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.[1]

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.[2]

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.[3] 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.[5] 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.[6]

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.[7]

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.[8] 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.[9]

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.[10] Proposal maintained the values of cooperation between artillery, infantry and engineer troops.[11]

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.[12]

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.[13]

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.[14] 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.[15]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.

References

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[1] KrA, generalstaben, chefsexpeditionen, serie B I. Angående anordnandet af öfningar i ställ­nings­krig, daterad 22 sep 1916. Just to mention for curiosity that Knut Gillis Bildt was the grand grandfather of Carl Bildt, Swedish politician and current Minister of Foreign Affairs.

[2] KrA, generalstaben, chefsexpeditionen, serie B I, Skrivelse till Konungen ang. utarbetande av förslag till instruktion för striden om befästa ställningar, 17 nov 1916.

[3] KrA, Infanteriinspektionen, serie B. Underdånigt utlåtande, daterat 25 nov 1916. Gunnar Kaijser was a teacher in military architecture at the War School in Karlberg and had during the war been studying fortifications in Switzerland.

[4] Lantförsvarets kommandoexpedition, serie B I, vol. 77, generalorder 29 december 1916 nr 1737.

[5] Lars Tingsten, Hågkomster (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1938), s. 337.

[6] Gustaf Bouveng ”Årsberättelse av föredraganden i krigskonst” i Kungl. Krigsvetenskapsakademiens hand­lingar 1917.

[7] Arvid Cronenberg, ”Säkerhetspolitik och krigsplanering; Huvudlinjer i arméns operativa planering 1906-1945”, i Bo Hugemark (red), Neutralitet och försvar; Perspektiv på svensk säkerhetspolitik 1809-1985 (Stock­holm: Militärhistoriska förlaget, 1986), s. 70-71.

[8] KrA, generalstaben, chefsexpeditionen, serie B I. Yttrande angående förslag till instruktion om befästa ställningar, daterat 1 juni 1917. Förslag till instruktion för strid om befästa ställningar fastställdes 4 juni 1917.

[9] Ibid, s. 4-5 och 12-13.

[10] Ibid, s. 45–46.

[11] Ibid, s. 23,

[12] Ibid, s. 42.

[13] Ibid, s. 56 och 60.

[14] Ibid, s. 61 och 77.

[15] Ibid, s. 78-79.