During the autumn of 1915 the French attempted to avail themselves of the comparative weakness of the Germans due to their campaign against Russia. A favourable issue would have taken them to Vouziers-Rethel, and very possibly have caused all the German lines to be withdrawn from around Rheims and Soissons.
We might vary these examples. Quite recently, the British troops have resumed the attack planned in 1915 by the French in Artois. They will gradually free the North of France and Flanders.
Tactics. Let us now consider tactical operations as they are conducted on the battlefield. The formidable field entrenchments constructed by the Germans have compelled both combatants to transform their artillery and to change the armament of their infantry.
The manner in which the different arms are employed on the battlefield has changed but little.
The field artillery has been enormously developed and it has been necessary to constantly increase the power of the cannons and howitzers. We shall later on discuss this subject more fully.
The definition of tactics as given by General Pétain, the French Generalissimo, in the course of his lectures at the “École de Guerre” has not been modified by the creation of these improved weapons. He said: “The Artillery conquers the positions, the Infantry occupies them.”
We will take for example a quite recent military feat which strikingly establishes the distinction between the strategical and the tactical operations.
On the 22d day of last October (1917), the French Army in the North, east of Soissons, scored one of the most important successes of the year. This operation, carried out on a nine-mile front, was essentially tactical. It had for object the capture of very important positions forming a salient in the French lines, which furnished the Germans with facilities for an offensive return to Soissons. The capture by the French of Vaudesson-Allemant and the Malmaison fort eliminated the salient, opened the road to Laon, and exposed the German lines on the Ailette to an enfilading fire.
This tactical operation was evidently a part of a vast strategical plan matured by the French and British Commanders-in-Chief. The general purpose of these operations aims at forcing the Germans to abandon the North of Belgium and to retreat in France. All the tactical operations being carried on in Flanders, on the Aisne, in Champagne and Lorraine, are parts of this single plan and have the same object in view.
