GERMANY MUST SOON BREAK.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 231, 1 December 1916, Page 8 (Supplement)

GERMANY MUST SOON BREAK.

\\'HY THE HUN PRESSMEN CEASE BRAGGING AND BEGIN HOWLING.

By A. C. HALES, in "John Bull",

From Switzerland to the coast the pressure of French and British armies continues with irresistible might, and every passing hour brings the destroyers of the worlds peace nearer to their irrevocable doom. They must bend or break. It is too early yet to assert that Hindenburg, Hhe jon'ly l military genius our arch-enemy possesses, has failed to fulfil the frantio behests of tho whole German people. He has not yet had time to get 'into his stride. His first big move must ha to displace all the men holding lessor commands, and that cannot l>e achieved in a fortnight; meanwhile the Allies are forcing the German lines backwards by day and flight. The dethronement of \on Falkenhayn and the appointment of Hindenburg to thft supreme command does not mean merely the rise of one man and the fall of another; it means much more than that —it means tho most gigantic change the German army has undergone since the days of B redenck the Great. To put the matter in a phrase which the lay mind can grasp caddy, the appointment of Hindenburg moans tho abandonment of the compjex .fcvstem of war made by maps. \on Falkenhayn was the high priest of that too elaborate system. He filled the gap left vacant when Von Moltke was deposed, and he did less than \on Moltke. When I saw the German armies manoeuvring in times of peace, I felt sure the "system"' iwas too elaborate to withstand the rude shocks :>f war, with all the unexpected happenings which actual fighting entails. The German system was too perfect, too much like clockwork —it, would prove invincible until one of the wheels went wrong; then would come chaos. Well, one of the wheels has gone wrong, and the clock has stopped. WHAT HINDENBURG STANDS ron Von Hindenburg stands for the old order of warfare; he is an individualist, not part of a machine, and he wiM replace the machine-made commanders with men of individual merit, if he has time. The Germans had a dream — they dreamt they could make war a perfect science; they thought they could replace campaigning to exactitude of a game of chess. Tne dream worked bcatifully in peace manoeuvres; all the commander-in-chief had to do in a sham fight was to touch a button and the figures worked. Von Moltke and Falkenhayn were military geniuses in sham fighting—either of them would have beaten the head otf Hindenburg as long as the war game was plaved, like chess, under well-de-fined rules. But there are no rules .11 real war, and that is why the ma.ch incline army of Germany has failed to do what its votaries expected of it —it was too complex and too technically perfect. When one thing got out of gear, the- who'e elaborate maohiue went wrong. Most of the German officers are machine-made; they have no initiative. Our officers to-day are immeasurably superior; they are not hidebound, they can think for themselves—and that is the quality which enables a comamnder very often to turn an almost certain defeat into a crushing victory. The German army at the outset was like a splendid locomotive; now it is a locomotive off the rails, and the Allies are not going to give Von Hindenburg time to get ~_t back on the rails again. Whilst ha is remodelling his army, the Allies will bend or break it. Fighting under the rules of their supposed infallible "system," the German commanders threw hosts of their men to certain death. The "system' took no account of tho men in the ranks; thev were there to be slaughtered every time the man with the map? touched a button in his tent. A regiment, a brigade, an army corps—what did it matter to the man who pressed the button? If ten thousand

fall to-day, send on 20,000 to-morrow; it they fall, sand 50,000 the day after —success is the only thing that matters.'' It is the gambler's game of attempting to break the bank at Monte Carlo by doubling one's losses until fortune favours the gamester or his money ri.ns out. The Germans tried their system to the uttermost limit nt Verdun, and their losses were so col- j os.sal that the morale of the whole Ger- { man army is shattered: the nii'ii in j the ranks, as well as the Gorman War Council, hare lost faith in the "sys- | torn." They can even now replace Von ! Falkenhnyn with iHndenburg, but j whore and how a.re they going to re- i place the rank and file? And will Hin- | denburg, genius though he be, be abl • to rebuild the shattered 1 confidence 'n their leaders and in themselves? They know now they are not invincible: some have quite lost heart, and many have of late surrendered cheaply. A rot has set- in, and if H spreads no power on earth will keep the German army in the field, despite the bullying methods of its officers. MUST BEXL) OH BREAK. Give the German rank and file their due—taken upon the whole, they have fought witli a courage worthy of a better cause; the supreme folly of thei'. leaders in throwing away lives needlessly is breaking the hearts of the survivors, and we may expect wholesale surrenders erj long. To those wh.> surrender let us give soldierly treatment, whilst we reserve our vengeance for the demons of high rank who have behaved like fiends. The mode of attack adopted by British and French in the great offensive which comemnced on the last day of .June compares most favourably, both in regard to the results achieved and in the sacrifices of men, with the German efforts at Verdun. The German '"system" said '"Hack through at all costs." The Allied initiative- said, "'Bend the enemy back until he breaks of his own volition ; make it a matter of eternal pressure properly distributed and—don t rush your forces." The result is that the enemy's offensive at Verdun is crippled after the ghastliest losses 4, j the attacking forces, and Verdun is so far safe. On the other hand, thcFrench have advanced since the end of June over eight miles in a formed line on a width of seventeen miles, and they have consolidated every inch of ground they have taken, so that no counter-attacks on Hindenburg's part can shift them. The only Germans who will see that soil again during war will see it as prisoners. The British, too, have made superb advances, fighting for every inch of ground and winning it often at thA bayonet's point—and they, too, are making "siccar" as they go along. Both are taking plenty of German prisoners. Both are capturing many guns, heavy calibre and rapid tiring, and the German line of defence is bending in like the string of a bow unstrung. Soon, unless a miracle happens, the whole German line from the sea to Switzerland MUST fall back in order to make good that wound in its vitals, or else the bent places must break; and if they break, then the cry that will ring along the Allied lines will be "En avant Berlin!" But I do not expect this. I think they will yield ground all along their front and straighten out their line. They dare not shorten their line at either end, far if they did wo would turn their flank near the sea and the French would be round them like tigers near Switzerland. The length of their line —once their l>oast—is now their despair. God .send good health to General .Toffre and Sir William Robertson, and the Devil take the peacemongers!