Then came the crash of the German offensive in March of 1918: against
the British line first. They had 114 Divisions, many fresh from Russia,
against 48 under British command, tired after Flanders, and thinly
scattered over a big front. It was the last thrust of the German war
machine, and marvellously organised, directed and fought. The German
Army, in spite of many blunders in High Command, had shewn a dynamic
energy, a driving force, a relentless will, and a marvellous valour
which was wellnigh irresistible. The German soldiers were no less brave
than the British or French, no less wonderful in self-sacrifice, no
less enduring in agony. Their final effort, when they put in the last
of their man power, was a supreme achievement to which we must render
homage if we have any chivalry in our souls, in spite of a loathing
of war which now makes all such retrospect a nauseous horror. The
German sergeants and machine gunners who carried out the new tactics of
“infiltration” were great soldiers and gallant men.
The thin British line—after that struggle in Flanders and battles
round Cambrai—was broken by the sheer weight of that terrific impact,
and the British troops fell back fighting, until out of whole divisions
only a few hundreds were left standing, and there was but a ragged line
of exhausted men between Amiens and the sea.
The heart of the English-speaking peoples—all of them now, for the
United States was with us at this time—stopped beating for a while, or
seemed to do, as the news of that German advance went over the wires
of the world. After all the battles of the French and English, their
struggles, their slaughter, their sacrifice, their endurance, it looked
for a little while as though it had all been in vain, and that all was
lost. That was not ten years ago. It was less than seven. Yet can we
recall even those days, when we felt stone cold, with a sharp anxiety
thrusting its knife into our brains as the Germans came across the
fields of the Somme, retaking all that ground which had been fought
for yard by yard—drew near to Amiens, turned on the French, smashed
their line as the British line had been smashed, and drove down to the
Marne as in the first month of the war? Truly it looked like defeat.
How near we were to that was only known at the time, perhaps even now,
to those of us who saw with our own eyes the wild and tragic chaos of
our falling back, the exhaustion and weakness of the French and British
troops who had fought down to their last few men in every battalion,
and the old battle grounds in possession of the enemy. Frightful weeks;
ghastly emotions; scenes to sear one’s imagination for ever. Yet
now—hardly remembered, so strange and self-protective is the human mind!
Looking back on that time, trying to recapture its sensations and
philosophy, I cannot remember any absolute despair in England and
France. By all the rules of the game we had nearly lost—within a
hair’s breadth—yet we did not acknowledge that. There was no cry of
surrender from either of the nations, which still had a fixed faith
that ultimately we should win, somehow. There was something astounding
in the stolidity of the British people on the edge of great disaster.
To men at the front it seemed ignorance of the extremity of peril. But
it was the spirit of the race steadying itself again to fresh ordeals,
unyielding in pride; they could not be beaten, it was unthinkable. To
hint it was a treachery. If more men were wanted the youngest brothers
would follow their older brothers. So it happened. Three hundred
thousand boys of eighteen, the last reserves of Great Britain, were
shipped over to France to fill up the frightful gap. From the factories
which had been pouring out the material of war, not only for the
British Army but for all the Allies, all but the most indispensable men
were enrolled. The physically unfit, soldiers many times wounded, old
crocks, were sent out to the depôts in France.