The Surprising Lesson from Blitzkrieg
When someone says “blitzkrieg”, we immediately think of the Germans in World War II. But do you know who came up with the concept of blitzkrieg and when? The surprising answer: the British in 1916! Tim Harford explains it all in his wonderful podcast . In 1916, Major JFC Fuller of the British Army saw a demo of the tank and realized this was the solution to the problem of World War I: how to get through the mud, trenches and barbed wire under a hail of machine gun fire? He wrote a paper spelling out how tanks could go deep behind enemy lines at a fast pace. Aided by air fire, they could create confusion and chaos in the enemy camp. It was called “Plan 1919”. As we know all too well, Plan 1919 was never put in action. Rather, it was put in action… but 20 years later... and by the Germans to run across Europe in weeks. This is a pattern that seems to repeat itself, says Harford. Xerox, the huge photocopying machine maker in the 70’s, invented the personal computer, G...