August I, 1918 
Land & Water 
The German Retreat: By H. Belloc 
PL'BLIC opinion has only tardily seized the. truth 
tliat the war changed in character upon the evening 
of Monda\-, July 15th. It was then clear that the 
Germans had slipped and stumbled heavily on the 
threshold of their offensive. By half-past ten of 
the morning of July i8th the great counter-stroke, planned' 
by Petain, ordered by Foch, and delivered by Mangin and 
Degoutte, restored the initiative to the Allies. 
After the experiences of Caporetto, St. Quentin and the 
Chemin-des- Dames it is not wonderful that the observer in 
the West should come to a mood in which he would doubt any 
good news. It was impossible that the same writers and 
politicians who had talked so contidcHtly of the line in the 
West being "unbreakable," should- not, after it had been 
thoroughly broken, abstain not only from prophesy, but 
even from judgment. 
Now, prophesy in all human affairs, but particularly in 
war, is futile. Judgment is not. We can always state 
(within the limits of our knowledge, at least) the factors of 
a problem and estimate the probabilities it affords. Further 
than that we cannot go. But to hesitate in so simple a 
task is as much an error as the other extreme of confidently 
foretelling victory and pretending to read events to come. 
The present situation has elements upon which we can 
found a certain judgment. The plain facts before us are these: 
After the tremendous captures in Italy last autumn, and 
in France and Flanders this spring, and before the coming 
into the field of anv appreciable American contingents, the 
enemy enjoyed not only his new tactical instrument, but a 
considerable numerical majority as well. The two together 
made the position exceedingly grave. 
He seemed able by his new tactical instrument to break a 
line when and where he would. Counting from Rheims to 
the North Sea (much more than half the working part of the 
Western line), he had broken the old quasi-permanent forti- 
fication, forced back his opponents, and restored a war of 
movement everywhere save in two short fragments that 
still held : the marshy lower part of the Yser and the stretch 
between Givenchy and the Vimy Ridge. Everywhere else 
the Allies st(X)d in rapidly construct-ed trenches and upon a 
line in constant fluctuation. Everywhere they had been 
thrust back. Everywhere they were in peril. 
Two features alone appeared in favour of our cause. Both 
of them were unexpected by the enemy when he planned those 
great offensives which should have given him a decision in 
this Slimmer of igi8. 
Tlie first of these features was the unexpectedly high 
losses which the enemy had sustained. These were due in 
each case to the fact that, though he broke the line, he was 
uiftible to prevent its reforming far back, and when that had 
taken place he invariably refused to accept the situation, 
and continued to hammer too long in the hope of forcing a 
complete rupture. 
Unexpected Casualties 
These great efforts were exceedingly expensive. For 
example : His hrst success at .Caporetto was very cheaply 
won ; but he threw awaj' great numbers in the early part of 
November by attempting to break the northern flank of the 
Piave line. In the great victory' he won at St. Quentin he 
paid a ^leavy price for his failure of the first day, and then 
again a fortnight later threw away masses of men in his 
attempt to force his way to the Somme Valley and to Amiens, 
in which attempt he failed. On the Lys, immediately after, 
he lost little in his break-through on April 9th and loth, 
but his expenses in men increased with every day until in 
the battle of April 29th he was brought to a standstill with 
such heavy loss that it took him a month to recruit. He 
completely destroyed the defences of the Chemin-des-Dames 
on May 27th. He did it in a couple of hours with astonishingly 
little loss. But when he had established his great salient of 
the Tardcnois he went on hammering for more than a week, 
along the western edge of it, at a great cost in men and with 
no appreciable result, until he was again finally held. Defini- 
tive losses (counting dead, mutilated, and prisoners) were 
probably in this series of actions nearly as high upon our 
side as upon his, liut they were far higher on his side tlian 
he had budgeted for, and this was proved by the long delay 
which each successive check imposed upon him. 
Meanwhile, the second feature in our favour— the growth 
of American recruitment — was unexpectedly rapid. 
The dehvery of men across the Atlantic, thanks to the 
elasticity of the American system aod its admirable organisa- 
tion, was far, far moi;e than the enemy had thought possible. 
It increased enormously after the disasters of last March. 
What is perhaps more remarkable, the rate of American 
training in the French camps, the rate at which the men 
who had completed their preliminary instruction in the 
United States were turned out from the " bottle neck " 6i 
special instruction in France, was something which the 
enemy had not conceived possible. Appreciable new Ameri- 
can contingents had already appeared in line by April. In 
May they were considerable. In the month of June the effect 
of this new factor, coupled with the enemy losses, began to 
tell. Not only were the American troops greater in number 
than had been allowed for by the enemy, but they were of 
far greater tactical value than had been allowed for by him. 
Whether negatively (as holding in parts of the line while 
the French and British attacked in others) or positively 
(as instruments of attack), their presence began to count 
for more and more. 
The preliminaries of the change might have been noted 
by any careful observer as early as the second week in June. 
It was upon the gth of that month that the Germans 
attempted to reduce the salient of Compiegne, dangerously 
pinched between their earlier advance from St. Quentin and 
their later advance from the Chemin-des-Dames. This 
attempt is known as the Battle of the Matz. It was the 
first failure upon a large scale of the new tactical method the 
enemy had discovered. An advance of a few miles in the 
centre ; the turning of the Lassigny Hills, and a withdrawal 
by a short distance from the neighbourhood of Noyon, was 
followed on the third and fourth days of the battle by a 
counter-attack under General Mangin- upon the left of the 
centre, which completely broke this preliminary offensive 
and brought it to an end. 
The enemy had used upon this occasion somewhat less 
than thirty divisions .first and last. It was not his main or 
final attack. It was only, as I have said, a preliminary 
towards it. But his failure was ominous of the future. It 
was clear both that the growth of numbers on the Allied 
side and that experience of the enemy's new tactical method, 
with the discovery of corresponding methods for meeting it, 
were turning the tables. 
Nevertheless, the enemy determined upon one more great 
throw, and we know from prisoners, and even from his own 
Press, what was expected of it. It was to be decisive. He 
waited between five and six weeks accumulating a force 
appro.ximately equal to that with which he had struck in his 
vast effort of March. Then upon Monday, July 15th, he 
launched an offensive over an even greater sector than that 
of his vast opening attack of four months before. He fell upon 
the Allies in a sector of 55 miles of which Rheims was the 
centre, and which was held almost entirely by French troops, 
but with certain American contingents upon the extreme 
left. He had little, if any, less than 60 divisions present, 
and was prepared to call in case of success upon more from 
the north. The foroe used in the great attack of March, 
when he was still untouched, was no larger. 
Even as early as the evening of that day (July 15th) it 
was clear that he had failed. Upon his left, east of Rheims, 
between that ruined city and the Argonne, a special organisa- 
tion of the defensive in depth — a wise and secret retirement, 
coupled with advanced observation informing advanced 
batteries, had caused him to launch his blow into the void 
at a vast loss in men from the informed French guns. The 
25 divisions which he had here — nearly a quarter of a million 
infantry — were ruined, and have not since been able to strike 
again. Upon his right between Chateau-Thierry and Rheims 
he crossed the Marne with eight divisions, having another 
eight holding the front of the Mountain of Rheims and 
pushing into its outskirts, while behind these 15 and more 
were ready to follow up any success. 
But in the very first day his extreme right above Chateau- 
Thierry was thrown back by a newly arrived American 
contingent, powerful, in quality as in number, beyond his 
expectation. The left of those of his forces which had 
crossed the Marne pushed up the Epernay Road, but were 
held by the French. He filled the two following days (Tues- 
day and Wednesday, the ifith and 17th) with futile attempts 
to enlarge this bridge-head. 
Then, on Thursday, the i8th, came the movement which 
changed the character of the war. The French on the north. 
