July 4, 1918 
Land & Water 
Strategical Problems : By Henri Bidou 
The uriter of this article, M. Henri Bidou, is a most 
distinguished French military critic, on the staff of " La 
Journal des Dehats." He has proved himself ogain and 
again singularly icell informed, a'ld his writings are 
closely folhued in military circles. It must be remembered 
ihat.M. Bidou wrote the following article twelve days ago. 
IF we would form a clear conception of the military 
situation we must begin by ascertaining what the 
problem is that actually confronts each of the belH- 
gerents for solution at the present moment. "What 
is the proposition ? " was the question that General 
Verdy de Vernois asked in 1S66, when he arrived on the 
battlefield at Nachod. It became a traditional maxim, and 
was the first question proposed to the pupils of General 
Foch at the School of War. 
For the Germans the proposition undoubtedly is the 
termination of the war by putting the Western enemy out of 
action as the result of a decisive battle in the ancient manner. 
The German Press frankly declares its desire for such a 
decision. 
This decisive battle has been made possible by the defec- 
tion of Russia, which gave Germany a numerical superiority 
of some fifty divisions. It has been made necessary by the 
internal condition of Germany, where the distress is very 
acute, ■ and it has been made urgent by the fear of the 
American Army coming into the line. The Germans, although 
enjoying a temporary superiority, have but a very short 
time in which to exploit it, and are obhged to obtain a decisive 
vittory within- that period. And, lastly, their superiority 
is not i-enewable, by which is meant that their reserves of 
man-power have been encroaclied upon much more deeply 
than have those of the Allies. 
It is calculated that this spring they had 600,000 men in 
their depots, 200,000 of these being forn>er casualties re- 
turned to service and 400,000 recruits of the 1919 class ; 
but since the beginning of the Offensive large use is known 
to have been made of these recruits. Further, Germany, has 
called up half of the 1920 class, and the other half will be 
called up in September. That is a tragic state of affairs. 
After having led t'he whole of her young manhood to the 
slaughter, the only resource l^^ft to Germany would be the 
employment of non-German soldiers. It is by no means 
impossible that she has thought of this alieady. 
During the spring a powerful Austrian mass of manoeuvre 
was disposed in such a way as to be available for movement 
as circumstances might require to either the French or the 
Italian front. The German High Command finally decided 
to launch it against the Italian front, and oh .June 19th the 
entire available might of ./Vustria was. thrown into a great 
battle from which the appearances at the moment of writing 
are that it will not extricate itself very easily. 
» • ♦' ~ 
|I^At the beginning of the year the British airmen distinctly 
observed behind the Cambrai-St. Quentin Front preparations 
for a great attack directed westwards upon the British right 
wing. Simultaneously,"^ 
the Germans were 
fortifying the line of 
the Serre, behind 
Laon, to the south, 
in order to protect the 
left flank of this 
attack from possible 
French intervention. 
And, lastly, in accord- 
ance with its invar- 
iable practice at the 
beginning of operations 
on a laige scale, the 
German High Com- 
mand • created two 
new armies — the 
X V I 1 1 h and the 
X \^ II 1 1 h — w h i c h 
encircled the old Ilnd 
Army to the north 
and the south. 
The object aimed 
at was the separation 
of the French and 
British forces. It is 
very likely that the 
General View of the Marne Valley 
ulterior development of the operation would have been the 
containing of the British forces in a vast entrenched camp, 
formed by their bridge-head upon the Continent. Experience 
has shown that no army has eycr escaped from an entrenched 
camp of this kind when it has once been enclosed within it. 
So there is no need whatever to credit the enemy with the 
idea of having planned the destruction of the British Army. 
There is no reason to suppose that it desired to commit so 
gross a strategical blunder. The destruction would have 
cost the Germans .a great number of men and a great deal of 
'time, and it would also have been harassed constantly by 
French interference, so that the German Army would inevit- 
ably have been compelled to split up into two masses of 
equal strength — that is to say, of equal weakness — one 
engaged with Sir Douglas Haig and the other with General 
Petain. It is much more reasonable to suppose that Luden- 
dorff, if his plan had been crowned with success, would have 
been content with locking Sir Douglas Haig up within a 
ring fence, extremely difficult to break through and capable 
of being guarded by a comparatively small number of troops, 
while all the rest of the German Army would have fallen 
upon the French. 
Only— Ludendorff's plan was not crowned with success. 
His attack, launched on March 21st, brought him at 10 p.m. 
on the 27th to Montdidier. Just for a moment he had 
ground for believing that he Ifad separated his two oppon- 
ents, and that he had won the match. 
His dismay can be imagined when on the following day 
— the 28th — as he was preparing to cut the railway from 
Amiens to Paris, he was held up on the west^ of Montdidier 
by French colonial troops who detrained and defended the 
stations at which they had just landed. It was a terrible 
moment for the German Army. The troops had been 
fighting for a week. They were something like thirty-eight 
miles from the point whence they had started, were ex-* 
hausted, without food, almost without artillery and muni- 
tions, and all their units were mixed up. They were in the 
same plight that they had been in on the Marne in September, 
1914. The only difference was that in 1914 the French had 
retired towards their base and their reinforcements, which 
enabled them to make an energetic counter-advance, while 
in 1918 they were retiring in an eccentric direction, which 
made a similar re-estabhshment impossible. 
The German XVIIlth Army was thus able to escape the 
disaster which had all but overtaken it in the very moment 
of its triumph. But Ludendorff's plan nevertheless ' was 
hopelessly compromised. Future historians will very pro- 
bably regard this March 28th as one of the most decisive 
days in the war. For from that moment the enemy High 
Command provisionally abandoned the idea of delivering a 
decisive blow, and began another series of preparatory 
manoeuvres. 
It is impossible not to be struck by the resemblance 
between these manoeuvres and those which marked the 
beginning of the battle of Verdun in February and March, 
1916. At Verdun, likewise, the German attack began with 
aviolent blow, 
intended -to carry the 
town. After an initial 
assault, the Crown 
Prince was checked on 
the D o u a u m o n t 
height. He then began 
a series of new man- 
ueuvres, consisting of 
alternate battering- 
ram blows on the two 
flanks of the action, 
on each occasion 
gaining a scrap of 
ground, but \vithout 
being able to retrieve 
the final success which 
had been missed once 
for all. Exactly the 
same thing occurred 
inigiS. The battle of 
March 21st, 1918, was 
the equivalent of the 
initial assault of 
February 21st, 1916. 
The check to the west 
of Montdidier repre- 
uffaal I'ko-u 
