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STRATEGIC BOMBING AND RESTRAINT IN ‘TOTAL WAR’, 1915–1918*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

ANDREW BARROS
ANDREW BARROS*
Affiliation:
Université du Québec à Montréal
*
Département d'histoire, Université du Québec à Montréal, CP 8888, suc. Centre-Ville, Montréal, H3C 3P8, Québec, Canadabarros.andrew@uqam.ca
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Abstract

Recent studies of ‘total war’ depict a process of inexorable expansion leading to an often nebulous linkage of everything to war. This article takes the study of ‘total war’ in the opposite direction by studying a specific example of strategic restraint. It examines how the French bombing strategy that was developed over the course of the First World War went to considerable lengths to maintain a distinction between the civilian and the military. The article studies France's restraint by highlighting the strategic, geographical, institutional, and economic factors upon which it was built. It then goes on to examine the political pressures for an expansion of bombing which proved incapable of overturning this policy. Finally, it contrasts French restraint with that of its key ally, Great Britain. There, bombing developed into a strategic weapon designed to destroy the ‘home front’. This study of restraint underscores the importance of limits, and the attendant choices government has to make, in understanding the course and intensity of a country's mobilization for modern war.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 413 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Lorne Breitenlohner, Patrick Facon, John Ferris, and Talbot Imlay for their advice and assistance, as well as the two anonymous reviewers of this article for their comments and suggestions.

References

1 For the lack of a definition as well as important caveats as to the process see Roger Chickering and Stig Förster, ‘Are we there yet? World War II and the theory of total war’, in Roger Chickering, Stig Förster, and Bernd Greiner, eds., A world at total war: global conflict and the politics of destruction, 1937–1945 (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 2, 6. Also see Stig Förster's important analysis of the controversies and problems of the literature surrounding ‘total war’ in ‘Total war: the use and abuse of a concept’, in Roger Chickering and Stig Förster, eds., Anticipating total war: the German and American experiences, 1871–1914 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 13–28, and Imlay, Talbot, ‘Total War’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 30 (2007), pp. 547–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the uneven impact of ‘total war’ see Strachan, Hew, ‘On total war and modern war’, International History Review, 22 (2002), pp. 341–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As for the place of ‘restraint’ and ‘total’ in the evolution of war see Michael Howard, ‘Temperamenta belli: can war be controlled?’, in Michael Howard, ed., Restraints on war: studies in the limitation of armed conflict (Oxford, 1979), pp. 1–15. For the most recent examination of the First World War's violent spiral see Alan Kramer, Dynamic of destruction: culture and mass killing in the First World War (Oxford, 2007). An example of this inexorable view of bombing is Grayzel, Susan R., ‘“The souls of soldiers”: civilians under fire in First World War France’, Journal of Modern History, 78 (2006), pp. 588–622.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a rare application of ‘total war’ to the post-1945 era see Naor, Mosche, ‘Israel's war of independence as a total war’, Journal of Contemporary History, 43 (2008), pp. 241–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For an example of the former see Jeffrey W. Legro, Cooperation under fire: Anglo-German restraint during World War II (Ithaca, NY, 1995), and for the latter A. C. Grayling, Among the dead cities: was the allied bombing of civilians in WWII a necessity or a crime? (London, 2006).

3 This is not the first work on the subject. The important study by Philippe Bernard argued that the aviation doctrine states chose over the course of the First World War was the product of debates between ‘prudent’ and ‘visionary’ proponents of its use. His study examined why the latter won out in Britain, Germany, and Italy, but not France, by focusing on French air doctrine. This article takes a different approach by comparing the factors (the course of the war, mobilization, geography, and institutions) that explain why Britain and France adopted fundamentally different bombing doctrines. It presents Britain as the exception and emphasizes how, in the French case, there were constraints that worked against attempting a ‘visionary’ doctrine as well as the perceived dangers inherent in such an escalation. See his ‘À propos de la stratégie aérienne pendant la Première Guerre mondiale: mythes et réalités’, Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 16 (1969), pp. 350–75, esp. pp. 350, 372–5. Also see René Martel, L'aviation française de bombardement (Paris, 1939), reprinted in English translation as French strategic and tactical bombardment forces of World War I (Plymouth, 2007).

4 Dennis E. Showalter, ‘Mass warfare and the impact of technology’, in Roger Chickering and Stig Förster, eds., Great War, total war: combat and mobilization on the Western Front, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 84–5; John H. Morrow, Jr, The Great War in the air: military aviation from 1909 to 1921 (Washington, DC, 1993), pp. 294–5, 362–78; Emmanuel Chadeau, De Blériot à Dassault: histoire de l'industrie aéronautique en France, 1900–1950 (Paris, 1987), pp. 435, 437, 439–45, 453–8.

5 Morrow, The Great War in the air, pp. 68, 71–2, 107–10, 132–3, 137–8, 143–8, 154–6, 159, 205–13, 220–2, 296–7; idem, German air power in World War I (Lincoln, NB, 1982), pp. 74–5, 116–20; Sönke Neitzel, ‘Zum strategischen Mißerfolg verdammt? Die deutschen Luftstreitkräfte in beiden Weltkriegen’, in Bruno Thoss and Hans-Erich Volkmann, eds., Erster Weltkrieg–Zweiter Weltkrieg. Ein Vergleich. Krieg, Kriegserlebnis, Kriegserfahrung in Deutschland (Paderborn, 2002), pp. 167–70, 174–7, 184; Bernard, ‘À propos de la stratégie aérienne’, pp. 361–6; Martel, French strategic and tactical bombardment, pp. 114–30. For an example of the limits of long-range bombing, see the case of Freiburg in Roger Chickering, The Great War and urban life in Germany: Freiburg, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 98–111.

6 Morrow, German air power, pp. 116–17; idem, The Great War in the air, pp. 140–8; Chadeau, De Blériot à Dassault, chs. 3–4.

7 Morrow, The Great War in the air, pp. 266–7, 288, 294, 310, 329; idem, German air power, chs. 4–5; Eric Ash, Sir Frederick Sykes and the air revolution, 1912–1918 (London, 1999), pp. 112–15.

8 Morrow, German air power, pp. 102, 295, 345–6. Also see Chadeau's statistics for French production, De Blériot à Dassault, pp. 435, 437, 439–43, 453–8, and H. A. Jones's figures for Britain, The war in the air: being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force (6 vols., Oxford, 1922–37), iii, appendix vii.

9 Pétain, ‘Avis du général commandant en chef’, 16 Sept. 1918, Vincennes, département de l'armée de l'air, service historique de la défense (DAA-SHD), dr. 3, 1a165; Facon, Patrick, ‘Aperçus sur la doctrine d'emploi de l'aéronautique militaire française’, Revue historique des armies, 3 (1988), pp. 80–90.Google Scholar

10 Facon, Patrick, ‘Douhet et sa doctrine à travers la literature militaire et aéronautique française de l'entre-deux-guerres: une étude de perception’, Revue historique des armées, 1 (1988), pp. 94–103Google Scholar; idem, ‘Arme ou armée? Aviation réservée ou aviation organique? L'aéronautique militaire à l'école de la Première Guerre mondiale', Revue historique des armées, 4 (1994), pp. 67–75; idem, ‘Aperçus sur la doctrine d'emploi de l'aéronautique’, pp. 80–90.

11 ‘Bombardement’ [19]17, DAA-SHD, dr. 1, 1a164; ‘Note sur l'état actuel de la question des bombardements par avion', 6 May 1918, ibid., dr. 3, 1a165.

12 ‘Projet d'instruction sur l'aviation de bombardement’, 19 Mar. 1918, ibid., dr. 1, 1a165.

13 ‘Note sur l'état actuel de la question des bombardements par avion', 6 May 1918, ibid., dr. 3, 1a165; Christian Geinitz, ‘The first war against noncombattants: strategic bombing of German cities in World War I’, in Chickering and Förster, eds., Great War, total war, pp. 207–25. For these principles in action see ‘Plan d'emploi de l'aviation de bombardement destiné à bombarder l'Allemagne’, no. 37069, 24 Aug. 1918, Vincennes, département de l'armée de terre, service historique de la défense (DAT-SHD), dr. 1, 4n10.

14 Underlining in the original, général commandant en chef [Pétain] to the président du Conseil, ministre de la guerre [Clemenceau], ‘Mémoire sur les bombardements de représailles’, no. 19389/op, 18 Mar. 1918, DAA-SHD, dr. 2, 1a164; ‘Note sur l'emploi du bombardement’, [1917?], ibid., dr. 3, 1a164.

15 ‘Procès-verbal de la seconde session du Comité Interallié d'Aviation, ouverte à Versailles dans la Salle des Séances, le 31 mai 1918 à 10 heures’, DAT-SHD, dr. 2, 4n10; Duval to Clemenceau, no. 787/op, 1 June 1918, DAA-SHD, dr. 3, 1a165.

16 ‘Note sur l'emploi du bombardement’, [1917?], DAA-SHD, dr. 3, 1a164. How this figure was calculated remains unclear.

17 Ibid.

18 Général commandant en chef [Joffre] to général commandant en chef le G[roupe des]. A[rmées de l']. E[st]. [Dubail], 9 Sept. 1915, ibid., dr. 2, 1a181; ‘Historique du plan de bombardement’, 16 Feb. 1917, ibid., dr. 1, 1a165; général commandant en chef [Pétain] to the président du Conseil, ministre de la guerre [Clemenceau], ‘Mémoire sur les bombardements de représailles’, no. 19389/op, 18 Mar. 1918, ibid., dr. 2, 1a164.

19 John Horne and Alan Kramer, German atrocities 1914: a history of denial (New Haven, CT, 2001), chs. 4–6, 8. For the evolution of international law as it applied to bombing see Tami Davis Biddle, ‘Air power’, in Michael Howard, George J. Andreopoulos, and Mark R. Schulman, eds., Laws of war: constraints on warfare in the western world (New Haven, CT, 1994), pp. 140–59; Donald Cameron Watt, ‘Restraints on war in the air before 1945’, in Howard, ed., Restraints on war, pp. 66–7; Geoffrey Best, Humanity in warfare: the modern history of the international law of armed conflicts (London, 1980).

20 ‘Note pour les Commandants de Groupes d'Armées’, 27 Jan. 1916, DAA-SHD, dr. 3, 1a165.

21 Président du Conseil et ministre des affaires étrangères [Briand but signed for by De Margerie] to ministre de la guerre [Roques], no. 4960, 30 Nov. 1916, and the attached ‘Message par pigeon’, i (b) 4836/165, 16 May 1918, ibid., dr. 2, 1a168. For the wartime evolution of French bombing policy in these zones see general commandant en chef [Pétain] to the président du Conseil, ministre de la guerre [Clemenceau], ‘Mémoire sur les bombardements de représailles’, no. 19389/op, 18 Mar. 1918, ibid., dr. 2, 1a164.

22 Debeney to ministre de la guerre [Painlevé], no. 8132, 9 May 1917, and the annexe, ibid., dr. 1; général commandant en chef [Pétain] to the président du Conseil, ministre de la guerre [Clemenceau], ‘Mémoire sur les bombardements de représailles’, no. 19389/op, 18 Mar. 1918, ibid., dr. 2, 1a164; Gilles Krugler, Le corsaire de l'air: Maurice Huppe et la naissance du bombardement stratégique (Vincennes, 2005), p. 107.

23 See, for example, Klobukowski (Le Havre) to ministre des affaires étrangères [Delcassé], no. 207, 25 June 1915, DAA-SHD, dr. 1, 1a303.

24 ‘Vols & Bombardements de nuit’, 31 Dec. 1917, ibid., dr. 3, 1a164.

25 Liautey [sic] to général commandant en chef les armées du nord et du nord-est [Nivelle], no. 661 B.S., 18 Mar. 1917; ‘Historique du plan de bombardement’, 16 Feb. 1917, ibid., dr. 1, 1a165; général commandant en chef [Pétain] to the président du Conseil, ministre de la guerre [Clemenceau], ‘Mémoire sur les bombardements de représailles’, no. 19389/op, 18 Mar. 1918, ibid., dr. 2, 1a164.

26 ‘Historique du plan de bombardement’, 16 Feb. 1917; Lyautey to commandant en chef des armées du nord et du nord-est [Nivelle], 661 B.S., 12 Mar. 1917, ibid., dr. 1, 1a164; ‘Note pour les Commandants de Groupes d'Armées’, 27 Jan. 1916; Joffre, no. 6411/m, 25 Mar. 1916; Buat, no. 9751/m, 8 May [1916], ibid., dr. 3 1a165.

27 Debeney to the ministre de la guerre [Painlevé], no. 8132, 9 May 1917, and the annexe, dr. 1; général commandant en chef [Pétain] to the président du Conseil, ministre de la guerre [Clemenceau], ‘Mémoire sur les bombardements de représailles’, no. 19389/op, 18 Mar. 1918, ibid., dr. 2, 1a164.

28 De Castelnau to général commandant en chef [Pétain], no. 3480, 9 May 1917; ibid., dr. 1, 1a164.

29 Joffre, ‘Note de service’, no. 2424, 7 Apr. 1915, ibid., dr. 2, 1a303; général commandant en chef [Joffre] to général commandant en chef le G[roupe des]. A[rmées de l']. E[st]. [Dubail], 9 Sept. 1915, dr. 2, ibid., 1a181; Krugler, Le corsaire de l'air, pp. 156–7.

30 Voisin to Lure, no. 190, 13 Apr. 1918, DAA-SHD, dr. 2, 1a164 as well as examples from February and June 1917 in ibid., dr. 1, 1a164; ‘Avis du commandant de l'aéronautique aux armées’, 6 Sept. 1916, ibid., dr. 2, 1a303.

31 ‘Note du Bureau T. O. E.’, 14 Feb. 1917, ibid., dr. 3, 1a165; Lyautey to commandant en chef les armées du nord et du nord-est [Nivelle], no. 373 B. S., 17 Feb. 1917, ibid., dr. 2, 1a303.

32 See Flandin, ‘Note pour Monsieur le Président du Conseil’, 25 Dec. 1917, as well as ‘French Deputy Flandre's [sic] proposals re Organization of Inter-Allied Air Effort’, attached to Henry Wilson to Clemenceau, 1 Jan. 1918, DAT-SHD, dr. 7, 4n10; Claude d'Abzac-Epezy, , ‘Une arme à finir la guerre: Pierre-Etienne Flandin ou la victoire par l'aviation’, Revue historique des armées, 3 (1998), pp. 99–110Google Scholar; Patrick Facon, Le bombardement stratégique (Monaco. 1996), pp. 36–9.

33 See, for example, the exchanges between the chamber's war and budget commissions and the government, Paris, Archives nationales, C/7612.

34 ‘Annexe B du procès-verbal de la seconde session du Comité Intérallié d'Aviation, tenue à Versailles, le 31 mai 1918’; ‘Procès-verbal de la Première Réunion du Comité Interallié de l'Aviation, tenue à Versailles le jeudi 9 mai 1918 à 10 heures’, DAT-SHD, dr. 2, 4N10.

35 Morrow, The Great War in the air, pp. 220–2.

36 Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and reality in air warfare: the evolution of British and American ideas about strategic bombing, 1914–1945 (Princeton, NJ, 2002), pp. 20–48; Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, The strategic air offensive against Germany, 1939–1945 (4 vols., London, 1961), i, pp. 34–51; Ash, Sir Frederick Sykes, pp. 112–15.

37 Biddle, Rhetoric and reality, pp. 40–8; George K. Williams, Biplanes and bombsights: British bombing in World War I (Mongomery, AL, 1999), chs. 5–6.

38 [Trenchard], ‘Notes sur les sujets de discussion proposés par le répresentant français à la 3ème session du Comité Interallié, par le général commandant la Force Indépendante d'aviation britannique, à Ochey’, 9 July 1918, annex Y to the procès-verbal, ‘3è reunion du Comité Interallié d'Aviation tenue à Versailles, le dimanche 21 juillet 1918 à 10h’, DAT-SHD, dr. 2, 4n10.

39 [Trenchard], ‘Mémoire sur le bombardement de l'Allemagne par le général commandant la Force Indépendante de l'Aviation britannique’, 23 June 1918, annex Z to the procès-verbal, ‘3è réunion du Comité Interallié d'Aviation tenue à Versailles, le dimanche 21 juillet 1918 à 10h’, ibid.

40 [Sykes], ‘Annexe “C” du procès-verbal de la 3è session du Comité Interallié d'Aviation’, ibid.

41 ‘Observations sur la note ci-jointe de M. le Général Trenchard’, 8 July 1919, DAA-SHD, dr. 1, 1a181; Duval to Clemenceau, no. 787/op, 1 June 1918, ibid., dr. 3, 1a165; ‘Procès-verbal de la seconde session du Comité Interallié d'Aviation, ouverte à Versailles dans la Salle des Séances, le 31 mai 1918 à 10 heures’, DAT-SHD, dr. 2, 4n10. For a brief but much more positive assessment see ‘Note pour M. Clemenceau’, [1918], DAA-SHD, dr. 3, 1a165.

42 Trenchard, ‘Memorandum on the tactics to be adopted in bombing the industrial centres of Germany’, 23 June 1918, Kew, The National Archives (TNA), AIR/1/2422/305/18/11.

43 Duval, ‘Projet d'instruction sur l'aviation de bombardement’, 19 Mar. 1918, DAA-SHD, dr. 1, 1a165; ‘Observations sur la note ci-jointe de M. le Général Trenchard’, 8 July 1919, ibid., dr. 1, 1a181.

44 Underlining in the original. ‘Observations sur la note ci-jointe de M. le Général Trenchard’, 8 July 1919, ibid., dr. 1, 1a181.

45 ‘Procès-verbal de la seconde session du Comité Interallié d'Aviation, ouverte à Versailles dans la Salle des Séances, le 31 mai 1918 à 10 heures’, DAT-SHD, dr. 2, 4n10; ‘Observations sur la note ci-jointe de M. le Général Trenchard’, 8 July 1919, DAA-SHD, dr. 1, 1a181. These and other French criticisms of Britain's emerging strategic bombing doctrine foreshadowed many of the problems encountered by Bomber Command during the Second World War. French scepticism as to the potential returns on the immense cost involved in producing, training, and maintaining a strategic bombing force sufficiently large to be effective mirrored debates over the resources to be provided to Bomber Command and the extent of its successes during the continental offensive of 1942–5. The unenthusiastic French assessment of ‘morale bombing’ was also a harbinger of the bitter debates the controversial head of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, would take part in during his command and then well into retirement. See Williams, Biplanes and bombsights, esp. ch. 6; Biddle, Rhetoric and reality, esp. pp. 57–62, 286–7; R. J. Overy, Why the allies won (London, 1995), pp. 127–33; R. J. Overy, The air war, 1939–1945 (London, 1980), p. 71; Henry Probert, Bomber Harris: his life and times: the biography of marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris, the wartime chief of Bomber Command (London, 2001); Robin Neillands, The bomber war: Arthur Harris and the allied bomber offensive (London, 2001).

46 See, for example, the comments of the cabinet secretary, Sir Maurice Hankey, in his diary, 19 July 1918, Cambridge, Churchill College Archives Centre, Hankey papers, HNKY 1/3. His remarks are partially reproduced (p. 420) in Elizabeth Greenhalgh's important study of the manpower crisis, ‘David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and the 1918 manpower crisis’, The Historical Journal, 50 (2007), pp. 397–421.

47 Lloyd George to Clemenceau, 31 Aug. 1918, DAT-SHD, dr. 1, 6N166; Rouré, ‘Rapport de mission’, 21 June 1918, ibid., dr. 2; Weir to Lloyd George, 17 Sept. 1918, London, Parliamentary Archives, Lloyd George papers, F/47/3/10.

48 Minutes of the second meeting of the War Priorities Committee, 20 Sept. 1917, G.T. 2468, TNA, CAB/24/30; Churchill, ‘Munitions possibilities of 1918’, 21 Oct. 1917, G.T. 2436, ibid.; Lloyd George to Clemenceau, 31 Aug. 1918, DAT-SHD, dr. 1, 6n166; David French, The strategy of the Lloyd George Coalition, 1916–1918 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 84–5, 184–6; Keith Grieves, The politics of manpower, 1914–1918 (Manchester, 1988), pp. 31, 54, 68–9, 108, 155, 172, 196–7.

49 See, for example, Haig to commander in chief, French armies of the north and north-east [Pétain], no. O.A.D. 674, 16 Oct. 1917; Trenchard to Duval, 4 Oct. 1917; Trenchard to Duval, J. S. 2/149, 17 May 1918; Weygand, ‘Directives ayant pour objet d'assurer la coordination des avions anglais et français’, no. 32, 1 Apr. 1918, DAA-SHD, dr. 2/3, 1a181; Derby Diary, 18 Aug. 1918, British Library (BL), Balfour papers, Add. MSS 49743.

50 Jones, The war in the air, appendices volume, appendices viii–xi; Derby Diary, 18 Aug. 1918, BL, Balfour papers, Add. MSS 49743.

51 Williams, Biplanes and bombsights, chs. 5–6.

52 Pétain to Foch, 15 Aug. 1918, and the attached ‘Plan de l'emploi de l'aviation de bombardement destinée à bombarder l'Allemagne’, Aug. 1918, and the attached annex i, ‘Note sur les bombardements de représailles’, DAA-SHD, dr. 1, 1a165; Jones, The war in the air, appendices volume, appendices x–xi. On Trenchard's pursuit of his own bombing plan regardless of Foch see Biddle, Rhetoric and reality, pp. 40–7.

53 Andrew Barros, ‘Razing Babel and constructing peace: France, Britain, and air power, 1915–1928’ (unpublished article); John Ferris, ‘Catching the wave: the RAF pursues a RMA, 1918–1939’, in Talbot C. Imlay and Monica D. Toft, eds., The fog of peace and war planning (London, 2006), pp. 159–78.

54 British Embassy to French Foreign Ministry, no. 647, 20 Aug., 1939, Paris, ministère des affaires étrangères, série SDN, vol. 903; Imlay, Talbot, ‘A reassessment of Anglo-French strategy during the phoney war, 1939–1940’, English Historical Review, 481 (2004), pp. 333–73Google Scholar; Harvey B. Tress, British strategic bombing policy through 1940: politics, attitudes, and the formation of a lasting pattern (Lampeter, 1988); Overy, The air war, pp. 16–18, 26–30, 45–6.

55 See, for example, Legro, Cooperation under fire, ch. 1.

56 Imlay, ‘Total War’, pp. 561–3, 566.