The WAY to WOW Shows
Advance or Retreat
August 6, 2024
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[0:00] from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about military Doctrine military history the practices of great military leaders all by way of um translating them into things that we can do in our business and professional lives to improve them and this is all part of of my effort as a uh veteran to take some of the things that I learned either when I was in the

[0:35] military or have read as a historian and offer them to you my fellow citizens for your benefit uh I I've say this many times the military spends an enormous amount of money training uh training service members developing Doctrine Etc and this is one way that we can give back to you for your support so today I'm talking about the subject of Advance or Retreat and I'm going to be using as my

[1:12] example the battle of the marn which took place during World the beginning of World War I in September of 1914 so this was several years before the United States entered the War I think just as an aside one of the interesting aspects of World War I is it it in many ways looms so large in American history and yet we did not get involved combat-wise in World War one until April of 19 2017 and combat operations in World War

[1:50] I ended in November of the following year so we were only involved for about 18 months and of that us combat operations were even shorter about six months so the the the fact that we declared war in April we had almost no Army um to speak of roughly a 100,000 men um and I think about around 6,000 officers there about um and at the time um and even in the beginning of World War I armies were you know close

[2:28] to a million men in some cases um that was that was the case for the French at the M um and the m is known as the miracle of the mar or at the mar and and I think in a in a as as we talk about this you'll begin to see why so setting kind of setting events up a little bit um I'm not going to get into why World War I um got started that that is a rather complex subject um generally we're told

[3:04] that um a a Serbian terrorist um uh assassinated the um Arch Duke Arch duuk Ferdinand of Austria and that started World War I while that was kind of a precipitating event there was a long leadup to World War I and an involved more than this this one incident um but in any event the um Central Powers um in in World War I were essentially um Germany and Austria okay you may say

[3:41] well wait what about Italy no Italy was not allied with Germany in World War I um neither was Japan by the way um and um the Allies were um in the beginning primarily uh England and France Now France was the major combatant um it had um essentially the largest army on the continent and um the other sort of

[4:16] combatant was was Belgium I'm talking about them in the beginning of of World War I now Belgian was actually a neutral country in all of this and and in fact um it was you know part of Germany's initial plan of attack was to sweep through neutral Belgian to attack France and and the idea was um so there was something called the schen plan schen was a a general in the German Army and

[4:51] he came up with this idea that Germany would sweep toward France um part and part of its um right wing would sweep through Belgium which was thought to be you know they're just going to walk over Belgium it's no big deal even though Belgian was a committed neutral and so uh you know Germany making war on France they were Bound by treaty to not go through Belgium um and it was because Germany violated that Belgian neutrality

[5:29] that the UK Great Britain ended up coming into the war um in really in defense of Belgium um but because um France was being attacked by then the um the age-old um rivalry and animosity between England and France was was was Cooling and the French and the British became allies um kind of for the first time so so here you have this situation and um there there's a a

[6:06] wonderful book about this um very well known called The Guns of August um by Barbara touchman and it really talks about um the that first month a little bit more than a month of World War I primarily in August of 1914 so Germany under the schen plan decides to attack France again through neutral Belgium and the the idea of the schen plan was that the Germans would move so quickly that within 35

[6:43] days they would conquer Paris and destroy the French army and just summarily win the war and and that was G to that was going to be it bang you know bang done and the the reality is that Germany came very very close to succeeding so opposing the Germans were primarily the French um under uh Ferdinand fos and they had something called plan

[7:19] 17 now interestingly enough um you would think plan 17 would have been a defensive plan it was not it was also an offensive plan and I I talked about this in a a show I think a couple of weeks ago the idea the the the sort of central idea of the French army was was to attack to be on the offensive always um cran was was the the French word basically um you know always be

[7:54] attacking always be on the offensive and so you had the clash between the Germans and the French and the re the reality of the situation was the French did not fare well and and um although the Belgian Army small as it was under the king of Belgium actually was able to delay the German offensive much more so than the Germans and even the French

[8:30] anticipated uh and and the belgians had a series of forts and fortifications and such and it it took massive artillery uh barges on the part of Germany to destroy these these Fortress lines and in doing so it slowed up their advance and so the idea of of the of the Belgian Army and of the king of Belgium was they would defend these fortresses until they became indefensible basically and then they would pull back to the next line

[9:06] and to the next line but by delaying um the the German move through Belgium they they sort of threw a wrench in the overall schen plan and in the meantime gave the British time to land the British expeditionary Force really in essentially in Belgium to shore up what was the left wing of the French army now I I mentioned a minute ago that the this was really kind of the first time that the French and

[9:43] the British operated together and there was a lot of Suspicion between the two armies about working together and the initial combat phases did not go well so the English Commander um was very reluctant to um engage in in military operations um at at the uh certainly at the order of of the the French military and indeed he was very careful to maintain Britain as

[10:20] its its its own Army and and and there was a tremendous lack of coordination between the two that the German were essentially able to exploit um and at different times so if you can imagine Army you know if you have a solid line of army so you can't get around what are called their flanks right but once you have one Army you know pull back farther than the other now you create a seam through which the uh attacking Army can advance and and

[10:55] that becomes a problem for both right because if I can get in between and behind you know this Army that's in front um that's a problem but now I've also exposed this Army to a flank attack so so I can attack this Army from the rear but I can now attack this Army from the side and now they've got a turn to defend themselves and that makes them vulnerable now they've turned their flank to the front lines and you see how a battle can uh can go wrong so this was the kind of thing that Ferdinand fos was dealing with and all along he's saying you know

[11:31] attack attack attack and the reality was the the the French were not able to hold the uh Germans and so toward the end of August fos finally recognized that they they did had to they did have they would have to um Retreat essentially and regroup and so he did do that somewhat and at the same time he reorganized the the French military so he created an army um under galini who

[12:07] was recalled to to duty he was essentially a retired General um he had fought in the Franco Prussian War he was recalled to duty and he was charged with uh with commanding F the French sixth Army and defending Paris now the idea of defending Paris was was not a universally held idea so there were senior leaders in the French army that felt that France should that I'm sorry that that Paris should not be

[12:43] defended that they should with draw essentially behind Paris and let the Germans move in and take it but but in the in the mean time the government would relocate out of Paris and so the government wouldn't fall and so would be somewhat of a peric victory for the Germans to take Paris um because in the end they would have gotten the city but they wouldn't have overthrown the government they wouldn't have destroyed the French army so it was this controversy was going on in the beginning of World War II and galini the

[13:22] leader of the French sixth Army recognized that he he was he was really kind of being put on the spot because on the one hand he was being told here's an army and defend Paris but at the same time units from his army were being requested to shore up the other armies that were still actively facing the Germans so he was getting you know kind of a mixed message if you would about really how just how important was it to to save Paris and it finally got to the point where f

[14:00] sort of had to Fisher cut bait as we say so his his his right was was weaken if there there's a famous line about this I'm gonna I'm gonna read the quote here to make sure I give it to you right so uh so he he his he sent a message to essentially the French government saying my right is driven in that that's where the the uh Germans were pushing most uh strongly my Center is giving way meaning that they weren't going to be able to hold off much longer impossible to maneuver and then he ended the message

[14:36] by saying situation excellent I am attacking now you can imagine as his right is collapsing and his Center is in imminent danger of collapsing the idea that this is a great thing and so now he's going to attack makes no sense at all and of course this was part of of the part of what was driving this idea that the French army needed to retreat but fos decided that the the the only

[15:11] way to uh essentially defeat the schen plan and it's not clear that he necessarily knew it was the schen plan per se but but in anyway in any event to stop the the German Advance the only way to do that was to turn the tables and attack them rather than trying to set up a line of defense that that the Germans just couldn't break through because the Germans would be surprised by his in essence turning the

[15:46] tables on him and so excuse me in the on September 2nd um the um uh fos uh launches this you know battle what became known as I'm sorry not December 2 December September 5th fos launches what becomes known as the battle of the m and the battle lasted for seven days and in the end by attacking M was able to fight the

[16:23] Germans to a standstill and hence began what most people know about World War I which is this trench warfare this this horrible sort of Killing Grounds where you had forces on one side entrenched and forces on the other side entrenched and you had this Zone in between called No Man's Land filled with shell pot marks and barbed wire and and and all of all of the you know this this situation where if you wanted to attack your enemy you

[16:58] had to send sappers through initially to either blow holes through the uh through the barbed wire or you had to send men forward to cut through the barb wire meanwhile artillery is raining down on them and horrible horrible Killing Fields um in the battle of the M the French had an army as I mentioned at the beginning of almost a million men about 980,000 men I mean by historic standards that is a just an enormous Army um the British had another roughly I think

[17:34] 100,000 soldiers involved far on the the French left wing and and in the end again um the the idea of advancing in order to stop this attack worked but it really was somewhat of a miracle because the Germans just appeared to be in vincible at that time it just it just seemed like the schen plan was was going to work and 35 to 40 days after Germany started combat

[18:10] operations they were going to conquer the French and it was going to be you know a very short war and Germany was going to Prevail and in the event you can see that the war stalemated essentially in September of 1914 and it didn't end for another four years and it really took the United States getting involved bringing tremendous its tremendous reserves of manpower to the fight now just just to sort of wrap up the story a little bit

[18:46] it's an interesting footnote that although America at the time was a tremendous industrial power um the US contribution to material in the war in World War I was very little so although there were grandiose plans to build I think it was 20 or 24,000 aircraft you know in in in a six months or a year or whatever it was almost none were actually builds um the US uh had very uh

[19:21] little artillery that it could bring to the fields no tanks which became a new weapon in world World War I uh machine guns no so the US Army actually fought primarily with French and British material what the US Army brought was people because France and Great Britain had just been bled dry by World War I combat um and um and and the just tremendous number of men who were killed maimed

[19:57] wounded um in in in these Killing Fields and um if you if you've ever watched one of my favorite uh TV shows Downtown Abbey so it takes the the time period it covers uh includes World War I and you see some of the results of it it's it's very uh true historically and an entire almost an entire generation of uh British men was killed or wounded as a result of World War I and there's

[20:33] there's a one of the characters one of the daughters of Lord Grantham uh wants to get married and she starts dating a man who's almost or maybe is as old as her father um who was wounded but at least he was you know alive and his fa her father does not think he's a suitable match because he's so old and he's you know he's wounded and all that kind of stuff and she's and she turns to his her father at one point and says all the young men that I knew are dead and you know who am I supposed to

[21:09] marry what am I supposed to do and again there there's a lot of historic accuracy in that so the impact on French and British society and German society as well by the way of World War I in terms of just the number of people killed and wounded was tremendous compared to the United States um and and and so going back now to our key topic for today's show so so do you advance or do you Retreat right and the battle of the

[21:45] marn would seem to say that all things being equal you should advance and you might want to take that lesson away but I I'm not sure that that's exactly what the battle of the mar teaches it is the fact that field Marshall fos took a risk and that risk paid off but we shouldn't mistake the idea that merely because his risk paid off that therefore we should always take that risk is in our

[22:22] businesses and professions so i' i' I've just I've got my notes over here because again I want to make sure I give you the these ideas accurately um so the factors in favor of retreating that fos presumably considered were first of all tactically the French army was in a very precarious situation and the weight of experience

[22:58] was that the Germans were likely to break through and take Paris and if they did take Paris even if they didn't capture the government and the government was basically you know planning to DeCamp from Paris nonetheless from a morale standpoint it would be a tremendous hit and not just for the French but for the British as well so one of the things the French had to do was show

[23:34] the British that being our Ally is worthwhile right so you know if if they had lost Paris right The Shining Jewel of France that would have been a tremendously negative blow to French and British morale so that's that's one issue by the way there it there would also have been a huge boost to German morale again even if the government hadn't been taken in Paris the idea that the Germans had taken the

[24:09] French Capital it's like woohoo look what we did and look how we we did it so quickly so preventing that could have you know that would be a good reason for retreat and by the way if they did even Retreat behind Paris and declare Paris an open City that would have removed the propaganda Victory from the Germans right because we're you know the French would basically be saying look we're regrouping behind Paris we're making Paris an open City if you go in there you know we're we're essentially letting

[24:44] you go into the city um and if you go in there and start you know bombing it or or killing our citizens or such indeed the disapprobation of the world would have been on Germany because as one might imagine Paris was a well-known City okay so so that was one one factor arguing in favor of retreat the other was saving French troops French combat units the French army for to fight for

[25:19] another day right so the idea of standing and fighting in the face of What was a Superior German military operation you know it could have spelled absolute disaster right part of the schen plans one of their one of the schen plans objectives was to destroy the French army so if they had stood and fought and and a lot more French soldiers had been killed so

[25:56] then even at at that point even retreating might not have helped because there might not have been enough of the French army left to mount any kind of further defense let alone to mount some kind of counter offensive at the the appropriate time so it it might have been smarter to for fos to preserve his forces and you know basically keep them to fight another day now on the opposite side is are the factors of of for

[26:34] advancing in other words against retreating and and and and they somewhat mirror um the factors that mitigated in favor of retreating so first of all by advancing rather than retreating the if if the French were successful as it turned out they would it was it was not looked as just a victory but a a massive Victory that's why it became known as the miracle of the mar it was a massive Victory they prevented The Taking of Paris they showed their their their

[27:11] military metal as they say and and and and turned what looked like certain defeat into Victory even though in the end it was really just stal made okay so it wasn't it wasn't like the French turned around and pushed the Germans back into Germany not at all not at all what they did is they essentially fought them to a standstill but because of F's audacious decision the marn became a great Victory and and and and a rallying cry and and I think fos recognized that

[27:47] if he was able to pull this off that would be the case so that's number one number two by advancing rather than treating he would instill morale or reins morale uh well he would yeah re-instill morale in the French army and hopefully instill morale in what the french perceived as a a British Army lacking in kran h and and there was probably a lot of a lot of Truth to that the the British commander

[28:22] was was was not a particularly aggressive uh fighter and so the idea of saying okay we're attacking and you know you come with us British otherwise you're going to be left behind right um and you're going to look you know cowardly right so in essence fos forced the hand of the British and and and again I think fos knew that if if he was able to attack and turn the tables Not only would that stop the German advance

[28:57] but it would be a huge morale boost for for his army to go back on the offensive and fulfill what they saw as kind of their Destiny this idea of of that was you know Central to plan 17 even though the plan itself didn't work and then finally it it essentially forced the British to come to terms with coordinating with the French so again and I I I mentioned this a moment ago if the French had decided to attack while the British retreated that would have been incredibly embarrassing for the

[29:35] British and I think fos understood even at that early early date that he he needed more than just the you know 100,000 men of the bef the British expeditionary Force if if Germany was going to be defeated and so he had to to find some way in essence to get the British on board and it's you know getting someone on board with Retreat um isn't necessarily the best

[30:10] way to create a tight unit um because people are afraid people are withdrawing that you know soldiers are withdrawing that sort of thing but by taking this audacious move and and essentially demanding that the British become part of it he was really creating a situation where they became uh true allies in their objective of first stopping the German advance and then eventually as the years wound by eventually defeating the German Army and

[30:46] and winning World War I so so so that this then then how do we take this lesson and use it in our businesses and our practices well it we may be working on let's let's take something basic some kind of large sales initiative okay one one that comes to mind is is the famous New Coke debacle right when cocacola decided that to to compete more effectively with Pepsi they

[31:22] had to change their decades long formula for the for the FL flavor of coke um because Pepsi seemed to be um more more highly desired by younger generations and and so they created New Coke right well it it it became obvious very soon after New Coke was launched that the consumers did not like it right I mean the I think the most consumers certainly this is the way I

[31:58] felt was if I want to drink Pepsi I'll go drink Pepsi I drink Coke because it's Coke right and because it's not as sweet as Pepsi frankly right so cocacola the Coca-Cola company had a very fundamental decision to make do we Retreat or do we advance right and the they they had several of the same issues that fos had so first of all they had hyped up their people that this was going to be a a

[32:34] turning point for cocacola and instead it was a disaster so what what do they do if if if they if they continue to go ahead trying to promote what looked from pretty much the beginning to be a disastrous new project what impact is that going to have on the morale of their people who are fighting what appears to be a losing battle okay or you know do they keep fighting knowing that they they're going to break through and and they you know continue

[33:11] to pump up their people in the face of what what looks like sure defeat that's essentially the situation that fos was in okay what do they do about Pepsi because remember just like the French they were not operating in a vacuum they were operating against a very powerful enemy the German army so as coca colola was going through this debacle it wasn't like Pepsi was just sort of sitting back and going oh we'll just kind of watch this right Pepsi is actively looking to take

[33:46] advantage of Coca-Cola's troubles and so you know they're they're going on on the advance and basically basically saying to to Consumers you know if if Coca-Cola is show so unsure of itself that it has to copy us what does that really say about Coca-Cola see you might as well drink the the original Pepsi right and and so in essence cocacola was facing being encircled by Pepsi Coca-Cola for all of time basically was the number one

[34:23] Cola in the United States Pepsi was always the number two and and and Pepsi was looking to overtake Coca-Cola so would moving forward just you know further give Pepsi an opportunity to encircle Coke and become the number one Cola I don't know right um whereas if cocacola acknowledged the mistake that they had made and essentially you know took the

[34:58] The Humble side they could they could make a mayaula to their consumers to the people who drank coke and say oops oops we made a mistake we shouldn't have done this and and and in essence by retreating from New Coke they could you know re regain their footing they could gather their troops and and and sort of Reform them to make a new assault in the Cola Wars and in the end in this case Coca-Cola decided retreat was better so

[35:35] they pulled back from New Coke and they essentially reintroduced original Coke calling it classic cocacola and so they pulled back and then they eventually regrouped and moved forward again and fortunately for cocacola um when by by by entally admitting their mistake and coming back with the original formula their their consumers rallied around them and that that saved the day so I think as we look

[36:10] at our businesses when we're launching some kind of initiative right if it goes well then great you know we keep pushing it but if if we encounter some kind of resistance or debacle at some point we're going to have to face the question of do we keep pressing on or do we Retreat regroup and look for a new line of attack and I I will say in my own business career I think one of my my tendency is always to keep pushing

[36:46] forward keep pushing forward keep pushing forward and that's that there there were times I probably would have been better off if I had you know tactically or even operationally retreated regrouped and looked for a new way to attack a problem or expand my business rather than you know ceaselessly beating my head against a brick wall and getting nowhere now I will say that sometimes the economy intervenes and in my case um of my my

[37:22] original Company Real Estate Company there was essentially a recession at the very end of the 1980s and very early 1990s that forced me to pull back and while I didn't really I still didn't want to I had no choice but that pull back allowed me to stop take a breath and figure out where really do I need to move forward in order for my business to be more successful

[37:58] and that that strategic pause if you will that I was forced to take actually turned out to be a turning point in my company because when I was able to go back on the offensive my company was much more successful than it had ever been before and and in many ways was more successful than I thought it was ever going to be so it would have been better I think if I hadn't if I had recognize the value of of retreating perhaps a little bit earlier I wouldn't

[38:33] have gotten in such a deep hole as the result of a recession um but but in any in any event um you know this this question of when do we advance when do we Retreat these are the kind of factors that that we need to take into account as we evaluate our our strategic options and again they they come down to the the the morale of our people what real opportunity are we being presented with as we confront our our enemy or our Market it doesn't have you know we don't

[39:08] have to militarize you know the business World quite so much and what are the inherent risks in continuing to move forward in terms of future progress do we get ourselves to the point where we're we're just so exhausted so beaten up that we won't be able to take take advantage of future opportunities or do we see an opportunity to you know double down and and therefore really make a tremendous Leap Forward even if it comes at some significant cost but nonetheless

[39:44] we're able to meet this strategic objective and and and then you know after we've met that objective we can we can pause and we don't have to retreat so that is the lesson of the the at the M the miracle of the mar and I I I invite your your thoughts your comments on on you know today's show always interested to hear what you have to say and you can post that in our social media you'll you'll see links to that in the show notes after this episode posts so thank you very very

[40:21] much for joining me today tomorrow at 10: am Pacific time is my show people making money I'm going to be talking about writing a book why you might want to write a book what you should write it about and how you can write it in a way that will be most effective and efficient for your business or practice so so do please join me then and then we'll be back next week on Monday at 10: a.m. with my show uh trusts and Estates weekly and the

[40:56] regular schedule and next week on Thursday I want to highlight this this is our new show Thursdays at 5:00 pm Pacific time every other week is jigger's place and we talk about all things not related to business and professions so we're going to be talking about on on uh NE Thursday of next week behaviors that Define a man this is a a subject very near to my heart and uh you

[41:32] you'll see share I'll be sharing some stories um from uh from from My Life um on how I develop these ideas so it's a time for us to relax as we head toward the end of the week so just wanted to highlight our our new show so thanks again very much for joining me wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off Marie darling you are my