B. H. LIDDELL HART

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 85, 7 February 1941, Page 3

B. H. LIDDELL HART

Britain's Caustic Military Historian

TANDING aside from the battle, but talking as fast as any ringside radio commentator, is Captain Basil Liddell Hart, a tall, lank, freelance writer on military affairs. For ten years le was military correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, then went to The Times. Now a prolifi- freelance, he is more active than ever. He has produced five war histories, six fighting biographies, eight treatises on military science, and a handful of General Staff manuals — plus translations of military writings from French, Russian, German, Italian, Arabic and 16 other languages. "The Defence of Britain" (1939), was the book which brought him right into the public eye. A bigger job than this, however, was collaborating with Mr. Hore-Belisha in the 1937-38 re-organisation of the Army. Of his programme, 62 reforms have been adopted. Famous for his wisecracks, Captain Liddell Hart coined the epigram: "The highest freedom is freedom from prejudice." He should know, for such remarks as "there has been too much wishful thinking in our foreign policy" aroused plenty of prejudice against him in high places. With so many books to his name. Liddell Hart could hardly escape forecasting successfully many of the tactical techniques used in this war. Between 1919 and 1937, he made a string of suggestions for the British Army. Here is how some of them have worked out: "That a skilful opponent will choose a line that threatens alternative objectives. And mechanised mobility will give such an opponent the power to mask his direction much longer than before, and to make a last-hour swerve’"-written in September, 1930, The answer: Threatening Holland and France, the Germans kept the Allies guessing about their objective. When they pierced the Sedan section, their advance threatened Paris or the Channel ports, then swerved aside from the capital when only a score of miles away. He also wrote: "A masked attack, under cover of darkness or fog, natural or artificial, has potentialities that have scarcely been tapped-artificial fog would have special promise as a cloak for armoured fighting vehicles."--November 1935. Recent history records that darkness covered the German attack which pierced the Allied line south of the Somme. An artificial fog covered subsequent assaults. He also wrote: "We ought not to overlook the possibility that, if the French were led to advance, either into Belgium or the Saar, the Germans would launch a flank counterstroke through Belgian Luxembourg with their mechanised divisions."--May, 1936. Four years later, this prophecy was fatally fulfilled. Modern war marches so fast that even Liddell Hart cannot always keep up. For

instance, in his last book "Dynamic Defence," he makes no mention of the guarantee which Britain gave to Greece in April, 1939, and which now gives this country real strategic advantages in the Eastern Mediterranean. He misses the boat again when he says: "Twelve months’ experience of the war at sea has seen the enemy’s offensive against our shipping curbed to an extent which is much beyond what might reasonably have been calculated." Actually, September saw British shipping losses reach the second highest peak in this war, although they have since been substantially lowered. The first need in the second year of war is the defence of Britain and the arteries of Empire — especially in the Mediterranean. "This is an opportunity for reviving the historic British way in warfare in a modern form," Captain Hart proclaims. "Ever since Crecy and Agincourt, Britain has always relied on superiority in quality." The defeat of the Armada was a supreme example. Churchill knew the R.A.F.’s fighters had proved it again when he said: "Never was so much owed by so many to so few." Here is Liddell Hart’s recipe for the revival: NAVY; "There is obvious need for the greatest possible expansion of flotilla-craft, especially high-speed motor torpedo boats."

AIR: "Heightened concentration of effort in the production of both fighters and anti-aircraft weapons," and "more flexible liaison arrangements between air and ground forces," ARMY: "Utmost effort to make our forces more mobile, together with the quickest possible expansion of our armoured forces," the main difficulty being to persuade senior 3. m.p.h. officers "to adapt themselves and their habits of thought to the pace of 30 m.p.h. forces."