History Suffers From Attrition

In any Total War game, I always engage my missile units first before bringing on a general engagement. I often try to fire on a single unit with two units of archers (a unit would be roughly a brigade). I always work their flanks. Occasionally, they will bring up their missile units and it becomes a waiting game. An example of this is bringing up archers against theirs. They fire back and forth before one unit begins wavering then breaks entirely before engaging any other units. If I notice my archers waver first, then I will be the first to attack. If their archers waver first, then they will attack first before all their missile units break and retreat from the field entirely.

Unfortunately, attrition is a reality of warfare whereby manpower is reduced by fighting, starvation, or supplies. It is synonymous with the Western Front in World War I and Grant’s Virginia Campaign of 1864. Therefore, the question arises, “Is attrition a phenomenon in early modern warfare?” Are my Total War engagements simply an anomaly as a result of poor gameplay? Dennis Showalter would say otherwise. Dr. Showalter specialized in German military history and was one of the greatest historians of the 20th and 21st centuries. In his book, The Military History of Frederick the Great he explained how officers in the 18th century focused on concentrating their manpower to deplete the enemy, before they could bleed their army dry.

For over a century battles between modern armies had tended increasingly to be decided by tactical attrition. Flintlock muskets and mobile artillery had combined to transform the face of battle by exponentially increasing battle's casualty rates. At Blenheim, a British brigade of 2,400 soldiers lost a third of its men to a single French volley. Four decades later, at Fontenoy, five British battalions, about 2,500 men, inflicted more than 600 casualties at the first fire. These ratios tended to decrease in the course of an action as fatigue and fear took their tolls… The principal consequence of this fact was a pattern of each side wearing down the other until fleeting opportunity to decide the issue emerged from the grapple. Even the best generals, the men with the coup d'œil and insight of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, found it difficult to shape the course of action once it began.

Attrition was a standard practice and common for generals. It was largely their purpose to concentrate their forces as much as possible to reduce the enemy army down to its bare bones. It was “common sense” for any general throughout the history of warfare. Medieval sieges' main purpose was to wear down the defender and reduce their supplies without making a direct assault on the fortress. Napoleon suffered attrition in not just Russia but during his Italian Campaign of 1797. The Russians and Austrians used it effectively against Napoleon, but their generals are not coined “simpleminded” or “obtuse.” When their is opportunity to strike enemy lines or wear down part of an army, it should be exploited or taken advantage of. As Showalter states, it is rare to change the course of events once they are in motion. Therefore, a general might as take advantage of the numbers and lines he can control.