Picture credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/winter-lake-ukraine-nature-water-7046891/
On the same day Moscow’s chief propagandist warned that Russia had the capacity to ignite a “Poseidon” underwater nuke capable of submerging Britain with a giant radioactive tsunami, I listened to Freek Robinson on LitNet interviewing Theo Venter on the likelihood of President Putin actually using an atomic bomb.
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This is now a common trope in Europe, where newspapers every day tell us that the Russian leader is unhinged, quite possibly demented, and perfectly capable of pulling the nuclear trigger. But Professor Venter surprised me by arguing that contrary to such wishful thinking, Putin is in fact pursuing a rational strategy where, while he threatens to use nukes in order to intimidate and frighten the West (a skrikmiddel), he in practice has no intention of doing so.
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This is now a common trope in Europe, where newspapers every day tell us that the Russian leader is unhinged, quite possibly demented, and perfectly capable of pulling the nuclear trigger. But Professor Venter surprised me by arguing that contrary to such wishful thinking, Putin is in fact pursuing a rational strategy where, while he threatens to use nukes in order to intimidate and frighten the West (a skrikmiddel), he in practice has no intention of doing so. Venter argues that Putin knows that would be a bridge too far, even for him. Instead, his strategy is to consolidate his hold over the eastern part of the country contiguous to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azamov coastline, thereby isolating Ukraine from the sea. This would include the capture of all port cities vital to Ukraine trade and exports. His intention is to intensify artillery attacks on defenceless cities and towns cold-bloodedly, reducing them to rubble regardless of casualties, thereby exacerbating the humanitarian crisis, and in this way so horrify Western opinion, that pressure will mount to a deal with Putin at all costs to stop the killing.
In other words, says Prof Venter, faced with a choice between deploying nuclear artillery or an alternative, Putin will still choose the alternative, conventional artillery, which can be delivered in a dozen ways, ranging from cannon to cruise missiles, drones, rockets, jet planes and warships.
This all set me thinking about the tactical role of artillery – Stalin’s “god of war” – and its effects even in South Africa’s own backyard, the most recent example of which is to be found in Angola, in our own time, which showed even before Aleppo in Syria, that Russia has form in the matter of indiscriminate use of artillery on civilian targets.
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I have just finished reading Fragments of a forgotten war (1) by American journalist Judith Matloff, a most moving and riveting account of Angola since independence in 1975. Soviet Russia and the Americans effectively engaged in a proxy war by backing the different political parties – the MPLA on the one hand and Unita under Jonas Savimbi on the other.
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I have just finished reading Fragments of a forgotten war (1) by American journalist Judith Matloff, a most moving and riveting account of Angola since independence in 1975. Soviet Russia and the Americans effectively engaged in a proxy war by backing the different political parties – the MPLA on the one hand and Unita under Jonas Savimbi on the other. Russia provided the cannon and Cuba the fodder, while the reverse of the coin saw Unita enjoying covert support from Washington – but not to the extent of the military aid the Russians were flying in. The Russians gave an estimated six billion dollars of military assistance to the MPLA – an estimated 180 billion dollars in today’s value. These figures are similar to the amounts of aid the West started out giving Ukraine.
But while many of us know the basic history of this war – and, indeed, as South African conscripts, may have fought in it – there is also much we do not know, hidden by the fog of war. In the nineties, especially, when journalists converged on South Africa to report on the transition to democracy, the Angolan War was neglected in the press. However, Judith Matloff brings it to life in unsparing prose: 600 thousand people killed, a staggering casualty rate. The 55-day battle for the large city of Huambo in 1992, as described by Matloff, is indistinguishable from what has been going on in Mariupol today. Advised by Russian officers on the ground, the MPLA army ordered relentless artillery attacks on Huambo. Unita responded from the other side of the city. Thousands of shells fell every day, reducing buildings to rubble. Indeed, American satellite pictures showed parts of the city pulverised to dust. The population camped out in basements and cellars. “[E]very reserve of energy concentrated on survival. People were dazed by sleeplessness and anxiety. Every sense was under assault: the smell of excrement from blocked drains and the reek of corpses made the air noxious; pounding cannons hurt the eardrums, eyes were irritated by dust from explosions – people were reduced to an existential state of petrifaction. Dogs gnawed on cadavers.”
Angola’s second city, a modern city with half a million inhabitants, had been reduced to shattered masonry and corpses. Eventually, the Russian-backed liberation army made a tactical retreat, and Unita claimed a Pyrrhic victory. A diplomat commented to Matloff, “It may look like Dresden, but this is Savimbi’s finest moment.” Savimbi called it a question of honour to have won back the city, but it was the MPLA that eventually took control of the country.
Matloff, who risked her life a dozen times to write this book, enumerates atrocities as part of the plan – artillery first, then troops in to kill anybody and everything still left alive. Sounds very familiar compared with what we see in Ukraine today. Another Angolan city which suffered the same fate as Huambo was Cuito, with Cuban air power and Russian artillery proving the potency of the big guns.
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Mention these cities to almost anyone today, and they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about. Never was a war more under-reported. And yet, just as in Ukraine, lethally indiscriminate artillery proved the determining factor.
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Mention these cities to almost anyone today, and they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about. Never was a war more under-reported. And yet, just as in Ukraine, lethally indiscriminate artillery proved the determining factor. The Russians stayed the course, giving their allies, the Cuban army and the Angolan liberation forces, what they needed to win. They followed the famous rule of action of US Confederate Cavalry Commander Nathan Forest in the American Civil War: “Get there first with the most men.” This was the rule adopted by General Patton in the Second World War as well.
Will Putin also stay the course in Ukraine and follow the dictum of Nathan Forest? Will he announce a general mobilisation of Russian forces at the 9 May Victory Day parade in Moscow to give him the men he needs? Venter’s logic would suggest yes. This is the alternative to nuking Ukraine – men and artillery.
A thousand wars and battles have proven the potency of artillery through history. Pounding cities to dust through siege is a commonplace. In our own history, the first long-range shelling of Paris in 1870 caused panic; the subsequent shelling, including from the air, of cities like Coventry, Berlin and Warsaw were but a harbinger of things to come. Guernica’s cold-blooded destruction was captured by Picasso. The British and Americans pulverised Dresden in the Second World War, the uncountable dead piled high. To this day, the British are sensitive about it all; the architect of the bombing campaign, “Bomber” Harris, was only grudgingly honoured years after the war, for doing his job.
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The big guns were everything in the Boer War as well, the absolute determining factor, used by both the British and the Boer armies in the various sieges of Ladysmith, Mafeking and so on. The British generals were helpless without them. It was all about the artillery, and the tactics were always the same – first soften the enemy up from a distance with shelling, then move in with fixed bayonets.
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The big guns were everything in the Boer War as well, the absolute determining factor, used by both the British and the Boer armies in the various sieges of Ladysmith, Mafeking and so on. The British generals were helpless without them. It was all about the artillery, and the tactics were always the same – first soften the enemy up from a distance with shelling, then move in with fixed bayonets. Almost every action in the veld recounts a movement involving artillery, and to lose your guns to the enemy was a court martial offence, like surrendering a ship.
It is sometimes forgotten that Lord Roberts would not have entered Pretoria by the sleight of hand with which he seems to have, were it not for the artillery battle beforehand on the morning of 4 June 1900. On the approaches to Kruger’s capital, we see the British Empire arrayed in all its swagger, pennants flying, artillery gleaming – the cavalry division headed by General French, Compton’s Horse, the Sussex Yeomanry, the Victorian Battery, the Colt Battery and J Horse forming the advance guard of the main column. At Sesmylspruit, the Boers opened fire, and soon, in the vicinity of Schanskop and Klapperkop Forts, the artillery exchange reached a crescendo, until eventually over 50 British big guns were firing in concert. As a war historian recounts in bracing jingoistic terms: “The Boers by this time knew what to expect. They knew that their hours in their commanding Kops were numbered; they knew by this time that the bayonet’s gleam might follow, and then ....”(2)
Of course, the most delicious irony is that it was an Australian company under Colonel De Lisle to which Pretoria surrendered in the end. The Australians were so far ahead of the rest of the British army that when they found themselves actually near the centre, exchanging the odd rifle shot with Boer defenders, a junior Australian officer, Lieutenant W Russel Watson from Sydney, was dispatched with a white flag to demand the surrender of the city to Lord Roberts and the British army. In his broad Australian accent, he explained his mission to General Botha while munching sandwiches provided by a kindly Mrs Botha. Botha consulted his generals for an hour, and then sent young Russel Watson and the governor of Pretoria back to Lord Roberts to discuss terms. And so the city fell with no more than 70 casualties in total. You could argue that faced with such massive British superiority of artillery, Botha decided that discretion was the better part of valour.
To return to Venter’s thesis: the strategy that Putin seems to be following is perfectly rational, in theory at least. Napoleon said that artillery is “what matters”, and modern warfare is a complex application of multifarious systems and tactics involving artillery. Artillery “fire” is what they teach at military school – pre-arranged fire, opportunity fire, degradation fire, counter-bombardments, covering fire – the list is a very long one, and each “fire” tactic involves much logistical planning. Nothing is left to chance. These are certainly not the actions of a demented man.
Of all the different kinds of “fire”, then, the discipline of “harassing fire” is probably the one Putin is employing right now – degrading the enemy’s mental strength, destroying morale and maximising shock and disruption.
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What is clear in the case of Ukraine is that Western support must eclipse that of the strength of the Russian attack if the Ukrainians are to win back their country to its original borders. Ukraine has become a test case of democracy, today’s version of Pearl Harbour.
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What is clear in the case of Ukraine is that Western support must eclipse that of the strength of the Russian attack if the Ukrainians are to win back their country to its original borders. Ukraine has become a test case of democracy, today’s version of Pearl Harbour. Now is the time to replenish the “arsenal of democracy”, in President Roosevelt’s words, and right at the top of the list of such replenishment is artillery.
And that is why the prevarication of Germany has become such a hot potato. Its clumsy refusal to supply Ukraine with heavy Leopard tanks – a deadly form of artillery – has tilted the advantage of the battlefield in favour of Putin. America is trying to plug the gap with a delivery of long-range artillery of its own, but is this too little, too late? Time will tell. But what is certain is that we underestimate the potential of Russian artillery at our peril.
1) Fragments of a forgotten war by Judith Matloff, Penguin Books, 1997, p 318.
2) South Africa and the Transvaal War by Louis Creswicke, six volumes, TC Jack, Edinburgh, 1901.
- David Willers is a former editor of the Natal Witness, now the Witness. He lives on the island of Anglesey in north Wales.
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