It is the fashion of our arm-chair critics and pessimists to talk and
write as though all the triumphs of the campaign belonged to Germany,
while all the mistakes and misfortunes were the exclusive attributes of
the Allies. The perfection of the German military machine is held up
eternally for our admiration; we are told day by day--and several times
a day--to pay tributes of wondering admiration to the marvels Germany
has accomplished. It is pointed out to us how much of her enemies'
territory she has occupied, and even, sometimes, how impossible it will
ever be to turn her out. We are even besought by certain faint-hearts
to make peace while we can on the "generous" terms which Germany has
announced herself willing to concede if we will only admit her
over-lordship of Europe, an admission we have not the slightest
intention of making either now or in the future.
Now I am not going to deny that we and the rest of the Allies have made
mistakes, alike in policy, strategy, and tactics; in fact, if you will,
in every field of the War. But the nation that can wage war without
making mistakes has yet to be discovered, and it is certain that if such
a nation ever arises it will speedily dominate the world. Let it be
admitted that we have made mistakes in plenty, and that we shall make
many more before we see the end of this terrible business. It still
remains true that the mistakes of the Allies have been as dust in the
balance compared with those made by Germany. I fear many of my readers
may think this a hard saying, but I shall try to demonstrate its literal
truth.
The first and greatest of the mistakes made by the Allied nations was
that they failed to foresee years ago that the War was inevitable, and
that Germany was firmly resolved that it should break out just when it
was most convenient to her. There we have, in a nutshell, the basis of
all our troubles. Of Germany's intentions in the matter there has not
been a shadow of doubt; thinkers like Mr Frederic Harrison, and
soldiers like Lord Roberts, saw very clearly what was coming, and even
that much-abused individual, "the man in the street," has for years had
more than an uneasy suspicion that Germany was plotting mischief. The
famous Kruger telegram, the trouble at Samoa, the visit of the "Panther"
to Agadir, the numberless occasions during the past few years when
Germany has interfered in matters which were no concern of hers, ought
surely to have been enough to put us on our guard. And on top of all
this we have Lord Haldane's bland admission that he came back from his
Berlin visit feeling "very uneasy" as to Germany's intentions. Just
after war broke out a very old friend of my own--a man who knows Germany
and the Germans well--wrote to remind me that seven or eight years ago
he prophesied that war would break out in 1914, when the Kiel Canal
widening was to be completed.
I do not see how, in the face of all these facts, we can pretend for an
instant that we had not ample warning of the cataclysm which has
overtaken the world. I do not say that we were any blinder than the
rest of those who are now on our side, but I do say that our failure to
make ready in time was the most powerful factor in bringing about the
War, and gave Germany an initial advantage which we are now only
beginning to wrest from her. For Germany was ready--ready down to the
last proverbial button on her soldiers' gaiters--and nothing but the
gigantic blunders she has made in the conduct of the War has saved
civilisation from being overrun by the hordes whom the Kaiser is proud
to recognise as the modern successors of Attila. Had the nations of
Europe dropped their mutual jealousies five years ago, and clearly
warned Germany that the first act of aggression on her part would bring
all of them into the field against her, how different would have been
the course of modern history!
Let us go back to the beginning of things and examine some of Germany's
blunders from the very outset. We have, in the first place, ample
evidence that Germany counted with confidence that the War would be
short--that she would, in effect, repeat her triumph of 1870-71 on a
grander scale. We know that this was so from the evidence of her own
writers and statesmen and people, both before and since the War began.
The programme was, on paper, delightfully simple. In view of the solemn
treaties into which Germany had entered, France had refrained from
fortifying her Belgian frontier.
This simplified matters for Germany. Belgian neutrality was to be
contemptuously violated and France attacked on her weakest front, the
inconvenient line of fortresses along the Rhine being thus carefully
avoided. Belgium, it was calculated, would not dare to resist her
mighty adversary, or, if she did, so much the worse for her. France was
to be shattered in a brief campaign--so effectively shattered, as
Germans themselves boasted, that she could never again be a menace.
England, fat and lazy England, it was confidently reckoned, would not
interfere, or could not interfere in time on land. France disabled
permanently, the victorious Germans were to turn on slow-moving Russia,
whose mobilisation could not be completed for months, and who was to be
hopelessly smashed by the weight of the combined Austro-German arms
before she could get her giant legions into the field. Serbia, of
course, the ostensible cause of all the trouble, would be of no account,
and could be crushed with hardly an effort, leaving the way open for
German domination through Bulgaria and Turkey, and on to Persian
Mesopotamia and the East. England, the chief adversary in the German
dream of world-power, was to be left to be settled with at a more
auspicious season.
Now, we have had our trials and disappointments since war broke out, and
we shall have more, but I ask in sober seriousness if a fraction of our
plans have gone wrong so completely as has every single factor upon
which Germany counted for the success of her scheme? We know what
happened. Belgium refused to barter her honour for peace, and it is
beyond question that the three weeks' delay her heroic resistance
secured for the Allies saved Europe. France showed herself as great as
of old, and her sons flung themselves into the fight with a gallantry
which has proved unconquerable. The outrage on Belgium brought England
into the fray, and her "contemptible little army" played no inglorious
part in shattering the German advance. Russia mobilised with a speed
which startled the world, and her legions were thundering at the gates
of Germany weeks ahead of what the Germans had been pleased to regard as
the "schedule time." Serbia threw back the Austrian armies in an
appalling defeat, and in a very few weeks Germany must have realised
that she had to face that long and dragging war which every single one
of her military writers had foretold must prove ruinous to her. When I
say "Germany" I mean, of course, the German military authorities; the
German people were kept in an abysmal ignorance of the facts of the
case. It is not too much to say that within three months of the
outbreak of the War the German Higher Command must have begun to realise
that whatever might be the outcome of the struggle it was not going to
be a German triumph. And we may be sure that they have since realised
it with ever-growing clearness.
It cannot, of course, be supposed that the Germans neglected altogether
the possibility that England might join the Alliance against them,
though there is very good ground for the belief that they were vastly
surprised that we should fight them over "a scrap of paper." But they
took the risk, and they took it the more readily because they had for
years been assured that England, if not too proud to fight, was at least
too wealthy and too lazy to have any stomach for such an enterprise as
an armed conflict with the supermen of Germany. Hence the insolent
offers that were made to buy us off at the expense of France. And there
is little doubt that the Germans believed that even if we did come in we
should be of trifling account in the land war, while they reckoned that
they could at least keep their Fleet in safety until their submarines
had either starved us into submission or had so weakened our Fleet that
it could hope to operate at sea with a reasonable chance of success.
They thought, in fact, that as a factor in a continental war England
could safely be neglected. Certain is it that they never for a moment
dreamed that England could raise and put into the field armies on the
scale of millions which, in respect of equipment and training, would
rival or eclipse anything that Germany could show to the world.
Yet that is precisely what England has done. Man for man the British
Army is superior to that of Germany, and it is better trained and better
equipped. And it has not yet developed its full fighting force, while
the armies of Germany, weakened by eighteen months of terrific fighting,
have long passed their zenith. Germany has squandered her best troops,
and is beginning at last to fall back on inferior organisations; we have
millions of the pick of the nation who have not yet taken the field.
They will do so in good time, and with ample reserves behind them.
"General French's contemptible little army" has been a surprise for the
Kaiser.
So much for German blunders on land; what can we say about her blunders
at sea? The policy of attrition has failed lamentably, and we are not
yet starved out by the submarines or greatly perturbed by the threats of
new "frightfulness" which periodically emanate from Berlin. Our Fleet
is actually stronger than it was when war began; Germany has lost far
more in proportion, and her losses in cruisers--the eyes and ears of the
battle squadrons--have been particularly disastrous. The German flag,
except as shown by the submarine pirates and occasional raiders, has
vanished from the oceans of the world, and with it has gone Germany's
gigantic overseas trade, which was the very life-blood of her industrial
prosperity.
The probable attitude of England towards the War must have been the
subject of a good deal of speculation in the Wilhelmstrasse before
Germany threw down the gauntlet to the world, and here again we have an
excellent example of the blundering of German diplomacy. We shall never
know exactly what advice Prince Lichnowsky gave from London to his
Imperial master. It is said that he warned the Kaiser not to allow
himself to run away with the idea that England was too much occupied
with internal disputes to fight. However that may be, there is every
reason for thinking that those who at the time were preaching the
possibility of civil war in Ireland did much to convince Germany that
the time was ripe for the great adventure. The Germans failed, in the
blundering German way, to realise that while England's troubles are her
own, her cause is the cause of humanity and civilisation, and that the
first threat of attack on either would bring her warring parties into
one formidable cohesion which would defy any possible menace of trouble
within. That is precisely what happened, and it must have been the
surprise of their lives for the German diplomats.
The Colonies, as we know, represented in the eyes of the Germans so much
ripe fruit ready at a touch to drop from the rotten parent tree. India
was seething with revolt--according to the German war party; South
Africa was represented as ready to throw itself into the lap of Germany
for the sake of shaking off the very shadowy British yoke. Can any of
the mistakes we have made in politics or strategy match this record of
blundering ineptitude? We know how India and the Dominions and South
Africa responded to the call of Empire. India, Canada, and Australia
have sealed anew with their blood the tie which binds them to the Mother
Country; to-day a Dutch South African is busy turning the Germans out of
the last bit which remains to them of their once huge Colonial Empire.
Perhaps we blundered in our diplomacy in the Balkans, but at least we
have not blundered, as the Germans have done, in every part of the world
where chance of blundering lay open to us.
So far I have dealt only with German blunders, political and military,
in anticipation of war. Let us turn now to some of her blunders in the
actual conduct of operations in the field. I do not mean the blunders
of subordinates, but the mistakes of strategy and policy which are
capable of ruining the best-planned and most carefully-thought-out
campaign.
The violation of the neutrality of Belgium may have been an advantage
from the point of view of strategy; whether it was or not, the Germans
thought it was, and that was good enough for them. If it would be an
advantage to Germany, they were prepared to undertake it, and treaty
obligations troubled them not one whit. That it would instantly range
all civilised opinion against them seems never to have entered their
heads. But even after they had crossed Belgium their grand strategy was
lamentable. They succumbed to the lure of Paris at a time when they
ought to have been thinking solely of the northern ports of France,
which were practically open to them, and Paris proved to be the magnet
which drew them on to their undoing.
The menace to Paris roused the French to fury, and produced superhuman
exertions which a contest on the soil of France elsewhere might very
possibly not have evoked. Moreover, the German threat at Paris gave the
English time to come into action with what proved to be decisive effect.
Was there no German blundering here? What, I wonder, would have been
the result if the Germans had in those early days of the War flung all
their force at the coasts of Northern France? How should we have met
the menace with the sea bases largely in German hands? What would have
been our position in the naval warfare to-day?
And even with Paris almost in their grasp, the Germans failed--failed as
lamentably as they possibly could. They never even suspected the
existence of that great army of Paris which General Manoury had formed
under their very noses, as it were. And when on that fatal day Von
Kluck found himself faced with a new danger from that great army which
issued from the gates of the French capital, what did he do? He
committed a blunder which has been condemned by every military writer by
trying to march his retreating columns across the front of the British
Army which lay parallel to the line of his retreat. No doubt he
reckoned that after its terrific gruelling in the great retreat the
British Army was in no shape to take offensive action against him. But
it was his business to know, not to think; probably his Teutonic
arrogance led him to believe that no troops after such a retreat could
stand up against the pick of the German arms. He was soon undeceived.
General Joffre struck at once and with all his might, seizing with the
truest military genius and insight the psychological moment. The French
and British flung themselves upon the badly shaken enemy, and in a few
short days the victory of the Marne had been won.
Whatever we may think of what has happened since, it is certain that the
battle of the Marne will be recognised in the future as one of the great
decisive battles of the world. For it smashed beyond repair the German
strategic scheme. German blundering alone made victory possible, for at
the time the battle was fought the Germans were unquestionably superior
to the Allies in every factor which should have given them the victory
had they acted on sound lines. The machine was there--the machine upon
which the Germans have all along relied--but the human control broke
down, and disaster followed. Among all the mistakes which had been made
by the Allies, can the keenest critic discover anything to compare with
this?
A prominent feature of the German strategy has been the attack of their
infantry in dense masses; their commanders have flung men forward in
solid columns in the hope of overwhelming their enemies by sheer weight
of numbers. This has been a matter of considered policy; attack in this
formation has been practised at the German manoeuvres for years. The
German commanders took no notice of those military critics of other
nations who assured them that with modern weapons such tactics could
only meet with irretrievable disaster. With true Prussian cocksureness,
and knowing nothing of war since the days when quick-firing guns and
magazine rifles had revolutionised war, they insisted that they were
right, and that German hardihood would be proof against even the most
appalling losses. They have practised what they preached, since there
was no possibility of re-training their men in time of war, and the
result has been daughter on such a scale as the world has never seen.
Not once, but a hundred times have German massed attacks across open
country simply melted away before the fire which greeted them, and in
this way Germany has lost untold thousands of men who, had they been
intelligently used, might have gone far to win the War.
This, again, is not an example of the mistakes made by subordinate
commanders in the field, but a settled matter of policy approved by the
highest German military experts, and proved hopelessly wrong under the
actual test of war. Attacks by massed guns and not by massed infantry
have been the most powerful factors in winning the German successes. We
saw in the appalling slaughter of the great battle of Ypres how little
infantry, resolute and well handled, have to fear from the advance of
men who simply come on in solid masses to be shot down.
It has long been a part of the German creed that "frightfulness" in war
pays. The avowed German policy is that a conquered nation shall be left
"nothing but its eyes to weep with." The idea, of course, is that any
nation which has the misfortune to incur Germany's resentment shall be
so completely terrorised and oppressed that anything in the shape of a
spirit of resistance shall be utterly crushed out in a welter of blood
and savagery before which a civilised community must sink appalled.
Here we have a simple explanation of the crimes which staggered the
world after the invasion of Belgium. It was all a part of the German
policy that the Belgian civilians should be tortured, outraged, and
murdered, that their towns should be laid waste, that monuments of an
ancient civilisation which even the Huns of old respected should be
destroyed by the newest apostles of "kultur." Eight hundred civilians
were massacred at Dinant in cold blood to show the Belgians how hopeless
it was to resist Germany; hundreds of women have been violated in the
same cause; hundreds of churches have been destroyed; dozens of villages
have been laid in ashes. And all this, let it be remembered--let it,
indeed, never be forgotten--was the result not of war-maddened soldiers
losing their heads and their manhood, but of a deliberate policy
deliberately adopted by the rulers of Germany.
In every war and in every army there happen, in hot blood, incidents
over which humanity weeps; human nature being what it is, excesses are
sometimes unavoidable. But it has been left to modern Germany to
elevate murder and violence and destruction to a science; she has in
this respect set up a record which would shame a Red Indian, and from
which the great warring and plundering nations of old would have shrunk
appalled. The history of war for centuries has given us nothing to
approach in horror the German devastation of Belgium and of Poland,
unless we except the massacres of the Armenians by Germany's Turkish
Allies with Germany's connivance and approval.
Now I am quite certain that the criminality of these proceedings
troubles the German nation not one whit. But I am equally certain that
they will be seriously troubled when they realise that "frightfulness"
is what is in their eyes far worse than a crime; it is a blunder. When
the German Hyde has recovered from his debauch of bestiality and
violence, we may expect the German Jekyll to begin assuring us that he
is really a very decent sort of fellow after all. For Jekyll will come
some day to realise that Hyde's crimes have not helped his cause, that
Hyde was really not merely a savage--that he could accept without a
pang--but that he was a sad blunderer. That, to the German, is the real
unforgivable sin. And blunderer in his campaign of "frightfulness" the
German assuredly has been and is. The policy of terrorism has been a
complete failure; it has failed in Belgium, it has failed in France, it
has failed in Serbia, it has failed in Poland, it has failed afloat, and
it has failed in the air. It is a record of blood and murder unredeemed
by a solitary success; it has steeled the hearts and the resolution of
all to whom it has been applied, and among the neutral nations it has
provoked feelings which cause nausea whenever Germany is mentioned.
In the face of unmentionable horrors--unmentionable except in the pages
of official reports--Belgium has steadily refused to have any traffic
whatever with the Huns; her soldiers are preparing to-day to take their
full meed of vengeance of those who have made a desert of her smiling
land. Serbia is still unconquered, though her land is occupied and
devastated. Poland spurns the German yoke. Britain not only is
undismayed, but is more firmly resolved than ever to make an end for
good and all of German pretensions. Russia is striking shrewd blows,
and will strike yet harder in the near future. Italy is steadily
preparing for greater things. France is her own great self, and is
waiting with unconquerable resolution for the appointed hour. Only in
Germany and her Allies do we discover a growing spirit of apprehension
and of weakening purpose. Can we say in the face of all these things
that the policy of "frightfulness" has been anything but a blunder of
the first magnitude?
It is commonly assumed that German savagery reached its height in the
sinking of the "Lusitania," and certainly that crime struck the
conscience of civilisation more forcibly than the horrors in Belgium,
partly because it was a direct object-lesson of the depths to which
modern Germany was capable of descending. But in sober truth the
"Lusitania" outrage was nothing in comparison with what had been done in
Belgium. There Germany's record of horrors was so atrocious that no
respectable newspaper could reproduce the evidence gathered by the
French Official Commission, and only those who had read the original
could form any conception of what the reality must have been. The
victims of the "Lusitania" at least died swiftly and comparatively
painlessly; Belgium's lot was in too many cases such that death would
have been infinitely preferable. But to the sinking of the "Lusitania"
is to be attributed the uprising of the wrath of the United States, who
saw over a hundred of her citizens simply murdered in cold blood.
It is not for us to criticise the action the United States may think fit
to adopt in defence of its own people, but it is certain that nine
Americans out of ten are far ahead of their Government in their opinion
of what ought to be done. What will be done is a matter for the
Americans themselves, and we have no right to interfere. But it is at
least to be regretted, in the interest of international morality and
good faith, that the United States, as the foremost of the neutral
nations, did not see fit to protest against German violation of
international law until the interests of American citizens were directly
attacked. The failure of the neutral nations to make such a protest has
probably done untold harm to the prospects of international agreements
in the future. What value, for instance, will the world, in days to
come, attach to the proceedings of a Hague Convention whose solemn
agreements Germany has been permitted to infringe without a word of
protest from neutrals who shared in its deliberations and acquiesced in
its decisions?
German disregard of the decencies of international life and her lack of
understanding of the feelings of other nations have been abundantly
shown in the conspiracy of intimidation which has been carried on in the
United States. It seemed quite natural to the Germans that their
Embassy in Washington should be made the head centre for plots which
were calculated, and intended, to provoke a conflict between the United
States and Great Britain. They seem to have been quite incapable of
realising that the United States might possibly object to being made the
cat's-paw of German diplomacy, just as they seem to have thought that
the blowing up of American munition works to prevent supplies reaching
the Allies was a proceeding about which Americans could have no real
reason to complain. In the same manner they appear to have thought that
the forgery of United States passports for the use of their spies in
England was a mere trifle, undeserving of the slightest censure,
regardless of the fact that no other nation in the world would stoop to
such unspeakable meanness.
The result of their blundering is that they have brought themselves
within measurable distance of having a war with America on their hands,
and but for the patience of President Wilson war would have broken out
long ago. It is believed, of course, that for some reasons war with the
United States would serve the German purpose at the present moment by
giving them an excuse for making peace on the plausible ground that they
could not fight the whole world; but whatever may be the truth about
this now, it was certainly not the truth in the early days of the War
when the Germans were overwhelmingly confident that they could win.
Even then they were flouting the United States in every possible way,
and showing the greatest contempt for the greatest of the neutral
nations. It was all of a piece with the blundering diplomacy which has
been exhibited in every quarter of the world.
The complete failure of Germany to placate Italy is another blunder
which will have a great effect in the final outcome of the War. Perhaps
Austria in those days was not quite so servile to her German masters as
she is to-day. In any case the attempt failed; and if we are to measure
blunders in diplomacy, we can quite justifiably set the German failure
in this respect against our own supposed failure in the Balkans with the
confidence that the Germans have at least lost as much as we did--
probably they have lost a great deal more. The Germans undoubtedly
relied upon Bulgaria to overcome the Serbian resistance, just as they
relied upon the Turk to help them turn us out of Egypt and open up a
direct German route to Persia and India and the East generally. But
what are the facts of the situation? There is every reason to believe
that relations between the Germans and their Allies are none too
cordial. Bulgar and Turk alike hate Teutonic arrogance, and both are
beginning to realise that they have been duped. There is every reason
to think that the Bulgars are already repenting of their bargain, while
the Turks, in the loss of Erzerum, see a vital blow struck by the
Russians at the very heart of their Empire. Moreover, we know that the
huge supplies which the Germans hoped to draw from both Turkey and
Bulgaria are not forthcoming for the simple reason that they do not
exist. Turkey unmistakably is tottering to her final fall, and then, we
may well ask, what becomes of the grandiose German plans for an advance
on Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India? Can we say that in this direction,
more than in others, the German plans have gone well?
The Dardanelles expedition is popularly held to be the greatest blunder
of our campaign. But are we quite so sure that, failure though it was,
it was all lost effort, or even, as things were, that it was not worth
the price we paid? That is a question which will be settled only by the
historian of the future. But to those who see in it only the failure of
a great effort and the sacrifice of many gallant lives it may be pointed
out that it had very important results.
In the first place, it held up at least half a million Turks who would
have been very useful elsewhere, it brought the enemy a loss of probably
200,000 men, it sensibly weakened his powers of resistance, and in all
probability it very materially assisted the Russians to win their great
victory at Erzerum. It undoubtedly did much to stave off the threatened
attack on Egypt and the Suez Canal, and it probably saved our expedition
in Mesopotamia from utter disaster. I do not say all these things could
not have been achieved otherwise, but I do feel that in balancing gains
and losses we have a right to claim that even in the tragedy of the
Dardanelles there are compensations to be found if we try to look at the
matter in a cool and impartial light. Most unfortunately the issue has
been clouded by the introduction of the personal element as between Mr
Churchill and Sir John Fisher, and until the heat of that controversy
has cooled down it is unlikely that the problem of the Dardanelles will
receive anything like fair and adequate consideration.
The worst of our blunders was our unpreparedness, and for it we are
paying a heavy price. But since we set our hands to the plough we have
made such efforts as no nation has ever made in the history of the
world; and if we had made no mistakes in the raising and training and
using of three millions of men in warfare of a type of which we have had
no previous experience, we should indeed have been the supermen which
the Germans proudly believe and boast themselves to be. Our mistakes
have been many and grievous; they will be many and grievous in the days
that are to come. But at least we are justified in saying that we are
not the only blunderers. Germany started the War with the inestimable
advantage of complete readiness for the fray; and if she had not made
mistakes at least equal to those of the Allies, she would long ago have
been mistress of Europe and well on the way to the dominating position
in the world of which she dreamed, but which she will never occupy.