March 2, igi6. 
L A N D AND WATER. 
offensive of liis shall be, a strategical defeat. Gn that 
alone is the whole energy of the French command deter- 
mined. Whether upon this single sector of the heights 
of Verdun, or as is now possible, rather than probable, 
upon another sector also (should the enemy extend his 
own plan to a double movement, attacking upon two 
distant sectors before the offensive is concluded), the 
object of the Alliance is to render that offensive as 
expensive as it can possibly be made. 
The retirement of the French from one line to another 
until the main position was reached was conducted solely 
with that view. Each new position chosen, but in 
particular the main ridge which has been the scene of 
the tremendous fighting sjnce Friday last, is regarded 
strictly and solely as a condition which compels the enemy 
to sacrifice masses upon masses of men. And the test (jf 
French success or failure at the close of the great adventure, 
if the line can hold unbroken, will not be the ultimate 
position of that line, but the higher proportional 
exhausting and dwindling of military capacity which the 
effort may have imposed upon the Germans. 
The Contrast in Method. 
Such a calculation or scheme on either side is possible 
from the contrasting ideas of the two commands. 
We have in the whole of this great battle a contrast 
between a certain French strategical conception and^ a 
certain German tactical tradition, each enriched by new 
experience gained in this war. 
The general French strategical conception at work 
is familiar to readers of these columns. In all its forms 
there underlies that conception the detaining of an enemy 
superior offensi\-e by the smallest number which can 
sustain the shock, and the maintaining in reserve of all 
that can possibly be so spared, with the object of bringing 
such fresh forces into play just at the right moment to 
achieve a maximum result. From the smallest details 
to the largest plans, this strategical conception is seen 
underlying the operations of the French command. 
You have it in that vast business the Battle of the Marne ; 
you have it in the particnlar instance of the two fresh 
divisions which were launched witTl exact art at the 
precise moment necessary to reco\er the plateau of 
Douaumont last Saturday. 
It is obvious, and has been ob\-ious all the years 
during which this conception has been discussed, for 
and against, up and down Europe— it has been obvious 
especially during the present campaign— that such ideas 
can only be translated into reality by the successful 
exercise of a \ery accurate calculation in things as much 
moral as material. Upon the moral side comes in the 
peril (and therefore the art as well) of all such methiods. 
If you overestimate the resisting power of your few 
troops which take the first .shock, you suffer irremediable 
disaster. If you mistake the exact moment for the counter 
offensive, you suffer disaster no less. 
It is a method perilous in the extreme, but, like all 
risky work, yielding a harvest corresponding to its 
peril if it succeeds. 
We do not know with what number of men the 
first shock was received at the week-end ten days ago. 
We know that the enemy launched against the first 
French line from Brabant round to Herbebois elements 
drawn from at least fourteen divisions. The first shock 
was probably taken by elements drawn from not more 
than three French divisions. 
As the operation developed larger bodies were 
brought into play by the enemy. By Saturday last 
men from 25 German divisions wer« already at work. 
Correspondingly the French resistance, as it fell back 
from line to line was fed by new material. We do not 
know, again, how many French units took the assault, 
last Saturday from assaulting, bodies representing 25 
divisions of the enemy, but we know tiiat they were still 
deliberately left inferior in numbers to their assailants. 
We can be fairly certain that even by Friday — after 
a week of the strain — the French Higher Command had 
not moved its general reserve at all ; and that all the 
work done round Verdun had been done by the troops 
assigned to that sector, including the local reserve; 
though it is possible that before the close of Saturday, 
the 26th, certain new units had come up from another 
portion of the line. 
The German assault showed once niore the unbroken 
tactical traditions inherited from two centuries of War. 
and this coupled with the extension and confirmation ol 
it by the experience of the present campaign. It was a 
blow struck upon a comparatively narrow front with .i 
very dense mass of infantry whose charge had been 
prepared by the heaviest of artillery work — that is., the 
whole of his method. Just as the French proposi to 
succeed through exactitude in an art and through a 
perilously close calculation which suits their genius; so 
does the Prussian tradition rely upon the peculiar advan- 
tage it possesses, the certitude that no losses will destroy 
the cohesion of its infantry. The Prussian claims, not 
without justice, that his type of discipline can maintain in 
being for days a " battering ram "of a density, weight and 
momentum superior to any other service. That it can 
therefore deliver a blow of an intensity superior to what 
any other service could deliver ; because no matter how 
packed the achancing bodies, and no matter how enor- 
mous the consequent losses, eitlier they will not break, 
or, if they break, fresh bodies will at once b^ ready to 
renew the charge. 
We saw that principle at work upon the Grand 
"CouronneiS months ago, where it broke down altogether 
and failed. We saw it months afterwards upon the 
Dunajetz, where the new lesson taught Ijy the Wav of the 
new scale upon which heavy munitions must be pro- 
vided, had been learnt by the Prussian Higher Conunand. 
and, where it was aided by the great inferiority of the 
enemy in that same matter. 
We are now seeing precisely the same tactical tradi- 
tion being put to the supreme test against the steep, 
straight hills of the Meuse. 
II. 
THE ACTION ITSELF. 
The public has noted from the telegrams of the last 
ten days the advance of German troops over a certain belt 
of ground (five miles in width at the broadest and a little 
over three at the narrowest). There is a danger, as wa 
have seen, that this movement may distract our attention 
from the real nature of the fight and confuse in our judg- 
ment the main issue. 
The advance of the enemy and the retirement of the 
French were throughout all the first live days of the 
great battle no more than preliminaries leading up to the 
final situation, which was fully reached not earlier than 
the seventh day, Friday, February 25th. 
Upon the previous evening, that of Tinu'sday, 
February 24th, the h>ench line, falling back in a manner 
to be later described, had reached its principal dTensive 
organisation, a certain ridge to which we will gi\'e a nam: 
for the sake of clearness (though it has no local nam.', as 
a whole) and will call " The ridge of Louvemont "— 
from the nam? of the principal village standim; upon 
those heights. 
It was only at this moment, the evening of Thurs- 
day,' the 24th, that the last dispositions of the French for 
meeting the great attack, which had been so long fore- 
seen and prepared for, were fully taken. And it is onl\' 
on the next day (Friday) that the body of the action 
takes final form. 
In other words, what happened from Saturday, the 
igth February, up to the evening of Thursday, the 
24th, was no more than the successive abandonment 
by the French in good order — with the loss of guns indeed, 
and with the falling into the enemy's hands of perhaps a 
tenth of their first line men — of one line after another 
until they had reached that upon which they had jilanned 
to stand. On the fortunes of that last line the issue 
would turn. I shall brietfy r\-eicw the details of thes3 
preliminary retirements. 
Details of the Retirements. 
\ 
It was. as we have said, during the course of Saturday, 
the 19th Fcoruary, that the enemy opened the action 
by an intensive bombardment with his heavy artillery, 
against the first advance line of the French, .\fter this 
intense bombardment, co\ering about forty-eight hours 
of time and extending from the Meus'e at Brabant to the 
neighbourhood of Ornes (that is, over a shallow bow 
