Proposals for
instruction and exercises in trench warfare
In 1916 at the end of September Chief of General Staff
Knut Bildt made a statement to the Land defence ministry regarding the needed funds
for exercises where he wrote that:
Experiences from
the World War are putting importance on that the troops are familiar with
construction and establishment of fortified positions, that they are trained
for attack on and defence of those positions, and that they understand how to
manage their own ability to act in the positions and in front of them by the
most practical and energy-saving way.
According to the statement, it was of great importance
that exercises in trench warfare already could be performed among a number of regiments
during the conscription period of 1916-1917. Bildt also proposed that as a ground
for exercise a proposal for instruction for trench warfare should be worked
out. According to Bildt, the war had clearly shown the importance of trench
warfare and the need for modern regulation for combat training. Now there was a
formal call to replace the draft proposal for attack against fortifications
from 1914. Bildt also proposed that this assignment was to be given to Tingsten
and a number of experts.
Later Tingsten informed Bildt that he agreed upon his
statement and also proposed that the experts should be Bouveng, Hamamrsköld and
Captain Kaijser from the Fortification since according to Tingsten all of these have studied the relevant
conditions during this ongoing war. In the beginning of December Tingsten and his experts were
approved by the Land defence ministry.[4]
Proposal for instruction for trench warfare.
We could not base us after the German Western front
When the proposal for instruction was approved,
published and delivered to the units in June of 1917 it was based on the
experiences gathered from the German army on the Eastern front. By that time the
German army had changed its tactics and strategy for trench warfare. On the
Western front the German army had introduced the so-called Elastic defence or Zonal
defence where defence zones replaced the system with defence lines. At the
same time the German Stormtrupptaktik or Stosstrupptaktik (Stormtrooper tactic)
became a formal tactic within the army and was used mainly on the Eastern
front. SGS had information about these developments in the German army and at
the same time, the proposal for instruction was based on experience that now
were seen as outdated and abandoned because of high casualties since the first line was to be
defended at all cost. There also was nothing mentioned about stormtroopers in
the proposal.
According to Tingstens memories, he and the experts
came to the conclusion that they could not base the proposal for instruction on the
German Western front. Already two months after proposal was published
Tingsten wrote in an article which was published in Krigsvetenskapsakademiens tidskrift (Royal War Academy Journal) that positional warfare hardly […] was desirable for
a small nation with long borders. According to Tinsgten the fronts would
become too long compared to the number which would sooner or later lead to
disaster.
Another view on this topic was made by Bouveng who
also published a text in Krigsvetenskapsakademiens
handlingar (Royal War Academy Record) in
1917. According to him, the development based on an enormous concentration of
troops and artillery on the Western front was an exception. For Swedish concerns, more general conclusions
should be taken from the Eastern front, especially
regarding the interaction between the mobile war and positional war.
Both Tingsten and Bouveng shared the view that in case
of war the Western front scenario was probably not a realistic scenario for waging
war in Sweden. Reasons for that was that resources for several months of positional
warfare were insufficient and that Sweden as a country with long borders was too
big to defend by long lines of trenches. The difference was that Bouveng was proposing
interaction between two kinds of warfare that took place during the WWI while Tingsten
is in Swedish military history research considered to have been a proponent of
the pre-WWI mobile warfare with encountering combat. Also, the much greater
interest for the Swedish army during WWI was the Eastern front probably due to the
general view that Tsarist Russia was the main potential enemy in case of war.
Quite good and the best for
the moment that was able to be achieved
In his statement regarding the proposal for
instruction before it was published Bildt concluded that it was not possible to
have a clef opinions about some issues since experiences from the war were not entirely
known.
There was neither any experience in the Swedish army about usage of the basic tactics
in positional warfare since there had not been any exercises.
Characteristics
of the proposal for instruction for trench warfare
During a long time, a defence area was supposed to have consisted of one position that was called main position. If there was better
time possibilities also one or two more positions in the back would be established.
The distance between the main position and first position in the back would be
of that size so that attacker’s artillery could not fire on both. The main
defence combat was to be performed in the main position while the positions in
the back where to be used as reserve for defence if the main position was
needed to be abandoned. Also between the main position and the back position
the so-called fixed points as bunkers
and machine-gun nests were to be established in order to slow down or stop the advancement
of the attacking troops.
The main poison was supposed to consist of three
parallel defence lines that were connected with communication trenches. The
first line was the main defence line while the other two were reserve lines. Also according
to the proposal, the defence was to be performed in combination with the attack. If
the first defence line was overrun the reserves from the other two were supposed
to perform a counterattack and if that was not enough then the reserves from
the back positions would also perform the counterattack.Proposal maintained the values of cooperation between
artillery, infantry and engineer troops.
During the attacker’s artillery preparations the
defenders' artillery was in cooperation with aeroplanes supposed to engage the attacker’s
artillery. During the attack, the defence artillery was supposed to fire frontal
fire or flanking fire called spare fire
(spärreld on Swedish from the German term speerfeur) which was planned in
beforehand.
During the attack, the assignments of artillery were to
initially engage enemy’s artillery and in later stage to support the attacking
infantry by engaging barbed wire, machine guns nests, observations posts etc. During
the final attack, the fire would be directed behind the defenders' main defence
line in order to prevent reserves from reinforcing or performing a
counterattack. Also, a part of artillery would still engage the enemy’s
artillery.
On the infantry side, the attacking force would be
divided into storming columns where the first troops would advance in several
dense formatted firing lines. Also among the first advancing troops' engineers would participate
in order to counter different types of obstacles. Proposal also put
importance on the initiative among squad leaders and others commanders on the
place who were supposed to lead their units on their own if a greater result during the attack could be achieved.During the defence the infantry was supposed to take cover
in the shelters during the attacker’s artillery fire and to leave the shelters
in order to defend the position only after the attacker’s fire had been ceased.
