0:02 hello and welcome to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bamel and we are here every Tuesday at 10: a.m. Pacific time to talk about military history Doctrine and the practices of great military leaders all by way of distilling lessons from them that we can apply to our business and professional lives so today I'm G to talk about General John persing so he's um one of the most iconic military figures in American history um he's he's
0:39 you know probably not quite at the level of George Washington who probably sits at the Pinnacle but he's certainly up there with um um Douglas MacArthur um George Patton uh who actually served under persing and and um you know General Eisenhower I think you know those are probably the the the generals we think of most often um unless we go back to the 1800s and you know ulyses srant and perhaps Sherman so what I'm gonna talk about today is it's probably
1:16 too short to call it an evolution but the the changes in how uh General persing fought the Border war against Poncho via from roughly 1916 to 1917 and how he fought in World War I in Europe from 197 to 1918 so they they don't literally overlap but um they they they pretty much back up to each other so just to set the scene a little bit um
1:51 in in 1916 um the infamous Poncho via who was an extraordinary charismatic leader in Mexico started raiding across the border into New Mexico or really yeah I think New Mexico was already a state by then it just just had shortly beforehand become a state and so um General persing was given the responsibility basically to stop the raids and so now you know take you back a little
2:28 bit right this is 19 16 so the telephone did exist although telephone service like we know it now um certainly uh did not exist and and there were no cell phones or anything like that uh radio did not exist so you couldn't be coordinating with your uh you know commanders in the field using radio you you know you really didn't even use telephone either back then um Telephone was was between you know Urban locations but that was
3:03 pretty much it there was little if any uh Rural Telephone service and in terms of warfare we were at the very nency in this country of what would later become known as industrial Warfare and so as a result Cavalry was still horse-based and there there really wasn't any significant mechanis mechanization of fighting um in in in the US Army okay and then so then as we
3:41 transition from 19617 to 19178 and we and we go from the US Mexico border to World War I Europe right World War I Europe was the first major industri Ral war and and and it's called an industrial War because it's really when things like machine guns poison gas the airplane the tank became a part of Modern Warfare
4:19 so going back now to Poncho and the border so in the the the fundamental doctrine of the US military was was one of maneuver and aggressiveness in battle and Pat not Patton sorry persing believed that the most important weapon was the rifle and bar and Bayonet now when we talk about a rifle with a Bayonet we're not talking about an automatic weapon okay we're talking
4:55 about pretty much a a uh I mean had it had multi uh a multi-shot but you had to essentially the rifle for each shot okay and so the the aggressive Spirit of the infantrymen was what was important for Cavalry what was still preeminent was the the the short arm like a like a um a carbine and as well as pistols
5:30 okay and and pistols were multi-shot now um there there were single action pistols by then in fact um in 1911 the 45 caliber um automatic pistol became the standard weapon for the US Army in terms of a sidearm uh but excuse me and then of course the sword was still in play and in fact Patton became Master of the sword in the Army in the 19s UMC because of the the doctrine that
6:06 he developed for training in use of the sword in combat and in fact he designed a sword called the patent sword specifically designed to be used on Horseback so these were the kinds of weapons that persing anticipated using as he approached his task of subduing Poncho via now the fact of the matter was he had a tremendous amount of autonomy he he was the final say he didn't have to communicate with the uh Army Department back in Washington he
6:41 had no one in the field to whom he reported he was in in every real way the commanderin-chief of of this military activity as such he got to set strategy operations and and tactics so so for example when he charged Patton with scouting which was a lot of what happened during the battles with poncho via because Poncho via was also a very mobile Force he was a gorilla Force
7:17 so the idea was we first have to find him before we can attack him and and and kill or capture his people and so it was a system of kind of Guerilla Warfare against Guerilla Warfare and and as as such Persian philosophy and and the and the Army's philosophy of mobile forces emphasizing individual initiative and and aggressiveness that all worked to it all worked quite well in the battles with poncho via now one of the things that
7:53 happened during the the various battles against pona is there was some limited use of motorized vehicles and the airplane now the airplane was used for reconnaissance it wasn't used for bombing or anything like that the way it was in World War I but it was used a little bit here and there um they or they attempted to use it for reconnaissance wasn't particularly effective but but the idea was at least being played with and George Patton who at the time was I believe a
8:31 lieutenant Lieutenant maybe a captain I I I don't recall his rank but anyway he he convinced uh Montgomery Montgomery listen to me he convinced persing to take him along on this action and uh Patton is credited with the first motorized vehical um attack if you will so he used a car instead of horses to attack this place where where he thought Poncho via
9:07 was and and in in so doing he killed a couple of of Poncho via's men um it was Patton was incredibly Brave um in in the you know in this very short uh battle um basically you know on this vehicle driving in and and with his pistol shooting a couple of people it was a it was a wild melee for for just a few minutes and it turned out ponia was not there but but the this idea of of fast aggressive tactics was was the emphasis
9:44 because they were fighting a very mobile enemy that that much much like the fighting with uh American Indians um you know this was all sort of Cavalry based mobile fighting you know hit quick and then disperse hit quick again and then disperse and so the tactics well the philosophy that Persian had matched very well or supported very well the tactics that were necessary for fighting Poncho
10:19 via so and that was why puring was successful in in putting down Poncho via's raids for the most part so you know fast forward into 1917 uh General persing is put in charge of the American expeditionary force and he's sent to Europe in uh a April of 1917 completely different situation so instead of having complete autonomy persing was at least from the
10:56 English and French perspective the junior partner because they had already been fighting World War I for three years since 1914 and so they felt that they knew how the war had to be fought and their intention was to Bas well their initial intention was to use American troops to infill their own in order to to essentially resupply killed and wound wounded Personnel persing would not go along
11:33 with this at all he made a an early decision that Americans were going to fight in American units with American leaders and generally speaking that was the case now there are there were some situations where American units fought under French uh French you know sort of overall command um but the the plan of the French and the British to basically pull apart um the American expeditionary force and plug in you know a few people here and a few people there and that kind of thing that that never came to be
12:09 because of Persian insistence of keeping his army essentially intact at the by the time Persian and the AE got to Europe the war had become a trench war and you've probably seen pictures of of trench Warfare and and the the barbed wire between the the German trenches and the Allied trenches and and and all of the sort of horrible Carnage that went on during World War I that was already
12:44 in place now interestingly enough at the beginning of World War I and I've talked about this um previous in a previous episode um the Germans had a very had had a very mobile Army that swept through Belgium into France and looked very likely to take Paris um it was so effective and and it it the French army did end up stopping the Germans and that's when it settled into this trench warfare and and and so by
13:21 the time Persian got there with the AE you he's looking at at at this this really sort of standstill essentially and and he wanted no part of it and initially he retained his perspective the perspective I should say that he used on the border against panova which was the rifle and the bayonet were the Supreme weapons the the individual initiative of his soldiers was really what counted and and
13:57 fighting in trenches was not for the Americans we weren't going to use artillery tanks planes no that's all nonsense what really matters is a well-trained soldier with a rifle and a bayonet and and in fact Persian was so committed to this in the beginning that he transmitted back to the United States that all soldiers being sent over to Europe needed to be first and foremost trained in the use of the rifle and the bayet now the French and the English thought this was this was Foo as as the
14:33 as the French say it was crazy the the kind of agressive fighting that persing was advocating they had tried it it had L led to horrendous losses and indeed one of the one of the uh consequences of World War I for for the British was an entire generation BAS basically of of British young men especially among the aristocracy were were killed and or so badly wounded
15:09 that they they were when they they got back to civilian life they were Hollow shells of themselves estimates uh among the French were 25% of French men were killed in World War I and absolutely astonishing percentage of men um and and just just to step out of the military for a minute think about the social dislocation that that resulted from the huge imbalance between the number of men and the number of women especially since
15:45 the men who were killed were marriage AED men the you know men who would get married would have children that sort of thing and and to to a lesser extent the same thing for for the English it was just absolutely horrendous what happened but going back to the battles so persing was convinced that his philosophy would be better than what the French and the British were doing and as a result um there were very heavy casualties among American troops just like there had been
16:22 among the British and the French in the early actions by the by the American troops what Persian came to see was while he was while he never became convinced that trench warfare was the way to go what he realized was his rejection of the machine gun of and of the tank and of artillery was wrong and that these three weapons needed to be integrated into
16:59 this open Warfare this offensively spirited Warfare and that's what was necessary to break the the stalemate of trench warfare and and when you think about it America was only involved in World War I from around April 1917 to November 1918 so that's roughly a year and a half and really Americans did not get involved in combat until the early part of 20 I'm
17:37 sorry of of 1918 and so they really trained in Europe for about a year and they were in combat for about six or seven months so it was during that six to seven month period that Persian and and his staff realized they had to adapt their tax tactics to the reality of industrial Warfare and so they embedded machine gun teams into their small units they they created well
18:14 not so much created but they adapted a strategy of using artillery in a sort of rolling barrage that that was that that infantry followed closely behind and and so the barges would basically stun the enemy and and and so when the Americans attacked they could be effective because they weren't getting wiped out by an enemy sitting in trenches with machine guns to just wipe them out and another thing was that the um
18:50 the basically creation of tank warfare the replacement of Horses by tanks so that by the end of World War I Cavalry now was essentially an armored uh function as opposed to a horse-based function and again Patton was was instrumental in developing tank warfare in World War I and indeed became probably the greatest well not probably the greatest army commander in World War II
19:25 because of his skill with with tanks and and the the aggressive spirit that he learned at least in part from being a subordinate to Persian so in a relatively uh short time persing had to adapt his tactics in order to be successful on the battlefield during World War I so and and and by the way there were other areas where he had to
20:00 adapt as well so first of all as I mentioned when he was fighting Poncha he was in sole command when he got to Europe it be you War became as much a well I shouldn't say a political war is always political but the role of a commander in war a senior commander in war in World War I Persian had to be as much a politician in essence dealing with his counterparts uh in in the the French and and English armies as he did
20:37 a battlefield commander and perhaps more so so he he you know as the commanderin-chief of the American expeditionary Force he he was not a battlefield Commander his job was to coordinate with the fen uh the French and the English in order to see to it that there was a coordinated Allied effort and and and so that too was a very different and and patton had to adapt how he handled things in order to be successful as sort of one of three if you will significant commanders within
21:14 the Allied um overall military effort and as the you know kid late to the party so to speak right he had to deal with the I don't want to call it arrogance of the English and the French but you know they'd been bleeding for years before Persian got there they were confident in what they knew about how the war needed to be fought and so persing had to on the one hand get along with his fellow commanders while at the same time hold to his strategic Vision
21:51 while he adapted his tactics and learned from the French and the British uh to to fight an industrialized War more effectively so um as as well um he he had to deal with um a whole different um Logistics situation so if you can imagine you know Warfare even going back to the 1800s well I mean okay you had artillery you had cannons you had you
22:26 know you had to have cannonballs change shot whatever it was that the Cannons were firing gunpowder you had to have your small arms in terms of technological Logistics that was pretty much it now trains were an important part of the Union Army effort in the Civil War but but beyond that there wasn't a whole lot you dealt with in terms of technology and and that was still largely true in 1916 when persing was fighting the Border conflict with poncho via so although he did use some
23:04 motorized vehicles as I mentioned a minut a few minutes ago he did use a couple of aircraft I mean very little okay no no you know machine guns and that kind of thing that there just was not that kind of technology used so your main logistical concerns at that time were food for your your men and your horses and medical supplies and you know and then you know ammunition that was that was pretty much it when by the time Persian got to World War I Logistics
23:40 became much more complicated so you had air Air Forces they were called air cores in it was called the American Army aircore oh actually it was called the air service during World War I um it America did not supply any aircraft in world World War I they Ed British and French aircraft um but the the the whole logistical aspect of supplying an an air service much much greater than anything that had gone on before tanks again tanks required spare parts they required
24:17 petrol gasoline they required ammunition um they required you know oil and and and all the things to maintain them again nothing like that was required prior to that uh machine guns okay aside from requiring a much larger supply of ammunition because their rate of fire was so high also machine guns were a more complex technology so you needed spare parts you you know they they they did break down so you needed to have Replacements again a much bigger logistical Challenge and because armies
24:54 were so much bigger so the a eventually numbered over a mill ion men so the you know regular Logistics of food and medical supplies and all of that was so much greater than anything that had gone on before it was a truly daunting challenge for persing and his staff he was very lucky to have Colonel H George Marshall who of course later became Army Chief of Staff during World at the time of World War II well he was Army Chief of Staff before World War II but during World War II he was Army chief of staff so he you know persing
25:30 was was was fortunate to have Marshall uh you know on his staff because a lot of the plans and a lot of and in the dealing with Logistics Marshall was excelled at that but it so it was a whole new logistical world as well and again the the British and French had been dealing with that for several years by the time Persian and the a got to Europe but but this was all brand new to to the a and so they had to figure out how was all of this going to happen so what are then the lessons for us in
26:07 business as we look at how persing adapted his tactics from the border the Border conflict with poncho via and going into World War I uh by the way let let one more thing before I I actually get to that one one thing it's it's interesting to know is the as Warfare continued to adapt in the interwar years and then into World War II what what the German army or the Nazi army called The Blitz cre became
26:44 the most significant Force in World War II especially in the beginning of the war with with the the combined arms of of Army artillery aircraft all working together in the blitz C the lightning War Germany was able to sweep through um uh Belgium and Holland and into France and essentially they didn't literally conquer France but they did they were able to take Paris and and just blast
27:20 through French the the the the standing defenses that the French had built after World War I in the face of Blitz cre they meant nothing because by then the German Army had perfected this this idea of open Warfare and and it was what Patton 2 had had spent his time in the intervening Warriors also perfecting and it was why he became such a brilliant field commander during World War II so what what Persian advocated for during
27:55 World War I became the dominant strategy and and and and the the and tactical way of fighting War uh at you know as we continue on in history into World War II so what what lessons do we learn from this for our businesses right so you know don't go to a knife don't go to a knife fight or a gunfight with a knife right right you know the sort of there's it's a a line from The Godfather well here's the
28:30 thing we do need to keep up with technological change there's there's no doubt that we do so I remember when cell phones came you know came onto the scene right and they were very quickly adop adapted or adopted into business because they made communication with colleagues so much easier I right pagers were were fine but all pagers could do would say find a phone and call me right um but
29:07 cellones I think it's it's reasonable to say and I I don't use this word lightly revolutionized how how business was done so for you know the current challenge is AI so the idea that we can sit back and ignore AI I I think is is is felicious we need to be actively looking at how can we bring AI into our businesses in a productive way in a way that will allow us to pursue our strategies our our strategy
29:43 more effectively now the danger is if we look at how other people are using new technology we may be tempted to adjust our strategy in order to be able to adopt the the tactics they're using with new technology and this is I think the the the heart of the lesson of of Persian adap adaptation from the border war with poncho via to World War I and
30:19 that is he recognized that his strategy was still sound so open Warfare mobile quick to react overwhelm the enemy stay very you know quote unquote light on your feet so that you can take advantage of enemy weakness as quickly as possible that was the strategy that persing had in the border conflicts with poncho via and that was the strategy he maintained in World War I despite the pressure he got
30:55 from the British and the French to basically adopt the trench war strategy so strategy stayed the same it would and it and it was sound and he knew it was he knew it was sound or he had confidence it was sound what he had to do was figure out okay these new technological systems these new weapons how do I use them effectively in pursuing the strategy that I'm convinced is the strategy that will be effective and we need need to do the same thing in
31:30 our businesses and professions so how assuming we're confident in our strategy then how do we adapt different and new technologies to work for our strategy not adopting other people's tactics and changing our strategy okay especially if they're in a different business their strategy may not be applicable to our business okay and so how they so for
32:06 example how um retail businesses use social media completely different than how a professional like me who's really more of a businesso business uh you know person how I need to use social media right blasting out to millions of people does nothing for me brand awareness is of no value to me at all what's important for me is to use technology to reach the people that that I that are
32:42 that that are most likely to want to do business with me as part of a team okay so that's how I need to use new technology and as I look at how how I can use AI in my practice it's with the same it's the same strategy okay everything in my business is how do I meet the key people the key professionals with whom I need to work together with them so we can build our practices together right raise the tide
33:20 for all of us that's completely different than how a retail business uh should be looking at at the use of technology and AI because you know to go after one customer at a time it's it's it's not going to work because they need especially a mass Market retail business okay they really need to be bringing people into their stores or onto their websites in large numbers in order to get the number of sales that that are required okay so so this is this is what
33:55 I want to leave you with and that is as you look at changes in technology and and AI really is the the the this real significant change that we're dealing with right now how do you use AI to support the strategies you're already using that are helping your business grow now if you if your strategy is not working don't bother taking the time to adapt AI to it because if the strategy
34:32 isn't the right strategy then it's not going to work and and if you look at how the French and the British were fighting trench warfare it was a stalemate they could have spent all the time they wanted adapting the use of artillery and machine guns and such it was still a stalemate it had been a stalemate for basically three years two and a half years right it took Persian to come in with a different strategy to which he adapted his tactics to help break through and eventually bring about Allied victory in World War
35:08 I okay so that's our show for today little bit shorter than they've been recently but you know only I only want to take the the amount of time necessary to convey to you the the idea or ideas that will be most useful for your business and professional practices so tomorrow at on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. is my show people making money and I'm going to be talking about developing routines for success and and and to help
35:43 do that I'm gonna be talking about a book by Charles DG called um a went up on the name of the book habit um uh The Power of Habit sorry um It's a Wonderful book one of my favorite it's not necessarily a business book per se it's it's a it's a self-development book and so we're gonna I'm gonna talk about that but we really want to routinize powerful behaviors in order to drive our Business and Professional
36:18 success so that's tomorrow 10: a.m. Pacific Time on people making money and then next week on Monday at 10:00 a.m. my show uh trust and Estates weekly and my I think I have a guest if I'm not mistaken uh yes my guest is Jacqueline Jacqueline Yu and Jacqueline is going to be talking about complex issues in in trusts and Estates and probates so Jacqueline is a very uh highlevel attorney she has a a ve a great deal of
36:55 experience a very Broad and and in depth view of of legal practice in this area and so I I hope you will join Jacqueline and me on Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific time to hear her thoughts on these various issues and then a week from today we'll be back with the next edition of business lessons from the military so um oh before I forget if you are not a subscriber to uh our YouTube Channel please do consider subscribing that way you'll always pleas get a reminder uh when whenever there's a new
37:32 a new episode posting and so you'll you'll keep a breast of that um and also please do consider subscribing to my email list um especially for my every other week show jigger's place where we have a cocktail and talk about non-b buus topics if you want a recipe to the cocktail in advance uh you will I email that out before the show and so you can you can you know make yourself a cocktail while I make one and we can sit back and enjoy the same drink together so if you want to subscribe to my email list please go to my website baml.com
38:10 b.com scroll all the way to the bottom and you'll see where you can just fill in your email address and click I think it's subscribe and and you'll be added to the list and and would love to have you I don't uh I don't overwhelm you with emails just uh really one email before uh a couple of hours before each each episode airs to uh remind you that the show is coming up and in the case of jigger's place to give you the recipe for the for the cocktail for that week so thank you very much for joining me deeply appreciate it would love to hear your comments good bad and different so
38:46 social media links will be in the show notes after this episode posts and wishing you a wonderful rest of the day courage at all times my friends and Marie You Are My Belle