Let us now accept the following facts. The troops of France are beginning to be exhausted. The iniquitous administration of the Tsar had seriously compromised the provisioning of the Russian army with food and munitions. In that vast country, where conditions were ripe for idealistic extremists to guide the revolution toward pacifism or anarchy, there are alarming symptoms of the prevalence of the latter condition. The swarming agents of Germany are working there without respite. If their efforts shall finally succeed, the strength of Russia will swiftly dissolve. This would practically insure a German victory, for, with the Russian armies demoralized, all the forces of Pan-Germany could be flung against the Franco-British front. Moreover, if, from the moral standpoint, the Berlin government is universally to be despised, the same cannot be said about her general technical military ability, whose elements are as follows.
Berlin is incontestably mistress of Pan-Germany—that is, she has absolute disposal of vast resources in men and in the manifold products of a great territory with a population of one hundred and seventy-six millions. The Kaiser’s Great General Staff, whose intellectual resourcefulness cannot be questioned, is quick to make the most of every lesson taught by the war. The annual levies of men from the various territories of Pan-Germany certainly outnumber the losses sustained each year by her troops. It is therefore, in my opinion, a grave error to assume, as the Allies have done, that the Germans can be beaten by mere attrition of their forces. By organizing under one uniform system the soldiery furnished by the many different countries of Pan-Germany, Prussian militarism has unquestionably given its troops a cohesion and a unity unknown to the vassal-allies of Germany before the war. This state of affairs has undoubtedly added to the military effectiveness of the vast armies which take their orders from Berlin.
The German military authorities most advantageously employed the respites given them by the strategic errors of the Allies. Never have the broad lines of trenches, the far-flung battle frontiers, been more powerfully guarded than now. Never have the Germans had more abundant stores of munitions. Never has the network of railways covering the length and breadth of Pan-Germany been so complete. Never has the Great General Staff, making full use of its central position, been better able to concentrate on any front with lightning speed. For these reasons, it is my opinion that we may safely say that never before has the Berlin government, from a military point of view, been so strong. The various statistics which justify such a conclusion are, I think, to be relied on. Even supposing them to be exaggerated, it is much better to run the risk of overestimating the enemy’s strength than to underestimate it. Many of the Allies’ mistakes sprang from neglect of this axiom.
CHAPTER V
Military Operations
I
As a prelude to the further consideration of certain aspects of the world-war, I should like, if I may, to quote a few paragraphs which I printed early last summer, by way of forecast, and which events have not wholly belied.
Let us now attempt to forecast the German military plans for 1917. For some weeks persistent reports have been telling of their tremendous preparations for hurling an offensive against the Russian front. As for the Franco-British front in the West, it was stated that the General Staff at Berlin would be glad to hold things stationary on that side until, after winning the victory on which they count in the East, they are free to devote their attentions to the occidental theatre. This project, of course, cannot be confirmed; but the voluntary shortening of the western line by the Germans would lend color to its probability. Moreover, such a plan would coincide perfectly with the present interests of Berlin, with the habitual methods of the Kaiser’s General Staff, with the broad Pan-Germanist scheme, and with the personal preferences of Marshal von Hindenburg. It is natural also that the Germans should avail themselves of the sinister and undeniable effects of the Russian imperial administration on the army and civil population of the country before the new government at Petrograd has time to repair the all-too-abundant harm that has been wrought.
We must cherish no illusions. As long as it can dispose of the vast resources of Pan-Germany, which, to my thinking, are still taken too lightly by the Allies; while the results of the Russian Revolution are still uncertain; while the reorganization of the Muscovite armies still remains uncompleted, the government at Berlin, in spite of its serious problems connected with the food supply, is still convinced that it can win a decisive military victory by dealing with its adversaries one by one. And so we should foresee that the German General Staff will meet its problems in succession.
It seems probable, then, that it will follow the basic principles of warfare and concentrate all the forces at its disposal against the weakest front. This, without question, is the Roumano-Russian line. Its great extent, together with the formidable development of the German railway system,—infinitely superior to that of the Russians,—makes it easier to introduce the element of surprise, which is of capital importance for swift, decisive victory. The Russians, too, are certainly less well provided with munitions of war than the Franco-British troops; and the Germans have succeeded in further weakening them by means of the terrible explosions recently engineered by their spies at Archangel. As a result of the execrable administration of the former government, the food situation in Russia is most critical, while the revolutionists are not yet sure of the reorganization of the military forces. The Germans, therefore, have an unquestionable interest in profiting without delay by this state of affairs.
A vigorous offensive on the Eastern front is also in harmony with the Pangermanist plan, which for twenty-five years has looked forward to the seizure by Germany of Riga, Little Russia, and Odessa. And a German success in the south of Russia would be big with economic, naval, military, and moral consequences of world-import. The Germans would become masters of the rich and boundless wheat-lands of Little Russia, which, from the midst of their food-problems, they watch with greedy eyes. The capture of Odessa and the complete conquest of the Black Sea, by means of transports (sent in large numbers down the Danube, thus permitting surprise attacks at vital points), would end in the loss of the Crimea and, probably, the fall of the Caucasus into the hands of the Turco-Germans. The British, then, could no longer hold out at Bagdad. Freed by such successes from all immediate fear of Russia, the Germans could then turn in enormous strength against the Balkan front of the Allies. Under these hypothetical conditions, one may assume that the Allied army north of Saloniki, demoralized by the Russian reverses, would be taken prisoners or driven into the sea.