The invention of the Gatlin gun constituted a great revolution in modern warfare because 1) it slowly, but forever, planted the seed that changed tactical doctrine in land warfare, 2) it planted the seed that ultimately would change operational doctrine in warfare, and 3) it planted the seed that would cause the reaction of pacifism and forever change the landscape of international law.
The Gatling gun itself did not bring about those major changes mentioned above. Rather, it was the subsequent development of the automatic machine gun, which had evolved over time from the rudimentary Gatlin gun, which brought about momentous change in the “art and drudgery of war throughout the world.”[1] The Gatlin gun was the seed that eventually grew into the automatic machine gun which changed the scale, nature and lethality of modern warfare first truly evidenced in World War I.
Just as Napoleonic battle tactics made winning wars by siege from 1500 to 1800 obsolete, and just as Napoleon changed the scale, speed and nature of war, the invention of the Gatling gun, by comparison, also ushered in a new era of warfare and tactical doctrine. Although the Gatling gun did not play a big role in the Civil War, the seed that it planted (i.e. the automatic machine guns seen in killing fields of WWI), forced a shift in the tactics of warfare. As noted by H. Wayne Elliott (LTC, U.S. Army Retired), “Napoleonic warfare took its last bow on the battlefield,” during the Civil War.[1] The birth of the machine gun would ultimately make Napoleonic tactics like the manoeuvre sur les derrières (maneuver on the hindquarters), or the frontal assault using a mass of forces like what happened during Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, obsolete.[2]
The tactical role of the machine gun was another doctrinal shift that evolved over time. At first, the machine gun was seen as an artillery weapon and a purely defensive weapon.[3] It was Lieutenant John Henry Parker, during the Spanish-American War, who first recognized the offensive power of the machine gun. To Lieutenant Parker, “the machine gun was a mechanical substitute for the firepower of a large reserve of riflemen – a Massed Rifle in Reserve.”[4] In a paper Parker wrote in 1897 at the Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth, he recognized that the Gatling “could be carried by a firing line of infantry on the offensive, over almost any type of ground.”[5] In Parker’s view, the Gatling gun could be “committed at the decisive moment during an attack, the gun would insure penetration of the enemy line; during withdrawal of operations or in a defensive position, machine guns would force the enemy to maintain his distance or accept heavy losses if he chose to attack.”[6] In addition to his writing, Lieutenant Parker put words into action. Lieutenant Parker’s employment of machine guns in the field during the Santiago Campaign began the “process that eventually resulted in the partial integration of the machine gun in army doctrine and organization.”[7] Lieutenant Parker’s ideas were not well received by the U.S. War Department at first, even despite the successes of the machine gun in the Spanish-American War. However, the horrors of World War I, less than two decades later, show that Parker’s ideas about the machine gun as both an offensive and defensive weapon constituted a major doctrinal change.
It took more than fifty years from the first patented Gatling gun in 1862 until the outbreak of World War I to truly define the offensive and lethal nature of the machine gun in modern warfare. The operational doctrine of winning wars by sieges or by holding key terrain morphed into the ugly idea of winning wars through attrition.[1] A powerful example of this doctrinal change of attrition occurred on July1, 1916 when the British Fourth Army lost 57,470 officers and men to German machine guns.[2] With the capability of firing approximately 600 rounds per minute, the machine gun became one of the most lethal weapons used in World War I.[3] The lethality of the machine gun was expounded in World War I, in part, because the tactics of the Civil War, the infantry charge, had still not changed to keep up with the new weapon technology of the machine gun.[4] As historians note, “Men who went over the top in trenches stood little chance when the enemy opened up with their machine guns.”[5] The birth of the machine gun also gave birth to the doctrine that wars could be won by attrition.
In addition to land warfare doctrinal changes, the birth of the machine gun is also responsible, at least in part, for changes in international law. The toll from World War I was horrific. Approximately 8,528,831 people were killed in action and approximately 21,189,154 were wounded. [1] Certainly it would be illogical to blame machine guns for all of those killed and wounded, but as mentioned earlier, the machine gun was responsible for thousands of deaths, even on a single day.[2] The backlash from the horrors of World War I resulted in the Kellogg-Briand Pact signed in 1928. The Kellogg-Briand Pact, drafted by the United States and France, became a treaty for the renunciation of war. Born out of that idea came United Nations Article 2(4) that generally bans the threat or use of force in international relations. The changes to international law were in response to these changes in the scale, nature, and growing lethality of warfare largely brought about by the birth of the machine gun.
The invention of the Gatling gun was revolutionary. It became the seed that would ultimately bloom into one of the deadliest weapons introduced to land warfare – the automatic machine gun. The birth of the machine gun was a game changer for modern warfare. Due to its power to kill a large number of people in a short amount of time, it made the tactics of frontal assaults and infantry charges obsolete and untenable. It brought about the operational change that wars can be won through attrition, as opposed to sieges or taking key terrain. Finally, the horrors unleashed by the machine gun were so terrible, that it changed international law, first with the Kellogg-Briand Pact, then with Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. Truly, the invention of the Gatling gun was the 19th Century seed that bloomed modern warfare into the killing fields of the 20th Century and made fundamental changes in land warfare and international law.
[2] Such as when the British Fourth Army lost 57,470 officers and men to German machine guns on July 1, 1916 as referenced above.
[1] Major Jeanne M. Meyer, “Tearing down the façade: A critical look at the current law on targeting the will of the enemy and Air Force Doctrine,” Air Force Law Review (2001), 51 AFLR 143, 156.
[2] Armstrong, supra note 3, at xi; see also “New weapons used for the first time in World War I,” http://www.harris-academy.com/departments/history/Trenches/Joanna/joanna2.htm
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[1] H. Wayne Elliott, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army Retired, Book Review, “Ken Burn’s The Civil War,” Military Law Review, Winter 1996, 151 MILLR 247, 250
[2] Major Jason M. Bell, “Lost Triumph: Lee’s Real Plan at Gettysburg—and why it failed,” Army Lawyer, August 2006, 2006 – Aug Armlaw 35.
[3] Armstrong, supra note 3, at 58.
[4] Ibid. at 96. During the Spanish American war, Lieutenant Parker trained a crew to man the Gatling gun. He actually advocated establishing a separate Machine Gun Corps separate from the infantry corps.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Armstrong, supra note 3, at 96.
[1] Ibid.
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