Читать книгу The Battles in Flanders, from Ypres to Neuve Chapelle - Edmund Dane - Страница 3

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At the beginning of October there had arisen in the Western campaign a crisis with which it needed the utmost skill and resource of the Allied generals to grapple.

Both the nature of this crisis, and the necessity of reticence concerning it at the time, ought to be made clear if we are to appreciate either the momentous character of the Battle of Ypres, or the profound effect which that glorious feat of the Allied arms has had upon the fortunes of this War.

Into France at the beginning of the War the Germans threw their mighty Expeditionary Force of twenty-eight army corps, disposed into eight armies acting in co-operation. With the circumstances under which that line of armies, in part held on the French fortified frontier, was compelled to turn from Paris to the valley of the Marne and was there defeated, I have dealt in "The Battle of the Rivers." For the reasons there set out the original objective, the seizure of Paris, was seen by the Germans when the army of General von Kluck reached Creil, to have become impossible until the French fortified frontier was in their hands. Their armies were directed upon the Marne with that aim. In the manœuvre they exposed the vulnerable point of their line, its right flank, to the powerful onset, which General Joffre, who had foreseen the situation, at once launched against it.

Defeated on the Marne, the Germans lost the military initiative—the power to decide upon their movements and to compel the enemy to conform to them. To the soldier the initiative is the practical embodiment of military superiority. It is the first great step to victory. In every war the struggle has been to seize and to hold it. More than in any war has that been the motive in this. Campaigning with armies, not only vast in point of numbers, but dependent upon a huge, varied, and costly machinery of destruction, transport, and supply, has made victory more than ever hang upon this power to direct their complex organisation to the desired end.

All that the initiative implies. It can therefore be no matter of surprise that Germany's long preparations were without exception designed to seize the initiative at the outset, and to hold it if possible. In that event the whole force of the German Empire would with the least wastage and in the shortest possible time be applied to the accomplishment of its Government's political aims. From the Great Main Headquarters Staff down to the strategical railways, the depots, the arsenals, and the military workshops, the German military system was planned to combine swiftness with complete co-operation, and provided the German commanders discovered the ability properly to control and direct the machine, not merely the seizure of the initiative, but the retention of it seemed assured. In that case, however long and bitter the conflict, the outcome could never have been in doubt. Applied, in accordance with the plans of the German Staff, first on the West, and then on the East, the initiative, seized at the beginning and held to the end, must have given the armies of Germany the victory.

The Battle of the Marne was of vital importance in two respects. In depriving the Germans of the initiative, it snatched from them the chief advantage of their preparations. From that time their organisation had to be adapted not to fulfil their own designs but to meet the designs of their opponents. The difficulties in detail consequent upon this change need not be exaggerated. They were great. From the German point of view the whole problem of carrying on the war was altered, and for the worse.

Again, the defeat on the Marne brought the Germans face to face with a contingency which most of all they had hoped to avoid. Their plans had been drawn on the assumption of being able to employ practically their total active force, first on the West front and then on the East. They had never calculated on the necessity of having to divide that force, and to employ one half of it on the West, and the other half of it on the East at the same time.

With the defeat of the Marne, however, that necessity came into view. It meant, unless by some means the necessity could while time yet allowed be overcome, elimination of the condition mainly essential to success in the war—unity of the active force of the Empire.

These two changes, loss of the initiative, and necessity for a division of forces, were changes which the Germans had, if they could, at all costs to wipe out, and it is but stating truly and without exaggeration the problem which during the later weeks of September confronted the German Staff, to say that it was the problem of bringing the last man and the last gun then available to bear on the West for the purpose of regaining the lost power of the offensive. If such a strength could be brought to bear in time, then the initiative might be restored, division of force avoided, and the probable course of the war shifted once more on to its original lines.

It was because considerations such as these lay at the back of it, that the Germans, quite contrary to their traditions and training, went to the almost incredible labour of constructing across France from the Aisne ridge to Lorraine, that phenomenal line of more than 150 miles of deliberate fortifications and entrenchments. The risk involved in the Marne operations had, we now know, not been unforeseen. Nor were the consequences of failure, if it proved a grave failure, miscalculated. Indeed, the very precautions taken to prepare this line from the Aisne to Lorraine prove that they were not. That line, and that line alone, offered the probability of restoring the lost advantages, and of parrying the effects of the disaster.

Enabling the Germans to hold their front and to bar the advance of the Allies with the minimum of force, that line at the same time was to have aided them—and this was its chief design—to throw the largest possible masses westward from their flank, pivoting on Noyon. By that movement they might cut the main Allied armies off from Paris.

The scheme had the merit at once of boldness and of simplicity. For success it depended on bringing their fresh masses forward with the utmost rapidity. To that end the German military machine was worked to its fullest capacity. Thus began the new and enormous movement of Landwehr army corps into France.

In part the German scheme was frustrated by the attack carried out by the British army in the Battle of the Aisne, and in part by the delays due to the very magnitude of the preparations. Unless attempted on a great scale a scheme of this character had better not be attempted at all. Since the success or failure of Germany in the war plainly hung upon it, the effort had to be on a great scale. Of Germany's corps of Landwehr, by far the greater number were embodied during these weeks of September. It may seem to the uninitiated a simple matter to call up, embody, and make ready for the field a million and a half of men, or thereabouts. But even with a military mechanism like that of the German Empire, it is a complicated business. That all this was done in fact in rather less than three weeks is nothing short of marvellous.

Because it was done, however, was the reason of the crisis at the beginning of October.

Within the same later weeks of September General Joffre had been able to throw against the German flank from Noyon to the Somme the powerful French army commanded by General Castleneau. He was thus in a position to forestall the German design. On the other side German army corps had by extraordinary forced marches arrived from Belgium just in time to ward off the thrust of this French army against Laon, a thrust which would have crippled the whole German defence and a thrust which the battle of the Aisne was fought to assist. The fighting from Noyon to the Somme was deadly. On the German side losses were not regarded. The purpose of these troops was, cost what it might, to hold the ground until the main reinforcements came up. They suffered appalling losses. Nevertheless, though at a heavy sacrifice of life, the immediate objective, that of preventing a French advance along the valley of the Oise, was accomplished. The German resistance was undoubtedly very brave. To begin with, thanks alike to the superiority of their artillery, and to the élan of their recent victory, the French advanced with some rapidity. The Germans were driven out of Compiègne. Their hastily thrown-up trenches were found filled with dead, many slain by the terrible concussion of the French high explosive shells. As the French advanced these trenches were filled in.

Meanwhile, packed into every available train and by every available railway, the masses of the new German formations were being rushed westward. Immediately they detrained they were hurried into the fighting line. In the face of these increasing numbers the French advance along the valley of the Oise was held.

From the defensive the Germans passed at once to the counter-offensive. In great strength they launched an attack from Noyon and towards Roye. The front swayed. In the end, however, the French line from the Oise to the Somme remained firm.

It must then have been seen that the German outflanking scheme, thus anticipated, had become, on the lines first laid down, impracticable. The result was the great attack on Rheims.

It is clear now that when the attack was decided upon, the Germans believed the army of General Castleneau to consist not of fresh troops, but of the reserve of the main French army. Acting upon that belief they concluded that a vigorous assault upon Rheims ought to be successful. If successful the assault would accomplish all that the outflanking scheme promised. In any event it would prevent the French from massing further forces to the north of the Somme. With the German reinforcements still coming forward, the outflanking scheme could be tried again at the point where the French line at that time ended.

The attack upon Rheims failed because the German hypothesis upon which the attack had been founded was in fact false. The army of General Castleneau did consist of fresh troops, and not of the reserves of the main French army.

After the attack upon Rheims came the attempted German turning movement north of the Somme through Albert. Here, however, the Germans found themselves unexpectedly confronted by yet two other French armies under the command of Generals D'Armade and Maudhuy. Their great plan for re-seizing the initiative consequently still hung fire. General Joffre had been at work to good purpose. The result was to extend the fighting front from the Oise to the great northern coalfield.

All this while the Russian pressure on the East front had been growing and that prospective but fatal division of German forces was threatening to become more inevitable.

All this while, too, in order eventually to avoid that division more German reinforcements were pouring west.

As it stood at the beginning of October the position was thus: at Antwerp there was the Belgian army; at Ghent, under the command of Sir Henry Rawlinson there was the 7th British division of infantry, and the 3rd brigade of cavalry; there were some, though not many, British troops at Dunkerque; there were a few French troops at Bethune. Practically, however, between Ghent and the terminus of the French front west of Lens there were no Allied forces. Here was a gap of nearly 60 miles. If through that gap the Germans could push their way in strength, they could

(1) Separate the Belgian army and the British troops in Belgium from the rest of the Allied armies;

(2) Reach the coast and cut the most direct communications with England;

(3) Pursue their outflanking scheme by turning the right of the French line.

For the Germans the necessity for carrying out that scheme had day by day become more urgent. The opportunity at last seemed to lie to their hand. They proceeded to seize it.

Now let us turn to the other side. If General Joffre could close this gap and extend his line directly northwards to the coast, he would

(1) Save a considerable slice of territory and coast from German occupation;

(2) Keep open the most direct communication with England;

(3) Both defeat the German outflanking scheme, and himself outflank the enemy;

(4) Impose on the Germans the necessity, arising from such a position, of constant counter attacks, and so waste their strength;

(5) Hold them ineffective on the West whatever might happen on the East;

(6) Compel them to meet Russian pressure on the East out of their further reserves, and thus ensure at once the division of their forces, their more rapid exhaustion, and the victory of the Allies in the war.

Such were broadly the issues which at the beginning of October last hung in the balance. Every appearance seemed to favour the German chances. General Joffre was then raising yet another (the tenth) French army. Even, however, at the utmost speed it could not be organised and equipped under a further fortnight. The Germans, however, had on their side begun their movement. Through the wide gap between Ghent and Bethune they were already pouring a great mass of cavalry, screening the oncoming of their main masses. They had launched their final assault upon Antwerp. It looked as if for them the moment had arrived.