Air University Review, September-October 1981

Fuller On "Generalship"

Like Sir Basil H. Liddell Hart, Major General J. F. C. Fuller was both articulate and intelligent, two qualities that did not endear him to the British military hierarchy between World War I and World War II. Indeed to one of the British Army chiefs of the period (with the unlikely name of General Sir Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd, Fuller’s ideas represented a "lack of loyalty" which was a "far more important quality for a soldier to possess" than "brains."1 In 1932, one year before he was placed on the retired list, Fuller published a book called Generalship—Its Diseases and Their Cure. In this book he drew on his knowledge of World War I to argue that, in that war for the first time in British military history, something went terribly wrong with the quality of leadership of the senior officers.

"Sometime before the outbreak of the World War," Fuller wrote, "the art of soldiership slipped into a groove and became materialized . . .the more management or command became methodized, the more dehumanized each grew." Before World War I, the ordinary soldier had seen generals in the thick of the action, but by 1914

he saw them no longer; now and again, perhaps, he heard of them far away, as managing directors sitting in dug-outs, in chateaux, and in offices. Frequently he did not know their names. To him they were no more than ghosts who could terrify but who seldom materialized; hence battles degenerated into subaltern (i.e., lieutenant) led conflicts just as manufacturing had degenerated into foreman controlled work . . . the man was left without a master—the general in flesh and blood.

Fuller concluded that "a sense of equality of sacrifice is an essential cement in a fighting force" and that the "most rapid way to shell-shock an army is to shell-proof its generals." He noted that only one British Army corps was consistently led into action by its general: the British Tank Corps (at Cambrai in November 1917 and after). Fuller pointed out that this unusual corps was "commanded and staffed by young men, for on the HQ staff the oldest was under 40."

Emphasizing John Ruskin’s words that "if war is bereft of the personal factor in command, it cannot but degenerate into a soulless conflict in which the worst and not the best in man will emerge," Fuller argued that the true general "is not a mere prompter in the wings of the stage of war but a participant in its mighty drama, the value of whose art cannot be tested ‘unless there is a clear possibility of the struggle ending in death.’"2 Fuller concluded that there are "three pillars of generalship: courage, creative intelligence, and physical fitness; the attributes of youth rather than of middle age."

Citing leadership examples from British history ("with us moral leadership was once a marked characteristic of our generalship") and the American Civil War ("the last of the great conflicts to be waged before impersonal command was reduced to a science"), Fuller insisted that World War I generals were not cowards; rather an " . . . amazing unconscious change. . . rose out of the Franco-Prussian War and obliterated true generalship, de-humanizing and de-spiritualizing the general until he was turned into an office soldier, a telephone operator, a dug-out dweller, a mechanical presser of buttons. . . as if armies were a . . . soulless machine."

Fuller then diagnosed the disease:

In war it is almost impossible to exaggerate the evil effects of age upon generalship, and through generalship, on the spirit of an army . . . . First, war is obviously a young man’s occupation; secondly, the older a man grows the more cautious he becomes, and thirdly, the more fixed his ideas . . . .Youth, in every way, is not only more elastic than old age, but less cautious and far more energetic.

As a remedy, Fuller suggested that we should differentiate very firmly between peace and war conditions. We should have " a most carefully selected roster of officers between the ages of 35 and 45, officers who have shown high powers of command, and . . . irrespective of what their rank may be on the declaration of war, the whole of the combatant commanders be selected from it; the older men. . . to the reserve list." He continued "A man is intellectually at his best between the ages of 35 and 45"; after that "a man’s opinions become set, imagination dwindles and ambition recedes."

Fuller concluded by saying, "In war, as in peace, individuality is far more important than uniformity; personality than congruity, and originality than conventionality. . . . The old are often suspicious of the young and do not welcome criticism, yet without criticism both destructive and constructive, there can be no progress."

Finally, in an appendix to his book, Fuller analyzed the ages of 100 generals from Xenophon in 401 B.C. to Moltke in 1866. The average age was 40, and 74 percent were 45 years old or younger. "The period of most efficient generalship lies between 30 and 49 and the peak is reached between 35 and 45." The British Arms generals’ average age was 59.9 between 1914 and 1932.

One recent commentary suggested that "Fuller’s real talent was in making, not breaking, important enemies."3 As a result, perhaps, Generalship—Its Diseases and Their Cure has been out of print since 1936.4 The interested reader, however, will find that many of Fuller’s ideas have stood the test of time.

1. See Major Ray L. Bowers as quoted in "The Peril of Misplaced Loyalties," Air University Review, May-June 1966, p. 94.

2. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, vol. 1, l908, p. 20.

3. John Keegan and Andrew Wheatcroft, Who’s Who in Military History, 1976, p. 132.

4. Air University’s Fairchild Library has a copy of Fuller’s book.

Contributor

Wing Commander Nigel B. Baldwin, Royal Air Force, is RAF Adviser to the Commandant and a faculty instructor, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He has flown the Vulcan throughout his career and served as officer commanding No. 50 Squadron, RAF Waddington. Wing Commander Baldwin is a graduate of Royal Air Force College, Cranwell, RAF Advanced Staff College, Bracknell, and a Distinguished Graduate of USAF Air War College. He is a previous contributor to the Review.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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