are emulated, the Royal Navy uniform becomes, regardless the standard uniform that sailor should be wearing by the end of the 19th century. But again, a lot of navies seem to try to look like the Royal Navy as the world's largest Navy, but are perhaps not, you know, adapting themselves, don't have the same systems of operation or indeed the same ethos about, you know, how sea caps should operate against their adversaries. So I think there's a very interesting observation has been made about why, you know, what will latch onto it? When they're hungry for success, they will look to the kind of the emulation model that then gets seemingly diffused around the world. And I think that's what we're saying probably in this specific case. Yeah, and filtered through their own culture. I was kind of interested in Rob Foley's issue, the tension between the army and Navy ministries and the ministries and the field forces seem to be very similar to the structure, you know, to the emperor's decisions, it seems to be very similar to the Kaiser's as well. And of course, the Japanese Navy has got a Royal Navy, British Royal Navy delegation to help kind of reform it. So they're trying to pick the best from the West and the Royal Navy and the German Army. Excellent, thank you. Great, thank you both. We've still got time. So I think we'll be able to get through all of our questions with a bit of luck. Paul Schultz, you have a question on analytical commentaries on 1870, 71. Would you like to ask your question? Yes, is my microphone working? Yes, it is. Well, it's simply that we are judging justly harshly the failure of the professional militaries to draw enlightened conclusions from 1870 to 71. Was the intellectual material available they could have used, they could have fastened upon? Or did they even talk to each other? Or are staff talks a 20th century innovation? I'm just wondering how much this is a general failure of global perceptiveness about the lessons of that campaign or whether it was just the sort of entrenched restricted circle of staff officers that we're blaming. Was the world thinking about this in useful ways? Did anyone notice? I'm not sure I'd say the world was thinking about it, but armed forces were. And I think that there is an enormous amount of evidence that they could have gone into. And indeed, I alluded to it in my paper. The second half of the Franco-German War, and this is kind of looms over a lot of what we've been discussing today, is something that got kind of swept very quickly under the rug for the most part. So if you look at the official histories and if you look at the products of say the German general staff, it's about the official view. So it's about the decisiveness of battle. It's about kind of rapid campaigns. It's all these things that I can try to touch on. And there are some people who are writing about the second phase within the German military and elsewhere. And indeed, some of the other panelists might want to sort of comment on these things. But people like Comer of Undergoltz wrote a great biography of Leon Gambetta and looked at the raising of these armies. And indeed, his work kind of the people in arms is a kind of cry for help of saying, look, what we really need to do is expand our army. He also wrote quite a lot about the second phase of the war as did a few others. There's Fritz Hönig is another kind of prominent German author of this period who wrote, I think it's a seven-volume sort of set that looks at kind of the second phase of the war. There are others who looked at the kind of partisan kind of element too. Georg Cardinal von Wittern is a good example of another kind of multi-volume set. But these tended to be the exception rather than the rule. So once you start looking at the official literature, it's all about the official kind of view of what brought about success and what success was. And this is my point in a sense of what it means is that crowds out this discussion of, well, what happens when these battles aren't decisive? What happens when you don't win initially? And what happens when you're facing that kind of those people in arms? That evidence is there and it's there from the colonial campaigns, I think, as Rob has kind of pointed out as well, but it didn't fit, I think, into a broader kind of approach that they were wanting to do. And I think there's an element of desperation in it by the end, that they recognize that war has become big, become complex. It might not be that short decisive war that they want, but that they haven't given it enough real thought, and I think to be able to answer that question effectively. I'm grateful that Rob has kicked off the answers there, but with the chair's sort of, you know, forbearance, Hugh Strong also raised a very similar question about, you know, professionals and quite rightly reminded that, you know, and it's in the paper, Hugh, to reassure you about Morris, Henderson, Wilkinson and others. The question that I guess, you know, to answer that, I'll answer it with a question, which is what does a war tell you? And the problem is that you're never quite sure whether the war you've just observed is exceptional, which is, of course, how they felt about the South African War, 1980, 1980, 1990, too, whether it's a general trend that you should observe. And we've seen this just in the last few months or last year, with the conflict in the Borno-Karabakh, you know, using drone technology, you were saying, is that how war was now being conducted? I think, you know, just to think I'm on a few people, you know, Morris is one of the figures in Britain who takes a professional interest in what the war has actually taught. And Sir Garnet Walsy, who obviously becomes Commander-in-Chief, was very pleased that Morris had quoted Walsy's work on the potential of entrenchments in warfare, which was a direct result of seeing that the sheer numbers of casualties caused in some of these battles on the Franco-German border. Then this GFR Henderson, of course, who observed that the unfortunate effects of Walsy's skill at improvising logistics in campaigns in Africa was that staff work remained relatively poor. In other words, the unfortunate effects of Walsy's success story as a climate campaigner was that, you know, you've got a retardation of British arms ability to do proper staff work, and certainly not for the Prussian model, perhaps. Hugh, quite rightly, refers to Spencer Wilkinson as another sort of deep thinker about, you know, what's going on with these studies of German thinking in Britain, bringing that to a wider audience through his newspaper articles initially, and then, ultimately, down at Oxford. And one of the things that, you know, observations for me that's very striking about Wilkinson's work was these observations about what is a people's war. People's war, of course, as Rob was pointing out earlier on today, is not necessary about, you know, guerrilla warfare, you know, people's war in that sense, but actually rather more nation-in-arms. And, you know, I think what Wilkinson was often driving at was, you know, what is a nation-in-arms? What does a war look like in this era when you've got that sort of thing going on? Then, of course, there's the French, you know, I shouldn't be like that, the Ecole de Guerre produced, you know, British were making observations about that. We're thinking carefully about what the French were saying, we're drawing very different conclusions. It was very much contested. People didn't agree on those French discussions. And the debate goes on through this period. I mean, entrenchments until fortifications of one area, the relative importance of offensive or defensive operations or offensive defensive strategy, military strategy, I mean, by that, the relative importance of machine guns and artillery and how they should be used, either forward or in the rear. And then we've got kind of the classic one, which had been much debated over the years about the use of cavalry. Was it to be, as the British had discovered for themselves in the late 1870s, a purely a force that got to a battle zone dismounted with forces of dragoons, which is what they'd learned from Afghanistan in the 1870s and the 1880s? Was it actually the lesson of general friendship clipped drift in 1900, that actually mounted forces armed with savers could move at such speed, they could even outrun poor shooting by Africana box and defeat them. So which lesson do you want? They're separate by almost 30 years. And the more recent one was that cavalry and offensive shock actions getting much more effective. So what I'm gonna say is that when you look through the askers in Rusey, the Indian equivalent of Rusey, of course as well, Indian United Service Institute, they are hotly debated, flammant disagreement about what is going to work in the future. And in particular, I think the one we can draw this back to a European context is John Bloch's work at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. British officers didn't think Bloch had got it right at all. They didn't think that armies would reach stalemates in the mass entrenchments. Entrenchments will be temporary affairs around which there would be offensive action which would produce the sort of victories the Japanese have produced in the, I say Japanese war of 1945. So the question for all of us is what do our historical ancestors learn from each war? What do they think is exceptional? And I guess we yourself should reflect on what is it one of the lessons been of the most. Thank you. Great, thank you very much, Rob, for that. Just a few more questions. Let's go, we've got one from GG, not further identified, very short, which is were there any military, British military observers present on either or both sides in the Franco-Prussian war? I was going to defer to Rob, but one of the interesting things was that there were British observers and newspaper people on the, accompanied by the German forces, particularly the Russians, because they began permission to do so. I think that's right, Rob, isn't it? And on the French side, there was great distrust of there being military observers. And I think there were rather fewer. I'm not sure, because I'm not a specialist on the French military. I'll defer to Rob to come in here and tell me whether there were observers on the French. I don't know of any. And someone like Arnau might know, Arnau might know this as well. But I think you've got two issues, don't you, that the Imperial Army is over relatively, relatively short order. And I think it becomes a harder thing to do in the scratch forces that gonna take its place. So they're definitely there. They're definitely British observers there for the German side, American observers. You know, there's quite a coterie, the Schlocken-Bumler that kind of, that accompany the headquarters into the field, including Phil Sheridan, who was mentioned earlier today as well. Good, thank you very much. Armell, if you're there, would you like to offer a comment? You don't have to. Robert Middleton was a British journalist who covered the conflict. He was on the French side and there was as well some Russian observers and one was on the French side and was very critical regarding the lack of organization of the French armies. Okay, thank you very much. That's great. If I'm on duty, can I just say in Kitchener served as a volunteer on the French side as a private soldier? Wow. Thank you. So, Constantinos, are you still there? If you are, would you like to put your question? Hello. Hi, thank you very much for that. That's been an amazing day so far. Very interesting stuff. So my question is, we talked about the civil military relations models in the German army and the German state and how the wars were directed. I wanted to ask, to what extent was this working model of CMRs adopted by the Ottomans because they trained a number of Ottoman officers as well as Ottoman academies adopting German systems for military education? It's a good question. And I have to say, I don't know enough to say authoritatively. My suspicion is that from the German military perspective, they weren't particularly interested in the civil military relations question. And so they wouldn't have really offered much in the way of advice, whether the Ottomans used the kind of German model, which was a fairly common model. I'm not, the Germans weren't alone in having a monarch as the kind of head of government and military and using this. They may have picked that up. I don't know is the short answer. I'm sorry. I'm not gonna help actually a little bit. I'll spend a little more time trying to figure out how the Ottoman army actually works as opposed to the way that it's often presented, but it works. Certainly the civil military relations is probably right. It's not an easy thing at all. Even the jurisdiction of the Sultan's by the time it gets to the early 20th century is much disputed. And there's a great deal of uncertainty about how they should govern things. But from a purely military education in terms of what do they do in terms of learning and training? There are some very smart military academies established in the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century. And there was a real commitment to make improvements that were required by emulating as best they could within the compliance of the resources they had, which were limited to make the improvements they needed to modernize their army. So there's a change of armaments. There's a change of military syllabus. There are new drill books in the ways that other armies were trying to do in that period. The academies themselves are pretty good. And indeed there were Ottoman officers that went on to attend German institutions a little bit later in the Soviet numbers. The real change though of course doesn't happen until really the 1910s. And then there's kind of a quite a rapid acceleration of what you might call the Germanization of the Ottoman forces with all the consequences that followed from that of belief in offensive action which failed them so badly. Suez in 1915 and Salah Khamish in December 1915. Great, thank you very much. Well, that's hugely enlightening. I think we have one more question from an anonymous attendee. And it's put tactically, was the war fought like the Napoleonic Wars or like the latter stages of the American Civil War was often seen as a precursor to the trench warfare of World War I. Oh, school of security studies would like to answer this question live. Oh, I'm slightly confused by that. So we haven't got it. So if either of the rocks would like to address that fine and we'll work something out. Sorry, I got kicked off. So I was, what's the question? Oh, I see, sorry. It's an anonymous attendee as it's put tactically, was the war fought like the Napoleonic Wars or more like the latter stages of the American Civil War which is often seen as a precursor to the trench warfare of the First World War? I'll go, because I think I'm unmuted. I think it's a good question. I think it's a little bit of both. I think that there was a real attempt to kind of recreate some of the ideas of the Napoleonic Wars. And of course, given the technologies at the time and the four structures at the time, I think we can see that to a certain extent but cavalry doesn't feature terribly prominently. I think this is very much an artillery war, much like the American Civil War and much like the First World War would be as well. And I think that the Germans and the Prussians in particular had recognized this from 1866. They put a lot of energy into reforming their artillery in the intervening years. And indeed the French put a lot of energies into this too. So I think artillery is emerging here very much as it was in the American Civil War and would come even more so in the First World War. You see some field fortifications as well. It's nowhere near as much as you got in the American Civil War. And I think strategically too, I think that there's a difference. I think as we heard earlier today, Moltke aside wanting to crush the French once and for all and Bismarck's desire to punish the French. The reality is I don't think you're not getting the kind of March on Georgia type of affair you get in the American Civil War. So I don't think it's quite as vicious as you get, I'm happy to be corrected on that. Great, thank you very much. Rob Johnson, do you want to say something? Well, I need very brief, I mean Rob's covered it, but it's very hard to make these kind of judgments because there's a whole, almost a decade in between the two conflicts. But there are some similarities you can find tactically in the fighting of 1864 around Cold Harbour with what you see a gravel of sand for the bats. For example, usage terrain, field crafts where cavalry gets itself in trouble. There's some pretty significant differences. I mean, the siege around Petersburg is radically different from the 18th stages of the Franco-German War, but probably a little bit more like siege of Paris in its mature phase. Cavalry gets itself in the dreadful trouble unlike Phil Sheridan's sort of famous episode that leads to the Appomattox kind of moment where cavalry are seen as the sort of decisive arm there. I mean, I think pretty much what we were realizing was the cavalry was no longer the decisive shock arm that it had been in the Penalty era. And I think, as Mike was saying at the very beginning of the day today, that the disease genuinely appeared to transition. And there were some things that still apply like offensive action that applied to the Penalty era, the American Civil War and this particular conflict. There's stuff that's rapidly disappearing and the descriptions of Mitraeus fire when it's effective against foreign bodies of men is an indicator perhaps that any sort of close order formation is gone. It's all new sort of skirmishing, which is a lesson that you know, the Americans themselves have learned the backfields of late 1863, early 64, that you don't form up shoulder to shoulder and you go to ground, as soon as you come under fire and you start digging. Great, thank you very much. I'm just gonna have a last look at whether we've got a final question to address. I don't think we have. I think we've gone through the whole list and in very impressive manner. So before I wrap up, give an opportunity to both the presenters. Do you want to make any final comment? I don't think so. I've enjoyed the kind of papers a lot today and I've gotten an enormous amount out of listening to kind of everything today. And I think with all of these things, the real benefit is not your own work, but really kind of hearing what other people are doing. So thank you to everybody and to your organizers as well. No, great, thank you very much, Robert. Rob? Okay, I totally agree with that. And I think what's hopefully striking about this panel in particular is about how you think about war and how you think about particular wars and what one learns from it. And that's been very much the theme, I think we picked up today. And I do hope that the spirits as Michael has looking down on us now approvingly, but that's exactly the sort of thing that I know fascinates us most. Great, thank you very much. Well, just by way of conclusion, I think I said earlier that we had an enlightening session in prospect. And I trust you'll all agree when I say I wasn't wrong. Indeed, I think we've enjoyed a highly stimulating pair of presentations and Q&A exchange, which I think because they've illuminated sharply the significance of the Franco-Prussian War and equally the expertise and deep understanding of our presenters. And so altogether, first class and a bouquet to each of you. But on behalf of the organisers and sponsors of the conference, the French Embassy in London, where Colonel Dr. Amel Dihou, as we know, has played a pivotal role. Avmel, a very good friend, is an exemplary soldier scholar and strategic thinker. And hence the great impetus he's put behind at this event. And also to KCL, notably Mark, and all attendees. I'd like to extend hearty thanks to both of us for their splendid contributions. And on a personal note, it's been rather more than a pleasure and a privilege to have had the opportunity to act as chair of this session. I think that's it from me. And I hand back over to Michael. Thanks very much. Yes, a great panel and a great day. And thanks, David, for sharing. So we've got virtual drinks coming up at six o'clock. So I guess that gives us about 20 minutes to raid if we've got a wine cellar, raid bows or fridges or drinks cabinet to go to the corner shop. So we'll be dropping out in a minute and then we'll have to reconnect at six. Just an announcement for tomorrow morning, of course we've got more events or an event planned but we've made it a small change. I think erroneously we put in opening remarks for 11 o'clock, which doesn't really make very much sense of this stage. So you've got an extra kind of half hour line if you like, we'll be starting at 11 30 tomorrow and we'll be launching straight into the round table and I would make a plea to the actual direct participants of the round table that's used strong and Karin, Valin, Julia, Nichols, Jasper, Heimson and Mariaka, Koenig to log in about 15 minutes before that. So 11 15 just to make sure that the sort of technical aspects are going to work. But yeah, that's me done for the time being. So again, thanks very much and see you in about 20 or so minutes.