World's War Events Volume III Part 19

[Sidenote: Austria might make a separate peace.]

[Sidenote: There is suspicion among thieves.]

Having absorbed the fundamental fact that the Allies proposed to continue the fight to the end, what then was Germany's position? I am not one of those who cherish the fatuous delusion that this is a war in which the German people are not equally involved with their government.

At the same time, it is undeniable that there existed in both the German and the Austrian empires a considerable internal pressure, induced by hunger and by privations (but not by any moral or ethical considerations), to bring the war to a close. The cupboards of Russia were neither so full nor so readily available as had been antic.i.p.ated.

Suffering was general, and, with the scarcity not only of food but of wool and of cotton, made the prospect of going through another winter of war a gloomy contemplation. In Austria the situation was worse than in Germany. The letter of the Austrian Emperor to his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma, which the French Government published in April, gives sufficient indication of the Austrian need for peace. It shows also that Germany must have had doubt of the loyalty of her ally, and German knowledge that conditions had come to such a pa.s.s in Austria that a separate peace would be more welcome to Austria than no peace at all, regardless of the sacrifices which had to be made to obtain it. How long Austria could be held Germany did not know, but it was evident that she was not to be trusted too far. Austria is as unscrupulous, as hypocritical as is Germany, and Germany knows it. And while there may be honor among thieves, there is also suspicion.

[Sidenote: Germany must resume the offensive.]

But, aside from internal and political considerations, the military situation itself was one which demanded immediate action or none at all.

It is an elemental military fact that a war cannot be won by defensive action alone. Defeat may be averted by such means; but victory cannot be achieved. Germany, with the exception of a single incident south of Cambrai, had been on the defensive since the close of the battle of Verdun early in the summer of 1916. The necessity for offensive action at some time was therefore absolute if Germany was to win. But there were many considerations which made that time the present. Germany could not afford to wait.

[Sidenote: Divisions are brought from Russia.]

The middle of March found Germany at the height of her man power. Never before since the outbreak of war had the opportunity been presented for the concentration on the western front of practically her entire effective strength in both men and guns. For this, of course, Russia was responsible. The divisions which were holding the Russian lines had been carefully picked over, and from men thus selected new divisions were formed and old ones filled up. All were sent to France as rapidly as possible, the movement occupying the time from September, 1917, to March of this year. Similarly, all available artillery was concentrated in the west, the eastern front being practically denuded. Germany then was in immediate danger of being diverted by activities of the Allies in other fields.

[Sidenote: America could not furnish numbers in 1917.]

The Allies on the other hand were by no means at their full strength.

America, who stepped into the war just in time to take Russia's place, still remained impotent, unable to place in Europe numbers in any way commensurate with the situation. But America was gathering impetus as she went. And while she was a negligible force in 1917--except in the matters of food and money--and would probably be a negligible force in 1918 subject to the same exception, in 1919 she was almost certain to turn the tide strongly against the Central Powers. Even in 1918 there could be expected a steady though small stream of men across the ocean, who being fresh, eager, and unwearied, might cause trouble. Germany then had the one chance to win, and that chance demanded that she strike with all her power before America reached the field. To delay meant not a drawn game but certain defeat. For if Germany is ever confronted in Europe with the full strength of America in men and in the machinery of war, she will be crushed.

[Sidenote: Germany must strike before America reaches the field.]

[Sidenote: The Russian situation is disquieting.]

Finally, the situation in Russia boded ill for Germany. Great rejoicing has taken place in Berlin and in Vienna over peace with Russia. But it is a peace which has not altered Germany's inability to keep faith with any Power. Her persistent wors.h.i.+p of materialism and force has created a situation in Russia not at all to Germany's liking. Once the Russian border was absolutely undefended and the way to Petrograd and Moscow wide open, Germany could not resist the temptation to march on in continued aggression, regardless of treaty or promises or peace or morality. And Russia has furnished strong evidence that she is not at all complacent under such aggression.

[Sidenote: A new Russian national army is formed.]

[Sidenote: Danger of guerilla warfare.]

The Russians are in a stage of transition, and are, therefore, unstable, mentally unsettled. They are completely dissatisfied at Germany's interpretation of the peace terms. They see themselves being starved that Germany may fatten on their granaries. They are reaching the point where organized resistance is the only answer of which the situation is capable. Steps have already been taken to form a new national army, to offer organized resistance to further encroachments. There are also large elements which have never accepted the unconditional surrender and which never will. At any moment in this land of instability, the fires which have been kindled by German bad faith and duplicity may break into a conflagration. There is no danger at the present time--there is danger that before the year is out public dissatisfaction and unrest may crystallize and Germany be faced with the most colossal guerilla war the world has seen; and while warfare of this kind cannot defeat Germany, it can neutralize many divisions of German troops and pin them down to the eastern front while the Allies make the finis.h.i.+ng stroke in the west.

This situation, out of which anything can grow, made it strongly advisable that Germany should act before the crystallization should take place.

[Sidenote: Ready for a great blow in the West.]

Realizing that she could not wait without serious danger to herself, Germany mustered all her resources in the west for the great blow she was to deliver. The problem which confronted the German General Staff was to destroy one of the two great armies, that of France or that of England. Both could not be handled together. Germany did not have the strength. The attack had to be delivered against one or the other. Which should it be?

[Sidenote: The French losses much greater than the British.]

An attack against the French had certain advantages. The French army was unmistakably the weaker of the two. In the early days of the war, while the British army was being formed, it was the French who had to stand the brunt of the fighting. At Verdun it was the French who from February to July beat back the German a.s.saults along the Meuse time after time in the most tremendous duel of the war. In the Battle of the Somme it was the French who fought their way forward south of the river to the outskirts of Peronne and Chaulnes. The French losses had, therefore, been very much greater than the British. As the populations of France and of the United Kingdom are about the same, the French people had, therefore, suffered much more than had the British, and were correspondingly less able to stand such a blow as Germany was able to deliver.

[Sidenote: Much of French front is invulnerable.]

But there was one great disadvantage in attacking France. The blow could not be delivered against the front from St. Mihiel to the Swiss frontiers. This front is vulnerable only where the Vosges Mountains are broken by the great gaps at Belfort, Epinal, and Nancy; and these gaps are easy to defend and well backed up in rear by great bases of supply excellently served by many radiating railroad lines. It could not be delivered at Verdun, because France had not only retaken all the ground of military value which had been lost; but Verdun had become to France a religion, a fanaticism. To France it was a symbol of French love of country, of French patriotism. Verdun meant France. Germany, therefore, had no desire to test this fortified area again. This left only the Champagne line between the Argonne Forest and Rheims.

[Sidenote: Reasons for not striking on the Champagne line.]

[Sidenote: The Allied armies would be left intact.]

If Germany had attacked this front, the British army, the stronger of her enemies, would soon have struck, and whether Germany so elected or not, she would nevertheless be running two major operations at the same time--one offensive in Champagne, the other defensive in Picardy or in Flanders. Again, suppose her army did bend the French line back, as it undoubtedly would, how far back would it have to go in order for Germany to reach a complete military decision? There would indeed be no such decision in sight, almost regardless of the depth of penetration. The lines might have to be rectified; Verdun might have to be abandoned; the Vosges frontier line might have to be drawn in. But even so the French and British armies would both be intact; both biding their time when, with full force of their own and a million or more American troops, Germany could be beaten. In short, an attack against the French at any point, while promising new gains in territory, promised nothing in the way of a decision, and, be it remembered, this is Germany's last effort; it must reach either victory or defeat. The Battle of Picardy must and will produce a definite, positive result. It cannot end in indecision.

[Sidenote: British army trained only for trench warfare.]

[Sidenote: The French positions.]

[Sidenote: The British railway connections might be taken.]

An attack against the British offered none of the disadvantages which attended an attack against the French. The British were stronger it is true. But this army, unlike that of the French, was trained for but one thing--trench warfare. If Germany could restore war in the open--a war of movement--this strength might be offset by a wider experience. In attacking the British, the French could be held in check by defensive tactics with not a great deal of difficulty; as in such operations the terrain was greatly in Germany's favor. To take a hurried glimpse of the French positions, we find them in the valley of the Ailette north of the Chemin des Dames facing the high slopes of the plateau on which is found Laon. In the Champagne they are facing a high rolling country, studded with good artillery positions and points of observation. In the Vosges, their problem is identical with that of the Germans--forcing the gaps in a barrier otherwise impa.s.sable. There would be then a minimum of danger from the French while Germany was engaged on the British front.

Moreover, behind the British line was, first, Amiens, through which pa.s.sed the great railroad systems from Calais, Boulogne, and Abbeville, binding together the British north of the Somme to the French in the south. With Amiens in German hands this connection would be badly ruptured. And farther on still was the sea, which, if Germany could reach it, would physically separate the great Allied army into two armies, without connection, each of which could be dealt with separately. And unlike an advance through Champagne, the farther the Germans pushed through, the closer the Allies came to total disaster and defeat. Germany, therefore, selected the British front for attack and took up the task of destroying the British army.

[Sidenote: The main blow is to fall along the Oise.]

[Sidenote: Plan to drive through Amiens.]

[Sidenote: High ground near Lens and Ypres to be retaken.]

The German plan of campaign was simple in its essence, although involving great numbers of men and an inconceivable ma.s.s of material. It was to strike the main blow along the Oise on the front between St.

Quentin and La Fere, while a subsidiary attack was to be simultaneously delivered on the northern side of the Cambrai salient between Cambrai and Arras. This subsidiary attack was designed to break the salient and destroy the danger of a flank attack against the movement to the south.

In the main attack, delivered with 15,000 men to the mile of front, it was intended to break the connection between the British and the French along the Oise, push a great wedge through at the point of rupture, and then roll the British line back to the north, leaving the French to be taken care of later. Failing in this (and Germany had taken into account the possibility of failure), the British were to be forced back through Amiens to the sea, and the split in the armies accomplished by interposing between the parts a section of the seacoast. This operation would automatically flank the positions held by the British at Arras, force the British to fall back from Vimy Ridge, and from Lens toward St.

Pol, and, as they retreated, to uncover the Ypres salient and the positions held in the high ground to the east and south of Ypres--that is, the Messines and the Pa.s.schendaele ridges.

[Sidenote: The Germans use eighty divisions the first day.]

[Sidenote: The Allies retreat.]

After a brief but very intense bombardment the German infantry went forward on March 21, 1918. They were favored by a heavy mist which concealed their movements until they were within fifty yards of the British trenches, between La Fere and St. Quentin. By sheer weight of numbers these trenches were overrun and the German infantry poured through the gap. The line to the north was at once affected by the break in the southern line, and taken in flank, was also forced to fall back.

But a few hours after the attack was launched, the entire fifty miles of line north of La Fere was ablaze and the British were in retreat. In this attack the Germans threw in on the first day 80 divisions--about one million men--nearly 20,000 men to the mile--a heavier concentration of men than had ever been used in an attack since the war began. Against this number the British, in the opening attack could oppose only 5,000 men to the mile. It is not surprising in view of this disparity in numbers that the British were completely overwhelmed. In spite of the rapidity of the initial German advance and the strength of the German attack, the hoped-for rupture of the Allied line at the Oise did not occur. The British and French, though retreating steadily, kept in close touch and preserved intact the continuity of their line.

[Sidenote: The French extend their left to keep in touch with the British.]

As the British section of the line withdrew, the French, in order to preserve this continuity, were necessarily affected. The French extreme left withdrew behind the Oise to throw this defensive screen before the German attack, gradually extending their left as the British retreat continued, pa.s.sed Noyons and Pont l'Eveque. As the Allies in their retreat approached the Somme River, the German progress became slower, the efforts were labored. From this point indeed, the huge battle took on something of the nature of the battle of Verdun. It became a fight for limited objectives. Each village offered resistance and became the object of an independent battle. The German advance, however, though slow was not the less persistent and steady.

[Sidenote: The Somme divides the field into two areas.]

[Sidenote: Montdidier falls.]

[Sidenote: French check the Germans at Villers-Bretonneux.]

With the crossing of the Somme and the Somme-Aisne Ca.n.a.l on the front between Peronne and Noyons, the battle was automatically divided into two well defined areas by the east and west course of the Somme between Peronne and Amiens. In the southern area, the Allied line was held by both British and French in about equal proportions. But the French were not yet in great force. The Germans, having pa.s.sed both the Somme and the Ca.n.a.l, fought their way westward step by step, in total disregard of losses, until the line of the Avre River was reached. Here the French, who held the line from the Luce River south and then east, made a position stand, and a series of pitched battles occurred for the river crossing. The first of these to fall was Montdidier at the head waters of the Avre. This enabled the German army to reach westward of the river and spread out after crossing to flank the defenses to the north.

Gradually the left bank of the river was cleared as far north as Moreuil. Here the high ground on the left bank between Moreuil and the mouth of the Luce enabled the French to beat off all German attacks for several days. Finally, however, both Moreuil and Morisel were taken and later the village of Ca.s.sel, the Avre being thus cleared of the Allied troops as far north as the mouth of the Luce. From Ca.s.sel to the Somme, however, the German forces found themselves in serious difficulties.

About Hangard, particularly, the fighting was exceptionally heavy; but after changing hands several times, the Germans were finally thrown across to the southern bank of the Luce and there held in place. From Hangard north to the Somme the result was the same. After struggling for days against the troops on the high plateau of which Villers-Bretonneux is the centre, the Germans were brought to a standstill in their attempts to approach Amiens by way of the Avre-Somme angle.

[Sidenote: The British retire behind the Ancre.]

[Sidenote: Albert is taken; but Germans are soon held.]

In the battlefield north of the Somme, the British retired slowly until they were safely behind the Ancre River, which figured so prominently in the battle of the Somme in 1916. Taking Albert, an important British base, the Germans tried desperately to push beyond and reach the railroad which runs along the lower Ancre from Amiens to Albert. Failing in this, they struck heavily in the angle between the Somme and the Ancre in order to flank the line north of Albert from the high ground north-east of Corbie. Here also they met with defeat, so that from Beaumont-Hamel southward the Allied line became stationary.