168 ^V. CROSS GEOLOGY IX THE WORLD AVAR AXD AFTER 



The layman at least may be pardoned for thinking that Bloch's 

 prophecy came near to fulfillment, as to the end of the Great AYar. Had 

 the armies of all j^arts of the long line across Belgium and France and 

 from Italy to the Baltic been fairly matched, a deadlock might have re- 

 sulted, had not other major factors of decisive importance appeared in 

 other fields. Perhaps future students of this war may point out that if 

 Belgium and France had reinforced their great border fortresses by pre- 

 pared trench lines, or if they had been ready to make them quickly on 

 selected lines, the German army might have been stopped short, in 1914. 



COXDITIOXS AT THE BEGIXXIXG OF THE WAR 



It would seem that the Germans may have prepared in some measure 

 for trench warfare, if it should come, for they dug in with amazing 

 rapidity after the first battle of the Marne, on lines from which it took 

 3'ears to dislodge them. But they had planned a different kind of cam- 

 paign, and it will be shown that their study of position warfare was far 

 from thorough. This brings us to the question whether or not plans for 

 the use of geologists in various armies had been made before the war 

 broke out. 



For all but the German army the events show that very slight prepara- 

 tion, if any, had been made for the use of such expert services. And even 

 the German staff had no adequate plans for a geological corps. Our 

 knowledge on this point is explicit. 



More than one year before the declaration of war Captain Walter Kranz 

 (retired) published in the Kriegstechnische Zeitschrift an article on 

 military geology, in which he complains that while "in practically all 

 fields of military life the sciences are pushing forward, and many of them 

 have secured permanent posts in military service, only one branch of 

 natural science must today stand aside as a stepchild, and that one is 

 geology." Captain Kranz had served as an expert on the water supply 

 and other engineering problems of fortresses, in which geology was im- 

 portant, but he had also given much thought to other services the geol- 

 ogist might render. His broad thesis is that the development of modern 

 weapons has forced the soldier to adapt himself more carefully than ever 

 in all his operations to the nature of the terrain about him and can no 

 longer slight the science of that terrain — geology. 



Captain Kranz reviews the need for a geologist's advice in connection 

 with field fortifications, which, along the French front, would traverse a 

 great section of formations of different character, from the crystalline 

 rocks of the Yosges Mountains to the Eocene and Cretaceous near the 

 channel, and taking part in structures the geologist alone would under- 



