LAND 6? WATER 
October 10, 1918 
the breach of his defences in Champagne, and the capture of 
his zone of covering works north of Verdun, form a record 
for one week beyond any precedent in tlie war. 
To what are we indebted for that record, if not to the 
■disproportionate losses the enemy has during the past two 
and a half months met with ? Does anybody for a moment 
imagine that had he not met with such losses, these results, 
or anything like them could in one week have occurred ? 
But to what are such losses to be attributed if not to his 
"having to figlit at a disadvantage ? And is not the enemy's 
having to fight at a disadvantage the consequence of the 
Allied freedom of manoeuvre, and the choice of time and 
place ? Finally is not all that the result of compelling the 
enemy to conform, and by compulsion dictating his 
dispositions ? 
Manifestly it is, but since doubt on such points is not 
always readily dispelled, we may apply several tests which 
are undebatable. 
The first test is the capture of guns. It is valuable as an 
index. Last week the French General Staff issued the 
statement that since July i8th the Germans. had lost by 
capture up to that time 3,665 pieces of artillery. The total 
apparently did not include the 350 guns of various calibres 
taken in the Allied advance in Flanders, nor the pieces which 
have between the publication of that statement and now 
fiillen into the hands of the Allies on other sectors of the 
front. To date the total exceeds 4,000 pieces. Now guns 
are not left behind for the fun of the thing, and they are never 
left behind at all except when the retirement is too hurried 
to admit of their removal ; nor do retirements of that character 
take place unless the defending troops are overpowered. 
How are troops overpowered if not by losses or by failure 
of moral, which is just as serious ? When to this tale of 
artillery, a considerable percentage of the enemy's equip- 
ment, we have to add tens of thousands of machine guns, 
and a corresponding mass of other material besides that 
destroyed to evade capture, the proof is striking, and it is 
the more striking because the Allied losses of guns and material 
have since July i8th been negligible. We have in short either 
to assume that the Germans have let their equipment go in 
this wholesale way as not worth saving, which argues a dis- 
astrous fall of moral, or we have to conclude that their 
casualties are the explanation. 
The next test is prisoners. Again, on the authority of 
the French Sta'ff we have it that up to a week ago the enemy 
had lost since July i8th rather more than 265,000 men by 
surrenders. Since then, in Flanders . and other sectors of 
the front, apother 20,000 or thereabouts have been taken. 
The total, therefore, cannot now be far off 300,000 men. 
Prisoners mean units broken up ; commonly, they are when 
rounded up in batches the .last remnants of units. Once 
more that broadly indicates severe casualties. 
A third test is reserves. We have been informed that in 
the fighting south of Cambrai tiie enemy's Second Division 
of the Guards, withdrawn from the line, was twice over 
recalled within an interval of twenty-four hours. No military 
man needs to be told the significance of such an incident. 
Here was for the Genrians the crucial sector of the battle- 
line. On that sector, if anywhere,' reserves, if existent, 
would be massed. But on that sector a tired and battered 
division had twice to be re-employed without rehef. If that 
was the state of affairs as regards reserves on a crucial sector, 
was the stress likely to be less on sectors not so crucial ? Every 
probability is against the conclusion. 
A fourth test is method. It is the German practice when 
emergency is acute to meet it with measures regardless of 
their cost — for the time being. An instance is the massing 
of eleven divisions on the five miles of front north of Cambrai 
and with the special object of crushing the Canadians. The 
Canadians are, if anything, more dreaded than any others 
of the Allied troops. " Extravagant, therefore, as the German 
losses might be in the effort, it was judged necessary to incur 
them. Like measures were taken against the Australians — 
dreaded also. These extravagant German counter-attacks 
in mass on the Cambrai front, however, materially helped 
the French operations in Champagne, and the proof of the 
emergencv is that either that risk had to be incurred or the 
German defence on the Cambrai-St. Quentin flank would 
have completely given way. 
Taking all the evidence, the proof of disproportionate 
losses is overwhelming, and it is as patent as noonday,, even 
if the political reshuffling in Germany did not endorse the 
fact, that the first and main aim of the Allied offensive — the 
destruction of the enemy forces — is surely being achieved. 
But coincidently with 'this decline of the enemy's strength 
there has been imposed upon him the extra strain of open 
warfare. To all intents, fiom the sea to the Meuse, he has 
now to maintain an open front. Fortified, such a front 
might be held with half the number of troops. The first 
military object of field fortification is, of course, to economise 
forces. That economy has disappeared. Fewer troops have 
to do more work — much more work. What is the conse- 
quence ? The consequence is that there can be no reliefs. 
Practical abolition of reliefs means an aggravated wastage 
from fatigue. 
B}' now inferior in numbers, the enemy can no more afford 
that wastage than he can afford to incur disproportionate 
losses in killed, wounded, and prisoners. 
The final demonstration of all this is afforded by the 
manoeuvres. The more marked the enemy's inferiority, the 
more insistent the compulsion to which he must in his dis- 
positions submit. If, therefore, it be true that, fighting at 
a disadvantage, he has been losing disproportionately, then 
the command over his dispositions by compulsion should 
have grown more stringent. Is it so, or is it not ? 
Insistent Obligations 
Contrast the present control with the situation on July 
iSth. Then there was a compulsion to save and extricate 
the forces in the Marne "pocket," but elsewhere on the 
front there was no more than the obligation to provide 
against possibilities. Now there exists the obhgation of 
meeting the attack in Flanders ; the obligation of holding 
at all costs the line between (fambrai and the Oise, since it 
covers the lines of supply through Belgium, and the best 
avenue of retreat ; the obligation of getting out troops, 
material, and stores south-west and south of Laon ; and 
the obligation of meeting the French pressure iri Champagne, 
and the American pressure iu the Argonne'. In truth, between 
the measure of compulsion applied then and the measure of 
compulsion applied noxv there is hardly any comparison, and 
the upshot has been evacuation of the defences before Lille 
and of Lens, and the giving up of the positions round Rheims, 
independently of direct attack. 
Now, it would be far-fetched to maintain that with a 
practically open front the trace of the battle-line between 
the Meuse and Cambrai represents for the Germans any- 
thing more than the burden of accident. It is not a line on 
which anv competent commander would for a moment 
choose to fight a great defensive battle. It is a vast convex, 
it is crowded, and its outlets and inlets both north and east 
are flanked. To ensure those lines constant and heavy 
losses have to be incurred. Were they not incurred, the 
Germans force would be crushed together, and in that state, 
one of inevitable confusion, forced back upon the plateau 
of the Ardennes. The defence alike of Belgium and of the 
Moselle gap would in that contingency, be ruined. It is 
purely idle to assert as presently feasible a German intention 
of retiring to the Meuse by pivoting, let us say, on Metz, 
and as a pivot implies an impregnable position there is no 
other. That manceuvre is jammed by the thrust south of 
Cambrai. 
The stress there, after the enemy's heavy reverse of 
last week, is too severe. The stress involves density of 
forces at that point. The battle occupies and obstructs the 
roads. Opportunities of rapid and orderly manoeuvre in 
mass do not exist. All the strength is wanted in the line. 
Movements have of necessity to be made as chance offers. 
The bulwark designed to ensure an orderly straightening ottf 
of the front, should necessity arise, itas the Hindenburg s^jstem. 
The Hindenburg system has gone. Without it, such a 
manoeuvre has become to the last degree hazardous and 
must be appallingly costly. 
It is no exaggeration then to say that on the West the 
military situation of the enemy has reached a crisis. The 
elements of the crisis are the Alhed initiative ; the employ- 
ment of that initiative in a grand and masterly scheme of 
continuous attack ; German inferiority in numbers ; steady 
aggravation of that inferiority by disproportionate losses in 
killed, wounded, and prisoners ; heavy losses of equipment 
and material ; compulsion to go on fighting at a disadvantage ; 
disappearance of reserves ; suspension of reliefs ; difficulty 
— in face of the growing Allied control over German dis- 
positions and the insistent pressure almost and impossi- 
bility — of manoeuvring out of a position badly adapted for 
defence, and representing merely the accident of a defeated 
offensive. 
The fighting of the past week south of Cambrai was the critical 
phase of this vast Western battle. Had' the Germans held 
that Allied attack, they might, by readjustment, have hoped 
to enter upon a stone-walling stage of the campaign. They 
failed to hold the attack — failed with heavy slaughter. 
From that moment, as events since have shown, defeat — and 
final defeat — could only be eluded by negotiation. The offer 
to nei^niate was m.^de It is no mere coincidence 
