8 
LAND& WATER 
July 0, 1916 
the situation soberly and iii frcqnent rommiiniques to 
the Britisli people. 
(5) Lastly, the enemy certainly calculated upon a 
partial exhaustion of munitioninent upon the French 
side. He is here, happily for us. badly handicapped. We 
know much more accurately how much he can prodiice 
than he knows how much we can. 
The proof of this is his ignorance of the way in which 
the French delivery of shell alone would equal his own 
during all the last j)hase of the attack. Nevertheless, he 
may have argued that a certain partial exhaustion was 
necessarily taking place with the French mimitionment 
as it was taking place with his own. He could not 
deliver shell continuously. He was himself compelled 
to certain lulls in the rate of expenditure during which 
lulls he re-accumulated his head of shell. And he thought 
it at least probable that he was similarly preventing the 
French from accumulating any great reserve. Though 
he cannot have been ignorant of the fact that other 
sections of the line were piling up munitions against him 
in overwhelming quantities. 
Such would seem to be the five main particular motives 
which, combined, decided him to continue mere mechanical 
attack after he had lost the battle of Verdun and all hope 
of achieving a decision at this point. 
But we shall not understand his combination of these 
five motives unless we seize the general truth that an 
army engaged upon such an offensive operation after 
it has passed a certain point must in any case continue. 
Whether the action be one of a few hours or a few days 
or of many weeks the principle is the same. 
Many metaphors have been used to put it vividly 
and concisely. It has been compared to the suction of a 
whirlpool. It has been compared to what the French 
call engrcnure, that is, the drawing in of anything by the 
teeth of a cogwheel, the action of which is such that once 
a man's hand is in, his arm follows and after his arm 
his bod3^ 
It has been compared to another metaphor, to the 
hooking on of force to force, the attacker being regarded 
in this metaphor as caught by a bait and fixed in a posi- 
tion from which he cannot escape. 
But all these metaphors are metaphors only, and 
while they state do not explain. It is no wonder that 
those who have not studied military history — the great 
majority of educated men — should have refused to be 
satisfied with such metaphors and should demand a 
plainer statement. 
That statement may I think be put as follows ; though 
it is not an easy thing to define. 
The attacking force before it is launched must be 
organised at an expense of time which is largely pro- 
portionate to the magnitude of the operation in view. 
There is not only the material factor of bringing up 
artillery, building behind that artillery a great head of 
shell, preparing the local traffic for supply, roads, light 
railways and the rest. There is also the moral expendi- 
ture of time in the stalY work and thinking out all the 
details in the establishment of a whole network of arrange- 
ments with a million connections and meshes which cannot 
be unravelled, which can still less be renewed save at a 
very grave expenditure of time. An offensive action, 
therefore, once designed, is like any other investment, 
a thing which a man is tempted to continue even after 
it has apparentl)' failed, and which he almost invariably 
does so continue. There is always the temptation not 
to cut one's losses, and sometimes almost the physical 
constraint to go on 'ong after hope has been lost. 
Next consider what may be called the momentum of 
such a thing, moral and material. You have set a great 
machine in motion. Everything leads up to this machine 
in its particular field of action and in the direction towards 
which you have directed it. All its supply, all the 
movements of its various parts— almost infinite in 
number in such a case — if it is in that place and that 
fashion which you have originally presented your effort. 
Finally, we must add to a complete comprehension of a 
phenomenon universal in the whole history of war, the 
elementary truth tbiat continuance is at least the continu- 
ance of the known, and as exhaustion proceeds a change of 
plan is a plunge into the unknown. The further ex- 
haustion proceeds the more risky is that unknown. 
The German Higher Command could say to itself, " To- 
day at such and such a point we advanced 70 j'ards. A 
week ago we took such and such a Wood of 30 acres. 
To-morraw we shall perhaps put our troops into that 
ruined village 200 yards in front of our present trenches " 
— and so forth. It is a process continuing upon lines 
already known. A process which can be represented, not 
only to those whom one would deceive but even to one's 
own mind, as a continuous " advance," and therefore 
in some vague sense continuous success. If viav produce 
some unexpected good firrtime. To attempt a change 
in the whole plan in the eleventh houf, to attempt with 
gravely depleted forces a retirement, still more to attempt 
another attack elsewhere, may be possible at one critical 
moment if that moment is exactly chosen. Imme- 
diately after such a moment it is increasingly dangercnis 
and there comes a time when it will b? necessarily disastrous. 
Waterloo's Classical Example 
The classical example of Napoleon's attack at Water- 
loo has been quoted by a dozen critics since the German 
determination to continue after they had lost their 
original action at Verdun was apparent. Waterloo 
concerned only a mile and a half of ground, 200,000 men 
and a few hours. Verdun concerns between 20 and 30 
miles of ground, nearly two million men from first to 
last, and many weeks. But, as J said above, the principle 
is exactly the same. 
In all the marvellous work of Houssaye upon Waterloo 
there is nothing more striking than the famous sentence 
in which he argues, speaking of the failure of the first 
cavalry charges against the British squares and of the 
middle of the afternoon just before the Prussians could 
make their pressure really felt (they were already 
approaching the field and were on the point of taking 
contact), "Why didn't the Emperor break off the battle ? " 
And he answers far more lucidly than I have been able 
to put it, by much the sarfie set of statements which I have 
here made, and concludes with the phrase " because 
therefore he could not." This " therefore " covers not 
only his military but his political reasons. When it was 
clear that the British line would stand and that the 
Prussian attack was very visibly developing before him 
upon his right flank in the clear westering sun which took 
his lines full in face, the Emperor must have known 
that the battle was lost, yet he continued up to the very 
sunset of that long June day cavalry charge upon cavalry 
charge and then at the end sent in and lost the Guard. 
What else could he have done ? Had he broken battle 
and retreated, upon what political situation would he 
have retreated ? What bstter chance had he against 
combined and overwhelming forces whose junction he 
had failed to prevent. Should he postpone their blow 
by a few hours he might still desperately hope that in the 
continued attack somehow, somewhere, something would 
turn up. He could hope nothing from breaking ofi, 
even though he knew that in every military sense of the 
term the battle was already lost. His forces were not 
sufficient to develop a new attack elsewhere. Their 
moral was no longer sufficient for such a purpose. Every 
one of the metaphors used above applies exactly to that 
last phase of the retreat at the battle of Waterloo. Had 
there been a sensational press in those days, fed by the 
telegraph, and had W'ellington's defensive been con- 
tinued not for hours but for several weeks, during which 
such a press could have played upon popular emotions, 
one can imagine what the posters would have been ! 
" The Prussian Hue compelled to fall back." " The 
French nearer to the big Elm tree." " The French not 
exhausted. Fresh forces continually appearing." "Why 
are not the Prussians already upon the field ? " One can 
imagine such sentences as the following from leading 
articles : " With no desire of underrating the glorious 
efforts of our Prussian Allies we cannot conceal from our 
readers the extreme gravity of the fact that they are 
still 1,400 yards from Planchcnoit, and the best opinion 
is puzzled to observe the moving in echelon under such 
circumstances," etc., etc. 
The fundamental point about those last afternoon 
hours of Waterloo was that an exhausted and already 
beaten enemy was compelled to continue his attack. He 
had no other choice and in that very fact was making 
more decisive and thorough his necessary defeat. 
The continued attack on Verdun therefore simply 
means that the crisis now approaching as I write — the 
