The Story of the Great War, Volume 1 / Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers

by Unknown

ALLIED POLICY

In the brief space that remains I desire to discuss the policy of the nations which are fighting the Teutonic Alliance. The German purpose at the outset of the war has been discussed. Franco-Russian preparation had been made long before the war, and the general plan of the high commands of the two allies worked out without any material interruption. The same is true of the cooperation of the British army. This simply followed out the plans agreed upon years before.

It is not true, as has been frequently asserted, that France or her allies were surprised by the German invasion of Belgium, this had long been foreseen. It is not true, as was believed widely at the time, that Joffre invited disaster by sending the mass of his troops into Alsace-Lorraine, yielding to political and patriotic sentiment. He did nothing of the sort. Such troops as were sent into these provinces fulfilled their mission and contributed to drawing German corps away from the north. The bulk of the French armies and the British Expeditionary Corps were in line along the Belgium frontier from Arlon to Mons when the Germans began their great drive.

The French were surprised in two respects. They had not foreseen the rapidity with which the German heavy artillery would reduce the forts in Belgium, the fall of Namur was the greatest catastrophe of the first period of the campaign, and they had not dreamed that the Germans would be able to mobilize so many troops in so short a period. Joffre had planned to meet the Germans along the Meuse and the Sambre, that is along the French frontier, but when the German advance began, his troops on these fronts were outnumbered by at least two to one, not because the mass of the French troops had been sent to Alsace-Lorraine, but because the French had not foreseen the capacity of the Germans to mobilize their reserves and had little more than their first-line troops ready, while the Germans were making use of Landwehr and even Landsturm formations in the first shock.

Once this fact was clearly established, Joffre resolutely drew his forces back until he was able to put more reserves in the field and thus approximately restore the balance between the two armies. But he was still heavily outnumbered at the decisive moment, winning his great battle with inferior forces. His enemy had reckoned on the traditional eagerness of the French to attack, and had expected to obtain a decisive victory, through superior numbers, in the first days of the war. The impression which the press reports gave in the early days, that the French were driven from defeat to defeat and almost succumbed to the German attack is far from accurate. In point of fact, the French armies, after suffering marked but relatively insignificant reverses at the outset, reverses due to the blunders of the subordinate generals in part, and to the greatly superior German numbers and artillery in the main, were drawn back in obedience to a carefully conceived plan, were denied the opportunity to fight, as they desired, until the exhaustion of German strength, ammunition, and transport, and the increase in French numbers gave the opportunity for a victory. The whole opening campaign was fought on the French side with a very keen recollection of the mistakes of 1870, and the result justified the strategy.

But with the end of the Battle of the Marne both the Allied and the German plans collapsed. Neither side had foreseen clearly the possibility of a battle in which the French might win a decisive victory, yet lack the numbers to enforce the decision absolutely. But the Germans were able to meet the situation promptly and, by preparing a position on the Aisne, to retain a considerable portion of the ground they had occupied in their first rush. Thus in failing to repeat their triumphs of the Franco-Prussian War and of the Seven Weeks' War, they had escaped the disaster of Napoleon at Waterloo, when he, too, had staked all on a single throw.

In the weeks and months that followed the German defeat at the Marne, allied understanding of the actual nature of the war developed only slowly. Until the coming of spring and the British failure to get men or munitions, the French and the British public, and probably their soldiers, believed that the Germans were shortly to be turned out of France. But with the failure there was at last established the real situation, the war had taken on the character of our own Civil War, it had become a struggle in which the decision would follow the exhaustion of one of the contending forces and the incidental victories of either side could not contribute materially to the ending of the war.

In the Civil War the North was exceedingly slow in learning this lesson and it was not until General Grant at last assumed the command of all the Northern armies that an intelligent policy was adopted. This policy has been summarized as the policy of attrition and it is now generally recognized as the policy on which the enemies of the Central Powers rely for ultimate success. Grant's own statement of this policy was as follows: "To hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be left to him nothing but submission." By this policy Grant won his war.

Now the allied policy, which it is necessary to recognize, to understand the war as it is viewed by one of the two contending forces, is this: The Allies are satisfied that the German numbers have begun or are beginning to fail. They fix at around 8,000,000 the total man power of Germany at the outset, using all means of computation including their own experience. They figure that at the end of the first eighteen months Germany had lost permanently not less than 3,500,000, possibly 4,000,000. They know that it requires upwards of 3,000,000 men to hold Germany's present lines and about 1,000,000 to perform other necessary services.

Now no such wastage has to be faced by the Allies as a whole. France is in the German situation, but Great Britain is still possessed of large numbers of men and her losses are under 600,000, while her population together with that of her colonies is above 60,000,000, whites alone being considered, against Germany's 67,000,000. Russia's man power is practically limited only by the ability to equip and munition. Italy has, as yet, made little draft upon her resources. Austria, on the other hand, has suffered more heavily, proportionately figured, than Germany.