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OUR WAR STRATEGY

IS OUR MAN POWER EFFECTIVELY * DISPOSED? V

A MILITARY CRITIC'S ANSWER

A certain number of writers are al- ; . ready'using the unfortunate/set-baelc our troops have received oil. the Tigris, as a text from which to preach tho ' doctrine of concentration on the decisive point as against our present practico.in which; 'they see,; with alarm, a serious dissemination of effort, writes Colonel Maude; in -the "Standard." This is rather a striking' instance < of -the old saying,.. "A little knowledge.is : . a dangerous thing," for, though withr •out doubt concentration; on the decisive point is the keynote to the'ehord of all , successful strategy, this "does not imply; a hopeless overcrowding of men under conditions which give the individual 110 ... room to work. The full absurdity of tho idea is evident.'.if it is applied..to the case of a numerically superior, army trying to force the, passage, say, of a number of passes-in a mountain'range, any one of which could be held • by tho defenders against a much greater, number of the; offensive. To • concentrate on any;.one pass 'would'-'simply entail colossal'slaughter, with'rio hope ; of ultimate triumph as its reward; ;to . disseminate your men, holding the exits with small bodies, while the remainder extended laterally until some jiqrtion of tiieni reached tho limits of the enemy's power of extension, is the only obvious' : way of employing superior numbers ■ to the best-advantage, and this is', precise-" ly. parallel the course ' the' Allies have been pursuing since, the;-balance of : numbers began to turn in their favour. Quito Tapart from tho political reasons for delaying decisive action in Flanders and France, tliero is "absolutely! 110 definite military; purpose to be_seryed at the present moment in.forcing- tlie-fightl nig 011 this front, because the work of preparation we requiro for our ultimate objective, namely, a stringent and lasting peace with the Central Powers, can be done far more effectively'by compol- . ling the enemy, througtiUction in other regions, to extend its front until it ex- . tends its limit of elasticity. It is the caso of an india-rubber band stretched to breaking point,'and the whole question can be graphically illustrated' by taking such a band, stretching it, by means ofr drawing-pins, over the frontiers of tho Central-'Powers at the outbreak of the war, and 'then extending' it stifT furtiler until it embraces tho whole lino of front which- they now hold. It will then bo'.'perfectly evident that a far smaller, effort will be needed to brcali the band at tho present moment than was necessary at first, and that any military success on our part which would compel-the enemj- to'shorten this front, that is, to diminish the tension, would only increase our difficulties,, not lesson them. : '■ This is a statement of the problem in . its simplest form, and in a manner suitable for a kindergarten lecture. Ill: reality tlie problem is far more complicated, and its elements' have to bo further resolved into conditions of time and space. - ■ - ■■ Results' of Russian Strategy. When the Russians abandoned Poland and most of Courland, destroying all tho railways.as they went, the effect on tho Gennans was far more severe than • the mere lengthening of their line of front, i.e., increase of tension, alono would indicate. Tho great practical ad- - vantage both Germans and Austrians originally possessed lay in the power they derived from their admirable syß-. tem of strategic railways, enabling them

to move troops either from east to west across'country or laterally from .point to point■"aloug their frontiers. Now, tlie policy of the Allies should have been to draw {lie* 1 German armies as far away from these - , facilities as possible, or, failing room.in.which to..fall back, then to threaten and destroy them as, much as was practicable, as we'have done in the west; for with every hindrance to the movement of troops which could bo introduced, into the German 'machinery the value of her numbers alone was discounted by the increased time'it musttake to move those numbers about. ■ The great gains of territory made by Germany at Russian expense not only cost her the lives of some hundreds of thousands of men, but diminished tho value of' those she still commands almost, in direct proportion t6 the time necessary to move any body of troops cither from the eastern to the western front or from uol'th to south. In broaa numbers two million Germans from lliga to Cernovit can barely suffice to stem a; Russian advance which would be easily held-up by one million on Germany's own frontier lino. . Germany's raid into Bulgaria in proportion as it is apparently successful simply aggravates her situation, for .with broken up railways and iiisecuro river communications behind them all such troops as she may send to meet the Russians' in the .Dobruja or farther . south towards. Constantinople must bo tost-to iler, when the day of the Great Decision'approaches. V "Effective as a Trap." Of we are in no way responsible for the chain of events which led ■hoi" into this final attempt at over-ex-tension,-. but tjie result will be just as disastrous to. Her in the end as if we had '.deliberately laid the trap.for her to walk into. It-is' Strategically well worth our while, however to employ as many men to take !advantage of the situation from, our great reservoir of men for whom at present there is no room in which to do useful work in Franco and at liofne as can find room for deployment in the Balkans. The more we send via more wo can .lipid, and the further away centre of gravity of the wbole defensive-system of the Ceiinama alliance we can L-'eep tham the [po&ter will bo tho number the ('ciK.nl Powers will requiro to hold us at bay. , Exactly the same line of argument justifies the use we have made of our resources both at Gallipuli and on the Tigris. Turkey forms part vf the Central Alliance, and the further we draw her troops away from the lustre•Germans tho greater becomes the i.csd for sending tlieni assistance, ai'd the more formidable the difficulty of supplying it. The Gallipoli adventure has held up from the first about three times as many Turks as we originally landed of our own men, and by now probably as inajiy. have been put-out of action for the time being, i.e., about half a mil•lion Turks—'practically tho whole organised Turkish army in EuropJ—Hid are no longer available to join the Bulgarians in an attack upon our landing base at Salonika. Add this half million to the Bulgarian forces, and imagine:, them as a-ttacking the . raihvn.v between Salonika and Struranit&a, then see how thc_ position' would be altered to - our disadvantage—probably the Greeks would by'now have risen against us, and the Rumanians even might have, seen their advantage in taking a ; liand in the struggle against us had .we not had tho courago to attack the Dardanelles. Turks Drawn to Tigris Front . Hoiv many Turks our expedition up the Tigris may have held away from joining in the Balkan action it is not easy to calculate, though, clearly, they are far more numerous Ulan the forces we have ourselves employed in that region, If we"had not drawn them into this, for them, almost inaccessible region, they might by now Jjavo beoa at-

tacking the Russians in the Caucasus, thereby holding up troops who by now are probably 011 their way to Odessa;-or they might have joined the Turks at Constantinople, and been added to tho defenders of the whole Balkan Peninsula. Again, they might, have been marching against the l Suez Canal and chaining men of ours there >vho can now find much more useful employment around Salonika. ' At the outset of the war the Turks could probably have, put one million men in the field, and kept them at full strength up to the present time. Thanks to the\ pressure of Russia in tho Caucasus, to our expeditions to the, Dardanelles, and up the Tigris, nearly the whole of their possible reserves, both of men and materials, have been exhausted, and the men actually fit for the field are disseminated in three corners of the Turkish Empire at such distances one from the other, that their concentration is no longer a practicable proposition. Imagine them united in the Balkans instead, and one can get a fair ulea of the results our system of "dissemination" has secured— but it requires a trained staff officer to see these matters clearly.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19160304.2.85

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2711, 4 March 1916, Page 12

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,403

OUR WAR STRATEGY Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2711, 4 March 1916, Page 12

OUR WAR STRATEGY Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2711, 4 March 1916, Page 12

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