On another occasion—it was just after the battle of September 18th—I was asking a German Battalion Commander whether he could explain why it was that his men had that day surrendered in such large numbers without much show of resistance. "Well, you see," said he, with a twinkle in his eye, "they are dreadfully afraid of the Australians. So they are of the Tanks. But when they saw both of them coming at them together, they thought it was high time to throw up their hands."
But this story is slightly anticipatory. The short breathing-space which had been afforded by our more leisurely advance towards the Hindenburg system was over. By September 12th I was once again immersed in all the perplexities of shaping means to ends. I had to decide, in collaboration with the Army Staff and the Corps on my flanks, first, the extent of the resources which would be required, and second, the successive stages which would offer promise of success in overthrowing the last great defensive system of all those which the enemy had created upon the tortured soil of France.
CHAPTER XIII
HARGICOURT
The great Hindenburg system, by which name it has come to be known to English readers, or the "Siegfried Line," as it is called by the Germans, was brought into existence during the winter of 1916 and early spring of 1917 in order to fulfil a very definite strategic purpose. This was to put into effect, on a stupendous scale, a very elementary principle of minor tactics, namely, that field works are constructed for the purpose of reducing the number of men required to defend a given front or locality.
In themselves, field fortifications have, of course, no offensive value whatever, but their use permits a reduced number of men to defend one place, in order that a greater number of men may be available to attack another place.
The German High Command proceeded to make use of this principle on a scale previously unknown in history. The whole of the Western front, in Belgium and France, was to be held defensively throughout 1917. The military resources required to defend that front were to be reduced to a minimum, by the provision of a line of defences protected by powerful field works, believed to be impregnable. This would liberate the greatest possible resources for the Eastern front, where an end could be made of the Russians and Roumanians there. As soon as these were disposed of, those troops, guns and aeroplanes could again be transferred to the West, in order similarly to dispose of the remainder of our Alliance.
This great strategic plan was carried out in its entirety until the middle of 1918. It was the great Hindenburg line which had been the kernel of the whole conception, and, until the days which we are now approaching, it had remained, practically over its whole length, an impregnable barrier against the assaults of the French and British.
It is to be remembered that the very basis which justified the expenditure of such enormous labour on the creation of these defences was the saving in man-power. It is an accepted principle of tactics that in any given battle the advantage always rests heavily on the side of the defence. Where numbers, resources and moral are equal, no attack can hope to succeed.