Failure to Follow Through

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   There are a number of cases in history where a military operation provided a complete or partial success but, for various reasons, it was not followed through as it could have been to a completion which justified the whole effort.  The reasons for failure to “Follow through” seemed sound at the time but later were often regretted.  When they involved cost it sometimes transpired that it would have been cheaper to have persevered in the operation to a clear conclusion than to abandon it incomplete.  Sometimes the operation has been handed over to an ally to finish and that turns out to have been relying on hope rather than competence.

   Examples are presented here which have ranged over time from 83 AD to 2002.

The Conquest of Caledonia by Agricola, 83 AD

   Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Governor (Legatus Pro Consule) of Britannia at the age of 37 by the Emperor Vespasian (69-79), and held the post under his son Titus (79-81) and then his younger son Domitian (81-96).  He had served in Britannia before as a Tribune (in 61, during Boudicca’s revolt) and Legate of Legio XX (in 71) so knew the country well.

   Agricola’s army consisted of 4 Legions (II Augusta, II Adiutrix, IX and his old command XX) plus Auxiliaries to the same number, about 40,000 men.  He had a fleet available for his campaigns in Scotland (Caledonia) in 82 AD.

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Failure to “Follow Through”

   The achievements of Agricola were recorded by his son-in-law, Publius Cornelius Tacitus, in 97 AD.  He made the wry remark about the post-Agrippa situation that Britain was:-

                            “…completely conquered and then allowed to slip” (Ref. 2).

   The first sign of this was that the Inchtuthil fortress was abandoned about 86 AD, incomplete.

   Clearly, Tacitus believed that what his father-in-law had conquered should have been held.  Some of the forts may have been garrisoned for the next couple of decades.  Tacitus did not live to see point given to his disillusioned remark when Hadrian (Emperor 117-138 AD) ordered in 122 the construction of a 73 miles long wall with integral forts from the Solway Firth to the Tyne, 100 miles South of Inchtuthil.  His successor, Antonius Pius (138-161) did advance beyond this and have another wall and forts built from 142 across the39 miles Clyde – Forth neck, following one stage of Agricola’s advance*¹.  This, too, was abandoned in 162 AD and the garrisons returned to Hadrian’s wall for the next 2 ½ centuries.  The attempt to hold a significant area of Caledonia was given up.

*1.  A personal note.  As a boy of 8 in 1940 the author lived in a house at Bearsden on the Roman road which ran behind Antonine’s wall.  On the other side of the road he played in the shallow ditch which was the vestigial remnant of that which had defended the wall.  Dug into the side of this depression was an Anderson shelter to protect the householder’s family from another kind of barbarian.

Reasons for not “Following Through”

   Did Domitian do a “Cost-Benefit” exercise to conclude that Agricola’s gains were not worth holding?  The land in the West of the Highlands was entirely suitable for arable farming, as history has shown.  Perhaps what was more significant was that troops were needed from Britannia to help repel a Dacian invasion of a province South of the R. Danube (Moesia, an area roughly occupied by Serbia today).  Legio II Adiutrix was ordered from Chester and Legio XX, which was building Inchtuthil, had to return South to take its place (indicating that holding Wales was considered more important than holding Caledonia).

References

1. Roman Conquest of Britain 43-84 www.wikimediacommons
2. Tacitus on Britain and Germany  Trans H. Mattingly  Penguin  1948.

McClellan’s amphibious attack on Richmond, 1862

   In January 1862 the hostilities between the United States Federal Government and the Confederate States which had seceded from the Union and started those hostilities had lasted 9 months.  The ruling desire of the former was to capture the capital of the latter at Richmond in Virginia, 109 miles South of the Federal capital of Washington.  A direct advance with that aim had failed in July 1861 at the battle of Bull Run, 27 miles South-West of Washington.  Since then the “rebels” (as they were described by the Federals) had entrenched (what was thought to be) a very strong position there at Manassas.

   Soon after Bull Run US President Abraham Lincoln (AL) appointed George B. McClellan (McC) as a Major General to lead an Army of the Potomac formed from troops responding to an AL appeal. 

McC spent 6 months training his men.  By January 1862 he was ready with a plan for winning the war.  This was to out-flank the Manassas position with an amphibious attack on the Atlantic coast as near to Richmond as possible and advance inland to that place. 

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AL objected that the enemy could march South to intercept this thrust more quickly than it could be mounted but, after McC promised to leave enough men to cover the (by now heavily-fortified) Federal capital, he accepted McC’s proposal.

   As refined McC planned to land his expedition near Fort Monroe on the Eastern tip of the Peninsula between the York and James Rivers (see Fig. 2 on P.4, from Ref. 3 (linked) which describes the details of the Peninsula campaign).  This well-garrisoned fort was then, and remained throughout the war, in Union hands.  It ensured McC of an un-opposed landing. 

   The move began from Alexandria, a few miles down the R. Potomac from Washington, on 17^th March 1862.  The force was huge, 121,500 men with 44 batteries of guns and all the ancillary equipment and supplies required.  It took 3 weeks to re-assemble it on the Peninsula.  McC was a very slow mover and a profound pessimist who continually exaggerated the strength of the opposition.  In this he was badly served by his intelligence sources.  The Confederates made good use of his characteristics to delay his advance up the Peninsula towards Richmond but, nevertheless, his army was within 5 miles of the rebel capital by 31st May 1862.  The rebel commander, Johnston had, as AL expected, brought his army down to interpose there.  On that day he held the Federals there in a drawn battle, was himself wounded and was replaced by General Robert E. Lee (RL)*² . 

*2.  Lee had passed out of the military academy of West Point with the 2^nd highest marks of all time (98.3%) (the cadet who beat him in the class of 1829 with 99.8%, Charles Mason, became a senior judge.  The 3^rd highest score of all time was Douglas MacArthur with 98.1% in 1903).

 Lee commanded the Marine detachment which captured the slavery abolionist, John Brown after the 1859 raid on the Federal armoury in Harper’s Ferry.

  He was offered the command of the US army in 1861 but refused to fight against his native Virginia.

  RL commenced on 25^th June the “Seven Days of Battles” which, at the expense of higher losses than suffered by the Federals, drove them back to Harrison’s Landing on the James, 20 miles from Richmond, where they were under the protection of Union gunboats.  Ref.4 (linked) describes the details.  Poor execution of badly-co-ordinated orders and inexplicable lethargy on the part of “Stonewall” Jackson saved the Union forces.  The last battle, an ill-advised frontal assault on the 150 feet high Malvern Hill where Union cannon stood in serried ranks, actually gave the Feds. a final victory.  However, the critical damage had been to McC’s nerves.  He was a beaten man.  His soldiers, if called on for an advance on 26^th July, would probably have been able to push forward to Richmond but the order never came

   When McC’s report, with its usual untrue complaint about being out-numbered, reached Washington, he was ordered on 4^th August to evacuate.  The North had “Failed to Follow Through”.

   RL’s costly attacks had saved the Confederate capital and it would be only after another two years of bloody fighting that Richmond would see the Federals at the gates again.  This time it would be with a commander (Ulysses S. Grant) who had taken the direct route and never failed to “Follow Through”.

References

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peninsula_campaign
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_Battles

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        Fig.2

Jutland;  31 May/1 June 1916

“Submit that the van of the battleships follow me;  we can then cut off the enemy’s fleet”.

Vice Admiral Beatty sent this signal to his Commander-in-Chief Admiral Jellicoe at 7.47 PM on the 31^st May 1916 (Ref. 5) (it was relayed through a cruiser because Beatty’s flagship Lion had her wireless aerials shot away).  He had the German battlecruisers in sight and engaged them.

   Ref. 5 continues:-  “A quarter of an hour was allowed to pass after Jellicoe received Beatty’s signal before he sent the necessary order – and that in no urgent terms – to the 2^nd Battle Squadron”.  This Squadron, commanded by Vice Admiral Jerram, was leading the Grand Fleet.  Jerram “…did not increase his speed…did not ask [the signal relaying cruiser] for the Lion’s position.  He merely held on his course…”.  Unsupported, Beatty did some more damage to Hipper’s ships before they turned away to the west into the gathering gloom – away from a safe course home.

   This slow action by Jellicoe and inaction by Jerram and the subsequent judgement by Jellicoe regarding which course the enemy would take to return to port (as described in Contribution No. 8) definitely constitute a “Failure to Follow Through”.  It would have been unwise to let the battlecruisers shadow the Hochseeflotte through the night, because the German torpedo boats had some missiles left, were trained to attack in the dark, and were painted black for the purpose.  Jellicoe could have used his 28 knot light cruisers for that duty. He did not.

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  In Ref.6 (linked), written in 1932, Jellicoe admitted “I should have ordered the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron to search for the enemy when I turned to SW. at 7.42 p.m”.

   Uncorrected by factual reconnaissance reports on the German course his guess was faulty and the Hochseeflotte escaped annihilation.

   Beatty was bitter at Jerram’s inaction.  The day after he inherited the Grand Fleet from Jellicoe on 28^th November 1916 he sacked him.

Addendum

   Some extra points about the battle of Jutland.

• The 4 ships of the Queen Elizabeth class did not achieve the 25 knots intended in their design and appeared to produce only about 23 at Jutland.  The questions of Hull and Boiler cleanliness come into this.  It is probable that the Germans, preparing for a sortie at their “Selected Moment”, would have ensured that ships were fully worked-up.  British ships would be at their “Average Moment”.

   Jellicoe in his Despatch (Ref. 7, linked) used this apparent lack of superior speed in effect to excuse his non-use of the ships independently – completely ignoring the value of their 15’’ guns and 13’’ armour!  This was typical incurable Jellicoe pessimism (of which many examples are given in Refs. 5 and 11).

   When Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty in October 1911, one of the early questions was whether to build the “QEs”.  He had backed their 33% greater expense and the costly need to create a supply and reserve of oil fuel in a coal-rich country at the risk of his career (Ref 11).  It must have been a bitter thing to learn of their waste, when they could have held up the Hochseeflotte to battle.

   Churchill in 1914 had to be ready to resign to get the Naval Estimates for that year past the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd George.  With the previous two years this had provided a mass of vessels for which the Jutland battle was such a poor return.

• The improvement of gun accuracy from the adoption of Director control just before WW1 actually increased the danger to the British ships.  This was because the range at which a successful number of hits could be scored was increased.  Ref.8 (linked) includes the following-_

“When Winston Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty he directed that a head-to-head trial should be arranged between Thunderer and another similar ship*³ not fitted with the director apparatus. After delays and obfuscation the trials eventually took place in November 1912. The result was that at a range of 9,000 yards Thunderer was found to have scored six times as many hits as HMS Orion. At the time, Orion was considered to be the best shooting ship in the navy.^[

*3. Identical 1912 13.5’’ Super-Dreadnoughts.

   Battle range therefore could be and was increased and was of the order of half as great again at Jutland.  The shell fall angle thereby increased above that which had been assumed in the design of the armour.  The effective thickness of the plate was reduced (see Fig. 3 on P.6).

Continued on P.6.

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In this diagram:-

   Armour plate thickness  =  t;  Angle of armour above horizontal  =  A;  Shell fall angle  =  B.

The effective thickness of the armour  et  is given by:-

                                                                        et/t  =  1/Sine(A + B)

   Ideally the ballistic figures for the German 305 mm (12.008’’) gun should be used to illustrate the effect on armour penetration but, as these are not available, the fall angle figures for the British 13.5’’ Mark V have been used (Ref.9, linked):-

              Range yards       A deg.   B deg.   et/t       et with t = 3’’     German 12’’ penetration

              10,000                 10*⁴       7            3.42       10.3’’                  

              15,000                 10          14          2.46       7.4’’   28% less                9.5’’*⁵ (Ref. 12, linked)

*4.  The angle of the turret rooves in Lion and Princess Mary, designed to permit the guns to be fired at negative elevation.  Note that this degrades the armour protection.

*5.  Possibly reduced by a “Skid Factor” because of a shell striking an inclined surface.

      British shell penetration definitely suffered degradation from the doubled fall angle, after they had been designed, tested and manufactured. 

• After 8 minutes action Beatty’s flagship Lion was hit on her Q turret by a 12’’ German shell which knocked out both guns, killed most of the immediate crew, started a fire and mortally wounded the turret commander, Major Harvey RM.  Despite his wounds he was able to give the order down the voice tube to the men in the lower chambers:-

“Close magazine doors and flood magazines” (Ref. 1).

His orders were obeyed and when a further flare-up of the fire occurred, despite the ignition of charges still in the turret and working chambers, the flash did not detonate the magazine and the ship was saved.  Major Harvey was awarded a posthumous VC.

   The critical point about the way that Beatty’s ships were handled, with his wish after the Dogger Bank action– if not written order – that rate of fire was to take precedence over the rules to prevent a build-up of charges in the turret and associated chambers – was the first part of the order “Close Magazine doors…” Those doors should already have been shut except for the actual passing of ammunition at the firing rate.

   When Major Harvey’s VC was Gazetted the citation noted that he “   ordered the magazine to be flooded…” but omitted the first part of his order.  Attention was thereby not drawn to the fail- catastrophic operational situation.  Of course, he and other turret commanders were simply carrying out the Battle Cruiser Fleet commander’s known desire.

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Fig. 4

• At Jutland the British ships were under the command of men who did not have balanced judgements. The choices had been made by higher personalities and this led to a pessimist commanding the Grand Fleet and an optimist in charge of the battlecruisers.  Fisher, who was notorious for his favourites, had selected Jellicoe.  Churchill effectively selected Beatty when he saved his career before the war (after he had turned down a senior post and would not have been offered another one before retirement).

   Churchill consequently thought that Beatty was a friend and this showed in a softer line towards him in his 1927 review of the battle compared with that taken regarding Jellicoe.  What Churchill did not know then was that Beatty, on Churchill’s forced retirement from the Admiralty in 1915, had written to his wife:-

 ”…the Navy breathes freer now it is rid of the succubus Churchill”(Ref.10).

   A year later when the 4 “QEs”, which he had left behind, came to his rescue in the “Run to the South” at Jutland did he have the grace to regret that ridiculous insult?

References

5. The World Crisis, 1911-1918 Vol. III  W. Churchill  Odhams edition  1949
6. https://www.google.com/search?q=errors+made+in+jutland+battle&oq=errors+made+in+jutland+battle&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l4.20015j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
7. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Jellicoe%27s_Despatch_of_the_Battle_of_Jutland
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Scott

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9. http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_135-45_mk5.php
10. The Great War at Sea, 1914-1918  R. Hough  Oxford  1983.
11. The World Crisis, 1911-1918 Vol. I  W. Churchill  Odhams edition  1949.
12. https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/30.5_cm_SK_L/50_gun

Halting the African campaign in January 1941

   General Wavell’s campaign to clear the Italians out of Egypt and most of Libya had captured Benghazi by 7^th January 1941 and advanced forces had reached the Agheila gap, 471 miles from Tripoli, with nothing to stop them.  A further push could have freed the whole North African coast.

   Contribution No. 9 at B3 describes how there was then a “Failure to Follow-Through”.

   By then events in the Balkans were such that a halt was called by Churchill to the North African campaign so that British Empire forces could be sent to Greece, which was threatened with a German invasion. That country had been given a “knee-jerk” guarantee by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on 13th April 1939 after Mussolini invaded Albania on 7th April 1939. Churchill wished to honour it and try to build up a Balkan Front of Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey.

   Accordingly a somewhat rough order was sent to Wavell:-

10 January 1941  Churchill tells Wavell    “You must now [therefore] conform your plans to larger interests at stake.  Nothing must hamper capture of Tobruk but thereafter all operations in Libya are subordinated to aiding Greece”. We expect and require prompt and active compliance with our decisions for which we bear full responsibility”*⁶ .

*6.  Theoretically it would have been possible to avoid sending British and Commonwealth troops to aid Greece because that country did not fufill military conditions agreed at a preliminary meeting on 24th February 1941.  The Greek troops on the Macedonian frontier with Bulgaria were to be withdrawn from that exposed position to the more defensible Aliakmon line (see Fig 5)  They were also to be withdrawn from facing Italians in Albania.  At a further meeting to discuss details on 2nd March it was then discovered that neither of these moves had had been made.  Nevertheless, the expeditionary force sailed on the 4th March.

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Japanese naval Failures to Follow-Through

   The 5 occasions when Japanese Admirals “Failed to Follow-Through” have been described already in Contribution No.4.  Please see that for details, mostly from Ref. 13.  The occasions are listed below.  The USN was fortunate that this was a trait for unknown reasons, although some are speculated.

1. Nagumo near Pearl Harbor on 7th December 1941 (p.153)
2.  Inouye after the Battle of the Coral Sea (p.261)
3.  Mikawa’s withdrawal after the Battle of Savo Island (p.312)
4.  Abe’s withdrawal after the 1^st Battle of Guadalcanal (p.342)
5. Kurita’s withdrawal from near Leyte Gulf on 25^th October 1944.(p.448)

Fig. 6.     IJN Yamato, Kurita’s second flagship

Reference

13. The Pacific War  J. Costello  Pan edition  1984.

Expulsion of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, February 1991

   Contribution No.9 at A4 describes the Kuwaiti campaign:-

   A US-led multi nation coalition expelled the Iraqis by action commencing in the air on 16^th January 1991 followed by ground attacks from 24^th February.  Hussein’s forces were out of Kuwait 4 days later.  A potential drive by coalition forces on Baghdad was halted by US President H.W. Bush, possibly because he thought that the defeated Iraqi commanders would overthrow Hussein.  This did not happen.  Instead, Hussein was left free to crush internal revolts by Kurds in the North and marsh Arabs in the South.

   A Failure to Follow-Through which had tragic consequences for many.

Afghanistan, 2001 -2021

   On 11th September 2001 atrocities were carried out on US soil by a terrorist suicide gang which cost 2,977 lives.  The organiser had worked from shelter given by the Taliban government of Afghanistan.

   The immediate response of the US government was on 7^th October 2001.  Air attacks were made on the suspected gang base.  A small number of special forces then joined with anti-Taliban Afghanis to fight them on the ground. 

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On 13^th November the capital, Kabul, had been captured.  By 9^th December the Taliban lost possession of Kandahar, the second city of the country.  The grip of the Taliban on Afghanistan had been easily overcome.

   It seemed as though the US counter-attack, because of the military strength of the anti-Taliban opposition, had won the war to eliminate Afghanistan as a shelter for international terrorism.  US attention was then re-directed against Iraq under the dictator Hussein..  The reason for that, the fear that he had or could produce “Weapons of Mass Destruction” has been described in Contribution No. 9 at A4.

   With hindsight it can be said that not eradicating every vestige of Taliban activity by military means was a “Failure to Follow-Through”. 

   At the time the US policy was to “Follow-Through” by civil action:-  to help the Afghanis to become a democracy with regular free elections;  to create  a national defence and police force to guard this democracy;  and to free the social status of women from the secondary position under the Taliban.  In short, to create a Western-style nation.

The consequences of the policy

   The consequences of the policy adopted by the US in 2001 are shown on Fig. 7.

         Fig. 7  (Ref. 14 marked-up, linked)

   US troops peaked at 96,000 in FY2011.

The result

   After 20 years of attempts to change Afghanistan the US abandoned the country to the resumed control of the Taliban.  The national forces set up to sustain a democratic Afghanistan proved to be quite incapable of doing it.

   The financial and human costs are given on Fig. 8. on P.11.  The British loss of life as part of NATO was 456 (part of “Other Allied troops).

Conclusion

   There seems to be only one conclusion to be drawn from the US (and NATO and associated nations) 2001 – 2021 experience in Afghanistan. It is the same as that from the British 19^th century expeditions in the country summed up by Rudyard Kipling in 1889:-

“Oh, East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet!”

  The Soviet Russian Afghanistan war from December 1979 to February 1989 adds to that conclusion.

   A useful list of events over 2001 – 2021 is given in Ref. 15 (linked).

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Fig. 8  (Ref. 16, linked)

References

14. https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-21-46-LL.pdf

This is a highly critical review of the 20 year war by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

15. https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-war-afghanistan
16. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/human-and-budgetary-costs-date-us-war-afghanistan-2001-2022