Marshals are not born
В stories Wars and military art were times when any leader of the army, independently performing military tasks, was considered a commander. But when the scope of wars increased significantly and they began to be fought by multi-million armies consisting of a large number of associations and formations, the commanders began to call those commanders who during the war command strategic, operational and strategic associations. But who can become a commander? What qualities are needed for this? We will try to find answers to these and other questions in the answers of the generals themselves.
REQUIRED QUALITIES AND CAPABILITIES
Since ancient times, the commander’s personality has received much attention. We see this in the writings of Sun Tzu, U Tzu, Confucius, Vegetia, Xenophon, Mauritius, Kautilya, and others. In particular, the ancient Chinese strategist U Tzu in his treatise On the Art of Warfare, the fourth chapter of which is titled “Teaching on commander, "argued that success in war depends on the personal qualities of the commander. There is a good commander - the country is strong, if it is not there - it dies.
Moreover, the commander, according to U-tzu, can only be one who knows the "four springs": spirit, terrain, action and power. The indispensable qualities of a commander, in his opinion, are the authority, virtue, humanity, and courage that are necessary to guide his subordinates.
The commander must combine civilian virtues and military prowess, adhering to five principles: the skillful management of the army and its constant combat readiness, determination, caution and restraint. The most disastrous for the troops, according to U-tzu, is the indecision of the commander.
The ancient Greek commander, writer and historian Xenophon described the personality of the commander in the following way: “The commander must understand everything that relates to the arming of soldiers and providing them with food. He must be inventive, energetic, caring, resilient, have a presence of mind, must be courteous and stern, fair and cunning; he must stake everything and strive to win everything; he must be generous and greedy; be able to take risks and always be on your guard. A good commander combines inborn qualities with high education. The commander is in store, if he is ambitious ... "
Much attention was paid to the selection of commanders in the Mongol conquerors in the XIII – XIV centuries. The main requirements in the selection of the commander were the personal qualities of the warrior, his fighting abilities, and not the origin, eminence, and length of service. When Subede turned 25 years old, he already commanded a tuman and, according to legend, he successfully conducted 82 wars in his life and won 65 battles.
The German military theorist Clausewitz singled out mental abilities among the necessary qualities of the commander. “History does not indicate a single outstanding great commander or commander in chief who would be distinguished by a limited mind,” he noted. “But there are many cases in which people whose mental horizons did not expand in line with their progress along the hierarchy turned out to be very mediocre in high positions, although they showed outstanding differences in lower positions.”
At the same time, according to Clausewitz, “the commander does not need to be either a scientist, or a historian, or a journalist, but he should be familiar and he truly appreciates the highest state life, the dominant direction, the affected interests, pressing issues and actors. There is no need for him to be a great observer, able to disassemble human characters to the smallest subtlety, but he must know the disposition, way of thinking, the advantages and disadvantages of those whom he will have to order. The commander does not care about the device of the wagon, the harness of the gun, but he is obliged to correctly assess the success of the march of the column of troops in various circumstances. All this knowledge cannot be obtained by force, by scientific formulas; they are produced only by contemplation of affairs and a correct assessment of what is observed in life, when there is enough innate talent for that. ”
The well-known Russian psychologist Boris Teplov noted that, along with an outstanding mind, a commander must have a strong will. At the same time, Teplov refers to Napoleon, who compared the talent of a commander with a square: the base is will, the height is mind. A major commander can only be the person whose mind and will are equal. If the will greatly exceeds the mind, the commander will act decisively and courageously, but unwisely; otherwise, he will have good ideas and plans, but he will not have the courage and determination to implement them. ”
However, as the psychological analysis of the activities of the generals shows, the commander’s mind and will are wrongfully regarded as two different abilities, more correctly proceed from the unity of mind and will, which Mikhail Frunze paid attention to.
Along with the will and the mind, the commander needs organizational skills, thanks to which he is able to realize his plans to defeat the enemy. “What qualities distinguished such outstanding commanders as Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Batov? First of all, this is a developed operational-tactical thinking, the ability to foresee the development of events, will and organizational skills in the preparation of operations and the management of troops during the hostilities ... "- said Army General Makhmut Gareyev.
The most important quality that a commander should possess is courage. Only in those rare episodes, when courage is encountered with reasonable prudence, can it yield to the latter. In all other cases, the courage of the commander’s plan, guided by his mind, is an indispensable condition for achieving victory in the most complex operations and battles. But this courage is not to recklessly go against the arguments of reason, but, on the contrary, in the implementation of bold proposals based on accurate calculations, without the slightest delay and delay.
Napoleon pointed out that the courage of the commander is different than the courage of an ordinary military commander. “The courage of the commander in chief, he said, is different from the courage of the division commander and the courage of the captain of the grenadier company.” For the commander, Napoleon demanded such courage, "which in unexpected cases does not hamper the freedom of mind, considerations and intentions."
Murat is known for his personal courage. “He spent all his life in wars, he is a hero, although a limited man,” said Napoleon about him, and in a letter to Murat’s wife noted: “Your husband is very brave on the battlefield, but weaker than a woman or a monk when he does not see the enemy . He has no moral courage at all. ” The presence of this moral courage should be distinguished by a true commander.
“The real secret of the great generals is to combine courage with care,” writes the German historian Hans Delbrück. “We found him with Alexander, when he, before embarking on a march into the depths of Persia, first secured his rear with the conquest of Tire and Egypt and greatly strengthened his army. We meet him at Hannibal when, instead of besieging Rome, he set himself the goal of separating the Italian allies from him. We find him in Scipio, when he, although he agreed to join the decisive battle, having no way of retreat, he had previously strengthened his army with Massinesis. We find him in Caesar, who first defeated the army without a commander, and then turned against the commander without an army. We meet him at Gustav-Adolf and Friedrich. We find it in Napoleon. No matter how hard he throws his calls to fate, he nevertheless never hits infinity and knows where to stop and go from offensive to defense, runs the risk of letting himself attack the enemy and at the same time seeks to complete the victory by means of politics. ”
True caution is that, daring to do something in a war, carefully select and apply the necessary means, while not losing sight of the little things that may have an impact on the final result. When making a decision and implementing it, the commander must be confident in his abilities. This confidence and belief in the rightness of the decisions made by him is transferred to his subordinates and contributes to their mobilization for the solution of the assigned tasks.
“In the battle, only one thing is known in advance — that the result is uncertain,” writes Montgomery in A Short History of Military Battles. “Therefore, one of the most valuable qualities of a commander is the ability to instill faith in the plan of operation, even (and maybe especially) when he himself is not sure of its outcome. In order to achieve this in the eyes of the servicemen under his command, the commander-in-chief must carefully monitor his own moral condition. The battle is essentially a struggle between two characters — one’s own and the other’s commander’s side. If someone begins to refuse courage, when the outcome of the battle hangs in the balance, the enemy will probably win. ”
STRATEGIC "MINIMUM"
Comparing all the qualities that a commander should possess with those qualities that real people possessed at the head of troops, one can come to the conclusion that none of them possessed the entire set of listed features and properties of a commander. Of course, it would be ideal if, for example, we managed to combine the outstanding leadership qualities and steadfast character of Marshal Zhukov with personal charm and sensitivity to the people of Marshal Rokossovsky. According to the story of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, Stalin jokingly said: “If we had to combine Zhukov and Vasilevsky together and then divide them in half, we would get two best generals. But in life it doesn't work that way. ”
Therefore, it is necessary to determine the minimum set of qualities that a commander should possess. In our opinion, such qualities are competence, as well as the ability to make decisions, implement them and take responsibility for them.
Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Konev wrote: “The war gradually pushed away from command posts those who, one-sidedly, mechanically understood responsibility for the assigned task, sometimes primitively carried out orders and therefore failed. Gradually, during the war, the warlords, who believed that the more you send infantry into battle, got rid of themselves, the more it could take. The war revealed their inconsistency ... The war itself reveals and selects personnel. The situation of war better than any cadre bodies corrects the mistakes that were made to it by cadre bodies and by the high command in the nomination of certain people to certain posts. And if before the war, during the placement of cadres in the army, many mistakes were made and these mistakes affected literally in the very first months of the war, then gradually the war pushed aside these cadres who could not cope with the complex situation ... peacetime and who was in these posts in the early days of the war. All the commanders of the fronts came to light during the war ... The basis of the qualities that made them capable of driving troops on the battlefield under the conditions of modern war was great and comprehensive knowledge, experience of long service in the army - successively, step by step, without jumping over several steps. These people knew the troops, knew the nature of the soldier. Even in peacetime, they stubbornly taught the troops what was needed in the war. We studied together with the troops and, I will add, learned from the troops. They took all the best, advanced, that the experience gave then, from the troops and accumulated in themselves. ”
MILITARY GENIUS
"The belief, so common in our time, that a commander must be born and that there is no need for teaching to develop and grow into a commander, is one of the many misconceptions of our century, one of the common places that arrogant and apathetic people resort to in order to evade from hard work leading to excellence. Yes, a genius will undoubtedly be born together with us, but a great man, moreover, must be formed, a genius is not a building, but only its foundation, ”wrote the Archduke Charles Austrian in the introduction to his Principles of Strategy.
There is no shortage of examples.
Hannibal was brought up by his father, an outstanding General Hamilcar, who early attracted him to work on his plans and quickly developed his mind. He participated in the Spanish War, under the command of his son-in-law Hasdrubala, therefore, his natural genius developed by learning and experience.
A similar characteristic is given to Prince Conde.
“In order to better illuminate the characteristics of Turenne, it was often claimed that his valiant rival commander suddenly became and immediately became the winner. It is necessary to discard this chimera: the commander improvised at one moment exists only in imagination; Conde's genius, given by God, was fertilized by teaching under good guidance; five years of practical work gave him maturity. He quickly ripened, like a fruit favored by the sun. By the first jumps he reached the apogee and managed to stay on top without descending the descending line. ”
Everyone knows how Bonaparte studied campaigns: he did not just read military history works, but held a pen in his hands, noting, criticizing and making extracts. To master the military craft, he worked on 16 hours a day. He got acquainted with the army administration in 1795, which he spent entirely in the topographical department of the Committee of Public Safety.
Subsequently, talking to Rederer in 1809, Napoleon told him: “If it seems that I have a ready answer to everything and nothing takes me by surprise, then this is a consequence of the fact that before anything else I’ve taken pondering and envisioning everything that could happen. This is not a genius which suddenly tells me in secret what I should say and do in circumstances that are unexpected to others; no, this is the result of my thinking and my thoughts. I always work".
The great Russian commander Alexander Suvorov attached importance to education. “The general needs to educate himself with the sciences,” he argued.
“Intense work prepares the commander for his high calling; his spiritual and mental powers must rise to complete clarity, ”said German military theorist Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen in the article“ Commander ”. - Alexander of Macedon tames Bucephalus and exercises in combat with weapons in his hands, but he also sits at the feet of Aristotle. Caesar was a philosopher, orator and historian. Even in our time, no high school student is worth anything until he has studied several books of the Gallic War. Gustav Adolf spoke seven languages. Frederick the Great owned all branches of science, with the exception of spelling and German. Napoleon, when he was a schoolboy in Brien, seemed weak in Latin, but he had a “twinkle in algebra”. Moltke didn’t have enough academic experience and doctoral and professorial titles to become a workshop scientist. ”
Alexander Suvorov, by the time 20 was, had independently studied and thoroughly knew all the campaigns of Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, Condé and other then well-known military leaders. Later he mastered seven foreign languages, including Turkish and Finnish, perfectly mastered mathematics and other sciences. And I did not lose a single battle ...
George Zhukov paid considerable attention to education.
In the book “Marshal Zhukov. The greatness and uniqueness of the commanding art "General of the Army Gareyev, notes that Zhukov" read almost everything that was published in our country and the works of foreign military writers on military history and modern military art. The author of this book had a chance to see his library, where more than 20 thousand books, magazines and other publications were collected. Among them were Suvorov's “The Science of Victory”, the works of Napoleon, Moltke the Elder, Milyutin, Dragomirov, Leer, Foch, Neznamov, Svechin, Elchaninov, Fuller, Liddel Garth, Frunze, Tukhachevsky, memoirs of post-war military leaders and many others.
It was evident that almost all of these books were carefully read, for many pages had notes and remarks. It was felt that he did not just read, but deeply interpreted what he read, critically, creatively perceived it. ”
Zhukov himself in his book “Memories and Reflections” noted: “As the commander of the 6 corps, I worked hard on operational and strategic issues, because I believed that I had not yet achieved much in this area. He was clearly aware that the modern corps commander needed to know a lot, and he worked hard on the development of military sciences.
Reading historical materials about past wars, classical works on military art and various memoirs, I tried to draw conclusions about the nature of modern war, modern operations and battles. ”
However, education alone is not enough to become a commander. “To earn the name of a commander, it is not enough to be familiar with the principles of military science; one must be able and apply them, ”wrote the Archduke Charles of Austria. In turn, Napoleon noted: “The generals are guided by their experience or their genius. Tactics, rebuilds, engineering and artillery sciences can be studied from textbooks in much the same way as geometry is studied; but knowledge of the higher regions of war is acquired only by experience and the study of the history of wars and battles of great generals. Can grammar teach us to compose a song from the Iliad or to compose the tragedy of Corneille? ”
“There is a difference between qualities and command abilities. It could be almost exactly noted in two words: to be able and to know. Some could, but do not know, others know, but cannot. A real leader combines qualities and abilities, ”said French military theorist Jules Louis Leval.
Anticipate the Future
A significant part of the Pseudo-Mauritius treatise “The Strategy”, which summarizes the combat experience of the army of the Eastern Roman Empire of the 6th century, is devoted to the activities of the commander.
“The commander-in-chief should keep himself simple, be direct, love soldiers like his father, train them condescendingly and persistently, demand fulfillment of duties. It is necessary to be firm, unshakable, fair, to treat everything calmly and calmly, to be precise and understandable when explaining the most difficult issues. You can not calm down with luck and lose heart with failure. In case of failure it is useful not to disclose misfortune, one should not lead one's army into despair with reproaches, but one should encourage him in various ways. The commander-in-chief must carefully conceal his intentions: show the enemy one thing and do another; spread rumors contrary to what is being done; Do not announce to your army in advance neither the day nor the hour of a campaign, so that it is always ready. The best commander is not the one who is famous by birth, but the one who is more experienced in military affairs. He should think not only about the present, but also foresee the future. The commander-in-chief must take care, first, of armaments, since it is impossible to win without weapons; secondly, about the management of troops, for the one who better manages his troops will win. The commander-in-chief is obliged to study the country where the war is fought, to know the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy, and at the same time to know well the personal qualities and weaknesses of each of their military leaders. Something useful can be borrowed from the enemy, but in a war you only have to do what is beneficial to your troops ... In addition to all this, the commander-in-chief is obliged to fully support his troops. Who does not care about what the army needs to win, he is defeated even before the battle. ”
His ability to win authority from his subordinates, and above all from the rank and file, is of paramount importance in the activity of the commander.
“The material the general has to deal with is soldiers,” writes English Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in A Brief History of Military Battles. - Battles are primarily won in the hearts of people. An army is not just a collection of individuals and any number tanks and guns. The real power of the army surpasses, and far surpasses, the sum of its components. This additional power is ensured by morale, morale, mutual trust of leaders and subordinates (and especially field commanders and high command) and many other intangible spiritual qualities. Huge emotional forces lie in people, which must be skillfully given a way out so that hearts are kindled and imagination is turned on. Treating people coldly, without a soul, the commander will achieve little. But if he can win the trust of people and they feel that their vital interests are in his reliable hands, he will receive invaluable wealth and will be able to achieve brilliant success. ”
An important role in the activities of the commander is foresight. According to Machiavelli, "nothing makes the commander so great as the ability to penetrate the enemy's plan." “The commander must either guess or calculate the enemy’s intentions,” noted Field Marshal Schlieffen.
The art of the commander is also to determine the right goal and point the way to its achievement.
“The commander should know what he wants, clearly represent the final goal and try to achieve it, bring to the subordinates the main points of his strategy. He must actually provide solid, unquestioned leadership, ”indicates Montgomery.
In the opinion of the ancient Greek commander and historian Xenophon, in military art, the most important thing is the ability of the military leader to act in accordance with the situation. “A commander in a war should not bind himself with anything, but should act according to circumstances and always quickly,” taught the great Russian commander Suvorov.
“In order to bring the whole war, or at least a large segment of it, called a campaign, to a brilliant end, it is necessary to delve deeply into the highest state relations,” Clausewitz said in turn. - Here, strategy and politics merge together, and the commander is simultaneously a state man ... We repeat: the commander becomes a state man, but he still has to remain a commander; firstly, he must at one glance cover all state relations, secondly, he should give himself a clear account of what he can accomplish with the means at his disposal. ”
A contemporary of General Friedrich von Berngardi, in his work Modern Warfare, which appeared before the First World War, gives the following description of the commander’s activities: “The commander should begin his task free from prejudice and prejudice, from fear of people and from the clutches of selfishness from submission to own passions and weaknesses, from fear of responsibility and risk; he must selflessly serve only the cause and be able to endure physical and moral tensions. His task takes two forms of assumptions and actions; These forms, of course, mutually condition and complement each other, but they suggest completely different types of working capacity. When developing plans, the commander's mental personality plays a role, and in actions it plays a moral, and nevertheless mental power and moral force must always support and complement each other. The preservation by the commander of emotional balance and clear judgment is so important that he should be recognized as the essential foundation of the art of war ...
First of all, it is necessary to understand the general political situation, properly evaluate the means of fighting one’s own and the enemy, and, together with the leaders of state policy, set a military goal to achieve a political goal. Then you need to develop a plan of war, properly assess the people called upon to lead the actions, as well as the enemy commanders, their intentions and peculiarities. All this work is primarily mental, but it also requires considerable hardness of character in order to reject various demands that are unacceptable from a military point of view. ”
The ability to achieve victory over the enemy with minimal casualties is essential. “Generals are supposed to win battles, but a good general will achieve this with the least possible human losses,” said Field Marshal Montgomery. The most famous commanders always achieved decisive results with a minimum of shed blood. Consequently, they knew how to put the prowess of their troops in such conditions that would give it the greatest reality and associate it with lesser dangers. This knowledge is just the difference between them and those who are mediocre or badly waged war.
It is quite obvious that the success of military operations essentially depends on the ability to avoid combat where the enemy is stronger, and to force to fight where it is weaker, that is, from the skill of the commander, his ability to organize a retreat without significant harm and to conduct an offensive with the greatest advantage.
Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov at a military-theoretical conference in 1945, the following way described the main provisions of the art of war, which he adhered to:
“The first is an excellent knowledge of the enemy, the correct assessment of his plans, forces and means; the ability to take into account what he is capable of and what he is not capable of, what you can catch him with. This is achieved by continuous and deep intelligence.
The second is the knowledge of their troops, their thorough preparation for battle. Comprehensive training of command and staffs is necessary, as well as the timely elaboration of all variants of the forthcoming actions of the troops.
The third is operational and tactical surprise. This is achieved in that the enemy is misled about our true intentions. We must act so quickly that the enemy is late everywhere, and thus he finds himself in a difficult situation.
The fourth is an accurate calculation of forces and assets, depending on the task. Troops can not put impossible tasks. Nothing but loss and undermining of morale, it will not. It is better to conduct offensive operations less often, and to save forces and means for decisive strikes.
The fifth is the material support of operations. Under no circumstances should an unprepared materially operation be performed. The overall situation can push the main command to the fastest implementation of the operation. But you can start it only after thorough preparation and comprehensive support. ”
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