10 
Land & Water 
July 25, 1918 
time to develop. TIu- counter-preparation, of whidi such 
frequent mention lias been made in the commitniqiu's relatinj,' 
to tile latest eiigaf<einents, undoui)tedly plays an impurtaiit 
part ill the new defensi\-e tactics of the .Mlies. .Another 
device, mentioned in German newspapers, appears to have 
given results: when crossinj; the last ditch that separated 
them from the l-Yench lines tiie columns of assault have been 
caught in an artificial fog in which they lost their direction 
and were thrown into confusion. This trick would appear 
to have been used on June gth, at the crossing of the Divette. 
Are there any other new methods of defensive tactics ? 
I do not know. But what is beyond all question is that for 
the first time, instead of swamping the entire defensive line, 
the (ieniian attack advanced only at a few points. On the 
left, one division succeeded in penetrating the first day as 
far as the southern slope of the massif of Lassigny to the farm 
of La Cruse ; in the centre a Hessian division penetrated the 
length of the Matz to within sight of the Anmde. But lietween 
the two a division of the (iuards made a much smaller advance, 
and on the right of the Hessians the progress made was so 
inadequate that their flank was e.vposed. 
The enemy attack being thus cut up, the defensive 
counter-attack is developed. In the Noyon-Montdidier 
battle it was delivered on June nth, the third day after the 
attack. Foch delivered his return thrust in the right flank 
of the enemy, on the plateau of .Miry, with complete success. 
This flank thrust is what French soldiers colloquially term 
"the dig in the ribs." By a cle\er stroke F'och prevented 
the German centre from prosecuting its success. An opera- 
tion started by the enemy left wing on the 12th, which should 
have been made in convergence with the advance of the 
right wing, was obliged to develop separately and resulted 
in failure. The entire German manceuvre was broken up. 
This return thrust in the flank, of course, is no new thing, 
but General Foch employed it with consummate mastery. 
Previously, on May 27th, he had thrown his reserves in the 
same fashion upon the right flank of the enemy marching 
southwards to the Marne, and compelled him to change his 
front westward. 
To« sum up, the Germans' strategical plans were attended 
and served by a new method of tactics, which had been 
e.xperimented with in Russia and in Italy. On three occasions 
this method effected a break through over a wide front, on 
March 21st, April 9th, and May 27th. On the fourth occasion 
it resulted in merely partial advances, in the formation of 
bays in the line instead of a general submergence. On the 
fifth occasion, in Italy, on June 15th, its result was much 
the same. In these two last cases it ended in failure. It 
is difficult to predict that it will never succeed again, but its 
measure has been taken. Henceforward it will be possible 
to parry the blow, and we must hope that it will be parried. 
Playing the Cards 
We have the greater ground for hope because, in the course 
of these three months' offensive, the enemy has appreciably 
exhausted himself. He had 219 divisionsin France, but a 
score of these were of such poor quality that they could take 
no part in a grand offensive. Let us assume that Ludendorff 
has rather more than 190 divisions to play with, these, also, 
of very uneven quality. Up to the present he has employed 
rather less than 170. That is to say, that of his divisions 
which, if not good, were, at least, passable, only a score 
remain intact in his hand. We may further suppose that these 
are not the best. 
To understand what follows, think of the divisions as the 
cards which a gambler holds in his hand. Only his cards 
are not played once for all. At the end of a certain time he 
can pick them up and deal them again ; but on each occasion 
they lose one or two points of their original value. Luden- 
dorff, then, had 190 fresh divisions to deal with. He threw 
more than no of them into the battle of the Somme a num- 
ber large enough to justify all that we have said about the 
preponderating importance of that battle. Into the other 
battles he has thrown a number of new cards which, compared 
with the trumps wasted before Amiens, is extremely small 
If he employed 40 new divisions ujwii the Lvs he put no mere 
than twelve into the battle of the Aisne, and only three into 
the battle of June 9th between \ovon and Montdidier 
Thus he has become more and more miserly in his use of 
divisions not previously engaged, jealously preserving to 
these last few days, as we have sa,id already, the last score 
Since he was reluctant to employ fresh divisions he was 
obliged to pick up the cards he had played already and use 
divisions which had been in action already since March ^ist 
The proportion naturally grew from battle to battle as "tint 
of the fresh troops decreased : less than a dozen on the I ys 
and three times more on the Aisne. At last, in the battle'of 
June gth, the proportion of troops that had been engaged 
|)reviously to fresh divisions was as five to one. 
Thus we reach the total of a force engaged equal to 229 
engaged divisions. But even this is not all ; on each field 
of battle the same division has appeared two and three times. 
So that we can say that by this method of turning over again 
Ludendorff has employed in battle in F'rance' since the begin- 
ning of the spring a number of divisions much greater than 
that of the divisions which make up the German Army. 
Naturally, I cannot give the latest figures. But since March 
2oth, of about 150 divisions which took part in the battles 
of the Somme and the Lys nearly half had returned twice 
to the firing line, and nearly a seventh had come back three 
times. So that for 150 different divisions engaged there is in 
reality more than 260 engagements of divisions. \x\d 
subse(]uent to that the battle's of May 27th and June 9th haA-e 
apprecial)ly increased the German wastage. 
It would be immensely interesting to compare these figures 
with the number of divisions engaged by the Allies. With 
regard to this, of course, I can only give the figures published 
by the Germans, which there is consequently no reason for 
withholding. On June 21st the German newspapers pub- 
lished a note stating the total number of divisions employed 
by the Allies in the different battles of 1918. The figures 
were : In the battle of the Somme, 75 of infantry and 6 of 
cavalry, that is a fourth less than the enemy ; on the Lys, 
36 of infantry and 2 of cavalry, again a fourth less than the 
enemy ; in the battles of the" Aisne, on the contrary, there 
was a slight superiority in the number of troops engaged on 
our side ; in the Noyon— Montdidier battle on June 9th we 
had two less than the enemy. Of the total of i8g infantry 
divisions belonging to the British and French, 177 had been 
engaged up to about the middle of June. An important 
article in the Frankfort Gazette, on June i6th, arrives at the 
same conclusion. Of the 190 divisions, or thereabouts, at 
the disposal of Foch, that article said, he has about twenty 
left which have not been in action. 
If the German divisions of poor quality are eliminated 
approximately the same total is reached on both sides: 
190 divisions, of which about a score are still quite fresh. 
But our calculation has shown that the German divisions 
have, undoubtedly, been engaged more frequently. Yef, 
let us suppose that the losses upon both sides are equal. It 
is obvious that the contribution of the Americans, of which 
no account has been taken yet, goes e.xclusively to turn the 
balance in favour of thfe Allies. 
The Sum of Results 
What, in conclusion, are the actual facts of the situation ? 
1. The enemy attempted on March 21st an operation on 
the Franco-British point of junction. This operation ended 
in failure on the 28th and has not been resumed. 
2. The enemy, probably with the intention of weakening 
the Franco-British junction in the centre, then delivered 
heavy blows upon the two flanks ; on the left wing on April 
9th (the battle of the Lys), and on the right wing on May 
27th (the battle of the Aisne). 
3. Whatever may have been said about it, the successes 
obtained by the Germans in these battles were not due to 
numerical superiority, but to the superiority of their tactical 
method. In the battle of the Aisne a single German div- 
ision, the First Division of the Guard, was engaged in the 
course of three days with seven successive French divisions : 
On the first day, with the 22nd division on the Ailette and 
then with the 157th to the south of the Aisne ; on the second 
day with the 39th ; on the third day with the 152nd, the 
ist and the 43rd, and in the evening" with the 4th. Again, 
in the battle of June 9th, one German division marching 
from Orvillers on Lataule, was engaged with three French 
divisions. 
4. This German method of tactics, which seemed to be 
invincible, subsequently failed on two occasions: once in 
an attack upon the Oise on June 9th, and once in Italy, in 
an attack made by Austrian troops on June 15th. 
5- Since then the Germans have remained stationary, 
harassed since June 28th by local attacks delivered by the 
Allies and holding some fifty fresh divisions in reserve in 
the rear without making up their mind to attack. The delay 
IS all the more surprising because in the interval the British 
Armies had time to effect +heir readjustment and the American 
Army to come into being. " A period of pause," says General 
Foch in The Conduct of War (p. 222), "means giving the 
enemy the chance to recover from the first blow and to appeal 
trom the first judgment given by arms to a new decision 
independent of the former one." It is for that appeal from 
the judgment of Mars, lodged by the Allies at the tribunal 
ol victory, that we are waiting to-day. 
