The Loss of Military Logic (original) (raw)

Sir Francis Tuker – Approach to Military Science – To Italy & Beyond 'The Battle that was won on paper and lost in the Desert'1 'As a man studies he finds that he must give out the results of his study: perhaps he may be impelled to write. He then faces criticism. The experience will do him no harm for it will rid him of complacency, the curse of our forces and the killer of our men.'2 A Man for All Seasons Lt General Sir Francis Tuker is something of a forgotten figure in the annals of British military history, but his writings and military thought require a larger modern audience. He may well have had a far greater impact on the battles he was involved (North African and Italian campaign) than history has given him credit for. Francis Tuker was a complex character, having survived the Great War; he had briefly considered giving up the army all together to become a painter. However, he remained with the Colours and saw further service post war in Iraq, Assam and Northern Iran as well as border operations along the North West Frontier and Waziristan. Always a great student of his craft he spent much time during the interwar years thinking about the shape future conflict, in most cases he was ahead of his peer group and the army in which he served in his thinking. He also despaired that so few of his peers appeared to share his desire for a professional approach in the British Army, he was also appalled at the low standard of instruction he experienced at Staff College3. His own assessment of the British soldier was as follows, 'he has one particular asset that only a man of a nation devoted to sport can possess; he relies too much on luck, too little on hard won skill. He remains an amateur, brilliant when at last brought to professional standard and thus fitted to take part in a deadly contest of skill which is no game at all'.4 His view of British tactical instruction was just as forth right. 'Tactics are absorbingly interesting and especially so when full-sized units formations are out on the country, free to act against each other within the loosest of instructions of the umpires. There is no such thing as tactical doctrine; tactics which mulled about and produced from a junta of instructors are only the compromise which inn war falls in the dust. The interest of officers and men in this subject must be maintained at all costs; therefore, on no account should it be made the subject of an examination'.5 During his service in India in the 1930s, he devoted much of his time to the training of infantry in the modern warfare. His methods were considered so successful that they were adopted by GHQ India for use throughout the Indian Army; indeed, by 1940, he had been appointed Director of Training for the Indian Army. This led to friction with many of his contemporaries, in the conservative world of the prewar Anglo-Indian Army, mavericks and free-thinkers, who took a deep interest in their profession like Tuker, were generally regarded with suspicion and were not popular. This was suspicion was reinforced by his contributions to the likes of Journal produced by the Royal United Services Institute which published articles on professional thought of the day. Again, the officer class as a profession took little notice, those indulging in such activities were usually seen as show-offs, a vice considered in those prewar army as extremely bad form. Tuker so as to minimise the flack got around this problem by publishing many of his articles anonymously or under the pseudonym. Most notable was his article on the use of combined arms and air power, precisely as it was