LAND AND WATER 
OctoLcr 3, 1014 
witluhiiw forces tLcy really need elsewhere, (2) a 
serious effort to turu the Allied right and establish 
those new short and convenient lines of comnuiniea- 
tion direct to (.Jern\any through !Motz and Strasburg 
which would gi'catly increase the strength of the 
Oernian Anny. 
In other words, ci titer the Germans are licre 
attenij)ting no more than to turn off the attention of the 
Allies from the Oise, to malvc them nervous about their 
extreme eastern Hank, and to make them withdraw 
men from the west (where the chief jjeril to tlic 
(Jennan Army now lies) ; or, they are intending - 
with larger masses than we had supposed to be present 
— a very serious operation : ])ushing in between Toul 
and Verdun, taking or maskivig these fortresses, and 
so threatening tlie rear of the French line between 
Rheims and Argonne that it will be compelled to fall 
back. With it will then fall back, as rapidly, and perhaps 
with disaster, the troops on the Upper Moselle — that is, 
in the region of Nancy and facing the Vosges. 
It is further evident, as I have said, that the 
success of the lesser object might very well lead to 
the prosecution of the niore serious one. 
Though the thing was begun as a feint in order 
to distract the Allies and to make them withdraw 
men from the west, yet if it went through successfully 
it might assume such importance that it woidd be 
worth the Gennan while to bring men round to this 
eastern point upon the Meuse, to push forward 
threatening the rear of the Allies, and to make the 
whole of the French line now in Champagne between 
Eheims and the Argonne fall right back, dragging 
with it all the troops now in the Moselle valley south 
of and beyond Toul. 
The elements of the business should be clear 
from the following diagram : 
Here you have the Allied line A— B, with the 
German line in contact with it E— F. These stretch 
from east to west right across from the Eiver Oise to 
the forest of Argonne. To the right or east of these 
two Imesyou have a German force G— H of unknown 
size prqKjsmg to get through the parallel opposed 
by ^ eixlun— V and Toul— T and the forts XXX 
between them. It is evident that if this German 
lorce (:r— H could get to M before the Allied line had 
turned back to save itself, that German force G— H 
woidd have turned the Allied line and would have 
brought its right wing to disaster. If, therefore 
Cr— H is m suilicient force to go fonvard and if he 
has not 111 front of him at K— L French forces 
sutticicnt to stop him, he can at the most destroy the 
right wmg of the Allies, and, at the least, compel it to 
laU back from A— B where it now lies to .say A— O 
>r -J?"i '^ *l'^ ,-^"^'"^ ^"'^ ^'^""^^^ f'^" back on to 
M-N It would leave the remaining French armies, 
A— V, wJiicli arc Avatching the region of Toul— T, 
and Nancy — N, and the Upper Moselle Valley — Z, 
separated from their fellows and doomed. Therefore, 
to avoid disaster these armies also, V — Q, would have 
to fall back to some such position as S — T, and tho 
general result would be, after a German success of this 
kind, not only that the whole mass of the French Army, 
east of Eheims at least, would have been thrust right 
away from the frontier and have suffered all the 
consequences of a ra])id retreat, but also that the 
Germans would, after their success, be able to use the 
new great lines of communication, X X — Y Y, which 
had hitherto been blocked to them from the fact that 
their two chief railAvays, from Metz the one, from 
Strasburg the other, run through Verdun — V and 
Toul — T respectively. 
^Ve may sum up this first point, then, our 
conjecture as to the object of the German move, by 
saying that it is either a movement in force designed 
to threaten the right rear of the general French line, 
to isolate and force back the French armies on the 
Upper ]\Ioselle and to establish new and much better 
lines of communication from the German bases to 
the German armies in the field; or it is a feint, 
undertaken as yet with no sufficient force, intended 
only to distract the French commanders so that 
they shall withdraw troops from the west where 
the existing German communications are in peril. 
But we may add that if the insufficient force.'* 
used merely for a feint have rapid and unexpected 
success, it may bo worth the German while to 
reinforce them and turn tho feint into a serious 
effort. 
Such being the only jwssible alternatives, the 
only po.ssible two objects the Germans have in making 
their new- move, let us next consider what forces they 
can use to achieve either the one object or the other. 
If their purjiose be only a feint, a comparatively 
small force would be sufficient. One-tenth of tlieip 
total effectives in line between Alsace and Picardy 
would do the business— say six divisions or a little 
more. With these they could maintain the defensive 
which they have so carefully prepared in the difficult 
Vosges country ; and they could fend off dm-ing the 
days in which the feint was in progress, even if no 
longer, attacks from the garrisons of Verdun and of 
Toul down from the north and up from the south 
of their forward western movement. 
The reduction of the forts ujion the jMeuse 
—the opening of a breach through the barrier does, 
not affect this discussion — it would have had 
to be done anyhow, whether for a feint or for a. 
serious effort. 
It was not a question of numbers, but of the 
power of the big howitzers against modern fortifi- 
cation ; and the piercing of the line by the silencing^ 
of the forts, though a necessary preliminary to the 
success of such a feint, is not in itself equivalent to 
the success even of that feint, let alone of a serious 
blow. It may be compared to the forcing of a door in. 
a wall when you have some unknown number of 
opponents on the other side of the door after it is 
forced, and two bodies of o]iponeiits to the right and 
to the left of the door to threaten your men as they 
go through. You have opened the door as a ruse io 
distract or really intending to go through— but you 
nave done no more. 
If, therefore, the Germans have not collected 
Here any considerable mass of men (" considerable " 
as the_ word may be used in the i>resent gi<nintie 
campaign— for forces that would have been o-reat 
armies in the past are to-day but fractions of the 
millions engaged), if, I say the Germans have not 
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