Week 13: Wednesday, April 19
The Army of the Future?: German armored units look for trouble during the Battle of Kursk (1943).
ANNOUNCEMENT: I will be showing The Battle of Algiers on Tuesday, April 25, at 7:30 in Gadbois 4. Much of class discussion will revolve around the movie, so please make every effort to see it.
Everyone is responsible for the following question from the textbook:
1) List the ways in which the Allies (primarily the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union) outdid the Axis powers (Germany and Japan) during World War II. In other words, why did the Allies win the war?
Look below in the range of names for the set of questions for which you are responsible.
Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air (Avery to LeBeau)
1) Why does Douhet claim that in air war, the best defense is a good offense? Why is local defense impossible?
2) If a state defends itself by going on the offensive, what targets should it concentrate on immediately? To what end?
3) Why must air forces remain independent of naval or army control? Indeed, why did Douhet think that air forces rendered naval and land forces obsolete?
4) Why does Douhet advocate the bombing of "civilian centers"? What does this advocacy imply about Douhet's assumptions?
5) In the last passage, how does Douhet attempt to assuage detractors who find the morality of his warfare dubious?
Charles De Gaulle, The Army of the Future (Matisoff to Wills)
1) What did De Gaulle see as the lesson of history? On the other hand, why did he believe that the World War I experience would not provide much guidance for the army of the future?
2) How did the force envisioned by De Gaulle differ from the force fielded by France during World War I?
3) What kind of people did De Gaulle wish to recruit? What would attract them to the army of the future? How did De Gaulle see this army corresponding to the spirit of the age?
4) What exactly would the army of the future look like? What would be its strengths? How would it go about winning wars?
Other Questions
1) In what ways did the World War I experience constitute the foundation of Douhet's arguments? According to Douhet, what was the lesson of that war? In what ways would the wars of the future be both similar and different?
2) By taking warfare into three dimensions and making it far more mobile than ever before, what did Douhet's emphasis on the bomber promise to do to the conduct of war?
3) Leaving the moral question aside, are there any problems with Douhet's premises? Why was it that bombers were not nearly so effective as he had predicted? Did any technological developments nullify some of his assumptions?
4) Douhet's vision was never quite achieved during World War II, yet in the post-war era, it seemed possible that a war of the kind he foresaw could be fought. What weapon made Douhet's vision a possibility?
5) According to De Gaulle, with what cherished principle did mechanization clash?
6) What was the weakness of the conscript army, according to De Gaulle? What political reason underpins its existence? By the same token, why might people find his army of the future a threat to political stability?
7) What are the prerequisites for fielding the kind of force De Gaulle describes? In other words, what must a country possess to field such a force?
8) To what extent did the war of the future (World War II) actually play out the way Douhet and De Gaulle thought it would? Why or why not?
Douhet's Dream Come True?: American B-17's head for Germany (1944).
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Copyrighted by Hugh Dubrulle, 2006.
