Battle of annihilation

A battle of annihilation is a military strategy in which an attacking army seeks to destroy the military capacity of the opposing army in a single planned pivotal battle. This is achieved through the use of tactical surprise, application of overwhelming force at a key point, or other tactics performed immediately before or during the battle.

The intention is that the opposing government will then be forced to sue for peace to prevent the unopposed capture of its capital or other core areas.

It is not necessary to kill or capture all, or even most, of an opposing army's soldiers to annihilate it in the sense used here. Rather, the destruction of the enemy army as a cohesive military force able to offer further meaningful resistance, even if temporarily, is the objective.

In ancient and classical times, many battles ended with the annihilation of one of the forces, the battles of Cannae, Zama and Adrianople being famous examples. From the Renaissance onward, however, the battle of annihilation became rare, at least in Europe. The greatest exception is seen in the battles of Napoleon Bonaparte, and it is with Napoleon that the battle of annihilation in the modern sense is most closely associated, so that term "Napoleonic battle of annihilation" is sometimes used, and the Battle of Austerlitz is often cited as the paragon of the modern battle of annihilation.

Napoleon's victories at Austerlitz (1805) and Jena (1806) are often cited as the classic battles of annihilation. Napoleon himself was unable to again achieve such decisive results, partly because his enemies subsequently adjusted to his tactics. For example, Borodino, while a victory, did not result in the desired destruction of the Russian army.

Nevertheless, strategists, influenced by those of the Napoleonic era, most notably Antoine-Henri Jomini, held the Napoleonic battle of annihilation to be the proper objective of modern military campaigns. This interpretation was later mis-accredited to the more renowned Carl von Clausewitz, initially by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder who supported arguments for strategies of annihilation with quotes from Clausewitz. Clausewitz, who disliked Jomini personally, as well as his concepts, instead emphasized the primacy of the political in warfare, and remained indifferent to theories arguing for any absolute solutions via the application of military force. Nevertheless, this set the stage for mass confusion down the line of strategic thinkers. Clausewitz's trilogies (albeit used out of context) are contested by Liddell Hart, who claims in Strategy that a poor choice of words by Clausewitz led his interpreters to overestimate the value of annihilation battles. Consequently, at the beginning of the American Civil War, many top military commanders expected a battle of annihilation to quickly end the war. This did not occur. Already, the size and firepower of armies were making the battle of annihilation harder to achieve.

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