THE DANGERS OF DISPERSION
By STRATEGICUS
IC TT is evident," said Mr. Churchill, " that amphibidus operations 1 of peculiar complexity and hazard .on a large scale are approaching." The peculiar characteristic of the present phase of the Allied offensive could hardly be described more succinctly. It is a situation in which the enemy cannot be certain where the Allies intend to strike, with what force or with what objective. Certain assumptions which he might reasonably draw clarify the outlook very little. He may, for instance, assume that on the principle of security of force we shall deliver our maximum attack on some already selected sector and shall pursue the objective with undeviating will. Starting from that he will conclude that if we launch attacks on a number of different points, most of these will be diversions designed to secure the best conditions for the main effort. Some, however, may be part of a pattern which is built upon a converging attack, upon what we are informed, ad nauseam, is a " pincers " attack.
The point of importance for him is that he will not know in advance which place will be attacked ; and, even after a number of attacks have been launched, will be in ignorance for at least some time which is the main offensive. It is obvious that there are certain objectives which are of secondary importance, just as there are places where he dare not risk a lodgement without grave peril to his whole position. But Mr. Churchill used the plural in describ- ing the outlook ; and there can be little doubt that the Allies will do all in their'power to confuse the enemy as to their intentions.
The effect of this multiplicity of threats is, of course, to compel him to disperse his forces. He knows that he must be prepared for heavy diversions as well as a main concentrated thrust that will be designed to secure a decision, in co-operation with the Russian forces. He is being daily warned that there are four British armies in the Mediterranean, all of them intensively trained, all thoroughly equipped, all of them now flushed with confidence from the over- whelming victory secured by two of them. He has to count upon a greater volume of available shipping than he cares to admit openly ; and, having been deceived over the Allied landings in the west of North Africa, he is the less likely to be ignorant that the diyersions may be of considerable size. Such is his present problem, and the result is plain to see. He cannot even keep to a single description of his strategy. He blows hot and cold within a few days. There are troop movements in several parts of Europe, and the weakened transport is under a greater strain than ever.
It would be a natural tendency, in the face of threatened attack in many quarters, to station strong forces at least at the main nodal points over the west and south of Europe.. But it is very difficult to imagine that such a policy could be applied to any considerable extent. If it were, the Allies' first objective would be attained, since
they would have compelled a dispersion which might be fatal. Something of the sort must, however, be done, since, whatever the strength of German nerves, those of Italy and the satellite Powers are too weak to stand the strain•of attack by a powerful modern force without the prompt assistance of Hitler's legions. One in- gredient of force Germany must contribute, since none of the other Powers within the Axis orbit can meet the Allied Air Forces them- selves. It is pretty certain that even the Regia Aeronautita dare not risk conclusions with the Allied fighters alone, and the irony of the
situation is that.the Germans may be compelled to bear the burden themselves, since the Italians tend to lower their morale in co- operation.
The Allies derive such obvious benefits from the present phase that one might almost regret that very soon the enemy will secure some relief from a disastrously intractable problem through attack.
For that is not an exaggerated description by any means. Only the south of Europe has been mentioned, and it is certain that at some
point the west will be invaded, and probably the north will also suffer attack. The enemy has not, of course, been able to fortify the whole of the coast liable to invasion. Even with his equanimity when faced with labours that would driVe any other race into corn-
plete dismay, he cannot have built defensive works over the thousands of miles which might be invaded. There has been a process of selection ; but he knows better than anyone that the sectors neglected, because they have natural obstacles that form a sound defence, may be the ones chosen. Every schoolboy knows of the Heights of Abraham.
Hence he is committed to a certain amount of dispersion, and the versatile Allied Command, with very considerable resources, par- ticularly in the most essential of all fighting weapons, can be trusted to take full advantage of his position. But it can be noticed that he is attempting to avoid dispersing his Luftwaffe and his U-boats. Both may be vital in case of invasion, and although the Luftwaffe is divided into five regional commands the U-boats can scarcely have been spread about even to that extent. Their success has been achieved by hunting in packs, and the recent growing mortality among them is due to no small extent to that very fact. If they should reverse the process the sinkings of shipping will probably fall. Ih fact, we seem to have come to the turn in the tide in the U-boat campaign through our confronting these pests with that dilemma. But the temporary dispersion would be designed merely to interpose a further obstacle to naval intervention and to meet Allied shipping on more favourable terms. It is a sanguine ex- pectation ; but the point is that Germany is at present labouring under a compulsion. While her instinct as well as her military doctrine impels her to attack, and attack means concentration, the Allies compel her to dispersion under pain of being caught at a disadvantage which her widely stretched interior lines and weakened transport could not redress.
Put these disadvantages at their highest, it does not need to be said that the actual phase of invasion by ground troops will entail the most severe strain the Allies have yet sustained. The best they imply is that the position is not so one-sided as an expected invasion usually is. Their main importance at this moment is the fact that they serve to point a valuable moral. Japan did not enter the war at the side of Germany merely because she is enamoured of the Herrenvolk, any more than Hitler desired her intervention out of philanthropy. She entered the, war to take advantage of an Allied dispersion already dangerously developed and to undertake the con- genial task of straining it to breaking-point. Whatever faults history will find with the British strategy up to the entry of japan, it will hardly fail to award the Government praise for resisting every impulse to try to be strong everywhere at the cost of being every- where ineffective.
But from Mr. Churchill's words, as well as from- those of Mr. Curtin, the position is not quite so cleat now. Of one thing we may be sure. If, in an attempt to take the offensive against Japan before we have the strength to do it effectively, we have diverted men and material eastward which were formerly earmarked for the European theatre we have sinned against the principle of security. We may fail to defeat Germany as soon as we should, and suffer rebuffs that were never necessary. When Mr. Churchill said in Washington that " the defeat of Japan would not entail the defeat of Germany, but the defeat of Germany would infallibly mean the ruin of Japan," he said no more than the truth. He might have gone further. He could have said that the attempt to carry out two major campaigns, with the force that might be' required for success in one, will in- fallibly mean failure in both. It seems hardly possible that the Prime Minister and his technical advisers have agreed to such a dispersion ; but we do well to note that the Axis Powers will exert every effort to create a diversion that will have that result. Of all things, it is the greatest danger that confronts us at the present moment ; and Australia as well as China would be well advised to refrain from yielding to the tendency to press for a dispersion of force that in the end might imperil their purposes more than it would advantage them.
If, as one hopes, that possibility may be ruled out, it is at least useful to bear it in mind, since it serves, as perhaps no other illus- tration would, to mark the dangers latent in dispersion. It carries less conviction to say that it sins against basic military principles. But one can see throughout the war instances in which it operated disastrously. Dispersion to the Balkans occasioned the turning of tables in Libya. The dispersion occasioned by the Axis attacks in Libya prevented the possibility of opening a " second front " in Europe. It is known that the attack in the Crimea last May was designed to cause a dispersion of Russian forces that would make the break-through at Voronezh and Stalingrad easy. Fortunately, Hitler dispersed his own forces more than the Russian, and so came to defeat. In the end, it is precisely that which will ruin him, a compulsory dispersion ; but we must be on our guard against a dispersion on our own part that would rob us of the force to take advantage of the condition that must ultimately face him.
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