WHY THE PLANS WERE CHANGED
Let us now pass from designs to events, and, reviewing in their military
bearing the operations between August 3, when the German troops crossed
the Belgian frontier, to the day, exactly one month later, when the
German plans were apparently changed, deal with the question: Why were
the plans changed?
The Germans entered Liége on August 10. They had hoped by that time to
be, if not at, at any rate close to, Paris. In part they were unable to
begin their advance through Belgium until August 17 or August 18,
because they had not, until that date, destroyed all the forts at Liége,
but in part, also, these delays had played havoc with the details of
their scheme.
Consider how the shock of such a delay would make itself felt. The
mighty movement by this time going on throughout the length and breadth
of Germany found itself suddenly jerked into stoppage. All its couplings
clashed. Excellently designed as are the strategic railways of Germany
they are no more than sufficient for the transport of troops, guns,
munitions, foodstuffs, and other things necessary in such a case. If,
owing to delays, troop trains got into the way of food trains, and _vice
versa_, the resultant difficulties are readily conceivable. All this war
transport is run on a military time table. The time table was there, and
it was complete in every particular. But it had become unworkable.
Gradually the tangle was straightened out, but the muddle, while it
lasted, was gigantic, and we can well believe that masses of men,
arriving from all parts of Germany at Aix-la-Chapelle, found no
sufficient supplies awaiting them, and that sheer desperation drove the
German Government to collect supplies by plundering all the districts of
Belgium within reach. As the Belgians were held to be wilfully
responsible for the mess, the cruelty and ferocity shown in these raids
ceases to be in any sense unbelievable.
Dislocation of the plan, however, was not all. In the attempts to carry
the fortress of Liége by storm the Germans lost, out of the three corps
forming the army of General von Emmich, 48,700 men killed and
wounded.[10] These corps, troops from Hanover, Pomerania, and
Brandenburg, formed the flower of the army. The work had to be carried
out of burying the dead and evacuating the wounded. The shattered corps
had to be reformed from reserves. All this of necessity meant additional
complications.
Then there was the further fighting with the Belgians. What were the
losses sustained by the Germans between the assaults on Liége and the
occupation of Brussels is, outside of Germany, not known, nor is it
known in Germany save to the Government. To put that loss as at least
equal to the losses at Liége is, however, a very conservative estimate.
Meanwhile, the French had advanced into Belgium along both banks of the
Meuse and that further contributed to upset the great preparation.
We have, therefore, down to August 21, losses, including those in the
fighting on the Meuse and in Belgian Luxemburg, probably equal to the
destruction of two reinforced army corps.
Now we come to the Battle of Mons and Charleroi, when to the surprise of
all non-German tacticians, the attacks in mass formation witnessed at
Liége were repeated.
To describe that battle is beyond the scope of this narrative. But it is
certain that the estimates so far formed of German losses are below, if
not a long way below, the truth.
There is, however, a reliable comparative basis on which to arrive at a
computation, and this has a most essential bearing on later events.
At Liége there were three heavy mass attacks against trenches defended
by a total force of 20,000 Belgian riflemen with machine guns.[11] We
have seen what the losses were. At Mons, against the British forces,
there were mass attacks against lines held by five divisions of British
infantry, a total roughly of 65,000 riflemen, with machine guns, and
backed by over sixty batteries of artillery.
Now, taking them altogether, the British infantry reach, as marksmen, a
level quite unknown in the armies of the Continent. Further, these mass
attacks were made by the Germans with far greater numbers than at Liége,
and there were far more of them. Indeed, they were pressed at frequent
intervals during two days and part of the intervening night. The
evidence as to the dense formations adopted in these attacks is
conclusive.
What, from facts such as these, is the inference to be drawn as to
losses incurred? The inference, and it is supported by the failure of
any of these attacks to get home, is, and can only be, that the losses
must have been proportionally on the same scale as those at Liége, for
the attacks were, for the most part, as at Liége, launched frontally
against entrenched positions. Though at first sight such figures may
appear fantastic, to put the losses at three times the total of the
losses at Liége is probably but a very slight exaggeration, even if it
be any exaggeration at all.
There is, however, still another ground for such a conclusion. While
the British front from Condé past and behind Mons to Binche allowed of
the full and effective employment of the whole British force, even when
holding in hand necessary reserves, it was obviously not a front wide
enough to allow of the full and effective employment on the German side
of a force four times as numerous. It must not be forgotten that troops
cannot fight at their best without sufficient space to fight in.
But to employ in the same space a force no greater than the British,
considering the advantage of position given with modern arms to an army
acting on the defensive on well-chosen ground, would have meant the
annihilation of the German army section by section.
That in effect, apart from the turning movement undertaken through
Tournai, and the attempt at Binche to enfilade the British position by
an oblique line of attack, was the problem which General von Kluck had
to face. His solution of it, in the belief that his artillery must have
completely shaken the British resistance, was to follow up the
bombardment by a succession of infantry attacks in close formation, one
following immediately the other, so that each attack would, it was
thought, start from a point nearer to the British trenches than that
preceding it, until finally the rush could not possibly be stopped. In
that way the whole weight of the German infantry might, despite the
narrow front, be thrown against the British positions, and though the
losses incurred must of necessity be severe, nevertheless, the British
line would be entirely swept away, and the losses more than amply
revenged in the rout that must ensue. Not only so, but the outcome
should be the destruction of the British force.
That this is as near the truth as any explanation which can be offered
is hardly doubtful. The conclusion is consonant, besides, with what have
been considered the newest German views on offensive tactics. To suppose
that General von Kluck, or any other commander, would throw away the
lives of his officers and men without some seemingly sufficient object
is not reasonable.
Here we touch one of the hidden but fatal flaws in the German plan--the
assumption that German troops, if not superior, must at any rate be
equal in skill to any others. The German troops at Mons, admittedly,
fought with great daring, but that they fought or were led with skill is
disproved by all the testimony available. It is as clear as anything can
be that not merely the coolness and the marksmanship of the British
force was a surprise to the enemy, but the uniformity of its quality. Of
the elements that go to make up military strength, uniformity of quality
is among the most important. The cohesion of an army with no weak links
is unbreakable. It is not only more supple than an army made up of
troops of varying quality and skill, but it is more tenacious. Like a
well-tempered sword, it is at once more flexible yet more unbreakable
than an inferior weapon.
Against an inferior army the tactics of General von Kluck must
infallibly have succeeded. Against such a military weapon as the British
force at Mons they were foredoomed to failure. Assuming the British army
to be inferior, General von Kluck threw the full weight of his troops
upon it before he had tried its temper.
Studying their bearing, the importance of these considerations becomes
plain. Powerful as it was, the driving head of the great German chain
had yet not proved powerful enough inevitably to sweep away resistance.
That again disclosed a miscalculation. It is true that the British force
had to retire, and it is equally true that that retirement exposed them
to great danger, for the enemy, inflamed by his losses, was still in
numbers far superior, and what, for troops obliged to adopt marching
formations, was even more serious, he was times over superior in guns.
Few armies in face of such superiority could have escaped annihilation;
fewer still would not have fallen into complete demoralisation.
The British force, however, not only escaped annihilation, but came out
both with losses _relatively_ light, and wholly undemoralised. This was
no mere accident. Why, can be briefly told. Remember that quality of
uniformity, remember the value of it in giving cohesion to the organic
masses of the army. Remember further the hitting power of an army in
which both gunners and riflemen are on the whole first-rate shots, and
with a cavalry which the hostile horse had shown itself unable to
contend against. On the other hand, bear in mind that the greater
masses of the enemy were of necessity slower in movement, and that the
larger an army is, the slower it _must_ move.
Naturally the enemy used every effort to throw as large forces as he
could upon the flanks of the retiring British divisions. He especially
employed his weight of guns for that purpose. On the other hand, the
British obviously and purposely occupied all the roads over as broad an
extent of country as was advisable. They did so in order to impose wide
detours on outflanking movements. While those forces were going round,
the British were moving forward and so escaping them.
The difficulties the Germans had to contend against were first the
difficulty of getting close in enough with bodies of troops large
enough, and secondly that, in flowing up, their mass, while greater in
depth from van to rear than the British, could not be much, if anything,
greater in breadth. The numerical superiority, therefore, could not be
made fully available.
Broadly, those were the conditions of this retirement; and when we come
to examine them, comparing the effective force of the opponents, the
_relatively_ light losses of the British cease to be surprising. The
retirement, of course, was full of exciting episodes. Sir John French
began his movement with a vigorous counter-attack.[12] This wise tactic
both misled the enemy and taught him caution.
It was by such tactics that the British General so far outpaced the
enemy as to be able to form front for battle at Cambrai. Here again some
brief notes are necessary in order to estimate the effect on later
events.
On the right of the British position from Cambrai to Le Cateau, and
somewhat in advance of it, the village of Landrecies was held by the 4th
Brigade of Guards. Just to the north of Landrecies is the forest of
Mormal. The forest is shaped like a triangle. Landrecies stands at the
apex pointing south. Round the skirts of the forest both to the east and
to the west are roads meeting at Landrecies. Along these roads the
Germans were obliged to advance, although to obtain cover from the
British guns enfilading these roads large bodies of them came through
the forest.
The British right, the corps of General Sir Douglas Haig, held
Marailles, and commanded the road to the west of the forest.
Towards the British centre a second slightly advanced position like that
of Landrecies was held to the south of Solesmes by the 4th Division,
commanded by General Snow.
The British left, formed of the corps of General Sir Horace
Smith-Dorrien, was "refused" or drawn back, because in this quarter an
attempted turning movement on the part of the enemy was looked for. In
the position taken up, the front here was covered by a small river
continued by a canal.
On the British left also, to the south of Cambrai, were posted the
cavalry under General Allenby.
These dispositions commanded the roads and approaches along which the
enemy must advance in order to obtain touch with the main body, and they
were calculated both to break up the unity of his onset and to lay him
open to effective attack while deploying for battle. They were, in fact,
the same tactics which, in resisting the onset of a superior force,
Wellington employed at Waterloo by holding in advance of his main line
Hugomont and La Haye Sainte for a like purpose.
Sir John French had foreseen that, taught at Mons the cost of a frontal
assault against British troops, General von Kluck would now seek to
employ his greater numerical strength and weight of guns by throwing
that strength as far as he could against the flanks of the British,
hoping to crush the British line together and so destroy it.
That, in fact, was what General von Kluck did try to do. In this attack
five German army corps were engaged. The German General concentrated the
main weight of his artillery, comprising some 112 batteries of field
guns and howitzers, against the British left. The terrific bombardment
was followed up by infantry attacks, in which mass formations were once
more resorted to. Evidently it was thought that against such a strength
in guns the British could not possibly hold their lines, and that the
infantry, completely demoralised, must be so shaken as to fire wildly,
rendering an onslaught by superior forces of the German infantry an
assured and sweeping victory.
For a second time these calculations miscarried. As they rushed forward,
expecting but feeble opposition, the hostile infantry masses were shot
down by thousands. The spectacle of such masses was certainly designed
to terrify. It failed to terrify. In this connection it is apposite to
recall that the destruction of Baker Pasha's army at Suakim by a massed
rush of Arab spearmen long formed with the newer school of German
tacticians a classic example of the effect of such charges on _British_
troops. No distinction seems to have been made between the half-trained
Egyptian levies led by Baker Pasha and fully trained British infantry.
The two are, in a military sense, worlds apart. Yet German theorists,
their judgment influenced by natural bias, ignored the difference.
Nor was the fortune of the attacks upon the British right any better.
The defence of Landrecies by the Guards Brigade forms one of the most
heroic episodes of the war. Before it was evacuated the village had
become a German charnel-house. Hard pressed as they were at both
extremities of their line, the British during these two days fought to
a standstill an army still nearly three times as large as their own.
That simply upset all accepted computations. As Sir John French stated
in his despatch of September 7, the fighting from the beginning of the
action at Mons to the further British retirement from Cambrai formed in
effect one continuous battle. The British withdrawal was materially
helped by a timely attack upon the right flank of the German forces
delivered by two French divisions which had advanced from Arras under
the command of General d'Amade, and by the French cavalry under General
Sordêt.
Now consider the effect upon the German plans. There is, to begin with,
the losses. That those at Cambrai must have been extremely heavy is
certain. The failure of such an attack pushed with such determination
proves it.[13] We are fully justified in concluding that the attack did
not cease until the power to continue it had come to an end. Losses on
that scale meant, first, the collection of the wounded and the burial of
the dead; and, secondly, the reforming of broken battalions from
reserves. The latter had to be brought from the rear, and that, as well
as their incorporation in the various corps, involved delay. Again, the
vast expenditure of artillery munitions meant waiting for
replenishment; and though we may assume that arrangements for
replenishment were as complete as possible, yet it would take time. For
all these reasons the inability of General von Kluck to follow up
becomes readily explicable.
Bear in mind that the whole German scheme of invasion hung for its
success on his ability to follow up and on the continued power and
solidity of his forces. It must not be supposed that that had not been
fully foreseen and, as far as was thought necessary, provided for. There
is ample evidence that, in view alike of the fighting in Belgium and of
the landing of the British Expeditionary Force on August 17, this
leading and largest formation of the German chain of armies had been
made still larger than the original scheme had designed. Apparently at
Mons it comprised eight instead of the originally proposed six army
corps. After Cambrai, as later events will show, the force of General
von Kluck included only five army corps of first line troops.
To account for that decrease, the suggestion has been made that at this
time, consequent upon the defeat met with by the Germans at Gunbinnen in
East Prussia and the advance of the Russians towards Königsberg, there
was a heavy transfer of troops from the west front to the east. Not only
would such a transfer have been in the circumstances the most manifest
of military blunders, but no one acquainted with the methods of the
German Government and of the German General Staff can accept the
explanation. Whatever may be the shortcomings of the German Government,
vacillation is not one of them. What evidently did take place was the
transfer of the _débris_ of army corps preparatory to their re-formation
for service on the east front and their replacement by fresh reserves.
But though the mass was thus made up again, there is a wide difference
between a great army consisting wholly of first line troops and an army,
even of equal numbers, formed of troops of varying values. The driving
head was no longer solid.
In the battle on the Somme when the British occupied positions from Ham
to Peronne, and the French army delivered a flank attack on the Germans
along the line from St. Quentin to Guise, the invaders were again
checked.
From St. Quentin to Peronne the course of the Somme, a deep and
dangerous river, describes an irregular half-circle, sweeping first to
the west, and then round to the north. General von Kluck had here to
face the far from easy tactical problem of fighting on the inner line of
that half-circle. He addressed himself to it with vigour. One part of
his plan was a wide outflanking movement through Amiens; another was to
throw a heavy force against St. Quentin; a third was to force the
passage of the Somme both east and west of Ham.
These operations were undertaken, of course, in conjunction with the
army of General von Bülow. Part of the troops of von Bülow, the 10th,
and the Reserve Corps of the Prussian Guard were heavily defeated by the
French at Guise. But while it was the object of the French and British
to make the German operations as costly as possible, it formed, for
reasons which will presently appear, no part of their strategy to follow
up local advantages.
Why it formed no part of their strategy will become evident if at this
point a glance is cast over the fortunes of the other German armies.
The army of General von Bülow had been engaged against the French in the
battle at Charleroi and along the Sambre, and again in the battle at St.
Quentin and Guise, and admittedly had in both encounters lost heavily.
The army of General von Hausen had been compelled to fight its way
across the Meuse in the face of fierce opposition. At Charleville, the
centre of this great combat, its losses, too, were severe. Again, at
Rethel, on the line of the Aisne, there was a furious six days' battle.
The army of Duke Albert of Wurtemberg had twice been driven back over
the Meuse into Belgian Luxemburg.
The army of the Crown Prince of Germany, notwithstanding its initial
success at Château Malins, had been defeated at Spincourt.
The army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria had been defeated with heavy
loss at Luneville.
Divisions of the German army operating in Alsace had been worsted, first
at Altkirch, and again at Mulhausen.
Taking these events together, the fact stands out that the first aim in
the strategy of General Joffre was, as far as possible, to defeat the
German armies in detail, and thus to hinder and delay their
co-operation. He was enabled to carry out that object because the French
mobilisation had been completed without disturbance.
These two facts--completion of the French mobilisation and the throwing
back of the German plan by the defeat of the several armies in
detail--are facts of the first importance.
The aggregate losses sustained by the Germans were already huge. If, up
to September 3, we put the total wastage of war from the outset at
500,000, remembering that the fatigues of a campaign conducted in a
hurry mean a wastage from exhaustion equal at least to the losses in
action, we shall, great as such a total may appear, still be within the
truth.
But more serious even than the losses was the dislocation of the plan.
The army of the Crown Prince of Germany, which was to have advanced by
rapid marches through the defiles of the Argonne, to have invested
Verdun, and to have taken the fortified frontier in the rear, found
itself unable to effect that object. It was held up in the hills. That
meant that the armies of the Crown Prince of Bavaria and the army of
General von Heeringen were kept out of the main scheme of operations.
Consider what this meant. It meant that the freedom of movement of the
whole chain of armies was for the time being gone. It meant further
that, so long as that state of things continued, the primary condition
on which the whole German scheme depended--a superiority of military
strength--could not be realised. Not only were the German armies no
longer, in a military sense, homogeneous, but a considerable part of the
force, being on the wrong side of the fortified frontier, could not be
brought to bear, and another considerable part of the force, the army of
the Crown Prince of Germany, had fallen into an entanglement. Were the
armies of von Kluck, von Bülow, von Hausen, and Duke Albert, the latter
already badly mauled, sufficient to carry out the scheme laid down?
Quite obviously not.
Obviously not, because on the one hand there was the completion of the
French mobilisation, and the presence of a British army; and on the
other hand there were the losses met with, and the reductions in the
_applicable_ force.
Something must be done to pull affairs round. The something was to begin
with the extraction of the Crown Prince of Germany from his predicament.
If that could be effected and the fortified frontier turned, then the
armies of the Crown Prince of Bavaria and of General von Heeringen could
make their entry into the main arena; and the primary condition of
superiority in strength restored.
Thus it is evident that the events preceding September 3, dictated the
movement which, on September 3, changed for good the aspect of the
campaign.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] These figures are given on the authority of M. de Broqueville,
Belgian Prime Minister and Minister of War, who has stated that the
total here quoted was officially admitted by the German Government.
[11] There are usually two machine guns to each section of infantry.
[12] "At daybreak on the 24th (Aug.) the Second Division from the
neighbourhood of Harmignies made a powerful demonstration as if to
retake Binche. This was supported by the artillery of the first and
second divisions, while the First Division took up a supporting position
in the neighbourhood of Peissant. Under cover of this demonstration the
Second (Army) Corps retired on the line
Dour--Quarouble--Frameries."--_Despatch of Sir John French of September
7_.
[13] The reported extraordinary Army Order issued by the German Emperor
commanding "extermination" of the British force has since been
officially disavowed as a fiction.