In the service of ambition

From Chapter 2: The Mythical Man-Month

Excerpt
...delay at this point has unusually severe financial, as well as psychological, repercussions. The project is fully staffed, and cost-per-day is maximum...Indeed, these secondary costs may far outweigh all others. (page 20)

From The Campaigns of Napoleon.¹

Excerpt
[Napoleon's] inhuman demands on his own followers during desert marches...reveal his lack of concern for his men. To Bonaparte armies were merely instruments for his use.(p. 248)

 

Brooks is burnishing his argument on the necessity of ensuring sufficient schedule for system test. The repercussions--in terms of human cost--cannot be overstated. There can be devastating consequences on a project team.

A mission is a campaign. A team of can be unwittingly lead to tremendous self sacrifice necessitated by a management whose aspirations exceed its resources. And as in war, the loyal are often sacrificed. I'll strain that comparison for the sake of illustration.

History is awash with examples of military campaigns where the armies suffered terribly in the service of an ambitious leader: the Athenian army under Nicias in Syracuse, the Roman army in Persia under Crassus, the 4th Crusade, the British army in Virginia wilderness under Braddock, or the French army under LeClerc in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) and both the German and Napoleonic adventures into Russia are just a few examples. However, Napoleon's Syrian campaign is an especially poignant example of suffering in the service of ambition--perhaps because it's a tragedy that is relatively obscure.

In July of 1798, a Napoleon-lead French expedition of nearly 40,000 men landed in Egypt. Napoleon had promoted the expedition. "We must go to the Orient; all great glory has been acquired there."² This allusion to glory is intended to invoke Alexander the Great. Interestingly, the Egyptian adventure included some 500 artists and scientists who were to open the field of Egyptology.³

From earliest stages of the expedition, the French army was dispirited. The campaign opened with a 72-hour, waterless march through the desert that was called a 'living hell.' The army was near mutiny and one of Napoleon's generals committed suicide. Napoleon exercised his relentless will and, within a month, Egypt was in French hands. Success seemed assured.

However, by October the tide had turned. A British Naval blockade had isolated the expedition. Back home, the Second Coalition was clobbering French armies on the continent and the Directory had lost interest in the Egyptian campaign. Again, the army was demoralized. Senior officers started to resign and return to France. But most pressing, the Turkish Sultan had issued a firman declaring holy war on the French.

Napoleon was never one to sit around and wait to be overtaken by events. He would defeat the Sultan and establish French dominance in the region. Preparations began for an invasion of Syria. The stage was set for one of the crueler adventures of Napoleon's career.

On February 6th 1799, the vanguard of a 13,000-man French army headed off into the Arabian desert. Napoleon always pushed his armies hard; speed was his best tactical tool. The plan was for the army to cover 15 miles per day and reach Gaza in 8 days. Due to unexpected Turkish resistance and harassment from the British Navy, the provision-strapped French army suffered through a month-long trudge through the desert before encamping outside of Jaffa . After a short siege, the Turkish garrison in Jaffa surrendered on a French promise of clemency. Once the Turks were in custody, Napoleon ignored the promise of clemency and had the entire Turkish garrison of 3,000, along with 1400 additional prisoners, executed. In his memoir, Napoleon explained that the executions were necessary because of scarce provisions.

As if by cosmic justice, a major outbreak of the plague afflicted the French. Once again French moral tanked. To rally the troops, Napolean made a risky (and later self-celebrated) visit to the afflicted in the Jaffa Pestiferies. He even helped carry a diseased corpse at tremendous personal risk--a gesture that is said to have inspired the army to march on.

The army next advanced to Acre. Acre was considered the "key to Palestine"--its capture was key to Napoleon's strategy. On the Ides of March, the army opened siege. This time, with the help of a timely arrival by the British navy, the Turks foiled the French efforts.

By early May, Napoleon realized the chance of success was rapidly slipping away. He ordered a series of desperate but failed attacks. When the Turks began to receive reinforcements, Napoleon knew he was beaten. A retreat was ordered. The worst miseries of the campaign were to follow.

Meanwhile, Napoleon issued a series of proclamations for the Egyptian and French audiences that described his great victories in Syria. The retreat to Egypt, he explained, was due to the upcoming summer season.

Napoleon's retreat from Acre was saddled with daunting problems. It was a disaster that foreshadowed his retreat from Moscow in 1812, but that was 13 years away. One seemingly insoluble problem was the need to transport 2,300 sick and wounded back to Egypt. Napoleon proposed poisoning the hopeless cases. He was initially dissuaded, but after the Turks mounted an aggressive pursuit, he ordered the mercy killing of those French who were too incapacitated to walk back.

The expedition ended on June 3rd, when the demoralized remnants of the French army straggled into Katia, Egypt. When all was said and done, the year of campaigning had cost the French army 1/3 of its men.

Nonetheless, Napoleon staged a triumphal march in Cairo on June 14. Two months later, Napoleon returned to France as the self-declared "Savior of France" and became the 1st Consul of the French Government. Thus began the greatest phase of Napoleon's career. Meanwhile, a dispirited French army was forced to remain in Egypt until the Treaty of Amiens was signed in 1802.

In summary, the Egyptian campaign was not quite up to Ceasar's "Veni, vidi, vici." More like I saw glory, I over committed, I declared success.⁴

Over commitment among software development teams is so common that it has a name: Death March. Every experienced programmer has lived through one. Most pledge, unsuccessfully, never to do 'that' again, but few have the will to resist the drive to succeed. I saw the regrettable repercussions on the mission teams: divorce, heart attack, even suicide. It's a serious business. In recent years, the strains on NASA budgets has made the death march the norm and not the exception.

There are times when self-sacrifice is warranted. Our great country has thrived because many have answered the call to protect and serve. We owe a profound debt to those men and women. But the romantic calling to build a new vehicle for a return to the Moon or a robotic spacecraft to crawl about Mars is not war and personal sacrifice seems an unwarranted antidote to an ill-conceived NASA project.

Great achievements require great leadership and a great leader's requisite ambition. Napoleon was a great genius, but he equated his personal ambitions with the good of all. That is the road to malevolence. Few leaders have the both requisite wisdom to maintain that separation and the luck to survive. Perhaps it's too tall an order, but we can at least hope that the ambitions of the leaders in the American Space program would be tempered by a concern for the people in the trenches.


^1. Chandler, D. "The Campaigns of Napoleon. The Mind and Method of History's Greatest Soldier." Scribner. 1966.
^2. Chandler, p.209.
^3. Among other things, the expedition returned with the Rosetta Stone.
^4. According to Google translator, the latin would be: Vidi gloriam meam super commisit ego, successu. Suggested improvements are welcome.