Book Review - Forging the Anvil

Combat Units in the US, British, and German Infantries of World War II

by G Stephen Lauer

Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2022, 463 pp.

Hardcover ISBN 978-1626379589

Reviewed by: Anthony Duus

In keeping with the theme of this edition of the AAJ, it is prudent to examine how the Australian Army selects, trains and sustains forces for employment. This book investigates how nations raised infantry forces up to and through the Second World War, and explores the popular^[1] (or unpopular depending upon your beliefs^[2]) narrative that German infantry forces were tactically superior to their opponents at the individual and small-group levels. Lauer, a former US Marine Corps Infantry officer and Associate Professor at the US Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies, analyses the infantry forces of Germany, Britain and the US by examining their recruitment, training, employment, treatment of wounded, leadership and discipline. Using a wide variety of reference material, including original German sources, Lauer writes a very informative book that should become a standard for those seeking to better select and prepare forces for future war.

Differing from the First World War, the Second World War:

drove a narrative focused on technology and machines—more machines on land, in the air, and at sea. Industry needed greater numbers of citizens to build, feed, and fix the technological products of the great industrial nations.^[3] 

Infantry have been, and remain:

the one indispensable fighting element, the least machine-oriented, required by all armies to hold the ground seized by the machines of land, air, and sea, the force to occupy the enemy country and capital.^[4] 

Lauer contends that this desire to feed the machine (literally) led to differing approaches to selecting a nation’s citizens for the different services and arms being mobilised.

The British and US systems prioritised educated and technically proficient recruits for the services and trades that they thought needed education and technical skills—highly favouring naval and air forces. More educated recruits tended to also be more physically fit and robust.^[5] This prioritisation had the effect of drawing the cream of recruits away from infantry, previously a strength of the British and US armies in the First World War. For example, Lieutenant General Lesley McNair, the commanding general of the US Army Ground Forces from 1942 until his death in France in 1944, provided statistical evidence to the army’s leadership on the quality shortcomings of the infantry. He noted that ‘the infantrymen, by November 1943, were shorter in height, lighter in weight, and possessed the lowest average education and intelligence test scores of any combat specialty’.^[6] Neither the British nor the US recruited and maintained forces from specific regional locations. Instead, a soldier could expect to be assigned to any unit in need—whether the soldier was a new recruit or returning to the war from convalescence. Infantrymen did not establish small-team cohesion until each arrived in his unit. These armies also selected those needed for special roles, such as for special forces, airborne or leadership positions, from among the ranks of the infantry—which depleted talent from the infantry body for use elsewhere. As a result, when these infantry forces finally arrived on the battlefield, their poor performance showed—demonstrating the cumulative effect of these decisions.

German infantry, by comparison, were selected from the highest physical and educational categories available for recruitment: 

The key to German standards for combat infantry were physicality and intelligence, as for the other combat arms, was the infantry’s tie to the nearness of the fighting. The infantry had the largest requirement for combat-capable soldiers. During the mustering process, 50 percent of those qualified for combat duty, regardless of other qualifications, received assignment to an infantry unit.^[7] 

The 253rd Infantry Division, used by Lauer as a case study in the book, reported that up to 97 per cent of the men in the division were from the same area. They were regionally recruited, selected, trained and remained with this regional unit for the duration of their service—even if wounded they returned to their regional centres for recovery, then joined their regional reinforcement units, retrained, and returned to their units. Small-group cohesion was built from the start, using a soldier’s local bonds and connections. 

Lauer uses a great deal of evidence to show Allied commanders’ high regard for German infantry at the individual and tactical levels.

The enemy is quicker than we are: quicker at regrouping his forces, quicker at thinning out on a defensive front to provide troops to close gaps at decisive points, quicker in effecting reliefs, quicker at mounting attacks and counter-attacks, and above all quicker at reaching decisions on the battlefield. By comparison our methods are often slow and cumbersome, and this applies to all our troops, both British and American.^[8]

Most importantly, he responds by explaining how the Allies dealt with lack of quality in their own forces. Lauer argues that, by drawing more intelligent and technically capable soldiers into Royal Air Force, United States Air Force and other technical services, ‘Anglo-American general officers acted correctly to employ the key advantage they possessed, massive ground and air fires, rather than any expectation of infantry or armored [sic] maneuver [sic] to destroy their opponents.’^[9]

The Australian Army should draw an important lesson from this book when examining and assessing how it might rapidly expand in a time of national mobilisation. At present, the Australian Army maintains a centralised recruiting and training model, based on the requirement to train two divisions and associated enablers. The Australian Army’s system is one founded on efficiency and minimising cost. An alternative approach, however, is a regional model where locals from that region are mobilised, selected, trained and employed. The Australian Army ought to look at how it selects and assigns recruits—the system of recruits self-selecting their speciality may not be suitable in national crisis. Given the continued reliance on well-trained and properly employed modern infantry in contemporary conflicts, the Australian Army would benefit from examining whether its methods ought to be driven by efficiency or effectiveness. 

G Stephen Lauer passed away before this book could be published, and it is indicative of how well he was respected that that his colleagues finalised and published his work after his death. I strongly commend this book to anyone wishing to better understand how forces are raised and the effects of using specific criteria to choose their services and roles, however well-intentioned, once in contact.

Endnotes