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Rupert's Article won the WBGS Witold Pilecki History Essay competition in the KS3 category, in response to the question “‘Victory in war always goes to the side with the better leadership.’ To what extent do you agree with this claim?”
RUPERT ZABIHI
The great military strategist Sun Tzu stated that the art of war is “governed by five constant factors to be taken into account”, with ‘The Commander’ as one of these points to consider. This view is believed to have emerged between 475 and 221 B.C. - a time known as the Warring States period, an epoch where heavy conflict was witnessed between states that would later form China. Still, to this day, the quality of leadership of any side has had the capability to bolster a side’s chances of winning, proving the significance of a fine leader and proving Sun Tzu’s statement to be correct. However, it has only ever served as an advantage: not a means of definite success. This essay will argue three notions supporting this idea. Firstly, throughout the course of history, any side in possession of the better leadership during a war never gained a prerequisite victory solely due to the better leadership itself. Secondly, it will prove the existence of others of Tzu's“factors to be taken into account”. Finally, these other influences are shown to be of similar effect, and equally to determine the outcome of a war.
At face value, it may seem that, considering how advantageous better leadership may be, that all victories in war are down to the pairing of having the greater leader(s) and these leaders having the greater influence over the other side, as exemplified by the successes of Napoleon. Known to be resolute, arrogant and a genius, Napoleon was a French emperor famously difficult to defeat. Due to this, it may be believed that the empire he built and triumphantly defended were solely down to his leadership.
However, on closer examination, this position can be questioned as it ignores the fact that many of the most experienced generals have their streak of victories broken. In Napoleon’s case, this breaking would come at the tail-end of his career, before his abdication, most notably in the Battle of Waterloo. When faced with an opponent composed of Prussian and British armies, he would later be defeated, going on to abdicate from his state of superiority. This leader was regarded as a mastermind of the art of war, however, if even the greatest of dignitaries can be defeated in battle, then, tellingly, it is not right to say that the side in possession of the better leadership can assume a win solely through any ownership of this.
In addition to the importance of ‘The Commander’, as previously mentioned, the leader Sun Tzu mentions four other aspects to be held into account for a successful war: ‘The Moral Law’, which refers to an attitude of complete loyalty to the head of state; ‘Heaven’, which refers to climatic patterns; ‘Earth’, which refers to distance of places, areas where potential security or danger is present and possibilities of mortality; and ‘Method and Discipline’, which refer to the organisation and the looking after of the army. In a constantly developing society, the importance of these basic constituents - as well as many others such as technological advancement, arising from society’s constant evolution - is yet to be proven non-existent. The presence of these other facets of success in armed conflict has been constant throughout all periods of warfare.
For example, in World War One, arguably one of the most major wars witnessed in history, many other elements were definitely prevailing. First induced by an assassination, it was a time of conflict that would go on to last four years, ending with an armistice and the Treaty of Versailles, an agreement between the two sides detailing a requirement for reparations from Germany. It may be easy to believe the Allies 'won' due to strategic blunders that Germany’s High Command were responsible for - such as the failed Schlieffen Plan, which had been revised prior to its enactment. However, this viewpoint excludes crucial characteristics of its failure.
The long distances the Schlieffen Plan needed German soldiers to travel - when most did not even have the stamina or skill necessary - was a great part of the audaciousness of the aggressive manoeuvre. It was not this audacity and the miscalculation of the strategy that was risky itself: it was, if not also, the lack of possession of Tzu's ‘Method and Discipline’ amongst ranks of a two-million-strong army needed to execute the plan professionally and deal with the hindering ‘Earth’.
Though it may be said that these factors were for the leader to mitigate, a sudden change in extremely nationalistic attitudes upheld by German dignitaries would have most likely caused the general population to be angered by a sudden switch from previously heavily propagated ideas, consequently upsetting the ‘Moral Law’. This is an example of the limits of leadership’s power in the face of these other entities: examples of pervade all periods of warfare.
As well as being perceptible, these other effects have shown to have similar ascendancy to that of leadership over the outcome of a war. In WWI, the power of ‘The Commander’ was limited by other factors; in the Battle of Waterloo the capabilities of Napoleon’s opponents' armies to conduct devastating manoeuvres through their greater amount of ‘Method and Discipline’ scuppered his chances, and in famous attempts to invade Russia by both Napoleon and Germany ‘Heaven’ had the greatest effect. If this had not been the case, then every single war in history would have been dictated by the leadership factor and this factor only and by this point, people with great strategic skills would have become a commodity to bribe and train for warfare. However, this is not the case.
It is with evidence from past periods of conflict presented previously, that I conclude, stating that throughout the course of history, the side in possession of the better leadership gained an advantage during the conflict: nothing more; leadership cannot prove a definite victory. This is the only effect that the better leadership or ‘The Commander’ has had and will have.
Author’s Note
When discussing the ‘better leadership’, this essay refers to the effectiveness of the civil or military leaders that influence warfare and the effectiveness of the actions they carried out that influenced the period of armed conflict.
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