ALLIES OFFENSIVE REVIEWED

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2877, 15 September 1916, Page 6

ALLIES OFFENSIVE REVIEWED

A STRIKING AND CONVINCING ANALYSIS WHY THE GERMANS MUST FAIL Quite tho best analytical review of the Allies' general offensive wo have yet seen 'appears over tho signature of "D" in a recent issue of the "Westminster Gazetto." The writer (a military correspondent) says:—

No feature of tho Allies' . tactical offensive is more remarkable and more reassuring of tho outcome than the proofs it has disclosed of sound military judgment. The moment for it was that in which the enemy's power to continue his tactical offensivo had como to an end. Our attack on tho East was launched when the Germans were still striving at Verdun. They had resources enough also to attempt their counter-attack from Kovel. Was our onset on that account prematuro? No. Had it been prematuro'tho Russian offensive wound have been checked. There were those who in tho middle of last month jumped to' the conclusion that it had been checked. But the temporary arrest of an advance is not a check. Had the Rus r sians been forced back upon Lusk the set-back would have been manifest— and real. In order to meet it Brusiloff would have been compelled to modify his operations in Bukowina. That was the German aim. He was not so compelled, and tho counterattack exhausted itself without'result. Tho effort thrown into it was thrown away. The Russian offensive, therefore, was not premature, and the judgment which had chosen the moment for it and had estimated the extent of the enemy's- decline, despite appearances, was a good ' judgment. Not less sound the choice of the moihent for 'the - attack upon the West. It was the moment when, having failed to check tho Russian offensive, the enemy's embarrassment in tho East had become acute—the moment when ho was under the sharpest temptation to relieve that embarrassment by drafts from Ins Western front; the moment at wTiich successful / attach in tho West, by rapidly reducing him to a tactical defensive oil all fronts, would not less rapidly and evidently complete the initiation, of a new phase of the war. Altogether this transition has occupied five weeks. Five weeks ago the Germans were banging at Verdun, and everywhere else, save in Italy, wero apparently holding off the Allies. To-day they are everywhere tactically as well as strategically defending themselves. The assault lipon Vorduu is now rather a simulacrum than a reality. Considering the \gigantic scale of''"the war the swiftness' of this change borders on,tho astonishing.

The Problem for tho Csrmans. Its swiftness, housver, is no small part of its effect. The Germans find themselves called upon to face this defensive phase literally without notice. Their military organisation was planned for attack. Their traditions were concentrated upon attack. Their -tactics, with weight of gunfire as the main motive force, were driving tactics. On the elaboration of those tactics they had expended all their skill. Such tactics of defence as they have adopted in the course of the war aro essentially immobile tactics. The territory they havo occupied east and west is looked upon already as a part of Germany. On that point it Is advisablo to remain under no .delusion. The enemy's lines are fixed; not ordinary lines of field fortification, but ramparts; tho. preliminaries of fortified fronticrsi • The occupied territories have been paid for, and, in German opinion, most fully paid for, in treasure and ' in blood. Whatever comedy of peace disoussion may be indulged in meanwhile for outside consumption, those are the facts. Nothing short of military ruin will relax tho hold. .

But here suddenly arises a situation which it may be a few had foreseen, but which assuredly had not been prepared for. These ramparts are very oxtended and far. The forces holding them are thin, perilously thin. The communications are long.' On the East they are both very long and, despito the labour spirit in improving them, generally difficult, and often .bad. On tho Wesfc they are generally abundant and good, but, notwithstanding tho pressure upon Belgium to furnish- both supplies and pressure which will be exerted to the utmost—they remain long. Tho passive hostility of tho population has that effect. Further, the ramparts both on tho Ea'st and on tho West have turned out not to bo impregnable. .While too weak, as it has been proved, to withstand assault, they are too elaborate to be removable. The notion that the Germans went to all this tremendous labour as a temporary expedient' is baseless. They have now been caught in their own meslios in two ways. They thinned their defensive forces to correspond with the elaboration, and in doing that tied themselves down. A huge loss of the fruits of this labour is the only alternative, and with that an equally hugo loss of material, including liun---dreds of shiploads of barbed wiro and props, not to speak of other heavy and bulky equipment. With extended lines, lengthened communications, and a thinned out defensive force they might still, however, have hoped to fight through this defensive phase of the war if the linos could not be breached. The fact that the lines can bo breached, and on the East have been breached, makes, 'as anybody can see, all tho difference. Indeed, it is a fundamental and vital difference. In face of that fact there is, whatever may be assorted to tho contrary, no hope of fighting through, this phaso of the war on the basis so carefully schemed. Other defensive tactics have, in consequence, to be thought out, and. beyond doubt at this very moment they aro being thought out. But defensive tactics in which tho main reliance is .placed upon heavy artillery have never bceii heard of, and never will be.. In defensive tactics in tho field the essential' element is superior mobility. Heavy artillery is, of conrso, the least mobile part of any forcc. When, therefore, tho chief strength of a forco is at tho samo timo the slowest, either that chief strength must bo 'abandoned, or the force as a wliolo must submit to bo outmanoeuvred. In eithor event it will bo defoated every time it is compelled to fight. This is tho enigma the German Higher Command has thus unexpectedly been called upon to face. Are they to fight through this phase of tho War on the fronts as they stand, or aro they to attempt retirement? If they adopt tho first alternative their fronts, breached by attack, will b» rolled up section by scction. Thai,, is by this tjme really foregone. It is a question simply of how long the process will tako. If, on the contrary, tbey chooso the second alternativo <}f retirement step by step, the result .s foregone equally. They have no infantry which can stand against the Allies in the' open. Their field-guns 'aro not tho better weapons. The peril is now disclosed of a system designed for one purpose, on tho assumption that that purpose was certain of fulfilment. Reliance upon heavy guna_ for a war of offence becomes a snare in a

war of dofonco. • ' Tho much-vaunted German sword is ono-edged.

What Has Been Proved. Every item of this reasoning follows from the demonstration that the ramparts are not impregnable. There might have been a doubt about tho demonstration had tho assault upon tho German positions on the Somme failed. It might then, and with some foice, Rave ueon said that the Russians ha'd broken through on the East because The lines were held by Austrians. Indeed, in Germany this was said. But the battle of the Somme has proved that lines held by Germans can no more resist tho onset of efficient troops than lines held by Austrians. Nay, the demonstration is much moro emphatic. Tho positions attacked on tho Sommo . wero not merely reokoned among tho strongest on tho enemy's front; they wero defended by a specially mustered and picked body of nis best troops, added to tho garrison' on the spot. Nothing could bo moro conclusive. Obsorvo how profoundly this has ohanged what has been assumed to be the military problem of tho war. Tho courso of tho war in detail may bo affected by what thii enemy may attempt to do; though in that respect his choice is by no moans a free choice. His dispositions aro not under his own control, and his adoption of alternative expedients is strictly narrowed. But, whatever may be tho courso of flit, war in detail, its outcome is not in doubt. Tho sound military judgment which has brought us through tho more difficult phases is not likely to go wrong in v this comparatively easier phase. The term comparatively easier should be noted. It does not mean ; easy. In a strugglo like this nothing is or will be easy. Tho decline in difficulty is purely relative. But the battle of the Somme is significant on other grounds, besides prov» ing that the German ramparts are not impregnable.. It affords a test of tho comparative 1 efficiency of the Allied armies and tho Gorman army. Tho positions seized by tho Allies north and south of 'the river are at least as difficult, and twico as extensive, as those which tho Germans have been nblo so far to seizo at Verdun. Tho operation of capturo_,was carried out, in tho one instance, in sixteen days. In tho other instance it occupied five months. The losses of the Allies on the Sommo have so far not boon a fifth and tho expenditure of amniunition not a tenth of the losses and the expenditure of the Germans in tho Verdun fighting. The comparison is arresting. The Allied forces havo dono double tho work in a tenth of the<timo. Nor is it natural bravery alone that has done it. It is emphatically the effect of skill.- Wo all know the qualities of the Kronch army, and the brilliance of its leading. Not everybody was prepared for tho discovery that the British Army is a homogeneous forco of equally first-class fighting men. Least of all wero the Germans prepared for it._ They havo not, then, simply lo devise, if they can, effective tactics of dofchcc against troops equal to their own, though strongor in numbers; they havo to devise tactics against troops strikingly superior to tlier own. No spirit of boasting need enter into a (statement of that kind. It is the level tiuth.

Conditions in our Favour. The first condition 'in favour of our offensive- is tho extent-,situation, and immobility ot the enemy's lines. The second is .tins really insoluble problem of liis revolutionising his defensive tactics. But there are four other conditions of success. They aro: (1) That »vo have the power to breach his fronts ; (2) that our troops are superior alike in efficiency and in mass; (3) that we should drain his reserve of strength; and (4) * that. wo should lower his morale. Tho battle of the Somme is momentous as' the' proof that these four conditions can every one of them bo fulfilled.' Much more disastrous for the enemy than the loss of positions and guns has been the heavy and irreparable' loss of picked troops; most disastrous of all tho moral effect of the discovery that the foundation of his vast defence scheme, accepted a.", a monument of German industry and genius, is hollow. Breaches in the ramparts will multiply. That, broadly, is the prospect. The ramparts will be rolled up in sections. Though the first steps in this process are of necessity tho slowest, its development gives the moaning of tho operations in all the theatres of hostilities. .

In the meantime there is also the prospcct that on the Sonime the Germans will essay a counter-drive. Tho enemy's war machine functions most readily when acting as it was designed to act. This explains 1o no small extent the persistent poinding at positions like Verdun • and Dvinsk. Every time a. retirement is attempted'there is a debacle like 'that in tho recent battles Oil tho Stodiod and on tho south-western face of the Lusk salient. Retirement therefore is anywhere the lory last' resort. Besides,; counterattack is the one means by which the Germans can utilise their heavy gun 6. They are tied'alike to their positions and to a restricted ran;;.© of tactics. Both limitations, by speeding up tho wastage, must tend tu shorten tho war.