The process of innovation in the military forms a complex process that involved many factors contribute to its failure or success. Innovation is not only about the emergence of new equipment but military culture, military technology, and political support can prove to be important factors in the battlefield. The military technology of the interwar period was one factor that added to the greatness of innovation, but it was not the most important factor on successful military innovation. Despite the fact that there were many new technologies emerged or improved in the interwar period such as the aircrafts, tanks, submarines, poison gas, aircraft carriers, and radio, but also there were other factors which enhanced the effectiveness of technological progress and eventually influence in the military innovation. After the First World War, the interwar period witnessed genuine military innovations accomplished by many key players. Germany was a main player who had undergone tremendous innovations in military.
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The Germans were able to identify the gaps and the challenges in order to be a powerful nation in the European and the international theatre. The development of the military culture and the political support to the German army were more important factors than technology in successful military innovation.
The first important factor was the military culture within the German army, which contributed to the success of German military innovation. German military culture represents the intellectual and spiritual capacity of the army to come to grips with the business of preparing for and executing war. The most important move towards recreation of the officer corps occurred in 1919. General Hans von Seeckt, the commander –in-chief of the army was assigned to select new officer corps in accordance with the Versailles Treaty. Under the Versailles Treaty, Germany’s Army was reduced to only 4,000 officers and so Hans von Seeckt used this opportunity to his advantage to change the culture of the officer corps by retaining the most experience staff officers over those that were politically connected or front-line leadership. Germany retained the best of its officer corps who were the engines of change of the cultural ethos that occurred in the German army. Then Von Seeckt formed more than fifty seven committees with more than four hundreds officers involved to provide feedback on specific areas and search for the lessons learned from World War I. The General Staff Committees ware a great enabler toward creating the changes needed in the army. In addition, the German evaluation of World War I was honest, realistic and not afraid to reflect the real picture of what happened in the last war. Having intellectual thoughts of the elite of the officer corps provided the dividends for the military. Military institutions played an important role on succeeding German military innovation as they represent the intellectual base of supporting or disagreement on new concepts or technology. As these institutions receive inputs from wars’ experience, analysis of weaknesses was conducted and eventually recommended the best solutions. The assessment of Polish campaign is an example of how the army ran this process. They provided adequate training for any new concept in military doctrine. There was a learning organization within the German army that provided more space for debates between officers based on trust, honesty and the knowledge of their doctrine and all of that was very important for the German Army in their innovation efforts after World War I. Adaptive open minded leadership in the German army was the potential by which a military organization facilitated and encouraged innovation and promoted developments at all levels. Moreover, the German Army was able to innovate with their armored forces better than anyone else and attributed that success to their study of the previous war in depth and their knowledge of the potential enemy in spite of the fact that they could not possess equipment such as tanks at early stages due to the Treaty of Versailles. Also, German Army established competition programs to earn admission in the kriegsakademie which meant that only top qualified officers were approved to continue their career in the army. In addition to that, the Germans saw the necessity for officer training and continuous practices as paramount to
The Germans were able to identify the gaps and the challenges in order to be a powerful nation in the European and the international theatre. The development of the military culture and the political support to the German army were more important factors than technology in successful military innovation.
The first important factor was the military culture within the German army, which contributed to the success of German military innovation. German military culture represents the intellectual and spiritual capacity of the army to come to grips with the business of preparing for and executing war. The most important move towards recreation of the officer corps occurred in 1919. General Hans von Seeckt, the commander –in-chief of the army was assigned to select new officer corps in accordance with the Versailles Treaty. Under the Versailles Treaty, Germany’s Army was reduced to only 4,000 officers and so Hans von Seeckt used this opportunity to his advantage to change the culture of the officer corps by retaining the most experience staff officers over those that were politically connected or front-line leadership. Germany retained the best of its officer corps who were the engines of change of the cultural ethos that occurred in the German army. Then Von Seeckt formed more than fifty seven committees with more than four hundreds officers involved to provide feedback on specific areas and search for the lessons learned from World War I. The General Staff Committees ware a great enabler toward creating the changes needed in the army. In addition, the German evaluation of World War I was honest, realistic and not afraid to reflect the real picture of what happened in the last war. Having intellectual thoughts of the elite of the officer corps provided the dividends for the military. Military institutions played an important role on succeeding German military innovation as they represent the intellectual base of supporting or disagreement on new concepts or technology. As these institutions receive inputs from wars’ experience, analysis of weaknesses was conducted and eventually recommended the best solutions. The assessment of Polish campaign is an example of how the army ran this process. They provided adequate training for any new concept in military doctrine. There was a learning organization within the German army that provided more space for debates between officers based on trust, honesty and the knowledge of their doctrine and all of that was very important for the German Army in their innovation efforts after World War I. Adaptive open minded leadership in the German army was the potential by which a military organization facilitated and encouraged innovation and promoted developments at all levels. Moreover, the German Army was able to innovate with their armored forces better than anyone else and attributed that success to their study of the previous war in depth and their knowledge of the potential enemy in spite of the fact that they could not possess equipment such as tanks at early stages due to the Treaty of Versailles. Also, German Army established competition programs to earn admission in the kriegsakademie which meant that only top qualified officers were approved to continue their career in the army. In addition to that, the Germans saw the necessity for officer training and continuous practices as paramount to