August 2 2, 1918 
Land & Water 
Chaulnes, and completely put out of use the railway junction 
there by which alone railway supply could reach Montdidier. 
The enemy thus found himself in Montdidier at the head of 
a very dangerously narrow salient, and was compelled to 
fall back, with extreme rapidity and great loss, sacrificing 
the garrison in Montdidier itself. By the Saturday night at 
the end of this second phase the line ran in front of Chaulnes ; 
the Germans had made a large bulge round the important 
railway "junction of Roye, and on their extreme left were 
reposing upon ..the Lassigny Hills. Upon the Sunday, 
August nth, opened the last phase of the battle, which has 
lasted a week. The northern half of the line has been 
stabilised. On the southern half, yet another French army 
has oome into play — the French Third Army. This has 
mastered the greater part of the Hill of Lassigny, while the 
French First Army has closed right in upon Ro^^e. The line, 
therefore, at the moment of writing contains no prominent 
salient or re-entrant, and is nearly stabilised!' There has 
been reached a situation not unlike that at the opening of 
the first battle. The salient to be reduced has been com- 
pletely reduced. To save himself from disaster the enemy 
has had to put in very rapidly the greater part of his remaining 
reserves. His heavy losses have gone stiH further to 
change the numerical proportion between himself and his 
opponents. 
RECOVERY OF THE RAILWAYS 
Of the general strategic situation created by these two 
victorious actions — that is, their effect upon the respective 
opportunities for further action on the two sides — I shall 
speak in a moment. 
Meanwhile, we note that, apart from the recovery of 
ground, which is in itself no object, and apart from the heavy 
reduction in German lumbers and in German fresh units 
— which is of high importance— the two battles have between 
them released the main lateral communications of the Allied 
armies, which, before the counter-offensive of July i8th, 
were both of them under German fire and oiit of use, greatly 
hampering the manoeuvring of the Allies, and compelling 
them to the transport of troops back and forth by lengthy and 
roundabout railway communications further back.- These 
two lateral communications, which are, of course, only one 
lateral communication in combination, are, first, the main 
railway from Paris to the East, passing through Epernay 
and Chalons ; and, second!}', the main railway from the 
coast to Paris, passing through Abbeville and Amiens. The 
former was released — that is, was out of range of German 
effective fire- — perhaps as early as July 28th, and certainly 
not later than the great attack on Hill 205 upon Thursday, 
August 1st. The second, the Amiens railway was relieved 
at once on the delivery of the first blow of the second battle,' 
upon Thursday, August 8th. 
These great lateral lines of communication had been cut, 
that of Amiens since the end of March, and that of Paris- 
Chalons since the end of May. For six weeks, therefore, all 
eastern communication had been somewhat diverted, and 
for three months all northern main communication. The 
restoration of these lines to use cannot but be of profound 
effect upon the future of the campaign. 
The Strategical Situation 
THESE two great battles have left a certain strategical 
situation. What is that strategical situation ? In 
our reply to that lies our understanding of the 
present phase of the war. 
Such is the nature of the modem world, with its immense 
expansion in the detail of knowledge, that almost every 
branch of inquirj' has acquired a mass of technical terms, 
and the students of even so simple a matter as military history 
tend to abuse those terms. I hope I am not doing so in 
using the phrase "strategical situation." It means no more 
than the profit and loss account at any particular stage of 
opposing armies. It is an estimate of how they stand in 
their actual and potential strength, and how, therefore, 
their future — from the merely military point of view — 
appears. 
The strategical situation created by the two great victories 
of July i8th-3ist and August 8th-20th is briefly the complete 
reversal of that which existed at the moment when the 
Germans made their last great attack upon Monday, July 15th, 
and which had existed perilously clear really since Caporetto 
last October, but apparent to all eyes since St. Quentin 
last March. 
On the morning of Monday, July 15th, the enemy possessed 
the two great instruments of final victory : The initiative 
and the superiority of effective power. By the early after- 
noon of the day, though he had lost neither, he had clearly 
put both in peril through an initial failure. 
The Allied armies delivered their svuT)rise counter-attack 
at dawn of the next Thursday, July i8th. By about half- 
past ten in the morning of that day the initiative had passed 
from the enemy to usj and the superiority of effective power, 
though it was not yet ours, was a thing which eould be imme- 
diately aimed at and rapidly attained. To-day it is attained. 
THE MEANING OF THE INITIATIVE 
Let me make clear the meaning of these terms which I 
have used, and which are fundamental to understanding the 
position. The initiative has been defined here over and over 
again ; but I will repeat the definitions : That one of two 
opponents who can give the form to the conflict possesses 
the initiative. That one whose every move is the cause of 
his opponent's every move, and whose will and mind there- 
fore precedes and leads those of his opponent, possesses the 
initiative. That one who is watched by his opponent in 
doubt, and to whose action the opponent must conform, 
possesses' the initiative. That one who, therefore, determines 
on each successive step in the progress of an action or a 
campaign and makes each step of his opponent a mere con- 
sequence of his own, possesses the initiative. 
It has been compared to "the move" in chess; but. 
indeed, it is an element which you will discover in any form 
of competition or conflict. It is not the same as offensive 
action, though it is commonly accompanied by offensive 
action. It obviously is not the same as victory, though it 
is a necessary condition of victory. It can be lost by a 
bad blimder, even when one has a superiority of effective 
power, though a growing superiority of effective power makes 
it less and less easy even for a blunderer to lose it. 
He that possesses the initiative has the invaluable advan- 
tage of acting with a'.free will,, while his enemy acts with a 
constrained will. He can determine where and how each 
action shall take place. That does not mean necessary 
victory, but it means the power of choice in the conditions 
of victory. It is the difference between hope and doubt, 
between making and merely preserving. 
This great asset, I say, passed before noon of Thursday, 
July i8th — exactly a month age — from the hands of Luden-^ 
dorfi to the hands of Foch. 
But there was something else which had to pass, and that 
something else was the superiority of effective power. The 
same national genius which had decided July i8th, 1918, 
had decided September gth, 1914, when, in the First Battle 
of the Marne the initiative passed from Germany to the 
Franco-British Army. But superiority in effective power 
did not pass at the same time, nor shortly afterwards. There- 
fore, the First Battle of the Marne, though it gave its shape 
to the whole war, was not decisive. 
Now, to-day not only has there been a recovery of the 
Jnitiative, but a transference in the superiority of effective 
power. I will deal with that formula in its turn and define it. 
Superiority in effective power consists (supposing tactical 
skill and value to be equal on the two sides) in two essential 
elements. The first is numerical superiority in men and 
material. That is the most obvious one, and that is the one 
which all appreciate and understand. The second one is of 
equal importance. It is superiority in the number of avail- 
able units in reserve; and that is not the same thing as 
superiority in number, though at first sight it might be 
taken to be so. 
At first sight one would say, "if one body of 100 men are 
fighting another body of the same size, the reserves left to 
either at the end of the fight will depend upon the actual 
losses, and can depend upon nothing else." 
But this is not the case. Armies are not organised as a 
ma«s of individuals. They are organised as a mass of units? 
'each unit containing many individuals, and built up of many 
sub-units. The great unit which gives its texture to these 
enormous modern armies is the division. The divisien is, so to 
speak, the cell of the organism. Now, if the effect of a battle is 
such that of an equal number of reserve divisions upon either 
side more reserve divisions are compelled to go into action on 
