The Compleat Victory

The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution. Kevin Weddle. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2021.

In a military campaign, leadership serves a critical role at each level of war. In The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution, Kevin Weddle examines British and American leadership at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels in the events preceding and during the battle that ultimately created a turning point in the American Revolution.[1] Readers unfamiliar with the battle of Saratoga will come to understand it was not a single decisive battle, but rather a campaign that included a series of battles, with tactical victories by both the British and the Americans. The book carries the reader from the failed American invasion of Canada to the fall of Fort Ticonderoga and the defense of Fort Stanwix, through the battles of Freeman’s Farm and Bemis Heights in the fall of 1777.

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Weddle, a professor at the Army War College and author of other historical works such as Lincoln’s Tragic Admiral, does a deep dive in The Compleat Victory into the important relationships between senior leaders, the value of assumptions, and the concept of grip. Each of the themes flows throughout the book, offering a detailed assessment of the British and American operational and strategic leadership. The pervasive and interrelated nature of the themes forms a dynamic core of the book that is central to the reader’s experience and understanding of the events. This review will examine each of the three themes Weddle presents to describe how they serve as lessons to military leaders today.

General Bernard Montgomery first introduced the concept of grip into the military lexicon,  defining it as the ability of a commander to exercise control and “manage a battle or campaign by scrutinizing and supervising all elements of a military operation.”[2] Weddle expands the concept to include the ability to anticipate how a battle may unfold.[3] The author uses the expanded definition to effectively evaluate the performance of British and American commanders. British military commanders such as General Burgoyne demonstrated low levels of grip at the tactical and operational level, while higher-level leaders such as Lord Germain held low levels at the strategic.

Individual service and joint planning doctrine in today’s military demands the identification of assumptions during mission analysis. Assumptions allow planning to move forward but must consistently be assessed to confirm or deny them. Weddle’s book makes clear how General Burgoyne failed to reexamine and reconsider his initial assumptions throughout the Saratoga Campaign.[7] Burgoyne assumed a high number of Loyalists would support the British—including the commitment of Native Americans to the British—and that the Americans could not stand and fight against the professional British force.[8] Failure to reexamine his assumptions ensured Burgoyne perpetuated a flawed strategy, leading to his army’s defeat at the hands of the Americans.

At the operational level of war, commanders also must assume what their adjacent units and commanders will do during times of conflict. Often it is higher headquarters that validates or invalidates these assumptions. Thus, an element of grip is having a tight understanding on how adjacent organizations will support one’s own command. In modern U.S. doctrine, this may include the priority of strategic lift; the priority of joint fires; or the level of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) they will receive. Weddle writes that throughout the Saratoga Campaign General Burgoyne failed to understand his level of support and the impact it would have on his army, a mistake later duplicated by General Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown. Assuming a level of support that fails to come into fruition is a path to failure. 

Weddle’s focus on assumptions is a reminder that the need to validate assumptions is common to war planning from one generation to the next. Difficulty reexamining assumptions still plagues the joint force today. In the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, U.S. strategic leadership was similarly unprepared on what to do when stated and unstated assumptions failed to materialize into facts. For example, the assumption that a large footprint or force level would hinder Iraq’s ability to form its own government led to an unstable security environment.[9] Despite the assumption’s flaw and ultimate failure, the U.S. continued to operate with low numbers of ground forces and from the safety of large forward operating bases. No senior military leaders would challenge this assumption for roughly five years, until a new command team under General Petraeus’s leadership implemented a new strategy.[10]

Weddle posits the notion that relationships between operational and strategic leaders are paramount to success in war. His examination of the toxic relationships between British military leaders—specifically Generals Carleton, Burgoyne, Howe, and Clinton—shows how poor relationships can lead to poor performance on the battlefield. While it is critical to maintain strong civil-military relations, senior military leaders’ relationships can make or break a military campaign. Thus thriving relationships between senior leaders can impact the grip commanders have over their organizations.

British Generals Guy Carleton, John Burgoyne, William Howe, and Henry Clinton (Wikimedia)

Unfortunately, the U.S. continues to suffer from toxic relationships between senior leaders. In 2003, for example, the relationships between service chiefs and the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) Commander, General Tommy Franks, broke down, adversely impacting the initial phases of the 2003-2011 war in Iraq. Indeed, General Franks had major disagreements with the service chiefs on force levels for the invasion. Most famously, General Franks referred to the service chiefs as “Title 10 Motherf***ers.”[11] The toxic relationship between operational and institutional commanders led the civilian leadership to dismiss initial requests and ignore subsequent requests despite the informed opinions of others.[12] Senior-level commanders who do not have command authority over each other can create troublesome relationships not clearly defined by law or historical precedent.

One of the more interesting relationships Weddle analyzes is that between the military commanders and their civilian leaders. Weddle describes how George Washington, as the Commander in Chief, acted as the single point of contact for Congress. Further, Washington’s civilian leadership was geographically close to Washington and his army, which allowed for a more sustained dialogue. The British, on the other hand, had multiple commanders in Howe and Carleton who answered to Prime Minister North through Lord Germain, which was complicated by the lines of communication back to Britain.[13] Communication between Washington and Congress took no more than a week, while communication between British commanders and the home island could take two months or more.[14] The Americans had a faster strategic decision-making cycle and a clear civilian-to-military chain of command. In this manner, the Americans had a strategic advantage in civil-military relations.   

How military and civilian leadership communicate still matters today. The term civil-military relations applies to the relationships between military and civilian leaders. In the U. S., the law clearly defines this relationship, with the military always subordinate to elected and appointed civilians. The civilian president and secretary of defense retain authority to employ the military, while civilian members of congress provide funding and oversight. The relationships are sacred in the U.S. and the veracity and importance of the relationships are backed by numerous scholarly works, such as Samuel Huntington’s The Soldier and the State and Eliot Cohen’s Supreme Command. As important as relationships between civilian and military leaders may be, the relationships between senior military leaders are critical to military success.

Weddle’s description of the relationships among British and American military commanders is one of the more important aspects of his book. Perhaps one of the least understood doctrinal relationships is the supported and supporting command relationship. This particular relationship offers zero command authority; rather, it provides direction on which commander is the priority for assistance relative to another commander’s force. At the operational and strategic level of war, commanders and their respective commands must operate and drive towards shared objectives. The idea of a centralized vision with decentralized planning and execution is a component of mission command. However, the concept revolves around relationships between commanders and subordinates.[15] Even the most ardent advocates of mission command understand the risk when commanders are free to develop their own strategic end states.

In The Compleat Victory, Weddle tells us that failure to establish a unified strategy is not new. Indeed, Generals Howe and Burgoyne—the commanders of the only two British Armies in North America in 1777—had no common strategy.[16] Burgoyne remained terrain-focused, intent on moving his army south from Canada to Albany. Howe, by contrast, remained enemy-focused, occupying Philadelphia with the hope of drawing Washington’s army into the open for a decisive battle.[17] Each commander made assumptions regarding the intent of their adjacent commanders, never taking the time to validate said assumptions. The inability to communicate and examine their divergent operational objectives meant British senior leadership remained unable to negotiate a shared vision of victory. Because communication with civilian leadership in Britain could take weeks or months with extended external lines of communication, the leaders could not defer to civilian leadership, putting them at a relative disadvantage to their American adversaries who could quickly communicate with Congress.[18] Without a shared vision, leaders of each army worked independently completely unrelated to the British government’s intent.  

Weddle juxtaposes the toxic relationships of senior British leaders with senior American leaders. The large personalities of Generals Arnold, Gates, Shuyler, Lincoln, and Washington often came into conflict. Unlike their British opponents, however, American leadership set aside their differences to achieve shared objectives. For example, within the Saratoga campaign, the rift between generals Gates and Arnold threatened to drive the army into separate factions. Indeed, both men exchanged insults through a series of letters. However, Gates understood Arnold’s value to the Army and, through communication and leadership intervention, they resolved their disputes amicably.[19] According to Weddle, what enabled this conflict resolution was a clear chain of command  with Washington in the position of Commander In Chief and a Congress that could communicate guidance on shorter timelines, resolve disputes, and enhance relationships.[20] Weddle’s lesson, of course, is that leaders at higher echelons should consider how they can personally contribute to positive relationships between commanders and their commands. 

In their book Call Sign Chaos, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Bing West refer to the unofficial command relationship of “Handcon; where handshakes cement the trust between leaders.” [21] Unofficial but personal relationship building, or the failure to form one, still impacts operations in modern conflict. For instance, a toxic relationship between General Casey and General Petraeus affected their transition as the Commander of Multi-National Forces Iraq (MNFI). Indeed, Casey famously prevented Petraeus from communicating with Multi-National Forces Iraq’s subordinate commands until after the change of command, even though it was well known that the outgoing and incoming commander’s strategies would diverge.[22] When transitioning commanders cannot form a relationship based on mutual trust, self-generated friction rapidly cascades from the commanders to junior soldiers that creates an element of unnecessary risk to the force and the mission.

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Weddle does not discuss relationships amongst and between military staffs. A staff’s relations to higher, lower, and adjacent commands can prove just as crucial to the outcome of a military campaign as the relationship between commanders and other senior leaders. In his book Inside the Five-Sided Box, former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter warns strategic leaders to never let personality conflicts distract from their decision making.[23] Today, at the high operational and lower strategic levels of war, combatant command staffs must have relationships with their respective counterparts at the Joint Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). These relationships are critical to gaining a shared understanding of strategic direction and the capabilities available to achieve strategic objectives. Indeed, this shared understanding is crucial for each senior leader to establish grip. Staffs solving problems with higher, adjacent, and subordinate units and staff officers without the constant interjection of commanders can alleviate potential sources of friction.

With better cooperation between leaders at the strategic level, higher levels of grip, and an ability to reevaluate their assumptions, the American military removed one of the two British armies operating in North America from the chessboard. The decisive American victory at Saratoga turned the conflict from a local brushfire to a global conflagration, as the victory induced the French and the Spanish to enter the war in an alliance with the Americans.

The Compleat Victory is a reminder that the hard-learned lessons of today’s conflicts are eerily like the lessons taught more than two centuries ago. Informal relationships outside of the chain of command still matter. The great captains of history have genius in planning as well as in execution, meaning high levels of grip as Weddle defines it. Finally, leaders and staffs must continually examine and evaluate their assumptions on the character or nature of the fight they are in. Weddle’s book will make a fine addition to the library of those seeking to understand the nuances of leadership at operational and strategic echelons.

Daniel Sukman is a strategist in the U.S. Army currently serving on the faculty at the Joint Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

This article appeared originally at Strategy Bridge.

[1] “Compleat” comes from a quote by American General John Nixon, who when writing to a friend after Burgoyne's surrender, described the event as "the compleat victory."  "Compleat" is the common 18th century spelling. (email from Kevin Weddle to Dan Sukman, 2 March 2021).

[2] Weddle, 4.

[3] Weddle, 5.

[4] 2020 Unified Command Plan. USSPACECOM is responsible for everything over 100 miles above the earth’s surface.

[5] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 3100.01D. The Joint Strategic Planning System. 20 July 2018. Pg C-2.

[6] John A. Bonin, “On Headquarters: Use and Abuse of Army Operational Headquarters (and Contracting) from 2001-2005,” in Land-Power in the Long War: Projecting the Force After 9/11. ed. Jason W. Warren. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2019). Pg 336-338.   

[7] Weddle, 63.

[8] Weddle, 63-64.

[9] Joel Rayburn and Frank Sobchak. The U.S. Army in the Iraq War Volume 2: Surge and Withdrawal, 2007-2011. (Carlisle: Army War College Press, 2019), Kindle, 1025.

[10] Rayburn and Sobchak, 192.

[11] Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell. American Soldier. (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 277.

[12] Walter L. Perry, “Planning the War and the Transition to Peace,” in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM: Decisive War, Elusive Peace. ed: Walter L. Perry, Richard E. Darilek, Laurinda L. Rohn, and Jerry M. Sollinger. (RAND Corporation,) 53. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.7249/j.ctt19w72gs.11.pdf.

[13] Weddle, 73-74.

[14] Weddle, 74.

[15] Joint Publication 3-0 Joint Operations defines mission command as: “a key component of the C2 [joint] function—enables military operations through decentralized execution based on mission-type orders.”

[16] Weddle, 239.

[17] Weddle, 56-58.

[18] Weddle, 384.

[19] Weddle, 289-293.

[20] Weddle, 74.

[21] Jim Mattis and Bing West. Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead (New York: Random House, 2019), 203.  

[22] Joel Rayburn and Frank Sobchak.

[23] Ash Carter, Inside the Five-Sided Box: Lessons from a Lifetime of Leadership in the Pentagon. (Dutton Press: 2019). Kindle.