LAND & WATER 
December 19, 1918 
anticipated enemy advance upon the city. There is a short 
preliminary. The second phase is a siege of many weeks, 
during which the main operations are, especially towards its 
close, vigorous efforts by the contained garrison to break the 
siege ring, and vigorous efforts bj' friendly armies from within 
to join hands with these sorties. Then at the end one last 
great sortie which fails, Buzenval, and then collapse and 
capitulation. 
The tale might be indefinitely 
extended. Though the three 
periods dififer very much in the 
various cases, the preliminary 
phase sometimes lasting for a 
long period, and the siege proper 
for a short one. Rarely, but 
occasionally, the concluding 
period, the breakdown of the 
siege is not an immediate 
climax but a prolonged affair. 
But as a rule you have in any 
great siege this proportion 
between the three divisions 
— the first one comparatively 
short, the central one very 
long, doubtful, tedious (usually 
provoking in the camp of the 
ultimate victors recrimination 
and spasmodic weakness of will) 
the final one, a rapid collapse. 
Now in the great war just con- 
cluded those three phases are 
clearly marked and our first 
business is to set their boundaries 
as clearly as may be. 
The three main chapters of the 
great war were : — 
I. The driving of the enemy 
to earth in the West. That was 
the business of the invasion 
of France and the Battle of 
the Mame. It lasted about 
eleven weeks and its most active part less than a month. 
II. In which we have the most varying fortunes. The two 
attempts to break out on the West which fail, the effort 
of the besiegers to get round by the East through the Darda- 
nelles which fails ; the great sortie on the East which almost 
succeeds and ultimately politically does succeed ; on the 
other hand the advent of Italy in aid of the Western besiegers, 
the abortive effort against Egypt, 
the failure of the first campaign in 
Mesopotamia, the stopping of the 
Eastern sortie just before it 
reaches the ^Egean, the repeated 
efforts to achieve a breach on the 
West, in which the besiegers 
continually failed, the great sortie 
of Verdun which in its turn fails, 
and so forth. 
The whole of this complex 
story, the chaos of which has 
prompted so many false judg- 
ments, is, in its largest aspect, 
no more than the ups and downs 
which you get in any great siege. 
But there comes in the midst of 
tfiis section a political event of 
the first importance, which is the 
elimination of one half of the 
besieging forces and the raising 
of the siege upon the East by the 
disappearance of what was once 
the Russian Empire. When this 
revolution wascomplete the oppor- 
tunity of the besieged was doubled 
or trebled. They were not slow 
to take advantage of it, and you 
have their last great series of 
sorties against a besieging foe 
now far less strong in proportion, 
for, though recently joined by the 
United States, that Power had 
not yet had time to develop its 
FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 
III. The last phase of the great war is the collapse of the 
besieged Prussianised Germanics ; the head of the great Central 
Alliance can no longer support her dependents. The counter- 
attack, that is the breaching of the wall, begins. (.The de- 
pendents of Prussia upon the East fall away, first Bulgaria, 
then Turkey, then Austria-Hungary. Blow after blow upon 
the main Western front decides the issue and just as this last 
standing portion of the wall is 
about to collapse an armistice 
is sought by the vanquished, 
and is conceded with a delay of 
three days, extending to the 
morning of November nth. The 
besieged accept the terms of 
capitulation upon that day and 
hour, II a.m. in the morning of 
November nth, and the siege is 
at an end. 
The reader will see that, by 
this logical analysis of the war 
into three true phases, we have 
the most i^unequal divisions of 
time. We have for the first 
phase less than twelve weeks ; for 
the second nearly four years ; for 
tlie third hardly a hundred days. 
Nevertheless, it is in this way that 
we must look at the campaign 
if we wish to understand it. 
For the whole war consisted 
essentially in these three great 
operations : — 
1. The imposition of siege con- 
ditions on Prussia and her allies. 
2. The maintenance- — under the 
most terrible difficulties (for the 
besiegers were never superior) of 
the conditions of a siege ; and 
3. The final collapse which is 
the term of all successful sieges, 
and which Was in this case, as it is in nearly all siege cases, 
rapid. 
I 
The first phase, the preliminary, which consisted in the 
throwing back of the enemy behind siege lines ran, if we begin 
at the beginning and follow the war from its very inception, 
as follows : — 
Three years before the declara- 
tion of war the Prussian General 
Staff had determined to launch it 
after the harvest of t 914. 
If this statement, which has 
been repeated over and over again 
in these columns, seems too bold, 
it can only be because the argu- 
ments supporting it have been 
forgotten. They are conclusive. 
EverjTthing converges upon that 
da e. 
(a) The Prussian General Staff 
began in 1911 to re-arm all their 
forces with that heavy artillery 
which played so great a part in the 
campaign,: it took three years. 
(6) Towards that same date 
converges the widening and deep- 
ening of the Kiel Canal. 
(c) The financial operations of 
the principal enemy State covered 
the same period, notably the great 
levies on capital towards its 
close. 
(d) The great and unexpected 
increase of the armed forces of 
Germany covers the same 
period. They were first consti- 
tuted in . the beginning of the 
period and came to maturity in 
central part and they attained 
their fruit just before war was 
military effort. The central part of the story, therefore, the declared. When we remember that this ^Tnt of departure dso 
siege proper, concludes wi h the tremendous sorties coinmg corresponds with the critical moment of Agadir the thine 
withm an ace of success which we may call respectively those becomes plain enough. Nothing can nn«ihU.''.vr.1.i.r:ii "v."? 
of Caporetto and Amiens, including the sequels of Amiens, 
the Lys, the Matz and Riieims. 
All this central division comes to an end upon July 15th, 
1918, when the main blow east of Rlieims broke down. On 
Thursday, July i8th, 191 8, the third and last phase had begun. 
f „ , -. J. ,- Nothing can possibly explain all that 
followed Agadir, the exact period of time required for the 
completion of the vanous preparations, the convergence of all 
these upon this one pomt of time-save the determination to 
wage an aggressive war in the late summer-that is, after the 
harvest, of 1914. Whether the occasion or pretext-the 
