CONDUCT OF WAR
by Maj Gen JFC FULLER

Columnist Col (Retd) EAS BOKHARI carries out the book review of the Urdu translation of Maj Gen JFC FULLER’s book by Lt Col GHULAM JILANI KHAN

Conduct of War - by Maj Gen. JFC Fuller
Translated into Urdu by
Lt Col Ghulam Jilani Khan
Published - 1998
Ali Majid Printers 107,
Kacha Rashid Road Lahore.
Pages 471
Price Rs 250/-
Published by Martaba
Defence Digest P.O. Box 126 Rawalpindi

Col Jilani however is an experienced hand with a fascicle pen who has been associated with Pakistan Army Journal (Urdu) - and the laudable - as he has presented Fuller in a most readable form-although it is Fuller alone who can produce that sense of history in short crisp sentences. Again there are certain English terms which still defy Urdu rendering.

I do not call myself a Fuller fan but I have read some of his controversial books - and most of his writings are controversial if not altogether unconventional. I remember when I was a young officer, I came by some of the books written by Fuller and these had a particular charm - and military elegance -and I relished their reading. Surprisingly I did not know that Fuller was a taboo and any one reading his books was considered a crank if not totally eccentric. Fuller was a seer, a visionary - and perhaps a futurist who hated drill - and the grooved thinking of soldiers and their leaders. He hated the stalemate of the First World War - and the agony of trench warfare. He was an exponent of modern armour operations with marked fluidity and which freed the commander of the vicissitudes of trench warfare. This ideas were later profitably translated into action by the Germans.

Col Jilani has succeeded in capturing the spirit in which Fuller has intended this book to serve the student of military technology. Fuller himself has said that this book is more concerned with ‘How not to conduct war’ - It is natural that a large part of the book deals with the nature of war, the interpretations of the thoughts of the great Prussian Clausewitz and the analysis of his book ‘On War’. This book is not extant but very few people read it as it can be very cryptic at places. Col Jilani has succeeded in conveying the essence of Clausewitz - who we learn had kept his writings in a sealed box - and these were discovered only accidentally - and then became the centre of attraction wherever there were military leaders and militarism.

Clausewitz provides a very clear picture of war and his philosophy can be summed up as follows:

* War belongs not to the province of Arts and Sciences, but to the province of social life .... State policy is the womb in which war is developed, in which its outlines lie hidden in a rudimentary state, like the qualities of living creatures in their germs.

* War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale.

* War should be waged with the whole might of the national power.

* War is ........ continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means ..

* War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds ..

Naturally to conduct war successfully the nature of war must be understood or else the leadership conducting war will go astray. Fuller has taken great pains and has provided great insight from the examples of the American Civil War and First World War and suggested a course of action which would have been a more efficient way of fighting.

Col Jilani has very wisely provided two chapters in the beginning of the book to introduce Gen Fuller and his disillusionment of the existing British strategic thought (and military technology). It shows a sort of tunnel thinking which is so rampant everywhere in the military circles. The crux is that the generals prepare to fight the next war on the pattern of the last war they have fought. Fuller could be forthright arrogant and full of spite when he wants to bring home a point. I believe he wrote something like this ̉ It is no use giving an idea to a soldier - as he does not take a new idea till it is obsolete - and once he takes an idea - he does not leave it till it is completely destroyed.

Einstein was even more sarcastic when he said ̉The man who loves to march to the tune of band was given his great brain by mistake. Spinal cord would have been sufficient for him.

With these unconventional ideas Fuller naturally could not flourish in the existing military hierarchy, and had to shelved after some 34 years of soldiering. He later chose to become a journalist - and he served the military science in this capacity for another 34 years. He had written some 50 odd books (and a number of pamphlets) and some of the more important besides the book which has been admirably translated by Col Jilani are:

* The History of Second World War.

* Armament and History.

* Memoirs of an unconventional soldier.

There are a number of maps and appendices but the cartography of the maps (in English) could have been improved. It is not easy for the Urdu publisher to do this so easily. I hope the second edition of this useful book will be much better.

The English strategic and military terms being what these are - the translator could collect all these somewhere with the suggested Urdu version, rather than clutter up the text in Urdu. This would have been a better handling of the translation assignment.

On the whole the book is well presented - and its get-up (for an Urdu book) is commendable. The composition in Urdu is quite good but I suppose for a first effort the book could have been edited with greater erudition. Maybe it has been produced in some sort of haste.

Col (Retd) EAS Bokhari