DEADLY PERIL

Taranaki Daily News, 5 December 1918, Page 3

DEADLY PERIL

WAR'S HEAL SECRET. HOW JOFFRE EVADED THE GREAT BELGIUM TRAP. Most people have an erroneous idea of Gernfany's original plans of eonquest. The universal opinion is that the enemy, as their primary strategy, tore up the scrap of paper, invaded Belgium, and attempted to hack a way to Paris, says the Weekly Mail and Record.

This view is not entertained by military men. Joffre never believed in it at all. The Germans announced it; they sought to make Joffre swallow it. From the outset, the deep-thinking French Commander perceived that this Belgian invasion, with its flourishing of trumpets, was not Germany's real stratagem. He saw that Belgium was only a gigantic trap—the greatest ever prepared in military history. It was designed to lure joffre to rush the British and French armies into its jaws, when Germany would unmask her hidden stroke—a thunderbolt that was to startle tlio world, capture a million prisoners, and finish the war in three weeks.

Into the meshes of this colossal trap Joffre was never tempted. Ho stood by with his armies intact in France, while Germany battered down Liege and Namur and goose-stepped through Brussels. He remained impassive while Belgium went to her doom. Jollre was playing a master game. He was frustrating the great trap which was to make Belgium the cockpit of the three Allied .armies—Belgian, British, and French.

How was it we all assumed so simply that Germany's road to Paris lay through Belgium? They did not come that way in 1870. They came straight into France through Metz and Nancy. Nor did they make for iP'aris until they had paralysed the French armies. They brought off three tremendous "coups"— Sedan, Metz, and the driving of the eastern army into Switzerland, where 200,000 men were disarmed. In seven months, Paris included, the Germans took 700,000 prisoners, and left France without an army. They meant to repeat that in 1914. We all considered that the straight road, to Paris through the French frontier, with its maze of "impregnable" forts, was impassable. But the Germans proved at Liege, Namur, and Antwerp that forts were impotent to resist their 17-inch g»ns. They battered down Liege—one fort in 43 rounds, another in J 9, tho remainder in 2-1 hours. They crashed through Namur like tissue paper. The French at onco saw that Germany had reconstituted fort warfare; that their forts between Verdun were obsolete. They instantly dismantled and reorganised these forts on a mobile principle. The French entertained no delusions about the impregnability of •their frontier.

Now come to the weaving of the plot. The Germans delayed many valuable, precious days at Liege, when every hour was an eternity to France completing her mobilisation. Those delays were the cheese in the mouse-trap. Time was purposely wasted to prepare the Belgian trap and to induce Joftre to ride his armies into the jaws of ileath there. Behind the camouflage of the Belgian invasion Germany's real objective was secretly maturing. In the dense forests of Ardennes, far to the south, Germany was concentrating vast, armies. .foffre discovered them hidden in the woods. Even an army he and the Russian Staff believed to be on the Eastern front was concealed there. These stupendous aggregations of men were Joffre's deadliest peril. Near Nancy the enemy massed these colossal forces to break through the French frontier after he had been given time to rush into Belgium. These armies were to come in behind him in France} out him off, and compel him in a few ■weeks to surrender.

Now. observe Joffre's strategy. Ho ordered, a French army to strike far away to the south, near Switzerland. This force rushed into Alsace at Mulhausen. The Germans could not resist tin; temptation. They dispatched from Nancy considerable forces to overwhelm this impudent invasion. Joffre's orders were to Tctirc whenever pressure was .exerted severely. The French drew back. The German rush missed. The enemy .concentrated at Nancy. Jofl're struck again to the. south. The Germans once more rushed to catch him —this time with more success. Nevertheless, this game of 80-Peep was effecting all Jofl're desired—to break up -these tremendous armies of Nancy and prevent the Germans breaking through —all the while reorganising his forts oil the new principle of "mobile." It is significant of Germany's real plan that the Kaiser did not go to Paris. He was at Nancy awaiting this tremendous thunderbolt. All Germany waited in breathless expectancy of the glorious news. But Jofl're had so thoroughly mastered the strategy by refusing to rush into Belgtam and then compelling them twice to break up their forces at Nancy that the whole scheme collapsed. De Muehlon, the ex-TCmpp director, who has exposed the whole plot, says of this Naney farce: "Of the bombardment of Nancy, announced _ with so ; much noise, nothing more is beard, jgfet g tribute tg ism-1