THE POSITION OF FRANCE
The Iron Hand of War--Paris offered in Sacrifice--Faulty
Mobilization--The French Army--The Joffre Strategy--The German Retreat.
The position of France to-day cannot be compared with that of any other
country in the war. The French people have a distinctive genius all
their own. They are still the greatest people in art in the world.
Nothing in sculpture or painting in the outside world yet rivals the
skill of France. Politically the French are trusting children,
vibrating between empires and republics, and following only the rule of
success. In finance they were accounted great a generation ago. In
savings they have been regarded as world-leaders.
When the stern reality of military necessity suddenly confronted France
five months ago, there was the same old story of graft, fraud, and a
deceived people.
But the war authorities gripped France with an iron hand. The military
traitors and grafters are in jail. The weaklings in the official line
have been cashiered. The politically undesirable have been given
foreign missions.
There was political as well as military wisdom in the return of the
government from Bordeaux to Paris. The French people were shocked when
they learned that the boasted military defences of Paris, "the most
extensive fortifications in the world," embracing 400 square miles,
were unprovisioned and indefensible, that the government had fled, and
that there was no army to save the city.
Indeed, the authorities had determined to sacrifice Paris to save
France. General Joffre had no men to spare to be bottled up in the
city. He determined that his armies should be kept free on the field.
You may ask anywhere in France, Belgium, or England why the French did
not come to the relief of Belgium, why Paris was undefended, and what
saved it after Von Kluck had led seven armies of 1,000,000 men down to
its very gates, and you will get no satisfactory answer.
But when you have studied the situation and the record, you will see
that no simple answer can be readily given. A brief one would be:
French mobilization plans were imperfect, and, therefore, Belgium could
not be defended by the French. But motor-busses did what the railroads
were unprepared to do, and finally saved Paris and France.
The French had been warned many months publicly and privately that
their mobilization plans would be found faulty in case of sudden
hostilities. The railways moved perishable goods at the rate of thirty
miles a day while German and Austrian railways bore military trains at
the rate of thirty miles an hour.
So ill prepared were the French in their mobilization plans that they
actually summoned to arms the men who were to man the railways, and the
railways themselves were deficient in rolling-stock to move the troops.
The citizens responded promptly enough, but France had no bureaucracy
or military plans to match those of Germany, and, as throughout French
history, the leaders of the people failed at the crucial moment. The
plodding English had to help out the French railway plans, and then had
to turn around and find their own railroad defects. When England first
sounded the call to arms, men deserted the railroad service to go into
training to such an extent that the authorities had to stop it and
maintain transportation as, of course, an important arm of the
war-service.
The history of the unpreparedness of both England and France has yet to
be written. It would not be useful to print much that is already
known. There are two political sentiments in both countries, and
political issues will rise again in both after the war.
A little contemplation here will show the extravagance of many
estimates of the number of men to be put in the field in time of war.
Many estimates have taken little account of the number of men required
to handle a modern transportation service, and the supply organization
to back up an effective army at the front. Transportation and
war-supplies are on such an expanded basis as was not dreamed of a few
years ago. The war plans of one generation cannot be the war plans of
another either on land or sea. That France had 4,500,000 men capable
of bearing arms did not mean that she could hold 4,000,000 men in
fighting array at any one time.
After five months of war France had only 1,500,000 men at the front,
and from the camps and military organizations she expects to have ready
a fresh army of another million in the spring. But she mobilized
nearly 4,000,000 men. Paris industry, trade, and commerce could shut
down in a day, but there was no organization that could make in a day
or a week the men of France into an army at the front. Her 600,000
regular troops were, of course, always in position to be thrown on the
defensive at the German frontier. None of the nearly 4,000,000
additional men could be got with arms and munitions of war into
Belgium, to meet effectively the trained troops of Germany.
The German troops were "moving" as early as July 25, while all the
governments of Europe, including Austria, were negotiating for and
hopeful of peace. When war was declared against France, she promptly
offered Belgium five French army corps for defence. King Albert
declined, saying there had been no invasion of Belgium by Germany, and
that Belgian neutrality was guaranteed by treaty. Within two days the
German guns were firing on Belgium; but when King Albert then called
upon France for protection, the response was that the French troops
which had been offered had been placed elsewhere. The regular troops
probably had. The new troops were not mobilized, and the French
transportation system, to say the least, had not been as responsive as
expected.
France paid dearly for her unpreparedness. Her richest provinces were
invaded by the Germans and are still held by the Germans in
considerable part.
Caught unprepared, there was only one safe thing for General Joffre to
do--let the Germans expand far from their base while the French
concentrated between the German border and Paris, to strike back at the
opportune moment against an extended and weakened line.
The march of the armies of Von Kluck--"General One O'clock," they
called him, and said his fiercest attacks were at one o'clock--is
considered a masterpiece of military precision. The strategy of
General Joffre which foiled him is praised throughout France.
The plan of the Germans was to hold the north of France with the army
of Von Kluck while the Crown Prince moved from Luxemburg straight to
Paris. This was theatrical, dramatic, and Kaiserlike; but the French
would not consent. They persisted in holding Verdun and defeating the
armies of the Crown Prince.
The English are the greatest fighters in the world in retreat, while
the French can fight best in a forward movement. The little
expeditionary army of England, originally 100,000 men but at this time
180,000 men, held the right flank of Von Kluck in the retreat from
river to river, from hill to hill, although pounded by 350,000 trained
German troops massed on this flank. This retreat put the stamp of
English bravery and dogged determination, as before, on the map of
Europe. Paris was open and exposed to any entry which the Germans
wished to make. The government had retired, the gold reserves of the
banks had been moved, the people in large numbers had fled.
Indeed, I may say what has never before been printed, that President
Poincaré summoned the "architect" of the city to the American embassy
and, with tears streaming down his face, told him whence he must take
his orders in the future.
Then in a flash went the orders of Joffre along his whole concentrated
line of troops: "The retreat has ended, not another foot; you die here
or the enemy goes back!" He had chosen the psychological moment. The
French and English had burned and broken the bridges as they retreated,
and with the recoil the German communications were in danger.
A fresh force of 50,000 held in reserve near Paris flew by motors and
motor-busses against the right wing of Von Kluck, which the English in
retiring had been punishing so heavily. Von Kluck had been drawn too
far into France with no support on his left from the army of the Crown
Prince, which the French had held at bay but with a tremendous
sacrifice of men. The German ammunition and supply-trains were broken
and the armies of Von Kluck were hurled back from Paris about as
rapidly as they had come forward.
Then the Kaiser took a hand and cried, "Now for the English; take the
Channel ports; forward against Calais!" and again, as at Liége, the
blood of the Germans soaked the soil of Belgium. The Allies dug
themselves into the ground behind the rivers and canals, and drowned
the Germans out in front; and when an advance by the seacoast was
attempted, the English naval guns spilled havoc into the German
battalions. Four nationalities grappled in a death-struggle, but the
wall of the Allies held from Switzerland to the sea. The Allies worked
most harmoniously. Belgian knowledge of topography proved superior to
the German general-staff maps. The English buttressed the French
financially and in transportation and food-supplies. Indeed, Kitchener
at one time fed two French army corps, or 80,000 troops, for eleven
days without a hitch.
Although England had not the trained men, she had the fundamental
military organization, transportation, food, and finance.