Essays
Iraq and the Western Front
Author: Samuel Metz
Date: 11/23/2006
Vietnam is not the only
battle that Iraq resembles. Another is Verdun.
The battle of Verdun on the
Western Front of World War I lasted 10 months. The city,
held by French troops, was of no strategic value to either
side. In fact, the Allied line would have been much
improved had the Verdun salient been abandoned and lines
reestablished to the south. However, the city held
enormous psychological value to French politicians.
The idea of an invasion of
Iraq has a remarkable parallel to this. The concept began
as a plan for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
created by American conservative foreign policy experts.
These same planners, when later invited into the
Department of Defense, revived it as the primary goal of
the first George W. Bush administration. At no point did
American leaders consider Iraq to have military or
strategic importance.
In 1916 General Erich von
Falkenhayn, German Chief of Staff, cleverly exploited the
irrational French commitment to Verdun. He devised a
campaign not to take the city, but to lure French troops
into it to kill as many of them as possible: "Bleeding the
French Army white" was how he put it. The plan succeeded.
On the evening of the first attack, Prime Minister Briand
of France, convinced his government would fall if the city
did, awoke the officers of Verdun to tell them, "If you
surrender Verdun, you will be cowards, cowards! And I'll
sack the lot of you!" The commander, General Joffre, got
the message loud and clear. Hundreds of thousands of
French troops were dispatched to its defense.
Our military leadership
received a similar message before the start of the Iraq
invasion. Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki found himself
prematurely retired when he merely suggested that the Army
might need more troops to achieve victory than the
administration would admit to. No military leader missed
the meaning: only retired Army leadership has dared
breathe any hint that the Iraq invasion might not have
been well conceived.
Tactically, Verdun was a
French victory. The city held and the territory lost to
German attacks retaken. The German Crown Prince commanding
the armies assigned to besiege the city apparently forgot
his mission was to destroy French troops rather than take
territory; his massive attacks cost the German army nearly
as many casualties as the French: 475,000 French to
420,000 German.
One can similarly make a case
that our invasion of Iraq succeeded: Saddam Hussein and
his Ba'athist colleagues are in custody or in flight. The
subsequent Iraqi government, albeit ineffectual, does not
engage in wholesale genocide. The first national election
saw millions of Iraqis defy terrorist threats to cast
their votes. By these terms, Iraq is a triumph.
Strategically, however, the
Verdun campaign was a French disaster. Because of
appalling battle conditions, the French command rotated
soldiers through Verdun for only a few weeks to avoid
wholesale battle fatigue. By the time the campaign
withered, 75% of the French army served time in what was
called the "charnel house." Morale of the French troops
was shattered. General Nivelle, called the Hero of Verdun
because of his successful campaign to recapture lost
territory, could convince French troops to participate in
one more offensive, the Battle of the Somme. His second
campaign failed and casualties were as grotesque: 200,000
among the French; British and German casualties were
double that.
The French army mutinied.
Fifty four divisions refused to move. One hundred thousand
soldiers were court-martialed. After a few mutineers were
executed, quiet was restored. Nonetheless, the spirit of
the Army was crushed. For the rest of the war, French
troops held their trenches but participated in no further
offensive operations. Although ultimately the entry of the
United States into the war led to victory, the French army
was useless.
Like Verdun, Iraq is a
strategic debacle. Two years after the President declared
victory, the US Army continues to suffer ongoing and
increasing casualties against an amalgam of enemies who
grow stronger every day. Some Army units are beginning
their third rotation in Iraq. Casualties among the
civilian population our Army is charged to protect are
fifty-fold higher than those of American soldiers.
Security in the region is in turmoil. Syria and Iran fight
a proxy war with partisan militias. Our government is
being bled white financially to maintain the military
status quo. There is no end in sight.
The 3,000 deaths suffered by
the US military in Iraq hardly compares with those
suffered by the French at Verdun. However, we should not
ignore the effect on Army morale of the more than 150,000
casualties among the wards of the US, the Iraqi civilians.
Will our soldiers suffer a
similar end to those of the French Army? They fight a
hopeless battle they were never trained to fight. Their
rules of engagement leave no room for error. They fight
insurgents and partisans whose goal is not to take and
hold territory, but to sap the spirit of the occupying
army and the civilian population until futility overwhelms
them.
One historian said of Verdun,
"Psychological and political considerations were allowed
to take precedence over good military sense." Certainly
the response of our President to the present crisis is in
a similar vein: The resolution in Iraq will fall to the
agenda of future Presidents. This is not a strategy. This
is an abdication of responsibility. Can we escape having
our government's fear of domestic political embarrassment
keep its Army in a war that can be neither won nor ended?
James Fallows of the Atlantic
Monthly quoted an anonymous US Marine officer in Iraq: "We
can lose in Iraq and destroy our army, or we can just
lose." The cost of the war in Iraq cannot be measured only
in civilian and army casualties. If we do not appreciate
the cost to the American soldiers risking their lives in a
futile military occupation, we risk having an Army that
will not fight.
References:
James Bamford. Pretext
for War. Doubleday, 2004
James Fallows. Why
Iraq has no Army. The Atlantic Monthly, December 2005 www.theatlantic.com/doc/200512/iraq-army,
accessed 20 November 2006
Alistair Horne. The
French Army and Politics. Macmillan Press, 1984
Alistair Horne. The
Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. Penguin Books, 1979
A. J. P. Taylor. The
First World War. Penguin Books, 1963