August 8 , 1918 
Land & Water 
The enemj- had in front of him upon the West an opponent 
thus divided into three groups. Tlie British and French 
stood, it is true, upon one continuous line, but were composed 
of different armies with different traditions under separate 
commands, each holding its own sector. The Italian Army 
was entirely separate. With the exception of the few troops 
guarding the impossible mountain stretch between the 
Swiss frontier and Lake Garda, it lay wholly in the north- 
east of Italy at the furthest point from its French and British 
Allies, and most of it at the furthest point of that again, 
right away upon and across the Isonzo. It was obvious 
that if the new tactic which the Germans had been able to 
prepare, thanks to the Russian collapse and the superiority 
of number which they and the Austrians could bring to bear, 
were successfully used upon the Italian section of the Allies, 
if a decision could be here arrived at and the Italians either 
compelled to make peace — 6r, at any rate, reduced to military 
impotence — the war was won. After such a success the 
Central Empires could combine against the French and 
English in an overwhelming superiority. 
The enemy, therefore, was right in deciding to trj' his 
new weapon first against the Italians. He came very near 
indeed to a decision — that is, to a complete victory which 
should have reduced this opponent of his to a hopeless 
inferiority. He immensely increased his strength and 
decreased that of the Western Alliance; but he just failed 
to reach a true decision, and this feature in his method we 
shall be able to discover again and again as we analyse the 
proceedings of the months to follow. 
On the Upper Isonzo, above Gorizia, the mountains stand 
dominating on either side a narrow valley which sometimes 
is no wider than a gorge. Roads lead to three crossing- 
places upon this, which, read from north to south, are Plezzo, 
Caporetto, and Tolmino- St. -Lucia. From Caporetto, the 
central one of these three, a road leads through a gap in the 
hills down on to the Italian plain. This front was held by 
the Second Italian Army ; the Third Italian Army con- 
tinuing the line from above Gorizia down to the sea. 
Upon Wednesday, October 24th, 1917, the new enemy 
tactic developed in these months of leisure on the East was 
first brought into play. The Isonzo Gorge and Valley were 
crossed at the three places named, and at Caporetto (from 
which place the action takes its name) the centre was com- 
pletely broken. 
By Friday the head of the spear-thrust was already upon 
the Italian Plain through the completely ruptured line. Six 
German divisions, with probably as many or more reserve, 
specially trained in the new type of shock, had accomplished 
this result, and the whole mass which the Allied Central 
Empires had collected in the neighbourhood poured through 
the sluice. The Third Italian Army, to the' south, was 
completely turned. Udine, the old headquarters, two days' 
march from Caporetto, was occupied. With immense loss, 
our Allies fell back as rapidly as they could. They were 
unable to stand upon the Tagliamento ; they could not 
rally until they had reached the Piave. Before the action 
was over, in the course of little more than a week, many 
guns and very many prisoners marked the triumph of the 
enemy, a triumph achieved, unfortunately, with very littje 
loss to himself. At tjie very beginning of this disaster we 
wrote here in our issue of November ist that it might 
well determine the future of the war, and had already 
profoundly modified its character ; that its gravity could 
not be over-estimated. 
The New Tactical Method 
As the effect of the enemy victory developed the truth of 
these words became more and more apparent. The disaster 
was explained in various ways, mainly political, but the 
truth was that a new instrument of war had appeared in the 
Western field. 
In spite of their immense losses in men and in material, 
the Italians held upon the line of the Piave and the Asiago 
Plateau, which flanked it between the Montello and Lake 
Garda. The enemy did not possess methods of advance 
sufficiently rapid for so vast a host to compel a decision. 
It seemed, at first, as though nothing could prevent a retire- 
ment, at least, to the line of the Adige, with the abandonment 
of Venice and its arsenal, and therefore of the whole Adriatic ; 
but those upon the spot, and particplarly (it is said) the 
present Commander-in-Chief, advised the risk of standing 
upon the Piave line, in spite of the fact that it presented a 
dangerous northern flank. The risk was accepted, and it 
has turned out that the judgment was wise . Before the end 
of November it was clear that the line would liold. 
What has been learnt from this capital affair by those who 
were wise enough to note its magnitude and character was 
that the enemy now possessed ^a new tactical method in- 
directly due to his new superiority in number, and that in 
its turn due to the breakdown of Russia. This new tactical 
method threatened to be universally successful. It had not 
in its first application achieved a true decision ; it had not 
put the Itahan Army out of action. But it had weakened 
it most grievously. It had added enormously to the artillery 
of the enemy, and for the first time in all these years of war 
a true rupture in the trench lines had been made upon the 
Western front. 
A Further Innovation 
A long winter pause was to follow before the next great 
example of this new method, and of its success was to be 
given upon an occasion still more critical, five months later, 
in France. In that interval, however, the British developed 
a new tactical instrument of their own, which came very 
near to achieving a decisive local and perhaps a decisive 
general success. Upon Tuesday, November 20th, 1917, 
General Byng attacked the critical nodal point of Cambrai 
in a fashion hitherto unknown. He struck with a line of 
tanks, advanced without artillery preparation, and effected a 
complete surprise. He reached the outskirts of Cambrai 
itself, and it seemed for the moment as though the fruits of 
so complete a' rupture in the German line would be at least 
as great upon our side as what had been seen upon the 
enemy's side in Italy. The enemy's fortified defensive zone 
— the so-called "Hindenburg line," the work of many 
months — was completely shattered. What General Byng, 
with the Third Army, lacked — what the enemy had possessed 
when he broke the line in Italy a month before — was a suffi- 
ciency of force and a power of rapid movement to make imme- 
diate use of the rupture. A large salient was created, many 
thousand prisoners were taken, but the advance was held. 
There was not enough weight behind it. Indeed, only ten 
days after this success, at the end of the month, the enemy 
effected a surprise in his turn against the southern side of 
the new sahent thus created, captured in his turn prisoners 
and threatened for the moment a grave disaster to the whole 
Third, Army — a disaster averted only by the tenacity of the 
troops upon the north and the rapid throwing in against the 
south of all that could be gathered at a moment's notice to 
stem the enemy advance. 
This incident of Cambrai seems, in the light of what followed 
three and a half months later, but a minor part of the great 
struggle. None the less, there was a moment when it pro- 
mised very great results indeed, and only in these last few 
days a repetition of the tactics which the British Third Army 
had inaugurated had results which may be decisive upon 
the history of the war, and have, at any rate, for the moment 
destroyed the great German offensive against Rheims. 
We must pass from this incident of Cambrai, concluded in 
the first days of December, to the second use of the new 
instrument of war the Germans had produced ; and before 
examining that second instance we must review the conditions 
which appeared before them as the \yinter of 1917-8 closed. 
These conditions were as follows : 
They had a considerable numerical majority upon the 
Western front against the British, French, and ItaHans. 
That numerical superiority would ultimately be lost by the 
arrival of American contingents. These would take long to 
train. The perfection of their training was doubtful, so were 
the conditions of their transport. The balance could hardly 
be turned during the fighting season of 1918, but it might be 
brought to a level by the end of the summer. Meanwhile, 
the enemy possessed not only this numerical superiority, but 
what was of much more importance (though an indirect 
consequence of it), a novel method of attack which he beheved 
to be invincible, and which had not yet been successfully 
met. With such an instrument in hand, it behoved him to 
strike as soon as possible that he might achieve his result 
before the weight of American numbers could tell. The 
weather favoured him ; an exceptionally early* drought, with 
exceptionally high temperatures, gave him his opportunity 
as early as the month of March, and it was upon the 21st of 
that month that he delivered a blow far superior in power to 
his first success against the Itahans, and designed and 
expected to con'-lude the war. The following elements were 
in his favour : 
1. He had learnt to concentrate with secrecy — a 
thing hitherto not obtained by either side. 
2. He had interior lines, and, granted that his con- 
centration was not observed, could strike where he would. 
3. With his united command and homogeneous force 
he was striking on a front held by two very different 
forces, under separate commands — the french and the' 
British. 
