The ability to defeat an enemy in battle seems to be the only common denominator of many of history’s most uncommon military men.
Alexander the Great conquered the known world with modest military forces. Fifteen hundred years later, Genghis Khan’s Mongol hordes swept over Asia and part of Europe. Five centuries later, a diminutive giant conquered Europe. His generals were the products not of learned universities or military schools but instead the sons of poverty, revolution, and war. General Rommel tied the British lion’s tail in square knots during the early phases of the North Africa campaign. Admiral Yamamoto’s pilots stunned the world at Pearl Harbor. Taken at random from 2,300 years of history, these events have as their only evident, common criteria, that of “victory.”
Occasionally, success in war is explained away as the cunning application of mass or maneuver or one of the other “principles of war.” Some victories, however, defy even the most vivid imagination when one is pressed to apply one of these classic principles. Often, too, a selected principle is warped to fit the circumstance. This purposeful distortion enables stodgy proponents of classic tactics and strategy to justify “immutable” tradition.
“Surprise,” they claim, explains the Japanese success at Pearl Harbor. “Mass” or “maneuver,” they will tell you, won the day for Napoleon at Austerlitz. A favorite principle is pulled from the bag of tricks to suit each victory. Or, when the standard units of measure do not quickly or easily fit the circumstance, cliches such as “ . . . bold stroke of genius,” or “brilliant intellect” are offered sagely. Or perhaps, when no principle seems applicable, a shrug of the shoulders, a bewildered throwing up of the hands, and the words c’est la guerre, will be sufficient to terminate the discussion.
Let us examine briefly one principle at random—-“surprise.” Surprise may occur, but it does so only at a given time or place and is blended in the crucible with many other circumstances. But—consider this—“surprise” takes place hours, days, or months after the idea that conceives the operation.
No, the principles of war, or a combination of them, are but minor forces, a touchstone, if you will, for the validity of the idea. The governing power is the original idea and frequently this idea is the creation of the intellect of but one man.
The idea that obtains the victory is a creative product, and as such it is art. Its fulfillment, execution in battle, is only the external expression of the idea. The military leader, who is the generator of this type of creative idea, is an artist in the truest sense and it is on the battlefield that his talents find supreme expression. Consequently, an understanding of art and the intellectual processes and external conditions that lead to the creation of an artistic idea are essential to an understanding of some of the dramatic accomplishments in war.
Reflections on the Art of War
Jomini, a general in Napoleon’s armies, wrote The Art of War. But the signal achievements on the battlefield are not the same “art” as the art discussed by Jomini in his book. Nor is the art in Machiavelli’s book of the same title. Nor are most of the other military books or treatises that borrow the term to lend a tone of erudition to statements about war. Jomini and other authors settle into interminable discussions on a broad spectrum of subjects such as politics, the arrangement of troops on the battlefield, marches, bivouacs, and even the manner in which a saber should be carried. Jomini and his successors are plebian in the application of art to war and have failed to grasp the essence of art in war.
The eminent authority on naval strategy, Rear Admiral Alfred T. Mahan, is the only prominent military personality to shoulder his way intellectually through the figures of history to bequeath us an accurate statement associating art with war.
Science discovers and teaches truths which it has no power to change; art, out of materials which it finds about it, creates new forms in endless variety. It . . . partakes of the freedom of the human mind in which it has its root. Art acknowledges principles and even rules; but these are not so much fetters, or bars, which compel its movement aright, as guides which warn when it is going wrong. In this living sense, the conduct of war is an art, having its spring in the human mind of man, dealing with various circumstances, admitting certain principles; but, beyond that, manifold in its manifestation, according to the genius of the artist and the temper of the materials in which he is dealing.
Art in Its Modern Setting
Art is a term that is variously defined. It is only in comparatively recent years that creative art responsible for artistic masterpieces in painting, invention, science or war has been explained satisfactorily.
Tolstoy struggled for years to define art and from whence and how it springs. In his book, What Is Art, he came to conclusions that clearly set a pattern for subsequent thinking. He associates “creation” with “art,” and asks the question, “what is artistic and scientific creation?” His answer is, “it is such mental activity that brings dimly perceived feelings or thoughts to such a degree of clearness that these feelings or thoughts are transmitted to other people.” He continues, “a really artistic production cannot be made to order, for a true work of art is a revelation. ...”
A modern school defines two types of creativity, which, for convenience, let us call Types “A” and “B.”
Type A Creativity. This creativity is primarily deductive—creativeness by direct frontal assault. It consists of marshaling the widest possible array of facts or ideas and then carefully searching for heretofore unrecognized relationships between them. This, his contemporaries tell us, was the method used by Thomas Edison, for example, in his inventions; and by Albert Einstein in the development of his theoretical ideas.
The commander’s “estimate” for instance, is an attempt to standardize creativity of this type into a pattern to insure inclusion of all elements of the situation so that a “best” decision ensues. Military staffs follow similar procedures; frequently their work is unimpressive and drudging. It typifies the mass of creative activity in the military. In the history of warfare, it has won some battles and wars, but it is not the kind that wins the most inspiring successes.
Type B Creativity. With this type, it is much more common for a new idea to rise almost spontaneously in the mind, often seemingly out of nothing. It is a type which is most commonly associated with the best of artistic achievement and is illustrated by examples taken from Hutchinson’s book, How to Think Creatively.
One day in Rome, Gibbon, according to his autobiography, sat musing on the ruins of the Capitol. Robed, barefoot friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter. Suddenly, . . . like a burst of light, the inspiration for a monumental work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, came to him—its outline vague, its content as yet unforeseen. But there it was, a central, expansive idea, a keynote or motif that was to grow and gather accretions of material to itself until it was finished some seven years later.
A University of Chicago research engineer, speaking of a problem that had vexed him for some time, gives this account:
In a flash, I visualized a drawing of the proper design of the apparatus, immediately drew out a notebook, and without consciousness of my surroundings, wrote down the answer. I knew it was right. I felt much relieved about this major issue, and told my friends at once about it.
Dr. Rosanoff, a long associate of Edison, recorded his own experience:
Then it came like a flash of lightning—not the Edison way (i.e., by the progressive elimination of numerous hypotheses). . . . And suddenly through headache and daze, I saw the solution! ... A positive solution to my despicable problem!
Of the two types of creative activity, Sir James Irvine notes:
I can divide my ideas for scientific research into two groups. The best ideas are what I may call inspired (or insightful). Then come ideas which are logically and mathematically evolved. These give rise to sound scholarly productions which cannot be compared in quality with those which are inspired. These latter appear at odd times and in unpredictable ways.
Creativity B is not uncommon. Referring to this type of creativity, Harold Anderson makes this observation in his Creativity and Its Cultivation:
It has been found among all sorts of men and women who have been faced with the need—sometimes a consuming, passionate desire to gain a new insight into truth or beauty, to solve a problem in science, to bring to life a painting out of pigment, oil, and canvas, or to set a poem down in words.
The Sources of Artistic Creativity
Most people are creative at one time or another. But what are the reasons for the variation in creative activity in an individual during his lifetime, or between individuals?
Man grows up in a specific cultural environment. He becomes accustomed to standards of that culture, socially and intellectually. His thinking, his activities, his achievements conform to that culture because he is conditioned by it and by what it, in turn, expects of him. The culture metes out rewards and punishments as that man conforms or fails to conform to established standards.
Frequently man rejects those unusual thoughts or actions which, even though they may be potentially good or valuable in themselves, conflict with expected patterns of thought or action in the society in which he lives. He buries these “different” thoughts deeply under the layer of psychological defenses with which he protects himself. Though he frequently encounters new, mysterious, unknown or intellectually puzzling experiences, he shuns them because he fears deviation and possible risk to his standing in society. An infant is purely creative. However, through the pleasure and pain he experiences in the family or in society as they try to make him into an acceptable member cast in the mold of the majority of its members, the infant in the process of growth changes into a conforming passive adult. The exceptional individual who can remain free of these inhibiting elements or otherwise learn to live with them, but function freely, becomes the inventor, the artist, and the creative scientist.
Characteristic among individuals who are more creative than the average, is a desire to grow, a capacity to be puzzled, an awareness, a spontaneous flexibility, divergent thinking, receptivity and openness to new experiences, a yielding personality, the ability to let go, an emotional maturity, a willingness to be alone.
We must not be misled into thinking that high intellectual ability, or prolonged education alone are sufficient to provide the media through which the mind is stimulated to a greater creative activity, or to an enrichment of the creative product. Schooling itself does not stimulate creativity. It extends and deepens knowledge. It can extend the techniques the artist may utilize as an artisan in the application of the idea to the canvas or the total information within which the subconscious nurtures a creative thought. It can produce superior artisans or technicians, but it can never produce artists.
History emphatically illustrates this point. Few of Napoleon’s generals were broadly educated in formal schools. They had no military schooling at postgraduate levels. They did win their doctorates in combat, however. Napoleon, in 1808, at the apogee of his power, founded the famous military school of St. Cyr. After the Napoleonic wars, Jomini, and a host of other French generals, sponsored intensified programs of schooling for future generals of France. Since then, despite added emphasis on schooling, France has suffered several catastrophic defeats and has never won a major war unaided.
It is generally recognized that a person who is inspired to do anything creative experiences a creative urge only when he is immersed deeply in his subject. This immersion may not be of long duration. The creative urge can result from a temporary association, but one that is extremely intense. Providing other characteristics exist in which creativity thrives, creative impulses will increase in variety and richness of quality as knowledge and experience are nourished by continued education.
Artists and Art in War
Surveying the history of warfare, one is aware of certain towering military achievements. Many of these are masterpieces of art that bear the stamp of the personality of a great artist. The artist’s work, the environment in which it occurred, and his background and activities meet the criteria established for creative art in any medium.
Alexander the Great was an early military artist. He inherited the freedom won by his father, Philip of Macedon, Conqueror of Greece. There were few social standards he needed to heed, few kingdoms of stature against which to compare his conduct or actions except that of Darius of Persia. Alexander inherited power—that of a consolidated Greece. Philip prepared him for leadership. Aristotle and other Greek philosophers educated Alexander. There are few commanders in history to whom circumstances have been so kind. There are few leaders that destiny prepared so admirably to harvest circumstance so well.
Alexander dreamed conquest. When he defeated Darius he virtually achieved optimum mental and physical freedom. His conquests are legend. His achievements unparalleled. Death alone circumscribed the artist.
Art explains Napoleon’s sweeping successes as well as his ultimate defeat. Napoleon broke into Europe riding the flood- tide of revolutionary thought and action. A man of boundless imagination, he remained relatively unhampered; operating in alien territory, he directed his early campaigns without consulting anyone, insistent that he alone be the master of his actions. He conceived the idea of “mass” at the critical point. It reaped many victories, but his agile mind created other winning combinations as the need required.
It took 15 years for his opponents to shrug tradition, stodgy thinking, and outmoded patterns of war and understand Napoleon’s art and then move abreast of it. In these 15 years, Napoleon had exhausted his creative talent to evolve a military machine and a political structure to support it. He succumbed, less the victim of superior forces than of a circumscribing social, political, and military situations within which he could no longer create anything new. His creative spirit ebbed and he fell.
Once Rommel ruptured the British lines in Africa he had the whole of Northern Africa open to him. There were no intellectual boundaries, so to speak, to hamper his inspirations, or his inspired combinations. He was completely free from hamstringing authority, disregarding orders from Hitler, himself. Rommel in Africa, in an ideal intellectual and physical environment for the military art, created it at its best. Rommel in Normandy, under the gaze of Hitler and Von Runstedt was a failure.
Montgomery again exhibited much the same creativeness when he in turn broke out from the German positions at Alamein and then romped in creative capers sewing Rommel’s lines to the seacoast. Still, Montgomery in North Africa is not the same Montgomery as in Northern France, when he was hampered by physical proximity to and close supervision by SHAPE.
Patton struggled hard against circumscription. He is noted for violating tradition, norms, and the expected. He feared no one. His performance is a testimonial of first importance to creative art in war.
The sea is a more fertile medium in which art may flower. By contrast to the ground commander, who during peacetime must function on land masses under the sway of the social, political, and military restrictions imposed by the nations he serves, the naval commander is more fortunate. In peace or war, art is the constant companion of the naval commander. Once he departs from national shorelines, he is alone on a boundless and boundaryless waste of sea that imposes no restriction to his movement.
Alone, he is in constant mortal contest with the elements whose unpredictability can be more intangible and dangerous than the future intent of a human enemy. Frequent decisions constantly hone sharp the razor of his intellect. Ponderous staffs on shipboard are not his. His ideas must come quickly and frequently and he must be prepared to seize those that are intuitive or inspirational in nature. Creative art and its practice in peacetime place him at the threshold well prepared to expand its application in war.
The exploits of the Tirante and the Parche, to name but two of the submarines with heroic records, categorize their commanders, Street and Ramage, as unsurpassed artists, and their creations of such unusual dimensions categorize these officers as geniuses.
The rapier thrusts of destroyers and destroyer fleets reached equal pinnacles of achievement, their high success, among other factors, the result of the freedom and initiative accorded to their commanders. Admiral Arleigh Burke in a recorded statement made after the Battle of Empress Augustus Bay emphasizes this point.
Probably there has been no man placed in the responsible position of Task Force Commander who does not desire to hold a check-rein. He knows that the subordinates have neither the knowledge nor information that is available in the Flagship. Yet past action in this and other wars indicates that successful actions result from the initiative of well indoctrinated subordinates.
Admiral Burke’s personal achievements mark him as a great creative artist. He was at his best when operating under policies that afforded him maximum freedom. It is worth citing his wartime recollections of his commander, Admiral Halsey, which indicate the environment within which Admiral Burke as a destroyer squadron commander worked.
Our orders were very elastic as Admiral Halsey’s orders usually were. They were good. They gave us leeway to do what was necessary and yet gave us enough information so that we knew everything that we had to know. We were not tied down by specific things except to attack.
War provides the commander with an ideal environment for the production of art and creative activity. Especially is this true when a military breakthrough takes place. Then the attacker is in new and uncharted areas. He is free to create from the vast wealth of objects about him, many of which have been newly added. In addition the attacker, when inside the limits of his enemies’ operational zone is not inhibited by the moral aspects of the death and destruction he must wield. The defender is, by comparison, hampered with the burdensome social and cultural circumstances of his own country which impose upon his creative urges a moral reluctance to destroy what is around him in order to create a victory-winning idea.
The existence of a free creative environment may explain better than any other factor so far presented in the annals of military writing the advantages of the attack, the rupture into enemy territory, and the pursuit over any sort of defensive theory. In the war on land, it strongly supports the open warfare theory of our military versus the trench warfare, stabilized warfare, or fortified position warfare of the past.
The Highest Art
There is “art” in war. It is in the frequently inspirational or intuitive idea of the great captain. Most great captains deserve to be called great artists. Their creative ideas painted on the canvas of the battlefield are masterpieces in the galleries of war.
Art in war by comparison with art in other fields of mankind’s endeavors, represents some of the highest inspirational and creative intellectual achievements known to man. A military artist must of necessity create from a pool of resources vaster and richer than those available to artists in other fields.
Broad education, long military experience, maturation in war—all these will aid commanders in solving the average, severely mundane day-to-day activities which confront him. But when the situation becomes fluid, when forces operate in alien territory, when the fog of war casts a shroud, when time is at stake, and when a commander stands awesomely alone, then he must recognize his inspirations as art, weight them with logic, and use them decisively. If he seizes them promptly, if he implements them courageously in accordance with the message they transmit, then he will be an artist in the finest sense, and his work will take on the stature of a Rembrandt in military annals.