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Strategy

The Decisiveness of French Entry into the American War for Independence

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By Alex Crosby

The 1778 French entry into the American War for Independence imposed several strategic conundrums for the British that fatally impaired chances of victory. First, French entry initiated a pattern of European opportunism to challenge British global hegemony, specifically with the cooperative involvement of France and Spain. Second, peripheral theaters in the West Indies, India, and Europe diffused British naval forces and strained limited manpower, devastating the British capability to conduct land warfare successfully. Finally, French entry bolstered American international legitimacy and domestic determination, which prevented Britain from regaining the strategic initiative. Ultimately, these combined challenges had adverse effects that made any remaining chance of British victory impossible.

European Opportunism

In the years leading up to its entry into the war, France aligned strategic resources to capitalize on opportunities that challenged British hegemony, particularly in the maritime domain. The French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Vergennes, spearheaded ambitions to restore France to its perceived rightful dominant place in Europe by attacking British influence abroad instead of the historical strategy of targeting Britain itself.1 Additionally, both the French Director-General of Finance and Secretary of State for the Navy, Jacques Necker and Gabriel de Sartine, respectively, established policy decisions from 1774-1780 that supported France’s ability to pay for domestic war support, including the robust reformation of its naval forces.2 This preparation allowed France to be generally well suited to confront British naval forces, a physical representation of British hegemony, and directly contributed to British defeats in the maritime domain.

Following the commencement of the war, France identified the unique opportunity this far-off conflict presented for restoring order and balance to European power dynamics, which would also weaken British military successes. Specifically, the strained state that British forces were in following the Saratoga and Philadelphia campaigns provided the ideal timing for the French to enter the war. While Britain was considering negotiations to cease hostilities after these two campaign failures, France sought to prolong the war for its own benefit.3 France had long desired a revengeful opportunity to damage Britain in a manner that would increase maritime and political superiority in France’s favor.4 The tyranny of distance associated with European conflict in North America was capitalized on by France and continued to be a monumental struggle for Britain.

France’s entry into the war placed it in the unique position of being able to leverage American Revolutionary aims for independence as the catalyst for its grand strategy to challenge British hegemony and defeat it when opportunities presented themselves. Although France had expressed genuine interest in the American colonies seeking independence, this disturbance ultimately served France as a lever to restore global colonial balance and French influence.5 France embodied its role as a catalyst for challenging British hegemony and, in doing so, spurred Spain and Holland into later cooperation to ensure British victory in the American War for Independence would be impossible.

Motivated by decades of simmering retaliation and individual self-identification as the rightful European hegemon, France’s entry into the war forced Britain into a defensive maritime fight that prevented victory after 1778. Since 1763, the French-led House of Bourbon had been conducting robust shipbuilding efforts with the anticipation of likely conflict with Britain’s notoriously strong naval fleet. Unburdened by any land warfare entanglements in Europe, the House of Bourbon majorly oriented its resources towards increasing its combined maritime power.6 By 1775, France and Spain’s relative combined naval power exceeded Britain by approximately 25 percent and continued to grow throughout the remainder of the war.7 This prioritization of the maritime domain forced Britain into a strategic defensive posture, with alternating concerns between the North American land campaigns and countering Bourbon maritime threats across the globe.8

Peripheral Theaters

French entry into the American War for Independence created pervasive and politically deadly dilemmas for British control of its far-flung naval bases and ports across the globe.9 Except for the Spanish-controlled naval shipbuilding port of Havana, overseas locations for European countries were typically resource deficient and required significant garrison forces to maintain order.10 The vast distances and garrison requirements complicated British efforts to counter French attempts at harassment, isolation, or invasion. Due to French threats to British colonial garrison forces and the maritime sea lines of communication between them, Britain reoriented its forces and resources towards France and decreased allocations to combating the American colonialists.11 Britain eventually further ensured its strategic defeat with its declaration of hostilities on Holland. France capitalized on the resulting Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and gained a critical extension of control into the Indian Ocean and West Indies.12 This unification of European powers, led by France, signaled a shift in global British control and turned the weight of Britain’s colonial possessions won during the Seven Year’s War in 1763 into an overwhelmingly taxing drain that prevented the British from bringing its full combat potential to bear at the locations of its choosing.13

France’s entry also led to the defense of Britain becoming the primary strategic objective when threats of attack from the House of Bourbon culminated between 1778-1780.14 In particular, the British Admiralty tended to be riveted by fears of potential invasion and over-insured home waters with British naval forces that could have proved decisive elsewhere.15 This fear was further flamed as Britain entered hostilities without any continental allies.16 Despite focusing maritime forces in its home waters, the British navy would have had no legitimate chance against a combined Franco-Spanish naval fleet if they had pursued a determined invasion of Britain. Britain’s shift from offensive operations in the American colonies, King George’s original strategic objective, to defensive operations displayed the genuinely destructive nature of French entry into the war.

Due to this refocusing towards Europe, Britain overly fixated on French naval dockyards in their misguided pursuit of a decisive naval engagement.17 The First Lord of the Admiralty, John Montagu, preferred concentration of the British naval fleet in Europe to force the House of Bourbon alliance to reallocate their respective naval forces from North America and the West Indies. However, the British navy lacked proper military intelligence on the intentions of enemy fleet movements.18 This intelligence gap resulted in the British fleet predominately failing to locate and engage the House of Bourbon naval forces. Additionally, France exploited its geographical position to facilitate an increasing operation focusing on guerre de course to harass British shipping.19 This missed opportunity of British naval forces countering France at sea allowed the French to operate with general freedom of action and inflict terminally damaging economic and military costs on Britain.

Bolstered Americanism

American Revolution leaders had framed their political narrative as a legitimate protest movement with traditional values grounded in English law and classical political philosophy to protect against British accusations and attract powerful European political and intellectual elites’ support.20 This political narrative would result in an increasing European acknowledgment of American Revolution legitimacy in the international system, albeit initially limited. Additionally, the radical changes in principles, opinion, sentiments, and affections of people from the republican ideals in the Declaration of Independence improved American legitimacy and furthered domestic determination. The American Revolution leadership hoped that a potential French recognition of an established United States of America would pave the way for other European nations to join the war and understand the long-term economic benefits of a British defeat.21 By incorporating principles of English society into their cause, the American revolutionaries had created a brilliant situation where British resentment fueled a growing fire of emboldened Americanism. Having been satisfactorily impressed by the intricate efforts of the American Revolution leadership like Benjamin Franklin, France became the spark that lit the eternal fire of American determination to defeat Britain.22

American leadership had long depended on France’s entry into the war and recognized the significance it would have on inhibiting Britain’s chance of victory. Even in the darkest moments after conflict initiation, George Washington remained faithfully committed that a French entry would inevitably occur. Specifically, Washington understood that the strategic complication of Britain fighting a land battle in the American colonies and contending with French naval forces across the globe would ensure a British defeat.23 American leadership hoped that the British failure during the Saratoga Campaign would be a turning point for French war support, which proved valid with France’s entry shortly afterward.24 Further hopes of a more meaningful alliance and a long-awaited desire to decisively defeat the British would come to fruition in August 1781 at the Battle of Yorktown with a sixteen thousand man-strong combined force of French and American troops.25

France’s entry also brought tangible aid to the American colonists that ensured war efforts could continue and drain Britain’s overseas land combat potential. French military leaders identified that the American colonists organically possessed relatively proficient skills with handling weapons and that they maintained the ability to fight in the near-limitless space across the American colonies. Additionally, France perceived the American colonists as being fearless of losing cities as they had no legitimate political, moral, or industrial foundation for military efforts, unlike the cities of Europe.26 This unique degree of American colonial resolve to reach war termination in their favor spurred on French, Spanish, and Dutch military aid in the forms of gunpowder, loans, and various equipment.27 Specific to the French, the first shipment crossed the Atlantic Ocean just after conflict initiation in 1776 clandestinely through a fabricated commercial entity and continued until war termination.28 The tangible aid that came with French entry, combined with the character of American warfighting, sapped British land forces of necessary combat potential.

In addition to tangible military aid, France provided a maritime-based capability to project power shore and inflict military costs on the British. While the American colonists focused almost exclusively on land warfare to drain British military resources, France focused its military efforts at sea.29 This French naval strategy ideally supported land operations and had been doctrinally implemented with the anticipation of a potential war with Britain in the American colonies.30 The September 1779 French fleet bombardment of Savannah displayed this ability against British land targets, and although limited in tactical success, contributed to furthering American determination against Britain.31 Following French entry, British naval and land combat potential in North America would never recover to 1776 levels.32

Although traditional American naval action was limited during the American War for Independence, French entry bolstered American privateering against British shipping and the land pressuring of naval bases, providing morale boosts that kept American colonial determination strong. Before there was a French naval presence on the Atlantic Coast, British sea control was locally uncontested and prevented consistent privateering near the coastal waters.33 American privateering increased and challenged British maritime security efforts once French naval forces provided limited sea control.34 The presence of Comte d’Estaing’s ships forced Britain to abandon blockade efforts, which dramatically increased opportunities for privateering and the flow of European goods shipments.35 This privateering went practically uncontested by the British for the remainder of the war and highlighted the general decrease in British maritime superiority upon French war entry.36 Additionally, French entry spurred American determination to put pressure on and control the naval hubs of Boston, Narraganset Bay, and New York.37 The threat of privateering and loss of strategically important naval bases in North America, enabled by the French, directly contributed to overall British defeat in the American War for Independence.

Contrarian Viewpoint

Some might argue that the House of Bourbon alliance was fragmented between drastically different political objectives, leading to opportunities for Britain’s exploitation and regaining the initiative towards achieving favorable war termination. This fragmentation is supported by French awareness of the necessity for Spain to provide resources for a combined naval force to place the British naval fleet at risk. Likewise, Spain was exceptionally aware that France depended on their involvement and actively leveraged this to steer the House of Bourbon alliance to achieve its land seizure objectives. Spain had specific war objectives of seizing Minorca, Gibraltar, and Jamaica from British control but was generally less committed to holistically orienting strategic resources towards successful operational execution.38 Additionally, Spain contrasted France in that it had no intentions of supporting the Americans or recognizing their moves towards independence.39 Finally, Spanish political resolve for conflict was limited and nearly led to withdrawal from the war following Spanish failure at Gibraltar.40 This vulnerable situation required France to direct resources to maintain a particular strategic objective of preventing Spanish capitulation from hindering French benefit or enabling a British victory.41

Despite these contrary views, these opposing objectives were overcome by an overall common unity to challenge British hegemony and cause culminating burdens. Neither France nor Spain were aggressively opposed to each other’s objectives and successfully found compromise to leverage each other’s military advantages. In particular, Spanish renewed efforts to pressure Britain in the West Indies allowed France to increase maritime and power projection operations in North America.42 France and Spain were deeply bound by desires for reprisal against British actions several decades prior and held sentiments of European rightfulness to supersede British hegemony.43

Additionally, others might argue that British naval forces were doctrinally and capability superior to their French equivalents, which could have led to a British victory. In general, British naval forces were able to maintain a degree of local sea control around their sea lines of communication, thus ensuring the strategic sustainment of its North American land forces. Likewise, the British were confident in their naval superiority and assessed that one or two decisive maritime engagements would have terminally altered the threat of the Franco-Spanish naval fleet and regained the complete strategic initiative in British favor.44

While this perspective holds some merit, British strategic decisions like those made by George Germaine, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, had severely limited British maritime strategy.45 British fears of upsetting France and British taxpayers that response to the American rebellion was a prelude to invading the French West Indies led to limited naval mobilization in 1775. These limitations were also coupled with broad navy funding cuts and rules of engagement additions that dictated there be no interception of French ships carrying munitions and supplies to the American colonies. These measures ultimately negated any possibility of a successful blockade on the Atlantic Coast being effectively implemented.46

Additionally, the French recognized the immense risks of becoming involved in a decisive naval battle with the British and instead focused efforts on attacking seaborne trade, launching land assaults against colonial possessions, enhancing French overseas control, and escorting French trade.47 Compounding the problem of France not being a cooperative target set, the British failed to internally coordinate intelligence of French and Spanish naval dockyards, which led to the House of Bourbon operating with near impunity across the Atlantic Ocean.48 With French entry pressing Britain into an overly defensive posture, British naval forces became too burdened by global mission tasking to guarantee local sea control of its Atlantic Ocean sea lines of communications.49

Finally, the British would have ultimately had to prioritize the North American theater over its other colonies to mitigate the risk posed by the combined French-Spanish naval forces. This prioritization would have suicidally sacrificed British economic priorities in other colonies, such as the West Indies, which had become a focal point of French maritime operations.50 Likewise, British naval focus on protecting the homeland was predicated on poor strategic assumptions that France intended to conduct an amphibious landing. Although there were discussions within the House of Bourbon to conduct such an invasion, this strategy was smartly abandoned for a more appropriate increase in maritime trade interdiction that would place Britain at greater strategic risk. Additionally, the British land forces in North America contended with unparalleled exterior lines of communication that measured more than three thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean.51 This vast distance required overseas locations, with corresponding garrison forces, that Britain could not maintain after French entry.52 Ultimately, French entry into the American War for Independence in 1778 negated any possibility of Britain achieving victory. 

Lieutenant Commander Alex Crosby, an active duty naval intelligence officer, began his career as a surface warfare officer. His assignments have included the USS Lassen (DDG-82), USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7), U.S. Seventh Fleet, and the Office of Naval Intelligence, with multiple deployments supporting naval expeditionary and special warfare commands. He is a Maritime Advanced Warfighting School–qualified maritime operational planner and an intelligence operations warfare tactics instructor. He holds master’s degrees from the American Military University and the Naval War College.

Endnotes

[1] Pritchard, James. “French Strategy in the American Revolution: A Reappraisal.” Naval War College Review, vol. 47, no. 4 (Autumn 1994): 86-87.

[2] Ibid., 85.

[3] Ferling, John. Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2015: 207.

[4] Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1890: 510-513

[5] “French Strategy in the American Revolution: A Reappraisal.” 88.

[6] The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. 505.

[7] O’Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson. The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013: 343.

[8] The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. 508.

[9] Ibid., 511.

[10] Ibid., 520.

[11] Ibid., 520.

[12] Ibid., 521.

[13] Jasanoff, Maya. Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World. New York: Knopf, 2011: 24.

[14] The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. 14.

[15] Mackesy, Piers. “British Strategy in the War of American Independence.” Yale Review, vol. 52 (1963): 555.

[16] The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. 334.

[17] The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. 526.

[18] The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. 333-334.

[19] Mahan, Alfred Thayer. “Introductory” and “Discussion of the Elements of Sea Power.” In Mahan on Naval Strategy. John B. Hattendorf, ed. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2015: 33

[20] Genest, Marc. “The Message Heard ‘Round the World.” In Quills to Tweets: How America Communicates about War and Revolution. Andrea J. Dew, Marc A. Genest, S.C.M. Paine, eds. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2019: 10.

[21] Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It. 205-206.

[22] The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. 114.

[23] Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It. 205-206.

[24] Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World. 40.

[25] Ibid., 52.

[26] British Strategy in the War of American Independence. 541.

[27] The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. 14.

[28] Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It. 205-206.

[29] The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. 508.

[30] French Strategy in the American Revolution: A Reappraisal. 91.

[31] Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World. 44.

[32] The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. 14.

[33] Ibid., 333-334.

[34] Ibid., 343.

[35] French Strategy in the American Revolution: A Reappraisal. 93.

[36] Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It. 209.

[37] The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. 520.

[38] Ibid., 510.

[39] French Strategy in the American Revolution: A Reappraisal. 87.

[40] Ibid., 94.

[41] Ibid., 96-97.

[42] Ibid., 99.

[43] The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. 509.

[44] British Strategy in the War of American Independence. 554.

[45] Ibid., 548.

[46] The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. 13-14.

[47] French Strategy in the American Revolution: A Reappraisal. 92.

[48] The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. 346-347.

[49] British Strategy in the War of American Independence. 541.

[50] The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. 513.

[51] British Strategy in the War of American Independence. 543.

[52] The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. 515.

Featured Image: Battle of the Virginia Capes, 5 September 1781. Oil on canvas by v. Zveg, 1962, depicting the French fleet (at left), commanded by Vice Admiral the Comte de Grasse, engaging the British fleet (at right) under Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Graves off the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. (Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Art Collection, U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

Maritime Law

“Legal Finish” in Maritime Security is Too Often Lacking a Legal Start

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By Dr. Ian Ralby

“Legal Finish” is a term that has become commonplace in maritime security circles around the world. It refers to the process of putting a maritime law enforcement action through a legal mechanism – whether a prosecution, administrative proceeding or other adjudication – that formally assesses offenses under national law and where appropriate, penalizes perpetrators. Legal finish has rightly been identified as crucial because merely disrupting illicit activities does little to deter future criminal conduct; only enforcing legal consequences changes the risk-reward calculus for nefarious actors. The problem, however, is that with all the focus on the legal finish, many states, international organizations, and “capacity building” partners have forgotten the legal start. 

Maritime law enforcement is not a linear process, it is a cycle that starts and ends with the law. Recognizing its recursive nature is essential to establishing clear, consistent, and effective law enforcement and security operations.

Figure 1. The Maritime Security Cycle.

To begin with, the law is the framework by which the maritime domain is assessed. Armed with the legal framework, maritime watchstanders can monitor and surveil the maritime domain, looking for any anomalies. Once they find those anomalies, however, a rigorous analytical process is needed to ensure that information is turned into understanding –about both what is happening on the water and what can be done about it. That analytical process, therefore, relies heavily on understanding the law. The key questions are:

  1. Is the anomaly desirable or undesirable? (Not all anomalies are undesirable).
  2. If it is undesirable, is it legal or illegal? (Not all undesirable matters have been addressed by the law).
  3. If it is illegal, is it actionable or not? (Does the state have the authority and jurisdiction to do something about it?)
  4. If it is actionable, is it achievable or not? (Does the state have the right physical capacity and capability to interdict the matter?)
  5. Even if it is undesirable, illegal, actionable, and achievable, would interdicting the matter be wise? (Is it worth the fuel, is it worth the risk, could there be geopolitical blowback, etc.?)

If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” then there should still be consideration of one additional question: “Is there anything else that could be done?” Watching the situation further, notifying other agencies, issuing a notice to mariners, or contacting neighboring states are all on the long list of other things that might be worth doing, short of pursuing an interdiction.

If the analysis suggests that an on-the-water operation might be warranted, then the analysts must have access to some sort of mechanism for sharing information with the proper decision-makers. Whether it is operative within an agency or across agencies, that cooperative mechanism must be repeatable (so there is consistency in how things happen), documentable (so there is a chance to learn from both successes and mistakes), and structured in such a manner that adequate information gets to the appropriate decision makers efficiently. 

Once decision-makers have information about an anomaly that is undesirable, illegal, actionable, achievable, and worth pursuing, it is up to them to decide whether to conduct an operation. If they choose to do so, the operation must be planned and executed in a manner consistent with the law. That requires not only a clear understanding of the authorities that the respective agencies have for law enforcement, and the limitation of enforcement jurisdiction in the maritime domain, but also a sufficient grasp of all the elements of an offense to be able to identify and document those elements at sea. The collection and preservation of evidence in the maritime space is crucial, especially since revisiting a “crime scene” at sea is rarely, if ever possible. Thus, understanding the law at the operational stage – both in the sense of what the law enforcement officers do and concerning what they notice and record – is vital to legal finish. But that understanding is usually in the hands of completely different people than those responsible for the legal finish. 

Importantly, arrests of people do not happen at sea. While it is possible to arrest a vessel, the suspects themselves are detained at sea and brought back to shore. Only once on shore are they handed over to land-based authorities who, on reviewing whatever evidence has been collected, then conduct an arrest or initiate an administrative proceeding. An arrest would then trigger the start of a prosecution, adjudication, and, if successful, penalization of the case. An administrative proceeding would similarly assess some sort of penalty. In either case – both considered to be “legal finish” – the personnel responsible are almost always different than the ones involved in every prior step of the process. All too often, however, most of the support, training, capacity building, attention, and funding has gone to this final stage, while the role of the law and legal advisors has been ignored in all the others.

Legal advisors are rarely, if ever, part of the process of monitoring and surveilling the maritime domain, analyzing anomalies, sharing information, planning operations, or even executing operations. They are sometimes – but rarely – consulted regarding evidence collection and preservation. Usually, the first time lawyers are brought into the maritime security cycle is for the legal finish, and it is left to them to kick-save any legal mistake or oversight that has been made at any previous point in the cycle. There is only so much, however, that can be fixed at the end of the process. Additionally, there may have been operational options that would have been more impactful if legal consultations had occurred earlier. Maritime law is strange and it affords some rights and opportunities that are sometimes hard to believe. Operators may miss out on more effective operations due to a lack of legal input at that stage.

Because maritime law enforcement is a cycle rather than a linear process, it does not end if one of the steps breaks down or even if all of them are successful through to prosecution. The final step is to revisit the starting point – the law – to ensure that it is fit for purpose. Law has two main functions: to constrain bad action and to enable good. If the law does not address an undesirable activity occurring in the maritime domain, it should be expanded or amended. If that law is not creating space for “good,” economically productive, and desirable activities, it should also be amended. While maritime law enforcement focuses on “the bad,” governing the maritime domain requires recognizing a balance between the two. Only stamping out the bad is not possible; there must be ample opportunities for good, lawful activities as well – especially when they are vital to a state’s economic security. 

To be most effective, therefore, in both promoting good activities and stopping bad ones, the law must be seen as a tool or an asset for law enforcement – much the way a ship, radar system, or even a weapon would be seen. To be as impactful as possible, the law must be calibrated for the security operating environment. But even perfect law will be virtually worthless unless those who understand it and know how to use it are involved from the start of the maritime security cycle. Relegating the law to the legal finish phase betrays a lack of appreciation for the centrality of the law to the entire cycle, and sets up the state for failure.

Legal finish is incredibly important. But so is the legal start. If operational lawyers are not recognized as playing a vital role in all the phases leading up to the handover to land-based authorities, the prospects of both effective operations and successful legal finish are being undermined. So, for all the good attention that has been paid to prosecutors and judges, as well as to the work of coast guard and navy lawyers in support of those prosecutions or administrative proceedings, much more must be done to back up and start integrating sound legal advice throughout the maritime security cycle. While this can be a challenge, as operational cultures tend to not be welcoming to legal advisors, it is not about disrupting missions and operations with annoying legal points. It is about enhancing missions and operations by safeguarding the likelihood of their success. As simple as it sounds, we must not lose sight of the reality that legal finish needs a legal start.

Dr. Ian Ralby is a recognized expert in maritime and resource security. He has worked in more than 95 countries around the world, often assisting them with developing their maritime domain awareness capacity. He holds a JD from William & Mary and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. 

Featured Image: A commercial ship passes by San Francisco. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Strategy

A Maritime Deterrence Strategy: The Key to an Overarching Navy Warfighting Concept

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By James Wirtz

As great power competition becomes an increasingly grim reality, senior officers are coming to terms with the end of a globally permissive, power projection environment. Strategists and planners can no longer assume that limited naval forces in theater can transit to some crisis epicenter and influence events by threatening or projecting power ashore with little interference.1 While this operational reality has been in the works for some time, its impact is only now reverberating across various Navy communities, raising the specter of profound disruption of long-standing procedures and the obsolescence of familiar capabilities.

Several emerging warfighting concepts also shape today’s Navy operations, adding further complexity. The quest to develop distributed maritime operations – that is, to disperse long-range fires, sensors, communications, and command and control nodes across platforms separated by significant distances – is an ongoing project intended to defeat opposing anti-access and area denial capabilities.2 The “One Atlantic” initiative, by contrast, is intended to transcend the command and control seams that exist between U.S. Northern Command and U.S. European Command to increase de facto availability of maritime assets for European contingencies.3 In the Pacific, non-traditional sea denial capabilities, so-called “hellscape” swarms of autonomous platforms, have become a centerpiece of the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s plan to defeat a cross-strait assault on the Island of Taiwan.4

This operational churn is a healthy reaction to the waves of techno-strategic change confronting the Navy. Nevertheless, it complicates efforts for Navy leaders to describe the maritime force’s outsized contribution to the Joint Force and today’s Joint Warfighting Concept. These competing operational initiatives and maritime concepts, however, are primarily internal Navy matters – the Joint Force is more concerned with the operational effects and strategic impact the Navy provides rather than the specific processes behind them. Additionally, since these operational concepts focus on warfighting, they fail to address the movement of U.S. defense strategy towards a more robust deterrent posture.

Eventually, the Navy will develop a more pervasive operational concept that reflects emergent techno-strategic realities. Until then, it needs to identify how the Navy of today and tomorrow will help deter great power war. The Navy needs to explain to a broader audience what it is trying to do – not how it is trying to do it. The Navy must identify its contribution to the emerging U.S. deterrent strategy. Synchronization of competing warfighting concepts can then follow in strategy’s wake.

The Navy’s Contribution to Deterrence Today

How does the Navy contribute to the U.S. deterrence posture from both a regional and global standpoint? Although the Biden administration introduced the notion of “integrated deterrence” into the strategic lexicon in 2022, Navy officials, academics, and defense observers have been relatively silent about the Navy’s contribution to deterrence in today’s techno-strategic setting.5 The integrated deterrence concept is simple enough: “In a world of multiple adversaries, emerging technologies, new domains of warfare, and globalized economic ties, deterrence requires a broader approach than traditional military methods alone.”

The new concept addresses these developments by calling for a whole-of-government, whole-of-alliance strategy that utilizes both non-kinetic and kinetic deterrent threats and capabilities. Integrated deterrence is ambitious; there is no formula to integrate the way these domains, agencies, and allies contribute to deterrence.6 Although the policy and academic response to the notion of integrated deterrence has been modest, virtually no one participating in this discussion has deemed it necessary to describe the Navy’s contribution to national security as strategic, or the role the Navy would play in an integrated deterrence strategy. This last observation should disturb naval strategists.

The Navy can make two key contributions to deterrence that signal to friend and foe alike the U.S. capability and willingness to make good on its diplomatic and military commitments. These contributions to deterrence take the form of a bi-modal deterrent strategy and concept of operations that draws a distinction between sea control and sea denial forces.

Sea Control

Across the conflict spectrum, the Navy’s sea control capability signals that the United States is ready to uphold its deterrence policies and to assure allies of the U.S. commitment to their defense. Come what may, the U.S. Navy will maintain global communications with allies and partners, preventing the isolation of key friends, countering coercion, and facilitating the movement of forces and materials to conflict regions. James H. Bergeron, for instance, describes how sea control plays an important role in bolstering NATO’s deterrent posture:

“The maritime dimension of NATO is a spectrum and continuum; a strategic unity that links the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCS) across the Atlantic, the North Atlantic and GIUK Gap, the Norwegian Sea, the Arctic passages to the Pole, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea. But also, beyond that, to the global seas and oceans that feed our trade and commerce . . .. the seas matter tactically due to the potential threat of sea-based missile attack on Allied ships or indeed land targets. It matters operationally in the ability of an adversary to disrupt SLOCs between North America and Europe and within the NATO Area of Responsibility. And it matters politically and strategically as the symbol of our essential connectedness as an Alliance.”7

America has global deterrent commitments, and its friends and allies are near great powers that are increasingly capable and belligerent. Sea control demonstrates that the United States will always be able to influence worldwide events and that opponents will not succeed in efforts to isolate allies and partners. Sea control is the glue that binds America’s alliances together.

Sea Denial

The Navy’s sea denial capability, which exists both in a day-alert and, if necessary, a generated-alert status, signals to all concerned that the United States is unwilling to cede the opening move in a nascent conflict or fait accompli to its adversary. Put simply, the U.S. Navy will always be prepared to disrupt hostile actions, and that the Navy’s response will be geared to the warning time available (whether that is hours, days, or weeks). A ready sea denial capability bolsters deterrence by compelling the adversary to anticipate active resistance, and to assess continuously evolving sea denial capabilities. The ongoing improvement of the sea denial force injects doubts into the opponent’s planning process – one can never be sure if some exquisite operation planned against a specific capability has accounted for the latest innovation. A ready sea denial capability reduces the attractiveness of attempting a fait accompli, which by definition would shift the onus of escalation onto Washington. Sea denial suggests that war will commence when aggression begins, not weeks or months later in the form of a long attritional campaign to return to the status quo ante bellum.

Sea denial deters aggression by complicating opponents’ planning, by placing the onus for initiating a significant conflict on the opponent, and by holding the line until the full weight of the Joint Force can be brought to bear in battle. A ready sea denial capability reduces the likelihood that an opponent might come to believe that U.S. officials might choose not to respond to some fait accompli – sea denial suggests to the opponent that there is no way to sidestep an active opponent, achieve limited objectives, and plan for the best.

A Bi-modal Maritime Deterrent

The concept of a bi-modal deterrent strategy not only aligns maritime strategy with today’s political demands, it also suggests a way to organize the operational and tactical churn within the Navy. When placed within the context of a maritime deterrent strategy, the Navy’s operational concepts no longer appear to be competitive but more complementary. The Hellscape initiative contributes to deterrence by providing sea denial, while the One Atlantic initiative bolsters the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deterrence in Europe by increasing Atlantic sea control and even force projection onto the continent of Europe. 

Distributed maritime operations (DMO) could be seen as increasing both sea denial and sea control capabilities by harnessing the offensive capability of far-flung forces, while minimizing their vulnerability to hostile action. Most importantly, a maritime deterrent strategy that emphasizes bi-modal operations gives renewed emphasis to the Navy’s contribution to strategic deterrence and the role of the Joint Force in deterring aggression. This is the primary techno-strategic change that is unsettling Navy planners today, that is, the shift from globally permissive, power projection environment that emphasized warfighting to a world where deterrence dominates U.S. defense policy. 

Conclusion

The bi-modal, sea denial and sea control concept is not new. Wayne Hughes described the idea in a seminal article published in the Naval War College Review in 2007.8 Today, a bi-modal fleet is being advanced as an operational concept that would allow the Navy to use new technologies to deal with the proliferation of anti-access and area denial threats, while putting the existing Fleet to good use to achieve sea control.9 A maritime deterrent strategy, particularly one suited to today’s great power competition, can leverage the bi-modal concept to synchronize the many ideas and capabilities that are emerging in response to the changing techno-strategic environment. The proliferation of these innovations is a positive sign. It demonstrates that strategists, planners, and developers are searching for new ways to incorporate new capabilities and ideas to deal with increasingly significant threats. Nevertheless, this burst of creativity requires an overarching strategy to identify objectives and how new and existing capabilities might be used to obtain them. A Maritime Deterrent Strategy that adapts a bi-modal operational concept of operations would serve as a useful blueprint to synchronize the Navy’s response to today’s security setting.10

James J. Wirtz is a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA.

References

[1] James J. Wirtz, Jeffrey E. Kline, and James A. Russell, “A Maritime Conversation with America,” Orbis, Vol. 66, Iss. 2, 2022, pp. 166-183.

[2] “Report to Congress on Navy Distributed Maritime Operations,” Congressional Research Service, 3 July 2024. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/download/IF/IF12599/IF12599.pdf/

[3] Meagan Eckstein, “Fleet forces chief wants to make a smaller Navy more lethal,” Defense News, 3 May 2024. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2023/05/03/fleet-forces-chief-wants-to-make-a-smaller-navy-more-lethal/

[4] John Grady, “’Hellscape’ Swarms Could be a Cost-Effective Taiwan Defense, Report Says,” USNI News, 1 July 2024. https://news.usni.org/2024/07/01/hellscape-swarms-could-be-as-cost-effective-taiwan-defense-says-report

[5] See The White House, National Security Strategy (Washington: 12 October 2022), 8-November-Combined-PDF-for-Upload.pdf (whitehouse.gov); and 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, Annex 1 to 2022 US National Defense Strategy (Washington: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 27 October 2022), https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/trecms/pdf/AD1183514.pdf, 

[6] James J. Wirtz and Jeffrey A. Larsen, “Wanted: A Strategy to Integrate Deterrence,” Defense and Security Analysis, pp. 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14751798.2024.2352943

[7] James H. Bergeron, “Reflecting on One Year of War: A Transformational Year in Maritime NATO,” Center for Maritime Strategy, February 17, 2023. https://centerformaritimestrategy.org/publications/reflecting-on-one-year-of-war-a-transformational-year-in-maritime-nato/

[8] Wayne P. Hughes, “A Bi-Modal Force for the National Maritime Strategy,” Naval War College Review, Vol. 60: No. 2, Article 5, 2007. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol60/iss2/5

[9] James J. Wirtz, Jeffrey E. Kline and James A. Russell, The U.S. Navy and the Rise of Great Power Competition: Looking Beyond the Western Pacific (London: Routledge, 2024), pp. 129-143.

[10] The opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not reflect the position of any government, government agency, commercial firm, or other organization.

Featured Image: SASEBO, JAPAN (Sept. 19, 2024) Amphibious transport dock ship USS San Diego (LPD 22) arrives pierside at Commander Fleet Activities Sasebo as part of a scheduled home port shift to Sasebo, Japan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Darian Lord)

Interviews

Admiral Canaris: Hitler’s Slippery Spymaster

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By CDR Christopher Nelson, USN

Author David Alan Johnson discusses his new book, Admiral Canaris: How Hitler’s Chief of Intelligence Betrayed the Nazis. It is a well-written synthesis of the life of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who served as the chief of military intelligence for Nazi Germany from 1935-1944. While Canaris might be less well-known than some of the more senior Nazi officials from World War II, his unique position and acts of sabotage make him among the most consequential resistance leaders during the war. Admiral Canaris’ excellent skills in deception, subterfuge, political infighting, along with his eventual distaste that turned into hatred of Hitler’s regime, make for a fascinating story.

To begin, provide us with a brief biographical sketch of Admiral Canaris. How do we place him in context among other Nazi and Wehrmacht leaders?

In common with the majority of German leaders during the Hitler era, both political and military, William Canaris had an excellent record as a junior officer during the First World War. He received commendation both as an active officer with the fleet and as an intelligence officer. He was presented with the Iron Cross 1st Class by Kaiser Wilhelm. Most of the leaders of the German forces were also decorated veterans, including Adolf Hitler. Canaris hated the Weimar Republic and the Treaty of Versailles. To Canaris’ way of thinking, the Weimar Republic was a foreign administration that had been forced upon Germany by the Allied powers, and the Versailles Treaty severely limited the size of the German navy and prohibited the building of submarines – Canaris had been a submarine commander during the war. When Hitler became Führer during the 1930s, he promised to re-arm Germany which included rebuilding the German Navy. Along with all other high-ranking German officers at the time, Wilhelm Canaris was in complete agreement with Hitler and his plans for a New Germany. Adolf Hitler was a strong-willed German nationalist who planned to form a new government in Germany, abolish the Versailles Treaty, and create another German fleet, complete with submarines. As far as Canaris was concerned, Hitler was exactly what Germany needed.

What specifically led to Canaris taking charge of the Abwehr – German military intelligence?

Wilhelm Canaris had been the intelligence officer aboard the cruiser Dresden during the First World War, which gave him a working background in that field. But his first link with the Abwehr came in 1934, when he was captain of the battleship Schlesien. Captain Canaris did not get along with his immediate superior, Rear Admiral Max Bastian. In an effort to get rid of Captain Canaris, Admiral Bastian recommended that Canaris be assigned to an administrative post – possibly the Abwehr. But instead, the German admiralty sent Canaris to Fort Sweinemünde, a seaport on the Baltic Sea coast. This turned out to be a dead-end job; Canaris was not happy with this assignment.

But less than a month after reporting for duty at Fort Sweinemünde, Canaris became the beneficiary of a happy accident – the head of the Abwehr, Captain Conrad Patzig, resigned his position because he was not able to get along with the director of the newly-created Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the ambitious Reinhard Heydrich. Before leaving his position, Captain Patzig recommended that Wilhelm Canaris replace him as the Abwehr’s director. Canaris not only had the qualifications for the job but, just as important, he had been friends with Reinhard Heydrich back in 1923, when Heydrich had been a 19-year-old naval cadet aboard Canaris’ training ship. Wilhelm Canaris became the Abwehr chief because of several coincidences. He became the official head of the Abwehr on January 1, 1935.

What made Canaris an exceptional intelligence officer?

Captain Conrad Patzig, Wilhelm Canaris’ predecessor as head of the Abwehr, noted that he did not know of anyone else who had Canaris’ talent for deception and subterfuge – two vital attributes for an intelligence officer, especially in wartime. During the First World War, when he was intelligence officer of the cruiser Dresden, Lieutenant Canaris informed a radio station in Brazil that the Dresden would soon be returning to Germany. He knew that this message would be picked up by British Intelligence. But the Dresden did not go back to Germany; she continued to operate in the vicinity of Montevideo, Uruguay. British Intelligence did not discover the ruse until the Dresden sank two British merchantmen off the coast of Uruguay. The Dresden’s captain was happy to learn that his young intelligence officer had such a talent for duplicity. Canaris would go on to use this talent against Hitler and the Nazi regime in years to come.

How did Canaris balance the Abwehr’s intelligence work with the Nazi Gestapo and Security Service?

He did not “balance” his intelligence work with the other agencies. He basically set out to confuse Hitler and his generals by sending reports that invalidated information supplied by other agencies. This not only served to confuse the high command, but also led to Hitler losing faith in his intelligence services in general. His first opportunity to mislead Hitler came early on during the war, in September 1939. Admiral Canaris advised Hitler that French troops and artillery were gathering in the vicinity of Saarbrücken, which indicated that a French offensive would be taking place nearby. This news took Hither completely by surprise. He replied that he could not imagine a French attack anywhere near Saarbrücken. German defenses were particularly strong in that region, he said, and refused to believe the admiral.

Hitler’s opinion of Canaris would continue to deteriorate as the war went on and Canaris continued to make intelligence “mistakes.” He withheld information regarding “Operation Torch,” the Allied invasion of North Africa, which took place in November 1942. A task force of British and American warships and troop transports sailed right through the Straits of Gibraltar and landed on the North African beaches without the German High command knowing anything about the landings in advance. By the spring of 1943, all Axis forces had either surrendered or had been withdrawn from North Africa. A little over a year later, in January 1944, Admiral Canaris also contributed to the success of the landings at Anzio. He informed Feldmarschall Albert Kesselring that there was no need to fear an Allied invasion anytime in the near future. At that exact moment, about 250 British and American ships were approaching the town of Anzio on the western coast of Italy, carrying 50,000 men of the US Fifth Army and the British Fifteenth Army Group. Anzio was one of the largest amphibious operations of the war. Because of these apparent blunders, Hitler and his generals had lost all faith in the German intelligence services, not just in Admiral Canaris. Canaris had misled and misinformed them too many times.

Let’s dive into the reasons Canaris changed his mind about Hitler and began to subvert Nazi policies and goals. Canaris, initially it sounds, believed stridently in German nationalism and was a supporter of the Nazi regime. But he changed. What happened?

Admiral Canaris’ support of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime began to change during the early part of 1938. This change of heart was brought about by two separate incidents. The first incident involved the deliberate disgracing of Hitler’s highest-ranking general, Werner von Blomberg. General von Blomberg had recently married a much younger woman, Erna Gruhn. Because of von Blomberg’s position as Minister of Defense, the wedding was a leading social event; Adolf Hitler himself was one of the wedding guests. A short time after the wedding, Erna Gruhn was discovered to have quite a vivid police record – she was a convicted prostitute and had also been a model for pornographic photos. When Adolf Hitler was told of this, he was livid with anger, but he also realized that this incident created an opportunity for himself. He demanded von Blomberg’s resignation on the grounds that he had committed an immoral act by marrying a prostitute. After the general submitted his resignation, Hitler assumed his title of Defense Minister. Hitler had been looking for an excuse to solidify his control over the armed forces; the von Blomberg scandal gave him a ready-made excuse. General von Blomberg resigned in January 1938; Adolf Hitler immediately replaced him as supreme commander.

At the same time as the von Blomberg incident, the Wehrmacht’s commander-in-chief was removed from his post as the result of another scandal – this one was completely fabricated. General Werner von Fritsch did not agree with Hitler’s aggressive policy toward the Soviet Union. He was afraid that Hitler’s belligerence would lead to war with Russia, a war he knew Germany could not win. Hitler did not appreciate von Fritsch’s opposition, and decided that the general had to be dismissed from his post.

The method used to dispose of General von Fritsch was both simple and brutal. He was charged with having homosexual relationships, which was a criminal offense in Nazi Germany. A witness testified before both Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring that von Fritsch had a homosexual affair with a young boy in Potsdam. General von Fritsch vehemently denied the charge, and was allowed to be tried by a court of honor. The trial acquitted him of all charges, but the scandal ruined his reputation and ended his career – just as Hitler had planned. The accusations had been a complete set-up. It had been a different Captain von Frisch who had the homosexual affair, not the General von Fritsch. Hitler and the Gestapo knew this, but allowed the charges to be filed just the same. In February 1938, General von Fritsch resigned his position in disgrace. Hitler had taken another step toward solidifying his complete control of all German armed forces.

News of the Blomberg-Fritsch scandal was the leading story throughout Germany, as well as in the international press. American correspondent William L. Shirer was in Vienna at the time and read all about it. “Today’s papers say that Blomberg and Fritsch, the two men who have built up the German army, are out,” he wrote in his diary. “Hitler himself becomes a sort of ‘Supreme War Lord,’ assuming the powers of Minister of Defense.”

Admiral Canaris was absolutely stunned by the news that Hitler had ruined the careers and lives of two of his most senior officers, all for the purpose of supreme command of German forces. Until the Blomberg-Fritsch incident, the admiral admired Hitler and considered him an honorable and patriotic head of state who had restored Germany’s economy and military power. But Canaris no longer trusted Adolf Hitler, that although Hitler made many stirring speeches about Germany, he only had his own self-interest at heart. “This was the time when Canaris began to turn from Hitler,” a friend recalled. “If you have to mark any one event as the crisis of loyalty between Canaris and Hitler, this is it.”

Canaris as a Korvettenkapitän, circa 1924–31. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

But the incident that decisively turned Canaris against Hitler was Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” which took place on November 9, 1938. On this night, coordinated attacks were carried out against synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses throughout Germany. Hundreds of synagogues were vandalized, along with thousands of Jewish shops and businesses. Fragments of broken glass from smashed windows covered the streets and pavements. The light reflected by the shards reminded bystanders of crystal ornaments, which gave rise to the name “Crystal Night.” Over the years, the name has become synonymous with the barbarity of the Hitler regime.

Along with the Blomberg-Fritsch scandal, Kristallnacht destroyed Admiral Canaris’ faith in both Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Hitler ruined the lives of two senior officers to promote his own ambition, and now he approved a night of vandalism and destruction that turned world opinion against Germany. Two days after Kristallnacht, the New York Times ran this front-page headline: “Nazis Smash, Loot and Burn Jewish Shops and Temples.” No one knew exactly what Hitler might do next, but Canaris decided that he could no longer allow himself to support Adolf Hitler.

But the admiral did not resign his position as head of the Abwehr to protest Kristallnacht. Instead, he used his rank and authority to smuggle hundreds of refugees out of the Third Reich by disguising them as Abwehr intelligence agents. In 1941, he smuggled 500 Jews out of Nazi-occupied Holland to neutral Spain and Portugal and across the Atlantic Ocean to South America, Mexico, Panama, and other countries. According to some accounts, Canaris’ refugees also entered the United States. All of these evacuees were disguised as Abwehr agents. Some were taught simple codes to make their cover stories more convincing. All passports and other documents were signed by Admiral Canaris himself. The admiral was also responsible for saving the lives of many other Jews and “undesirables” by arranging their escape from Nazi-occupied territory.

What role did Canaris play in the various plots to assassinate Hitler, particularly the July 20th Plot?

Admiral Canaris was well aware of most of the assassination plots against Hitler, but no evidence exists to show that he was directly involved with any of them. At least eight assassination attempts were made since the war began. The first took place on the night of November 8, 1939, at the Bürgerbraükeller in Munich. Hitler was scheduled to make a speech at the beer hall that night, and a bomb was placed behind the speaker’s rostrum by a former inmate of Dachau. Everyone expected Hitler to make one of his usual long-winded speeches, which usually lasted more than an hour but, to the surprise of the audience, he left the building much sooner than expected.  When the time bomb exploded at about 9.30 pm, Hitler had already finished speaking and had left the premises.

Hitler managed to escape all the other assassination attempts, as well, mostly because of what one writer called “the devil’s luck.” In June, 1940, a group of conspirators planned to shoot Hitler while he was attending a victory parade in Paris, but the plan came to nothing when the parade was canceled. A year later, another group of conspirators attempted to kill Hitler during a parade, yet once again, the parade was called off. In March 1943, a bomb was placed aboard Hitler’s airplane while he was traveling through Russia. The bomb featured an acid detonator, which had always proved to be very effective and efficient in the past. But the pilot was forced to climb to a higher altitude than planned to avoid turbulence, and the acid froze in the frigid upper atmosphere. The bomb failed to explode.

Hitler also managed to escape other bomb plots because of luck. One attempt failed when the bomb exploded prematurely. Another effort collapsed when Hitler left an exhibition after staying only a few minutes; he sensed that something was wrong and cut his visit short. Admiral Canaris did not have much faith in these schemes and “did not want to be too much in the picture,” according to one source. His plan for ending Hitler’s dictatorship was to do everything in his power to help make the impending Allied invasion a success. As far as he was concerned, everything else, including bomb plots and assassination attempts, was a complete waste of time and effort.

There were those in London and Washington who shared the admiral’s opinion. Many feared that killing Hitler would only turn him into a martyr, and would encourage right-wing militarists to begin preaching that Germany would have won the war if the Führer had not been murdered by traitors. If Hitler were assassinated, this line of thinking went, his followers would establish a new military dictatorship in 20 or 25 years, a Fourth Reich, and would start another war. This was exactly what Admiral Canaris did not want to happen. Losing the war, and dealing with Hitler and the Nazis after they had been overpowered by the Allied armies, was the only practical way of restoring a German government based on international law, according to Canaris’ point of view.

Canaris (right) confers with top Nazi party officials Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler (left) and Chancellor Joseph Goebbels. 

Canaris had a complex relationship with foreign intelligence services. How did he interact with British intelligence, and what impact did these interactions have on the war?

During the months leading up to D-Day, Admiral Canaris’ activities can be best described as hazy and mysterious. He managed to keep Allied intelligence well informed of reports concerning German defenses in Normandy. No one is exactly sure how he stayed in touch with his contacts in London, but it was probably through acquaintances in Spain. No matter how he accomplished it, the admiral sent a good many reports across to England, priceless information involving the German defense build-up on the coast of Normandy.

An American colonel attached to General Eisenhower’s intelligence staff found out exactly how valuable Admiral Canaris had become to the Allied war effort. The officer in question was Colonel James O. Curtis, who was the only American intelligence evaluator on Eisenhower’s staff. The other three officers were British. The main job of an intelligence evaluator was to read and evaluate each and every report that was received – thousands of reports and pieces of intelligence arrived in London during the period leading up to D-Day – and to determine which were genuine and which were unreliable. Colonel Curtis was on very friendly terms with his British colleagues, but he had the feeling that they were not telling him everything – including details about the sources of the information.

Allied intelligence had its own system of grading information, a system that judged each report based on its credibility. The highest quality reports were graded A-1; the lowest were F-6. Colonel Curtis noticed that a surprising number of reports were being graded A-1. A great deal of A-1 material seemed too accurate and detailed to be true, at least to colonel Curtis’ way of thinking. He refused to believe that all the reports were as accurate as his British associates seemed to think. The three British officers were reluctant to divulge the source of the information until Colonel Curtis insisted. He refused to pass the reports along to American planners at Eisenhower’s headquarters until he knew something about their source.

The head of the department, Colonel E.J. Foord, finally decided to let the American in on their secret. He told Colonel Curtis that the source was Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, and went on to say that this disclosure was to be considered Top Secret: “The only reason that I am telling you this is that we want you to regard this information as being priceless and copper-bottomed.” Colonel Foord explained that only a very select few high-ranking individuals – President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, General Eisenhower – knew anything about Admiral Canaris’ activities. Colonel Curtis was taken completely by surprise by this revelation. “I was, at first, afraid to go to sleep in case I talked in my sleep,” he said.

Colonel Curtis wrote about Admiral Canaris’ accomplishments: “His most important service was to give us substantially the complete order of battle plans for the German Army, together with the plans they had worked out for coping with the invasion.” Receiving the Wehrmacht’s listing of divisions and regiments was an enormous asset for Allied intelligence. Piecing together that much information would have taken a great deal of time and effort, if the task could have been managed at all. Instead, intelligence agents were able to put that energy to work on other projects. Delivering the order of battle was one of Admiral Canaris’ major achievements. It gave Allied intelligence priceless information on enemy defenses in Normandy, and proved to be a major contribution toward helping Allied forces win the war.

What were the key reasons for Canaris’s eventual downfall, and how was he discovered to be working against the Nazi regime?

The failed assassination plot of July 20, 1944 made Hitler almost obsessively determined to round up everyone who had any connection at all with the plot, no matter how slight. The Gestapo carried out Hitler’s orders with brutal efficiency. Hundreds of German officers were arrested for complicity in the assassination attempt. About 20 percent of them were executed; many were tortured beforehand.

Admiral Canaris was not involved in the plot, but one of the officers taken into Gestapo custody named Canaris as one of the conspirators. Under the stress of Gestapo questioning, this officer, Colonel Georg Hansen, not only implicated the admiral as a member of the July 20 plot, but also identified him as one of the leaders of the anti-Nazi opposition. Colonel Hansen also said that Canaris was directly responsible for smuggling Jews and other “undesirables” out of German-occupied territory, a disclosure that took his interrogators completely by surprise. On the day after this interrogation, Admiral Canaris was arrested by the Gestapo.

Senior Nazi officials, including Martin Bormann, Hermann Göring, and Bruno Loerzer survey the damaged conference room of the July 20 assassination attempt. (Photo via German National Archives)

While under arrest, Canaris was regularly questioned by Gestapo agents. Most of these interrogators were specialists in either tricking or intimidating their prisoners into telling them what they wanted to know. But the admiral always managed to avoid answering their questions. He sometimes pretended to be a stupid old man, acting as though he did not understand what the agents were asking him. Sometimes he just sidestepped the questions, or replied with an answer that did not make sense. For months, he frustrated the Gestapo with one ruse after another. But the interrogators never gave up. They always had more questions, and kept coming back.

Not all of the prisoners were as resourceful, or as devious, as Admiral Canaris. One of the suspected conspirators told the Gestapo about some files that were being kept in the town of Zossen, about 20 miles south of Berlin, files that were said to contain valuable information about the anti-Hitler movement. The Gestapo immediately went to Zossen, where they discovered several binders in a safe at the Wehrmacht headquarters building. The binders contained several diaries that recorded – in great detail, and in Admiral Canaris’ handwriting – the activities of the anti-Nazi movement since the 1930s. These diaries supplied the Gestapo with all the evidence they needed to hang Admiral Canaris.

No one knows exactly why Canaris kept such a detailed account for so many years. He gave names, dates, and particulars of just about all the activities of the anti-Hitler conspirators. Possibly it may have been to record events for future historians; maybe it was to keep an official record of the corruption of Hitler and the Nazis for a post-war tribunal. Whatever the reason, the diaries have been one of the great mysteries of Admiral Canaris’ enigmatic life.

Sometime during early April, probably April 4, the diaries were handed over to Adolf Hitler. After reading Admiral Canaris’ comments and observations, Hitler ordered the admiral to be given a quick trial and then hanged. Admiral Canaris had been moved to Flossenbürg concentration camp, about a mile from the Czech border, at the beginning of February. Arranging for a quick trial and execution at Flossenbürg was a routine matter.

American soldiers stand at the gates of the Dachau concentration camp after its liberation. (Photo via 42nd “Rainbow” Infantry Division)

What were Canaris’s personal relationships like with his family and close friends during the height of his double life? How did they perceive his actions?

During the war, Admiral Canaris’ closest friends and associates were members of the anti-Hitler movement. Colonel Hans Oster turned against Hitler in 1934, and was involved in Operation Agular. He would be hanged on the same day as Canaris. Hans von Dohnanyi was also disturbed and angered by the Blomberg-Fritsch incident, and took part in Operation Seven. Ulrich von Hassell had been the German ambassador to Italy; he shared Canaris’ thoughts regarding the persecution of Jews and other outcasts. He unsuccessfully attempted to involve the British government in a plot to overthrow Hitler. General Walter Schellenberg remained on friendly terms with the admiral even though he was a high-ranking officer in German intelligence. The two often went horseback riding together. Admiral Canaris’ relationship with friends can best be described as “cautions.” Every one of his friends and acquaintances realized that one misplaced word regarding the admiral might very well result in the arrest of Canaris and very possibly themselves. Not very much is known about the existence of Canaris’ wife and two daughters. They were apparently not involved in any of the admiral’s anti-Hitler activities and remained in the background of Wilhelm Canaris’ life throughout the war. Both daughters, as well as Canaris’ wife, lived for many years after the war ended.

Can you describe the circumstances of Canaris’s arrest, trial, and execution? What was his legacy following his death?

After Admiral Canaris’ diaries were discovered at the beginning of April 1945, which furnished unquestionable proof that he had been a leader in the anti-Nazi resistance for years, his execution followed very quickly. Adolf Hitler issued the order on April 5. By April 8, Canaris was tried, found guilty of treason, and sentenced to death. Following his trial, the admiral was given a brutal interrogation by his SS guards. The guards beat him with their fists, which left him badly bruised and with a broken nose, and returned him to his cell barely able to walk.

On the following morning, Admiral Canaris was hanged. According to another prisoner at Flossenbürg, he died slowly and horribly. He was actually hanged twice – once with an iron collar around his neck, with the noose placed over the collar. After several minutes, he was taken down while still alive. The iron collar was then removed and he was hanged again. This time, he was left hanging until he was dead. Four other prisoners were also hanged that day. The bodies of all five prisoners were burned on a huge bonfire. The wind blew the cremated remains of Admiral Canaris and the others through the bars of the nearby cell windows.

Since he had become head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris managed to smuggle several hundred Jews and other outcasts out of Nazi-occupied territory, right past the Gestapo. He also sent valuable information to the Allies and did everything possible to prevent Adolf Hitler from winning the war. And with a great deal of cunning and an equal amount of good luck, he managed to avoid being discovered. But his luck ran out on July 20, 1944, when he was implicated in the failed Hitler assassination plot. Although he managed to get away with all of his anti-Nazi activities for many years, he was hanged because of a conspiracy in which he played no active part.

Exactly two weeks after Admiral Canaris was hanged, members of the 358th and 359th US infantry regiments arrived at Flossenbürg and liberated the camp. A week after Flossenbürg was liberated, and three weeks after the admiral was executed, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin chancellery. He shot himself on April 30; his bride, Eva Braun, swallowed poison. Seven days later, during the early hours of May 7, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allied powers and the Third Reich ceased to exist. The end came too late to save thousands of inmates who died in the concentration camps, but the mass murders had finally ended. Admiral Canaris could be well satisfied that he had done his part in saving many political and religious prisoners from places like Flossenbürg.

Memorial at Flossenbürg concentration camp to the German resistance members executed on 9 April 1945. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

David Alan Johnson is the author of fourteen books, including The Last Weeks of Abraham Lincoln and Decided on the Battlefield: Grant, Sherman, Lincoln, and the Election of 1864.

Commander Christopher Nelson, USN, is a career naval intelligence officer and a frequent contributor to CIMSEC. The questions and comments here are his own and not necessarily those endorsed by the Department of the Defense or the United States Navy.

Featured Image: Adolf Hitler and his entourage visiting the Eiffel Tower in Paris on June 23, 1940, following the occupation of France by the Nazis. (Photo via German Federal Archives)