LAND & WATER 
April 19, 1917 
The Two Offensives 
By Hilaire Belloc 
By our Retreat we have prevented the Spring 
offensive of the Allies : German pronouncement to 
Neutrals on the retirement of St- Quentin. 
WHEN Land & Water went to press last week, 
the news which had reached England of the first 
great Allied offensive in France covered only the 
ver\' beginning of that action and even left its 
principal result undetermined. It was therefore impossible 
as we said at the time, to do more than observe a very brief 
stretch of the struggle, or to do more than conjecture its 
results. We were not even yet certain that a counter-attack 
would not be successful against that all-important position of 
\'imy Ridge, the loss ot which the enemy had hitherto never 
jiermitted to be permanent. 
This week we have the fullest accounts of the action 
before us, and it is possible to sur\'ey it in detail and as 
a whole. 
By a similar coincidence the second great blow of the 
Allies, long prepared and calculated to co-ordinate at the 
chosen moment with the first, was initiated exactly a week 
later. Only the first news, therefore, of this, the French 
operation, has come in at the moment of writing, and no 
full analysis or description of it is possible, but only a brief 
summary at the close. 
iMt us begin by seizing the most salient character in such 
operations as these. That character is the necessity for, 
■prolonged concentration. Though the principle is the same, 
the mass of metal, stores and men to be concentrated is 
many thousand times as great as it was in the old war of 
positions, and (in spite of modern invention) the time required 
for its accumulation is also much greater, and is measured 
in weeks instead of days. 
Elements of Doubt 
It is impossible to prevent an enemy from knowing that 
such a concentration is taking place, because eve'n a very 
partial obser\'ation from the air betrays it, let alone informa- 
tion from spies and prisoners. Nevertheless, there are three 
elements of uncertainty and therefore of possible surprise 
always present for the confusion of the enemy, and to these 
is added upon the present Western front, a fourth. 
The three permanent elements of doubt in the enemy's 
mind are (i) as to the full degree of the concentration ; (2) 
as to the e.xact date when it will be used ; and (3) as to the 
efficacy with which it will be used ; and in proportion to his 
miscalculation in these three matt6rs, or to his opponents' 
efticiency in surprising him upon thein, will be the severity 
of the blow he receives. ,;, . 
To these elements of surprises which will always be present 
even under modern conditions, we add, under the present 
conditions of the Western front, a fourth which is of the 
greatest moment to the issue of the war. The enemy is not 
presented with a single concentration but with several. He 
knows nothing of the order in which each will come into^^ 
play. ^^^' 
This last point is of very great importance to the undfer^/ 
standing of the campaign during its present phase. 7>v- 
When the enemy launched his great attack upon ■^^«rdu.. 
in February 1915, the point of his concentration was f^eri|C.f^' 
fectly well-known, and so were a great many of his ■^r'"— '■'• 
preparations, such as the special training of the corps 
had been chosen for the attack. There was an effeineni « 1 
surprise which was the degree of fire power which be li'nl 
prepared, and in this he succeeded in deceiving the defence. 
But the enemy did not propose the method of sevpiii 
concentrations. There were students, of the war i 
country who expected and even confidently prophi 
second offensive after that against Verdun haci been launched.. ^ 
The Tinii's even went so far as to give us the place where V 
this would occur and mentioned the Champagne just west of 
Argonne. It did more. It told us wheii a piece of fighting 
did occur upon no great scale in that region that this second 
great offensive had begun. But these conjectures were quite 
erroneous. The enemy had determined to stake all upon 
the one effort of V'erdun. His great success upon the Eastern 
front of ten months before had convinced him that this was 
the right method. He Irad- there, in Gahcia, concentrated 
upon a comparatively small front and had broken the line 
opposed to him in a single blow. He believed he could do 
the same in the West. 
To-day conditions are veiy different. The Grand AUiance 
has surpassed him in munitionment and in man-power upon 
the West, and he stands under the threat of divt'rse olfensives, 
each of which he must watch and no one of which he can 
place in its proper order. 
The result is that he must hesitate before deciding to 
counter-concentrate against any particular one, and that 
hesitation is necessarily maintained until the first of the 
shocks is delivered. When that happens he is compelled 
to meet it and can, of course, meet it by rapidly massing 
against it. But he remains in doubt about the point where 
the next necessity for massing shall come and about his 
power of meeting it in his turn. In other words, superiority 
in numbers and in rnunitionment, and above all in heavy 
guns, has, as is natural, put the initiative into the hands of 
the AUiance. It is true that the enemy has accumulated 
a large strategic reserve ; it is true, as we shall show at the 
close of this, that he desires to use this reserve later in the 
restoration of a war of movement. But it is not true that he 
can now choose the hour and the conditions of using it. 
The consequence of this possession of the initiative by the 
.\llies is that each blow, when it is struck, achieves its imme- 
diate purpose ; puts out of action a large proportion of his 
men, compels him to a hurried concentration upon the point 
chosen, deprives him for good and all of a large proportion 
of his material and further, as we shall see, increases the 
growing instability of his defence. The stronger he shows 
'himself against one sector of the alhed pressure, the weaker 
he is, on that very account, upon another, and an apparent 
check to the sti'onger side in one paft of these great new 
battles of mass -is actually the cause of success in another 
sector. An offensive such as that begun by the British 
upon Easter Sunday to the north of his new line, breaks 
.up yet another- section of his old permanent line, adds 
by so many miles to his new unstable and fluid line 
and begins to restore, but not in his sense, movement 
upon the Western . front. It is followed, just when he 
is most embarrassed, by the second blow, the French attack 
on the south and an extension of the whole defensive task 
set him to something like 125 miles. And he is not secure 
against a third. 
Now let us look at the nature of the task which lay before 
the British army just before tiie first great attack was 
delivered, and follo.w in detail the success of that attack. 
The German -retirement . from the great salient of Noyon 
has been towards a line already prepared, which ran from 
near Arras upon the north to the ,\isne abo\-e Soissons upon 
the south. It eliniinated the dangerous salient of Noyon 
which had beto^e 1 art cularly perilous under the pressure 
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