"Fire and Manoeuvre: A Warning from History" Topic

"Balancing fire and manoeuvre is a current concern in Professional Military Education circles. There are those who see value in studying past conflict, and those who see little value. This short piece assumes the former, and will use the oft-neglected Franco-Prussian War (FPW) of 1870-1871 to illustrate a few seminal truths regarding fire and manoeuvre. This particular conflict has been selected because it sits at a point in history where, for the first time, new technology allowed armies the opportunity to engage in fire and manoeuvre, rather than simply making a choice between fire or manoeuvre. The following debate will highlight points of interest, rather than ‘lessons', for although military history is a valuable source, it cannot ever be directly translated onto a modern battlefield without contextualisation.

The first point of interest from the FPW, is the use of modern technology for manoeuvre. The Prussian staff system (itself a revolution in military thinking and perhaps the first true modern military ‘system') made use of railways on a massive scale to mobilise huge numbers of men, horses and equipment; transporting them en masse across vast distances, in time-frames that were, for the time, dizzying. From the outset, this ability to conduct rapid strategic manoeuvre wrong-footed the French and gave the Prussians early advantages….."
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