THE LESSON OF THE FIGHT.
What the effect of this victory will be on the course of the war it is too soon to prophesy. It may very well prove decisive, for we have now driven a wedge right in between the French Armies, behind their eastern and northern defences, and stand with five Corps on either face of the wedge, with three more in between ready to move to the support of either. The French must either move against us by lateral roads and railways, in which case we can always meet them on a broader front, or attempt to concentrate far away to the southward, and in any case our strength is morally more than doubled by our successes. The Germans took the field with no overweening opinion of themselves. They are a modest people, as a whole, given to pessimism about themselves, and ready to believe the overdone reports as to the regeneration of their hereditary enemy that reached them through the public Press. The French, on the other hand, had again learnt to believe in themselves; their journalists, who were not going to do the fighting, had lauded them to the skies, while the nation and rank and file had believed all they were told, even if the experienced soldiers had not. They have fought with the greatest gallantry, but for the second time it has been their want of thoroughness that has ruined them. In each arm and every branch they were just a little behind their adversaries. They lost two clear days in mobilisation, and hence were strategically unready when the blow fell. Their Cavalry was brave, but not a match for the Germans in mobility, and consequently was beaten. The defeat of the Cavalry led the Infantry to blunder into a trap where no human courage could avail them, and this again entailed a concentration backward, with the obligation of standing on the defensive to await the arrival of a reinforcing Corps which came just too late; and the consequences we have seen in to-day’s fight. I do not believe the Germans have lost very heavily, though isolated bodies may certainly have done so. But the three arms played into each other’s hands so perfectly, and the arrival of the supports was so well timed, that none were ever called on for exertions beyond their strength. Such tactical handling has never been seen since Napoleon’s days. But there is this difference to note, that this time the troops have handled themselves instead of being handled by the General.
It is too early yet for a list of casualties to have been made out, but at the last moment I learn that our Cavalry yesterday lost 20 per cent. of their strength.