October 10, 1918 
LAND 6? WATER 
Enemy Crisis in the West : By Edmund Dane 
DURING the past week the AlHed drive through 
the Hindenburg defences south of Cambrai has 
been maintained and affirmed notwithstarding 
the extraordinarily costly efforts of the enemy, 
in part at least and for the time being, to restore 
the situation. Coincidently, owing to the American pressure 
in the Argonne, the carrying of the French line to Chal- 
lerange, and the capture by the French of Mont Blanc in 
Champagne, the German front there gave way. At the time 
of writing the Germans were in Champagne in full retreat, 
and their elaborately fortified and strong positions round 
Rheims had been surrendered without a blow. 
In short, the German military situation on the West — 
the tendency towards it since the Allied advance in Flanders 
had been rapid — has reached a crisis. 
This is the real background of the German request for an 
armistice. 
A very general impression has prevailed that the capitu- 
lation of Bulgaria wa's the event which mainly influenced 
the new orientation in German politics, and countenance 
is given to that view in German declarations, among others 
the Kaiser's Proclamation to his Army and Navy. Impor- 
tant though that development was and is, the capitulation 
of Bulgaria cannot however be considered as more than a 
convenient peg on which to hang the much more momentous 
issue — the evasion on the West of a crushing military disaster, 
and at the same time to hide that fact from the German public. 
Concurrently with the changes of political personnel at Berlin 
and the peace demarche of Prince Maximilian, stress has 
been laid in German communiques on the prowess of the 
German troops, and the manner in which they have been 
holding their own. They have not been, holding their men. 
Strictly political events are outside the scope of a military 
review, but it is advisable to refer to them both because 
they show what in Germany the mihtary situation is in 
truth officially judged to be, and because, now as always, 
the conduct of the real rulers of Germany, who continue to 
retain in their hands the substance as distinguished from the 
semblance of control, is shaped above all by military prospects. 
However the fact may be disguised, we have still to deal in 
Germany with a military clique, and, if willingness be now 
professed to drop the national trade of war as the easy and 
royal road to public riches and Imperial expansion, it is 
because that clique at last know that in the present adventure 
they have lost. 
Beyond question the surrender of Bulgaria came upon 
both the real and the nominal rulers of Germany as an ugly 
surprise. And it was only one among a complication of 
difficulties. There was the military failure in Syria ; the 
increase of obligations arising out of Allied intervention in 
Russia ; the probable repudiation of the so-called Treaty 
of Brest-Litovsk ; the pressure of Austria for the opening of 
peace proposals ; the objection at Vienna towards the em- 
ployment of Austrian tropps on the West ; the insistence 
of the German Staff on the immediate necessity of such aid ; 
and the uneasy outlook in Rumania. 
But before everything the trend of the Western battle was the 
determining factor. 
It is almost a truism to say that, had the AUied offensive 
on the West failed, the breaks in the Balkans and in Syria- 
even if the Allied attacks there could have been ventured 
upon, which is doubtful — would have disturbed the real nilers 
of Germany but little. Secure on the West, they would 
readily have found the means to render the Allied blows in 
the East politically abortive. Assuredly there would have 
been no capitulation of Bulgaria^ and assuredly the German 
regime in Turkey would have been bolstered against the 
consequences of the Syrian debacle. Immersed, however, 
as the Germans are on the West in a struggle beyond any- 
thing foreseen three months, or even two months, ago the 
effect of these Eastern blows has been to strain them to the 
breaking point, and the results have been political changes 
which represent at once a bid f(jr peace — on terms ; a national 
rally ; and an effort to elude decisive defeat. Nothing has 
more clearly disclosed the gravity of the military position 
as officially estimated in Germany than the fact that the 
bid for peace was addressed to the President of the United 
States. It is a recognition of how profoundly the weight of 
the great Republic has changed the balance of the conflict. 
On these grounds it is well worth while, indeed essential, 
to study the Western situation under its strictly military 
aspects. Three causes have tended to obscure its more 
important features. 
(i) To political manoeuvring in Central Europe has to be 
joined the fact that British habits of thought, become 
permanently and deeply political, are only temporarily and 
pro hac vice military. This, a complete contrast with the 
prevalent habit of mind in Germany for a generation past, 
at least, fastens upon political symptoms as of primary 
interest. It has its value and utility, but it also has its- 
dangers. The contrast may be expressed by saying that 
the rulers of modern Germany look upon politics as the- 
supplement of force — an expansion of the operations of war ; 
the British look upon war as the supplement of politics — 
an expansion of politics into the field of violence as a neces- 
sity and ultimate resort. In the one case material and' 
organiscd violence is the basis ; in the other reasoned aims 
and common security. The British standpoint and prin- 
ciple is that of the other Allies. It tends however, whenever 
political manoeuvres are afoot, sonjewhat to discount the- 
military efficiency and prowess of the Allied armies, and to 
lose sight of their now demonstrated superiority, more 
especially in commandership and in moral. And it offers- 
a temptation to overlook the truth — the fundamental truthi 
of the war — that the one foundation of a peace worth the- 
name, are feats of arms at sea or in the field, for those feats 
of arms alone must be the future deterrent of the Prussian 
militarism which trades on war and plunder, and their memory 
fatal to its revival. In a word the real work in the issue of 
a challenge to arms has to be done and can only be done 
by sailors and soldiers. If the League of Nations or whatever 
it may be called is not founded upon supremacy in arms,, 
and upon the manly valour which, as the root and shield 
of justice and compassion, is the first of human virtues, 
it can be nothing save a resounding imposture. 
(2) Communiques couched in terms of geography, though 
that cannot be avoided, lead many to infer that "gains" 
are the be-all and the end-all of operations, and the recovery 
of territory, as such, the first as well as the ultimate con- 
sideration. Many of the public for example would regard 
the evacuation of France and Belgium by the„ enemy as far 
and away more important than whether or not the Germans 
go out still able to carry on the campaign, and that too 
despite the fact that were they to go out still able to carry 
on, it would either commit us to a prolonged struggle in 
Germany, which would cost vast sums of public money, 
and many more thousands of lives, or force us to patch up 
. a compromise which wo;j]d make the League of Nations a 
scrap of paper combine, and leave Poland, the Baltic Pro- 
vinces, and European Russia in the Prussian maw. 
(3) Accounts of correspondents on the spot dealing day by 
day with incidents of the fighting, illuminate it in one respect, 
but draw attention off its perspective. 
These several causes of obscuration cannot, it may be 
admitted, be avoided altogether, but the misjudgments to 
which incidentally they gi-^e rise, and the passing doubts 
on the one hand, and exaggerated expectations on the other 
which they often breed are all to the enemy's advantage, 
and always open to be exploited by his propaganda. 
I-t is out of the question to grasp the true import of the 
Western operations as they stand without to begin with 
detachment from these sources of distortion, and next keep- 
ing constantly in mind the phases through which the battle 
has already passed. 
Let us take those phases in order. They have been (a) de- 
feat of the enemy's offensive with the result of wresting from 
him the initiative, tactical as well as strategical ; (b) as a 
further outcome of the German defeat a greater Allied elas- 
ticity or freedom of manoeuvre, giving ability to use the 
initiative to the best effect ; (c) attack at an advantage, 
and compulsion upon the enemy to fight at a disadvantage ;. 
(d) because of that, the infliction upon him of dispropor- 
tionate losses ; (e) because of his suffering and having suffered 
such losses. Allied successes which but a little while ago 
would have been deemed impossible. 
These developments it will be seen have arisen one out 
of another, and the initiative, wielded with ski'.l, is their start* 
ing point. 
For example, the Allied advance in Flanders — with its- 
corollary— the German abandonment of La Bass^e ; the- 
breach of the defences covering Cambrai, and the enemy's- 
evacuation of Lens ; the recapture of St. Quentin, and the 
advance to the Oise above Moy ; the turning of the Craonne 
ridge, and the direct menace to Laon ; the clearing of the 
enemy from the plateau between the Vesle and the Aisne, 
and the forcing of him out of his positions round Rheims ; 
mA' 
