Youjo Senki - Volume 12 - Chapter 6.1

[chapter] VI The Logistics of War

The truth is, we came into the war expecting to fight the Imperial Army, and a fair fight at that. But in hindsight, we were painfully naive.

We completely misread the circumstances: The Empire was an expert and many years our senior when it came to the wickedness of total war, and we were a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears newcomers who went in thinking we would get a direct confrontation, fair and square.

With such a misguided expectation setting us up, it’s no wonder we missed our mark. Though it makes plenty of sense when you go back and think it over after the fact. Our nemesis, Zettour, never had any intentions of fighting fairly from the very start of his invasion—something I can now say with utmost confidence.

The man was faithful to the fundamentals of war. Particularly when it came to using his own army’s strengths to exploit the opposing army’s weaknesses. It was crucial for him to create battlefields where his army held the advantage for him to draw out opposing forces.

This was the principle he followed when he set the stage for the war in Ildoa. The bastard made sure to never lose the initiative there.

We went into battle thinking we were the protagonists, when really we were just playing a two-bit part in a script the Empire had prepared for us.

The abomination that happened in Ildoa was a historical sleight of hand that duped the Alliance. Even worse, the important lessons that we needed to learn were neglected instead.

In the minds of the public, the Empire won the battle, but we won the war. This may be true, in a sense, considering the ultimate outcome. Historically, the Empire did lose against the Alliance, an outcome that offers us the slightest bit of pride and confidence.

But what of it? I always found this such a narcissistic way to view the subject. There’s nothing constructive about ignoring glaring problems in light of a single victory. Forgive this old man’s lecturing tone, but as someone who lived through the war, I can only remember the days spent on the Ildoan peninsula with a sigh.

The Empire was tactically superior? Their soldiers were highly skilled and could fight better than ours? They had Named mages and ace pilots? This much is all common knowledge. None of these individual episodes was totally inaccurate, and there certainly isn’t a lack of anecdotes, myths, or legends on the battlefield. Someone could easily pen up an interesting novel or, at the very least, have fun with old comrades in a bar.

Sadly, though, those things are mere details.

What I want to discuss is what really happened.

The reason that we lost on the peninsula was that…we failed to adapt on a fundamental level when it came to total war.

When the rules of conflict change, an army needs to adapt to them as quickly as possible, and the cost of being unable to do so was tremendous.

Although, there are many other factors that I need to mention. A big one being, for example, the fact that our enemy was a bunch of rotten bastards. Maybe I’m just too old-fashioned, but this above all else was why I couldn’t stand that scum. While it would be disingenuous to argue he wasn’t a one-in-a-million general…that bastard Zettour’s use of refugees to burden our logistics was as morally repugnant as it was ingenious. It was more insidious than a tactical bombing, and since he painted the attack in a veneer of righteousness, he pulled it off while the whole world was watching.

He tried to bring our army to its knees using the stomachs of Ildoa’s refugees. This single attack alone was more than enough to earn him the con artist moniker we all know him by. While it would be their tactics-above-all policy that would eventually do the Empire in, the Ildoa campaign led by Zettour was its own monster. He had calculated every turn of the entire campaign, through and through.

Do you know how they used to siege castles in medieval times? Back when there weren’t even bombs, let alone magic, the stone walls of a castle were about as impenetrable as a wall could get, and an incoming attacker’s biggest concern was how they could take the castle down.

The dominant tactic of the time was to chase those living in the surrounding area away from their homes and into the castle, a method to win without actually attacking that medieval tacticians likely borrowed from their predecessors.

For better or worse, the history of man is a story of war, and the tactics employed by the Empire in Ildoa were a simple revival of historical methods that were tried and true. It could be said that, in this regard, the Empire was an outstanding successor in keeping the classics alive, and it seems that General Zettour, in particular, was well read.

It’s something often pointed out by scholars now, but the tactics employed by General Zettour—commonly lauded as fantastical and bizarre—were, more often than not, sound tactics that drew on knowledge from the past.

A good example of this was Operation Revolving Door from the Rhine front. While it is commonly upheld as a dramatic use of maneuver warfare, it was primarily tunnel warfare that did the heavy lifting in causing the collapse of the defensive line—yet another classic example of anti-castle warfare from times before explosives were commonplace. Even his staggeringly aggressive style of maneuver warfare on the eastern front is yet another example, taking the classic war theory of luring, encircling, and destroying an enemy in a field battle and stretching the concept to its limits. Decapitation tactics, something people often see him as an innovator of, also have ample precedent in the many assassinations found throughout history. There is no shortage of examples of armies succumbing to chaos after losing key commanding officers.

If there is anything that must be recognized about General Zettour’s implementation of these tactics, it is that he adapted them to modern warfare in an incredibly refined manner. This could also be said about the Empire as a whole. Bastards, the entire lot of them, but they had an incredible knack for war. They were like a pack of ferocious beasts who could think.

If we, the marines, were ordered to engage the enemy in direct combat, we would’ve won. If our nation said the word, we would’ve seen it through. The issue was, there was no enemy to fight when we got there.

Why? Because our enemy was that son of a bitch Zettour. He never intended on fighting us from the get-go. I can say for sure that con artist never saw the entire theater in Ildoa as anything more than his own toy box. It was his to do with as he pleased, a catalyst for stroking the Empire’s ego.

Which was why he played games to his heart’s content there, flipping the country upside down, only to return to the north like it never happened. He left it to us, the adults, to clean up the mess he’d left behind.

He never had any interest in Ildoa. It was nothing more than a way for him to gain time, and a spot to force us into.

There’s good reason why this point of view is valid, too. Look no further than the records on logistics and supply—they tell the story.

Sadly for us, the public oftentimes sees our deployment alone to be heroic and the apex of the war. Countless historians have exhausted an ocean’s worth of ink detailing pitched battles, and it is no different for major naval engagements. It is only the initial battle that will make it into any of the history books. In contrast, the world of logistics is, frankly speaking, quite bland. There’s a rigidity to it that lacks the spectacle necessary to woo the masses. This is why history books are filled with heroic battles, which they explore down to the finest detail, while barely ever discussing victories of the supply line.

They may touch upon the success of an attack on an enemy’s supply line in the frame of a larger battle, or even discuss examples where the lack of provisions was the determining factor in a certain strategy’s success. Any such examples, however, are for the more well-informed readers. They are difficult to understand. The less-informed masses tend to find the age-old story of a small group of soldiers overcoming the odds through bravery and ingenuity to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat far more glorious.

This isn’t to say that commanders who are able to pull such a feat off don’t deserve their accolades. It is, however, highly irresponsible for a nation to expect this much from its commanders as the standard. The hero scenario entails that its actors lack the support they should’ve had in the first place. If we’re to praise those who have gone far above and beyond their call of duty, we must also rebuke a nation that neglects to fulfill its own.

What’s needed isn’t just some flowery words of praise but proper training and equipment. To get even a single glass of water to the front lines means that somebody somewhere in the rear must carry it there. This is what we’re dealing with here.

In times of peace, access to a drink of water is as simple as turning on a faucet. Your options become much more limited during a war, however, where you either need to bring that water from its source to the battlefield, treat water found in the field, or neglect your soldiers’ needs entirely.

Armies are massive groups of people, and people get hungry and thirsty. To expect soldiers to die fighting when they are already dying of starvation and dehydration would be the height of callousness.

To prevent this from happening, the army needs to function as an organization. The amount of food, water, and bullets a single hero can bring with them into war is paltry, which is why teamwork is essential to victory, and why we should do away with our habit of focusing solely on the glory of the vanguard charging gallantly into battle.

The colossal number of people it takes to support the war from the front is something that should never be forgotten. It is what gets people the things they need, when they need them, and where—something that in times of peace is taken for granted. This is something that is truly great—the people and system who make it possible—and it’s a lesson that the Unified States learned all too well when it answered a historic humanitarian call of epic proportions on the Ildoan peninsula.