Origin and Meaning of the Western Offensive.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 211, 22 September 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

Origin and Meaning of the Western Offensive.

By EDMUNft DANE, Author of "The Battle of the Rivers," etc.

t; When the time comes the German front on the West will crack up like an eggshell."

(The situation which led to the launching of the British and Frencn offensive is one of the most absorbing that has arisen in the course of the war. To understand it let the reader bear in mmd three events- • the battle on the Sette Comuiii Plateau, June 23-25, the battle of Kolomea, June 2*; and the battle of the Somme, begun on July 1. The defeat of the Austrians set the seal of failure on the effort against Italy. Tho battle of Jvolomea placed the army of General von Bothraer in imminent peril. Her now beaten troops on the Italian front and the army of von Bothmer on the Stryp.-t are "the only forces Austria has lett. With but one railway across the Alps over which to move the immense mass of artillery crowded into the Trentino, it is utterly impossible for the Austrians to take back those guns to Galicja in time to save von Bothmer from envelopment. All the available forces of the Germans have been engaged in the Lutzk salient, and cannot be withdrawn. On the other hand, unless the Germans can rescue the army of von Bothmer, Austria must go down, and Turkey arid Bulgaria with bor. Only from France might men and guns be drawn in time. The Germans prepared to face even that risk, but the Allies in the West, foreseeing the development, pounced. Events both East and West are rapidly moving towards a ciisis. The Western offensive gives the Russians south of the Dniester a clear run.)

became a second Verdun, a means, that is to bay, of wasting the .enemy. Coineidently along trie the rest of the British front and also along the Fren:h front in Champagne the new bushracg:ng tactics of trench raids broke out more actively than before. In the meantime, too," Thiaumont, re-cap-tured by the French, had been retaken by the Germans, and then on-.e more fell into the hands of the French. Taking the West front as a whole, the situation was that at two points —Verdun and on the Somme —the Germans were hutting against costly obstacles, and, compelled to drain the : r line elsewhere, were all (he more exposed uo damago from raids. In a word tha fighting was attrition intensified and speeded up. GERMAN" FRONT LIKE AN EGGSHELL. Of course, these tactics have an ulterior strategical purpose —to break tho enemy front at certain po : nts. But before a skilful commander attempts anything of that kind he takes care to thin out the hostile strength. He disperses first and strikes next. When tho timo comes the German front on tho West will crack up like an eggshell, and the developments will satisfy the greediest appetite for sensation. In the meantime we must be contented with tactical successes, and let the war of attrition do its work. Verdun, for example, is the biggest tacticil success on record. If we want both a speedy and complete victory we must not howl for spectacular and strategical effects before tactical successes have paved the way for them. That sort of thing is sheer rubbish. If the matter is left to the Allied Generals without the political gallery trying :o poko its nose into a business it does not understand, we ought to have every enemy gun and every bit of cnem'y* equipment now on the west side of the Whine, and at the minimum cost both of life and money. That, however, is looking a httle way into the future. In the meantime, if we study the Western offensive in relation to other events in the war we shall see clearly what its immediate purpose is, and that purpose will make it plain that the popular expectation has been at once too much and too little —tw much in assuming the purpose to be a sweep which at tins juncture wouid crumple up the enemy line; too little in not perceiving that the issue at stake is the fate of Empires, not the occupation of villages.

On July 1 cama the infantry onset north and south of the Somme. Breaking at the first shock the enemy s front line over a distance of some sixteen miles, it was spoken of as "epochmaking," as the "turning-point of fortune m the West," and so on. There was as little reason for indulg ; ng .n these extravagant terms as for the laments about ''inactivity." The elation, like the depression, arises from inability to grasp military values. This offensive was only a prelude to larger things. To begin with, it was not the primary purpose of the general bombar.lment which lasted throughout the fourth week of June to inflict casua.ties on the enemy's infantry; but ir, was to break up the communications along and behind the hostile front, to search out and wreck and explode depots, to smash down entanglements, and not least to compel the enemy to disclose the situations of his batteries. The primary purpose was at once to causa -disorganisation and to find out the "lie" of the hostile force, for ihi locat : on of the guns indicates pretty reliably tha location of the men. Besides, a front which has l>een disorganised in this way is more difficult to hoi 1 against assault than one which is n working order. Casualties inflicted on tho enamy's infantry are incidental ti the main purpose, and they are nearly always, in popular imagination, exaggerated. Men are not in such circumstances ranged in the trenches like rows of ninepins. They are kept is much as possible out of the way. When the bombardment stops they come iniv) the trenches through the eomnmnicition ways. But if the bombardment lias been properly effective the trendies ought to have boen wrecked and the communicaton ways blocked up.

AFSTRIAS DILEMMA. Anxious to bring the war as rapidly as possibLo to a conclusion, and before tho present period of scarcity in Central Europe came on, the Germans, wlulo preparing their own onset against Verdun, commanded at the same fmo the Austrian onset against tho Italians. When that course was decided upon Austria had, besides tho troops engaged against the Italians, threo armies on the Russian front. These were the last forces she could raise. The attack upon the Italians had therefore to be swift, and crushing, and its success to be placed beyon-1 doubt. While the reserves, including all the best t.nits, were withdrawn from the armies on the Russian front to make up the striking force of 'iifiintry, the chief reliance for success was placed as usual on the guns. More than 2100 field guns, and upwards of 300 howitzers, many of huge weight and calibre, were crowded into the Trentino. With this overpowering mass of artillery the Austrian forces were to descend from their positions ~n the southern slopes of the Alps, sweep across th.o interlying plateau, and literally to blast their way through the several outlets in the chain of lesser heights dividing the plateau Ike a lapsed rim from tho Northern Italian plain. Once in the plain it was assumed that such a weight of guns would completely paralyse the Italian defence. A FLASH IX THE PAN. Well, we know that the Austriaas could not blast their way through, and that, exhausted by the effort, they proved unable to withstand the Italian offensive when it came, and were routed. But the key to the whole present situation of the war is that there i* only one line of railway from Austria into Italy—the line winch zig-zags through the Brenner Pass and then descends into the valley of the Trent. There is just this one narrow bottle neck. Now, it took something like threo months to feed in the mass_ '•[ guns, munitions, men, and supplies, and it is perfectly c.citan, now tint tho Austrian stroke has failed that f will take at least r.s long to get them out again. Wo may say that for v! present purposes this mass of artillery. and especially tho heavy artillery, has been ruled out.

SPECIAL FORCES FOR ATTACK. Another current notion is that men who on our side had been holding thu trenches were the men who on the word given would go forward to th» attack. Things are not managed liV.s that at all. Attack is delivered wit'i a force formed and held in reserve or the purpose. A defending force anl an attacking force are distinct. It has been suggested that though the British Army may have done excellent work on the defensive, yet when the men who had been doing th's defensve work were called upon to go into an onset they might from want of experience fail to discover those qualities of individual self-reliance and of doing the right thing on the spur of the moment which arc needed if the attack s to make good. Apart from the fa: - 6 that individual self-reliance is native to tho British character, our men are trained for attack, and this is particularly true of a reserve. Nor is it for the most pj»rt a question of haphazzard. The scheme of the onset is divided in;j the orders to e:.ch general of division; theso again into the orders to each commandant cf a brigade; and these in turn into orders to each commandant of a unit. Everybody knows that if ho carries out his orders the attach as a whole will succeed.

IMMEDIATE SUCCESS. In its immediate purpose this attack did succeed. The common, and it must be admitted very natural, expectation regarding assault, of this character is that they should cnt rignt through tho enemy's front and lead vi to a great sweep. But it does not follow in the present stage of the fighting on the West that that was in this instance even the intention. Observe what took place during the first tw) days and the intervening first night of the battle. Just to the north of the Somme and about seven miles east of tho town of Albcr., the Germans had constructed, between the villages of Menierz and Montauban, one of those labyrinths consisting of redoubts, linked up with by a criss-cross of trenches. On this work, which was seven miles long and more than two miles in greatest depth, they had put in an enormous amount cf labour. As a bulwark at the western end of it they had forti. fied the village of Fr court, a mile <;■ so from Menierz, and at the eastern end, between the labyrinth and .he town of Combles, they held and ha I similarly fortified the village <f Hardecourt. By a brilliant feat of arms the British infantry broke into the labvrnth and seized the villages of Memerz and Montauban in the first irresistible dash. Fricourt, assaulted bv the Br't.Mi, and Hardecourt, attaekcl bv the French, still held out. Both places, however, were carried after a desperate resistance, and this meant the loss of the labyrinth to the enemy. COUNTER ATTACKS. The Germans do not construct hugs works of tlrs character without a reason. This particular work defendol tho valley of the Somme and commanded the main roads to Bapaume and Peronne. One of the certainties was that they would snare nothing - n the endeavour to retake it. Nor di 1 they. Collecting troops from overv quarter, they forthwith launched th°r counter-attacks. It was what had been looked for and was wanted On a smaller scale the Montauban labyrinth

Meanwhile the Russians delverod the ; r stroke. General BrussilofF's first proceeding was to smash the Au&lritn army in Yolhyma. In doing that he threatened both Kovel and Lemberg. In face of that threat it was a certainty that the Germans would as speedily as possiblo concentrate all their disposable forces against this Lutzk salient, as it ; s called. The concentration was what the Russian General intended. Anybody who looks at a map of rtuss : a on a su?u.'.:atly large scale, and takes note of 11: i roads and ra :, ""nrs, will not fail a i»v. that of all the po ; nts on the far-i.'-.t-vuding Eastern front Kovel is thai .: ■> inch it is ot least advantage to Germans t'» mass large forces. The distances behjiJ them ov.>r which supplies, munitions, and reinforcements have to be transported ar* there enormous. lint that meant tint the enemy was weakened in the direction in which the :?::< van commandor intended to weaken him, that is to say in Bukovim r-nd souti. of the Dniester. It is a masterly example of the strategy of dispersk-r. already alluded to. THINNING THE WEST FRONT. Some German reinforcements were Inured to that quarter, and mostly .t would seem from France. These troops, said to be some 3."),W0 strong, with remnants of the Austrian forces in Bu. kov : na took up a position to the Northeast o[ Kolomea along the courses of two small rivers, one of which flows into the Dirostcr and the other into the Pruth. On dune 28 a battle was fought. The Germans and Austrians woro defeated. Part of their army was driven South, part West. Next day tho Russians entered Kolomea. More than 15,000 Austrians, their retreat cut off, surrendered. A later communique stated that the Austr'ans in some strength" attempted on July 1 to take the offensive North-west :jf Kimpolung. It seems probable that these were the p'irt of von Pflanzer's

army which was compelled to retreat into the mountains by the Czeremos valley and was tryng to find a way out by tho difficult Rodna pass. With tho battle of Kolomea, tho Austrian debacle in Bukovina was complete. The army of General von Bothmer was then tho only force Austria had afoot, apart from the troops engaged against Italy. It became clear that the Germans, unless their influence and authority at Vienna were to undergo a total cdpse, must strain every nerve to uphold their tottering Ally. Since the ill-fated effort against Italy, Austria r s as enfeebled a member of the German Confederacy as either Turkey or Bulgaria.

From what source were the Germans to raise men and guns sufficient to arrest this Russian movement? Not frnni tho Trentino, because if they withdrew the remainder of their men tho Italians would pounce upon the guns. Not from the North of the Pripet, because that source had already been drained. Not either from the Lutzw-salient, because in that case tho Russians would break through. The only source from which men and guns m ; ght be transferred in time enough was Franco. All this was palpable to the Higher Commands of the Allies. The Western offensive is the consequence. On the familiar German dodge of sneaking forces away while making a great sho.v to cover it, the Allies have closed with an iron grip. That is the real purpose, and, as everybody can see, it does involve tho f«to of Empires. I have spoken of tactical successes. As a final word to tneae notes I wilL make plain what the phrase means. You achieve a tactical success when yo t stop the enemy from doing what he wishes to do and by reducing his effo-t to nought; waste his strength, for strength used up in a fruitless effort is strength thrown away. Ypres was such a success; Verdun is another and a greater. The battle of the Somme is intended to be, and doubtless will be, a third. It has notlring to do with "completing the Gorman discomfiture at Verdun." 'I hat is simply a bad guess. Neither has it anything to do with the ag : t.ition for more "vigour." AVe do not hazard the lives of brave men for trivialities; neither do »ve stake them in response to Toolish clam, our. The valiant British and French infantry who fought on the Somme truly carried the future of Europe on the points of their bavonots. —"War Budget.''