VERDUN AND ITS SEQUEL
German grand strategy and Verdun—Why the British did not go to Verdun—What they did to help—Racial characteristics in armies—Father Joffre a miser of divisions—The Somme country—Age-old tactics—If the flank cannot be turned can the front be broken?—Theory of the Somme offensive.
In order properly to set the stage for the battle of the Somme, which was the corollary of that of Verdun, we must, at the risk of appearing to thresh old straw, consider the German plan of campaign in 1916 when the German staff had turned its eyes from the East to the West. During the summer of 1915 it had attempted no offensive on the Western front, but had been content to hold its solid trench lines in the confidence that neither the British nor the French were prepared for an offensive on a large scale.
Blue days they were for us with the British Army in France during July and early August, while the official bulletins revealed on the map how von Hindenburg's and von Mackensen's legions were driving through Poland. More critical still the subsequent period when inside information indicated that German intrigue in Petrograd, behind the Russian lines which the German guns were pounding, might succeed in making a separate peace. Using her interior lines for rapid movement of troops, enclosed by a steel ring and fighting against nations speaking different languages with their capitals widely separated and their armies not in touch, each having its own sentimental and territorial objects in the war, the obvious object of Germany's policy from the outset would be to break this ring, forcing one of the Allies to capitulate under German blows.
In August, 1914, she had hoped to win a decisive battle against France before she turned her legions against Russia for a decision. Now she aimed to accomplish at Verdun what she had failed to accomplish on the Marne, confident in her information that France was exhausted. It was von Hindenburg's turn to hold the thin line while the Germans concentrated on the Western front twenty-six hundred thousand men, with every gun that they could spare and all the munitions that had accumulated after the Russian drive was over. The fall of Paris was unnecessary to their purpose. Capitals, whether Paris, Brussels, or Bucharest, are only the trophies of military victory. Primarily the German object, which naturally included the taking of Verdun, was to hammer at the heart of French defense until France, staggering under the blows, her morale broken by the loss of the fortress, her supposedly mercurial nature in the depths of depression, would surrender to impulse and ask for terms.
After the German attacks began at Verdun all the world was asking why the British, who were holding only sixty-odd miles of line at the time and must have large reserves, did not rush to the relief of the French. The French people themselves were a little restive under what was supposed to be British inaction. Army leaders could not reveal their plans by giving reasons—the reasons which are now obvious—for their action or inaction. To some unmilitary minds the situation seemed as simple as if Jones were attacked on the street by Smith and Robinson, while Miller, Jones' friend who was a block away, would not go to his rescue. To others, perhaps a trifle more knowing, it seemed only a matter of marching some British divisions across country or putting them on board a train.
Of course the British were only too ready to assist the French. Any other attitude would have been unintelligent; for, with the French Army broken, the British Army would find itself having to bear unassisted the weight of German blows in the West. There were three courses which the British Army might take.
First. It could send troops to Verdun. But the mixture of units speaking different languages in the intricate web of communications required for directing modern operations, and the mixture of transport in the course of heavy concentrations in the midst of a critical action where absolute cohesion of all units was necessary, must result in confusion which would make any such plan impracticable. Only the desperate situation of the French being without reserve could have compelled its second consideration, as it represented the extreme of that military inefficiency which makes wasteful use of lives and material.
Second. The British could attack along their front as a diversion to relieve pressure on Verdun. For this the Germans were fully prepared. It fell in exactly with their plan. Knowing that the British New Army was as yet undeveloped as an instrument for the offensive and that it was still short of guns and shells, the Germans had struck in the inclement weather of February at Verdun, thinking, and wrongly to my mind, that the handicap to the vitality of their men of sleet, frost and cold, soaking rains would be offset by the time gained. Not only had the Germans sufficient men to carry on the Verdun offensive, but facing the British their numbers were the largest mile for mile since the first battle of Ypres. Familiar with British valor as the result of actual contact in battle from Mons to the Marne and back to Ypres, and particularly in the Loos offensive (which was the New Army's first "eye-opener" to the German staff), the Germans reasoned that, with what one German called "the courage of their stupidity, or the stupidity of their courage," the British, driven by public demand to the assistance of the French, would send their fresh infantry with inadequate artillery support against German machine guns and curtains of fire, and pile up their dead until their losses would reduce the whole army to inertia for the rest of the year.
Of course, the German hypothesis—the one which cost von Falkenhayn his place as Chief of Staff—was based on such a state of exhaustion by the French that a British attack would be mandatory. The initial stage of the German attack was up to expectations in ground gained, but not in prisoners or material taken. The French fell back skilfully before the German onslaught against positions lightly held by the defenders in anticipation of the attack, and turned their curtains of fire upon the enemy in possession of captured trenches. Then France gave to the outside world another surprise. Her spirit, ever brilliant in the offensive, became cold steel in a stubborn and thrifty defensive. She was not "groggy," as the Germans supposed. For every yard of earth gained they had to pay a ghastly price; and their own admiration of French shell and valor is sufficient professional glory for either Pétain, Nivelle, or Mangin, or the private in the ranks.