Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences

Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequence. Edited by Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Army University Press, 2023.

Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills have compiled a worthwhile starting point for future scholarship on retreats. Armies in Retreat is one of the longer Army University Press publications, notching a hefty 435 pages. This bulk should not dissuade readers, who can select readings appropriate to their interests, whether ancient Greece, the World Wars, or the thought-provoking cyber warfare chapter.[2] The themes of chaos, cohesion, and consequences easily serve as topics for leader professional development sessions at all echelons. The list of retreats, many not known from popular literature, makes the book all the more compelling for the novice and the professional military historian alike, and can be paired with more well-known retreats like General George Washington’s retreat to Valley Forge or Field Marshal William Slim’s march out of Burma.[3] All of the vignettes deal with the land domain, and thus there is room for scholarship on retreats and retrogrades in the air and maritime domains. Enterprising students and scholars can also explore what retreats and retrogrades might look like in the space and cyberspace domains.

The opening salvos of the book provide vignettes from the Napoleonic Wars to World War II about what must be avoided: routs. Throughout the chapters, two themes emerge: first the lack of detailed planning and second the need for decisive leadership. The text shows that  élan does not supplant “local overmatch in numbers, modern weapons, and logistics,” poor task organization, structure, or lack of intelligence.[4] Routed units fracture before combat begins; military units do not come together after shooting starts.

The second section describes cohesive units that execute breakouts, retreats, and rear-guard actions with aplomb. The historical range widens, starting with the Plataean breakout and night raid during the Peloponnesian War and running through to the 3rd Transportation Military Railway Service (3TMRS) during the Korean War.[5] Three themes resonated throughout the eight vignettes. First, the need for competent leaders with the technical skills and experience required to execute the task at hand. Second, detailed planning of the action and its desired aftermath. Third, a willingness to accomplish the mission with the capabilities at hand. It is important to reinforce that morale and mission accomplishment is tied to technical competence and prior training. The American and Korean railroad engineers and logisticians of the 3TMSR and Korean National Railroad were successful primarily through their technical expertise and professional discipline.[6]

Finally, the book reaches what might be the strongest section: consequences. The authors here speak not only of cohesion or disintegration, but of a variety of timely themes such as command climate, civil-military relations, the power of memory in the midst of defeat, and the consequences of poor planning. Policymakers and government professionals should take note of the chapters concerning Lord Cornwallis’ 1781 Yorktown campaign and the evacuation from Gallipoli in 1915-16. Military operations are at the behest of political masters and the government pocketbook. When government and military leadership are not aligned, the outcomes become decidedly bad, especially for soldiers on the ground.

Another theme that resonates throughout all the vignettes: the need for strong leadership and followership.[7] Both require trust, trust built through relationships, competence, training, and oftentimes previous success. The “Fighting 69th” of Bull Run, though forced from their positions, were the last to hold due to strong leadership and training, hence the narrative “we did retreat but we were not beat.”[8] The American IX Corps was less fortunate where a trusted commander was removed, trust in new leaders was poor, and the competence of Corps and Division commanders was constantly in question. The authors suggest such poor leadership competence and lack of trust led to the rout at Chancellorsville, hence the mistrust of German-American soldiers and units throughout the rest of the Civil War. Units with poor command climate and mediocre leadership do not rise to the occasion in any of the examples given in Armies in Retreat; they suffer needless casualties through combat, climate or weather, disease, and capture. This is why training and ruthless accountability for competent leadership matters. When the chips are down, units fall back to the level of their training.

A column of troops and armor of the 1st Marine Division move through communist Chinese lines during their successful breakout from the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. (Corporal Peter McDonald/USMC Photo/Wikimedia)

Armies in Retreat provides opportunity for reflection. Indeed, one wonders if studying retreats and retrogrades can bring more warfighting functions to the forefront such as protection and the use of air defense to support a withdrawal. Military leaders can reflect on how they would train their forces to remain cohesive during times of trial. Training in engineering and heavy weapons gains renewed importance when considering a fighting withdrawal. Sustainment, reconstitution of units, and movement mechanisms between frontlines and rear areas require detailed planning that cannot be left to luck or chance.

Perhaps instead of fighting offensive-minded wet gap crossing during exercises, Army brigades might learn more by fighting rearguards, delaying actions, or fighting withdrawals. Readers need only refer to the skill of Hülsen’s 1760 fighting retreat, the bravery of the Provisional Air Corps Regiment at Bataan, or the skill of the 3rd TSMR and KNR to see not only the complex, technical nature of such operations, but the moral and ethical quandaries as well.[9] It is one thing to order a unit to its death to seize an objective; it is another thing entirely to order a unit to fight a delaying action, knowing that a few words “had condemned ten thousand men to death or mutilation.”[10] Armies in Retreat also shows how time-consuming and difficult it is to train rigorously, and it makes the decisive military victories seem all the more remarkable.

Subtly, Armies in Retreat also serves as a call to action to think critically and creatively about how U.S. forces, allies, and partners could compel adversaries to withdraw or cause a rout. Field Manual (FM) 3-0 Operations speaks of the defeat mechanisms destroy, dislocate, disintegrate, and isolate.[11] Leaders reading Armies in Retreat should reflect, theorize, and war-game how to defeat adversaries in all dimensions and domains. These reflections, paired with more scholarship and discourse, should inform the refinement of joint and allied doctrine and all military training and education. Military professionals and civilian policymakers can learn from recent U.S. failures and see that seizing terrain or winning the population is not enough to achieve victory. Those associated with the application of military power should not be afraid to take failure as a mentor, and extend their study beyond the great victories.

Marshall McGurk is an Army officer and a 2023 graduate of the School for Advanced Military Studies. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

This article appeared originally at Strategy Bridge.

[1] J.D. Work “The Retreat of Cyber Forces after Offensive Operations,” in Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences ed. Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills (Leavenworth, Kansas: Army University Press, 2023), 401.

[2] An argument could be made for an Army University Press cyber warfare series based on J.D. Work’s chapter alone.

[3] The lesser-known examples are a tribute to the editors and chapter authors who remind us of the richness of the military history field.

[4] Tyler D. Wentzell, “Shattered: The XVth Brigade against Franco’s 1938 Aragon Offensive,” in Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences (ed. Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills (Leavenworth, Kansas: Army University Press, 2023), 67, and Marcin Wilczek, “Polish Horsemen in the Chaotic Withdrawal of 1939,” in Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences ed. Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills (Leavenworth, Kansas: Army University Press, 2023), 91.

[5] Jonathan H. Warner, “Fly by Night: Plataean Evacuation and Night-Fighting in the Peloponnesian War,” in Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences (ed. Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills (Leavenworth, Kansas: Army University Press, 2023), 99, and Eric Allan Sibul, “The Railroad Saved our Neck: United Nations Command Retreat in Korea, Winter 1950-51,” Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences ed. Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills (Leavenworth, Kansas: Army University Press, 2023), 241.

[6] Eric Allan Sibul, “The Railroad Saved our Neck: United Nations Command Retreat in Korea, Winter 1950-51,” Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences ed. Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills (Leavenworth, Kansas: Army University Press, 2023), 264-265.

[7] Walker D. Mills, “Conclusion,” in Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences (ed. Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills (Leavenworth, Kansas: Army University Press, 2023), 427.

[8] Catherine V. Bateson, “‘We Did Retreat but Were Not Beat: The Irish-American Experience at Bull-Run as Told Through Civil War Songs,” in Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences ed. Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Army University Press, 2023), 327, 338.

[9] Alexander S. Burns, “Hülsen’s Retreat: The Campaign in Saxony, August-October 1760,” and Frank A. Blazich Jr., “Airmen into Infantry: The Provisional Air Corps Regiment at Bataan, January-April 1942” in Armies in ed. Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Army University Press, 2023)

[10] C.S. Forster, The General (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1936), 230. It is a concise novel with lessons for moral and ethical decisions stemming from WWI combat.  For a non-fiction example, see Paik-Sun Yuip, From Pusan to Panmunjon: Wartime Memoirs of the Republic of Korea’s First Four-Star General (Lincoln, Nebraska: Potomac Books, 1992).

[11] US Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations (Washington, DC: Government Publishing Office, 2022), 6-21—6-25.