It had seemed in 1916 that the time had arrived for Germany to pay the penalty. But a triumph not of a military kind came to her rescue. The German methods of espionage and civil corruption were on the whole as blundering and as disastrous as her other methods during the Great War. They helped to alienate practically all the civilised neutral world. But in Russia—mystic, generous, trusting Russia—they had an unhappy success. In the Autumn of 1916 this first showed. Roumania at that time joined in the war against Germany, and this new accession of strength apparently marked the near end of the war. But Russia mysteriously collapsed owing to the effects of German corruption. Roumania was left "in the air," and a large part of her territory was over-run. From this date, though many of the gallant soldiers of Russia made heroic efforts to safeguard their country's honour, that great Ally was practically out of the fight. By the winter of 1917-18 she was quite out. The French had had grave troubles. The Italians had had to send out an S.O.S. signal.
We should have been more cheerful if the Cambrai attack, 1917, had had the full success it deserved. That really was in its conception and execution a very fine affair. At the time Germany was drawing troops and guns from the Russian Front and pouring them on to our Front in wholesale fashion. Both France and Great Britain had had to send Armies to the help of Italy. Our Battle of Passchendaele was not exactly flourishing. To undertake a new battle was the last development the enemy expected of us; and to do what is absolutely unexpected is to do the big thing in war. The British command collected an Army ostensibly for Italy, made a great secret assemblage of Tanks, and suddenly attacked the Germans in the strongest part of their Hindenburg line. Their line was particularly strong at that point. It comprised three series of defences each one covered by triple barriers of wire from 50 to 60 yards deep. A system of dug-outs (constructed with the labour of Russian prisoners) at a depth of 50 feet below the surface made an underground city with water and electric light installations, kitchens, drying-rooms and the like. Above the surface the houses were closely packed with the earth removed from the excavations, and thus became great earthworks indestructible by any shell-fire.
All this the British Third Army, in a surprise attack carried out by the Tanks and the Infantry, over-ran and captured in a day's attack. So fierce was the British advance and so feeble the German defence when taken by surprise that we almost got into Cambrai. If that centre had been won the German Front in the West would have been deprived of its central pillar. The German defence, however, rallied in time to avoid absolute disaster. When the German military mind was given time to think it could always make a good show, and the riposte to our Cambrai attack was a good one. We lost most of the fruits of a dramatic coup. It was more than annoying to think that just when we had successfully solved the problem of a break-through we had not the means, owing to commitments elsewhere, to push the thrust home.
Cambrai was a good deal "boomed" in the English Press at the time on "popular" lines. But I do not think that the skill of generalship and organisation that it showed were quite appreciated. The favourite British pose of being a complete ass, altogether inferior to the "other fellow," used to be pushed to the extreme point in regard to military matters. The British had a quaint humility in respect to their military skill. In a shame-faced kind of way they admitted that their soldiers were brave; but for examples of military genius they always referred to the "other fellow." Yet one may be daring enough, perhaps, to say something on the other side; and to suggest that in the Great War the German was really surpassed in most points of military skill by the British. The difference was not always great, but where the difference was greatest was just in those points of invention, of new tactics and new strategy, which show the better brain. Heresy it will seem; but the truth is that from 1914 to 1918 the British military system showed itself superior to the German in resource and sagacity. Perhaps it would be better to say the British-French military system, for it is difficult to separate the achievement of one from the other.
Consider one by one the main features of the great campaign. The warfare in the air was its most dramatic feature. Everything of air tactics and strategy that the German used he copied from the British and French. It was the British who originated aeroplane attack with incendiary bullets on captive balloons, aeroplane escort of attacking infantry, aeroplane sallies at low altitude on enemy trenches, and the various combinations of observing machines with fighting machines. In the first battle of the Somme, when the British and French first disclosed their sky tactics, the German was absolutely driven out of the air. He had then to learn to copy all our methods; and he originated none of his own.
Another dramatic feature, the complicated and terribly effective artillery curtain fire, was evolved by the British-French command. It was copied by the Germans, who themselves contributed nothing new to artillery science during the war. Yet another leading feature was the Tank, the Tank which made its real value first felt at Cambrai. This was a purely British invention, evolved during this war for the needs of this war.
Our "Winter of discontent" was not made any sweeter by the suspicion that existed of a possible yielding on the part of the political powers at Home to German propaganda. This German propaganda took the form of blazoning the preparations for a sensational Spring offensive in 1918; it was trumpeted like a Fat Woman at a Fair, and supplemented by an almost equally strident advertisement of a gigantic defensive. In addition to preparing a great on-rush in which Calais, Paris, Rome, and perhaps London were to be captured, the German High Command wished the world to know that it was also preparing a mighty series of defensive positions back to the Rhine. Wonderful showmen! They had not only the most marvellous Fat Woman, but also a miraculous Skeleton Man. And the prize they wished to win, by bluff if not by fighting, was agreement to an inconclusive peace.
The soldiers were not affected much by these tactics. They took solid comfort from two facts. The first fact was expressed in the homely proverb "Much cry, little wool." Had the Germans been confident that they could smash through the steel wall which barred them on the West from the sea, from the capitals of civilisation, and from the supplies of raw material for which they were starving, there would have been no preliminary advertisement. The effort would have been made, and Germany's enemies would have had to abide by the result. There would not have been any compunction at the consequent cost in blood. The mere extravagance of the advertisement of the German plans was proof to the soldiers at G.H.Q. that those plans were recognised not to have a solid enough military foundation, and had to be reinforced by showy bluff.