Appreciating The Situation

Lieut.-Col. E. L. M. Burns, O.B.E., M.C., Royal Canadian Engineers - January 26, 2022

Reading Time: 12 min  content originally published in the Canadian Defence Quarterly, October 1936

Whoever coined the formidable phrase, “appreciating the situation” has been responsible for many headaches. The task of composing one of these documents would probably seem far less onerous if it were called “Study before Action”, or something else not quite so polysyllabic. “Appreciate”, incidentally, suffers in precision from being most commonly used in other meanings; e.g. “I appreciate your kind remarks”, or “The pound appreciated in terms of the lira”.

Leaving the word, let us come to the act. Instructors patiently explain to us that there is nothing esoteric about appreciating the situation, that we constantly perform this juju in all acts of our life, as when we plan a holiday, buy a suit of clothes, or cross the road. In all these situations there are alternative courses of action open to us; each course had advantages and disadvantages, and we have to make a choice between them.

At this point it should be explained that these notes are concerned only with the appreciating which a brigadier, battalion commander or an officer lower in the military hierarchy has to do, because under the Canadian Militia’s training policy we do not consider the action of formations higher than the “mixed brigade”—or at any rate only refer to them in narratives.

Now, Training Regulations, 1934, on pages 29-31, tells us how to make an appreciation—or at least enumerates the essential points. The sequence in which officers are recommended to cogitate is as follows:

1. The object;
2. Considerations which affect the attainment of the object;
3. Courses open to the two sides;
4. The plan.

From the point of view of logic, it is hard to argue against this arrangement. Only some of us find it extremely difficult to make our minds function in the manner which logic would require. Experienced and able officers have been heard to confess that they always begin with the plan when writing an appreciation! This procedure, however Chinese and reprehensible, has not been adopted without a reason, and to my mind the reason is as follows.

Training Regulations gives us a long list of factors which may affect the situation, then warns that what is important is not mere information, but the deductions from it. And later we are told that while all the factors should be considered, nothing should be written down but what has an important bearing on the problem. Or, as it is often condensed into a rule of thumb, “If you can’t draw a deduction from your fact, it isn’t a factor.”

The difficulty comes in here; if we determinedly keep our mind clear of “courses” and “plan” until we have though through all the headings of “considerations”, we find it very difficult to select the facts which have “an important bearing”, and to know what inferences to draw from them.

Could we get over this trouble by following some other sequence?

“The value of method is very apparent in war”, so the book says. We all agree. Commanders should appreciate methodically to be sure that their problem has been studied from all important points of view, and that all significant factors have been considered. Most of us, if we had to make a plan to meet some contingency of war, and were left to our uninstructed devices, would fix our attention on some one idea that happened to please our fancy, disregarding alternative schemes whose advantages were not so apparent at first sight and ignoring factors which might be decisive. In short, we should be that kind of commander denounced by Napoleon—an officer “that makes pictures of himself”, i.e., one that fancies that the events of a battle or campaign will develop exactly in accordance with his preliminary imaginings. The formal appreciation, with its inquiry into alternative courses, and its reminder of a host of factors, will always help us to realize that there are more ways of killing a cat than one, and that if we think of 100 courses open to the enemy, he will take the 101st.

While we agree that method and appreciations are valuable in war, there is room for investigation as to whether the method of thinking, or sequence of thought laid down in Training Regulations is the most practical and useful one.

The commander in war will probably approach his problem, or develop his solution, in a different way to the officer being trained in peace time. The latter usually gets his information from a couple of sheets of mimeographed paper. There, all the factors are neatly assembled together, and it is not difficult or very unnatural for him to deal with “considerations” as soon as he has written down his object. But the commander in war has the information in his head, or in the heads of his staff officers, or on file in his office. I therefore believe that it will be usual and natural for him to think, or appreciate, in the sequence which is described in the following paragraphs.

1. He formulates his object, and notes it down. He should read it every few minutes during his appreciation, to make sure his thinking does not wander away from the point.
2. The most important factors are his own troops, and the enemy’s; he has the essential information about them in his head.
3. Next factor in importance is the ground; he proceeds to study it from the map and in reconnaissance.
4. Practically as soon as he gets a general idea of the ground, several alternative courses of action will suggest themselves to him. He jots these down, in their bare essentials, numbering each course, and leaving space for further courses which may occur to him later.
5. The point at which he considers the enemy’s courses of action will vary with the type of operation in hand. If the commander is on the defensive, he will consider the enemy’s probable moves early, perhaps even before he has set down his own courses of action.
6. He then comes to factors or “considerations” affecting the attainment of his object. If there is time, he will probably want to confirm, or elaborate the information on which he has been working up to this time, and will make use of his staff officers for this purpose: to summarize or give him the latest intelligence about the enemy; to reconnoitre specially important ground, and so forth. Let us now enumerate the principal headings under which the factors to be considered will come. They are—
   1. Enemy and own troops; their numbers, formations, armament (especially artillery, automatic weapons and armoured fighting vehicles); their morale; whether fresh or tired; and finally, and most important, their location.
   2. The ground, or topographical factors; especially observation, fields of fire, obstacles, concealed approaches, positions for artillery or reserves, lines of retreat, and the vital or vulnerable points.
   3. Time and space naturally follows—the time required by the enemy or his own troops to reach vital points; to prepare for defence or attack; the space over which his or the enemy troops can be extended for attack or defence, i.e., frontages (remembering frontages in attack are usually determined by the available artillery and tanks); from frontages follow flanks, their vulnerability and protection.
   4. Communications, supply and transport. These administrative factors are less immediate in their importance than those mentioned above, and, as everyone knows, are more difficult to keep in mind in peacetime exercises. In real war, they are not likely to be overlooked; e.g., the brigadier who gets no dinner or bed-roll will not need reminding to think of this factor.
7. As to deductions—the commander had been making them as he considers each point. He only notes down facts from which he makes a deduction that bears on the framing of his plan. He is able to decide whether they have this bearing quite easily, for he already has alternative plans clearly in his mind, and on paper. Furthermore, as each fact and deduction is noted, he can also note which of his alternative plans it favours, or which of the enemy’s courses it renders more likely, or more dangerous.

Having completed his examination of the factors, he totals up the score in favour of each plan, and decides to adopt the one which has most in its favour, and which most adequately meets the threats of the different enemy courses of action. And, as remarked before, he may think of better plans as he goes through his appreciation. At any rate, he is now in a position to decide on THE plan, and write it down in note form, so that he can issue verbal orders, or get his staff officer to write orders, if there is time.

Is there anything wrong with the above picture? If so, I hope correspondents will point it out. If not, I hope readers who are appreciation fans will try the suggested sequence out, when they next practice their art.

It seems to me that this “natural” or “functional” sequence has several advantages. There will be no waste of time or paper in repeating arguments used in “considerations” when you come to “advantages and disadvantages of the courses”. Perhaps more important, whether a long or short time is spent on the appreciation, the essentials will have been covered: that is, alternative plans, and what the enemy may do to defeat them, will have been considered. If there is not time for a complete appreciation, all the thinking will have been productive; if there is plenty of time, the review of the commander will gain in precision and scope as he considers the factors more fully.