September 12, 1918 
LAND &> WATER 
CAUSES OF THE CHANGE 
Why did the German Government — and, it is to be pre- 
sumed, the Higher Command — determine to adopt this 
policy now, in the first week of September, 1918 ? They 
had known for seven weeks that the initiative had passed to 
Marshal Foch, and that henceforward that initiative would 
be combined with a rapid increase in the numbers of their 
opponents. They had experienced five successive heavy 
defeats in the field followed by five successive confused, 
expensive, and involuntary retirements. One might have 
thought that the moment for acting as they have now acted 
would have come earlier. But upon a little consideration it 
would appear that the remarkable thing is rather that it has 
come as early as it has. The open season is not yet over, 
nor is there any reason why the continuation of the AlHed 
attacks should cease with the ending of that season. Tlie 
continuous increase in numbers, not only in men, but in air- 
craft and material, will not be checked by the advent of winter, 
nor is winter in Lorraine what it is in Flanders. Why has 
the enemy Government chosen such a moment ? Why has 
its people generally expected the new policy at such a moment ? 
So far as I can judge, the reason is that something had to be 
said in view of the rapid decline in enemy power and of the 
obvious breakdown of the enemy's military plan. What 
had been said ior months (and it was only the sequel to 
things that had been said for years — ever since 1870, one 
may say) was a series of boastings. There has never been 
such an orgy of boasting on the part of any people in historj' 
as the successive pronouncements, academic, military, and, 
literary, which poured from Prussia throughout that period. 
They had got into a state of mind in which everything 
was necessarily a triuntph ; if they lost 150,000 men and 
2,000 guns it was a strategical defeat for the Entente ; if 
they provoked one great nation after another into joining the 
crusade, it was proof of their strength ; if they sickened the 
world with some act of barbarism or some piece of stupidity 
the disgust of the world was regarded as a form of applause. 
Now, this state of mind had come upon a certain pheno- 
menon which it could no longer transform by illusion. 
Humanity does not go mad, only individuals. The craziest 
stupidity and the most comic vanity, save in the case of 
the madman, yield to a certain degree of external evidence. 
That degree of external evidence has been passed during the 
last few weeks in the case of Prussia and her dependent 
States. A number of perfectly definite things had been said 
which the public mind of the German Empire, and to a less 
extent of German-speaking Austria, had accepted as truth. 
An American Army could not cross the Atlantic ; such 
srpall force as could cross could not be supplied ; when 
it appeared in the field its fighting value would be small ; 
the reserves created by Foch had all been used up before the 
the date of July 15th ; the reduction of tonnage would be 
sufficient to reduce the Allied effort upon the Continent before 
the summer of 1917.. These are only a few of the perfectly 
definite spoken judgments given with authority upon which 
the public mind in Germany was formed. Now what has 
happened since July iSth has made all these statements and 
any number of others ridiculous. It is impossible for illusion 
to survive such shocks as the German vanity has suffered in 
these six or seven weeks. To have left the public mind in th;3 
German Empire free to express itself and open to sponta- 
neous action would have meant a rapid loss of authority. 
Something new had to be said, and said at once, or there 
might have been a moral breakdown which would have been 
the ominous forerunner of a military breakdown, and what 
was said would have to correspond more or less to reality. 
Hence the date and the startling novelty of the present 
declaration. "A victory over the Western Powers is im- 
possible. We will now take up a purely defensive war and 
in that prove ourselves invincible. We will sp tire out the 
allies by our long and stubborn deduce that they will accept 
a negotiated peace." 
If such be the cause of this revolution in the enemy's 
attitude, what are the probable effects of the new policy ? 
The first thing that strikes one is that never before in histor\' 
has any General told his soldiers that they were occupied in 
a purely defensive war. Politicians talk hke that, but soldiers 
don't, for the very simple reason that the phrase has no 
military meaning. There is no such thing as a continued 
defensive : a defensive is undertaken with the object of 
turning to the offensive later on. Another way of putting 
it is to say that a permanent defensive is a confession of in- 
evitable defeat, and if you are quite certain that you are going 
to be defeated it is obviously better to accept your defeat 
before further losses fall upon you. 
Now the politician may answer with justice tliat he is not 
concerned with a purely military problem ; that he sees 
such forces at work that a mere defensive, continued 
for a certain time, will give him all he wants without further 
military effort. Still the effect upon the soldier's mind of 
being told that he is defeated — for that is what it comes 
to — is very great, and we must put the effect of the new 
policy upon the German army down as an asset upon our 
side. \Vhatever the result may be upon the civilians the 
result upon the fighting men will be bad. Next we must 
x;onsider the effect upon the German opinion at home. 
This will depend entirely upon the military results of the 
next few weeks. That is where I see a certain wisdom of 
the German authorities in this sudden declaration, which 
is so dangerous to the moral of their armies. If the enemy 
defensive manages to hold the Allied pressure even for a few 
weeks, the declaration which the German authorities have 
made will be treated not only as a true prophecy, but as a 
proof that those directing the fortunes of the German Empire 
have been acting according to a plan which has proved 
successful. Supposing for instance the Allied Higher Com- 
mand had said, after the disaster of March 22nd last : 
"Things are looking bad no doubt, but you will see the 
retirement stop a little short of Amiens." That judgment 
would have sounded harsh in the ears of soldiers, so vast 
a loss of ground annoimced to them at such a moment 
would have badly weakened their moral, but it would un- 
doubtedly have strengthened opinion at home when the 
retreat stopped at the point indicated. People would have 
said they were in the hands of Generals who, though their 
fortunes appear very bad for the moment, make a plan 
and carry it out successfully. 
Of course, the Allied Command would never have said 
such a thing. I give it only as a parallel to the effect which 
will be produced in Germany if the prophecy just issued by 
the German authorities should be fulfilled even for a few 
weeks. 
THE EFFECT ON THE ALLIES 
But there is a third effect which the enemy certainly had 
in view and to which I think he attached more importance 
than he did to the two others ; I mean the effect the new 
declaration would probably have upon the public in the 
Allied countries. 
On previous occasions in this war the enemy has used 
this method to affect his opponent's nerve. Often he has 
prophesied wrongly and thereby weakened himself morally 
in the struggle. The classic example of this was his prophecy 
about submarine warfare. But on other occasions he has 
gambled that success. For instance he boasted that the 
advance of April last year would never reach Douai from 
the British lines, or Laon from the French ; he proved right ; 
and the event which in itself tended to lower the Allied 
moral was enhanced in its effect by the impression that' the 
enemy's judgment had proved superior to our own in his 
forecast. 
The calculation is therefore something of this sort : " To 
proclaim a .purely defensive war is as a military policy non- 
sense. Further it certainly weakens us on the military side 
to talk such nonsense ; it is bad for our soldiers, and we know 
it. But it has this advantage upon the civilian side that if 
we can keep the defence up to, say, the beginning of the 
winter it will restore what we were rapidly losing, the con- 
fidence of our civilian population in their Government. More 
important by far than the bad effect upon the army, or the 
possible good effect upon our home people, will be the effect 
upon the civilians in • France and England. They have a 
severe winter to pass with insufficient coal and perhaps 
reduced transport inflicting further restrictions and privations 
upon them, especially in the towns which are the centres of 
opinion and particularly in the two capitals. Now if as the 
winter begins they look back and remember that we prophe- 
sied a defensive war and that we have apparently successfully 
maintained it, though only for a few weeks, this will incline 
them to believe our general boast, that a defensive war can 
be perpetually maintained. The cry for surrender to nego- 
tiations will rise loudly. Politicians in England will be 
arranging a General Election just at the critical moment, 
when winter has begun, and if at that time we are successfully 
maintaining our defence, we shall see a fairly strong party 
in the British Parliament prepared for surrender. All this 
is supposing that the defensive line is successfully main- 
tained and is neither broken nor turned. If it is not main- 
tained, but broken or turned, then all is lost anj'how, and 
the fact that we prophesied wrongly will be nothing in the 
universal disaster." 
That I think is a fair summary of what was passing in the 
minds of those — more'probably civilians than military authori- 
ties — when they made the astonishing change in their attitude 
towards the war which I have here attempted to analyse. 
