We believe that their defeat will be due to the accumulation of the mistakes they have made.
In September, 1914, their superiority in numbers and in armament was considerable. Their armies were holding in France positions that enabled them, after a rapid reorganization, to assume a new and vigorous offensive against the French Army, their sole adversary at that time in the West.
The inconceivable pride of the German military party had encouraged it to despise the enemy, and to blindly undertake that formidable rush through Belgium for the capture of Paris. This dream vanished under the blows struck by General Joffre and his marvellously responsive armies.
Her hatred for England in the first place, and in the second, her thirst for conquest, were about to lead Germany to commit serious blunders, and to lose the prize by grasping at its shadow.
To prevent the mobilization of the British armies, the Kaiser, after entrenching his forces on the French Front, sent all the troops he could dispose of against Calais. He felt so sure of success that he followed the operations in person, ready to enter as a conqueror into the city he expected to capture. He had acted in the same way two months before at Nancy; and having failed in that effort, he was eager for revenge.
The French, British, and Belgian armies took care to transform his cherished revenge into a pitiful defeat.
It was then that the German Command committed the mistake which will cause Germany to lose the war.
Leaving the Western Front, giving to the French and British armies time to reorganize, arm, and gather strength, the Germans, having lost all hope of achieving the dreamed-of victories in the West, hurled their legions upon Russia, which they knew was insufficiently prepared, and began that campaign which was to result in their capture of Poland and the Baltic provinces, and the recovery of Galicia.
The consequences of the adoption of this new plan were to be seen at once.
At the beginning of the summer of 1915, in Artois, the French and British commenced to strike blows which proved that the strongest system of field fortifications can be taken.