Sea Control - Sea Control 168 - Operation Albion with Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson and Tim Powledge

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

Links:1.  Operation Albion: the German Conquest of the Baltic Islands2. Military Learning Gateway

Hey folks, it's Jared. Thanks for tuning in. We're going to try cutting an intro for the first time. So this week we have Dr. Bruce Goodmanson and Colonel Tim Pallage joining us to talk Operation Albion, the German assault on the Baltic Islands in World War I. I also want to highlight CIMSEC's Project Trident. If you don't follow CIMSEC on Twitter, go do so now or visit the website at CIMSEC.org. If you're interested in shaping the future of international maritime security, this is your opportunity. Project Trident features seven broad topics, each presented by a partner organization in the form of a call for articles to address diverse perspectives on maritime security.

We want to hear your voice, international, disruptive, and seasoned, from academia, industry, government, and the military. Topics will include emerging technologies, infrastructure and trade, and even a fiction contest. You can find more information at simsec.org. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Kimber's men to bring us into the episode. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome aboard Sea Control.

Today we're going to be discussing Operation Albion, the German amphibious operation to seize the Baltic Islands from Russia in World War I. My guests are Colonel Tim Pallage of the U.S. Marines and Infantrymen, and Dr. Bruce Goodmanson. Gentlemen, I'd like you to start by introducing yourselves, and Bruce, I'd like to start with you. Well, hello, Jared, and it's a pleasure to be on your podcast, especially with my old friend, Tim Powledge. So, as you mentioned, my name is Bruce Goodmanson. I'm an historian, and I'm an historian of several things that touch upon Operation Albion. One is the German army of the early 20th century. So I'm a student of the land forces that landed in the course of Operation Albion.

I'm a student of the history of the Marine Corps, the U.S. Marine Corps, and in particular the way it learned about amphibious operations. I'm a historian of maneuver warfare, which is this approach to war fighting that was very much an evidence in Operation Albion and which the Marine Corps brummed from the German military tradition. And finally, I'm an historian of decision games, decision forcing case studies, tactical decision games, exercises in which participants put themselves in the role of a decision maker, a tactical, operational, joint, combined, single service, whatever, decision maker, and try to solve the problems that this decision maker faced. Thanks, Bruce. And Tim, if you don't mind introducing yourself. Hello, Jared. It's good to be here. Thanks. Good to reconnect with you and you also, Dr. Goodmanson. I'm Tim Pallage. I'm a Marine Infantry Officer currently serving at Joint Task Force Civil Support at Fort Eustis, Virginia. And I've been fascinated with this case for a long time. When I was a student at Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico, Bruce was one of my instructors there.

And we were talking about OMFTS, or Operational Maneuver from the Sea. Bruce and I were having a discussion about this over lunch one day. And he said, well, you know, the foundation for this, Tim, is Operation Albion. And it was at that moment back in, I think, 2010 that I immediately went and got a book on it and started reading about it. And I'm excited about this case study ever since. So it's great to reconnect with Bruce on this. Thanks, Tim. I should mention, yeah, the primary source that I studied in preparation for this is called Operation Albion,

the German conquest of the Baltic Islands by Michael B. Barrett, which we'll have a link to in the show notes. So, as always, our opinions are our own and not representative with any of the institutions with which we're otherwise affiliated. Gentlemen, welcome again and thank you for joining me. I'll start with an open question and turn to you first, Bruce, for an answer. What makes Operation Albion worth studying? So Operation Albion is the gift that keeps on giving. From the point of view of the history of the First World War, it is one of the few successful large-scale amphibious operations of that conflict. And so as such, it provides a model and a reference point for just about everybody who is interested in amphibious warfare in the 1920s and 1930s. So it's important for history of the First World War, also for the history of the Second World War, because so many of the people involved in amphibious operations, whether British or Japanese or German or Soviet or American, are referring back to Operation Albion.

I think it's important for the history of maneuver warfare because this is a successful attempt to use maneuver warfare in an amphibious context. One of the big problems faced by the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1980s, 1990s, as it attempted to learn about maneuver warfare and adapt maneuver warfare, was the fact that most of the examples of maneuver warfare came from land warfare. The great practitioners of maneuver warfare, the Germans, the Finns, the Israelis, were largely land powers. They were fighting land battles, land operations. And so a lot of Marines struggled with how best to translate this tradition into the amphibious environment. Thank you. Tim, you mentioned your sort of introduction to Operation Albion at the hands of Professor Goodmanson, and you and I have been talking about Albion basically for as long as I've known you, up to and including in a board of attempts to organize a staff ride when you happen to be over visiting the German Armed Forces Staff College. Why does this operation resonate with you? Jared, I like this operation because when you think back to the time, you know, 1917, they've been fighting a war since 19—they, the Germans, have been fighting since 1914. And they realize, you know, at the beginning of the war, these islands that Operation Albion is focused on, the Baltic Islands, they weren't seen as strategically significant until the Russian Revolution and things start to unfold in Russia.

And this becomes a way to attack the Russian center of gravity, their strategic center of gravity. And they realize very quickly that if they can seize these islands, it's going to create a whole new range of options for the Germans. So there's no joint doctrine between the German army and the German navy. And there's no amphibious doctrine for them at this point. and so out of necessity out of the value of the object right the primacy of the objective if we take these these islands it's going to do many different things for us that will help us win on the eastern front and if we can win on the eastern front and secure that then we can deal with the western front and they're under tremendous time pressure because the americans are coming into

the war and if they don't get after the eastern front in 1917 the americans will turn the uh turn the tide in 1918. So they're under tremendous pressure, and it's really a do-or-die mission. They've got to figure it out. They've got to work together because the objective is so important to them. And that's just one of the many reasons. And then, as Bruce said, it's the gift that keeps on giving. I mean, you know, take your model for evaluating warfare, whether you're using time, force, space, whether you're using operational functions, or you're looking at Wayne Hughes's cornerstones, you know, it's all there. I mean, it's a very rich case study. And like you said, Michael Barrett's book, I think, is the authoritative history on this topic. It's

well written. And, you know, you can look at this and you can relate to the challenge that they have and they have to adapt and find a way to pull this mission off. So, Bruce, let me come back to you. Is this the first modern amphibious operation? And why don't we hear about it more often? So, as an historian, I'm always reluctant to say it's the first, right? So, because every time I say that, I do a little more digging and I find something that's a bit earlier. It's the first large scale. There's an interesting operation in 1916 in the Black Sea, done by the Russians against the Ottoman city of Trebizond. That's even more obscure.

There is, of course, the famous Gallipoli operation, which is generally considered to be a failure from the point of view of British Empire forces. So it really is, it's the first, again, large scale, but by large scale, I mean division core level amphibious operation in the First World War. And it's really the only successful one. In 1918, the British raid on Zeebrugge, but that's on a much smaller scale. So really, it is the first big one really in the 20th century. There's actually the Japanese – see, this is the trouble with the first – the Japanese landing at Incheon in 1904. That's largely administrative. But it's the first large-scale opposed landing of the 20th century. In terms of why it's not better known, I've always wondered about that. And I think that there's a couple of reasons. One, because of the success of the U.S. Marine Corps in establishing itself as the premier amphibious force in the U.S. Armed Forces and, in fact, the world. And for a reason I have yet to figure out, the Marine Corps in the 1920s and 30s looks at Albion, but doesn't study it in depth, except for a very small period, a very important period.

But in terms of the schools, there's a lot of work on Gallipoli, but if you went to the Marine Corps schools in 1937, 1932, thereabouts, you would get a 90-minute lecture on Albion, but do a lot of practical application on Gallipoli. That's one reason. Second reason is language, that even though there's an important book about Albion that comes out in, I think, don't quote me on this, 1933 or so, is quickly translated into English, information about Gallipoli is instantly available after the First World War. So there's a period of 12, 13, 14 years in which an American or any English speaker interested in amphibious operations will get a lot of material about Gallipoli and almost nothing on Albion. Now, what's interesting there is that a lot of people outside of the English-speaking world, in the Spanish-speaking world, in the Italian-speaking world, in the Russian-speaking world, they're all looking at Albion. So our lack of knowledge of Albion is partially a function really of language. And Tim has touched upon this earlier. It's the fall of 1917.

And the Yanks are coming. They're drum, drum, drumming over there to court a line from a popular song of the time. So in April of 1917, the United States has joined the First World War. It's building up a huge force. It's engaged in naval warfare immediately. And this is the great unsung contribution of the U.S. Armed Forces to Allied success in 1917. is the U.S. Navy really is working very hard to help the British Navy, the Royal Navy, keep open the supply lines to fight the U-boat menace. And once that's done, the U.S. can transport lots of troops and supplies over the Atlantic. So there's this huge American force that's coming. The British Empire forces have peaked, but they're huge. And the British

French industry is still going strong. So they're pumping out lots of immense amounts of war materiel. The French army has also peaked. In fact, the French army suffers in the summer of 1917 from a series of mutinies, and it's in very bad shape. So it's really rebuilding itself, and it's not going to grow. The French only have enough replaced casualties. Each time they bring in the young men, the young conscripts, there's only enough of them to fill the holes torn in the ranks by the battles of the previous season. So the French army is very strong. Their armament is much better, but they're not going to grow. The Belgian army, also unsung, is pretty strong. So the Western allies are getting stronger. In the East, however, the Russians are in very bad

shape. They've had a revolution in the spring. They overthrew the Tsar. They have a republic run by essentially a committee of lawyers. It's not doing particularly well. And that republic, that Russian republic, is being kept in the war really on a shoestring. It will not take much, everybody believes, all observers at this time believe, to push that Russian republic out of the war. And what that means for the Germans then is they can concentrate their resources on what they see as the big battle, which is the big battle in the West. And they want to fight a huge battle, what they call the Great Battle in France in the spring of 1918, to defeat France and the United Kingdom or the British Empire before the Americans can arrive at force.

Yeah, Bruce has covered it well, and he's painted the picture. And I think what's trying to emphasize anything that Dr. Goodmanson said is that the Germans have got to commit one way or the other and either fight the West and they can't do it. They don't have enough power. They need to release the Eighth Army from the East and bring it to the West. And they have to do it quickly before the Americans come. And like Bruce painted very clearly, the Russians are at a tipping point. And if they can knock them out of the war now with a quick, decisive blow, and we'll see this in their objective, it's not just to seize the islands. They need to defeat Russian land forces. And we'll come back to that when we talk about the objective and some of the other

factors here. But now I would just emphasize in terms of time, there's an opportunity here. And like I said earlier, it's going to force the Navy and the Army to work together to seize this opportunity. Bruce, we're going to be reviewing the operation using Dr. Milan Vigo of the Naval War Colleges space, time and force paradigm. You and Tim have already spoken in some depth about time. Could you describe for us the Baltic as a space? So I think for our American listeners, and particularly Americans on the east coast of the United States, I offer the image of Chesapeake Bay and of Philadelphia. So if you imagine Chesapeake Bay as this inland sea, this gulf, this great place to shelter naval forces.

Put that in Eastern Europe, put that in the Baltic, that is the Gulf of Riga. So on the east side of the Baltic, you have the Gulf of Riga, and that's an almost entirely enclosed sea. And as such, it's a great place to hide a navy. If you've got the second best navy in the Baltic, the place to put it is the Gulf of Riga, because there are only two entrances. One on the west side is only 30 kilometers wide. One on the north side is even narrower. And both of these are very, very shallow.

The Baltic Sea is almost a lake. It's an inland sea. It's connected to the oceans. It's not very salty, which means it freezes over. I once flew over the Baltic Islands in March, and they were connected by ice. There was an immense amount of ice, and if I had a snowmobile, I could have gone from one island to the other, snowmobile or skis. It's very much like the Great Lakes moving west in North America. So you've got this, another way of looking at it is imagine, imagining a bottle with a stopper in it.

So the contents of the bottle, the liquid in the bottle, that's the Gulf of Riga. And the stopper is, is the three Baltic islands. Tim, any additional thoughts on space? So when we look at space here, the Baltic islands hold a central position off the coast of Estonia. With the Gulf of Riga to the south and to the northeast, the Gulf of Finland runs. And the Gulf of Finland is going to take you right to Petrograd, which is also called St. Petersburg. But at that time in 1917, this is where the Russian capital was. It was not in Moscow.

So if you can hold these islands, not only does it give you the Gulf of Riga and access there to the city of Riga, where the German Eighth Army is fighting the Russian Twelfth Army, putting a lot of pressure on the Russians there. If they could open the Gulf of Riga to bring in supplies over the water, they would increase their tempo of operations, they, the Germans in this case, if they could control that. And in order to do that, they've got to take these islands. And if you take the islands, the Baltic Islands, it also opens for you opportunities into the Gulf of Finland, which again threatened russian's strategic capital the shape of the islands and the shape of the baltic itself the baltic sea as bruce described it's very shallow it's more like a lake

lots of reefs lots of shoals lots of sandbars and again as you've already pointed out in shallow water you've got a lot of opportunities for laying mines narrow passages between the mainlands that surround the Baltic Islands. So coastal artillery plays a huge role here, as we'll discuss when we get into factor force. For both sides, coastal artillery is a significant consideration and it affects how the Navy gets employed. And if you're an amphibious troop or an amphibious commander going into an environment like this, it's not enough just to understand land warfare. You need to understand how the sea terrain, if you will, that when you look at a map and it shows water that a ship's going to drive over, you may think that, well, that's not of interest to you as a

marine because you're going to get in a landing craft, you're going to go ashore and you'll do your business ashore. That's where the bulk of your fighting will be. But how you approach your objective is very much shaped by naval terrain. And this, as Bruce indicated earlier, The case that keeps giving more and more. The terrain here is very complex, both on the ground and at sea because of the shallow water, the numerous opportunities for mine employment, the reefs, the shoals, the sandbars and the proximity of the land masses to each other has a lot of effect on how the Germans use their superior Navy and where they establish sea control and what type of sea control they're going to establish. Sea control comes in different degrees, if you will, as does sea denial. And I think it's important, you know, in our current day environment to understand what it means to employ amphibious forces in the South China Sea versus the Black Sea, for example. The terrain is going to matter to you and it's going to affect your operational scheme of maneuver. Timmy, make a really good point with the hydrography.

During your last visit in Hamburg, I know you couldn't stay for the additional third week that we were looking for. We ran a modern-day Baltic scenario that week. And when we went to debrief it, one of the students, who is a mine warfare specialist, was quick to point out, the thing about the Baltic that you Americans don't seem to understand is it's very shallow. The entire thing could be mined. And mines come to play a key role in this story, which I'm sure we're going to get into later. But let's transition now to talking about force. And Tim, what can you tell us about the forces involved?

So by 1917, the Germans, I'm sorry, the Russians have fortified this area extensively. The Russian commander has emphasized that he doesn't believe he has enough force to hold. He's got one division, the 107th Infantry, approximately 10,000 soldiers divided into four regiments. The good news is he has had significant time to build up his coastal artillery positions. He's got two brigades of artillery, both 10-inch and 6-inch positions throughout the islands on the mainland of Estonia. There's extensive trench lines, and he is well dug in, not supplied as heavily as he would like and doesn't have a ready reserve as close as he would like. they have to come off of mainland Estonia to reinforce them. And that will, you know, it takes time to get those troops organized and moved from the mainland over to the islands if

he needs them. So they're not in terrible shape, but morale is low. The political turmoil in the capital is certainly affecting their supply lines and it's affecting morale. What are we doing? What are we fighting for? Who's in charge? Those kind of questions are moving around through the ranks. The Russian naval forces in the area, in general, are inferior to what the Germans bring. Because of the shallow water, you don't have deep draft vessels. Russians have two pre-dreadnoughts that are their heaviest ships, a few cruisers, some gunboats, a handful of first-rate destroyers, about a dozen of those, and then 14 older destroyers. I mentioned torpedo boats. They've got about 12 of them. And then they have their mine layers. And most of that's based on Moon

Island. They do have some submarines, but they're not well tied in. My research indicates that there's three submarines operating up in that area, but they're more to the north and not tied into the defense of the islands. And I think that's because of the shallow water surrounding the islands, not ideal for submarine operations. So that's a snapshot of what you can see there. The thing to mention is no indication of air support, even though it's World War I. When we talk about the German forces, they bring different types of aircraft and some air power to this problem that the Russians don't have. And when your enemy has a capability that you don't have, and you have no way really to counter it or to match it.

I think that was a significant hindrance for the Russians in this case. As I read about the Russian defenses and the way they arranged both their ships and their supporting land defenses, their coastal artillery, it really struck me that they were trying to recreate a trench warfare setup at sea. Would you agree with that? Yes, I would agree. So the coastal mining, they did it in layers and belts like you would in no man's land between the trenches on continental europe and then it's backed by artillery and this is their

coastal artillery that i talked about before that's the 10 inch and the six inch were there to cover those obstacles by fire and then the limited russian navy was to operate behind the minefields supported by coastal artillery and be able to move up fire move all from within the protection behind the minefields and tied into the coastal artillery. So it's not a bad defensive concept. But as we'll see, it fell to the German scheme of maneuver. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And I think we'll get into that later in our discussion. Bruce, over to you to describe the German forces. So the German forces on the Eastern Front at this point are in very good shape. They've been winning. They are well supplied. They're short of horses, as is the

entire German army. So transport is an issue. But morale is high. State of training is very, very good. And they have a very clear sense of the importance of the work that they're doing. And one point to emphasize is that whereas the war on the Western Front was largely one of position warfare after September of 1914, in the East there were plenty of opportunities for large-scale movement and even maneuver. So the German expertise in the war of grand maneuvers, as I like to call it, is very much exercised. on the Eastern Front. So it's not as if you have to take a bunch of guys out of the trenches and say, now we're doing something different. You're taking forces that have been involved in decentralized execution, in dealing really with time and space, moving very rapidly in order to exploit fleeting opportunities. Bruce, there was German naval infantry. Is there a reason those

weren't used for this operation? There isn't a lot of German naval infantry, what I think numbered in battalions, four or five battalions. And before the war, they've been all over the world. Much of the German naval infantry was captured in China, when the Japanese and British take, mostly the Japanese, take the naval base at Jingdao. That's the same Jingdao as the beer. That's how you get German beer in China. But what little you have in the naval infantry is serving in Flanders. And there's something called the Marine Corps, Marine Corps in German. And that is actually a combined force that's both holding the Flanders coast with ground troops and also operating in the North Sea as a kind of naval guerrillas with a lot of e-boats, these fast surface raiders and U-boats and aircraft.

So the German amphibious forces, if you will, are really specialized in amphibious defense, and they're doing that on the North Sea coast of Flanders. So having looked at the forces arrayed on both sides, I think it's logical now to discuss center of gravity. Tim, would you mind defining center of gravity for us? Yeah, so a center of gravity, I mean, there's a doctrinal definition, but I would say it's the thing that gives the enemy the ability to accomplish his objective. And I'm looking at this from the – at the operational level. I think Klosowitz would disagree with me, but I think what Klosowitz was talking about was something more strategic. When we look at Albion and we think centers of gravity, I think for the Russians, they're trying to prevent Germany from threatening the Russian capital. They want to defend the Baltic Islands.

So and for the Germans, they want to capture the Baltic and deliver a crushing blow to the Russian army in order to bring them to the negotiating table to end the war on the Eastern Front. So center of gravity has got to be tied to the objective. And the center of gravity is that thing that's going to accomplish that objective for you. Without it, you're not going to be able to achieve your end, your objective. Yes. One way to look at this is to think in terms of the phrase in order to. So the Germans want to take the Baltic Islands in order to enter with naval forces, but forces afloat, big warships mostly, the Gulf of Riga, in order to deprive the Russians of

their Baltic fleet, in order to permit German land forces to march over land towards Petersburg. If you look at the map, you look at the railroad map, it's sort of hard to get from where the German land forces are in that sector, which is to say near the city of Riga, to get all the way to St. Petersburg. The trains are not particularly convenient. So the best way to supply an army moving overland from Riga to St. Petersburg, Petrograd in Russian, it wasn't known in those days, is by sea. So in order to move on land, the Germans need to control the sea. In order to control the sea, they need to get rid of the Russian Baltic fleet. In order to do that, they need to control the Gulf of Riga. In order to do that, they have to enter the Gulf of Riga. To do

that, they have to knock out the guns that protect the mines that protect the Gulf of Riga. In order to knock out those guns, they have to land. Now, and to emphasize the point that Tim made, in doing this, you're also destroying a Russian division in a spectacular way, so that you also inflict yet another loss upon the Russians, and in a way that's distinct and unmistakable and close to the capital. So these things all come together. But the end in sight, the idea that binds everything together, is the idea of threatening the capital of Petrograd, of St. Petersburg, and therefore convincing the Russian government to make peace, or failing that, convincing other Russians to overthrow the government and replace it with a government

that will make peace. So with those definitions in mind, what do you think is the center of gravity on the German side? Tim, I'll ask you. Well, in order to do all the things that Bruce just talked about, right, all the different things that the Germans want to accomplish, they want to threaten Petersburg, they want to inspire revolution, and they think that they can do this by capturing the Baltic Islands, that threatens Petersburg. But more than that, they're trying to break the enemy's will, which is where delivering a crushing blow to the Russian army is very important. They have to convince the Russians that resistance is futile, that you've lost the war, your capital's in jeopardy, you don't have the power to stop us, you need to negotiate and end the war. And I,

You know, the only thing that's going to do that is the ground forces. Right. It's the division reinforced that the Germans will embark and move up into the islands. You know, you can fly your aircraft over the top of it. You can circle it with your ships. But to reduce the defenses and to deliver this crushing blow, it's the German amphibious force, the embarked troops, the division reinforced, that will do these things. And this is what I was trying to say, is that when we look at centers of gravity, it's very important to first define an objective, because once you understand what the Germans are trying to do, it becomes obvious that the only thing that can do that is it's not the submarines, it's not the Navy by itself, it's not the aircraft, it is the landing force that will go and capture the islands and crush the Russian division there. Bruce, as one of my students used to complain to me, the center of gravity is a little bit of an esoteric concept, and we could legitimately sit here and debate it for four hours, given all the variety of forces employed by both sides here. Would you agree with Tim's assessment in this case?

Very much so, yes. No, the most exhausting hour of my life was a discussion of the center of gravity with John Boyd, which happened here in Quantico in 1989. I'm still recovering from that. So I don't want to get involved in the theoretical discussion, but the point that the whole – the purpose for the whole operation is to knock Russia out of the war because if the Germans don't do that, they have to fight a two-front war that will be increasingly difficult. So they must defeat Russia, knock it out of the war, and move their best forces west for the great battle in France, as they call it. So, Tim, if the German ground forces are the center of gravity on the German side, is it safe to assume that the Russian ground forces are the center of gravity on the Russian side? Yes, absolutely.

I believe that, yes, it's the Russian division that's emplaced on the islands is certainly their bid to keep – to prevent Germany from threatening the capital and defend the Baltic Islands. It is the entrenched ground force there that is supported by the emplacement of the naval mines. It's supported by the coastal artillery. But at the end of the day, if those obstacles are penetrated and the enemy decides to press in to those fires, it's the ground force that has to hold those islands. They've got approximately 10,000 man division there that's going to have to hold those four islands and keep the Germans out. Bruce, any thoughts from you on the Russian side of the center of gravity debate? I think Tim is absolutely right about the way the Germans looked at it. They saw the destruction of the Russian garrison, the Russian division on the Baltic Islands, particularly the division on the main island, the big island.

It's called Uzul, now called Sarima, which basically means big island. They saw that as a necessary precondition for the entry of naval forces. I think, however, it's quite possible to imagine, or certainly I can imagine a situation where the Germans push the Russian division further to the east and are able to knock out the guns that control that southern or that southwestern, western entrance to the Gulf. If they did that, then the Germans could clear the mines, and the German naval forces could go through and drive the Russian Baltic fleet out of its naval fortress. So I think from the point of view of the mentality of the Germans at the time, the division was the center of gravity. But if we want to play what if, if we want to do a little bit of counterfactual history, it doesn't necessarily have to be that. What exactly do you mean by that? Again, I'm simply imagining a situation where if the Russian land forces on the big islands had fought better and had been able to, let's say, hold the eastern half of the island, the Germans would still have been able to achieve their naval purposes. And that may have been enough to achieve their political purposes. But again, that's ahistorical because every one of the Germans on the island would have, you know, involved in the operation would have seen the destruction of the Russian division as the sine qua non of success.

so i'd like to transition now to examining force a little bit more we've talked space time force as we talk about force so i want to concentrate on vegas operational functions so i believe we have command and control maneuver logistics intel protection and fires am i missing any tim well there is a seventh function now jared we have information that was i think added in 2017 to our doctrine. And we can talk about that as we move through. But yes, you've got the big six. The other one floating out there is information. And it's inappropriate in this case to mention information because it was a big piece of what the Germans were trying to accomplish, not only seizing and threatening the capital, but crushing this division on the islands so that the

Russian people, the Russian army, would feel defeated, would believe they're defeated. And getting that word out, just taking the islands. But if the Russians were able to successfully withdraw, and even if the Germans held the islands, a successful withdrawal was unacceptable to the Germans. It was a key part of their objective, which is why they sent a bicycle brigade to be able to cut off the causeway between two of the islands. It was a very important point for them that they didn't want the enemy to show that they had the capability, because an amphibious withdrawal is a complicated operation. Pulling those troops back, allowing them to retreat intact and get from one island to the other and then execute a withdrawal and wind up back on the mainland. That would have given the German, I'm sorry, the Russian forces a credibility, allowed them to demonstrate a capability that the Germans certainly didn't want to be communicated to the Russian army. They wanted them to feel defeated. So there is certainly an information piece here, you know, and I think it's an important function that the Germans were after.

Thanks, Tim. Then I would like to start with command and control. So, Bruce, can you tell us how the Germans organized themselves to command and control their amphibious forces? Yes. So the Germans invent what we now, for the sake of Albion, in the course of setting up these arrangements for command and control, they invent what we now call the cat-of-cliffe relationship. The Commander Amphibious Task Force, the Blue Suiter, the Naval Officer, and the Commander Landing Force, the Army Officer. And so they start off with this division of responsibility that says when we're at sea, the Navy's in charge. When we're on land, the Army's in charge. And they also create what we would now call a joint headquarters.

So the Eighth Army has the overall control. So there's a degree of jointness there. And you're right, it works quite smoothly, largely, I think, because of its informality, that the staffs are very, very small. The German Navy staffs, the so-called admiral staff, borrows heavily from the German general staff tradition. So there is a mutual understanding there in terms of methods, but I can't emphasize enough the role played simply by an honest attempt at mutual understanding. The use of plain language, what's remarkable here is that even though this is the First World War, which is the birthplace of the acronym, and even I, you know, in describing this used acronyms, the language that both the German soldiers and sailors use is ordinary plain German. as if such a thing you know one could argue there's no such thing as plain german but it is it is ordinary language and a lot of what they're doing is they're using very exploratory language trying to explain two or three different ways everything everything that's that's important so this is somewhat somewhat time consuming but there is a great deal of i'm going to do this Here's what I want to do. A lot of of open ended discussion. Everyone knows this is something new. Everyone knows this is important. There's no. Well, I'll tell you, you know, years ago when I taught at the School for Advanced Warfighting, our joke was amateurs talk about strategy and tactics.

professionals talk about inter-service rivalry, but there doesn't seem to have been any. There's a remarkable degree of harmony on the German side. Bruce, do you think the acquiescence of the German Navy in this case to the German Army could in part be due to the German Navy's feeling of inferiority in this instance, just because the German Army has borne the brunt of this war for so long? millions of casualties at this point the german navy has had to be certain it has had some engagements but it's had relatively few and comparatively few casualties yes no that that's very true the the german high seas fleet doesn't do much in the war and it's it's looking for a job

so i think that there are a lot of battleship sailors in the in the german navy that are eager to do something. So that may play a role in that. Now, the German Navy is very active in other fronts. Again, we talked about the Marine Corps in Flanders and the U-boat force. They're very, very busy and very, very active. So the relative idleness of the high seas fleet may play a role. But I think that these cultural, both metacultural aspects, the sense of all being on the same team, but also the service cultural aspects where there isn't a lot of bureaucracy. That plays a big role in the smoothness of the operation and in the fact that if you look at the decisions made in the course of the campaign, you see soldiers understanding what the sailors

need and vice versa. There's a kind of implicit communication. Well, Bruce, first let me say we do have a number of German listeners, I can tell by looking at our analytics, and I will tell you that they're going to be shocked to learn that anything associated with the German government at any point in time ever had minimal bureaucracy. That's going to be a new development for them. Secondly, could you tell us a little bit about the Russian command and control structure? Yes, we're lucky in that we have a memoir by the chief of staff of the Russian garrison, a man named Nikolai Rek. Rek was an officer of the Tsarist army, now the Republican Russian army, who had been raised on the island, the island of Uzal, now called Sarima in Estonian. He's from an Estonian family. He's actually ethnically Russian, adopted by an Estonian family, but trained in the Russian general staff tradition. And so we have a very good view of the Russian organization for defense from his point of view. And it's not very good. He seems to be the only guy who really knows what he's doing. There is not a lot of communication between the Russian army and the Russian navy.

And to make matters worse, you have the formation of soldiers and sailors, Soviets. So these are these committees. Soviet is the Russian word for committee. And they're trying to second guess every decision made by commanders. So there isn't much in the way of traditional military command. And to do just about anything requires a great deal of negotiation and diplomacy. And that really slows things down on the Russian side. Let's shift to function maneuver then. Tim, what can you tell us about maneuver from the German point of view? yeah absolutely so when we look at maneuver from the german side obviously they're using the baltic as maneuver space to get up to the islands and seize them because again this is in riga where

the german eighth army is clashing with the russian 12th army if they can open the gulf of riga and allow the flow of you know open a sea line of communication into riga it's going to give them a significant advantage there. So they're using the sea to try and support their land campaign and also threaten the capital. When we look at the island itself, the Big Island, it's critical to get that southern strait open between the mainland of Europe and the Baltic Islands. The Russians had emplaced significant artillery on Swarbe Peninsula. So the landing, once it got ashore they wanted to take it from behind and this this is as you alluded to you know the the trench warfare at sea right the mine belts that were there backed by the guns

you know this is maneuver warfare right they're attacking the enemy from the rear essentially by landing moving over land and taking that peninsula and that fortified position from the rear they're able to uh to defeat the enemy's defense which is oriented toward the sea and you know this ties right into hughes's axiom that a ship is a fool to fight a fort so so they took it from the rear they use maneuver to neutralize this very powerful position and at the same time they use the bicycle brigade and their mobility to get over to that causeway i was talking about earlier and cut off the line of retreat or any reinforcements that might come off the Estonian mainland into Moon Island. But seizing that causeway and using the speed of the

bicycle troops, this was very innovative. They didn't land with artillery. Those troops moved on bicycles, light infantry, racing to a decisive point and seizing that key terrain. And this was about defeating the enemy center of gravity, right? I mean, cutting off that division, isolating it and destroying it in detail on that main island, this affects how they task organize their force and how they employed it, how they designed their scheme of maneuver, you know, all right there tying into function maneuver. I'm going to venture a guess that the Russians had much less to offer on the subject of maneuver. No, the Russian maneuver, you know, they were static. The Germans came at night. They had conducted extensive reconnaissance. They had found a path through

the minefields so that they could land at taga bay and they were able to come in under the cover of fog and the cover of night and land their force and the russians were were reactive from that point so they were in a static defense oriented on their their primary sectors of fire and by the time the alarm was sounded that that the russians were or that the germans had landed the russians were unable to react effectively, and the speed of German maneuver basically allowed the Germans to defeat the Russians in detail at their positions throughout the island. Bruce, anything to add on the subject of maneuver? Yes, a couple of points. Again, reiterating or reinforcing what Tim said. The Bavarian

bicycle brigade, I love the alliteration there, that plays a key role because they function like an operational maneuver group. The term hadn't been coined yet, but they go in, they land very, very quickly and get behind the Russian forces, cutting off their line of retreat. And that, This has a very hard impact on the Russian morale and on their sense of freedom of maneuver. The second thing is that because of command and control, it's very hard for the Russian commanders to move forces. Every movement requires negotiation. So the Germans are moving much more quickly, even though with the exception of the bicycle brigade, which is taking advantage of the fact that the big island is a very flat place, the Germans are no more mobile than the Russians. Both are moving at the speed of human legs, but the Germans can wage maneuver warfare because of command and control, because they have this command and control system based on, to quote a Marine from the late 20th century, common vision and decentralized planning.

Everyone knows what needs to be done and are making decisions in support of that well-articulated, widely understood common vision. Bruce, what about function logistics from the German perspective? The one thing I'd say, Jared, is that the Germans were very careful not to take or to reduce the logistics burden of the force. So they do a great deal of tailoring of the force to limit in particular the number of horses. One, because horses don't like to move by sea. Two, because horses were in short supply. And three, because horses eat like horses. So there is a great deal of logistics planning to reduce the need for supplies and for the movement of supplies.

Tim, anything to add on the German logistical plans? Yeah, I mean, when the Germans went, I mean, they planned their sustainment through sea lines of communication. they understood that they needed to maintain secure slocks. And there was a plan to establish sea control. Once they were able to bring their forces to bear, really had to work through those naval mines and get into the narrow waterways. But they did want to defeat the Russian fleet that was present there so that they could maintain their lines of communication. They didn't want them to be threatened. And they had enough craft detailed to sustainment, because even though the operation only went for 10 days, you know, once they took that position, they knew

they were going to have to maintain it and defend it and prepare it for a counterattack if that could come. So let's turn then to function intelligence. And Tim, why don't you lead this one off? Yeah, on function intel, I would say that, you know, the German Navy had been interested while the army wasn't since you know 1914 1915 they'd been looking at the baltic islands for quite a while they'd been thinking about it so when this came to a head in 1917 and all of a sudden the army's ready to cooperate and jump on board and yes we need to take these islands the navy had been looking at the problem for quite a while so they had a depth of knowledge and information on the topic and then once things became urgent they were conducting more

reconnaissance of the area. And I think they had a very good understanding of the dangers, the terrain. We talked about the shallow water and the challenges that presents, the gun emplacements, and where the naval mines had been emplaced. And they did some more probing of that to refine their information. But from the naval perspective, this was not a cold start. And the use of Zeppelins aircraft and submarines were extensive to gain good information on the Russian disposition and to understand where the defenses were and what they were going to need and how they were going to need to task organize to beat that. On the Russian side, I would say the opposite is true. The Russians tucked in behind their minefields. They didn't have the air to be able to go up and look and sense the enemy and see what they were doing and were they preparing for an amphibious operation or other operations in the Baltic. They didn't have that capability to look out, and they were very defensive. They were tucked in behind their minefields and their coastal guns, and they didn't—this is how—this aided the Germans in achieving surprise during the operation.

. Yes, I'd stress that the Germans had very good maps and charts, and the charts being really more important than the maps, because things like depth of water, where you could put mines, those played a huge, huge role. Also emphasize the aerial photography, aerial reconnaissance. The one thing that the Germans seem to be missing is human intelligence. They don't seem to have had a very good sense of the morale of the Russian forces. And reading even German accounts post-war, there's very little sense that on the German side, that they were able to exploit the bad Russian morale and the bad Russian command and control. So reading the German accounts is very different from Nikolai Rieck, the chief of staff of the Russian land forces there. So I think if the Germans had known just how disorganized and mutinous the Russian forces were, they might have been even more aggressive. Bruce, anything to add on intel from you? So, so force protection, the Russians aren't doing it in any reasonable sense. The, again, the, because the discipline is so poor, just ordinary things, you know, camouflage, posting sentries, that sort of thing isn't happening on the Russian side.

On the German side, protection is achieved by rapidity of movement. So the Germans know that – or believe that the faster they go, the safer they are. So they're really, you'll look in vain in the German accounts for any discussion of protection. But if you look at it holistically, you say, wow, they're protecting themselves by moving quickly. Bruce, we'll stay with you. Function protection would seem to be primarily a concern for the Russians in this instance. Well, I, you know, Bruce hit it. I mean, rapid movement, right? I mean, when you've assembled your amphibious force, you're sitting off the coast, the MCMs

are eating through the minefield as fast as they can. But we know that this is slow, tedious work. You're either going to make the decision to push and accept the risk. And again, they had some good reconnaissance, as you described this submarine vignette that begins Michael Barrett's book. um you know that's what they're in there looking for they're they're trying to find a way through these minefields and and he's got to make the decision do i press or do i circle my boats around here and wait to be seen as the sun begins to come up and the fog starts to burn off and

obviously i mean these these are tough operational decisions that a commander has to make uh i think it was an informed decision. I think they were oriented at this point. They knew where they were. And it was a calculated risk to put his landing craft ahead of his minesweepers and accept this and try to get into the bay and get his forces ashore and get the ground operation underway, which would be the decisive action, you know, because that will take Swar Bay Peninsula and reduce the defensive position there. That'll allow the MCMs to reduce the minefield. which on the south side, which will allow the ships to transit, you know, along the southern edge of the big island. And this is where, you know, the Navy will assume a supporting role,

providing gunfire support as the infantry moves from west to east across the island, moving towards the causeway on the east side. This was necessary. They had to get ashore. They had their force assembled and it was time to go. And once the sun comes up, they're going to be spotted. And now you're going to fight a defended beachhead rather than landing under cover of darkness and beginning to get your forces ashore and gain momentum. Yeah, it's a tough balance. But I think, you know, history bears out the German commander's decision in this case. So, as I mentioned, you know, getting the Navy into position to support the ground movement was the German Navy in support of the German infantry ashore was critical because they decided to leave much of their artillery, if not all their artillery.

The German artillery did not embark. It was not delivered. It was an infantry operation primarily that came ashore. And the idea was that they would use the naval guns would be these seaborne batteries, if you will, that would provide the bulk of the fire support against the Russians. And this worked effectively. It was clear that the infantry, the ground force, was the main effort, and the Navy would position itself and take what risk they had to to deliver supporting fires to enable rapid maneuver of the ground units. On the Russian side, their artillery is fixed. It's not mobile. It's been entrenched and emplaced. And it's intended to cover the many straits and choke points throughout the area. And so when it's being attacked from the rear by German infantry, the Navy was able to maneuver those areas and provide supporting fire as they swept from west to east across the island. And it worked very successfully. Again, as Bruce emphasized earlier, the use of speed and mobility, keeping your force light, proper task organization. Those bicycle troops must have felt fairly naked as they're riding their bikes across the island in the early morning hours, racing for the causeway to cut off that avenue of escape. But the German Navy was able to press through and get into fire support positions and put in fire to support them. And it was very successful. And the maneuverability, you know, the Russians were basically fighting in isolated pockets and they weren't able to reposition and counter the threat.

Yeah, I'd like to stress when it comes to fire that even though the German artillery on the island was by the standards of the First World War, not a big force, it was very carefully chosen. So, for example, among the small number of guns they had, they had these 21 centimeter what they called mortars. And often the English language sources give the sense that these are the equivalent of 81 millimeter infantry mortars. These are 210-millimeter howitzers that fire very large shells, and they're very useful in the attacking of the Russian coastal artillery positions from the rear. So it's not just sometimes going light involves using some pretty heavy weapons. So what happens is after the successful conquest of the islands by the German landing force, the naval force moves into the Gulf of Riga, drives the Russian naval forces out of the Gulf of Riga. There's a battle at the northern exit of the Gulf at a place called Moonsound. The Russians lose a lot of ships. What ships survive go back to ports in the Gulf of Finland, go back to St. Petersburg in many cases, and contribute to the disarray that's happening there in the capital.

Before the German army can start moving north, what we see is the Bolshevik Revolution. This is the November Revolution in St. Petersburg, which topples the government of Kerensky, topples the Russian Republic, and replaces it with the communist regime that will make a peace with the Germans, therefore allowing them to move the cream of their forces to the West. So in terms of its stated purpose, Operation Albion is a huge success for the Germans. Thank you, Bruce. I think that kind of takes us to the end of the operation. I really appreciate you both coming on. Tim, let me turn to you real quick. Do you have any final thoughts? No, Jared, thank you so much for this opportunity. I think it's been a good discussion. I've really enjoyed hearing Bruce and your thoughts on this case. One thing I did want to go back to is in 2011, I was a student at the Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfighting.

And as Bruce indicated earlier, you know, the focus is on Gallipoli and not so much on Albion. And I will tell you that, you know, when I was a student at SAW, we spent a lot of time, including a staff ride to Gallipoli, We actually traveled to Turkey and went down and walked the ground there. Very interesting, a worthwhile case to study. However, I really would have enjoyed comparing what happened at Gallipoli to Albion. Not a case that was other than honorable mention, you know, that it was the other amphibious op from World War I that we might want to consider studying. It was not a formal case study at the school and, in my opinion, something of a missed opportunity. You know, Gallipoli was unsuccessful where Albion was.

And yes, you can learn a lot from mistakes and failures. However, it would have been good to contrast it with a successful operation. And again, this idea of not having a joint doctrine, not having an amphibious doctrine, and the objective being so clear and the purpose being so clear, the operation, that it brought these two services together and allowed them to be successful, I think is a key point for for us in the joint force in today's operating environment. Thanks, Tim. Where can we find you online and what's next for you? Well, currently I'm working at Joint Task Force Civil Support. You can find me on LinkedIn.

I have a profile on there. I think it still says I'm a student at the Naval War College. I'll have to update that at some point. But I'm going to be here for the next year, year and a half. And as JTFCS, we're a suburb task force that does command and control. Here, it's a domestic response task force. With the coronavirus running around, we're very busy at work. We're always concerned about nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons. And so being a Marine infantry officer and always worried about the away game and expeditionary operations, I'm learning a ton about Suburban and about homeland defense and homeland response. So, yeah, I'm immersed in that right now.

I'll be in the southern Virginia area for the next year and a half. And that's where I'll be, Jared. Thanks. Bruce, thank you very much for coming on. Where can we find you online and what else are you working on? Like Tim, I can be found on LinkedIn under my name. but I also have a website called teachusmc.blogspot.com, and that is, I call it a flotilla of webpages dealing with things like maneuver warfare, decision games. There's companions to

the books I've written, online companions with additional material on the various books I've written, and also something I called Radio PME, which is an aggregator for podcasts of interest to military and naval professionals. Well, thank you both very much again for agreeing to come on and sharing your thoughts on Operation Albion with us. For our listeners, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next week. Thank you. Help me, Bob. I'm bullying the addicts. Why are they bullying the addicts? Help me, Bob. I'm bullying the addicts. Bullying addicts should go now.