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113-576: Following British defeats and German successes with Blitzkrieg in the early months of World War II , Members of Parliament and the British media expressed concerns with how the British Army was being led. There was a notable shortage of officers, with a shortfall of 25% meaning that the War Office was unable to properly staff units, and there was a high proportion of breakdowns . In addition,

226-664: A "psychiatric interview", issuing a memorandum that asserted that a "psychiatric interview" was one which dealt with particularly sensitive topics but an interview with a psychiatrist along general lines was simply an interview and therefore unproblematic. In numbers, the WOSBs also appeared to have been successful. Between 1943 and 1945 the failure rate at OCTUs fell to only 8% despite an overall decrease in quality of army intakes. A follow-up study indicated that 76% of officers selected by WOSBs were providing completely satisfactory service. Psychologists Philip Vernon and John Parry (members of

339-833: A PhD in 1923 on the achondroplasia -like condition met with in cattle, specifically the Dexter cattle breed. In 1928 he was created the first Professor of Animal Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, a chair indirectly funded by the Rockefeller Foundation . In 1922, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . His proposers were James Cossar Ewart , Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer , James Hartley Ashworth and Sir Robert Blyth Greig . In 1929 Frederick Hutt travelled from Canada and sought Crew out to specifically study genetics under him, and later

452-483: A battlefield. That theory of war also emphasised consolidation and recommended caution against overconfidence and ruthless exploitation. During the Sinai and Palestine campaign , operations involved some aspects of what would later be called blitzkrieg. The decisive Battle of Megiddo included concentration, surprise and speed. Success depended on attacking only in terrain favouring the movement of large formations around

565-575: A breakthrough of the enemy's line, units comprising the Schwerpunkt were not supposed to become decisively engaged with enemy front line units to the right and the left of the breakthrough area. Units pouring through the hole were to drive upon set objectives behind the enemy front line. During the Second World War, German Panzer forces used their motorized mobility to paralyze the opponent's ability to react. Fast-moving mobile forces seized

678-565: A copy of the selection methods used by the Wehrmacht , and so Vinden and Wittkower met with psychiatrists Thomas Ferguson Rodger , A. T. M. Wilson and Ronald Hargreaves , and the head of Scottish Command , Sir Andrew Thorne , who had been military attaché in Berlin in the 1930s and seen the German methods being used. The group made plans to experiment with and adapt these methods for use by

791-715: A couple of standard deviations from the British mean. " During the war Crew was also Director of Medical Research for the War Office, with the rank of Brigadier. In 1944 he succeeded Percy Samuel Lelean in the Bruce and John Usher Chair in Public Health at the University of Edinburgh . In 1955 he moved to Ain Shams University in Cairo as Professor of Social and Preventative Medicine. In 1957-8 he worked for

904-406: A course of 3 days, during which a battery of tests were used. The usual format of the days at Boards was as follows: Though they were often called intelligence tests , advisor John Raven was emphatic that several of the tests used at WOSBs were not intelligence tests but tests of mental ability. Tests included verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests and a version of Raven's Progressive Matrices that

1017-405: A few dozen tanks. As the end of the war approached, Germany also experienced critical shortages in fuel and ammunition stocks as a result of Anglo-American strategic bombing and blockade. Although the production of Luftwaffe fighter aircraft continued, they could not fly because of lack of fuel. What fuel there was went to panzer divisions, and even then, they could not operate normally. Of

1130-600: A massive strategic air attack might hold out better prospects, but the topic was not explored in detail. A third relatively early use of the term in German occurred in Die Deutsche Kriegsstärke (German War Strength) by Fritz Sternberg , a Jewish Marxist political economist and refugee from Nazi Germany, published in 1938 in Paris and in London as Germany and a Lightning War . Sternberg wrote that Germany

1243-617: A military doctrine or handbook of the German Army or Air Force, and no "coherent doctrine" or "unifying concept of blitzkrieg" existed; German High Command mostly referred to the group of tactics as "Bewegungskrieg" (Maneuver Warfare). The term seems to have been rarely used in the German military press before 1939, and recent research at the German Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt , at Potsdam , found it in only two military articles from

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1356-628: A precursor to the Army Officer Selection Board that is in place today. During World War II , WOSBs selection methods were adapted for use by armed forces all over the world, including in India and Canada. WOSBs were also adapted for use as Civil Service Selection Boards (CSSBs), for use by the Office of Strategic Services , Unilever and other commercial enterprises, and for fire services, police forces, etc. The staff who created

1469-517: A self-description, word association , and thematic apperception tests . Candidates were expected to demonstrate their ability to relate to others as a leader or in a more ambiguous position via Command Situations and Leaderless Group tests. As the names suggest, in Command Situations, a person was given command of a group whilst they completed an activity or held a discussion and behaviour was observed. In Leaderless Group tests, no leader

1582-472: A swift knockout to its enemies, which would lead to a long war. In the second article (1938), launching a swift strategic knockout was described as an attractive idea for Germany but difficult to achieve on land under modern conditions (especially against systems of fortification like the Maginot Line ) unless an exceptionally high degree of surprise could be achieved. The author vaguely suggested that

1695-580: A total of 228 graduates. In 1940, he was commanding officer of the Military Hospital at Edinburgh Castle , and a member of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He saw that the Polish forces included medical professors, lecturers and students and conceived the idea of these students being taught by their own teachers in Polish. He proposed establishing a Polish Medical Faculty in

1808-580: Is a coordinated military effort by tanks, motorized infantry, artillery and aircraft, to create an overwhelming local superiority in combat power, to defeat the opponent and break through its defences. Blitzkrieg as used by Germany had considerable psychological or "terror" elements, such as the Jericho Trompete , a noise-making siren on the Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber, to affect the morale of enemy forces. The devices were largely removed when

1921-473: Is especially true if the attacking formation lacks the reserve to keep funnelling forces into the spearhead or the mobility to provide infantry, artillery and supplies into the attack. If the defender can hold the shoulders of the breach, it has the opportunity to counter-attack into the flank of the attacker and potentially to cut it off the van, as what happened to Kampfgruppe Peiper in the Ardennes. During

2034-462: Is to break through an opponent's lines of defense, dislocate the defenders, confuse the enemy by making it difficult to respond to the continuously changing front, and defeat them in a decisive Vernichtungsschlacht : a battle of annihilation . During the interwar period , aircraft and tank technologies matured and were combined with the systematic application of the traditional German tactic of Bewegungskrieg ( maneuver warfare ), involving

2147-439: Is what I want – and that is what I will have". Guderian summarized combined-arms tactics as the way to get the mobile and motorized armored divisions to work together and support each other to achieve decisive success. In his 1950 book, Panzer Leader , he wrote: In this year, 1929, I became convinced that tanks working on their own or in conjunction with infantry could never achieve decisive importance. My historical studies,

2260-645: The Condor Legion . Guderian said that the tank deployment was "on too small a scale to allow accurate assessments to be made". (The true test of his "armored idea" would have to wait for the Second World War.) However, the Luftwaffe also provided volunteers to Spain to test both tactics and aircraft in combat, including the first combat use of the Stuka . During the war, the Condor Legion undertook

2373-565: The Battle of Kursk , the Red Army used a combination of defence in great depth, extensive minefields and tenacious defense of breakthrough shoulders. In that way, they depleted German combat power even as German forces advanced. The reverse can be seen in the Russian summer offensive of 1944, Operation Bagration , which resulted in the destruction of Army Group Center. German attempts to weather

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2486-540: The Battles of Sharon and Nablus (Battle of Megiddo). The British methods induced "strategic paralysis" among the Ottomans and led to their rapid and complete collapse. In an advance of 65 miles (105 km), captures were estimated to be "at least 25,000 prisoners and 260 guns". Liddell Hart considered that important aspects of the operation had been the extent to which Ottoman commanders were denied intelligence on

2599-627: The Brusilov Offensive . Later, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky (1893–1937), Georgii Isserson  [ ru ] (1898–1976) and other members of the Red Army developed a concept of deep battle from the experience of the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1920. Those concepts would guide the Red Army doctrine throughout the Second World War. Realising the limitations of infantry and cavalry, Tukhachevsky advocated mechanized formations and

2712-404: The Luftwaffe chose a method of carpet bombing , resulting in heavy civilian casualties. Francis Albert Eley Crew Francis Albert Eley Crew FRS FRSE (2 March 1886 – 26 May 1973) was an English animal geneticist . He was a pioneer in his field leading to the University of Edinburgh’s place as a world leader in the science of animal genetics. He was the first Director of

2825-555: The Luftwaffe flew some 300 sorties on 6 June. Though German fighter presence over Normandy increased over the next days and weeks, it never approached the numbers that the Allies commanded. Fighter-bomber attacks on German formations made movement during daylight almost impossible. Subsequently, shortages soon developed in food, fuel and ammunition and severely hampered the German defenders. German vehicle crews and even flak units experienced great difficulty moving during daylight. Indeed,

2938-635: The Tiger tanks lost against the US Army, nearly half of them were abandoned for lack of fuel. German volunteers first used armor in live field-conditions during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Armor commitment consisted of Panzer Battalion 88, a force built around three companies of Panzer I tanks that functioned as a training cadre for Spain's Nationalists. The Luftwaffe deployed squadrons of fighters , dive-bombers and transport aircraft as

3051-714: The University of Edinburgh , studying under Arthur Dukinfield Darbishire and Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer , and graduating MB ChB in 1912. In the First World War he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps , rising to the rank of Major. He was on active service with the 3rd Field Ambulance Service in France. Professor Alan William Greenwood ran the Institute during Crew’s wartime absence. In 1920 Sharpey-Schafer approached him, asking him to run

3164-593: The World Health Organization as a visiting professor at the University of Rangoon . In 1958 the University of Edinburgh awarded him a Doctor of Letters (LLD). He died on 26 May 1973. He married Helen Campbell Dykes, a fellow medical student, in 1912. She died in 1971 and he remarried the following year to Margaret Ogilvie Withof-Keus, who had previously served under him in the RAMC. His portrait, painted by Alfred Edward Borthwick , forms part of

3277-580: The 1930s. Both used the term to mean a swift strategic knockout, rather than a radically new military doctrine or approach to war. The first article (1935) dealt primarily with supplies of food and materiel in wartime. The term blitzkrieg was used in reference to German efforts to win a quick victory in the First World War but was not associated with the use of armored, mechanized or air forces. It argued that Germany must develop self-sufficiency in food because it might again prove impossible to deal

3390-539: The 1937 bombing of Guernica , which had a tremendous psychological effect on the populations of Europe. The results were exaggerated, and the Western Allies concluded that the "city-busting" techniques were now part of the German way in war. The targets of the German aircraft were actually the rail lines and bridges, but lacking the ability to hit them with accuracy (only three or four Ju 87s saw action in Spain),

3503-437: The 19th century with the military technology of the interwar period. Modern historians use the term casually as a generic description for the style of maneuver warfare practised by Germany during the early part of World War II, rather than as an explanation. According to Frieser, in the context of the thinking of Heinz Guderian on mobile combined arms formations, blitzkrieg can be used as a synonym for modern maneuver warfare on

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3616-469: The 5th anniversary of the Polish School of Medicine's foundation. Professor John Crofton , dean of the medical faculty, said in the opening address: "[...] to bring about the Polish School of Medicine [...] required a substantial pinch of imagination as a catalyst. This un-British ingredient was provided by Professor Frank Crew [...], but of course in respect of imagination Professor Crew is at least

3729-468: The Allies' 600 sorties, the Luftwaffe on average flew 1,500 sorties a day. On 13 May, Fliegerkorps VIII flew 1,000 sorties in support of the crossing of the Meuse. The following day the Allies made repeated attempts to destroy the German pontoon bridges, but German fighter aircraft, ground fire and Luftwaffe flak batteries with the panzer forces destroyed 56 percent of the attacking Allied aircraft, and

3842-470: The Ardennes. Since the French thought that the Ardennes unsuitable for massive troop movement, particularly for tanks, the area was left with only light defences, which were quickly overrun by the Wehrmacht . The Germans quickly advanced through the forest and knocked down the trees that the French had thought would impede them. The influence of air forces over forces on the ground changed significantly over

3955-545: The Army was perceived as old-fashioned and inefficient, as well as tainted by social bias. On a more local level, Assistant Adjutant-General Colonel Frederick Hubert Vinden observed that there was a very high failure rate at Officer Cadet Training Units (OCTUs): he visited each board in 1941, and pinpointed failings in the Command Interview Board as making poor selections of officer candidates and thus causing

4068-482: The Battle of France in 1940, the 4th Armoured Division (Major-General Charles de Gaulle) and elements of the 1st Army Tank Brigade (British Expeditionary Force) made probing attacks on the German flank and pushed into the rear of the advancing armored columns at times. That may have been a reason for Hitler to call a halt to the German advance. Those attacks combined with Maxime Weygand 's hedgehog tactic would become

4181-634: The British Army. Army psychiatry was dominated by psychiatrists from the Tavistock Clinic , and so many figures from that organisation were involved in officer selection from the earliest experiments. In summer 1941, Wittkower and Ferguson Rodger conducted experiments with the German officer selection tests at the Company Commander's School in Edinburgh headed by Alick Buchanan-Smith . The procedure involved: The observation test

4294-569: The British preparations for the attack through British air superiority and air attacks on their headquarters and telephone exchanges, which paralyzed attempts to react to the rapidly-deteriorating situation. Norman Stone detects early blitzkrieg operations in offensives by French Generals Charles Mangin and Marie-Eugène Debeney in 1918. However, French doctrine in the interwar years became defence-oriented. Colonel Charles de Gaulle advocated concentration of armor and airplanes. His opinions appeared in his 1934 book Vers l'Armée de métier ("Towards

4407-601: The Combined Arms)", known as Das Fug (1921–1923) and Truppenführung (1933–1934), containing standard procedures for combined-arms warfare. The Reichswehr was influenced by its analysis of pre-war German military thought, particularly infiltration tactics since at the end of the war, they had seen some breakthroughs on the Western Front and the maneuver warfare which dominated the Eastern Front . On

4520-496: The Eastern Front regularly slowed both sides) or extreme snow. Operation Barbarossa helped confirm that armor effectiveness and the requisite aerial support depended on weather and terrain. The disadvantages of terrain could be nullified if surprise was achieved over the enemy by an attack in areas that had been considered natural obstacles, as occurred during the Battle of France in which the main German offensive went through

4633-538: The Eastern Front, the war did not bog down into trench warfare since the German and the Russian Armies fought a war of maneuver over thousands of miles, which gave the German leadership unique experience that was unavailable to the trench-bound Western Allies. Studies of operations in the East led to the conclusion that small and coordinated forces possessed more combat power than large uncoordinated forces. After

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4746-553: The Edinburgh experiment, John Bowlby conducted research with officer candidates at an OCTU in Southern Command , Wiltshire . He used Raven's Progressive Matrices and interviewed candidates and then rated them on the same four-point scale that the OCTU used. His assessments of the candidates matched with those of commanding officers in 34 out of 36 cases and were deemed a success at picking out capable officers. A memorandum

4859-458: The French made attempts to reform defensive lines along rivers but were frustrated when German forces arrived first and pressed on. Despite being common in German and English-language journalism during World War II , the word Blitzkrieg was never used as an official military term by the Wehrmacht , except for propaganda, and it was never officially adopted it as a concept or doctrine. . According to David Reynolds , " Hitler himself called

4972-507: The German Army to achieve superiority at the Schwerpunkt , whether attacking or defending, to turn local success at the Schwerpunkt into the progressive disorganisation of the opposing force and to create more opportunities to exploit that advantage even if the Germans were numerically and strategically inferior in general. In the 1930s, Guderian summarized that as Klotzen, nicht kleckern! (roughly "splash, don't spill") Having achieved

5085-523: The Germans' air parity or superiority allowed the unencumbered movement of ground forces, their unhindered assembly into concentrated attack formations, aerial reconnaissance, aerial resupply of fast moving formations and close air support at the point of attack. The Allied air forces had no close air support aircraft, training or doctrine. The Allies flew 434 French and 160 British sorties a day but methods of attacking ground targets had yet to be developed and so Allied aircraft caused negligible damage. Against

5198-698: The Institute of Animal Breeding and the first Professor of Animal Genetics. He is said to have laid the foundations of medical genetics . Francis Albert Eley Crew was born in Tipton in England on 2 March 1886 the only surviving son of Thomas Crew, a grocer. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham and the High School in Birmingham. From an early age he took an interest in breeding bantam chickens , and won prizes at local shows. He studied medicine at

5311-755: The National Institute of Industrial Psychology who worked with the Royal Navy ) criticised the WOSBs scheme for technical deficiencies. They argued that as the Board President had the final say, there was variation across WOSBs depending on how far the President accepted psychological methods and guidance. In 1950, psychiatrist Ben Morris and Chief Psychologist to the War Office Bernard Ungerson, exchanged articles in

5424-491: The Polish campaign, the performance of armored troops, under the influence of Guderian's ideas, won over a number of skeptics who had initially expressed doubt about armored warfare, such as von Rundstedt and Rommel. According to David A. Grossman, by the Twelfth Battle of Isonzo (October–November 1917), while he was conducting a light-infantry operation, Rommel had perfected his maneuver-warfare principles, which were

5537-637: The Professional Army"). Like von Seeckt, de Gaulle concluded that France could no longer maintain the huge armies of conscripts and reservists that had fought the First World War, and he sought to use tanks, mechanized forces and aircraft to allow a smaller number of highly trained soldiers to have greater impact in battle. His views endeared him little to the French high command, but, according to historian Henrik Bering, were studied with great interest by Heinz Guderian . In 1916, General Alexei Brusilov had used surprise and infiltration tactics during

5650-727: The Red Army began a secret collaboration in the Soviet Union to evade the Treaty of Versailles occupational agent, the Inter-Allied Commission . In 1926 war games and tests began at Kazan and Lipetsk , in the Soviet Russia . The centers served to field-test aircraft and armored vehicles up to the battalion level and housed aerial- and armoured-warfare schools through which officers rotated. After becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Adolf Hitler ignored

5763-463: The UK’s first Pregnancy Diagnosis Laboratory was also set up under Crew as a tangential area of public benefit, linked to their research. In the 1930s its staff was increased by scientists from Germany and Italy including Hermann Joseph Muller , Charlotte Auerbach and Guido Pontecorvo . In 1921 he received a doctorate (DSc) on his work on sex-determination in frogs . He received an MD the same year and

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5876-681: The University of Edinburgh, supported by the dean of the medical faculty, Professor Sydney Smith . The move was approved by the University Senate with the backing of the Principal, Sir Thomas Holland . The University signed an agreement with the Polish Government in Exile in London , headed by General Wladyslaw Sikorski , on 24 February 1941, to create the Polish School of Medicine. Crew was one of eight Scottish professors in

5989-718: The WOSBs found that they had many shared interests. Calling themselves the "Invisible College" (in reference to the Invisible College who were the precursors of the Royal Society ), they went on to form the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations after the war. Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack, using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with artillery , air assault , and close air support . The intent

6102-413: The WOSBs in the UK, of whom nearly 60,000 passed. In the Middle East, Italy, and North Africa, around 12,700 candidates attended WOSBs and roughly 5,600 passed. The methods of the WOSBs were intended to select candidates who were capable of managing men and relating well to others, as well as being intelligent and physically and technically capable. To select such candidates, a typical Board took place over

6215-407: The WOSBs' because the innovation made the Boards centres for experimentation and learning. Two questionnaires were given to WOSB candidates: Questionniare I covered education, occupation and hobbies and Questionnaire II covered medical family history and so only medical members of the Board were permitted to read Questionnaire II. The final component of the WOSBs was interviews. The interview method

6328-451: The advance. The historian James Corum criticised the German leadership for failing to understand the technical advances of the First World War, conducting no studies of the machine gun prior to the war and giving tank production the lowest priority during the war. After Germany's defeat, the Treaty of Versailles limited the Reichswehr to a maximum of 100,000 men, which prevented the deployment of mass armies. The German General Staff

6441-427: The attacks relied on speed and surprise, rather than on weight of numbers. The tactics met with great success in Operation Michael , the German spring offensive of 1918 and restored temporarily the war of movement once the Allied trench system had been overrun. The German armies pushed on towards Amiens and then Paris and came within 120 kilometres (75 mi) before supply deficiencies and Allied reinforcements halted

6554-401: The battlefield and tactical improvements in the British artillery and infantry attack. General Edmund Allenby used infantry to attack the strong Ottoman front line in co-operation with supporting artillery, augmented by the guns of two destroyers. Through constant pressure by infantry and cavalry, two Ottoman armies in the Judean Hills were kept off-balance and virtually encircled during

6667-453: The best co-operation between all arms, emphasis was placed on detailed planning, rigid control and adherence to orders. Mechanization of the army, as part of a combined-arms theory of war, was considered a means to avoid mass casualties and the indecisive nature of offensives. The four editions of Field Service Regulations that were published after 1918 held that only combined-arms operations could create enough fire power to enable mobility on

6780-455: The bridges remained intact. Allied air superiority became a significant hindrance to German operations during the later years of the war. By June 1944, the Western Allies had the complete control of the air over the battlefield, and their fighter-bomber aircraft were very effective at attacking ground forces. On D-Day, the Allies flew 14,500 sorties over the battlefield area alone, not including sorties flown over Northwestern Europe. Against them

6893-413: The campaigns of 1939–1941, involving the invasions of Belgium , The Netherlands and France and, by 1940, the term blitzkrieg was being extensively used in Western media. Blitzkrieg operations capitalised on surprise penetrations, such as that in the Ardennes forest, the Allies' general lack of preparedness, and their inability to match the pace of the German attack. During the Battle of France ,

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7006-425: The command of Panzer divisions". Schwerpunktprinzip was a heuristic device (conceptual tool or thinking formula) that was used in the German Army from the nineteenth century to make decisions from tactics to strategy about priority. Schwerpunkt has been translated as center of gravity , crucial , focal point and point of main effort . None of those forms is sufficient to describe the universal importance of

7119-573: The conditions for a decisive battle ( Vernichtungsschlacht ). During the war, officers such as Willy Rohr developed tactics to restore maneuver on the battlefield. Specialist light infantry ( Stosstruppen , "storm troops") were to exploit weak spots to make gaps for larger infantry units to advance with heavier weapons, exploit the success and leave isolated strong points to the troops that were following up. Infiltration tactics were combined with short hurricane artillery bombardments , which used massed artillery. Devised by Colonel Georg Bruchmüller ,

7232-439: The course of the Second World War. Early German successes were conducted when Allied aircraft could not make a significant impact on the battlefield. In May 1940, there was near parity in numbers of aircraft between the Luftwaffe and the Allies, but the Luftwaffe had been developed to support Germany's ground forces, had liaison officers with the mobile formations and operated a higher number of sorties per aircraft. In addition,

7345-501: The deep penetrations and the bypassing of enemy strong points to encircle and destroy opposing forces in a Kesselschlacht (cauldron battle/battle of encirclement). During the invasion of Poland , Western journalists adopted the term blitzkrieg to describe that form of armored warfare. The term had appeared in 1935, in the German military periodical Deutsche Wehr ("German Defence"), in connection to quick or lightning warfare. German maneuver operations were successful during

7458-422: The early war period. Seeckt, who believed in the Prussian tradition of mobility, developed the German army into a mobile force and advocated technical advances that would lead to a qualitative improvement of its forces and better coordination between motorized infantry, tanks, and planes. The British Army took lessons from the successful infantry and artillery offensives on the Western Front in late 1918. To obtain

7571-404: The enemy became used to the noise after the Battle of France in 1940, and instead, bombs sometimes had whistles attached. It is also common for historians and writers to include psychological warfare by using fifth columnists to spread rumours and lies among the civilian population in the theatre of operations. The origin of the term blitzkrieg is obscure. It was never used in the title of

7684-403: The exercises carried out in England and our own experience with mock-ups had persuaded me that the tanks would never be able to produce their full effect until the other weapons on whose support they must inevitably rely were brought up to their standard of speed and of cross-country performance. In such formation of all arms, the tanks must play primary role, the other weapons being subordinated to

7797-479: The existing circumstances" as a response to operational challenges. In 2005, the historian Karl-Heinz Frieser summarized blitzkrieg as the result of German commanders using the latest technology in the most advantageous way, according to traditional military principles, and employing "the right units in the right place at the right time". Modern historians now understand blitzkrieg as the combination of traditional German military principles, methods and doctrines of

7910-492: The failures. Psychiatrist Eric Wittkower of the RAMC had been conducting research on "problem" officers who had broken down or caused disruption, and concluded that these men lacked 'ability or qualities of personality adequate to withstand the stresses of their job.' When Wittkower and Vinden met in a pub after Vinden's visit to the final OCTU on his tour, the result was a discussion about how to improve officer selection by utilising psychological methods. Wittkower had been passed

8023-443: The final German offensive operation in the west, Operation Wacht am Rhein , was planned to take place during poor weather to minimise interference by Allied aircraft. Under those conditions, it was difficult for German commanders to employ the "armored idea", if at all. Blitzkrieg is vulnerable to an enemy that is robust enough to weather the shock of the attack and does not panic at the idea of enemy formations in its rear area. That

8136-497: The first Military Testing Officer was Captain W.N. Gray. 10 batches of candidates passed through the experimental WOSB: under the new system, rather than a simple interview candidates went to a large country house and underwent three days of testing incorporating various methods. In April 1942, the War Office expressed its satisfaction with the scheme and commanded that WOSBs should be created 'throughout Great Britain as fast as possible.' Boards were hosted in country houses , which had

8249-481: The high command that every tank in the German armored force must be equipped with a radio. At the start of World War II, only the German Army was thus prepared with all tanks being "radio-equipped". That proved critical in early tank battles in which German tank commanders exploited the organizational advantage over the Allies that radio communication gave them. All Allied armies would later copy that innovation. During

8362-554: The inherent danger of the attacking force overextending its supply lines and can be defeated by a determined foe who is willing and able to sacrifice territory for time in which to regroup and rearm, as the Soviets did on the Eastern Front, as opposed to, for example, the Dutch, who had no territory to sacrifice. Tank and vehicle production was a constant problem for Germany. Indeed, late in the war, many panzer "divisions" had no more than

8475-424: The initiative, exploited weaknesses and acted before the opposing forces could respond. Central to that was the decision cycle (tempo). Through superior mobility and faster decision-making cycles, mobile forces could act faster than the forces opposing them. Directive control was a fast and flexible method of command. Rather than receiving an explicit order, a commander would be told of his superior's intent and

8588-505: The journal Occupational Psychology discussing the validity of WOSBs. Ungerson questioned the validity of the WOSBs; Morris published a defence in response to Ungerson, arguing that the WOSBs could not be assessed based on officer quality, as this was affected by training which was completely separate from selection. Some of the methods used at WOSBs (and No. 21 WOSB itself) were used by the Army psychiatrists in early investigations of problems with repatriated prisoners of war. The WOSBs were

8701-411: The large-scale industrialisation that they required. Robert Watt (2008) wrote that blitzkrieg has little in common with Soviet deep battle. In 2002, H. P. Willmott had noted that deep battle contained two important differences from blitzkrieg by being a doctrine of total war, not of limited operations, and rejecting decisive battle in favour of several large simultaneous offensives. The Reichswehr and

8814-484: The major basis for responding to blitzkrieg attacks in the future. Deployment in depth , or permitting enemy or "shoulders" of a penetration, was essential to channelling the enemy attack; artillery, properly employed at the shoulders, could take a heavy toll on attackers. Allied forces in 1940 lacked the experience to develop those strategies successfully, which resulted in the French armistice with heavy losses, but those strategies characterized later Allied operations. At

8927-456: The majority of the candidates who went through the system, with questionnaires revealing high satisfaction amongst both successful and unsuccessful candidates. Complaints from those rejected came predominantly from those with a public school background. However, there was hostility to the WOSBs from some senior Army figures such as Bernard Paget and Prime Minister Winston Churchill . Churchill actually appointed an Expert Committee to investigate

9040-448: The need of the ground forces. In fact, far from it being a specialist panzer spearhead arm, less than 15 percent of the Luftwaffe was intended for close support of the army in 1939. Methamphetamine , known as "pervitin," use is believed to have played a role in the speed of Germany's initial Blitzkrieg since military success with combined arms demanded long hours of continuous operations with minimal rest. The concepts associated with

9153-527: The newly created animal breeding research station in Edinburgh . This was originally housed at High School Yards, transferring to King's Buildings in 1924, there linking to the Chemistry Department. His staff at the Institute was illustrious: including John Burdon Sanderson Haldane , Lancelot Hogben , Julian Huxley , Bertold Paul Wiesner and (as a postgraduate) Honor Fell . At this time

9266-451: The operational level. The traditional meaning of "blitzkrieg" is that of German tactical and operational methodology during the first half of the Second World War that is often hailed as a new method of warfare. The word, meaning "lightning war" or "lightning attack" in its strategic sense describes a series of quick and decisive short battles to deliver a knockout blow to an enemy state before it can fully mobilize. Tactically, blitzkrieg

9379-671: The provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. Within the Wehrmacht, which was established in 1935, the command for motorized armored forces was named the Panzerwaffe in 1936. The Luftwaffe , the German air force, was officially established in February 1935, and development began on ground-attack aircraft and doctrines. Hitler strongly supported the new strategy. He read Guderian's 1937 book Achtung – Panzer! and upon observing armored field exercises at Kummersdorf , he remarked, "That

9492-441: The publications of Ferdinand Otto Miksche, first in the magazine "Army Quarterly", and in his 1941 book Blitzkrieg , in which he defined the concept. In September 1939, Time magazine termed the German military action as a "war of quick penetration and obliteration – Blitzkrieg , lightning war". After the invasion of Poland, the British press commonly used the term to describe German successes in that campaign. J. P. Harris called

9605-431: The requirements of the armor. It would be wrong to include tanks in infantry divisions; what was needed were armored divisions which would include all the supporting arms needed to allow the tanks to fight with full effect. Guderian believed that developments in technology were required to support the theory, especially by equipping armored divisions, tanks foremost, with wireless communications. Guderian insisted in 1933 to

9718-474: The role that his unit was to fill in that concept. The method of execution was then a matter for the discretion of the subordinate commander. The staff burden was reduced at the top and spread among tiers of command with knowledge about their situation. Delegation and the encouragement of initiative aided implementation, and important decisions could be taken quickly and communicated verbally or with only brief written orders. The last part of an offensive operation

9831-518: The school, working alongside ten Polish professors. On 28 May 1943, the President of the Polish Republic, Władysław Raczkiewicz , created Crew a Commander of the Order "Polonia Restituta" alongside Professor Sydney Smith and Sir Thomas Holland , at a ceremony in the University's McEwan Hall . On 4 June 1946, Crew attended a special graduation ceremony at the University of Edinburgh marking

9944-638: The space to accommodate candidates and the tests. WOSBs were later also created overseas. Boards were also created for choosing women officers for the Auxiliary Territorial Service , staffed by women including women psychiatrists. Very little documentation on the women's Boards seems to have survived. At the peak of the WOSBs, there were 19 psychologists (5 women), 31 officers, nearly 600 non-technical officers (about 50 women) and 700 NCOs (about 200 women) working on selection. Between 1942 and 1945, more than 125,000 candidates passed through

10057-434: The storm and fight out of encirclements failed because of the Soviets' ability to continue to feed armored units into the attack, maintain the mobility and strength of the offensive and arrive in force deep in the rear areas faster than the Germans could regroup. Although effective in quick campaigns against Poland and France, mobile operations could not be sustained by Germany in later years. Strategies based on maneuver have

10170-652: The term blitzkrieg (deep penetrations by armor, large encirclements, and combined arms attacks) were largely dependent upon terrain and weather conditions. Wherever the ability for rapid movement across "tank country" was not possible, armored penetrations often were avoided or resulted in failure. The terrain would ideally be flat, firm, unobstructed by natural barriers or fortifications, and interspersed with roads and railways. If it were instead hilly, wooded, marshy, or urban, armor would be vulnerable to infantry in close-quarters combat and unable to break out at full speed. Additionally, units could be halted by mud ( thawing along

10283-513: The term "a piece of journalistic sensationalism – a buzz-word with which to label the spectacular early successes of the Germans in the Second World War". The word was later applied to the bombing of Britain, particularly London, hence " The Blitz ". The German popular press followed suit nine months later, after the Fall of France in 1940; thus, although the word had first been used in Germany, it

10396-461: The term Blitzkrieg "a completely idiotic word" ( ein ganz blödsinniges Wort )". Some senior German officers, including Kurt Student , Franz Halder and Johann Adolf von Kielmansegg , even disputed the idea that it was a military concept. Kielmansegg asserted that what many regarded as blitzkrieg was nothing more than "ad hoc solutions that simply popped out of the prevailing situation". Kurt Student described it as ideas that "naturally emerged from

10509-480: The term and the concept of Schwerpunktprinzip . Every unit in the army, from the company to the supreme command, decided on a Schwerpunkt by schwerpunktbildung , as did the support services, which meant that commanders always knew what was the most important and why. The German army was trained to support the Schwerpunkt even when risks had to be taken elsewhere to support the point of main effort and to attack with overwhelming firepower. Schwerpunktbildung allowed

10622-646: The very same ones that were applied during the blitzkrieg against France in 1940 and were repeated in the Coalition ground offensive against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War . During the Battle of France and against his staff advisor's advice, Hitler ordered that everything should be completed in a few weeks. Fortunately for the Germans, Rommel and Guderian disobeyed the General Staff's orders (particularly those of General Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist ) and forged ahead making quicker progress than anyone had expected, on

10735-510: The war, the Reichswehr expanded and improved infiltration tactics. The commander in chief, Hans von Seeckt , argued that there had been an excessive focus on encirclement and emphasised speed instead. Seeckt inspired a revision of Bewegungskrieg (maneuver warfare) thinking and its associated Auftragstaktik in which the commander expressed his goals to subordinates and gave them discretion in how to achieve them. The governing principle

10848-496: The way "inventing the idea of Blitzkrieg". It was Rommel who created the new archetype of Blitzkrieg by leading his division far ahead of flanking divisions. MacGregor and Williamson remark that Rommel's version of blitzkrieg displayed a significantly better understanding of combined-arms warfare than that of Guderian. General Hermann Hoth submitted an official report in July 1940 which declared that Rommel had "explored new paths in

10961-426: The widespread view of the time that intelligence was a national problem that touched upon many areas of life. The Edinburgh experiment was assessed based on how well the psychiatrists' conclusions about officer candidates matched with commanding officers' assessments. Out of 48 men studied, there was essential agreement in 26 cases, substantial agreement in 12 cases, and essential disagreement in 12. Concurrently with

11074-487: The word Blitzkrieg , because it is a very silly word". In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". In 1914, German strategic thinking derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) and Alfred von Schlieffen (28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913), who advocated maneuver, mass and envelopment to create

11187-509: The work of psychologists and psychiatrists in the services, with the particular intention that they focus upon uses (or misuses) of psychoanalysis. The psychiatric interview was a point of particular concern. In 1943, the Expert Committee ruled that no more than half of candidates should have psychiatric interviews, and later that no questions about sex or religion should be asked. Psychiatrists at Boards got around this by re-defining

11300-409: Was "the higher the authority, the more general the orders were"; it was the responsibility of the lower echelons to fill in the details. Implementation of higher orders remained within limits that were determined by the training doctrine of an elite officer corps. Delegation of authority to local commanders increased the tempo of operations, which had great influence on the success of German armies in

11413-583: Was abolished by the treaty but continued covertly as the Truppenamt (Troop Office) and was disguised as an administrative body. Committees of veteran staff officers were formed within the Truppenamt to evaluate 57 issues of the war to revise German operational theories. By the time of the Second World War, their reports had led to doctrinal and training publications, including H. Dv. 487, Führung und Gefecht der verbundenen Waffen ("Command and Battle of

11526-410: Was appointed to the group, who were then set a task to complete. The task was the "set" problem, but the "real" problem which psychologically trained observers were judging was the participant's ability to balance their desire to do well as an individual with the need to work with and support other members of the group. Leaderless Group tests in particular were credited as changing 'the entire character of

11639-475: Was drawn up in late 1941 to report the results of the psychological experiments to the War Office, and specifically to Adjutant-General Sir Ronald Adam , who was responsible for personnel issues in the Army. Adam expressed satisfaction with the methods and encouraged the War Office to approve a new system. The Army psychiatrists' proposals for officer selection on psychological lines were well-received and an experimental unit, No. 1 War Office Selection Board (WOSB)

11752-679: Was established in Edinburgh and opened on 15 February 1942. The first WOSB was based in the Genetics Institute headed by Francis Albert Eley Crew in the King's Buildings of the University of Edinburgh . Colonel J.V. Delahaye DSO was the first WOSB President. Wilfred Bion was the Board Psychiatrist, and Eric Trist the Board Psychologist. The first sergeant-testers were Alex Mitchell and David O'Keefe, and

11865-459: Was flexible and could carry out both operational-tactical, and strategic bombing. Flexibility was the strength of the Luftwaffe in 1939 to 1941. Paradoxically, that became its weakness. While Allied Air Forces were tied to the support of the Army, the Luftwaffe deployed its resources in a more general operational way. It switched from air superiority missions to medium-range interdiction, to strategic strikes to close support duties, depending on

11978-529: Was intended particularly to help the Board to make decisions on borderline candidates who had been highlighted by the preceding tests. There were also two interviews: the Board President and the Board Psychiatrist both interviewed candidates. At some boards, the two interviews led to conflict and jostling for power between the President and the Psychiatrist (see Reception, below). The WOSBs seemed popular with

12091-399: Was not prepared economically for a long war but might win a quick war ( "Blitzkrieg" ). He did not go into detail about tactics or suggest that the German armed forces had evolved a radically new operational method. His book offered scant clues as to how German lightning victories might be won. In English and other languages, the term had been used since the 1920s. The term was first used in

12204-658: Was popularized by British journalism. Heinz Guderian referred to it as a word coined by the Allies: "as a result of the successes of our rapid campaigns our enemies ... coined the word Blitzkrieg ". After the German failure in the Soviet Union in 1941, the use of the term began to be frowned upon in Nazi Germany, and Hitler then denied ever using the term and said in a speech in November 1941, "I have never used

12317-603: Was provided in the form of the dive bomber and medium bomber , which would support the focal point of attack from the air. German successes are closely related to the extent to which the German Luftwaffe could control the air war in early campaigns in Western and Central Europe and in the Soviet Union. However, the Luftwaffe was a broadly based force with no constricting central doctrine other than its resources should be used generally to support national strategy. It

12430-545: Was ruled out as not useful, and the choice-reaction test and performance-under-stress tests gave only low positive correlation with the psychiatrists' assessments of candidates' personalities and so were dismissed. Though the results of the intelligence tests were not available in time to be used to assess the candidates, they were assumed to be useful and an advisory committee even suggested that officers should only be chosen from those who scored highly on intelligence tests. Historian Nafsika Thalassis has argued that this reflected

12543-427: Was specially created for WOSBs to better distinguish between those at the highest end of the mental ability scale. Various "psychological pointers" were used to help highlight areas that the psychological members of the WOSBs may like to follow-up on in later interviews or observations. The pointers were determined by three psychologists: Jock Sutherland , Eric Trist , and Isabel Menzies Lyth . The "pointers" included

12656-523: Was the destruction of unsubdued pockets of resistance, which had been enveloped earlier and bypassed by the fast-moving armored and motorized spearheads. The Kesselschlacht ("cauldron battle") was a concentric attack on such pockets. It was there that most losses were inflicted upon the enemy, primarily through the mass capture of prisoners and weapons. During Operation Barbarossa , huge encirclements in 1941 produced nearly 3.5 million Soviet prisoners, along with masses of equipment. Close air support

12769-645: Was to fill his role in the world of animal genetics. He served as the Society’s Secretary from 1931 to 1936 and as Vice-President from 1936 to 1939. He won the Society's Keith Medal for the period 1937-39. In 1939 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London . During the Second World War he established the Polish School of Medicine in Edinburgh, which survived until 1949 and had

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