Held at the Ypres and Arras barriers in the north it was inevitable
that Ludendorff's next move would be in the south. The railways freed
by the expansion of the Picardy salient in March, the unhampered
concentrations made possible at Péronne, St. Quentin, La Fère, and
Hirson, and the admirable surface of the Laon Plateau for purposes of
manoeuvring large bodies of troops--all pointed to the line northwest
of Rheims as the probable point of attack. Then, when it came on May
27, consternation reigned among military critics as they observed the
apparent ease with which the Germans carried, first, the mighty Chemin
des Dames, protected on the east by Craonne and its three plateaux and
on the west by the Ailette and the Oise, and then the south bank of the
Aisne, with its formidable prepared fortifications at Soissons. The
German feints in the Lys salient and before Amiens in the preceding
week were said to have distracted Foch, who had thus been outgeneraled.
And when the Marne was reached between Dormans and Château-Thierry, it
was remembered how the Third German Army under General von Hausen had
swept across the river at that identical spot on Aug. 25, 1914.
In the first three days of the drive the Germans with the greatest
auxiliary force of tanks, machine guns, and poison gas projectors they
had ever mobilized employed twenty-five divisions, or 325,000 men. When
they doubled their base line and had reached the Marne and were trying
to deploy they were using forty divisions containing over 400,000 of
their best troops. When the offensive quieted down in the first days
of June it was estimated that they had lost fully 30 per cent. of the
total in casualties. On the other hand, they claimed to have captured
over 45,000 prisoners and taken 400 guns. They had come thirty miles
and had occupied 650 square miles of territory. But they were held.
What is the explanation of this seeming paradox? Foch could by calling
on a certain number of reserves easily have held the Chemin des Dames
until--he had been flanked and enfiladed out, between Neufchatel and
Rheims on the east and from the Oise where it enters the Aisne on
the west. He might have held out longer on the southern bank of the
Aisne, but the result would have been the same--losses equaling if not
surpassing those of the enemy and the surrender of thousands of guns
and large quantities of war material. Finally, he would have gained
nothing and might even have been unable to hold the Marne.
It is obvious that he did none of these things. But what did he do? He
left his front protected by only sufficient men and guns to produce
the greatest possible losses among the enemy as he slowly advanced
south and concentrated heavily on the enemy's flanks. It was he and not
Ludendorff who decreed that the Germans should reach the Marne between
Dormans and Château-Thierry, and nowhere else. But it was Pétain who
executed the plans of Foch.