The Balaclava Syndrome, or the Last of a Dying Breed

Summary of Olof Santesson's article in RSAWSPJ no 3 2001.

Former cavalryman Hodder Stjernswärd, a fellow of The Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences has, in a recently published book, given a vivid account of four military debacles of a somewhat similar nature. In two of them, Brigadier Stjernswärd gives ample proof of his own expertise and thorough knowledge of horsemanship and cites, as a first instance, taken from the Crimean War, the charge of the Light Brigade in 1854. Stjernswärd has aptly called his book The Balaclava Syndrome (Balaklavasyndromet, Probus Förlag, Stockholm 2001). His second chosen military disaster is George Armstrong Custer’s death ride against and defeat at the hands of the Sioux Indians in the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. The last two debacles in the book deal with Field Marshal Montgomery’s generalship in 1944 in the final stages of the Second World War.

Here the story moves from small units of not more than battalion size to disasters involving whole army corps. The cases the author has selected are Operation Good-wood outside Caen in French Normandy which failed against the German defence in depth, and Operation Market Garden where the Allies, using a combination of airborne troops and armour, were unable to take Arnhem in the Netherlands, thus missing the chance of reaching the industrial heartland of Germany by the backdoor.

What then is the Balaclava syndrome? According to Brigadier Stjernswärd it has the following four key characteristics: confusing orders, underestimate of the enemy, insufficient intelligence, and unimaginative implementation. The examples are well chosen to prove his thesis.