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From the Library of

RALPH EMERSON FORBES

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SACHUSETTS BOSTON LIBRARY

^tanHarU HiBrarp Ctiition

A HISTORY OF
THE GREAT WAR

IN FOUR VOLUMES

VOLUME I

TjSpiy yip i^avdova* iKdpiruxre <TTaxvw
'Att]s 6dfv ndyKXavTov ^^a/xi^ depos.

/EscHYLUS, Persa, 812-13.

"There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain
the spirit ; neither hath he power in the day of death : and
there is no discharge in that war." — Eccksiastes viii. 8.

*' Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her
seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world ;
all things in heaven and earth do her homage ; the very least as
feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her
power ; both Angels and men, and creatures of what condition
soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with
uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace
and joy." — Richard Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity.

Viscount Grey of Fallodon
{Sir Edward Grey)

From a painting by Hugh Cecil

A HISTORY OF

THE GREAT WAR

BY
JOHN BUCHAN

VOLUME I

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1923

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W^t iRibersitie Preistf

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

DNTV. OF MA5!^Ci^^Bppi
AT BOSTOi^ - LibliAKT

THOMAS ARTHUR NELSON

CAPTAIN

LOTHIANS AND BORDER HORSB

WHO FELL AT ARRAS

ON EASTER MONDAY, I917

Heu quanta minus est cum reliquls versari quam
tut meminisse !

PREFACE.

This work in its original form appeared in twenty-four volumes
between February 1915 and July 1919, and was therefore
written and published for the most part during the progress
of the campaign. Begun as an experiment to pass the time
during a period of enforced inaction, its large sales and the
evidence forthcoming that it met a certain need induced me
to continue it as a duty, and the bulk of it was written in the
scanty leisure which I could snatch from service abroad and
at home. Any narrative produced under such conditions
must bristle with imperfections. It will contain many errors
of fact. The writer cannot stage his drama or prepare the
reader for a sudden change by a gradual revelation of its
causes. His work must have something of the apparent
inconsequence of real life. He records one month a sanguine
mood and a hopeful forecast ; three months later he will
tell of depression and of expectations belied. He must set
out interim judgments, and presently recant them.

After much reflection I decided to revise — and largely
rewrite — the book in order to give it perspective and a juster
scale, and I was moved to this decision by my view of the
value of contemporary history. Sir Walter Raleigh, in the
preface to his History of the World, excuses himself for not
writing the story of his own times, which (he says) might have
been more pleasing to the reader, on the ground that " who-
soever in writing a moderne Historic shall follow truth
too neare the heeles, it may happily strike out his teeth."
To Napoleon, on the contrary, it seemed that contemporary
history was the surest. " One can say what occurred one
year after an event as well as a hundred years. It is more
likely to be true, because the reader can judge by his own
knowledge." Between two such opinions reason would seem

viii ' PREFACE.

to decide for the second. Till a few hundred years ago his-
torians almost exclusively chronicled events of which they had
been spectators. The greatest of all wrote what was in the
strictest sense of the word contemporary history. Thucydides
played his part in the first stages of the Peloponnesian War
with the resolution of becoming its chronicler, and he saw the
ebb and flow of its tides, not as political mutations, but as
moments in the larger process of Hellenic destiny. With
such a writer, living in the surge of contemporary passions,
and yet with an eye abstracted and ranging over a wide ex-
panse of action and thought, no reconstructor of forgotten
ages from books and archives can hope to vie. For the scholar
in such a case competes with the creator, the writer of history
with one who was also its maker ; and the dullest must thrill
when in the tale of the struggle for Amphipolis the opponent
of Brasidas is revealed as Thucydides, son of Olorus, S? rdSe

There are special and peculiar reasons why the future
historian who essays to tell the whole tale of the Great War
will find himself at a disadvantage. The mass of material
will be so huge that even a new Gibbon or a second Ranke,
grappling with it in many hbraries, will find himself over-
burdened. Some principles of interpretation he will need,
and will no doubt devise, but the odds are that such prin-
ciples will be academic and artificial. The details of this
or that battle may be clearer in the future when war diaries
and personal memoirs have multiplied, but I believe that
the main features of the war can be more accurately seen
and more truly judged by those who lived through it than
by a scholar writing after the lapse of half a century. The
men of our own day, from the mere fact of having taken part
in the struggle, are already provided with a perspective —
a perspective more just, I think, than any which the later
historian, working only from documents, is likely to discover.
Again, in a contest of whole peoples psychology must be a
matter of prime importance ; mutations of opinion and the
ups and downs of popular moods are themselves weighty
historical facts, as much as a battle or a state paper ; and
who is to assess them truly if not those who themselves felt

PREFACE. ix

the glow of hope and the pain of disillusion ? Lastly, the
contemporary has, perhaps, a more vivid sense of the great
drama if he has appeared on the stage, were it only as one
of a crowd of citizens in the background. I cannot boast
with Raleigh that I have been " permitted to draw water
as neare the Weil-Head as another " ; but for much of the
war I was within a modest distance of the springs. My duties,
first as a War Correspondent and then as an Intelligence
officer, gave me some knowledge of the Western Front ; and
later, in my work as Director of Information, I was compelled
to follow closely events in every theatre of war, and for the
purposes of propaganda to make a study of poKtical reactions
and popular opinion in many countries.

My aim has been to write a clear narrative of one of the
greatest epochs in history, showing not only the changing
tides of battle, but the intricate poUtical, economic, and social
transformations which were involved in a strife not of armies
but of peoples. I have tried — with what success it is for
others to judge — to give my story something of the movement
and colour which it deserves, and to avoid the formlessness
of a mere compilation. The book is meant to be history on
a large scale, printed as it were in capital type, and to keep
the proportions I have omitted much detail of great interest
which can be found in works dealing with individual military
and naval units, Umited battle-grounds, and special spheres
of national effort. But in one respect I am conscious that
I have departed from a just proportion. The book is written
in English, and intended primarily to be read by the writer's
countrymen. Hence the part played by Britain has been
described more fully than that of the other belligerents, though
I trust this prominence deliberately given to British doings
does not appear in my general criticisms and judgments.
One point I would emphasize. No confidences have been
betrayed, no privileges have been claimed or used, no matter
included which cannot be fairly regarded as public property.
The book is indeed the opposite of an official history. It
does not pretend to lay open sealed archives ; it is a personal
not a professional record, a chronicle of individual observa-
tion, private study, personal assessments. In a work so full

X PREFACE.

of details there must inevitably be mistakes, but I have striven
earnestly to tell the truth, so far as I could ascertain it, free
from bias or petulance or passion. The story is too noble a
one to be marred by any " vileinye of hate."

With regard to the method followed : The pages are not
" documented," for to quote authorities would have doubled
the size of the volumes. References to sources are usually
given only when some point is still in dispute. In the early
part, when the British Army was small, brigades and even
battalions are mentioned ; in the later, the normal unit is
the division and, in most chapters, the corps. No fixed prin-
ciple has been followed in spelling foreign names ; I have used
the forms in which they are most likely to be familiar to the
general reader. I have had the advantage of the knowledge
and advice of a very great number of soldiers, sailors, and
civilians among nearly all the belligerent nations, some of
whom have been so kind as to read my proofs. To these,
my friends, I offer my warmest gratitude, and I only refrain
from the pleasure of writing their names because I have some-
times had the temerity to differ from their views, and I hesitate
to involve distinguished professional men in any responsibility
for a work which in every part represents an independent
exercise of my own judgment. To one helper, however, I
must make special acknowledgment. Mr. Milliard Atteridge
from the late months of 1914 has assisted me in analyzing
reports, in verifying references, in correcting proofs, and
especially in the preparation of the maps. But for his most
capable and unwearying aid the book in its original form
could not have been written.

J. B.

Elsfield Manor, Oxon,

CONTENTS.
BOOK I.

THE EARLY WAR OF MANOEUVRE.

I. Prologue : At Serajevo 3

II. The World on the Eve of War 7

The Maladies of the Pre-war World — Modern Germany —
The Emperor — German Statesmen — The Soldiers and
Sailors — The Kings of Trade — Germany's Grandeur — The
Motive of Fear — Austria-Hungary — France — Britain —
The Events preceding the Cataclysm — Germany's Turn-
ing of the Ways.

III. The Breaking of the Barriers (June 28-August 4,

1914) 51

The Immediate Results of the Serajevo Murders — Ger-
many's Council of War on 5th July — Austria's Ultimatum
to Serbia — The Russian Mobilization — Germany's Pro-
posal to Britain — The Work of Sir Edward Grey — Ger-
many mobilizes — The Ultimatums to France and Bel-
gium— The Invasion of Belgium — The British Cabinet —
Britain declares War.

IV. The Strength of the Combatants , . . .81

The German Military System — Austria-Hungary —
France — Russia — Britain — The British and German
Navies — Economic Strength of the Belhgerents — The
Strategic Position — The Rally of the British Empire.

V. The First Shots (4th-i5th August) . . . .114

The New Factors in War — The German Plan — The
French Plan — The German Aufmarsch — The Defences of
Belgium — The Attack on the Liege Forts — The French
Move into Alsace.

VI. The Battle joined in the West (i5th-24th August) 137

The French Mobilization — Joffre — His Change of Plan —
Failure of the Advance in Lorraine and the Southern
Ardennes — The First Clash of the Main Armies — Fall of
Namur — Battle of Charleroi — The British Expeditionary
Force — Mons — The Retreat begins.

YII. The Retreat from the French Frontiers (24th-

August-4th September) 162

Joffre's Revision of Policy — The Retirement of the
French Armies — Kluck's Pursuit of the British — Battle of
Le Cateau — Maunoury's New Army — End of the British
Retreat.

xii CONTENTS.

VIII. The Eastern Theatre of War (5th August-ioth

September) 180

Russia's Strategic Position — Rennenkampf s Advance in
East Prussia — Battle of Tannenberg — The Austrian Of-
fensive— Battles of Lemberg and Rava Russka — Serbia's
Stand — The Russian Proclamation to Poland.

IX. The Week of Sedan (26th August-5th September) 197

Comparison of Situation with 1870 — The Defence of
Paris — Kluck changes Direction — His Justification — ^The
Eve of the Marne — Joffre issues Orders for Battle.

X. The First Battle of the Marne (5 th-i2th September) 211

The German and Allied Dispositions — Maunoury moves
— Advance of British and French Fifth Army — Kluck's
Tactics — The Crisis of gth September— German Retreat
ordered — Foch's Stand at Fere-Champenoise — The Fight
of the French Fourth and Third Armies — Castelnau and
Dubail in Lorraine — The Causes of Victory.

XI. The Occupation of Belgium 235

The Overrunning of Belgium — German Breaches of the
Laws of War — The " Armed Dogma " — Belgium and her
King.

XII. The Beginning of the War at Sea (4th August-

22nd September) 249

Germany's Naval Policy — Sir John Jellicoe's Problem —
The Transport of the Armies — Escape of the Goeben and
the Breslau — Protection of the Trade Routes — Security
of the British Coasts— The Battle of the Bight of Heli-
goland— What Control of the Sea implies — The Sub-
marine Menace — The German Commerce-raiders — The
Declaration of London.

XIII. The First Battle of the Aisne (12th September-

3rd October) 269

The German Retreat from the Marne — The Aisne Posi-
tion— The Struggle for the Crossings — The Struggle for
the Heights — Joffre extends his Left Wing — The Fight-
ing on the Meuse — The Race to the Sea.

XIV. The Fall of Antwerp (28th September-ioth

October 289

The Antwerp Defences — The Belgian Sortie — The Siege
opens — Arrival of British Naval Division — Lord Kitch-
ener's Plan — The Last Hours of the City.

XV. The Political Situation in the First Months of War 305

The Position of Parties in Britain — A Nation United but
not yet Awake — The Situation in France — False Views
about Russia — Germany — ^Turkey — Italy — The Smaller
Peoples — The United States.

XVI. The Beginning of the Flanders Campaign : The
First Battle of Ypres (8th October-20th No-
vember) 325

The Terrain of West Flanders— The Allied Plan— The
British Army comes into Line — The Fight of the 2nd and
3rd Corps — The German Objective— The Battle of the
Yser — The Defence of Arras — The First Battle of Ypres
—Death of Lord Roberts— End oi the Old British
Regular Army.

CONTENTS. xiii

XVII. Ebb and Flow in the East (7th September-24th

December) 37^

Hindenburg on the Niemen — Battle of Augustovo — The
Russian Advance on Cracow — Pohcy of the Galician
Campaign — The First German Advance on Warsaw —
The Defences of Cracow and the Fighting in the Car-
pathian Passes — The Second Advance on Warsaw — The
Battle of Lodz — The Battle of the Serbian Ridges.

XVIII. The War in the Pacific and in Africa (loth

August-8th December) 409

Germany's Loss of her Pacific Colonies — Fall of Tsing-
tau — Germany in Africa — Togoland — Beginning of the
Cameroons Campaign — Skirmishing in German South-
West Africa — Maritz's Revolt — The Situation in German
East Africa — British Failure at Tanga — ^The South
African Rebellion.

XIX. The War at Sea : Coronel and the Falkland

Islands (14th September-8th December) . 442

Cradock and von Spec — Battle of Coronel — Sturdee leaves
England with the Battle Cruisers — Battle of the Falkland
Islands — Its Results.

BOOK II.

THE BELEAGUERED FORTRESS.

XX. The First Winter in the West . . . .455

The Winter Stalemate — The " War of Attrition " —
Nature of Trench Fighting — The French Soldier — The
British Soldier.

XXI. Raids and Blockades (November 2, 1914-

March 31, 1915) 46S

The Raid on Yarmouth — The Raids on Scarborough and
the Hartlepools — Battle of the Dogger Bank — Britain's
Action as to Contraband — Germany declares a Blockade
of Britain — Britain closes the North Sea — The Blockade
of Germany.

XXII. Economics and Law 482

The Main Economic Problems — British Measures —
Strikes — Economic Position of France, Russia, and
Germany — Problems of International Law — Rejection
of Declaration of Paris — Mr. Balfour's Defence.

XXIII. Turkey at War (October 29, 1914-February 8,

1915) 499

Turkey enters the War — The Turkish Army — The Persian
Gulf — Britain occupies the Delta — The Campaign in
Transcaucasia — The Battle of Sarikamish — Egypt — The
Defeat of the Turkish Attack on the Suez Canal.

XIV CONTENTS.

XXIV. The Battles on the Russian Front in the

Spring of 1915 (3rd January-22nd March) . 518

The Year opens on the Eastern Front — German Attack
on the Bzura and the Ravka — The Attack in East Prus-
sia— Destruction of Russian Tenth Army — Battle of
Przasnysz — The Fight for the Carpathian Passes — The
Russians enter Przemysl.

XXV. Neuve Chapelle (8th-i5th March) .... 540

The Purpose of Neuve Chapelle — ^The Use of Artillery —
The Battle — Its Consequences.

ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I

Viscount Grey of Fallodon (Sir Edward Grey) Frontispiece

Marshal Joseph- J ACotES-CESAiRE Joffre 138

The Battlefield of Ypres : Winter 362

From a painting by D. Y. Cameron, R.A.

Sunset at Scapa Flow 442

From a drawing by Muirhead Bone

The British Household Brigade Passing to the Ypres
Salient, Cassel 466

From a painting by Sir William Orpen, R.A.

LIST OF MAPS.

r. Li^GE

2. Namur

3. The Western Theatre of War

4. Operations in East Prussia (Aug.-Sept. 1914)

5. Operations in Galicia (Aug.-Sept. 1914)

6. The First Battle of the Marne .

7. The Battle in the Bight of Heligoland — I.

8. „ ,, „ — II.

9. The First Battle of the Aisne

10. Antwerp

11. The Battle-ground of West Flanders (Oct.-Nov.

12. The First Battle of Ypres

13. Germany's Pacific Colonies

14. Germany's African Colonies .

15. The Battle of the Falkland Islands
i6. General Map of the Turkish Empire .

17. General Map of the Russian Front .

18. Neuve Chapelle

1914)

134

148
178
188
194
232

258
260
278
302
352
366
412
420
450
516
536
548

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION.

Whether history is better written by one who has been a
participant, or at least a contemporary of the great actors
in the drama he portrays, or by the careful disciple of histor-
ical research working when time has lent distance and prej-
udice no longer obscures the vision, must be decided by
each student for himself. Much that can be said by the
participator, of great events which he saw and of which he
was a part, the personal bearing of individuals, the vivid
impressions that come only to the eye-witness, the psy-
chology of the times and peoples and the waves of patriotic
emotion, may be missed by the scholar writing ever so
carefully after the ultimate survivor has told his tale for the
last time. Nor can the scholar find his facts if every writer
with personal knowledge delays his record for time's per-
spective and the cooling of passion. Some contemporary
record must constitute the sources from which the future
historian' must draw his materials. The generations between
the events and the leisurely written study of the scholar are
themselves entitled to some well presented statement of the
history their fathers made.

That some perspective is necessary is beyond doubt.
The relation of events to one another, of cause to effect, is
not at once evident. This is particularly true in a history
of modern war. The horizon of any one man in a modern
battle is very limited. Personal leadership by general
officers no longer has a place on the field, and high com-
manders cannot see wavering lines or the approach of
assaulting columns. In the Great War, with the tremendous
range of its guns and rifles, the length of its battle-lines,
and the ossified character of its engagements between the
First Marne and the great Allied Offensive of July, 191 8,
even division commanders knew little of what happened
except in their own contracted sectors. The effects of a

XX INTRODUCTION.

success or reverse on a limited front as related to the whole
plan they could not know. That a local reverse might yet
contribute to a general success by containing the enemy at
a vital point could not be known to the participants at the
time. Such effects are known only by the commanders-in-
chief and their confidential staffs. The flood of regimental
and divisional histories is useful in recording the participa-
tion of units as seen by themselves, and when checked
against each other and against other records will constitute
a valuable source for the future historian. The very con-
troversies they arouse will serve in time to clear doubtful
points.

Those who believe that more reliable history is written
some years after the occurrences point to the period in the
eighties when the best accounts of our Civil War appeared,
written by the leaders themselves, and there was an accord
between historians which would have been impossible in the
late sixties. Our Civil War chiefs were young men. In the
recent struggle our country had perhaps half a dozen general
officers under forty years of age; in the Civil War there
were scarcely a greater number who were beyond that age.
Grant, Meade, Thomas and Sherman were in the forties.
Lee was past fifty. Sheridan was not thirty-five when the
war ended ; Merritt, Custer, Miles, Wilson, Fitzhugh Lee, and
Mackenzie were under thirty. Stuart and McPherson died
at thirty-three. But Joffre, Foch, French, and the Grand
Duke Nicholas were in the sixties when the Great War
began, Cadorna was sixty-five, and Hindenburg was sev-
enty. Petain, Haig, and Pershing were in the late fifties.

It is important to the American participation in the
Great War that such contemporaneous accounts as faith-
fully recite its story be tagged, as it were, by those with
first-hand knowledge, as reliable sources for the future
historian. It is no secret that our principal Allies opposed
the formation of an American Army as such, and pleaded with
great pertinacity that our soldiers might be amalgamated
in British and French units, and later, yielding little by
little, that our battalions should be brigaded under French

INTRODUCTION. xxi

and British commanders. One of the accomplishments for
which his country owes him most, is the firmness with which
General Pershing successfully withstood this fallacious mil-
itary insistence of our Allies, with no doubt some loss of
popularity with their chiefs, and at no small risk to his own
fortunes when he took issue with policies to which the great
Allied Prime Ministers were committed. As late as Sep-
tember, 1918, just after his success at St. Mihiel, Pershing
had to resist pressure from General Foch to break up his
American Army and disperse its divisions to various Allied
commands. On November 5th, less than a week before the
Armistice he was asked to distribute six of his victorious
divisions among the French in Lorraine, though their
replacement at an early date was promised him. A man
less steadfast in his convictions and less capable of present-
ing them in convincing form to his home government, would
have been more acceptable to the venerable French Premier
than Pershing, and stormy old Clemenceau behind a French
Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies, was the most
powerful influence on the Allied side in the autumn of 1918.
Marshal Foch, great soldier though he is, surrounded him-
self with only a French staff, and unquestionably obeyed
Clemenceau as a minister on whose pleasure his tenure of
command depended. The policies of France, to say the
least, never suffered by virtue of the chief Allied command
being exercised by a Frenchman. A recent French writer,
discussing the reasons why the Armistice was concluded at a
time when many military men thought it premature, no
doubt reflects in some measure French opinion of the time
when he says that the Americans were coming to France at
the rate of three hundred thousand per month, in such
numbers "as to threaten the unity of command." Such
facts may unconsciously color the official reports of the time,
and they certainly point to the importance of keeping the
record straight.

Unhappily the personal statements of the great chiefs
must be made soon, if at all. Certain ones for better or for
worse have already been placed in the archives. Others

xxii INTRODUCTION.

will probably never be recorded. Lord Haig has sealed his
papers to the British Museum for use after his death. The
Germans von Hindenburg and von Ludendorff have writ-
ten from the enemy side, but their accounts, however ac-
curate, are in the nature of self-vindication. The Grand
Duke Nicholas, an exile from his wretched country, will
hardly write his memoirs and his activities were remote
from the Western Front. Diaz and Badoglio will use a
tongue to which our public is a stranger. Lord French, in
his book 1914, deals only with the earlier events of the War,
and in such manner as to throw doubt on the accuracy of
his memory. Marshal Foch is understood to be compiling
his notes, but Marshal Joffre in serene old age is probably
content to trust to his reports of the time. Marshal Petain
and our own General Pershing, now in their sixties, con-
fident, apparently, in the expectation of long life, are devot-
ing themselves to other activities. The lamented General
James W. McAndrew, Chief of Staff of the American Ex-
peditionary Forces during our major operations in France,
died without committing his observations to writing. In
the field of political relations between the Allied Govern-
ments, which so powerfully influenced military events, the
records are still largely confidential and not yet accessible
to the historical student. With old age now weighing upon
the great Clemenceau, with former President Wilson an
invalid, and with Mr. Lloyd George still battling in the
political arena with the lengthening shadows behind him,
there seems little prospect that the stories of these men, so
necessary to the comprehensive history of the Great War,
will ever be told.

This History of the Great War by John Buchan is one on
which in my opinion the future historian, struggling with the
mass of historical matter yet to be written, may rely.
Trained at Glasgow University and at Oxford, the author
was a Barrister of the Middle Temple as early as 1901. To
his legal training and experience he added two years as
Private Secretary to Lord Milner when the latter was High
Commissioner in South Africa after the Boer War. As a

INTRODUCTION. xxiii

newspaper correspondent on the Western Front in the early
days of the War, and later as a Lieutenant-Colonel serving
in the Intelligence Section of the General Staff of the British
Expeditionary Forces in France, he had exceptional op-
portunities for observation. His service as Director of
Information for his government gave him equal opportunity
to keep in touch with activities on all Allied fronts during
the last two years of the War. Colonel Buchan has either
read very widely from the standpoint of the military student
or his generous acknowledgement, in his preface, of his
indebtedness to his friends covers the counsel of some well-
informed professional soldiers. The literary style of his
work is charming, its movement and color are satisfying,
and it is rich, even fascinating, in historical allusion and
comparison.

In the passing of the generations it has sometimes hap-
pened that "a common soldier, a child, a girl at the door
of an inn, have changed the face of fortune and almost
of Nature" (Burke). That in the twentieth century the
murder of a middle-aged mediocre prince inspecting in an
obscure city of the Balkans, even though he were the heir to
an empire, could mark one of the fateful moments of all
history, and precipitate the greatest of wars, throws doubt
on the pretensions of our age. The dramatic events of that
June morning at Serajevo brought to a head the antagonism
between Slav and Teuton, awoke the ambitions and the
fears of every Power in Europe, and slowed down the prog-
ress of civilization to a rate which cannot yet be calculated.
The causes of the struggle into which the murder of the
Austrian heir now plunged half the world had been sown
and had fructified through many years.

In a generally happy and comfortable world, in an age of
philanthropy, of scientific development entwined with a
commerce that encircled the globe, mankind had abandoned
itself to the lure of luxury and a hectic hunt for wealth.
The luxury of one class is usually developed at the expense
of others, and the second decade of the twentieth century
heard much of class-consciousness, of social democracy and

xxiv INTRODUCTION.

the proletariat. The ambitions of these new forces, largely
material, sought to master the world's wealth rather than to
regenerate its spirit. Such aims, with the increased partic-
ipation of their advocates in the governments of many
lands, led to an intense and narrow nationalism, a patriotism
of the pocket, the self-contained, self-satisfied, and jealous
state. The nineteenth century had been an age of faith;
the pre-war twentieth was sceptical of the gods of its pred-
ecessor, while its own were new and strange and com-
manded no serious homage. Opportunism reigned in
politics and philosophy, and Truth was quoted in the
markets at varying values. Creeds were in solution and
the clear-cut dogmas of the previous century gave way to a
waning intellectual vitality, content to be at once sceptical
and credulous.

"It was a world self-satisfied without contentment, a world
in which material prosperity was no index to happiness. Man-
kind was drifting into jealous cliques, while every day their
economic bonds became more subtly interlinked; and since this
situation could not endure, it was certain that some form of
unity, false or true, would soon be inevitable. Such a unity
might follow upon a new faith in the brotherhood of man, but, in
the decadence of the great constructive ideals of politics and
religion, it was hard to see how this faith would be born. Or it
might come from the material reconstruction of life, of which the
communists dreamed, when men would be brigaded not by
nations but by classes, and an international proletariat would
call the tune. Or lastly it might arise if a single power should
establish a world-wide hegemony and impose its rule and culture
upon the subservient peoples."

This History is the record of the calamity which shattered
the world's complacency; the mighty convulsion In which
much that mankind had accepted as good has disappeared,
and much for which millions died remains still unrealized
and intangible.

A characteristic of Colonel Buchan's work is its chivalric
fairness even to the enemy, and the absence of that disa-
greeable tone of wisdom shown by many commentators

INTRODUCTION. xxv

who write in the light of after events. His conceptions of
the strategy of the various theatres of the war are sound.
The pictures of the great leaders are presented with fidelity.
The national characteristics and racial idiosyncracies of
the various Allies are treated with tolerance and without
visible bias. One cannot read without renewed apprecia-
tion of the martyrdom of brave little Belgium which saved
the honor of the British race by raising the moral issue which
brought them into the war. And of France, — the gallant
French, — whose officers had produced some of the best
military literature of modern times, whose traditions were
of the Grande Armee with its rapid and cumulative attacks,
and who for over four years retained all their historic dash
and elan, while facing national death with noble calm and
shining fortitude, no History can say too much. The race
was ready to perish on the battlefield sooner than accept
German domination. Many would die, but of a surety
France, in whose eternity they were but a moment, would
survive. It is the fashion of the hour to permit the un-
speakable horrors of Bolshevism to obscure the part which
Imperial Russia took in the war. Russia entered the war
with her military resources undeveloped, and suffered from
lack of strategic policy. The empire lacked the machinery
for a rapid expansion of munitions. Her railways were
few and poorly distributed for war. In offensive warfare
where time was of the essence of the problem her defects
were obvious. Hypothetics is a bastard science which
should be shunned by the historian, — but had the Dar-
danelles Expedition had a different ending, giving Russia
access to the Mediterranean through the Black Sea, the
history of the world would have been changed. The turn of
Fortune's wheel took Russia out of the war, but while in it
her part was gallant and effective. She did not deserve
that her flag should have had no place on the day of our
great Allied march through the Arc de Triomphe on July
14th, 1919. The entrance of Italy into the War was no
matter of impulse. Her commercial interests were largely
in German hands. She is a young country, largely de-

kxvi INTRODUCTION.

pendent on foreign shipping for food, and without coal or
iron. For over a quarter of a century the ally of the Central
Powers, Italy was doubtless reluctant to take up arms
against them. Her decision to make war followed careful cal-
culation as to the probable outcome, and was preceded by
much negotiation for territory as an inducement to take the
side of the Central Powers. The London Pact of April 26,
1915, between Italy, Great Britain, France, and Russia
gave a higher price than the Teutonic League could offer,
and was conditioned on Italy breaking with her former
Allies within a month. Once in, Italy bore herself well.

That Colonel Buchan describes the part played by
Britain somewhat more in detail than that of her Allies is
easily forgiven, certainly by those in whose veins flows
English blood, and by all who, reading the history of the
last eight centuries, can testify how well the British soldier
knows how to die. One can well understand the pride with
which an Englishman calls the roll of races and lands that
responded to the martial drum-beat of Britain in 1914. To
the great outpouring from her island homes, with scarcely
a name missing from those great in her stormy history, her
absent sons came rallying from many a tropic isle and
distant strand. Our own gallant neighbor, Canada, with
the men of the sweeping western plains; the Boers, Basutos,
and Barotses, children of the African veldt; the brave
Anzacs from Australia and New Zealand; black men from
the West Indies; the proud old races of lands from Burma
to beyond the Khyber Pass, reigning princes of families as
ancient when Alexander invaded India as are the historic
houses of Howard and Cecil to-day, all the great names of
her Indian Empire from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin;
Mongol and Aryan, Teuton and Celt; the followers of
Christ, of Buddha, Mahomet, and Brahma and a thousand
lesser faiths. No such pageant of the legions had ever
before been mustered under the colors of a reigning sover-
eign.

It is, of course, the portion of this History which deals
with the American effort which will have the most intense

INTRODUCTION. xxvii

interest for our public. Colonel Buchan presents a very
discriminating and sympathetic analysis of the difficulties
of America's position as a neutral. His statement of our
political philosophy, with a keen sense of our inconsisten-
cies, as well as his estimate of the great abilities and leader-
ship of President Wilson, unable, sometimes, it seemed, to
envisage a rough-and-tumble world where decisions were
won by deed and not by phrases, can be read with profit by
all Americans. The highest tribute is paid to the Presi-
dent's statesmanship as revealed in his speeches of Febru-
ary 26 and April 2, 191 7. The Message asking for a Dec-
laration of War will rank among the greatest of America's
famous state documents. Couched in terms of studious
moderation and dignity, it stated not only the case of
America against Germany, but of civilization against
barbarism and popular government against tyranny.

The American Expeditionary Forces, capable of expan-
sion, if need be, to fifteen millions of soldiers, are thus
introduced on the stage of this History:

"The old American Army had been small, but its officers fol-
lowed the life for the love of it, and were to a high degree profes-
sional experts. For its size, the staff was probably equal to any
in the world. Those who watched the first American soldiers
on the continent of Europe — grave young men, with lean,
shaven faces, a quick springy walk and a superb bodily fitness —
found their memories returning to Gettysburg and the Wilder-
ness, where the same stock had shown an endurance and heroism
not surpassed in the history of mankind. And they were disposed
to agree with the observer who remarked that it had taken a long
time to get America into the war, but that it would take much
longer to get her out."

Thus our friends the Allies, while the German press was
picturing daily anti-war demonstrations in New York, with
weeping and desperate conscripts herded on board our
transports by special police. Whatever the German
General Staff thought, the press and politicians gave no
sign that they realized the gravity of this addition to the
Allied strength. "The financiers told the people that it

xxvlli INTRODUCTION.

was fortunate that America had entered the war, since she
was the only Allied country from which a big indemnity
could be extracted. The great American Army, said the
press, could not swim or fly, therefore it would never arrive."

How slowly the Americans seemed to arrive during that
first year we were in the war, and how desperately their
coming was longed for in the spring of 191 8, with the enemy
thundering on the Somme and the Marne, can scarcely be
appreciated by any one not in Europe during those anxious
days. In March when General Pershing made his dramatic
offer of all his resources to Foch, he had but four divisions
under his command; by the end of May he had nearly a
dozen ready for the front line, and others were crossing the
Atlantic at the rate of more than a quarter of a million
soldiers per month. Their preliminary training at home
had been so expedited that by midsummer we were landing
in France every five weeks as many troops as the annual
compulsory recruitment of Germany. In March but three
hundred thousand soldiers in France, the American armies
by November numbered over two millions of men. On
February ist the French held 520 kilometers of front, the
British 187, and the Americans 10; November nth, the
French held 343, the Americans 134, and the British 113
kilometers, the total front varying by the retirement of the
German lines.

On May 28th an event happened which may have given
the enemy food for thought. A regiment of the 1st Ameri-
can Division, Major-General Bullard, took the village of
Cantigny in the Montdidier section, and held it against
three counter-attacks. It was something neatly and
efficiently to carry out an offensive, but to consolidate and
hold its gains was a happy omen for the future. In June
the 2nd Division, Major-General Bundy, attacking at the
southwest corner of the German salient, near Chateau
Thierry, captured Bouresches, Vaux, and Belleau Wood,
and the 3rd Division, under Major-General Dickman, act-
ing with the French, took Hill 204, in the same neighbor-
hood. By the middle of July there were 300,000 Americans

INTRODUCTION. xxix

in the line or in immediate support, serving under the
French Generals Gouraud, Degoutte, and Mangin. When
on the 15th the enemy passed the Marne, the 3rd Division,
with elements of the 28th, checked and rolled them back,
clearing part of the south bank and taking prisoners.

The time had now come for the counter-stroke after
which the enemy never gained ground forward. The Allied
Commander-in-Chief struck the apex and side of the salient
which had been made when the enemy broke through be-
tween Rheims and Soissons on May 28th, and which he was
still desperately endeavoring to widen. Mangin's Army
which was to conduct the main operation, was on the west-
ern side of the salient; Degoutte's in front of its apex on
the Marne. Mangin's striking force consisted of the 1st
American Division, Major-General Summerall, the ist
French Moroccan Division, General Dogan, and the 2nd
American Division, Major-General Harbord. It was the
first time American Divisions had been used as such in a
major operation, and they were proud to attack by the side
of the best shock troops of France. The three attacking
divisions were assembled in the great forest of Villers-
Cotterets on the 17th, and on the morning of the i8th,
after a night of thunderstorms and furious rain and wind,
went over the top. The combined attack of Degoutte and
Mangin extended for thirty-five miles, from Belleau Wood
near Chateau Thierry to Fontenoy on the Aisne. Many
thousand prisoners and much artillery were captured by
Mangin's attack, and the 2nd American Division made an
advance of nearly eight miles — the longest advance as
yet made in a single day by the Allies in the West. The
German salient was narrowed and its western flank crum-
bled. Foch had wrested the initiative from the enemy and
the Allies never again lost it. " Moments of high crisis
slip past unnoticed; it is only the historian in later years
who can point to a half-hour in a crowded day and say
that then was decided the fate of a cause or a people. . . .
When the Allies breasted the Montagne de Paris and the
Vierzey plateau on that July morning, they had, without

XXX INTRODUCTION.

knowing it, won the Second Battle of the Marne, and with
it the War. Four months earher Ludendorff had stood as
the apparent dictator of Europe; four months later he and
his master were in exile."

The temptation to linger on the brave days of action that
came between July and November, 1918, is a ver^^ strong
one to an American soldier. Events moved swiftly all
along the Western Front, and the Americans were by
September fighting under their own Commander-in-Chief.
It was the month of St. Mihiel, and General Pershing,
collecting his far-flung divisions into the First American
Army, half a million strong, to which were added some
seventy thousand French troops, destroyed the salient
which had been held by the Germans since 19 14. The
battle lasted three days, and at its close the heights of the
Meuse were cleared of the enemy and the Allied line ran
from the Meurthe below Pont-a-Mousson roughly north-
west past Thiaucourt, St. Benoit, and Fresnes to the old
Verdun front at Bezonvaux. Sixteen thousand prisoners
were taken and over 400 guns, with a mass of every kind
of stores. It was an achievement of the utmost significance.
It proved, if proof were needed, the quality of American
troops organized in the largest units and under their own
commanders. Strategically it vastly assisted the Allied
communications, and restored in that area the power of
attack at any moment and in any direction. No enemy
salient remained as an advance guard in the West.

With hardly a pause after St. Mihiel, Pershing's First
Army extended to the west into the Argonne forest, a
desperate country where little impression had been made
on the enemy's defense since the first months of the war.
He was to strike down the Meuse in the direction of Me-
zieres. It was the most naturally difficult terrain on the
Western Front; the measure of its difficulties was the
measure of the honor in which Foch held the fighting quality
of his Allies from beyond the sea. In the chill foggy dawn
of September 26th, the Americans and the French army of
Gouraud on their left crossed their parapets on a front of

INTRODUCTION. xxxi

forty miles. Gouraud's was the containing attack and the
Americans were the spear-head. For forty-six days, where
our Wilderness had lasted but seven, the great battle which
we call the Meuse-Argonne added luster to the American
arms. Its splendid story is told in the citations of the time
and on the streamers to the regimental colors in many a gal-
lant American Division. Malancourt, Epiononville, Cheppy,
Varennes, Montfaucon, Somme-py, Blanc Mont, Apremont,
Grand Pr6, Landres-St. George, Bois de Barricourt, Bu-
zancy, Mezieres, and, shall we say, Sedan, are names en-
shrined for all time in the traditions of the American Army !

And then the Armistice and the march to the Rhine ! By
the middle of December the tricolor guarded the mouth of
the Main, the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew flaunted
over the ancient cathedral city of Cologne, and the stars
and stripes flew above Coblenz, where the Moselle joins the
Rhine, and on the silent fortress of Ehrenbreitstein !

Colonel Buchan well says:

" It would be a task both futile and invidious to discuss the
relative contributions of the different Allies to this achievement.
All had in it a full and noble share. . . . America, entering late into
the strife, made ready great armies at a speed unparalleled in
history, and brought about victory before the wreckage of the
world was beyond repair. . . .

"The gains and losses are not yet to be assessed, but there is
ground for humble confidence that that sowing in unimaginable
sacrifice and pain will yet quicken and bear fruit to the better-
ing of the world. The war was a vindication of the essential
greatness of our common nature, for victory was won less by
genius in the few than by faithfulness in the many. Every class
had its share, and the plain man born in these latter days of
doubt and divided purpose marched to heights of the heroic un-
surpassed in simpler ages. In this revelation democracy found its
final justification, and civilization its truest hope. Mankind may
console itself in its hour of depression and failure, and steel itself
to new labours, with the knowledge that once it has been great."

J. G. Harbord
Major-General, U.S. Army
Coblenz, Germany
July 28, 1922

BOOK I.

THE EARLY WAR OF MANCEUVRE.

A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR

CHAPTER I.

prologue: at serajevo.

June 28, 1914.

ON the morning of Sunday, 28th June, in the year 1914, the
Bosnian city of Serajevo was astir with the expectation of
a royal visit. The Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the
Hapsburg throne and the nephew of the Emperor, had been for
the past days attending the manoeuvres of the 15th and i6th Army
Corps, and had suddenly announced his intention of inspecting the
troops in the capital. He had embarked at Trieste on the Wednes-
day, in the new battleship Viribus Unitis, and had been joined
at Ilidje by his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, whose position was
a source of perpetual strife between himself and his uncle's Court.
It was a military occasion ; the civic authorities were given short
notice, and had little time to organize a reception ; and the royal
party were met at the station only by Count Potiorek, the Governor
of Bosnia, and his staff. The visitors drove in motor cars through
the uneven streets of the little city, which, with its circle of barren
hills and its mosques and minarets, reminds the traveller of Asia
rather than of Europe. There was a great crowd in the streets —
Catholic Croats, with whom the Archduke was not unpopular ;
Orthodox and Mussulman Serbs, who looked askance at all things
Austrian ; and those strange, wildly clad gipsies that throng every
Balkan town. But the crowd was not there to greet the Emperor's
nephew. It was the day of Kossovo, the anniversary of that fatal
fight when the Sultan Murad I. destroyed the old Serbian kingdom.
For five centuries it had been kept as a day of mourning, but this
year for the first time it was celebrated in Serbia as a national fete,
since the Balkan War had restored the losses of the Field of Black-

4 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [June

birds. Belgrade kept high hoHday, and the people of the Bosnian
capital followed the example of their kinsmen beyond the Save
and the Drina.

The Southern Slav provinces of Austria-Hungary had been the
centre of disquiet and of misgovernment ever since the year 1867,
when the " duahst " system was adopted. In that year the race
was divided, part going to Austria and part to Hungary ; and in
1878 a third Slav group was added, when the Hapsburgs acquired
the miUtary and administrative control of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Slowly a common race-consciousness was developed among the
three groups, and when Serbia passed under the rule of the popular
Karageorgevitch dynasty, that little kingdom became to the mal-
content Slavs of Austria-Hungary what the Piedmont of Cavour
had been to Italy. The peasants and the educated classes every-
where in the land of the Southern Slavs began to cherish dreams
of racial unity and independence. The annexation of Bosnia-
Herzegovina in 1908 by the Hapsburgs increased the discontent,
and the Government at Budapest entered upon a policy of repression,
in which, as in the infamous Agram trials, forgery and perjury were
not infrequent. The result was many crimes of violence against
alien officials, and a drawing closer of the bonds between the
Southern Slavs of Austria-Hungary and their kinsmen of Serbia.
A vigorous propaganda began through public and secret channels,
and the achievement of Serbia in the Balkan War turned the eyes
of the oppressed towards her as their future deliverer. The common
celebration of Kossovo Day was a pledge of an hour of deliverance
to come. It was an inopportune occasion for the Hapsburg heir
to visit Serajevo.

The Archduke Francis Ferdinand was a man in middle life,
a lonely and saddened figure oppressed by the imminence of a fatal
disease. In most respects he was a typical Austrian conservative,
but as compared with the majority of his countrymen he had some^
thing of the larger vision in statesmanship. He saw that Austria-
Hungary was succeeding ill in the government of her strangely
varied races, more especially the six and a half millions of Southern
Slavs. He had watched with anxiety the rise of Serbia, and the
position she was assuming in the eyes of his own Croats and Serbs
and Slovenes as their future emancipator. As a member of the
House of Hapsburg he sought to counter the Greater Serbian
ideal with that of a Greater Austria. He dreamed of a Balkan
Federation, which should include Rumania, under Austro-German
auspices, and early in June he had discussed the matter with the

1914] SERAJEVO. 5

German Emperor among the rose-gardens of Konopischt, and
obtained his assent. In his own country his pohcy was the destruc-
tion of the " duahst " system and the estabhshment in its place of
a " triahsm," under which the Slav element should be equal in
power to the Austrian and the Hungarian, and the different races
should have a real local autonomy and find union in a Federal
ParUament. For this reason, and also for the sake of his wife who
was of Slavonic blood, he was not disliked in the Southern prov-
inces. In Austria he was little loved. His cold manner repelled
the ordinary citizen, and the military party at Vienna had set
their faces hke flint against his " triune " poHcy, though they
worked harmoniously with him in reorganizing the army and the
fleet. In Hungary the Magyar oligarchy, led by Count Stephen
Tisza, were his avowed enemies, for their power depended upon
the suppression of the subject races. In their eyes the existing
regime must be preserved at any cost, and they had long frankly
avowed that their attitude meant war. Sooner or later — and
better soon than late — Serbia must be crushed, and with her the
Pan-Serbian dream. The Archduke was therefore a voice in the
wilderness, and his deadliest foes were those of his own household.
His ideals provided at least a chance of peace, while those of his
opponents contemplated at some early day the abandonment of
the arts of statesmanship for the sword.

The royal party proceeded slowly towards the Town Hall.
Motoring in Serajevo is a leisurely business, and there was a great
crowd along the Appel Quay. Just before they reached the Chu-
muria Bridge over the Miliatzka a black package fell on the open
hood of the Archduke's car. He pushed it off, and it exploded
in front of the second car, sHghtly wounding two of his suite and
six or seven spectators. The would-be assassin was arrested.
He was a compositor called Gabrinovitch, from Trebinje in Herze-
govina, who had lived some time in Belgrade. " The fellow will
get the Cross of Merit for this," was the reported remark of the
Archduke. He knew his real enemies, and was aware that to
powerful circles in Vienna and Budapest the news of his death
would not be unwelcome.

Arrived at the Town Hall, the Archduke was presented by
Count Potiorek to the Burgomaster. He was in something of a
temper. " What is the use of your speeches ? " he asked. " I
come here to pay you a visit, and I am greeted with bombs."
The embarrassed city dignitaries read the address of welcome, and
the Archduke made a formal reply. He then proposed to drive

6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [June

to the hospital to visit his wounded aide-de-camp. Some small
attempt was made to dissuade him, for in the narrow streets among
the motley population no proper guard could be kept. But Count
Potiorek was reassuring. He knew his Bosnians, he said, and
they rarely attempted two murders in one day. The party set
out accordingly, the Archduke and his wife in the same car with
the Governor.

About ten minutes to eleven, as they moved slowly along
the Appel Quay, in the narrow part where it is joined by the Franz-
Josefsgasse a young man pushed forward from the crowd on the
side-walk and fired three pistol shots into the royal car. He was
a Bosnian student called Prinzip, a friend of Gabrinovitch, who
like him had been living in Belgrade. The Archduke was hit in
the jugular vein, and died almost at once. His wife received a
bullet in her side, and expired a few minutes later in the Govern-
ment House, after receiving the last sacraments.

The tumult of the fete-day was suddenly hushed. The police
were busy in every street, laying hands on suspects, and in an
impassioned proclamation to the awed and silent city the Burgo-
master laid the crime at Serbia's door.

CHAPTER II.

THE WORLD ON THE EVE OF WAR.

The Maladies of the Pre-war World — Modern Germany — ^The Emperor — German
Statesmen — The Soldiers and Sailors — The Kings of Trade — Germany's Gran-
deur— The Motive of Fear — Austria-Hungary — France — Britain — ^The Events
preceding the Cataclysm — Germany's Turning of the Ways.

Great events spring only from great causes, but the immediate
occasion may be small. From the flight of Helen and Paris down
to the Ems telegram there has commonly been some single incident
which has acted as the explosive charge to the waiting magazine
of strife. The throwing of two envoys out of a window pre-
cipitated the Thirty Years' War ; a sentence spoken from a
balcony at Versailles began the War of the Spanish Succession ;
an escapade of hot-blooded youth inaugurated the revolution from
which sprung the United States. " A common soldier, a child,
a girl at the door of an inn, have changed the face of fortune and
almost of Nature." * The events of that June morning at Serajevo
were dramatic enough in themselves, but in their sequel they must
rank among the fateful moments of history. They brought to a
head the secular antagonism between Slav and Teuton, and awoke
the dormant ambitions and fears of every Power in Europe. It
is necessary, for a proper understanding of the issue, to review the
condition of the chief nations at the time when the crime of a
printers' devil and a schoolboy stripped off the diplomatic covering
and laid bare the iron facts to the eyes of the world.

In our quest for understanding we must go behind the incidents

of poUtics, which are no more than indices of more secret and potent

causes. The world in 1914 was nearly half through the second

decade of the twentieth century, and the preceding age had come

* Burke : Letters on a Regicide Peace,

8 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

to be lightly esteemed. Its great battles for freedom had been
fought long ago, and the Victorians had lost their glamour. The
nineteenth century had begun as an era of hope, and had ended as
an epoch of confidence ; but in 1914 the hope seemed a lack-lustre
thing and the confidence premature. Most of its famous creeds,
once so cogent in their appeal — Comtism, utilitarianism, the de-
corous hberaHsm of Gladstone, the mystic nationalism of Mazzini,
the behef in the mastery of man over nature, Darwinism with its
infinite corollaries, the dreams of empire-builders, the evolutionary
socialism of the nineties — were shaken in the esteem of man-
kind. They had either lost their votaries, since they were now
disconsidered commonplaces, or the spirit of dialectic was question-
ing their authority. The nineteenth century had been after its
fashion an age of faith ; the twentieth was sceptical of its prede-
cessor's gods, and had not yet found those of its own which could
awake the same serious fervour. The criticism which the Victorians
had applied to earlier codes of belief was now turned relentlessly
against their own dogmas. The popular creed both in politics
and philosophy was opportunist ; the large reconstructions of
earher thinkers were out of favour ; and Truth was fashionably
stated in terms of " experiential cash value." Such a mood meant
tolerance and a certain generosity of sympathy. The iconoclasts
of the nineteenth century had too intense a rehgious interest to
tolerate that which they thought to be false ; the twentieth century,
hesitating before any convictions, was chary of dogmatism or blunt
denial. The Victorian street-corner atheist now tended to be a
respectful, if lukewarm, patron of many gods.

But the new century was still the child of the old. The great
discoveries of physical science had borne fruit in a wide diffusion
of wealth and the confidence which prosperity brings. The world
on the eve of war felt itself secure and comfortable, and was
inclined to revere its own handiwork. What the Italian historian
labelled " Americanism " * had become a very general malady.
There was everywhere on the globe a feverish hunt for wealth and
a craze for luxury. The huge scientific and social machine which
the world had created seemed to be beyond the reach of danger,
and mechanism insensibly ruled the minds of many who thought
they held a different creed. That manly humility which the
language of theology calls the " fear of God " was not common
in the second decade of the twentieth century. If men were shy
in the face of dogma, they were confident about facts. The assur-
• Feirero : Ancient Rome and Modern America.

NATIONALISM OF THE POCKET. 9

ance of their fathers had been a higher thing, for it was a belief in
the existence of an ideal ; that of the sons came perilously near
to self-satisfaction.

The increase of luxury meant suffering among the less fortunate,
and the parade of the rich involved the discontent of the poor.
The world was in the main good-humoured, being comfortable ;
and there was much good-will abroad, and many enterprises of
philanthropic experiment. But throughout Europe there was
fierce antagonism among the dispossessed towards those in posses-
sion, and a growing class-consciousness in what was known as the
" proletariat." The " social democracy " aimed at a revolution
and a new world, and, following the example of its opponents, its
aims were essentially material. It sought to master the world's
wealth rather than to regenerate the world's spirit. This aim,
combined with the large powers which the people had won in the
government of most lands, led to an intense nationalism in practice.
The workers of one country, controlling the administration of that
country, were prepared to set up any barrier that would secure
the wealth which they sought to share from being pilfered by
foreigners. The consequence was that, while men were little dis-
posed to contend for ideals, they were very willing to struggle for
material good things. The old romantic nationalism seemed to
have decayed, and in its place had come a new nationalism of the
pocket. The world, and most notably Europe, had moved towards
both materialism and the self-contained and jealous state. The
Catholic Church, which maintained the spiritual interpretation of
life and the brotherhood of peoples, had lost much of its power
over both the learned and the unlearned, and could not counteract
the forces of disunion. At a time when science and commerce
had interwoven as never before the life of all humanity, the nations
were beginning to draw in their skirts and regard each other with
jealous eyes ; nor to the observer did there appear in any quarter
an ideal potent enough to restore the unity of Christendom and
that vision without which the people perish.

The decline of dogma and assured belief was accompanied by
a curious development in thought which may be described as
the cult of " irrationalism." This was less a creed than a very
general attitude of mind. The scepticism of the nineteenth century,
which led to strong anti-orthodox faiths, was replaced by a failure
of intellectual vitality which was content to be at once sceptical
and credulous. Instinct was glorified at the expense of the reason.
The phrase of the Church father, which was Newman's favourite

10 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

quotation, had become a watchword even for serious minds :
" Non in dialedica placuit Deo salvum facer e populum suum." In
rehgion, in politics, in social science there was everywhere found a
tendency to exalt emotion and to appeal to the heart rather than
the head. That a scheme was logically indefensible was no bar
to its acceptance, and the attempt to think out a policy to its
conclusions was branded as the mark of a pedantic and illiberal
mind. When creeds were thus in solution, and there were few bound-
aries left fixed, the way was opened to those vague and potent
eruptions of the human spirit which, like the inroads of the Bar-
barians on the Roman Empire, make a sharp breach with the past,
and destroy what they could not have created.

It was a world self-satisfied without contentment, a world in
which material prosperity was no index to happiness. Mankind
was drifting into jealous cliques, while every day their economic
bonds became more subtly interlinked ; and, since this situation
could not endure, it was certain that some form of unity, false or
true, would soon be inevitable. Such a unity might follow upon
a new faith in the brotherhood of man, but, in the decadence of
the great constructive ideals of politics and religion, it was hard
to see how this faith could be born. Or it might come from the
materialist reconstruction of life, of which communists dreamed,
when men would be universally brigaded not by nations but by
classes, and an international proletariat would call the tune. Or,
lastly, it might arise if a single Power should establish a world-
wide hegemony and impose its rule and its culture upon the sub-
servient peoples.

This book is the record of a calamity which shattered the world's
complacency and enabled men to look into their hearts. From the
malaise I have described no nation was free, but it was fated that
one strong Power should exhibit it in so monstrous a form that
humanity shuddered and drew back from conclusions which all
peoples had toyed with but only one had dared to accept. Our
first step must be to examine the mood and condition of the pro-
tagonists on the eve of the struggle, the causes of which had been
sown and had fructified through many years. The position of
other nations will be discussed as they enter the arena ; for the
present we will deal with the three main antagonists — the Empire
of Germany, the Commonwealth of Britain, and the Republic of
France.

THE MAKING OF GERMANY. II

II.

The history of the land between the Baltic and the Alps,
the Rhine and the Oder, was for more than a thousand years one of
confusion, separation, and incessant strife. The palsied hand of
the Holy Roman Empire gave neither unity nor peace. Again
and again Germany was left almost a desert by war, as when after
the Treaty of Westphaha in 1648 fields relapsed into jungles,
wolves were the only living thing in vast regions, and the population
shrank from twenty millions to four. In the wars of Frederick the
Great, likewise, one tenth of the people perished. From this long,
bitter record the German race learned two lessons — the misery of
military weakness, and the folly of disunion. They found the leader
who was to extricate them from their quagmire in the northern state
of Prussia, and when five centuries ago Frederick of Hohenzollern,
the Burgrave of Nuremberg, was given the vice-royalty of the
Mark of Brandenburg by the Emperor Sigismund, the foundations
of modem Germany were laid. The majority of the kings of
that house were trivial folk, but one or two were politically great,
and they established a tradition which accorded well with the nature
of the dwellers on the bleak Baltic seaboard and the harsh Pome-
ranian soil. By violence and subtlety they extended their borders
in each century and enlarged their importance. In 1701 the
Elector of Brandenburg became King of Prussia ; Frederick the
Great added Silesia and parts of Poland ; it was a queen of the
Hohenzollern house who inspired the resistance to Napoleon which
made possible Leipzig and Waterloo ; and at long last it was a
Hohenzollern king who made Germany an Empire. Prussia was
the new Germany, and to the ordinary man Prussia seemed a
Hohenzollern creation. The prestige of a dynasty, a dying thing
in the modem world, was therefore a living reality for the Germans,

That race, as their neighbours saw them, was divided into the
bom-to-be-drilled and the natural drill-masters. The ordinary
Teuton of the south and centre was industrious, dreamy, and
obedient, the docile prey of the drill-sergeant of Brandenburg ;
though, let it be remembered, it was this Germany from which
sprang the great Germans, for Prussia has scarcely produced one
man of first-rate genius save Bismarck. The Prussians were in
most respects the precise opposite. Narrow, one-ideaed, unimagin-
ative, they had the genius of bureaucracy, and did everything by
rule and plan. That is to say, they were the best machine-makers

12 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

in the world, and after 1870 their machine was all Germany, Not
the army and navy alone, but German commerce, German educa-
tion, German literature — the trail of the drill-master was over
them all. The Prussian outside Prussia was not popular, but we
shall be wrong if we regard the general submission to him as the
result only of an inborn servility of soul. In the fibre of every
German was an hereditary memory of the old bad days of weak
statelets and endless wars. He was instinctively prepared to
undergo any discipline for the sake of peace. He would accept
union not for the love of Prussia but because it promised security ;
he would submit to be drilled not from any militarist hankerings,
but because it gave him strength. For one man who welcomed a
military autocracy for its own sake, a hundred accepted it as a
guarantee against war. They revered the Hohenzollerns because
that dynasty seemed to have lifted their world out of anarchy into
order.

The German Empire was a creation of the victories of 1870,
and in the last resort of Bismarck. It was a confederation not
wholly homogeneous, for it included unwilling elements in the
people of Posen, Schleswig, and Alsace-Lorraine ; but in the main
it was a union of the German race, as revealed in history, with
the exception of the twelve millions left under the rule of the Haps-
burgs. The greatness of Bismarck as a man is beyond the reach of
criticism. The destruction of his life's work cannot remove him
from the select group of shaping and controlling minds which have
determined the future of nations and of the world. For power of
intellect and character he belongs to that class, strangely varied
in spirit and achievement, which includes Caesar and Charlemagne,
Frederick and Napoleon, Washington and Lincoln and Cavour.
He did not act blindly. He weighed the ideals of Western democ-
racy and found them wanting. He set himself deliberately to
oppose what were regarded as the characteristic movements of
his age, but he did not distinguish between transient fashion and
eternal verity. He forgot the truth that though you may set
back the hands of the clock you cannot alter the rising and setting
of the sun. He led the way in that fatal habit of abstraction by
which politics are made a rigid science excluding the better part
of human life. But he was a very great statesman, and not wont to
allow any dogma to obscure his insight into the heart of a situation.
He did not pin his faith to formulas. Readers of his memoirs and
conversations will remember that his acute, far-reaching mind saw
the weakness in that school of thought which is popularly called Bis-

BISMARCK. 13

marckian. " We must direct our policy in accordance with facts,"
he said in 1891 — " that is, we must do our best to prevent war or
to Hmit it." " In the future," he wrote in his Memoirs, " not only
sufficient military equipment, but also a correct political eye will
be required to guide the German ship of state through the currents
of coalition, to which in consequence of our geographical position
and our previous history we are exposed. We ought to do all we
can to weaken the bad feeling among the nations, which has been
evoked by our advance to the position of a Great Power, by the
honourable and peaceful use of our influence. ... In order to
produce this confidence it is, above everything, necessary that we
should act honourably and openly." That is not Bismarckianism, as
it is commonly understood. But, like many great men, he suffered
from his epigrams. The unhappy phrase, spoken on September 29,
1862, in the Prussian Diet — " The great question of the day will be
settled not by speeches and resolutions of majorities, but by blood
and iron " — rang maleficently in the ears of his people. His
disciples pinned their faith to blood and iron, and forgot the pru-
dence which the Chancellor had presupposed. Had he been in
power in 1914 we may be assured that he would have selected for
Germany a very different part from that which she chose to play.
Yet we shall not be wrong in seeing in modern German policy a
direct inheritance from Bismarck. The spirit which inspired his
main achievements was the spirit of Germany in 1914. His
aberrations rather than his wisdom became, as often happens, the
gospel of his successors. He had bequeathed an over-sharp sword,
which, when wielded by clumsier men, was certain to cut their
hands. His giant's robe was too heavy for pigmy wearers ; its
magnificence inflamed their pride, its amplitude caused them to
stumble, and in the end it shrank to a shirt of Nessus which drove
them mad.

The system of government which Bismarck prepared for
Germany may be compared with the First Napoleon's reconstruc-
tion of France, inasmuch as it embraced every side of the national
hfe. The constitution was absolutist in effect, with a parody
of certain democratic forms. Election for the Lower House, the
Reichstag, was by manhood suffrage, every man above twenty-five
having a vote ; but since there had been no redivision of electoral
areas since 1872, the increase and shifting of population had made
the representation grossly unequal. The powers of the Reichstag
were small, being limited to voting upon the Budget and upon
legislation for the Empire as a whole, which legislation was first

14 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

framed by the Bundesrat. The Bundesrat or Upper House was
composed of representatives of the twenty-five component States,
nominated and not elected ; and of such representatives Prussia
had seventeen, thereby possessing a permanent majority. The
Imperial Government was neither representative nor responsible.
At its head was the Imperial Chancellor, appointed by the Emperor,
and the other Ministers were appointed by the Chancellor. The
Reichstag could question Ministers, and for the purposes of the
Budget it was desirable that the Chancellor should have a majority
of its members behind him, but beyond that its control ceased.
Through the medium of the Chancellor all final authority came into
the Emperor's hands. He was in supreme command of the Army
and the Navy and dictated their organization ; he was the supreme
director of foreign affairs ; he sanctioned all new laws ; he was
responsible for the appointment of every Imperial functionary.
So far as any deliberative body had real authority, it was the
Bundesrat — which was Prussia — which was in turn the Emperor ;
and owing to the antiquated electoral system and the far-reaching
powers of the executive it was not difficult to find a coalition
inside the Reichstag which would work smoothly under the Imperial
will.

* The true nature of a constitution is not to be sought in its legal
forms, but in the spirit in which it is worked and the nature of the
men who govern. The temperament of the rulers of Germany
was the decisive fact. First among them stood the Emperor.
" The generality of princes," Gibbon wrote, " if they were stripped
of their purple and cast naked into the world, would immediately
sink to the lowest rank of society, without a hope of emerging
from their obscurity." * This harsh saying was not true of William
II. : in whatever class he had been born he would have been a
figure of note. It was his misfortune that destiny had placed
him in a position where his faults were too readily hailed as virtues
and his virtues were encouraged to degenerate into vices. He came
to the throne at a difficult moment, an eager, curious youth, with
a weak, nervous system and a restless energy, profoundly impressed
by the greatness of his place and full of incoherent and undisci-
plined ambitions. Such a temperament is fatal to a constitutional
monarchy, but it may suit moderately well with autocracy, and an
autocrat William was from the start. Bismarck read him shrewdly.
" I pity the young man," he said in May i8go. " He is like a
young hound ; he barks at everything, he touches everything,

* Decline and, Fall of the Roman Empire, chap, xxiii.

THE EMPEROR WILLIAM. 15

and he ends by causing complete disorder in the room in which
he is, no matter how large it may be." That same year the Em-
peror " dropped the pilot " and became his own adviser, for his
youth and the crabbed age of the great Chancellor could not live
together.

The new autocrat was a type of monarch to dazzle the populace
in his own and other lands. He had great charm of manner
and knew how to condescend gracefully to all classes of men.
In his multitudinous uniforms he made a fine spectacular
figure, and this dignity increased the effect of his frequent
condescensions. He had much facile kindness of heart, and on
occasion he had even a sense of humour. His abounding and
half-neurotic vitality made him amenable to new ideas, his
ready emotionalism made him translate these ideas into popular
rhetoric, and the self-confidence which grew with every year of
his reign convinced him of the profundity of each of his fleeting
views. He took all knowledge for his province, and suffered the
fate of such adventurers, for his excursions in scholarship, art,
theology, and metaphysics produced amusement rather than edifi-
cation. His mind was incapable of real originality or sustained
and serious thought ; it was the mind of the journalist or the
actor, and therefore susceptible to every wave of feeling, to every
fragment of an idea, that might pass through the brain of the
people which he ruled. He became the barometer of German
opinion; he did not direct it, but he registered and was directed
by it. This susceptibility made him a lover of theatrical parts,
most of which he played moderately well. They were wrong who
accused him of insincerity. He was sincere enough while the mood
lasted ; the trouble was that it was only a mood and did not last
long. The conception of William II. as an iron-hearted Borgia
preparing ruthlessly for conquest was as far from the truth as
that picture of him as a mild angel of peace which was at one time
foisted upon the world.

If we look deeper into his mind we shall find a strange compost
of tastes and aptitudes. He had an acute, if perverted, sense
of history, and his soul was hag-ridden by his forerunners. From
the contemplation of the legends of the German races and the
empire of Otto and Barbarossa he acquired a kind of mystic medias-
valism. He was the heir of the old Caesars, and he would revive
the Holy Roman Empire with a Lutheran creed. As early as
i8go he told the world : " I look upon the people and the nation
handed on to me as a responsibility conferred upon me by God,

i6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

and I believe, as it is written in the Bible, that it is my duty to
increase this heritage, for which one day I shall be called upon to
give an account. Those who try to interfere with my task I shall
crush." The doctrine of Divine Right had had a new birth, and
its exponent filled in turn all the parts which his reading of history
dictated — the heir of Siegfried, the successor of Charlemagne,
the Crusader who prayed at the Holy Sepulchre, the prophet
who wore Luther's mantle, the wielder of the sword of Frederick
the Great. The Imperial mind was like the Siegesallee in the
Berlin Thiergarten — filled with flamboyant effigies of the illus-
trious dead. But there was another side to him, for he was also
the man of his age, a leader in commercial propaganda, very
sensible of the power of money, and zealous to make his country
wealthy as well as great. He cultivated the society of the new-
rich, and the aristocracy which he created was largely a plutoc-
racy. He laboured to prove that he was not only the vicegerent
of God and the successor of Barbarossa, but the first of the world's
bagmen. Mars commis-voyageur — the cruel French phrase is the
best epitome of the role he had chosen.

With all his faults he was a ruler admirably suited to the Ger-
many of his day. His passion for the top-note, his garish person-
ality, his splendid vitality, his amazing speeches, were in tune
with the grandiose temper of his people. He was popular as a
man must always be who puts into words what a nation desires
to think. He was reverenced by masses of men because his pre-
tensions seemed to swell their own greatness. His vulgarity did
not offend, because it was the vulgarity of modern Germany.
Moreover, his untiring energy was commercially invaluable, for
an autocrat in a hurry is the most efficient of hustlers. Had
he been only a figure-head, his quick shallow intelligence would
have been no danger to the world, for its inconstancy would have
provided a corrective to its extravagance. Unhappily he was
also the chief executive power in his land, and had the ordering
of German policy. Unable to read the hearts of other peoples,
he had to conduct negotiations with them, and hetises, which would
have been harmless enough as the pranks of a negligible royalty,
became dangerous when they appeared in the fragile world of
diplomacy. He loved the pageantry of war, but had no know-
ledge of its practical meaning, and rattled his sabre as a rhetorical
gesture. As a statesman he was without aptitude or judgment, and
yet with him lay the last word in his country's statecraft. Into
his capricious hands the Fates had put the issues of life and death.

THE CROWN PRINCE. 17

The Imperial Crown Prince was in character an exaggerated
copy of one side of his father. That narrow-chested, sHm-waisted
young man of thirty-two, with the receding forehead and the
retreating chin, was to foreign observers a singularly unattractive
personage, a mixture of the suburban Don Juan and the lightest
of feather-weight swashbucklers. The verdict scarcely did him
justice. He had considerable mental quickness, and a shrewd
gift of assessing popular feeling. This talent, combined with
his dashing air and his surface bonhomie, gave him a popularity
which he sedulously cultivated. Wise men might grow nervous
about his antics, but the mass of the German people applauded
them. He was a lover of sports and games, and in the army
had the kind of repute which a crack polo-player had in a British
cavalry regiment ; his keenness in one form of activity was con-
strued into a capacity for the serious business of war. He was the
dazzHng representative of a service which burned to show its
prowess on the largest stage, and his occasional tiffs with his father
were due to his beating the war drum louder than prudence per-
mitted. The Emperor's manifold ambitions were narrowed in
the son to a single craving — he was determined to be a conqueror,
to lead his cavalry in a " hussar ride " which should conquer the
world. Whenever soldiers came into collision with civihans he
was on the soldiers' side. He made no secret of his purpose. He
zealously collected relics and souvenirs of the First Napoleon,
and used to expound to his friends what a new Napoleon could
accompHsh, who had at his command such a weapon as the Ger-
man army, and who had learned from his predecessor's mistakes.
Between him and his father there was no real conflict. He empha-
sized one aspect of the Imperial creed, and since his was also the
creed of the bulk of the nation, he won a wide appreciation for his
rhapsodies and a ready pardon for his excesses.

The Bismarckian construction had presupposed a succession
of great Chancellors. The Hohenzollern stock might produce
weaklings, but surely among the millions of Germany one strong
hand could always be found to steady the helm. That hand had
not been forthcoming. The Chancellor on the eve of war, the
fifth since Bismarck, was Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, a
fellow student of the Emperor's at Bonn, who had stolidly worked
his way up through the various grades of the civil service. Less
independent than Caprivi, infinitely less adroit than Prince Biilow,
his chief quality was his loyalty to his Imperial master, between
whom and popular criticism he was always ready to interpose

l8 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

his back. His burly frame was no index to his character, for he
was essentially weak, and in his grave puzzled face could be read
the obstinacy which is first cousin to fear. Himself inclined to
be conciliatory and pacific, he was too nondescript in his views
to attract a following in any political group, too reactionary for
the Radicals, too stout a Protestant to please the Catholic Centre,
and not chauvinistic enough for the Conservatives. He managed
the Reichstag by providing a common denominator of medioc-
rity, which no party liked but to which none could offer violent
opposition. Honest, hard-working, and well-meaning, he was no
more than a docile servant of the Emperor and of those influences
which moved the Emperor, and independence was wholly foreign
to his nature. The Foreign Secretary was von Jagow, for-
merly Ambassador at Rome, a dapper and cultivated personage
and a deft official, who lacked the occasional flashes of genuine
insight which had characterized his predecessor, Kiderlen-
Wachter. The Under-Secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, was a
more striking figure, for he had risen by sheer merit from the
humblest place, and had a wide first-hand knowledge of foreign
peoples. But we shall not find in all the hierarchy of laborious
officials who made up the German Government any single man who
had the power to play a leading part in a crisis. They were a mech-
anism for which the motive force was supplied by others. When
the Emperor called the tune they played it according to instruc-
tions. We must look elsewhere for the governing elements in
German policy.

» First among these was the squirearchy of Prussia — not the
great houses whose names were familiar throughout Europe,
but the mass of obscure, long-descended country gentry, who
were the backbone both of the army and the HohenzoIIern power.
They were men of another age than the present, and they had
many of the antique virtues. Their narrow race-pride had
made them the laughing stock of the world, and they cut an in-
different figure when they strayed beyond their ancestral acres,
so that the name of Junker came to have a half-comic, half-sinister
connotation. But they were the strongest stock in the German
Empire. They had the fanatical loyalty of a Jacobite to the
reigning house, and formed a stalwart body-guard of the throne.
They provided the best of the officer class and gave the army
its tone. They were honest, fearless, patriotic ; they toiled labori-
ously at the cultivation of their estates and the work of local
administration ; the luxury of modem Germany had not wasted

THE ARMY TRADITION. 19

their strength, for the majority were poor. They were survivals,
reactionaries and bigots, and as such may have deserved the con-
demnation of the world ; but their Spartan virtues assuredly did
not merit its scorn.

The Army chiefs were the offspring of the squirearchy, and
reproduced its temperament, calling in the latest discoveries of
science to serve their ends. Prussia had always been a military
state, and in modern Germany the Army counted more than with
any other Power. In a later chapter we shall consider the nature
of the wonderful machine which had been constructed during the
past century : here it is sufficient to note the conspicuous part it
played in German life. It was accepted by the people as a neces-
sity, and reverenced as the foremost triumph of patriotism. In a
true sense it was a national institution, and Prince Biilow was
justified in claiming that its spirit was equally monarchical, aris-
tocratic, and democratic* But in its essence, like all such
armies, it was aristocratic, for, as Freytag-Loringhoven pointed out,
quoting Napoleon and Treitschke to support him,t it depended
upon the building up of an expert officers' corps, and this corps
was the child of the Junkers and was permeated by their creed.
That creed was " militarism " in the strict sense of a much-abused
word — that is to say, they desired on the first possible chance to
use their magnificent fighting weapon for the purposes of war and
conquest, as a boy is anxious to test a new gun by shooting at
something. Such a spirit was inevitable in an army which had
won a prestige out of all proportion to the other elements in
the State, and drew its strength in the main from one narrow
and reactionary class. It was not a question of the poHcy of its
chiefs : Moltke and Falkenhayn and Tirpitz mattered Httle com-
pared with the powerful and arrogant caste behind them, supremely
confident, organized to perfection, eager to prove its manhood in
a world of weaklings. War for it had become an end in itself, a
thing to be sought for its own sake, and not merely, in Clause-
witz's phrase, as " a continuation of policy." On such a view the
decencies of international intercourse meant nothing. " We must
throw overboard," the younger Moltke said early in 1913, " all
the stock commonplaces about the responsibihty of the aggressor.
As soon as there is a ten-to-one chance in favour of war, we must
forestall our opponent, commence hostilities without more ado,
and mercilessly crush all resistance." While the world still slept,

* Deutsche Politik, 1916, p. 164.

t Deductions from the World War (Eng. tr.), p. 146.

20 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

and sanguine diplomatists were busy devising securities for peace,
the Great General Staff had selected its maps of the coming battle-
fields.

Next among the governing elements we may place the new
kings of trade. German " efficiency " had become proverbial in
the world of business. The ordinary wealth of her citizens had
largely increased, and huge fortunes were common in a country
which fifty years before had been noted for its poverty and sim-
plicity. The nation in every sphere had been keyed up to a high
pitch of effort, and the results were impressive. It was true that
this rapid advance had been secured largely by dubious means.
As the German Government financed itself by frequent loans, so
German business was constructed on a gigantic basis of credit.
Progress must be swift and continuous; while the machine was
kept going at full power no inconvenience appeared, but if a halt
or a slowing down should be necessary the equilibrium might become
precarious. A system of rigid protection at home and the tech-
nical aptitude of her chemists and electricians had built up indus-
tries which, by means of her growing merchant navy, could pour
their products into other lands, notably the British Empire, which
had a more generous tariff system, and with the aid of Government
subsidies capture not only markets for distribution, but producing
grounds of raw material throughout the globe. It was a condi-
tion of things too good to last, and as the fears of other nations
awoke, the German industrial magnates saw a danger of the whole
edifice being undermined unless steps were taken to set it on im-
pregnable foundations. There was another difficulty before them.
German taxation was already high, and the financial burden due
to the increase of the Army and Navy votes was yearly growing
heavier. They foresaw that presently this expenditure would
react gravely upon industry, unless the pressure of armaments
were relaxed. The leaders of German finance and trade — the
armament firms, the heads of the coal, engineering, electrical,
and chemical industries, and great institutions like the Deutsche
Bank — were, with some honourable exceptions, drifting insensibly
into the view that Germany must soon realize the investments
which she had been amassing for generations, and that such a real-
ization might be best achieved by war. A short and triumphant
war would relieve them of their two chief anxieties — it would
lead to a world-wide prestige and unprecedented commercial ex-
pansion and the ability to dictate tariffs and trade treaties, and
it would pennit of a reduction in expenditure on armaments, since

THE INDUSTRIAL MAGNATES. 21

German power would have been established beyond the possibility
of challenge.

The trading community in any land is as a rule pacific, and
undoubtedly the bulk of the German merchants looked with
profound anxiety at the prospect of war. But the most pacific
felt the weight of the armament taxes, and the most far-seeing
were uneasy about Germany's economic future and predisposed
to some heroic effort after security. Yet on the whole we may set
down the rank and file of German industry as an element on the
side of peace. It was otherwise with many of the merchant princes
— the host of men who were part industrial magnates and part
courtiers. This class was a new phenomenon in Germany. For
the most part humbly born — though under the Emperor's patron-
age some of the great nobles had taken to dabbling in commerce
— and often Jewish in blood, it had found itself exalted from social
ostracism to the confidence of the Court and a large share in the
national councils. It had been amazingly successful, and its suc-
cess had turned its head, for the industry of the German people
exploited by these entrepreneurs had produced results which might
well leave the promoters dizzy. This megalomania affected to
some extent the whole commercial class. The standard of living
had changed, and extravagant expenditure on luxury had become
the fashion among industrial magnates, a fashion which was repro-
duced in the bourgeois life of the cities. Being genuine nouveaux
riches, they had no traditions to conform to, no perspective to order
their outlook on the world. The kingdoms of the earth had fallen
to them, and, like Jeshurun, they waxed fat and kicked.

There were, therefore, on the eve of war three potent elements
— the Prussian squirearchy, the Army and Navy chiefs, and the
industrial magnates, whose attitude to the world was inspired by
the ideals of mediaeval conquest. They were withdrawing from
the comity of nations and wrapping themselves in truculence and
vainglory. The counteractive might naturally have been looked
for in the party of social reform, in the mass of plain citizens,
and among the "intellectuals;" but, as it happened, these three
classes were impotent to redress the balance. The Social Demo-
crats were perpetually quarrelling with the Government, and
still more zealously fighting among themselves. This was largely
due to their political powerlessness, for, though the largest ot
German parties, the German constitution did not permit them to
make their weight felt in public life. The extreme Left, led by
Karl Liebknecht, preached the class war, and preferred revolution

22 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

to parliamentary methods ; the Left Centre, under Kautsky,
Haase and Ledebour, were parliamentarians, but refused co-
operation with non-socialist parties ; the Right Centre, led by
Scheidemann, and the Moderate Revisionists under Bernstein
repudiated revolution and sought gradual reform ; the extreme
Right, the Imperial Socialists, were indistinguishable from the
bourgeois parties. Except for Liebknecht's coterie, all were in
differing degrees nationalist in spirit. They were men uncertain
of their status and shifting in their creed, and while they did
homage to certain pacificist doctrines, theory to them was of less
importance than tactics. It was fairly certain that a little con-
ciliation by the Government in a crisis would array the bulk of
the Social Democrats on its side. As for the ordinary German
he was of an obedient temper, and the Government had drawn him
so wholly into its net that the thought of opposing its will did
not enter his head. The intricate system of minor decorations
with which his good conduct was rewarded, and the surveillance
by the State over every part of his daily life, had deprived him
of all pohtical individuahty. Lastly the bulk of the " intellectuals,"
the teachers in the schools, the professors at the universities, the
clergy, and the men of letters, were in questions of politics little
more than officials, speaking from a brief. The educational hier-
archy was as much a branch of the bureaucracy as the manage-
ment of the post office, and the class which in Germany's dark
days had roused the people by dwelling upon her ancient strength
and the hope of the future, now taught the same creed in coarser
accents to the greater glory of the HohenzoUerns.

But our picture of Germany is not completed when we have
analyzed the elements of power in her community and sketched
the formal nature of her Government. For behind everything
lay an impulse to a certain view of life, a conscious creed — ex-
phcitly formulated by the few and present as a temperament
in the many — to which Germans gave the name of " kultur " or
civilization. More important than Emperor or General Staff
or the kings of commerce was this German soul, this Deutschtum,
the sum of subtle prepossessions, hopes and fears which the world
only guessed at in 1914, but which in four years of war it came
to know with bitter precision.

We have seen that Germany had made steady progress in
most departments of life. But there was one conspicuous excep-
tion. In art and literature, in pure thought and in political science
she had declined since 1870. The simple bourgeois Germany of the

DEUTSCHTUM. 23

early nineteenth century produced some of the greatest of the
world's thinkers, poets, and musicians ; Imperial Germany was
content with mediocrities. In thought the great constructive epoch
was over ; philosophy had become applied and pragmatic, the hand-
maid of the practical world. Thinkers were unfashionable unless
they could preach a topical gospel. The German equivalent of
the Wealth of Nations was Clausewitz's classic On War, which
explored the foundations of statecraft, and showed the intimate
connection between principles and facts, a manual alike for the
politician and the soldier. A thousand teachers spread his views,
taken for the most part at second hand, throughout the nation,
and among his disciples had been Moltke and Bismarck. The
passion for deeds took the place of the old passion for truth, and
history was taught as the text-book of the man of action. The
preference was always for the scorner of formulas, the iron oppor-
tunist, the man who had succeeded. We can see the trait in
Mommsen's Roman History, and in Sybel's History of the French
Revolution, both the work of professed Liberals — a reaction against
all idealism which had not its " cash value." The materialism of
writers such as Mach and Haeckel produced a fruitful ground for
the political seed sown by Treitschke, the historian of Prussia,
by Droysen, and by soldiers such as von der Goltz and von Bem-
hardi, who pointed a contemporary moral. Gradually Deutschtum
was formulated as a creed, a creed which must conquer because
of its inherent vitality and which had the right to use any weapons
for this lofty end. If the world was to advance, the higher must
crush the lower. War to Treitschke was the " drastic medicine
of the human race," and the dream of banishing it from the earth
not only meaningless but immoral. " It has always been the weary,
spiritless, and exhausted ages which have played with the vision
of perpetual peace." The megalomania grew like a fungus.
Swollen with complacency and drunk with success the exponents
of Germanism came to set themselves above the human family,
to regard their divine mission as freeing them from all obligations
of morality and law, to demand that their altar-fires should be
fed with the rights and ideals of every other people, to claim for
themselves the only freedom, and to seek to make all nations
dependent upon their good pleasure.

This doctrine had its roots far back in German literature and
deep down in the German temperament. A craze for large syn-
theses had characterized the great days of German philosophy.
There had always been a tendency to racial arrogance, which.

24 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

contemplating the stately progress of the Absolute Will, found
its final expression up to date in modem Germany. The seeds
of the new Machiavellianism — which in essence was simply an
abstraction of man as a politician from the rest of his aspects, a
fallacy on the same plane as the " economic man " of the Ben-
thamites— had been sown in the earliest days of German culture.
The intense specialization of German scholarship and science did
not tend to produce minds with an acute sense of perspective,
and sedentary folk have at all times been inclined to blow a louder
trumpet than men of affairs. What Senancour has called " le
vulgaire des sages " — the narrow absorption to which pedants are
prone — had long been a characteristic of German " intellectuals."
Had the thing been confined to the professors and theorists it would
have undergone a steady disintegration by criticism,

" Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer,"

till it lost its power to hurt. As a literary fashion it was so pre-
posterous as to be innocent, an essay in provincialism which was
pardonable because of its absurdity. But exalt this mannerism
into a faith, base on it a thousand material interests, and give it
great armies to make it real, and you are confronted with a dan-
gerous mania. Self-worshippers are harmless till they compel
the rest of mankind to make the same obeisance.

The danger came from the alliance of the pedant with the
practical man. German statesmen from Metternich to Prince
Billow had praised the German intellect but denied their country-
men political capacity. But now that Germany was no longer
content to be a " kultur-staat " only, the politician could join
hands with the doctrinaire. It was an easy and natural union,
for in the classic philosophy of Germany there were elements akin
to the temperament of its new supporters. German idealism, as
I have said, had always been noted for its love of vast unifications,
its devotion to a cosmic grandiosity. But the philosopher, beating
his wings in the void, could never hope to see his dream come true
till the practical Prussian, himself cast crudely in the same mould,
offered his aid. Now the ideal could be made the actual, spirit
and matter were become one, the City of Cecrops could be amalga-
mated on business lines with the City of God. In both philosopher
and politician there was that naivete which Renan found in the
tissue of the German mind, the desire to canalize the free currents
of life and reduce the stubborn complex of the organic to an arti-
ficial simplicity. Both sides in the compact gave and received.

THE RECRUDESCENCE OF BARBARISM. 25

The Prussian had his material ambitions invested with a spiritual
glamour ; the dreamer saw the enigma of life solved at last and
the dream about to become the reahty. Plato's vision had come to
pass, and the philosophers were kings and the kings philosophers,
but it was a perverse philosophy and a sinister kingship.

But there was more than a mere marriage of fact and theory.
To glorify the union came a tempestuous poetry welling from the
deeps of the Teutonic soul. Behind all the arguments of the
learned and the calculations of the practical we can discern a kind
of barbaric imagination, akin to the grandiosity of Wagner's music.
" Thinking," wro':^^ Madame de Stael, " calms men of other nations ;
it inflames the Germans." * Something untamed and primeval
came out of the centuries to invest a prudential pohcy with the
glamour of a crusade. If a man stands on the left bank of the
Rhine facing the Taunus hills he is looking away from Roman
Germany to a land which was never settled by Rome. The
eagles marched through the forests beyond the river, but they did
not remain there, and that strong civilization which is the fibre of
the Western world never took root and flourished. The thickets
and plains running to the northern seas remained the home of
aboriginal gods. It is long since the woods were thinned and the
plains tilled, but the healing and illuminating and formative forces
of the great Mediterranean culture, though their aspect might be
simulated, were never reborn in the hearts of the people. The
North remained a thing incalculable and unreclaimed, and its
ancient deities might sleep but did not die. Some day, as Heine
in 1834 told France, they would rise from their graves to the un-
doing of Europe, f

The recrudescence of barbarism found its prophet. Fifteen
years before, there had died in a madhouse a strange genius, Fried-
rich Nietzsche, who passed as a philosopher, but was in truth a
mystic and a poet. During his Hfetime this sage was of no account
in his own land. He ranked Germans with Englishmen as among
the lowest of created beings ; he prophesied that " the German
Empire will destroy the German mind ; " and even in 1914 he was
scarcely idolized by his countrymen. But certain portions of his
teaching, imperfectly understood and wrenched from their context,
dominated their thoughts. He taught that for the truly great,

* Cf. Heine's judgment : " L'Allemand est ne bete ; la civilisation I'a rendu
mechant."

t The conception of Germanism as the eternal revolt against Rome, the strife
of the Gothic against the Renaissance, is eloquently and candidly developed bj
Thomas Mann in his Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, Berlin, 1918.

26 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

the Superman, power is the only quest, and to attain it all things
are permissible. He cast contempt upon what he called " slave
ethics " — that is, the morality of the Gospels, which enjoined humility
and self-sacrifice. If the end is big enough everything is justified ;
such may be taken as the popular version of his principles. The
inspiration for the national mood did not come from Nietzsche,
but his writings provided its fashionable watchwords. His " mag-
nificent blonde beast, avidly rampant for spoil and victory," became
the avowed ideal of decorous professors, bland financial potentates
and unimaginative army officers.

" Ye have heard how in old times it was said, Blessed are the
meek, for they shall inherit the earth ; but I say unto you, Blessed
are the valiant, for they shall make the earth their throne. And
ye have heard men say, Blessed are the poor in spirit ; but I say
unto you, Blessed are the great in soul and the free in spirit, for they
shall enter into Valhalla. And ye have heard men say. Blessed are
the peacemakers ; but I say unto you. Blessed are the war-makers,
for they shall be called, if not the children of Jahve, the children of
Odin, who is greater than Jahve."

This " religion of valour " was not without its magnificence.
In its essentials it was such a creed as might have been preached
by some Old Testament warrior or some English Ironside. Like
all doctrines which have moved the hearts of men, it was based
not on whole falsehoods but on half truths. To many of its
devotees it seemed the salt needed to save the world from putre-
faction. As against the slack-lipped individualism of the West it
set man's supreme duty to the State ; instead of a barren freedom
it offered that richer life which comes from service. It demanded
immense vitality, immense discipline, immense self-sacrifice. The
poetry in it seemed to some the necessary antidote to the material-
ism of Germany's success. " Technical science and inward culture,
or even human happiness, have little connection with each other.
In the midst of vast technical achievements, it is possible for
humanity to sink back into complete barbarism." * It embodied
the longing of a race to express its national exaltation in heroic
deeds. Its weakness lay in the fact that this expression of national
self-consciousness was conceived as possible only at the expense of
other peoples. Sacrifice and discipline were enjoined upon the
German citizen as duties to his State, but the attitude of the German
State towards its neighbours was one of brigandage and licence.
The respect for law, which was laid down as the first virtue of the

• Werner Sombart : Die Deutsche Volkswirtschaft im 19 Jahrhundert, p. 134.

GERMANY'S GRANDEUR. 27

individual, was banished from the intercourse of nations. It may
be true that " la petite morale " is the enemy of "la grande ; "
but the higher ethics of Germany turned out on inquiry to be
merely the higher selfishness. Race pride, a noble thing in its way,
degenerated fast into a kind of mania. The Germans were God's
chosen people and dare not refuse their destiny. All that was
good in other lands derived from Teutonic culture.* The nations
who cavilled at Germany's just pretensions must be made to
kiss her feet. She was unpopular throughout the globe because
of her greatness, but that mattered nothing, for she would conquer
her ill-wishers. Oderint dum metuant.

There is no sentence in Burke more often quoted than that which
forbids us to draw an indictment against a nation. But the dictum
must not be pressed too far. A nation can have national vices ; it
can blunder as a community ; and it is permitted now and then to
fasten guilt upon the corporate existence which we call a people.
Very notably a people may go mad, when its governing elements
fall into a pathological state and see strange visions. A malign
spirit broods over the waters. Something which cannot be put
into exact words flits at the back of men's minds. Perspective
goes, exultation fires the fancy, the old decencies of common
sense are repudiated, men speak with tongues not their own. That
viewless thing which we call national spirit is tainted with insanity.
The mania which now afflicted Germany can be best described
by the French phrase, folie de grandeur. As such it must be dis-
tinguished from that other vice of success, la gloire. The great
leaders of history — Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Cromwell,
Gustavus Adolphus, Washington — have as a rule striven for a
political or religious ideal which made mere fame of no account
in their eyes. Others, like Alexander, have been possessed by a
passion for glory, and have blazed like comets athwart the world.
The perfect example is Charles XII. of Sweden, who in his short
career of nineteen years followed glory alone, and drew no material
benefit from his conquests. In his old clothes he shook down
monarchies and won thrones for other men. Glory may be a futile
quest, but it has a splendour and a generosity which raise it beyond
the level of low and earthy things. Its creed is Napoleon's :
" J'avais le gout de la fondation et non celui de la propriete. Ma
propriete k moi etait dans la gloire et la celebrite ; " and to the end

♦ See on this curious point especially the writings of Ludwig Woltmann and
Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Germany's claim to European expansion on other
grounds will be found in works of the geographer Daniel, Treitschke, Paul de Lagarde,
Friedrich Lange, Ernst Hasse, Nippold, etc.

28 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

of time it will be an infirmity of minds which are not ignoble. But
grandeur is a perversion, an offence against our essential humanity.
It may be the degeneration of a genius like Napoleon, but more
often it is the illusion of excited mediocrities. It is of the earth
earthy, intoxicating itself with flamboyant material dreams. Its
heroics are mercantile, and the cloud palaces which it builds have
the vulgarity of a fashionable hotel. It seeks a city made with
hands and heavily upholstered. Its classic exponents were those
leaden vulgarians, the early Roman Emperors, of the worst of
whom Renan wrote : " He resembled what a modern tradesman
of the middle class would be whose good sense was perverted by
reading modern poets, and who deemed it necessary to make his
conduct resemble that of Han of Iceland or the Burgraves." *
Grandeur has always vulgarity in its fibre, vulgarity and madness.
It would be an error to regard this obsession as universal among
the German people. There were millions of plain men to whom
the word " kultur " was unknown, and to whom Deutschtum stood
only for homely and honourable things. They had no hankering
after conquest and would accept no war except one of self-defence.
Before such it was necessary for any bellicose government to pose
as the aggrieved and not as the aggressor. There were some, too,
in all classes who had diagnosed the national madness and suffered
a disillusion, like Caliban's :

" What a thrice-double ass
Was I, to take this drunkard for a god.
And worship this dull fool ! "

But the perversion had the governing classes in its grip ; specious
arguments, consonant to the German temper, could be found to
rally the waverers ; and even those who would have shrunk from
a bald statement of the creed had their minds subconsciously
attuned to it. The thing was in the intellectual air, men absorbed
it through every pore, and it was certain that once the barques of
war were launched it would rise like a mighty wind to speed them
on their way.

With a flamboyant emperor ambitious of ranking with the
great makers of history, ar army burning to prove its perfection
to the world, an aristocracy intolerant of all ideals of democratic
progress, the rulers of industry at once exultant and nervous, the
popular teachers preaching a gospel of race arrogance, and through-
out the nation a vague half-mystical striving towards a new destiny,

* L' AnUchrist,

STEPS TOWARDS WORLD-POWER. 29

Germany was an unquiet member of the European family. Her
unrest took shape presently in certain definite policies, but it must
be remembered that these policies by no means exhausted her
ambitions. As a great industrial Power she sought producing
grounds for raw material under her own flag, so the quest for
tropical colonies began.* She had no desire for free autonomous
dominions like Canada or New Zealand ; what she sought were
Crown colonies within a certain zone. As she cast her eyes about
the world she found that other nations had been before her, and
that few tropical lands remained for her civilizing mission. Some
fragments, indeed, she had picked up — territories in East, South-
west, and West Africa ; Samoa and a few islands in the Pacific ;
the port of Kiao-chau in China, to balance the acquisitions of
Britain and Japan. But these were small things, and an ade-
quate place in the sun could only be won at this late date by the
dispossession of earlier owners. She undertook a Bagdad railway
with visions of a German Mesopotamia at the end of it, and a broad
Germanic sphere of influence across the Middle East. She dreamed
of organizing all Central Europe from the North Sea to the ^gean
as a political and economic unit under her direction. A world-
empire demands a navy, and this the Emperor secured from a not
too willing country during the fever of Anglophobia which possessed
Germany at the time of Britain's South African War. In 1900 the
first Navy Bill was passed, containing in its preamble the signifi-
cant words : " Germany must have a fleet of such strength that
even for the mightiest naval Power a war with her would involve
such risks as to jeopardize its own supremacy." Other Bills were
launched on recurrent waves of Anglophobia — in 1906, 1908, and
in 1912 ; and by the last year her navy stood second among
the fleets of the world. It was a fine achievement, for it was a
true navy, and not merely a floating army, which had been the
original German ideal. Men like Tirpitz, Koester, and Ingenohl
appreciated the meaning of a sea force and wrought assiduously
till it was created. Above all she brought her army to the full limits
of strength and the last pitch of preparedness. In those years
the significant fact was less her diplomatic efforts after expansion,
which were apt to be experimental and discursive, than her perfect
ing of the weapons which at the appointed time might bring the
world to her feet.

* " Colonies would only be a cause of weakness, because they could only be
defended by powerful fleets, and Germany's geographical position does not necessitate
her development into a first-class maritime Power." — Bismarck, 1873.

30 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

One last factor must be noted in German psychology — the factor
of fear. In all arrogance there is commonly some timidity.
Germany, as a new-comer among the great Powers, was not sure
of her position, and inclined to nervous self-assertion. She was
haunted by the spectre of a world leagued against her to cheat her
of her rights. In the mild temper of France and the friendly over-
tures of Britain she saw profound dissimulation and a dark con-
spiracy. Above all she was afraid of the great Slav Empire in the
East. In introducing the last Army Bill before the war the Imperial
Chancellor foreshadowed the day when Slaventiim should fight
against Deutschtum, and this notion, aided by Slav successes in the
Balkans and by Russia's increasing prosperity, had gained firm
hold of the German mind. It had some warrant from history.
The Mark of Brandenburg was once the bulwark of Christendom
against barbaric invaders, and Austria — the Eastern Mark — was
during the whole Middle Ages and up to two centuries ago the out-
post of civilization against the Hun, the Slav, and the Turk. To
the German who prided himself on his race the Slav was the enemy,
always rolled back and always returning, alien in church and
ideals and habits and in whatever distinguishes man from man.
" There arises before my eyes another civilization, the civilization
of the tribe with its patriarchal organization, the civilization of the
horde that is gathered and kept together by despots — the Mongolian-
Muscovite civilization. This civilization could not endure the
light of the eighteenth century, still less the Ught of the nineteenth
century, and now in the twentieth century it breaks loose and
threatens us. This inorganic Asiatic mass, hke the desert with its
sands, wants to gather up our fields of grain." These were the words
of no less a man than Harnack during the first weeks of war. Fears
from many sources combined with her pride to goad Germany to
some desperate act of self-assertion while yet there was time. The
cooler heads who formed scientifically their plans for conquest
could summon to their aid this malaise which had fallen upon the
people, this desire, half-scared, half-angry, to strike out against
they knew not what. To the ordinary German the alternatives
of Bernhardi and his school were becoming terribly real. It was
Weltrekh oder Niedergang — World-Rule or Downfall.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 31

III.

In modem Europe Austria-Hungary stood over as a relic from
the Middle Ages, a remnant of the old Germanic Empire left behind
in the movement towards self-conscious nationality. If Germany
had alien stuff in her fabric, she was like a solid block of granite
as compared with the tesselated pavement of the Hapsburg domain.
Hence it would be an idle task to analyze Austria's policy and the
Austrian temperament, as if they were coherent and intelligible
things hke Germany's or France's, The Dual Monarchy was an
artificial creation held together partly by the strong hand of Germany
and partly by the uneasy equipoise due to the collision of centri-
petal and centrifugal forces, as a tree slipping from a hillside by
a movement of the soil may keep its position if the prevailing winds
blow against the subsidence. When the Hapsburgs had been the
bulwark of south-eastern Christendom, they had lived in harmony
with their Slav subjects ; but when the peril had gone and the spirit
of nationalism went abroad in the world, the dissolution of the Empire
was decreed. Concessions of a kind were made to the subject races,
but with the blind protective instinct of an old regime the Haps-
burgs clung to the essentials of autocracy ; and for long prevailed
because they had on their side an armed and organized minority as
against a scattered and leaderless multitude.

In Western Europe, though race and language were the main
determinants of nationality. State and people were bound by a
thousand moral links forged during a long history. In Eastern
Europe, where frontiers were younger things, and in comparatively
modern times populations had frequently changed masters, the
institutions of the State had not impressed themselves, and nation-
ality had linguistic and racial rather than political foundations.
German-speaking subjects of the Hapsburgs were German in
thought and outlook; Czechs, Slovenes, and Slovaks had
their special culture and special civic aspirations. The Austro-
Hungarian Empire was a museum of diverse nationalities. In
Austria there were some ten millions of Germans as against more
than eighteen millions of Czechs, Poles, Ruthenians, Croats, Serbs,
and Slovenes. In Hungary there were under ten million Magyars
as against over eleven millions of Rumanians, Croats, Serbs,
Germans, and Slovaks. In each country a form of parliamentary
government existed which was so arranged as to put the power into
the hands of the race which was numerically the weaker. The

32 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

Empire was a union of two states, each ruled b} a minority and in
the interest of that minority, and it may fairl}^ be said that the
majority of the population was anti- Austrian and anti-Hungarian.
The thing was an anomaly unique in Europe, and could only main-
tain its existence by setting one part of the people against the
other. Every year it became harder for the statesmen of Vienna
to keep the inorganic mass from dissolution.

The constitution of the Dual Monarchy rested upon an arrange-
ment made in 1867 to meet the wishes of two races, the German
and the Magyar. It was representative government of a farcical
type, for representation bore no relation to numerical strength.
Of the 516 deputies in the Austrian Parliament 233 were Germans,
which meant that the German minority had to find only 26 votes
outside their ranks to give them control. Had representation
been fairly based on population, the Germans would have held no
more than 160 seats. Again, though universal suffrage existed, it
was not combined with responsible government ; for the Emperor
appointed the administration, and if he desired, he could, under
paragraph 14 of the Constitution, govern without parliamentary
sanction. In Hungary the farce was more shameless. The Parlia-
ment, apart from the Croatia-Slavonia delegation, consisted of
413 deputies, of whom 405 were Magyars and eight represented
the other races, who should on the population basis have been
entitled to 198 seats. Further, Hungary was the home of every
kind of electoral corruption. Public funds were spent brazenly
on gerrymandering elections ; returns were falsified ; troops
were turned out to " preserve order" in doubtful districts, which
meant that a reign of terror kept the Slav and Rumanian voters
from the polls ; and any politician who ventured to protest was
likely to find himself in prison on a charge of treason. The
oligarchy throughout the whole Empire used a form of popular
government to establish a tyranny as complete as the most naked
mediaeval absolutism.

This oligarchy had none of the world-ambition of their German
neighbours ; they were too weak to desire more than to hold what
they had. The Austrian German was an agreeable, pleasure-
loving type, easily swayed from Berlin. The Magyar represented
one of the toughest race stocks in Europe, proud, courageous,
a lover of liberty for himself, but a despot towards others. Both
Vienna and Budapest sought above all things to be maintained
in their privileges. They suffered from a haunting dread of the
new Slav states beyond the Danube, of the great Slav power of

FRANCE SINCE 1870. 33

Russia, and of their own malcontent Slav peoples. They hated
the fashionable cant of democracy as much as any Junker, and were
very ready to accept a helping hand from Germany, whose con-
stitution was not unlike their own, who likewise scorned democracy,
and who shared their fear of Slaventum. This alliance was made
easy in the case of the Magyar, who was in temperament, if not
in manners, akin to the Prussian. For Germany, too, the Dual
Monarchy was a sheer necessity. Without the control of Austria-
Hungary she could not realize her dream of a Drang nach Osten,
which would provide a continuous block of territory, economically
self- sufficient and strategically invulnerable, to counterbalance
the sea-united British Empire. Without her friendship her flank
would be turned in a European war. Hence for years in policy,
in economics, and in military preparation the strong gauntlet
of the Hohenzollem had guided the fumbling hand of the Haps-
burg. Austria could not in the nature of things be a very docile
or cordial ally, but there was no doubt about the loyalty of her
governing classes. Only by the help of Germany could they defend
their privileges, and it was very certain that they would never
cast down their glove for war without Germany's instigation and
assent.

IV.

The recovery of France since the disaster of 1870 had been one
of the marvels of history. With her armies broken in the field,
her wealth plundered or mortgaged for indemnities, her capital city
in revolt, and her former system of government in ruins, it might
well have seemed that she was destined to drop for a long season
from the ranks of the Great Powers. She was saved from such
a fate by two elements which she possessed of stubborn endurance
and inexhaustible vitality. One was her soil and the people of
that soil. The industry and frugality of her peasantry, their
patient resolution under political earthquakes, and the sober
good sense of men like Jules Grevy, who were sprung from their
stock and laboured to develop the riches of their pleasant land,
brought her speedily to prosperit}^ and provided a solid foundation
for the young republic. The other was her scholars and men of
science, who read rightly the lesson of Germany's success. Men like
Renan and Pasteur, Berthelot and Gaston Paris, Fustel de Cou-
langes and Duruy and Lavisse, not only upheld her reputation
before the world in her darkest days, but inaugurated an intellec-

34 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

tual and educational revolution more significant than the change
from Empire to Republic. The state under Grevy and Gambetta
took the lead in agricultural development, and under Jules Ferry
and his colleagues embarked on a vast scheme of popular instruc-
tion ; and the two movements assured the stability no less than
the progress of their country.

But while in France it is the countryside which has always
provided the force of persistence, it is from the cities that the
impulse to action has come, and the electric urban population
has determined the form of her politics. Hence while the peasants
went about their own business, the town-dwellers Hved in a mael-
strom of conflicting ideals, and the first twenty years of the new
state were httered with transient ministries. The " republic of
ideas " which Gambetta preached was in flat opposition to the
conservatism of the rural districts, but, since both were indispens-
able for France, some way of harmony had to be discovered. We
shall not wonder at the short and uneasy lives of French govern-
ments when we remember the vast and complex task which they
had to face. The First Napoleon had given France an adminis-
trative fabric the main part of which still endured, but the gaudy
fa9ade had to be replaced by a sober republican design. The
new State, born in an hour of defeat, had to create its own prestige.
The first duty before French statesmen was to make strong the
republic, and for long there was a grave risk that parliamentarism
would degenerate into a system of venal deputies acting as pro-
vincial " bosses" and bargaining on behalf of local interests. The
same danger appeared when the socialist organization claimed
the right of dictating to the Government. To set the State beyond
faction as the supreme authority in the land — in the words which
M. Briand used in 1909, " to make the Republic so pleasant to
dwell in, to raise it so high above party, that the glories of all
France may be focussed in it " — was still on the eve of war the chief
aim and the most urgent duty of French patriots.

Next came the task of restoring the national self respect, sorely
tried by the events of 1870. The amour-propre of a proud people
had been cut to the quick, and the lost Alsace-Lorraine stood as
a perpetual reminder of their humihation. Young men who had
fought against Germany went to Africa and Asia, as explorers
or soldiers, and by a thousand gallant enterprises in the wilds laid
the foundation of a French colonial policy. Presently the French
democracy awoke to find itself master of an empire in Indo-
China, in Madagascar, and in West Africa, and with something of

THE PROBLEM OF THE REPUBLIC. 35

hesitation but more of pride it accepted the gift. Her colonies
brought France into the active worid of international politics,
and the alHance with Russia, of which Camot laid the foundations
in 1891, was regarded as " the diplomatic baptism of the Repubhc."
These successes, combined with the proof which her various great
Expositions gave of her new prosperity, did much to lift up France's
heart. But she continued to walk warily in international paths.
She called a halt when, as at Fashoda, she seemed in danger of
conflict with other Powers. She showed no sign of arrogance or
of histrionic ambition : she behaved like an invalid who patiently
and by discreet stages nurses herself back to strength.

For during the forty years since 1870 she had not attained to
full civic health. Perfectly integrated as a nation, she was as
yet imperfectly consolidated as a state. Her pubhc opinion swung
between nationalism and extreme internationalism. She was
subject to crises of nerves — fear of militarism, of cosmopolitan
finance, of enemy conspiracies, of foreign dictation whether from
Rome or Berlin. The result was that she was sometimes betrayed
into panicky and extravagant conduct. The Dreyfus case and
many incidents of her rupture with the Vatican were the con-
sequences of an honest instinct perverted by undue excitability.
She passed through these crises without grave disaster, but their
recurrence was inevitable until her government became firmly
rooted in the confidence and affection of the ordinary man.
France is in many respects the most conservative of nations, and
she has a great gift of submission to a central government ; but
the republic, ably as it was conducted, crept but slowly into her
regard. The average Frenchman tended to be cynical about
politics, and his distrust of politicians produced a certain apathy
towards the State. The bourgeois was content to let the nation
go its own way if there was no interference with his family and
profession, and among the working classes the growth of syndi-
calism— which meant the dominance of a class or a trade — re-
vealed how weak had become the conception of an overruling
national interest. Nationalists there were in plenty, but theirs
was a creed of sentiment and tradition, and they were equally
in revolt against the whole modern business of government. Now
if a central government is disconsidered it becomes weak, and may
presently deserve the current contempt. The Republic was in
the quandary that it had to fight the growth of a doctrinaire inter-
national socialism without the true prestige of a national Govern-
ment, and that the work of politics tended more and more to be

36 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

avoided by the flower of French intellect and character, and left
to arriviste lawyers and journalists, and — worst danger of all — to
a new type, the sansculotte financier, the speculating demagogue.

With such serious elements of internal weakness to handicap
her, France could not but look on the troubled world-stage with
anxious eyes. She had always lived close to the heart of Europe,
and had a great talent for candid observation. She was served
by diplomatists who had probably no living equals, and was awake
to the perils drawing daily nearer. But France — the France of
yesterday — had one trait peculiarly her own. At all times she
was in the fullest sense a nation and a great nation, but she was not
in the habit of asserting her nationality on every occasion. Being
old and high-born she took many things for granted. She believed
religiously in her civilization as the chief heritage of the world,
but she did not go out of her way to advertise it. She bad no
missionary zeal, and when confronted with the noisy claims of
upstarts was inclined to reply with a shrug of the shoulders. Hence
to Germany she seemed effete, steeped in anti-nationalism, dis-
tracted by narrow class interests, sunk deep in matter. It was
a judgment profoundly mistaken, but it had this one thing to
support it, that on the eve of war a curious apathy seemed to have
settled upon her. In all the tangled international tale of the
past decade her sincere desire for peace had been written large.
To avoid war she had made sacrifices both of right and dignity.
Party politicians had been allowed to whittle at her army and
navy. It was not till 1913 that an attempt was made to put her
military forces on the basis which her General Staff had long
demanded. She had indeed made open confession of unpre-
paredness as a guarantee of her honest pacificism. And yet by
the autumn of 1913, through the medium of her ambassador in
Berlin, she had certain information about German policy which
made war probable in the near future— a knowledge not then
possessed by any other Power. She may have undervalued this
information, or she may have thought it the best policy to keep
it to herself in the hope that the situation might change ; at
any rate, she did not communicate it to her neighbours. Her
cool, penetrating judgment was the same as before, but the gov-
erning forces in her commonwealth seemed to have become too
distracted for prompt action. For the moment a certain nerve-
lessress had seized her, and it needed the insulting challenge of
Germany to wake the ancient fire of her resolution.

BRITAIN AND FOREIGN POLICY. 37

In the summer of 1902 the Peace of Vereeniging brought to
a close the British campaign in South Africa — a costly and ill-
conducted war in which few reputations were made and many were
lost. Thereafter a certain satiety with oversea politics fell upon
the people of the British Islands. The dream of Imperialism —
the closer union of the British race in one great pacific and organic
commonwealth — lost something of its glamour. It tended to sink
on its baser side to a form of race chauvinism or a scheme of com-
mercial protection ; the ideal, once so glowing, became a conven-
tional peroration at public banquets ; and the machinery of union
was narrowed to perfunctory conferences of British and Dominions
ministers. Imperialism had at its lowest meant a political vision
extending beyond these shores, and as it faded in popular esteem,
the British people inclined more and more to be absorbed in domestic
problems. There had been a time in their history when, under
Palmerston and Gladstone and Disraeh, foreign affairs had been
an integral part of their politics and elections had been lost and won
on diplomatic programmes. But for twenty years the doings of
Europe had interested them little. The Imperialist who taught
that Britain was an extra-European Power depending on the
control of the sea, and the social reformer who regarded foreign
policy as a lure to distract the nation from more urgent matters,
alike contributed to this result. In 1914 the people of Britain were
less alive to the significance to their own interests of what might
happen beyond their borders than the humblest continental state.

Early in 1906 a Liberal Government came into office with a
great majority behind them. Their mandate, so far as it could
be read, was to remedy certain ancient abuses and inaugurate
various overdue' reforms, and they set about this task with vigour
and hope. But too large a majority is a misfortune for a Gov-
ernment. It is apt to lead rather than to follow, and to keep it
together means a strict attention to the prejudices of the often
ignorant rank and file. Again, it demands a highly efficient party
organization, and the party machine comes to bulk too large in the
mind of ministers. Hence the new Government were in danger
of emphasizing certain aspects of national policy to the exclusion
of others ; and as their power waxed and their party organiza-
tion became more efficient, they tended to confire their interest
to immediate problems and had no time to spare for more distant

38 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

views. Th^ir leader, Mr. Asquith, held the House of Commons
in his hand, and developed a singular adroitness in party manage-
ment : but his robust philosophy was apt to live in the hour, and
his inclination was to wait till a difficulty became urgent before
seeking a solution. It is a temperament most valuable in the head
of a government in normal times, but it has grave defects in seasons
of crisis. This spirit set the tone in the Cabinet, and the unwill-
ingness to look far ahead was strengthened by the temperament
of one of the strongest personalities in the Government. Mr.
Lloyd George made domestic reform his special subject, and
brought to it a unique gift of rhetoric and an energy not always
scrupulous. By schemes which were rarely more than emotional
impromptus, he roused intense antagonism and a wild enthusiasm
among those who saw a Machiavellian purpose of spoliation and
those who discerned the dawn of a new world. The fact that he
was the most conspicuous public figure in Britain at the time
switched the attention of the nation still farther away from such
unfruitful topics as defence and foreign affairs. For Mr. Lloyd
George's imagination, vivid and notable as it was, was essentially
short-range ; his mind was wholly uninstructed in the problems
of international policy, and though he was chosen in August 191 1
to convey a warning to Germany after the Agadir affair, he spoke
only from a brief, for there were few matters about which he knew
less or cared so little. Finally, the new power of the party caucus
encouraged this narrowing of view. It is the business of skilful
whips to know what the people want and to see that programmes
are shaped accordingly. To an electorate scared or exhilarated
by the prospect of large social changes the husks of foreign policy
would not be acceptable. Warnings of the probability of war
would be regarded as merely a trick to distract. Expenditure on
defence was a waste of money which might otherwise be spent on
objects from which there was a sound return. Such matters,
whether right or wrong, had no electioneering value, and the
comfortable delusion was fostered that, so long as Britain chose
to desire peace, peace would follow. There were men in the Govern-
ment who to their honour refused to prophesy smooth things,
but the cotton-wool with which the poUtical atmosphere was
thick deadened their warnings.

To increase Britain's preoccupation with her insular affairs there
was the grave business of Ireland. The handling of this problem
by the Government between the year 1910 and the outbreak
of war must rank high among the political ineptitudes of history.

SIR EDWARD GREY. 39

A Home Rule scheme was introduced at a time when it was
necessary to win support for an unpopular budget, and when, there-
fore, it must inevitably have been suspected of an origin in party
exigencies rather than in sober statecraft. The Arms Act had
been repealed, and the majority of the Ulster population prepared
to resist the proposals by war. Now if a serious and law-abiding
people decide that a certain policy is so subversive of their prin-
ciples and so fatal to their future that it must be met by armed
revolution, it is usual for a democratic Government to call a halt
and find some other way. But if the Government in its turn
concludes that such resistance is factious and unreasonable and
must be crushed, then it is its business promptly to arrest the
ringleaders and quell the movement. Mr. Asquith's Government
did neither. It allowed Ulster to raise and discipline an efficient
army, and it went on with its Home Rule Bill. The Nationalists
claimed the same right to arm and drill their people, and the
National Volunteers came into being. The result was that by
July 1914 Ireland was split up into two armed camps, and it
seemed as if not even the dissolution of the Government and
the disappearance of the Bill could avert civil strife.

Apart from the Prime Minister, there were two men in the
Cabinet whose minds were not obsessed by those domestic policies
which made the only profitable electioneering. These were Sir
Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, and Lord Haldane, who in
19 1 2 went to the Woolsack from the War Office. Sir Edward
Grey represented a very ancient and honourable type in British
statecraft, a type like the Lord Al thorp of the First Reform Bill—
a country gentleman with no vulgar ambitions, who would greatly
have preferred a. private station, and entered pubhc hfe solely
in order to serve his country. Since his accession to office he had
laboured patiently and wisely to maintain the peace of Europe,
and his grave simphcity of character, his moral dignity, and his
gift of sound judgment and conciliatory statement had done much
to keep the tottering fabric together. On more than one occasion
his personal influence had been the determining factor in averting
war. No man's prestige stood higher among European courts
and governments. He had brought Britain again into the Euro-
pean family, and by sheer good sense and fair dealing had made
her influence felt in its councils. He had nourished the entente
between Britain and France, and got rid of the few remaining
causes of friction between Britain and Russia. He had attempted
— apparently with some success — tc reach an understanding with

40 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

Germany which would regularize and make room for her reason-
able ambitions. This was a notable work, which as a personal
achievement it would be hard to overrate. Nevertheless, when
the rest of British poHcy is considered, it was a hazardous road that
he trod. He had accustomed Britain to interfere in continental
affairs when she was not armed on a continental scale, and when
the whole apparent trend of her interest led away from matters
of defence. If Germany chose to be arrogant he could not compel
humihty, for he had no adequate sanction behind him. To an
ally he could not promise such immediate assistance as would
enable her to speak with her foes in the gate. His arms were
historic prestige, wealth, a great navy ; but these were not in
pari materia with those of the Powers with whom he thought to
treat. He was a voice, a grave, reasonable, weighty voice, but
behind it was not the appropriate weapon.

Lord Haldane had, as we shall see later, done invaluable serv-
ice to the British army as Secretary for War. But he did not
regard that army as a thing to be elaborated for its own sake,
and his mind had always been busy with those questions of foreign
relations the mismanagement of which brings in the soldier ;
and especially with the attitude of Germany, a country to whose
thought and literature he owed, in company with many Britons,
a great intellectual debt. With the consent of King Edward
and of his colleagues in the Cabinet he paid a visit to Berlin in
the summer of 1906, and had conversations with the Emperor and
various German Ministers, in which he endeavoured to explore the
possibilities of a friendly understanding. His view at the time
was that, while there were dangerous forces at work within the
German polity, the influence of the Emperor and his chief advisers
was on the side of peace. The following year, when the Emperor
visited Britain, these conversations were renewed. Then came many
disturbances in the diplomatic sky, and it was suggested from
Potsdam that direct intercourse between prominent statesmen of
Britain and Germany might clear up certain difhculties. At the
request of Sir Edward Grey, Lord Haldane went to Berlin in Feb-
ruary igi2 on a private mission,* when he met the Emperor,
Bethmann-Hollweg, Admiral von Tirpitz and others, and went
very fully into the whole international situation — the new German
fleet, the African colonies, the relations of Britain with France

* The mission was nominally " private ; " but it was undertaken by Lord Haldane
»t the request of the Cabinet, following on a request from Berlin, and he carried the
fullest credentials from King Edward and the British Government.

LORD HALDANE. 41

and other European Powers, the Bagdad railway, and all other
matters of possible dispute. This visit came to be so grossly mis-
represented, after the outbreak of war had roused popular suspicion,
that it is ne:essary to be very clear as to what happened. Lord
Haldane throughout his difficult task played the part of a concilia-
tory but most faithful British envoy, jealous alike for his country's
interests and his country's honour. He stood out stiffly against
Tirpitz for a modification of the German naval programme as a
guarantee of good faith. He was scrupulously loyal to Britain's
unwritten obligations to France. His business was to inquire,
not to commit his Government, and he kept in close touch with
M. Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador. A provisional agree-
ment was reached on many points, but on two subjects there
could be no settlement. Germany was resolute to proceed with
her new naval programme, and the magnitude of the increases
provided for made it impossible for Britain to do otherwise than
lay down two ships to her one. On that matter the attitude could
not be agreement but watchful competition. Again, Germany
insisted as a basis for an understanding upon a formula of Britain's
unconditional neutrality in the event of a European war ; to which
Britain could not assent without a betrayal of France. The
conference therefore ended with many expressions of good-will,
but without practical result so far as concerned the main topics
discussed. But it led to an undoubted improvement in Anglo-
German relations — an improvement which continued up to the
outbreak of war.

Lord Haldane returned to England with a divided mind. There
were many things to disquiet him — the personality of Tirpitz
and others of the War Party, the character of the new German
naval law ; above all, the unconditional neutrality suggestion of
the formula. On the other hand, he believed that the Emperor
and the civilian ministers sincerely desired peace in their then
mood, and there is reason to think that in the spring of 1912 this
was true. Lord Haldane — and the British Government who
were advised by him — came to a definite conclusion as to their
immediate policy. A great danger loomed ahead, but the cloud
might pass ; it was their business to do nothing which might make it
discharge in a thunderstorm. They must avoid any pin-pricks, any
blowing of warning trumpets in Britain ; for these would be mis-
construed in Germany, and would strengthen the hands of those who
clamoured for war. By judicious quiescence on their part the Im-
perial Dr. Faustus might be prevented from making a bargain with

42 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

the Devil. Such a decision was acceptable to a Government much
perplexed with domestic problems and a little weary after six
strenuous years. It was acceptable to the Prime Minister, in
whose philosophy of Ufe the doctrine of " a friendly Universe "
held a conspicuous place, and who considered that most political
questions, if left alone, would settle themselves. It was acceptable
to Sir Edward Grey, whose success as a peacemaker had incHned
him to the belief that patience and good humour would tide over
the worst times. It was acceptable to Lord Haldane, who had the
best means of judging, and who was disposed to be optimistic
about the saner elements in German life. On the information
then at their disposal, and having regard to the temperament
of the chief British Ministers and the complexity of the domestic
situation, the decision was natural and inevitable.

History will ask searching questions. Did the British Govern-
ment view the German situation correctly in 1912 ? To this
the answer Hes in the realm of hypothetics, but it may fairly be
maintained that on a matter which involved so many imponder-
ables they judged with reasonable accuracy ; at any rate, they
judged honestly according to their lights, and mortals can do no
more. Did the Government appreciate the change in Germany's
mood which came about beyond doubt the following year ? For if
they did, their continued supineness was a criminal breach of public
duty. The answer would seem to be that they did not ; that in
1914 they still shared the hopes, already baseless, which had had a
show of reason in 1912. Their minds were monopolized by the
troubles they had made for themselves at home ; they were badly
informed, and the whole political atmosphere in which they lived
was inimical to any close attention to the creeping shadows and
broken lights of the European situation. It is not seemly to
suggest that, had they had any inkling of the deadly peril which
from the autumn of 1913 onward overshadowed the world, they
would not have revised their views, flung party and prudential
consideration to the winds, and warned the nation even at the
cost of their disappearance from power. There were weak knees
and confused heads in the Ministry, but the leaders were patriots
and statesmen, who would have scorned to secure a few months'
longer tenure of office at the cost of flagrant dishonour.

On one point, however, it is difficult to acquit Mr. Asquith's
Government. On their own admission a great war was well within
the bounds of possibility. It might precipitate such a war to
sound too clamantly the note of defence, but it was certainly

THE GOVERNMENT AND DEFENCE. 43

folly to apply sedatives, and not to endeavour so to guide policy
that the country should not be caught handicapped and unprepared.
Yet during 1912, and up to the very eve of war, the latter seemed
to be the Govemnient's aim. Lord Roberts's scheme for national
training, faulty as it may have been, was repelled by the ordinary
Government apologist with arguments which were foolish except
on the assumption that the age of Saturn had dawned. Domestic
affairs, notably the Irish business, were suffered to shp into a worse
confusion. Questions of defence were treated by the Government
spokesmen with a strange levity and intolerance as if they were
of purely academic interest. The lax discipline of the Ministry
permitted members, notably Mr. Lloyd George, to preach reduction
in the Navy, and the powerful Liberal caucus committed itself to
a policy of rapid disarmament. In all this can be discerned the
ugly trail of party spirit. The electorate must be given a programme
of positive material gain that the Government might keep its affec-
tions. The Opposition had made a speciaUty of defence questions,
and for the Government to lend a hand in the matter would have
been in the eyes of many a betrayal of a mysterious abstraction
called " Liberal principles," and in the eyes of every one infamously
bad electioneering. Yet all the time the weightier members of the
Cabinet had in their hearts the knowledge that behind the cru-
dities of the Opposition criticism there lay a disquieting truth,
and that at any moment what they labelled as scare-mongering
might by the irony of fate be terribly justified as foresight. Mr.
Asquith and his colleagues erred in being too optimistic about
Germany and too pessimistic about their own countrymen. A
Government long in office is rarely a heroic thing, and they had not
the courage for even the modicum of candour necessary to steady
the people. The result was that on the eve of war Britain cut
a figure in the eyes of Europe which, by aggravating German arro-
gance, materially expedited the catastrophe. To Berlin she seemed
a land on the verge of revolution, with an army disloyal to the
civil power ; with demagogues competing to offer doles to the
proletariat ; with a populace clamorous about its rights but
refusing the first duty of citizenship ; with Ireland on the verge
of a civil war which would involve the whole Empire ; a Carthage
which would go cap in hand to the world seeking for peace, and
had forgotten its old valour in greed of gain and a passion for
smooth phrases. It was a ludicrous misreading, but there seemed
good evidence for it to the clumsy German psychologists.
And of one fact in the summer of 1914 Germany was assured,

44 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

and rightly assured : of her two great future enemies France was
awake but unready, and the British people were neither ready
nor awake.

VI.

It remains to sketch briefly the political events which directly
prepared the way for the cataclysm. German diplomacy, when
in the late 'eighties it set itself seriously to assert Germany's
international position, had two facts to start from — the Triple
Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy; and a very
real suspicion and a permanent possibility of friction among the
three remaining Powers of Europe, France, Russia, and Britain.
Its first efforts seemed to be directed by no settled plan, and to
be guided only by the principle that in all international activity
Germany must have a share.* The co-operation with Russia in
depriving Japan of the fruits of her victory over China in 1895 ;
the long intrigue with Turkey over Anatolia ; the Emperor's
theatrical Syrian tour ; the German leadership of the Allied
force dispatched to China in the Boxer rising ; the attempt to
sow dissension between Britain and America during the latter's
war with Spain in 1898 ; the Emperor's telegram to President
Kruger after the Jameson Raid — are examples of how earnestly
and unintelligently Germany went about the task of making her-
self felt throughout the world. The first Navy Bill of 1900 pro-
vided the nucleus of an armoury for this forward policy. It natu-
rally alarmed her neighbours and disposed ancient rivals to make
protective alliances. Under the influence of King Edward VII.
the foundations had been laid of a friendship between Britain and
France. Early in 1904 this resulted in a formal agreement, under
which all outstanding disputes were settled, France recognized
British supremacy in Egypt, and Britain withdrew her objections
to French expansion in Morocco. To Germany this seemed a slight
to her magnificence, for an international question of the first impor-
tance had been settled without her being consulted. The view
was not without reason. The original Convention of 1880, to
which German}' had been a party, was revised in various important
points by the 1904 agreement concluded between France and

• " Nothing could be more strongly opposed to Germany's interest than to enter
upon more or less daring and adventurous enterprises, guided merely by the desire
tt) have a finger in every pie, to flatter the vanity of the nation, or to please th*
ambitions of those who rule it." — Bismarck, 1897.

THE ALGECIRAS AGREEMENT. 45

Britain alone. She waited her time to vindicate her wounded
pride.

France, as we have seen, had had since 1891 an alHance with
Russia. In the autumn of 1904 the Russo-Japanese War broke
out, and in a few months it was plain that Russia was to be
defeated. In the spring of 1905 Prince Biilow suggested to his
master that the occasion had come for a dramatic coup to restore
his country's damaged prestige. As we have seen, Germany had
a certain case, but she put herself in the wrong by her method of
vindicating it. On the last day of March the Emperor landed
with a large retinue at Tangier, proclaimed the integrity of Morocco,
and promised the Sultan to defend his independence. He demanded
that the whole Moroccan question should be reopened. A weak
cabinet in Paris bowed to the storm, and M. Delcasse, the Foreign
Minister, fell from ofhce. A conference of the Powers was sum-
moned at Germany's instigation, but the result for her was a bitter
disappointment. The legend of the " Concert of Europe " was
shattered, and she was revealed as, except for her faithful Austria-
Hungary, alone in the world. Britain and Russia stood solidly
behind France ; Italy deserted her colleagues of the Triple Alliance
and supported her Latin neighbour. The Algeciras arrangement of
April 1906 provided no lasting settlement, but it made clear the
new grouping of the European peoples. Germany had failed to
drive France from Morocco or to enter that country herself, and
she had irritated and alarmed the world by showing too nakedly
her hand. It was certain that she would look forthwith for fresh
methods to aggrandize her pride, and would have to rely mainly
upon herself. Italy was drifting from her side, and her rivals were
coming closer together. The new Liberal Ministry in Britain had
accepted the foreign policy of their predecessors, and the following
year they signed with Russia an agreement which completed the
Triple Entente.

The next German coup was more adroitly handled. In the
summer of 1908 the old regime in Turkey was swept away by
revolution, the Young Turk party came into power, and by their
liberal professions attracted for a little the sympathy of Western
Europe. At first the change seemed against Germany's interest, for
she had sedulously cultivated the Hamidian Government, and would
have to begin again from the beginning. But she saw a chance
of fishing profitably in the troubled waters. Austria seized the
occasion to annex the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herze-
govina, of which she had long had the administration. Serbia was

46 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

alarmed, for she saw her hope of union with the Bosnian Serbs
extinguished. Russia, as Serbia's protector, shared her annoy-
ance at this annulment of the work of the Congress of Berlin, and
Italy was disquieted by Austria's advance southward into the
Balkan peninsula. But Austria had Germany at her back, and
the protests of the Triple Entente were met with a cool contempt.
The Emperor William made his famous speech about Germany's
" shining armour," and the Entente, unprepared for a European
war in such a cause, had to acquiesce with the best grace it could
muster. It was a proof of the solid foundations of the friendship
between France, Britain, and Russia that it survived unimpaired
this diplomatic humiUation. But the Austro-German success had
a disastrous effect on the Triple AUiance, and Italy drew farther
apart from her colleagues.

The first German move had failed at Algeciras ; the second
had succeeded ; the third was to end in a fiasco. It came in the
spring of 191 1. There had been a revolt in Fez, and French troops
had entered the city. To Germany it seemed that the Shereefian
Empire was on the point of breaking up, and she was determined
to share in the spoils. If France was to have the reconstruction
of the land, Germany must have territorial compensation ; in
the words of Kiderlen-Wachter, " If one wants to eat peaches
in January one must pay for them." The gunboat Panther was
dispatched to Agadir, and the German press claimed West Morocco
as their country's right. But France in 191 1 was not the France of
1905. M. Caillaux, who showed signs of temporizing with Germany,
was swept from power, and the new Ministry, under Raymond
Poincare, included Delcasse, who was not inclined to truckle to
Berlin. Britain sent a warship to Agadir to lie alongside the
Panther, and proclaimed in unmistakable terms her support of
France. Germany, not yet ready for a world-war, abated her
pretensions, and the Moroccan dispute was settled by various
cessions of territory in Central Africa between France and herself.
No German considered the arrangement as final, and the rebuff
roused in Germany a fury of resentment against France and not
less against her ally Britain. From that moment the war party
dropped all talk of compromise and preached naked aggression.
With Agadir we may say, looking back from the standpoint of
accomplished fact, that all hope of peace vanished from Europe,
though it was given to few to read the omens truly. Close on its
heels followed the war between Italy and Turkey. Italy was not
unnaturally anxious lest Germany, foiled in Morocco, might seek

THE TURNING-POINT. 47

compensation on the Tripoli coast, and the confusion of the Young
Turk regime gave her a good excuse for action. Austria and
Germany ahke viewed her conduct with profound irritation, and
the Triple Alliance had now become the shadow of a shade.

In February of the following year, 1912, Lord Haldane, as we
have seen, paid his visit to Berlin, and found certain features which
gravely disquieted him. War appeared to be contemplated as an
early possibility by powerful factions, but the Government and the
Emperor were not yet committed to their side, and there seemed
to him to be still a good chance of the fever subsiding. But that
autumn a new irritant appeared in south-eastern Europe. The
Balkan War began — a war which Germany expected to issue in a
decisive victory for Turkey. The result was far different, and dealt
a final blow to Austria's hopes of a port in the iEgean and to Ger-
many's dream of a gradual and painless absorption of the Ottoman
Empire. The most that the Central Powers could do was to muddy
the waters of diplomacy, and prevent the settlement after the two
wars from being more than a patched-up truce. But certain conse-
quences remained. A new and formidable Slav Power now stood
in the way of Germany's Drang nach Osten, and behind loomed
Russia, the protector of the Slav peoples. Such a situation drove
Germany, still sore over Morocco, to reflect most seriously on her
position. She saw the various avenues to world-power, on which
she had based her plans, rapidly closing up. The Near East might
soon be shut by the new Slav renaissance ; the Far East was too
dangerous with Japan at its door. South America was barred
to her adventures by the United States, and most of the rest of the
world by Britain. Her navy had come to maturity, and was eager
to win laurels. She was already the greatest mihtary Power on
earth, and ere the Balkan Wars were over had increased her total
peace strength to 870,000 men. She saw the Triple Entente solidi-
fying into an alliance — an alliance accompanied by a surprising
growth of sympathy and good will between the three constituent
nations. She was afraid of Britain's naval strength and the
twenty-milhon addition to Britain's naval estimates ; it seemed
intolerable to her, as a World-Power, that any single nation should
be so omnipotent at sea. She did not appreciate the necessities of
an island Power, administering a world-wide Empire, but read
ambition into schemes based only on administrative needs and
the desire for a modest security. It was an error, but we may
admit it to have been a pardonable error, for Britain's naval policy
has often been misconstrued, by her friends as well as by her foes.

48 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

To Germany it appeared that her neighbours sought to isolate
her, to ring her round with hostile alliances, and then ovei whelm
her under the weight of an armed coalition. Her forward policy,
begun under the impulse of national self-confidence, began now
to quicken its pace under the influence of baseless but not wholly
unnatural fears. The inevitable protective measures of Europe
under the threat of her restless ambition were easy to distort into
a malign conspiracy against her freedom, and as such, of set purpose,
they were represented by the leaders of Germany to the German
people.

The year 1913 marked the turning-point in her destiny. In
September 1912 Marschall von Bieberstein, the German Ambassador
to Britain, had died, and his successor was Prince Lichnowsky,
a Silesian noble, whose views of German policy differed widely
from those of the ruHng clique in Berlin. He disbelieved utterly,
as Bismarck disbeheved, in espousing Austria's quarrels and in
Germany's Balkan and Near East adventures, and would have
had his country expand overseas in friendship with France and
Britain. " The policy of the Triple Alliance," he afterwards
wrote, " is a return to the past, a turning aside from the future,
from Imperialism and world-policy. ' Middle Europe ' belongs to
the Middle Ages ; BerUn-Bagdad is a blind alley and not the way
into the open country, to the unlimited possibihties, to the world-
mission of the German nation." He made himself popular in
English society, and he worked assiduously with Sir Edward Grey
to reach an agreement on certain international questions, the chief
of which were the Portuguese colonies and the Bagdad railway.
Treaties were prepared or discussed under which Britain agreed to
permit Germany to purchase Portugal's African possessions, when
Portugal was willing to sell, and in the meantime to regard them as
a legitimate German sphere of influence ; in which she agreed to the
completion of the Bagdad Hne to Basra, and to the recognition of
Germany's dominant interest in all the district tapped by the rail-
way. It was an immense concession, but in spite of Lichnowsky's
efforts the treaties were not signed in Berlin. The reason was
simple. Germany could not afford to publish to the world this
proof of Britain's good will towards her overseas expansion ; for
in 1913 her rulers had decided to play for higher stakes by the
game of war.

That year saw the completion of the first twenty-five years of
the Emperor's reign, and the Jubilee celebrations, with their
awakening of historical memories, caused a sudden surge of pride

THE AUTUMN OF 1913. 49

to arise in the German people, and inflamed the ambition of the
Imperial mind. The time seemed to have come to make a settle-
ment with rivals, not by the humiliating processes of diplomacy,
but by the summary power of the sword. It was the year of the
new German Army Law, and every military chief, from the younger
Moltke downward, was busy with arrogant defiances to the world.
As early as April the French Government received a secret report
setting forth the purposes for which the greatly increased army
of Germany was to be used, and each sentence showed that war was
contemplated at the first convenient moment. In November the
Emperor told the King of the Belgians at Potsdam that he looked
upon war with France as " inevitable and close at hand." About
the same time M. Jules Cambon warned his Government that
the balance had now clearly swung to the side of the War party,
and that the Emperor was with them. No exact date can be fixed
for this momentous change. It was doubtless a gradual process,
at first a subtle altering of outlook and perspective which slowly
drew to a conscious policy. So far as we can judge William's
mind, he did not then conceive of the coming conflict as a world-
conflagration : Britain would stand out — on that point Germany,
plentifully supplied with the reports of her secret agents, was
positive ; France, if it came to war, would speedily be broken ;
and after some sullen fighting on the Eastern frontier the Slav
peril would be checked. Germany would emerge as indisputably
the greatest of the Powers, heavy indemnities would pay her bills,
and her mailed diplomacy would not be denied in future conclaves
of the peoples. The Emperor's decision, granting his character,
could scarcely have been otherwise. He had raised a genie that
he could not control. The blunders at Agadir and in the Balkans
had been credited to him ; for if he claimed Germany's successes
as personal achievements, he must also take the blame of her
failures. He saw his position imperilled, and half from fear and
half from wounded vanity inclined his ear to those who clamoured
for violence.

But the right occasion must be found. Austria was straining
at the leash, for the result of the Balkan campaigns had given her
good cause to fear for the foundations of her rickety dominion.
The ink was barely dry on the Treaty of Bucharest when she
proposed to Italy to attack Serbia. Italy declined, and it is
certain that Germany would in any case have forbidden this piece
of brigandage, for she saw that the coming war must be skilfully
stage-managed, and must be represented to her people and to the

50 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

world as a war of defence. Besides, the widening of the Kiel
Canal, on which her naval strategy depended, would not be com-
pleted till the following summer. She did not wish to force the
struggle by any sudden violence on her part. Her rulers had
resolved to fight, and to fight before France and Russia were
ready ; there were therefore limits to their period of waiting,
but they were confident that at no distant date they would
find the kind of pretext they required. Meantime, secretly and
patiently, they prepared the ground. During the first months of
19 14 there were many discussions among the statesmen of the
Central Powers, of which only faint echoes have reached the world :
steps taken by certain financial houses, especially connected with
German and Austrian state business, as early as May of that
year, point to a premonition based on some hint from exalted
quarters. The German mind was excited by a calumnious press
campaign against Russia and France, while the anxiety of Britain
was lulled by pacific declarations.

And then suddenly, on the 28th of June, came the news from
Serajevo, and the time of waiting was ended.

CHAPTER III.

THE BREAKING OF THE BARRIERS.
June 2^- August 4, 19 14.

The Immediate Results of the Serajevo Murders — Germany's Council of War on
5th July — Austria's Ultimatum to Serbia — The Russian Mobilization — Ger-
many's Proposal to Britain — The Work of Sir Edward Grey — Germany mobi-
lizes— The Ultimatums to France and Belgium — The Invasion of Belgium —
The British Cabinet — Britain declares War.

At first the Serajevo tragedy seemed destined to be only a nine
days' wonder. The victims were hurried into their graves ; the
cofQns were borne through Vienna by night, the service in the
Burg chapel was short and perfunctory, the burial in the rain at
the castle of Arstetten might have been the funeral of a minor
noble, and the stately ceremonial which marked the sepulture of
the Hapsburgs was wholly omitted. The murderers went through
a lengthy and farcical trial, as a result of which the two principals,
Prinzip and Gabrinovitch, escaped the death penalty, while several
obscure accessories were hung. But though the dead Archduke
and his wife seemed to be speedily forgotten, the press and the
politicians of Vienna and Budapest exploited the murders to the
utmost for their own ends. Throughout almost every land they
found a ready sympathy. The crime had been most shocking
and barbarous, and left the worst impression upon a world which
had not forgotten the tragic end of King Milan and Queen Draga.
The compHcity of the Serbian Government was assumed in many
quarters, and even the better instructed, who had no special love
for Austria, were ready to admit that she had here a genuine
grievance. She might be reactionary and inept, but across the
Danube was a movement which threatened the integrity of her
dominions and her very existence as a Great Power. No state
could be expected to forgo the right of self preservation. The
public opinion of Western Europe would have been on her side
had she demanded from Serbia the most stringent guarantees

52 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [July

for the future ; but the public opinion of Western Europe did
not prol^e the matter very deep. France and Britain were at the
moment desperately involved in their own domestic affairs.

Russia, alone of the Entente, was from the first seriously per-
turbed. In a later chapter we shall consider her internal condi-
tion ; here we are concerned only with her foreign policy. That
policy was, from the nature of her interests, essentially pacific.
She desired no extension of territory, for her need was intensive
development. But, as the greatest Slav power, she recognized
certain obligations to the Slav peoples beyond her borders. She
could not allow the little Balkan States to be swallowed up in a
Teutonic advance towards the Bosphorus, and, as the protector
of the Greek Church, she was obliged to resent any ill treatment
of Orthodox believers in other lands. She had as a people no
belUcose aims, and could be drawn into war only in three con-
tingencies— an assault upon a Slav nationality, the persecution of
the Greek Church outside her frontiers, or an attack upon her ally
France. The second had been long a source of uneasiness to her
statesmen, and the first was suddenly brought into prominence by
the events of Serajevo. She was gravely shocked by the crime,
and advised Serbia to accept with a good grace all possible Austrian
demands. What these might be no man outside Austria-Hungary
and Germany knew for the better part of a month. The reports
from the different embassies were conflicting, but there were two
ominous signs. One was the inspired truculence of the Austrian
press, which seemed bent on inflaming popular opinion ; the other
was the cryptic speeches of the German Ambassador in Vienna, Herr
von Tschirschky, who proclaimed to all whom he met that now
Austria must settle with Serbia once and for ever.

On the 5th day of July a meeting was held at Potsdam at which
the situation was discussed and the outline of the Austrian ulti-
matum to Serbia decided upon. In spite of denials it is beyond
question that the meeting took place. We know that the
Emperor was there, and the Imperial Chancellor and Zimmer-
mann from the Foreign Office,* and we know that an autograph

• This much has been admitted by Jagow (Ursachen und Ausbruch des Welt-
krieges, 1919), who denies that the meeting was a " Crown Council." Technically,
no doult, it was not, but it was a Council of War. The story was first published in
September 1914 by the Dutch paper the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, and revived
in July 191 7 by some of the German Sociahst delegates to the Stockholm Congress,
when it was officially denied by the German Government. Prince Lichnowsky, who
had the best moans of knowing, affirms in his memorandum the holding of a Council.
Baron VVangenheira, the German Ambassador at Constantinople, told Mr. Morgenthau*
the American Ambassador, of the meeting, at which he said he had been present.

1914] THE POTSDAM COUNCIL OF WAR. 53

letter from the Emperor Francis Joseph, presented to the Emperor
that morning by the Austrian Ambassador, was discussed, and that
the result of the deliberations was to promise German support to
Austria in the most peremptory and extreme demands upon
Serbia. Some suspicion of what was coming was in the mind of
the Russian Government, for M. Sazonov, the Foreign Minister,
some time before 6th July, sent for Count Czernin, the Austrian
Charge d'Affaires, and warned him that any unreasonable attitude
taken up by his country to Serbia could not leave Russia indifferent.
On the 6th the German Emperor left for his usual summer yachting
trip in Norwegian waters — a trip which had the double advantage
of advertising to the world the remoteness of Germany from a
Balkan squabble, and of getting a difficult personage off the scene.
Next day there was a Cabinet Council in Vienna, to consider the
report of the Austrian Ambassador to Berlin on the interview
with the Emperor on the 5th. The assurance that Germany was
behind them in a bellicose policy encouraged the ministers, under
the guidance of Count Berchtold, to present to Serbia an impossible
ultimatum, and risk the consequences. Only one voice, that of
Count Tisza, was raised in opposition. He foresaw that the conflict
would spread, and deprecated the optimism of his light-hearted
colleagues. A week later Herr von Weisner, who had been sent by
Vienna to Serajevo to report on the murders, wired to his Govern-
ment that the complicity of Serbia was " proved by nothing and
cannot even be suspected." The views of this honest witness
were disregarded. On the 19th, as we know from Tisza's ad-
missions, a joint conference was held of Austrian and Hungarian
ministers, and the text of the ultimatum was framed.

At this conference no representative of Germany was present,

and explained the decisions taken. Bethmann-Hollweg in his book {Beirachtungen
zum Weltkriege, 1919) hmits those present to himself and Zimmermann. Tirpitz,
who was not there, adds Falkenhayn, the Minister oi War, and Lyncker,
the chief of the Mihtary Cabinet {Erinnerungen, 1919). The researches of Herr
Kautsky among the documents at the Wilhelmstrasse show that Count Hoyos arrived
with a letter from Francis Joseph early on the morning of the 5th ; that it was pre-
sented to the Emperor by Count Szogyeny and read by him before luncheon ; that
the Emperor summoned Bethmann-Hollweg and Zimmermann to Potsdam and
discussed the Austrian proposals with them during the afternoon ; that later in
the day he saw Falkenhayn and Lyncker ; that early on the 6th he saw Admiral
von Capelle and Captain Zenker from the Admiralty, as well as representatives of
the General Staff and the War Ministry, when it was resolved to take preparatory
measures for war ; that in the afternoon the Chancellor and Zimmermann saw
Count Hoyos and informed him that Germany agreed that the time had come
for drastic action in the Balkans and would support her in any decision she took.
Count Berchtold announced this message on the 7th to the Council of Ministers at
Vienna.

54 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [July

but that Germany at this early date was cognizant of the terms
of the document is clear beyond possibility of doubt. Her Govern-
ment avoided seeing the final text before presentation, so that
they might deny previous knowledge, but the denial was a quibble,
for they were fully informed from the start as to its substance.
Dr. Miihlon, then a director of Krupps, learned from Dr. Helffe-
rich, then a director of the Deutsche Bank, the main provisions
of the ultimatum about the 15th of July, and was told moreover
the very day on which it was to be presented at Belgrade. There
seems at the time to have been some nervousness in the circles of
German high finance about the wisdom of giving carte blanche
to Austria, lest the fumbling hands of Vienna should bungle the
business. But the final evidence is in a letter from Count von
Lerchenfeld, the Bavarian Minister in Berlin, to his chief. Count
Hertling, at Munich. This document, which was written on i8th
July, contains the following sentences :

" The step which the Cabinet in Vienna has resolved to take in
Belgrade, namely the deUvery of the Note, will take place on the
25th July. Action has been postponed until this juncture because of
the desire to await M. Poincare's and M. Viviani's departure from
St. Petersburg, in order to make it dif&cult for the Entente to arrive
at an understanding and to counter-act. In Vienna, until then, a
show of peaceful disposition is to be made. ... It is obvious that
Serbia cannot accept such conditions, which are inconsistent with
her dignity as an independent State. The consequence must there-
fore be war. It is absolutely agreed here that Austria should take
advantage of this favourable moment, even at the risk of further
complications. . . . The opinion here is general that it is Austria's
hour of fate. For this reason, in reply to inquiry from Vienna,* the
declaration was immediately made here that any action upon which
Austria may resolve will be agreed to, even at the risk of war with
Russia. The free hand which was given to Count Berchtold's Chef
de Cabinet, Count Hoyos, who arrived in Berlin to deliver the detailed
memorandum, was so extensive that the Austrian Government was
authorized to negotiate with Bulgaria regarding her joining the Triple
Alliance. . . . With reference to the Kaiser travelling in a foreign
country, and the Chief of the General Staff and the Prussian War
Minister being on furlough, the Imperial Government will declare
that it was as much surprised as the other Powers by Austrian action."

Rarely has a conspiracy been more fully exposed. Germany
at once took secret steps which in any other land would have
been the equivalent of mobilization. As early as July 21st she

♦ This can only refer to the meeting at Potsdam on July 5th.

1914] THE ULTIMATUM TO SERBIA. 55

ordered the recall of certain classes of reservists ; then of German
officers in Switzerland ; and on the 25th she strengthened the
Metz garrison. Meantime M. Sazonov, unaware that the thing
was already beyond argument, directed the Russian representative
in Vienna on the 22nd to warn Austria against unreasonable
claims on Serbia. A few days before he had told the German
Ambassador in Petrograd, Count Pourtales, that while Russia
earnestly desired peace, she could not admit that Austria had any
more right to blame Serbia for pan-Slavonic agitation within
Austrian borders, than she would have to charge Germany or
Italy with the responsibility for exciting pan-German and pan-
Italian propaganda. This warning shows that M. Sazonov saw
where the danger lay. If the Serajevo crime was made the sole
matter in dispute, Serbia, having clean hands, could go very far
in compliance. But if the whole southern Slav question were to
be raised, the difficulties might well be insurmountable.

On Thursday the 23rd of July — two days before von Lerchen-
feld's date — the Austro-Hungarian Government presented its
ultimatum to Belgrade. To all the world, except the Teutonic
Powers, it came as a veritable thunderbolt. The lengthy document
contained a number of drastic demands, devised partly as a repara-
tion for the Serajevo murders and partly as a safeguard for the
future. A reply was requested within forty-eight hours — that is,
by six o'clock on the evening of Saturday the 25th. The matter
in dispute was not the Archduke's death, which was treated as
only the last of a long chain of grievances. Austria asked not
for Serbia's co-operation in punishing the assassins, but for her
degradation to the position of a vassal state. She took credit
for her moderation, because she did not seek any surrender of
territory ; in reality she demanded the submission of all Serbia
to her protectorate. She had chosen her moment cunningly.
While a reply was pending each capital of the Entente was in the
throes of a domestic crisis, and had little leisure to grapple with
the new peril in the East. Petrograd was paralyzed by a huge
strike, and had barricades in her streets. Paris was in the midst
of the trial of Madame Caillaux for the murder of M. Calmette,
and absorbed in what promised to be the worst political scandal
since the Dreyfus case. To add to the confusion. President,
Premier, and Foreign Minister were at the moment absent from
France. In Britain the Buckingham Palace Conference on the
Ulster question broke down on the 24th, and to many people
there seemed no way out of the tangle but civil war.

56 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [July

Faced with this crisis, Serbia appealed to Russia. Meantime
certain significant events had happened. The German Ambassadors
at Paris, London, and Petrograd called upon the French, British,
and Russian Foreign Ministers, and announced that Germany,
though she had had no previous knowledge of it, approved the
form and substance of the Austrian note, adding that, if the quarrel
between Serbia and Austria were not localized, dangerous friction
might ensue between the Triple Entente and the Triple AUiance.
What was the meaning of this curious act, in which Germany
first publicly arrayed herself behind the Dual Monarchy ? M.
Jules Cambon at the moment thought that the German and
Austrian Governments believed that a bold bluff would paralyze
Russia, as in 1908. But M. Sazonov's handhng of the situation
thus far had given them no ground for such a delusion. Never-
theless at the time both Jagow and Tschirschky were busy
assuring their fellow diplomats that the storm would blow past
and that the peace of Europe was not really endangered. We
can only set it down as part of the game which had been agreed
on ; optimism about peace would help to convince the world that
Germany was honestly in favour of a reasonable settlement, and
would make it easier to put aside with fair words any later pro-
posals to avert that war on which she was resolved. The Foreign
Ministers of Russia and France were not deceived ; and if Sir
Edward Grey was less clear, he seems to have shared the uncer-
tainty with Prince Lichnowsky himself. On the latter's suggestion
he advised Serbia to make such a reply as would prevent Austria
from taking summary action. He advised M. Sazonov to request
from Vienna an extension of the forty-eight hours' limit. The
Russian Minister was anxious that Britain should at once declare
her union with Russia and France in the event of war, arguing
logically enough that, if Germany were bluffing, such an action
would expose the bluff, and that, if she were in earnest, sooner or
later Britain would be drawn into the struggle. But at the time,
with Britain profoundly ignorant of the whole question, such a
course would have been impossible for a British statesman. On
the morning of the 25th Austria refused to extend the time limit,
and that evening at a quarter to six Serbia made her reply.

She had followed exactly Russia's counsel. She had gone to
the extreme limit of complaisance and accepted substantially
all the Austrian demands with two reservations, on which she
asked for a reference to the Hague Tribunal. These concerned
Articles 5 and 6 of the Note. Article 5 required her " to accept

1914] THE SERBIAN REPLY. 57

the collaboration in Serbia of representatives of the Austro-Hun-
gan in Government in the suppression of the subversive movement
directed against the territorial integrity of the Monarchy." Serbia
replied that she did not clearly understand this request, but would
admit such collaboration as agreed with the principles of inter-
national law and her own criminal procedure. Article 6 asked
for judicial proceedings against the accessories to the Serajevo
plot, in which poUce officials of the Austro-Hungarian Government
should take part so far as the preUminary inquiries were concerned.
Serbia replied that she could not accept this, as it would be a vio-
lation of her constitution, though she was willing that the details
of any investigation she conducted should be laid before the Aus-
trian agents. Obviously in this contention she was right. The
complete acceptance of the Austrian demands would have meant
that she surrendered her independent nationality and her privileges
as a sovereign state, and that Austria extended her authority to
the Greek and Bulgarian frontiers.

The Note was in the nature of a rhetorical question ; it did not
expect an answer. Had Serbia yielded on every point, another
Note would no doubt have followed in still more exorbitant terms,
for Austria was determined to pick a quarrel. At a quarter to
six on the Saturday evening, M. Pasitch, the Serbian Prime
Minister, delivered the answer in person at the Austrian Legation.
It may be doubted whether that answer was read. He had scarcely
returned to his oflice ere he received a message that the reply
was unsatisfactory, and at 6.30 p.m., or forty-five minutes after
the receipt of the Serbian answer. Baron Giesl and his staff left
Belgrade. Two days later the Viennese Government published a
manifesto explaining why they rejected Serbia's offer, perhaps the
weakest state paper ever issued to the world. Austria at this
juncture did not play her cards with skill ; she had written her
purpose so large that even the dullest could read it. Meantime
Serbia took thought for the future. She transferred the seat of
government to Nish, for Belgrade was under the Austrian frontier
guns, and that evening gave the order for a general mobiliza-
tion. The Dual Monarchy mobilized at once its corps in Hungary,
Central Austria, and Bosnia-Dalmatia — eight completely and four
partially, a total of half a million men — and moved them towards
the Serbian border.

Next day, Sunday the 26th, there began that feverish week
of diplomatic effort which constitutes as dramatic an episode as
modern annals can show. The chief part was played by the

58 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [July

British Foreign Secretary, whose labours for peace up till the last
moment were of incalculable value in establishing the honesty of
purpose of the Entente in the eyes of neutral peoples. His first step
was to approach Germany, France, and Italy, with a view to calling
a conference in London to mediate in the Austro-Serbian quarrel.
M. Sazonov, too, on that day made another appeal to Vienna.
Sir Edward Grey met with a cordial response from Paris and
Rome, but from BerUn he was informed that Germany would
have nothing to do with any conference. He returned to the
charge and proposed that, if the principle of mediation was accepted,
Jagow himself should suggest the Unes on which it should be
conducted. From Vienna M. Sazonov received on the 28th a
peremptory refusal to negotiate further with Serbia, and the an-
nouncement that that day Austria had declared war. Meantime
on the 26th two incidents had happened, both of them with a
direct bearing on the future course of events. There had been a riot
in Dublin attended by loss of hfe, when troops of the King's Own
Scottish Borderers had come into conflict with gun-runners from the
Nationalist Volunteers. To the German agents, and notably to
Kuhlmann, one of the chief officials at the Embassy, it seemed that
civil war in Britain had begun. That evening, too, the German
Emperor, his Norwegian trip concluded, returned to Berlin.

It would appear that the rapid action of Austria, now that it
was an accomplished fact, compelled the civilian statesmen of
Germany to reflect. They had determined upon war, but they
did not wish to drop the mask of reasonableness, and a lingering
prudence made them seek to Umit the coming conflict. They must
stand in the eyes of their own people and of the world as
the aggrieved not the aggressors ; above all, they wished to do
nothing that might bring Britain into the arena against them.
At the same time, owing to the reports of Count Pourtales (the
most foolish figure in the not very brilliant German corps diplo-
matique), they seem to have imagined that Russia would not
fight under any circumstances, and the same delusion was strong
in Vienna. Accordingly they adopted the pose of trying to mod-
erate Austria's precipitation. On the evening of the 28th the
Imperial Chancellor sent for the British Ambassador and opened
his heart to him. His view was that the quarrel with Serbia was
purely Austria's business, with which Russia had no concern ;
he could not accept the conference suggested by Sir Edward Grey,
for that would look like sitting in judgment on sovereign Powers ;
but a war among the Great Powers must be avoided, and he was

1914] RUSSIA PARTIALLY MOBILIZES. 59

very willing to co-operate wi\;h Britain to this end. He was anxious
for direct negotiations between Vienna and Petrograd, and was
advising Vienna accordingly. We know from other sources what
this advice was. He told Austria not to refuse further conversa-
tions, to seize Serbian territory as a guarantee, but to explain to
Russia that she did not intend permanent annexation. In this
there was no hint of concession. The impossible Austrian demands
remained, and Serbia, though not annexed, would still be brought
into a state of vassalage. The action was part of the elaborate
hypocrisy by which Germany hoped to mislead Britain. The
Imperial Chancellor wished it to be known that he was attempting
to restrain Vienna, but he concealed the details of his feeble per-
suasion. On the afternoon of the 29th Sir Edward Grey very
seriously and courteously warned Prince Lichnowsky of the dan-
gerous waters to which Germany was steering. " The situation
was very grave. While it was restricted to the issues at present
actually involved, we had no thought of interfering in it. But if
Germany became involved in it, and then France, the issue might
be so great that it would involve all European interests ; and I
did not wish him to be misled by the friendly tone of our conver-
sations— which I hoped might continue — into thinking that we
should stand aside."

The centre of interest now moves for the moment to Russia.
On Wednesday the 29th, after Austria's declaration of war on
Serbia, orders were given for a partial Russian mobilization, affect-
ing the districts of Kiev, Odessa, Moscow, and Kazan, which were
nearest to Austria. That day the bombardment of Belgrade
began, the German High Sea Fleet had been recalled from Norway,
Belgium had taken certain military steps in self-defence, and in
the British Fleet all manoeuvre leave had been cancelled and
concentration was proceeding. It was the beginning of the final
stage of the crisis, and its twenty-four hours passed in such a
tension as Europe had never known. The two storm centres
that day were in Petrograd and Berlin.

On the evening of the 28th, forty hours after his return, the
German Emperor dispatched a telegram to the Tsar. Hitherto
they had been on terms of intimacy, had addressed each other
by pet names in their correspondence, and at various times the
Hohenzollem had advised his brother monarch how to establish
a reverence for autocracy by devices little suited to the Romanov
temperament. He now appealed to their old friendship and the
common interest of kings in punishing the murder of those in high

60 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [July

places and stamping out anarchy. At i p.m. on the 29th the
Tsar replied, begging the Emperor to restrain Austria from going
too far, since " in Russia the indignation, which I share, is tre-
mendous." That afternoon the order went out for partial mobiHza-
tion, though Sukhomlinov, the Minister of War, and Janusch-
kevitch, the Chief of the General Staff, considered that in view
of the threatening outlook the mobilization should be general.
Immediately afterwards M. Sazonov had an interview with Count
Pourtales. That light-witted diplomat, who had just had news
of the mobilization, adopted a hectoring tone. He reminded
Sazonov that Austria was Germany's ally, and that any threat
to the former could not leave the latter unaffected. There was a
second interview at 7 p.m., when he produced a telegram from
Bethmann-Hollweg, which, as interpreted by him, announced that
any further military preparation by Russia would compel Germany
to mobilize, and that that meant war. Count Pourtales had
presented Russia with an ultimatum.

M. Sazonov was gravely perturbed. The Russian partial mobi-
lization against Austria had begun, and Germany was about to make
this a casus belli. It seemed to him that nothing was now left
but to prepare on the full scale for war. He consulted Sukhomli-
nov and Januschkevitch, and found them of the same mind. They
had already acted on their own initiative, and issued secret instruc-
tions for a general mobilization. It was a highly improper act,
however patriotic the motives, but it is not difficult to under-
stand their reasoning. The partial mobilization did not affect
the biggest army group, that of Warsaw, which for two hundred
miles lay along the Galician frontier ; and if war with Austria
was inevitable, then this group must be set in motion at once.
Nevertheless their dupHcity had involved the innocent Foreign
Minister in a misstatement of fact to Count Pourtales. After
7 p.m., however, M. Sazonov became a convert to their view, and
sometime about 8 p.m. the Tsar reluctantly consented to the
general mobilization.

Presently arrived a telegram from the German Emperor framed
in more conciliatory terms than Count Pourtales' blunt declara-
tion. The Tsar replied in the same tone, and being now in a
state of painful indecision, telephoned to Sukhomlinov bidding
him countermand the general mobilization. But that had been
proceeding swiftly for many hours and could not be stopped.
Sukhomlinov, thoroughly frightened, informed his master that
his orders were technically impossible to carry out, and begged

1914] THE BID FOR BRITAIN'S NEUTRALITY. 61

him to consult the Chief of the General Staff. Januschkevitch,
on being applied to, gave the same answer, but was told that the
Imperial decision was final. The two confederates were in des-
pair, for not only had their disobedience brought them to a hopeless
impasse, but from the point of view of policy the Tsar's command
was absurd. The German Emperor's telegram in no way altered
the situation. His grievance was against " any military measure
which can be construed as a menace to Austria-Hungary," and
this applied equally to a partial mobilization. Sukhomlinov and
Januschkevitch resolved to ignore the Imperial order and to let
the general mobilization continue ; but there was little rest that
night for their uneasy heads. While these conversations were
proceeding, Count Pourtales was reflecting on his recent interview
with the Foreign Minister, and beginning to wonder whether he
had not gone too far. In the small hours he called on M. Sazonov
and asked if there were any conditions on which Russia would
suspend her mobilization, promising to dispatch them at once
to Berlin. He was told that if Austria removed from her ulti-
matum the points which violated the sovereign rights of Serbia,
Russia would stop all military preparations. This was telegraphed
to the Wilhelmstrasse, but neither the indecision of Nicholas nor
the second thoughts of Count Pourtales had any longer much
meaning, for that night in the German capital an irrevocable
conclusion had been reached.

Sometime between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. on the 29th the Emperor
met his military and political chiefs at Potsdam. The partial
Russian mobilization was known to the conference, and on that
they resolved on war against Russia, and, as a corollary, against
France. But before publishing the declaration they decided to
make a " strong bid " * for British neutrality. The Imperial
Chancellor motored back to BerUn and sent for the British Ambas-
sador. Sir Edward Goschen's dispatch gives the gist of the
strange conversation which followed : —

" He said that it was clear, so far as he was able to judge the main
principles that governed British policy, that Great Britain would
never stand by and allow France to be crushed in any conflict there
might be. That, however, was not the object at which Germany
aimed. Provided that the neutrality of Great Britain were certain,
every assurance would be given to the British Government that the
Imperial Government aimed at no territorial acquisitions at the expense
of France should they prove victorious in any war that might ensue.

• The phrase is Sir Edward Goschen's.

62 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [July

I questioned his Excellency about the French colonies, and he said
that he was unable to give a similar undertaking in that respect. As
regards Holland, however, his Excellency said that, so long as Ger-
many's adversaries respected the integrity and neutrality of the
Netherlands, Germany was ready to give His Majesty's Government
an assurance that she would do likewise. It depended upon the
action of France what operations Germany might be forced to enter
upon in Belgium, but, when the war was over, Belgian integrity would
be respected if she had not sided against Germany."

With this amazing proposal the troubled day of Wednesday
the 29th closed. Britain had been offered complicity by Ger-
many on insulting terms — that she should suffer France to be
stripped of her colonies without protest, and that the neutrality
of Belgium, guaranteed by Germany and Britain, should be re-
spected only when the war was over. Sir Edward Grey was moved
to honourable wrath, and early on the morning of the 30th replied
in words which could not be misconstrued. He rejected utterly
the Imperial Chancellor's suggestion that Britain should bind
herself to a disgraceful neutrality. He appealed once more to
Germany to work with him to preserve the peace of Europe, and
he concluded with the expression of a hope which at the moment
seemed to the world a vague academic idea, but which the rigour
of war was to make a living reality.

" I will say this : If the peace of Europe can be preserved, and the
present crisis safely passed, my one endeavour will be to promote some
arrangement to which Germany could be a party, by which she could
be assured that no aggressive or hostile policy would be pursued
against her or her Allies by France. Russia, and ourselves, jointly
or separately. I have desired this and worked for it, as far as I could,
through the late Balkan crisis, and, Germany having a corresponding
object, our relations sensibly improved. The idea has hitherto been
too Utopian to form the subject of definite proposals, but if this present
crisis, so much more acute than any that Europe has gone through
for generations, be safely passed, I am hopeful that the relief and
reaction which will follow may make possible some more definite
rapprochement between the Powers than has been possible hitherto."

It was one of the ironies of that week that these wise words should
have been addressed to Germany when she had already girt herself
for illimitable conquest.

Two hours after the break-up of the Imperial Council at Pots-
dam the Emperor sent a telegram to the Tsar, which placed on the
latter the entire weight of decision. If Russia mobilized against

1914] AUSTRIA HESITATES. 63

Austria, mediation was impossible. Presently came the informa-
tion from Berlin that Germany refused to forward to Vienna the
formula agreed on with Count Pourtales at his final interview.
There was other news — of military preparations in Germany, of
the movement of Austrian corps to Galicia, and of the continued
bombardment of Belgrade. M. Sazonov went to Tsarskoe Selo,
and convinced the Tsar that there was no alternative to general
mobilization, so that the anticipatory acts of Sukhomlinov and
Januschkevitch could at last be regularized. Meantime Ger-
many did not act at once on the decision of the Potsdam Council.
She was waiting for Britain's reply. Nervousness prevailed among
her military chiefs, lest at the last moment the cup should be dashed
from their lips ; they breathed more freely when the Berlin Lokalan-
zeiger published at noon what purported to be a decree mobilizing
the whole German army and fleet. It was presently contradicted
officially and the copies of the journal seized, but the announce-
ment had done its work. Telegraphed to Petrograd, it overcame
the last remnants of indecision in the mind of the Tsar, who
thereupon signed the decree for the general mobilization. That
was at four o'clock in the afternoon. Germany had no need for
hurry. She had already taken steps which elsewhere would have
covered all the preliminary work of mobilization. It needed only
the touching of a button to set her great machine in motion. But
in order to delude the world she was anxious that this final pressure
should be subsequent to the official mobilization of her opponents,
that on them the responsibility might appear to He.

That day, on which all hope of peace between Germany and
Russia disappeared, saw a certain wavering on the part of Austria.
For the statesmen of Vienna seem suddenly to have realized that
Russia was prepared to fight. Count Berchtold instructed the
Austrian Ambassador in Petrograd to open conversations again
with M. Sazonov, and used certain remarkable phrases. Austria,
he said, did not desire to " infringe the sovereignty of Serbia,"
but to win guarantees for her own future security. She had
mobilized only against Serbia, and had not moved a single man of
the ist, loth, and nth Corps, which were next to Russia. If
Russia ordered a general mobilization, Austria must follow suit,
but he especially laid it down that " this measure did not imply
any attitude of hostility towards Russia, but was exclusively a
necessary counter-measure against the Russian mobiUzation."
This was a very different attitude from anything hitherto revealed.
Count Berchtold for the first time spoke of respecting the sove-

64 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [July

reign right of Serbia, which was the point in dispute, though he
still stuck to the unfortunate ultimatum. More important still,
he showed that, unlike Germany, he did not regard mobilization,
even a general mobilization, as shutting the door on peace. That
day, too, a telegram was sent to Tschirschky by Bethmann-
Hollweg, advising Austria to continue to negotiate with Petrograd.
The message was so wholly out of tune with the other German
deeds and declarations of this stage that it is difficult to believe
that its purpose was other than propagandist. It was drafted
with the hope of deceiving Britain as to the real responsi-
bility, and to this end was published in an English paper on
August ist.

Sir Edward Grey, though the skies were swiftly darkening, had
not yet lost hope. He still clung to his own proposal, that
Austria should occupy Belgrade as a guarantee, and then allow
Europe to mediate between herself, Russia, and Serbia. He had
spoken in this strain to Lichnowsky on the 29th, but he received
from Berlin only vague replies. His suggestion was accepted by
M. Sazonov — a great concession, for it meant that Russia was
prepared to negotiate while Austrian troops were on Serbian
soil. Obviously there might be a violent difference of opinion
between Austria and the Entente as to what constituted a viola-
tion of Serbia's sovereign rights, but there was one element of real
hope in the situation : the mobilizations and counter-mobiliza-
tions had produced an impasse — but Count Berchtold had announced
that he did not regard mobilization as necessarily implying war.
To Sir Edward Grey's anxious eyes there seemed even at this
eleventh hour a chance of peace. Germany thought likewise, and
promptly took steps to shatter it.

Before we leave the 30th, we must notice two other events
of that day. Prince Henry of Prussia sent a telegram to King
George in which he urged that the only hope of peace was that
Britain should induce Russia and France to remain neutral. He
referred to a verbal message given him when in England by the
King, which the German Emperor in his telegram to President
Wilson a few days later alleged to have contained an assurance
that Britain would be neutral even though Germany, Austria,
France, and Russia went to war. It need hardly be said that
no such message was ever given. On receiving Prince Henry's
telegram King George replied, urging the Emperor to accept
Sir Edward Grey's formula. It was the beginning of a telegraphic
correspondence between the two monarchs, which was no more

1914] THE BRITISH CABINET. 65

than an expression of hopes and goodwill, and was without influ-
ence on the course of events. The second incident was of supreme
importance. That day M. Paul Cambon, the French Ambassador,
called on Sir Edward Grey, and reminded him of two letters written
in November 1912, in which he had pledged himself, if the peace
of Europe should be threatened, to discuss the attitude of Britain's
policy in regard to the position of France. M. Cambon asked in
effect for an assurance that, if war came, Britain would cast in her
lot with France and Russia. Sir Edward Grey agreed to lay the
matter before the Cabinet on the following day.

We come now to the morning of Friday the 31st. The British
Cabinet met and decided that they could not yet guarantee the
intervention of Britain. M. Cambon was informed that the
Government intended to take steps forthwith to obtain from
Germany and France an undertaking to respect Belgian neutrality,
and must wait for the situation to develop. Sir Edward Grey —
reasonably, on the information before him — still clung to the hope
which the more pacific attitude of Austria had given him. He
was also uncertain about his countrymen. As he wrote to the
British Ambassador at Paris : " Nobody here feels that in this
dispute, so far as it has yet gone, British treaties or obligations
are involved. Feeling is quite different from what it was during
the Morocco question. That crisis involved a dispute directly
involving France, whereas in this case France is being drawn into
a dispute which is not hers." This was undoubtedly at the moment
a correct reading of British opinion ; its long insensitiveness to
foreign politics had unfitted it to read the signs now written large
on the skies. High Conservative finance and the extreme Radical
press were at one in their determination to avoid war. Again, if
the Foreign Secretary was uncertain about his countrymen, he was
not less uncertain about his colleagues. Six men in the Cabinet
saw where events were tending unless a miracle intervened. These
were the Prime Minister, Lord Haldane, Sir Edward Grey, Lord
Crewe, Mr. McKenna, and Mr. Churchill. The others were igno-
rant, puzzled, and angry, and the left wing was making ready, in
the event of the six voting for war, to lead a campaign for non-
intervention in which they believed they would have overwhelming
popular support. The Government of late had not been well
agreed, and an active faction welcomed the chance of cutting loose
from the bondage of the " Whigs." In the circumstances Sir
Edward Grey could scarcely have done otherwise than he did. His
enforced caution had no effect on German policy. Had he pub-

66 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [July

lished that day the news of a military alliance between Britain and
France,. Germany would not have swerved one hair's-breadth from
her plan.

About midday on the 31st the news reached Berlin that Russia
had ordered a general mobilization. It was the cue for which she
had been waiting. It is clear from the Imperial Chancellor's
conversation that morning with Sir Edward Goschen that Germany
had resolved to act immediately on the decision of the Imperial
Council of the 29th, now that Britain had been sounded, and, as
he hoped, placed in the wrong. But the news at noon exactly
served his purpose. The Emperor decreed a Kriegsgefahrzu stand,
a " state of danger of war," which meant the introduction of martial
law, and the perfecting of the mihtary machine, so that it only
needed Moltke's famous " Mobil-krieg " to set it in motion. In
every other country it would have been understood as in the fullest
sense a general mobilization. An ultimatum was at once sent
to Petrograd, and at midnight on the 31st Count Pourtales
notified M. Sazonov that if within twelve hours — that is, by mid-
day on Saturday, August ist — Russia did not demobilize against
Austria as well as Germany, his Government would be compelled
to order German mobilization. At the same time something in
the nature of an ultimatum was sent to France. She was asked
whether she intended to remain neutral in a Russo-German war,
and a reply was demanded within eighteen hours — that is, by one
o'clock next day. Baron von Schoen saw M. Viviani at seven
that evening, and the brusqueness of the request lost nothing from
the Ambassador's manner. It was clearly necessary for Germany
to hurry on the breach with France, for all her military disposi-
tions contemplated that the first blow should be struck in the
West, and it would be fatal to be implicated in a Russian campaign
with France still undecided. She knew very well what answer
France would give to her truculent interrogatory. Within a few
hours Germany had cleared the air, she had made war with France
and Russia inevitable, and had put an end to the temporizing of
her Austrian ally. That the latter danger was real is shown by
the fact that sometime that day Count Berchtold instructed the
Austrian Ambassador in Petrograd " to deal with Russia on the
broadest base possible," and to open a discussion on the terms
of the note to Serbia. It is hard to believe that this change of
tone was merely part of the game of hypocrisy ; for, with Germany
declaring war, these concessions could only weaken the justifica-
tion for such a war in the eyes of the world. But now and hence-

1914] M. POINCARfi'S APPEAL. 67

forward the doings of Austria have no significance ; the conduct
of affairs had been taken into stronger hands.

That day the King of England received two messages. One
was from the Emperor William, in which it was made clear that
Germany regarded herself as committed to war with Russia. The
other was from the President of the French Republic, in which,
while admitting that Britain was under no formal obligation, he
appealed to her to declare herself on the side of France as the
one hope of preserving peace. " From all the information which
reaches me it would seem that war would be inevitable if Germany
were convinced that the British Government would not intervene
in a conflict in which France might be engaged ; if, on the other
hand, Germany were convinced that the Entente cordiale would
be affirmed, in case of need, even to the extent of taking the field
side by side, there would be the greatest chance that peace would
remain unbroken." We know now that that chance had already
gone, but M. Poincare's message is proof, if proof were needed,
of the earnest desire of France to avert war. King George, after
consulting his Ministers, replied on the following morning with
the same answer which Sir Edward Grey had given to M. Paul
Cambon. There was still a faint hope of peace, and till that had
gone the pledge asked for could not be given. But before many
hours had passed the hope had vanished even from the mind of
the British Cabinet.

That week-end was such as no one then living had ever known.
For so widespread a sense of foundations destroyed and a world
turned topsy-turvy we must go back to the days of the French
Revolution. In Britain the markets went to pieces, the Bank
rate rose on the Saturday to 10 per cent., and the Stock Exchange
was closed. An air of great and terrible things impending impressed
the most casual spectator. Crowds hung about telegraph offices
and railway stations ; men stood in the streets in little groups ;
there was not much talking, but many spells of tense silence.
The country was uneasy. It feared war ; it was beginning to
realize the immensity of the crisis ; and another feeling was appear-
ing, scarcely reckoned with by the Government — a fear of a dis-
honourable peace. In Berlin, where the news was no novelty to
the inner circle, an interesting performance was being enacted.
With adroit stage management the incidents of 1870 were re-
peated. In the middle of the week the populace hai gone mad
with war fever, in spite of the famine of coin and the rapid advance
in food prices. Wherever the Emperor appeared he was greeted

68 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

with wild enthusiasm. On the Thursday feeUng quieted down
when it was beheved that Russia had given in, but on the declara-
tion of a " state of danger of war " the fever broke out again. The
approaches to the Palace were crowded at all hours, thrilling reli-
gious services were held, singing and shouting mobs filled the
streets, until the order came after noon on Saturday for the general
mobilization. That solemnized Berlin ; anxious women took the
place of noisy maffickers ; and the capital, calming her nerves,
prepared for a great struggle. If Germany failed, it was on her
gates that the conqueror would beat.

Saturday, August ist, opened with a misunderstanding between
Prince Lichnowsky and Sir Edward Grey. The German Ambas-
sador understood a question directed to him as to whether Germany
would remain neutral if France did the same, as meaning whether
Germany would keep from attacking France. He consulted Berhn,
and promptly received an answer in the afhrmative. But Sir Edward
Grey asked for German neutrality also towards Russia, and this
was of course refused. During the day the time-limit of the two
ultimatums expired. At noon war began between Germany and
Russia. At II a.m. Baron von Schoen was instructed, if France
promised neutrality, to ask for stringent guarantees — no less
than the temporary cession of the great border fortresses of Toul
and Verdun — a demand which would have been refused. But
the need did not arise for this harsh condition. M. Viviani seems
not to have left it in doubt what course his country would take,
but the German Ambassador departed without asking for his
passports. He knew that the German mobilization was due that
afternoon, and that the inevitable French counter-mobiHzation
would give his masters all the pretext they required. Besides,
they wanted to get the benefit of their surprise invasion of Luxem-
bourg and Belgium before formally declaring war on France.
Just after midday Germany issued the order for general mobiliza-
tion ; at 3.40 that afternoon France followed suit. Her troops
were instructed not to go nearer the German frontier than ten
kilometres, and to avoid any semblance of provocation. In
starting her war machine she was already forty-eight hours behind
Germany.

We must now turn our attention to Belgium, which for the rest
of the week-end took first place in the world's eyes. On the
19th of April 1839, ^ treaty was signed in London by Austiia,
France, Prussia, Britain, Russia, and Holland under which Belgium
was recognized as an " independent and perpetually neutral state,"

1914] THE QUESTION OF BELGIAN NEUTRALITY. 69

and her neutrality guaranteed by the first five signatories. For
long the main danger was looked for from France, and it was
Bismarck's revelation of the proposal made by Napoleon III.,
that he should be allowed to annex Belgium on certain terms,
which did much to turn British opinion against the French Em-
peror in 1870. In that year Britain asked both the combatants
their intentions towards Belgium, and both pledged themselves
not to allow their troops to cross the Belgian frontier, while Britain
engaged to declare war at once on the offender. After 1870 the
menace seemed to come from the new German Empire, but both
France and Germany showed themselves eager to make certain
that the Belgian defences were strong enough to prevent a surprise
attack by either Power. The inviolability of Belgian territory
was also of acute interest to Britain, and in 1906 the British mili-
tary attache at Brussels, Colonel Barnardiston, had an exchange
of views with the chief of the Belgian General Staff as to the
measures which Britain would take as guarantor should Belgian
neutrality be infringed by Germany. Such a step was perfectly
in order, and was indeed no more than Germany had taken in
May 1875. In 1912, after the Agadir crisis, Lieutenant-Colonel
Bridges had a similar conversation,* and Sir Edward Grey, in
order to clear up any misunderstanding, expressly disclaimed any
intention on Britain's part to land troops in Belgium, unless the
latter's integrity had already been violated. Germany, as late
as the spring of 1913, apparently held to her treaty obligations,
for on 29th April of that year her Minister of War declared in the
Reichstag : " Belgium plays no part in the causes which justify
the proposed reorganization of the German military system. . . .
Germany will not lose sight of the fact that Belgium is guaranteed
by international treaty." This undertaking was repeated in the
same debate by Jagow.

Belgium had therefore been for some years in a condition of
jealous watchfulness, determined to defend her integrity against
all the guaranteeing Powers without discrimination — nervous
especially about Germany's doings, but not without twinges of
anxiety concerning France. Her position made her a close student
of European affairs, and she viewed with profound disquiet Austria's

* The record of these conversations, found in the archives at Brussels after
the occupation of that city by Germany, was made much of by German publicists,
though they proved nothing except Britain's loyalty to her guarantee of neutrality.
In this Germany followed the example of Frederick the Great, who in 1756, after his
unprovoked attack on Saxony, ransacked Dresden for some secret treaty which
should show Saxony's hostility to Prussia.

70 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

ultimatum to Serbia. On the 29th of July she mobilized her army
and put her forts in a state of defence. As soon as the German
" state of danger of war " was ordered, Sir Edward Grey, remem-
bering the Imperial Chancellor's words to Sir Edward Goschen on
the night of the 29th, asked the French and German Governments
for an assurance that they would respect the neutrality of Belgium
so long as no other Power violated it. He received from France
at once the fullest assurance, but from Germany an ambiguous
and disquieting answer. Jagow said that he must consult the
Emperor and the Imperial Chancellor before replying, and that
he was doubtful if he could answer at all, " since any reply
they might give could not but disclose a certain amount of their
plan of campaign, in the event of war ensuing." He added that
his Government considered that certain hostile acts had already
been committed by Belgium. The stage was being set for a new
version of the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb.

With this news on the Saturday Sir Edward Grey attended the
meeting of the British Cabinet. The situation was changing.
Belgium was clearly threatened, and Belgium directly touched
British interests and British honour. The Cabinet resolved that
Germany must be warned that here lay a clear cause of strife,
unless the required pledge was given at once. Prince Lichnowsky,
when he met the Foreign Secretary, asked whether, if Germany
promised not to invade Belgium, Britain would agree to remain
neutral. Sir Edward Grey declined to commit himself. " All I
could say was that our attitude would be determined largely by
public opinion here, and that the neutrality of Belgium would
appeal very strongly to public opinion here. I did not think we
could give a promise of neutrality on that condition alone." The
Ambassador's question was futile, for he was not in the confi-
dence of his superiors. The invasion of Belgium had already been
arranged down to the last field gun.

On the morning of Sunday, 2nd August, came the first act of
war. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, about the size of an
English county, lies at the south-eastern corner of Belgium, between
the Ardennes and the river Moselle. It is a country of low ridges
and meadowland, the junction point of five railway lines with
important connections. The little state, which had a population
less than Edinburgh, had long been in a position of disarmed
neutrality under the protection of its powerful neighbours. A
volunteer force of 150 men, and the same number of gendarmes,
constituted its sole defence, and the city of Luxembourg, once

t9i4] THE ULTIMATUM TO BELGIUM. 71

reckoned the strongest fortress in Europe, had for half a century
been dismantled. On the Sunday morning the advance guard of
the German 8th Corps crossed the frontier by the bridges of Wasser-
bilUg and Remich, and about 11 a.m. the inhabitants of the
capital were surprised by the arrival of motor cars and an armoured
train containing the officers and men of the 29th Regiment. These
seized the Adolf Bridge, and demanded a right of passage through
the duchy for the German army. A gendarme or two protested,
and there was an end of it. Luxemboiirg was like the nest of
field-mice in the path of the reaping machine, and could do nothing
to stay the onset. By the afternoon German covering troops from
Treves were tramping along her eastern roads, and her railways
were in German hands.

That hot August Sunday saw movements elsewhere on the
frontier. German cavalry patrols of the i6th Corps crossed the
Alsatian border as far as the village of Joncherey, and had a brush
with French pickets. A body of German dragoons entered the
village of Suarce and took prisoner nine French peasants. The
same thing happened near the village of Reppe. Early next
morning — before the declaration of war — there was a raid near
Luneville, and a fight at Remereville with Uhlans from Chateau-
Salins. Even under this provocation France behaved with scrupu-
lous correctness, and kept her covering troops more than six miles
from the frontier. The Germans published broadcast official tales
of French violations of German territory, but each was later proved
a fabrication. They are too childish to be worth recounting
here : the most important were later denied by Germany herself ;
and it was remarkable that, while the falsehoods were being cir-
culated, German statesmen were so badly coached that they did
not all tell the same story.* But the motive of this mendacious
propaganda was clear. The German nation must be convinced
that they were the aggrieved, not the aggressors ; and the Em-
peror must have a free hand in his manoeuvres for position, for
under the Imperial Constitution he could not declare war without
the assent of the Bundesrat unless German territory were attacked.
At seven o'clock that evening came the celebrated ultimatum
to Belgium, t The views of Germany on the binding nature of
treaties had not been concealed from the world. " No people,"

• See, for example, French Yellow Book, No. 155, and Ren6 Puaux's Le Mensonge.

t According to Herr Kautsky's evidence, this note was finally drafted by the
Ger nan Staff as early as July 26th, and presented to the Imperial Chancellor for
approval on the 29th.

72 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. LAug.

so ran a famous saying of Bismarck's, " should sacrifice its exist-
ence on the altar of fidelity to treaty, but should only go ?o far
as suited its own interests." And throughout Treitschke's writings
the doctrine is repeatedly preached : " The statesman has no
right to warm his hands at the smoking ruins of his fatherland
with the pleased self-praise that he has never hed. That is merely
a monkish virtue." And again : " All treaties are written with
the clause understood : So long as things remain as they are
at present." We may admit some reason in the rebus sic stanti-
bus argument ; it is easy to conceive a case where a treaty might
be a purely antiquarian document, empty of reference to a hv-
ing world, and adherence to it mere pedantry, because by uni-
versal consent it had been tacitly superseded. We may admit,
too, that in certain circumstances there may be a moral duty of
self-preservation in defiance of written law. But this situation
was clear beyond casuistry. The guarantee of Belgian neutrality
was as vital as on the day when it was given ; it was the charter
of Belgium's existence as a nation, and on it the other guaran-
teeing Powers based their conduct. Nor was the national exist-
ence of Germany in danger except from her own arrogance ; as
her every act bore witness, she was deliberately setting forth
on a campaign of conquest. A man protecting his own home
against violence may be pardoned if he goes beyond the letter
of the law, but not so the violator.

The note presented to the Belgian Foreign Minister began by
stating that Germany had received reliable news that the French
intended to march on the line of the Meuse by Givet and Namur,
and that Germany in self-defence must anticipate any such attack.
This was a bold saying, considering that the whole of the French
military scheme was based on an advance in the Alsace-Lorraine
area, and that she had fatally neglected the Belgian border. The
document went on to demand a passage through Belgium for German
troops. If Belgium assented and maintained a benevolent neutral-
ity, Germany undertook, at the conclusion of the war, to evacuate
her territory and guarantee in full her independence. If she
refused, Germany would be regretfully compelled to treat her as an
enemy. The thunderbolt had fallen, and all that night the Belgian
statesmen discussed the terms of their reply.

Meanwhile on that Sunday things were moving faster in Britain.
The Naval Reserves were called out, and a moratorium was proclaimed
for the payment of bills of exchange other than cheques. The
Cabinet met in the morning, and with the growth of anxiety about

1914] SUNDAY, AUGUST 2. 73

Belgium the pacificist group began to lose ground. The most
notable conversion now in progress was that of Mr. Lloyd George.
His past reputation had been won as an opponent of war, and it
was not easy for him to appear suddenly in a new role. Of all
the Ministers he was probably the one least instructed in the intri-
cacies of foreign affairs, and in the true nature of the crisis. But
the threatened outrage on a little people roused his anger, and his
acute power of diagnosing the mind of his countrymen told him that
in this matter popular feeling would soon be at fever-heat. Bel-
gium was to make of him an emotional convert to wax, and for
three years, long after the larger ambitions of Germany had been
made abundantly clear, he continued to assert that Britain entered
the struggle because of Belgium and Belgium alone. There could
be no better commentary on the mental confusion of the majority
of British Ministers. That Sunday morning's Cabinet, however,
made an appreciable advance. It authorized Sir Edward Grey to
assure M. Paul Cambon that, if the German fleet came into the
Channel or through the North Sea to attack the French coast, the
British navy would give France all the protection in its power.
This assurance was subject to the Government receiving the support
of Parliament, and did not bind Britain to move till the specified
hostile action had taken place. The main value of the pledge
was that it enabled France to settle her naval dispositions in the
Mediterranean, where her fleet had long been concentrated. She
was indeed in a most perilous case. She had depleted her Atlantic
and Channel defences in hope of Britain's alliance ; now she was at
war and Britain was not yet an ally ; at any moment a German fleet
might appear on her western coasts. She had taken the desperate
resolution to send Admiral Rouyer with a single cruiser squadron to
engage the enemy in the Straits of Dover. That day the Opposi-
tion took a step, highly creditable to themselves, which greatly
strengthened Mr. Asquith's hands. The Unionist statesmen,
collected hurriedly from distant country houses, sent to the Prime
Minister a note offering their unqualified support in any measures
he might take on behalf of the honour and security of Britain and
her Allies. In the evening, after dinner. Sir Edward Grey and
Lord Haldane, having received the news of the Belgian ultimatum,
visited Mr. Asquith and explained to him their own decision, with
which he concurred. It remained to be seen whether he could
carry the Cabinet and Parliament with him ; if not, his coarse
was resignation. The Prime Minister, after his fashion, when
convinced at long last of the reaUty of a crisis, did not suffer from

A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

a divided mind. He empowered Lord Haldane to summon on
his behalf the Army Council next morning, and issue orders for
mobihzation.

The battle of diplomacy was nearing its end, and Monday,
3rd August, saw throughout Europe a knitting of loose threads
into the web of war. That day the Grand Duke Nicholas was
appointed Generalissimo of the Russian forces, and the first blow
was struck in the East — a skirmish of outposts near Libau. That
day Germany declared war upon France. In Berlin itself the chief
preoccupation of the Government seemed to be to secure that
political unity which would be a strong shaft for the spearhead
of the armies. The Social Democratic Party had just sent an
envoy, one Hermann Miiller, to confer with the French Socialists
in Paris. The latter told him that if France were attacked they
must either abstain or vote for the war credits ; they could not
vote against them. Miiller replied that most German Social
Democrats would prefer to vote against the credits, but if his
French comrades abstained, his colleagues might do likewise.
Presently, however, the whole situation changed. The Imperial
Chancellor, who knew his men, received in private conference
on 3rd August the leaders of the Reichstag groups, and that day
the Social Democrats also met. The great majority of the latter,
beheving that Germany was being wantonly attacked, resolved to
vote the war credits, and, apparently influenced by fear of what
they called the " victory of Russian despotism," next day the
whole group, including even Haase and Bernstein and Karl
Liebknecht, assented to the Chancellor's proposals. The rulers
of Germany had not misread the temperament of their people.

At 7 a.m. on the Monday morning, twelve hours after the
ultimatum was presented, Belgium returned her answer. She
intended at all costs to fulfil her international obligations, and would
offer vigorous resistance to any invader. " The Belgian Govern-
ment, if they were to accept the proposals submitted to them,
would sacrifice the honour of the nation and betray their duty
towards Europe. Conscious of the part which Belgium had
played for more than eighty years in the civilization of the world,
they refuse to believe that her independence can be procured only
at the price of the violation of her neutrality. If this hope is
disappointed, they are firmly resolved to repel by all the means
in their power every attack upon their rights." This bold defiance,
delivered while Britain still seemed to hesitate, was like the sudden
wind which sweeps a morning fog from the valleys. At the same

1914] THE BRITISH CABINET DECIDES FOR WAR. 75

hour King Albert telegraphed to King George making a supreme
appeal for the diplomatic intervention of Britain to safeguard
the integrity of his country. He had still a faint hope that the
invader might hesitate if it was made clear that the crossing of
the Belgian frontier meant instant war with Britain.

That morning the British Cabinet met. It was a momentous
occasion, for Ministers were already in possession of the German
ultimatum to Belgium, and, while they sat, came King Albert's
personal appeal to King George. Mr. Churchill informed his
colleagues that he had taken timely steps, and that by that hour
the whole sea power of Britain was in readiness for war. An hour
before. Lord Haldane, acting for the Prime Minister at the War
Office, had ordered the mobilization of the British army — an act
of incalculable importance at a time when every hour was vital.*-
The Government were at the parting of the ways. The temper of
the people was rising, and the hope of the pacificist section to lead
a whirlwind campaign for peace was dwindling. The desperate
case of Belgium had had a profound effect upon Mr. Lloyd George,
and without him there could be no real opposition. Lord Morley,
the last of the strait Victorians, and Mr. John Burns took the
honourable course and resigned. They were men of an older
world ; war was to them so repugnant that no compulsion of
fact could persuade them to be party to it. Ten of the others
made a feeble attempt at revolt, and that day endeavoured to
form a faction which they besought Lord Morley to lead. But
the events of the afternoon persuaded them that the House of
Commons and the nation were against them, and they yielded,
whether convinced or unconvinced, to the dictates of political
discretion. It is not the least of the comedies of history that the
most fateful decision ever taken by a British Cabinet was arrived
at in the case of most of its members for mistaken or even for dis-
creditable reasons. Sir Edward Grey prepared a telegram f to Sir
Edward Goschen demanding from Germany an immediate assur-
ance that Belgian neutrality would be respected, and he informed
the Belgian Minister in London that a violation of Belgium would
for Britain mean war.

The views of the House of Commons had still to be ascertained.

* The results may be judged from the dates of concentration in France. The
ist, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Infantry Divisions, and the ist and 2nd Cavalry Divisions
were concentrated on various dates between the 9th and 22nd of August ; the 4th
Division on the 23rd.

t The telegram was not sent ofif till early on the 4th, after the House of Common*
debate.

76 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

The day was a Bank Holiday, and during the afternoon at every
post-office in the country crowds were waiting for the first news
of Sir Edward Grey's speech. When it came the sigh of reUef
which went up from men who had most to lose by war showed
how deep had been the national anxiety. The Foreign Secre-
tary's statement that afternoon was such as only he could have
made. It was the expression, in plain words without rhetoric or
passion, of a most honest and peace-loving mind, which had left
no channel of mediation unexplored, which had striven against
every rebuff to avert calamity, and which now sadly but inevi-
tably was forced towards war. He narrated the events of the past
week and defined the part which, in his view, Britain must play.
She was bound to Belgium by the most sacred treaty obliga-
tions. She was not bound to France by any actual defensive
or offensive alliance, though her Government had anticipated that
joint action might some day be necessary, and had arranged for
certain consultations between the two General Staffs. But she
had given France the promise that, if the German fleet under-
took hostile operations against the French coast or French
shipping, the British fleet would protect her. He announced that
that fleet was already mobilized, and that the Cabinet had de-
cided to mobiUze all the land forces of the Crown. The House
of Commons received this declaration of policy with almost
unanimous approval.

Next day, Tuesday the 4th, saw the end of those thirteen
days, when statesmanship laboured to buttress the tottering
barriers. That morning Sir Edward Grey advised Belgium to
resist by force any German invasion, and promised to join with
Russia and France in supporting her. In the early hours the
invasion had begun. The Germans crossed the frontier at Gemme-
nich, and during the day Vise was burned and the first shots were
fired on the forts of Liege. At the same time the German Minister
in Brussels announced that since Belgium refused to grant her a
free passage, Germany would take one by force — the equivalent of
a declaration of war.

The last act was played in Berlin. Sir Edward Goschen re-
ceived Sir Edward Grey's message early on the 4th, and at once
called upon Jagow. He was told that a passage through
Belgium was a matter of life or death to Germany, and that she
could not draw back. Then came a second telegram from London
instructing the British Ambassador to serve an ultimatum on Ger-
many, and unless a satisfactory reply was given before midnight.

1914] BETHMANN-HOLLWEG. 77

to ask for his passports. When the message arrived the Imperial
Chancellor was delivering his historic speech in the Reichstag,
in which he repeated the familiar misstatements about France's
violation of German territory. His most famous passage was
that in which he defended the breach of the neutrality of Luxem-
bourg and Belgium : —

" We are in a state of necessity, and necessity knows no law. We
were compelled to override the just protests of the Luxembourg and
Belgian Governments. That is a breach of international law. . . .
The wrong — I speak frankly — that we are committing we will try to
make good as soon as our military goal is reached. He who is threatened
as we are threatened and is fighting for his all can have but the one
thought — how he is to hack his way through."

Of Britain he said little ; even at that late hour he seems to have
doubted her entering the arena. But when he returned from the
Reichstag, he was asked to see Sir Edward Goschen, who had
already, about 7 p.m., presented Jagow with the British ulti-
matum.

That final interview with Bethmann-Hollweg sheds so clear
a Hght upon the mind of Germany that Sir Edward Goschen's
narrative deserves quotation.

" I found the Chancellor very agitated. His Excellency at once
began a harangue which lasted for about twenty minutes. He said
that the step taken by His Majesty's Government was terrible to a
degree : just for a word — ' neutrality,' a word which in war time
had so often been disregarded — just for a scrap of paper Great Britain
was going to make war on a kindred nation who desired nothing better
than to be friends with her. All his efforts in that direction had been
rendered useless by this last terrible step, and the policy to which,
as I knew, he had devoted himself since his accession to office had
tumbled down like a house of cards. What we had done was un-
thinkable ; it was like striking a man from behind while he was fighting
for his life against two assailants. He held Great Britain responsible
for all the terrible events that might happen. I protested strongly
against that statement, and said that, in the same way as he and
Herr von Jagow wished me to understand that for strategical reasons
it was a matter of life and death to Germany to advance through
Belgium and violate the latter' s neutrality, so I would wish him to
understand that it was, so to speak, a matter of ' life and death ' for
the honour of Great Britain that she should keep her solemn engage-
ment to do her utmost to defend Belgium's neutrality if attacked.
That solemn compact simply had to be kept, or what confidence could
any one have in engagements given by Great Britain in the future ?

78 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

The Chancellor said, ' But at what price will that compact have been
kept ? Has the British Government thought of that ? ' I hinted to
his Excellency as plainly as I could that fear of consequences could
hardly be regarded as an excuse for breaking solemn engagements;
but his Excellency was so excited, so evidently overcome by the news
of our action, and so little disposed to hear reason, that I refrained
from adding fuel to the flame by further argument. As I was leaving
he said that the blow of Great Britain joining Germany's enemies was
all the greater that almost up to the last moment he and his Govern-
ment had been working with us and supporting our efforts to maintain
peace between Austria and Russia. I said that this was part of the
tragedy which saw the two nations fall apart just at the moment
when the relations between them had been more friendly and cordial
than they had been for years. Unfortunately, notwithstanding our
efforts to maintain peace between Russia and Austria, the war had
spread and had brought us face to face with a situation which, if we
held to our engagements, we could not possibly avoid, and which,
unfortunately, entailed our separation from our late fellow-workers.
He would readily understand that no one regretted this more than I."*

The news had leaked out. The Under Secretary for Foreign
Affairs called on the British Ambassador about 9.30, and asked if
the request for passports meant a declaration of war. It was then
two and a half hours to midnight, and he was reminded that at
midnight Sir Edward Grey must have his answer. But no formal
answer was ever given. The newsboys in the street were already
shouting war with Britain, and presently the crashing of glass in
the Embassy windows told that the Berlin mob had awakened to
the fact that the strife was not to be confined to the continent of
Europe, but was to rage through the wide world. The disappoint-
ment of Germany was deep — deep as had been her bHndness. For
a moment her zest was a little dashed, for the entrance of Britain
brought into that methodical future which she had planned a
touch of the incalculable. " The British change the whole situa-
tion," the Emperor told Mr. Gerard a few days later. " An obsti-
nate nation ! They will keep up the war. It cannot end soon."

So closed the feverish fortnight when the dams of war cracked
and broke and let loose the torrent. The historian, surveying
the facts with all due detachment, can reach but the one conclu-
sion. Austria, not without some show of reason, had ever since

• It is fair to note that Bethmann-Hollweg's own account of this interview
1 aries in some important points, and in particular p«ts a slightly different complexion
on the " scrap of paper " remark. Both men were deeply moved, and liable tc
interpret words and gestures in the light of their own emotion.

1914] THE BURDEN OF GUILT. 79

the Balkan War decided that the growth of the new Slav power
beyond the Danube threatened the existence of the Dual Monarchy
in its traditional form, and had resolved to seize the first occasion
to dissipate the menace. The tragedy of Serajevo gave her the
chance she sought. But her governing motive was a perverted
notion of self-defence, for, as a state, she had no large dreams of
conquest, and when she saw that the fire she was lighting in south-
eastern Europe was like to become a world-wide conflagration, she
hesitated at the last moment and would have drawn back. Such
is the only possible interpretation of Count Berchtold's action on
30th and 31st July. The view of the meaning of a general mobiliza-
tion which he then stated cut the ground from the whole of Ger-
many's cause of quarrel with Russia. But Berlin stepped in and
slammed the door on peace. For more than a year the rulers of
Germany had made up their minds for war — war, if possible, in
instalments, but war which in the last resort would give them
a world hegemony. She seized, like Austria, on the pretext of
Serajevo, but with a far wider purpose. From first to last she was
privy to every step taken by Vienna, for she initiated and directed
them. She could count for support upon the megalomania of her
governing classes, but it was necessary to convince her soberer
citizens that she was entering upon a war of defence, so for a fort-
night she laboured to put her future opponents in the wrong.
But in all her subtle diplomacy she blundered, for, save among her
own people, she stood self-condemned before the storm broke.
Instead of severing her rivals she united them, and made her plan
of war by instalments impossible. The entrance of Britain was
against her immediate calculations, but not outside her ultimate
scheme. It is unnecessarj^ to assume that the whole of Germany
was agreed upon such a colossal bid for fortune as that to which
she was committed by 4th August. All her statesmen were at
one on the war with Russia and France, but many would have fain
postponed the reckoning with Britain to a more convenient day.
But she had willed the end, and had peFforce to embrace the means.
The guilt of war in the major degree rests upon every class of her
people, not only on the actual war-makers but upon the millions
of her citizens who docilely accepted from their rulers the coarsest
fictions.

Against the conduct of the Entente during those weeks no
charge of substance can be made. Russia strove zealously for
peace, for the aberrations of Sukhomhnov and Januschkevitch
were in defiance of the Tsar, and in any case did not affect the main

8o A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

issue. France laboured till the last moment to prevent catas-
trophe, and by her scruples gave her enemy an initial advantage.
When all hope had gone she faced the crisis with a noble calm,
very different from the excited hours of 1870. Nor can there be
any serious reflection on the action of Britain. Sir Edward Grey
played under supreme difficulties a part which must rank among
the most honourable achievements of British statesmen, and for
Mr. Asquith and the Ministers who supported him from the first there
can be nothing but praise. Yet it must be recorded that it was only
by accident that the right course was taken. The tone of the press
at the time, and the discussions in the Cabinet up to 3rd August,
showed how ignorant and unprepared were our people. The true
political issue was not understood save by a few, and had the
issue remained only political it is to be feared that Britain would
have long hesitated, and might have fatally compromised the
fortunes of the Entente by her delay. But the outrage on Belgium
raised a moral issue which swept away every doubt. It is not
too much to say that the honour and liberty of our race were
saved by the martyrdom of their little neighbour.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STRENGTH OF THE COMBATANTS.

The German Military System — Austria-Hungary — France — Russia — Britain — ^The
British and German Navies — Economic Strength of the Belligerents — ^The
Strategic Position — The Rally of the British Empire.

Before we enter on the chronicle of the campaigns, it is desirable
to review the position of the different combatants — their relative
preparedness for war, and the strength which they could muster
in the field, for on such circumstances depended their strategical
plans. Such a review must necessarily be of the most general
type. If we take as our standpoint the strength patent to the
world on the outbreak of hostilities, we shall reach some under-
standing of how the odds looked to contemporaries, but we shall
neglect many sources of strength and weakness which were only
revealed during the campaign. If, again, we make our review
in the light of full knowledge, we shall present a picture which no
contemporary would have accepted as accurate even for his own
land, and shall get a false impression of how the problem appeared
to each Government, since a nation's policy is based not on objective
truth but on what it takes to be the truth. It will be sufficient if
at this stage we set down on broad lines and in round figures the
apparent assets of each belligerent, leaving it to later chapters to
add to or subtract from such an inventory.

The two weapons potent above others for the coming struggle
were the German army and the British navy. The German army
system may be said to date from the reconstruction of the Prus-
sian force which followed the battle of Jena. Under Bismarck,
von Moltke, and von Roon it was extended to the other German
states ; it was barely completed when the war of 1870 began ;
since that date it had been amplified and perfected into an exact
machine, but the main features were still those of Gneisenau and

82 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

Scharnhorst. Its guiding principle was that of the " nation in
arms," an idea which was in turn the product of the wars of Na-
poleon. Every male citizen of reasonable physique was liable to
service ; the State took what men it desired, passed them through
its hands in a period of short service, and from them, and from
those le..s fully trained, established under various grades of effici-
ency an enormous reserve, which could be called up in that combat
d outrance which had never been absent from the contemplation
of German statesmen. A German was Hable to serve from the
age of seventeen, and if he was called up his service began at
twenty. He served for two years with the colours if in the
infantry, and for three if in the cavalry and horse artillery. A
high standard of physique and discipline prevailed, and those
years were years of incessant toil. Then he entered the Regular
Reserve, where he remained for five or four years, according to
his arm. These seven years completed, he went into the first
levy of the Landwehr for five years more, and then entered the
second levy, where he remained till he had completed his thirty-
ninth year. This gave him a total of nineteen years of varied
service from the day he first joined. After that he joined the
first levy of the Landsturm, in which he continued till he was
forty-five. This Landsturm had a second levy, which consisted
of men between the ages of thirty-nine and forty-five who had
escaped the ordinary training. Over and above the number thus
provided, out of the many who for various reasons escaped the call
to the colours the Ersatz Reserve was formed, whose members
duly passed into the Landsturm. There were thus various classes
of reserves, apart from the Ersatz, who were called up in order of
their value. First came the Regular Reserve — the men who had
served with the colours and were aged from twenty-three to twenty-
seven. Next came the Landwehr, Class I., consisting of those who
had served seven years with the colours and with the Regular
Reserve, and whose ages were from twenty-seven to thirty-two.
After that ranked the Landwehr, Class II., made up of the same men
between thirty-two and thirty-nine. Then we reach the Landsturm,
Class I., which consisted of men who had passed through the
Landwehr, and were from thirty-nine to forty-five years old.
The Landsturm, Class II., the last emergency resort, were un-
trained men of all ages. We may call the three reserves the
Regular, the Special, and the National, provided we realize that
these names are not to be construed in their English sense.

The German army in the final form given it by the law of

THE GERMAN ARMY. 83

1912 was organized in twenty-five army corps, which, except the
Guard Corps, were recruited on a territorial basis. Each corps
was usually composed on a war establishment of a Staff ; two
infantry divisions, each of two brigades, while each brigade was
made up of two regiments with three battalions each ; two regi-
ments of field artillery, comprising seventy-two pieces ; a battalion
of riflemen (Jager) ; a contingent of cavalry, varying from three
squadrons to a complete division in the case of the Guard ; and
a number of corps troops. On mobilization each corps formed a
third or reserve division from the Regular Reserve. The cavalry
was organized in regiments, each with one depot and four service
squadrons, and was grouped in brigades of two regiments, and in
divisions of three brigades. All this was a matter of common
knowledge throughout the world. But there were arcana imperii
not revealed. It was known, for example, that provision had been
made for forming reserve corps out of surplus reservists, but
it was not known— it was not even guessed— that before 1914
arrangements had been completed for duplicating every first line
corps with a reserve corps during the mobilization period. Such
reserve corps were not like those of the French— half empty cadres
made up of poor material — but units ready at once to take the
field. Other unrevealed matters were the capacity for a rapid and
lavish provision of machine guns * throughout the line, a con-
sidered scheme for their tactical use, and the developments made
in the departments of motor traction and heavy artillery.

It was difficult to form an exact estimate of the fighting strength
of such a force. The population of the German Empire in 19 14
was some 65 milHons, the number of males some 32 millions. The
law of 19 12 provided for a peace strength which should rapidly
advance to something in excess of 700,000. This would permit
of a mobilization in first line and reserve corps of at least four
million trained men. But such a figure was only the starting point.
In a war of life and death, the whole male population between 15
and 60 would beyond doubt be drawn upon, and the nature of
German education and society made a drastic levy easier than in
other lands. Her man-power would give her in any one year
some 15 millions of men of every variety of fighting value, and,
making all deductions for the unfit and for losses, she could main-
tain under arms at least 6 millions, of whom 5 millions would be
in the battle line. Each year her increment from the new classes
would be 500,000.

• The nominal provision was the same as the French — 2 per 1,000 men.

84 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

Her man-power for war was therefore the greatest in the world,
with the exception of Russia. But of still higher value was the
quality of her organization. For at least half a century the best
brains in the country had been directed to the military art. The
army was the chief arbiter of social fashion, and a middle-class
family would pinch and hoard to have one son an officer. For the
nobiUty it was almost the sole profession ; and it was a real pro-
fession—arduous, exacting, but offering splendid rewards. Promo-
tion was slow, for a senior subaltern might have twenty years'
service behind him, and a senior captain thirty, but the interest
and prestige of the Ufe would seem to have been sufficient recom-
pense. For the army in Germany was a popular thing, in which
the people felt an intimate pride. A man who did well was assured
of a career, and a man who did competently could look forward
to a civil service post which would provide for his old age.

Of the whole machine the Staff was the key, and the two hun-
dred officers on the General Staff in 1914 were the cream of the
army, and scarcely to be matched in the world. The German is
a good teacher and an apt pupil, and in this sphere there were the
highest inducements to teach and learn. Entrance to the General
Staff was slow and difficult, and misfits were ruthlessly discarded.
The selected staff officer was a man sound in body and tempera-
ment, thoroughly trained in the practical work of soldiering, and
possessing of necessity considerable mental power. The two very
different spheres of administration and operations were strictly
delimited, and the work in both was brought to the highest pitch
of theoretical perfection. The antiquated ideas of the old Prus-
sian system had been discarded, subordinates were encouraged
to show initiative, and mistakes were rated lightly compared with
the vice of supineness. In the unassuming building in the Alsen
Platz, hard by the Brandenburg Gate, the Great General Staff,
created by Scharnhorst and perfected by the elder Moltke and von
Schlieffen, had for years been making plans in full detail to meet
every conceivable crisis. Served by a highly organized intelligence
system, minutely informed as to the views and capacity of their
neighbours and the terrain of every possible field of operations,
they had made certain that, at the word of the Emperor, a machine
would be set in motion which for power and smoothness had no
parallel in history.

As this narrative proceeds we shall have occasion to consider
the principles which governed Germany's war ; here it is enough
to note the suppleness and strength of the weapon. But a word

GERMAN MILITARY THEORY. 85

may be said of the spirit in which the weapon was forged. The
German Staff had calculated to the last decimal the calculable
part of the problem which they knew they must face. They fore-
saw a war on two fronts, and realized that the advantage given
them by their supreme preparedness was terminable, and that
to win they must win quickly. Hence they concentrated their
efforts on the maximum weight of attack in the shortest time,
on an accumulation of strength in the vital area which should
be far superior to any which their enemies could show. They had
the immediate preponderance in numbers, and owing to the per-
fection of their railways they had the means of using them. In
this they reasoned soundly ; and they were not less correct in
their recognition of the truth that the coming campaign would be
fought under novel conditions and must at the outset be largely
a matter of guess-work. To the best of their ability they had
assessed the possibilities of modern scientific discoveries in their
relation to war, and in certain matters of armament had reached
true conclusions. But they were not willing to dogmatize ; they
were content to feel their way. Clausewitz's wise words were
always in their mind : " He who intends to move in such an
element as war must bring with him nothing at all gained from
books save the education of his mind ; if he brings with him ready-
made ideas which have not been inspired in him by the shock of
the moment, which he has not generated out of his own flesh and
blood, the rush of events will overthrow his building before it is
completed." In such a mood of cool science they entered upon
their task. But it is not given to human nature to shake itself
wholly free from dogma. If in theory the German military chiefs
professed a wise opportunism, in fact they had their biases of
race and temperament, sometimes avowed, more often uncon-
scious, which, rather than the revealed truths of the case, were to
decide their practice. And while their theory was right, these
more potent biases, as we shall see, were not infrequently wrong.

The armed forces of Austria-Hungary were organized mainlj.
on the German system, with certain exceptions due to the nature
of the Dual Monarchy. There was an Imperial army — the oldest
standing army in Europe ; two Landwehrs, one for Austria and
one for Hungary ; and a general Landsturm, or levy-in-mass.
There were sixteen army corps, on a territorial basis, each corps
containing two infantry divisions of two brigades each, one cavalry
brigade, one artillery brigade, and various corps troops. In war a

86 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

Landwehr division was added to each of the regular corps. On a
peace footing the strength of the army was a little over 400,000
officers and men, and on a war basis it reached a figure in the
neighbourhood of 2,000,000, exclusive of the Landsturm. In a
defensive war a a-Atrance the country could count on putting some
6,000,000 men, trained and untrained, into the field.

The Austrian army was not a military machine which ap-
proached the calibre of the German. Austria had had no Bis-
marck or Moltke, not even a Gneisenau, in her recent history.
Since the Archduke Charles she had had no commander of the first
rank, and her campaigns from Austerlitz onward had been mainly
records of defeat. Solferino and Sadowa were not encouragements
to recruiting like Gravelotte and Sedan. The result was that,
while her military caste was dominant and assured and many
of her constituent peoples of excellent fighting quality, there was
no strong popular enthusiasm for her army and no great intelli-
gence in its direction. Austria was also faced with a special diffi-
culty. Under her rule were many races who had affinities beyond
her borders. To send her Polish troops against Russian Poland,
or her Croats and Serbs against the armies of the Southern Slavs
was to run the risk of mutiny and defection. In a war such as
the present she was, therefore, bound to distribute her army
corps not on purely military, but on political grounds. Her
Tyrolese must go north of the Carpathians ; her Galicians to
the Italian frontier. It was obvious that such a necessity must
grievously complicate her whole problem of mobilization at the
outset, and of transport and reinforcements in the later stages.
Yet she had elements in her ranks of high fighting quality, notably
the divisions from Tyrol and Hungary, and in certain branches of
military science, such as siege artillery, she had no equal. Her
strength as an ally to Germany was that she greatly added to the
man-power of the Teutonic League ; her weakness lay in the long
extension of the battle line that her security demanded, and in
the lack of homogeneity in her levies. The strength, it was clear
from the outset, could be fully used and the weakness provided
against only by a very complete subordination of her leaders to
the German High Command.

The French army, as is usual with a nation whose last great
campaign has ended in failure, had been the object of many ex-
periments in the past forty years. The law which governed it in
its present form was only one year old, which meant that the

THE FRENCH ARMY. 87

service was not yet properly standardized, and many of those
with the colours were the products of superseded statutes, just as
in Britain the terms of enlistment laid down in 1902 only ceased
to work in 1914. The law of 1913, like its predecessor of 1905,
was framed to reduce the disparity of France as against the rapidly
increasing man-power of Germany, for she had a population of
under forty millions, as against the German sixty-five. Unlike
Germany, she called practically her whole able-bodied male popula-
tion to arms. A Frenchman found fit for service normally joined
the colours at the age of twenty, spent three years in the Regular
Army, eleven in the Regular Reserve, seven in the Territorial
Army, and seven in the Territorial Reserve, and did not leave
the strength till he had attained the age of forty-eight.

As a colonial Power she had been compelled since the 'eighties
to keep a colonial army, recruited by volunteers, as an expedi-
tionary force for her overseas empire. Like Russia, she had there-
fore come to possess several armies, each with its own special char-
acter. First came the first line of the Home Army. There were
twenty-one army corps, organized more or less on a territorial basis
— twenty located in France and one in Algeria. An army corps
had two divisions, a division two brigades, a brigade two regi-
ments, a regiment three battalions each of 1000 men. In addi-
tion, there were in each corps a cavalry regiment and a special
force of corps artillery, not allocated to the divisions, and number-
ing twelve batteries. To eight corps there was allotted also a
battalion of chasseurs. There were ten cavalry divisions, each divi-
sion comprising six regiments, divided into two or three brigades.
There were also a number of special " regional " troops, which pro-
vided an extra division for certain corps. As part of the Armee
Metropolitaine, we must note the four regiments of Zouaves —
white troops nominally belonging to the Algerian force, but largely
stationed in France ; and the six regiments of Chasseurs d'Afrique,
the cavalry whose famous charge all but redeemed the calamity
of Sedan. The native African troops, recruited in Algeria by
balloting and elsewhere by volunteers, were the twenty battalions of
Tirailleurs Algeriens or Turcos, the heroes of Solferino ; the four
cavalry regiments of Spahis ; and a division of Tirailleurs Senega-
lais, drawn from the Niger basin, troops of much the same tj'pe as
the British Sudanese. The reserves for the first-line army were
arranged in eleven classes, and were computed to number some 2,000
men for each battaHon. The Territorial Army, destined for lines
of communication and garrison duty, but also available for field

88 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

service in home defence, was organized to produce 36 divisions on
mobilization. These divisions were, however, only cadres, and the
purpose of the Territorials was to form local guards, the surplus
being sent to depots for training as drafts to supply losses. Afhli-
ated with the normal Territorials and destined for the same pur-
pose of garrison work were the Gendarmerie, the Garde Republi-
caine, the Douaniers and the Gardes Forestiers. Lastly we come
to the Armee Coloniale, partly white troops recruited anywhere
in French territory, partly native troops raised in Africa. This
force was a true corps d' elite, and in the fullest meaning of the word
a first-Hne army. In 1914 it numbered 87,000, white and native
troops. Of similar quality, but regarded as a special force under
the authority of the Admiralty, was the Infanterie de Marine,
which was relegated for service with the home army.

These various forces provided a peace strength of some 700,000
men, and on mobilization the first line would be doubled by the
inclusion of men from the reserve — a field strength of some 1,400,000.
The remaining reservists would be organized in reserve units
similar to the regulars, and all duties behind the lines would be
taken over by the Territorials. Roughly speaking, the system
gave France a month or so after the beginning of war about
4,000,000 trained and partially trained men, of whom we may
allot 700,000 to the first line, 700,000 to that portion of the Regular
Reserve required to put the first line on a war footing, 700,000 to
the balance of the Regular Reserve, 700,000 to the embodied Terri-
torial Army, 700,000 to the Territorial depot reserve, and 700,000
to the Territorial surplus. This provided a first-line army of about
1,500,000, a second line of about 500,000 partially trained, and a
reserve of some 2,000,000.

The fighting machine which France could set in motion on the
outburst of war ranked easily second among the forces of the
world. In numbers it was inferior to the German, but the inferi-
ority was not glaring ; France's real danger lay in her limited
power of subsequent expansion. Each year her increment from
the new classes would be only 200,000, as against Germany's
500,000. Out of a possible six or seven millions of able-bodied
males she had already enrolled two-thirds, whereas Germany had
not used a half, scarcely indeed a third, of her resources. Her only
additional reservoir lay in her African possessions, but Colonel
Mangin's proposal of a vast native army * had not been acted
upon. In a war of endurance France might find herself declining
• See his La Force Noire.

FRANCE'S STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS. 89

in numbers at a perilous rate, while her antagonist was still far
from his maximum. There were other defects which weighed
heavily on the mind of the French leaders. The reserve divisions
could not take the field quickly in full strength. The Quarter-
master-General's side was in grave disorder, and the stores of
essential equipment had been suffered to sink dangerously low.
The fortresses had fallen into a great decay, though on the French
theory of war they were to play the part of breakwaters and hold
the tide of invasion till the army was ready. In the matter of
weapons the merits of the 75 mm. field gun, the best of its kind
in the world, had induced a false confidence. The machine gun
equipment was inferior to that of Germany ; there were far fewer
of them, the type was less good, and their tactical use was still in
the rudimentary stage. Heavy artillery, too, had been neglected.
The French heavy batteries were utterly insufficient in number
and weak in power ; the 4.2 howitzer threw a shell of only 40 lb.,
as against the German 5.9 with its 87 lb. shell and three shots a
minute. France's strength lay in the quality of her men rather
than in their numbers or equipment. She had a magnificent
first line, but too little behind it.

Yet, when all discount has been made, that quality was in
itself a most formidable thing. Her North African possessions
gave her a magnificent training-ground, and many of her troops
had had actual experience of war. If Germany's inspiration was
Moltke and 1870, France's was the Napoleonic Wars ; and in
many points, like the heavy loads carried by the infantry and
the belief in rapid and cumulative attacks, her views were those
of the Grande Armee. The French Infantry retained all their
historic dash and elan, and were probably the best marchers in
Europe. The French General Staff,* too, had not been behind
Germany in that " fundamental brain work " which was rightly
regarded as the basis of success. Some of the best military litera-
ture of modern times had been produced by French officers, and
France had of late years shown a remarkable aptitude for military
inventions. In one respect she differed greatly from her neighbour.
She had no military caste to draw upon for her officers. The
highest posts in her service were open to any one who could pass
the requisite examinations and show the requisite talent. A democ-
racy has its drawbacks in war, and a republic cannot give, perhaps,

* Foch, when Commandant of the ficole de Guerre, had endeavoured unsuc-
cessfully to increase the two years Staff course to the three years of the German
system. Yet, in spite of a shorter course, by a skilful arrangement of studies the
French Stafi training was unquestionably the most perfect of all the belligerents.

90 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

that freedom from political interference and that continuity of
policy which are desirable for a military machine. But the lack
of this mechanical perfection had its compensations. If the disci-
pline appeared less rigorous, there was a far greater camaraderie
between men and officers, as any one who has marched with a
French regiment will bear witness. In a defensive war for national
existence this spirit of fraternity might be more potent in battle
than any barrack-yard precision.

Russia, Hke France, was a great Power which had suffered
disaster in her last campaign, and was therefore eager to redeem
her credit. A reform movement of a kind had been at work in her
army for the past eight years, and Kuropatkin had interpreted the
lessons of the Japanese War in unequivocal terms to his country-
men.* But how far progress had gone was hard to estimate ahke
for enemy and ally, for she did not publish her domestic concerns
to the world. Unhappily many reforms remained only on paper,
and much of the new credits granted was not honestly applied.
Like her neighbours she had the system of universal compulsory
service, but with her vast population of more than 170 millions
she could afford to allow large exemptions. The age-limit of service
was forty-three, and the term with the colours was three years
in the infantry and four in the other arms. Her force was organ-
ized in army corps, whose recruiting areas extended from the banks
of the Vistula to the shores of the Pacific, and from the Arctic circle
to the steppes of Turkestan. It was divided into three Regular
armies — the European army of 27 army corps and 20 cavalry
divisions, of which we may put the peace strength at some figure
like 1,200,000 ; the Army of the Caucasus of three corps and four
cavalry divisions ; and the Siberian Army of five corps. The
total strength may be taken at 1,700,000 — approximately double
the peace strength of Germany. The duplication of the first line
by new reserve units and the bringing up of all units to their full
total would give a war strength on mobilization of at least four
millions. But this was only the beginning. The surplus of drilled
reservists after the reserve units were formed could not be less
than two millions ; the various bans of the Militia would add
another million ; and since less than half of her available contin-
gent was called up yearly, there was a balance of many millions
for further recruiting, f

♦ See his Russian Army and the Japanese War (Eng. trans. 1904).
t General Gourko (Russia in 1914-1917) estimates that 14,000,000 were called
to the colours up to December 1916.

RUSSIA'S MILITARY STRENGTH. 91

The man-power of Russia seemed, indeed, inexhaustible, but
her fighting capacity was hmited by the difficulties of the transport
problem over so vast an area, and the doubt as to whether war
material could be accumulated in sufficient quantities to do justice
to her numbers. Unlike Western Europe, her railways were few
and irregularly distributed. Her field guns were good, but she
had little heavy artillery, and, being a country with few industries,
she had not the machinery for a rapid expansion of munitions.
Her officer class had undoubtedly improved since the Japanese
War, but it was far too small for the huge forces to be mobilized.
She suffered, too, as we shall see later, from the lack of a considered
strategic policy. Indeed it might fairly be said that of all the
reforms canvassed since 1905 only one had taken effect, the in-
crease in mobilizable numbers. Her army was a formidable
weapon, but rather from size than from quality. In a war of
defence she might justly be regarded as invincible ; in offensive
warfare, where time was of the essence of the problem, her defects
were obvious. One asset she possessed of high value. The do-
cility and endurance of the Russian rank and file had always been
famous, and under competent leading they had few superiors.
For Russia much depended upon the cause in which she fought.
Her infinite masses, far removed from ordinary news channels,
were slow to kindle ; but if the cause were truly popular, the Slav
nature might reveal that stubborn ardour against which a century
before the genius of Napoleon had striven in vain. Yet even in
this fine quality there lurked a danger. The Russian people were
not, so far as ordinary education went, on the same level as their
Western allies, and the very patience and dociUty which made
them formidable in battle might by a turn of fortune's wheel
ruin their military value. For it is a characteristic of the primitive
virtues that their application is incalculable.

In the British army we reach a force different in history,
constitution, and purpose from that of every other European
country. The aim of Britain for the last century had been to
possess a small, highly professional, and perfectly equipped army
for service anywhere on the globe, and a second line purely for home
defence. She desired a real army without surplusage, exactly
suited to the needs of her Empire and of home defence, but no
more. Of the many efforts to attain this ideal I need not write
at length , every war which we had waged had taught us a lesson,
not infrequently exaggerated in its application. We may content

92 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

ourselves with a brief survey of the system instituted by Lord
Haldane between 1907 and 1910, during his tenancy of the office
of Secretary of State for War.

The conclusion of the South African campaign in 1902 left our
military system in great confusion. We had detected many flaws
and given ourselves up to empiric remedies. There was no General
Staff. The attempt of Lord Roberts and Lord Midleton to organize
the army in six corps produced only phantoms. The War Office
showed a succession of fleeting military chiefs who had neither
the talent nor the authority to adjust the machine. In 1905 the
military forces of the Crown were a heterogeneous collection of
fragments incapable of speedy and effective use. The Regular
Army had no unit larger than a brigade which could have gone to
war without changing its composition. The only large unit, the
so-called Aldershot Army Corps, could not have taken the field
without a long delay. The cavalry was short of horses. Mr.
Arnold-Forster had armed the artillery with the new i8-pounder,
but no adequate provision had been made for ammunition, and not
more than forty-two batteries could have been put in the field.
The infantry was short of men, and the system of Hnked battalions
had virtually broken down. In the second line was the MiUtia, which
was bled in peace for the Regular Army, and which in any case
was not liable to serve abroad. The third line, the Volunteers
and Yeomanry, competed for recruits with the Militia, and had no
real higher organization. All three lines were uncorrelated. Most
serious of all, there was no provision for expanding the first line
in case of need.

Lord Haldane, when he took office, saw that the main problem
for the British army was not home defence, but the power of tak-
ing an offensive overseas wherever required, and that the problem
was the same whether the expeditionary force was destined for
some part of the Empire or for the continent of Europe. His first
step was to summon to his aid the younger soldiers who had made
a reputation in South Africa. In his reconstruction he followed
three great principles. The first was that a true General Staff
must be created, and that its work of planning strategy and super-
vising training should be completely separated from the wholly
different province of administration.* The second was that all
organization must be on a war and not on a peace basis, the units

* He did not succeed in getting the departments of the Adjutant-General,
the Quartermaster-General, and the Master General of the Ordnance — the Adminis-
trative or Intendantur side — into one great department, but he freed the Imperial
General Staff from irrelevant duties.

THE BRITISH ARMY. 93

being ready to spring into full activity immediately on receiving
their reserves, instead of having to enter a new formation. The
third was that a larger fighting unit was needed than the brigade,
and that this should be not the old small British division, but the
great continental division of three brigades, complete with divi-
sional cavalry, artillery, and transport. He refused the alterna-
tive of a two million army on the continental pattern, for Britain
did not need it. The old three lines were replaced by two — the
Regulars, with the Militia turned into a special reserve, and the
Territorial Force, with an organization akin to the first line. His
aim was to provide a striking force of professional soldiers ready
to serve anywhere at any moment, and behind it a volunteer
citizen army, capable of rapid expansion and intensive training
in time of war. He had, therefore, an Expeditionary Force of
six divisions capable of mobilizing and concentrating on the Con-
tinent within twelve days, and at its back a Territorial army
of fourteen infantry divisions and fourteen mounted brigades,
which, with the assistance of the 20,000 partially trained young
men of the Officers' Training Corps, might expand under stress
into a nation in arms.*

♦ In 1914 the results stood as follows. — To take the Regular Array first : The
Expeditionary Force was organized as a force of six infantry divisions and nearly two
of cavalry. The Regular infantry were divided between the stations at home and
abroad, with the exception of the Guards, who in peace time were not employed
on foreign service, and whose term was three years with the colours and nine in the
Reserve. The Army Reserve consisted of those who had completed their service
with the colours, and had not yet completed the term for which they had enlisted.
The Special Reserve acted in peace time mainly as a feeder for the Regulars, many
joining it as a preliminary to the Line ; the period of enlistment was for six years,
and all ranks were liable for foreign service in war. In the Territorial Force, the
term of service was four years, re-engagements being allowed, and the training
was considerably higher than in most of the classes of the continental Territorial
forces. The Territorial Reserve, which was part of Lord Haldane's scheme, had
made little progress, and consisted mainly of officers who had left their regiments
but wished to rejoin on mobilization. Lastly came the National Reserve, made up
of old soldiers, many beyond the age limit, who were registered in part for general
service, in part for home service alone, and in part merely for purposes of training
and administration. It will be seen that the British army presented features analogous
to all the classes of continental military systems. The army corps, the superior
unit of continental systems, did not appear in the British army in its peace organiza-
tion. The administrative unit was the Command, based on localities, and includ-
ing both Regular Army, Special Reserve, and Territorial forces. The highest field
unit in peace was the division, which consisted of three infantry brigades, three
field artillery brigades, one field howitzer brigade, one heavy battery, two field com-
panies of Royal Engineers, one squadron of cavalry, and various divisional troops,
making a total of 18,073 men, 5,592 horses, 76 guns, and 24 machine guns.
A brigade of infantry consisted of four battalions ; a battalion of four companies
of about 240 men each, subdivided into platoons of 60. The battalion was com-
manded by a lieutenant-colonel, the brigade by a brigadier-general, and the division
by a major-general. The artillery unit was the " brigade," which in this connection

94 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

Lord Haldane's reconstruction did not meet with universal
approval. The General Staff would have preferred conscription
and a large first line on the continental model. The difficulties
in the way of this policy were, first, that such an army could not
have been created except during a long period of assured peace,
and that in peace the British nation would not have consented
to a machine so far beyond what it considered to be its normal
needs ; second, that such a development would have involved a
hiatus between old and new, and that to admit this hiatus would
have been to court Germany's attack. Lord Roberts, with all the
weight of his great character and long experience, advocated a
scheme of universal compulsory training for home defence. On
the merits of his proposal it is not necessary at this date to argue ;
undoubtedly, had it been in operation in 1914, it would have greatly
facihtated the creation of the new armies. The practical obstacle
in its way was the difficulty of providing officers ; but it is important
to remember that it would not have given Britain a larger ex-
peditionary force to meet the urgent crisis. It was not in this sense
an alternative to Lord Haldane's system, but a development of one
side of it ; the only alternative was the General Staff's proposal for
a conscript continental army, which the peculiar circumstances of
Britain made impracticable, even if it had been desirable. Minor
criticisms directed against the reduction in the infantry and artillery
may be neglected ; there was in fact no reduction ; weak units
disappeared, but the total mobilizable strength was increased. As
we look back after the long testing years we may well admit that
the structure which Lord Haldane built, upon foundations laid
by Mr. Balfour, was not only the best which the circumstances
permitted, but a thing in itself nobly conceived, wisely wrought,
and abundantly justified by results. By virtue of his proven
achievement he stands with few rivals in the roll of the War Min-
isters of Britain.

On the outbreak of war the Expeditionary Force for immediate
use numbered 160,000 troops of all arms. The total regular
strength with the British colours reached in round figures 250,000 ;
the Army Reserve numbered 145,000, the Special Reserve 81,000 ;

had a different meaning from the word as used in continental armies. In the Field
Artillery a brigade comprised three six-gun batteries ; in the Horse Artillery two
batteries. The cavalry regiment was made up of three squadrons, each some 150
sabres, subdivided into four troops. A cavalry brigade had three regiments ; a
cavalry division had four brigades, and four batteries of horse artillery ; but there
were also cavalry brigades which were not allotted to any division. In war the
full strength of a cavalry division was 9,269 men, 9,813 horses, 24 guns, and 24
machine guns.

BRITAIN'S MILITARY RESOURCES. 95

the Territorial Force had a peace establishment of 316,500, but it
was short of this by some 50,000 ; and the National Reserve had
reached the creditable level of 200,000. But these figures were no
index to the potential fighting strength of Britain. She had never
been called upon to exert herself in recruiting, and the first shock
of war sent myriads of young men flocking to the colours. She
had deliberately chosen to limit herself to a small highly trained
striking force, trusting to the protection of her Navy to allow her
to improvise an adequate army in the case of a great war. The
choice, as it now seems to us, was wise. She followed Raleigh's
precept : " There is a certain proportion both by sea and land
beyond which the excess brings nothing but disorder and amaze-
ment." She was consciously reserving her strength for a long
sustenance of effort ; as Germany played for immediate victory, so
Britain thought of the ultimate battle. Her resources, provided
the issue were not decided in the early months, would steadily
grow, for unlike her neighbours she had but skimmed the cream
of her man-power for the first trial, and had not depleted her
economic wealth by extravagant armaments. In three years,
were she given the time, it was fair to assume that, with her colonies
and dependencies, she could send five million men to the theatres
of war.

But that was for the future. Britain's military strength in
the first round of the struggle could be measured only by her
Expeditionary Force. Small as this striking force was by com-
parison with that of her neighbours, it was not to be compared with
any continental army of the same size. In the words of a German
critic, it was " a perfect thing apart." The British regulars were
beyond question the most professional in the world. Their train-
ing, both in duration and thoroughness, went far beyond anything
known in the short-service German army. The fact that she had
commonly to fight her wars in desert and ill-provided countries
had compelled her to bring her transport and commissariat arrange-
ments to the highest pitch of perfection. The same was true of
the engineering and medical services. Again, a large proportion
of both men and officers had had actual experience of war. Most
officers over thirty had gone through the trying South African
campaign ; the senior commanders had Indian and Egyptian wars
as well in their recollection. Such field experience is no small
ingredient in the moral of an army. A man who has already led
or followed successfully under fire has learned something that no
text-book or staff college or manoeuvres can teach. In Carnot's

96 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

famous words, " It is not pirouetting up and down a baiTack-yard,
but active service that makes an old soldier." The British staff-
officer, though he had not behind him the long traditions of the
French or the German, was adequate to the forces with which he
was associated. And in one matter the younger British officer
surpassed his foreign colleagues. His mind worked freshly and
originally on the discovery of new weapons. The nature of the
coming war was not fully envisaged by any soldier, but many of
its details were correctly anticipated in Britain. In the course of
this narrative we shall find examples of British skill in the inven-
tion of new weapons ; here it is sufficient to note that, years before
the war, officers at such schools as Hythe had pressed for the use
of rifle-grenades, bombs, trench periscopes. Very pistols, and other
instruments presently to become only too famihar, and had almost
invariably been rebuffed by an unimaginative Treasury.*

To state the opposing strengths in the field at the outset of
war in mere numbers gives little enlightenment, for numbers
were not the only, or indeed the chief, factor. It is better to
put the odds in general terms than with any mathematical pre-
ciseness. The total man-power of France, Russia, and Britain,
with their allies of Belgium and Serbia, was a little short of double
that of Germany and Austria, but the disparity was enormously
less — probably not more than 13 to 8 — with regard to the immedi-
ately mobilizable armies. In the vital theatre of war — the Western
front — Germany could at once place forces preponderating by at
least 50 per cent over those of France and Britain. In that theatre,
indeed, the immediate odds in Germany's favour were even greater,
owing to the perfection of her long-planned scheme of attack. If
she could succeed at once in the West, the Eastern theatre, where
the elements were less clear, would offer no difficulty, since she
could then give it an undivided attention. But if victory did
not come at once and the war lengthened out, a new situation
would arise involving naval and economic factors. To these we
must now give brief consideration.

II.

In reviewing the naval power of the belligerents we may for
the moment neglect all save Britain and Germany, The other

* It is significant that Bernhardi in his post-bellum Vom Kriege der Zukunft
advocates as a result of war experience many principles which were either adopted
in the British army of 1914, or were then strongly urged by leading British soldiers.

THE BRITISH NAVY. 97

navies played their part, but it was local, and immaterial to the
main problem ; the duel for the supremacy of the sea must be
fought out by the two antagonists who faced each other across
the northern waters. The British navy at the outbreak of war
had reached a point of efficiency both in quality and quantity
which was unprecedented in its history. It is true that the growth
of German sea-power had relatively reduced its pre-eminence, but
the existence of a bold claimant for the empire of the ocean had
stimulated the spirit of the fleet, and improved its organization
for war. This is not the place to enter into the interminable
discussions which since 1906 had raged around the subject. The
attempts at reduction, happily frustrated, may well be relegated
to oblivion. Ever since Lord Selborne's period of office at the
Admiralty a steady advance may be noted in training and equip-
ment. The establishment of the Royal Fleet Reserve and the
Volunteer Naval Reserve, the provision of North Sea bases, the
admirable work done by the Committee of Imperial Defence,
the development of armament and of battleship designing, the
improvement in gunnery practice, the system of manning older
ships with nucleus crews, the revision of the rates of pay, the open-
ing up of careers for the lower deck, and the provision of a naval
air service, were landmarks in the advance. Much was due to
Lord Fisher, who for five and a half years held the post of First
Sea Lord ; something was due, also, to the civilian First Lords,
Mr, McKenna and Mr. Winston Churchill. The former saved the
situation in the crisis of 1909 ; the latter flung himself into the
work of his department with a zeal and intelligence which were
of incalculable value to the country in the hour of need. In the
Navy Estimates of March, 1914, Parliament sanctioned over
fifty-one millions for naval defence — the largest sum ever granted
for the purpose. There was always a certain criticism of our
naval policy on technical grounds, for the advent of the big gun,
the submarine, and the airship had dissolved much of the old ortho-
dox theory, and the air was thick with new doctrine. In particular,
the organization of the Admiralty was attacked with some justice,
and the first months of war revealed various errors of prevision.
The capital ship had tended to monopolize our mind to the exclu-
sion of other weapons. But it is unquestionable that Britain had
never been stronger afloat than when at 8.30 on the morning of
4th August her Grand Fleet put to sea.

The German navy, the second in the world, was a creation of
the past fifteen years, deliberately undertaken for the purpose

98 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

of challenging British supremacy. The chief begetter had been
an obscure naval officer called Tirpitz, who in 1897 succeeded
Admiral von HoUmann as Minister of Marine. With the support
of the Emperor he began to wring money for the navy out of a
reluctant Treasury and in the face of a jealous army, and by
dint of a skilful press campaign succeeded in arousing in the Ger-
man people a new enthusiasm for maritime power. At the out-
break of war he had held office for fifteen years, and had built
up a navy which in ships and men was second only to one — a
marvellous performance for so short a period. In the old days
the German navy had been regarded as a branch of the army :
naval strategy was conceived of as only an auxihary to land strat-
egy, and ships as units for coast defence. It had been the task
of the new German sea-lords to emancipate the fleet from this
military tradition. The result was that the navy had become a
far more democratic profession than the sister service, and had
drawn to it many able men of middle-class birth who were repelled
by the junkerdom of the army. It was manned chiefly by con-
scripts, but about a quarter consisted of volunteers, mainly
dwellers on the coast and on the Frisian and Baltic islands, and
men who had deliberately made it their career. The officers were
almost to a man professional enthusiasts, and British sailors, who
fraternized with them in foreign ports, had borne witness to their
efficiency and seamanHke spirit.

In August 1914 Britain possessed 73 battleships and battle-
cruisers, 34 armoured cruisers, 87 cruisers, 227 destroyers, and
75 submarines — many of each class being of an antiquated type.
Germany had 46 battleships and battle-cruisers, 40 armoured
cruisers, 12 cruisers, 152 destroyers, and 40 submarines. But
as she had practically all her fleet in northern waters, the true
comparison was between her High Sea Fleet and its actual antag-
onist, the British Grand Fleet. On this basis Britain had 20
Dreadnoughts, 8 pre-Dreadnoughts, 4 battle -cruisers, 9 cruisers,
12 light cruisers, and 42 destroyers ; Germany, 13 Dreadnoughts,
16 pre-Dreadnoughts, 3 battle-cruisers, 2 cruisers, 15 light cruisers,
and 88 destroyers. Germany had 28 submarines, and was build-
ing 24 ; Britain had 54 and was building 19 ; but of the 54, 37
were old types useful only for coast defence, and only 9 of the
total were comparable to the German craft. Germany's strength
in destroyers and submarines is to be noted, for it gave a hint of
her naval policy. She could not hope to meet the British Grand
Fleet in an open battle — at any rate not at the beginning. It

GERMANY'S STRATEGIC PLAN. 99

was her aim to avoid such a trial of strength until the British lead
had been reduced by the slow attrition of submarines, mines, and
the casualties of the sea. The policy of a sudden raid— that " day "
which German naval officers had long toasted— was made almost
impossible by the manner in which war broke out and by the pre-
paredness of Britain at sea.

The Fabian Une of strategy had many advantages from Ger-
many's standpoint. It gave ample scope for the ingenuity and
boldness of those branches of her sea-service, like mine-layers
and submarines, to which she had paid special attention. It kept
her fleet intact against the time when, her arms victorious on land,
she could sally forth to fight a dispirited enemy. Further, a
period of forced inaction must have a wearing effect upon the
nerves of the British navy. For a fleet which beheves itself in-
vincible s-nd longs for combat it is a hard trial to wait day after
day without descrying an enemy's pennon on the horizon. The
modern battleship had not the constant small duties which existed
in the ships of Nelson's time, and it was hoped that the men and
officers might grow stale and apathetic ; or, in the alternative, they
might risk an attack upon the German fleet in its home waters —
an attack which, in the German view, would result in the crushing
defeat of the invader.

This plan, perfectly sound strategy in the circumstances, was
made possible by the peculiar configuration of the German coast,
and the magnificent shelter it provided. The few hundred miles
between Emden and the Danish frontier are deeply cut by bays
and river mouths, and the western part is screened by the chain
of Frisian islands from Borkum to Wangeroog. In the centre of
the bight lies Heligoland, a strong fortress with a wireless station.
Close to the Dutch frontier is the estuary of the Ems, with the town
of Emden. Then follows a low, sandy stretch of coast, indented
with tidal creeks, till the estuary of the Jade is reached at Wilhelms-
haven, which was the fortified base of the North Sea Fleet. Next
is the estuary of the Weser, with the important dockyard of
Bremerhaven. Last comes the estuary of the Elbe, with Cuxhaven
at its mouth, opposite the debouchment of the Kiel Canal, and at
its head the great city and dockyard of Hamburg. Each estuary
was a network of mazy channels among the sands, requiring skilful
piloting, and in themselves a strong defence against a raid. There
was, further, the screen of the islands, behind which operations
could take place unnoticed, and there was the Kiel Canal to furnish
a back door to the Baltic. The coast was followed by a double

100 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

line of railway from Hamburg to Emden, which tapped no popu-
lous district and carried no traffic, but was meant solely for strategic
purposes. This Frisian corner was the key to German naval
defence. Her front there was protected from British assault, and
from that base her submarines and destroyers could make raids
on the British navy and return swiftly to sanctuary. Britain was
handicapped in this kind of contest by her weight. It was like
the fight of an elephant against a leopard. The heavier antagonist,
once he can use his strength, makes short work of the enemy;
but he may be given no chance to exert that strength and may,
weaken and sink from a multitude of trivial wounds. Britain
had the further drawback that at the outset she possessed no
naval bases on the North Sea fortified against submarine attack.

The German plan involved the immediate sacrifice of Germany's
foreign trade, which would be speedily put an end to by that
considerable part of the British navy which was not on duty with
the Grand Fleet. On the other hand it maintained her main naval
strength intact ; it immobilized in the difficult duty of siege and
blockade the bulk of the sea-power of Britain, and kept that sea-
power in a state of exasperated inaction and perpetual risk. These,
however, were advantages and disadvantages which could only
materialize in the event of the prolongation of the war. In the
early stage, Germany's effort after immediate victory, the two
navies had no bearing upon the struggle save in one point — the
ferrying over the Channel of the British Expeditionary Force.
If Germany could prevent or delay that operation her fleet would
have secured a brilliant and most vital success in the first round.

To the later rather than to the early stages belonged, too, the
question of the economic resources of the belligerents ; but in this
place a short survey may be permitted, for if such considerations
were principally relevant to a protracted war, they had also some
effect in determining the initial preparation. The capacity of a
nation to endure the economic strain of a long campaign, to feed
itself, to manufacture munitions, to keep its people in reasonable
employment, to avoid the panics which force the hand of statesmen,
is an integral part of military strength. Many economic factors
may be neglected. War reduces life to its bare bones and curiously
simplifies the problem. Three questions only need be asked :
could the land keep itself from starvation ? could it manufacture
or procure the necessaries of war ? could it raise, within or without
its borders, the funds required to pay for the campaign ?

THE FOOD SUPPLY OF THE BELLIGERENTS. loi

Britain imported the larger part of her food supply— some
80 per cent, of her wheat, 40 per cent, of her meat, vast quantities
of other cereals and dairy produce, and the whole of her sugar.
Of these supplies only a small proportion came from enemy coun-
tries, and most of the great staples were brought from lands where
production was not crippled by the war. Provided, therefore,
that the sea could be kept clear by her navy, Britain's food supply
would not be seriously affected ; on the other hand, the closing of
the seas would mean starvation within three months. France
was able to feed herself. She grew 40 million quarters of wheat
to the British 7I, and though she imported certain food-stuffs
to a considerable amount, she exported others. Her danger under
this head came from the decline in her own productive capacity
caused by the march of the invader and the withdrawal of husband-
men for military service. As against this the overseas routes
were open to her, assuming that the British navy were not beaten,
and her customary surplus of home-grown food was now available
for home consumption. Russia could without difficulty feed her-
self, even if she put ten million men into the field. Austria-Hun-
gary also had a balance of home-grown supplies beyond her needs.
Germany's position approached more nearly that of Britain.
In normal times she imported large stocks of food-stuffs, and the
balance against her would naturally be increased in time of war
by the withdrawal of rural workers. Her former main supply
grounds, Russia and America, would now be cut off, and Austria-
Hungary and Rumania could not fill the gap. A lengthy war
would beyond question pinch her, but it would be years before
that pinch became famine. For her deficit of home-grown food
was not, Hke Britain's, overwhelming ; she could, if necessary,
stimulate home production, and by this means, and by the in-
genious manipulation of alternative foods, she could continue to
exist long after the outer world was closed to her. She might
presently be under-fed, but it would be hard to bring her to actual
starvation.

How far could the beUigerent lands manufacture or procure
the essential munitions of war, for it was obvious that if the cam-
paign lengthened out the bulk of the industries in each country
would be diverted to that purpose ? Here Britain was in by far
the most fortunate position. Her huge industrial machine was
not at the start weakened by any wholesale withdrawal of men
for the line of battle. She had ample coal, and while she held
the sea she had the whole world to draw on for raw materials.

102 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

France, too, had this last advantage, but in coal and iron ore
she was weak, and her industries were not on the British scale.
Russia was a poorly industrialized land, and must depend for
a large part of her munitions of war on her Western allies.
Germany was in a curious position. She had become predomi-
nantly a manufacturing people, importing great quantities of raw
material and minerals, and in 1913 exporting no less than
£495,000,000 worth of manufactured goods. Within her own
bounds she had certain kinds of wealth in great abundance —
various chemicals, coal, and iron ores. Indeed it had been the
iron-fields of Lorraine, annexed in 1871, which had made possible
her industrial and military development. The discovery in 1878
of the basic process of smelting the ore was like the discovery of
the silver mines of Laureion by Athens after Marathon ; the one
gave a navy for Salamis, the other provided an army for the con-
quest of Europe. But in some matters Uke copper and rubber
she had no hope of home supplies, and the closing down of her
import trade would gravely handicap her munition production.
This she had foreseen, and endeavoured to avert by accumulating
large stocks in advance and devising alternatives. We may there-
fore say that Germany was all but a self-sufficing state for the pur-
poses of war — all but, not wholly — and the " little less " would
be a considerable handicap as time went on. Her opponents
were very far from being self-sufficing, but they held the sea and
with it the markets of the outer world.

The last question concerns the funds available for the conduct
of war. In the long run this resolves itself into the ability of
each nation to raise money from its own citizens or its allies, for
loans from neutral countries are at best a precarious staff to lean
on. Too much stress is apt to be laid on the actual gold reserve
existing at the outbreak of hostilities. It is no doubt important,
but its absence may be compensated for by the general stability
of credit in a particular country and the existence of private wealth
to be reached by taxation. Britain had no war chest, but she had
a strong and elastic banking system, a wealthier population than
any other, and her losses from the operations of war were likely
to be at the start far less than those of the other combatants.
There remained, in spite of recent taxation which critics had
condemned as being on a war basis, a vast reserve of untouched
wealth in British hands, and in a struggle for endurance she
was more favourably situated than any continental state. In
France the taxation had long been high, and the nation's debt

FINANCE AND WAR. 103

was heavy. Her assets were the huge gold reserve — some 145
millions— in the Bank of France, the considerable store of gold in
private hands, and, above all, the thrifty habits of her population.
Russia had a large war chest, and a big reserve of gold in the State
bank, while her recent prosperity had accumulated resources
among her people. In such a crisis the less complex organism
suffers least, and to Russia the strain of war would to begin with
not be serious. Austria-Hungary had to face a grave shrinking
of her joint revenue, which was mainly derived from customs ;
and this, which was the source of her military expenditure, would
have to be supplemented by grants from the direct taxation of
her component states. Here the pinch would soon be felt, but
for a considerable period it would be a pinch and not a catastrophe.
Germany had a big gold balance in her banks, and the war chest
in the Spandau Tower. Owing to the peculiarities of her political
system it was difficult to compare her financial position with that
of other nations ; but her various pubHc debts were large, and
there was no question but that, between imperial and state taxa-
tion, her people were heavily burdened. As the industrial sources
of wealth would soon be dried up, she had to depend for her income
upon accumulations. Her position would have been more serious
were it not that her bureaucratic system of government enabled
her to manipulate the available resources with a speed and a smooth-
ness impossible in a democratic community. For the first stage
of war this question of finance is, indeed, the least important. No
nation has ever yet been restrained from fighting because of a
depleted exchequer, A self-sufficing state which does not need im-
ports or is unable to import can always provide funds by voluntary
and forced levies from its citizens. The more serious dilficulty
is for the importing states, which have to pay for imports in some
form of currency which the exporters will accept. But this is a
problem which is not urgent at the outset for nations which have
any reserve of gold or of foreign investments.

III.

We have seen that, except in one respect, naval strength did
not enter into the problem of the first stage, and economic consider-
ations were irrelevant. Germany had set the lists for and decreed
the form of the first round, which was a struggle of armies on the
French frontier. In our present Hmited inquiry two matters still

104 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

remain for consideration — the strategical position, and the moral of
the various combatants. The natural situation of Britain was unique.
Without a land frontier in Europe she was practically invulnerable
to land attack from a European Power throughout her whole
empire, except from Russia, who was her ally. The key of her
security was the ocean, and invasion was possible only when some
Power temporarily had command of the narrow seas. But this
position, admirable for defence, had its drawbacks in offensive
warfare. If she desired to fight on the Continent, not only must
she hold the seas for the transport of her armies, but she must
be in alliance with a continental Power who would facilitate their
disembarkation and land transport.

France had a land frontier with Germany, extending from a
point just south of Belfort, at the north-west corner of Switzerland,
northwards to Longwy on the Belgian border — a distance of some
150 miles. This frontier showed very varied physical character-
istics. Between Switzerland and the southern butt of the Vosges
Mountains is a piece of flat land known as the Gap of Belfort, the
passage through which is dominated by the fortress of that name.
Northwards for seventy miles the line follows the crest of the
Vosges till the mountains sink into the plain of Lorraine. Inside
this French frontier on the west are the upper valleys of two rivers
— the Meuse on the north, and the Moselle farther south. In all
parts this Hne was strongly defended. From Belfort north to
Epinal ran a line of forts, while the difficult Vosges country was a
further protection. Between Epinal and Toul lay the Trouee de
Charmes, a gap in the fortress system which the Germans regarded
as a trap left open on purpose. Between Toul and Verdun, two first-
class fortresses, lay the fortified area of the upper Meuse. Opposite
Verdun, and commanded by it, is a gateway into France from the
German fortress of Metz. This gap is some thirty miles wide,
and at its northern end begins the rough, hilly land of the Ardennes,
which extends through Belgium to the valley of the lower Meuse.
France was thus protected on her side towards Germany by a
combination of natural and artificial barriers which would make
invasion a slow and difficult process. Her weak point was the
contiguity of Belgium and Luxembourg. The latter was a neutral
state wholly without fortifications, and giving access to any enemy,
who cared to disregard its neutrality, to the southern Ardennes
and the central Meuse valley. Belgium showed on the north-east
a narrow front of entry between the Dutch frontier and the northern
flank of the Ardennes — a front which was defended by the Meuse,

RUSSIA'S STRATEGIC POSITION. 105

which here turns northward, and by the forts of U6ge. In Namur
and Antwerp she possessed other first-class fortresses ; but obvi-
ously the resistance of so small a state against invasion could not
be indefinitely prolonged. Once the invader won through Belgium,
the French Une of defence would become the line from Maubeuge
by Lille to the coast, a Une vastly inferior both in natural and
artificial strength to the Verdun-Belfort line in the east. On the
south France had no strategic difficulties. Switzerland and Spain
would be neutral, and, though Italy was a member of the Triple
Alliance, it was unlikely that she would draw the sword against
her old ally in the Risorgimento. France's sea-power had con-
siderable strategic importance, though far less than in the case
of Britain. Some of the best of her troops were in Algiers, and
to bring them back necessitated the command of the Western
Mediterranean. With the assistance of the British fleet this was a
practical certainty.

Russia, so far as conquest was concerned, had long been re-
garded as invulnerable. No invasion, not even under a Charles
XII. or a Napoleon, could hope, it was thought, to prevail
against her vast distances and the rigours of her winter climate.
For a war of offence she had certain strategic difficulties, chiefly
concerned with the topography of her western frontier. On
the east she had nothing to fear from Japan, and could recall
her troops of occupation from Manchuria. She was free to con-
centrate her whole might against the Teutonic alliance, but that
concentration was not an easy matter. Russian Poland ran
in a salient westwards to a point only some 180 miles from
BerUn. North was East Prussia, commanding the right flank of
any Russian advance, and south was the Austrian province of
Gahcia, commanding the left. While the main Russian concentra-
tion was likely to be on the fortress line running through Warsaw,
it was necessary, before an advance could be made westwards, to
clear the enemy out of East Prussia and Gahcia. The first was a land
of marshes and swampy ponds, difficult campaigning at all times,
and one vast morass, as Napoleon found, in the rains. When that
country was traversed, the line of the Vistula had to be crossed,
defended by the strong fortresses of Thorn, Graudenz, and Danzig.
Gahcia, on the south, contained only two first-class fortresses,
Przemysl and Cracow, and the Austrian armies operating there,
being drawn mainly from the non-Slav parts of the Dual Mon-
archy, would be at some distance from their southern bases. Once
the flanks were clear, the way would be open for a Russian advance

lo6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

against Posen from Russian Poland, and against Breslau and Silesia
from Galicia.

The natural difficulties of Russia's strategic position in a var
of offence were obvious, and they were not decreased by the nature
of her communications. A report of General Kuropatkin as War
Minister, written in 1900, summarized a situation which for Russia
had not' materially improved. In the West, both in France and
Germany, railways and canals had been considered from the
strategic point of view. They were admirably adapted for con-
centration on important points ; all vital bridges and tunnels
were provided with explosive chambers, and, when necessary,
were heavily fortified. But in the East the preparation was one-
sided. Germany had seventeen lines of railway leading to the
Russian frontier, which would enable her to send five hundred
troop trains daily, so that she could concentrate some fourteen
to sixteen army corps on that border within a few days of the
declaration of war. On the Russian side there were only five
railway lines. So, too, with Austria. The Carpathians had been
pierced by seven railways, so that Galicia had become like a glacis
of the Austrian fort, where in a short space she could concentrate
over 1,000,000 men, while on her eight lines she could run two
hundred and sixty trains to the frontier every twenty-four hours.
As against this, Russia had only four lines. Further, the German
gauge was in force as far east as Warsaw, so Germany could run
across the frontier from her internal bases without detraining.

The German Staff had long foreseen the possibility of Germany
being involved in a war such as the present — with Austria in
alliance, Italy neutral, and France, Russia, and Britain engaged
against her. It was the German doctrine of war that the offensive
supplied the best defence. If she were assailed on both sides she
must crush one enemy before turning to the other. Time was at the
heart of her problem, for a protracted struggle might mean starva-
tion, bankruptcy, and, consequently, defeat. Her first movement
would naturally be directed against the West. There her frontier
was strongly defended. The great fortified areas of Metz and
Thionville stood as outposts, and behind them was the fine of
the Rhine fortresses — Neu-Breisach, Strassburg, Mayence, Co-
blentz, Cologne — not to speak of the Rhine itself, where almost
every bridge was strongly fortified. On the East the position
was far less secure. The Vistula, the Warta, and the Oder, though
by no means contemptible, were not natural barriers like the Rhine ;
the eastern fortresses, with the exception of Konigsberg, had

THE FRENCH FRONTIER. 107

not the strength of the western ; and the difficult nature of the
country and the immense length — some 500 miles — of the frontier,
made an offensive, proceeding from a not too secure base, terribly
hable to a counterstroke. There was also the difficulty that,
for the defence of her right flank on the East, Germany must trust
to Austria, and such vicarious security was repugnant to the orderly
mind of her General Staff. There was the further trouble about
Italy. Though nominally an ally, neutrality was the most that
could be hoped from her, and at any moment she might be drawn
into active hostility. In the latter case she would take Austria
in the rear by way of the Trentino and Trieste ; and Austria,
with Russia in front, Italy behind, and Serbia on her flank, would
be in no position to safeguard her share of the Eastern frontier.
It was, therefore, highly necessary to strike a deadly blow as early
as possible at France, in order to confirm the wavering neutrality
of Italy, and to enable Germany to concentrate her attention on
the East, where lay what seemed to many of her people to be the
graver danger.

Now, a swift blow at France was only possible through Luxem-
bourg and Belgium. A glance at the map will reveal the reason.*
A frontal attack on the frontier barrier, Verdun-Belfort, would
be a matter of months. An entry by the Gap of Metz would not
only expose her armies to a flank attack by a force coming up
from behind Verdun, but would compel her to pour many hundreds
of thousands of men through a bottle neck not more than thirty
miles wide. This would mean that many corps, with their trains,
would be packed on the same road, that the lines of supply would be
overburdened, that all communications would have to be transferred
to the middle Rhine, leaving the bridges and railways of the lower
Rhine half idle. Such a step would be to court disaster. Germany
needed a wide " out-march " for her front, and this could only
be got by buying, begging, or forcing a passage through Luxem-
bourg and Belgium. This would enable her to turn the eastern
fortress barrier of France, and to open a direct advance from the
north-east on the Marne valley, which was for Germany the key
to Paris. Any loss of reputation she might incur by high-handed
action in Belgium would be more than compensated for by its
great strategic benefits. Belgium was the key of the whole problem
in the West. If it were held inviolable, France's strategical posi-
tion was good; if not, the advantage lay conspicuously with
Germany.

• See p. 178.

io8 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

The last question, which bears on strategical position, concerns
the moral of the troops, their enthusiasm for war, and their confi-
dence in the goodness of their cause. In this there was Uttle to
choose between the combatants. Russia beheved herself to be
engaged in a holy war ; France was fighting for her Hfe against her
secular enemy ; Britain was drawing the sword for public honour
and the free ideals of her empire against the massed forces of auto-
cracy and reaction. Austria may have been somewhat half-
hearted, for she had been made a catspaw of by Germany, but
she had her long grievance against Serbia to avenge, and she had
as a spur the terror of the advancing Slav. Not least was Germany
confident in her cause. What seemed to the world an act of brig-
andage and bad faith was to her only the natural instinct of self-
preservation. To the ordinary German the Triple Entente was a
vast conspiracy to hem in Germany, and prevent her from gaining
the expansion which her vigour demanded, Germany must fight
some day unless she were to be crushed, and the sooner the better
before Russia became too strong. She believed that in such a
war she was certain to win, since France was decadent, Britain
contemptible by land, and Russia not yet prepared. Her spies
had gone abroad through the globe and reported the omens happy.
The British navy might be stronger than the German, but the
latter could, at any rate, cripple its power ; and she believed, more-
over, that Britain had no stomach for war, and would speedily
seek a profitable peace. Let us also grant that something more
than self-preservation and material aggrandizement entered into
the German ideal. There was the exhilaration of one strong people
contra mundum, and the belief that German nationalism was
fighting for its honour. We may admit that when men like Haeckel
and Wundt, Hamack and Eucken, declared that theirs was a war
for civilization, they did sincerely beheve that something noble
and worthy was in danger.

IV.

The forces disposed for the struggle were thus tolerably patent
so far as weight and quantity were concerned, though their quality
was still to be assessed. The first round must be fought by strengths
already established, and only in the event of the result being in-
decisive would the chance occur for the less-known factors to
come into play. Of these the most indefinable was the man-
power of Britain, for her picked army was only a first wave of a

THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH. 109

torrent to be later unloosed, the volume of which was as yet
unplumbed. But in the opening days of war signs were not wanting
that the volume would be formidable, for the British Empire
awoke to life with an energy not surpassed by the most compact
territorial units, and, since the muster of that Empire was the
extreme opposite both in principle and method of the German
assembly, we may glance in this place at the beginning of an epic
which was to grow in power and majesty up to the last hour of
the campaign.

In normal times the British Commonwealth had been a loose,
friendly aggregation, more conscious of its looseness than of its
unity. The South African War had given it a short-lived soli-
darity ; but with peace the fervour passed, and each colony and
dominion went busily on its own road. Workers for union found
themselves faced with many strong centrifugal forces, and had
often reason to despair of making their dream a reality. To
foreign observers, who could not discern its hidden strength, it
seemed as if the Empire were moving towards an amicable dis-
solution, or, at the best, a weak alliance of independent nations.
This was notably the view held in Germany. Britain, in German
eyes, had not the vitality to organize her territories for a common
purpose. Canada was drifting towards the United States ; Austral-
asia and South Africa towards complete separation ; and India
was a powder magazine needing but a spark to blow sky-high
the jerrybuilt fabric of British authority. The view was natural,
for to Germany empire meant a machine, where each part was
under the exact control of a central power. To her local autonomy
seemed only a confession of weakness, and the bonds of kinship
an idle sentiment. The British conception of empire, on the
other hand, was the reverse of mechanical. She believed that
the liberty of the parts was necessary to the stability of the whole,
and that her Empire, which had grown " as the trees grow while
men sleep," was a living organism far more enduring than any
machine. She had blundered often, but had never lost sight
of the ideals of Burke and Chatham. She had created a spiritual
bond —

"Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff
To hold fast where a steel chaia snaps."

By the gift of liberty she had made the conquered her equals and
her allies, and the very men she had fought and beaten became in
her extremity her passionate defenders.

The response of the British Commonwealth was a landmark

no A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

in British history, greater, perhaps, than the war which was its
cause. No man can read without emotion the tale of those early
days in August, when from every quarter of the globe there poured
in appeals for the right to share in our struggle. There was loyalty
in it, but there was more than loyalty ; every free dominion felt
that its own liberty was threatened by Germany's challenge as
much as that of France and Belgium. Canada, the " eldest
daughter," had many sections of her people who in the past had
disclaimed any responsibility for our foreign policy, and had
hugged the notion of Canadian aloofness in a European war.
Suddenly these voices died away. She had been passing through
a time of severe economic troubles ; these were forgotten, and
all her resources were flung open in the cause of the Allies. Sir
Robert Borden and Sir Wilfrid Laurier united their forces, and
party activity ceased. As in the South African War, a field force
was promptly offered, and a division of all arms was accepted
by the British Government. The call for volunteers was
responded to with wild enthusiasm. In a few days more
than 100,000 men had offered themselves. Old members of
Strathcona's Horse and the Royal Canadians clamoured for re-
enlistment ; rich citizens vied with each other in securing equip-
ment and batteries ; and large sums were raised to provide for
the dependants of those who were to serve. Every public man in
Canada played his part. French-Canadians stood side by side
with the descendants of the Family Compact ; and the men of
the western plains, the best shots and the hardest riders on earth,
journeyed great distances to proffer their services to the King. The
various Canadian steamship companies offered their vessels to the
British Government for transport. The Canadian cruisers Niohe
and Rainbow were handed over to the Admiralty for purposes of
commerce protection, and two submarines were offered for general
service.

Newfoundland increased her Naval Reserve strength to i,ooo,
and sent 500 men to the Expeditionary Force. AustraHa and
New Zealand, which possessed a system of national service, were
not behind Canada in loyalty. The former placed all the vessels
of the Australian navy at the Admiralty's disposal, and under-
took to raise and equip an Expeditionary Force of 20,000 men
and a Light Horse Brigade of 6,000. The New Zealand Expe-
ditionary Force was fixed at 8,000 of all arms, and 200 Maoris
were accepted for service in Egypt. In South Africa the people
had had unique experience of war, and both British and Dutch

INDIA. Ill

were eager to join the British field army. Many old officers of
Boer commandos came to London to enlist, and the home-coming
steamers were full of lean, sunburnt young men from Rhodesia
bent on the same errand. The chiefs of the Basutos and the
Barotses offered their aid ; as did the East African Masai, the chiefs
of the Baganda, and the emirs of Northern Nigeria. The Union
Government released all British troops for service outside South
Africa, and, amid immense popular enthusiasm, General Botha
called out the local levies for a campaign against German South-
West Africa, and put himself at their head. The most brilliant
of Britain's recent opponents in the field had become a British
general. Besides these offers of men and money, help in kind was
forthcoming from every corner of the Empire. The smaller Crown
colonies which could not provide troops could at any rate send
supplies. No unit of the Empire, however small or however remote,
was backward in this noble emulation.

But it was the performance of India which took the world
by surprise and thrilled every British heart — India, whose alleged
disloyalty was the main factor in German calculations. There
were roughly 70,000 British troops on the Indian establishment,
and a native army consisting of 130 regiments of infantry, 39 regi-
ments of cavalry, the Corps of Guides, and ten regiments of Gurkhas
who were mercenaries hired from the independent kingdom of
Nepal. The native army was composed of various race and caste
regiments, representing the many Indian peoples who in the past
century and a half had been brought under the sway of the British
Raj. In a war for the existence of the Empire it was inevitable
that that army, one of the strongest of the Empire's forces, should
be given a share. Moreover, it had an old grudge against the
Germans. Indian troops had accompanied the Allies, under von
Waldersee, to China in 1900, and had been contemptuously used by
German men and officers. The oldest and proudest races on earth,
accustomed to be treated on equal terms by English gentlemen,
resented the German talk of " coolies " and " niggers," and the
memory of an Indian soldier is long. From the Indian army it
was announced that two infantry divisions and one cavalry brigade
would be dispatched at once to the seat of war in Europe, while
three more cavalry brigades would follow. Meantime the rulers
and princes of India had placed their resources at the King-Em-
peror's call. The twenty-seven larger native states, which main-
tained Imperial Service troops, offered their armies, and from twelve
of these the Viceroy accepted contingents of cavalry, infantry,

112 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

sappers, and transport, besides a camel corps from Bikanir. Vari-
ous durbars combined to provide hospital ships. The Maharaja of
Mysore gave fifty lakhs of rupees to go to the equipment of the
Expeditionary Force. Large sums of money and thousands of
horses came from Gwalior and Bhopal. Little hill states in the
Punjab and Baluchistan gave camels and drivers. The Maharaja
of Rewa offered his troops, his treasury, and even his private
jewels, and asked simply, " WTiat orders has my King for me ? "
The chiefs of the Khyber and Chitral tribes sent messages proffering
help; Kashmir sent money, as did every chief in the Bombay
Presidency ; while the Maharaja Holkar offered the horses of his
army. Tiny statelets, islanded in the forests of Central India,
clamoured to share. From beyond the border, Nepal placed her
incomparable Gurkhas at the service of Britain, and gave three
lakhs of rupees to purchase field guns. And the Dalai Lama,
forgetting the march to Lhasa, and remembering only our hos-
pitahty during his exile, offered i,ooo Tibetan troops, and in-
formed the King that lamas through the length and breadth of
Tibet were praying for the success of British arms and for the
happiness of the souls of the fallen.

Almost every Indian chief offered personal service in the field,
and when no other way was possible the Aga Khan, the spiritual
ruler of 60,000,000 souls, volunteered to fight as a private in the
ranks. It was wisely decided that some of the great princes should
accompany their men and show by their presence in the West
that India and Britain were one. To read the list of those selected
was to see as in a pageant the tale of British India. First came
Sir Pertab Singh, a major-general in the British army, who long ago
had sworn that he would not die in his bed, and now, at seventy
years of age, rode out to the greatest of his wars. With him went
other gallant Rajputs, the Maharajas of Bikanir and Jodhpur; the
young Maharaja of Patiala, the head of the Sikhs ; the chiefs of the
great Mohammedan states of Bhopal, Jaoram, and Sachin. Every
great name in India was represented in this chivalry ; and never
in India's history had such a muster been known. Chiefs whose
ancestry went back to the days of Alexander, and whose forefathers
had warred against each other and against Britain on many a
desperate field, were now assembled with one spirit and one
purpose and under one king. Nor was this all. Leagues of
Indians throughout the world sent their blessings on the campaign.
The long and bitter nationalist agitation disappeared as if by magic,
and its leaders ralUed their countrymen to Britain's aid. The

THE RALLY OF THE EMPIRE. 113

small farmers of the south sent their horses ; Bengahs, who could
not enlist, organized ambulances and hospitals ; and peasant
women throughout all India, not content with giving their sons
and brothers to the cause, offered the humble jewels which were
their only wealth. Such depths of sacrifice are too sacred for
common praise. The British soldiers and civilians who had found
lonely graves between Himalaya and Cape Comorin had not lived
and died in vain, when the result of their toil was this splendid
and unfaltering loyalty.

The effect upon the people of Britain of this rally of the Empire
was a sense of an immense new comradeship which stirred the
least emotional. For, consider what it meant. Geographically
it brought under one banner the trapper of Athabasca, the stock-
man of Victoria, the Dutch farmer from the back-veld, the tribes-
man from the Khyber, the gillie from the Scottish hills, and the
youth from the London back streets. Racially it united Mongol
and Aryan, Teuton and Celt ; politically it drew to the side of
the Canadian democrat the Indian feudatory whose land was
still mediaeval ; spiritually it joined Christianity in all its forms
with the creeds of Islam, Buddha, Brahma, and a thousand little
unknown gods. The British Commonwealth had revealed itself
as that wonderful thing for which its makers had striven
and prayed — a union based not upon statute and officialdom,
but upon the eternal simplicities of the human spirit. Small
wonder that the news stimulated recruiting in England. Every
young man with blood in his veins felt that in such a cause and
in such a company it was just and pleasant to give his all. Not
less profound was the effect of the muster upon our allies acro?s
the Channel. No longer, as in 1870, did France stand alone.
The German armies might be thundering at her gates, and the
fields of Belgium soaked in blood ; but the avenger was drawing
nigh, and the ends of the earth were hastening to her aid.

CHAPTER V.

THE FIRST SHOTS.

/[th Augusf-iSth August.

The New Factors in War— The German Plan— The French Plan— The German
Anfmarsch— The Defences of Belgium— The Attack on the Liege Forts— The
French Move into Alsace.

As the minds of both soldiers and civilians bent themselves to the
great contest, it was inevitable that they should be busied with
forecasts. All agreed that the war would be of a magnitude never
known before in history, and that most of the problems would be dif-
ferent in kind from those of the past. During the last half century
revolution had succeeded revolution. The invention of the internal
combustion engine had provided motor transport and airplanes.
Field telephones and wireless telegraphy had altered the system
of communication among troops. The cannon had passed through
a series of bewildering metamorphoses, till it had reached the 75 mm.
field gun and the mighty siege howitzer. No single weapon of war
but had a hundredfold increased its range and precision. The old
minor tactics, the old transport and intelligence methods were
now, it appeared, as completely out of date as the stage coach
and the China clipper. There would be no room in the Higher
Command for the brilliant guesses, the sudden unexpected strokes,
or the personal heroisms of old days. It would no longer be
necessary to divine, Uke Wellington at Assaye, what was happening
behind a hill. In one sense, many argued, the problem would be
simpler, at least it would have fewer elements ; but these elements
would be difficult to control, and, from their novelty, impossible
to estimate. There was a general agreement that modem war was
a venture into the unknown, and that while the existence of the
new factors was plain, their working was incalculable.

Let us glance at some of these new factors. The chief was
the vast numbers now destined for the battlefield. The greatest

114

1914] CHANGED CONDITIONS IN WAR. 115

action of the old regime was the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig,
but there the combatants numbered only 472,000. At Sadowa
there were 436,000, at Gravelotte 300,000.* In the Russo-Japanese
war the armies had been greater — Mukden, for example, had been
fought on a front of eighty miles, had lasted for three weeks, and had
engaged 700,000 men. But in the coming war it was plain that the
number of troops, the length of front, and the duration of actions
must be indefinitely enlarged. The improvement in firearms
would itself, as Schlieffen had pointed out in 1909, lead to a great
extension of fighting front. The handling of such masses over such
an area meant that railways would be of the first importance.
Moltke, in 1870, had foreseen this, and his successors in the German
command had practised his teaching. They held, probably with
truth, the view that Napoleon's ultimate failure had been due
to the fact that his armies had outgrown the technical resources
of his age, and they were determined that every resource of con-
temporary invention should be harnessed in the service of their new
millions. Staff work, too, of which Moltke had first made a science,
must advance pari passu with the growth in complexity of the
problems. One special feature also must distinguish this from other
struggles. It was the first instance in history of large bodies
of men operating in a closely settled country, for in most parts
of the garden land of Western Europe there was little freedom of
movement. The cultivated nature of the terrain would no doubt
simplify the problem of communications, but it would not be easy
to find the wide and open battlefield which it was believed that
great masses of men would require.

For it was almost universally assumed that the coming war
would be a war of movement and manoeuvre. The principal
reason for this view was that men's minds could not envisage
the long continuance of a struggle in which the whole assets of
each nation were so utterly pledged. They underestimated the
power of human endurance ; they beheved that modern numbers
and modern weapons would make the struggle most desperate
but also short, since flesh and blood must soon be brought to the
breaking-point. Such a view was possible, because no belligerent
had recognized the immense relative increase of strength given
by modern weapons to the defence over the attack. One form of
defence, the old-fashioned fortress, was indeed rightly underrated
by Germany, for she realized that the heavy howitzer directed

• A useful summary of the numbers engaged in the chief battles of the niue>
teenth century will be found in Otto Berndt's Die Zahl im Kriege.

ii6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

by aircraft would speedily make havoc of the type of fort upon
which France and Belgium still reHed.* But of the impregna-
bility of field entrenchments no combatant was aware till the
third month of war.f

The gravest of the new problems was scarcely grasped at the
outset. What provision could be made for the Supreme Command ?
Obviously, even in the case of the army of a single nation, the task
of the commander-in-chief would be most intricate. The organiz-
ing power of the human brain is limited, and no man could handle
a modern army who was not capable of disregarding all but the
simple essentials and taking the broad synoptic view. An army
must resolve itself into a number of separate commands operating
on a general strategic plan. Individual generals must be given
a free hand to fight their own battles, provided they conformed
to the main scheme. But what of the superior direction of the
whole Allied strength ? There would be national pride to reckon
with, and diverse political interests ; different Staff methods ; dif-
ferent, perhaps conflicting, theories of war. That this problem
did not trouble the minds of statesmen more acutely at the start
was due to the fact that the contest was regarded as not Hkely to
be a long one. A decision would be reached before it became
practical politics ; the thing would be hke the clashing of two
great forces of nature, and the human mind must in large measure
be content to wait humbly on fortune. No man foresaw that
presently the whole strength of every belligerent would be in-
volved ; that scarcely a corner of the globe would be free from the
turmoil ; and that the supreme need on each side would be some
central direction, political, naval, and military, such as in the
Seven Years' War the elder Pitt gave to Britain.

All the world in that early stage failed, it may fairly be said,
in prescience. Men looked for too little from the new factors in
war, and they looked for too much. They could recognize these
factors, but they could not assess them ; they guessed that they
would revolutionize military practice, but they both underestimated
the effect of that revolution in certain details and overestimated it
in the greater matters. Even Germany did not wholly foresee the
power of heavy pieces in the field or the deadliness of machine guns,
and no country envisaged the tactical effect of airplanes, or the possi-

♦ In practice, though in theory France held the sound doctrine which had been
laid down by Napoleon. See his Corr. xiii. 10726, and xviii. 14707.

t See Lord French's remarks in his 1914, pp. 12-13. The man who foresaw
modern conditions most clearly was the pacificist Jean de Blocb, writing at the close
of last century.

1914] THE ENDURING PRINCIPLES. 117

bility of campaigns in which there would be no flanks to turn, or the
power of a modern front to cohere again after it had been pierced,
or the way in which the mere elaboration of the machine deprived
it of speed and precision, or the influence of the submarine upon
the accepted principles of naval war. In these respects the world
was blind to the meaning of its own progress. But in other matters
it was too ready to believe that the former things had passed away,
and to assume a breach with the past. Changes in warfare come
slowly to maturity, and the mind of man no sooner stumbles on a
poison than it discovers the antidote. Each revolutionary device
developed an attendant drawback; so that the resultant, so far
as it concerned human talent and endurance, was not greatly
different from other wars. Modern inventions, which made
possible millions under arms, provided facilities for leading them.
The great range and devastating effect of the new artillery were
largely counterbalanced by the elaboration of its transport and
service. The eternal principles of strategy, determined by the
changeless categories of space and time, had not altered, and,
after various excursions into heresy, the war in the end was to be
won by sound doctrine. The configuration of the earth, in spite
of all the new methods of communication, was to decide the form
of the campaigns. The ancient battlegrounds, the ancient avenues
of advance — the valleys of Somme and Oise, of Aisne and Marne,
of Vardar and Tigris, the Pripet marshes, the Palestine coast
road — exercised their spell as faithfully over the latest armies as over
Roman and Crusader. The new problems were different in scale
and complexity, but the same in kind. Surprise, which was be-
lieved to have been banished from war, returned most dramatically
in the first three months, and appeared at frequent intervals till the
great denouement ; and a system which was assumed to have made
the soldier only a cog in a vast impersonal machine was to demand
in a dozen services the extreme of initiative and individual valour,
and in the long run to give to the major personalities a power
and significance not less than that possessed by any of the great
captains of the past.

To a German commander-in-chief the general strategy of an
invasion of France was determined by two considerations. The
first was the nature of the Aufmarsch imposed upon him by
the lie of the frontier. The second was the necessity for that
immediate disabling blow — that " battle without a morrow " —
consequent upon a war waged simultaneously in two separate

ii8 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

theatres. The eastern frontier of France may be divided into
three parts : first, the frontier Hne from Belfort to Verdun,
with the gaps in the centre between Toul and Epinal, and in the
north between Verdun and the Ardennes, left purposely in order
to " canalize " the stream of invasion ; secondly, the line of the
central Meuse ; and, thirdly, the Belgian border on the Hne Mau-
beuge-Valenciennes-Lille. A general advance against all parts of
that frontier would move with different speeds in each section. In
the first it would be Ukely to beat for some time against the for-
tress barrier, and in the second the difficult territory of the Ardennes,
culminating in the trenchlike valley of the Meuse, was scarcely
suitable for rapidity in great armies. Only in the third section,
where the country was open and the fortresses far apart, could real
speed of movement be attained. Such differences in possible pace
pointed to an enveloping movement by the German right as the
strategy most likely to succeed. The same conclusion was indi-
cated by the necessity for a crushing blow at the earliest possible
moment. For, as Clausewitz had written a hundred years before,
the " pit of the stomach of the French monarchy is between Paris
and Brussels."

The German strategical plan was based upon two assumptions.
Russian mobilization would be slow, and might be safely confided
to Austria to deal with for the six weeks which it was estimated
would be the time required in which to defeat France. It was,
therefore, possible to leave less than one-third of the mobilizable
forces on the eastern frontier and concentrate two-thirds on the
west. The second was that the blow against France must be in
the nature of an encirclement and a surprise encirclement. Only
by envelopment could Germany secure a speedy and final decision,
and without it she might be forced into an interminable war of
exhaustion which would wreck all her plans. Moltke had preached
and practised this doctrine, and Schlieffen, when Chief of Staff,
had worked it out in full detail as a scheme for the conquest of
France. It was his scheme which the German High Command
took from its pigeon-hole in the closing days of July. Ger-
many, as the attacker, had the initiative ; she could determine
the form of battle and make her enemy conform to her will. She
aimed at surprise, and had the means of attaining it. Her enemy
had to face a variety of possible attacks — by Belgium and the
Meuse, by the Ardennes, by the Gap of Lorraine, by southern
Alsace. She had decided long ago upon her Belgian policy, while
France was entangled with the whimsies of international honour.

1914] THE GERMAN AUFMARSCH. 119

France could not know how small a proportion of her forces she
had relegated to the East, or the use she proposed to make of
her reserve divisions. She was allotting thirty-five corps to the
Western front, while the French Staff expected only twenty-two.
These great numbers would permit her to send a deluge through
Belgium utterly beyond the French calculation, and at the same
time allow her to press hard on the French right wing so as to
bring about a complete encirclement. For the German plan
contemplated a double envelopment — by Belgium and by the
Gap of Lorraine.*

Germany therefore arranged her Aufmarsch in three groups. In
the north, moving against the French left was more than one-third
of her total forces in the West — her I. and II. Armies, | compris-
ing thirteen corps and a mass of cavalry. Directed through the
Ardennes against the middle Meuse was the central group — the III.,
IV., and V. Armies — amounting to fourteen corps. On the left were
the VI. and VII. Armies, eight corps strong, based on Metz, and
destined for Lorraine. It was approximately Moltke's grouping
in 1866 and 1870. The left group, assisted by the left wing of the
centre, was to break the French right, while the rest of the centre
engaged the French centre, and the great right group enveloped
the French left.

Faced with such a threat, France was in serious difficulties.
Her plain duty, to begin with, was to fight on the defensive. She
did not know where the chief blow was to be delivered. It might
come through Belgium or through Lorraine, or, like Schwarzen-
berg's manoeuvre in 18 14, through a corner of Switzerland — for
Germany had flung all international treaties to the winds. It
was her business to be prepared at every point, but how was
it to be done ? She could not string out her armies in a thin
cordon, like douaniers along the frontier. " Engage the enemy
everywhere and then see " had been one of Napoleon's maxims
of war ; but the times had changed, and a strategy suited to little
armies of 60,000 was out of place in dealing with millions. Yet
an adaptation of Napoleon's precept was the only feasible plan.
Till the situation was clearer, she should attempt to feel the enemy

* This is made clear by Freytag-Loringhoven's statement (Deductions from
the World War, 1917) and by the maps issued to the German troops (see Joseph
Reinach's introduction to the French translation of Die Schlachten an der Marne).
The " Cannae " idea of Schlieffen was still dominant. That a double encirclement was
contemplated has been denied by von Tappen (Bis zur Marne, 1914), but his views
on most subjects have been hotly controverted by his former colleagues.

t Throughout this narrative the armies of the Teutonic League are indicated
by Roman numerals — e.g., I. ; those of the Allies by the full word — e.g., First.

120 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

strength along the whole front, and be prepared with reserves to
fling in at tne crucial point.

The classic principle in French strategy was a Napoleonic
one— that of the " general advanced guard." The position was
too critical to risk everything on a hazard— to use the whole of
France's military power according to a prearranged scheme which
might be mistaken. The policy must be opportunist. The first
armies must be employed to " fix " the enemy, to retreat if neces-
sary, and to provide opportunity at the right moment for the
deadly use of reserves, that " mass of manoeuvre " which tradi-
tionally was the key to the French plan.* But the craze for the
offensive induced a departure from this policy in favour of a general
attack with the right pushed up to the Rhine, which would threaten
the flank of the enemy forces moving through Luxembourg and
Belgium. Accordingly the French command grouped nine divi-
sions around Belfort, and the twenty-one divisions of the First
and Second Armies along the Lorraine frontier, thus allotting one-
half of their total available force for an offensive. The Third
Army, of nine divisions, lay round Verdun ; and the Fifth Army,
of twelve divisions, watched the exits from the Ardennes. The
Fourth Army, of six divisions, was held in reserve, f

It is easy to criticize these dispositions in the light of later
events. They were in fact a mistake, a departure from a sound
principle, and the mistake was partly due to imperfect information.
The total German strength was underestimated by the French Staff,
who accordingly did not allow for the magnitude of the wheel of
the enemy's right wing. For the violation of Belgium they were
prepared, but they looked for the attack by the Ardennes and the

• It seems to me fantastic to identify — as, for example, General Bonnal has done
— this general doctrine of the "strategic vanguard" and "mass of manoeuvre " with
the tactical device of the bataillon carree or "pivoting square" which Napoleon used
at Jena. The tactics of one battle should not be used as a Procrustean bed into
which to force the strategy of a campaign. Napoleon employed the device beauti-
fully to swing all his corps into the battle hne, as soon as Murat's reconnaissance told
him which of two alternatives the enemy was adopting. But in its strict form I do
not think he ever used it except at Jena, and it can only lead to confusion to find
parallel instances in wholly different types of action, such as Alvensleben's at
Mars-la-Tour on August i6, 1870, and still more in the strategy of a war of move-
ment.

t First Army — 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, and 21st Corps and 7th and 8th Cavalry
Divisions. Second Army — 9th, 15th, i6th, i8th, and 20th Corps, 2nd Group of
Reserve Divisions, and 2nd and loth Cavalry Divisions. Third Army — 4th, 5th,
and 6th Corps, 3rd Group of Reserve Divisions, and 7th Cavalry Division. Fourth
Army — 12th, 17th, and Colonial Corps and gtL Cavalry Division. Fifth Army —
ist, 2nd, 3rd, loth, nth Corps, two Reserve divisions, and one Cavalry division. The
ist and 4th Groups of Reserve Divisions remained at the disposal of the Commander-
in-Chief, as also a Cavalry Corps (ist, 3rd, and 5th D'visions).

1914] THE FRENCH PLAN. 121

Meuse valley ; they had never dreamed that Germany could
muster sufficient forces for a wide sweep through the Belgian plain.
Their intelligence system was defective, and this fault vitiated
the careful French plan. The offensive into Lorraine, a sound
enough scheme in different circumstances, would scarcely have been
undertaken had France realized the huge weight of the German
armies of the right. The argument was that if the Germans were
strong on their right wing they would be weak on their left, and,
alternatively, if they were strong on both wings they must be weak
in the centre ; therefore if the French right failed, the left would
succeed, or, if both were held, the centre would go through. As
events developed, the first French operations had the look of the
linear strategy, the morcellement of the First Republic before the
advent of Carnot and Napoleon. But the mistake was a momentary
forgetfulness, not a reasoned rejection, of principle, and, since the
sound principle remained, it could be retrieved. The advance
guard was at the start faultily handled, and fell into grievous
straits ; but the doctrine of the " mass of manoeuvre " survived,
to be used when the enemy's impetus slackened. The French
strength was to be gravely imperilled but never irrevocably
pledged.

The truth seems to be that the French Staff at the outbreak of
war, besides its imperfect information as to the enemy's strength,
suffered from a divided mind as to its first steps. Their diffi-
culties were great, for before the 4th of August they could not be
certain about Italy's neutrality, and they had no means of assess-
ing the precise value of Britain and Belgium in the field. Faced
with so many unknown quantities, they chose, instead of a strate-
gical defensive combined with a tactical offensive, the hopeless
course of a general offensive in widely separated fields. They
permitted their immediate " mass of manoeuvre," the Fourth Army,
to be thrown into an area the importance of which was not proven.
The mistake is the stranger when we remember that Joffre himself
has admitted that he realized the possibility of a German advance
by the Belgian plain, and that men Hke Michel and Lanrezac had
long advocated this view. The error may be largely attributed to
the undue emphasis which had been placed upon the offensive in
and out of season. The mind of France had been trained to see
in the catastrophe of 1870 a warning against a passive defence,
and to believe that in a desperate energy of attack lay at all times
the road to victory. This prepossession had been strengthened by
the lectures of Foch at the Ecole de Guerre, who preached an almost

122 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

metaphysical doctrine of the prevaiHng power of the audacious
spirit. Ere the war was finished that great soldier was to learn that
patience may be as vital as boldness, and a minute calculation of
means as necessary as the " will to conquer." This mystical
optimism combined with a grave ignorance of and misreading of
facts to bring the French command very near disaster. At a
moment when every horizon was misty, and when Britain and
Russia needed time to marshal their strength, they all but played
into Germany's hands by giving her the chance of that decisive
battle which she desired.*

But as yet the issue was not joined with France. For the
moment we have to consider the great German armies manoeu-
vring into position for the attack, and colliding in their assembly
with the Httle Belgian force that guarded the main gate.

On paper the French concentration on the eastern frontier
was speedier than the German ; but owing to the perfection of her
railway system, the number of new strategic lines and sidings on
the Luxembourg and Belgian borders, and the long start given by
the declaration of the Kriegsgefahrzustand, Germany did in fact
win the race. It must be granted that the movement of her
twenty-one active and thirteen reserve corps to the front of out-
march was accomplished with marvellous celerity, when we remem-
ber that a corps normally required for its transport ii8 trains,
and 130 if it were accompanied by its heavy artillery. The I.
Army, commanded by Alexander von Kluck, a veteran of the
1870 war, and containing, in addition to their Landwehr brigades, the
2nd, 3rd, 3rd Reserve, 4th, 4th Reserve, 9th and (later) 9th Reserve
Corps, assembled in the Aix-la-Chapelle region. On its left the
II. Army, under von Biilow, arrived east of Malmedy, with the loth,
loth Reserve, Guard, Guard Reserve, 7th and 7th Reserve Corps.
South was the III. Army, under the Saxon general, von Hansen,

• This view, which a foreigner is bound to offer with hesitation, has been
vigorously stated by many French writers. See especially Thomasson's Le
Revers de 1914 ^' ^^^ Causes, General Palat's La Grande Guerre sur le Front
Occidental, Victor Margueritte's Au Bord du Gouffre, General Malleterre's Etudes et
Impressions de Guerre, F. Engerand's Le Secret de la Frontiere, Reinach's La Guerre
sur le Front Occidental, Lanrezac's Le Plan de Catnpagne Frangais et le Premier Mots
de Guerre, and the report of the Commission of Inquiry on the Briey coalfields, 1918-
19. The defence of the General Staff will be found in General Berthaut's L'Erreur
de 1914. Riponse aux Critiques. General Michel in 1910, when Chief of Staff,
proposed an Army of the North of 500,000 men, on the line Maubeuge-Dunkirk ;
an Army of the East of the same size between Belfort and Mezieres ; and a Reserve
Army of 250,000. To get the men, he proposed to incorporate reserve formations,
as the Germans actually did in 1914. He found not a single supporter either in tba
Government or the General Staff.

1914] THE GERMAN DISPOSITIONS. 123

with the 12th, I2th Reserve, nth and 19th Corps. These three
armies were the group assigned for the march through Belgium
and the northern envelopment of the French. The IV. Army,
under Duke Albrecht of Wiirtemberg — the connecting link in the
advance — had the 8th, 8th Reserve, i8th and i8th Reserve Corps,
and concentrated in the Pronsfeld-Gerolstein region, with its march
directed towards the Semoy and the southern Ardennes. The V.
Army, under the Imperial Crown Prince, with the 13th, 6th, 6th
Reserve, i6th, 5th and 5th Reserve Corps, was based on Treves,
looking towards the Gap of Stenay. On its left, in front of Sarre-
briick, the VI. Army, the Bavarians under their Crown Prince,
comprising the ist, 2nd, and 3rd Bavarian Corps, the ist Bavarian
Reserve, and the 21st Corps, had before them the Gap of Lorraine.
The small VII. Army, under von Heeringen, assembling east of
the Vosges and north of Sarrebourg, embraced the 14th and 14th
Reserve Corps and part of the 15th Reserve. A detachment under
von Deimling, consisting principally of the 15th Corps, watched
Alsace from the neighbourhood of Colmar.

The supreme direction of the Army of the West, as of the whole
armed strength of the German Empire, was vested in the Emperor
as War Lord, but in practice the command was in the hands of
the Chief of the General Staff. At the moment this post was
held by Lieutenant-General Helmuth von Moltke, a nephew of
the victor of 1870. He was then a man of sixty-six, who had
served as a subaltern in the Franco-Prussian War, had been for
some time a lecturer in the Berlin Military Academy, had in 1891
become Adjutant to the Emperor, and in 1906 had succeeded
von Schlieffen as Chief of Staff. He was known to the world as a
learned and accomplished soldier and a successful commander at
manoeuvres, while to his countrymen his name seemed of happy
augury. The first Moltke had broken the French Empire ; the
second would shatter the French Republic and the Empire of
Britain.

But the peculiar situation caused by the attitude of Belgium
compelled Germany to send an advance guard to make ready the
path through the northern gate for her great armies of the right.
Covering troops from Westphalia and Hanover, belonging mainly
to the 7th and loth Corps of Billow's II. Army, were detailed
for this purpose. These were six brigades of infantry, which were
strengthened and converted into mixed brigades by the addition
to each of a cavalry squadron, a brigade of field artillery, and a
Jager battalion. This force was placed under General von Emmich,

124 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

the commander of the loth Corps, and directed to seize Liege by
a coup de main. At the same time the 2nd and 4th Cavalry Divi-
sions, under von der Marwitz, were ordered to the north of Liege,
and in the south the 9th, 5th, and Guard cavahy divisions moved
into position in the Ardennes and along the Meuse to protect the
concentration of the IL and HL Armies from the interference
of French cavalry. On the morning of Tuesday, 4th August,
Marwitz had seized Vise, crossed the Meuse, and entered Belgium,
and late that evening Emmich's scouts came into touch with the
Belgian pickets.

The chief routes into Belgium from the Rhine valley are four.
There is the ingress through Luxembourg into the Southern
Ardennes, and so to the central Meuse valley ; there is the route
from the German frontier camp of Malmedy to Stavelot, which
would give access to the Northern Ardennes and to the Meuse
at Dinant, Namur, and Huy ; there is the great route from Aix
via Verviers, by the main line between Paris and Berlin, down the
valley of the Vesdre to Liege ; and, lastly, there is the direct route
by road from Aix to the crossing of the Meuse at Vise, on the very
edge of the Dutch frontier. All four routes were requisitioned.
But for Germany's immediate purpose the vital entry was the
gap of ten miles between the Dutch border and the Ardennes,
the bottle-neck of the Belgian plain, with the fortress of Liege
in the gate. There the Meuse runs in a deep trench between two
masses of upland. On the north lies a tableland which extends
for fifty miles to the vicinity of Louvain ; on the south and east
is the hill country of the Ardennes, a land of ridges and forests,
broken by the glens of swift-running streams, which fall west and
north and south to the Meuse. The sides of the trench are sharply
cut, and generally clothed with scrub oak and beeches. The
alluvial bottom is the site of many industries ; railways follow both
banks of the river, and the smoke from a hundred factory and
colliery chimneys darkens the sky. It is the Black Country of
Belgium, and, like our own Black Country, is neighbour to the
clean pastoral hills. Strategically, the bordering uplands are
very different in character. The Ardennes are rough and broken,
easy to defend, and difficult for large armies to move in ; while
the northern tableland is a plain covered with crops of beetroot
and cereals, presenting no serious obstacle to any invader. North-
east and east of Liege the Meuse valley broadens into the Dutch
flats. The natural defence of Belgium from the east might be
said to cease with the winning of the upland crest north of the city.

1914] THE FORTS OF LifiGE. 125

Li^ge itself lies astride the main stream of the Mcuse and the
second channel which receives the waters of the Ourthe and the
Vesdre. It occupies the flat between the northern plateau and the
river, spreading eastwards down the valley, and climbing west-
wards towards the plateau in steep, crooked streets. The city
had no defences in itself, the old walls having gone, and the old
citadel being merely a relic on a hill-top. It contained many
bridges, the most important of which was the railway bridge
of Val-Benoit, which carried the main line from Germany across
the Meuse. From the railway station this line was borne to the
northern plateau on a high embankment, called the Plan incline,
through which the roadways passed under vaulted gateways.
Special engines were used to push the trains up the hills, till the
junction of Ans was reached on the edge of the plateau, whence
there was a level run to Brussels. Obviously such a position had
great capacities for defence, and these were made use of in the
series of forts constructed by Henri Alexis Brialmont for the
Belgian Government between the years 1888 and 1892. Brial-
mont occupies in the modern history of fortifications the place
which Vauban held in the old. Born in 1821, he received his first
training in military engineering from French officers ; but by 1855,
when he was a captain on the Belgian General Staff, he had thrown
over French models, and was inclined to the new German theories.
He aimed at adapting fortresses to meet long-range rifled guns
and high-angled shell fire, and rejected the old French star shape,
with bastioned ramparts and intricate outworks, for the German
type of long front and detached forts. The approval of Todleben,
the defender of Sebastopol, confirmed him in his views. His first
great work was the fortifications of Antwerp, completed in 1868.
In 1883 he designed for the Rumanian Government the gigantic
defences of Bucharest, and by 1892 he had completed the defence
of the Meuse valley in the forts of Liege and Namur.

Brialmont's typical fort was largely an underground structure.
The military engineer of the days before artillery piled up his
towers and turrets into a stately castle. But with the advent
of the artillerist fortresses began to sink into the earth as their
best protection, Brialmont's forts were buried in it. His ordinary
design was a low mound, surrounded by a deep ditch, the top of
the mound hardly showing above its margin. The mound was
cased in concrete and masonry, and roofed with concrete, covered
with earth and sods. The top was broken by circular pits, in which,
working Uke pistons, the " cupolas," or gun-turrets, slid up and

126 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

down, with just enough movement to bring the gun muzzles above
the level of the ground. Internally the mound was like a gigan-
tic molehill, hollowed out into passages and chambers. In this
subterranean structure were the quarters of the small garrison,
the machinery for manoeuvring guns and turrets, the stores ot
ammunition and supphes, the electric lighting arrangements, and
the ventilating fans. The whole fort was like a low-freeboard
turret ship sunk in the ground, and it was fought much as the
barbettes of a battleship are fought in action. Its garrison was
a crew of engineers and mechanics, who obtained access to it by
an inclined tunnel. Brialmont made of any place to be forti-
fied a ring fortress, surrounding it with such forts as have been
described, so as to command the main approaches. He assumed
that lines of trenches and redoubts for infantry, as well as gun-
pits for artillery, would be constructed in the ground between them,
as what he called a " safety circle," to prevent raids between the
forts at night or in misty weather. This important point in his
plan seems to have been generally forgotten, while the one weak
spot, an infantry defence for the fort itself by means of a parapet
lined with riflemen, was zealously clung to by his countrymen —
a complication as useless as devising positions for small-arm men
round the sides of a Dreadnought.

The Liege defences consisted of six main forts of the pentagonal
type, and six lesser forts, or foriins, triangular in shape. It is
necessary to note these exactly if we are to understand the events
which follow. Beginning at the north end, at the point nearest
to the Dutch frontier, we find the fort of Pontisse on rising ground
close to the canal on the left bank of the Meuse. From this point
it is some nine miles to Eysden, the nearest Dutch village ; and
the undefended gap in the Belgian frontier — to strengthen which
no step seems to have been taken — may be put at between five
and six miles. This was the gap which the German attack on
Vise was intended to seize. South-east across the Meuse stood
the fort of Barchon, and south from it the fortin of Evegnee.
South, again, came the large fort of Fleron, commanding one
railway line to Aix. South-west lay the two fortius, Chaudfontaine
and Embourg, on opposite sides of the Vesdre, commanding the
main line to Germany via Verviers. Westwards in the circle
we cross the Ourthe valley, and reach the fort of Boncelles, which
commanded the hilly ground between the Ourthe and the Meuse.
North from Boncelles, on the plateau beyond the Meuse, stood
three important defences — the fort of Flemalle at the south end.

1914] THE BELGIAN ARMY. 127

the fortin of Hollogne, and the vital fort of Loncin, which com-
manded the junction of Ans and the railways which ran from
Liege north and west across the plateau. Lastly, between Loncin
and Pontisse lay the two lesser fortius of Lantin and Liers. The
forts made an irregular circle around the city, the average distance
of each from the centre being about four miles ; the greatest dis-
tance between any two forts was 7,000 yards, and the average less
than 4,000. In theory they formed a double line of defence, so
that if one fell its neighbours to the left and right should still be
able to hold the enemy. At one or two points the invaders might
come under the fire of as many as four forts. The garrison of
each was small, for there was no room in them for numbers — some
eighty men at the most, engineers, gunners, and a handful of
riflemen to hold the parapets. The noise, heat, and confine-
ment made the service the most trying conceivable, and during
the attack on Liege the defenders found that they could not
swallow food or compose themselves to sleep, even when sleep was
permitted. The armaments were two 6-inch guns, four 4.7-inch,
two 8-inch mortars, and four light quick-firers for the forts ; two
6-inch, two 4.7-inch, one or two 8-inch mortars, and three quick-
firers for the fortius. Liege mounted a total of some 400 pieces.

The old Belgian army had been organized on the basis of con-
scription with paid substitution, which virtually produced a force
of professional volunteers. By the reforms of 1909 and 1913
the principle of a " nation in arms " was introduced ; the term
of service was put at thirteen years, and the strength on mobiliza-
tion was fixed at 150,000 for the field army, 130,000 for the fortress
garrisons, and a reserve of 60,000 — a total of 340,000 men. Un-
fortunately, these reforms were not completed by 1914, and the
total available was only 263,000, which, on the assumption that
the fortress garrisons could not be reduced, left no more than
133,000 for the field. To bring the field force up to the required
standard, it was found necessary to call upon the Civic Guard,
one of the last survivors of the old National Guards of Europe.
Belgium was, therefore, able to put in the field six divisions of
infantry and one of cavalry. A division was formed of three
" mixed brigades," each consisting of six battalions and three
batteries. The field artillery was good, but there were few heavy
pieces ; the equipment, especially of the infantry, left something
to be desired, and no field uniform had been adopted. The Belgian
soldier went into battle in the same garb that he wore in peace
time on parade.

128 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

" The difficulty of the situation was that Belgium could have
no settled plan of campaign. She had to face many ways and
watch all her neighbours, and in her peace dispositions had one
division in Flanders with an eye on England, one at Liege with
an eye on Germany, and two near the French frontier to deal
with France. After the German ultimatum, and not till then,
the whole army faced eastward. On 4th August the Belgian
forces were still in process of mobilization on the line of the river
Dyle covering Brussels and Antwerp. The church bells were still
ringing their summons at midnight, and the dogs were being
collected from the milk carts to draw the mitrailleuses. The
1st Division was moved from Ghent to Tirlemont, the 2nd from
Antwerp to Louvain, the 5th from Mons to Pervyse, the 6th from
Brussels to Wavre. The movements were protected by the cavalry
division, concentrated at Gembloux and moving on Waremme,
and two detached mixed brigades at Tongres and Huy. The 3rd
Division was rushed to Liege, and the civic guard of that city took
their stand by the side of the regulars. At full strength the force
should have numbered over 30,000 men ; but as the mobilization
was incomplete, it was little more than 20,000. The defenders
of Liege were in the same position as the attackers — an improvised
force, hastily put together and imperfectly equipped. No stranger
medley of colour could be found in Europe than such a field army
which lacked a field dress — the men of the line in their blue and
white ; the chasseurs a pied with their peaked caps, green and
yellow uniforms, and flowing capes ; and the Civic Guard, with
their high, round hats and red facings. Little could be done in
two days to improvise defences ; but gangs of colliers and navvies
were set to work to dig trenches and throw up breastworks, and
the village of Boncelles and various houses, spinneys, and even
churches, which obviously obstructed the line of fire, were levelled
to the ground. By the afternoon of Tuesday, 4th August, the
Belgians held the line of the south-eastern forts from Boncelles
to Barchon, and cavalry patrols covered the gap between Pontisse
and the Dutch frontier.

The army of Liege was under the command of General Leman,
an officer of engineers and commandant of the Military School,
who had worked under Brialmont on the Antwerp and Meuse
defences, and was regarded as the foremost living representative
of his views. At the outbreak of war he was between fifty and
sixty years of age — a grave, silent man, who inspired respect rather
than enthusiasm in his followers. Obviously, he could do no

1914] THE ATTACK ON LI£GE. 129

more than play for time. His business was to make such a stand
on the hne of the southern forts as would delay the enemy for a
day or two. Then the city, in the absence of either redoubts
between the forts or a strong field army, must inevitably fall,
but its fate did not necessarily mean the end of the resistance.
The northern forts could still hold out till the enemy should force
the plateau from the city, or, advancing from Vise or Huy, should
take them on the flank. This meant time, and till they fell there
was no progress by rail from Liege towards the Belgian plain. It
was Leman's aim to hold on as long as possible to the forts com-
manding the railway between Liege and Namur, for by that road
the French would come. If three days were gained it would be
something ; if a week it would be much ; for daily, hourly, the
little Belgian army looked west for the arrival of its allies of
France and Britain.

Germany did not rate Belgian valour high, and believed that
Emmich's advanced guard had an easy task before them ; for
in spite of her elaborate intelligence system, she seemed to have
no instruments delicate enough to gauge the spirit of a people.
She did not realize that Belgium had acquired an army, and some-
thing more potent than armies — a vivid national self-consciousness
and a stalwart patriotism. For two thousand years the little
country had been the cockpit of Europe. On her soil Caesar had
crushed the resistance of Gaul ; France had won her nationhood ;
the dwellers by the North Sea had fought for liberty against Spain ;
Louis XIV. had seen his ambitions frustrated ; and Napoleon had
dreamed his last dream. In her position, to retain sovereign rights
involved a sleepless vigilance and an infinite sacrifice. When the
hour came Belgium was ready, and her faith was found in the
words of her king : " A countrj^ which defends itself cannot perish."
Germany forgot that liberty and nationhood cannot be assessed
in marketable terms, and that there are wrongs for which there
is no compensation. She had not reckoned with the Belgian
spirit. To her it seemed, as Stein said of the Tugendbund, " the
rage of dreaming sheep," and her fury was the measure of her
surprise.

On the night of Tuesday the 4th, as we have seen, Leman's
pickets came into touch with Emmich's vanguard, and about
11.30 that night the citizens of Liege heard the beginning of a
great cannonade. The Germans, coming down the Ourthe and the
Vesdre, were attacking the forts of Boncelles, Embourg, Chaud-
fontaine, and Fleron with long-range fire over the woods, the guns

130 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

being laid by the map. Their heavy pieces had not yet come up,
and the fire was high-explosive shell from ordinary field artillery.
The guns of the forts replied, but did little damage, as the enemy
positions in that broken country were easily concealed. The
artillery duel went on through the night, and on the morning of
Wednesday, the 5th, a flag of truce was sent to Leman demanding
a passage. The Belgian general refused, and an infantry attack
was launched forthwith between Embourg and Boncelles. It
was beaten off with heavy loss to the assault. That afternoon
Emmich received reinforcements from the loth Corps, and the
van of Kluck's infantry, the 9th Corps, having crossed the river
at Vise, began to move on Liege from the north-east. In the
afternoon the Germans, hard pressed for time and now strengthened
by a supply of medium heavy pieces, opened a new bombardment,
which damaged Fleron by smashing the mechanism of its cupolas.
All night the German infantry attacked, regardless of losses, and
by the morning of the 6th their 14th Brigade had filtered
through the circle of forts, and was marching on the city. By
that afternoon the Belgian infantry and artillery were falling back
on Liege, for Leman had decided that the place of his 3rd Division
was with the field army now mustering behind the river Gette.
The retreat was necessarily hurried, and there was no time to
destroy the Meuse bridges ; but Leman succeeded in his purpose,
and himself took up position in Fort Loncin, which commanded
the plateau and the railway line to France.

That night the 14th German Brigade encamped on the heights
of La Chartreuse, overlooking the city. Its general having fallen,
it was led by the deputy Chief of Staff of Billow's II. Army, who
had been sent to accompany Emmich. His name was von Luden-
dorff, and at one time he had been chief of the operations section
of the General Staff, where he had come into conflict with the
Imperial Chancellor on the subject of the army estimates. It is a
name which will appear many times in the course of this history,
and now his quickness of conception and high personal courage
were mainly responsible for the German success. On the morning
of the 7th he went alone with the brigade adjutant to the citadel
of Liege and received its surrender. Terms were arranged with
the Burgomaster and the Bishop, and the Germans marched in.

The line of the southern forts had been pierced, though none
of them had yet fallen. But it was the forts on the north bank
of the Meuse in which lay the chief strategic value ; for, so
long as they were untaken, the great railway lines could not be

1914] FALL OF LI£GE. 131

used, and for the German advance Liege was a terminus and
not a junction. Emmich had had enough of frontal infantry
attacks and inadequate bombardments. He suffered Leman in
the north forts to remain in peace till he had brought up his siege
train. Meantime, to the east and west of the city, the German
advance continued. Stores of all kinds poured into Liege, the
pontoon bridges at Vise were completed, and the great batteries
of Kluck's army were brought on to Belgian soil. Two German
cavalry divisions advanced to test the crossings of the Gette, along
the western bank of which lay the main Belgian force of five
divisions. On Sunday, the 9th, German cavalry had advanced
to various points well inside the frontier. The method was the
same in most cases. Cavalry, often preceded by scouts in armed
motor cars, entered a town, seized certain prominent citizens as
hostages, lowered the Belgian flag, and demanded supphes. The
cavalry had only emergency rations and no supply wagons. There
was a good deal of terrorizing, but few serious outrages, for they
had not yet felt the spirit of Belgian resistance. On Tuesday, the
nth, the German front ran from Hasselt on the right through
St. Trond to Waremme. Various Belgian detachments, chiefly
cavalry, had been thrown forward to form an irregular screen
against the German advance. On the nth, word had come of a
French movement across the Sambre, and the Belgian right was
extended in the direction of Enghezee, to join hands with it. But
the rumour was unfounded ; the French mobilization was still in
process, and the French Commander-in-Chief had decided not to
move a brigade till it was completed.

On Wednesday, the 12th, the German cavalry screen came into
touch with the Belgians at various places. Its right advanced
from Hasselt down the little river Gette towards the small unfor-
tified town of Diest, with the object of outflanking the Belgian
field force on the Dyle. At the village of Haelen, a mile or two
south-east of the town, they encountered a Belgian force which
had barricaded the river bridges. The Germans were a detach-
ment of cavalry, with some machine guns, and a weak brigade of
infantry in support. They made a determined effort to rush the
bridges with their infantry, but were beaten back, and the charge
of the Belgian cavalry on the flanks completed their rout. They
had been guilty of the mistake of underestimating the enemy,
and had made no artillery preparations for the assault. This
battle among cornfields was fought with great determination, and
in front of the bridges the dead lay in heaps. The Germans

132 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

succeeded, however, in carrying off their wounded ; and the defeat
was not crushing, for there was no serious attempt at pursuit.
On the afternoon of the same day a German column crossed the
Gette above Haelen, and tried to force the bridge at Cortenaecken,
on its tributary the Velpe. For four hours the Belgians contested
the passage, and the enemy was beaten off. Next day this series
of desultory actions was continued by an attack of 2,000 German
cavalry on the town of Tirlemont ; which was driven back by the
fire of Belgian infantry. Far on the German left, at Enghezee,
close to the field of Ramillies, and almost within range
of the forts of Namur, a German cavalry detachment which
had bivouacked in the village was surprised by a sortie of
Belgian cavalry and cyclists from Namur. They were expelled
in confusion, leaving their machine guns and some forty dead
behind them.

The result of these skirmishes — for they were scarcely more,
being entirely affairs of outposts — was to inspire the Belgian soldiers
with immense self-confidence, and lead them to despise the mihtary
prowess of the invaders. Man for man, they had proved them-
selves superior to the renowned Uhlans, and the clumsiness of
German cavalry tactics roused their contempt. The Belgian plain
was not the best ground for cavalry work, and the small num-
ber of infantry employed by the enemy was of little use against
the well-chosen Belgian positions. Yet it must be admitted that
these five days of skirmishing had achieved the end which the
German commander intended. The cavalry had acted as a true
screen, and had moved right up to the edge of the Gette line. Tele-
grams from Belgium during that week implied that no German
infantry in any strength had crossed the Meuse, which proved
that the screen had done its work ; for at that very moment,
when the great armies of Kluck and Billow were placing their last
troops on Belgian soil, the Belgians still rated the force inside
their frontier at a couple of cavalry divisions and a few odd-
ments of foot and artillery. The French Staff suffered from the
same defective intelligence. Sordet's cavalry corps of three divi-
sions had crossed the Belgian frontier on the 6th, and on the 8th
was within a few miles of Liege. But neither then, nor in their
later reconnaissances on the nth and the 15th, did they discover
the strength of the German infantry, which was the vital problem
before the defence. The German cavalry screen fell back, but was
never pierced. This lack of exact knowledge among the Entente
Staff is shown further by the fact that Sir John French on the

1914I THE LAST FORTS. 133

i8th, and even so late as the 21st, believed that the forts at Li6ge

were still untaken.*

Meantime detachments from the II. Army, which had concen-
trated south of Kluck, were feeling their way up the Meuse valley
towards Namur. On Wednesday, the 12th, its advanced guards
seized the town of Huy, which stood half-way between Namur and
Liege, and was out of the danger zone of the forts of both cities.
The old citadel, long dismantled and used as a storehouse, had no
guns wherewith to command the bridge ; and though Belgian posts
offered some resistance, the Huy crossing was soon in German
hands. The capture of Huy put the invader astride of the main
hne from Aix to France by way of Liege ; bat at present it was of
Uttle use to him, since the northern forts of Liege still commanded
its most vital point. It gave him, however, a branch line, running
directly north from Huy across the plain to Landen and the heart
of Belgium.

On the nth the main siege train began to arrive at Li^ge.
Barchon had already fallen on the gth, and Evegnee on the
loth, to the German field pieces, and at midday on the 12th the
final bombardment began. The heavy artillery used was mainly
the 28-centimetre (ii-inch), but it seems that a certain number
of the 42-centimetre (16-inch) howitzers were also in action, f
Pontisse, Embourg, and Chaudfontaine feU on the 13th, Fleron
on the 14th. That day Boncelles was summoned to surrender,
and on its refusal was bombarded for twenty-four hours. The
electric light apparatus was destroyed, and through the night the
defenders fought on in a suffocating darkness. By six o'clock on
the morning of the 15th the concrete chambers began to fall in,
several of the cupolas were smashed, and shells penetrated the
roof and burst inside the fort itself. Surrender was inevitable,
and the gallant commander hoisted a white flag, after a resistance
of eleven days. Nothing was left of the fort but a heap of ruins.

Meanwhile the bombardment of Loncin, which General Leman
stubbornly held for Belgium, was continued without rest. It was
commanded by reverse fire ; that is to say, the ii-inch howitzers
were trained on it from the direction of the city, and all the pen-
tagonal forts of Brialmont were weak on the side which at normal
times was not that which fronted the enemy. The heavy shell
fire, as at Boncelles, smashed the cement framework and the

• 1914, pp. 41, 48.

t Ludendorff's My War Memories (Eng. trans.), p. 39 ; Muhlon's Diary (quot-
ing von Einem), p. 79 ; Kluck's The March on Paris (Eng. trans.), p. ao.

134 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

cupvolas; and seems to have exploded the magazine, for at 5.20
p.m. on the 15th the whole fort blew up. The few defenders
left alive were half dead from suffocation. Only one shot was
fired— by a man with his left hand, his right having been blown
away. General Leman was found unconscious, his body pinned
by falling beams, and his Hfe in grave danger from poisoning
by noxious fumes. He was carried to Emmich, whom he had
met two years before at manoeuvres. His captor congratulated
him on his heroic resistance, and gave him back his sword. " I
thank you," was the answer of this soldier of few words. " War
is a different sort of job from manoeuvres. I ask you to bear
witness that you found me unconscious."

For eleven days the forts of Liege had stood out against the
enemy, and blocked his main advance. It may fairly be said
that their resistance put back the German time-table by at least
seventy-two hours, and by that space of time hindered Kluck
from reaching the main battlefield. Of what immense consequence
was that delay this narrative will show. On it depended in all
likelihood the salvation of the Entente armies and the defeat of
the German plan. Without it, the British Army and the French
Fifth Army might well have been destroyed. That was a great
thing in itself, but those eleven days of fighting made an impres-
sion upon the world out of all proportion to their results. The
true significance of the Belgian stand was that it pricked the
bubble of German invincibility. A great nation, which for a
generation had given itself up to the study of war, and had
boasted throughout the world of its army, found itself held in the
gates by a little unmilitary people that it despised. It was much
that Belgium should defy Germany ; it was more that she should
make good her defiance. The triumph was moral — an advertise-
ment to the world that the ancient faiths of country and duty
could still nerve the arm for battle, and that the German idol,
for all its splendour, had feet of clay.

At the other end of the Western battlefield the first week of
war revealed a premature activity. As Germany with half-
mobilized troops attacked the Belgian line in the north, France
with troops in the same condition made a movement against
Upper Alsace in the south. The wedge of plain between the Vosges
and the Swiss frontier was a natural line of advance against Ger-
many, for it had behind it to the west the French fortified position
of Belfort, and it gave easy access to the upper Rhine. But a

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1914] THE RAID INTO ALSACE. 135

serious advance was only possible for a strong field army, for
north, guarding the river valley, lay the great German fortresses
of Neu-Breisach and Strassburg. What happened during this
week was an affair of weak advanced guards. It was reported
by French airplanes that the Germans were holding the right
bank of the Rhine, and on the left bank had only small detach-
ments ; so it was decided to attempt to occupy the country up to
the river. What good a weak occupation could do does not appear,
for it was at the mercy of larger masses operating from the Ger-
man fortresses. Late on the evening of Friday the 7th, the day
when Emmich entered Liege, troops from the Belfort garrison
crossed the frontier and drove back small German detachments
which were entrenched at Altkirch. The pursuing cavalry came
into contact with German rearguards, and were unable to press
their advantage ; but the town was evacuated, and the French
entered amid great demonstrations of popular joy. Next morn-
ing they continued their way unopposed to Mulhouse, an impor-
tant manufacturing town without permanent fortifications, and
to their surprise found the entrenchments deserted. Desultory
fighting was carried on with a German force — about a brigade
strong — in the neighbouring woods ; but the resistance was insig-
nificant, and, unfortunately, gave the French a false idea of their
opponents' condition. They were disillusioned next day, the 9th,
when large bodies of Germans, coming from the direction of
Colmar and Neu-Breisach, began to close in on Mulhouse from
the north and east. The French commander, knowing his posi-
tion untenable, evacuated the town early on Monday morning,
loth August, and occupied a position a Httle to the south. Finding
the enemy in strength, he returned to Altkirch, some twelve miles
from the French frontier.

The raid — for it was nothing more — had no military signifi-
cance, and seems to have been hampered by faulty reconnaissances
on the part of the French airmen. Its political purpose was proved
by the message of General Joffre, published in Altkirch and Mul-
house. The enterprise was an advertisement to the lost provinces
that the day of their dehverance was at hand. Nowhere were the
memories of 1870 so ineradicable as in Alsace-Lorraine ; nowhere
was the Prussian mihtary system, as exhibited in incidents like
that of Zabern, so hateful. But the announcement was addressed
even more to the people of France. It was necessary, in the view
of the French leaders, to give to their countrymen at the outset
of the great struggle some dramatic episode to fire their imagina-

136 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug

tions and typify the purpose of the war. What more dramatic
than a raid into Alsace with a message of emancipation ? A wise
general, drawing upon a nation in arms, will not disdain to remem-
ber popular emotions. The incident had its effect. On the Mon-
day afternoon, loth August, when Paris had the news of the taking
of Mulhouse, but not of its evacuation, there was a great assembly
in the Place de la Concorde. The centre of interest was the Strass-
burg statue, draped those many years with crape, but bearing on
its escutcheon the proud words, " QtU vive? France quand-meme ! "
In a reverent silence the signs of mourning were removed. If the
tricolour did not yet float above the spires of the Alsatian city,
the march of the deliverers had begun.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BATTLE JOINED IN THE WEST.
i^th August-2^th August.

The French Mobilization — Joffre — His Change of Plan — Failure of the Advance in
Lorraine and the Southern Ardennes — The First Clash of the Main Armies — •
Fall of Namur — Battle of Charleroi — ^The British Expeditionary Force — Mons
— The Retreat begins.

The war preparation of France began at 9 p.m. on 31st July with
the moving of the covering troops, a task completed by midday on
3rd August. The mobilization proper started on 2nd August,
and the concentration at midday on 5th August. By noon on the
12th the more urgent transport movements had been completed,
and between that day and midnight on the i8th the main work
was accomplished. It was a brilliant performance, the more as
the original destination of four corps was changed during its
progress. On the i8th the First Army under Dubail lay between
Belfort and the line Mirecourt-Luneville, Castelnau's Second
Army thence to the Moselle, the Third Army, under Ruffey, from
the Moselle to Verdun, and Lanrezac's Fifth Army along the Meuse
and the Belgian frontier. The general reserve, the Fourth Army
under de Langle de Gary, lay east of Commercy. The French
forces faced Germany on the ancient frontier line of the Vosges,
the Moselle, and the Meuse.

Between 1875 and 1914 there had been no less than forty
Ministers of War in France and seventeen Chiefs of the General
Staff. An organization subject to so many vicissitudes of control
must necessarily have suffered in efficiency. Politics had played
a great part in military appointments, and there was a lack of
central authority in controlling the various services of war. When
M. Millerand, to whom the modern French army owed much,
went to the War Office, he relied especially on three officers for the
working out of his schemes of reform. The great and well-deserved
popular reputations of the day belonged to those generals, such as

138 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

Gallieni, Lyautey, and d'Amade, who had recently won distinction
in North Africa, Madagascar, and Tonkin. M. Millerand's three
were almost unknown to the man in the street. One was Pan,
who had left an arm on the battlefields of 1870, adored by the rank
and file, to whom he was " le premier troupier du monde," but
only a name to the world of pohtics and society. A second was
Castelnau. a man of singular gentleness and nobihty of spirit,
and the possessor of a mathematical brain which excelled in
problems like mobilization. The third was Joseph Cesaire Joffre,
an engineer officer sprung from bourgeois stock in the Eastern
Pyrenees. He had first come into note in the Timbuctu expedi-
tion of 1893-4, and had later served in Madagascar. In 1910 he
had become a member of the Conseil Superieur de la Guerre, and a
year later had become its vice-president, succeeding Michel, and
being preferred to Pau and Gallieni. He was an anti-clerical and
a strenuous republican, but he allowed no intrigues of party or
sect to bias his judgment. In the three years of his vice-presi-
dency he had done much to reform the machine, but he had had
little influence on strategical thought. He was not, like Foch,
a great miUtary student and thinker, and he accepted what was
given him in that line, devoting himself to the concrete prepara-
tion in detail which he understood. He represented character
rather than mind, and, as it happened, it was character which
France needed most in the hour of crisis. His honesty was to
enable him to make the drastic changes for which events clam-
oured ; his modesty and intellectual candour allowed him to
revise plan after plan ; above all, his steadfast courage, his in-
finite patience, and his kindly simplicity gave to his countrymen
a leader whom they could regard with confidence, respect, and
love. We shall see him unchanged both by sunshine and shadow,
in good and evil report the same bluff, shrewd, wise paternal being
— one who, as Bossuet said of Turenne, could fight without anger,
win without ambition, and triumph without vanity.

Of the other French commanders now in the field, de Langle
de Cary, who had been aide-de-camp to Trochu in 1870, was
recalled by Joffre from the retired list ; Dubail, Ruffey, and
Castelnau were members of the Conseil Superieur. Ruffey was
soon to disappear, but of the other two this history will have much
to say. Lanrezac, also a member of the Conseil and a man of
first-rate ability, was in revolt against the accepted French strategy,
and was presently to suffer for his heterodoxy. He alone of the
acting command seems to have divined Germany's plan and to

Marshal Joseph- Jacques-Cesaire J off re

1914] THE STRENGTH OF THE COMBATANTS. 139

have had the courage to oppose his chiefs. But France was no
exception to the rule that the men who finish a war are rarely
those who begin it. Just as the chief German soldier was now
only deputy chief of staff to a single army, and the future British
commander was in charge of a corps, so the true leaders of
France were still in subordinate posts, at the head of divisions,
brigades, even of regiments. The greatest of all was a corps
commander in the Second Army,

As the concentration was completed, the forces of the Entente
which moved eastward to the shock were not greatly, if at all,
exceeded by those of the enemy. It is a point which needs to be
emphasized, for nonsensical legends circulated at the time in France
and Britain. France had slightly more first-line divisions in the
field than Germany ; if we add the Belgian and British contingents,
she had a clear superiority. In total numbers the two sides in
the West were approximately equal. But while the French reserve
divisions were ill trained, ill armed, ill supplied, and destined
only for minor tasks, the German reserve formations were troops
of shock, capable of use in the first line. Moreover, in heavy artil-
lery, in the use of airplanes for reconnaissance and with the guns, in
motor transport, in the art of field entrenchment, and in general
tactical training the enemy had a real superiority. Lastly, the
Germans had the initiative and a strategical plan prepared with
infinite care, while France was about to commit herself to a mis-
taken theory and an ill-considered adventure. The French armies
at the start were not outnumbered, but in almost everything but
fighting spirit they were outclassed ; and Germany by her skill
was able to fight her first battles with a great local superiority
of men.

On loth August the French contingent in Alsace was back
at Altkirch, and Mulhouse was again in German hands. It had
been only a raid and a reconnaissance, and preparations now
began for that Lorraine offensive which was the first step in the
French plan. The object of this advance was to turn the left
of the main German force advancing through Luxembourg and the
Ardennes, to secure the Briey coalfields by the investment or cap-
ture of Metz, and by the seizure of the bridgeheads of the upper
Rhine to interfere with the communications of the German V.,
VI., and VII. Armies. It was reckoned that Heeringen's army
was the weakest of the German forces, and would have difficulty
in holding the country between the Vosges and the Rhine. Ac-
cordingly, on the loth, an Alsace group was formed under Pau

140 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

of the strength of three corps. The first effort was to clear the
Vosges passes, which were held by weak German forces, and which
must be captured in order to safeguard the flank of any advance
from Belfort or Nancy. On the French side long river glens lead
up to the summit, but on the east there is a sharp descent to-
wards the Alsatian plain. The first to be taken was the Ballon
d' Alsace, at the south end of the range, which carried with it
the control of the Col de Bussang. Farther north they took the
Hohneck and Schlucht passes, which brought them to the great
central boss of the ridge. Here the task became more difficult,
as the approach from the French side was now steep, and the
hillsides were densely wooded, while on the gentler slopes of the
Alsatian side the Germans had field fortifications held by heavy
guns. There was some sharp fighting, in which the Chasseurs
Alpins played a notable part, and successively the Col du Bon-
homme and the Col de Sainte-Marie were taken. The last and
most difficult was the Pass of Saales, on which they advanced
from St. Die. They won it by occupying the plateau of Blacques,
and this gave them not only the possession of Mont Donon, the
great northern massif of the Vosges, but allowed them to enter
the valley of the Bruche, which led directly to Strassburg.

The capture of Mont Donon, on the 14th, enabled the First
and Second armies and the Alsace group to begin their main
advance. The last from the outset was successful. It took
Dannemarie and Thann, and wedged the extreme German left be-
tween the Rhine and the Swiss frontier. On the 19th, at Dornach,
it had 3,000 prisoners, and next day re-entered Mulhouse. Mean-
time Castelnau with the Second Army and Dubail with the
First — a total of nine active and three reserve corps — moved
eastward, Castelnau by the Seille and the Gap of Morhange and
Dubail on his right into the Sarre valley. They had scarcely
started when orders came to detach from the Second Army the 9th
and 1 8th Corps and send them northward to Lanrezac, while three
African divisions on their way to Alsace were deflected for the
same purpose. For, on the 15th, Joffre heard for the first time
that German forces were moving through Liege en route for the
Belgian plain, though he had as yet no notion of their size. The
northern attack was not coming only by the Ardennes, and he must
extend his left to meet it. Accordingly he ordered the Fifth Army
to move up into Belgium and occupy the angle formed by the
Sambre and the Meuse, and the Fourth Army — the general reserve
— to link up with the Third Army by taking the place left vacant

1914] MORHANGE. 141

by the Fifth. Already the French general was compelled to recon-
struct his plan.

Even with the loss of two corps, Dubail and Castelnau were
superior in numbers to the VI. and VII. German Armies opposed
to them. But they were operating in difficult country — the woods
and marshes of Morhange and the intricacies of the Sarre valley.
The enemy had prepared a series of concealed defences, supported
by heavy artillery, running from Morville through Morhange to
Phalsburg. This line was held in the south by Heeringen's
right wing, the centre by the complete strength of the Bavarian
VI. Army, and the right by a detachment from the Metz garrison.
On the 19th Dubail was at Sarrebourg, and that day Castelnau
faced the immense natural strength of the Morhange position.
On the left of his Second Army lay the famous 20th Corps of
Nancy, under the command of Ferdinand Foch, a southerner of
Tarbes, now sixty-three years old. He had been for some time
professor at the Ecole de Guerre, and his two great books. La
Condnite de la Guerre and Les Principes de la Guerre, had given
him a world-wide reputation. He was beyond question the most
famous of living writers on war, and was now afforded the chance
of putting into practice the doctrines which he had so convincingly
preached. He was the apostle of the offensive, and his first action
was to be an offensive which failed — which was bound to fail. At
Morhange the new power of the defence was proved beyond cavil.

At 5 a.m. on the 20th Castelnau attacked — the 20th Corps
against the heights of Marthil, Baronville, and Conthil, with as
its objective the capture of Morhange and a nodal point of the
railways ; on its left rear was a group of reserve divisions, and
on its right the 15th. At once the assault was brought under a
deadly fire from concealed positions, which do not seem to have
been properly reconnoitred. It was a repetition on a huge scale
of Emmich's experience at Liege. The reserve divisions on the
left were attacked by fresh enemy forces from Metz, but held their
own ; the 15th Corps, in a region of marshy ponds, was utterly
broken, and at 6.30 a.m. was in flight. The 20th Corps, with its
right flank exposed, fought gallantly all day against hopeless odds.
At 4 o'clock that afternoon Castelnau ordered a general retirement ;
he had no other course before him. Dubail, who had been holding
his own at Sarrebourg and on the Rhine canal, had to fall back
to conform.

So failed the first French offensive. The position was very
grave, for there was a wide breach between Castelnau and Dubail,

142 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

and through it lay the way to the Gap of Charmes, between
Toul and Epinal, which, if the enemy once gained it, would enable
him to take in reverse the main armies of France. Or he might
concentrate on the capture of Nancy, which would achieve the
same result. Happily, the Bavarians were in no condition to press
their advantage. Dubail fell back from Mont Donon to a line
from Rozelieures to the north end of the Vosges, at right angles
to the Second Army and covering the entrance to the Gap of
Charmes. Castelnau brought his force behind the Meurthe and
the lower Mortagne. The defence of Nancy was left to the group
of reserve divisions which we have seen on his left rear, and which
were in touch with Foch and what remained of the 20th Corps.*
On the 24th the Germans were in Luneville ; on the 25th Mulhouse
was retaken, and Pau's Alsace group was dissolved, for the bulk
of it was wanted for the defence of Nancy and the north.

On the evening of the 20th Joffre had news of the failure of
the Lorraine offensive and Castelnau's retreat. He had also
for five days been aware that considerable German forces were
moving north of the Meuse. Yet, faithful to his purpose of the
offensive, at a moment when every argument seemed to point to
a strengthening of his left wing, he tried the second of his alter-
natives and gave orders for an advance by his centre into the Bel-
gian Ardennes. Ruffey's Third Army and Tangle's Fourth Army
were now on the Meuse from Verdun northward. They were
directed to cross the river and move into the wooded hills, in order
to threaten the flanks both of the Bavarians, now moving on Nancy,
and of Kluck and Biilow marching through Belgium. The scheme,
had it been strictly limited to a raid and reconnaissance, was not
without its merits ; but it was no raid, involving, as it did, two of
the main French armies and the whole of the general reserve. It
seems certain that at the time the French Staff were not aware of
the full strength of the IV. and V. German Armies, and were
altogether ignorant of the existence of Hansen's III. Army, now
concealed among the woods of the north-western Ardennes. Ruffey
and Tangle moved into impossible country against an enemy
superior in numbers, who possessed also the advantage in arma-
ment, position, and more accurate intelligence.

The enterprise was short-lived and disastrous. On the 21st
the Fourth Army moved beyond the Semoy, with the Third Army
in echelon on its right. Tangle's objective was roughly the

• It should be noted that the success of this most difiScult retirement was mainly
due to the skill with which Dubail handled his First Army.

1914] FAILURE OF FRENCH CENTRE. 143

line Maissin-Ochamps-Neufchateau-Forest of Rulles, while Ruffey
was moving across the upper valleys of the Semoy, Chiers, and
Othain towards Virton and Longwy. Almost at once the advance
came up against strong prepared positions, which in that tangled
country were hard to detect, and was at the same time taken in
flank by enemy columns marching from the east. There was in-
sufficient connection, too, between the corps of the attack, so
that each unit fought a separate battle. At PaUiseul, in the
forest of Luchy, and at Rossignol (where Lefebvre's Colonial
Corps was all but destroyed) there were desperate combats on
the 22nd, and that night Duke Albrecht of Wiirtemberg drove
the French Fourth Army across the Semoy. Ruffey had no
better fortune against the Imperial Crown Prince. His 2nd and
4th Corps fought a stiff battle at Virton, and Sarrail's 6th
Corps fought stoutly, but no ground was made, and presently the
Third Army was back on the Othain. On the 24th Langle had
his left west of the Meuse and his right between the Meuse and
the Chiers.

The failure of the French offensive gave the Germans the Briey
coalfield, by far the most valuable booty which they won in the
first months of war. Its little guardian fort, Longwy, under a
gallant commander, Colonel Darche, resisted to the last with
antiquated works and a garrison of only two infantry battalions
and a battery and a half of light guns. It had been surrounded
on the loth, invested on the 20th, and did not fall till the 26th.
The performance was a proof of what French valour might have
done with the fortresses had they been regarded more seriously
in the plans of the General Staff.

On the 15th, as we have seen, Joffre was aware of the German
advance into the Belgian plain, and pushed his Fifth Army into
the angle between Charleroi, Namur, and Dinant, on the Sambre
and Meuse. At the time he estimated the total forces of Kluck
and Billow as six army corps, three divisions of cavalry, and at
the outside two or three reserve divisions. He had no inkling of
Hansen's III. Army, and he beheved that Langle and Ruffey
were competent to break the armies of Duke Albrecht of Wiirtem-
berg and the Imperial Crown Prince. Namur he considered to be
capable of making as stout a defence as the Liege forts, and he
held that it would form a good pivot for an advance into
Belgium by Lanrezac and the British Army, now in process of
concentration, which, if successful, would gain the line Namur-

144 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

Brussels-Antwerp. As a protection against raiding cavalry, how-
ever, he sent d'Amade to Arras to take command of a group of
territorial divisions, and watch the country about Douai and Lille.
It was clear to his mind the enemy could not be equally strong in
Lorraine, in the Ardennes, and north of the Meuse, and his forward
policy would search out the weak spot.

He had miscalculated the speed of the German advance, as
he had underestimated its weight. We left the Belgian army
still holding the crossings of the Gette against Kluck's van-
guards. But once the last Liege forts had fallen, and the trunk
line was cleared for traffic, there came the real impact. The
invasion swept on like a tide, the cavalry screen fell away, and
the Belgian field armies realized what was before them. Their
one hope was the French, but the French infantry were far dis-
tant, though part of Sordet's cavalry was then across the Sambre
and in touch with the Belgian right somewhere near the field
of Waterloo. On the 17th Kluck reached the Gette, with three
corps flanked by two cavalry divisions. During the morning of
the i8th the river was forced at Haelen and Diest, and by the
evening its whole line was in German hands. There was nothing
for the Belgian command but to retreat behind the Dyle and seek
sanctuary. It withdrew, therefore, on the 19th, and by the
20th, as Brialmont had always foreseen, was inside the Antwerp
forts, leaving the open city of Brussels to the enemy.

On the 2oth, M. Max, the burgomaster of the capital, arranged
with the Germans for a peaceful occupation. In return for the
free passage of German troops through the city and the reception
of a garrison in the local barracks, the enemy undertook to pay
in cash for all requisitions, to ensure the safety of the inhabitants,
to respect public and private property, and to leave the manage-
ment of city affairs to the municipality. About 2 p.m. the sound of
cannon and military music was heard, and the van of the army of
occupation appeared on the Chaussee de Lou vain. It was the
4th Corps under General Sixtus von Armin, whom we shall meet
again. When the infantry reached the great square in front of
the Gare du Nord, they broke into the old Prussian parade step,
the legacy of Frederick the Great, to show the importance of the
occasion. The German general left the Belgian flag flying on
the Hotel de Ville, but hauled down those of the AUies ; he pla-
carded the city with a stern proclamation against acts of aggres-
sion on the part of civilians ; and presently it was announced
that Germany had imposed upon Brussels a war indemnity of

1914] THE WHEEL TO THE SAMBRE. 145

£8,000,000. The occupation in force did not last long, for
Kluck had no time for parades. Already his 2nd Corps, after
a skirmish at Aerschot, had passed to the north of the capital,
and the 3rd Corps had gone through the southern suburbs on the
road to Mons, while the 9th was heading for Braine-l'Alleud. The
3rd Reserve and 9th Reserve Corps were detailed to watch the
Belgian army in Antwerp. On the morning of the 21st the bulk of
the I. Army was swinging south-westwards from Brussels, having
reached the Hne Grammont-Enghien-Hal-Braine-l'Alleud ; while
the whole of von der Marwitz's cavalry moved westwards in the
general direction of Lille, looking for Sir John French. Kluck's
huge wheel was behind the German time-table, but far in advance
of his opponents' expectation.

Billow's IL Army had less ground to cover. We have seen
that on the 12th he had seized the bridge at Huy, and was rapidly
transferring part of his troops to the left bank of the Meuse. On
the morning of the 21st he had the better part of five corps north
of that river, with their right in touch with Kluck about Genappe,
their centre at Gembloux, and their left a mile or two from Namur.
Meantime the mysterious TIL Army had moved swiftly through
the northern Ardennes, where the leafy cover seems to have screened
it completely from the French airmen. Its commander, the Saxon
von Hansen — like Kluck and Biilow a man of 68 — had started
with four corps and a cavalry division, but had already surrendered
the cavalry division for the Russian front. On the 15th his ad-
vance guard had attempted to seize the passage of the Meuse at
Dinant, the town eighteen miles south of Namur, where the hills
break down in high limestone cliffs to the river. This coup de
main gave them the old citadel, but they were presently ousted
by the arrival of French supports. Hansen's objective was again
Dinant, but on the 21st he had detailed the nth Corps to co-
operate with the Guard Reserve Corps of the IL Army in the
investment of Namur.

On the morning of the 21st, therefore, the I., II. , and III.
German Armies were bearing down on the angle of the Sambre
and the Meuse in an arc 70 miles long — Kluck with four corps,
Biilow with the better part of five, and Hausen with four — a total
of at least 25 divisions, supported by a great force of cavalry.
Before them lay Lanrezac's Fifth Army, as yet only of four corps,
now getting into position on the Sambre, the fortress of Namur,
garrisoned by the Belgian 4th Division, and on Lanrezac's left the
British army of two corps, the concentration of which was expected

146 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

to be completed that day. On the 20th Joffre, from his head-
quarters far away at Vitry-le-Frangois in Champagne, had given
orders for an advance across the Sambre. The British were to
move north-east in the direction of Nivelles, between Brussels and
Charleroi, while Lanrezac marched against Biilow. The idea of
the French Commander-in-Chief was a blow at the flank of the
advance through Belgium. He considered the advance of Langle
and Ruffey, which began on the 20th, as his main operation,
and the attack of Lanrezac and the British as a supporting
movement. It was a plan foredoomed to disaster, for, while it
took into account Biilow, it ignored Kluck, and knew nothing of
Hansen.

In considering this clash of the great armies, we can look upon
the situation as composed of three elements — Namur, the fight
of Lanrezac against Biilow and Hansen, and the stand of the
British against Kluck. The city of Namur stands mainly on
a scarp of hill in the angle between Meuse and Sambre. South
of it stretch the forested slopes of the central Meuse ; east lies
the trench valley which runs to Liege ; north is the great plain of
Belgium ; and due west is the vale where the Sambre flows amid
coal pits, mounds of debris, and factory chimneys. The place is
famous in British history as the scene of one of the chief exploits
of William III., who wrested the town from Boufflers under the
eyes of Villeroy's great army, and in literature as the theme
of the reminiscences of Uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy. Its
fortifications had been one of Brialmont's masterpieces. Follow-
ing the same lines as at Liege, he had given it a ring of four forts
and five fortins, mounting altogether 350 pieces. These forts
were at a distance from the city of from two and a half to five
miles, and were on the average about two and a half miles distant
from each other. Beginning in the north, Cognelee defended the
railway to Brussels, while Marchovelette occupied the space
between it and the Meuse. In the south-east angle made by the
rivers stood the three forts of Maizeret, Andoy, and Dave. Between
the Meuse and the Sambre were St. Heribert and Malonne, and
north of the Sambre, between that river and Fort Cognelee, stood
the forts of Suarlee and Emines. All were of the familiar Brial-
mont type, and the armament was the same as at Liege. The
Belgian garrison had ample notice of the German intentions.
For ten days the great siege trains had been crawling painfully
westwards over the cobbled Belgian roads. Namur was held by

1914] THE SIEGE OF NAMUR. 147

the Belgian general Michel, who, though convinced that the place

was impregnable, devoted much time before the enemy appeared
to strengthening the defence. Large areas were mined, the field
of fire was cleared, entrenchments for infantry were constructed
between the forts, and barbed wire entanglements, highly electri-
fied, were erected at the approaches. It should be remembered that
he did not expect to defend Namur alone. Long before the first
shot was fired he hoped to have the Allies at his back. The blue
tunics of the Chasseurs d'Afrique had been seen for some days on
Belgian soil, squadrons of French dragoons were on the road to
Brussels, and French infantry and artillery were only eighteen
miles off at Dinant. Michel seems to have been well aware
that the forts alone could not repel the enemy. Remembering
one lesson of Liege, he gave special attention to the intermediate
infantry.

For a day or two the weather along the Meuse had been close
and misty — the summer heat-haze common in that valley. Late
on the evening of Thursday, 20th August, the howitzers * were
in position under the screen of haze, some three miles from the
Belgian trenches. The German troops of assault were the Guard
Reserve Corps from the II. and the nth Corps from the III.
Army. Michel learned now, what many other commanders were
to learn afterwards, that he had let the enemy get too close — an
enemy who would not be guilty of Emmich's blunder at Liege,
but would use the full strength of his artillery before he launched
his infantry. The first shots were fired on that sultry Thursday
evening, and the fire was directed on the trenches between Forts
Cognelee and Marchovelette. Through the whole night it con-
tinued with amazing accuracy, and since the Germans were out
of range of the Belgian guns there was no means of replying. The
unfortunate Belgians had no chance for a rush with the bayonet,
as at Liege — they had simply to wait and suffer ; and after ten
hours, whole regiments having been decimated, the thing became
insupportable. Early on the morning of Friday, the 21st, the
infantry withdrew from the trenches, and the Germans entered
within the ring of the forts, taking up a position on the ridge of
St. Marc, just north of the city.

The real bombardment began at 10 a.m. on the 21st, and

• These were the Austrian 30.5 cm. pieces from the Skoda Works. According
to their conamander, Colonel Albert Langer [N.F. Presse, Vienna, February 18, 1915),
they came — at any rate the bulk of them — by Verviers, and only left Cologne on
X5th August.

148 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

before long the forts Marchovelette and Maizeret were silenced.
Maizeret had received shells at the rate of twenty a minute, and
had only been able to fire ten shots in reply. Marchovelette held
out till it was blown up on the next day. About the same time
— that is, early on the morning of Friday, the 2ist — the HI. Army
on the right bank of the Meuse directed a terrific bombardment
against Forts Andoy, Dave, St. Heribert, and Malonne, and a
German force was pushed across the Meuse into the southern part
of the angle between it and the Sambre. All that day an infantry
battle continued, for the Belgians hoped for a French advance
from Dinant to their relief. But, as we shall see, the French at
Dinant had their hands full with their own affairs. On the Satur-
day morning part of the French 8th Brigade under General Mangin
arrived, but they were too late to give much assistance. That
day, when the skies were darkened by an echpse of the sun, panic
reigned in Namur. Incendiary bombs were dropped by German
airplanes, and stray shells crashed into the outlying buildings.
The weather was heavy with thunder, and Nature and man com-
bined to create pandemonium.

Some time on that Saturday Michel, seeing that resist-
ance was futile, and desiring, like Leman at Liege, to save
his force for the field army, drew off many of his troops by the
western route, which was still open. No provision had been
made for a retreat, and it soon became a case of sauve qui pent.
Only the north-western forts were standing, and the infantry
battle in the angle between the rivers had resulted in the defeat
of the French and Belgians. The Germans coming from the
south joined with those on the ridge of St. Marc, and so were
able to take in the rear the defenders of the trenches between
Forts Emines and Cognelee. The Belgians in the river angle were
compelled to escape as best they could, and their only outlet
was to the south-west. The enemy had shut the gate at
Bois de Villers, but two Belgian regiments hacked a road
through and managed to reach Philippeville. On their way
they found themselves entangled with a French army coming
south from the Charleroi direction, and had their first news of
the retreat of the whole Allied line. Eventually, by way of
Hirson, Laon, and Amiens, they came in seven days to Rouen,
whence they took ship to Ostend, and joined the main Belgian
forces.

On Sunday afternoon, the 23rd, the Germans entered Namur,
singing their part-songs. The advanced guard narrowly escaped

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1914] FALL OF NAMUR. 149

destruction, for the Germans north-east of the city, unaware
that their troops had entered from the south, kept shelHng
the Citadel and the Grande Place. That night Namur was
set afire in parts, whether by accident or design no one knew.
Next day Biilow entered the place, and with him the new
military Governor of Belgium, Field-Marshal von der Goltz, who
was described by an observer as "an elderly gentleman covered
with orders, buttoned in an overcoat up to his nose, above which
gleamed a pair of enormous glasses." The conquerors did not
behave badly. They took hostages, demanded the surrender of
all arms, and issued, after the German fashion, a vast number of
proclamations. Presently the great armies surged southwards,
and left the occupation of the city to reservists. The last stand
of the Belgians was made at the north-west segment of the fortress
ring. Fort Suarlee held out gallantly till the morning of Tuesday,
25th August, when it was blown to pieces. Part of its garrison
and that of Emines escaped southwards to the woods on the north
bank of the Sambre. There they were surrounded, and surrendered
to the number of 800 early on the 26th. The first shot had been
fired on the evening of 20th August ; by the next night five or
six forts had fallen ; by the 23rd the Germans held Namur, and
by the 25th the last forts had gone. So much for the impregnable
city. The shade of Boufflers must have rejoiced at so fantastic
a consummation,

Namur had been the pivot of the French position. Lanrezac
held an angle, and the loss of the apex of that angle meant that
each of the two sides was outflanked. It is time to return to the
French Fifth Army, which on the 20th was still laboriously getting
into position. Lanrezac, who had pressed for an earlier advance
into Belgium, only received Joffre's orders to cross the Sambre
on the 2oth; and in any case he could not have moved earher,
owing to the adjustments necessary to send troops to Langle and
Ruffey beyond the Meuse. On Friday, the 21st, part of his army
was still concentrating, for the advance had been fixed for the
23rd, by which time the British would have been well started on
their flank wheel. On the 20th he had only two corps on the
south bank of the Sambre. On the 21st his right wing, Franchet
d'Esperey's ist Corps, was on the Meuse north of Dinant, fronting
east ; the loth Corps held the heights south of the Sambre between
Charleroi and Namur, facing the Sambre crossings ; the 3rd
Corps lay before the town of Charleroi ; and the i8th Corps, not

150 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

yet up, was to be echeloned on the left, south of Thuin. Most of
his reserve divisions were not yet in their place. Through no fault
of his own, he had to accept battle on ground not of his choosing
and at a time appointed by the enemy. For, on the morning of
the 2ist, Billow had reached the north bank of the river, wheehng
by his left, and by midday the action had begun with an attack by
the German Guard on the bridges of Tamines and Auvelais, held
by the French loth Corps. By 2.30 p.m. they were across the
stream, and ere nightfall held the village of Arsimont, two miles
to the south of it. At the same time the German loth Corps
forced the river just east of Charleroi, and on the German right
the 7th Corps was on the Charleroi-Mons road. Biilow that
night had won the first stage, and prepared the ground for his
deployment.

Saturday, the 22nd, saw the main Battle of Charleroi. The
French loth Corps, struggling desperately on the right, retook
Arsimont, but lost it as the great weight of German artillery began
to make itself felt. The French had not yet the German science of
entrenchment ; they had too few guns, and their most gallant
charges were futile against a wary enemy. Farther west there was
fierce fighting in the streets of Charleroi, where the Turcos of the
37th (African) Division took heavy toll of the Prussian Guard,
But slowly the French 3rd Corps was forced back, and by the
darkening Biilow had shaken himself free of the mining dis-
trict, and was in position four miles south of the Sambre. But
Lanrezac did not despair. On his left he had now got up his i8th
Corps, which was holding both sides of the Sambre at Thuin, and
his ist Corps at Dinant, having been relieved by the 51st Reserve
Division, was available to reinforce his shaken right. Thinking
that he had only Biilow to deal with, he sent word to the
British Commander-in-Chief at Mons that evening asking him to
strike north-eastward at Billow's flank. Sir John French rightly
declined. He had already had news of Kluck.

On Sunday, the 23rd, Lanrezac attacked with his right — the
1st Corps and a reserve division — from the high ground about
Mettet. But his centre was already in straits, and the cavalry in
front of the i8th Corps on his left was giving ground before Billow's
envelopment. That afternoon the 3rd Corps was retiring in dis-
order on Walcourt, a place in the latitude of Maubeuge. This
was bad enough, but early in the evening came a deluge of ill
tidings. Namur, the pivot, was falling — had already fallen.
Langle and Ruffey had failed utterly, and they were back on the

1914] CHARLEROI. 151

Meuse, so nothing was to be hoped for from the Ardennes offensive.
A new German army, the Saxon III., had appeared on his right
flank, and had taken Dinant. Last, and not least, Kluck had
revealed himself against the British — not a matter of one or
two corps, as had been supposed, but at least four corps and
several cavalry divisions. Lanrezac acted promptly. He dis-
patched his 1st Corps to Dinant, where it brilliantly disputed
the passage of the river with the Saxons. It could not stay the
invader, but it delayed him, and saved the communications of
the Fifth Army. But he clearly could not stay. The British
were in straits, and he was instructed by Joffre to send Sordet's
cavalry to their support. That evening he ordered a general
retirement, and the first battle in the north was lost to the
Allies.

There is no " enigma of Charleroi." The facts are only too
fatally clear. Lanrezac fought a gallant fight, and had he had
only Billow to deal with, might have retrieved all on the
morning of the 23rd by a flank attack of the ist Corps on the
German left, for the Prussian Guard had been badly shaken.
But the 1st Corps, Hke d'Erlon's at Quatre Bras, had to dissipate
its force on two fronts. The battle was lost before it was joined
through the mistaken theory and imperfect intelligence of the
French General Staff, and under no conceivable circumstances
could Lanrezac have succeeded. He had to fight before his army
was in position, and when his centre was already tottering he
found his flank turned. General Joffre, at a later date, expressed
the opinion that Charleroi should have been won,* but it could
not have been won on the plan for which he was responsible. That
plan courted disaster, being based on a complete misreading
of facts. It is not easy to explain the singular breakdown of
the French intelligence. They knew nothing of Hausen and
practically nothing of Kluck, though they were aware that great
forces under his command had passed through Liege. It is
possible that they regarded the bulk of his troops as destined for
the Channel ports — a strange plan with which to credit an enemy
who had not neglected the study of the science of war.

The fundamental error has long ago been admitted by all
competent soldiers. But it is necessary to say one word on the
legend, fostered by a distinguished historian, that Lanrezac's
misfortunes were in a large part due to the British army.f The

* Interview with M. Arthur Hue, D^piche de Toulouse, March 1915.
•f Gabriel Hanotaux's L'Enigme de Charleroi,

152 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

accusation is threefold : First, that the British were late in reach-
ing their agreed position — the 23rd instead of the 20th ; second,
that Sir John French should have complied with Lanrezac's re-
quest for assistance on the 23rd ; third, that it was the premature
British retreat which compelled the retreat of the French Fifth
Army. For no charge is there the slenderest foundation of fact.
If Lanrezac was not wholly in position by the 21st, it was un-
reasonable to expect Sir John French, who had a day's march
farther to go, to be in position by the 20th. Besides, the offensive
which Joffre had ordered was not due to begin till the 23rd. The
British kept precisely the terms of their arrangement with the
French Commander-in-Chief. Secondly, a flank attack by the
British against Biilow on the 23rd, with three of Kluck's corps
attacking them and a fourth enveloping their left, would have
been sheer insanity and an invitation to destruction. Finally, on
the 23rd, Lanrezac's corps had been falling back all day, and at
9 o'clock that night the order was given for the general retire-
ment. The main British withdrawal did not begin till the morning
of the 24th, and by that time their neighbours had been at least
twelve hours in retreat.

We turn now to the doings of Sir John French and his Expedi-
tionary Force.

The state of war with Germany, officially declared by Britain
on 4th August, did not in itself commit her to sending an expedi-
tionary force to the Continent ; but the unmistakable trend of
public feeling, and the assurance of France that she counted upon
our military co-operation, gave the Government no choice. It
was resolved to dispatch four infantry divisions at once, to be
followed by two more at short intervals. On 6th August the
House of Commons, in five minutes, voted a credit of 100 millions,
and sanctioned an increase of the army by 500,000 men. The
railways had been taken over by the Government, and troops were
hurried down, mostly under cover of night, to the various ports
of embarkation. The time of crossing varied from eight to fifteen
hours. There was no covering fleet, the Grand Fleet in the North
Sea being a sufficient protection ; but the British and French
navies supplied destroyers as scouts and messengers, and airships
and seaplanes kept watch in the sky. The people of Britain knew
little of the crossing till Monday, the 17th, when it was officially
announced that it was over. In ten days, by a remarkable feat
of transport, more than 150,000 men had been landed at various
ports in France. Each man carried with him a message from Lord

1914] THE BRITISH LANDING. i53

Kitchener, which admirably summed up the duties of the British
soldier in war : —

" You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our
French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You
have to perform a task which will need your courage, your energy,
your patience.

" Remember that the honour of the British army depends on your
individual conduct. It will be your duty, not only to set an example of
discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to maintain the most
friendly relations with those whom you are helping in this struggle. The
operations in which you are engaged will, for the most part, take place
in a friendly country, and you can do your own country no better
service than in showing yourself in France and Belgium in the true
character of a British soldier.

" Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Never do any-
thing likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon loot-
ing as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome, and to
be trusted ; your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust.
Your duty cannot be done unless your health is sound. So keep con-
stantly on your guard against any excesses. In this new experience
you may find temptations in wine and women. You must entirely
resist both temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect
courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy.

" Do your duty bravely.

" Fear God.

" Honour the King.

" Kitchener, Field-Marshal."

The scene at Boulogne may be taken as a type of many. It
was just over a hundred years since a British army had landed
to fight in Western Europe, but the scene was very different from
that before Waterloo, when officers' wives and friends and idle
spectators came over to see the show. Jos Sedley with his carriage,
the Bareacres's menage, and the ladies of Captain Osborne and
Captain Rawdon Crawley had no counterparts in this severe and
businesslike expedition. Since the Monday when war became in-
evitable much anxiety had been felt about the attitude of Britain.
As the French mobilization proceeded, military enthusiasm awoke ;
it was realized that France was entering upon her greatest struggle,
and, though Sir Edward Grey had pledged our help by sea, it was
help by land that seemed to the ordinary man to count for most.
On the 4th and the 5th, eager eyes watched the destroyers and
cruisers in the Channel. Were the English coming, or would they
remain secure in their island while their allies were sacrificing
homes and fortunes and lives for the common cause ? For a

154 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

moment the life of an Englishman in Boulogne became difficult ;
the educated inhabitants looked askance at him, as if Albion had
not yet outgrown her perfidy. Only the fisher-folk kept their
confidence. They had been to Aberdeen and Ramsgate and
Plymouth, and their confreres there had always told them that
the English would come. " Vous allez voir arriver les /wglais
bientot et plus vite que 9a I " At last, on the morning of Sunday,
9th August, two transports were sighted making for the harbour.
It was " les /wglais " at last, and the fishermen were justified.
Instantly opinion swung round to the opposite pole, and the name
of Briton was a passport in Boulogne that day. The landing of
the troops awakened wild enthusiasm. The geniality and fine
physique of the men, and their gentleness to women and children ;
the cavalryman's care of his horses ; above all the Highlanders,
who were heroes of nursery tales in France, went to the hearts of
the people. The old alliance with Scotland was remembered — the
days when Buchan and Douglas led the chivalry of France. The
badges and numbers of the men were begged for keepsakes, and
homely delicacies were pressed upon them in return. Many a
Highlander was of the opinion which Alan Breck expressed to
David Balfour, " They're a real bonny folk, the French nation."
The cavalry were encamped at Ostrohove, just above the Villa
Josephine of famous memory. But if we seek for dramatic mo-
ments, we shall find them in that midnight Mass, celebrated by
the English-speaking clergy of Boulogne for our Catholic soldiers,
at the Camp Malbrouck, round the Colonne de la Grande Armee.
The name recalled the greatest of British generals ; on that spot
Napoleon meditated the invasion of England ; and — happier omen
— there was first assembled the Grand Army, the army of Ulm
and Austerlitz and Jena.

On 5th August Lord Kitchener, who had been on the eve of
returning to Egypt, was appointed, largely by the urgency of
Lord Haldane, as Secretary of State for War. He accepted the
post with the gravest sense of responsibility. He did not believe
in any short and easy contest, or any campaign of limited liability.
To the ordinary Briton he was the foremost subject of the King, a
man untainted by party politics, aloof from social intrigue, a single-
minded servant of the State. He had had a career of brilliant
success, and the nation had faith in his star. From the outset
he realized that Britain was ill prepared for a great war on land,
but he trusted his countrymen and conceived that such prepara
tion could still be achieved. The struggle, as he saw it, would

1914] SIR JOHN FRENCH. i55

last at least three years, and he laid his plans for an army of seventy
divisions, which should reach its maximum strength when the
enemy's had begun to decline. Though from his long service
abroad he was unfamiliar with European problems, his curious
flair for essentials made him divine the situation more correctly
than the experts of the French Staff. He was convinced that
the main German thrust would come through Belgium, and he
was anxious that the British army should concentrate about
Amiens and not at Maubeuge, for he guessed at the broad sweep
of Kluck's envelopment, and he did not wish the moral of his
troops to be impaired by beginning the campaign with a com-
pulsory retirement. On this point he was overruled, but his
instructions to the British Commander-in-Chief showed how little
confidence he had in the initial French plan. He warned him
that he could not be rapidly or strongly reinforced, and that there-
fore he must husband his reserves. He told him that his command
was independent— that he would "in no case come in any sense
under the orders of any AlUed general." " While every effort,"
he added, " must be made to coincide most sympathetically with
the plans and wishes of our Ally, the gravest consideration will
devolve upon you as to participation in forward movements where
large bodies of French troops are not engaged, and where your
force may be unduly exposed to attack." This caution was wholly
justifiable. If Britain in the next three years was to build up
great armies, she could not afford to have her nucleus of highly-
trained regulars squandered fruitlessly at the outset.

The British Expeditionary Force consisted to begin with of
two infantry corps and one cavalry division. The Commander-
in-Chief, Field-Marshal Sir John French, had long been con-
sidered the best field officer on the British active list. He had
served in the Sudan Expedition of 1884-85, and had afterwards
held high cavalry commands at home, till, in 1899, he was sent
to command the cavalry under Sir George White in the Natal
campaign. His was, perhaps the chief reputation made by the
South African War. His successes in the Colesberg district,
his relief of Kimberley, and his handling of the cavalry in Lord
Roberts's advance on Pretoria, marked him out a soldier of excep-
tional knowledge, judgment, and energy. He commanded the ist
Army Corps from 1901 to 1907, after which he held for four years
the post of Inspector-General of the Forces, till in 191 1 he became
Chief of the Imperial General Staff. In 1913 he was made a field-
marshal. He was immersed in his profession, a serious student

156 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

of the military thought of Europe ; but his most notable quality
was one which is not commonly found in the staff officer. He
was a personality rather than a mind— a born leader of men, of
tried courage, coolness, and sagacity.

The ist Corps was under the command of Sir Douglas Haig,
a cavalryman like Sir John French, and one of the youngest of
British lieutenant-generals. Its ist Division was under Major-
General Lomax, and its 2nd under Major-General Monro. To
the 2nd Army Corps had been originally appointed Lieutenant-
General Sir James Grierson, but he had died suddenly after the
landing of the Expeditionary Force in France. His death was a
grave loss to the British army, for no officer was more popular,
and none so immensely learned in all branches of the professicn
of arms. From 1882 onwards he had been in nearly every British
war, and had written the standard books on the Russian, German,
and Japanese armies. He knew Germany intimately, and few
foreigners could judge so truly her strength and weakness. We
may well regret that one of the most accomplished staff officers
of the day was not spared to prove his worth in his first high light-
ing command. He was succeeded by General Sir Horace Smith-
Dorrien, who had done brilliant work in South Africa, and had held
the Southern command at home since 1912. The 2nd Corps em-
braced the 3rd and 5th Divisions, the former under Major-General
Hubert Hamilton, and the latter under Major-General Sir Charles
Fergusson. The Cavalry Division was commanded by Major-
General Allenby, who at the outbreak of war held the office of
Inspector of Cavalry. The ist Brigade was commanded by Brig-
adier-General Briggs, the 2nd by Brigadier-General De Lisle, the
3rd by Brigadier-General Hubert Gough, the 4th by Brigadier-
General the Hon. C. Bingham. A separate 5th Brigade was
under Brigadier-General Sir Philip Chetwode. The 3rd Corps,
under Major-General W. P. Pulteney, was still in process of forma-
tion ; but the 4th Division from it, under Major-General Snow,
was to concentrate in France on the 23rd August ; and on the
lines of communication was the 19th Infantry Brigade.

On Saturday, the 22nd, the British army was a day's march
north of the Sambre, getting into position between Conde and
Binche. A word must be said of the configuration of this corner
of Hainault. West of Mons along the valley of the Haine and the
Conde Canal lies a country of flat, marshy meadows. Mons itself
is a mining town, the centre of the Borinage coalfield, an area
like any north English colliery district. There was a network

1914] THE BRITISH AT MONS. 157

of railways, many of them carried on low embankments, and among
them the miners' villages, with the headgears of the pits and the
tall chimneys of the engine-houses towering above the low-roofed
cottages. Around these hamlets the accumulation of shale and
waste heaps suggested at first sight ranges of hills, and the illusion
was strengthened by the little forests of dwarf firs with which some
of the larger heaps had been planted. To the north lay a sandy
ridge covered with a wide stretch of woodland, from St. Ghislain
six miles west of Mons to a point some three miles east of the town.
To the south, after the coalfields were left behind, lay an agricul-
tural region, enclosed on the south by the big wood of Mormal.
The place was poor ground for a defensive action, teeming as it
was with an industrial population, and endlessly split into enclosures
and pockets, which gave no observation or free field of fire. It
was a classic battle-ground. There Conde and Turenne had
marched their armies ; Bliicher and Wellington had ridden over
those fields ; from Mons had come a detachment of burghers to
help the English at Crecy ; south-west of the town amid a tangle
of colliery lines lay Jemappes, where Dumouriez overthrew the
Austrians when the French Republicans invaded Belgium ; a
mile or two farther south was Marlborough's battlefield of Mal-
plaquet.

By the evening of the 22nd the British 2nd Corps lay along
the Conde Canal, while the ist Corps on its right stretched from
Mons to the village of Peissant — a front of about 25 miles, held
by a force of some 70,000 men and 300 guns. Sir John French
had no general reserve, in the absence of his 3rd Corps, and had
to use his cavalry as best he could for the purpose. That day
the British horse had been scouting far to the north, and had come
into contact with parties of Uhlans, and, driving them in, had dis-
covered behind them large infantry columns on the march — in
what force they could not tell, for they could not advance farther,
and the thick woodlands about Soignies made the country inscru-
table to the British airplanes. Our cavalry screen, in turn, prevented
the enemy from reconnoitring the British position, but this gave
Kluck no anxiety. It had long been Germany's fashion to
despise our " mercenaries," and the phrase, " Sir John French's
contemptible little army," attributed by some imaginative propa-
gandist to the Emperor, embodied the current opinion in the German
army. Further, the German Staff did not believe that British in-
fantry in any number could, as yet, have arrived within fifty miles.
On the evening of the 22nd the I. Army had its 4th and 9th Cavalry

158 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

Divisions somewhere on the Scheldt, and its 2nd Cavalry Division
scouting westward towards Courtrai, Lille, and Tournai. On
its left the 9th Corps was on the road from Nivelles to Binche,
getting very near the canal ; the 3rd Corps was coming down the
Brussels-Mons road from Soignies ; the 4th Corps had reached
the Mons-Ath railway, and the 2nd Corps on the left was south-
east of Ath. That night the 3rd and 4th Corps were some five
miles from the British outposts, and the two flanking corps between
ten and twelve miles distant. It had been a swift march, for the
outer corps of the wheel had tramped 150 miles in eleven days,
and the men were tired with the dust and heat of the Belgian
plain. Late that night Sir John French, anxious about his un-
protected left, moved Allenby's cavalry to that flank, with the
exception of Chetwode's 5th Brigade, which was in advance on
the right.

Sunday, the 23rd, brought a hot August morning, and its first
hours passed in a Sabbatical calm, while the bells of the village
churches rang for mass. The men in the trenches heard a distant
sputter of rifle fire where the German cavalry were feeling at our
outposts. Sir John French met his generals, and explained to
them Joffre's plan. His information at the moment was that
" one, or at most two, of the enemy's army corps, with perhaps
one cavalry division, were in front of my positions, and I was
aware of no outflanking movement by the enemy." Kluck,
though he had not yet half his army in position, did not beheve
that the main British force was in front of him, and resolved to
send his 9th Corps at once into action, and to extend the battle
presently with his 3rd Corps. Accordingly, at about 10.30 a.m.,
he began his artillery preparation, and half an hour later the
infantry of the 9th Corps attacked at the angle of the canal north
of Mons against Hubert Hamilton's 3rd Division.

The first impression of the British soldier was one of amaze-
ment. Instead of the thin and widely extended lines which he
had expected he found the enemy coming on in dense masses,
which made a wonderful target for his rifle. This was the teach-
ing of Meckel,* which had recently replaced the old instructions
of the German drill book. He found that he could well hold his
own, and it was not till the enemy numbers had crossed the canal
east of Obourg, and converged upon Mons from north and east,
that Hamilton fell back through Mons to a prepared position
south of it which linked up with the left of the ist Corps at Har-

• See his curious work, A Summer Night's Dream (Eng. trans, by Gawne).

1914] THE BATTLE OF MONS. 159

mignies. Late in the afternoon the left of Kluck's 3rd Corps and
his 4th Corps closed with Sir Charles Fergusson's 5th Division,
which at first held its ground on the Canal without dilhculty,
while on the extreme left there were patrol actions with Allenby's
cavalry, now reinforced by the 19th Infantry Brigade. But as
the battle developed one thing was becoming clear — the weight
of German artillery was far greater than two corps demanded.
Two corps might have brought into action some three hundred
pieces, but before long it was plain that there were some five or
six hundred guns firing.

The British 2nd Corps throughout the afternoon was attacked
by two German corps, and lost no more than its outpost line,
and this at heavy cost to the enemy. The British position was not
uncomfortable, except that the 3rd Division, in its difficult with-
drawal from Mons, had allowed a small gap to appear between
it and the 5th. Kluck, apparently surprised by the opposition
to his centre and the heavy losses of his 3rd and 4th Corps, had
resolved to wait till he could bring up his flanking corps for en-
velopment. That delay, combined with the absence of Marwitz's
cavalry, due to the German ignorance of the exact position of the
British army, was Sir John French's salvation, and it enabled
70,000 men and 300 guns to check and frustrate the 600 guns and
the 160,000 men of the enemy.

But about 5 p.m. the British commander received a message
from Joffre which put a new complexion on the affair. He learned
of the fall of Namur and the defeat of Charleroi, and that he was
not told of these things before shows how feeble was the liaison
work between the two commands. He learned, what he had
begun to suspect, that Kluck was attacking with two or three
times the force originally estimated. Already the French Fifth
Army on his right was a day's march to the rear. On his left there
was d'Amade's Territorial divisions — the 84th at Valenciennes and
west of Conde, the 82nd in difficulties about Tournai, the 81st
between Lille and Dunkirk, the 88th arriving at Arras — scattered
and ill-equipped troops, and the nearest some miles behind his
left. He realized that, though his little army might resist for a
time against such odds, a prolonged defence of the Mons position
would mean that inevitably it would be cut off, enveloped, and
destroyed. Already it lay alone in face of an enemy more than
twice its strength. The only course was to hold on till nightfall,
give his men a brief rest, and begin a fighting retreat southwards
at daybreak. Like a prudent commander, he had already recon-

i6o A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

noitred and selected a position to be held in the first stage of
retirement, should a retirement prove necessary. He issued the
order to fall back — to the surprise of his army, which knew nothing
of Namur and Charleroi, and was very certain that it had not
been beaten. History had repeated itself almost on the same
battle-ground. On the evening of June 17, 1815, when Wellington
at Quatre Bras heard the news of Ligny, he said to his staff :
" Bliicher has had a damned good hiding, and we must go. I
suppose they will say in England that we have been beaten, but
that can't be helped." Sir John French " had to go " because
Lanrezac and Langle and Ruffey had suffered Bliicher's fate.
Officers who remembered history asked themselves whether this
new Ligny would be the prelude to a second Waterloo.

Joffre, at his headquarters in Champagne, awoke on the morn-
of Monday, the 24th, to confront a falling world. The battles of
the frontier had one and all ignominiously failed. His three
offensives had been met and broken, and the main armies of France
hurled back inside their borders. He had used up his only general
reserve. In almost every detail of war he had been outwitted
by the Germans. He had to face the tragic fact that this first
round had been won by the enemy, not by superior numbers, but
by superior skill. Moreover, the fighting had shown the French
inferior in many important details — the use of airplanes, heavy
artillery, and wired entrenchments — all matters vital to a war
of defence. The Germans were pouring through Lorraine against
Castelnau and Dubail, already weakened by defeat, who stood
precariously in front of Nancy and the Gap of Charmes. If the
eastern fortress line fell, there might be a second Sedan, and who
could guarantee its security after Liege, Namur, and Morhange?
Great armies were flooding over the Ardennes to the Meuse, and
the German right wing, far stronger than his wildest imagining, was
swinging round the weak Allied left, brushing aside the feeble
Territorial divisions. The northern forts had been neglected, as
had those of the Falaises de Champagne, and there was no defence
to bar the road to Paris. Rarely has a general been faced with
a bleaker prospect. One plan only gave a faint promise of hope.
The eastern front must be held at all costs, and the northern armies
must by a breakneck retreat slip out of the noose. The whole
battle-line of France must fall back and play for time — time to
give it a better alignment — time, above all, to create laboriously
and feverishly a new reserve, which could be used to restore the
war of manoeuvre. Wide regions of France — nay, Paris itself —

1914] FAILURE OF JOFFRE'S PLAN. 161

must be sacrificed, if need be, to keep intact the field strength.
If reserves could not be brought up to the army, the army must
fall back to the reserves.

That day, the 24th, Joffre issued his " Note to all the Armies,"
and the following evening his famous " General Instruction No.
2." Presently there followed a degringolade of general officers,
thirty-three army, corps, and divisional commanders being
removed.* In this holocaust the innocent suffered with the
guilty — the far-sighted and competent Lanrezac equally with the
creature of some lobby intrigue. With incomparable courage and
patience, and with the mental elasticity of his race, Joffre faced
the crisis, jettisoned his cherished preconceptions, and prepared a
new plan on the grim facts now at last made plain. We have
seen him in his weakness ; we are now to see him in his strength.

* Two commanders of armies, seven of corps, twenty of infantry, and four of
eavalry divisions (Thomasson's Le Revers).

CHAPTER VII.

THE RETREAT FROM THE FRENCH FRONTIERS.

24th August-^th September.

Joffre's Revision of Policy — ^The Retirement of the French Armies — Kluck's Pursuit
of the British — Battle of Le Cateau — Maunoury's New Army — End of the
British Retreat.

It was the strength of Joffre in adversity that he had the courage
to face the most unwelcome facts. He must break off contact
with the enemy right and centre, now sweeping down more
than a milUon strong from the north and north-east, must retreat
and continue to retreat till the time came to resume the attack.
When that hour would strike he could not tell ; he must do the duty
that lay nearest him and trust to fortune. It is clear from his
" General Instruction No. 2," of 25th August, that he had not en-
visaged the full results of the frontier debacle. He hoped for a
resumption of the offensive somewhere on the Somme or the
Falaises de Champagne. But this false calculation did not vitiate
the soundness of his general policy. Its essentials were — first,
a stand at all costs in the east by Dubail and Castelnau, holding
Nancy if possible, but in any case the line Toul-Epinal-Belfort ;
a short retreat by the Third and Fourth Armies pivoting on
Verdun ; a withdrawal of the Fifth and British Armies till such
time as they could be reorganized and strengthened ; and the pro-
vision of two new armies as a " mass of manoeuvre " to aid his
left and centre in the ultimate reaction. These reserves at the
moment he did not possess, and he could only obtain them by moving
troops from such of the field armies as were less hotly pressed.
This meant time and complicated transport, and he must have
known in his heart from the outset that a stand on the Somme and
the Laon hills was impossible. The question of Paris was not the
least of his difficulties. On 25th August he received definite orders
from his Government that if the retreat continued three active corps

162

1914] THE NEW FRENCH STRATEGY. 163

must be allotted for the defence of the capital. He acquiesced,
but reserved his opinion. He remembered too well the events of
1870, and was resolved to resist most stoutly the lure of fortified
places, and keep his armies together as a force of manoeuvre.

While his main preoccupation was with the north, the eastern
line was a constant anxiety, and fortunately there came news
which eased his mind. We have seen that after Morhange the
First and Second Armies ranged themselves in rectangular for-
mation across the Gap of Charmes, Castelnau from the Grand
Couronne of Nancy southward to Rozelieures, and Dubail thence
eastward to the line of the Vosges. There was an open space
in the angle of their junction, and thither the enemy pressed
after the fall of Lun^ville on the 24th. Dubail brought up two
corps into the angle with three divisions of Conneau's cavalry,
and when on the morning of the 25th the Germans entered Roze-
lieures they were almost at once driven out of it. That afternoon
Castelnau struck at one flank with Foch's 20th Corps, and on the
other wing Dubail reached the Meurthe and Mortagne at Lamath
and Blainville. The Germans could only escape by a hasty retreat,
and by the 26th the French had closed the Gap of Charmes and
held a line from the east side of the Grand Couronne to St. Die
in the south. It was a brilliantly conceived and perfectly executed
action, a forehint of the great battle which was to open a fortnight
later, and for the moment it secured the eastern front. The Im-
perial Crown Prince also suffered a check. Maunoury with three
reserve divisions formed at the time a group in Ruffey's Third
Army, and had been entrusted with the task of watching movements
from Metz. On the 24th he obtained intelligence that the Crown
Prince, believing that the whole Fourth Army had been disas-
trously engaged at Virton, had resolved forthwith to turn Ruffey's
right on the Othain. On the 25th Maunoury anticipated him by
driving in his left flank. Had the attack been forced home, the
whole German V. Army might have been imperilled.* But that
night Maunoury and his divisions were recalled, for Joffre had
urgent need of them in the north.

The retreat of the Allied armies of the right and centre was
by the left, pivoting on Verdun, and for a proper understanding
it is best surveyed from east to west — from the short retirement of
Ruffey near the centre of the wheel to the one-hundred-and-eighty-
mile march of the British at the circumference.

• See the admissions in the German General Staff monograph, Der Grosse Krieg
in Einzeldarstellungen : Dei Schlacht bet Longwy.

i64 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

We have seen that Ruffey's Third Army, having failed at
Virton on the 22nd, had fallen back to the Othain, whence it pres-
ently found itself compelled to withdraw by the influence of events
further down the Meuse valley. On the 26th it retired across
the Meuse, and began slowly to retreat on the entrenched camp of
Verdun. Its opponent, the Imperial Crown Prince, who had with
him the bulk of six infantry corps and one of cavalry, had little
credit by the pursuit. That day, as we have seen, Longwy fell, but
the retreat was never hustled, and by the last day of the month the
Third Army was in position west and south-west of Verdun, garri-
soning at the same time the forts and woody hills north and east of
the town. On the 30th Ruffey had been retired, presumably for
Virton, and his place taken by Sarrail, the commander of the 6th
Corps, The new general was comparatively young, a man of fifty-
eight, a southerner who had learned his trade in African wars, able,
ambitious, with a somewhat fantastic and speculative mind, but
one whose martial bearing and curious blue eyes — yeux de faience,
as the phrase went — made a profound impression on the men he led.
He succeeded to little more than the fragment of an army, for he had
had to send the 42nd Division of the 6th Corps to Foch's new force,
and the 4th Corps to Maunoury at Paris. His instructions from
Joffre were at all costs to keep clear of the entanglement of Verdun,
and if necessary to retreat to Bar-le-Duc, But he realized the
value of the fortified Meuse heights, and when he took up position
in the first days of September his right was still in touch with the
fortress — a decision which was to mean much for the future of the
campaign.

Tangle's Fourth Army had a more troubled retreat, for it had
further to go, and it was engaged with the IV. Army of Duke
Albrecht of Wiirtemberg and the bulk of Hansen's Saxons.
It had also to deplete itself to form Foch's new Ninth Army, sur-
rendering its 9th and nth Corps. On the 25th, after the failure
of its Ardennes offensive, it was still east of the Meuse between
Mezieres and Montmedy. At the moment Langle had only
Duke Albrecht to deal with, and on the 26th he vigorously re-
pulsed a German attempt to cross the river on the very ground
over which in September 1870 the Germans had marched to en-
velop at Sedan the doomed army of MacMahon. On the 27th
came Joffre's order to retire, for Hansen was coming down the
west bank. Langle obtained permission to suspend his retreat
for one day, drove back Duke Albrecht with his right between
Sedan and Stenay, and struck hard with his left at Hausen's

1914] THE RETREAT BEGINS. 165

left at Launois between Signy-l'Abbaye and Novion-Porcien, where
he had the assistance of the ist Moroccan Division, soon to belong
to Foch's new army. On the 29th he began his retreat in good
order, falling back through Rethel. There was a gap of some
twenty-five miles between him and the French Fifth Army— a
space into which from the 27th onward Foch's force was
gathering ; but Hausen was unable to take advantage of it, for
he was himself in difficulties. If the retreat of the French Fourth
Army was the most perfect of the Allied movements, the advance
of the III. Army was the clumsiest part of the German perform-
ance. Hausen had been too early at Charleroi, and by attacking
on the Meuse prematurely had given Lanrezac warning ; ever
afterwards he was consistently too late. He had a gap in his
army corresponding to the gap between Langle and Lanrezac,
and was distracted by appeals for help from Biilow on his right
and Duke Albrecht on his left, so that his unhappy force made
a sidelong progress southwards, their eyes turned everywhere.
Langle was never seriously troubled. On the 29th he was on the
front Buzanc3'-Rethel ; next day he was crossing the Aisne. After
that, having checked the ardour of the German centre, he marched
fast in accordance with Joffre's orders. Rheims and Chalons were
occupied by the enemy, and in the first days of September the
French Fourth Army was astride the upper Marne among the
Champagne wolds, just south of Joffre's old poste de commandement
at Vitry-le-Frangois.

Of the three French armies of the north the Fifth had the longest
way to go, and the most difficult task, for at Charleroi it had
suffered a far heavier defeat than the mischances of Langle and
Ruffey in the Ardennes, and from first to last it was in peril of out-
flanking. Its retreat, as we have seen, began on the 23rd, and
by the night of the 24th it was on the general line Maubeuge-Givet,
two of its reserve divisions being actually inside the Maubeuge
forts, but with orders to continue the retreat next morning; and
its true left, the i8th Corps, at Solre-le-Chateau, twelve miles
from the British right. As Sordet's cavalry corps was under orders
to proceed to the British left, Lanrezac had cause to be anxious
for the safety of his left wing. On the 25th he was roughly between
Avesnes and Chimay, fighting Billow's vanguards, and keeping
off with his right the threat from Hausen. On the 26th, under
pressure from the Saxon right, his course was directed more to the
south-west, towards the upper Oise valley. On the evening of the
27th Lanrezac was across the Oise, and his four corps lay from

i66 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

Guise by the south of Hirson to Rumigny. He had received Joffre's
orders to attack next day towards St. Quentin, and this required
a wheel by his right and centre so as to face westwards. That
was clearly impossible, and the only plan was a flank march be-
hind the Oise, which should transfer the main striking forces to
the left wing. The British army was now between Noyon and La
Fere, well to Lanrezac's left rear, and the plan involved an advance
by Sir John French on St. Quentin from the south. But the position
of the British made their co-operation impossible ; and Lanrezac
was obliged to put in Valabregue's two reserve divisions as a left
flank guard. On the morning of the 29th his i8th and 3rd Corps
crossed the Oise between Guise and Moy, moving on St. Quentin.
But about 8 a.m. the pressure of Billow on his right centre, the
loth Corps, compelled him to give up all thought of that objective.
He resolved to devote himself to punishing the German loth.
Guard, and Guard Reserve Corps now pressing east of Guise. He
moved his 3rd Corps to his right, and with it and his loth and
ist Corps inflicted upon Biilow a severe check. But his left
wing, the 18th Corps, had to fall back, and Lanrezac retired
from the Oise towards the Ailette and the Aisne. The check
was of extreme importance, for it disengaged the British
1st Corps from Billow's close pursuit. But the situation was
still dangerous, for the front of the retreating armies was
highly irregular. On the 29th, the day when Joffre resolved to
retire on the Marne, while Langle was forty miles north of that
river, and Lanrezac fifty, Sir John French was less than thirty. On
the following day, while Lanrezac was still north of Laon, the British
were fighting far to the south-west in the Clermont-Compiegne
region. Yet without serious difficulty Lanrezac by the 3rd of
September had crossed the Aisne and the Marne, thanks to the
incompetence of Biilow and his own skill and resolution. On
that day he was replaced by Franchet d'Esperey, the former com-
mander of the ist Corps. The new general was to prove a most
wise and gallant soldier, but it is permissible to regret that Lanrezac
should have suffered for blunders in which he had no share, and
that his great talents should have been thus early lost to the service
of his country.

We turn now to the most critical part of the retreat — the events
on the Allied left. In telling the tale we must keep in mind the
standpoint of the German Command, for with it was the initiative
and on it lay the burden of making decisions on which were to
hinge the whole fortune of the war. When the tale has been told

1914] KLUCK. 167

of its hesitations and resolves, it will be possible with greater clear-
ness to consider the mind of the French Generalissimo and assess
the value of his dispositions.

Kluck, the commander of the I, Army, the marching wing of
the invasion, had, unlike most of his colleagues, no experience of
staff work. A self-made man, who had risen from a comparatively
humble station, he had spent all his life with troops. He had four
very special difficulties to contend with. One was that he had no
purchase with Great Headquarters, was apparently not fully in
their confidence, and, though in command of the most vital part
of the German attack, had from 17 th August been placed under
Billow's orders. The second was that he had little regard for that
colleague, and differed from him profoundly on strategical and
tactical matters. The third was that the German Intelligence
system had broken down, and, now that contact had been made
with the main armies, was markedly inferior to that of the Allies.*
Finally, the German line of march was becoming dangerously long.
The liaison with Great Headquarters at Luxembourg and between
the different armies was precarious, and Klack, who needed every
man he could scrape together if his enveloping net was to be flung
sufficiently wide, had been compelled to leave the 3rd Reserve and
9th Reserve Corps (the latter of which had just come up) to watch
the Belgians at Antwerp, and the 4th Reserve as a temporary
garrison of the Brussels area. Biilow, timid about his right
flank, forbade the I. Army to get too far west, and Marwitz's
Cavalry Corps — the mainspring of the enveloping tactics — was
not under Kluck's direction. The I. Army commander, there-
fore, joined battle at Mons ill-informed as to his enemy's posi-
tion, not very clear about his next step, and chafing under a
grievance.

The fighting from Conde to Binche on the afternoon of Sunday
the 23rd revealed to him the British, two corps strong. He was
impressed by their stalwart resistance, but correctly assessed their
numbers. His orders for the 24th were that his 4th, 9th, and

* I take the following instances from Kluck's own narrative : He thought
the French 2nd Corps was in Brussels on gth August, when it was actually with
Langle. He thought the British had disembarked at Dunkirk, Ostend, and Calais,
and seems to have been of this opinion till after the Battle of the Mame. He post-
dated the British disembarkment in France by two days. He was surprised by the
British appearance on the Conde Canal on the 23rd, believing the whole country to
be clear for 50 miles. He was completely at sea about the British alignment at Le
Cateau, thinking it to be north and south, instead of east and west. His main
blunder was, of course, as to the size and position of Maunoury's army. It has been
generally admitted in Germany that the InteUigence department, under Major
Nikolai, was one of their feeblest services.

i68 A HISTORY OF THE GKEAT WAR. [Aug.

3rd Corps should drive Sir John French into Maubeuge, while
his right wing, the 2nd and the 4th Reserve Corps (the latter
now coming up), should march rapidly on the west side to cut
off the enemy from his presumed base. There was trouble with
Billow over Marwitz's cavalry, which Kluck wished to advance
towards Denain to support the enveloping movement, and after
valuable time had been lost he obtained his wish by an appeal to
the Supreme Command, and Marwitz passed under his orders. The
movement did not proceed according to plan, for the envelopers
were late, and the German centre, heavily punished the day before,
advanced with extreme caution. Smith-Dorrien's 2nd Corps,
with the 19th Brigade and Allenby's cavalry on its left, having
fallen back from the canal five miles to the southward, held a line
from the mining village of Frameries to the cornfields west of
Audregnies and beat off the attack of the German 3rd and 4th
Corps. When the right of the British 5th Division seemed in
danger of being turned, the 2nd Cavalry Brigade was sent to its
aid. At 7 a.m., Smith-Dorrien, being outnumbered by something
like four to one, began his retirement. Haig's ist Corps had already
slipped away, and early in the afternoon the whole British force,
intact and in good heart, was assembled on the Maubeuge position.
Haig held the ground from Maubeuge to the little town of Bavai ;
thence Smith-Dorrien prolonged the line westward to the village
of Bry, with the 19th Brigade on his flank between Bry and Jen-
lain. The forts of Maubeuge made the British right relatively
safe, and, since the worst danger was on the left, Allenby's cavalry
were sent to the rear of Jenlain. Further west, Kluck had been
more fortunate. Tournai, which was held only by a brigade
of French Territorials, was taken, and the 2nd German Corps
drove the 84th French Territorial Division out of Valenciennes,
while German cavalry occupied Douai. Lille, too, was abandoned
by General Percin on instructions from the Government at
Paris.*

Sir John French avoided the trap prepared for him. Already
the Germans were well south of both his flanks, and any delay
would mean that he would find himself shut up in Maubeuge, with
the fate of Bazaine in store for him. He decided to halt, for the
night but no longer, on the Jenlain-Maubeuge position. Next day
the place was invested, the 7th Reserve Corps from Billow's
II. Army being deputed for the task. The old Vauban stronghold

• For this curious tale, which in the early days of the war developed into a pre-
posterous legend, see General Percin's Lille.

1914] MAUBEUGE. 169

had had a chequered history in late years, having been treated only
as a place of arrest and support, and not as a fortress. But it
occupied a position of great strategical importance as the junction
of several vital railway lines, and on the outbreak of war large
numbers of troops were set to entrenching the ground between
the forts. General Fournier with his garrison of 30,000 held out
till the 7th of September, enduring not less than eight days' bombard-
ment by the Namur siege train, and thereby seriously confused the
German communications and kept one of their corps away from
the Battle of the Marne. His performance, strangely misrepre-
sented at the time, was not the least of the services rendered by
the generals of France. Alone of the northern fortresses Maubeuge
played a vital part in the campaign.*

On the 25th Sir John French's aim was to put the forest of
Mormal behind him. This woodland, ten miles long from north to
south and six miles wide, was rough and tangled with undergrowth,
and was believed — wrongly — to have no roads fit for an army to
travel. It lay directly between him and the Sambre, and must
clearly be passed on the east or the west. But the roads on the
east side were too few and too bad for his whole army to travel ;
while if he moved by the west side only he would leave a desperate
gap between himself and Lanrezac, and moreover would thrust
his left wing into the jaws of Kluck's enveloping force. Accord-
ingly he decided to send Haig by the east roads to Maroilles and
Landrecies, while Smith-Dorrien kept the west side in the direction
of Le Cateau, It was perhaps the only solution of the problem,
but it was a solution with its own risks, for a gap of some ten miles
separated the two corps on the march. The intention was that
the inner wings should get into touch as soon as they were south
of the forest.

Kluck that day seemed to have the cards in his hand, but
he failed to play them. The excuse which he has given was
the absence of Marwitz's cavalry, which had only come under
his command on the evening of the 24th, and was consequently
too late to get behind the British left flank. He directed
his 2nd Corps from Denain on Bouchain and Avesnes-le-Sec ;
Marwitz, who had been aimlessly galloping towards the sunset,
through Denain in the same direction ; half of the 4th Corps on the
main road from Valenciennes to Solesmes, the other half by the
west side of Mormal on Landrecies ; the 3rd Corps through the forest

* See Paul Cassou, La VSriti sur le Siege de Maubeuge. A most unnecessary
Inqiiiry was held after the war, and Fournier was honourably acquitted of any blame.

170 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

towards Maroilles ; and the 9th Corps from Bavai by the east side.
The 4th Reserve Corps followed the centre in general reserve. He
was slow in starting, partly because of his troubles with the
cavalry, partly because he had to make arrangements to watch
Maubeuge, and largely because some time was needed to reorganize
his troops after the hard work of the previous days.

Tuesday the 25th was a summer's day of intense and glaring
heat, and the weary British army found the long march in the
dust a trying business. Haig started late and had little trouble
on the eastern roads, but it was dusk before the van of the ist
Division reached Maroilles and the 2nd Division the neighbourhood
of Landrecies. It had been Sir John French's intention to bring
Haig's left more to the west, but the hour was too far advanced and
the troops were too exhausted for further movement. It was a
dark night with a cloudy sky and d drizzle of rain, which pres-
ently changed to a downpour. The advance guards of the German
3rd Corps, which had advanced straight through the forest, and
so escaped detection by the British airplanes, came into action
between 9.30 and 10 p.m. against the ist Division at Maroilles,
and the Guards Brigade of the 2nd Division at Landrecies. The
latter assault was gallantly beaten off, and with the assistance of
two reserve divisions of the French Fifth Army the situation at
Maroilles was saved. When the last shots had died away the men
of the 1st Corps lay down where they stood to snatch a brief rest.
They were very exhausted, and it was decided that next day they
should continue their movement southward, while Smith-Dorrien
and AUenby should follow the retirement and hold back the
pursuit.

But Smith-Dorrien was in worse case. That day he had had
no easy march, and his 3rd Division had held and beaten off
at Solesmes an attack by Marwitz's horse and part of the
infantry of the 4th Corps. Allenby, too, had been in action
south-east of Valenciennes. By dusk, however, Smith-Dorrien had
reached a position on the left bank of the Selle west of the town
of Le Cateau. There he found part of the 4th Division under
General Snow, which had detrained at Le Cateau and had already
entrenched on the ground. The dispositions that night were,
from right to left, the 5th Division through Reumont and Trois-
villes, the 3rd Division through Caudry, and the 4th Division about
Beauvois and Haucourt. Half of Allenby 's cavalry was on the
right, attempting to fill the gap between the 2nd and ist Corps,
The 19th Brigade was in support to the 5th Division. On the

1914] SMITH-DORRIEN'S PROBLEM. 171

British left was Sordet's Cavalry Corps, and beyond it various
detachments of d'Amade's Territorials.*

Smith-Dorrien in the small hours of the morning of the 26th
had to decide whether he dared to retreat then and there, or must
first stand and fight. He had apparently received no explicit orders
from Sir John French to retire at once, though he was given the
general direction of retirement as the line Ribemont-St. Quentin-
Vermand, thirty-five miles away. Clearly instructions as to so
distant an objective could not be interpreted by any commander
as the immediate orders for his day's work. Smith-Dorrien may
well have assumed that the details and the method of retirement
were left to his discretion. About 1.30 a.m., having received a
cavalry report which warned him of the great strength of Kluck,
he learned from Allenby that if a battle was to be avoided the
retreat must be begun before daybreak, but that the scattered
cavalry could not be got together in time to cover it. Even then
he cannot have known of the full weight of the I. Army : he cannot
have known, for example, of the 4th Reserve Corps, now marching
against his left centre. But he knew other things : that his 2nd
Corps were very weary, having had much the hardest of the march-
ing and fighting since noon on the 23rd ; that the 4th Division
would not be complete for some hours ; that his right, owing to
the seven-mile gap between him and Haig, was in the air ; he
learned, too, from its commander that the 3rd Division, owing to
the action at Solesmes, would not be in a position to march till
9 a.m. Presently he reahzed that battle was already joined. At
or just before dawn the advanced guard of the German 3rd Corps
was in Le Cateau, and the 4th Corps was attacking his centre at
Caudry. In these circumstances it seemed impossible to begin
his retreat till he had checked the enemy ; and he believed himself
competent to do so, remembering the various occasions in the
past few days when he had struck back at and crippled the
pursuit. Looked at in any way it was a prodigious gamble, but
the hazard of retreating from such a position may well have
seemed greater than that of fighting in it. Sir John French
praised the decision in his original dispatch, but afterwards re-
canted his praise and blamed it severely as a disobedience to
orders. This it can scarcely have been ; and any ill effect which
it may have had on the subsequent retreat is not the point at

* They were the 84th Territorial Division, now retiring through Cambrai, and
further west the 6ist and 62nd Reserve Divisions, which had come up from Arras
and Bapaume.

172 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

issue. The question is whether Smith-Dorrien had any choice :
whether in the position in which he found himself at dawn on
the 26th he could possibly have retired straightway without utter
disaster. The commander of the 2nd Corps was a soldier of proven
sagacity and of a temperament not easily excited or nonplussed.
If he thought it imperative to stand and fight, we may well accept
the necessity.*

The rain of the night had ceased, and a fine summer morning
dawned. Bright sunlight, a pale blue sky, and the thin mists
rising from the wet fields gave promise of a sultry day. As the
sun rose, the flashes of the German guns tore through the haze,
and the first light showed the grey masses of the enemy's infantry
pushing forward in dense firing lines. Against Smith-Dorrien's
55,000 Kluck opposed not less than 140,000 men. He was sur-
prised to find the British in position, and hoped at last to have
that decisive battle which he had hitherto missed. His tactics
were the same as at Mons — a frontal attack mainly by artillery,
to be followed by an envelopment on both flanks. But the orders
for the day, issued the night before, had not contemplated a pitched
battle, and it took some time to revise them. The 4th and 4th
Reserve Corps were to attack the front, the 3rd Corps and Marwitz's
cavalry to envelop the British right, and more cavalry and the 2nd
Corps to work round the British left and move on Cambrai. At
first the British 4th Division, not having its guns up, fell back a
little, but presently by its rifle fire it brought the enemy cavalry
to a standstill. This, however, was no more than the prologue,
and the battle proper began about 7 a.m. with a terrific German
bombardment by the artillery of the 4th Corps, gradually rein-
forced by that of the 3rd and of the 4th Reserve. The ridge which
Smith-Dorrien held was studded with villages, the church spires
of which gave good targets for the enemy gunners. The British
had had little time to entrench their position, though along the
front line shelter trenches had been hastily dug and afforded
some small cover. Their artillery, though outnumbered by nearly

* The reader will find Lord French's case stated in his 1914, pp. 74-80. This
work, which should be of the highest authority, contains unfortunately so many in-
accuracies that it must be used with extreme caution. The dispute, it is obvious,
can never be finally settled, for some of the factors are hypothetical. Put shortly, it re-
solves itself into the question whether Smith-Dorrien at an early hour on the 26th was
engaged only with Kluck's covering troops and cavalry or with his main infantry.
If the first, he fell into Kluck's trap and fought an unnecessary battle. On the
evidence before me I think the second alternative is the true one, and that from just
after dawn the British were engaged with the main troops of the 4th Corps and
Marwitz's cavalry.

1914] LE CATEAU. 173

four to one, made a brilliant stand, and for seven hours checked
the enemy's infantry rushes. The two points of serious danger
were the right wing near Le Cateau, where the Germans managed
to work round the fiank of the sorely tried 5th Division, and at
Caudry, which formed an acute salient, garrisoned by the brigade
of the 3rd Division which had been fighting the night before at
Solesmes. Nevertheless at i p.m. the British front was still intact,
and Sordet and AUenby and d'Amade's reserves had for the
moment checked the enveloping movements.

About I p.m. Smith-Dorrien realized that it was time to leave.
His right flank was getting hourly more exposed by Haig's with-
drawal, and Kluck's 9th Corps would presently be arriving. He
had persuaded the enemy that he was not to be trifled with, and
had beaten off his chief corps with heavy losses. If he was to get
away, he must issue the orders forthwith, for to break off a battle
with a vastly superior opponent is one of the most difficult of the
operations of war. The attack of the 3rd Corps about noon broke
the 5th Division on the right and precipitated the retreat. Orders
could not reach many of the units, who remained in the trenches
and so protected the retirement of the rest, but under cover of the
devoted artillery most of the infantry quietly withdrew from the
field. The batteries left behind had been so knocked to pieces
that it was impossible to move them. Before the sun set the
2nd Corps was tramping over the belt of low upland in which the
streams of Scheldt and Sambre take their rise, and on the morning
of the 27th it halted north of St. Quentin where the land begins to
fall to the bright valley of the Oise. The chief miracle of the
retreat had been effected.

Le Cateau was Kluck's most conspicuous and most indefensible
failure. Had he pressed hard with his 3rd Corps at the moment
when the 5th Division was falling back, or had he sent in a fresh
cavalry division on the flank of the pursuit before evening,
it is hard to see how the 2nd Corps could have escaped. But he
handled his cavalry throughout with singular maladroitness, and
his rigid devotion to envelopment, tactical as well as strategic,
meant that he dissipated his striking force at the vital points. As
for Smith-Dorrien, he had achieved the patently impossible at the
expense of some 8,000 casualties and the loss of thirty-six guns.
Who shall say how much that heroic stand did to disarrange the
German plan, or to enable the British to win clear of the pincers
and re-form for the counter-attack ? By one of those strange coin-
cidences which delight the historian the battle was fought at the

174 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

very place where, in 17 12, the British troops in bitter shame with-
drew from their allies, when Ormonde took the place of Marl-
borough, On the general himself the best comment is to be found
in the earlier and juster judgment of Sir John French. " I say
without hesitation that the saving of the left wing of the army
under n)y command on the morning of the 26th August could
never have been accomplished unless a commander of rare and
unusual coolness, intrepidity, and determination had been present
to conduct personally the operation."

Kluck had suffered heavily, and the orders issued for the
27th directed a start at 5 a.m., a late hour for an army of pursuit.
Being under the impression that the British base was Calais and
that Sir John French was trying to retreat thither, he once again
dispatched Marwitz's cavalry on a wild goose chase to the
west, where it was faithfully dealt with by Sordet. His force was
moving south-westward while Biilow was marching south, and
the result was that Haig's retreat on the 26th was unmolested.
On the 27th it was Billow's right which was in contact with the
British ist Corps. On the 28th the two halves of the British force
had been reunited, and that evening the ist Corps lay south of
La Fere between the St. Gobain forest and the Oise, while the 2nd
Corps was north of the river about Noyon.

Meantime the centre of gravity had shifted further west. On
the night of the 25th Maunoury was ordered to leave Ruffey's
Third Army and repair to Montdidier to collect and command the
new Sixth Army. He was a man of sixty-seven, a distinguished
artillery officer who had held the posts of commandant of the £cole
de Guerre and Governor of Paris. His troops could only come
into Hne by degrees, for some of them had long journeys to make,
and this fact presently convinced Joffre that a general counter-
attack from the Somme and the Falaises de Champagne was im-
possible. According to the original plan of de Rivieres, if the
frontier defences were forced, a stand could be made on the
heights of Champagne, the escarpment which extends in a long
curve from the Oise eastwards by Laon to Rheims. But the
forts of the Falaises had been permitted to decline, the retreat-
ing armies were in no condition yet awhile to turn, and the two
new armies, the Ninth and the Sixth, were only in their assembly
stage.

At this moment the German Supreme Command was in a state of
elation and confidence. Two-thirds of the great march were over, and
the Allies, everywhere beaten, seemed to be fleeing before them. The

1914] THE GERMAN ESTIMATE. 175

fight at Le Cateau, indecisive as it was, seems to have convinced
Kluck that the British army was out of action. On the 27th
he had been made independent of Biilow, and at once began
to press his views on Great Headquarters. Paris was now the pre-
occupation of the Supreme Command far away in Luxembourg,
and the news from Kluck, and the optimistic reports pouring
in from the other armies, decided their policy. On the evening
of the 28th they issued orders that the I. Army should march west
of the Oise towards the lower Seine, while the H. Army should
take the Hne Laon-La Fere towards Paris. This meant that
the capital would be isolated between two German forces.
Kluck did not agree. Hitherto he had been thinking mainly of
cutting off the British from the coast, and, now that they were
banished from his mind as a broken remnant, he was anxious to
find the left flank of the French, roll it up, and force it away from
Paris. On the 28th he was crossing the Somme, and on the 29th
his right had a stubborn fight between Villers-Bretonneux and
Proyart. It was his first taste of Maunoury, who had taken over
from d'Amade on the 27th ; but he was not perturbed by it, re-
garding it as only the last sputter of resistance from the oddments
of French Territorials and reserve divisions in the west with which
he had been in touch for four days. In his memoirs he has com-
plained that he was not kept informed by Great Headquarters of
the general situation, and in particular of the dispatch of corps to
Russia. But had he had this news, it would only have strengthened
his main contention, that the I. and II. Armies should close in and
attack the French left. On the 29th came Lanrezac's counter-
stroke at Guise, when the commander of the II. Army was com-
pelled to ask Kluck for help, and this seems to have converted
Biilow to his colleague's view. That night it was agreed that
the order for the south-westerly move should be disregarded
and that the I. Army should advance south through Noyon and
Compiegne and close up on the II. The decision was at once
accepted by Great Headquarters, who seem at the time to have
had the most imperfect knowledge of what was happening and
but a feeble control over the Army Commanders. The step
was obviously wise. The German line was already strung out
to its extreme capacity, and was beginning to show gaps. Had
its right been stretched to the lower Seine it would have courted
calamity.

The 29th was also an important day for the British army.
Sir John French was able to give it a brief rest. The day before

176 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

he had heard for the first time of the formation of Maunoury's
force, for the Uaison between the Allies was little better than that
of the enemy. On the 29th he met Joffre, who, in spite of the success
that day at Guise, told him that he had relinquished his intention
of standing on the line Rheims-Amiens and had resolved to fall
back behind the Marne. This was also Sir John French's view,
but, in assenting to it, he added the warning that his army was
totally unfit for further fighting till it had been refitted and re-
inforced. To this the French Generalissimo agreed, and undertook
that the French Fifth and Sixth Armies should close in so as to
screen the British retreat. The record of the interview is not free
from contradictions. At one moment the British Commander-in-
Chief seems to be protesting against retirement, and at another to
be explaining the impossibility of keeping his army in the line. He
was in a position of undoubted difficulty, for he was moving his
sea base from Havre to the Atlantic coast at St. Nazaire. Next
day he met his corps commanders, when, according to his
account, Smith-Dorrien urged retreat to the coast and re-embarka-
tion. Sir John French was mistaken ; no such counsel, the folly
of which equalled the disloyalty, was given. But that day we
find the British commander informing Lord Kitchener that he
had decided to retire " behind the Seine in a south-westerly direc-
tion west of Paris." Joffre had proposed a general retirement,
but this looked very like the British withdrawing altogether from
the Allied line. The ominous message, followed by others in the
same tone of despair, brought Kitchener across the Channel, who
conveyed to Sir John the instructions of the British Government
that an independent command must not be construed so as to
involve a failure in duty to the armies of France. So ended a
foolish and unpleasant incident, in which it is charitable to beheve
that Sir John French did not mean what he said. The situation
was in the highest degree perplexing ; he had not been kept fully
informed by the French Command, he had had friction with Lan-
rezac, he believed that he had had to bear the brunt of the fight-
ing without proper support, he had anxieties about his communi-
cations which no French army shared, and he had, not unnaturally
in the circumstances, lost faith in the French Staff and the French
Command. If there was dire confusion throughout the retirement
among the fighting troops, it is unreasonable to expect perfect
balance and clarity in the commanding officer.*

• The British War Office had some cause for anxiety during those days. A day
or two after Mons they received an urgent request from G.H.Q. for maps as far as

1914] THE RETREAT ENDS. 177

The immense significance of the decisions of the 29th and 30th
must be left to be discussed in a later chapter. Here we may
summarize the last stage of the retirement. Kluck, who should
have been in echelon behind Billow's right, easily outstripped his
neighbour, and on 2nd September the I. Army was crossing the
Marne when the II. was crossing the Aisne. Maunoury, finding the
pressure of Kluck's right inimical to the concentration of his
army, fell back through St. Just and Creil on the northern de-
fences of Paris. The British were over the Aisne on the 31st,
and felt again the pressure of Kluck's new wheel, in actions in
the woods of Compiegne and Villers-Cotterets. On 3rd September
they crossed the Marne, and the long retreat from the Belgian
frontier approached its end.

The last days had been hard and critical, the afternoons a blaze
of heat, the nights chilly and often wet. There was no rest, for
each day's march was continued late, and the incessant retire-
ment might well have broken the spirit of the best of troops. But
the men went through it all with fortitude, even with gaiety, and
their only anxiety was to know when they would at last be
allowed to stand and take order with the enemy. To realize
the full achievement of the British force, which in the retreat had
the most laborious task, we must remember the temperament of
the soldier. He was entering on a war against what public opinion
agreed was the most formidable army in the world. Partly, it
is true, the legend of German invincibility had been weakened by
the stand of Belgium ; but, as our soldiers understood that tale,
it had been fortress work rather than battles in the field. In such
a campaign initial success, however small, works wonders with
the spirit of an army. But there had been no success. The men
had gone straight from the train, or from a long march, into action,
and almost every hour of every day they had been retreating.
Often they were given the chance of measuring themselves in close
combat against their adversaries, and on these occasions they held
their own ; but still the retreat went on, and it was difficult to
avoid the feeling that, even if their own battalion had stood fast,
there must have been a defeat elsewhere in the line to explain
this endless retirement. Such conditions are trying to a soldier's
nerves. The man who will support cheerfully any fatigue in

the Seine and Marne ; a day or two later for maps as far back as Orleans, then for
the Loire area, and finally for maps reaching back to Bordeaux. They may well
have wondered if panic had not fallea on the Allied front. — Sir C. E. Callwell's
Experiences 0/ a Dug-Out (1920).

178 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept

a forward march will wilt and slacken when he is going back-
ward. Remember, too, that, except for a few members of the
Headquarters Staff, the officers and men knew nothing of the gen-
eral situation. Had they learned of Namur and Charleroi it
would have explained much, but few of them heard of it till a
week later. They fell back in complete uncertainty as to what
was happening, and could only suspect that the Germans were
winning because they were the better army. Under such circum-
stances to have preserved complete discipline and faithfulness,
nay, even to have retained humour and gaiety and unquenchable
spirits, was an achievement more remarkable than the most
signal victory.

Not less splendid was the performance of the French. Indeed,
in many ways they had the more difficult duty. Though they
were less constantly harassed than our men in their retreat, they
had begun by a more nerve-shaking experience. Mons was not
worse than a drawn battle; but Charleroi, Dinant, and Virton
were unequivocal defeats. Further, for the French soldier
defence must be in itself aggressive. To yield mile after mile was
for the French troops of the line, and not less for corps like the
Zouaves and Turcos, an almost intolerable discipline. That it
was done without grave disaster, and that, after so great a damping
of zeal, the fire of attack could be readily rekindled, was an immense
tribute to the armies of the Republic. The nation had always
been famous for elan and drive ; they showed now that their
temper was as good when their business was the anvil rather than
the hammer.

For the British troops the ten days of the retreat had been like
a moving picture seen through a haze of weariness and confusion.
Blazing days among the coal heaps and grimy villages of Hainault,
which reminded our north-countrymen of Lancashire and Durham ;
nights of aching travel on upland roads through the fields of beet
and grain ; dawns that broke over slow streams and grassy valleys
upon eyes blind with lack of sleep ; the cool beech woods of Com-
pi^gne ; the orchards of Ourcq and Marne, now heavy with plum
and cherry. And hour after hour the rattle of musketry and the
roaring swell of the great shells, the hurried entrenchments and
the long, deadly vigils, or the sudden happy chance of a blow back,
when the bayonet took revenge for dusty miles and crippled bodies
and lost comrades. On the evening of the 4th the van of the re-
treat saw from the slopes above the Grand Morin a land of coppice
and pasture rolling southward to a broad valley, and far off the

1914] THE ALLIES BEHIND THE MARNE. 179

dusk of many trees. It was the forest of Fontainebleau and the
vale of the Seine. The AlHes had fallen back behind all but one
of the four rivers which from north and east open the way to Paris.
That night they were encamped along the very streams towards
which a hundred years before Napoleon had retired before Schwar-
zenberg and Bliicher.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE EASTERN THEATRE OF WAR.

^th August-ioth September.

Russia's Strategic Position — Rennenkampf's Advance in East Prussia — Battle of
Tannenberg — The Austrian Offensive — Battles of Lemberg and Rava Russka
— Serbia's Stand — The Russian Proclamation to Poland.

At this moment begins the reaction upon the West of events on
the Russian front. Already news had reached Great Headquarters
in Luxembourg which compelled them to reconsider their first
plans and prepare to send reinforcements eastward. It is necessary
to leave the German armies in France, now approaching their hour
of crisis, and consider the position of that battle ground where
Germany stood, to begin with, on the defence.

The configuration of Russia, as has been already pointed out,
made invasion in the ordinary sense a hopeless task. The strongest
army would be apt to melt away before it reached Moscow or
Petrograd. But with the Russian field forces stationed in West-
em Poland an opportunity was given to Germany and Austria
of striking a blow without the handicap of insuperable natural
obstacles. A glance at the map will show that Russian Poland
projects into the territory of the Teutonic League in a great salient,
which is roughly 200 miles from north to south and 250 from east
to west. This land is a monotonous wind-swept plain, through
which from south to north flows the river Vistula. About the
centre stood the capital, Warsaw, reputed one of the strongest
citadels in Europe, and around Warsaw lay the group of for-
tresses called the PoUsh Triangle. The southern apex was Ivan-
gorod, on the Vistula ; the eastern, Brest Litovsk ; the northern,
Warsaw itself ; while to the north-west lay the advanced fort
of Novo Georgievsk. This triangle was a fortified region with
three fronts — two towards Germany, and one towards Austria;
and the various fortresses were fully hnked up with railways.

180

1914] THE POLISH SALIENT. 181

The southern frontier of Russian Poland was purely artificial,
for there was no continuous barrier till from fifty to one hun-
dred miles south of it, where the range of the Carpathians pro-
tects the plains of Hungary against attacks from the north. Galicia
is simply a flattened terrace at the base of this range, watered
by the upper Vistula and its tributaries, the Wisloka, the San, and
the upper streams of the Bug. But in the north of Russian Poland,
between the river Narev and the sea, is a country where cam-
paigning is difficult. It is mainly swampy forest, but as it nears
the Baltic coast it becomes a chain of lakes and ponds with wood-
land of birch and pine between them. On the very edge of the sea,
along the river Pregel and the large lagoon called the Frisches
Haff, there is a belt of firmer land which of old was the main high-
way between Prussia and Muscovy. This was the German prov-
ince of East Prussia, a district unfriendly to the invader, as
Napoleon found in his campaign of Friedland and Eylau. East of
the Polish salient, and dividing it from Russia proper, lies a curious
piece of country around the river Pripet. It is a vast tangle of
streams, ponds, and marshes, covering some 30,000 square miles,
and is called the Marshes of Pinsk, from the chief town of the neigh-
bourhood. This district barred the march of armies, and a way
must be taken to the north or south. On the north the road lay
along the valleys of the Narev and the Niemen, where was a chain
of fortified crossings. South, on the side towards Galicia, there were
the three fortified towns of Lutsk, Dubno, and Rovno.

The salient of Russian Poland was, therefore, defended on its
western side by the Polish Triangle, on the north by the chain of
forts along the Narev and Niemen, on the south by the forts
south of Pinsk, and on the east by the great marshes of the Pripet.
Its communications with Russia passed north and south of these
marshes. Only on the Galician side and the front towards Posen
did the nature of the land offer facilities for offensive campaigning.
The German frontier defences consisted of the Silesian fortresses of
Breslau and Glogau, guarding the line of the Oder ; the strong
city of Posen on the Warta, opposite the point of the Russian
salient ; and a powerful line of forts on the lower Vistula, guarding
the road from East to West Prussia. Thorn on the Vistula, and
Danzig at its mouth, held the river valley ; while Graudenz, much
strengthened of late years, formed a link between them. Dirschau
and Marienburg guarded the road and railway crossings of the Vis-
tula delta. The northern entrance to the Frisches Haff lagoon was
guarded by Pillau, and at its eastern end, at the mouth of the Pregel,

i82 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

stood Konigsberg, the second strongest of German fortresses, bar-
ring the coast road and railway to Russia. In GaHcia the true
Austrian Une of defence was the Carpathians, but north of it were
the fortified city of Cracow, the old capital of Poland, and the
great entrenched camp of Przemysl.

It is important to grasp the configuration of this frontier
district, for it determined the initial strategy of the campaign.
Russia was bound to assume the offensive, in order to relieve her
allies who were bearing the brunt of the German onslaught in the
West. Her natural Hne of attack was through Posen, for that
angle of her frontier was only i8o miles from Berlin. There was
another reason : the salient of Poland went racially much farther
west than the Warta, and included the bulk of the province of
Posen and a considerable part of West Prussia. Germany had
never been successful with her resident aliens, and she had been
peculiarly unsuccessful with her Poles, all her schemes of Prussian-
ization and land settlement having ended in something very like
a fiasco. In moving westwards by the Posen route, Russia would
be moving among a race who, in spite of all they had suffered from
the Empire of the Tsars, still preferred a Slav to a Teuton. But
this direct western advance obviously could not be made until
its flanks had been safeguarded by the conquest of East Prussia
and Galicia — until the Russian armies, that is to say, could be
deployed safely on a front which we may define by the lower Vistula,
the Warta, and the upper Oder. Russia's first task, therefore,
was to defeat the Germans in East Prussia and the Austrians in
Galicia, and so find a straight line of deployment for her main
advance. Her centre, till her long mobilization was completed,
must be her weakest point, and the Polish fortresses had not been
kept at a strength which would allow her to trust in them. She
could not concentrate on her Posen frontier, scarcely even on the
Vistula ; the Bug was the nearest line up to which she might hope
to clear her flanks. These flanks were not less important to the
Teutonic League. Austria, alone of the two allies able to put
great forces into the field at once, lay not west but south-west,
while Germany had long realized that Warsaw would most readily
fall to an attack by flank and rear. For both combatants, and for
purposes of both offence and defence, the vital areas were East
Prussia and Galicia, and the snout of western Poland might for
the moment be disregarded.

The mobilization of Russia, slow as it inevitably was, was
speedier than the Germans had calculated. It took weeks to

1914] THE GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS. 183

muster her full strength, but in a few days she had ready a striking
force. She had to prepare two army groups for immediate action
— one on the Galician border to meet the Austrian attack, and one
to take the offensive in East Prussia, where it would be opposed by a
jingle German army, the VHI., under von Prittwitz. The East
Prussian invasion was intended ultimately to prepare the way
for the main advance towards Posen, but it was hurried on with
the object of relieving the pressure on France ; for Russia inter-
preted most strictly and chivalrously her duty towards her alUes.
Consequently it must be made, like Emmich's attack on Liege,
by improvised forces. As Commander-in-Chief of all her armies the
uncle of the Tsar was appointed — the Grand Duke Nicholas, a tall,
silent prince, simple and straightforward in character and wholly
devoted to his profession. As commander of the Petrograd area he
had done more than any living man for the remaking of the army.
His Chief of Staff was that General Januschkevitch whom we have
already met. The commander of the South-Western group, facing
Austria, was Ivanov, a modest, laborious soldier who had won fame
in Manchuria by his leadership of the 3rd Siberian Corps. His Chief
of Staff was Alexeiev, by general consent the ablest of Russia's mili-
tary minds. Of the North-Western group the commander was
Gilinski, a mediocrity who owed his place to the friendship of
Sukhomlinov, the Minister of War.

Our first concern is with the North-Western group, the lesser
of the two in importance ; for the Russian strategy contemplated
a main effort against Austria, and a concentration against Germany
only when the Dual Monarchy should have been put out of action
— an exact parallel to the strategy of Berlin. It consisted of two
armies — the First, moving west into East Prussia from the Niemen ;
the Second, moving north from the Narev. A reserve army, the
Tenth, was being assembled in their rear. The First was under
Rennenkampf , a man of German ancestry, and one of the few Russian
soldiers who had emerged from the Manchurian campaign with an
enhanced reputation. He had a name for audacity and speed,
and was eager to take advantage of the unreadiness of Germany
on her eastern borders, in spite of the fact that the organization of
the four infantry corps and five cavalry divisions of his command
was very far from being complete. Samsonov, the commander
of the Second Army, was of a different type. He had done well in
Manchuria as a cavalryman, but he had never been regarded
as brilliant ; his assets were his simple kindliness of character
and the devotion of his men. His force was a little larger than

i84 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

Rennenkampf s — five infantry corps and a mass of cavalry. The
German troops in East Prussia were thus greatly outnumbered.
They consisted of four corps — the ist, ist Reserve, lyth, and 20th —
and one division of cavalry. The way seemed plain for a con-
verging movement by Rennenkampf and Samsonov which would
drive the enemy behind the Vistula, provided that close touch
was kept between the two Russian armies, for the terrain
was exceptionally Wind and difficult. The dangers lay in the
nature of the countryside, the incapacity of the group com-
mander Gihnski to provide central direction, and the inevitable
weakness of staff and intelligence work in armies so hastily
assembled.

At first Rennenkampf moved fast. After some skirmishing by
cavalry and covering troops he crossed the border at Suwalki on
6th August, marching in a north-westerly direction ; while Samsonov
on the 5th advanced on both sides of the railway from Mlawa by
Soldau to Allenstein. The town of Insterburg stands at the con-
fluence of the rivers Inster and Pregel, and at the junction of the
railways that run east from Konigsberg and south from Tilsit.
It was the most important strategic position in that neighbour'
hood, and to cover it Prittwitz made his first stand at Gum-
binnen, a town on the railway some ten miles due east. It is a
country of great woods of pine, interspersed with fields of rye,
and thousands of trees were felled by the Germans to make abattis.
On Sunday, i6th August, Rennenkampf came in touch with the
enemy, and after severe fighting carried the place. On the 19th
and 2oth the battle was renewed, the German left was threatened
with envelopment, Insterburg was occupied by the Russians, and
Prittwitz fell back upon Konigsberg, though, as at Gravelotte,
the defeated army took a considerable number of prisoners. The
retreat was hasty, the roads being strewn with abandoned material.
Meantime Samsonov's vanguard had driven in the frontier guards
and roughly handled a detachment of the German 20th Corps that
attempted to hold Soldau against them.

These victories gave the Russians for the moment the mas-
tery of East Prussia, the sacred land of the German squirearchy.
Rennenkampf occupied Tilsit, where Napoleon and Alexander
of Russia once signed a treaty for the partition of the world.
Konigsberg was directly threatened, and advanced cavalry moved
in the direction of Danzig. On the 27th a fete was held in Pet-
rograd, and by the sale of flags £20,000 was raised, which sum was
to be given to the first Russian soldier who entered Berlin. The

1914] HINDENBURG. 185

opening round of the fight in the East had left Russia an
apparent victor.

But it was only the opening round, and the peripeteia was to
be more sudden and dramatic than the success. The result of
Gumbinnen and Soldau was to create something like consterna-
tion in Berlin. On Tuesday, 25th August, the day when the
British forces in the West were struggling out of the trap at
Maubeuge, the high-water mark of the Russian invasion of East
Prussia was reached. Russian cavalry had penetrated far to
the west, driving before them crowds of fugitives. Some of the
villages were burned — often by accident, for the wooden huts
were hke tinder in that dry August weather. In the towns which
they occupied the troops of the Tsar behaved with decorum and
discretion. But the terror of their name was on the peasantry of
East Prussia, who remembered wild tales of the ragged spearmen
who had ridden through their land a hundred years ago and made
little distinction between German allies and French opponents.
With stories of universal burnings and slaughters the peasants
and gentry alike fled over the Vistula, and brought to Berlin the
news that East Prussia was in the grip of the enemy. The recon-
quest of the country was necessary to the Germans for strategical
reasons, for without it any advance from Posen would be caught on
the flank. But apart from such considerations, the Emperor had
a personal motive in undertaking the work of deliverance. The
province was one of the oldest lands of the Prussian monarchy.
Konigsberg had been the capital of the dukes of Prussia in the days
when Berlin was an unknown fishing village among the swamps of
the Spree. During every year of his reign the Emperor had spent
some weeks in East Prussia, and his hunting lodge amid its forests
was now in Russian hands. The invasion and overrunning of the
province was to him a personal insult, only less intolerable ttan
a descent upon the capital itself. He therefore directed the con-
centration of a relieving force behind the Vistula, and he was for-
tunate enough to find a competent commander.

Before the outbreak of war there was living in retirement at
Hanover a certain Paul von Hindenburg, who knew something of
East Prussia, for he had commanded corps at Konigsberg and
Allenstein. He was a veteran of the war of 1870, and later had
been associated on the General Staff with Verdy du Vernois. He
had a reputation as a resolute leader of men, and he had made some-
thing of a speciality of Germany's north-eastern frontier. Though
nearer seventy than sixty, he was a man of rude health and a body

i86 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

as hard as a deep-sea fisherman. He was a man, too, of a rugged
strength of character — the strength that comes from simpHcity and
singleness of aim and an unquestioning rehgious faith. On 22nd
August the Emperor sent for him and offered him the command
of the VIII. Army. As Chief of Staff he was given Ludendorff,
who had just been awarded the Order of Merit for his perform-
ance at Liege. It was a formidable combination of personality
and mind — a combination which was to come within an ace of
winning for Germany the war.

The problem before the new general was a hard one. He had
to stay the Russian advance, but he could get no reinforcements
yet awhile from the west, and had to look only to what he could
scrape together from the Vistula fortresses and the covering troops
in Posen. His main asset was his admirable communications,
for he had behind him lines by which he could move troops with
great celerity from north to south. But the three corps in front of
Rennenkampf were tired and depleted, and the 20th Corps before
Samsonov seemed in no condition for a great effort. Luden-
dorff, as he surveyed the scene, recognized that only a bold coup
would save him, for a retreat behind the Vistula seemed to him
unthinkable. He resolved to gamble on the gap that separated
the two Russian armies, and bring his whole strength to bear on
Samsonov. Their easy victories had inspired in the Russian com-
manders a confidence not warranted by the facts of the case. Ren-
nenkampf on the 25th was sitting down leisurely in front of the
eastern defences of Konigsberg. Samsonov was marching boldly
through the wilderness of forest, lake, and marsh towards Osterode,
his army strung out on a broad front, and his columns widely
separated from each other. The German Intelligence service knew
that region better than the Russians ; if sufficient forces could be
collected the unwary Samsonov might be destroyed. But these
forces could only be got from Rennenkampf's front, and to move
them was possible only if that general remained supine and ignorant
of their transfer.

Rennenkampf was blind, and the great hazard was success-
fully taken. The ist, 17th, and ist Reserve Corps quietly slipped
away southward, as well as one cavalry brigade, till on the 27th two
cavalry brigades were all that remained facing Rennenkampf.
On the morning of that day the German ist Corps lay echeloned on
the right about Gilgenburg, the 20th Corps and the 3rd Reserve
Divisions were at Tannenberg, a Landwehr division was at Osterode,
and the 17th and ist Reserve Corps were north-east of Allenstein —

1914] TANNENBERG. ' 187

the whole forming a pocket into which Samsonov's five corps were
slowly and carelessly marching. The battle began on the 26th
with an affair of outposts, and for two days the Russians were
under the impression that their attack was succeeding. They
regarded their left as their dangerous flank, the right being appar-
ently protected by Rennenkampf's position in the north. When
they had thoroughly committed themselves to an offensive in impos-
sible country, Hindenburg struck. He began by driving in the
Russian left on the morning of the 28th, but this was only sub-
sidiary to the deadly attack launched presently against their right
wing east of Allenstein by the 17th and ist Reserve Corps from
Rennenkampf's front. The two corps of the Russian centre, with
which were Samsonov and his staff, were driven back into the
big wood of Tannenberg, and presently it was clear that the enemy
had forced his way between the two Russian armies. The attack-
ing line was now a huge crescent, strongest on the left, and Sam-
sonov was being shepherded into an almost roadless country,
where the difficulties would grow with every hour. From
Ludendorff's own account it would appear that the southern
road of retreat by Mlawa was still open, but the state of
the communications between the units of the Second Russian
Army made it impossible to execute what would have been a
difficult movement, even had the chance in that direction been
reahzed.

There only remained the defile towards Ortelsburg, where
there was a spit of solid ground between the marshes. On the 30th
the Russians were in full retreat along this narrow outlet, and
the bulk of Samsonov's force was shut up in a tract of ground
where, between the clumps of wood, lay treacherous swamps
and wide muddy lakes. The Russian batteries as they retired
found their guns sinking to the axle-trees. The last day of the
battle, 31st August, was an unrelieved disaster for the Russian
army. Samsonov died, but how or when no man can tell. The
Second Russian Army had been five corps strong at the beginning of
the fight. Little more than one complete corps and a portion of
another succeeded in gaining Ortelsburg and retreating eastward by
the Une of the frontier railway. It was a very complete destruction.
The Germans had between 80,000 and 90,000 prisoners in their
hands, about the same number that had capitulated forty-four
years before at Sedan. Hundreds of guns and ammunition wagons
were taken, many of them left abandoned in swampy places, whence
it was difficult for the victors to extricate their trophies. Huge

i88 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

quantities of supplies were also captured in the derelict trains on
the Ortelsburg-Allenstein railway.

Tannenberg ranks with the later Caporetto as one of the few
battles in the war that in itself can be considered a complete and
decisive victory. The veteran Hindenburg became the idol of the
German people, and his triumph was well deserved. Strategically he
had outmanoeuvred his opponent ; tactically he had shown, not for
the first time in history, that with skilful handling a small force
may envelop a larger. The battle bears a curious resemblance to
Mukden, and in his last stricken hours Samsonov may have remem-
bered that the German feint against one wing to hide a crushing
attack on the other was the device which Oyama had used on
Kuropatkin by means of Nogi's army. At Ludendorff' s suggestion
the action, which was at first called by the name of Osterode or
Hohenstein, was christened Tannenberg in memory of that other
battle, now gloriously avenged, when in 1410 the Lithuanian and
Polish hosts had broken the power of the Teutonic Order.

The remnant of the defeated army retired across the frontier
towards the Narev, followed up by a strong German pursuit.
Without losing a day, Hindenburg set the main mass of his troops
in movement towards the north-east along the Allenstein-Inster-
burg railway, which formed his line of supply. Rennenkampf,
whose communications were now threatened, abandoned the attack
on Konigsberg at the news of Samsonov's disaster, left a position
which he had elaborately prepared, and retreated eastward towards
the Niemen. He had withdrawn beyond Insterburg before the
German advance could come within striking distance. At Gum-
binnen he fought a rearguard action with the German left, but
he made no attempt to maintain himself in East Prussia, The
invasion of that province had failed disastrously, and the Niemen
for the moment must be the Russian hue of defence.

It was now that Hindenburg made his first mistake. Rallying
to his side all the German detachments in East Prussia, he crossed
the Russian frontier in several columns on a broad front from
Wirballen on the left to Augustovo on the right. In the wide forests
near the latter place a single corps delayed his advance for a little,
and there was much fighting among the woods before the tventual
Russian retreat on Grodno. He occupied Suwalki, the capital of
the Russian frontier province, and installed a German adminis-
tration as if he regarded the district as a permanent annexation.
There is evidence that he had reached a frame of mind, common
to successful generals, which underrates the enemy's power of

OPERATIONS IN EAST PRUSSIA (Aug.-Sept. 1914).

{Foiing p. iSS.)

1914] THE CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH. 189

resistance. He was getting very near to that dangerous attitude
which had been Samsonov's undoing, and he was to pay for his
confidence. It is strange that the blunder should have been
made, for it was obvious that, as Rennenkampf retired behind
the Niemen, he must be falling back upon enormous forces sup-
plied by the Russian mobilization. The province of Vilna was as
certain to be strongly defended as the environs of Petrograd.

Hindenburg's confidence was communicated to his country-
men, and the moral effect of Tannenberg had a lasting influence on
the war. Germany had anticipated great and immediate successes
in the Western theatre, but no one believed that at the outset
much could be done in the East. There the most that was hoped
for was a defence that should for a time delay the Russian advance
to the German frontier. But on the very day that news reached
Berlin of the advance of the Germans to the gates of Paris there
came tidings from the East that Hindenburg had destroyed a Russian
army and cleared East Prussia of the invaders. Such a combina-
tion of successes might well intoxicate any people. All talk of a
mere defence in the East was abandoned ; Berlin began to clamour
for an immediate advance on Warsaw ; and Hindenburg was hailed
as the greatest soldier of the day, who was destined to free Germany
for good and all from the menace of the Slav. In popular esteem
the laurels of this rugged veteran far eclipsed the modest chap-
lets of Kluck or Biilow. The Emperor raised him to the rank of
Field-Marshal, and was soon to make him Commander-in-Chief of
the armies in the East.

We turn now to the campaign in the south. On the Posen
side the Germans, early in August, occupied the three towns of
Kalisz, Czestochova, and Bendzin, just inside the Russian frontier.
The second was probably taken to provide a rallying-point for
that Polish revolt against Russia for which Germany fondly hoped ;
for Czestochova is one of the great religious centres to which pil-
grims journey from every part of Poland, whether Russian,
Austrian, or German. Presently they seized the Pohsh mining
district of Dumbrovna, on the Silesian frontier, and, helped by the
fact that their railway gauge was extended beyond the border-
line, proceeded to transport coal to Germany. But on the Posen
side there was no serious German advance during August. The
German strategy for the moment was concerned with flanking
movements, and their forces in Posen were only garrison troops
and cavalry. In Galicia, however, the month of August saw a

190 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

campaign of the first importance. Austria had assembled north
of the Carpathians a force of thirty divisions, with the Archduke
Frederick as Commander-in-Chief and Conrad von Hoetzendorff
as Chief of Staff. Her aim was a flank attack directed at the
gap in the frontier line between Lubhn and Cholm. For this
purpose the I. Army under Dankl, and the IV. Army under Auffen-
berg, based upon Przemysl, were to advance northward ; while the
III. Army and part of the II., based upon Lemberg, were drawn
up at right angles to them from the upper waters of the Bug as
far south as the town of Halicz, to protect the right flank against
any Russian attack from Kiev and Odessa. Apart from more
distant objectives, it was vital for Austria to hold Galicia, for
otherwise all her future plans would be compromised. For this
an immediate offensive was necessary. Russia might cross the
Galician frontier in three places — west of the point where the
Vistula receives the waters of the San ; between the San and the
upper Bug ; or on the east along the line of the river Sereth.
The danger lay in a combined Russian movement against the
first and third portions of the frontier, which would cut off and
enclose the Austrian forces based upon Przemysl and Lemberg.
To avoid this danger the boldest, and apparently the safest, plan
was to advance northward against the Warsaw fortresses, for
such a movement would in all likelihood prevent the Russian
armies from crossing the Vistula, and defer any attack from the east
against the Sereth. Austria gambled upon the incompleteness of
the Russian mobilization. She knew that the initial concentration
had taken place east of Warsaw, along the Bug and the Narev. The
Army of the Narev was, as she knew, busily engaged in East Prussia,
and the Army of the Bug appeared to be inconsiderable. She was
aware of armies mustering to the east, south of the Pripet Marshes,
and from the direction of Kiev ; but she hoped by a vigorous attack
delivered towards Warsaw to compel these armies to reinforce the
Russian centre, by which time she trusted to the coming of strong
reinforcements from Posen and Germany.

On loth August Dankl crossed the Polish frontier, moving
towards Krasnik, and established contact with the enemy a few
days later about thirty miles south of Lubhn. Here he was
engaged with the smallest of Ivanov's forces, the Fourth Army,
based on Brest Litovsk. Much outnumbered, the Russians slowly
gave way, retreating eastwards towards the Bug valley, with their
left protected by the fortress of Zamosc. That it was only a
strategic retirement was presently made clear ; for during the

1914] THE RUSSIAN MOVE ON LEMBERG. 191

third week of August the Third Russian Army, based on Kiev,
began to cross the Galician frontier about Brody and move upon
Lemberg from the east and north-east, menacing the right flank
of Auffenberg's IV. Army. This force was commanded by Russki,
one of the most learned of Russian soldiers and a professor at
the War Academy, who in the Japanese campaign had been Chief
of Staff to General Kaulbars, the commander of the 2nd Man-
churian Army. Since then he had been the right-hand man of
Sukhomlinov in his reorganization of the Russian forces. With him
was associated a remarkable man, Radko Dmitrieff, who was born
in 1859, in the little town of Grodez in Bulgaria, then a Turkish
province. When his country obtained independence he was one
of the first pupils who passed through the new military school at
Sofia, and, since the Bulgarian army was then wholly under Russian
control, finished his studies at the War Academy of Petrograd.
He returned to his native land with the rank of captain on the eve
of that rupture with Russia which in one day deprived the Bul-
garian army of its staff, its generals, and most of its officers. Serbia
seized the occasion to declare war, and Dmitrieff, suddenly pro-
moted to the rank of colonel, brilliantly commanded a regiment
in the campaign of Slivnitza. Later he was implicated in the
conspiracy which ended in the abdication of Prince Alexander,
and Stambulov forced him into exile. For more than ten years
he served in the Russian army, and only returned to Bulgaria
after the accession of Prince Ferdinand. In 1902 he became Chief
of the General Staff, and commanded the military district on the
Turkish frontier. When the war of the Balkan League broke out
he commanded one of the Bulgarian armies, won the first victory
at Kirk Kilisse, and led the left in the decisive battle of Lule Burgas-
Bunarhissar, He was the popular hero of the Balkan War ; but,
weary of the quarrels among the allies which followed it, he accepted
an offer to re-enter the Russian service. Meantime the Eighth
Russian Army, based upon Odessa, which had been deputed to
watch the Rumanian frontier till Rumania's neutrality was cer-
tain, was coming westward against Austria's right flank on the
Sereth. It was commanded by Brussilov, a man then unknown
to the world, but soon to be among the most famous of the Allied
generals. By the 27th of August the forces of Brussilov and
Russki were in touch, moving upon Lemberg and the III. and
part of the II. Austrian Army in a vast semicircle. The line of
battle now extended nearly two hundred miles from the Vistula
to the Dniester.

192 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

A glance at the map will show how vital to Austria was
the possession of Lemberg. It was the key of th2 road and
railway system of Eastern Galicia. It was the administrative
capital of the province, and its most important commercial
centre. For many centuries it had been a strongly-walled city,
but of its old defences all that now remained was the citadel,
an obsolete fortress without military value. The place was
not fortified in the ordinary sense, and its defence depended
upon the field armies. During the last week of August Russki
fought his way slowly across the upper Bug, and found himself
facing the entrenchments of the Austrian right centre along the
Gnila Lipa, a tributary of the Dniester. His right wing was flung
out well to the north-west, and was threatening to turn Auffen-
berg's right flank in the direction of Tomasov. Meantime Brussilov
had been hotly engaged on the Sereth. He captured the town of
Tarnopol about the 27th ; a heavy engagement, which lasted for
nearly three days, the Austrian entrenchments being stormed with
the bayonet. The loss of Tarnopol compelled the Austrian right
to fall back from the Sereth towards the Lemberg trenches. Brus-
silov next swept upon Halicz, the ancient town on the Dniester
which gave its name to Galicia. It was from Halicz that, in 1259,
King Daniel of Ruthenia sent his son. Prince Leo, to found the
new city of Leopol, which the Germans call Lowenburg, the Rus-
sians Lvov, and which we know as Lemberg. The surrounding
country is largely a series of volcanic ridges and extinct craters,
admirably suited for defensive works. After two days' fierce con-
flict Brussilov carried the Dniester, occupied Halicz, and wheeled
northward towards Lemberg.

The Battle of Lemberg began on ist September, and the main
fighting lasted for two days. Its chief feature was a fierce attack
by Brussilov on the Austrian right, aided by Dmitrieff, who carried
the line of the Gnila Lipa ; while Russki 's right, sweeping round
to the north of the city, drove in the Austrian left and threatened
its communications. By the evening of 2nd September both of
the Austrian wings had been driven in, and their Hne had been
forced back into a flattened curve, with its left in imminent dan-
ger of collapse under Russki's attack. Early in the morning of
3rd September the Austrian Staff decided to abandon Lemberg,
although as yet there had been no serious attack on the entrenched
positions east of the city. At half-past ten on the morning of
Thursday, 3rd September, the Russian flag broke from the flag-
staff of the town hall. The population welcomed the conquerors

1914J THE AUSTRIAN RETREAT. 193

with enthusiasm. Huge quantities of stores of every kind fell
into Russian hands, and the total number of prisoners taken in
the fighting of that week cannot have been less than 100,000.
The Russians behaved with exemplary restraint. There was no
looting or any kind of outrage. A Russian governor, Count
Bobrinski, was appointed, and the city was carefully policed.
The Grand Duke Nicholas issued a proclamation to the many races
of the Dual Monarchy, which was skilfully framed, not only for
Galicia, but for the discontented peoples beyond the Carpathians.

But the Austrian HI. Army could not save itself by flight, for
Russki was round its left flank. The result of two armies moving
on divergent lines was now to reveal itself, for Russki was also
threatening Auffenberg's right. There was no halt after Lemberg.
Brussilov divided his army, and sent his left wing into the Car-
pathian passes. Within the next ten days he had occupied Stryj,
a town commanding the approach to the Uzsok Pass, and Czer-
novitz, the capital of Bukovina. His centre and right advanced
due westward along the railway towards Przemysl, while Dmitrieff
with Russki 's left wing marched on a line between Grodek and
Rava Russka, the railway junction where the line from Lemberg
joins the line which follows the Galician frontier. Russki himself
moved north-westward with his right to reinforce the Russian
Fourth Army on the Bug.

Meantime Dankl was in sore straits. The news of the fall of
Halicz and Lemberg had convinced him of his peril, and he had to
bethink himself of a way of meeting it. The natural course would
have been to fall back and link up with Auffenberg on the San.
A possible course was to attack at once before the Russian Army
of the Bug could be reinforced, disperse it, and take Russki on
the flank. This latter and bolder plan was the one adopted.
Dankl had now received considerable reinforcements. His left
was reinforced by von Woyrsch's German Landwehr Corps and
a cavalry division from Cracow. It rested on the Vistula at Opole,
and in case of a Russian turning movement across that river
another German force from Czestochova moved towards it. The
centre, under Dankl, extended just south of the Lublin-Cholm
railway, behind Krasnostav, and then bent southward towards
the GaHcian frontier at Tomasov ; on the right Auffenberg's IV.
Army, which had now been largely strengthened, lay from Rava
Russka to just west of Grodek.

The first effort of the Austrian counter-offensive was made on
4th September, against the Russian centre. But that centre was

194 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

unexpectedly strong, and the attack collapsed. Thereupon the
initiative passed to the Russians, and heavy fighting began on 6th
September. The Russian strategy in these engagements completely
outclassed the Austrian. Following the tactics of Mukden and
Tannenberg, the Fourth Army feinted against the Archduke
Joseph Ferdinand on the Austrian left, while the real Russian
strength was being massed for an attack on the Austrian right.
From 6th-ioth September the battle was joined everywhere from
the Vistula to the upper Dniester. On the loth the Archduke
Joseph, on the hills between Opole and Turobin, was decisively
beaten by a brilliant frontal attack, aided by superior Russian
gunnery, and was driven in ignominious retreat southward to-
wards the San. In the Austrian centre things went no better.
Dankl held on gallantly to the broken country between Turobin
and Tomasov, but by loth September the pressure on his right
compelled him to fall back. It was that right, Auffenberg's
army, which had to face the heaviest attack, for against it came
the victors of Lemberg, Russki and Dmitrieff. At Rava Russka
it met its fate, being taken in flank and in front, and dispersed in
utter confusion. When a " refused " flank is turned or broken,
it means that the enemy gets well behind the centre of the defeated
army. This was what now happened. The whole Austrian
force hurled itself southward in acute disorder. The defeated
right found sanctuary in Przemysl and Jaroslav ; the rest fled
westward across the San and the Wisloka, and soon the van-
guard of the flight was under the guns of Cracow.

Austria had not been more successful in her operations in
Serbia. Her two first Une corps had been withdrawn from Bosnia
and sent north, and she attempted to conquer the country with
second line troops. For some weeks there was much desultory
and unrelated fighting, such as Balkan wars have often shown.
The most serious engagements were along the line of the lower
Save, more especially the struggle for Shabatz and the railway
which connected with Losnitza on the Drina. On 12th August
Shabatz fell, but on the i6th the Serbians checked the Austrian
advance in that neighbourhood. On the same day a strong
Austrian force from Bosnia, under General Potiorek, crossed the
Drina and took the towns of Lesnitza and Losnitza, its object being
to co-operate with the Shabatz contingent and pen the Serbians in
the triangle of land between the Save and Drina and Jadar. But
on the 19th the Serbian Crown Prince attacked the Bosnian army

OPERATIONS IN GALICIA <Aug,-Sept 1914).

.(wer iqaa 3uA) a oua ^na^io

1914] RUSSIA AND POLAND. 195

on both banks of the Jadar, and after four days' hard fighting
completely defeated it. The fire of their Creusot guns began what
the rifle and the bayonet completed, and the troops, which had
learned their trade at Kumanovo, Uskub, and Monastir, drove the
Austrians with great loss across the Drina. By the 24th August
Shabatz was evacuated, and the Serbians could claim with truth
that they had cleared their country of the enemy.

The end of the first week of September marked the close of the
first round in the Eastern campaign. Russia, only partially pre-
pared, had hurled herself into the combat, and in East Prussia
had paid heavily for her temerity. But her sacrifice had not beei\
fruitless, for it had its influence on the greater struggle in the West ;
and though she had lost the bulk of one army, she was now safe
behind the Niemen. For the rest, her own territory was untrodden
by the enemy, save for a few German detachments near the Posen
border. On the other hand, at the very outset she had brought
Austria to the brink of demoralization. The main armies of the
Dual Monarchy had been routed in four great battles, and were
fleeing westward ; the Russian flag flew over Lemberg ; Russian
cavalry were crossing the Carpathians, and Russian armies were
pressing on with their faces towards Cracow. In the field she had
done enough to waken her national confidence and to compel the
enemy to revise his plans. She had also thrown down the gage
of a war to the bitter end, for on the 15th August the Grand Duke
Nicholas, on behalf of his Emperor, had issued to Poland a pro-
clamation promising that self-government which had been the
object of a century's agitation. In the old proud days Poland
had been a great kingdom. Then came evil times, till in 1772
began those acts of public brigandage by Austria, Russia, and
Prussia, with the rest of Europe consenting, which form perhaps
the most shameful violation in history of international decency.
Poland was an unconscionable time a-dying, and not till the first
quarter of last century was the partition complete. Her plunder
did not greatly benefit the brigands. Galicia gave Austria many
anxious moments, Prussian Poland was a thorn in the Kaiser's
side, and Russia only maintained her rule in Warsaw by the ready
sword. Of the three, Russia seemed to stand in the most favour-
able position, for she was a Slav power dealing with fellow-Slavs,
though divided from them by a difference in religious creeds.
Home Rule for Poland was an idea which the Emperor had long
had under consideration. Now he was committed to it, and to

196 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

much more ; for he was bound not only to make Russian Poland
a self-governing state under Russia's protection, but to reconsti-
tute its old boundaries. It meant that, if the Allies won, Austria
and Germany must disgorge— that GaHcia must be given up by
one and Prussian Poland by the other. At the beginning of
the campaign Russia had made it clear what territory she would
demand when the campaign was over. She was fighting for
Danzig, Posen, and Cracow ; and such a demand Germany would
never concede unless utteriy routed. We know Bismarck's views
on this question. " Nobody doubts," he had said in 1894, " that
we would have to be crushed before we gave up Alsace. The same
applies in still greater measure to our eastern frontier. We cannot
dispense either with Posen or Alsace, with Posen still less than
with Alsace. . . . Munich and Stuttgart are not more endangered
by a hostile occupation of Strassburg or Alsace than Berlin would
be by an enemy in the neighbourhood of the Oder. . . . How our
existence could shape itself if a new kingdom of Poland were to
be formed nobody has yet had the courage to inquire."

By the close of the first week of September in the Western
theatre a no less dramatic change had come over the scene. We
must return to the great battle which had meantime been joined
between Paris and Lorraine.

CHAPTER IX.

THE WEEK OF SEDAN.
26th August-^th September.

Comparison of Situation with 1870— The Defence of Paris— Kluck changes Direc-
tion—His Justification — The Eve of the Marne — Jofire issues Orders for Battle.

The opening of September brought round the Day of Sedan, that
anniversary which for more than forty years has been the national
festival of the German Empire. BerHn witnessed a demonstration
that was designed to advertise to the Fatherland and to the world
that triumphs were being won no less glorious than the victories
of 1870. Escorted by brilliant troops, with bands playing
patriotic airs, many captured guns were drawn through the gaily
decked streets. There one might see Belgian and French cannon
and a few British pieces, carefully repaired and remounted to con-
ceal the fact that they had not been taken by a dashing charge
but picked up shattered and useless on some Picardy battlefield.
When the parade was over the guns were parked before the Imperial
Palace, and the citizens of Berlin had pleasant talk of successes
already secured, of hostile armies in process of dissolution, and of
Paris to be occupied before the week of Sedan had ended. The
momentary depression caused by the entry of Britain into the
war had passed. In their chief newspapers they read that words
were too weak to describe the magnitude of the German triumph.
It was a pardonable exaggeration, for in wartime the patriotic jour-
nahst does not deal in strict values, and the German press had some
foundation for its rhetoric. In the Eastern theatre the invasion of
East Prussia had been stayed, and the tide of battle was clearly on
the turn. In the West, fortress after fortress had fallen before the
shock of the German guns, or had surrendered to the mere menace
of their attack. Belgium had been overrun, its capital occupied,
its army pent up behind the forts of Antwerp. The Allied armies
of France and England had assumed the offensive along the frontier,

197

igS A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

and in ten days had been driven back a hundred miles to that
valley which Napoleon had held to be the last defence of Paris.
To the annals of German arms there had been added a new roll
of battles won. For the future German historian the names of
Morhange and Virton, Longwy and the Semoy, Charleroi and Mons
and Dinant, Tournai, Le Cateau, Bapaume, and Rethel would be
names of victory. There were the broad, indisputable facts that
the Allied armies had yielded ground everywhere day by day ;
that the German armies had poured into France like a rising flood
sweeping over a lowland when the dykes are broken ; and, if the
dykes were to be represented by the fortresses, it seemed that Ger-
many in her new artillery had an engine that could swiftly and
surely level every barrier to her triumphant march. Such were,
in German eyes, the situation and the outlook in the first days of
the week of Sedan. At the moment it seemed that this rosy
estimate had good warrant, and that the German " plan " was
working with mechanical precision. France would be swiftly
crushed, and then whole armies, flushed with victory, could be
transferred to the Eastern battle front for a march on the Vistula.*
On 26th August Gallieni had been appointed Governor of Paris,
and his predecessor, Michel, had volunteered to serve under him.
Gallieni was a veteran of 1870, and as a young officer of marines he
had fought in Lebrun's corps in the desperate defence of Bazeilles on
the day of Sedan. He was best known in France as the soldier who
had completed the conquest of Madagascar, and reorganized the
great island as a French colony. It was this talent for organization
that marked him out as the man for his new post. The defences of
the French capital had been widely extended since the siege of 1870,
when the circuit of the outlying forts was about thirty-two miles.
Erected under the defence scheme of Thiers in the days of Louis
Philippe, they had been planned to resist the attack of the short-
range artillery of the period, and in the siege they could not protect
the city from bombardment. De Rivieres' plans, drawn up in 1874,
included Versailles in the region to be defended, and the new
fortifications were a second outer ring of forts, redoubts, and
batteries covering a circle of more then seventy-five miles, and
holding all the high ground on which the Germans in 1870 had
erected their siege guns. The drawback of such a vast entrenched
camp was that it required a huge army for its garrison, and though

* Moltke had named the thirty-ninth or fortieth day after mobilization as the
date of the decision in the West (K. F. Novak's Der Weg zur Katastrophe). He was
almost exactly right — but in a sense difierent from what he meant.

1914] THE POSITION OF PARIS. 199

its extent made investment almost impossible, no such operation
was required for the attack. As the parallel case of Antwerp was
to show, if the Germans had appeared before Paris in September
1914 they would have concentrated their efforts upon one sector
of the outlying circle of forts, and if they had broken through
these the inner line would have been of small value, and the city
itself would have been at once exposed to long-range bombard-
ment. Further, it was an open secret that even the outer and newer
defences were not of any great strength. They were old-fashioned
works of the 1874 type, planned before the days of high explosive
shells, and no effort had been made to bring them up to date, for
the French Government had come to regard an attack on Paris
as outside the range of practical possibilities. The works had even
been neglected. They were armed with old guns, and there was
a deficiency of stores for completing the defences between the
forts. To take one example, the amount of barbed wire for en-
tanglements did not suffice for even one front of the great fortress.
Gallieni, on his appointment to the command, did what he could
in the last days of August to remedy the neglect of years. Trenches
were dug on a circumference of a hundred miles, guns and muni-
tions assembled, and supplies collected for a population of four
million. But it was hopeless to think to complete in a few days
a work that demanded many thousands of hands for many weeks.

Paris had refused to be alarmed by the exploits of German
airmen who made daring flights over the city and dropped bombs
into the streets. Curiosity seemed to banish fear. Instead of
taking refuge under cover, men, women, and children stood
gazing up at the enemy's war-hawks. When, in the last days
of August, however, the official news at last admitted that the
Allied armies were everywhere in retreat, when numbers of strayed
and wounded soldiers appeared in the streets, and the distant
growling of cannon and the blowing up of bridges could be heard
from the north-eastern suburbs, there came a wave of anxiety and
alarm. A considerable exodus began of the well-to-do classes,
who dreaded a siege, and could afford to make a long journey.
There was much movement to England by way of Havre, the trains
making their way to the coast by devious roads, mostly on the
west bank of the Seine. The exodus to the southern provinces and
overseas accounted for perhaps one-quarter of the normal population
of the capital. Those who were in the secrets of the Government
had most cause for alarm. On the 28th it was resolved to declare
Paris an open town and abandon it, but on the 30th this decision

200 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

was cancelled, and Gallieni announced that he had received Joffre's
orders to defend the capital against all invaders and would fulfil
the mandate to the end — " jusqu'au bout," a phrase soon to become
a national watchword. On the night of the 31st it was known
that the Government meant to leave the city, and two days later
the President and the Ministers departed for Bordeaux. The step
awoke disquieting memories of 1870. Already the enemy was as
near to the towers of Notre Dame as is Windsor to the dome of
St. Paul's.

But in truth there was no parallel. In the month of cam-
paigning that ended at Sedan France was irrevocably beaten.
The first engagement at Saarbruck took place on 2nd August.
On 4th August the German armies began to pass the frontier.
On the 6th the French right under MacMahon was defeated at
Worth, and the left, under Frossard, at Forbach, Then came
Napoleon III.'s first reluctant admission of failure, the telegram
to Paris, " Tout pent se retahlir " — " All may yet be regained " —
a confession that much had been already lost. MacMahon re-
treated to Chalons ; Bazaine, with the " Army of the Rhine,"
fell back on Metz, and, as the result of the three battles which
ended at Gravelotte (St. Privat) on i8th August, was penned up
in that fortress. Then came MacMahon's ill-advised march north-
eastward, a movement imposed upon him for political reasons
by the Paris Regency. It ended on ist September in the surren-
der at Sedan. The Germans advanced to the siege of Paris, and
the French Government was transferred to Tours. But France
was beaten, not because the invader had marched far into the
country and was about to besiege her capital — not even because
the Germans had been victorious at Weissenburg, Spicheren,
Worth, Borny, Mars-la-Tour, Gravelotte, and Sedan. She was
vanquished because her field armies were, in the military sense of
the word, " destroyed." About a quarter of a million men had been
sent to the eastern frontier, where they had met some 400,000
Germans. After heavy losses in the field, 170,000 were shut up
in Metz, and less than 50,000 reached Chalons, where they were
reinforced by about the same number, and marched out to surren-
der at Sedan. The army of Chalons was thus utterly swept away ;
the army of Metz was shut up in the fortress, and doomed presently
to a like fate. There remained to France only one or two regular
units, some improvised armies of depot troops, mostly young
recruits, the half-drilled or wholly untrained National Guards
and Mobiles, and a few corps of Volunteers. These raw levies

1914] THE WEEK OF SEDAN. 201

had to be enrolled, armed, and given some rough instruction, and
then hurried into action under officers who, for the most part, knew
nothing of their business, and soon found to their cost that the
most reckless courage was useless without discipline. Bismarck
contemptuously described them as " not soldiers, but men with
muskets." The war dragged on till the following January ; but
every element of success, except devoted bravery, was absent.
Improvised armies, directed in their general strategy by a group
of politicians, fought in vain against well-ordered forces, more than
a million strong, directed by a brilliant staff and led by veteran
generals. They could not secure victory, but they fought on to
the end for the honour of France. The fate of the campaign had
been decided on two battlefields in the first month of operations —
Gravelotte which doomed the army of Bazaine, and Sedan which
destroyed the army of MacMahon.

Let us compare with this the situation in the week of Sedan in
1914. Once more, within a month of the day when the first shots
were fired — nay, within a fortnight of the first great battles — the
French armies found themselves defeated and driven from the
frontier ; the German invaders had marched so far into the heart
of the land that again a siege of Paris seemed imminent ; and the
Government was forced to abandon the capital. But, apart from
the fact that France, which had stood alone in the terrible days
of 1870, now fought beside powerful allies, the whole situation
was radically different, and different in the one great essential.
The Allied armies had, indeed, suffered defeat in a gigantic clash
of arms, compared to which the battles of 1870 were small engage-
ments ; but they had not been destroyed. They were still intact,
and ready to measure themselves once more against the invader.
They had trained men ready to make good their losses. The
Germans had failed in their main object — to put masses of their
opponents permanently out of action in a decisive battle, so that
the subsequent operations would be merely a gathering up of the
fruits of victory. After Sedan the Germans had to face only im-
provised levies. After the anniversary of Sedan in this new in-
vasion they had still before them the unbroken might of France
and Britain. In war partial successes count for nothing except in
so far as they pave the way for the " decision " — the definite
success that destroys the opponent's resistance. The mere occu-
pation of ground, the seizure of towns, the overrunning of prov-
inces, may serve a useful purpose, but these are not the decisive
factors. The one thing that counts is the dispersion, disarmament.

202 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

and capture of the enemy's fighting force, or its reduction to such
a state that resisting power has gone out of it.

Apart from the military position, the moral of the nation was
wholly different from 1870. There had been no easy confidence
of victory, no boasting, no singing of music-hall catches, when the
French armies marched north and east. War had come to France
as a solemn duty, long foreseen — a national sacrifice of which the
cost had been counted. 1870 had been for her a year of crum-
bling constitutions. The Napoleonic bubble had burst ; the " Liberal
Empire " of M. Ollivier had suffered no better fate ; everywhere
there were dissolution, discontent, and distrust. The politicians,
not the soldiers, directed the war, and the politicians were cast
in a mean mould. The riff-raff of the population was out of hand,
and power was passing to the fanatics and mountebanks of the
Commune. In 1870 there were parties, but it was hard to find a
nation. In 19 14 France had forgotten all lesser rivalries, and
was united in one grave and inflexible purpose. In M. Poincare
she had as President a man whose brilliant attainments and sober
good sense carried on the best traditions of Republican states-
manship. On 27th August the Ministry was reconstructed on a
national basis. Under M. Viviani as Premier, M. Delcasse became
Foreign Minister, M. Millerand Minister of War, M. Ribot Minister
of Finance, M. Briand Minister of Justice. In this cabinet of
defence all political schools were represented. M. Clemenceau,
indeed, stood outside, but that was scarcely a disadvantage, for
the famous " destroyer of Ministries " remained to act the part
of a critical but patriotic Opposition. In all the land there was no
dissentient voice. M. Jaures, the leader of the pacificists, had died
by an assassin's hand on the last day of July, but not before he
had blessed his country's enterprise. Even M. Herve, the inter-
national socialist, who in the past had talked of " consigning the
tricolour to the dunghill," now recanted his errors, and volunteered
for service in the ranks. From statesmen and people there would be
no folly forthcoming to tie the hands of the armies in the im-
pending crisis.

In every campaign there comes a moment of high tide, when
the strength of one of the combatants is stretched taut, and on
the fighting of the next day or two depends the success or failure
of a great strategical plan. That moment was now approaching
in the Western theatre. By one of the mysterious anticlimaxes
so common in war, a complete change was coming over the scene.
The time had arrived for the Allies to strike back and go forward.

1914] KLUCK AND GERMAN HEADQUARTERS. 203

With the battles on the Marne — battles to be fought on a front
of more than a hundred miles — began a new act in the drama.
To understand this most complex movement it is necessary to
examine the mind of the German and Allied commands in the
closing days of the retreat.

We must first consider the plan of German Great Head-
quarters. There is no evidence that at any time they regarded
Paris as the main object of attack, though all their armies were
cheered by the promise of a speedy entry into the French capital.
Their military theorists from Clausewitz to Bernhardi had con-
sistently preached the doctrine of the " major objective," the
destruction of the enemy's field army. They were not blind to
the peculiar importance of Paris ; Bernhardi had classed it with
Vienna as one of the two capitals the capture of which had a de-
cisive miUtary importance ; but the taking of it, while Joffre's
armies remained intact, might well prove a doubtful blessing.
They were correctly informed about its defences, and realized
that, while a sector could no doubt be taken by assault, the enter-
prise would be costly and slow, and would require a German army
and a great weight of artillery, while in the meantime the main French
forces would have leisure to recover. For investment they simply
had not the men. By the end of August, when the resolution of
the French Government and of Gallieni was apparent, they may
well have been convinced that even the capture of Paris would
not mean the demoralization of France. For one moment, as we
have seen, they had wavered in this view. After Le Cateau they
seem to have believed that the enemy was indeed broken, and
Kluck was ordered to move south-west to the lower Seine and so
bring the capital inside the battle-Hne. But Lanrezac's turn at
Guise on the 29th disillusioned them, and they acquiesced in
Kluck's proposal to swerve south-east, closing up on Biilow, and so
leave Paris on his right flank. In this decision they wished to
take all due precautions against a sally from inside the Paris
defences. On the night of 2nd September Kluck was informed
that the intention was to drive the French in a south-easterly
direction away from the capital, and was ordered to follow in
echelon behind Biilow and make himself responsible for the flank
protection of the German front. That he chose to disregard this
order was not the fault of Great Headquarters.

But in a sense he was justified in his disobedience. Great
Headquarters wished to have both success and security, and the
two were incompatible. Their urgent need was a decisive victory.

204. A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

Things were in a perilous state in the East, in spite of Tannenberg.
Austria was stumbling from failure to failure, and would presently
need help. Already corps had had to be sent eastward from
France, and large bodies of troops were detained at Antwerp,
at Brussels, at Maubeuge, and along the ever lengthening communi-
cations. Kluck and Biilow, the marching wing of the advance,
had been compelled to shed brigades as if there were no armies of
France before them. By this time the German forces had lost any
chance of superiority in numbers. Their men, who had broken
every record for their speed of advance, were, as the daily reports
of the army commanders told them, very weary. " The men
stagger forward," wrote one of Kluck's officers on 2nd September,
" their faces coated with dust, their uniforms in rags, looking hke
living scarecrows. They march with their eyes closed, singing in
chorus so that they shall not fall asleep. ... It is only the delirium
of victory which sustains our men, and, in order that their bodies
may be as intoxicated as their souls, they drink to excess, but this
drunkenness helps to keep them going. . . , Abnormal stimulants
are necessary to make abnormal fatigue endurable. We will put all
that right in Paris." The German people might be confident and
hilarious, but Great Headquarters knew that their fortunes were
on a razor edge. At all costs they must bring the enemy to action
at once and secure a decision.

So far they had to admit that they had not succeeded. There
had been a week's futile delay in Belgium. The chance of en-
veloping the enemy on the Sambre had failed. It had failed even
more ignominiously on the Somme. Now the attempt had to be
made under far more difficult conditions, but made it must be.
To relapse into anything approaching a defensive would take the
heart out of the troops and deprive the armies of the fruit of their
cumulative blows. Joffre might strike back with deadly con-
sequences at a puzzled and dispirited front. Therefore the risk
of Paris must be faced, and the envelopment, which had so far
failed, must be achieved south of the Marne. How great the risk
was the High Command did not know owing to the faultiness of
their Intelligence service. They discovered it on the evening of
4th September, and ordered the I. and II. Armies to halt facing
the eastern front of Paris. But by that time the mischief had
been done. The I. Army was over the Marne and approaching
the Seine, and had now to conform to Joffre's will.

The true criticism of the German High Ccmmand is not that
out of pedantry it forewent its chance of demoralizing the enemy

1914] KLUCK'S DECISION. 205

by the seizure of his capital. That seizure could not have been
made without exposing the German armies to a fatal riposte, and
in any case it would not have met the clamorous need to put
Joffre out of action. A battle for Germany was an instant necessity,
and she took the only way to secure it. Where she failed was far
back in her whole conception of enveloping strategy. To envelop
great armies without a colossal superiority in numbers was from
the start a forlorn hope. It was a plan born of over-confidence and
one contrary to the doctrine of Clausewitz, who had always taught
that the manoeuvre was impossible unless the enemy force was
wholly engaged with the attackers' centre.*

Kluck, on whom the main duty of envelopment lay, fulfilled
what he believed to be the spirit of the orders of Great Head-
quarters, but disobeyed them in detail. So far, partly from the
poverty of his information and partly because of the preposterous
handling of the cavalry, for which he was not wholly responsible,
he had been grossly unsuccessful. He had let the British army
slip out on at least three occasions when he had had it in his hand.
But the man was of a resolute temper and a born leader of troops,
and he would not consent to failure. He saw Germany's need for a
decisive battle, and he was resolved to give it her. For this reason
he refused to obey the order of 28th August to march to the south-
west, and on the 30th began to turn south and south-east to close
in on the II. Army. His object was to find the operative flank of
the enemy, which he conceived to be the French Fifth Army.
The great decision to neglect Paris was made on or before the 30th ;
it was known to regimental officers, as we learn from captured
letters, not later than 3rd September ; and his two left corps, the
9th and the 3rd, may have guessed it on ist September when they
crossed the Aisne. He was aware of the danger from Paris, and
detached his 4th Reserve Corps and a cavalry division to cover
his right rear. Apart altogether from the instructions of Great
Headquarters, he could only hope to deal with Paris by using the
whole of his army, and this would have meant an enormous widen-
ing of the gap between him and Biilow, which as late as 4th

• See also Freytag-Loringhoven's remarks, Deductions from the World War
(Eng. trans., p. 80). The locus classicus on the subject is a passage in von der Goltz's
Kriegfuhrung (a much better book than his more popular Volk im Waffen). There
he distinguishes an ordinary flank attack (Flugelangriff) from the more deadly
operation of envelopment. Envelopment may be either Umfassung or Umgehung,
the former being the envelopment of one flank, as at Sadowa, the latter a complete
surrounding, as at Sedan. In August 1914 the Germans aimed primarily at Umfas-
sung, but even the limited envelopment demanded, on von der Goltz's showing,
either great numerical superiority or a complete breakdown in the enemy's moral.

2o6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

September was nearly fifty miles. To take Paris was impossible
for a single German army ; even to secure the German flank against
any danger from Paris would have required the whole of Kluck's
forces, li the French left was to be enveloped and a great battle
fought, every available man would be needed ; it was imperative,
therefore, that the minimum rearguard should be left to watch
the capital, while he took his main force south-eastward against
the French left. He was conscious of the risk, but decided on the
evidence before him that the risk was justified.

Such we may assume to have been the reasoning of the com-
mander of the I. Army. His whole thoughts were directed to
forcing battle, and with this in mind he deliberately neglected the
orders of 2nd September to echelon himself behind Biilow. At
the moment a considerable part of his force was beyond the Marne,
while the H. Army was a good day's march behind. To carry
out the instructions of Great Headquarters would mean a two days'
halt, which would not only give the enemy a chance to recover
but would prevent the projected envelopment. It is difficult to
say that Kluck's decision was wrong. If the major objective,
the battle, was to be attained, complete security from the direction
of Paris was impossible, unless Great Headquarters sent him four
or five more divisions. He was gambling, but gambling with a
cool head, carrying out the main purpose of his superiors, and to
this end disregarding any contradictory instructions on details.
Whatever he did he must take risks, but the risks, on the infor-
mation he possessed, seemed not unreasonable. So he pressed on
till on the 5th September he was south of the Grand Morin. In
about thirty days his army had covered 312 miles without a rest —
an achievement of which much of the renown must rest with its
dogged commanding officer.

The last stage, presenting as it did a flank to the enemy, has
been and must continue to be among the most sharply criticized
movements of the campaign. But the failure in which it resulted
does not necessarily involve an extreme reprobation of the re-
sponsible general. Kluck was left with no other choice. If an
enveloping battle was required, it was the only means to force it.
It may be argued, indeed, that an army commander is entitled to
protest against a decision of the High Command which is clearly
suicidal, that Kluck was of a stalwart and independent character,
and that he did not protest. But it is certain that on the meagre
information which he possessed, the decision did not appear suicidal
or the risk unjustifiable. He, like all the other army commanders.

1914] THE NEW FRENCH DISPOSITIONS. 207

was kept ill-informed about the general situation. He did not
know what was happening to his colleagues, " whose reports of
decisive victories," he complained, " have so far been frequently
followed by appeals for support." He did not hear till the evening
of 5th September that the German left wing, which he had believed
to be triumphantly advancing, was checked before the eastern
fortresses. The lack of this knowledge was responsible for his
misjudging of the offensive capacities of Paris. He had no great
respect for the divisions of Maunoury with which he had hitherto
been in touch, and considered that his rearguard was competent
to hold them. He thought that the French armies of the centre
and right were so closely engaged that they could not spare troops
to move to the left behind the French front. He thought, as did
Great Headquarters, that the stout defence in Lorraine meant
the presence there of far larger forces than was in reality the case.
He erred, too, in underestimating the British army. He thought
that it was broken, demoralized, and out of action. The litter and
debris of the retreat had convinced him that its transport was in
chaos, and, since he assumed that its base was the eastern Channel
ports, he conceived that he had cut its only communications,
and that it now wandered a forlorn remnant south of the Seine.
Like all his class he forgot that a maritime Power can change its
base at will — that, as Francis Bacon wrote three hundred years
ago : "He that commands the sea is at great hberty." These
miscalculations, which were shared by his superiors, were to bring
him defeat ; but, granted the data on which he had to work, it is
hard to see how he could have decided otherwise.*

We turn to the French Command. After the debacle of 24th
August Joffre had, as we have seen, revised his whole conception of
the campaign, and resolved to disengage his armies by a strategic
retirement and fall back to such a position as would enable him to
use the reserves which he was hastily collecting. These reserves
consisted of Maunoury's Sixth Army on the extreme French
left, and Foch's Ninth Army in the centre between Franchet
d'Esperey and Langle de Cary. The Ninth Army, which was
a reorganization of commands rather than a reinforcement, had
been coming into place during the last week of August, and sharing

• Kluck has been severely criticized by most English writers on the war;
less severely and more acutely by the French (except General Cherfils). The view
given above is based principally on his own narrative, The March on Paris (Eng.
trans., 1920), on Billow's Mein Bericht zur Marneschlacht, 1919, and the pamphlet Die
Schlahcten an der Marne, 1916, believed to reflect the views of the younger Moltke.

2o8 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

in the general retreat. When completed it was to consist of the
42nd Division, taken from the 6th Corps of the Third Army ; the
gth and nth Corps, from the Fourth Army; the 52nd and 6oth
Reserve Divisions, also from the Fourth Army ; and the 9th Divi-
sion of cavalry. It could only assemble slowly, but by 3rd Sep-
tember most of it lay to the east of Epernay. Joffre correctly
assumed that the German plan of envelopment included the breach
of his centre, and Foch was there to strengthen it. Maunoury's
Sixth Army, which had to be brought from greater distances, was
still slower in its formation. It was to consist of the 7th Corps
from Alsace, the 4th Corps from the Third Army, Sordet's ist
Cavalry Corps, four reserve divisions — the 55th, 56th, 6ist, and
62nd — a Moroccan brigade, and the new 45th Division, composed
of troops from Algeria. But the 45th Division would not be ready
till 6th September, and the 4th Corps would only detrain in Paris
on the 5th. On the evening of 2nd September, while the Germans
were in Senlis, Maunoury's force, as yet far from completion and
part of it very weary with its fighting from Arras southward, lay
behind the shelter of the forests of Ermenonville and Chantilly,
across the north-eastern suburbs of Paris from Dammartin to the
Marne. On that day Joffre had not yet his mass of manoeuvre in
readiness for action.

The French Commander-in-Chief had kept an open mind as to
when and where he should make his stand. He had hoped for the
Somme, but Kluck's south-western wheel had convinced him that
that was impossible, and he had the fortitude to resist the tempta-
tion of a local success like Guise, and possess his soul in patience
till the appointed time. On the 2gth, as we have seen, he told Sir
John French that he had resolved to fall back behind the Marne.
At that date he was willing to make Paris an open town, but next
day the arguments of Gallieni made him consent to its defence.
But he was not prepared to allow any part of his field force to be
entangled there, always excepting Maunoury's Sixth Army, for
which it was the base and place of assembly. On ist September he
contemplated a great extension of the retreat. He wished the
enemy to go deeper into the sack he had prepared for him, and he
wanted time to get ready the string of that sack, the Sixth Army.
He also hoped for news of a Russian victory which would dislocate
the German plans. On ist September he indicated to his armies
as the probable limit of their retirement a line behind the Seine,
the Aube, and the Ornain. He seems to have imagined that
Kluck would be engaged with Maunoury and the British on the

1914] GALLIENI, MAUNOURY, AND JOFFRE. 209

east front of Paris, and in that case he intended to fling his strongest
army, the Fifth, through the gap between Kluck and Biilow and
against Biilow's unprotected right. This decision, even remem-
bering that it was taken in ignorance of the exact details of Kluck's
change of direction, was beyond doubt a blunder. To resume the
offensive behind a large river like the Seine would have been a
difficult task against an enemy far superior in heavy artillery. No
provision, moreover, was made for holding bridgeheads on the
northern bank for the purpose of recrossing. Had these orders
been carried out, the Germans might well have occupied a position
on the Seine such as they were later to create on the Aisne. There
would have been no Battle of the Marne, and soon Paris and
Verdun would have fallen. Nay, worse might have followed, for
the line suggested was impossible, since it had no flanking supports
to take the place of the Meuse Heights and the capital.*

But fate intervened to correct the error. About midnight on
31st August Maunoury telegraphed to Gallieni that Kluck seemed to
be sheering off from Paris. That evening, it will be remembered,
the flank guard of the I. Army was Marwitz's cavalry, heading
south-eastward through the forest of Compiegne, and Maunoury,
who was then falling back on Creil, had word of its route and drew
the correct inference. The thing was, however, not yet proven,
and it was only in the early hours of 3rd September that indis-
putable evidence came to Maunoury's superior, Gallieni, in Paris.
For while on the 26th August Gallieni had been placed under
Joffre, Maunoury's army, at the moment the garrison of Paris,
was under Gallieni, and it was not till the Battle of the Ourcq
developed that it passed out of the Paris command. About noon
Gallieni issued a note to the garrison warning them of the apparent
change in the German march, and at once communicated with
Joffre. He received no reply that day, and indeed seems not to
have been aware of the orders for the further retreat issued on ist
September. Next morning he took the matter into his own hands.
At 9 a.m. on the 4th he warned the Sixth Army that he intended
to use it for an attack on Kluck's flank, and ordered it to be ready
to march that afternoon and begin the general movement next
day. Then he proceeded to telephone to Joffre, who from cap-
tured maps had learned about Kluck on the evening of the 2nd,
but who had to wait till the Sixth Army was disengaged, which
did not happen till the 4th. At 2.50 p.m. the Commander-in-

* For the most unfavourable view of Joflre's action see General Le Gros's La
Genise de la Bataille de la Marne.

210 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

Chief authorized the advance of Maunoury's army for the next
day. Meantime Gallieni had received orders, issued two days
before, directing the British army to go behind the Seine. Such
a move would wreck his plans, so he hastened with Maunoury
to the British Headquarters, from which unfortunately Sir John
French was absent. The British retirement therefore could not
be stayed on that day. At this most critical juncture it is obvious
that the machinery of direction was difficult owing to the several
semi-independent commands. But Joffre showed no indecision.
His mind was made up when the news about Kluck's march was
verified, and he struck as soon as the Sixth Army was ready.

During the evening of 4th September Joffre issued his first
orders for battle. Dispositions were to be taken up on the 5th
with a view to an attack on the 6th upon the German I. Army by
the Allied armies of the left. The Sixth Army was to be ready
to cross the Ourcq, " so as to attain the meridian of Meaux ; " the
British Army on the front Changis-Coulommiers was to move
towards Montmirail ; the Fifth Army, closing up slightly to the
left, was to establish itself on the line Courta^on-Esternay-Sezanne,
preparatory to advancing north, with the 2nd Cavalry Corps as a
link between it and the British. The role of the Ninth Army was
defensive, protecting the right of the Fifth at the south side of the
Marshes of St. Gond. Next day, the 5th, orders were issued for
the Third and Fourth Armies, and Sir John French was informed
by Joffre in person of the decision to halt and turn, and gladly
acquiesced.

So ended the retreat from the frontiers. Compelled by a grave
strategical blunder, it was carried to a successful end less by skilful
generalship than by the endurance and courage of the rank and
file. Indeed, there was little guiding on the part of the higher
commands, and such leadership as there was came from the regi-
mental officers. Except for the armies of Lorraine, it may fairly
be said that by 5th September no French or British general
had done anything to increase his reputation for talent, though
many had shown a redoubtable coolness and courage. It cannot
rank among the great strategic retreats in history, but it was a
prelude to one of the greatest of the world's battles.

CHAPTER X.

THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE MARNE.
$th-i2th September.

The German and Allied Dispositions— Maunoury moves— Advance of British and
French Fifth Army— Kluck's Tactics— The Crisis of gth September— German
Retreat ordered— Foch's Stand at F6re-Champenoise— The Fight of the French
Fourth and Third Armies— Castelnau and Dubail in Lorraine— The Causes of
Victory.

To understand the immense and complex action or series of actions
which we call the First Battle of the Marne, it is necessary to ex-
amine closely the position of the opposing armies on 5th Sep-
tember, when Joffre gave the general order to turn and fight.
The main German forces lay in a semicircle two hundred miles wide
and thirty miles deep, from Verdun to the skirts of Paris. The I.
Army had its 4th Cavalry Division and 4th Reserve Corps as a
flankguard west of the Ourcq, with no local reserves attached to it
except a Landwehr brigade then on the Oise. South of the Marne
it had the 2nd Corps astride the Grand Morin and still advancing,
and the 4th Corps south of that river from Coulommiers to Chevru.
Both these corps were facing the British. Further east the 3rd Corps
was midway between Montmirail and Provins, and the 9th Corps
near Esternay and Morsains. Marwitz's cavalry corps was in
front of the 4th and 3rd Corps, facing the junction of the British
and French Fifth Armies. On Kluck's left the II. Army had the
7th Corps behind its neighbour's right between Chateau-Thierry
and Montmirail, the loth Reserve Corps south-east of Montmirail,
the loth Corps at the west end of the St. Gond marshes, and the
Guard Corps north and north-east of the marshes. East lay the
III. Army, the 12th Corps a Httle behind, and not yet in line with
Billow's left, the 12th Reserve Corps also out of alignment north
of Sommesous, and the 19th Corps between Chalons and Vitry.

211

212 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

On its left the IV. Army— the 8th, 8th Reserve, i8th, and i8th
Reserve Corps— lay from the north-west of Vitry to the neighbour-
hood of Possesse on the Vitry-Ste. Menehould road. Beyond it
the V. Army lay north and south in an odd curve, south of the
Argonne and astride the river Aire. Its right corps, the 6th, was
moving on Revigny, having come by the west side of the Argonne ;
the 13th Corps, coming by Ste. Menehould, had reached Triaucourt ;
the i6th, aiming at Bar-le-Duc, was on the Aire at Froidos ; the
6th Reserve Corps was at Montfaucon ; and the 5th Reserve Corps
was east of the Meuse about Consenvoye, north of Verdun. The
5th Corps from Metz was on its way to attack the Meuse Heights
from the east. So much for the main front. Beyond the Moselle
the detached German left wing lay before Nancy. The VI. Army
had a division south of Pont-^-Mousson, the 3rd Bavarian Corps
just east of the forest of Champenoux, the 2nd Bavarian Corps
south to the Sanon, the 21st Corps between the Meurthe and the
Mortagne, and the ist Bavarian and the ist Reserve Bavarian Corps
as supports. The VII. Army had its 14th and 14th Reserve Corps
west of Baccarat, and the 15th and 15th Reserve Corps in the
St. Die valley.

Against this array the Allied front lay in concave form, from
Maunoury west of the Ourcq to Sarrail bent in a coil round Verdun.
Maunoury's Sixth Army, still on the 5th in process of formation,
we shall examine as the battle develops. The British Army had
on its left the 3rd Corps south of Crecy, the 2nd Corps in the centre,
and the ist Corps on the right, east of Rozoy. Beyond it lay the
French Fifth Army — Conneau's 2nd Cavalry Corps keeping touch
with the British, the i8th Corps at Provins, the 3rd Corps south-
west of Esternay, the ist Corps across the Grand Morin at Esternay,
the loth Corps a little advanced between Esternay and Sezanne.
Valabregue's group of reserve divisions was in support. The
Ninth Army, under Foch, had on its left the 42nd Division, then
the 9th Corps on both sides of Fere-Champenoise, with posts north
of the St. Gond marshes, and the nth Corps, with only one division
so far in line, covering the Sommesous cross-roads. The Fourth
Army lay south of Vitry across the upper Mame on a front bending
to the north-east. It had the 17th Corps from Sompuis to Cour-
demanges, the 12th Corps at Vitry, Lefevbres's Colonial Corps on its
right, and the 2nd Corps extending to Sermaize. The 21st Corps,
which Joffre had hoped to keep as a general reserve, was presently
to be brought in on Langle's left. The Third Army had a fantastic
alignment. On 5th September it had the 5th Corps north of

1914] THE ALLIED LINE. 213

Revigny, the 6th Corps astride the Aire, and various reserve divi-
sions extending the line northward to Souilly. A few scattered
battalions lay in and around Verdun and on the Heights of the
Meuse. In Lorraine the Second Army had a reserve division in the
Moselle valley, a group of reserve divisions in front of Nancy, the
20th Corps astride the Sanon, and the i6th Corps on the Mortagne.
The First Army had the 8th Corps from Gerbeviller southward,
then the 13th Corps, the 14th Corps in the St. Die valley, and
scattered divisions east of the Meurthe. If we set against each
part of the Allied front its immediate opponent, we shall find
Maunoury and the British engaged with Kluck, Franchet d'Esperey
with Kluck's left and Billow's right and centre, Foch with Billow's
left and Hansen's right and centre, Langle with Hansen's left
and the bulk of the Duke of Wiirtemberg's army, Sarrail with
the Duke of Wiirtemberg's left corps and the Imperial Crown
Prince, Castelnau with the Bavarian Crown Prince, and Dubail
with Heeringen.

It will be observed that the concave arc of the Allied main front
rested on 5th September on two fortified areas, Paris and Verdun ;
that there intervened a tract of difficult hilly country between the
Meuse and Nancy ; and that its detached right wing held the gate-
way of Lorraine. It was a situation to cause acute anxiety, for if
Castelnau failed to bar the door, the whole line would be turned.
But, assuming his success, the position had obvious advantages.
Its hinterland was magnificently served by roads and railways, so
that troops could be moved easily behind the front. The mass
of the Argonne would impede the enemy's lateral communications,
while his main line of supply was already desperately long, and
seriously congested by the resistance of Maubeuge. The chances
of outflanking were declining for him — except in Lorraine — since
the sixty miles of upland between Verdun and Nancy made a large
operation difficult, while Kluck at the other end was himself out-
flanked. Moreover, the numerical advantage was clearly with the
Allies. Between Verdun and Paris the latter had now a superiority
in man power equivalent to at least two first line corps.* Yet, when
all has been said, the decision to give battle involved many hazards.
The enemy had reserves detained at Maubeuge and in Belgium
which might at any moment arrive, and Joffre had none. The
latter had skimmed his front to make new armies, and brought
every trained man he could lay his hands on into the line. In

* The usual estimate is forty-six Allied divisions to forty-one German. Kluck
in his March on Paris, p. 162, estimates the difference as three corps — i.e., six divisions.

214 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

order to weight his striking force, the Fifth and Sixth Armies, he
had left certain sections very weak — 'Castelnau at Nancy, Sarrail
at Verdun, Langle at Vitry, Foch on the Sezanne plateau. Yet
it is certain that the enemy plan had always involved a breach of
his centre and a turning of his right flank as well as his left, and if
the enveloping movement failed a frantic effort would be made to
pierce his line. Could Castelnau hold in Lorraine ? Could Sarrail
prevent a break into Burgundy ? Above all, could Langle and
Foch stand against the united assault of the Duke of Wiirtemberg,
Hansen, and Biilow ? To these questions a less bold man than
the French Commander-in-Chief might well have returned a de-
sponding answer. It is not the least of Joffre's titles to admiration
that, having failed once, he had the courage a second time to stake
everything on a plan where failure could not be retrieved.

As we glance down the roll of generals about to engage in the
battle it is curious to note how many on both sides were to play a
great part to the last day of the war. If some of the major com-
manders presently disappeared, few of the great names in the
campaign were absent at the Marne. Among Kluck's subordi-
nates were Linsingen, Armin, Lochow, Quast, Marwitz — names only
too familiar in after years, Biilow had Einem and Eben ; Hansen,
Elsa and Kirchbach ; the Imperial Crown Prince, Mudra ; and in
Lorraine was Deimling. With Maunoury, Nivelle served as a
colonel of artillery. With the British Army were Haig and Cavan,
Allenby and Home. Franchet d'Esperey had Maud'huy in com-
mand of a corps, and Mangin and Petain with divisions. Foch had
Grossetti, Dubois, and Humbert ; with Sarrail were Micheler and
d'Urbal ; with Castelnau, Balfourier and Fayolle.

In telling the tale of the Marne a day-to-day chronicle will not
suffice. It is simplest to group the action under three heads : the
fight of the Allied left — Maunoury, the British, and Franchet
d'Esperey — in their effort to envelop the enveloper ; the resistance
of the Allied centre and right centre — Foch, Langle, and Sarrail —
against the German attempt to pierce their front ; and the stand
of the Allied right — Castelnau and Dubail — against the Bavarians
at Nancy. But before we turn to the record of events, the physical
configuration of the theatre of the impending battle merits a
brief description. Let us imagine a traveller in early September
going westward from the Verdun forts. 'S^'lien he has left behind
him the narrow vale of the Meuse he will find himself in an upland
country of small pastures, diversified by narrow ravines and spinneys
choked with undergrowth. He will cross the stream of the Aire

1914] THE BATTLEFIELD. 215

and from any rise will note to the southward the profound wood-
lands that sweep towards Bar-le-Duc. Presently his road will
descend, and he will see before him a long, low ridge covered with
dense forests— a knuckle of clay rising from the chalk of the weald.
This is the forest of the Argonne, an old check to the invaders of
France, for the paths are few and blind, and only two gaps carry a
highroad and a railway. From some clear point in the Argonne,
if he looks south-westward, he will catch, far on the horizon, the
golden shimmer which tells of miles of ripening wheat. But as he
looks westward he will see a plain Uke a petrified ocean. For forty
miles to the west and for more than a hundred from north to south
stretch those dreary steppes where heaths and chalky moorlands
are broken by patches of crop, by shapeless coppices, and by large
new plantings of little firs. It is the Champagne-Pouilleuse, the
Sahsbury Plain of France, on whose melancholy levels it had for a
thousand years been prophesied that the Armageddon of Europe
would be fought. Our traveller will cross the infant Aisne, and as
he advances will see the gleam of water which marks where the
Marne flows north from Burgundy. Passing that river at Chalons,
he will presently have before him a long, low line of bluffs, running
north and south— the eastern front of the Falaises de Champagne.
Crossing the highroad from Fere-Champenoise to Rheims, he
will ascend three hundred feet to what is called the plateau of
Sezanne, through which the Marne runs in a deep-cut vale. He
will pass tributaries coming from the south — the Grand and the
Petit Morin — each, Uke the main river, a slow-flowing, unfordable
stream, but each well provided with stone bridges and lined with
woods and country houses. The plateau through which they
flow is the Brie country, noted for its fertes, the ruins of famous
donjons of the past. North of the Marne he will traverse the
Valois and the Ile-de-France, a land rich in farms and orchards,
till beyond the coppices he sees from some low ridge the spires
of Paris.

Both sides reco^ized the gravity of the coming battle. On
the morning of 6th September the French Generalissimo issued
from the old chateau of Marshal Marmont at Chatillon-sur-Seine
the following order to his men : —

" At the moment when a battle is about to begin on which the
salvation of the country depends, it is my duty to remind you that
the time has gone for looking back. We have but one business on
hand — to attack and repel the enemy. Any troops which can no
longer advance will at all costs hold the ground they have won, and

2i6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

allow themselves to be slain where they stand rather than give way.
This is no time for faltering, and it will not be tolerated."

We possess an order issued to the German 8th Corps at Vitry : —

" The object of our long and arduous marches has been achieved.
The principal French troops have been forced to accept battle after
having been continually driven back. The great decision is without
doubt at hand. For the welfare and honour of Germany I expect
every officer and man, notwithstanding the hard and heroic fighting
of the last few days, to do his duty unswervingly and to his last breath.
Everything depends on the result of to-morrow."

To the levies of France Joffre's appeal came with especial
solemnity, for the main battle-ground was the holy land of French
arms. In the north the Allies had been fighting in places whose
names were famous not less in English than in French history,
but the Champagne-Pouilleuse was France's own. From its
southern borders Joan of Arc had come to give heroic inspiration
to her people. On one of its ridges stood the tomb of Kellermann,
to mark where Valmy turned the tide of the Revolution wars. But
the great monument of the past was the vast oval mound which
catches the eye of the traveller on the old Roman road from Chalons.
It is called the Camp of Attila, and the legend is that this uncouth
thing, as strange to European eyes as the Pyramids, was a forti-
fication of the Huns when they broke like a flood upon the West.
The flood was rolled back there, on the plain of Chalons, by Aetius
the Roman, and Theodoric, King of the Visigoths. Once again
the Catalaunian flats were to be the arena of strife with an invader
from the East.

II.

Gallieni on 4th September had ordered Maunoury to begin his
forward movement on the following day. Joffre's order of the
4th had directed Maunoury to get into position of attack on the
5th, but the 6th was fixed by him as the time for the general battle
to commence. If a surprise were to be achieved, it was therefore
essential that Maunoury, while deploying on the 5th, should not
discover himself on that day to Kluck's rearguard.* At noon on

* It should be noted that no blame for this premature discovery can attach
to Maunoury. He was carrying out Joffre's orders — to get into position for attack
with his right near Meaux. Such a position was at the mercy of any German
cavalry reconnaissance.

1914] MAUNOURY ADVANCES. 217

the 5th Lamaze's group of divisions, which had already marched
nearly a hundred miles in three days and nights, moved from the
south of Dammartin towards the line St. Soupplets-Monthyon.
Almost at once they were under fire from the batteries of the
German 4th Reserve Corps. This came as a surprise to Gallieni.
Maunoury, when he started, was at least a dozen miles from the
Ourcq, but it had been assumed that at the outset he would meet with
no opposition, and would make such progress that, when the battle
opened on the 6th, he would be able to cross the Ourcq and move on
Chateau-Thierry. Here, however, was Kluck's flank guard far to
the west of the river. For once the German reconnaissance was
superior to that of the Allies. Gronau, commanding the 4th Reserve
Corps, was aware of Lamaze's position at Dammartin on the 4th
September, and guessed at his purpose. He sent out detachments
towards St. Soupplets on the morning of the 5th, and Lamaze was
detected as soon as he started. Thereupon Gronau resolved to
attack to clear up the situation, and Lamaze with his weary and
depleted divisions had to fight for every yard of his advance. All
day the French struggled on through that rich country, where the
baked white roads ran through the green of beetroot and lucerne,
the yellow of mustard, the gold of ripe corn, and the scarlet of clover.
They suffered heavily, but by the evening Gronau had fallen back
behind the Therouanne. Yet their front was no further than the
line Montge-Cuisy-Iverny-Charny, and the Ourcq ran ten miles
beyond them. The first round had left the vital army of assault
in an equivocal position, and the somewhat slender chance of
surprise had gone.

Meantime the British, having in obedience to Joffre's order
altered their Une of retreat to the south-westward to give the French
Fifth Army room, were behind the forest of Crecy, and in touch
with the railway junctions south of Paris, whence they could draw
their much needed reinforcements. These they received on the
5th. They had before them Kluck's right centre, the 2nd and
part of the 4th Corps, and it was still advancing. That day Sir
John French met Joffre at Melun, and the original instructions to
move due east on the 6th were sHghtly modified. The British
front was now to face north-east ; on its right, to fill the space
between it and the French Fifth Army, would be Conneau's 2nd
Cavalry Corps, and on its left, towards the Marne, Gallieni was
instructed to send the 8th Division of the French 4th Corps to
occupy the gap. At the moment it seemed to Joffre that Maunoury
would require no assistance for his march on the Ourcq. Sir John

2i8 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

French's action at this time was much criticized, as showing undue
timidity about his flanks, and undue slowness in beginning the
counterstroke ; but it is to be remembered that he acted in
accordance with Joffre's precise instructions, and that the French
Commander-in-Chief did not dream that on the 5th his enveloping
plan would l^ revealed to the enemy.

For on the evening of that day Kluck was fully warned. He
had decided to disobey the orders of Great Headquarters, received
early on the morning of the 5th, to halt and cover the northern
and eastern fronts of Paris. But before evening he had news from
his flankguard that strong enemy forces were advancing from Dam-
martin, and he had already received from Biilow tidings of an
Allied concentration on the west. At the same moment there arrived
from Great Headquarters Lieut.-Colonel Hentsch * with the dis-
quieting intelligence that the French had been withdrawing troops
from the centre and right, and that things were going ill on the
east of the line. Kluck did not take long to make up his mind.
With admirable promptness he revised his whole plan of campaign.
At II p.m. that night he ordered his 2nd and 4th Corps back, and
at 3 on the morning of the 6th the 2nd Corps, which lay between
the Marne and the Grand Morin, marched to recross the former
stream in order to support his rearguard. Seven hours before the
beginning of the Allied concentration which was to be a surprise
envelopment Kluck had realized his peril and taken steps to
meet it.

The 6th, the great day, dawned, and Maunoury's Sixth Army
advanced with hope and resolution. It had now the 7th Corps
under Vautier in line on Lamaze's left, and it believed that it had
no more than one German corps and one cavalry division against
It. At first it seemed to be succeeding. St. Soupplets was taken,
and the line of the Therouanne stream reached and crossed ; the
Monthyon ridge followed ; and by the afternoon Maunoury's left
was facing the Bouillancy-Puisieux ridge and his right the hills
around Etrepilly, about five miles from the Ourcq. But suddenly
he found the enemy's resistance stiffen. There was more than
the 4th Reserve Corps before him. A division of the 2nd Corps
had arrived to support the German right about Trocy, and another
to strengthen the left at Varreddes. Maunoury's advance came to
a standstill.

That morning the British army began its forward march. The
change of direction had put it in high spirits, but it believed that it
♦ He was Chief of the Information Section at Great Headquarters.

1914] KLUCK'S PREDICAMENT. 219

had a severe task before it, no less than the stemming of the tide
of the bulk of Kluck's forces. On its left was the 3rd Corps under
Pultcney — the 4th Division and the 19th Brigade ; in its centre
Smith-Dorrien's 2nd Corps ; and Haig with the ist Corps on the
right. At first it appeared that it would have to struggle hard to
advance. Haig had to repel an attack by the rearguard of the
German 4th Corps, now under orders for the Ourcq front. But
by noon of that blistering day, when our men had left the cool
shades of the forest and entered open country, it became clear
that they were only contending with rearguards and Marwitz's
cavalry. The German 2nd Corps had gone, and that morning at
5.30 the 4th Corps moved to recross the Mame. That night the
British had reached the Grand Morin from Crecy eastward, and
had outposts beyond it. Meantime the Fifth Army had also
advanced. It had before it Kluck's two corps of his left, the
3rd and the 9th, and the 7th and loth Reserve Corps of Billow's
right. At first it met with a stout resistance, for Biilow had no
Maunoury to deal with, and the German position was strong on
the two Morins. Conneau's cavalry occupied Courta9on, the i8th
and 3rd Corps carried the villages on the Paris-Nancy highroad
which were the key of the German centre, and the ist Corps,
after a stubborn battle, drove the enemy from Chatillon-sur-Mcrin
and came to the skirts of Esternay. The day was one of small
and hard-won successes, but the reports of the Allied airmen gave
ground for encouragement. Something very odd was happening
to Kluck and the I. Army.

The whole German plan was in process of revision, and the
chief revisor seems to have been the masterful Kluck. The old
enveloping scheme was now impossible, but another had revealed
itself. Kluck would turn and deal with Maunoury, outflank him
on the right and drive him back on Paris. His left and Biilow's
right, assisted by Marwitz's cavalry, would hold off the British
and Franchet d'Esperey, and for this purpose that evening he
handed over to Biilow his left corps, the 3rd and 9th. Meantime
the German centre — Biilow's left, Hansen, the Duke of Wiirtem-
berg, and the Imperial Crown Prince — would drive furiously against
Foch, Langle, and Sarrail, while the Bavarians broke Castelnau at
Nancy. If the Allied centre could be routed, the decisive battle
would have been won, for French and Franchet d'Esperey would
be penned between Paris and the victorious Germans wheeling to
the right. The plan involved one immense hazard. Biilow and
Kluck would be operating in different directions, one to the south-

220 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

east and the other to the north-west, and every hour they would
feel the " effet de ventouse " and tend to draw further apart.
Could the void be filled sufficiently to keep French and Franchet
d'Esperey at arm's length ? Apart from the postulated success of
the German centre, two things were needed for victory — the holding
back of the British and the French Fifth Army, and the complete
destruction of Maunoury.

His ultimate failure cannot lessen our admiration for the way
in which Kluck coped with a shattering crisis. No soldier will
deny his tribute of praise to the skill shown in bringing back the
German corps across the Marne. On the morning of the 7th
Maunoury was faced with the task of a frontal attack on the three
plateaus of Varreddes, Trocy, and Etavigny, which were separated
by the ravines of the Therouanne and Gergogne streams flowing
east to the Ourcq. He had no heavy artillery and no airplanes,
and so was at the mercy of the concealed German batteries. The
day was one long and desperate battle. Kluck's flank guard was
under the general command of Linsingen, and was disposed in three
groups : the right under Armin, the centre under Gronau, and the
left under Trossel — a necessary arrangement, since units had to be
thrown into the fight as they arrived from south of the Marne.
There were now available the 2nd, 4th, and 4th Reserve Corps,
and at 11. 15 a.m. Kluck asked back from Biilow his 3rd and 9th
Corps for use on the Ourcq. So grave did he consider the position
that he ordered his headquarters guard to be ready to go in.
Maunoury had Lamaze's group of divisions and Vautier's 7th
Corps, and next day he got the 45th Algerian Division and the
much-reduced 6ist Reserve Division. Both the combatant armies
were therefore growing, and it was a race between them which
should grow the faster. That day the 45th Division reached Barcy,
and early in the night under a harvest moon entered Etrepilly.
The 7th Corps took Etavigny, but was driven back by the arrival
of part of the German 2nd Corps, and Maunoury 's left was only
saved by Colonel Nivelle's handling of his five field batteries. But
the Trocy plateau was still unwon, and it became clear that Lin-
singen was extending his right with a view to envelopment. Mau-
noury duly extended his left, but he had nothing to put i-j there
except the 6ist Reserve Division and Sordet's ist Cavalr^ Corps.
That evening the French Sixth Army, as it clung to the skirts
of the blazing hills, might well have viewed the future with dis-
may. It was the anvil for the hammer, and it could not see the
thrust which was to cripple the hammer-arm.

1914] THE BATTLE OF THE OURCQ. 221

Meantime all went well with the British and the French Fifth
Army. During the night of the 6th the former had taken Cou-
lommiers, and, starting at 5 a.m. on the 7th, carried the line of the
Grand Morin and pressed on to the Petit Morin. They were opposed
by Marwitz supported by infantry and heavy artillery. By noon,
however, he gave way under the pressure of Allenby's cavalry —
forty-five British squadrons routed seventy-two German — and by
that evening the British 3rd and 2nd Corps were well beyond the
Grand Morin, between La Tretoire and the junction with the Marne.
This advance and the fact that Kluck's 3rd and 9th Corps had gone
north cleared the ground for Franchet d'Esperey's left wing —
fortunately for him, for that day he had to send a division to Foch's
assistance. He marched fast through the forest of Gault, and by
the evening was for the most part across the Grand Morin, with
his van approaching Montmirail.

That night it was clear that Maunoury was in imminent danger
of defeat unless he could find reinforcements. Some were arriving.
The remaining half of the 4th Corps, the 7th Division (the 8th had
already been sent south of the Marne to link up with the British),
detrained that afternoon in Paris. It was at once dispatched to
Betz on Maunoury 's extreme left, and since the need was urgent
half of it covered the 40 miles in Paris taxi-cabs. At dawn on
the 8th it was in its place, and not an hour too soon. For that
day the 3rd Corps was extending the German right, and the 9th
Corps was following it northward. Maunoury attacked on his
wings, but in spite of desperate efforts failed to make way. The
enemy occupied Betz, and bent back the French left between
Nantheuil-le-Haudouin and Bouillancy. The 62nd Reserve Divi-
sion, the last unit left in Paris, was sent out to organize a position
to which the Sixth Army could fall back in case of need. The old
game had been played and once again the enveloper had become
the enveloped. Gallieni did his best to alarm Kluck about his com-
munications. He sent out a detachment of Zouaves in motor cars to
make a raid towards Senlis and Creil, and Bridoux, who had now
succeeded Sordet, dispatched the 5th Cavalry Division on a wild
ride into the Villers-Cotterets woods.* But such devices did not
touch the heart of the problem. Maunoury and his men were at
the very limit of their strength.

But French and Franchet d'Esperey were moving fast, and the
gap between Kluck and Biilow was widening. The British reached

♦ For this episode see Hethay's Le Role de la Cavalerie Franfaise d I'Aile Gauche
i* la p'-'x^re bataille de la Marne, 1919, and Kluck's March nn Paris, p. 133.

222 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

and crossed the Petit Morin, after Haig had been in action at La
Tretoire and Smith-Dorrien had had a stiff fight at Orly. This
meant that our left, the 3rd Corps, now rested on the Marne at La
Ferte-sous-Jouarre, where it was in touch with Kluck's left on the
Ourcq. Franchet d'Esperey, further up the wooded glen of the
Petit Morin, took Montmirail in the late afternoon, and before the
dark fell was well on the road to Chateau-Thierry. That evening
the weather broke. The brilliant starry night changed to showers
of rain which continued through the following day. The position
of the German armies had become irregular in the extreme. Kluck,
wholly north of the Marne, was rapidly lengthening his Hne to the
north ; Bulow, driving on with his left, was drawing back his right
before Franchet d'Esperey's attack. From Lizy-sur-Ourcq to
Conde-en-Brie stretched a gap of thirty miles occupied by nothing
save Marwitz's horse ; and right athwart this gap, about to cross the
Marne, were the British and French Fifth Armies. If Maunoury
could endure for twelve hours more his opponent must retire or
be destroyed.

Wednesday, 9th September, a day of rain and high winds, was
everywhere the crisis of the battle. For Maunoury it seemed that
the crisis had passed and that he was beaten. He was heavily
outnumbered and had no reserves except the 8th Division, which
he now summoned from the south bank of the Marne, but too late
to avert disaster. His troops were hungry, ragged, parched with
thirst, and bone-weary. He was still five miles from the Ourcq
and his left was virtually turned. Gallieni could not send him
another man. Early on the 9th the enemy right attacked and
carried Villers-St.-Genest and Nantheuil, so that the French left
was back at Silly-le-Long, not far from its starting-point four days
earlier. For a moment it looked as if all was over, and Kluck would
soon be hammering at the gates of Paris.

Suddenly there came strange news from the front line. Betz
had been evacuated by the enemy ! From the other end it was
reported that Varreddes and Etrepilly were empty. Very cautiously
the 4th Corps crept forward ; the Germans were still at Nan-
theuil and Etavigny ; but reports came from airmen that long
enemy convoys were moving on all the roads to the north. But
the centre still held east of Etrepilly and Puisieux ! Maunoury's
weary forces could only look on and wonder. Had he had two
fresh divisions he might have made an end of Kluck. It was not
till next morning that the situation was plain, and by that time the
retreat had been in progress for twenty hours. The Si:cth Army

1914] THE GAP WIDENS. 223

by its endurance on the Ourcq had enabled the Allies to win the
Battle of the Marne. It well deserved the message which Maunoury
issued that day : " Comrades ! The Commander-in-Chief asked
you in the name of your Fatherland to do more than your duty :
you have responded to his appeal beyond the limits of human
possibility. ... If I have done any service I have been repaid
by the greatest honour that has been granted me in a long career,
that of commanding such men as you."

The eleventh hour salvation of the Sixth Army was due to the
doings on the 9th of the Fifth Army and the British. Franchet
d'Esperey, whose army seemed to gather momentum with each
mile it advanced, was driving Billow's right before him like a
flock before a shepherd. He had to send his loth, and later his
1st Corps, to support Foch, but these losses did not lessen his im-
petus. On his left Conneau's cavalry crossed the Marne at Azy
and struck at Billow's flank ; the i8th Corps marched on Chateau-
Thierry, which fell in the evening; the 3rd occupied Montigny.
Billow's right corps, the 7th, was so severely handled that it fell
back in something like disorder. The gap between the German I. and
II. Armies threatened to turn from a fissure to a chasm. Presently
there would be forty miles of unprotected flank on which Biilow
would invite attack. In the evening Franchet d'Esperey issued
his famous order to the Fifth Army : —

" Soldiers ! On the historic fields of Montmirail, Vauchamps, and
Champaubert, which a hundred years ago witnessed the victories of
our ancestors over Bliicher's Prussians, our vigorous offensive has
triumphed over the resistance of the Germans. Harried on his flanks,
broken in his centre, the enemy is now retreating east and north by
forced marches. The finest corps of Old Prussia, the contingents of
Westphalia, Hanover, and Brandenburg have fallen back in haste before
you. But this initial success is only a prelude. The enemy is shaken
but not decisively beaten. You will still have to endure great hard-
ships, to make long marches, and to fight hard battles. May the image
of your country, soiled by barbarians, be ever before your eyes ! "

Straight through the ever-widening gap and against Kluck's
flank and rear the British were marching. In their haste the
Germans had failed to blow up the Marne bridges west of Chateau-
Thierry, except those at La Fert6-sous-Jouarre. They might have
disputed the crossing, for the river runs in a deep trench, and the
wooded bluffs on the north bank command all the approaches
from the south. But on the river line there was little resistance.
The 3rd Corps on the left was hung up most of the day at La Fert^-

224 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

sous-Jouarre by the broken bridge, and the ist Corps on the right
by a threat of attack from Chateau-Thierry, which was still held
by the enemy. But in the morning the British centre, the 2nd
Corps, crossed with ease, and by 8 a.m. was four miles to the north
on the Chateau-Thierry-Lizy road, directly in rear of Kluck's
left flank. The delay of the 3rd and ist Corps enabled Kluck to
improvise a temporary defence across the loop of the Marne between
Lizy and Chateau-Thierry. Two divisions of Marwitz's cavalry
were in the gap, and about 11 a.m. Kluck sent the 5th Infantry
Division from Trocy, with the support of some of his heavy artillery,
and borrowed Richthofen's cavalry from Biilow. The screen was
never seriously attacked by the British owing to the delay to their
3rd and 1st Corps. Marwitz fell back in the evening to the line
of the Clignon stream, and presently Sir John French heard from his
airmen that the Germans were evacuating the whole angle between
Ourcq and Marne. Kluck had at last given the order for retreat.

What was the news which finally convinced the stubborn general
of the I. Army ? His own narrative traces the stages of his con-
version. About ir a.m., he says, he heard from Marwitz that
part of the British had crossed the Marne. According to his
account he was not alarmed. He was succeeding famously on his
right, and by slightly swinging back his left and sending reinforce-
ments to Marwitz, he hoped to stave off the danger till Maunoury
was crushed. But before i p.m. he received a message from the
II. Army that it had begun the retreat. Franchet d'Esperey's han-
dling of Billow's 7th Corps had convinced that commander that his
position was desperate. Simultaneously Colonel Hentsch, the
plenipotentiary of Great Headquarters, arrived from Biilow, and
informed Kluck's staff that all the armies must fall back. The
I. Army must retire at once to the line Soissons-Fere-en-Tardenois,
perhaps even to that of Laon-La Fere. These were the instructions
of the Supreme Command, and Kluck had no choice but to obey.
At 2 p.m. he gave the orders for a retreat towards the Aisne. Such
is his own account, but it is not possible wholly to accept it, for a
general looking back at an unpleasant decision is apt unwittingly
to post-date it. It seems certain, judging by the early evacuation
of Betz and Varreddes, and the early hour when his transport took
the road, that by 11 a.m. Kluck had decided that the game was
lost, and that any fighting thereafter was in the strictest sense a
rearguard action. This decision can only have been caused by
the news that by 9 a.m. part of the British 2nd Corps was four
miles north of the Marne. Biilow and Hentsch, in their repre-

1914] FOCH. 225

sentations after midday, were forcing an open door. As Franchet
d'Esperey convinced Biilow, so Sir John French convinced Kluck
that there was no alternative to retreat.*

By midday on the 9th the left wing of the Allies had won an
indisputable victory. But the situation was fantastic, for their
centre was still hard pressed and on the verge of breaking. We
turn now to the doings of Foch, Langle, and Sarrail.

III.

So soon as Kluck was compelled to turn about to face Maunoury,
the German plan, if a decisive battle were to be fought, had for
its most vital offensive movement the breach of the French centre,
and the success of the Allied left wing increased the burden on
Foch. On 5th September the French Ninth Army was in that
portion of the Champagne-Pouilleuse which lies between the
sharp edge of the Brie plateau in the west and the Troyes-Chalons
road in the east. The battlefield was open, the plateau of Sezanne
falling gently eastward toward the upper Mame. It contained,
however, one curious feature. In the chalky soil of the plateau
lies a pocket of clay, ten miles long from east to west, and of a
breadth varying from one to two miles. Through that pocket
flows the Petit Morin, now a very small stream ; indeed, here lay
its springs, and it and its affluents had been canalized to prevent
flooding. The place was called the Marshes of St. Gond ; they
were now almost wholly reclaimed, and between the acres of rank
grass the various rivulets ran in deep ditches, as in any marshy
English meadow. In fine weather the ground was dry enough,
but in heavy rains the slopes to north and south sent down trickles
of water, the canalized streams overflowed, and the clay soil of
the pocket became a quagmire. The Marshes were crossed at
each end by two notable highways, leading respectively from
Sezanne to Epernay and from Fere-Champenoise to Mareuil.
Between these roads four country tracks crossed the bog, none of
them engineered or metalled, and likely in flood time to become as
deep in mire as the adjoining marshes. The place had played its
part in the 1814 campaign, and was obviously of high strategic

♦This view is confirmed by the account of the military inquiry in 1917 into
Hentsch's conduct, published in the Militdr Wochenblatt, September 1920, from which
it appears that (i) there was a panic behind that part of the I. Army opposed to the
British ; (2) von Kuhl, Kluck's Chief of Staff, thought retirement inevitable ; and (3)
Kluck's left wing had been ordered back — all before Hentsch's arrival at I. Army
Headquarters.

226 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

importance. The swamp formed a natural barrier against the
German advance, and the western road across it was commanded
on the south by the hill of Mondement, the eastern by Mont Aout.

On 5th September, after Foch received from Joffre the order
to stand, he had his left, the 42nd Division, on the hills between
Soisy and Mondement ; his centre, Dubois' 9th Corps, just south
of the Marshes, with two battalions pushed beyond them ; his
right, Eydoux's nth Corps, from the east end of the Marshes to
Sommesous, with a cavalry division covering the gap between him
and Langle. He had against him Biilow's left, and almost the
whole of Hausen's HI. Army, and besides being outnumbered, was
conspicuously inferior in artillery. His position was uneasy, for
on his right lay a gap which Hansen might well pierce, and he
could not strengthen this in the face of Biilow's thrust against his
left. He was compelled to pivot on the Sezanne position and
defend that plateau to the last, trusting to fortune that the enemy
would not detect the dangerous gap about Sommesous.

When the battle opened on the 6th, he had to meet the attack
of Biilow's right on the Marshes. His own left centre, the advanced
units of the 9th Corps, was speedily driven south of the Marshes,
and evening found Dubois at Mont Aout, with the Prussian Guard
at Bannes, though small French detachments still clung to Morains
and Aulnay. His left held at Soisy, but his right was in trouble
at Ecurie and Normee, and just managed to cling to Sommesous.
It was plain that the part of the Ninth Army in the battle was to
be that of a desperate defence.

On the 7th the 42nd Division, which was helped by Franchet
d'Esperey's advance, yielded nothing. But Humbert's ist Moroc-
can Division on their right had a fierce struggle with the German
loth Corps around Mondement. " The Germans are bottled up,"
Humbert told his men, " and Mondement is the cork ; we must
never let it go." The place was held that day, but only by the nar-
rowest margin. Further east Morains and Aulnay were lost, and
Aulnizeux followed in the evening. The enemy that day had
cleared the St. Gond Marshes, and prepared the way for an attack
by both his wings. This came before dawn on the 8th, but at first
things went well for the French in the west. The 42nd and Moroc-
can Divisions counter-attacked, and took Oyes and Soisy. But
in the east the assault of the Prussian Guard and the 12th Saxon
Corps on the French nth Corps came very near to a break through.
Lenharree was early lost, Sommesous followed, and the broken line
was forced back, till at 10.30 a.m. the Prussian Guard entered Fere-

1914] THE STRUGGLE FOR MONDEMENT. 227

Champenoise. There was much gallant fighting by rearguards, but
by the evening the enemy was four or five milts south of Fere-
Champenoise, and further east was in Mailly, and the whole of
Foch's right was in fragments. This disaster reacted on his left and
centre. The 42nd Division lent a regiment as support to Dubois,
and presently it and the Moroccans had to relinquish all their
morning's gain. Humbert, however, clung to Mondement, though
he had but a single battalion in reserve, and the heavy rain which
began in the evening helped the defence. The centre, Dubois's
9th Corps, found its flanks turned by the defeat of the right wing,
but it managed to form an irregular front facing east and covering
Puits and Mont Aout. In the afternoon there were further losses,
but the nth Corps rallied sufficiently to occupy a hne in the Mau-
rienne valley from Corroy to Semoine.

Foch was aware that at any moment might come the crisis of
the battle. He had only to hold, and Franchet d'Esperey, French,
and Maunoury would do his business for him further west. That
day, when his centre and right had been broken on a front of ten
miles, he had reported that the situation was excellent and that
he was about to attack. It was not bravado. It was a reasoned
decision on sound data by a consummate master of war. He saw
that the German armies were being sucked apart, and that at any
moment the attack would itself split into gaps ; and though his
own army had been driven back in three days of desperate battle,
he prepared to take the offensive. He would strike with his last
strength at the decisive moment and in a decisive place, and that
place must be the new German flank, eight miles long, between
Mont Aout and Corroy — for a thrust which does not wholly succeed
offers a vulnerable flank. Where could he get his striking force ?
Eydoux and Dubois could give him nothing. There remained
only his extreme left, Grossetti's 42nd Division. To take its
place he borrowed the 51st Division from Franchet d'Esperey.

But when the wet dawn broke on the 9th an offensive seemed
the wildest folly. For at 3 a.m. Mondement fell. Humbert
counter-attacked and failed. But the place must be retaken, or
the left of the Ninth Army would be swept off its pivot on the
Sezanne plateau. Humbert borrowed Grossetti's artillery and
got back the 77th Regiment, which he had lent to Dubois, and
at 2.30 p.m. advanced to the attack. At 3.30 he had again
failed. At 6 p.m. came the final effort, and before 7 p.m. the
chateau was in French hands. The " last ounce of resolution " had
won. That was for the left, but things were very desperate in

228 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

the centre. At 5 a.m. Biilow and Hansen mustered all their
strength and hurled the Prussian Guard and the two Saxon Corps
against Dubois and Eydoux. The Corroy position fell, Mont
Aout fell, and for hours the line resolved itself into a precarious
struggle of oddments of infantry and cavalry wherever there seemed
a chance for a stand. The whole of the centre and right had de-
composed under the assault. But Foch was adamant. He would
still attack, and with the 42nd Division, which since 8.30 a.m. had
been marching eastward behind the rear. He was convinced that
the enemy had reached the extreme limit of fatigue, and that
victory would still fall to the last ounce of resolution.

The Germans, after a night's revel in Fere-Champenoise, pushed
on steadily during the day, and by i p.m. the Guard was in Con-
nantre and the Saxons in Gourgan^on. It was Foch's plan that
the 42nd Division should attack their flank between Linthes and
Pleurs, along the highway to Fere-Champenoise. Dubois was to
do what he could on the left, and Eydoux was to raUy from the
south. About 6 p.m., while the sky was clearing after the rain to a
red sunset, the 42nd Division arrived. But it was not needed.
Only the 9th Corps, of all the contemplated offensive, went into
action, and then only in a rearguard skirmish. For that day,
about noon, Biilow had made up his mind to fall back, and Colonel
Hentsch was ordering the retreat of all the German armies. The
orders must have been issued from the different headquarters
before 3 p.m. By 5.30 Fere-Champenoise was full of German
troops hurrying north from Connantre and Gourgangon. The
long anguish of the Ninth Army was over.

Ever since the month of the battle legend has been busy with
Foch's performance. The march of the 42nd Division has become
a saga. Human nature longs to simplify and to find the culmi-
nating drama in some small thing — the heroism of one man, the
sudden inspiration of a single general, the intervention of a solitary
unit against impossible odds. It has been held that the 42nd
Division struck the blow which compelled the enemy's retreat.
But the facts do not support this gallant romance, for the 42nd
Division was never in action before the retirement. Yet its march
was a great achievement, and it may well be maintained that had
the orders to retreat not been already issued the 42nd Division
would have compelled them. Biilow and Hausen escaped only
just in time. Beyond doubt Foch's stubborn defence was one of
the main causes of the Allied victory, for it defeated the alterna-
tive German plan. Had he yielded on the 6th or 7th, Franchet

19 14] LANGLE AND SARRAIL. 229

d'Esperey and the British would have been gravely compromised.
For sheer magnificence of stubborn heroism the fight of the Ninth
Army must remain unsurpassed in any campaign, and the last
retaking of Mondement by Humbert and the march of the weary and
dazed 42nd on what seemed a hopeless venture will live for ever
as proof of what may be endured and dared by the spirit of man.

As we move eastward in the battle-line the struggle is slower
to reach a decision. The fight of the French Fourth and Third
Armies had no help from any outflanking movement, nor were the
enemy forces opposed to them being sucked apart as were Biilow
and Hausen before Foch. Their actions were stubborn pieces of
stonewalling against an antagonist slightly superior in numbers.
Had Langle given way at any time before the 9th the Marne would
have been a lost battle, and had Sarrail failed the whole salient
of the Meuse would have gone to the enemy. On the night of 5th
September Langle had his 17th Corps facing Hansen's left, the
Saxon 19th Corps, just east of the Camp of Mailly ; his centre,
the Colonial Corps, against the 8th and 8th Reserve Corps of
Duke Albrecht south of Vitry ; and his right, the 2nd Corps, flung
forward against the German i8th Corps north of the Ornain. He
was aiming in conjunction with Sarrail at an outflanking move-
ment to press Duke Albrecht and the Imperial Crown Prince west-
ward after the fashion of Maunoury's movement on the Ourcq.
On the 6th, the 17th Corps made a slight advance west of Courde-
manges, but the centre was driven back and all but separated from
the right wing. That right wing in the afternoon was forced south
of the Ornain, and next day, the 7th, the Germans were in Etrepy
and Sermaize.

For a moment it looked as if Tangle's two flanks were to be
turned. Only just in time arrived two corps of the reserve, the
13th, which filled the gap between him and Sarrail, and the 21st,
which extended his left. The chief danger lay on the right, where
the Allied front made a right angle, and where a break through
would sever for good Sarrail and Langle. The enemy, having
crossed the Ornain, had reached the wooded plateau of Trois-
Fontaines and was aiming at St. Dizier. On the 8th he was in
Pargny and Maurupt, but meantime the 15th Corps had arrived and
threatened the flank of any further German advance. That day
there was a desperate battle in the centre around Mont Moret, and
the French left clung to its position till the first troops of the 21st
Corps could arrive. They came that evening, and next day, the 9th,

230 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

attacked the Saxon left and drove it back to Sommesous. That
was the end of Hansen, for on the loth he was in full retreat before
Foch and Langle.

Sarrail had a still more difficult task. He was opposed to the
Imperial Crown Prince, who was now some twenty-five miles south-
west of Verdun, and his front, which faced east and north, had behind
it the Heights of the Meuse, which were threatened by an attack
from Metz. He saw more clearly than the Commander-in-Chief the
importance of Verdun, and resolved to keep in touch with that
fortress so long as he dared, even though he might thereby lose
contact with Langle. On the morning of the 6th he had his left,
the 5th Corps, facing Duke Albrecht's left and the Crown Prince's
6th Corps at Revigny ; his centre, the 6th Corps, against the German
13th Corps astride the Aire ; and the group of divisions on his right
along the Verdun-Bar-le-Duc highroad against the German i6th
and 6th Reserve Corps. The Imperial Crown Prince was aiming
at Bar-le-Duc, and his cavalry had orders to ride for the line Dijon-
Besangon-Belfort — a proof that the German V. Army beUeved
itself on the verge of a dramatic success. But on the 6th he found
his centre held, and the communications of his left threatened,
though his right in conjunction with Wiirtemberg had gravely com-
promised Sarrail's left, and had taken Revigny. On the 7th the
struggle was intense, but that evening the arrival of a division of
the 15th Corps from Lorraine eased the situation on the left.
D'Urbal had been sent with his cavalry to that flank, when he was
suddenly recalled, for the position on the eastern bank of the Meuse
had become critical. About noon on the 7th part of the 5th Corps
from Metz arrived and began the bombardment of Fort Troyon,
which commanded the Gap of Spada. In twenty-four hours 400
heavy shells were thrown into the place, and seven of its guns were
put out of action. Sarrail had no reserves, and, while his left was
being enveloped, it looked as if his right might any moment be
taken in the rear.

On the evening of the 8th Joffre directed Sarrail to fall back
from Verdun to the west bank of the Meuse. But the stout-
hearted commander of the Third Army did not act on this authority.
By II on the morning of the 9th Troyon had not a gun left in
action, the thin screen around Verdun seemed about to dissolve,
while the centre was shaking under the assaults of the German 13th
and i6th Corps. That night came the news that Kluck was in
retreat before the British and Franchet d'Esperey, Biilow before
Foch, and Hansen before Langle. On the loth Sarrail's left ad-

1914] THE DEFENCE OF NANCY. 231

vanced, but the struggle in the centre and on the right continued,
and in the evening the first steps were taken for the abandonment of
Verdun. But, though Sarrail did not know it, the Imperial Crown
Prince was already in retreat. His right was swinging back to-
wards the Argonne, and on the night of the 12th his centre and left
followed. Troyon, now little more than a shell, was saved.

IV.

It remains to chronicle the stand of the detached Allied right
wing in Lorraine. We have seen that Dubail and Castelnau had
secured the Gap of Charmes and now faced the enemy on the strong
ground between Pont-a-Mousson and the northern spurs of the
Vosges. Their task was to remain on the defensive, and for this
the simplest position might well have seemed to be the difhcult
banks of the Moselle, Meurthe, and Mortagne, with Toul and Epinal
behind them. But Castelnau, who had long foreseen some such
situation as this, had planned otherwise. A scion of an ancient
and famous house, and a man so liberal in mind that, though
himself a devout Catholic, his two principal assistants were a
Protestant and a free-thinker, he represented a rare union of
new and old, of military science and fighting ardour. He saw the
value of Nancy, and clung to it as Sarrail clung to Verdun. He
took up position on the eastern half-moon of hills, the Grand
Couronne, the two tips of which, the hill of Amance in the north and
the Rambetant ridge in the south, enclosed the woody plateau of
Champenoux. Thence his left was extended by the Moselle
heights, and on the south beyond the Sanon lay an intricate land
of wood and river up to the Vosges buttresses. No stronger
position for defence could be found on the frontier.

The French First and Second Armies had been skimmed to
form Joffre's reserve. Castelnau had surrendered the i8th, 9th,
15th, and 2nd Cavalry Corps ; Dubail the 21st and, presently, the
13th Corps. On the 4th September the former had the 73rd
Reserve Division withdrawn on his left flank near Pont-a-Mousson ;
a group of divisions, including the 70th under Fayolle, in front of
Nancy ; Balfourier's 20th Corps on the right of the Grand Cou-
ronne across the Sanon ; and the i6th Corps on the Mortagne.
Dubail, with the 8th, 13th, and 14th Corps and several divisions,
lay from Gerbeviller to south of St. Die. The German VI. and
VII. Armies considerably outnumbered the French, for they had
just received very large accretions from the Ersatz and Landwehr.

232 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

The enemy plan was for Heeringen to pin Dubail down, and then
transfer forces to the centre for Prince Rupprecht's assault on
Nancy. This was the first stage in the battle, and on 4th Sep-
tember, when the main action began, Dubail had resisted the enemy
attempts to break west from the valley of the upper Meurthe.
The engagement spread to Castelnau's right, but by the 6th the first
stage was finished, for Heeringen had begun to move the bulk of
his troops to Prince Rupprecht and was himself under orders for
the Aisne. Dubail had also to surrender his 13th Corps and remain
inactive, watching the passes. For the combat was now joined
before Nancy.

The Bavarian bombardment began there on the afternoon of
the 4th. The French centre, the 20th Corps, held firm under the
infantry attacks which presently revealed themselves as an attempt
to break through between the horns of the Grand Couronne and
at the same time envelop the northern wing by an attack of the
Metz troops up the Moselle valley. All night the battle raged
furiously, the Bavarians pushed up the gullies and woodland
paths, and by the morning the whole front between the Cham-
penoux forest and the Rambetant had been pressed back. Further
south the i6th Corps was driven to the left bank of the Mortagne,
and the enemy crossed below Gerbeviller. This danger, however,
was checked on the 5th, and on the 6th the i6th Corps recrossed
the river and retook Gerbeviller. But early on the 5th the Bava-
rians reached the foot of Amance hill, and by the evening the 20th
Corps had lost half of the southern horn of the Grand Couronne.
That afternoon, too, the blow fell in the north. The German 33rd
Reserve Division came down on Ste. Genevieve in the loop of the
Moselle, and next day, the 6th, was only six miles from Nancy at
Marbache and eight miles from Toul at Saizerais.

On the 7th came the crisis. The Bavarians concentrated their
efforts on breaking the French centre by way of Amance and the
little Amezule glen. After a violent bombardment ten battalions
rushed the gap, and by midday Prince Rupprecht had the Cham-
penoux plateau. But Amance held, and under the fire of the
French guns the enemy's threat was stayed on its slopes. More-
over, the French posts on the Ste. Genevieve spur had delayed the
advance of the Metz troops, and Castelnau was able to send re-
inforcements to that quarter.* All day on the 8th the struggle

* On this day the orders were actually written for the evacuation of Nancy,
owing to the belief that the Ste. Genevieve spur was lost. See Dubail's account ia
his Quatre Annies de Commandement, Vol. I. {1920).

THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE MARNE.

: LUXEMBURG I) I ) ^ \

SS>^\r? "V' -''^ _ 'I } I

_^ ^^ Ncufihirchen,

3V\9\AN\ 3HT ^O 3JTTAa T3fin 3Hr

1914] SUMMARY OF THE BATTLE. 233

continued among the woody hills till the enemy impetus began to
weaken. The proof of failure came that evening when in the
chagrin of disappointment the German guns threw eighty shells into
Nancy. On the 9th the reaction began, and by the night of the
loth the Bavarians were in retreat. Pont-^-Mousson, Remere-
ville, Luneville, Baccarat, St. Die passed again into French hands :
Castelnau by the narrowest of margins had barred the gate of the
east.

For a Uttle the German Emperor had viewed the fight at Nancy
from a hill near Moncel. We shall see him again, in his grey
cloak and spiked helmet, watching the menace of the Russians
from a Polish castle, or looking at the desperate charge of his
volunteers among the wet fields of Flanders. He flits restlessly
between east and west, everywhere making brave speeches, every-
where announcing a speedy and final triumph. A melancholy
figure he cuts, as he stands on the fringe of the battle-smoke at
Nancy, looking west to Burgundy and that promised land which
he could not enter. An object for pity, perhaps, rather than
commination, for he is the dreamer whose dreams do not come
true, and who in his folly has imagined that his caprices are the
ordinations of destiny.

The First Battle of the Marne ranks by common consent as
the greatest, because the most significant, contest of the war.
In one sense it was not decisive ; it did not destroy one of the
combatant forces like Jena, or make peace inevitable like Sadowa
and Solferino. The German losses were not overwhelming; they
kept their armies in being, and were able to make a masterly re-
tirement. But it was decisive in another sense ; for it meant
the defeat of the first German plan of campaign, and it utterly
transformed the strategical situation. The avalanche designed to
crush French resistance in a month had failed of its purpose. The
" battle without a morrow " had gone beyond hope ; the battle had
been fought and the morrow was come. Thereafter Germany was
compelled to accept a slow war of entrenchments which was re-
pugnant to all her theories, and every week brought her nearer to
the position of a beleaguered city.

She failed, as Marmont failed at Salamanca, because she left a
perilous gap in her front, and that gap was due, as we have seen,
less to any blunders of individual generals than to the defects in-

234 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

herent in her whole strategy of envelopment. The scheme was
over-ambitious, and broke down because it demanded the im-
possible. It asked too much of her overworked troops, and it
placed a burden of co-ordination and control on Great Head-
quarters which they could not sustain. Tactically, when the
battle was joined, her commanders made few mistakes.* It has
been for long the fashion to dispute as to which movement on the
Allied side was the main cause of victory. Human nature, as we
have seen, in its quest for drama loves to simplify — but this instinct
is less historical than literary, and modern battles are not won by
the heau gesie. The causa causans of victory was Joffre's plan, the
Fabian strategy which, in spite of many blunders, was resolved
to delay till it found a favourable terrain, a better balance of
strength, and the chance of the strategic initiative. The proxi-
mate cause was Maunoury's flank attack, inspired by Gallieni,
which halted Kluck and opened the way for the British and Fran-
chet d'Esperey. But without the heroic offensive-defensive of
Foch, and the stubborn endurance of Langle and Sarrail — above
all, without Castelnau's epic resistance at Nancy — the initiative
could not have been seized in the West, and the Marne would have
reahzed Kluck's hopes. In the far-flung contest every army of
the Allies did its appointed task and earned a share in the triumph.
It was the ultimate battle of the old regime of war, a battle of
movement, surprise, improvisation ; which is to say, it was fought
and won less by the machine than by the human quality of the
soldier. In the last resort the giver of victory was the ancient
and unconquerable spirit of France.

* The only serious mistakes seem to have been that Hansen did not realize the
gap between Foch and Langle, and that the Imperial Crown Prince failed to recognize
till it was too late the weakness of the junction of Langle and Sarrail.

CHAPTER XI.

THE OCCUPATION OF BELGIUM.

The Overrunning of Belgium — German Breaches of the Laws of War— The " Armed
Dogma " — Belgium and her King.

As the Allied armies moved forward after the Marne they came
for the first time into a countryside ravaged by war, and learned
the ways of the would-be conquerors. Everywhere the tale was
the same — among the farms of the Valois and the orchards of the
Marne, in the skirts of Champagne, in the Meuse uplands, in the
Lorraine towns, and throughout the villages which nestled in the
Vosges glens. It was a tale of horrors which revealed a new thing
in war, and to read the full text of it we must return to Belgium.

The surge of the great armies southward on 24th August left
Belgium in the hands of the invaders, with the exception of the
city of Antwerp, Ostend and the coast, and a portion of West
Flanders. There is a passage in the Book of Deuteronomy which
was quoted at the time by a German newspaper as an encouraging
precedent for the doings of a modern Israel : —

" And I sent messengers out of the wilderness of Kedemoth unto
Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying, Let me pass through
thy land : I will go along by the high way, I will neither turn unto the
right hand nor to the left. Thou shalt sell me meat for money, that
I may eat ; and give me water for money, that I may drink .... But
Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him : for the Lord thy
God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might
deliver him into thy hand, as appeareth this day. And the Lord said
unto me, Behold, I have begun to give Sihon and his land before thee :
begin to possess, that thou mayest inherit his land. jjThen Sihon
came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz. And the
Lord our God delivered him before us ; and we smote him, and his
sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and
utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every
city, we left none to remain : only the cattle we took for a prey unto
ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took."

That Belgium should share the fate of the cities of Heshbon

236

236 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

was no part of the original German plan. The Emperor and his
advisers had sincerely hoped that she would for due consideration
sell Germany the right of passage. Had she done that, we may
be certain that the march through Belgium would have been a
miracle of decorum, that every bushel of oats and peck of flour
would have been paid for in cash, and that not a door-knob would
have been damaged. German discipline was marvellously per-
fect when discipHne was desired. Failing the right of entry, the
German leaders believed that the complete repulse of the Belgian
forces, the occupation of her capital, and the sight of the omni-
potent German armies would awe her into an abject, if sullen,
submission. Belgium would no doubt fall to Germany when the
war was over, and this sleek and mercantile little people, the
comniis voyageurs of Europe, would not quarrel with their future
bread and butter. If, on the other hand, the nation should prove
refractory, the position might be serious, and would demand strin-
gent measures. For through the plain of Belgium and the hilly
Ardennes ran the communications of the great armies now sweeping
towards Paris. No first-line troops could be spared to guard them ;
only reserves, and a limited number of these. To waste a field
army by using it as an army of occupation was repugnant to the
whole German theory of war. The process of Germanization was
at once set going. Marshal von der Goltz had been nominated
military governor of Belgium ; governors were appointed for dis-
tricts and cities ; fines were levied on the different localities, to
warn a presumably thrifty race of the folly of resistance ; the
clocks were changed to German time ; German currency was
introduced, and German nomenclature adopted. Everything
was done to convince the Belgian people that the conquest of
Belgium was an accomplished fact.

But the Belgian people obstinately refused to be convinced.
The field army was not content with the security of Antwerp.
On the 24th of August it made a sortie and took Malines, which
commanded the best railway connection between Germany and
West Flanders. At the moment there was considerable German
activity towards the north-west of Belgium and the coast. General
von Boehn's 9th Reserve Corps, destined to reinforce Kluck, was
marching towards Bruges and Ghent, and a detachment of Uhlans
was close upon Ostend. On 27th August three battalions of British
Marines occupied that town, which might be the forerunners of a
new British army.* With the British at Ostend and the Belgians
* This force was withdrawn on the 31st.

I9I4J THE DESTRUCTION OF BELGIUM. 237

at Malines, the German forces in West Flanders might be caught
in a trap, and the communications on which the great armies
depended seriously imperilled. The Belgian sortie had the valu-
able result of depriving Kluck of his reinforcements and bringing
Boehn hurriedly eastward again. The fighting in Belgium of the
next three weeks took place for the most part in a triangle of which
Antwerp was the apex and a line drawn from Termonde to Aerschot
the base. A second sortie on the 9th September gave the Belgians
Termonde and Aerschot, but by the 13th they had retired, when
the Germans brought up a fresh division of the 3rd Reserve
Corps. Thereafter there was nothing before them but a slow fall-
ing back upon Antwerp, and the enemy began to close in on that
devoted city.

After this gallant diversion the misery which is inseparable
from war increased to something like a reign of terror. Belgium
was a most vulnerable land. The long-descended habits of its
people made of it a hive of industry ; its fields were tilled like
gardens, its little cities were history embodied and visible, full
of precious tokens of their stormy past and industrious present.
Everywhere was a civilization rich, warm, compact, and continuous.
In this most habitable land was to be seen some of the finest stone
and brick work of the Flemish Renaissance, and whole streets
and towns might have come intact from the fifteenth century.
Everywhere were ancient church spires, rising far over the flats,
and sweetening the air with their carillons ; and in town and
hamlet alike were masterpieces of Flemish tapestry and painting
— the handiwork of Rubens and Vandyck and Bouts and Matsys.
A bull on a common is a harmless creature, but he will play havoc
in the cabinet of the virtuoso.

Let us deal first with the vandalism which was proven and
admitted — the destruction of old and beautiful cities. Louvain
was the chief university town of Belgium, and one of the intel-
lectual centres of Catholic Europe. Even more than Oxford it
whispered from its spires " the last enchantments of the Middle
Age." Its town hall was the most miraculous of the many miracles
of Gothic architecture which adorned the Belgian plain. Its uni-
versity was one of the oldest in Europe, and contained in its library
riches of incunabula and manuscripts befitting a city which was
associated with More and Erasmus. Its Church of St. Peter was
full of treasures of painting and carving, and the fabric itself in
its solemn simplicity rose majestically above the cluster of ancient
dusky streets. On the evening of 25th August, while the Belgian

238 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

front was about ten miles distant, there was an outburst of rifle
fire in the town, and several Germans were hit. The Germans an-
nounced that it was the outcome of a plot among the civilian popu-
lace, instigated by the Belgian Government ; the Belgians declared
that a detachment of Germans, driven back from Malines, was
fired upon in mistake by the German troops of occupation. Such
were the two tales ; we need only add that the first was weakened
by the fact that the Civic Guard of Louvain had already been
disarmed, and the rifles in the town hunted out and confiscated ;
while the probability of the second was heightened by the proven
circumstance that many of the German garrison were drunk.
A certain Major von Manteuffel — an unworthy bearer of a famous
name — was in command, and he gave the order for the destruction
of the city. It was done as systematically as the condition of the
soldiers allowed. Small incendiary tablets and fagots soaked in
paraffin were flung in through the broken windows. Houses were
entered and assiduously looted, what could not be carried away
being smashed and flung into the streets. Presently much of the
city was in a blaze. The university disappeared, and with it the
great library ; only the walls of St. Peter's Church remained ; and
who shall say how many ancient houses were turned into heaps of
ashes ? The town hall survived, saved by the Germans out of
some sudden compunction, and that gemlike thing stood forlorn
among the blackened acres.

Malines — the Mechlin which gave its name to the lace collars
of our ancestors — was only less famous in the annals of Flanders.
The great Cathedral of St. Rombaut, soaring with its unfinished
tower above the Grande Place, dated from late in the thirteenth
century, and contained the most superb of Vandyck's pictures.
In its Palais de Justice Margaret of Austria had held court, and
no city in the world was richer in ancient and storied houses. We
have seen that the Belgian army retook Malines ; but they did not
hold it, for they were a field army and not a garrison. On 27th
August, when the first German bombardment took place, there were
probably no Belgian troops in the town. The roof and walls of
the cathedral were riddled with shells, and the populace fled from
the place in panic. On 2nd September it was again bombarded,
and the German fire was directed successfully against the tower
of St. Rombaut's. The famous bells, which had rung their carillon
for five centuries, were shattered to pieces. Again on 26th Sep-
tember, when the scared inhabitants had begun to creep back,
there was a third bombardment, which issued in a fire that raged

1914] MALINES, LOUVAIN, AND TERMONDE. 239

furiously for days. Malincs had to all intents gone the way of
Louvain.*

Termonde, which Marlborough had captured in his wars, was
another historic town lying between Ghent and Malincs, on the
banks of the Scheldt. Unhappily it too had treasures in stone and
lime — the Church of Notre Dame, with its paintings by Vandyck
and Rubens, and its exquisite town hall. It was the theatre of
desperate fighting during the first fortnight of September, but its
destruction was not due to any battle. It was dehberately smashed
to pieces during the German occupation because the fine levied
upon it was not immediately forthcoming. Of all the Belgian
cities, its fate perhaps was the direst, for almost literally it was
levelled with the ground. Small wonder, for the burning was
most scientifically managed. The houses were first sprayed with
paraffin by soldiers, who perambulated the streets with oil-carts
and hoses.

To cite Louvain, Malines, and Termonde is only to mention
the most famous instances of destruction. Hundreds of little
villages were laid waste, towns like Alost and Dinant were wantonly
bombarded, and scarcely any part of this vandalism was imposed
upon the invaders by military needs. Let us be very clear on this
subject. War is a stern taskmistress, and will not be denied. If
a famous church happens to be in the field of fire of an army in
battle, the church must go. No aesthetic compunction can be
allowed to interfere with strategical necessities. But only a small
part of the demolition of Belgian cities was done for the purposes
of military operations. Louvain was destroyed by the Germans
at their leisure, while they were the force in occupation. Malines
and Termonde were bombarded apparently out of pique, for the
Belgians did not defend them. As for Dinant, it is hard to see
what purpose was served by the ruin of its pleasant streets and the
quaint church which lay in the nook of its cliffs. The Saxon
army, who did the work, crossed the Meuse without difficulty,
and did all their fighting on the farther bank. The only apparent
motive was the inspiration of terror in the conquered, that the
task of the future masters might be easy. Civilized war respects
non-combatants, and not less those inanimate non-combatants,
the great fabrics of the past. But this was not civilized war.

We come next to the subject of looting. Every town which
was shelled or burned, and many which were not, were made the

• It is fair to remember that Malines was only some 4,000 yards from the southern
forts of Antwerp, and so almost in the battle-line.

240 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

object of a comprehensive robbery. Little places were plundered
down to the last sheet and florin. Now, looting was once a per-
quisite of the victors, but it had long been interdicted in civilized
warfare. Soldiers, of course, break out occasionally and loot ;
but they are disobeying orders, and suffer for it. But the German
soldier did not break loose and disobey ; he was too well drilled
by the machine. The looting of the Belgian cities would have
been impossible had it not been permitted and instigated by the
officers in command. They turned their men free, and human
nature, which is eternally acquisitive, did the rest.

Last comes the subject which made of this war a nightmare,
and recalled the days of Tilly and Wallenstein — the murder and
outrage done upon civilian non-combatants. Even after all doubt-
ful cases are discarded — and the world for months was full of wild
legends — there remains a long catalogue of proven outrages, many
of which Germany admitted by the nature of her defence. She
did not denj? ; she justified, and apparently believed sincerely in
the justice of her plea. The bare facts — whatever the condonation
— were, roughly, these. At Louvain there was a great deal of
wholesale shooting of civilians — men, women, and children. At
Aerschot there was something not unlike a massacre. The Ger-
mans alleged that one of their officers was treacherously shot dead
by the burgomaster's son. One Belgian report admitted the shoot-
ing, but added that it was done in defence of his sister's honour ;
another denied it altogether. At Vise, at Alost, at Dinant, at
Tamines, and many little villages, unarmed civilians were shot and
baj'oneted, sometimes on a charge of having firearms in their pos-
session, sometimes apparently purely as an exemplary measure —
pour encourager les mitres. There were many cases of the murder
of old people, women, and children by a drink-maddened or panicky
soldiery. There were a number of well-authenticated cases of
crimes against women and young girls. There were certain in-
stances of the Germans having used non-combatants and women
as a screen for their firing lines. There were cases of mutilation
and torture too horrible to be recounted.

There have been various pleas in extenuation. One is that the
Germans did not choose to treat armed civilians according to the
ordinary laws of war, and they included the Belgian Civic Guard
in this category. They simply did not accept the findings of the
Hague Conventions on the subject. WTiat their theory of war
was we shall presently consider ; but — difficult as it is to under-
stand— it allowed them to do things which other nations chose

1914I THE ARMED DOGMA. 241

to regard as monstrous.* This is, of course, not a defense, but it
affords a partial explanation on other grounds than mere inherent
brutahty. A second is that there was a great deal of heavy drinking
among the troops — an explanation again, not an excuse. German
peasants swilled heavy red wine with the same freedom with which
they were used to drink light beer, and the results were disastrous.
Having said so much, the fact remains that in many cases there
was a carnival of sheer murder which excelled the sack of Magde-
burg and other seventeenth century horrors. Let us accept for a
moment the German explanation of Louvain and Aerschot, and
admit that they were treacherously shot at by one or more of the
inhabitants. Did the punishment — the burning and looting of
the town and wholesale murder and outrage — show any reasonable
proportion to the crime ? The plea is preposterous. It may be
expedient that one man die for the people, but not that the people
die for one or two men. The doctrine of collective responsibility
might conceivably, if modestly interpreted, be used in war. The
Roman penalty of " decimation " was such a use. It is barbarous
and, to modern eyes, unjust, but it might be defended. But a
holocaust by way of atonement has no sort of relation to any
civilized code of justice. In barbarous armies, like Timour's or
Attila's, we see how it happens. There you are dealing with
elementary beings, savages inflamed and maddened by conquest.
But this was the most modern of armies springing from the most
modern of fatherlands, which had long vaunted to the world its
civilization. Louvain and Aerschot were the fruit not of sudden
passion but of a long-accepted doctrine.

A doctrine, let it be remembered, an " armed dogma " of the
kind against which Burke warned the world. The ordinary
German is not naturally cruel or brutal. He behaved badly in
1815, as we know from Wellington ; but he conducted himself
well on the whole in 1870. The authors of the atrocities were
mostly Landwehr troops, many of them decent fathers of families
and respectable bourgeois. There are blackguards in every army
who now and then get out of hand, but it is impossible to think
of the majority of these German troops as naturally blackguards.
They carried in their knapsacks letters from their own Gretchens
and Gertruds, and had set out with high notions about warring
for their land and its " kultur." Yet the result of their cam-

* The Continental (and not merely the German) military law on the subject of
civilians taken in arms and the use of hostages is different from the British and
American ; but the charge is not the formal law, but the preposterous extravagance
with which it was enforced.

243 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

paigning was Louvain. How is it to be explained ? Partly, no
doubt, by panic — the fear of nervous, excitable folk in the midst
of a hostile country ; but mainly by the German doctrine of war.
Their leaders had evolved an inhuman creed which they practised
with the rigidity of Brahmins, and the disciplined troops acted
as they were bid. Presently drink and bloodshed did their work,
and what began as obedience to orders ended as a debauch.

The unhappy consequence of those deeds in France and Belgium
was to destroy among the Allies the chivalrous respect for their
opponents which is one of the antiseptics of war — that feeling
which found expression in Whitman's cry, " My enemy is dead, a
man divine as myself is dead." It is necessary to be very precise
in our charges. Every nation at war believes evil things about
its opponents, and takes for premeditated crimes what are merely
the incidents of campaigning. Therefore we must confine our-
selves to the outrages which are fully substantiated and incapable
of being explained away as mistakes. Germany, again, broke many
of the conventions of international law which she herself had
formally accepted, bat on these more abstract questions it is not
worth while to argue. It matters Httle how many of the Hague
rules she violated, since she altogether repudiated the bondage of
international obligations. What is vital is the German breaches
of laws, written and unwritten, which lie at the very root of civil-
ized warfare. It is possible to imagine a Power, with Machia-
vellian notions about public conduct, and loose ideas about the
rights of neutrals, who in the greater matters would fight with
reasonable decency. But it is a different thing if she offends
against those elementary human conventions which are observed
by many savages and by all who claim the title of civilized. It
is indubitable that Germany so offended, not once or twice, but
with a consistency which argued a reasoned policy. The tradition
of the German machine did not frown upon outrages ; it favoured
them. What was that policy ? *

We can call it, following a common practice, the Frederician
tradition, though the army of Frederick had a curious respect for
non-combatant rights ; or if we wish a modern peg, we can call
it the spirit of Zabern, from its most recent pre-war exemphfica-
tion. Reasonably stated, as, for example, by Clausewitz, it means
simply that war should be waged whole-heartedly, for the more

* The reader will find the fullest discussion of Germany's infringements of inter-
national law and the customs of war in Professor Wilford Garner's International Lav
and the World War (1920).

1914] THE LAWS OF WAR. 243

whole-hearted it is the quicker it will be ended. War cannot be
made with kid gloves. Loss of life, to your own side or the enemy's,
is to be disregarded, so long as your object is attained. There is
nothing inherently wrong in such an attitude. Stonewall Jackson,
a humane man and a devout Christian, did not hesitate to sacrifice
his troops or to inflict suffering upon the innocent, if relentlessness
were necessary for success. But modern Germany consistently
overstated this truth, until it became in her hands a fatal folly.
We can see the overstatement beginning in Bismarck's famous
words, though in practice he was wise enough to temper his heroics
with common sense. " You must inflict," he said, " on the in-
habitants of invaded towns the maximum of suffering, so that
they may become sick of the struggle, and may bring pressure
to bear on their Government to discontinue it. You must leave
the people through whom you march only their eyes to weep
with." * But the full extravagance appeared in the speech of
the Emperor when he addressed the troops leaving for China in
1900. " Quarter is not to be given. Prisoners are not to be made.
Whoever falls into your hands is into your hands delivered. Just as
a thousand years ago the Huns, under their king Attila, made for
themselves a name which still appears imposing in tradition, so may
the name of German become known in China." And he added to
this pious exhortation, " The blessing of the Lord be with you."

Such a spirit is in clear defiance of the rules and decencies which
must be observed if war is to be anything higher than the struggle
of wild beasts. These rules are very old, and have been more or
less observed since the days of Alexander the Great. All through
the Middle Ages the ritual of chivalry provided a code of conduct
in war, and a few centuries ago international jurists began to collect
and expound the rules. Great lawyers like Grotius and Bynkers-
hoek, Vattel and Puffendorf, laid down the customs of war be-
tween civilized peoples, and in our day the various Hague Confer-
ences brought the code up to date, and secured the definite assent of
the nations of the world. A Power which assents to and then
violates these rules of decency is an outcast from the commonwealth
of civilization. In every war they are broken, but they are broken
against the will of the authorities of the belligerents. In the
German case we had the curious result that their observance
depended upon the character of the individual soldier ; for offi-
cially they were disliked and disregarded.

* He is generally believed to have borrowed this last phrase from the Americaa
general Sheridan, who accompanied the German Staff in 1870.

244 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

The German answer — always implied and often explicitly
stated — was that they did not accept any laws of war which were
against their interests. In the pride of those early days all classes,
from the ordinary junker to intellectuals like Maximihan Harden,
laughed and shrugged their shoulders at tales of outrage, even
when they suspected that they might be true. Such things, they
said, would be forgotten when they had conquered. They claimed
to be a law to themselves, and if other people did not like it it
was their business to show themselves stronger than the Germans.
To this it might be replied that such anarchism was, to say the
least of it, bad policy. Clausewitz long ago warned his country-
men that it was " inexpedient " to do anything to outrage the
general moral sense of other peoples, and the great men who made
the German Empire, Bismarck and Moltke, were tireless in their
efforts to keep right with European opinion. For if no law is
acknowledged, no conventions and codes of honour, then this law-
lessness will certainly be turned some day against the lawbreakers
themselves. No land will make an alliance with them or a treaty
if their views on the duty of obligations are so notoriously lax.
But the main point is that this crude lawlessness illustrated an
interesting characteristic of what was then in Germany the govern-
ing mind — its curious immaturity. That mind was like a child's,
which simplifies too much. As we grow up we advance in com-
plexity ; we see half-tones where before we saw only harsh blacks
and whites ; we reahze that nothing is quite alone, that everything
is interrelated, and we become shy of bold simplicities. The me-
chanical may be simple ; the organic must be complex and mani-
fold. It sounds so easy to say, like the villain in melodrama, that
you will own no code except what you make yourself ; but it really
cannot be done. It was not that the rejection of half a dozen of
the diffuse findings of the Hague Tribunal mattered much ; what
signified was the disregard of the unformulated creed which pene-
trates every part of our modern life — Germany's, too, in her sober,
non-martial moments. To massacre a hundred unarmed people
because one man has fired off a rifle may be enjoined by some
half-witted mihtary theorist, but it is fundamentally inhuman and
silly. It offends against not only the heart of mankind, but against
their common sense. It is not even virilely wicked. It lacks
intelligence. It is merely childish.

The same crudeness was found in other parts of the German
scheme — for example, in their elaborate espionage system. The
industry spent on it was more than human; it was beaver-like.

1914] THE GERMAN CREED. 245

ant-like, incredible, like the slavery of some laborious animal ;
but it, and the hundred other things like it, could not win battles.
It had its effect, but that effect was in no way commensurate with
the pains taken. The truth is that human energy is limited, and
if too much thought be given to minor things, no vitality will be
left for the great matters. The weakness could be observed in
many activities of the modem German mind — immense erudition
which beat ineffectual wings and achieved little that was lasting
in scholarship ; a meticulousness in business organization which
terribly frightened the nervous British merchant, and yet some-
how did not achieve much — nothing, at any rate, comparable
with the care taken in the preparation. But it was most con-
spicuous in war. Frederick and Moltke were military geniuses of
a high order ; but the military genius did not appear in Germany's
superbly provided armies, for there was no room in them for the
higher kind of intelligence. German industry was not mature ;
it was like the painful, unintelligent absorption of a child. No
amount of organizing the second-rate will produce the first-rate.

Let us suppose that a man starts in business with good brains
and a reasonable capital. He resolves to be bound by nothing,
to get on at all costs, to outstrip his neighbours by a greater industry
and a complete unscrupulousness. He will keep within the four
corners of the law, but he will have no regard to any of the anti-
quated decencies of trade. So he toils incessantly ; no detail is
too small for him ; he studies and codifies what seem to him the
popular tastes with the minuteness of a psychological laboratory ;
he corrupts the employees of his rivals ; no bribe is too base for him ;
he buys secrets and invites confidences only to betray them ; he
is full of a thousand petty ingenuities ; he allows no human com-
passion to temper his ruthlessness ; his one god, for whom no sacrifice
is too costly, is success. What will be the result of such a career ?
Inevitably, failure. Failure, because his eternal preoccupation
with small things ruins his mind for the larger view. The great
truths in economics are always simple, but they escape a perverted
ingenuity. He will not have the mind to grasp the major matters
in supply and demand, and the odds are that, leaving the question
of his certain unpopularity aside, he will be outclassed in sheer
business talent by more scrupulous and less laborious competitors.
Commerce is not the same thing as war, but the parallel in this
case is fairly exact. The German mind could not see the wood
for the trees. It knew the situation, dimensions, and value of
every bit of timber ; but it had no time to spare for the quagmires

246 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

on either side, and it had no care for what might be beyond the
forest.

The impression left by the spectacle of the wonderful machine,
the proudest achievement of the modern German spirit, with its
astonishing efficiency up to a point, its evidence of unwearied care
and endless industry, remained oddly childish, like a toy on the
making of which a passion of affection has been lavished. It was
a perversion, an aberration, not a healthy development from the
great Germany of the past. The man who can devise the campaign
of Trafalgar is not the man who is always busy about the brass-
work. Undue care is, not less than slovenliness, a sign of the im-
mature and unbalanced mind. And the profession of a morality
above all humble conventions, so far from impressing the world
as godlike, seemed nothing but the swagger of a hobbledehoy. It
was not barbarism, which is an honest and respectable thing ; it
was decivilization, which stands to civilization as a man's decay
stands to his prime.

What of the little people who bore the brunt of this savagery ?
Before the war Belgium had been as sharply divided into parties
and races as any nation in Europe. There were deep gulfs between
Catholic and Socialist, between the peasants of Flanders and the
colliers and factory hands of Hainault, between northern Fleming
and southern Walloon. She had under no conceivable circum-
stances anything to gain from war. Her laborious population
would at the best lose wealth and employment, and her closely
settled land was an easy booty for the plunderer. In such a country
the complex industrial machine, once put out of gear, would be hard
to start again. From the material point of view Germany was
right ; it was insanity for Belgium to resist. Moreover, she had
never made a profession of romantic adventures. She had been
forced into the Congo business a little against her will, and her
recent history showed none of the far-wandering restlessness in
commerce and colonization which had characterized in different
ways Germany and Britain. She was a home-keeping people
who believed in attending to the shop. But when the day of trial
came she did not waver. Her armies fought in the last ditch, and
never for one moment was there a thought of surrender in the hearts
of the nation. The prosperity which had taken generations to
build up went in a day ; she lost her land and her cities, her Govern-
ment presently went into exile, and the shores of Britain were
crowded with her fugitives. The Germans had tried to wheedle

1914] KING ALBERT. 247

her, but she shook her head ; they tried to frighten her, and found
only tight Hps ; and when again they tried cajolery and dithy-
rambs about the blessings of German rule, they were met with
scornful laughter. Belgium replied, like Spain in Wordsworth's
poem : —

" We can endure that he should waste our lands.
Despoil our temples, and by sword and flame
Return us to the dust from which we came ;
Such food a Tyrant's appetite demands ;
And we can brook the thought that by his hands
Spain may be overpowered, and he possess.
For his delight, a solemn wilderness
Where all the brave lie dead. But, when of bands
Which he will break for us he dares to speak ;
Of benefits, and of a future day
When our enlightened minds shall bless his sway ;
Then the strained heart of fortitude proves weak."

Britain, the old ally and protector of Belgium, did the little
in her power to mitigate this suffering. She had already lent the
Belgian Government a large sum which was to carry no interest,
and at the end of August a private organization — originally destined
by the irony of fate for the reception of ultra-Protestant refugees
from Ulster — was organized as a relief committee. Presently
the Government took over the work, and the Belgian fugitives
became officially the guests of Britain. Did the crowds that
stared curiously at the haggard, grey-faced people who arrived
by every boat at Folkestone, and soon began to throng the London
streets — all classes of society — all forms of raiment — realize that
they were looking upon the results of the most heroic sacrifice in
modern history ? The miracle was the more wonderful from
its unexpectedness. We are ready to cheer Mr. Greatheart when
he advances to meet the giant ; it is splendid, but we knew it
would happen, for after all giant-kiUing is his profession. But
when some homely pilgrim, without shining armour or great sword,
seizes his staff and marches stoutly to a more desperate conflict we
do not cheer. It is a marvel which dims the eyes and catches at
the heart-strings.

Much was due to her King, the most purely heroic figure of
the day. No monarch of the great ages more nobly fulfilled the
ideal of kingship. He raised Belgium to the position of a Great
Power, if moral dignity has any meaning in the world. There can
be no finer tribute to him than some words spoken by a refugee,

248 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

a quiet little man who had lost family and Uvelihood, and seemed
to peer out upon a new world like a dazed child : " Frankly, we
did not think we could have behaved so well. You will under-
stand that we are a small people, a people of traders, not greatly
interested in high pohtics or war. We needed a leader, and God
sent that leader. We owe everything to our King, He has made
of our farmers and tradesmen a nation of heroes. When the
war is over he will rule over a broken land and a very poor people,
but for all that he will be one of the greatest kings in the world."

CHAPTER XII .

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR AT SEA.
4th August-22nd Seftemher.

Germany's Nival Policy — Sir John Jellicoe's Problem — The Transport of the Armies
— Escape of the Goeben and the Breslau — Protection of the Trade Routes —
Security of the British Coasts — The Battle of the Bight of Heligoland— What
Control of the Sea implies — The Submarine Menace — The German Commerce-
raiders — The Declaration of London.

Early on the morning of 4th August the British Grand Fleet
put to sea. From that moment it disappeared from English sight.
Dwellers on the southern and eastern coasts in the bright weather
of early August could see an occasional cruiser or destroyer speed-
ing on some errand, or an escorted mine-sweeper busy at its perilous
task. But the great battleships had gone. Somewhere out on the
blue waters or hidden in a creek of our northern and western shores
lay the vigilant admirals of Britain. But presently came news.
On the night of the 4th the German mine-layer Konigin Luise
left Borkum, and about 11 a.m. on the 5th she was sighted, chased,
and sunk by two British destroyers. Early on the 6th the British
light cruiser Amphion struck one of the mines she had laid, and
foundered with some loss of life. Battle had been joined at sea.

To the command of the Grand Fleet there had been appointed
Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, with Rear-Admiral Charles Madden as
Chief of Staff. It consisted at the moment of twenty Dreadnoughts,
eight " King Edwards," four battle cruisers, two squadrons of
cruisers and one of Hght cruisers. Those who shared Steven-
son's view as to the racy nomenclature of British seamen found
something reassuring in the name of the new Commander-in-
Chief. Admiral Jelhcoe had served as a heutenant in the Egyptian
war of 1882. SpeciaUzing in gunnery, he had become a com-
mander in 1891 and a captain in 1897 ; had served on the China
station, commanding the Naval Brigade and acting as chief staff
cf&cer in the Peking expedition of 1900, where he was severely

249

250 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

wounded Thereafter he became successively Naval Assistant
to the Controller of the Navy, Director of Naval Ordnance and
Torpedoes, Rear-Admiral in the Atlantic Fleet, a Lord Commis-
sioner of the Admiralty and Controller of the Navy, Vice-Admiral
commanding the Atlantic Fleet, Vice-Admiral commanding the
Second Division of the Home Fleet, and second Sea Lord of the
Admiralty. He brilliantly distinguished himself in the command
of the " Red " Fleet at the naval manoeuvres of 1913. Rear-
Admiral Madden, his Chief of Staff, who was also his brother-in-
law, had already served with him at the Admiralty. Sir John
Jellicoe was one of the officers chiefly responsible for the modern
navy of Britain, and enjoyed not only the admiration and complete
confidence of his colleagues, but a peculiar popularity among all
grades of British seamen. His nerve and self-possession were not
less conspicuous than his professional skill, and in the wearing
months ahead of him he had need of all resources of mind and
character.

The British fleet had not fought a great battle at sea since
Trafalgar. Since those days, only a century removed in time,
the conditions of naval warfare had seen greater changes than
in the span between Themistocles and Nelson. The old wooden
walls, the unrifled guns, the boarders with their cutlasses, belonged
to an earlier world. The fleet had no longer to scour the ocean
for the enemy's fleet. Wireless telegraphy, aerial reconnaissance,
and swift destroyers brought it early news of a foe. The gun power
of a modern battleship would have wrecked the Spanish Armada
with one broadside, and the enemy could now be engaged at a
distance of many miles. Sea fighting was no more the clean and
straightforward business of the old days. Destruction dwelt in
every element when there was no sign of a hostile pennant. Aircraft
dropped bombs from the clouds ; unseen submarines, like sword-
fish, pierced the hull from the depths ; and anywhere might lurk
those mines which destroyed, like some convulsion of nature, with
no human enemy near. Britain had to fight under new conditions,
with new strategy and new weapons, with far greater demands
on the intellect and a far more deadly strain on the nerves. Most
things had changed, but two things remained unaltered — the cool
daring of her sailors, and their conviction that the seas were the
unquestionable heritage of their race.

Germany's naval poHcy in the first instance was, as we have
seen, to refuse battle and withdraw her fleet behind prepared
defences. To this decision various purposes contributed. She

1914] JELLICOE'S PROBLEM. 251

needed every soldier she possessed in the battle-line, and wished
to avoid the necessity of guarding her Pomeranian coast with an
army. Again, she hoped that public opinion in Britain, alarmed
at the inactivity of its navy, would compel an attack on the Elbe
position — an attack which, she beUeved, would end in a British
disaster. But her defence was not to be passive. By a mine and
submarine offensive, pushed right up to the British coasts, she
hoped to wear down Britain's superiority in capital ships and bring
it in the end to an equality with her own. Then, and not till then,
her High Seas Fleet was willing to sally forth and give battle.

To meet such Fabian tactics was no easy problem for Britain.
The ordinary citizen hoped for a theatrical coup, a full dress battle,
or at the least a swift series of engagements with enemy warships.
When nothing happened he began to think that something was
amiss ; he could not believe that it was a proof of success that
nothing happened — nothing startling, that is to say, for every day
had its full record of quiet achievement. As a consequence of this
inactivity, false doctrines began to be current, in which, let it be
said, the British naval leaders did not share. It was Britain's
business to command the sea, and so long as an enemy fleet remained
intact, that command was not absolute but qualified. The British
fleet might be invincible, but it was not yet victorious. Its numer-
ous minor activities were not undertaken for their own sake, as if
in themselves they could give the final victory ; they were forms of
compulsion conceived in order to force the High Sea Fleet to come
out and fight. But that ultimate battle was not to be induced
by measures which spelt suicide for the attacker. There were
urgent tasks to be performed on the ocean — in protecting British
trade, in cutting off enemy imports, in moving the troops of a world-
wide Empire. So long as these were duly performed the practical
mastery of the seas was in British hands, and it would have been
criminal folly to throw away capital ships in an immediate attack
on the fortified retreat of so accommodating an enemy. It was
Britain's duty to perform this work of day-to-day sea control,
and to be ready at any moment for the grand battle. On land
an army fights its way yard by yard to a position from which
it can deal a crushing blow. But a fleet needs none of these pre-
liminaries. As soon as the enemy chooses to appear the battle can
be joined. Hence Admiral von Ingenohl was right in saving his
fleet for what he considered a better chance, and Britain was right
in not forcing him unduly. Naval power should be used, not
squandered, and the mightiest fleet on earth may be flung away on

252 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

a fool's errand. It should not be forgotten that the strength of a
fleet is a more brittle and less replaceable thing than the strength
of an army. New levies can be called for on land, and tolerable
infantry trained in a few months. But in the navy it takes six
years to make a junior officer, two years in normal times to build
a cruiser, and three years to replace a battleship. A serious loss
in fighting units is, for any ordinary naval war, an absolute, not
a temporary, calamity.

Sir John Jellicoe had to face a problem far more intricate than

at the time was commonly believed. Not since the seventeenth

century had Britain confronted a great naval Power whose base

lay northward of the Straits of Dover. The older British sea

strategy had assumed an enemy to southward of the English

Channel, and on the southern coasts lay the best and securest of

our naval ports. But now the foe lay across the stormy North

Sea, 120,000 square miles in extent, into which he possessed two

separate entries linked by the Kiel Canal. The east coast of Britain

was now the fighting front, and on it lay a dozen vulnerable ports

and no first-class fleet base. Before 1914 this situation had been

foreseen, but it had not been adequately met. A first-class base

was in preparation at Rosyth, but it was not yet ready, and in any

case its outer anchorage was exposed to torpedo attack. In 1910

Cromarty had been selected as a fleet base, and Scapa in the

Orkneys as a base for minor forces, and by July 1914 the fixed

defences of the former were ready. But nothing had been done at

Scapa, which from its position and size was selected as the Grand

Fleet base on the outbreak of hostiUties. Jellicoe was aware of the

German purpose of attrition, and realized that till his base was

better secured his fleet was at the mercy of an enemy attack both

in harbour and in its North Sea cruises, for he was still very short

of mine-sweepers and destroyers to form a protective screen.

He saw that Germany's chance lay in the uncertainty of the first

month, when Britain had to perform many urgent naval tasks

before her sea organization was complete. He therefore decided

to confine his Battle Fleet in ordinary conditions to operations in

the more northern waters of the North Sea, and to establish in

the southern waters a regular system of cruiser patrols, supported

by periodic sweeps of the Battle Fleet. It was his business to avoid

losses so far as possible from the casual mine and submarine, and

at the same time to protect the British coasts from raids and be

ready at any moment to fall upon the High Seas Fleet if it ventured

out— a combination of calculated duties and incalculable hazards

1914] THE ESCAPE OF THE GOEBEN. 253

trjdng under any circumstances, and doubly trying when the
Grand Fleet had not yet found a certain home.

The problems of the Grand Fleet were not the only ones
confronting the Admiralty, which had to deal with all the waters
of the world. There were three urgent tasks which had to be per-
formed while a wider strategy was in process of shaping — the safe
transport of the Expeditionary Force to France ; the clearing
and safeguarding of the trade routes ; and the protection of the
British coasts against enemy attacks, whether sporadic raids or a
concerted invasion. Let us consider briefly how the three duties
were fulfilled before turning to the events in the main battle area
of the North Sea.

The first, so far as concerned the British army, was brilliantly
performed. There were no convoys, but both ends of the Channel
were closed against raids, by the Dover Patrol at one end and the
Anglo-French cruiser squadron at the other, while the Grand Fleet
took up a station from which it could strike at the High Sea Fleet,
should Tngenohl venture out. During the crossing of the Ex-
peditionary Force there was no sign of the enemy — a piece of
supineness which can be explained only on the supposition that
Germany considered the British army too trivial a matter to risk
ships over. In the Mediterranean France had a similar problem.
On 4th August Italy announced her neutrality, and Austria had not
yet declared war on Britain or France, though it was clear that the
declaration was imminent. The Austrian fleet was in the Northern
Adriatic and had to be watched. Germany had in the Mediterranean
the fastest armoured ships in her navy : the battle cruiser Goeben
and the fast light cruiser Breslau — two vessels admirably fitted to
act as commerce destroyers. The British squadron consisted of
three battle cruisers, four heavy cruisers, and four light cruisers —
a greatly superior force in gun power, but containing no vessel
which was the Goeben's equal in speed. It was their business to
prevent the German ships making for the Atlantic, and to hunt
them down at the earliest possible moment. But the situation
was complicated by two factors — one, the necessary co-operation
with the French ; the other, the difficulty of receiving in time the
orders of the British Admiralty, which had the strategic direction
of the operations. In such a chase unless the man on the spot
can act on his own responsibility the quarry may escape, for from
hour to hour the situation changes.

The first orders of Admiral Sir Berkeley Milne, who commanded
the British squadron, were to protect the movements of the French

254 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Au«5.

transports from Algiers to Toulon. At daybreak on the 4th th&Coeben
and Breslau appeared off the Algerian coast and fired a few shots
at the coast towns of Bona and Philippeville. Meantime Admiral
Souchon, in command of the Goeben, had received wireless in-
structions from Berlin to proceed to Constantinople. Admiral de
Lapeyrere, commanding the Toulon fleet, decided on his own
initiative to depart from his original instructions (which were to
operate to the eastward of the transports) and to form convoys.
The decision was sound, for his ships were too slow to hunt down
the enem}', and by putting them alongside the transports he was
in a better position for both defence and a blow at the Germans
if they were shepherded westward. This decision should have
left Admiral Milne's force to pursue the Goeben, but unfortunately
his first instructions from the Admiralty were not cancelled, and
this was the main cause of the fiasco which followed. Souchon,
after feinting to the west, turned eastward and reached Messina
on the 5th. Milne took up a position which he believed to be in
accordance with his orders, and which would have cut off Souchon
had he come westward again. But Souchon passed out of the
southern end of the straits in the evening, and if he could get clear
of Admiral Troubridge in the mouth of the Adriatic, the way was
open for him to the Dardanelles. Now Troubridge had with him
no battle cruiser, he had instructions from the Admiralty not
to risk an action against a superior force, and he considered
therefore that he was not entitled to fight unless he could manoeuvre
the enemy into a favourable position. Souchon feinted towards
the Adriatic, and then turned south-east for Cape Matapan.
Troubridge gave up the chase when day broke on the 7th and
slowed down, waiting on the British battle cruisers which did not
come. The Gloucester (Captain Howard Kelly), a ship scarcely
larger than the Breslau, clung, however, to the enemy skirts, and
fought a running fight till 1.50 p.m. on the 7th. Souchon was
not yet out of danger, for when he reached the ^gean he heard
that he would not be permitted to enter the Dardanelles, and was
compelled for several days to cruise among the islands. Milne,
who followed slowly, was soon within a hundred miles of the
Germans, but beheved that they were making for Alexandria,
or about to break back to join the Austrians. On the 9th Souchon
heard the wireless of the British, and decided at all costs to run
for Constantinople. At 8.30 p.m. on the loth he was allowed to
enter the Dardanelles.

The British failure was to have the most malign and far-reaching

1914] SAFEGUARDING THE TRADE-ROUTES. 255

consequences. Souchon, perplexed by conflicting orders from
Berlin, played, largely on his own responsibility, a bold game which
succeeded. The British admirals, dutifully following their
Admiralty's formal instructions, missed their chance. They were
very properly exonerated from blame, for the mistake was the
result of the new conditions of war. They received by wire-
less all the news that reached the Admiralty, and consequently
had to keep their eyes turning every way instead of concentrating
on the one vital object. In the old days an admiral would have
been left to his general instructions, and, had he been a bold man,
would have destroyed the enemy.

The second task was the clearing and safeguarding of the
world's trade-routes. The first step lay with the Grand Fleet,
for, as Sir Julian Corbett has well put it, " since all the new enemy's
home terminals lay within our own home waters, we could close
them by the same disposition with which we ensured free access
to our own." But, the earths having been stopped, it was necessary
to run down the quarries. All German cables were cut, and, except
for wireless, her outlying ships were left without guidance from
home. In every quarter of the globe British cruisers spread their
net. German merchantmen in the ports of the Empire were de-
tained, and hundreds of ships were made prize of in the high and
the narrow seas. Some escaped to the shelter of neutral ports,
especially to those of the United States, but none got back to
Germany. In a week German seaborne commerce had ceased to
exist, and on 14th August the Admiralty could announce that
the passage of the Atlantic was safe. It was true that a few German
cruisers and armed merchantmen were still at large. Admiral
von Spee had in the Pacific the armoured cruisers Scharnhorst
and Gneisenau and the light cruisers Niirnberg, Leipzig, and Emden ;
the light cruisers Karlsruhe and Dresden were in the Atlantic. But
the number seemed too few and their life too precarious seriously
to affect our commerce. The British Government very properly
began by guaranteeing part of the risk of maritime insurance ;
but soon the rates fell of their own accord to a natural level,
as it became clear how complete was our security. It was calcu-
lated at the outbreak of war that British losses in the first six
months would rise to 10 per cent, of vessels engaged in foreign
trade. A return issued early in October showed that of her mer-
cantile marine Britain had lost up to that date only 1.25 per cent.,
while Germany and Austria had each lost 10 per cent, of their total
shipping.

256 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

The third problem, the security of the British coast from
invasion, loomed large in those early days. The curious inacti\dty
of the enemy during the crossing of the Expeditionary Force seemed
to presage a great surprise attack in the near future. The danger
was much in Lord Kitchener's mind, and, considering that it was
unsafe to leave the country without at least two regular divisions,
he postponed the crossing of the 6th Division and brought it to
East Anglia. The heavy ships of the Grand Fleet, owing to the
risk of submarines, were ordered on 9th August to go north-west
of the Orkneys, and since the enemy had located Scapa, a second
war anchorage was estabhshed on the north-west coast of Scotland
at Loch Ewe. They were brought east again on the 15th when the
risk of invasion seemed greatest, and took up a midsea position
in the latitude of Aberdeen, while Rear- Admiral Christian's South-
ern Force, which included the Harwich flotilla, and was now an
independent command directly under the Admiralty, watched
the southern waters. On the 17th, the immediate danger being
over, the Grand Fleet returned to Loch Ewe. Against minor
raids the protection of the coasts lay with the destroyer flotillas,
which were organized in two classes, " Patrol " and " Local Defence."
Presently a vast auxiliary service was created from the mer-
cantile marine, from the fishing fleets, from private yachts and
motor boats. Britain became a nation in arms on the water as
well as on the land, and her merchantmen became part of the
navy as in her ancient wars.

Meantime she did not forget the major duty of watching and
enticing to battle the German High Sea Fleet. Apart from the
regular cruisers of the British fleet and the cruiser squadrons in
the North Sea, the Harwich flotilla kept watch to the very edge of
the German sanctuary. The German admiral's aim was to send
out patrols which would entice the British destroyers inside the
Bight of Heligoland and then to cut in behind them with his
light cruisers. There was an attempt of this sort on i8th August ;
another on 21st August, when the German hght cruiser Rostock
had a narrow escape ; but both were fruitless thrusts into the void.
A third operation on the night of 25th August laid mines off the
Tyne and the Humber. At this time both sides overestimated the
danger from submarines and were over-careful with their heavier
ships ; consequently any action was likely to be fought by only
a fraction of the strength of the combatants. But the strategy of
two opponents, however cautious, operated on converging lines
which were certain sooner or later to meet, and the result was that

1914] THE BATTLE OF THE BIGHT. 257

28th August, the day when Sir John French's army reached the
Oise, saw the first important naval engagement of the war.

The plan, which originated with Commodore Roger Keyes,
was to lure out to sea the enemy day patrols and intercept them
by our destroyer flotillas while British cruisers and battle cruisers
waited in readiness to deal with any heavier German ships that
came out in support.* The battle cruisers were the largest and
newest of their class, displacing some 27,000 tons, with a speed of

29 knots, and an armament each of eight 13.5 and sixteen 4-inch
guns. The First Light-Cruiser Squadron contained ships of the
" town " class — 5,500 tons, 25 to 26 knots, and eight or nine 6-inch
guns. The Seventh Cruiser Squadron were older ships from the
Third Fleet — 12,000 tons and 21 knots. The First Destroyer
Flotilla contained destroyers each of about 800 tons, 30 knots,
and two 4-inch and two 12-pounder guns. The Third Flotilla was
composed only of the largest and latest type — 965 tons, 32 knots,
and three 4-inch guns. Of the accompanying cruisers the Arethnsa
— the latest of an apostolic succession of vessels of that name —
was the first ship of a new class ; her tonnage was 3,750, her speed

30 knots, and her armament two 6-inch and six 4-inch guns. Her
companion, the Fearless, had 3,440 tons, 26 knots, and ten 4-inch
guns. The two small destroyers which accompanied the sub-
marines, the Lurcher and the Firedrake, had 767 tons, 35 knots,
and two 4-inch and two 12-pounder guns.

At midnight on the 26th the submarine flotilla, under Com-
modore Keyes, sailed from Harwich for the Bight of Heligoland.

• The various forces engaged may be set down in the order of their appearance
in the action.

1. Eighth Submarine Flotilla (Commodore Roger Keyes).— Parent ships : De-

stroyers Lurcher and Firedrake. Submarines : D2, D8, E4, E5, E6,
E7, E8, Eg.

2. Destroyer Flotillas (Commodore R. Y. Tyrwhitt).— Flagship : Light cruiser

Arethusa.
First Destroyer Flotilla : Light cruiser Fearless (Captain Blunt). — Destroyers :

Acheron, Archer, Ariel, Attack, Badger, Beaver, Defender, Ferret, Forester,

Goshawk, Hind, Jackal, Lapwing, Lizard, Phoenix, Sandfly.
Third Destroyer Flotilla : Laertes, Laforey, Lance, Landrail, Lark, Laurel,

Lawford, Legion, Leonidas, Lennox, Liberty, Linnet, Llewelyn, Lookout,

Louis, Lucifer, Lydiard, Lysander.

3. First Light-Cruiser Squadron (Commodore W. R. Goodenough). — Southamp-

ton, Falmouth, Birmingham, Lowestoft, Nottingham.

4. First Battle-Cruiser Squadron (Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty). — Lion, Prin-

cess Royal, Queen Mary, New Zealand. Joined at sea by Invincible
(Rear- Admiral Moore) and by destroyers : Hornet, Hydra, Tigress, and
Loyal.

5. Seventh Cruiser Squadron (Rear- Admiral A. H. Christian).— Armoured

cruisers : Euryalus, Cressy, Hogue, Aboukir, Sutlej, Bacchante, and light
cruiser Amethyst,

258 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

At five o'clock on the evening of the 27th the First and the Third
Destroyer Flotillas, under Commodore Tyrwhitt, left Harwich,
and during that day the Battle-Cruiser Squadron, the First Light-
Cruiser Squadron, and the Seventh Cruiser Squadron also put to
sea. The rendezvous appointed was reached early on the morning
of the 28th, the waters having been searched for hostile submarines
before dawn by the Lurcher and the Firedrake. The enemy had
word of their coming, and was preparing a counterplot. His usual
patrols were not sent out, but a few torpedo boats were dispatched
to the entrance of the Bight as a bait to entice the attackers into a
net which would be drawn tight by his light cruisers.

The chronicle must now concern itself with hours and minutes.
The first phase of the action began just before 7 a.m. on the 28th.
The morning had broken windless and calm, with a haze which
limited the range of vision to under three miles. The water was
like a mill-pond, and out of the morning mist rose the gaunt rock
of Heligoland, with its forts and painted lodging-houses and crum-
bling sea-cliffs. It was the worst conceivable weather for the sub-
marines, since in a calm sea their periscopes were easily visible.
The position at seven o'clock was as follows. Close to Heligoland,
and well within German territorial waters, were Commodore
Keyes's eight submarines, with his two small destroyers in attend-
ance. Approaching rapidly from the north-west were Commodore
Tyrwhitt's two destroyer flotillas, while behind them, at some
distance and a little to the east, was Commodore Goodenough's
First Light-Cruiser Squadron. Behind it lay Sir David Beatty's
battle cruisers, with four destroyers in attendance. A good deal
to the south, and about due west of Heligoland, lay Admiral
Christian's Seventh Cruiser Squadron, to stop all exit towards the
west.

The submarines, foremost among them E6, E7, and E8, per-
formed admirably the work of a decoy, and presently from behind
Heligoland came a number of German destroyers. These were
followed by two cruisers, and the submarines and their attendant
destroyers fled westwards, while the British destroyer flotillas came
swiftly down from the north-west. At the sight of the latter the
German destroyers turned to make for home ; but the British
flotillas, led by the Third, along with the Arethusa, altered their
course to port in order to head them off. " The principle of the
movement," said the official report, " was to cut the German
light craft from home and engage them at leisure in the open
sea." The destroyers gave little trouble, and our own ships of that

(Between pp. z^S and 2S9')

3HT KI HJTTA>3
aHAJODUaiHiOTHD 8

. -7.3 FI TUPSA WOIT130«I ^

1914] THE SECOND PHASE. 259

class were quite competent to deal with them. Bi t between our
two attendant cruisers and the two German cruisers a fierce
battle was waged. About eight o'clock the Arethusa — clarum et
venerabile nomen — was engaged with the German Stettin and the
Fraiienlob, and till the Fearless drew the Stettin's fire, was exposed to
the broadsides of the two vessels, and was considerably damaged.
About 8.25, however, one of her shots shattered the forebridge of
the Frauenlob, and the crippled vessel drew off towards Heligoland,
whither the Stettin soon followed. Meantime the destroyers had
not been idle. They had sunk the leading boat of the German
flotilla, V187, and had damaged a dozen more. With great heroism
they attempted to save the German sailors now struggling in the
water, and lowered boats for the purpose. These boats, as we shall
see, came into deadly peril during the next phase of the action.

On the retreat of the Stettin and the Frauenlob the destroyer
flotillas were ordered to turn westward. The gallant Arethusa
was in need of attention, for a water-tank had been hit, and all her
guns save one were temporarily out of action. She was soon re-
paired, and only two of her 4-inch guns were left still out of order.
Between nine and ten o'clock, therefore, there was a lull in the
fight, which we may take as marking the break between the first
and second phases of the battle. The submarines, with their
attendants. Lurcher and Firedrake, were still in the immediate
vicinity of Heligoland, as well as some of the destroyers which
had boats out to save life.

About ten o'clock the second phase began. The Germans
believed that the only hostile vessels in the neighbourhood were
the submarines, destroyers, the Arethusa and the Fearless, and
they resolved to take this excellent chance of annihilating them.
First the Stettin returned, and came on the boats of the First
Flotilla busy saving life, and, thinking apparently that the British
had adopted the insane notion of boarding, opened a heavy fire on
them. The small destroyers were driven away, and two boats,
belonging to the Goshawk and the Defender, were cut off under the
guns of Heligoland. At this moment submarine E4 (Lieutenant-
Commander E. W. Leir) appeared alongside. By ths threat of a
torpedo attack he drove off the German cruiser for a moment, and
took on board the British seamen.

The Arethusa, the Fearless, and the destroyers now moved
westward. They had already suffered considerably, and their
speed and handiness must have been reduced. The next incident
was an artillery duel between the Arethusa and the Stralsund, a

26o A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

four-funnellad cruiser of the " Breslau " class. Then came the
Mainz, which engaged the First Flotilla, till she was headed off by
the appearance of Commodore Goodenough's light cruisers. So
far the destroyer flotillas had covered themselves with glory, but
their position was far from comfortable. They were in German
home waters, not far from the guns of Heligoland (which the fog
seems to have made useless at that range) ; they were a good deal
crippled, though still able to fight ; and they did not know but that
at any moment the blunt noses of Ingenohl's great battleships might
come out of the mist. The battle had now lasted for five hours-
ample time for the ships in the Elbe to come up. Commodore
Tyrwhitt about eleven had sent a wireless signal to Sir David
Beatty asking for help, and by twelve o'clock that help was sorely
needed. It was on its way. Admiral Beatty, on receipt of the
signal, at once sent the First Light-Cruiser Squadron south-east-
wards. The first vessels, the Falmouth and the Nottingham, arrived
on the scene of action about twelve o'clock, and proceeded to deal
with the damaged Mainz. By this time the First Destroyer Flotilla
had retired westward, but the Third Flotilla and the Arethusa were
still busy with the Stralsund. Admiral Beatty had to take a
momentous decision. There was every likelihood that some of
the enemy's great armoured and battle cruisers were close at hand,
and he wisely judged that " to be of any value the support must
be overwhelming." It was a risky business to take his vessels
through a mine-strewn and submarine-haunted sea ; but in naval
warfare the highest risks must be run. Hawke pursued Conflans
in a stormy dusk into Quiberon Bay, and Nelson before Aboukir
risked in the darkness the shoals and reefs of an uncharted sea.
So Admiral Beatty gave orders at 11.30 for the battle cruisers to
steam e.s.e. at full speed. They were several times attacked by
submarines, but their pace saved them, and when later the Queen
Mary was in danger she avoided it by a skilful use of the helm.
By 12.15 the smoke-blackened eyes of the Arethusa' s men saw
the huge shapes of our battle cruisers emerging from the northern
mists.

Their advent decided the battle. They found the Mai^iz
fighting gallantly but on fire and sinking by the head, and steered
north-eastward to where the Arethusa and the Stralsund were hard
at work. The Fearless was meantime engaged with the Stettin
and a new cruiser, the Koln. The Lion came first, and she alone
among the battle cruisers seems to have used her guns. Her
immense fire power and admirable gunnery beat down all opposi-

AUC.28T

Battle in the
Bight of HELIGOLAND

D. Final phase of the action.

Intervention of Beattys
Battle-Cruisers, Ham. TO- 4p.ni.

'* //. 2bo atid 2fy/. )

1914] SUMMARY OF BATTLE. 261

tion. The Koln fled before her, but the Lion's guns at extreme
range hit her and set her on fire. Presently the Ariadne hove in
sight from the south — the forerunner, perhaps, of a new squadron.
Two salvos from the terrible 13.5-inch guns sufficed for her, and,
burning furiously, she disappeared into the haze. Then the battle
cruisers circled north again, and in ten minutes finished off the
Koln. She sank like a plummet with every soul on board. At
twenty minutes to two Admiral Beatty turned homeward. The
submarines and the destroyer flotillas had already gone westward,
and the Light-Cruiser Squadron, in a fan-shaped formation, pre-
ceded the battle cruisers. Admiral Christian's squadron was left
to escort the damaged ships and defend the rear.

By that evening the whole British force was in its own waters
without the loss of a single unit. The Arethusa had been badly
damaged, but in a week was ready for sea again. The British
casualties were thirty-five killed and about forty wounded. The
Germans lost three light cruisers, the Mainz, Koln, and Ariadne,
and one destroyer, the V1S7. At least 700 of the German crews
perished, and there were over 300 prisoners.

Of the Battle of the Bight it may fairly be said that it was
creditable to both victors and vanquished. The Germans fought
in the true naval spirit, and the officers stood by their ships till
they went down. The gallantry of our own men was conspicuous,
as was their readiness to run risks in saving fife, a readiness which
the enemy handsomely acknowledged. The submarine flotilla
fought under great disadvantages, but the crews never wavered,
and their attendant destroyers, the Lurcher and the Firedrake,
were constantly engaged with heavier vessels. The two destroyer
flotillas were not less prominent, and, having taken the measure
of the German destroyers, did not hesitate to engage the
enemy's cruisers. But the chief glory belonged to the Arethusa
and the Fearless, who for a critical hour bore the brunt of the
battle. For a time they were matched against three German
cruisers, which between them had a considerably greater force
of fire. Nowadays much of naval fighting is so nearly a mathe-
matical certainty that, given the guns and the speed, you can
calculate the result. But it was the good fortune of the Arethusa
to show her mettle in a conflict which more resembled the auda-
cious struggles of Nelson's day. It is a curious fact that though
we had some sixty vessels in the action from first to last, only
four or five were hit. The light-cruiser squadron and the battle
cruisers decided the battle, and while their blows were deadly.

262 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

the enemy never got a chance of retaliation. From twelve o'clock
onward it was scientific modern destruction ; before that it was
any one's fight.

The chief consequence of the Battle of the Bight was its moral
effect upon Germany. Ingenohl was confirmed in his resolution
to keep his battleships in harbour, and not even a daring sweeping
movement of the British early in September, when our vessels
came within hearing of the church bells on the German coast,
could goad him into action. But he retaliated by an increased
activity in mine-laying and the use of submarines. In the land
warfare of the Middle Ages there came a time when knights and
horses were so heavily armoured that they lost mobility, and what
had been regarded as the main type of action ended in stalemate.
Wherefore, since men must find some way of conquering each other,
came the chance for the hitherto despised lighter troops, and the
archers and spearmen began to win battles like Courtrai and
Bannockburn. A similar stalemate was now reached as between
the capital ships of the rival navies. The British battleships were
vast and numerous ; the German fleet, less powerful at sea, was
strong in its fenced harbour. No decision could be arrived at by
the heavily armed units, so the war passed for the moment into
the hands of the lesser craft. For a space of several months the
Germans fought almost wholly with mines and submarines.
One truth at this period was somewhat forgotten by the British
people. Command of the sea, unless the enemy's navy is totally
destroyed, does not mean complete protection. This had been
well stated in a famous passage by Admiral Mahan * : —

" The control of the sea, however real, does not imply that an
enemy's single ships or small squadrons cannot steal out of ports,
and cross more or less frequented tracts of ocean, make harassing
descents upon unprotected points of a long coast-line, enter blockaded
harbours. On the contrary, history has shown that such evasions
are always possible, to some extent, to the weaker party, however
great the inequality of naval strength."

It has been true in all ages, and was especially true now that
the mine and submarine had come to the assistance of the weaker
combatant. Our policy was to blockade Germany, so that she
should suffer and our own life go on unhindered. But the blockade
could only be a watching blockade ; it could not seal up every
unit of the enemy's naval strength. To achieve the latter we
• Influence of Sez Power upon History, p. 14.

1914] MINES AND SUBMARINES. 263

should have had to run the risk of missing the very goal at which
we aimed. It was our business to see that Germany did nothing
without our knowledge, and to encourage her ships to come out
that we might fall upon them. Her business was to make our
patrolling as difficult as possible. To complain of British losses
in such a task was to do precisely what Germany wished us to do,
in order that caution might take the place of a bold and aggressive
vigilance.

Germany had laid in the first days of the war a large mine-
field off our eastern coasts, and early in September, by means of
trawlers disguised as neutrals, she succeeded in dropping mines
off the north coast of Ireland, which endangered our Atlantic
commerce and the operations of our Grand Fleet. The right
precaution — the closing of the North Sea to neutral shipping,
unless specially convoyed — was not taken till later in the
day, and even then was too perfunctorily organized. But the
mine-field, for all its terrors, was not productive of much actual
loss to our fighting strength. During the first two months of
war, apart from the Amphion, the only casualty was the old gun-
boat Speedy, which struck a mine and foundered in the North
Sea on 3rd September. Indeed the new German mine-field had
its advantages ; since it barred certain approaches to our coast,
it released our flotillas for a more extensive coastwise patrol.

The submarine was a graver menace. On 5th September the
Pathfinder, a light cruiser of 2,940 tons, with a crew of 268, was
torpedoed off the Lothian coast and sunk with great loss of life.
Eight days later the German light cruiser Hela, a vessel slightly
smaller than the Pathfinder, was sunk by the British submarine
E9 (Lieutenant Max Horton) in wild weather between Heligo-
land and the Frisian coast — an exploit of exceptional boldness
and difficulty. During that fortnight a storm raged, and our
patrols found it hard to keep the seas, many of the smaller de-
stroyers being driven to port. This storm led indirectly to the
first serious British loss of the war. Three cruisers of an old
pattern, the Cressy, Hogue, and Aboukir, which were part of
Admiral Christian's Southern Force, had for three weeks been
engaged in patrolling off the Dutch coast. It is obvious that
three large ships carrying heavy crews should not have been
employed on a duty which could have been performed better and
more safely by Hghter vessels, but the Admiralty had not yet got
the new light cruisers of the Arethusa class which were to relieve
them. No screen of destroyers was with them at the moment,

264 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

owing to the storm. On 22nd September the sky had cleared
and the seas fallen, and about half-past six in the morning, as
the cruisers proceeded to their posts, the Ahoukir was torpedoed,
and began to settle down. Her sister ships beheved she had struck
a mine, and closed in on her to save life. Suddenly the Hogue
was struck by two torpedoes, and began to sink. Two of her
boats had already been got away to the rescue of the Ahoukir' s
men, and as she went down she righted herself for a moment, with
the result that her steam pinnace and steam picket-boat floated
off. The Cressy now came up to the rescue, but she also was
struck by two torpedoes, and sank rapidly. Three trawlers in
the neighbourhood at the time picked up the survivors in the
water and in the boats, but of the total crews of 1,459 officers
and men only 779 were saved. In that bright, chilly morning,
when all was over within a quarter of an hour, the British sailor
showed admirable discipline and courage. Men swimming in
the frosty sea or clinging naked to boats or wreckage cheered each
other with songs and jokes. The destruction was caused by a
single German submarine, the U29, a comparatively old type,
commanded by Captain Otto Weddigen, of whom the world was
to hear more. The loss of the three cruisers was a result of the
kind of mistake which is inevitably made at the beginning of a
naval war before novel conditions are adequately realized. The
senior officer in charge took an undue risk in steering towards the
enemy's base in full daylight, unscreened by destroyers, and in
proceeding slowly without zigzagging, and with the ships abreast
two miles apart. At the same time the Admiralty's general
instructions were far from clear, and the three vessels were per-
forming a duty on which it was folly to employ them.

The third method of weakening British sea power was by the
attack upon merchantmen by light cruisers. Germany could send
forth no new vessels of this type after the outbreak of war, and
her activities were confined to those which were already outside
the Narrow Seas, especially those under Admiral von Spec's
command at Kiao-chau. So far as the present stage is concerned,
we need mention only the Emden and the Konigsberg. The former
was to provide the world with a genuine tale of romantic adventure,
always welcome among the grave realities of war, and in her
short life to emulate the achievements and the fame of the Alabama.
She appeared in the Bay of Bengal on loth September, and within
a week had captured seven large merchantmen, six of which she
sank. Next week she arrived at Rangoon, where her presence cut

I9I4] GERMAN COMMERCE-RAIDERS. 265

off all sea communication between India and Burma. On 22nd
September she was at Madras, and fired a shell or two into the
environs of the city, setting an oil tank on fire. On the 2gth she
was off Pondicherry, and the last day of the month found her
running up the Malabar coast. There for the present we leave
her, for the tale of her subsequent adventures belongs to another
chapter. The Konigsberg had her beat off the east coast of Africa.
Her chief exploit was a dash into Zanzibar harbour, where, on
20th September, she caught the British Hght cruiser Pegasus
while in the act of repairing her boilers. The Pegasus was a
seventeen-year-old ship of 2,135 tons, and had no chance against
her assailant. She was destroyed by the Konigsberg' s long-range fire.
The exploits of the two German commerce-raiders were magni-
fied because they were the exceptions, while the British capture of
German merchantmen was the rule. We did not destroy our
captures, because we had many ports to take them to, and they
were duly brought before our prize courts. In addition, we had
made havoc of Germany's converted liners. The Kaiser Wilhelm
der Grosse, which had escaped from Bremerhaven at the begin-
ning of the war, and which had preyed for a fortnight on our South
Atlantic commerce, was caught and sunk by the Highflyer near
the Cape Verde Islands. On 12th September the Berwick captured
in the North Atlantic the Spreewald, of the Hamburg-Amerika
line. On 14th September the Carmania, Captain Noel Grant, a
British converted liner, fell in with a similar German vessel, the
Cap Trafalgar, off the coast of Brazil. The action began at 9,000
yards, and lasted for an hour and three-quarters. The Carmania
was skilfully handled, and her excellent gunnery decided the
issue. Though the British vessel had to depart prematurely owing
to the approach of a German cruiser, she left her antagonist sink-
ing in flames. These instances will suffice to show how active
British vessels were in all the seas. The loss of a few light cruisers
and a baker's dozen of merchantmen was a small price to pay for
an unimpaired foreign trade and the practical impotence of the
enemy. Modern inventions give the weaker Power a better chance
for raiding than in the old days ; but in spite of that our sufferings
at this stage were small compared with those in any other of our
great wars. It is instructive to contrast our fortunes during the
struggle with Napoleon. Then, even after Trafalgar had been
fought, French privateers made almost daily captures of English
ships in our home waters. Our coasts were frequently attacked, and
the inhabitants of the seaboard went for years in constant expecta-

266 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

tion of invasion. In the twenty-one years of war we lost 10,248
British ships. Further back in our history our inviolabiHty was
even more precarious. In the year after Agincourt the French
landed in Portland. Seven years after the defeat of the Armada
the Spanish burned Penzance and ravaged the Cornish coasts.
In 1667 the Dutch were in the Med way and the Thames. In 1690
the French burned Teignmouth, and landed in Sussex ; in 1760
they seized Carrickfergus ; in 1797 they landed at Fishguard.
In 1775 Paul Jones captured Whitehaven, and was the terror of
our home waters. The most prosperous war has its casualties in
unexpected places.

The opening stages of the war at sea, though they brought no
dramatic coup, were of supreme imj)ortance in the history of the
campaign. A very real crisis had been successfully tided over.
Germany had missed a chance which she was never to recover,
and her growing difficulties on the Eastern front compelled her
for a time to devote as much attention to the Baltic as to the
North Sea. The British army had safely crossed the Channel,
and the French Algerian forces the Mediterranean. The seas of
the world had been cleared of German commerce, and, except
for a few stragglers, of German warships. The High Sea Fleet
was under close observation, and flanking forces at Harwich, in
the Humber, and at Rosyth waited on its appearance, while the
Grand Fleet closed the northern exits of the North Sea. The
Grand Fleet was as yet without a proper base, and the situation
was still full of anxiety for its commander. JelHcoe's steadfastness
in those difficult days, his caution which never sank into inaction,
his boldness which never degenerated into folly, convinced his
countrymen that in him they had the naval leader that the
times required. The ill-informed might clamour, but the student
of history remembered that it had never been an easy task to
bring an enemy fleet to book. In the Revolution Wars, Britain
had to wait a year for the first naval battle, Howe's victory of the
1st June ; while Nelson lay for two years before Toulon, and Corn-
wallis for longer before Brest. " They were dull, weary, eventless
months" — to quote Admiral Mahan — "those months of waiting
and watching of the big ships before the French arsenals. Pur-
poseless they surely seemed to many, but they saved England.
The world has never seen a more impressive demonstration of
the influence of sea power upon its history. Those far-distant,
storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never looked,
stood between it and the dominion of the world."

1914] THE DECLARATION OF LONDON. 267

In Nilson's day Britain had one advantage of which she was
now deprived. She was not hampered by a code of maritime law
framed in the interests of unmaritime nations. The Declaration
of Paris of 1856, among other provisions, enacted that a neutral
flag covered enemy's merchandise except contraband of war, and
that neutral merchandise was not capturable even under the
enemy's flag. This Declaration, which was not accepted by the
United States, had never received legislative ratification from the
British Parhament ; but Britain regarded herself as bound by it,
though various efforts had been made to get it rescinded in time
of peace by those who realized how greatly it weakened the belhg-
erent force of a sea Power. The Declaration of London of 1909
made a further effort to codify maritime law.* It was signed by
the British plenipotentiaries, though Parhament refused to pass the
statutes necessary to give effect to certain of its provisions. In
some respects it was more favourable to Britain than the Declara-
tion of Paris, but in others it was less favourable, and it was con-
sistently opposed by most good authorities on the subject. Gener-
ally speaking, it was more acceptable to a nation like Germany
than to one in Britain's case.f When war broke out the British
Government announced that it accepted the Declaration of London
as the basis of its maritime practice. The result was a state of
dire confusion, for the consequences of the new law had never
been fully reahzed. Under it, for example, the captain of the
Emden could justify his sinking of British ships instead of taking
them to a port for adjudication. One provision, which seems to
have been deduced from it, was so patently ridiculous that it was
soon dropped — that belligerents (that is, enemy reservists) in

* Parliamentary Paper, Cd. 4554 of 1909.

t The following are a few examples of the way in which it impaired our naval
power : It was made easy to break a blockade, for the right of a blockading Power
to capture a blockade-runner did not cover the whole period of her voyage and was
confined to ships of the blockading force (Articles 14, 16, 17, 19, 20) ; stereotyped
lists of contraband and non-contraband were drawn up, instead of the old custom
of leaving the question to the discretion of the Prize Court (Articles 22, 23, 24, 25,
28) ; a ship carrying contraband could only be condemned if the contraband formed
more than half its cargo ; a belligerent warship could destroy a neutral vessel
without taking it to a port for judgment ; the transfer of an enemy vessel to a
neutral flag was presumed to be valid if effected more than thirty days before the
outbreak of war (Article 55) ; the question of the test of enemy property was
left in confusion (Article 58) ; a neutral vessel, if accompanied by any sort of
warship of her own flag, was exempt from search ; belligerents in neutral vessels
on the high seas were exempt from capture (based on Article 45). With the
Declaration of London would go most of the naval findings of the Hague Conference
of 1907. The British delegates who assented to the Declaration of London
proceeded on the assumption that in any war of the future Britain would be
neutral, and so endeavoured to reduce the privileges of maritime belligerents.

268 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

neutral ships were not liable to arrest. Presently successive
Orders in Council, instigated by sheer necessity, altered the Declara-
tion of London beyond recognition. The truth is, that Britain
was engaged in so novel a war that many of the older rules could
not be applied. Germany had become a law unto herself, and the
Allies were compelled in self-defence to frame a new code, which
should comply not only with the halfrdozen great principles of
international equity, but with the mandates of common sense.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE AISNE.

12th September-yd October.

The German Retreat from the Marne — The Aisne Position — The Struggle for the
Crossings — The Struggle for the Heights — Joffre extends his Left Wing — ^Tht
Fighting on the Meuse — The Race to the Sea.

On the evening of gth September, in a gale of wind and rain, the
right wing of the German armies was in full retreat before Maunoury
and French, Foch and Franchet d'Esperey. On the nth the Fifth
Army was in Epernay ; on the 12 th it was in Rheims, while Foch
entered Chalons. That same day Langle had recovered Vitry-le
Francois and Revigny, and on the 13th the Imperial Crown Prince
had fallen back to Montfaucon before Sarrail, who had now re-
covered his direct communications with the capital. The Battle
of the Marne was over, and a new battle was beginning. The
Allied armies were too weary to turn Kluck's right flank during
his retreat, and Bridoux' ist Cavalry Corps was unable to do more
than threaten his communications. On the nth the German I. Army
was crossing the Aisne, with instructions to protect at all costs the
right wing of the German retirement to the new position. Kluck
was once again under the orders of Billow, and to fill the gap be-
tween the two, the VII. Army under Heeringen, new come from
Alsace, was moving into position. Its 15th Corps was expected
by the 13th, its 7th Reserve Corps was hurrying south from Mau-
beuge, and its 9th Reserve Corps from Belgium. Germany in re-
treat had lost the offensive, but had snatched again the initiative ;
she was about to dictate to her enemies the form of the struggle —
to compel them to accept a trench battle, well suited to her own
stubborn and mechanical genius.

Let us glance at the topography of those wide grassy vales of
Aisne and Suippe which are scored from west to east across Northern
France. The Aisne, which enters the Oise at Compiegne, has on

269

270 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

its north side, at an average of a mile or more from the stream, a
line of steep ridges, the scarp of a great plateau. The valley floor
is like much other French scenery — a sluggish stream some fifty
yards wide, villages, farmhouses, unfenced fields of crops, poplar-
lined roads, and a few little towns, the chief of which is Soissons,
with its twelfth-century cathedral, the scene of many great doings
in France's history. On the north the hills stand like a wall, and
the spurs dip down sharply to the vale, while between them the
short and rapid brooks have cut steep re-entrant combes in the
plateau's edge. The height of the scarp varies from some 200
feet, where the uplands begin on the west above Compiegne from
the forest of Laigue, to more than 450 feet thirty miles east in the
high bluffs of Craonne. Beyond this latter place the Aisne takes
a wide sweep to the north-east towards its source in the Argonne,
and the banks fall to the lower level characteristic of the shallow
dales of Champagne. The section from Compiegne to Craonne is
everywhere of the same type, with sometimes a bolder spur and
sometimes a deeper ravine. The top of the plateau cannot be seen
from the valley, nor even from the high ground to the south. It
is muffled everywhere by a cloak of woods, which dip over the
edge and descend for some distance towards the river. The lower
slopes are, for the most part, steep and grassy, with here and there
enclosed coppices. The plateau stretches back for some miles
till at La Fere and Laon it breaks down into the plains of north-
eastern France. Seven miles east of Soissons as the crow flies
the river Vesle enters the Aisne on the south bank. It is the stream
on which stands the city of Rheims, and its valley is a replica in
miniature of the Aisne. At Neufchatel-sur-Aisne the river Suippe
comes in from the south, rolling its muddy white waters through
a shallow depression in the chalk of northern Champagne. Both
its banks are long, gentle slopes of open ploughland, with a few
raw new plantations to break the monotony. Beyond the southern
slope and over the watershed we descend to where Rheims lies
beautifully in its cincture of bold and forested hills.

The German armies had chosen for their stand, not the line
of the Aisne, but the crest of the plateau beyond it, at an average
of two miles from the stream side. The place had once been used
before as a defensive position by an invader — by Bliicher in February
and March 18 14 — and the study of that campaign may have sug-
gested the idea to the German Staff. A more perfect position could
not be found. It commanded all the crossings of the river and
most of the roads on the south bank, and even if the Allies reached

1914] THE ADVANCE TO THE AISNE. 271

the north side the out jutting spurs gave excellent opportunities
for an enfilading fire. The blindness of the crests made it almost
impossible for the German trenches to be detected. Eastward
towards Neufchatel, where the Aisne valley changed its character,
the line crossed the river, and followed in a wide curve the course
of the Suippe, keeping several miles back from the stream on the
northern slopes. Here the position was still stronger. Before them
they had a natural glacis, and across the river they could command
the bare swelling downs for miles. The line crossed the Cham-
pagne-Pouilleuse, with the Bazancourt-Grand-Pre railway behind
it, and rested on the Argonne, to the east of which the army of
the Imperial Crown Prince was ringing Verdun on north and east
from Montfaucon to the shaggy folds of the Woevre.

At the moment the problem before the German right wing was
no easy one. Kluck was instructed to try to serve Maunoury as
Maunoury had served him, but he had not the men. He had to
watch his right flank in case of a turning movement up the Oise,
and in consequence a huge breach appeared between his left and
Billow's right, which the VII. Army had not yet arrived to fill.
That space of seven miles was held only by a portion of Richtho-
fen's cavalry. Kluck held in all a line of some twenty-seven miles,
and his flanks were precarious. An extra corps, even an extra
division, on the Allies' side might have driven him from his ground,
with incalculable consequences for the future ; had the British
6th Division arrived on the 12th instead of on the i6th the thing
might have been done. At that stage every hour was of impor-
tance ; but by the 15th the gap had been filled, so that in the critical
section Franchet d'Esperey's left corps and the British two and a
half corps were opposed by five German corps, three of them fresh,
and the chance had gone.

When the Allied troops on the 13th and 14th of September
first became dimly cognizant of the nature of the German position
they did not realize its full meaning. They could not know that
they were on the glacis of the new type of fortress which Germany
had built for herself, and which was presently to embrace about
a fifth of Europe. On the nth and the 12th they had beheved
the enemy to be in full retreat, and when they felt his strength
their generals were puzzled to decide whether he meant to make
a serious stand, or was only fighting delaying actions preparatory
to a further retirement to the Sambre or beyond. Had Joffre
known the strength of the Aisne positions, he would probably
from the beginning have endeavoured to turn them on the west.

272 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

or — what would give far more decisive results — to break through
the Crown Prince's army in the east, and so get between them
and their own country. As it was, he decided to make a frontal
attack, which would be the natural course against an enemy in
retreat who had merely halted to show his fangs. The fighting on
the Aisne was to continue for many weary months, and to show
a slow and confusing series of trench attacks sandwiched between
long periods of stagnant cannonades. But the First Battle of the
Aisne in the strict sense of the word — the battle during which
the Allied plan was a frontal assault — lasted for six days only,
and on the widest interpretation for no more than a fortnight.
It represented a delaying action, while Germany changed from her
first to her second plan of campaign.

The first action was one of advanced Allied cavalry and
strong German rearguards. On Saturday, 12th September, Mau-
noury's Sixth Army was in the forest of Compiegne, with its
right fronting the enemy in the town of Soissons. It had secured
several good artillery positions on the south bank, and spent the
day in a long-range duel with the German guns across the river,
in the endeavour to " prepare " a crossing. Practically all the
bridges were down, and since the Aisne is fully fifteen feet deep,
the only transport must be by pontoons. It took some time to
capture a German post on the Mont de Paris, south of Soissons.
On Maunoury's right the British 3rd Corps was busy at the same
task just to the east of Soissons. East of it, again, the two
other British corps were advancing in echelon, while the cavalry
was driving the enemy from the ground around the lower Vesle.
On the day before our cavalry had arrived in the Aisne valley,
the 3rd and 5th Brigades just south of Soissons, the ist, 2nd, and
4th Brigades at Couvrelles and Cerseuil in the tributary glen of
the Vesle. On the 12th Allenby discovered that the Germans were
holding Braisne and the surrounding heights in some force, and
drove them out, and cleared the stream. Shortly after midday
the rain began, and our advance in the afternoon was handicapped
by transport difficulties in the heavy soil. In the evening the ist
Corps lay between Vauxcere and Vauxtin ; the 2nd astride the
Vesle from Brenelle to near Missy, where the 5th Division on its
left found the Aisne crossing strongly held ; the 3rd Corps south
of Soissons, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Buzancy, while its
heavy batteries were assisting Maunoury. East of the British,
Franchet d'Esperey brought his army up to the Vesle, and Langle
was moving down the upper Suippe. The fighting around Verdun

1914] THE PASSAGE OF THE AISNE. 273

must be left till later, for it did not belong to the present series of
engagements.

Sunday, the 13th, was the beginning of the passage of the
Aisne. The French Sixth Army constructed pontoons at various
places under a heavy fire, and several divisions were got over.
Vic and Fontenoy were the chief crossings, for a pontoon bridge
at Soissons itself was made impossible by the guns on the northern
heights. A number of French infantry did succeed in making a
passage by means of the single girder which was all that was now
left of the narrow-gauge railway bridge. To the east the British
operations during the day were full of interest. The 3rd Corps
attempted the section between Soissons and Venizel. The Aisne
was in high flood, and the heavy rain made every movement diffi-
cult. Its bridging train attempted to build a heavy pontoon
bridge on the French right, but this failed, like the similar French
attempt, owing to the fire of the German howitzers. At Venizel
there was a road bridge, not completely destroyed, which was
mended sufficiently to allow of the passage of field guns. A pon-
toon bridge was built beside it, and early in the afternoon the whole
of the 4th Division was across, and co-operating with the left of
the 2nd Corps against the German positions at Chivres and Vregny.
Farther east the 2nd Corps had been in difficulties. The 5th Divi-
sion on its left found the open space between the river and the
heights opposite Missy a death-trap from the German guns. Its
13th Brigade could not advance, but its 14th and 15th Brigades
succeeded in crossing by means of rafts between Missy and Venizel,
and took up positions around the village of Ste. Marguerite. The
3rd Division had a still harder task. One of its brigades, the 8th,
managed to cross at Vailly ; but the 9th and 7th Brigades, making
the attempt at Conde, found the bridge there still standing, and
in German hands. This bridge remained in the possession of the
Germans long after the British forces were on the north bank, a
point of danger between the two divisions of the 2nd Corps. The
British ist Corps, with some of the cavalry, was concerned with
the section between Chavonne and Bourg. Here there were both
the river and a canal on the south bank to be passed, and not
only was there heavy shell-fire to be faced from the northern heights,
but most of the possible crossing-places were guarded by strong
detachments of German infantry with machine guns. The 2nd
Division was in trouble from the start. Only one battalion of
Cavan's 4th (Guards) Brigade succeeded in crossing in boats at
Chavonne, while the 5th Brigade crossed by the broken girders

274 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sepi.

of the bridge at Pont-Arcy, where the flooded river washed over
their precarious foothold. The ist Division crossed principally by
the aqueduct which carried a small canal over the Aisne at Bourg,
and which by some miracle was weakly held, while an advanced
body of infantry preceded them by pontoons. By the evening it
had occupied the positions of Paissy, Moulins, and Vendresse, on
the northern bank.

On the evening of that difficult Sunday we may summarize
the situation by saying that, on the fifteen miles of front allotted
to the British, they had crossed the river at most points, and had
entrenched themselves well up the farther slopes. Only the 19th
Brigade of the 3rd Corps, and of the 2nd Corps the 4th (three bat-
talions), 6th, 7th, gth, and 13th Brigades bivouacked on the south-
ern bank. The British army has been familiar with difficult river
crossings — like the Alma, the Modder, and the Tugela — but never
before had it forced a passage so quickly in the face of so great
and so strongly posted an enemy. High honour was won by our
artillery, working under desperate conditions, and most notably
by the Royal Engineers, who wrought with all the coolness they
had once shown at the Delhi Gate, and went on calmly with their
work of flinging across pontoon bridges and repairing damaged
girders in places where it seemed that no human being could live.

During the night of the 13th, while the German searchlights
played upon the sodden riverside fields, Joffre decided that the fol-
lowing day must be made to reveal the nature of the German plans.
Accordingly on the 14th, while the engineers were busy strengthen-
ing the new bridges and repairing some of the old for heavy traffic, a
general advance was begun along the whole western section of the
front. Maunoury carried the line of the river between Compiegne
and Soissons, and attacked vigorously right up to the edges of the
plateau. From Vic his Zouaves advanced up the deep cleft of
Morsain through St. Christophe, and seized the villages of Autreches
and Nouvron on the containing spurs. By the evening, or early
the next morning, he had won his way far up the heights, and was
suddenly brought up against the main German position on the
plateau itself. There he found himself held, and of all the Allied
commanders was the first to realize the nature of the defensive
trenches which the enemy had prepared. The fate of the British
3rd and 2nd Corps was much the same. The 4th Division could
make no advance on the Bucy uplands between Vregny and Chivres
because of the merciless shell-fire from the hidden German trenches.
The 5 th Division was in like case north of Conde, and the 3rd

1914] THE CHEMIN DES DAMES. 275

Division, which made a gallant attempt to advance on Aizy, was
driven back to its old ground at Vailly. Everywhere as soon as
they felt the enemy they began to dig themselves in on the slopes
— their first real experience of a task which was soon to become
their staple military duty.

The chief offensive was entrusted to Sir Douglas Haig's ist
Corps, which, as we have seen, was mostly on the northern bank
between Chavonne and Moulins, where to the east begins the first
lift of the Craonne plateau. It was directed to cross the line
Mouhns-Moussy by 7 a.m., a section where the northern heights
are more withdrawn from the Aisne. A widish glen opens out at
Pont-Arcy, and up it runs the little canal which, as we have seen,
crossed the river at Bourg. This canal presently disappears in a
tunnel in the hillside. In all these ravines there are little villages
and rock dwellings, where live the men employed in the limekilns
and the plaster quarries. Four miles to the north an important
highway, the Chemin des Dames, runs east and west along the
plateau. It is the main upper road along the Aisne valley to
Craonne, and runs parallel, at an average distance of three miles,
with the lower road along the riverside. From it the traveller has
a wide prospect as far north as the heights of Laon. If it could
be seized it would give command of the southern plateau from
Soissons to Berry-au-Bac. It was towards this line that Sir Douglas
Haig directed his efforts. The action began before dawn on the
14th with a movement by the advance guard of the ist Division
— the 2nd Brigade — from MouHns to the hamlet of Troyon, south
of the Chemin des Dames. There was a sugar factory there
strongly held by the enemy, which by midday was captured with
the assistance of the ist Brigade. The two brigades were now
drawn up on a line north of Troyon and just south of the Chemin
des Dames. There they were close to the enemy's main entrench-
ments, and could make no headway for his fire. The day was wet
and misty, and this dulled the precision of the artillery on both
sides. The 3rd Brigade continued the hne west of Vendresse, and
linked up with the 2nd Division.

The 2nd Division found itself in heavy waters from the outset.
Many of its battalions, it must be remembered, had still to cross
the Aisne when the morning broke. Its 6th Brigade, which should
have seized a point on the Chemin des Dames south of Courtecon,
was hung up just south of Braye, and had to be supported by two
howitzer brigades and a heavy battery. The 4th (Guards) Brigade,
aiming at Ostel, fought its way through the thick dripping woods,

276 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

where very little aid could be got from our artillery, and by one
o'clock was close on the Ostel ridge. Here the Germans counter-
attacked in force, and for some time it looked as if they might turn
the left flank of the Guards and cut the communications of the 3rd
Division at Vailly. Sir John French had no reserves available except
AUenby's cavalry ; but since the British trooper is also a mounted
infantryman, and can fight with a rifle as well as with a sabre,
the cavalry proved sufficient. Sir Douglas Haig used part of AUen-
by's division, chiefly the ist Brigade, to prolong the left flank of
the Guards, and after some hard fighting repelled the German
attack. About four in the afternoon the commander of the ist Corps
ordered a general advance. From then till daylight departed there
was a heavy engagement, which resulted in a clear British success.
At nightfall they held, not indeed the Chemin des Dames, but a
position which ran from a point on the north-east of Troy on, through
Troyon and Chivy to La Cour de Soupir, while the cavalry carried
it down to the Soissons road west of Chavonne. The whole day's
work was well conceived and brilliantly executed, and gave the
Allies for the first time an entrenched position on the plateau itself.

On the day before Franchet d'Esperey's Fifth Army had in
large part crossed the Aisne east of Bourg, and on the 14th the
first assault began on the Craonne plateau. On the evening of
that day the eastern flank of the British ist Corps was safeguarded
by French Moroccan battalions, which entrenched themselves in
echelon on its right rear. The Germans held the river crossing
at Berry-au-Bac, an important point, for there the highroad runs
from Rheims to Laon. Along the Suippe the Ninth Army was
feeling the German strength in the impregnable trenches on the
northern slopes, and finding it so great that the advance checked.
Farther east in north Champagne, Tangle's Fourth Army had
occupied Souain, and, like its colleague to the west, was becoming
aware of the fortress in which the enemy had found shelter. At
the moment, however, the German High Command was greatly
perturbed. No intelligible orders came from Great Headquarters,
and Biilow, who had the direction of the main battle, was prepar-
ing to fall back on La Fere ; it was his habit to see defeat before
he was beaten. But in the night the first reserves arrived, and
on the 15th came the news that the 9th Reserve Corps had come
to strengthen Kluck's endangered right.

That day, Tuesday the 15th, saw an enemy reaction, a series
of violent counter-attacks along the western front. Maunoury's
Sixth Army was the chief sufferer. From their main position

1914] THE FIFfH ARMY AT CRAONNE. 277

at Nampcel the Germans drove the French out of their posts
on the crests of the spurs, recaptured Autrcches, and forced the
French right out of the Morsain ravine and off the spurs of Nou-
vron. By the Wednesday morning the French were back on a Hne
close to the Aisne, and only a few hundred yards north of their
original crossing-places at Vic and Fontenoy. Soissons was heavily
shelled, and all the northern part of the town was gutted by fire.
The French left, however, continued its flanking movement up
the Oise on the west side of the forest of Laigue, and on this day
made considerable progress in the direction of Noyon, where, how-
ever, it was suddenly checked by the arrival of the 9th Reserve
Corps. On the British left the 4th Division of the 3rd Corps was
severely handled, but stood stoutly to the ground it had won south
of Vregny. The 5th Division felt the weight of the same onslaught,
and was enfiladed on its left by the German fire from Vregny, and
could not advance in face of the heavy artillery posted north of
Chivres and Conde. In the evening it was forced back almost to
the line of the stream, and held the ground between Missy and Ste.
Marguerite — a line dominated everywhere by the guns on the
heights. The 3rd Division on its right was more fortunate, for it
advanced from Vailly, and retook the high ground from which it
had been evicted the day before. Haig on the right had a long
day of counter-attacks, which he succeeded in repulsing, and the
4th (Guards) Brigade in particular gave the enemy much punish-
ment. By the evening the British line was fairly comfortable,
except for the precarious situation of the 4th and 5th Divisions.

Next day, the i6th, there was a sudden lull on the British
front. Sir John French had contemplated a second attack on the
Chemin des Dames, which would give relief to the hard-pressed
4th and 5th Divisions ; but the news from Franchet d'Esperey
convinced him that it would be highly dangerous. For the French
Fifth Army had found the enemy on the Craonne plateau too strong
for them, and the Moroccan battalions, echeloned on the British
right, had fallen back, and so left that flank in the air. Accord-
ingly the 6th Division, which had arrived that morning from
England, was kept in reserve on the south bank of the Aisne,
instead of being sent to support the ist Corps in a forward move-
ment.

But on the 17th events moved more swiftly. Maunoury had
received reinforcements, and the right of the French Sixth Army
checked the German attack, and won back all the ground they had
lost. They drove the Germans right back from the edge of the

278 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

plateau to their main position behind Nampcel, and in particular
cleared them out of the quarries of Autreches, which had given
them deadly gun positions. This French success eased the situa-
tion of the British 4th and 5th Divisions, and the centre of our
line was left in peace. Not so our ist Division, perched high
up on the plateau at Troyon, and looking towards the Chemin
des Dames, which spent an unceasing day of attacks and counter-
attacks. Farther to the east the French Fifth Army was still
assaulting in vain the Craonne plateau, and the Ninth Army had
fallen back from the Suippe to just outside Rheims. The Germans
were now on the hills north of that city, and were able to pour
shells into it. The heights of Brimont were won by them, and
though the French made desperate efforts to retake them, and for
a moment looked like succeeding, they continued to hold the
ground. These heights were only 9,000 yards from the city.
More important still, they had worked round the French position
on the east, and had won the hill of Nogent-l'Abbesse, though
the French remained in possession of Pompelle, the southern spur.
Here the German advance stopped, for west of Rheims lay the high
wooded ground of Pouillon, and south the heights known as the
Montagne de Rheims, both old prepared positions for the defence
of the Marne. The battle here resolved itself into the artillery
duel which was to last for months, and which played havoc with
that noblest monument of French Gothic, the cathedral of Rheims.
Farther east, Tangle's army held its own, but made little progress.
It was still some three miles short of the Bazancourt-Grand-Pre
railway, and had cause for anxiety about its communications with
Foch, One last event of the 17th must be recounted. Bridoux'
ist Cavalry Corps, operating from Roye, made a brilliant raid
as far east as Ham and St. Quentin, during which its commander
fell.

On the next day there was little doing in the daytime, but at
night there was a general attack on the ist and 2nd British Divi-
sions. Elsewhere Maunoury was striving fruitlessly against Kluck's
position, and his left was pressed back by the German 9th Reserve
Corps ; Franchet d'Esperey was beating in vain on the Craonne
escarpment ; Foch's army was hard pressed at Rheims ; and
Langle found the Wiirtembergers in Champagne a barrier which he
could not break. This Friday, i8th September, may be taken as
the end of the Battle of the Aisne in its strict sense, for it marked
the conclusion of the attempt of the Allies to break down the German
positions by a frontal attack. Five days' fighting had convinced

THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE AISNE.

{Fating f. ajS.)

^13iA aHT IC

1914] JOFFRE CHANGES HIS PLAN. 279

them that here was no halting-place for a rearguard action, but the
long-thought-out defences of an army ready and willing for battle.
The forces were too evenly matched to produce anything better
than stalemate, and continued assaults upon those hidden bat-
teries would only lead to a useless waste of life. The Allies might
win a spur here and there, but they would find, as Napoleon found
at Craonne, that the capture of peninsulas of land was idle when
the enemy held the main plateau in strength. Their only plan
was to dig themselves in and creep towards the German lines in
a slow campaign of sap and mine. By the i8th they had got
ready their trenches, and were settling down to this novel warfare.

The general situation was strategically bad. The enemy, from
whom they hoped that they had wrested the offensive at the Marne,
was beginning to recover it. Billow's attack on Rheims was a
dangerous blow at their centre, and if Langle failed in Champagne
the Allied front might be pierced in a vital spot. The determined
assault upon Verdun, which we shall presently consider, was also
a ground for uneasiness. Fortress was now an anxious word in
French ears. Sarrail had none too many men, and if the Imperial
Crown Prince, aided by the Bavarians, could break through the
Heights of the Meuse the Allied right would be turned, and a clear
road laid open for the invaders from Metz and the Rhine.

The situation demanded a counter-offensive which should
promise more speedy results than a frontal assault upon the Aisne
plateau. Accordingly, as early as i6th September, Joffre changed
his strategy. He resolved to play the German game, fling out his
line to the west, and attempt to envelop Kluck's right. Such a
movement, if successful, would threaten the chief German com-
munications by the great trunk line of the Oise valley, and if it
could be pushed as far as La Fere, or even as far as the junction
of Tergnier, would compel the retreat of the whole German right.
Accordingly, orders were given for two new armies to form on
Maunoury's left, aligning themselves in an angle to the north-
west. The first was the reconstructed Second Army, under Castelnau,
who for the purpose surrendered his command in Lorraine to
Dubail.* On its left was to be formed the Tenth Army, under
General Louis Maud' buy, a man of fifty-seven, who was best known
as Professor of Military History at the £cole de Guerre. At the
beginning of the war he was only a brigadier, commanding a brigade
in the Army of Lorraine. In three weeks he had passed through

• Dubail now held the front from Belfort to Nancy with 350,000 men. After
asth September he commanded all French troops east of the Meuse.

28o A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

the stages of divisional general and corps commander to army
commander — a rapidity of promotion which can scarcely be paral-
leled from the Napoleonic wars.

For the three weeks on from Frida}', iSth September, the
Battle of the Aisne, so far as Maunoury and French were con-
cerned, degenerated into a sullen trench warfare, with no possi-
bility of any great movement. Both sides were in position and
under cover. Sporadic attacks had to be faced, especially by the
British ist Division at Troyon, and there were many counter-
attacks, by which more than once the advanced German trenches
were won. But, generally speaking, these weeks showed few
incidents. The worst fighting was over by the i8th, and we had
now acquired the trick of this strange burrowing. But if the gravest
peril had gone, the discomfort remained. The first two weeks at
the Aisne were one long downpour. To them succeeded a week of
St. Martin's summer, and then came autumn damp and mist. On
the sides of the plateau the chalky mud seemed bottomless. It
filled the ears and eyes and throats of the men, it plastered their
clothing, and mingled generously with their diet. Their grand-
fathers who had been at Sebastopol could have told the British
soldiers something about mud ; but after India and South Africa
the mire of the Aisne seemed a grievous affliction. The day was
soon to come when the same men in West Flanders sighed for
the Aisne as a dry and salubrious habitation. Our trenches were
for the most part well up on the slopes of the plateau. Sometimes,
as at Troyon, they were pushed close up to and in full view of the
enemy's position ; but generally the latter was concealed behind
the crest of the ridge, and on flanking spurs which enfiladed ours.
Great assistance in locating the enemy was given by our airmen ;
but we suffered from a chronic lack of artillery. Not only had
the Germans far more pieces than we had, but they had their big
8-inch howitzers from Maubeuge, and they seemed to have an
endless supply of machine guns. Our artillery had to give most
of its time to keeping down the German gun-fire, and in this arm
we could rarely take the offensive. The bombardment which the
Allies endured was, therefore, far more incessant and torturing
than any they could inflict on the enemy. On 23rd September the
four 6-inch howitzer batteries which Sir John French had asked
for from England arrived at the Aisne, and the British were able
to make some return in kind ; but for every shell of this type
which they could fire the Germans fired twenty.

1914] THE POSITION ON THE MEUSE. 281

During these weeks the French armies of the centre and left
had a difficult task, and the hardest was that of Sarrail's army
around Verdun. That great fortress, as we have seen, had been
menaced by the Imperial Crown Prince during the Battle of the
Mame, and his left wing had bombarded Fort Troyon from the
high ground to the west of the Meuse. In the general German
retreat on ioth-i2th September he had retired north of Verdun,
and his right no longer lay at Ste. Menehould, commanding the pass
of Les Islettes and the main railway from Verdun, but had fallen
back two days' march almost as far north as the pass of Grand-
Pre, which was the terminus of the branch line from Bazancourt.
Verdun was promptly cleared by the French general of most of the
bonchss inutiles, its civilian inhabitants. Seven thousand were
ordered out of the town, a tariff for foodstuffs was drawn up, and
everything was made ready for a prolonged siege. But Sarrail
was determined that it should be no siege in the ordinary sense,
and that the German howitzers should never be permitted within
range. By earthworks and entrenchments the fortified zone was
largely extended. The lines of the Crown Prince found them-
selves brought to a halt in a semicircle, with their right on the
Argonne at Varennes, passing northward by Montfaucon and
Consenvoye, and joining up with the German army in the
Woevre.

At the Battle of the Marne the only German attacking force in
this district had been that of the Crown Prince. In the Woevre
the Bavarian right had been engaged with the Toul garrison, but
the Bavarians had enough to do with Castelnau at Nancy, and
had no leisure to spare for the Heights of the Meuse. About the
20th of September, however, a new army detachment appeared
in the Woevre. It was commanded by von Strantz, and consisted
of four South German corps, mainly Wiirtembergers. They were
reserve corps, the 3rd, loth, 13th, and i6th, and they had with
them several reserve divisions. Sarrail had opposed to him not
less than seven corps, comprised in the Crown Prince's and Strantz's
commands, and his original army was greatly outnumbered. He
received the better part of an army corps from Toul as reinforce-
ments, but he fought throughout against heavy odds, relying on
the natural and artificial strength of the French position.

A word must be said on the nature of the Meuse defences
between Verdun and Toul. First after the Verdun ring came the
fort of Genicourt ; then Fort Troyon ; then the Camp des Romains,
protecting the bridge at St. Mihiel, and crossing lire with Fort

282 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

Paroches on the west side of the river ; then Fort Liouville ; then
various southern works which need not be specified, for they
were never assaulted. The obvious centre of attack was Fort
Troyon, for it commanded the biggest gap in the chain. About
20th September a second attempt was made on it, when Strantz,
advancing from the base at Thiaucourt on a broad front, deUvered
a strong attack, but was repulsed by the French army on the
heights. The fort had suffered heavily from the first assault,
and the second practically destroyed it. It says much for the
garrison that, till relief came, they continued to hold out in what
was little more than a dust-heap. This, however, was only a
reconnaissance in force. The real attack was delivered four
days later, and directed against the little town of St. Mihiel, which
lies on the Meuse, midway between Toul and Verdun. The
eastern bank is a plateau some 300 feet high above the Meuse,
rising to a greater height in various summits, and falling steeply
in the east to the deep ravines and wooded knolls of the Woevre.
The spur of the plateau, due east of Troyon, is called Hatton-
chatel, and here the Germans established a footing on 23rd
September, and got up their heavy artillery. They silenced
the small fort of Paroches across the Meuse, and presently silenced
and destroyed the Camp des Romains, and took St. Mihiel with
its bridgehead on the western side of the water.

They got no farther, for a French cavalry detachment drove in
the van of the advance, and compelled them to entrench them-
selves on the edge of the river. The German aim was clear.
They hoped to push from St. Mihiel due west to Revigny, and so
get south of Sarrail's army, which would thus be caught between
Strantz and the Crown Prince. Sarrail had enough and only
just enough men to prevent this, and for a day or two the issue
hung in the balance. But with every day the German position
grew more uncomfortable. They had pierced the fortress line
Toul- Verdun, but they could not use the path through the gap.
They had no railway behind them nearer than Thiaucourt, and
only one road, and that a bad one, for the main route through
Apremont was held by the French. In the autumn fogs which
cloak the Woevre it was a bad line of communications, and it says
much for German tenacity that they managed to hold St. Mihiel
for years against all comers. Meantime the Toul garrison sent
out troops which fought their way to the southern edge of the
Rupt de Mad, the narrow glen by which the railway runs from Metz
t© Thiaucourt. The fighting east of the Meuse was presently

1914] CHAMPAGNE. 283

tramiformcd into that war of entrenchments which we have seen
beginning on the Aisne. One last effort to secure a decision was
made in this district before stalemate set in. On Saturday, 3rd
October, the Crown Prince made a vigorous assault upon Sarrail's
centre, which lay roughly from south of Varennes to just north
of Verdun. Varennes at the moment was in German hands.
The Crown Prince attempted a turning movement through the
woods of the Argonne against Ste. Menehould, his former head-
quarters. A forest road runs from Varennes west to Vienne on
the upper Aisne, and north of this lies the wood of La Grurie,
through which the Germans brought their guns. In the pass the
French fell upon them, and after sharp fighting on the Sunday
drove them back north of Varennes, capturing that town, and
gaining the road across the Argonne, which gave them touch with
the right of Langle's Fourth Army. This victory straightened
out the French front, which now ran from Verdun due west to
north of Souain, and then along the Roman road to Rheims.

The prevailing stalemate was most marked in North Cham-
pagne. Langle had made no head against the Wiirtembergers.
His object was the Bazancourt-Grand-Pre railway ; but the
German trenches in the flat pockets and along the endless chalk
hillocks of Champagne held him fast. He maintained his ground,
and the danger of the effort to pierce the line at this point was
temporarily removed, largely because of the extensive read-
justment of forces which was then going on behind the German
front. Farther east the German army around Rheims had better
success. The shelHng of the city began on Friday the i8th,
and for ten days the bombardment continued. There was
much loss of life among the civilians, large sections of the city
were burnt and demolished, and the cathedral, though its walls
remained standing, lost much of its adornment, including its
ancient stained-glass windows, its delicate stone carving, and
portions of its towers. The shelling of Rheims cathedral was one
of the acts of vandalism which most scandalized the feelings of
the civilized world. The German plea — that the French had
erected signal stations on the roof and tower, and gun stations
close to the building — cannot be substantiated, and the business
was made worse by the fact that the interior was being used as
a hospital, and the Red Cross flag was flown. It is hard to see
what military excuse could be put forward for this senseless
destruction. The cathedral did not suffer indirectly through
being in the zone of fire ; the German guns were deliberately

284 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

trained on it.* Only when it was discovered that neutral nations
were seriously shocked was the tale of hostile gun-platforms in-
vented. To the French it appeared a happy omen that the statue
of Joan of Arc, which stood in front of the cathedral, was uninjured.
Round it the Uhlans had stacked their lances when they first
entered the city on their way to the Mame. During the bombard-
ment, though the square around was ploughed up by shells and
her horse's legs were chipped and scarred, the figure of the Maid
remained inviolate. Some soldiers had placed a tricolour in her
outstretched hand, and in all these days of smoke and terror the
French flag was held aloft by the arm of France's deliverer. About
the 28th the worst fury of the attack was over. The change in the
German dispositions compelled them to call a halt, and of this
slackening the French took immediate advantage. The Germans
had seized a position at La Neuvillette, on the slopes towards
Brimont, two miles north of Rheims, which gave them a dangerous
mastery over the French lines, and might form a starting-point for
a piercing movement. On the evening of the 28th the French
counter-attacked, and in spite of heavy fire drove the enemy
back to Brimont. That same evening saw a general movement
along the whole French front in this section, and one battahon
of the Prussian Guard was completely destroyed. The important
position of Prunay, on the railway between Rheims and Chalons,
was carried, and the danger of a wedge between the Ninth and
Fourth Armies was removed.

Meantime the Fifth Army had no success in the Craonne
district. The vital crossing at Berry-au-Bac, where runs the
Roman road from Rheims to Laon, was still in German hands.
Franchet d'Esperey in vain struggled towards Craonne village.
His African troops fought with the utmost gallantry ; he had cer-
tain minor victories and reported a number of prisoners ; but he
never won the edge of the plateau or came near the German main
position. As in the British section, the French won the spurs
and ramparts, but were brought up short before the citadel.

• " It is of no consequence if all the monuments ever created, all the pictures
ever painted, and all the buildings ever erected by the great architects of the world
were destroyed, if by their destruction we promote Germany's victory over her
enemies. . . . The commonest, ugliest stone placed to mark the burial-place of a
German grenadier is a more glorious and perfect monument than all the cathedrals
in Europe put together. . . . Let neutral peoples and our enemies cease their empty
chatter, which is no better than the twittering of birds. I et them cease their talk
about the cathedral at Rheims and about all the churches and castles of France
which have shared its fate. These things do not interest us." — Major-General von
Ditfurth in the Hamburger NzchricJiten, November 1914.

1914] EXTENSION OF ALLIED LEFT WING. 285

The true offensive of the Allies, as we have seen, was now
on the extreme left, where Maunoury had extended his flank
up the Oise, and the armies of Castelnau and Maud'huy were
lengthening the hne towards the north. By the 20th of September
Castelnau had estabHshed himself south of Lassigny, a day's
march from the Oise and the railway line. On the 22nd he
advanced, but in severe fighting between the 25th and 28th he
was forced back from Chaulnes and Roye. In the last week of
September, Maud'huy 's Tenth Army was engaged in a struggle
for the Albert plateau. He never attained it, and when the fighting
ceased his Une lay well to the west of Bapaume, and behind the
upper Ancre — a situation which was to be of vital importance
two years later. But, as his divisions came up, his left went on
extending till presently it covered Arras and Lens, and on 3rd
October his left corps, the 21st, was three miles west of Lille.
The French left now ran for seventy miles north of Compiegne,
almost to the Belgian frontier. It was a comprehensive piece of
outflanking, and it bent back the German right from its apex on
the heights above the forest of Laigue in the shape of a gigantic L.
A little more pressure, and it looked as if the angle might be made
so acute that the great Oise railway would be uncovered and the
main line of German communications on the west made untenable.
If that happened there must be a general retirement ; for, though
the Germans had other lines of supply, they had none which could
keep their right and right-centre rapidly fed with the vast quantities
of heavy ammunition on which the holding of their Aisne position
depended.

But presently it appeared that this flanking strategy was
being met by another. The Germans were themselves taking the
offensive, and stretching out their right, not to conform with,
but to outstrip our movement. It was becoming a race for the
northern sea.

As early as i6th September, Sir John French had become
anxious about his position, and had reached the conclusion that
the British army was in the wrong place. At Mons it had been
the extreme left, now it was almost the centre of the Allied line.
This meant constant difficulties with supplies and communica-
tions, for these now ran through Paris to the Atlantic coast,
and so crossed those of Maunoury, Castelnau, and Maud'huy.
If, on the other hand, the British were transferred once more
to the left wing, they could draw upon the Channel ports, and
would be within easy reach of home. This in itself was sufficient

286 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

reason for the change, but there were others not less cogent. The
stalemate on the Aisne had become chronic. Both sides were
securely entrenched, and territorial levies might be trusted to hold
the hne. It seemed a waste of good material that a seasoned
professional army should be kept at a task which might with
perfect safety be entrusted to men less fully trained. Above
all, the British Commander-in-Chief saw the dawning of a dangerous
German offensive, directed especially against Britain, and aiming
at the possession of Calais and the Channel ports. News was
arriving that the great fortress of Antwerp was in extremity,
and, once it fell, a fresh army could be hurled at the gap between
Lille and the sea. A campaign is full of surprises, and this one had
by now taken on the character of a siege. Germany had been
forced to accept the position, and was penned behind a line of
entrenchments running in the West from Lille to Switzerland,
and in the East from the East Prussian frontier to the Carpathians.
There was a huge area inside the lines — about one-fifth of Europe —
but it was a closing area, and might soon be finally sealed up.
It was not the kind of campaign we would have chosen, but since
it had developed in this way it was our business to take out of it
the best advantage. The one sally-port was West Flanders, and
without delay that bolt-hole must be stopped.

His conclusion was strengthened by news of a new German
disposition which revealed the gravity of their projected offensive.
On 14th September, Erich von Falkenhayn, the Minister of War,
had succeeded the younger Moltke as Chief of the General Staff.*
The reason given was Moltke's health, which had become bad ;
but it is Hkel}/ that in any case the result of the Battle of the
Marne would have compelled a change. The new Chief of Staff
was a man of remarkable ability, comparatively young, vigorous
and original in ideas, and with a mind which could envisage the
struggle in its poUtical, naval, and economic, as well as in its
military aspects. He began by transferring Great Headquarters
from Luxembourg to Charleville, on the Meuse, opposite Mezieres.
In reviewing the situation he saw that there was an instant danger
of envelopment unless the German right flank could rest on the
sea. Again, without the command of the Belgian coast, the Ger-
man submarine campaign would be crippled. There was another
reason which weighed much with him. He was firmly convinced
that in the West and in the West alone a decision could be reached.

* Till January 1915, when he was succeeded at the War Of&ce by Wild von Hoben-
born, Falkenhayn filled both posts.

1914] THE RACE TO THE SEA. 287

Since the original plan had failed another must be found, and
the most promising was an attack by the right, which, even if it
did not succeed in enveloping the Allies, might bring the northern
coast of France and the control of the Channel into German hands.
Accordingly, the flower of the German troops was given orders
for the north. In Alsace and Lorraine were left only detach-
ments under Gaede and Falkenhausen. Strantz was entrusted
with the Verdun area and the St. Mihiel sahent. The Imperial
Crown Prince remained where he had been, and the III. Army,
now under von Einem, held Champagne. Heeringen's VII. Army
replaced Biilow on the heights of the Aisne, and Kluck held the
angle of the front on the Oise. North of him Billow's II. Army
was moved to face Castelnau and Maud'huy's right, while the VI.
Army of Bavaria was sent to the country around Arras and Lille.
Most significant of all, the Duke of Wiirtemberg was marching
to the extreme right with his IV. Army, heavily reinforced, to open
the one gate that remained.

These changes, which were partially known to the Allied Staff,
reinforced Sir John French's case. On 29th September he formally
approached Joffre, and on ist October the French Commander-
in-Chief accepted the plan. He brought up reserves to take the
place of the British, and arranged for the creation of a new Eighth
Army under General d'Urbal to support the left of the line. He
also took Foch, whose reputation was now the most brilliant of
all the army commanders', and put him in general charge of the
operations north of Noyon, The French and British Staffs
worked in perfect concord, and the result was a brilHant piece of
transport. The whole thing was done without noise or friction.
Gough's 2nd Cavalry Division * was the first to go on 3rd October,
and the three infantry corps followed from left to right, till on
the 19th the ist Corps detrained at St. Omer. Some of our
soldiers passed near enough to the Channel to see the vessels of
the senior service out on the grey waters.

We won the race to the sea, but only by the narrowest margin.
The Germans' sally was stronger than we had dreamed, and a host
of new corps, of which the investing force from Antwerp was only
a small part, was about to pour westward over the Flanders
flats. How the pass was held will be the subject of a later chapter.
The movement of the British northward marked the end of the
second phase of the war. In the rirst, which ended before the

• The cavalry was now organized in divisions, and the first two formed the
cavalry corps under Allenby.

288 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.-Oct.

Marne, the Allies were on the defensive before the great German
" out-march." In the second, which included the Battles of the
Marne and the Aisne, they had the offensive ; but after the defeat
of the Marne the Germans regained the initiative, and compelled
the Allies to accept the kind of battle they had chosen. Pres-
ently the Allies changed their plans, and endeavoured to hoist the
enemy with his own petard, the enveloping movement ; but, while
seeking to envelop him, they found themselves in danger of envelop-
ment. He was soon to possess himself of both the initiative and
the offensive, and in the dark winter months his opponents replied
with the very strategy he had practised on the Aisne, and dug
themselves into trenches from which he could not oust them.

Sir John French, when he began the march to the sea, thought
less of defence than attack. He expected that in a few weeks
he would have under him a force of ten infantry and four cavalry
divisions, with which to turn the German right ; but if that was
to be achieved there must be a flank to be turned. It was essential
that the Duke of Wiirtemberg should not reach the sea, and that
Ostend, Zeebrugge, and Antwerp should remain in the Allies' hands.
The Marine Brigade of the British Royal Naval Division had
arrived at Ostend on 20th September. Joffre was willing to
send a Territorial division and Ronarc'h's brigade of Fusiliers
Marins, and the British 7th Infantry and 3rd Cavalry Divisions
were waiting ready in England. It seemed incredible that with
all these potential supports, and with only Beseler's small be-
sieging army against them, the Belgians should not be able to
maintain their ground long enough to let the British army of attack
swing eastward along the coast. But Falkenhayn was determined
to clear forthwith this menace from his flank, and, because he
could act with an undivided mind, he won. On 2nd October,
Sir John French to his alarm heard from Kitchener that Antwerp
was in imminent danger, and on the 9th came the news of its fall.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FALL OF ANTWERP.

2Sth September-ioth October.

The Antwerp Defences — The Belgian Sortie — The Siege opens — Arrival of British
Naval Division — Lord Kitchener's Plan — The Last Hours of the City,

Visitors to Antwerp in the June before the outbreak of war found
a city settled and comfortable and decorous, full of ease and pros-
perous busyness, and all the signs of an interminable peace. She
had had stormy episodes in her history. She had been the object
in 1576 of that sack and massacre which is called " the Spanish
Fury " ; she had been captured by Parma ; the Treaty of Munster
in 1648 had closed the Scheldt and broken her prosperity ; in
1832 she had been taken by the French and Belgians, and the
Dutch general Chasse had bombarded her streets from the citadel.
But she bore no sign of this restless past. In the seventeenth
century a Venetian envoy had reported that more business was
done at her wharves in a fortnight than in Venice during the year,
and in the last four decades she had recovered her commercial
pre-eminence. With a population of between 300,000 and 400,000,
and an annual trade of more than £100,000,000 sterUng, she was
one of the largest and richest ports of the world. Her broad
streets and her handsome buildings, with the delicate spire of her
great cathedral soaring into the heavens, made her one of the
comeliest of European cities. Museums, Hbraries, and many halls
and public buildings testified to her wealth and the variety of her
interests. If a man had been asked to name a city from which
fighting seemed infinitely remote — which seemed the very shrine
of peace and the citadel of that bourgeois civilization which it was
fondly hoped had made war impossible — the odds are that Antwerp
would have been chosen.

We have seen how, when Brussels was threatened, the Belgian
Court and Government had retired inside the Antwerp Unes, and

289

290 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

how during the first fortnight of September the Belgian army
had made several gallant sallies against the German troops of
occupation. The main object of these efforts was to relieve the
pressure on the Allies in France, but another motive was in the
minds of the Belgian Staff, Sooner or later it was certain that the
Germans would make an attempt upon the city, and the lessons
of Liege and Namur were beginning to be understood. The great
howitzers must not be allowed to come within range of the forts,
and the Belgian hues of defence must be far to the south, beyond
the Nethe, and along the roads from Mahnes to Louvain and
Brussels. By 17th September they had been driven back from
the line of the MaUnes-Louvain railway. By 25th September,
after two days' hard fighting, they were on the railway Hne between
Malines and Termonde. Here, on the 26th, there was a moment
of success. The enemy was driven from the village of Audeghem
and pressed back on Alost, while at Lebbeke next day there was
also a German repulse. The day after the Germans regained most
of the ground they had lost ; but their left seems to have given
up the idea of forcing an immediate crossing of the Scheldt, owing
to the strength of the forces which the Belgians had massed on the
northern bank. Meanwhile the main attack was beginning to
develop against the first line of the Antwerp defences. MaHnes
— what was left of it — had been subjected to a new cannonade on
Sunday the 27th, and on the Monday the great siege howitzers
were so far advanced to the north that they were within range
of the southern forts, and the bombardment of Antwerp began.
The Belgians had done the right thing, but they had been too
weak to achieve success. They had been fighting without inter-
inission for nearly two months, and the Germans were fresh troops.
But the decisive factor was the enormous German preponderance
in artillery. The defence in prepared positions may repel an attack
six times as numerous, but it cannot stand against six times its
weight in guns.

The fortifications of Antwerp demand a brief exposition. In
the days of Spanish rule Alva had demolished the old walls of
the city, and refortified it wth a citadel and a bastioned rampart.
These were the works which Carnot held against the Allies in the
last days of Napoleon's empire, and which Chasse later defended
against Gerard. When Belgium won her freedom it was realized
that the city must have space to grow in, and after much debate
the reconstruction of the fortress was entrusted to Erialmont.
His plans, completed in 1859, provided, as we have already seen,

1914] THE DEFENCES OF ANTWERP. 291

for a wholesale reorganization of the Belgian defensive system.
Belgium's chief danger was believed to lie in the ambitions of
Napoleon III., and Brialmont's idea was to make of Antwerp
an entrenched camp, into which in the last resort the army could
retire to await succour from Britain. That is why the main citadel
of Belgium was erected at a point within easy reach of reinforce-
ments from the sea. Brialmont's works were begun in 186 1, and
completed ten years later. The old ramparts were levelled and
replaced by a line of boulevards, around which the new quarters
of the city grew up. A fresh line of ramparts, with huge bastions
and a ditch Hke a canal, was erected more than a mile in front of
the line of the boulevards, with, as a further defence, a circle of
outlying forts two miles in advance of these ramparts. Taking
into account the range of siege artillery at that time, it was be-
lieved that such a line of forts would be an absolute protection
to the city and the harbour. On the northern and western fronts,
and on parts of the eastern and southern fronts, large inundations
could be made to add to the strength of the defence. The new
entrenched camp had a circuit of twenty-seven miles, and formed
the most extensive fortress in Europe, It was expected that the
alliance or the friendly neutrality of Holland would permit supplies
to enter from the Scheldt, so that complete investment would be
impossible. To meet the objection that it would take more than
a fortnight to put the place on a war footing, Brialmont added
to his plan two strong forts on the Nethe, to delay the approach
of an invader from the south-west.

But the issue of the war of 1870 upset all these calculations.
Strassburg and Metz passed to Germany, leaving the eastern
frontier of France open, and in 1874 was begun the construction
of the French barrier forts from Verdun to Belfort. Presently
it was apparent that these new fortresses might be a serious danger
to Belgium. France was no longer a probable assailant, but the
Verdun-Belfort hne meant that the natural route of a German
invasion of France was closed, and that Germany in the event of
war might be disposed to turn the barrier by a movement through
the Belgian plain. The result was the strengthening of Liege
and Namur, and a complete overhauling of the Antwerp defences.
Much had happened since 1861, and the time had come to replace the
earthworks and stone casements with concrete and steel. Again,
Antwerp had prospered beyond the dreams of 1861 ; new suburbs
were demanded, and Brialmont's ramparts were cramping the
growing city, while the citadel prevented the construction of new

292 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

docks. Besides, the greater range of modern artillery made the
place no longer safe from distant bombardment. On all these
grounds it was proposed to demolish Brialmont's inner works,
and construct a new rampart along the line of the outer forts,
which would still serve as bastions. Further, to protect the city
from long-range guns, a new circle of outlying forts was to be
built some ten miles out in the open country. The southern forts
would be beyond the Hne of the Rupel and the Nethe, close to
Malines, the northern would be within gunshot of the Dutch frontier,
and the whole circle would be not less than sixty miles. Brialmont
opposed the scheme, on the ground that the defence of so great
an enceinte would require not a garrison but an army. He was
overruled, and the work was begun. The outlying forts, con-
structed on the same plan as those of Liege, were only completed
on the eve of war, and it is doubtful whether the eastern and
northern sections were ever fully armed. In one respect the great
entrenched camp of Antwerp was very strong, for its extent and its
contiguity to the sea and the Dutch frontier made investment
practically impossible. It fulfilled its purpose, too, of serving as a
rallying-ground for the Belgian forces, where they could shelter
themselves for a time and wait on the coming of their allies. But
so far as bombardment went, its strength was no more than the
strength of any group of its advanced forts ; and what that was
Liege and Namur had given a melancholy demonstration.

That the Belgian army should make a stand in Antwerp was
inevitable. The great city was the last important piece of Belgian
soil left under the administration of King iMbert's Government. It
represented Belgium's sovereignty, and if it fell the nation would
be homeless. Germany's reason for the attack was no less obvious.
The possession of Antwerp would give her no outstanding strategic
advantage. It did not command any main line of communication,
and the neutrahzation of the Scheldt — unless she chose to quarrel
with Holland — prevented its use as a naval base against Britain.
But, since she had projected a sweep to the Channel ports, it was
essential that to begin with she should clear her flanks. There
were other motives. Germany, strange as it may seem, still cher-
ished the idea of conciliating Belgian sentiment — a proof of her
complete incapacity to gauge the temper of peoples other than her
own. She argued that, so long as Antwerp remained as a focus of
resistance, Belgium would continue intractable, but that with its
fall she would realize facts, and accept — grudgingly, perhaps, at
first, but with growing alacrity — the part which Germany had

1914] GERMAN OVERTURES TO BELGIUM. 293

destined for her. About this time the German papers were filled
with curious cartoons, in which female figures representing Ham-
burg and Bremen had their arms about the neck of Antwerp, their
weeping sister, with the consoling words on their hps, "Soon
you shall be happy as we are, when you have won a German mind."
Accordingly, efforts were still made to convince Belgium of her
errors. A certain elderly pubhcist of Brussels was employed to
make a proposal to King Albert. If the Belgian army would promise
to keep quiet, wrote von der Goltz, to stay within its defences,
and do nothing to molest the German occupation of the rest of
the country, Antwerp should not be attacked. The emissary re-
turned to Brussels with a very short answer. Some days later
Beseler sent an airplane over Antwerp to drop proclamations
addressed to the Belgian soldiers. " You have fought long enough,"
ran this curious document, " in the interests of the Russian princes
and the capitalists of perfidious Albion. Your situation is des-
perate. ... If you wish to rejoin your wives and children, if
you long to return to your work, stop this useless strife, which is
only working your ruin. Then you will soon enjoy the blessings of a
happy and perfect peace." It seems strange that those responsible
for Louvain and Aerschot should have beheved in the efficacy of
such a lure ; but Germany had not yet begun, even dimly, to realize
how her code of miUtary ethics was viewed by normal human
beings. A second reason was also political. The capture of Ant-
werp, one of the chief ports in the world, would be an acceptable
present to the German nation, which was beginning to be in want
of such encouragement. Hindenburg had failed on the Niemen,
the Russians were drawing near to Cracow, and the Aisne had proved
a costly refuge. The high hopes of the Week of Sedan had dechned,
and it looked as if the speedy realization of German dreams were
out of the question. A soUd gain, such as the taking of a great
city, would give an enormous stimulus to civiUan Germany. Gener-
ally speaking, a political purpose must subserve strategical aims ;
still, if it can be achieved without loss to the main strategy, it is
mere pedantry to disregard it.

At the time the world believed that Antwerp was virtually
isolated, that four or five miles inland from Ostend the Germans
controlled all the country east of the Scheldt. The truth, however,
known at the moment only to the more careful students of war,
was that they held no part of that district. Bruges was unoccu-
pied ; Ghent was not held ; the main hne from Antwerp to Ostend
by St. Nicholas, Ghent, and Bruges was open, as were the smaller

294 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

parallel lines running from St. Nicholas westward along the Dutch
frontier. Further, there were half a dozen good roads available
for traffic. That is to say, there was not only an outlet left for
the Belgian army to emerge, but an inlet for Allied reinforcements to
enter. Moreover, the Belgians did not hold, and could not have
held, this district in any strength. Why did Beseler neglect this
open flank ? WT^iy, before attacking Antwerp, did he not isolate it,
for only thus could he reap the full fruits of his victory ? He made,
indeed, some attempts to cross the Scheldt, but never in force
till it was too late. Yet if he had advanced to St. Nicholas before
1st October not a British sailor would have entered the city, and if
he had reached it before 9th October not many fighting men would
have left it.* The explanation is that, with Httle more than an army
corps at his disposal, he had not the men. The assault on Antwerp
relied upon the siege guns ; if they failed, Beseler must wait for
the new corps now marching from Germany to the Duke of Wiirtem-
berg. It was the advent of these that was the essential point in
Falkenhayn's plan. If the IV. Army could turn the extended
Allied left and drive on to the coast at Calais, the Belgian gar-
rison of Antwerp and any reinforcements the AUies might have
sent would be cut off in Northern Flanders without shelter or
base, and could be dealt with at leisure.

On Monday, 28th September, the curtain rose on the first
act of the tragedy of Antwerp. The German howitzers were in
position against the forts south of the river Nethe, and the first
attack was directed upon Waelhem and Wavre St. Catherine.
All day on the 28th the pounding of Waelhem and Wavre went
on, and there was a good deal of infantry fighting all along the
line from Termonde to Lierre. The Belgians south of the Nethe,
assisted by their field batteries on the northern bank, met the
German attack, and counter-attacked with some success. But
for the big howitzers, the day went well for Belgium. Yet those
who saw the effect of the shells on the two forts realized that the
end could not long be delayed. The bombardment went on during
the night, and early on the morning of Tuesday, the 29th, Fort
Wavre was silenced. Its cupolas and concrete works were smashed
beyond repair, and the blowing up of the magazine made the
work untenable. Its commander insisted on returning with a
fresh garrison, but found that every gun was out of action. Wael-
hem also had one of its cupolas smashed, but managed to continue

• For a partial explanation, see the ofl&cial monograph, Schlacten des Weltkrieges
Antwerpen 191 4.

1914] FALL OF THE SOUTHERN FORTS. 295

its resistance during the day. Next day it and Fort Lierre were
the centre of German attentions. An unfortunate accident which
happened during the morning had important results for the defence.
Behind Waelhem lay the main waterworks of Antwerp, and shell
after shell was dropped by the Germans on the embankment of
the great reservoir. At last the dyke gave way, and the water
poured into the infantry trenches which had been dug between the
forts. These were presently flooded out, the field guns were sub-
merged, and it became impossible to carry supphes to Waelhem.
The Belgian device of inundation was turned against them. A
more serious result was the shrinkage caused in the city's water
supply. It did not fail, for there were artesian wells, but water
had now to be carried long distances in pails and buckets, the health
of the citizens was imperilled, and it was certain that any conflagra-
tion caused by the bombardment must burn unchecked.

Thursday, ist October, saw the fall of the southern forts.
Wavre was destroyed, Waelhem had only one gun. Fort Kon-
ingshoyckt, south of Lierre, was silenced, and Fort Lierre soon
followed ; while the village of Lierre was set on fire, and advertised
by its smoke, which was seen clearly from Antwerp, what was
happening south of the Nethe. Farther west German infantry
attacks had cleared out Termonde, and forced the Belgians across
the Scheldt by a wooden bridge, which they afterwards destroyed.
On that day, and during the night which followed, the Belgian
forces relinquished the ruined fortresses and fell back to the northern
bank of the Nethe, to a line of entrenchments which they had already
prepared. Fort Wavre and its fellows had held out for four days —
a fine achievement if we realize the circumstances. It was longer
than any of the Liege forts had resisted after the big guns had once
been brought against them, and four times as long as Namur. The
stand of the southern defences of Antwerp represented probably the
maximum achievement of a Brialmont fort against modern artillery.

The fight for Antwerp had now ceased to be a siege, and become
something in the nature of a field battle. The Nethe lines gave
a strong position, but to hold them required a large force and
an artillery equipment not inferior to that of the enemy. In
Antwerp itself a gallant effort was made to keej up the spirit of
the citizens. The newspapers published reassuring statements,
and any whisper of the true state of affairs across the Nethe was
rigorously excluded. All day long the faint thunder of the guns
was heard in the streets ; by night numbers of wounded and
dead were brought in in the darkness ; the hotels and cafes were

296 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

filled with staff officers and correspondents, and airplanes circled
daily above the city. But for some reason the hopes of the inhabit-
ants were high. They had a fixed idea that their great forts would
hold off the enemy, and that at any hour the British might arrive,
to turn the defence into an advance. By Saturday, the 3rd, how-
ever, melancholy had begun to descend upon the crowds in the
streets and boulevards. Something of the views of those in authority
had filtered through to the ordinary citizen. For on the Friday
afternoon it had been decided that the Government should leave for
Ostend. One boat was to sail on the Saturday morning with the
Belgian authorities and the foreign Legations, and another in the
afternoon with the members of the French and British colonies.
A proclamation was issued by the burgomaster, M. de Vos, allowing
those who wished to leave the city, and General de Guise, the
military governor, issued another, calling upon the citizens to
show courage and coolness in all contingencies. These two pro-
clamations had an immediate effect upon the popular mind. Many
of the ordinary inhabitants, especially the well-to-do, began to leave
for Holland and England. The second boat, arranged for the
Saturday afternoon, sailed with the principal members of the
French and British colonies. But the first boat, which was to carry
the Government and the Legations, did not leave, for on the
Saturday came a sudden change in the situation. Belgium had
made a last despairing appeal to Britain for help, and news had
arrived that this help was on the way.

The condition of Antwerp had, since 2nd October, given Lord
Kitchener acute anxiety. He saw the malign consequences involved
in its fall, and was resolved to make every effort to prevent it.
He had already a brigade of marines at Ostend, and he induced the
Cabinet, still very nervous about invasion, to allow him to send
the 7th Infantry Division, under Sir Henry Rawlinson, and the 3rd
Cavalry Division, under Sir Julian Byng, to Belgium as a relief force.
Sir John French was at the time moving his army from the Aisne,
and was too far away and too much engaged to take charge of the
new operations ; for this reason, and also to quiet the nervousness
of the Cabinet, Kitchener kept the relief forces under his own
command. Joffre was sending a brigade of marines and a Territorial
division for the same purpose. But these reinforcements could not
reach the Belgian coast before the 6th or 7th, and already the
condition of Antwerp was desperate. He agreed to send at once
the only troops immediately available, the half-trained Royal
Naval Division.

1914] ARRIVAL OF BRITISH NAVAL DIVISION. 297

On Sunday, 4th October, about one o'clock, Mr. Winston
Churchill, the British First Lord of the Admiralty, arrived in Ant-
werp, and stayed for three days. He visited the firing lines, exposing
himself with his usual courage, and he managed to convince the
authorities that there was still a reasonable chance of victory.
Late on the Sunday night the first instalment of the British rein-
forcements arrived by train from Ostend in the shape of the brigade
of Royal Marines, 2,000 strong, with several naval guns. They
at once marched out to the front, and took up a position on the
Nethe to the left of the Belgians. Next day came the remainder of
the reinforcements, two naval brigades, totalling 6,000 men —
the whole British force being commanded by General Paris of the
Royal Marines, who was himself under the direction of General de
Guise. The two naval brigades, the cadres of which were drawn
from the Royal Naval Reserve, the Royal Fleet Reserve, and the
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, had been constituted in the
third week of August, and were still busily recruiting at the begin-
ning of October. Most of the officers and men had no previous
military experience, and some of those recently joined had come
straight from civil life, and had not yet handled a rifle. Their
equipment was imperfect : many had no pouches to carry their
ammunition, or water-bottles, or overcoats ; while some were
compelled to stick their bayonets in their putties, or tie them to
their belts with string. The four battalions of Marines were, of
course, regulars, representing the full efficiency of their splendid
service. Each naval brigade was organized in four battalions
named after famous admirals. The ist Brigade was made up of
the " Drake," " Benbow," " Hawke," and " Colhngwood " batta-
lions ; the 2nd of the " Nelson," " Howe," " Hood," and " Anson."
The arrival of the British had an electrical effect on the spirits of
the Belgians, both soldiers and civilians. The spruce, well-set-up
lads looked business-like and fit, and only trained observers could
see that the majority of them were novices at soldiering. Cheering
crowds followed them in the streets, and the sorely tried Belgian
soldiery marched out to their trenches with songs on their lips
and a new light in their eyes. It was not only for themselves that
our men were welcomed, but as an earnest of what might follow.
The Belgians could not believe that Britain would put her hand
to the business unless she meant to see it through. The military
authorities thought that the better part of an army corps was
on its way, and that the six naval guns were only the beginning
of a great influx of artillery, sufficient to equalize their strength

298 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

in this arm with that of the enemy. The London motor omnibuses
with their homely legends, lumbering through the Antwerp streets
with the ammunition and supplies of the Naval Division, seemed
a proof that their AUies had come at last. Another ground of
confidence was the British armoured train, which had been built
in an engineering yard at Hoboken, and which mounted four 4.7
naval guns. Whatever may have been the actual achievement
of this train, it served wonderfully to raise Belgian spirits. The
other four 6.5 guns were mounted close to Forts 3 and 4 in the
inner circle of the defences.

We have seen that from Friday, 2nd October, the fight for
Antwerp had become more in the nature of a field battle, the
Belgians holding a line of trenches just north of the Nethe. They
were not good trenches, their head-cover was bad, and certainly
they were not prepared to resist the storm of shrapnel which the
Germans directed against them. Something between 300 and 400
field guns were brought into the attack. The villages in the Belgian
rear, especially Waerloos and Linth, were destroyed by the German
fire, and the inhabitants of all the district north of the Nethe
began to flock towards Antwerp. On the Saturday, 3rd October,
the Germans attempted to cross the river at Waelhem. Several
pontoon bridges were built, but in each case they were blown
to pieces before they could be used, and here probably the invaders
incurred their heaviest losses. On the Sunday a crossing was
attempted between Duffel and Lierre, and was vigorously resisted
by the British Marines, who were stationed in this section. But
the numbers, both of men and artillery, were too great to be long
denied, and on the afternoon of Monday, the 5th, the left wing of
the defence fell back from its trenches on the river bank to a
second line some hundreds of yards to the north. On the Monday
night there was a great German attack, covered by powerful
artillery, on the Belgian centre. The defenders managed to prevent
the building of pontoons, but in the night several thousand Ger-
mans swam or waded the river, and established themselves on
the northern shore. Early on the morning of Tuesday, the 6th, the
passage of the Nethe had been won, and there was nothing for
it but to fall back upon the inner circle of forts, whose armament
was obsolete, and as little fitted to face the German howitzers as
a liner to meet the shock of a battleship.

That day, the 6th, revealed to every one the desperate case of
Antwerp, She had, indeed, been at the mercy of the big howitzers
from the moment they were brought up close to the Nethe. But

1914] THE END OF THE SIEGE. 299

the Germans did not choose to use these for the bombardment,
contenting themselves with bringing their field guns and their
lesser siege pieces against the inner forts. The country between
the Nethe and the inner circle became uninhabitable. In that
land of closely tilled fields and windmills and poplars, in the pleasant
autumn weather when the labourers should have been busy with
getting in the root crops and preparing the soil for the spring sow-
ing, there was only desolation and destruction. Many villages
had been levelled by the Belgian army, and some, set on fire by
the enemy's shells, smouldered in the windless air, instead of the
common October bonfires of garden refuse ; while the inhabitants
with their scanty belongings poured along the guarded highways
to Antwerp or to Holland. In the city the truth was faced at
last. The British troops could not delay the inevitable, and there
was no hope of further reinforcements. In the evening the Belgian
Government and the Legations of the Allies went on board the two
steamers which had been kept in readiness, and early on the 7th
sailed down the Scheldt for the coast of France. That evening,
too, the machinery of the German ships lying in Antwerp docks
was rendered useless by dynamite explosions. During the night
the citizens had another proof of Antwerp's impending doom.
On the western side of the Scheldt, beyond the bridge of boats
which led to the railway terminus at Waes, stood the great oil tanks
which formed one of the chief depots in north-western Europe.
These tanks were tapped by order of the authorities ; but, since
the oil ran off too slowly, they were set on fire. When the people
of Antwerp woke on the morning of the 7th they smelt the rank
odour of burning petroleum, and saw drifting above the city a
dense black cloud which obscured the sunlight.

Wednesday, the 7th, brought the official announcement that
all was over. Proclamations, signed by General de Guise, were
posted throughout the city declaring that a bombardment was
imminent, while the burgomaster advised all who wished to leave
to lose no time, and recommended those who meant to stay to
take shelter in their cellars. The newspapers announced that the
enemy was already attacking the inner forts, and that a service
of steamers had been provided for refugees, and would begin at
midday. The more dangerous wild beasts in the Zoological Gar-
dens, many of them treasured gifts from the Congo State, were shot
by their keepers. The day before Beseler had sent a message to
de Guise, warning him of the intended bombardment, and the
Belgian governor had answered that he accepted responsibility for

300 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

the consequences. That day there came another message from the
German lines, asking for a plan of Antwerp with the hospitals,
public buildings, and museums clearly marked, that, as far as
possible, they might be spared. Such a plan was carried to Beseler
by an official from the American Consulate ; but the inhabitants,
suspicious of the honour of the enemy, gave all such places a wide
berth, and regarded them as likely to be the first objects of the
German attack. Meanwhile the nerve of the townspeople had at
last broken. Up till now they had kept their spirits high, but the
official proclamation, the sound of the great guns ever drawing
nearer, the black pall of smoke, the blaze at night of the shell-fire
to the south, and above all the sight of their own soldiers march-
ing westward over the bridge of boats towards Waes, convinced
them that the doom of the city was sealed. Small blame to them
that, with Louvain and Aerschot in their memories, they expected
a carnival of unimaginable horrors. Antwerp, on the morning of
the 7th, contained little short of half a million people, for the in-
habitants of the neighbouring districts had flocked to it for refuge.
By the evening a quarter of a million had gone ; by the next night
the place was as solitary as a desert. Half at least went by water.
The quaysides were packed with frantic crowds, carrying house-
hold goods on their backs and in their hands, and struggling for
places on any kind of raft that could keep afloat. Tramps, ferries,
dredgers, trawlers, pleasure yachts, steam launches, fishing boats,
and even rafts were put in use. There was desperate confusion,
for there were no police ; and vessels, sunk almost to the water-
line with a weight of humanity, lay for hours in the stream, till the
actual bombardment began, and the incendiary bombs made lurid
patches below the dark canopy of smoke from the oil tanks. One
observer reported that as each shell burst there came a great sigh
of terror from the vessels lingering in the dark waters.

The exodus was even more terrible by land. Many crossed
the Scheldt by the bridge of boats and the ferries, and fled to
Ghent ; but most took the road where the tramways ran to the
Dutch frontier and Bergen-op-Zoom. This little town, which has
only 16,000 inhabitants in normal times, received in these days at
least 200,000 exiles ; and it says much for the patient kindliness
of the Dutch people that somehow or other food and shelter were
forthcoming. Most of the refugees had been too hurried to provide
themselves with provisions, and many fell weary and famished by
the wayside. Infants were prematurely born, and the sick and the
old died from exposure. Women who had been delicately nurtured

1914] THE BOMBARDMENT. 301

ate raw turnips and potatoes from the fields. Every kind of con-
veyance from motor cars to wheelbarrows was utilized, and many
an yEneas carried Anchiscs on his shoulders. On the Ghent road
women in fur coats and high-heeled shoes clung to the ends of
wagons ; white-haired men grasped the harness of the gun teams,
or the stimip-leathers of the troops ; pale nuns shepherded flocks
of weeping children. It was worse on the road to Bergen, by which
the poorest and the weakest fled. There the highway and the
fields for miles on either side were black with the panting crowds,
stumbling over the forms of those who had fallen from exhaustion.
And ever behind them roared the great guns, and the horrible
fleur-de-lis of pitchy smoke seemed to form a barrier between the
tortured earth and the merciful heavens.

Such was the " passion " of Antwerp. Let us return to the
final stage of the conflict north of the Nethe. Early on Tuesday,
the 6th, the Germans had won the crossings of the river, and the
defenders had fallen back on the inner forts. On that day the
withdrawal of the Belgian army began, and several divisions,
chiefly cavalry and cyclists, were hurried through Antwerp across
the Scheldt towards the Ghent railway. Their duty was to hold
the western road and block any flank attack. All day the Germans
were busy bringing their guns over the river, and by the evening
the inner forts were subjected to a heavy bombardment. The
great howitzers were not brought north of the Nethe, and the
Germans confined their activity to common shell, shrapnel, and
incendiary bombs. On the 7th there was desperate fighting on
the Scheldt, for Beseler seems to have at last resolved to do some-
thing to cut off the retreat of the garrison. German troops crossed
that river at Termonde, as well as at Schoonaerde and Wetteren,
and began a movement towards the railway line at Lokeren. Now
was proved the usefulness of the advance guard of the Belgians
which had been sent west on the night of the 6th. They made a
gallant stand at Zele, and prevented for nearly two days the Ger-
man approach to the railway.

The official bombardment began at midnight on the 7th, and
the suburb of Berchem was set on fire. During Thursday, the 8th,
there was fierce fighting along the inner ring of forts, while the
Belgian and British troops were being withdrawn across the Scheldt.
General Paris asked that his Naval Division should act as rear-
guard, but General de Guise reserved the privilege for his own
men. All through the day the inner forts were assafled, and by
the evening Forts 3 and 4 had fallen. By this time the defence

302 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

was at an end. Nearly all the garrison had fallen back, and much
of it was over the Scheldt. The Naval Division had stuck to the
end to the forts and the trenches between, and for new troops
had acquitted themselves most gallantly, considering the badness
of the commissariat arrangements and the weakness of their artil-
lery supports. Unfortunately the staff work proved faulty, as it
well might in such a confusion. The 2nd Naval Brigade was on
the west of the Malines road, and the ist Brigade was on the east,
around Forts 1-4. The order to retire did not reach the " Hawke,"
" Benbow," and " Collingwood " battalions of the latter brigade,
and the result was that they were almost the last to leave the now
useless defences. By the morning of Friday, the 9th, practically
the whole of the garrison was across the Scheldt. The three laggard
battalions of the Naval Division arrived to find that the bridge of
boats had been destroyed, but they managed to cross on rafts and
barges, and found a train at Waes. Then their difficulties began.
One party got as far as Lokeren, where they heard that the Germans
had cut the railway ahead ; probably a false report, for the Germans
do not seem to have reached that part of the line till the evening.
Accordingly they marched north to the Dutch frontier. A second
party got as far as Niewerken, the station east of St. Nicholas,
where they found the Germans in possession, and were forced to
surrender. Some went down the Scheldt in boats, and landed in
Dutch territory, out of ignorance of the law as to internment.
About 18,000 of the Belgian troops were also driven into Holland,
and some, mainly those who fought at Zele, were made prisoners
by the Germans. The British losses were 37 killed, 193 wounded,
nearly 1,000 missing, of whom over 800 became prisoners of war,
and 1,560 interned in Holland. Of the ist Naval Brigade which
had arrived at Antwerp 3,000 strong, less than 1,000 returned to
England.

The expedition to Antwerp occasioned at the time much heart-
searching in Britain and among our troops in France. It was a
side-show, and side-shows are condemned by sound strategy.
Cynics found comfort in the fact that we had never won success
in continental war without a disastrous adventure in the Low
Countries organized by politicians. But to see in the Antwerp
affair a second Walcheren Expedition does less than justice to the
sanity of the scheme. It was no escapade of a single Minister, but
part of a larger strategical plan which had the approval of the
Secretary of State for War. Lord Kitchener's scheme was for a
considerable relief force, which should not only relieve Antwerp but

Foldout

Here

♦ ♦

♦

"I 3 W I y\ A

igi4l THE FLIGHT. 303

join with the main British army in operating against the enemy's
right flank. But RawUnson's 7th Division and Byng's cavalry did
not arrive at Zeebrugge and Ostend till the 6th and 7th, after a
most difficult passage, and by that time Antwerp was doomed.
There was nothing to do but to retire to meet the main British
forces coming north from the Aisne, for by the 8th it was clear that
the German right was in far greater strength than had been at first
imagined. Sir John French has criticized the whole operation ; but
as an emergency measure it was justified, since it was plain that any
relief work from his end was impossible. It is true that it condemned
Byng and RawHnson to a difficult retreat, but to urge that they
should have been sent straightway to French's command is to deny
the reasonableness of any attempt at Antwerp's relief. They failed
in their purpose because events at Antwerp marched faster than
Kitchener expected. The value of the dispatch of the Naval
Division is more disputable. The British brigades undoubtedly,
by delaying the fall of the city for a few days, enabled much useful
destructive work to be done in the city and among the ships in
the harbour. They did not cover the retreat of the Belgian army,
for it is clear that the Belgians covered the retreat of the
Naval Division; and it is not improbable that this duty in-
creased the total of Belgian losses. Had the garrison retired
on the 4th or 5th it would have got clear away. It must be
written down as a failure, but that failure was due to the
fact that it was an isolated enterprise, and by ill fortune could
not be combined with the larger operation which was Kitchener's
purpose.

The bombardment, which began at midnight on the 7th, lasted
throughout the 8th. Antwerp was like a city of the dead. Only
the hospitals remained, working hard to get off their patients, and
a few Belgian soldiers left behind on special duty. Shells whistled
overhead, and now and then the gable of a building would fall
into the street ; but it did Httle harm, for there was no one
near to be hurt. Night, when it came, presented an appalling
spectacle, as in old pictures of the fall of Troy. Fires had broken
out in various districts, and burned luridly in the still air. A
number of flaming lighters lit up the Scheldt, till the waters flowed
blood-red like some river of Hades. Overhead was the black mush-
room of petroleum smoke, which seemed to brood over the house-
tops, and only on the far horizon was there a belt of clear star-
sown sky. There were no lamps in the city, so that acres of abysmal
darkness were varied with patches of glaring shell-light. But all

304 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

the time the desperate cannonade went on, and sometimes an
incendiary bomb would make a rosy cavern in the heart of the
dark cloud.

Early on the 9th the bombardment ceased. The inner forts
had fallen, and the gates of the city lay open. About one o'clock
German motor cars entered by the Porte de Malines, and an officer
informed the burgomaster that Antwerp was now a German city.
When Admiral von Schroeder made his stately entrance down the
broad boulevards to the Hotel de Ville a very different sight met
his eye from that which had greeted Armin's forces when they
entered Brussels. There were no spectators to admire the Prus-
sian parade step or be impressed by the precision of the part
songs. It might have been an avenue of sepulchres instead of
one of the gayest cities of Europe. No flag was flown, no in-
quisitive face looked out of the blind windows. As some one
caustically observed, it was like a circus that had come to town
before it was expected.

The world had never before seen such a migration of a people
or such an emptying of a great city. It recalled the time when a
king of Babylon carried Israel captive to eat the bread of sorrow
by foreign streams, or those doings of ancient conquerors when they
moved the inhabitants of a conquered town to some new site, and
razed and sowed with salt the old foundations. But those were
affairs of little places and small numbers, and this involved half
a million souls and one of the proudest cities of Europe. Fighting
has its own decencies, and when it is done on conventional lines
of attack and counter-attack by normal armies, our habituation
prevents us from realizing the colossal unreason of it all. But
suddenly comes some such business as Antwerp and unseals our
eyes. We see the laborious handiwork of man, the cloak which
he has made to shelter himself from the outer winds, shrivel before
a folly of his own devising. All the sacrifice and heroism, which are
the poor recompenses of war, are suddenly overshadowed, and
etched in with bitter clearness we note its horror and futility.
Some day the world, when its imagination has grown quicker,
will find the essence of war not in gallant charges and heroic stands,
but in those pale women dragging their pitiful belongings through
the Belgian fields in the raw October night. When that day comes
the tumult and the shouting will die, and the kings and captains
depart on nobler errands.

CHAPTER XV.

THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE FIRST MONTHS OF WAR.

The Position of Parties in Britain — A Nation United but not yet Awake — The Situa-
tion in France — False Views about Russia — Germany — Turkey — Italy — The
Smaller Peoples — ^The United States.

Even in a history of war concerned mainly with the operations of
fleets and armies, it is imperative to pause now and then and glance
at civil events. The most notable are those which shed light upon
the domestic conditions and the spirit of the belligerent peoples,
and upon the feeling of the neutral states. The political situation
is especially interesting at the beginning and the end of a campaign.
Half-way the position is apt to ossify. Belligerents settle down to
a sullen resolution, and neutrals to a sombre acquiescence. But
in the first months we are witnessing the creation of national
attitudes, and much wavering and disquiet before the realization
of the facts is complete.

The first week of war broke to pieces the accepted military
policy of Britain. It was not that that policy was inherently
wrong ; but it was shaped for ninety-nine out of a hundred possible
contingencies, and the hundredth had happened. Her Expedi-
tionary Force, adequate for any ordinary crisis, was transparently
inadequate for this, and had to be many times multiplied. Her
Territorial Force, consecrated to home defence, was soon an army
of volunteers for foreign service. It may fairly be said that the
British people set themselves with commendable sang-froid to
revise their theories and improvise levies on the continental scale,
rhey were both assisted and hampered by the fact that the ordinary
life of the country was not seriously dislocated. They had no
invaders within their borders, nor much likelihood of invasion.
After the first hectic days they found that their commerce
and industries were not greatly affected. The financial crisis
was manfully faced, and the Government, in consultation with
che chiefs of the city of London, devised a series of measures,

3U6

3o6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Oct.

some of which, indeed, were open to criticism, but which on the

whole serv'ed the purpose of restoring confidence and safeguarding
national credit. Expedients like the moratorium and the new
note issues were obvious enough, but it required courage to guar-
antee outstanding bills of exchange to the amount of £400,000,000,
and to devise the various means of preventing the Stock Exchange
from disappearing in wholesale bankruptcy. Except among a
very limited class, there was far less unemployment than in
the beginning of an ordinary autumn. Some industries were
crippled, but others were enormously benefited by war. In a few
weeks a sense of security stole over the land, and when later the
Government announced a vast scheme of new taxation and the
raising of a war loan of £350,000,000 — by far the largest state
loan in the world's history — the people of Britain assented without
a murmur.

She possessed one signal advantage as compared with her past
struggles. Her leaders, at any rate, recognized that they were
face to face with war on the grand scale. Policy was in harmony
with strategy ; there was not likely to be any interference with
the armies on political grounds — none of the maddening and inept
dictation from home which was the bane of Wellington in the
Peninsula. Both the great political parties were determined
on a " fight to a finish," and willing to trust the experts. No
praise can be too high for the conduct of the official Opposition,
and for those smaller sections which were not wholly in sympathy
with the party in power. The Government had not to face the
kind of attack which Pitt suffered at the hands of Fox and his
allies, and which in a lesser degree appeared during the South
African War. An opposition quickly formed, but it was small in
numbers and intellectually inconsiderable. It contained the men
who, whether from generosity or from perversity of spirit, must
always side with the minority. It was sufficient for such that Ger-
many should be widely unpopular ; instantly they discovered merits
in the German case. Their motive, as has been well said, was that
" peculiar form of pugnacity which is often miscalled ' love of
justice ' — a habit of irritation at excess which finds vent not in
justice but in counter-excess." * Others were so rooted in a
stubborn British confidence that they could not envisage any
danger to their hberties, and, distrusting after the British fashion
all politicians, convinced themselves that their country's interests
were being sacrificed to some shoddy political game. Some out

♦ Gilbert Murray : Faith, War, and Policy, p. 53.

1914] THE MOOD OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE. 307

of a gross spiritual pride conceived that the ethical principle which
brought the nation into war must needs be wrong, since it was
so generally accepted. There were the few genuine pacificists
to whom war on any ground was abhorrent ; there were various
egotistical practitioners of minor arts and exponents of minor
causes who resented anything which distracted attention from
themselves and their works. But whether the cause was moral
arrogance, or temperamental obstinacy, or vanity, or mere mental
confusion, the anti-war party was neghgible. The nation had
rarely been so completely united.

But it was not yet completely awake. The Government,
after the first shock, anticipated a short campaign and a decisive
triumph, in which they showed no desire to allow their poUtical
opponents to share. Lord Kitchener's insistence upon a three
years' war was considered to be the grandiosity of a specialist
who exaggerates his own speciality. They recognized the
reality of the challenge which they had to meet, but underrated
its magnitude. Mr. Asquith stated with admirable clearness the
issues, but seemed to regard the result as predetermined ; Mr.
Lloyd George lent his impassioned eloquence to rouse his country-
men, but was himself so far from realizing the nature of the
struggle that he estimated Britain's daily expenditure at ;^75o,ooo,
which he said would be a diminishing figure. Like leaders like
people. The national psychology of Britain during the first
months of war provided an interesting contrast with the state of
mind of a land like France, where compulsory service and the
presence of the invader brought home to every man and woman
the terrible gravity of the contest. In Britain there was no lack
of patriotic enthusiasm. Large sums were subscribed to the
Prince of Wales's Fund and to similar collections; a thousand
war charities were started ; the sports and pleasures of the
rich disappeared ; there was an honest desire in all classes
to lend a hand. From the press flowed a torrent of pamphlets
in which the German character was acidly analyzed, and the
badness of the German case compendiously expounded. Letters
from angry novelists and furious poets filled the newspapers, and
every man who could write became a publicist. Many a noted
pacificist, temporarily bellicose, girded on his pen. Much of this
gave the impression that the writers wrote to soothe uneasy con-
sciences, and to atone for past perversity by present exuberance.
But with all this activity the attitude of the ordinary Briton was
curiously academic. He was indignant with Germany, because

3o8 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Oct.

of her doings in Belgium, because she seemed to him the author
of the war, and because her creed violated all the doctrines in
which he had been taught to believe. He was determined to beat
her and to draw her fangs. But he had as yet no realization of
the horrible actualities of modem battles, or of the solemnity of
the crisis for civilization, for his country, and for himself. The
ordinary mind is slow to visualize the unknown, and the smoke
of a burning homestead, seen or remembered, is a more potent
aid to vision than the most graphic efforts of the war correspondent
or the orator. A proof of this was the popularity during the
early weeks of the phrase, " Business as usual," as a national
watchword — a watchword acclaimed by every type of citizen,
from advertisement agents to Cabinet Ministers. The phrase,
properly applied, was not without good sense, but its application
was preposterously wide. Many came to think more of capturing
the enemy's trade after the war than of beating him as soon as
possible in the field. The catchword showed the comparative
remoteness of the bulk of our citizens from any true understanding
of the struggle. Early in September the Government, faithful
to the same motto, took occasion to pass into law their two chief
controversial measures. For such an action there was no doubt,
under the circumstances, a certain justification ; but that it was
possible showed how greatly the situation of Britain differed from
that of France, where a national and not a partisan government
was in power, and where the gravity of war was intimately present
to every mind.

This feeling — as of a crisis serious but not too serious — was
obviously bad for recruiting. There were other hindrances.
Britain's treatment of aliens looked very like playing with the
question. Hordes of humble folk — waiters, barbers, and the
like — were interned or put under surveillance, but various wealthy
and highly placed foreigners went free, and continued to share
the confidence of the authorities. Most of these, no doubt, were
naturalized ; but the world was already aware of the value of such
naturalization. Again, she was not fortunate in her handling of
the press. She established a Press Bureau, which proceeded upon
principles not easily intelligible. Britain, with her free tradi-
tions, made a bad censor, and in official secrecy she went far
beyond what was demanded by military requirements. Her
people heard little of the great deeds of their army, and regi-
ments were rarely mentioned, so that the chief aid to recruiting
was abandoned. Such a censorship was in truth inconsistent

I9I4] THE POLITICAL PARTIES. 309

not only with her system of voluntary recruiting, but with her
type of democratic government. In time of war a civilian First
Lord at the Admiralty and a civilian Home Secretary, dealing
with many semi-military questions, involved as their logical
corollary a large measure of free public criticism. To withdraw
this right by withdrawing reasonable information was to make
of her constitution a bureaucracy without a true bureaucracy's
efficiency. There were other blunders made in the machinery
of enrolment. The magic of Lord Kitchener's name was beyond
doubt one of the chief aids to recruiting, but the Secretary for
War increased the immense difficulties of his task by refusing to
use the existing Territorial organization for his levies and creat-
ing a brand-new model.* A mistake was made, too, with regard
to Ireland. The outbreak of war had called a truce between the
combatants there, a truce most honourably observed by the
respective leaders. Sir Edward Carson and Mr. John Redmond
flung themselves into the work of recruiting, and Ireland's well-
wishers hoped that the partnership of North and South in the
field might bring about that sense of a common nationality without
which Home Rule must be a forlorn experiment. For a moment
it seemed as if there was a chance of such harmony, but the refusal
to attract nationalist sentiment in Ireland by the creation of
national units chilled the fervour of these first stages. The
chance of the flood tide was not to come again.

Yet in spite of many hindrances the voluntary system did not
at once break down. Indeed, it justified itself beyond the hopes of
its warmest advocates. Remember what Britain asked of her volun-
teers. In a continental country, with the enemy at its gates, a man
was called upon to enlist for the defence of his home and his Hveli-
hood. But that was not her case, nor at the time did it seem hkely
to be her case. She could only ask for recruits to fight for the
honour and interest of Britain and of her Alhes. These were great
matters, but obviously they must appeal to a more Hmited class
than the call to strike a blow against a direct invasion. The men
who enlisted came often from classes to whom the soldier's pay was
no attraction, and who had other ways of earning their living. They
came either because they comprehended and believed in the prin-
ciples for which the Allies stood, or because they hked fighting for
its own sake. Those who were engaged in the business of recruiting

• The defence is that the Territorial Associations consisted too largely of civilians
(Sir George Arthur's Life of Lord Kitchener, III., 308) — a weak argument which was
disposed of by Kitchener himself, who in the Derby Scheme and the Military Service
Act of 1916 made use of a purely civilian organization.

310 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Oct.

soon came to realize that a man's readiness to enlist depended
mainly upon his understanding of the situation. The areas which
did specially well— the mining districts of North England, London,
Lancashire, the Scottish Lowlands, Birmingham— were those near
the centre of things, or where the people showed a high level of intel-
ligence and education. The Durham miners enlisted in thousands
when the news came of the German destruction of Belgian coal-pits ;
that made them visualize the realities of war. The backward areas
were either those remote from news centres, or localities where the
mills were busy with the manufacture of war stores. The rural
districts were, on the whole, apathetic till after the harvest or the
term day ; but when the shepherds and labourers were free, they
showed no disinchnation to serve. By Christmas, 1914, fully
2,000,000 of the inhabitants of the British Isles were under arms,
either for home defence or foreign service, and the figures were
daily growing. To an impartial observer it must seem that the
voluntary system achieved wonders — miracles, if we remember
the many needless obstacles placed in its path.

In France the arresting feature was the singular calm of her
people. War was inside her threshold, and the usual social life
was at a standstill. By the end of August she had lost 93 per cent,
of her wool industry, 83 per cent, of her iron industry, 63 per cent,
of her steel industry, 92 per cent, of her iron ore mines, 35 per cent,
of her sugar industry, and 10 per cent, of her cereal production.
Presently the Government left Paris, and the capital waited breath-
lessly for the sound of the fortress guns which should announce
the beginning of the German assault. But in the press, in public
speeches, in private letters, in conversation, there was no sign of
fear or flurry. She realized the worst, she expected it, but she was
confident of the end. For some years past there had been a re-
markable revival in the country of what may be called a rehgious
nationahsm. The old shallow secularism was losing its grip. At
the moment she led the world in philosophy, and the teaching of
men Uke Bergson and Henri Poincare was in the direction of a
rational humility before the mysteries of the spirit. Just as there
was a striking religious movement in the armies of Lee before the
great conflict in the Wilderness, so in France before the outbreak of
war there had been a very clear reaction against the former material-
ism. In her pubhc life she had suffered in late years especially
from two dangers : a doctrinaire international socialism, and — far
more insidious — a conscienceless international finance. When the

igi4] THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE. 3"

hour of crisis came the exponents of the first rallied, as we have seen,
most nobly to the national cause. The second disappeared from the
surface, though its evil effects were long to be felt in the corruption
which had weakened the army in many branches of war material.

The spirit of France can best be described in the words of Maurice
Barres as a " grave enthusiasm, a disciplined exaltation." It was
the temper which wins battles, for it was unbreakable. Once more
she felt herself leading the van of Europe, and the alliance of Britain,
her secular enemy, filled her with a generous delight. On the
great memorial crucifix on the field of Agincourt French soldiers,
encamped near by, wrote : " Hommage k nos braves allies." Old
critics of England, like M. Hanotaux and M. Rostand, recanted
their suspicions, and testified to the spiritual unity, which wars had
never wholly broken, between those whose history was so closely
knit. France awoke to a consciousness of her past. In all this
there was no violent reversal of things, no leaning to a sectional
aim, nothing of Boulangism, or Royalism, or ClericaHsm. She
became cathoHc in the broadest sense, zealous to maintain her
repubhcan freedom and her post in the forefront of intellectual
liberty, but not less zealous for that delicate spiritual heritage which
is independent of change in creeds and churches.

The bane of her wars in the past had been the domination of
the soldier by the poHtician. But at the end of August politi-
cians of all shades subordinated themselves to the soldiers. There
were no appointments made because this or that minister wished
to do a kindness to a friend, and no moves were undertaken be-
cause Paris had views. The discretion and self-effacement of M.
Viviani and his colleagues were as remarkable as their resolution.
A standard of naked efficiency ruled at General Joffre's headquarters.
Eminent generals were ruthlessly dismissed when they failed ;
younger men were promoted with bewildering speed when their com-
petence was proved. The personaHty of the Commander-in-Chief
was beyond doubt one of the chief assets of his country at the mo-
ment. That square, homely figure, scant of words, loathing adver-
tisement, plainly, almost untidily dressed, and looking not unlike
a North Sea pilot, was far enough removed from the traditional
French general who, in brilliant uniform, curvets on a white charger,
and pronounces eulogies of " la gloire." He was another portent
of the new France.

The position of Russia seemed at the moment almost the most
hopeful of all the AUies. For the first time since 1812 it looked as

312 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Oct.

if she had a national war and a national ideal which could permeate
and vitalize the whole of her gigantic body politic. In Manchuria
she had been fighting half-heartedly for a cause which she neither
liked nor understood, and thereafter had come that welter of dis-
order, that ill-led scramble for hberties, which often follows an un-
successful and unpopular campaign. The forces of order won as
against the forces of emancipation, for the liberationists were not
ready, and in a strife of dreams and pohcy, policy will usually be
victor. But the forces of order learned much in the contest, and
under men hke Stolypin began a slow movement towards, not the
westernizing of Russia, but the realization of her own native ideals.
When the campaign opened, there appeared to be an amazing rally
of those very elements in her society which had hitherto seemed
intent upon a doctrinaire cosmopolitanism. The " intelligents "
were not less enthusiastic than the mujiks, and the student class,
formerly the nursery of revolutions, was foremost in offering its
services, and accepted joyfully the repeal of the laws which gave it
freedom from conscription. Russia, it was assumed, had one special
advantage in such a war. In the Tsardom she had a natural centre
of leadership, an office with mystic sanctions which no other modern
kingship could display. The humblest peasant from the backwoods
fought for a monarch whom he had never seen as the soldiers of the
French Guard fought for Napoleon. In the Alhed hues in the West
there was a strange mixture of nationalities and races, but it was
nothing to that battle front in the East. There, indeed, you had
a bewildering array of figures : Finn and Tartar, Caucasian and
Mongol, Buriat and Samoyede and Kirghiz and Turcoman, fight-
ing side by side with the normal types of European Russia. To
weld such a miscellany into a fighting force more was needed than
skilful organization, more even than a great national cause ; it
required the spell of a kingship, mystic and paternal and half
divine. It seemed as if the Tsardom were such a kingship. To
Western observers it appeared that Russia had undergone a great
regeneration, and that the scandals of the Russo-Japanese War
were now for ever impossible. A further proof was found in the
renunciation by her Government of the alcohol monopoly, which
meant a loss of many millions of revenue. Only a great and simple
people, it was argued, could take such heroic measures and loyally
obey them.

This belief in the strength and efficiency of Russian power was
buttressed by an altogether different confidence in her spiritual
quaUty. Many Western observers had long looked towards her

1914] THE WEAKNESS OF RUSSIA. 313

for an influence which should counteract the weakness of our modern
commercial civiHzation. Russia, with all her faults, was perhaps
the purest democracy in the world. She had not felt the blight-
ing effects of a mechanical culture, and had retained a certain
primitive simpUcity and spirituality. At her best, in her hterature
and her thought, she represented the new spirit which we have seen
to be appearing in France. She still dwelt in the ages of faith.
Her mystic communism had no affinities with the shallow material-
ism and the capitalistic tyranny which had been the working creed
of western Europe and the United States. Her great writers, hke
Dostoievski and Tolstoi, had flown the flag of an unshaken idealism.
Of the fighting valour of the Russian there was never any doubt,
for the spirit of the men who fought at Borodino still lived in their
descendants. But joined to their courage was a curious gentleness,
the gentleness of that iron dreamer, that practical mystic, whom
Lord Rosebery has called the most formidable of all combinations.
The race which Prussia condemned as barbarians had a culture
beyond that of their critics. In them there seemed to be a wide
humanity, a pity for the oppressed, a mercifulness and an un-
worldUness like that of the Gospels. From them it seemed that
there might spring the new hope of the world.

In the first throes of a struggle the mind of man is apt to lose the
power of accurate generalization. He cannot judge soberly, for he
sees the facts all tinted with his private hopes and fears ; moreover,
his thoughts are so centred upon instant needs that he cannot look
to the horizon. No one in that early stage had any true vision of
what the war must mean to the social fabric — the utter sweeping
away of old debris that must follow the remodelling and transforming
of every problem. This blindness as to world consequences was
paralleled by the blindness of most men towards Russia, which in
effect was a world by itself, as strange to the rest of Europe as the
new conditions produced by the war. The statesman who marvelled
at Russia's apparent strength and exulted in her alliance, did not
realize that she represented a stage of development wholly unlike
that of the Western nations, and that the impulsion of new forces,
which elsewhere led to rapid but orderly changes, might spell
in her case a relapse into anarchy. He did not see upon what
insecure foundations her monarchy reposed, and how the strain of
war, which could be borne by tempered steel, must crumble a
cast-iron machine, however vast its dimensions. He believed too
readily that the vices and corruptions of five hundred years of
autocracy could be removed in a week. He forgot that a simple

314 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Oct.

and undeveloped people, while it may bear itself heroically up to
a point, has not the store of corporate discipline and inherited know-
ledge that enables it to recover from disaster. The dreamers who
saw in the Russian temperament a new revelation were not less
mistaken. They forgot that the humanity which they admired in
Russian idealism might as easily have its roots in moral apathy and
intellectual slovenliness as in divine wisdom, and that qualities
which may characterize the saint may also be an attribute of the
mollusc.

Germany presented the unique case of a nation where the crisis
had been long foreseen and every means had been taken to meet it.
Her civil life was beautifully stage-managed ; but it was artificial,
not natural. Her financial arrangements, highly impressive on
paper, were in the nature of taking in each other's washing ; they
were spectacular rather than sound. Her press was directed with
immense care. It was given ample information of the right kind,
and daily it said the things which the Government wished the
people to believe. It was not till the 23rd of September that any
news was allowed to leak out about the disaster of the Mame.
Germany's chief mistake at the outset had been to get at variance
with the opinion of neutral nations. She realized this, and at
once began to angle for their sympathies with all her terrible
industry, but with all her customary lack of tact and percep-
tion. The pose of the Government was that Germany could beat
her foes with her right hand and conduct her ordinary life with
the other. Her captains of industry issued reassuring pronounce-
ments ; her cities were brilliantly lighted, while London and Paris
were in shadow ; her cafes, restaurants, theatres, and operas went
on as usual ; to a casual observer, except for the absence of young
men, her streets seemed as gay and busy as ever. The nation was
kept in a high vein of confidence, and scarcely one man in a thousand
had a suspicion of a doubt that the war could end otherwise than
in a complete triumph. The thousandth, who was in the secrets
of the Government, took a graver view, for he was aware how
utterly the first great plan had failed, that wholesale victory was
now out of the question, and that in the long war which threatened
the country's resources would be stretched to the uttermost. But
he was consoled by the singular unanimity which prevailed. Civil
Ministers and General Staff wrought in complete harmony ; the
Burgfriede was absolute ; the Social Democrats had placed all
thoir resources at the disposal of the Government, and provided

1914] THE GERMAN MOOD. 315

the most useful propagandist emissaries for neutral states, A few
men like Kautsky and Bernstein, Haase and Liebknecht were be-
ginning to criticize, but as yet there was no serious opposition.

Undoubtedly the policy of the German Government was wise,
Germany needed to conserve all her confidence and power, for she
could not relax her efforts for a moment, and if she was to win she
must win quickly. She was rapidly falling into the position of a
beleaguered city. Except through Scandinavia and Holland, Italy
and Rumania, her communications with the outer world were cut,
and even those few ports of entry were woefully restricted. Soon
the pinch would be felt, not only in war munitions, but in the civil
industries which she so feverishly toiled to maintain. Once let
the spirit of the people weaken, and the palace of cards would fall.
There was another reason for this policy. Foreign observers had
been in the habit of describing the ordinary Teuton as stolid, un-
emotional, and unshakable ; and German admirals and generals
fostered this notion by declaring that the people with the best
nerves would win, and that the German nerves were the strongest
in the world. The truth was almost the opposite. Scarcely any
nation suffered so acutely from nervous ailments. The German
lived on his nerves ; he was quick in emotion and sentiment, easily
fired, a prey alike to hopes and suspicions. In his own way he was
as excitable as the Latin, and he had not the Latin's saving store of
common sense. He was the stuff out of which idealists are made,
but also neurotics. This trait could be seen in the overweening
national arrogance which he had acquired ; that was the character-
istic not of steady but of diseased nerves. It could be seen
in his almost mystical fidelity to a plan. The neurotic loves a
mechanical order ; he flies to it for comfort, as a hysterical lady
obeys the dictates of an autocratic physician. It could be seen in
the passion of hatred which about the beginning of September rose
against Britain, drowning all the lesser antagonisms against Gaul
and Slav. " Hymns of Hate " became the popular form of com-
position ; they sometimes had poetic value, but they were the
scream of jangled nerves rather than the poetry of sane men. It
is not easy to exaggerate the courage and self-sacrifice of the German
people. Their great armies fought like heroes, their young men
flocked to the colours to fill the places of the dead, their women cheer-
fully b/d their best on the national altar. But it is important to
recognize the high, strained pitch of the German temper, which
could only be sustained by frequent stimulants. One such was
ready to their leaders' hands. The cause for which Britain fought

3i6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [AuG.-OcT.

was to Germany unintelligible. It seemed to her a wanton malice,
a sordid jealousy of a neighbour's prosperity. Hence it was easy to
convince the nation at large that they were fighting a war of defence
against a malevolent world, and in such a conviction lay the secret
of German unity. Even the most scrupulous among her people
were not likely to question the doings of their armies, or believe the
accusations of misconduct brought by their enemies, when they
considered that these enemies had entered the war for purposes
of naked brigandage.

As a half-way house between the belligerent and neutral Powers,
we naturally turn to Turkey, which in September was still maintain-
ing an uneasy peace. She had committed a grave technical breach
of neutrality in connection with the Goeben and the Breslau, and
through August and September her military leaders were busy
with underground preparations which were perfectly well known to
the Allied Powers. German gold, arms, and men were imported
through Bulgaria. A German general, Liman von Sanders, had
for some years been a kind of honorary Inspector-General of the
Turkish army. The two German warships remained under Ger-
man control, and a large German element was introduced into the
Turkish fleet. German merchant vessels, such as the Cor cor ado
and the General, were used as naval auxiliaries, and their wireless
apparatus was adapted for communication with the German Gen-
eral Staff. The army was mobihzed, and large quantities of war
stores were sent to Syria and Bagdad. Meanwhile, under German
direction an attempt was made to preach a Holy War throughout
the Moslem provinces. It was represented that the German
Emperor was a convert to Islam, and that presently the Khahf
would order a Jehad against the infidel. Stories were told of the
readiness of the Mohammedan subjects of Britain, Russia, and
France to revolt at this call, and preparations were made for the
manufacture of Indian mihtary uniforms at Aleppo to give proof
to the Syrians that the Indian faithful were on their side. Egypt,
which had long been the hunting-ground of German emissaries,
was considered ripe for revolt, and the Khedive was known to be
friendly. The Mohammedan world was beheved to be a powder
magazine waiting for the spark.

All this activity was not the work of a united Government.
There were serious differences of opinion in the higher Turkish
councils. The Sultan was consistently averse to a breach of neu-
trality, and did his best to prevent it. The Grand Vizier, a weak

1914] TURKEY. 317

man, could not at first be persuaded of the danger, but was as
strongly against war as his nature permitted. Djavid Bey, the
Minister of Finance, was well aware that the treasury was empty,
and stoutly opposed the designs of the militarists. Nor were the
Turkish people at large in any way hostile to the Allies. They had
been offended by Britain's action in preventing delivery of their two
battleships, the Sultan Osman and the Reshadie ; but this feeling
was passing, and they had little love for the military junta who ruled
the land with an oppressiveness at least as great as in the old days
of Abdul Hamid. But the Turkish people were voiceless, and the
Turkish Government was in the hands of the army, which, in turn,
was in the hands of the strangely named Committee of Union and
Progress, of Enver, the Commander-in-Chief, and of his German
patrons and paymasters. The Turkish nation had been unhappy
under its old rulers, but it was infinitely more unhappy under the
new. When the Young Turkish movement in 1909 drove Abdul
Hamid from his throne, the Western critics of the former regime
proclaimed the dawn of a nobler world, and burned foolish incense
before the shrines of the revolutionaries. It needed little familiarity
with Turkey and with the character of the new leaders to see that
the latter end of the country would be worse than the beginning.
Turkey's strength lay in her religion and in her peasantry. For a
strong Turkey was needed an Islamic revival and a pure govern-
ment which would relieve the burdensome taxation of her provinces.
The Young Turks were at bottom anti-Islam, and, therefore, anti-
national, and they were fully as corrupt, as unscrupulous, and as
brutal as their predecessors. Their creed was the sort of thin
Comtism which the Western world had more or less forsaken.
Their aim was dominance for their own sect and faction, and their
leader was Enver, a tinsel Napoleon, who dreamed of himself as
the master of the Mohammedan world. They insulted the Sheikh-
ul-Islam, and neglected orthodoxy, forgetting that the whole
strength of Turkey lay in her faith. When honest men stood in
their path they removed them in the fearless old fashion, beginning
with journalists and pohticians, and ending with the ablest soldiers,
Nazim and Mahmud Shevket. They envisaged a Holy War, en-
gineered by unbelievers, which should beguile the Mohammedan
populations of Africa and Asia, and they naturally leaned on the
broad bosom of Germany, who made a speciaUty of such grandiose
visions.

There was little chance of such a Jehad succeeding. To begin
with, the Committee of Union and Progress were too deeply suspect.

3i8 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Oct.

They had proved themselves both corrupt and incompetent. They
had led Turkey to defeat in two great wars, and in the matter of
oppression their little finger was thicker than Abdul Hamid's loins.
Again, the ordinary Turk had no natural leaning toward the German
side. In the great days of Turkey's history the Grand Vizier had
been wont to assemble the standards at the Adrianople Gate for the
march to Vienna, and it was in that direction that the Turkish war
should roll in the view of many conservatives of a deeply con-
servative people. In a pure-blooded race, too, birth counts for
much, and the Committee's origin was too patently mongrel. Enver
was partly Polish ; Djavid was a crypto-Jew from Salonika ; Talaat
was Bulgarian by descent ; Achmet Riza was partly Magyar and
partly Circassian. They talked of Islam, but their conduct had
shown no love for Islam. In the Tripoli war the Arabs had been
scandalized by the infidelity of the Young Turk officers, and news
spreads fast through the Moslem world. The Sultan's title to the
Khalifate, too, was very generally questioned. The Turks had won
it originally by conquest from the Abbasids, and the Arabs had never
done more than sullenly acquiesce. But a title won by the sword
can only be held in the same way, and to the faithful of Islam it
looked as if the sword had grown blunt in degenerate hands. Most
important of all, the Turco-German alliance was breaking its head
against an accomplished fact. By September the whole of Moham-
medan India and the leaders of Mohammedan opinion in British
Africa were clearly on the Allied side, and their forces were already
moving to Britain's aid, while forty thousand Arab Moslems were
fighting for France in the battles of the West. Islam had made its
chpice before Enver sent his commissaries to buy Indian khaki in
Aleppo and inform the Syrians that the Most Christian Emperor had
become a follower of the Prophet.

Of all the neutral Powers the action of Italy was most vital to
the struggle, for she held a strategical position on the flank of both
combatants. Her intervention on behalf of her colleagues of the
Triple Alliance would menace the French right wing ; and if she
joined the Allies she could turn the Austrian flank, while her fleet
would establish a crushing superiority against Austria in the Medi-
terranean. When Italy became a kingdom she had two principles
in her foreign policy — a dislike of Austria, and a not unnatural sus-
picion of France. The assistance which Napoleon III. had given
to the Risorgimento was counterbalanced in Italian eyes by the
price he had exacted for it, and by the obstacles he had placed in

1914] ITALY. 319

the way of Garibaldi's seizure of Rome. Besides, her position
compelled her to be a naval Power, and France's naval activity and
the French colonization of the North African Httoral alarmed her
susceptibiUties. The direct result of the Congress of Berlin, which
gave Cyprus to Britain and Tunis to France, was the formation
in 188 1 of the Triple Alliance between Italy, Austria, and Germany.
Italy was a very new Power ; the arrangement gave her powerful
backers at a most critical time ; and the Italian statesman Crispi
did what at the moment was the wisest thing for his country. The
Alliance was renewed in 1887, in 1891, in 1902, and in 1912, but in
each case under changed conditions. From 1882 onwards Italy
began her colonial adventures, undertaken by Crispi at the instiga-
tion of Bismarck, who aimed at setting France, Russia, and Britain
by the ears. A commercial war with France did not improve her
relations with the Republic. Then came dark days, days of in-
dustrial distress and colonial misfortunes, culminating in the disaster
of Adowa on March i, 1896. Italian ambition was sobered, and the
disappearance of Bismarck from the European stage had removed
the chief rivet which bound her to the Triplice. Relations with
France began to improve, and in 1896 and 1898 commercial treaties
were signed. Then, in 1904, came the Entente between France and
Britain, which was tested in the following year at the Conference of
Algeciras, when Italian sympathy leaned against the German
claims. In 1908 Austria's annexation of Bosnia, with the consent
of Germany, annoyed Italy acutely, and in 191 1 her declaration of
war with Turkey over Tripoli showed that she was aware of, and
resented, Germany's policy in the Near East. Probably the only
thing that still kept her in the Triplice was the partnership of
Russia in the Entente, for she feared above all things a Slav advance
to the Adriatic.

The Italian people, however, have always shown an aptitude for
realpolitik far greater than the nation that invented the term. By
1913 Italy had acquiesced in the rise of the Balkan states, provided
her own interests were safeguarded. She refused to join Austria in
an attack on Serbia, and coldly rejected the Austro-German plans
which were unfolded to her in the spring of 1914. Her interests
were becoming clearly defined. Some day she wanted Trieste and
the hinterland of Istria, and, less urgently, the Trentino. She
must rule in the Adriatic, and especially must hold the Albanian
port of Valona (Avlona), which was only forty miles from her shores.
No great Power other than herself must dominate Albania. These
were the essentials, and they brought her sharply up against both

320 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Oct.

her colleagues of the Triplice. When war broke out Italy's
interests were, on the whole, opposed to those of Germany and
Austria ; her relations with France were good and with Britain
cordial ; and the sympathies of her people were by a great
majority on the side of the Allies. Her neutrality, at least, was
assured.

WTiether she should go further was an intricate question. It is
one thing to be estranged from your allies, and another thing to go
to war against them. To begin with, she was jealous of her honour.
More wise than Germany, she did not believe in a Machiavellianism
which offended the sense of decency of the world, and she had no
desire to be called unscrupulous. The bitter witticism of a French
diplomatist — " Elle volera au secours du vainqueur " — was in no
way justified. Italy was in a most delicate position. Her treasury
was not overflowing, her debt was large, her taxation high ; and
though the training of her army was good, its equipment was
not perfect. An immediate declaration of war against Germany
was difficult for a thousand reasons, of which not the least was the
appearance of bad faith. German conduct, it is true, soon gave
a civilized and liberal Fewer a good excuse for withdrawing from
the Triplice ; but the immediate occasion for hostile action was still
wanting, and the chance of its appearance was lessened by Ger-
many's strenuous courtship, which culminated in the dispatch of
the former Chancellor, Prince Biilow, as Ambassador to Rome.
Further, since Italy was one of the few means of entry for foreign
supplies into Austria and Germany, considerable sections of her
population were benefited by her neutrality. On the other hand,
if she delayed too long, and the Allies were victorious, she could
not expect to have much share in the fruits. Italy, as the youngest
of the Great Powers, was bound to consider the matter on prac-
tical lines, and it was inevitable that her real interest should be
slow in revealing itself. So she contented herself with preserving
an armed and watchful neutrality. But popular sympathy, being
free from the responsibility of statesmanship, was not neutral. The
extreme Clericals and the extreme Socialists, being united in the
bonds of anti-nationalism, were in favour of neutrality at all costs.
At the other end of the line the Nationalists, Republicans, moderate
Socialists, and smaller oddments like the Futurists, favoured an
immediate breach with Germany, and they probably carried the
bulk of the people with them. The centre party, the Liberals, who
were the party in office, adopted the policy of neutrality for the time
being, and they had the support of the majority of the commercial

1914] RUMANIA AND THE LESSER NEUTRALS. 321

and professional classes. But all the elements in Italian life
which the world has been accustomed to rate high, the idealists,
the inheritors of the Mazzini tradition, were arrayed against
German pretensions. Many old " red shirts " volunteered for
the French and British service, and more than one descendant
or kinsman of Garibaldi gave his life for the Allies' cause in the
allied ranks.

The action of Rumania depended upon Italy, and on Rumania,
again, largely hinged the poHcy of Bulgaria. Close relations existed
between Rumania and Italy, since both were to some extent Latin
Powers, and both were free from diplomatic entanglements at the
moment. The position of the former was curious. Her king was
a German of the Catholic branch of the Hohenzollerns ; she had no
special love for Russia, since the Peace of Berlin had deprived her of
Bessarabia ; and the Austrian possession of Transylvania remained
a bone of contention with the Dual Monarchy. She was bound to
benefit by neutrality, for she remained the one great granary open
to the Teutonic League, and, after the Russians had seized Galicia,
the only source of German oil supplies. Her strategic position on
Austria's flank made her intervention of considerable military im-
portance, for she could put in the field nearly half a million troops.
The death of King Carol on loth October removed the chief dynastic
bond with Germany, and presently the Russian domination of the
Bukovina seemed to forebode a summary cutting off of her ac-
tivities as an exporter of wheat and oil. The sympathies of
her people were with the Allied cause, but her course craved
wary walking, and for the first months of war she maintained
a decorous and observant neutrality, waiting for events to give
the lead.

The situation of the smaller Baltic and North Sea states was
very different. For them there could be no question of intervention,
at any rate for many a day. Holland, Denmark, Norway, and
Sweden were compelled by their geographical position and by
their military feebleness to bear with the best grace possible the
penalties of an impotent detachment. They were useful to Ger-
many as conduits for foreign supplies ; but the omnipresence of
the British fleet, the unsafeness of the North Sea from mines, and
our rigorous application of the doctrine of " continuous voyage "
with regard to contraband, gravely interfered with their commerce.
Holland was the chief sufferer. She was compelled by the Rhine
Acts to forward to Germany any consignments arriving on a through
bill of lading, and the British Government was forced in conse-

322 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Oct.

quence to take stringent measures, including the absolute prohibi-
tion of the export of certain food-stuffs to Dutch territory. But,
in spite of all our efforts, large quantities of goods, both absolute
and conditional contraband, reached Germany through Holland
and Scandinavia, including materials for the making of war muni-
tions in the shape of copper, rubber, and various chemicals. On the
general question these countries stood to gain by a victory of the
Allies, but political foresight is often obscured by an immediate
loss to the pocket. Yet, on the whole, they conducted themselves
well. The Allied cause, in spite of ceaseless German attentions,
was the more popular ; except, perhaps, in Sweden, which had an
old dislike and dread of Russia. Holland, remembering the pro-
claimed ambitions of Germany and realizing that the quarrel with
Britain would mean the end of her colonies, showed by her press
the direction of her S5mipathies ; and, though suffering severely
herself, welcomed and sheltered many hundred thousands of Belgian
fugitives with an uncomplaining generosity which deserves to be
honourably remembered.

The United States of America on the outbreak of war revealed,
in spite of her large German and Irish-American population, a
clear bias towards the AlHed cause. Something was due to those
ties of blood and language which are apt to be forgotten except
in a crisis ; much to the hatred felt by a free democracy for a creed
which put back the clock of civilization. No proud people likes
to be told that it is not competent to make up its mind for itself,
and America resented patronage of this kind from Germany, as
she would have resented it from Britain. The German Ambassador,
Count Bernstorff, who was personally popular and had married
an American wife, set a-going a vast bureau of information, and
sedulously cultivated the press. He was assisted by Herr Dern-
burg, a former German Colonial Minister, and between them they
managed in a month or two to antagonize thoroughly American
sentiment, and to make themselves the object of general ridicule.
There can be no question but that during the first months of
war, except for a few German financiers in New York, the Irish-
American politicians, and the German communities of the Middle
West, the feeling of the United States was clearly, even enthusi-
astically, on the side of the Allies. But in war it is inevitable
that outsiders must suffer, and America soon began to feel the
pinch. The campaign at sea which Britain conducted was bound
to play havoc with some of her industries, and just as during
her Civil War the loss of cotton imports almost beggared Lancashire,

1914] THE UNITED STATES. 323

so now the cotton and lumber interests in America were heavily
handicapped. Some American products benefited, for all the
Allies were buying in her markets, but others were gravely hurt.
Copper was a case in point. American exports of this metal to the
neutral states of Europe were suddenly multiplied fourfold. Un-
doubtedly the bulk of this was destined for Germany, who was
soon in straits from her excessive expenditure of ammunition.
Accordingly British cruisers seized American copper in neutral
vessels and held it up, unless — which rarely happened — it was
clearly proved that the goods were for hona-fide neutral use. This
practice, while foreign to our old customs, was justified by more
recent maritime law, first laid down in the American courts, as in
the Springbok case * during the Civil War. America forgot this
fact, and protested ; and, later, in her proposal to buy, at the
expense of the nation, from German owners German ships interned
in American ports, she infringed a fundamental rule of law.
She had, indeed, ever been an ardent student of international
principles, but, like most other nations, not always a consistent
practitioner.

It would be as unfair to blame the United States Government
for their protests and the American people for their occasional
outbursts at this period as to blame British feeling during the
American Civil War. When industry is disorganized and thousands
suffer, there is not the time or disposition to abide calmly by the
text-books, and it was highly exasperating to see a great fleet
playing havoc with what till a few weeks before had been legitimate
commerce. Besides, by her wavering attitude towards the Dec-
laration of London, Britain had made it exceedingly hard for
neutrals to know where exactly they stood. Happily there was
a real disposition in both governments and peoples to bear with
each other— in the British to abate the right of capture as far as
was consistent with the demands of war, and in America to listen
to reason and put a friendly construction on the occasional dif-
ferences. The support of America was of high value at this time
to the British people. American intervention in the quarrel at
the moment would, indeed, have made httle immediate difference
to either side, from the smallness of her regular army and her
distance from the scene of war. No statesman or soldier foresaw
the length of the contest, and the part which would be played
in the last stages by American soldiers who were now still in the

* This, as well as the analogous cases of the Bermuda and the Peterhoff, were
decisions of Chief Justice Chase and the Supreme Court of the United Stales.

324 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Oct.

schoolroom. But to have the moral assent of the great EngUsh-
speaking Republic was a supreme comfort even to those in Britain
who know little of the United States. Americans and EngHshmen,
it was reahzed, would continue to criticize each other to the end
of time, but such criticism was only a proof how nearly they were
related. Their wrangles were like the tiffs among the members
of a household.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BEGINNING OF THE FLANDERS CAMPAIGN:
THE FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES.

8/A Octoher-20th November.

The Terrain of West Flanders — The Allied Plan — The British Army conaes into Line
— The Fight of the 2nd and 3rd Corps — The German Objective — The Battle
of the Yser — The Defence of Arras — The First Battle of Ypres — Death of
Lord Roberts — End of the Old British Regular Army.

In this war the historian, in whatever part of the arena he moves,
is accompanied by mighty shades. In the East, in the woody
swamps of Masurenland and the wide levels of Poland, he has
Kutusov to attend him, and Barclay de Tolly and Bagration,
and the inscrutable face of Napoleon. In the West, looming
like clouds through the years, he sees the shapes of Caesar and
Attila and Theodoric and Charlemagne, and, as the centuries
pass, a motley host of great captains — Charles of Burgundy, Joan
the Maid, Bedford, Talbot and King Harry, Guise and Navarre,
Turenne and Conde, the Roi Soleil, Villars, Marlborough and Saxe.
Then come the shaggy leaders of the Revolution, and Napoleon
again with his twenty marshals, and the pursuing Teutons, Bliicher
and Schwarzenberg, and WelUngton, holding himself a little aloof
from his ill-assorted colleagues. And last, in the clothes almost
of our own day, he has the sturdy bristling figure of Bismarck
and the unearthly pallor of Moltke. Of all these we have already
trodden the battlefields, and now we return to the campaigning
ground of one who ranks only after Caesar and Napoleon. The
cold, beautiful eyes of John Churchill had two centuries ago scanned
the meadows of West Flanders, and Marlborough's subtle brain
had faced the very problem which was now to meet the Allied
generals.

After the crushing defeat of Blenheim, the French Marshal,
anxious for the safety of Paris, took to a war of earthworks and
entrenchments. He could not save Flanders, but he managed

i(26

326 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

to check the invader in northern France. But after Oudenarde
not all Vauban's fortifications could keep Lille from the Allies,
and Villars prepared the great line of trenches from the Scarpe
to the Lys, which had for their centre the high ground about La
Bassee. What followed is familiar to every student of the history
of the British army. Marlborough feinted against the Hues,
turned eastward, took Tournai, and won the Battle of Malplaquet.
Villars replied with a new line of trenches, and, though the Allies
took Bethune and Douai, La Bassee itself proved impregnable,
and the war of entrenchments moved toward that stalemate
which ended three years later with the Peace of Utrecht.*

• Marlborough's campaigns in West Flanders cover so much of the ground of
the present war that a note may be permitted. The aim of the Allies in 1708
was to strike at France through Artois, and for this purpose the control of the
navigation of the Scheldt and Lys was essential. It was the object of Vendome's
army, which marched north in the summer of 1708, to recapture Bruges and Ghent,
which were the keys of the lower waterways. It succeeded in this task, but was
decisively defeated by Marlborough on nth July at Oudenarde on the Scheldt,
after one of the most wonderful forced marches in history. Marlborough himself
now desired to march straight into France, detaching troops to mask Lille, and co-
operating with General Erie's projected descent upon Normandy — a proceeding which
would have automatically led to the evacuation by tiie French of Ghent and Bruges.
This bold stroke the caution of the Dutch deputies forbade, and the Allies sat down
before the fortress of Lille, bringing their siege train by road from Brussels, since the
Scheldt and the Lys were closed to them. Vendome and Berwick united their
armies, and marched from Tournai to Lille, where, however, they did not dare to offer
battle, and Marlborough was prevented by his Dutch colleagues from forcing it on
them. The French now attempted to hold the line of the Scarpe and Schrldt to
Ghent, and cut off all convoys from Brussels ; but Marlborough held Ostend, and
Webb's victory of Wynendale enabled the convoys to get through.

Lille, gallantly defended by old Marshal Boufflers, fell on 9th December, and
Bruges and Ghent quickly followed. The way to Paris was now dangerously open,
and Villars, who took command of the French armies when the campaign opened
in the spring of 1709, resolved at all costs to cover Arras, which he rightly regarded
as the gate of the capital. He drew up lines of entrenchments from the Scarpe to
the Lys, passing through La Bassee. Marlborough, lying to the south of Lille, made
apparent preparations for an assault in force, and induced Villars to summon the
garrison of Tournai to his aid. Meantime the duke had sent his artillery to Menin,
and on 26th June marched swiftly eastward to Tournai, which fell to him on
the 23rd of July. While the siege was going on, Marlborough led his main army
back before the La Bass6e lines. His object was to turn those lines by striking
eastward, and entering France by way of the rivers Trouille and Sambre, and he
wished to mislead Villars as to his purpose. On the last day of August, Orkney
with twenty squadrons was sent to St. Ghislain to the west of Mons, and the Prince
of Hesse-Cassel and Cadogan followed in the midst of torrential rains. Villars,
fearing for the fortress of Mons, hastened after them, and on 7th September had
arrived before the stretch of forest which screens Mons on the west, and is pierced
by two openings — at the village of Jemappes in the north and at Malplaquet in
the south. Mons was by this time invested by the Allies, and to cover its siege
Marlborough fought the Battle of Malplaquet on nth September. In that battle
— " one of the bloodiest," says Mr. Fortescue, " ever fought by mortal men " — the
Allies had 20,000 casualties as against the French 12,000; and though it was a
victory, and Mons fell a month later, the season was too far advanced, and the
Allies had suffered too heavily, to allow of an invasion of France. But with Mons

1914] THE CAMPAIGN OF MARLBOROUGH. 327

Had Marlborough had a free hand, the turning movement, in
which Malplaquet was an incident, might well have brought his
armies to the gates of Paris. Villars's qualified success showed
the enormous strength of entrenchments in that corner of France
which marches with West Flanders. When the AlUed generals
in the first days of October 1914 considered the situation, the
campaign of Marlborough must have occurred to their minds.
It was true that the situation was reversed, for it was the en-
trenching of the invader that they wished to forestall, and they
moved from the south, not, as Marlborough had done, from the
north. At that time they beheved that they had the initiative
in their hands, and their aim was to turn the German right, and
free Flanders of the invaders. For this purpose — as well as for
defence, should their offensive fail — it was necessary to gain the
two crucial positions of La Bassce and Lille. The first gave the
strongest defence in all the district, and the second was even more
vital than in Marlborough's day, for it controlled the junction of
six railway lines and a great network of roads, and contained
large engineering works and motor factories, as well as the con-
struction shops of the Chemin de Fer du Nord. With Lille as a
position in the Allied Hnes the invasion from the east would be in

and Tournai in their hands, they controlled the Lys and Scheldt, and protected
their conquests in Flanders.

In the campaign of 1710 Marlborough's thoughts again turned westward, and on
26th June he captured Douai. But he found Arras and the road to France protected
by a vast line of trenches, which Villars had constructed to be, as he said, the " 7ie
plus ultra of Marlborough." The duke had to content himself with taking Bethune,
Aire, and St. Venant, which gave him the complete control of the Lys. He was in
a difficult position for bold action, for his pohtical enemies were lying in wait for the
slightest hint of failure to work his ruin. During the winter the work of entrenching
went on, and in the spring of 171 1 the French lines ran from the coast, up the river
Canche by Montreuil and Hesdin, down the Gy to Montenescourt, whence the
flooded Scarpe carried them to Biache ; thence by canal to the river Sensee ; thence
to Bouchain, on the Scheldt, and down that river to Valenciennes. The story of
how Marlborough outwitted Villars and planted himself beyond the Scheldt at
Oisy, between Villars and France, and within easy reach of Arras and Cambrai,
deserves to be studied in detail, for it is one of the most wonderful in the whole
history of tactics. Thereafter the jealousy and treachery of Marlborough's enemies
achieved their purpose, and the great duke's campaigns in Flanders were at an end.

Marlborough's objective was, of course, the opposite of that of the AlHes in
1914, Thev were moving from the south-west, while he moved from the north-
east, and the lines of Villars were meant to hinder attack from the east, whereas
the Germans at La Bassee were entrenched against an attack from the south and
west. But all the line of Northern France from the Scarpe to the Sambre was
Villars's front of defence, as it was the German flank defence about loth October,
when the race to the sea was in progress. If the AUies had been able to push through
the gap between Roulers and the Lys and turn the German right, they would have
followed the identical strategy of the movement which led to Malplaquet, with
this difference, that their object would have been not an invasion of France, but the
turning of the flank of an entrenched invader.

328 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

a doubtful case. The city had been relinquished at the beginning
of the German sweep from the Sambre ; but since then it and the
surrounding country had reverted to the French, and was held at
the moment by a division of Territorials. The occupation of
Lille in force was one of the tasks entrusted to Maud'huy when,
at the end of September, his new army aligned itself on Castel-
nau's left.

In telling the story of the opening of the West Flanders cam-
paign, it is necessary to proceed slowly and with circumspection.
No rapid summary will enable the reader to understand the nature
of the task which confronted the Allied forces. It was for the
moment a self-contained campaign, and concerned only four out
of the Allied armies — the French Eighth Army under d'Urbal, the
Belgian Army, the British Army, and the Tenth Army of Maud'huy.
Its story is of three successive strategical plans which miscarried,
then of three weeks of a desperate defensive which broke the
eneraj'^'s attack. The record naturally divides itself into three
parts — the movements which culminated in the positions reached
by all four armies on or about 20th October ; the attacks upon
the Allied Hne on the Yser, at La Bassee, and at Arras ; and
the final attack dehvered upon the forces holding the salient of
Ypres. With the failure of the assault upon Ypres the West
Flanders campaign entered upon a new phase.

In the first days of October the Allied plan, based on the assump-
tion that Antwerp could be saved, was so to extend their left as
to hold the line of the vScheldt from Antwerp to Tournai, con-
tinuing south-west by Douai to Arras, and with this as a base to
move against the German communications through Mons and
Valenciennes. But by 6th October it was seen that Antwerp must
fall, and this plan was replaced by a second. The Belgian Army,
covered by Rawlinson's British force, would retire by Bruges and
Ghent to the line of the Yser to protect the Allied left, and meet,
along with the new French reinforcements, any coast attack by
the German troops released after the fall of Antwerp. Lille and La
Bassee must be held by the Allies, and the British, pivoting on the
latter place, would swing south-eastward, isolate Beseler's army of
Antwerp, and threaten the north-western communications of the
vast German front, which now ran from somewhere near Tournai
southward to the Aisne heights. In the last resort, if the Allies
were forestalled in La Bassee and Lille, the strategy of Marlborough
might be used, and, instead of a frontal attack, an enveloping
movement could be attempted from the line of the Lys against

1914] THE GERMAN STRATEGY IN FLANDERS. 329

the right flank of the main German armies. For this purpose the
town of Menin on the Lys, south-east of Yprcs, was essential as a
pivot, and we shall see how the loss of this point ruined the last
of the three strategical schemes. Clearly the whole of the Allied
plan was contingent on the German right not being farther north
than the neighbourhood of Roubaix. Joffre knew that it was
rapidly extending, and it was the business of his whole northern
movement to overlap it. Time was, therefore, of the essence of
his problem. The strategy was well conceived. If it succeeded,
the AUies might be in the position to strike a decisive blow. If it
failed, then the situation would be no worse. It is true that the
extension of the lines to the sea would prevent any attack upon
the German communications, which would then be sheltered behind
a ring-fence of arms. But, on the other hand, it would prevent
any German enveloping movement, and pin down the enemy to a
slow war of positions ; and, since time was on the side of the
Allies, he would be driven to a stalemate, which would militate
disastrously against his ultimate success.

The Germans were from the start well informed as to the Allied
movement, and divined Joffre's intention. By the end of Septem-
ber they had begun the transference of first-Hne corps from the
southern part of their front.* They had excellent railways behind
them for this purpose, and, since thej^ held the interior lines, most
of their corps had a shorter distance to travel than those of the
Allies. But the change took time, and so it fell out that the more
northerly parts of the Une were not manned till the Allies were
almost in position. Against this drawback, however, the Germans
had one great advantage. They had a fairly fresh army released
from Antwerp, which could occupy the coast end, and they had
through north Belgium a straight hue from northern Germany
for the dispatch of newly formed corps. They had quantities of
cavalry, which had been of no use in the Aisne battle, to harass
the left flank of the Allied turning movement, and to occupy points
of vantage till their infantry came up. But it was an anxious
moment for Great Headquarters. For them, not less than for the
Allies, it was a race to the salt water. To the Allies' scheme they
sought to oppose a counter-offensive which should give them
Calais and the Channel ports, and ultimately the Seine valley for
an advance to Paris. To succeed they must be first through the

* It should be noted that the Duke of Wurtemberg's IV. Army was not the old
IV. Army, the corps of which had been distributed between Billow's II. and Einem's
III. Armies. In the same way Prince Rupprecht's VI. Army contained only one of
his old corps, the 1st Bavarian Reserve.

330 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

sally-port between La Bassee and the sea. If the British fore-
stalled them, Eeseler would be cut off, and the German front would
be bent round into a square, with the Allies operating against
three sides of it. The forty miles between LiUe and Nieuport
became suddenly the critical terrain of the war.

On 8th October Foch, who had been appointed to the general
command over all the Allied troops north of Maunoury, was at
Doullens, some twenty miles north of Amiens. There he was
visited by Sir John French, who arranged with him a plan of
operations. In all likelihood the Germans would attack the points
of junction of the Allied armies — always the weak spots in a
front — and it was necessary to determine these points with some
care. The road between Bethune and Lille was fixed as the
dividing Hne between the British command and Maud'huy. If
an advance were possible it would be eastward, when the British
right and the French left would be directed upon Lille. To the
north it was arranged that the British 2nd Corps should take its
place on Maud'huy's left, with the cavalry protecting its left till
the 3rd Corps came into line. The cavalry would perform the same
task for the 3rd Corps till the ist Corps arrived in position. Noth-
ing was decided about the future of Sir Henry Rawlinson's force,
which was covering the Belgian retreat from Antwerp, and might
be expected in a week from the direction of Courtrai.

By the close of September Castelnau's position was fixed west
of Roye and Lihons, while Maud'huy had taken up ground from
the north end of the Somme plateau to Lens. A Territorial divi-
sion was in Lille as an advance guard of the outflanking movement,
which in the case of the Tenth Army would be directed towards
Valenciennes. Arras, the centre of its front, was a place of the
first strategic importance. It lay below the northern edge of a
plateau between Somme and Scheldt ; the slopes on three sides
of it provided strong defensive positions, and a network of railways
connected it with every part of northern France. The beautiful
old city was famous in history. France and Burgundy had con-
tended for its possession ; there Vauban raised his celebrated
ramparts, there Robespierre saw the light. By ist October
Maud'huy had occupied Arras, and was pushing eastward on
the road to Douai. But presently he found himself in difficulties

igi4] FALL OF LILLE. 331

as the German VL Army came into line, and for the first week of
October was heavily engaged in the flats east of Arras between
the Scarpe and the town of Lens. He was aware that the enemy
was outflanking him, and he had only nine divisions and a cavalry
corps wherewith to hold all north-eastern France till the British
should arrive. He was forced back upon Arras, and soon the city
was under bombardment. By the 8th he was in an awkward
place. The Germans held Douai and Lens, and were closing in on
Lille, from which at any moment the Territorials might be driven.
Every day the enemy was increasing in numbers. The plain of
West Flanders was swarming with his cavalry, and they were re-
ported as far west as Hazebrouck, Bailleul, and Cassel, the last
place only twenty miles from Dunkirk. Maud'huy's task was to
cling to his position at Arras till some relief came from the Allied
operations on his left. That, generally speaking, was the work of
both him and Castelnau for the succeeding ten days up to igth
October. There were awkward sags in the French line at Roye,
at Albert, and at Arras, but much was done during these days to
straighten them out. The attackers were driven back from Arras,
but, to set against this, on the 12th Lille fell to the Saxon 19th
Corps. So stood the position on igth October, the day when the
AlUed Hne was at last completed to the sea. Maud'huy's experience
supplies an answer to the conundrum — why, since the possession
of Lille was of the first importance, was it not held from the first
with some force stronger than a Territorial division ? The
explanation is that the Tenth Army was far too sorely pressed to do
more than retain its position. Had its offensive succeeded, had it
driven the enemy from Douai towards Valenciennes, then Lille
would have been occupied by its left wing, and would have formed
part of its front. But it was forced back on Arras, where for
weeks it could do no more than maintain its ground.

We turn to the task of the British army, which during the
first three weeks of October was coming into line north of Mau-
d'huy. The extreme left of the French Tenth Army was at the
time in the villages north-west of Lens, and the Lille-Bethune
highway had been fixed as its northern hmit. Conneau's 2nd
Cavalry Corps was engaged in watching this flank against the
dangerous German enveloping movement. On nth October
Smith-Dorrien, with the British 2nd Corps, had marched from
Abbeville to the line of the canal between Aire and Bethune. On
his right was Conneau connecting him with Maud'huy, and on his
left Hubert Cough's 2nd Cavalry Division, which was busily en-

332 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

gaged in driving German cavalry out of the forest of Nieppe, Sir
John French's plan at this time for the 2nd Corps was a rapid dash
upon La Bassee and Lille. Smith-Dorrien was directed to bring
up his left to Merville, and on the 12th move east against the hne
Laventie-Lorgies, to threaten the flank of the Germans in La
Bassee, and compel them to fall back lest they should be cut off
between the British and Maud'huy. On the 12th the movement
began in thick fog, the 5th Division on the right, and the 3rd
crossing the canal to deploy on its left. Smith-Dorrien, however,
found that the enemy were in great strength, four cavalry divisions
and several Jager battalions holding the road to Lille. The 2nd
Corps, struggling all day through difficult country where good
gun positions were rare, made some progress, but not much. His
experience convinced Smith-Dorrien that an ordinary frontal
attack was impossible, and he resolved to try to isolate La Bassee.
His object was to wheel to his right, pivoting on Givenchy, and
to get astride the La Bassee-Lille road in the neighbourhood of
Fournes, so as to threaten the right flank and rear of the enemy's
position on the high ground south of La Bassee.

On the 13th the wheel commenced, but it met with a strong
resistance. The work of the British 2nd Corps now resolved itself
into a struggle for La Bassee. On the 14th the 3rd Division lost its
commander, Major-General Hubert Hamilton, who was killed by
the explosion of a shell — a serious loss to the army, for he was one
of the most skilful and beloved of the younger generals. Next day
the division avenged its leader's death by a brilliant advance,
crossing the dykes by means of planks, and driving the Germans
from village after village, till they had pushed them off the Estaires-
La Bassee road. On the i6th they were close upon Aubers ; the
following day they took the village, and late that evening carried
Herlies at the point of the bayonet. This was the end of the
movement of the 2nd Corps. Hitherto they had been opposed
chiefly by German cavalry, and had made progress, but now they
were against the wall of the main German line, the centre of the
VL Army.

While the counterstroke was impending, supports were arriving
for the 2nd Corps. On 19th and 20th October there appeared
west of Bethune the Lahore Division of the Indian army. The
Indian Expeditionary Force consisted of two infantry divisions —
the 3rd, or Lahore, under the command of Lieutenant-General
H. B. Watkis, and the 7th, or Meerut, under Lieutenant-General
C. A. Anderson. The force was under Lieutenant-General

1914] THE BRITISH 3RD CORPS. 333

Sir James Willcocks, the general then commanding the Northern
Army in India, who had originally won fame in West African
fighting. On a hot autumn morning the first troops had landed
in Marseilles, and been received by the French with the enthusiasm
due to their martial appearance and splendid dignity. Then for
days the smell of wood smoke rose from the dusty hills behind
Borely, strange flocks of goats thronged the streets — the first step
in the Indian commissariat — and grave, bearded Sikh orderlies
slipped through the southern crowds. From Marseilles the Indian
Division went to camp at Orleans, and that city, which had seen
so much, saw a new pageant in her ancient streets. Much had
to be done before the troops were ready for the field, for an equip-
ment adapted for an Indian year was no match for the rigours of a
Flemish winter. The troops were chafing to be in action, for the
honour of their country and their race was in their keeping in this
far western land, where the sahibs had fallen out.

The 3rd Corps, under Pulteney, destined for the position on
the left of the 2nd Corps, had completed its detrainment at St.
Omer on the night of the nth. It marched to Flazebrouck, where
it remained during the 12th, and next day moved generally east-
ward towards the line Armentieres-Wytschaete, with its advance
guard on a line through the village of Strazeele. Pulteney's aim
was to get east of Armentieres astride the Lys, and join up the
Ypres and La Bassee sections of the front. It was an impossible
length of line for one corps to hold, so he had cavalry operating on
both sides of him, Allenby to the north, and Conneau to the south.
The Germans were found in strength at Meteren, west of Bailleul,
the usual advanced force of cavalry and infantry supports hurried
forward in motor buses. It was a day of heavy rain and a thick
steamy fog, the fields were water-logged, aircraft were useless, and
the countryside was too much enclosed for cavalry. The Germans
in Meteren had no artillery, and but for the bad light would have
suffered heavily from Pulteney's guns. He carried the position,
drove out the enemy, and entrenched himself some time towards
midnight, preparatory to a full-dress attack upon Bailleul, in
which he beUeved that the Germans were in force. His recon-
naissances, however, on the morning of the 14th showed that the
enemy had retired, and that day he occupied the line Bailleul-
St. Jans Cappelle.

Next day the 3rd Corps was ordered to take the Hne
of the L3's from Armentieres to Sailly, where, five days before
Conneau's cavalry had met with a stubborn resistance. The

334 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

weather was still dark with fog, and there were many small bodies
of the enemy about, but no position was held in force. Pulteney
by the evening of the 15th was on the Lys, with the 6th Division
on his right at Sailly, and the 4th Division on the left at Nieppe,
a point on the Armentieres-Bailleul road. Next day he entered
Armentieres, and on the 17th he had pushed beyond it, with his
right at Bois Grenier, three miles south of the Lys, and his left at
the hamlet of Le Gheir, a mile north of it. It was now ascer-
tained that the Germans were holding in some strength a Una
running from Radinghem in the south, through Perenchies, to
Frelinghien on the Lys, while the right bank of the river below
Frelinghien was held as far as Wervicq. On the i8th an effort was
made to clear the right bank of the Lys with the aid of Allenby's
cavalry corps. The strength of the Germans was still doubtful,
and Pulteney had some ground for assuming that it was only the
mixed cavalry and infantry he had been so far pressing back. As
a matter of fact, the 3rd Corps was now approaching the main
German position, as the 2nd Corps about the same time was
finding it at Aubers and Herlies. That day revealed two facts —
that the infantry could do nothing in the direction of Lille, and
that the cavalr3^ in spite of some brilliant work by the 9th Lancers,
could not win the right bank of the Lys. They found themselves
firmly held at all points from Le Gheir to Radinghem, and their
position on the night of the i8th and on the 19th represented the
farthest Hne held by this section of our front. This — the British
right centre — was destined to have one of the most awkward
places in the coming battle. It was not itself the object of any
great massed attack, as on the Yser, at Ypres, and at La Bassee,
but it suffered from being on the fringes of the two latter zones,
and, as we shall see, was gravely endangered in the German envel-
oping movements.

One link was necessary to connect the 3rd Corps with the
infantry farther north. This was provided by the two divisions
of Allenby's cavalry corps. The 2nd Division from nth
October busied itself with clearing the country of invading bands
in the neighbourhood of Cassel and Hazebrouck. On the 14th it
joined the ist Division, and the corps took up positions on the
high ground above Berthen on the road between Bailleul and
Poperinghe. On the 15th and i6th it reconnoitred the Lys, and, till
the 19th, endeavoured to secure a footing on the right bank below
Armentieres. On the night of the 19th Allenby's position was goner-
ally east of Messines, on a Une drawn from Le Gheir to Hollebeke,

1914] RETREAT OF RAWLINSON. 335

We pass now to the doings of the Antwerp garrison and the
British and French covering troops. The 4th Corps, under RawUn-
son — Capper's 7th Division and Byng's 3rd Cavalry Division —
was in Flanders by 8th October. On the 7th Rawlinson's head-
quarters were at Bruges, and Admiral Ronarc'h's brigade of French
Marines was at Ghent in support. On the 8th the retirement
from Antwerp was in full operation, and the 4th Corps head-
quarters were removed to Ostend, while the 7th Division was at
Ghent. Next day Antwerp had fallen, and the covering of the
Belgian retreat began. The cavalry went first, to clear the coun-
try, and were at Thourout on the loth and at Roulers on the 12th,
where they took up the line from Oostnieukerke to Iseghem to
cover the Ghent railway, which was threatened by roving German
horse to the west and south. On that day the 7th Division and the
French sailors left Ghent, forming a rearguard for the Belgians.
Next day the Germans entered that town, and the following day
passed through Bruges. Two days later the 3rd Reserve Corps
occupied Ostend. This was from Beseler's army of Antwerp,
which included also the 4th Ersatz Division.

The 7th Division, much assisted by its armoured cars, arrived
at Roulers on the 13th, and the 3rd Cavalry Division reconnoitred
the country towards Ypres and Menin, riding in one day over fifty
miles. The only hostile activity they could learn of was in the
south-west, where large enemy forces were reputed to be moving
eastwards towards Wervicq and Menin from the direction of Bail-
leul. This was the force of cavalry and infantry supports with
which, as we have seen, the 3rd Corps had had dealings. The
3rd Cavalry Division was now in touch with AUenby's cavalry
in the neighbourhood of Kemmel, on the road between Ypres and
Armentieres. By this time the Belgian army, very weary and
broken, was in the forest of Houthulst, north-east of Ypres, and
had begun to extend along the line of the Yser by Dixmude to
Nieuport. On the i6th the 7th Division was holding a position
east of Ypres, with the 3rd Cavalry Division as advance guard on
a line which ran roughly from Bixschoote to Poelcappelle. North
lay the Belgians, with French supports, and to the west of Ypres
two French Territorial divisions— the 87th and 89th— under the
command of General Bidon. The line of the 7th Division ran from
Zandvoorde through Gheluvelt to Zonnebeke.

At this time Sir John French was still uncertain about the
forces opposed to him. He knew of Beseler on the coast route,
and was naturally anxious as to the stand which the wearied

336 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

Belgians, aided by French Territorials, marines, and cavalry, could
make against him on the Yser. He also had word of a German
reserve corps and a Landwehr division which had been giving
trouble to Allenby's cavalry on the Lys. The far more formidable
movement, of which the 7th Division was beginning to get news,
was still unknown to him, and if he had heard the rumours of it,
he had not been able to get verification. At that time he still
believed that the extreme right of the main German force was in
the neighbourhood of Tourcoing, and that Beseler's was an isolated
flanking force. He did not know that Beseler was no more the
outer rim of a huge serried line wheeling against the Allies from
the north-east.

On loth October four reserve corps, which were to form the
main strength of the IV. Army — the 22nd, 23rd, 26th, and 27th —
left Germany. One corps was rushed through by rail to Courtrai,
and was, indeed, not formed till the men arrived there. The
other three were concentrated in Brussels, and, without losing an
hour, began their eighty-mile march westward. These corps were
new formations, composed largely of Landsturm and the new
volunteers, and including every type, from boys of sixteen to stout
gentlemen in middle life. They were to show themselves as des-
perate in attack as the most seasoned veterans. By the i8th they
were on the line Roulers-Menin, and the 3rd Reserve Corps, which
had screened their advance, drew away to the right wing.

On the i6th the Belgians were driven out of the forest of
Houthulst, and fell back behind the Hazebrouck-Dixmude railway.
Their retreat uncovered the left of the British 3rd Cavalry Division,
but on the following day four French cavalry divisions, under
General de Mitry, cleared the forest, and re-established the line.
On that night, the 17th, Sir John French decided that the moment
had come to put into effect the third of his strategical alternatives.
If La Bassee and Lille had proved too strong for the 2nd Corps,
then Marlborough's strategy might be employed against the Ger-
man right. With Menin as a pivot, commanding an important
railway and the Hne of the Lys, a flanking movement might be
instituted against Courtrai and the hne of the Scheldt. Accord-
ingly he instructed Rawlinson to advance next morning, seize
Menin, and await the support of the ist Corps, which was due in
two days.

Rawlinson had an impossible task. He had to operate on a
front at least twenty miles wide, and he could look for no supports
till Haig arrived. Moreover, he knew of the four new German

1914] ARRIVAL OF BRITISH iST CORPS. 337

corps, which were still hardly credited at headquarters, for on
the morning of the i8th the French cavalry near Roulers cap-
tured some cyclists belonging to one of them. On the morn-
ing of the 19th he moved out towards Mcnin, with the right of
the 7th Division protected as far as possible by Allcnby's cavalry
north of the Lys, while the 3rd Cavalry Division was on its left,
and Mitry's French cavalry to the north of them. The cavalry
to the left presently came in touch with large enemy forces advan-
cing from Roulers. The British brigades were skilfully handled,
and the 6th Brigade took Ledeghem and Rolleghemcappelle. But
owing to the continued German pressure, the 7th Brigade on the
left had to fall back, and in the afternoon the 6th Brigade also fol-
lowed, retiring to billets in the villages of Poelcappelle and Zonne-
beke, while the French cavalry held Passchendaele, a mile in
advance. The progress of the infantry was summarily stopped
by the advance of enormous masses from the direction of Courtrai.
The nearest the 7th Division got to Menin was the line Ledeghem-
Kezelberg, about three miles from the town. It had to fall back
at once to avoid utter disaster, and entrenched itself on a line of
eight miles, just east of the Gheluvelt cross-roads, a name soon to
be famous in the annals of the war. The great struggle for Ypres
was on the eve of beginning.

On that day, 19th October, the ist Corps, under Sir Douglas
Haig, detrained at St. Omer, and marched to Hazebrouck. That
evening Haig was instructed to move through Ypres to Thourout,
with the intention of advancing on Bruges and Ghent. That such
instructions should have been given shows that the British head-
quarters were still very imperfectly informed about the real strength
of the enemy, which the 7th Division were then learning from
bitter experience. Two alternatives presented themselves to the
mind of Sir John French. His force was holding far too long a
line for its numbers and strength, and the natural use of the ist
Corps would have been to strengthen some part of the front, such
as that before La Bassee. On the other hand, a much-battered
Belgian army with a small complement of French Territorials and
cavalry had sole charge of the twenty-mile line from Ypres to the
sea. If the Germans chose to attack north of Ypres they would
find a weakly held passage. Accordingly Haig was directed to
move north of Ypres, and Sir John French bade him use his dis-
cretion should an unforeseen situation arise after he had passed
the town. The unforeseen situation was not long in appearing.
The ist Corps never approached Thourout, but was detained in

338 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

front of Ypres, where it formed the left wing of the British in the
great struggle.

By the 19th — to continue our course to the sea — the Belgians
had fallen back nearly to the line of the Yser from Dixmude to
Nieuport. The Yser is a canalized stream, which, rising near St.
Omer, enters at Nieuport the canal system which lies behind the
sand-dunes on the edge of the cultivated land, and connects with
the salt water by several sea canals. The Belgians were nominally
six divisions, but three had been reduced to the strength of brigades,
and were in the last stages of exhaustion. For ten weeks they had
scarcely been out of action, but their spirit was unconquered, and
the gaps in their line — they were no more than 48,000 strong —
were filled up by French Marines, while the British and French
fleets were waiting to give them support from the sea. But the
front was still dangerously weak, and on i8th October Joffre
placed at the disposal of Foch the reinforcements which were to
complete the French Eighth Army. It was commanded by Victor
d'Urbal, a man of fifty-six, who, like Maud'huy, had been a briga-
dier at the beginning of the war. This new army, which not only
took over the existing troops on the Yser, but acted as a reinforce-
ment to the British left, contained at the start only Ronarc'h's
marines, the four divisions of Mitry's cavalry, and the 87th and 89th
Territorial Divisions. It was to grow before the end of the battle to
five army corps, two Territorial divisions, and two corps of cavalry.

The 20th of October saw the whole Allied line from Albert to
the sea in the position in which it had to meet the desperate effort
of the Germans to regain the initiative and the offensive. The
gate was closed, but it might yet be opened. Maud'huy's Tenth
Army lay on a line from east of Albert, through Arras, west of
Lens, to just west of the chateau of Vermelles, south of the Bethune-
La Bassee railway. Smith-Dorrien's 2nd Corps ran from Givenchy,
west of La Bassee, through Herlies and Aubers to Laventie. Then
came Conneau's corps of French cavalry, and then Pulteney's 3rd
Corps, which was astride the Lys east of Armentieres. North of
it came Allenby's cavalry corps, with the ist Division south of
Messines, and the 2nd Division between Messines and Zandvoorde.
Then, forming the point of the Ypres Salient, came the 7th Division
east of the Gheluvelt cross-roads, with, on its left, between Zcmne-
beke and Poelcappelle, Byng's 3rd Cavalry Division. North-west
of them, between Zonnebeke and Bixschoote, Haig's ist Corps
was coming into position. North, again, lay de Mitry's French
cavalry, till the French Marines were reached at Dixmude. Thence

1914] THE BATTLEFIELD OF WEST FLANDERS. 339

lay the Belgian front to the sea, where the guns of the Allied war-
ships were waiting for the enemy. This line of battle, little short
of a hundred miles, was held on the Allied side by inadequate
forces. Maud'huy had four corps ; the British were three and a
half corps strong — seven divisions of infantry ; the Belgians were
in effectives Httle more than a corps ; d'Urbal had still only a
brigade of marines and two divisions of Territorials. The British
force had an average strength of only 1.6 rifles per yard of front.
The enemy at the start had eleven corps of infantry and a far
greater strength of cavalry and guns. Moreover, he was rapidly
reinforcing his front from the rest of his line, so that in all the
points of contact he had a clear, and in many a crushing, superiority
of numbers.

A word must be said on the terrain of the impending battles.
From the peatfields and cornlands of the Santerre, where Castel-
nau was engaged, the plateau of Albert rises between the Somme
and the Scarpe. It is the ordinary Picardy upland — hedgeless
roads, unfenced fields, lines of stiff trees, and here and there the
shallow glen of a stream. At the northern end Arras lies in its
crook of hills, a beautiful and gracious Httle city on the edge of
the ugliest land on earth. The hills sweep north-westward to the
coast of the Channel, ending in Cape Grisnez, and bound the valleys
of the Scarpe, Scheldt, Lys, and Yser, forming in reality the west-
ern containing wall of the great plain of Europe, of which the
eastern is the Urals. This plain of the Scheldt and its tributaries
is everywhere of an intolerable flatness. A few inconsiderable
swells break its monotony, such as Kemmel ridge, north-east of
Bailleul, and the undulations south of Ypres and at La Bassee,
and there is, of course, the noble solitary height of Cassel. But in
general it is flat as a tennis lawn, seamed with sluggish rivers,
and criss-crossed by endless railways and canals. Ten miles north
of Arras, at the town of Lens, the Black Country of France begins.
From there to Lille and Armentieres is the mining region of the
Pas-de-Calais. Every road is lined with houses ; factory chimneys
and the headgear of collieries rise everywhere ; and the whole
district is Uke a piece of Lancashire or West Yorkshire, where towns
merge into each other without rural intervals. The Lys flows,
black and foul, through a land of industrial debris. North of the
Lys towards Ypres we enter a countryside of market gardens,
where every inch is closely tilled, and the land is laid out like a
chessboard. There are patches of wood, some fairly large, like the
forest of Houthulst, between Ypres and Roulers, but these are no

340 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

barrier to military movements. Everywhere there are good roads,
partially paved after the Flemish fashion, and the only obstacles
to the passage of armies are the innumerable canals. As we move
toward the Yser we pass from Essex to the Lincolnshire Fens. The
fields are lined and crossed with ditches, and the soil seems a com-
promise between land and water. Then comes the great barrier
of the sand-dunes, which line the coast from Calais eastwards, and
through which the waterways of the interior debouch by a number
of sea canals. Beyond the dunes are the restless and shallow waters
of the North Sea.

On such a line the Allies on 20th October awaited the
attack of the enemy, as they had done two months before on the
Sambre and the Meuse. Now, as then, they were outnumbered ;
now, as then, they did not know the enemy's strength ; now, as
then, their initial strategy had failed. The fall of Antwerp had
destroyed the hope of holding the line of the Scheldt ; the German
occupation of La Bassee and Lille had spoiled the turning move-
ment against the German right ; the failure at Menin and the swift
advance of the new German corps had put Marlborough's device
out of the question. Once more, as at Mons and Charleroi, they
waited on the defensive.

II.

The map will show that in the Allied battle-line, which on the
19th October stretched from Albert to the sea, two points would
give results of special value to an enemy attack. The first was
Arras, which was a centre on which lines converged from West
Flanders and north-eastern France, and from which Unes ran
down the Ancre valley to Amiens and the basin of the Seine,
to Boulogne by Doullens and by St. Pol, and northward to Lens
and Bethune. The second was La Bassee, which gave a straight
line by Bethune and St. Omer to Calais and Boulogne. If the
Germans sought possession of the Channel ports, then their natural
road was by one or the other. A third possible route lay along the
seashore by Nieuport, where the great coast road runs behind
the shelter of the dunes. If the aim of the enemy was the speedy
capture of Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne, a successful breach
in the Allied front at Arras or La Bassee would enable them to
reahze it. Possible, but far less valuable for the same purpose, was
the road which followed the sea. It was the shortest route to

1914] THE GERMAN ALTERNATIVES. 341

Calais, but it had no railway to accompany it, and it led through
some of the most difficult country which a great army could
encounter.

In war the shortest way to an end is often the longest. By
this time the German Staff, as we have seen, under the inspiration
of Falkenhayn, had decided that at all costs the Channel ports
must be won. Their main reason was twofold. They thought
that the capture of Calais and Boulogne would gravely alarm
pubUc opinion in Britain, and interfere with the sending of the
new levies, which, in spite of their official scepticism, they fully
believed in and seriously dreaded. In the second place, with
the coast in their possession, they hoped to mount big guns which
would command the narrows of the Channel, to lay under their
cover a mine-field, and to prepare a base for a future invasion of
England. It was argued that such a measure would complicate
the task of the British fleet, which would be compelled to watch
two hostile bases — the Heligoland Bight and the French Channel
coast — and that in such a division of tasks the chance might come
for a naval battle, in which the numerical superiority would not
be with Britain. Other motives lay behind the plan, but these
constituted the chief strategical reasons. Now, with this purpose,
the best road was clearly not the shortest. If the AUied front could
be pierced at La Bassee, or, still better, at Arras, and a gate were
forced for the passage of the German legions, then two of the
Allied armies would be cut off and penned between the enemy and
the sea. In this way the chief purpose of all campaigns would
be effected, and a large part of their opponents' strength would be
destroyed. Further, a magnificent line of communications to the
coast would be opened up — communications which could not be
cut, for all the Channel httoral and hinterland west of Antwerp
would be in German hands. If, on the other hand, a way were won
along the shore by Nieuport, all that would happen would be that
the AUies' left would fall back to the line of heights which ends
in Cape Grisnez, and their front, instead of running due north
from Albert, would bend to the north-west in an easy angle.
Further, the coast road would be a poor line of communications
at the best, and most open to attack by a movement from Ypres
or La Bassee.

Besides these three points where a road might be won, the
Allied Une revealed another special feature. East of Ypres, on
19th October, it bent forward in a bold salient, the legacy
bequeathed by an offensive which had failed. If this could be

342 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

maintained, it obviously provided a base for flank attacks upon
any force advancing across the Yser or through La Bassee. It
was, therefore, the aim of the Germans to flatten out the saUent
as soon as possible. The importance of Arras, La Bassee, Ypres,
and Nieuport must be kept constantly in mind if we would under-
stand the complicated campaign which follows. The first two were
the points where a successful piercing movement would have
results of the highest strategic value, not only opening up the road
to the Channel, but putting the whole Allied left wing in deadly
jeopardy. The third was a saHent which, if left alone, would en-
danger any German advance. The fourth, if gained, would give a
short, if difficult, route to Calais, and would turn the Allies' flank,
though not in a fashion to put it in serious danger.

It is a sound rule in war that strength should not be dissipated.
On this principle it is at first sight hard to discover an explanation
for the course which the Germans actually followed. For they
attacked almost simultaneously at all four points, and for three
desperate weeks persisted in the attack. Now, had the movement
against Arras succeeded all would have been won, and the salient
at Ypres would have only meant the more certain destruction of
the British army. Had the attack from La Bassee been success-
fully carried through, the same result would have been attained ;
though, since the success was won farther from the Allied centre,
a smaller section of the Allied force would have been isolated. Had
even the worst of the three roads been chosen for a concentrated
action and the coast route cleared for the passage of the German
armies, then the Allied flank must have fallen back from Ypres and
from before La Bassee. The explanation seems to be that Falken-
hayn was imperfectly informed of the position of the Allies. His
aim was to outflank the Allied front while its left was still in the air,
and for this purpose he gave his four new corps to the right-wing
commander, the Duke of Wiirtemberg. He did not conceive that
his main problem was to find the weak points in a front already
formed. This view was not without reason, and it carried with it
the corollary that the rest of the still mobile Allied front from
Arras northward should be pressed hard so as to prevent a rein-
forcement of the left.* As it happened, that front was more stable
than he anticipated, and what were meant for holding attacks
developed by the odd logic of circumstance into full-dress battles,

• That this was the German intention seems to be shown by the order given on
14th October to the VI. Army. See the General Staff monograph, Schlacht an der
Yser und bei Ypern im Herbst 1914 (Eng. trans.), p. 7.

1914] THE YSER. 343

so that the action instead of concentrating in the coast terrain
became a series of alternating efforts to break the front at pre-
sumably weak points. This in turn was an intelhgible plan —
it was Foch's in 1918 — but Falkenhayn had leaned so heavily
on the first scheme that his balance was shaken before he essayed
the second.

Our first task is to consider the assault on the Yser, and the
subsidiary attacks at La Bassee and Arras, before dealing with the
supreme effort against Ypres. But let it be clearly understood
that ail four attacks were to a large extent contemporaneous, and
directed against a single battle-front. The fighting on the Yser
merged, towards the south, in the fighting north of Ypres ; the
struggle for Ypres was closely connected with the battle which
raged from La Bassee to the Lys ; and the stand of the 2nd Corps
at La Bassee was influenced in many ways by the fate of Maud'huy's
left wing north of Lens. If this fact is realized, it is clearer and
more convenient to deal separately with each attack, since each had
its own special objective.

We turn first to the country along the canal which is usually
dignified by the name of the Yser, the Uttle river which feeds it
from the south-west. Between Nieuport, the port on the coast
a mile from the ocean, and the town of Dixmude, where the Yser
turns sharply to the south-west, is a distance of ten miles. On the
left bank, at an average distance of a mile and a half from the
Yser, runs a single-line railway from Dixmude to Nieuport, through
the villages of Pervyse and Ramscappelle. No railway crosses the
canal between Dixmude and Nieuport, but it is spanned by several
bridges. The most important is at Nieuport, where the main coast
road runs along the harder soil of the dunes. A second lies about
midway in the reach, where a road comes east from Pervyse just
below the point where the canal loops into a pocket. At Dix-
mude itself, which lies on the eastern bank, a road and a line run
to Fumes and Dunkirk. A number of small creeks of brackish
water enter the Yser on both sides, and all around are low, marshy
meadows, a little below the level of the sea. One or two patches
of drier and higher land are found along the edge of the canal, but
nowhere, till the dunes are reached on the actual coast, are there
any slopes which can be said to give gun positions or a commanding
situation. The whole country is bUnd and sodden, as ill fitted for
the passage of troops and heavy guns as the creeks and salt marshes
of the Essex coast.

344 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

On i6th October, as we have seen, the right wing of the
retreating Belgian army had reached the forest of Houthulst, north-
east of Ypres, and had been driven out of it by the German move-
ment from Roulers. They now drew in that wing, and by the fol-
lowing day were aligned on the east bank of the Yser, with French
cavalry and Territorials connecting them with the British army
to the south. King Albert had under 50,000 in his command,
and to a man they were battle-weary. But the presence of their
king, and the consciousness that they were waging no longer a
solitary war, but were arrayed with their Allies, spurred them
to a great effort. The Yser was the natural line for them to hold,
for, more than French or British, they were accustomed to war
among devious water-courses. The plan was to hold strong bridge-
heads at Nieuport and Dixmude, and an advance line covering
them on the east bank of the river. Behind this lay the line of the
Yser itself, and, should that be lost, the Nieuport-Dixmude railway
embankment for a last stand. The disposition was as follows :
The 2nd Division held Nieuport, Lombartzyde, and the ground to
the sea ; the ist Division on its right extended to the middle of the
Tervaete bend, including the Schoorbakke bridgehead ; on its right
lay the 4th Division, and beyond it the 3rd, which along with the
Breton marines provided the garrison of Dixmude ; the 5th Divi-
sion was echeloned between St. Jacques Cappelle and Driegrachten ;
and the 6th Division continued the front to the junction with the
French Territorials at Boesinghe. The only reserves were part of
the 3rd Division and a division of cavalry.

By the evening of the 17th Beseler, to whom the first coast
attack had been entrusted, had moved west from Middelkerke and
Westende, and was in position just east of Nieuport. Early on the
morning of the i8th he attacked with the object of seizing the
Nieuport bridge. The Belgians were drawn up east of the Yser,
holding in strength the three main bridges. The sudden and violent
assault of a superior force upon the left wing of a much-enduring
army would in all likelihood have succeeded, and if at this date
King Albert had been pushed well back from the Yser towards
Furnes, Beseler would have been in Dunkirk in two days and in
Calais the day after. But at this most critical moment help arrived
from an unexpected quarter. Suddenly the German right resting
on the sand-dunes found itself enfiladed. Shells fell in their trenches
from the direction of the sea, and, looking towards the Channel,
they saw the ominous grey shapes of British warships. Two and
a half centuries before, when Turenne met the Spaniards at the

1914] THE BRITISH MONITORS. 345

Battle of the Dunes, he had been greatly aided by Cromwell's
fleet, which shelled the enemy's wing. History repeated itself
almost in the same spot, and once more the French front fought
in alliance with the British navy.

Germany had never dreamed of any serious danger from the
sea. She believed from the charts that off that shelving shore,
with its yeasty coastal waters, there was no room for even a small
gunboat to get within range, and she did not imagine that Britain
would venture her ships in such perilous seas. Every student of
naval history knows the dangers of the " banks of Zeeland,"
and at this very place, between Nieuport and Ostend, the San
Felipe, from the Spanish Armada, had been wrecked. But at the
outbreak of war three strange vessels lay at Barrow, built to the
order of the Brazilian Government. Broad in the beam, and
shallow of draught, they had been intended as patrol ships for the
river Amazon. In August the Admiralty, with fortunate prescience,
purchased these odd craft, which appeared in the Navy List
as the Huniber, the Severn, and the Mersey. They were heavily
armoured, and carried each two 6-inch guns mounted forward in an
armoured barbette, and two 4.7 howitzers aft, while four 3-pounder
guns were placed amidships. Their draught was only 4 feet 7
inches, so that they could move in shoal water where an ordinary
warship would run aground. With the first news of the German
advance along the coast the Admiralty saw the value of their
purchase. On the evening of 17th October the three monitors *
left Dover under the command of Rear-Admiral the Hon. Horace
Hood, and sailed for the Flemish coast. The German attack on the
i8th had hardly started when Hood began his bombardment.
Beseler brought his heavy guns into action, but they were com-
pletely outranged, and several batteries were destroyed. For days
this strange warfare continued. Admiral Hood's flotilla was
presently joined by other craft, chiefly old ships of little value, for
the Admiralty did not dare to risk the newer ships in so novel a
type of battle. French warships acted with the British, and the
bombardment extended east to Ostend. The Germans were unable
to retaliate. Their big guns did not reach us, their submarines

♦ The term " monitors " is not strictly accurate as applied to these vessels.
The original Monitor was a low-freeboard, light-draft turret ship, invented by Erics-
son, which fought the Merrimac in Hampton Roads during the American Civil
War. Its appearance, when cleared for action, was not unUke a big submarine
operating on the surface. The vital feature of the Monitor, apart from its light
draught, was that its guns were mounted in a central closed turret, so that they
could be trained in any direction and used in narrow channels where broadsides
would be impossible.

346 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

could not manoeuvre in the shallow water, and the torpedoes which
they fired, being set at a much greater depth than the monitors'
draught, passed harmlessly beneath their hulls. Our naval guns
swept the country for some six miles inland, and the German
right was pushed away from the coast. On the 20th Lombartzyde
had fallen, but it was presently recovered. Nieuport was saved,
and the German attack on the Yser was possible only beyond the
range of the leviathans from the sea.

But the battle for the coast route was only beginning. The
Duke of Wiirtemberg was now in command, and with him were the
four new reserve corps — the 22nd north of Dixmude, the 23rd
against Dixmude itself, and the 26th and 27th against the weak
Belgian right and British left. Joffre still hoped to press east along
the coast, and Grossetti's 42nd Division — the heroes of Foch's stand
at the Marne — which arrived on the 22nd, was ordered to advance
from the Nieuport bridgehead. Grossetti, assisted by the guns of
Hood's ships, pushed on to Westende, but on the 24th he was
hurriedly recalled to reinforce the Belgian centre. For during the
previous days, out of range of the British fleet, the Germans had
been struggling desperately for the Yser passage. On the 22nd they
had won the west bank in the Tervaete loop, and also carried the
Schoorbakke bridgehead, while the strife at Dixmude had been
bitter and continuous. On Friday, the 23rd, a body of Germans
succeeded in crossing at St. Georges and forcing their way almost
to Ramscappelle on the railway. There, however, the Belgians drove
them back, and that day they gained no further footing on the
western bank. On that night, too, no less than fourteen attacks
were made upon Dixmude, and were driven back by Admiral
Ronarc'h and his sailors. Next day another great effort was
made at Schoorbakke by the bridge which carried the Pervyse road,
and also at a point in the loop of the canal immediately to the south.
About 5,000 men crossed, and at midnight they held the positions
they had gained. On Sunday, the 25th, there was a crossing in
greater force, and for a moment it looked as if the line of the Yser
had been lost. But in that country it is one thing to gain a position
on the west bank and quite another to be able to advance from it
through the miry fields, intersected with countless sluggish rivulets.
As the Germans tried to deploy from each bridgehead they were
met with stubborn resistance from the Belgian and French en-
trenched among the dykes. For three days those ragged battalions
fought a desperate action in the meadows. Every yard was con-
tested, and the German progress was slow and costly. But even in

1914] THE BELGIANS OPEN THE DYKES. 347

country where the defence has a natural advantage numbers are
bound to tell, and the steady stream of German reinforcements was
pressing back the French and Belgians. By the 28th they had
retired almost to the Dixmude-Nieuport railway, which ran on an
embankment above the level of the fields. The Emperor was
with the Duke of Wiirtemberg, and under his eye the German attack
grew hourly in impetus. Another day, and the Allied left might
have been broken.

In that moment of crisis the Belgians played their last card.
Once more they sought aid from the water, and, after the fashion
of their ancestors, broke down the dykes. The past week had been
heavy with rains, and the canalized Yser was brimming to its
bank. Under cover of the British naval guns the Belgian left
had been hard at work near Nieuport. They had dammed the
lower reaches of the canal, and on the 28th achieved their purpose.
The Yser lipped over its brim, and spread in great lagoons over the
flat meadows. The German forces on the west bank found them-
selves floundering in a foot of water, while their guns were water-
logged and deep in mud. On the few dry patches they kept their
ground, but all the intervening land was impossible. The Belgians
had fallen back to a position beliind the Dixmude-Nieuport railway.

Duke Albrecht did not at once give up the attempt. The floods
were bad enough, but they were still not impassable. It was
clear that the Belgians had larger schemes of inundation, and it
became the German aim to win to the railway before these could
be put into execution. The obvious point of vantage was the
village of Ramscappelle, and on 30th October, moving from the
bridgeheads at St. Georges and Schoorbakke, the Wiirtembergers
advanced to the attack. They waded through the sloppy fields
covered with several inches of water, and by means of " table-tops "
— broad planks carried on the men's backs — crossed the deeper dykes.
So furiously was the attack pressed home that they won to the rail-
way line and seized Pervyse and Ramscappelle. But early on the
31st troops of the French 42nd Division and of the 2nd and 3rd
Belgian Divisions counter-attacked, and after a stubborn battle
drove out the Germans from the villages, and hurled them back into
the lagoons. The Wiirtembergers retired from the ruins, and found
a position in the meadows where the flood was comparatively
shallow.

But in the meantime the Belgians, largely under the inspiration
of General Bridges of the British Mission, had prepared a greater
destruction. Far and wide in all the drainage area of the Yser

348 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.-Nov.

they had succeeded by now in opening the sluices of the canals.
Suddenly on all sides the water rose. Dammed at its mouth, and
fed by a thousand little floods, the Yser spread itself in seething
brown waves over the whole country up to the railway line. The
depth now was not of inches but of feet. The Germans, caught in
the tide, were drowned in scores. A black nozzle of a field gun
would show for a moment above the current, and presently dis-
appear. All the while the AlHed gun positions at Nieuport and
Ramscappelle and Pervyse, and west of Dixmude, shelled the drown-
ing troops. Some escaped ; many struggled out on the wrong side,
and were made prisoners. The attack had failed finally and dis-
astrously. The Emperor, who had watched the operations through
his glasses, shut them up and turned away. The coast road was
barred, and he must look for success farther south, at Ypres or
La Bassee.

The flooding of the Yser marked the end of the main struggle
for the shortest route to Calais. The Belgians and French now
held a Hne resting on Nieuport, and following the railway by
Ramscappelle and Pervyse to Dixmude. Between them and the
enemy lay a mile or two of muddy waters. Nieuport was safe,
for it was protected by British guns from the sea. The Belgians,
who had lost a quarter of their effectives, began to counter-attack
on the left, and pushed forward advanced posts towards Middel-
kerke and Westende. Presently the Germans had evacuated the
whole of the west bank of the Yser — that is, the few dry spots
where troops could maintain themselves. They managed to check
the Belgian advance in the north, and on 7th November retook
Lombartzyde. But in this section their main efforts were now
directed against Dixmude, which was the only point where a
bridgehead, if won, could be maintained. The defence of the town
by Ronarc'h's marines and the Belgian 5th Division was one of the
conspicuous feats of the war. It was a vital position, for its capture
by the Germans at any time before ist November would have
meant the turning of the Belgian right. The Belgian batteries had
been placed with great skill to the west of the town, and a big
flour mill gave a good observation post. The garrison had desperate
fighting on i6th October, and won a few days' respite, which
enabled them to complete their defences. On the 19th they had
to meet a heavy attack, which drove in their advanced posts upon
the town. Thereafter they had to face a terrific bombardment,
which battered Dixmude to pieces. On the night of the 23rd and
24th they had to withstand fourteen different assaults. But the

1914] THE STRUGGLE AT LA BASSliE. 349

defence held firm, and Dixmude did not fall till its fall was no
longer vital. After a heavy bombardment the Germans took the
town on the evening of loth November, and captured a few hundred
prisoners. But it gave them no advantage. There was still half
a mile of floods between them and the Belgians, and by that date
the first fury of their attack had been gravely weakened. For in
the great battle to the south, after three weeks of constant struggle,
the flower of their armies had been repelled everywhere from the
Allied lines.

We pass over the twenty miles which separate Dixmude from
the Lys, and which constituted the terrain of the Battle of Ypres.
Pulteney's 3rd Corps, with Allenby's cavalry on its left and Con-
neau's French cavalry on its right, occupied, as we have seen, on
19th October, a position running from east of Messines southward
by the east of Armentieres to a point to the west of Radinghem.
The fighting on this section may be most conveniently dealt with
in connection with the Battle of Ypres, of which it formed the
extreme right. For the present we will consider only the work of
Smith-Dorrien's 2nd Corps, which was engaged in repelling the
German advance from Lille against La Bassee and Bethune.

On 19th October the 2nd Corps held a line pivoting on Givenchy
in the south, and then running east in a saUent north of the La
Bassee-Lille road to the village of Herlies, where it bent west-
ward to Aubers, and connected with Conneau's cavalry in the
neighbourhood of the La Bassee-Armentieres highway. The 5th
Division was on the right of the front, and the 3rd Division to
the north of it. The Germans, the centre of the Crown Prince of
Bavaria's huge command, held La Bassee, the line of the La Bassee-
Lille canal, and all the country immediately to the south and east.
Smith-Dorrien's first aim had been to strike at the fine La Bassee-
Lille in the neighbourhood of Fournes, and so, with the help of the
French Tenth Army, isolate the La Bassee position. But from the
20th onward, as he felt the surge of the great German advance, his
whole energies were devoted to maintaining his ground and blocking
the passage to Bethune and the west.

The main attack at La Bassee lasted for ten days — from 22nd
October to 2nd November — by which time the current of direction in
the battle had moved farther north against Ypres. On the morning
of the 22nd came the first big attack. The 5 th Division on the
British right was driven out of the village of Violaines, on the road
between Givenchy and Lorgies. Smith-Dorrien could now judge of

350 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct

the strength of the German movement, and he saw that the advanced
position of the 3rd Division on his left was untenable. Accordingly
that night he withdrew to the line running from just east of Givenchy
by Neuve Chapelle to Fauquissart, due south of Laventie. Two days
later, on the 24th, the enemy attacked heavily along the Une ; but
the British artillery prevented him getting to close quarters. By
this time the 2nd Corps, which had been for ten days more or less
constantly under fire, was getting exhausted, and it became very
necessary to find supports. These had arrived a few days before
in the shape of the Lahore Division of the Indian Corps. The
Ferozepore Brigade of that division had been sent on the 22nd to sup-
port Allenby's cavalry, and the remainder was now used to support
the left rear of the 2nd Corps. One brigade was entrenched on
the extreme left, to take over the ground formerly occupied by
Conneau's French cavalry, which was needed farther north.

On the 27th the Germans got into Neuve Chapelle, and for the
succeeding few days the main fighting continued on the left of the
2nd Corps. Next day the Indian troops were given their first taste
of battle, with various British battahons interspersed among them,
and the 2nd Cavalry Brigade in support. Their task was the re-
taking of Neuve Chapelle. The 3rd Division was by this time
very weary and reduced, the staff work had become faulty, and the
attack was inadequately supported, except by the cavalry. The
fighting on both sides was desperate and confused, and the Germans
flung the bodies of their dead from their trenches to make cover
under which they could advance. No sooner had the British won
a hundred yards than the counter-attack came, and the lines
swayed backwards and forwards, before and behind the ruins which
had once been Neuve Chapelle. At the end of the month the Meerut
Division arrived, and two days later came the Secunderabad Cavalry
Brigade and the Jodhpur Lancers. The Indian Corps was now
constituted under the command of Sir James Willcocks, and the
much-tried 2nd Corps was partially withdrawn into reserve.
Its rest was short, for very soon some of its battalions had to be
sent north to take their part in the fight which raged round Ypres.
The defence of the La Bassee gate was now chiefly in the hands of
the Indians, aided by two and a half British brigades and most
of the 2nd Corps Artillery.

The story of the next three weeks in this section is one of
repeated attacks, gradually slackening off owing to the concentra-
tion against Ypres. Ypres was a providential intervention, for
It is difficult to believe that, if the attack had been delivered with

1914] THE INDIAN CORPS. 351

the violence of the fighting on 22nd October and earlier, our line
could have held its position. As it was, it was slowly forced back
till it ran from Givenchy, to which we stubbornly clung, north by
Festubert towards Estaires. An attack on Givenchy on 7th
November failed signally. Then for a fortnight the campaign
here degenerated into an artillery duel, and our men were given a
welcome chance of improving and elaborating their line of trenches.
On the work of the Indians we have Sir John French's testi-
mony : " Since their arrival in this country and their occupation
of the line allotted to them, I have been much impressed by the
initiative and resource displayed by the Indian troops. Some
of the ruses they have employed to deceive the enemy have been
attended with the best results, and have doubtless kept superior
forces in front of them at bay." In Britain the ordinary man,
accustomed to tales of the prowess of Sikh and Gurkha, was in-
clined to think them invincible, and forget that they had been
brought to an unfamiHar type of warfare, and that the finest
troops in the world may get into trouble in an uncongenial task.
The strangeness of the whole situation — the great howitzer shells,
the endless stream of shrapnel, the mole warfare of the trenches,
and all the black magic of the white man's war — cannot but have
shaken the nerves at first of the Indian soldiers. It is to their
eternal credit that they so quickly recovered ; but when the line
wavered and cracked here and there it meant a heavy mortality
among the flanking troops, and among the white and native
officers. Of their splendid courage there was never a moment's
doubt. W'Tien Indian troops broke it was just as often forward
as backward. We must remember, too, that they had very few
chances, except in night work, of revealing their special excellences.
Too rarely came the charge, where Sikh and Pathan and Gurkha
could show their unique elan. When it came, the Germans learned
what many a frontier tribe has known to its cost. The climate was
their chief enemy. Many who watched their arrival at Marseilles
had given them four months to last out in a European winter.
Up till 5th November there was incessant fog and rain. Then
came a week of bright weather till the nth, and then a bitter
sleet began, to be followed by frost, and presently by snow. The
Indian can stand cold of a kind, as he proved in the Tibetan
Expedition, but his diet and his habits ill fit him to resist long-
continued wet and the damp cold of our north. They suffered
terribly from the unfamiliar weather, and physical stamina gave
way in many whom no enemy's fire could unnerve.

352 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

The last stroke against Arras, which, properly dealt, would
have been the greatest menace of all, was delivered from 20th
October to 26th October. Before that the battle had raged
chiefly around Maud'huy's left centre. The possession of Lens
gave the Germans one great advantage, for south from the town
ran a railway which, three miles east of Arras, connected with
the main hne, Arras-Douai-Lille. When the German front was
pushed west of this it was in possession of perfect lateral com-
munications. The first German aim was to drive in Maud'huy's
left, and, by extending to Bethune, come in on the right rear of
the British 2nd Corps. If it succeeded, then an advance from
Lille would force the British back into the triangle between the
Germans and the Channel. But after the 20th the objective
changed to Arras itself, and Prince Rupprecht seemed to awake
to the immense possibiHties of the gate which the city provided.
If he succeeded, not only would the Channel ports fall to him, not
only would he recover the northern road to Paris, but he would
have achieved what had always been the main German objective
and split the Allied line into two parts, which would be driven
asunder by a broadening wedge. The southern half might retire
in good order, but there would be no way of escape for the northern.
It was what Hausen had done on the Meuse, what the Duke of
Wiirtemberg had failed to do at Vitry, and Biilow at Rheims.
Had some of the German forces which at the time were butting
their heads against the Ypres Salient or struggling in the Yser
bogs been brought to aid the task, the odds are that it would
have been accomplished.

Happily for Maud'huy's slender army the attack was not made
one of the major operations. It was vigorously pressed, but
advantage could not be followed up, because of the growing demands
of the northern battles. The German guns were now near enough
to bombard the city a second time, and for a week shells rained
in its ancient streets. The Hotel de Ville, one of the oldest and
finest buildings in France, was ruined, and whole quarters were
reduced to debris. But the destruction of Arras did not give the
enemy possession. All attempts to break the French line failed,
and by the 26th Maud'huy had begun to retaliate. The tradi-
tional furia francese has never been seen to better purpose than
in the counter-attacks which in many places pushed the Germans
out of their advanced trenches, and restored to the French some
of the Httle villages in the flats of the Scheldt. Bit by bit the
circle was widened, till Arras was beyond the reach of the German

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(Oct.-Nov. 1914).

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1914] YPRES. 353

howitzers, and the inhabitants began to return to their ruined
dwelHngs. The enemy held the Vimy ridge, and his hnes lay in
a loop round the city, but he was never fated to enter its streets.
By the beginning of November the attack had failed ; and it was
not likely to be renewed, for Prince Rupprecht's best corps were
demanded for the north, where before Ypres was being fought
the longest, bloodiest, and most desperate combat in the history
of British arms.

III.

The little city of Ypres, now only the shade of its former grandeur,
stood midway between the smoky industrial beehive of the Lys
and the well-tilled flats of the Yser. Once it had been the centre
of the wool-trade of Flanders, and its noble Cloth Hall, dating
from the twelfth century, testified to its vanished mercantile pre-
eminence. No Flemish town could boast a prouder history. It
was the red-coated burghers of Ypres who, with the men of Bruges
and Courtrai, marched in July 1302 against Count Robert of
Artois, and inveigled the chivalry of France into a tangle of dykes
and marshes, from which few of the proud horsemen escaped.
Seven hundred pairs of gilded spurs were hung in the x\bbey church
of Courtrai as spoil of battle, and the prowess of the burgher
infantry on that fatal field established the hitherto despised foot-
soldier as the backbone of all future armies. Ypres possessed,
too, a Hnk with British records. Till the other day, in one of its
convents hung the British flag which Clare's regiment, fighting
for France, captured at RamilHes. The town stood on a tiny
stream, the Yperlee, a tributary of the Yser, which had long ago
been canalized. A single-line railway passed through it from
Roulers to the main Lille-St. Omer hne at Hazebrouck. An
important canal ran from the Yser in the north to the river Lys
at Comines, and two miles south of the town, at the village of St.
Eloi, turned eastward, bending south again in a broad angle be-
tween Hollebeke and Zandvoorde. To the east there were con-
siderable patches of forest between Bixschoote and the Lys valley.
A series of slight ridges rose towards the south and east in a curve
just inside the Belgian frontier from west of Messines to the neigh-
bourhood of Zonnebeke. For the rest, the country was dead
flat, so that the spires of Ypres made a landmark for many miles.
On all sides from the town radiated the cobbled Flemish roads,

354 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

the two main highways on the east being those to Roulers and to
Menin, with an important connecting road cutting the latter five
miles from Ypres at the village of Gheluvelt.

On the evening of the 19th the Allied offensive had \drtually
ceased. First one and then another of the three strategic possi-
bilities had been frustrated. We were aware that at last we had
reached the main German front in position everywhere from
Lille to the sea, and daily growing in numbers which threatened
to fall in a tidal wave upon the thin and far-stretched Allied line.
But Sir John French, though cognizant of the enemy's strength,
was not yet fully informed about its details, and he made one more
effort to break through with a counterstroke. Haig with the ist
Corps had, as we have seen, arrived behind the front on the 19th,
and had been directed to move to the north of Ypres in the direc-
tion of Thourout. " The object he was to have in view," Sir
John wrote, " was to be the capture of Bruges, and subsequently,
if possible, to drive the enemy towards Ghent." Had it been
possible, the move would have had great strategic advantages.
It would have hemmed in Beseler on the sea coast, and prevented
reinforcements reaching him from the south, while it would have
provided a basis for a turning movement against the flank of the
enemy's main front. But Sir John French had his doubts about
its possibility, and Haig was instructed after passing Ypres to use
his own judgment. As the ist Corps advanced to the north of
Ypres it had Bidon's divisions of French Territorials and Mitry's
cavalry on its left, extending from Bixschoote north through the
forest of Houthulst. On its right it had Byng's 3rd Cavalry
Di\dsion, and south of Byng was the British 7th Division — the
two forming Rawlinson's 4th Corps, which was directed to con-
form generally to Haig's movements.

The ist Corps had borne the brunt of the fighting on the Aisne,
and had had no rest save such as was afforded by the journey to
the north. On Tuesday, the 20th, it advanced to a line extending
from Bixschoote to the cross-roads a mile and a half north-west
of Zonnebeke, with the 2nd Division on the right of its front, and
the ist Division on the left. That day it had no fighting, but the
cavalry on its flanks were heavily engaged. Byng's Division not
only protected its right, along with detachments of French
Territorials, but was feeling its way some miles in advance. The
French in Poelcappelle were driven out by shell-fire in the afternoon,
and Byng was compelled to fall back towards Langemarck. The
position, therefore, on the morning of the 21st was — on the extreme

1914] THE ATTACK O^ THE SALIENT. 355

left, north-east of Ypres, divisions of Bidon's Territorials and some
of Mitry's cavalry ; then the British ist Division, between Bix-
schoote and Langemarck ; then the 2nd Division, extending to
near Zonnebeke, with Byng's 3rd Cavalry Division in support
on its right rear ; then the 7th Division to the east of the Ghelu-
velt cross-roads. In front of Messines was AUenby's Cavalry
Corps, which had been attempting in vain the crossings of the
Lys ; after which came the hne of the 3rd Corps, ten miles long,
through Armentieres.

Clearly the immediate posts of danger in the Allied front were
the extreme left, between Bixschoote and Dixmude, and the right
centre around Zandvoorde, between the 7th Division and Alien-
by. But on the 21st the main enemy attack was not at these
points. It was delivered against the point of the salient between
Zonnebeke and Becelaere. Haig with the ist Corps advanced
successfully till about two o'clock in the afternoon, when news
came of trouble on his flanks. The French Territorials on the left
were driven out of the forest of Houthulst, and they and their
supports of the ist French Cavalry Corps retired across the Yser
Canal. At the same time he was informed that the 7th Division
and AUenby's 2nd Cavalry Division beyond it were heavily attacked,
and it became necessary to halt on the Une Bixschoote-Lange-
marck-St. Julien-Zonnebeke. That line marked the limits of the
last British offensive. Thourout and Bruges were now as inacces-
sible as the moon. The main fighting was along the front of the
7th Division, against which the left wing of the German IV. Army
was thrown. In the first place, its left was enfiladed by a German
movement against Zonnebeke, and for a Uttle looked Hke having its
flank turned. Not till the afternoon could Haig's 2nd Division link
up with it at the level crossing of the Ypres-Roulers railway and safe-
guard that danger-point. In the centre at Becelaere the Germans
succeeded in temporarily piercing our line. On the extreme right
a fierce assault was made from the direction of Houthem against
Gough's 2nd Cavalry Division in Klein Zillebeke. The only
reserves available were Byng's 3rd Cavalry Division, and from it
Kavanagh's 7th Brigade was directed to support the left of the
22nd Brigade, which it did successfully till help came from the
2nd Division. The 6th Cavalry Brigade was hurried south to
Zandvoorde in the afternoon, and filled the gap, occupying the
two canal crossings at HoUebeke. By the evening the whole of
Byng's cavalry had been moved to the right of the 7th Division,
linking up with Gough between HoUebeke and Wytschaete.

356 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

That evening Sir John French in Ypres had an anxious consulta-
tion with Haig and RawHnson, Mitry and Bidon. It was now
abundantly clear that the most they could do was to hold the
Ypres Salient from the Lys to Dixmude till Joffre could send
help — a length of fully thirty miles. For that purpose there was
the 1st Corps, the 3rd Corps (though Pulteney had also his own
separate battle to fight), the 7th Division of the 4th Corps, three
divisions of British cavalry, Mitry 's 2nd French Cavalry Corps
of four divisions, and Bidon's two divisions of French Territorials
— all told about 100,000 men, and some of the troops not of the
first Hne. French's first task was to arrange matters in Ypres,
which had become congested with French Territorials, and it
was decided that they should immediately move out and cover
the flank of Haig's ist Corps. He had that day seen Joffre, who
had told him that he was sending the 9th Corps to Ypres, that
d'Urbal's further forces were being rapidly concentrated, and
that he hoped presently to take the offensive. This help, how-
ever, could not arrive before the 24th, and for three days the
present Hne must maintain its precarious and extended front.

Thursday, the 22nd, was a heavy day all along the line. Haig,
being compelled to send help to the 7th Division, could do little
but maintain his defence. This he did with much loss to the enemy ;
but late in the evening a violent assault was made upon his left,
north of Pilkem, and the line was partially broken. Farther south,
the 7th Division was in a difficult place. In consequence of the
attack upon its 22nd Brigade it had retired its left, and so made a
sharp new saHent with the left of the 21st Brigade. Farther south
there was a long line from the Zandvoorde ridge to south of Mes-
sines held by the 3rd and 2nd Cavalry Divisions in trenches.
Round Hollebeke the Germans pressed hard, both with artillery
and infantry attacks, and their snipers greatly troubled our men.
But they did not press hard enough, for this long cavalry line
was our weak spot, and an attack in force would have broken
it and uncovered Ypres. Farther south Pulteney had been
having some anxious days. On the 20th the Germans had attacked
the advanced posts of the 12th Brigade on his left, driven them in,
and occupied Le Gheir, just north of the Lys. A counter-attack,
however, drove back the enemy with great loss, and occupied
the abandoned trenches. At this time the 3rd Corps was divided
into two halves by the Lys, and on the 22nd the centre held by
the 1 6th Brigade was heavily attacked from FreHnghien. It was
rapidly becoming necessary to shorten the line by drawing in the

1914] FABECK'S NEW ARMY GROUP. 357

right, and bringing Conneau's 2nd Cavalry Corps nearer Armen-
tieres.

The failure of the attack of the 22nd, especially that part
delivered by the 23rd Reserve Corps between Bixschoote and
Langemarck, seems to have convinced the enemy that he could
not break through in that quarter. The new corps had fought
with the utmost gallantry, but in the nature of things they could
not be depended upon in a protracted battle ; they must do their
work with their first impetus or not at all.* Accordingly Falken-
hayn began in all haste to pull out troops wherever they could
be spared and to constitute a new Army Group under the Wiirtem-
berger von Fabeck, to operate between the IV. and VI. Armies
against the Allied front from Ypres to the Lys. This new group
by itself was to start with almost the equivalent in numbers of the
British army, and was presently to consist of nine divisions of
infantry and four of cavalry. Its assembly was to be complete on
the 29th, and its attack was fixed for the 30th. Its formation
would allow the Duke of Wiirtemberg's left wing to concentrate
against Dixmude and the Ypres Canal.

On the morning of Friday, the 23rd, the position was as follows :
There was a bad dint in the British front on the left of the ist
Division ; there was an ugly sahent on the left of the 7th Division,
where the left of the 2i5t Brigade was brought to a sharp angle
by the " refusal " of the 22nd Brigade ; and a dint in the line of
the 2ist. An effort was made during the day to get rid of these
dangers. Major-General Bulfin restored the left of the ist
Division, and a furious enemy attack was beaten off in the Lange-
marck neighbourhood. There was also a determined frontal
attack on the 7th Division. That evening there came a welcome
relief. The 31st Division of the French i6th Corps and the bulk
of the French 9th Corps arrived and took over part of the front
held by the British ist Corps, which was thus enabled to extend
to the south, and relieve the hard-pressed 7th Division of the
northern end of the line near Zonnebeke.

Next day, the 24th, there was an advance upon our extreme
left. The French 9th Corps, the veterans of Sezanne and Rheims,
pushed forward between Zonnebeke and Poelcappelle, and won a
fair amount of ground. In the evening the fine of the ist Divi-
sion was taken over by French Territorials, and the former moved
to behind our front at Zillebeke. The 2nd Division had now

• See Freytag-Loringhoven's comments. Deductions from the World War (Eng.
trans.), pp. 118-119

358 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

closed up, and relieved the left wing of the 7th, and this relief
came just in time. For on that day the point of the saHent gave
way at last, and the Germans entered the Polygon Wood at Reytel,
west of Becelaere, destined to be the scene of much desperate
fighting in the days to come. The next day, Sunday the 25th,
saw the advance of the left continued. It was in the nature of
a counter-offensive to relieve the pressure on the centre, and it
temporarily succeeded, some guns and a number of prisoners
being taken. In the centre itself the Germans did not follow up
their achievement in the Polygon Wood ; they were waiting for
von Fabeck. At night an enveloping attack was made on the
saHent held by the 20th Brigade, at Kruseik, north-east of Zand-
voorde. It was renewed in force just before the wet misty dawn,
and all the morning the battle continued to rage around Kruseik
— a critical place, for if the saUent were broken there, the enemy
would gain possession of the Zandvoorde ridge. The situation was
saved after midday by a brilliant counter-attack of the 7th Cavalry
Brigade, who were in trenches at Zandvoorde. Meanwhile the
extreme British right under Pulteney had been hard pressed, and
it was resolved temporarily to shorten that part of the line which
was south of the Lys. The falHng back of the 2nd Corps in the
south, and the continuation of its front northward by Indian troops,
enabled Pulteney to take up this new position with the less risk.

On the evening of the 26th it was becoming clear that the line
of the 7th Division was dangerously advanced. All that night
its commander. General Capper, was busy readjusting his brigades.
The work was completed on the 27th, when the front ran as follows :
On the extreme left north of Bixschoote, the 87th French Terri-
torial Division ; from Bixschoote to Zonnebeke, the four divisions
of Mitry's cavalry, two divisions of the French 9th Corps and one
of the French i6th ; from east of Zonnebeke to the Gheluvelt
cross-roads, the ist Corps ; from Gheluvelt cross-roads to east of
Zandvoorde, the 7th Division ; from Zandvoorde to Klein Zillebeke,
Byng's 3rd Cavalry ; from Klein Zillebeke to east of Messines,
Allenby's Cavalry Corps ; and south of that, Pulteney's 3rd Corps.
That evening Sir John French visited Haig at Hooge and discussed
the position of affairs. The 7th Division for a month had been
engaged in continuous marching and fighting, and had suffered
terrible losses. It was resolved, accordingly, that RawHnson should
return to England to supervise his 8th Division, which was now
being formed, and that the 7th Division and the 3rd Cavalry
Division should be temporarily attached to the ist Corps.

I9I4J THE CRISIS IN THE SALIENT. 359

Next day, the 28th, there was Httle but shelHng on the front —
a dangerous lull which heralded the storm. The enemy was
gathering his forces for a cumulative attack upon our whole line.
On the morning of Thursday, the 29th — about 5.30 a.m. — the
British Staff learned of his intentions, for they intercepted a wire-
less message. It was the beginning of the sternest phase of the
struggle. The great battles of the world have not uncommonly
been fought in places worthy of so fierce a drama. The mountains
looked upon Marathon and Thermopylae, Marengo, Solferino, and
Plevna ; mighty plains gave dignity to Chalons and Borodino ;
the magic of the desert encompassed Arbela and Omdurman ; or
some fantasy of weather lent strangeness to death, like the snow
at Austerlitz or the harvest moon at Chattanooga, against which
was silhouetted Sheridan's charge. Ypres was stark carnage and
grim endurance, without glamour of earth or sky. The sullen
heavens hung low over the dank fields, the dripping woods, the
mean houses, and all the sour and unsightly land. It was such a
struggle as Lee's Wilderness stand, where, amid tattered scrub
and dismal swamps, the ragged soldiers of the Confederacy fought
their last battles. The worst danger lay in the re-entrants of the
Salient, to the north between Bixschoote and Zonnebeke, and
to the south between Zandvoorde and Messines. The Germans,
confident in their numbers, attacked both, and they also drove
hard against the point of the bastion in front of Gheluvelt.
As time went on, their main efforts tended to concentrate on the
southern re-entrant, where were the cavalry and the right of the
7th Division.

Very early on Thursday, the 29th, in a sudden spell of clear
weather, the first wave broke against the centre of the ist Corps
at the point of the Salient on the Gheluvelt cross-roads. The ist
Division was driven back from its trenches, and all morning the
line swayed backwards and forwards. It was an enemy reconnais-
sance to prepare the way for von Fabeck. Before the dark we had
recaptured the ridge at Kruseik, and the front line was reconstituted.
South of Kruseik the fighting fell chiefly to Byng's cavalry, while
on Pulteney's front there was an attack on Le Gheir and in the
Ploegsteert Wood.

The 30th was the day fixed for the main German attack. The
Duke of Wiirtemberg was to press hard on his left against Bix-
schoote and Langemarck, while the left of a new Reserve Corps,
the 27th, was directed on Gheluvelt. South of it, against the
southern side and the southern re-entrant of the Salient, moved

36o A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

von Fabeck — his 15th Corps under Deimling south of the Menin
road, and his 2nd Bavarian Corps against the Messines ridge.

Daylight had scarcely come when the battle began. Wiirtem-
berg attacked with his three new reserve corps, took the ruins
of Bixschoote, but failed to drive the French from Langemarck.
The impact of von Fabeck was first felt by Byng's cavalry on the
Zandvoorde ridge. The Germans, who had a great weight of
heavy artillery, simply blew the British trenches to pieces. One
troop was buried alive, and soon the whole division was compelled
to fall back a mile to the ridge of Klein Zillebeke on the north.
The right of the ist Division was thus uncovered, and had to
retire to conform, and the Gheluvelt Salient was made so much
the sharper. Allenby sent up supports, and with their assistance
Byng held the Klein Zillebeke position till the evening, when
Lord Cavan's 4th (Guards) Brigade from the 2nd Division arrived
and took over the line. Haig resolved that the front from Gheluvelt
to the angle of the canal south of Klein Zillebeke must be held at
all costs. He accordingly brought the 2nd Brigade to the rear of
the line held by the ist Division and Cavan's 4th Brigade, placed
a battalion in reserve at Hooge, and borrowed from the French
9th Corps three battalions and one cavalry brigade. The situa-
tion was desperately critical. If the Germans got to the Ypres-
Comines canal at any point north of Hollebeke they would speedily
cut the communications of the ist Corps holding the Salient,
and nothing would lie between them and Ypres itself. The
Emperor was with his men, and had told the Bavarians that the
winning of the town would determine the issue of the war. It
would certainly have determined the fate of the ist Corps, which
would have been wholly isolated and destroyed.

Nor was the peril at Klein Zillebeke all. Farther south the 2nd
Cavalry Division had been driven out of Hollebeke, and had fallen
back on St. Eloi, on the Ypres-Armentieres road. The ist Cavalry
Division sent help, and were presently themselves in heavy conflict
round Messines, which was bombarded by the German howitzers.
Pulteney, too, in the south had the line of the nth Brigade broken
at St. Yves, but the situation was saved by a spirited counter-
attack. It was becoming clear that he would have to extend his
already attenuated line, for the ist Cavalry Division on his left
must be supported. Reinforcements had already come up from
the 2nd Corps. Four battalions, which had been relieved by the
Indian troops, were posted at Neuve Eglise, on the road between
Messines and Bailleul, as reserves for the cavalry. Lastly, to

1914] THE AFTERNOON OF THE 31ST. 361

conclude the events of this day, the 7th Division north of Zand-
voorde was given no peace. The Alhed Hne at this point was
now retired to just east of Gheluvelt, where was the 7th Division,
and to the corner of the canal near Klein Zillebeke, where were the
2nd and 4th Brigades, assisted by General Moussy's troops from
the 9th French Corps, and with the 3rd Cavalry Division in
reserve.

Next day came the crisis. The fighting began early along the
Menin-Ypres road, and presently the attack developed in great
force against Gheluvelt village. The ist Division was driven back
from Gheluvelt to the woods between Hooge and Veldhoek. The
headquarters at Hooge of the ist and 2nd Divisions were shelled.
General Lomax was badly wounded, General Monro stunned, six of
their staff officers were killed, and the command of the ist Division
passed to General Landon of the 3rd Brigade. Meantime the falling
back of this part of the Hne menaced the flank of the 7th Division.
On the right of that division Bulfin's detachment, consisting of the
2nd and 4th Brigades, which had been brought there from the ist
Corps, was exposed by the attack on its left-hand neighbours.
The 2nd Brigade fell back just as the right of the 7th Division,
having been reinforced, advanced again. This right — the 20th
Brigade — was once more exposed, but it managed to cling to its
trenches till the evening. On Bulfin's right Moussy, with his
troops of the 9th French Corps, was struggling hard to keep the
line intact towards Klein Zillebeke. He had come to the British
assistance in the nick of time, as sixty years before the French
army at the same season of the year had come to our aid at Inker-
man. He held the line, but he could make no advance to relieve
the sore-pressed 2nd and 4th Brigades. Indeed, at one moment
it looked as if he might have to yield, but he saved himself by
novel reinforcements. He bade the corporal commanding his
escort collect every available man, from cooks to cuirassiers.
It was a repetition of Bruce's camp followers at Bannockburn,
or the charge of Sir John Moore's ambulance men in the retreat
to Corunna. The bold adventure prospered, and Moussy was
able to hold his ground.

Meantime Allenby's cavalry farther south were also in straits.
He had the whole hne to hold from Klein Zillebeke by Hollebeke
to south of Messines, and his sole reinforcements at the time were
the two much exhausted battalions of the 7th Indian Brigade
sent up from the 2nd Corps. Byng, who had his 3rd Cavalry
Division at Hooge, pushed forward Kavanagh's 7th Brigade, which

362 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

took up the line south of the canal near Hollebeke, while the 6th
Brigade was ordered to clear the woods between Hooge and Ghelu-
velt. Even with this assistance Allenby had no light task. He
had to hold up the advance of two nearly fresh German corps till
such time as Conneau could be brought from the south and the
troops of the French i6th Corps could arrive. Hollebeke and
most of the Messines ridge were lost, and the position there was not
the least desperate of that desperate day.

Between two and three o'clock on Saturday, the 31st, was the
most critical hour in the whole battle. The ist Division had
fallen back from Gheluvelt to a line resting on the junction of the
Frezenberg road with the Ypres-Menin highway. It had suffered
terribly, and its general had been sorely wounded. On its right
the 7th Division had been bent back to the Klein Zillebeke ridge,
while Bulfin's two brigades were just holding on, as was Moussy
on their right. Allenby's cavalry were fighting an apparently
hopeless battle on a long line, and it seemed as if the slightest for-
ward pressure would crumble the Ypres defence. The enemy was
beginning to pour through the Gheluvelt gap, and at the same
time pressed hard on the whole arc of the SaHent. There were
no reserves except an odd battalion or two and some regiments of
cavalry, all of which had already been sorely tried during the
past days. French sent an urgent message to Foch for rein-
forcements, and was refused. At the end of the battle he learned
the reason. Foch had none to send, and his own losses had been
greater than ours. Between 2 and 2.30 Haig was on the Menin
road, grappling with the crisis. It seemed impossible to stop
the gap, though on its northern side some South Wales Borderers
were gallantly holding a sunken road and galling the flank of
the German advance. He gave orders to retire to a hne a little
west of Hooge and stand there, though he well knew that no stand,
however heroic, could save the town. He foresaw a retirement
west of Ypres, and French, who had joined him, agreed.

And then suddenly out of the void came a strange story. A
white-faced staff officer reported that something odd was happen-
ing north of the Menin road. The enemy advance had halted !
Then came the word that the ist Division was re-forming. The
anxious generals could scarcely believe their ears, for it sounded a
sheer miracle. But presently came the proof, though it was not for
months that the full tale was known. Brigadier-General Fitz-
Clarence, commanding the ist (Guards) Brigade in the ist Division,
had sent in his last reserves and failed to stop the gap. He then

The Battlefield of Ypres: Winter
Froyn a painting, by D. Y. Cameron, R.A.

1914] THE 2ND WORCESTERS. 363

rode off to the headquarters of the division to explain how des-
perate was the position. But on the way, at the south-west corner
of the Polygon Wood, he stumbled upon a battalion waiting in
support. It was the 2nd Worcesters,* who were part of the right
brigade of the 2nd Division. FitzClarence saw in them his last
chance. They belonged to another division, but it was no time
to stand on ceremony, and the officer in command at once put
them at his disposal. The Worcesters, under very heavy artillery
fire, advanced in a series of rushes for about a thousand yards be-
tween the right of the South Wales Borderers and the northern edge
of Gheluvelt. Like Cole's fusiliers at Albuera, they came suddenly
and unexpectedly upon the foe. There they dug themselves in,
broke up the German advance into bunches, enfiladed it heavily,
and brought it to a standstill. This allowed the 7th Division to get
back to its old line, and the 6th Cavalry Brigade to fill the gap be-
tween the 7th and the ist Divisions. Before night fell the German
advance west of Gheluvelt was stayed, and the British front was out
of immediate danger.

On Sunday, ist November, the wearied British line received
reinforcements. Divisions from the French i6th and 20th Corps
arrived to take over part of the line held by Allenby's cavalry.
With them came Conneau's 2nd Cavalry Corps, transferred from
its place between the 2nd and 3rd British Corps. That day was
remarkable for the hard shelling of our front, and two isolated at-
tacks, one against Bulfin's 2nd and 4th Brigades at Klein Zillebeke,
and the other against Allenby on the Messines ridge. The first
was beaten back with the assistance of Byng's cavalry, who con-
tinued for the next few days to act as a general reserve and support
to the Gheluvelt Salient. But the assault on Allenby was a
serious matter. During the night the Germans, breaking through
on the left flank of the ist Cavalry Division, reached the edge of
Wytschaete, on the Ypres-Armentieres road. In spite of a most
gallant defence by the French the Bavarians carried the village
before the evening. Messines, too, had been since early morning
in German hands, making an ugly dent in our Une, which now ran
from Le Gheir to the west of Messines, west of Wytschaete, by St.
Eloi and Klein Zillebeke to west of Gheluvelt.

For five days the battle slackened into an artillery duel, and
our weary men had a breathing space. On 5th November the line

• The Worcesters — the old 29th and 36th — had a great record in the Peninsula.
The 29th was at Talavera and Albuera, and Wellington called it " the best regiment
in the army." The 36th lost a fourth of its numbers at Salamanca, and suffered
heavily at Toulouse.

364 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.-Nov.

was readjusted, and some relief was given to the 7th Division,
which was now reduced from 12,000 men and 400 officers to a
little over 3,000. Fourteen battalions from the 2nd Corps, two
Territorial battalions, and two regiments of Yeomanry now took
their share of the line. The enemy also rearranged his plans. The
Fabeck group had failed in its main purpose, and must be strength-
ened both with guns and troops. The two minor groups under
Gerok and Urach on the Messines ridge had also exhausted their
impetus. Accordingly a new group was formed under Linsingen,
consisting of the 15th Corps and a corps under Baron von Platten-
berg, which included a composite division of the Prussian Guard.
This group was to attack on the nth north of the Ypres-Comines
canal. Meantime, on Friday the 6th, a sudden assault was made
on the Klein Zillebeke position, held by Bulfin's 2nd and 4th
Brigades and Moussy's French division. In the afternoon the
French on the right towards the canal were driven in, and Cavan's
4th Brigade was left in the air. The only reserve available was
Byng's cavalry north of the Zillebeke-Klein Zillebeke road. Ka-
vanagh deployed the ist and 2nd Life Guards, with the Blues in
reserve behind the centre, and his advance assisted the French
to resume their trenches. But the German attack was being
pressed in force, and the French came back again upon the House-
hold Cavalry, a couple of whose squadrons were doubled across
the road to stem the rush. For a moment there was wild confu-
sion— French, British, and the oncoming Germans being mingled
together in the village street. Major the Hon. Hugh Dawnay, who
had come from the Headquarters Staff to command the 2nd Life
Guards, led his men to the charge, and inflicted heavy losses upon
the foe. Two hundred years before, the French Maison du Roi
had charged desperately in Flemish fields, the splendid Gants glacis,
with their lace and steel, their plumed hats and mettled horses.
Very different was the attack of the British Household Cavalry —
mud-splashed men in drab charging on foot with the bayonet.
In this action Hugh Dawnay fell, but not before his advance had
saved the position. In him Britain lost one of the most brilliant
of her younger soldiers, most masterful both in character and in
brain, who, had he lived, would without doubt have risen to the
highest place. He would wish no better epitaph than Napier's
words : "No man died that night with more glory — yet many
died, and there was much glory."*

Once more came a period of ominous quietness. It lasted

* Peninsular War, Book XVI., ch. 5.

1914] ATTACK OF THE PRUSSIAN GUARD. 365

through the 8th, 9th, and loth, when nothing happened but a
little shelling. Then on Wednesday, the nth, came the supreme
effort. As Napoleon had used his Guards for the final attack at
Waterloo, so the Emperor used his for the culminating stroke at
Ypres. The ist and 4th Brigades of the Prussian Guard * were
launched on both sides of the Menin road. At first they used their
parade march, and our men, rubbing their eyes in the darkness of
the small hours, could scarcely credit the portent. Long before
they reached the shock our fire had taken toll of them, but so
mighty is discipline that their impact told. The ist Brigade and
the left brigade of the 3rd Division bore the brunt of the charge,
and at several points the enemy pierced our front and won the
woods to the west. Thence he was presently driven out with
heavy losses, and his ist Regiment, which had got beyond the
Nonne Bosch Wood, was checked and routed by the 2nd Oxford
and Bucks Light Infantry. A Une of strong-points prepared by
Haig's engineers was the high-water mark of the attack. On that
day fell Brigadier-General Charles FitzClarence, V.C, commanding
the ist Brigade, the hero of 31st October, a soldier whose mihtary
skill was not less conspicuous than his courage.

With the failure of the Prussian Guard the enemy seemed to
have exhausted his vitality. His tide of men had failed to swamp
the thin Allied lines, and, wearied out, and with terrible losses, he
slackened his efforts and fell back upon the routine of trench war-
fare. To complete the tale we must glance at what had been
happening on the extreme left of the Ypres Salient, where the bulk
of Dubois' 9th Corps held the line from Zonnebeke to Bixschoote,
and linked up with the battle on the Yser, He had with him to
complete his front Bidon's Territorial divisions and most of
Mitry's ist Cavalry Corps, and against him came, as we have seen,
the bulk of the new German formations. The enemy tried to
press beyond the ruins of Bixschoote to the canal, the winning of
which would have turned the Ypres position on the north — an
objective much the same as the corner of the Ypres-Comines canal
at Klein Zillebeke. In spite of desperate efforts he failed to
advance at that critical point, and Langemarck remained untaken.
By 15th November the vigour of the assault was ebbing, as it
had ebbed four days before at the point of the Ypres bastion.

On 1 2th November and the following days a spasmodic assault

• The brigades — thirteen battalions in all— comprised the ist and 3rd regiments
of Foot Guards, the Kaiser Franz Grenadier Regiment, No. 2, the Konigen Augusta
Grenadier Regiment, No. 4.

366 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.-Nov.

was made on the Klein Zillebeke positions, and along the whole
line towards Messines. On the i6th an attempt was made on the
southern re-entrant, which failed, and the sheUing of Ypres con-
tinued, till its Cloth Hall and its great Church of St. Martin were
in ruins. On the 17th the German 15th Corps made a desperate
effort at the same point, but was repulsed. Presently further
French reinforcements came up, and the sorely tried British troops
were relieved from the trenches which they had held for four stub-
born weeks. The weather had changed to high winds and snow
blizzards, and in a tempest the First Battle of Ypres died away.

First Ypres must rank as one of the most remarkable contests
of the war ; it is certainly one of the most remarkable in the record
of the British army. Let us put the achievement in the simplest
terms. Between Armentieres and the sea the Germans had, apart
from their cavalry, which was double that of the AlHes, thirty-one
divisions and thirty-two battaUons, a total of 402 battaHons, as
against 267 Allied battalions. The greater part of their troops
were of the first hue, and even the new formations were terrible in
assault— more terrible than the veterans, perhaps, for they were
still unwearied, and the edge of their keenness was undulled. The
immature boys and elderly men, who often fell to pieces before our
counter-attacks, came on with incredible valour in their early
charges. They were like the soldiers of the Revolution— the more
dangerous at times because they did not fight by rule. Against
the part of this force which faced them the British opposed five
infantry divisions, three of them very weak. In the actual SaUent
of Ypres they had three divisions and some cavalry. For the better
part of two days one division held a front of eight miles against two
army corps. At all stages the Germans had an immense superi-
ority in guns. In this mad mellay strange things happened. Units
became hopelessly mixed, and officers had to fling into the breach
whatever men they could collect. A subaltern often found him-
self in command of a battahon ; a brigadier commanded one or
two companies, or a division, as the fates ordered. At one moment
a certain brigadier had no less than thirteen battahons under him.
We can best realize the desperate nature of the struggle from an
order of Sir Henry Rawhnson issued to the 7th Division. " After
the deprivations and tension," he said, " of being pursued day and
night by an infinitely stronger force, the division had to pass
through the worst ordeal of all. It was left to a little force of
30,000 to keep the German army at bay while the other British

HE FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES.

{facing p. j66.)

aaH^Y ^O 2 JTTAl

3HT

1914] SUMMARY OF THE BATTLE. 367

corps were being brought up from the Aisne. Here they clung on
like grim death, with almost every man in the trenches, holding
a line which of necessity was a great deal too long — a thin, ex-
hausted line — against which the prime of the German first-line
troops were hurling themselves with fury. The odds against them
were about eight to one ; and, when once the enemy found the
range of a trench, the shells dropped into it from one end to the
other with terrible effect. Yet the men stood firm, and defended
Ypres in such a manner that a German officer afterwards described
their action as a brilliant feat of arms, and said that they were
under the impression that there had been four British army corps
against them at this point. When the division was afterwards
withdrawn from the firing Hne to refit, it was found that out of
400 officers who set out from England there were only 44 left, and
out of 12,000 men only 2,336."

The result was due in the first instance to Foch's masterly
handling of his slender command. He inspired in his whole force
a spirit of desperate resolution, and he used his scanty reserves to
the best purpose. The leadership of all the corps commanders
was beyond praise, and on Haig fell the heaviest task. But
Ypres was, like Albuera, a soldiers' battle, won by the dogged
fighting quality of the rank and file rather than by any great tactical
brilliance. There was no room and no time for ingenious tactics.
Rarely, indeed, in the history of war do we find a great army
checked and bewildered by one so much inferior in size.* Stra-
tegically it can be done. Instances will be found in Napoleon's
campaigns, and not the least remarkable was Stonewall Jackson's
performance in the spring and summer of 1862. While McClellan
with 150,000 men was moving against Richmond, and Banks with
40,000 men was protecting his right rear, Jackson with 3,000
attacked Shields at Kernstown. He was beaten off, but he re-
turned to the assault, and for three months led the Federal generals
a wild dance in the Shenandoah valley. As a result, Lincoln grew
nervous : Shields was not allowed to co-operate with McClellan ;
M'Dowell's corps was detached from McClellan to support him ;
the attack upon Richmond ended in a fiasco ; and presently Antie-
tam was fought and the invasion of Virginia was at an end. In
that campaign 175,000 men were absolutely paralyzed by 16,000.
Ypres is not such a tale. The Allied strategy failed, and all that

♦ An instance is Davout's performance on the French right at Austerlitz. With
11,000 men he held the Russian right — 40,000 to 50,000 strong — while Napoleon
stormed the Pratzen plateau and broke the Russian centre. But Austerlitz lasted
for less thaui a day, and Ypres for more than three weeks.

368 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.-Nov.

remained was a seemingly hopeless stand against a torrential inva-
sion. It is to the eternal honour of our men that they did not
break, and of their leaders that they did not despair.

A price must be paid for great glory, and the cost of Ypres
was high. The total loss to the combatants was not far from the
losses of the North during the whole of the American Civil War.
On the British side whole battalions virtually disappeared — the
1st Coldstream, the 2nd Royal Scots Fusihers, the 2nd Wiltshireb,
the I St Camerons. One divisional general, two brigadiers, nearly
a dozen staff officers fell, and eighteen regiments and battalions
lost their colonels. Scarcely a house famous in our stormy history
but mourned a son. Wyndham, Dawnay, FitzClarence, Wellesley,
Cadogan, Cavendish, Bruce, Gordon-Lennox, Eraser, Kinnaird,
Hay, Hamilton ; it was like scanning the death roll after Agincourt

or Flodden.

" O proud death !
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell.
That thou so many princes, at a shot,
So bloodily hast struck ? "

Ypres was a victory, a decisive victory, for it achieved its
purpose. The Alhed hue stood secure from the Oise to the sea ;
turning movement and piercing movement had ahke been foiled, and
the enemy's short-Uved initiative was over. He was now compelled
to conform to the battle which the Allies had set, with the edge
taken from his ardour, and everywhere gaps in his ranks. Had they
failed, he would have won the Channel ports and destroyed the
Alhed left, and the war would have taken on a new character.
Ypres, hke Le Cateau, was in a special sense a British achievement.
Without the splendid support of d'Urbal's corps, without the Bel-
gians on the Yser and Maud'huy at Arras, the case would have,
indeed, been hopeless, and no alhes ever fought in more gallant
accord. But the most critical task fell to the British troops, and
not the least of the gain was the complete assurance it gave of their
quahty. They opposed the blood and iron of the German on-
slaught with a stronger blood and a finer steel. Their shooting was
so perfect that it disguised the thinness of their ranks, and con-
vinced the enemy that tiiey possessed a great strength in machine
guns instead of the regulation two per battalion. Where all did
gallantly it is invidious to praise. The steady old regiments of the
Une revealed their ancient endurance ; the cavalry did no less
wonderful work on foot in the trenches than in their dashing charges
at Mons and the Marne ; the Household Brigade, fighting in an

I9I41 DEATH OF LORD ROBERTS. 369

unfamiliar warfare, added to the glory they had won before on
more congenial fields ; the Foot Guards proved that their incom-
parable discipHne was compatible with a brilliant and adroit offen-
sive ; the gunners, terribly outmatched in numbers and weight of
fire, did not yield one inch ; the few Yeomanry regiments and the
one Territorial battalion showed all the steadiness and precision of
first-Hne troops. " I have made many calls upon you," wrote Sir
John French in a special order, " and the answers you have made
to them have covered you, your regiments, and the army to which
you belong with honour and glory." And again in his dispatch :
" I venture to predict that the deeds during these days of stress
and trial will furnish some of the most brilliant chapters which
will be found in the mihtary history of our times." It is no more
than the truth. And to the Field-Marshal himself, whose patience
and coolness were among the sources of victory, we may well
apply Sherman's homely testimonial * to Grant, and no soldier
can seek for higher praise. If fate had rendered the strategy of
Marlborough impossible, Sir John French had none the less fought
his Malplaquet.

Within hearing of the guns of Ypres, roaring their last challenge,
the greatest British soldier passed away. Lord Roberts landed at
Boulogne on nth November on a visit to his beloved Indian troops.
On the 12th he was at the headquarters of the corps, and went
about among his old friends, speaking their own tongue, and greet-
ing many who had fought with him in the frontier wars. To the
Indian soldier he was the one Englishman who ranked with Nikel-
saini Sahib in the Valhalla of renown. The strain proved too great
for the veteran ; he caught a chill in the bitter weather ; and
while the Indian wounded waited in hospital on his coming, the
news arrived that he was seriously ill. Pleurisy followed, and at
eight o'clock on the night of Saturday, the 14th, the end came.
It was fitting that the master-gunner should die within sound of
his guns, that the most adored of British soldiers should have his
passing amid the army he had loved so well. He had given his
best to the service of his country, and had forgone his well-earned
rest to preach the lessons of wisdom to dull ears. Such a career
is a greater inspiration to his fellows than a cycle of victories.
Felix opportunitate mortis, he died, as he had lived, in harness.

• " I'll tell you where he beats me, and where he beats the world. He don't
care a damn for what the enemy does out of his sight, but it scares me like hell."
With this may be joined the verdict oi a Wisconsin volunteer : " Ulysses don't
scare worth a damn."

370 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.

Lord Roberts's death synchronized with the passing of the army
which he had commanded and done much to create. First Ypres
saw the apotheosis of the British regulars, but also their end. That
army was now to change its character in welcoming all classes
and conditions within its ranks, and growing from a small pro-
fessional force to the armed strength of a nation. A large part
of the old " Contemptibles " was dead, and much of what was left
was soon to be distributed through a thousand new battalions.
But the memory of the type remained — perhaps the most wonderful
fighting man that the world has seen. Officers and men were curi-
ously alike. Below all the difference of birth and education there
was a common temperament : a kind of humorous realism about
life, a dislike of tall talk, a belief in inherited tradition and historic
ritual, a rough-and-ready justness, a deep cheerfulness which was
not inconsistent with a surface pessimism. They generally took
a dark view of the immediate prospect ; therefore they were never
seriously depressed. They had an unshakable confidence in the
ultimate issue ; therefore they never thought it worth while to
mention it. They were always slightly puzzled ; therefore they
could never be completely at a loss : for the man who insists on
having the next stage neatly outhned before he starts will be un-
nerved if he cannot see his way ; whereas others will drive on
cheerfully into the mist, because they have been there before, and
know that on the farther side there is clear sky. They and their
kind had made Britain a nation, and had won for her a great em-
pire ; they now perished joyfully in the gate that the work of their
fathers might endure.

CHAPTER XVII.

EBB AND FLOW IN THE EAST.
jth September-24th December.

Hiudenburg on the Niemen — Battle of Augustovo — The Russian Advance on Cracow
— Policy of the GaUcian Campaign — The First German Advance on Warsaw — •
The Defences of Cracow and the Fighting in the Carpathian Passes — The
Second Advance on Warsaw — The Battle of Lodz — The Battle of the Serbian
Ridges.

The campaign in the East in the autumn and early winter showed
a curious ebb and flow, corresponding to the fluctuating strength
of the opponents. Russia with her potential millions found it
hard to get armies ready for the field, harder to equip them,
harder still to move them by her feeble system of communications
\vith the speed and precision which the strategy of the Grand
Duke Nicholas required. She was fighting with a clear head but
with a lame arm. Germany was in like case. Her hopes of a
crowning mercy in the West had been shattered, first at the
Mame and then at Ypres, and she was unable to transfer those
masses of troops from France which would have given her the
power to execute Ludendorff' s bold conceptions. She was com-
pelled to struggle on with inadequate forces, which by means
of her admirable railways she disposed to the utmost possible
advantage. The story of these months is therefore one of rapid
Russian advance and of as rapid recoil, when the amorphous
forces of the Grand Duke were suddenly stopped by a blow from
his more skilful adversary. We see Hindenburg pressing Ren-
nenkampf beyond the Niemen, and falling back when he had
overreached himself ; we see Ivanov sweeping towards Cracow,
checked, and retiring. Then comes Hindenburg's first advance
on Warsaw to save despairing Austria; and his failure, largely
because of Austria's failure on his right. Once more Russia
moves on Cracow ; once more Hindenburg gathers himself to-
gether for a second attack on Warsaw, which also fails. Again

S71

372 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

he makes the attempt, and again he is held, till by the close of
the year the Eastern front reaches a degree of stabilization
comparable to what, nearly two months earlier, had occurred in
the West.

The first phase on the Niemen may be briefly dealt with, for it
was only a sequel to the opening stage which had ended at Tannen-
berg. The position in the East in mid-September presented some-
thing of a strategic anomaly. The Russian centre was aligned
north and south covering Warsaw, but the Russian wings were
curiously dislocated. The right wing — Rennenkampf's army —
was some hundred miles to the north-east behind the line of the
Niemen, while the left wing, which at the moment represented
the chief Russian strength, was far in advance of the centre, moving
swiftly towards Cracow. Such a situation might have been dan-
gerous but for one fact. The East Prussian campaign was, from
the nature of the country, self-contained. Hindenburg was too
weak in men, and too busy with Rennenkampf to spare the time
for getting behind the Russian centre, and, if he had attempted
it, there was the strong fortress line of the Narev to block his way.
This enabled the Russian left to pursue the retreating Austrians
without any great fear of a movement which should cut them
off from their centre. The only danger could come from the
German reserves in Posen ; but these were still reserves rather
than a field army, and until Hindenburg could turn southward
the pursuit would go on unchecked. Lemberg had crippled one
Austrian army, but Opole, Tomasov, and Rava Russka had all
but put Austria out of action. Until from some sanctuary hke
Cracow she could gain time to organize her reserves, the offensive
was beyond her power. The Russian High Command had an acute
perception of the advantages of the situation, but they did not
overrate them. They knew that Germany would presently come
in force to the succour of her ally. Their aim was to lure Hinden-
burg into an impossible conflict on the Niemen, while their left
wing gave the fleeing Austrians no peace, and prevented a rally
which should block the way to the Oder. Hindenburg had already
committed himself to an advance into the Vilna province. Every
day that he could be induced to waste his strength on the line of
the Niemen was a gain for the main Russian strategy. He seems
to have been of the opinion with which Segur credits Napoleon,

1914] HINDENBURG ON THE NIEMEN. 373

that the Niemen was not of much use either for offence or
defence.

The Gennan commander fell into the trap, but he saved him-
self before it was too late. Perhaps it was too clumsily baited.
It is always hard for a great military Power which has suffered
a crushing defeat to play the game of a strategic retirement once
it has recovered its strength. The Niemen was made too difficult
for the German army of East Prussia. The first serious check
awakened the new generalissimo of the East to a sense of his true
responsibilities, which in the flush of his Tannenberg victory he
had forgotten.

Hindenburg's advance had begun on 7th September. He
moved on a wide front, with his left advancing on Kovno from
Wirballen along the main Petrograd railway, while a detached
force attempted to cross the river Memel. His centre moved
towards the Niemen by way of Suwalki, which presently was in
his hands ; while his right, which was his strongest flank, swept
towards Grodno, detaching troops to invest the fortress of Ossovietz,
an outlying fort to the north-east of the Narev chain. His army
consisted of the four corps with which he had won Tannenberg,
and at least two corps of reserves. The country through which
he moved was famous as the theatre of Napoleon's first concentra-
tion in the campaign of 18 12. The distance between the East
Prussian frontier and the Niemen is never less than fifty miles,
and is one vast tangle of bog and lake and forest. It had changed
little since Napoleon's day. Three railway lines pierced it ; the
roads were few, the chief being a causeway through the marshes
from Suwalki by Seyny to various points upon the main highway
which runs north to Miriampol from the Niemen crossing at Druss-
keniki. In such a country an advance was not unlike that through
the passes of a mountain range. Columns and guns and transport
moved along narrow defiles on each side of which was impassable
country. A bog on the flank is just as much a containing wall
for a modern army as an Alpine precipice.

About 15th September Hindenburg had passed the frontier.
Rennenkampf made no attempt to stay him in the defiles, beyond
a little rearguard fighting. Tannenberg had broken his army too
grievously, and he could count on no reserves short of the Niemen.
One considerable engagement did take place in the Augustovo
woods, which was reported in German dispatches as a great victory.
On 2oth September Hindenburg's right came abreast of Osso-. ietz
and began its investment. The sections of the German army

374 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

which had the railways behind them travelled fast, and by the 2ist
the Niemen had been reached at three points — at Drusskeniki
north of Grodno, near Miroslav, and somewhere in the neighbour-
hood of Kovno. Rennenkampf by this time had got most of his
men over the stream, which was there a formidable barrier, both
from its width and volume of water, to any army. There were
some slight delaying actions on the western bank, but by the 25th
the whole Russian force was across in prepared positions, and had
received large reinforcements from the Vilna command. The
battle of the Niemen crossings was mainly an artillery duel. The
Russians lay hid in trenches on the low eastern shore, and waited
till the Germans had built their pontoon bridges. Then their
concealed guns blew them to pieces. Thereupon Hindenburg
attempted to "prepare" a passage by a bombardment. By the
evening of Friday, the 26th, he thought he had achieved his aim,
for his guns had boomed all day, and the Russians had made no
reply. So on the morning of the 27th he again attempted a cross-
ing, but again his bridges were blown to pieces, with great loss
to his troops. He had taken upon himself an impossible task,
and his communications did not allow of a rapid bringing up of
reserves, even had these reserves been available, or likely in the
circumstances to be useful. This was on the German right ; but the
operations on the centre and left were no more successful, while
the siege of Ossovietz was proving a farce, since the invaders could
not find hard ground for their batteries in the spongy moss which
surrounded the knuckle of solid land on which the fort was built.

On the Sunday Hindenburg gave the order for the retreat. He
realized at last that this East Prussian terrain was self-contained,
and that no German advance there would make any difference to the
Russian movement towards Cracow. He might be kept struggling
on the Niemen for a month while the Russians were invading
the sacred soil of Silesia. The retreat was no easy matter, and the
new field-marshal showed all his old skill in marsh warfare. By
the Monday he had fallen back behind Seyny, on a line running
from the Wirballen -Kovno railway through Miriampol to south-
east of the little town of Augustovo. The extreme right gave up
the attempt on Osso\ ietz, and retired along the railway, while the
extreme left had also a railway to move by. Only the centre was
in difficulties, for between Seyny and Suwalki there was nothing
but damp woodlands, with one or two narrow causeways through
them. Rennenkampf made good use of his opportunity. Now
was the time to play the traditional Russian game, and harass a

1914] AUGUSTOVO. 375

retreating foe whom the wilderness had betrayed. He crossed the
Niemen, and attacked strongly with his centre and right wing,
while he flung his left well south towards Ossovietz and the Uttle
valley of the Bobr. Between Suwalki and the Bobr, and extend-
ing to within twenty miles of the Niemen, lay the forest of Augus-
tovo — such a region as that in which Hindenburg had destroyed
Samsonov, but far less known than the Masurian Lakes, and des-
titute of all roads, save swampy forest tracks. Guided by foresters
of the district, the Russian left, carrying with them the very flag
which Skobelev had borne in the Russo-Turkish war, struggled
through the matted woods. Their progress was slow, but by
Thursday, ist October, they were at Augustovo, and had driven
out the German occupants. Pushing on, they carried the village
of Ratchki with the bayonet, and for a moment it seemed that
a large part of Hindenburg's force would be cut off between
Suwalki and Seyny.

The German commander escaped disaster by the slenderest
margin. For two days there was a fierce rearguard action in the
woods, in which the Germans lost heavily in guns and prisoners.
But this stand enabled Hindenburg to evacuate Suwalki and get
the bulk of his forces across the frontier to the entrenched position
which, as at the Aisne, had been prepared beforehand. Rennen-
kampf pressed him along the whole front. On ist October his
cavalry, pursuing the Ossovietz siege-train, were at Grajevo, and
next day they were over the frontier and moving on Lyck and
Biala. From the 4th onwards the Russian aviators reported a
great movement of German columns and transport trains across
the border. Hindenburg had received reinforcements from Konigs-
berg, but they were not sufficient to stay a retreat at any point
short of the entrenchments on the Masurian Lakes. By 9th Octo-
ber the series of engagements which the Russians called the Battle
of Augustovo was over. Rennenkampf was now faced with a
check such as he had himself given to the enemy on the Niemen
— a more formidable check, for a prepared position in marshy and
wooded country is, for a modem army, less easy to carry than
any river Une. But he was not destined to have Hindenburg
any longer as his immediate opponent. The time had come for
the moving of the German centre to relieve the pressure on Cracow,
since it was clear that no invasion of the Niemen would effect
this purpose. General von Schubert was appointed to the command
of the VHL Army in East Prussia, and Hindenburg hastened
southward.

376 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

II.

Germany in the East was fighting on her defence. She could not
hope to strike a decisive blow till victory or stalemate in the West
provided her with the weapon. It was otherwise with Russia,
which from the start followed an ambitious offensive. For this,
one region v/as clearly marked out beyond others. This was
Galicia, which only an artificial line separated from Poland. At
first the Russian generalissimo believed that the most that could
be done was to drive the Austrians out of eastern Galicia, and
invest Jaroslav and Przemysl. But the speedy fall of Lemberg,
the victories of Tomasov and Rava Russka, and the apparent
demoralization of the Austrian armies convinced him that a bolder
strategy was possible. The German centre, with the field-marshal
involved in the bogs of the Niemen, was not likely to make a rapid
advance. Galicia, which suffered from nearly the worst weather
in Europe, had one climatic merit : its short, hot summers and
long, hard winters had between them wonderful autumns — autumns
of clear, cool skies, when the ground was dry and the rivers low.
The Grand Duke Nicholas, knowing what a Russian winter meant
for armies in the field, was eager to strike a great blow before it
set in. Accordingly, what was always the main Russian plan
was accelerated, and the armies swept towards Cracow.

The city of Cracow, the last refuge of Polish independence,
was strategically the most important point in Eastern Europe.
It stood on the edge of the Carpathians, at a point where the
Vistula ceased to be a mountain stream and became a river of
the magnitude of the middle Thames. Hills flanked it on north
and south, and provided gun positions for its defence. A narrow
ring of old fortresses surrounded it, but the main reliance was
placed on entrenchments on the outer ring, which were intended
to do what the lines at Verdun did, and prevent the enemy's heavy
artillery from getting within range. Deep trenches were dug,
especially on the northern hills, and light rails laid in them to carry
the howitzers. Advanced field-works were also constructed on
the Raba, which enters the Vistula twenty-four miles east of the
city. In view of the lesson of the Belgian and French fortresses,
the defences of Cracow could not be rated as of the strongest.
On the south the Carpathian foothills came too near to allow of
proper field-works. On the north all the forts and entrenched
positions could be dominated by the higher ground which sloped

1914] THE IMPORTANCE OF CRACOW. 377

towards the Russian frontier. Only on the west, on the land
between the Vistula and the Ruda\a, were first-class defensive
positions to be found. It seemed likely that any army which
allowed itself to be shut up in Cracow would run a certainty of
capture, for the Russian attack would be from the east and north.
Accordingly the German Staff ordained that the city should be
defended by a field army and not by a garrison, and that the
Russians should be held at all costs on the Raba.

The map will reveal the high significance of Cracow. It was
the gate both of Vienna and Berlin. A hundred miles west of
it the great massif of the western Carpathians, what is called the
High Tatra, breaks down into the plains through which the river
March flows to the Danube. These plains, between the Carpathians
and the Bohemian mountains, constitute the famous Gap of
Moravia, the old highway from Austria to north Germany.
Through this gap the army of Kutusov had marched in 1S05 to
find its doom at Austerlitz. Through this gap ran the great rail-
way which connected Silesia with Vienna, and the general who
could master Cracow had a clear and easy road before him to the
Austrian capital. Not less was it the key of Germany. Forty
miles west from Cracow is the Silesian frontier. Seventy miles
from the city lie the upper streams of the Oder. The army which
entered Germany by this gate had turned the line of the frontier
fortresses of Thorn and Posen, the beautiful system of lateral
frontal railways, and the great defensive positions on the Warta.
It had before it only Breslau, which till the other day was an open
city, and even now had only limited defences, and the old second-
class fortress of Glogau. The Oder was a better barrier than was
generally believed in the West. Its low banks are easily flooded,
and the river in many places strains in mazy channels and back-
waters among isles matted with dwarf willows and alders. The
good crossings, too, had been for the most part fortified. But
the Oder was a defence only against an enemy coming from the
east. To an invader from Cracow and the south it offered no
difficulties, for he would be on the western bank. He would
have turned the line of the Oder as well as the line of the frontier
fortresses. If he were strong enough to keep his communications
intact and to take or mask Breslau, he would find nothing before
him except the little fortress of Kustrin among the marshes at
the mouth of the Warta. The strong fort of Stettin at the estuary
on the Baltic would be useless against such an invasion. And
from Kustrin it was no more than fifty miles to Berlin. The

378 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

Russian plan, never for a moment lost sight of though often post-
poned, was to render useless aU the elaborate defences of Thorn
and Posen by turning them on the south. Once on the Oder and
in the Moravian Gap, she threatened directly the two enemy
capitals. And of this position Cracow was the key.

But it meant more than an open road to Berlin and Vienna.
It involved an immediate blow at the heart of Germany through
one of her chief industrial centres. The advance of the Allies
through Alsace would lead at the best only to the wooded hills
and rural villages of Baden and Wiirtemberg, and between the
Allies and Westphalia lay the formidable barrier of the lower
Rhine. But with the Russians at the gates of Silesia a province
not less important than Westphalia was imperilled, and the most
vital parts happened to be close to the southern frontier. It was
not only that Silesia, like East Prussia, was the home of the great
German territorial magnates — the Hohenlohes, Hatzfelds, Plesses,
and Donnesmarks. It contained one of the chief coal and iron
fields, and one of the largest manufacturing areas of the German
Empire. It yielded more than a quarter of the German coal out-
put, it had the richest zinc deposits in the world, and it had
enormous chemical and textile factories. The invasion of East
Prussia merely dispossessed the farmers and annoyed the squires ;
the German invasion of Poland had as little effect upon Russia's
well-being as the tap of a cane upon the shell of a tortoise. But
a closely settled, highly organized industrial land would feel acutely
the mere threat of invasion. The delicate machine would go out
of gear, and no part of Germany would be exempt from the shock.
For on the products of Silesia, scarcely less than on the products
of Essen, did the life of her soldiers and civilians depend.

The primary aim, then, of the Russian advance through Galicia
was the occupation of Cracow, and with it the roads to Silesia and
to Vienna. This was the strategic purpose ; but there were two
others, which we may call the economic and the political. Germany,
with her elaborate system of motor transport, had made petrol
one of the foremost munitions of war. She had immense stocks
of it, but these stocks were rapidly shrinking. Overseas imports
from America were forbidden to her by the British navy. Russia,
with her Caspian oil-fields, was her enemy ; her supplies could only
be kept up by importations from her ally, Austria, and through
Austria from neutral Rumania. Now, Austria's oil-fields were all
on Galician soil. Early in the sixteenth century the Galician
" earth balsam " was known to the world, and since 1878 her

1914] SIGNIFICANCE OF GALICIAN CAMPAIGN. 379

petroleum fields had been busily worked. These fields, some of
the richest in Europe, lay along the northern slopes of the Car-
pathians, and consisted of three chief centres — near Kolomea, which
is just outside the northern frontier of the Bukovina ; near Krosno,
the town on the southern main line between Sanok and Jaslo ;
and around Drohobycz, which is a little west of Stryj ; so soon
as Russia controlled the Carpathian foothills she entered into
possession of the oil-wells. This in itself would have been suf-
ficient justification for the Gahcian campaign, and it explains
especially Brussilov's persistent cavalry movements along the Car-
pathian skirts, which had another aim besides seizing the passes.
A subsidiary economic purpose would be served by raids into Hun-
gary. With Galicia gone, Rumania was for Germany the only
supply ground for petroleum. She was also her chief foreign
granary, while from the plains of Hungary was recruited Ger-
many's fast diminishing supply of horses. The lines of this traffic
moved too far south to be cut by any incursion from the hills,
but Brussilov's advanced cavalr^^ served the purpose of dislocating
to some extent the imports by the mere threat of its presence.

The political objects of the Galician campaign may be briefly
set down. The great bulk of the people was Slav, who, though
not unfairly treated by the Dual Monarchy compared with the
other subject races, had yet strong ties of race and tradition with
the invading Russians. A second political object was concerned
with the occupation of the Carpathian passes. This great range,
which swept in a half moon round Hungary from the Iron Gates
of the Danube to the Moravian Gap, was not a mountain barrier
like the Alps cr the Pyrenees. Only in the west does it rise high,
and then short of 7,000 feet ; all the centre and east of the chain
is little over 4,000 feet. Its distinguishing mark is that it is crossed
by many passes, all of them much lower than the Brenner. The
six main passes from west to east are the Dukla, the Mezo Laborcz,
the Lupkow, the Uzsok, the Vereczke, the Beskid, the Wyzkow
(Vyshikov), and the Delatyn or Jablonitza, Of these the highest,
the Delatyn, is less than 3,000 feet, and the lowest, the Dukla,
only 1,500 feet above the sea-level. The Dukla, Mezo Laborcz,
Vereczke, and Wyzkow have roads but no railways, while the
Lupkow carries the line from Sanok to the Hungarian wine region of
Tokay, the Beskid the railway from Lemberg to Munkacs, and the
Delatyn the hne from Stanislau to the upper Theiss. By the begin-
ning of October the Russians had crossed the three eastern passes,
and were menacing the northern fringe of the Hungarian plains.

38o A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

Strategically it was for the moment a side-show, justified only by
the immense number of light cavalry which Russia had at her
disposal. But a serious strategical purpose would come later, for,
if Ivanov once reached the Moravian Gap, a flanking advance
westward by the south side of the Carpathians would be necessary
to protect his left wing. The momiCnt, however, had not arrived
for this movement, and Russia's purpose in her Hungarian raids
was political. The mountaineers of the Carpathians were a Slav
people and friendly ; the Hungarians of the plains were bitterly
anti-Slav, but they were no less anti-German. Their leaders had
been largely responsible for the ultimatum to Serbia which had been
the immediate cause of the war, but it was becoming clear that they
had raised a conflagration for which they had not bargained. If
they found the sacred soil of Hungary threatened they would call
upon Austria to defend them, and Austria, it was certain, could
not spare a man for the purpose. The Hungarian regiments of the
line and the Hungarian Honved had suffered desperately at Lem-
berg and Rava Russka, and were now either shut up in Przemysl
or in full retreat towards Cracow. Russia had some understanding
of Magyar psychology. She knew that Hungary cared little for
the Dual Monarchy, but much for her own position of dominance.
She judged that the sight of war at her doors, and the stories of
Hungarian regiments sacrificed to Prussian ambitions, and Hun-
garian officers overridden by Hindenburg's Staff, would go far to
weaken her attachment to the Teutonic alliance.

When, after the battles of Opcle, Tomasov, and Rava Russka,
the Austrian armies fled westward across the San, there were various
changes made in the Russian High Command. Russki was ap-
pointed to the command of the centre, which, it was clear, would
soon be engaged with the main German advance, and which had
now been increased to at least twelve army corps. Ivanov was
given command of the southern armies operating in Galicia. with
Radko Dmitrieff and Brussilov as his chief lieutenants. Brussilov's
business was to act as a flanking force along the Carpathians and
in the Bukovina, to seize the chief passes, and to threaten Hungary.
To Dmitrieff was assigned the duty of pressing the Austrian retreat,
and in especial of reducing the fortresses which had given sanctuary
to the remnants of Auffenberg's II. Army.

The two chief fortresses of central Galicia were Jaroslav and
Przemysl, both on the river San, and both commanding important
railway routes to the west— the first the main Une from Lemberg
to Cracow, and the second the line which skirts the Carpathians

1914] RUSSIAN ADVANCE TOWARDS CRACOW. 381

by Sanok and Sandek, and connects with the lines going south
through the passes to Hungary. Thirty years before there had
been talk of making Jaroslav the premier fortress, but the fortifi-
cations had been left unfinished, and when war broke out they
were made into a strong circle of entrenchments. Twenty redoubts
had been erected on both banks of the river, for the position was
important, both as being on the main railway, and as giving control
of the branch line covering the twenty miles to Przemysl, and so
offering a base for an assault upon the latter city. Austria looked
to Jaroslav for a stout resistance, but something went wrong with
the plan. Perhaps the garrison was too small for the size of the
hne, for the Russian night attacks led to the immediate capture of
most of the redoubts. Ivanov appeared before the place on 20th
September, and three days later it was in his hands. Dmitrieff
had no such easy triumph at Przemysl. On the 22nd he had
closed in on it from the south and east, and presently had it com-
pletely invested. Its natural position among the foothills of the
Carpathians was strong, and it had been equipped as a first-class
fortress. Workmen from the surrounding villages had been
brought in to strengthen the defences, and a huge quantity of am-
munition—most of Auffenberg's reserves— had been accumulated
in the place. The danger lay in the scarcity of food, and Dmitrieff,
confident in the success of the main Russian advance, and short
at the time of heavy siege artillery, resolved to starve the garrison
into surrender rather than waste uselessly many lives in an assault.
During the last fortnight of September and the first week of October
the impending fall of Przemysl was announced daily in France and
Britain, and its uncouth name in many odd forms became familiar
to the public. But Przemysl declined to fall, and soon its existence
was forgotten in the greater operations developing across the
Vistula.

Meantime large infantry forces from Ivanov's command had
crossed the San. On 26th September the Russians were in Rzeszov,
on the main Cracow railway. On the 28th they held Krosno, on
the southern railway, and Brussilov had seized the Dukla Pass in
the Carpathians, and had penetrated a short distance into Hun-
gary. On the 29th they were at Dembica on the main line, a point
only one hundred miles from Cracow. These, however, were cavalry
exploits, and the chief force was much farther to the east, for news
was already arriving of the beginning of a movement of the German
centre. Russki reported German activity between Lowicz and
Lodz, and from Thorn along the south bank of the Vistula. Accord-

382 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.--Oct.

ingly, within ten days' march of Cracow, the advance was staj^td,
and Ivanov fell back behind the San to conform with Russki's
position in Poland. The curtain was rising on the second act,
when battle was to be joined at the very gates of Warsaw.

III.

The threat to Cracow compelled Germany to act at once. A
blow must be struck in relief, and this would best be directed at
the enemy's centre. A new army, the IX., was created out of part
of the VIII. and reserves from Germany and from the Western
front, and b)' the middle of September Hindenburg was at Breslau,
busied with working out the new problem. Already the friction
with the Austrian Staff had begun, and it was no easy matter to
convince them of the value of the German dispositions. Hindenburg,
besides his task of general supervision, was in actual command of
the IX. Army, which formed the left and centre of the projected
advance. South of it lay a corps of Posen and Silesian Land-
wehr under Woyrsch, and on the right Dankl's Austrian I. Army,
with the x^ustrian TIT. and IV. Armies on the right wing.

About the 5th of October the first news reached the Russian
headquarters of a general enemy advance. To Hindenburg one
vulnerable point stood out in the amorphous and inorganic mass
of Western Russia, and that point was the city of Warsaw. It
stood on the wrong side of the Vistula ; it was the centre of the
scanty railway communications of Poland ; it was the capital of
the Russian province, a city with a population of three-quarters
of a million, and a maelstrom of races, the like of which could not
be found in Europe. If he could take Warsaw before the autumn
ended, he would have ideal winter quarters ; a base pushed far
into the enemy's territory from which to advance in the spring ;
a breach in the fortress which might speedily make it untenable.
Even larger schemes rose to the mind of the new field -marshal.
If Russia defended Warsaw, and so islanded an army on the western
bank of the Vistula, he might cross the river higher up and cut her
communications. If that were achieved, instead of a winter of
weary struggles among the Polish mud, he would hold the capital
city against an enemy who would have suffered a blow so crushing
that no recovery could be looked for till the New Year. But, at
the worst, a threat against Warsaw would relieve the pressure on
the flanks, especially in distracted Galicia. The plan has been

1914] THE VISTULA LINE. 383

compared with some aptitude to Early's dash on Washington in
1864, which was primarily designed by Lee to shake Grant's hold
on Petersburg and Richmond.

To understand what was in Hindenburg's mind, it is necessary
to look closely at the nature of tlie Vistula line. A glance at the
map will reveal some peculiarities. From the point at Sandomirz
where it receives the San it flows north by east in a well-defined
valley flanked by low hills. At Nova Alexandria it bends almost
at right angles towards the north-west, and enters the vast, flat,
melancholy Polish plain. Thirteen miles on it passes Ivangorod
on its right bank — the fortress which was the southern apex of
the Polish Triangle. Fifty-seven miles farther and it reaches War-
saw, which lies on the left or western bank, and there it is more than
a third of a mile wide. Twenty-six miles on comes the fortress
of Novo Georgievsk, on the right bank, and here it turns again
and flows west by north towards Thorn and the Baltic. From
Sandomirz to Novo Georgievsk the river is everywhere deep and
unfordable, and it is bridged only at two points — at Warsaw and
at Ivangorod. These were, therefore, vital points for the invaders.
Two tributaries of the Vistula are important to remember. The
first, the San, runs past Przemysl and Jaroslav and joins the greater
river at Sandomirz. In its lower course it is navigable, but as it
approaches the hills it becomes a fordable and frequently bridged
stream, the crossing of which offers no serious difficulties. The
second is the Pilitza, which enters on the west bank between War-
saw and Ivangorod. This is a typical Polish river, about one
hundred yards wide, muddy and straining through wide marshes ;
and it obviously divided any invading force into two quite separate
parts. South of the Pilitza again, and south of the town of Radom, lay
a great belt of forest country which extended east up to the Vistula
bank, and compelled another hiatus in any advance from the west
on a broad front. The lines of communication were few and bad
at the best, now that the approach of winter was deteriorating
the never very creditable Polish roads. On the eastern side of
the Vistula the Russians had in the south the excellent main line
from Lemberg and Kiev, which crossed the San at Przemysl.
North of that for 150 miles they had nothing at all but indifferent
country roads till Ivangorod was reached, which was connected
by three lines with Lublin, Brest Litovsk, and Warsaw. At War-
saw the main line of Central Europe crossed the river, and branched
north to Mlawa and the East Prussian frontier, east to Vilna and
Petrograd and to Brest Litovsk, and south to Ivangorod. A rail-

384 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

way line, therefore, followed the east bank of the Vistula all the
way from Ivangorod to Novo Georgievsk. On the western bank
the communications had a fantastic air. Behind the German
frontier there lay a network of lateral strategic railways, probably
the most perfect system of its kind on earth. But the lines which
ran eastwards from the frontier to the Vistula were few. On the
south there was a main line from Silesia which ran by Kielce and
Radom, and crossed the river at Ivangorod. Midway between
Radom and Kielce it sent off a branch to the south-east, which
terminated at the town of Ostrovietz, about twenty miles from
Josefov, on the Vistula, where the river narrows to a gut between
two island-studded reaches. Farther north a line ran from Czesto-
chova by Petrikov and Skiemievice to Warsaw, and was linked
up by a cross-country branch with the Ivangorod and Ostrovietz
lines. Another line ran from the frontier by Kalisz, Lodz, and
Lowicz to Warsaw. Last of all there was an important line from
Thorn which followed the left bank of the lower Vistula and reached
Warsaw via Lowicz. Warsaw, as we have seen, lay on the west
bank of the river ; but its main railway station, the nodal point
of the Polish lines, was in the suburb of Praga, across the river.
Three bridges connected Praga and Warsaw — the fine Alexander
Bridge for foot passengers and ordinary traffic, a road bridge farther
south, and the railway bridge, which lay more to the north, under
the guns of the Alexander Citadel. That is to say, Russia's rein-
forcements could be brought up from the east behind the barrier
of the Vistula. Until the enemy crossed that river there was no
fear of her main or her lateral lines of communication being cut.

Hindenburg's strategy was determined by these simple topo-
graphical facts. Only one plan offered a good chance of success.
The Austrians advancing from Cracow on the San should compel
a Russian retreat behind that stream, and the consequent relief of
Przemysl. In the north there should be a flank movement up the
Vistula from Thorn, by means of the river and the Thom-Lowicz
railway. The centre should advance by the two main lines Kalisz-
Lodz-Lowicz and Czestochova-Petrikov-Skiernievice for a great
assault upon Warsaw. But the operative part of the front was the
right centre, which should move towards the section of the Vistula
between Ivangorod and Sandomirz by the Kielce-Radom railway,
and especially by the Ostrovietz branch, while Dankl's Austrian
I. Army moved in support along the left bank of the upper Vistula
towards Sandomirz. If the crossing of the Vistula was to be won,
there was only one place for the effort. This was the narrows at

1914] THE BID FOR WARSAW. 385

Josefov. With a railhead at Ostrovietz the Germans had an admi-
rable base for the attempt, and two fair roads led thence to the river.
The Russians on the eastern bank would fight at the very place
where their communications were worst. Their nearest point on
the railway was Lublin, thirty-three miles off, on a bad road, while
Ivangorod, by the riverside road, was nearly fifty. Hindenburg's
scheme was a general pressure all along the middle Vistula, and a
piercing movement at Josefov, where it would be hardest for the
Russians to repel an attack in force. Once over the Vistula, he
would cut the Kiev railway at Lublin, and, if his attack on Warsaw
succeeded, drive the Grand Duke Nicholas in retreat along the
northern railways towards Vilna and Petrograd.

It was a well-reasoned plan, which did credit to the victor of
Tannenberg. But, unfortunately for him, the Russian general-
issimo, as soon as his cavalry had brought news of the great move-
ment from the German frontier, divined his intentions. The
Grand Duke played for safety, and he played the game well after
the traditional Russian manner. He resolved to risk nothing on
the plains west of the Vistula, where he would have to rely for
supplies on divergent railway lines, and where the broad and muddy
Pilitza would cut his army in two. Let the enemy have the benefit
of the peculiar awkwardness of western Poland for autumn cam-
paigning. Leaving a screen of light horse west of the river to keep
in touch with the invaders, he gave the order for all the Russian
forces to retire behind the Vistula and the San. This meant that
Ivanov, pushing on by Tarnow to Cracow, had to fall back fully
fifty miles to conform with the alignment of the centre. The Grand
Duke held in force the bridgehead at Ivangorod, and was getting
ready a field army for the defence of Warsaw. He did not propose
to give Hindenburg the chance of bringing the Skoda howitzers
against the capital. He would meet him weU to the west on a
line of entrenchments, and, when the attack had broken itself
there, would counter-attack with his right and drive the German
left down upon the Pilitza. Meanwhile he had his eye upon
Ostrovietz and Josefov. If the attempt at crossing failed, if the
Russians crossed and counter-attacked, the German right centre
would have an awkward forest country in which to retreat.

In Russia they told a tale of an ingenious counter-plot. Poles
were captured in the German advance, who, in terror of their lives,
gave all the information they could about the Russian preparations.
The Grand Duke, they said, had no large force in front of Warsaw,
and he did not mean to defend it. He intended to give up the Una

386 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

of the Vistula, and to fall back upon Brest Litovsk and the valley
of the Bug. Presently authentic German spies brought back the
same tale, and in a little German aviators reported a movement of
troop-trains from Warsaw and Ivangorod towards the Bug. The
Russian generalissimo left nothing to chance, and he succeeded in
completely misleading his adversary. On loth October Hinden-
burg's centre was at Lodz, that great manufacturing town built
up by German capital ; his left was farther east on the Thorn
railway, and his right was between Petrikov and Kielce. Dankl
was on the left bank of the Vistula, near Sandomirz, and the Austrian
right wing had reached Tarnow. Except at Warsaw, the Russian
infantry were east of the Vistula and the San, and one last desperate
effort was being made to reduce Przemysl before it should be relieved.
Four days later the German left was at Plock, on the Vistula, the
centre east of Lowicz nearing \\'arsaw, and the right between
Radom and Ostrovietz. The movement of the left endangered a
small Russian advance which had been made from the line of the
Narev towards the East Prussian frontier. The Russians fell
back, and Schubert's right wing followed, and took Mlawa. Had
the Germans been in any great strength they might have seriously
endangered the Grand Duke's right. Next day, the 15th, the
battle was joined all along the line of the Vistula.

The German advance was slow and deliberate, more like the
occupation of a territory already won than an attack against an
unbroken enemy. As they progressed they made roads, excellent
roads, which were destined to have only a life of a few weeks.
Great stretches of forest were cut down, and the felled trunks
used to make corduroy paths over the marshes for the guns. In
the worst places artillery causeways were built, soon to be blown
to pieces. Actually the gauge of the Kalisz -Lodz-Warsaw railway
was altered, many miles being completed each day. These prepara-
tions not only gave Hindenburg a chance of bringing up his sup-
plies by motor transport from the subsidiary rail heads, but pro-
vided, so far as his centre was concerned, a safe and speedy means
of retreat. Russian airplanes, out from Ivangorod in these days,
reported great activity east of Ostrovietz. It was the German
right centre improving the woodland roads from the railway to
the narrows of the Vistula.

Meanwhile in Warsaw there was an equal bus5mess. The first
intimation of the coming of war was the appearance of German
dirigibles and airplanes above the city, which dropped bombs,
chiefly in the direction of Praga and the great railway station.

1914] RENNENKAMPF'S FLANK ATTACK. 387

Presently came showers of leaflets, some directed to the Poles,
promising Polish autonomy ; some to the Russian rank and file,
asking them why they fought in a war engineered by the aristocracy.
Democratic appeals were varied by religious. One pamphlet,
aimed at Polish Catholic sentiment, bore on its cover a coloured
picture of the Virgin and Child, flanked by medallions of the Pope
and the Kaiser, that versatile believer who elsewhere was being
represented as a convert to Islam. Warsaw, with its mixed popu-
lation and its enormous number of Jews, was a difficult place to
govern with the enemy at its gates. The press was most strictly
censored, and elaborate precautions had to be taken to prevent
espionage. Very soon the terror of the air-craft passed away,
though something like panic appeared again when German cavalry
entered the villa district of Prushkov, about eight miles from the
centre of the city, and the well-to-do residents fled into Russia,
many not stopping till they had reached Moscow. But Warsaw
soon settled down. All through the great battle at its gates the
city went on with its ordinary avocations, and only the sight of
an occasional German airplane, the Siberian regiments and the
Japanese heavy guns moving over the Alexander Bridge, the daily
return of wounded, and the western sky lit at night by fires other
than the sunset, told the citizens that war was only a few miles
distant.

The bid for Warsaw by a part of the IX. Army under Mackensen
began on Friday, the i6th, and continued till the evening of Sunday,
the i8th. The brunt of the Russian resistance fell on the Siberian
corps, who had just arrived by rail from Moscow. The Grand
Duke was also much assisted by the batteries of heavy guns served
by Japanese gunners, which Japan had sent by the Siberian rail-
way. For the first day the issue hung in the balance ; on Satur-
day and Sunday the Russians had established an unshakable
trench position a few miles beyond the outer forts, and by Monday
the attack had died away. The reason was soon apparent. The
Grand Duke had swung round his right across the Vistula under
cover of the guns of Novo Georgievsk, and was driving in the
German left centre, while the Austrians on the right were in equal
danger of outflanking.

Rennenkampf, relieved from anxiety about the East Prussian
front by the formation of the new Russian Tenth Army, was able
to strike the German left flank in the neighbourhood of the Bzura,
and compel it to a defensive orientation of east and west. The
battle was now resolved into two separate actions — that of Macken-

388 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

sen to the north;, and that of Dankl and the Austrians to the south,
of the PiUtza. The attempt to cross the Vistula had been vigor-
ously pushed on. One effort was made in the section between
Ivangorod and Warsaw ; but since the Russians had a railway
hne on the eastern bank, they were able to bring up their guns and
blow the German rafts and pontoons to pieces. But this was in
the nature of a feint, and the real effort was made, as the Russian
Staff expected, from Ostrovietz as a base at the narrows of Josefov.
A strong assault was made on the bridgehead at Ivangorod by a
corps from Radom, to cover the movement which was going on
farther south. The Russians appeared to hold the eastern shore
weakly at Josefov, and part of Dankl's force, including several
batteries, crossed in pontoons. They saw no sign of the enemy,
and moved joyfully towards the Ivangorod -Lublin railway, confi-
dent that they had turned the left of the Russian centre. But on
2 1st October Russki fell upon them at a village called Kazimirjev,
eight miles south of Nova Alexandria. It is a district of low
hills rising above swampy flats, and the wearied invaders found
themselves suddenly opposed to a Russian bayonet charge. Few
escaped over the Vistula. Next day the Russians were across the
river at Nova Alexandria, and, having established gun positions
on the high bank, prepared to advance along the whole line. The
follo^^•ing day they landed advance parties of Caucasian troops
north of Ivangorod opposite Kozienice, and these held their ground
most gallantly till the river could be bridged. So began the battle
south of the Pilitza, the fiercest part of the great engagement, the
chief fighting taking place near the village of Glovaczov, on the
river Radomka. The Russians drove the enemy from the open
country beside the river into the great woods of spruce, ten miles
deep, which make a screen between the Vistula and the Polish
plain. Among the trees there were a thousand separate engage-
ments, desperate hand-to-hand fighting in the cranberry mosses
and forest glades. Ultimately they forced the Germans into the
open on the west side, where their guns completed the destruction.
In the forest region south of Radom the glades and paths were
well known to the Russian guides, and there were many surprises
of German detachments. The Russians, now across the Vistula
with all their army, gave the retreating foe no rest. The Germans
fought desperately, struggling, often at great cost of hfe, to
save their guns or to render them useless to the enemy. By the
25th they were at Radom, and the pursuit was moving so fast
that it got between them and the Pilitza. The next stand was at

1914] AUSTRIAN ADVANCE IN GALICIA. 389

Kielce ; but after an engagement lasting a day and a night, the
Russians, on 3rd November, drove them from the town, along the
southern railway, with a loss of many prisoners and guns. By
the beginning of November the long German front had been broken
into two pieces, with the Pilitza between — the southern retreating
south-west towards Czestochova and Cracow, the northern retiring
westward towards the line of the Warta, The victory in the south
determined the issue north of the Pihtza. On the i8th Mackensen
was in retreat ; on the 25th the general retirement was ordered.
Grojec and Skiemievice were taken, and then Lowicz and Lodz ;
for, with both flanks turned, there could be no resting-place for
Hindenburg short of the frontier.

In this fortnight's battle the only modified success won by
Teutonic arms fell to the share of the Austrians. The troops of
the Dual Monarchy had met with grim disaster in the first two
months of war, and they had beyond doubt been badly led ; but
some were of excellent quality, and now they gave exhibition of it.
The two reconstituted armies from Cracow swept eastward to the
San. Ivanov was in chief command here, but the resistance was
mainly in the hands of Radko Dmitrieff, while Brussilov watched
the Carpathian passes and protected the communications with
Lemberg. The Austrians were successful till Hindenburg 's debacle
in the north uncovered their left flank and compelled them to
retire. Their communications were good, and the forested banks
of the San gave them a strong base for defence. They crossed the
San at several points, reoccupied Jaroslav, and relieved Przemysl.
From the south they delivered a fierce attack on the Russian left
at Sambor, and nearly succeeded, their object being the recapture
of Lemberg. The garrison of Przemysl, under General von Kus-
manek, were very near starvation, and welcomed their deliverers.
Food and supplies of all kinds were rushed up from Cracow to the
fortress, and Przemysl was given a new lease of Hfe. It had need
of it, for in a day or two the iron cordon was closed again. Jaroslav
was retaken by the Russians, along with 5,000 prisoners, and
Przemysl was re-invested. Finally, Dankl managed to cling to
Sandomirz long after there was no German within forty miles of
the Vistula, and only retired south of the upper Vistula when the
Russian left centre threatened to envelop him.

As Hindenburg retreated he left a desert behind him. The
roads he had laboriously made were mined and destroyed, as was
the new gauge of the Kalisz-Lodz railway. He " chess-boarded "
the ordinary highways, and blew up railway stations, water-towers.

392 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.

southern forces, and hem them in between Russki and Dmitri aff.
Accordingly there was a general hastening of the advance all along
the Russian line. Strong assaults were made on the German front
in the Masurian Lakes, probably to prevent reinforcements being
sent to the German centre ; the Russian right centre pressed for-
ward towards Kolo and Kalisz, the left centre bore down upon the
lines of Czestochova, and the race for Cracow was accelerated.
It was believed that even if the movement down the Warta failed,
the Russian centre could hold the enemy, and prevent his inter-
fering with the main Russian objective, the flanking movement
upon Cracow and Silesia. The Russians were resolved at almost
any cost to treat western Galicia, like East Prussia, as a self-
contained terrain, and to refrain from weakening Dmitrieff what-
ever might happen on their centre. Long after Hindenburg's
counter-offensive in the north had thrust back Russki and Rennen-
kampf, the Russian left was still moving on Cracow, and it was
not checked until the German- Austrian armies undertook a specific
counterstroke on their right wing.

By the 12th of November Russian cavalry on the north bank
of the upper Vistula had crossed the Nida and Nidzitsa, and had
taken Miechov on the German frontier, not twenty miles north
of Cracow itself. Dmitrieff's main forces were still eighty miles
to the east, while Brussilov was systematically reoccupying the
main passes of the western Carpathians, and about this date was
securing the Dukla. For the next three weeks Dmitrieff's advance
went on slowly but steadily. The only heavy fighting was on his
extreme right across the Vistula, where he came into contact with
the right of Dankl's army from Czestochova. By the end of
the first week in December his cavalry were in the suburbs of
Cracow at Wielitza, and his main force was on the line of the river
Raba. He was now about twelve miles from the fortress ; and
it seemed as if next day the investment would begin, for his right
was closing in from the direction of Miechov, and the northern
side of Cracow was the hardest to defend.

As we have seen, during the first Russian advance in September
the fortifications of Cracow had been overhauled, and it was now
as strong as its nature permitted. The big Skoda guns had been
got into position, and much entrenching had been done in a wide
circle around the city. The main Austrian forces were not in the
enceinte. They had been moved north to the line Wielun-Czesto-
chova, and during the last week of November the place was held
by a garrison rather than a field army. Hindenburg waited till

1914] DMITRIEFF RETIRES. 393

the menace was very near before he took measures of defence,
for he clung to the behef that Cracow could be saved at Lodz
and Lowicz. But by 5th December it was clear that Russia
could not be thus distracted, and a plan for the salvation of the
city was hastily matured. Two forces took the field for the pur-
pose. One, under Bochm-Ermolli, moving from the south-west
of Cracow among the foothills of the Carpathians, struck directly
at Ivanov's left. The other, under Boroevitch von Bojna, operat-
ing from the plain of Hungary, aimed at driving Brussilov from
the passes, and so threatening the Russian rear and their lines of
communications. They struck simultaneously, and Dmitrieff was
scarcely called on to face the menace on his flank when he heard
of Brussilov being heavily engaged in the mountains.

On 8th December Dmitrieff fought a battle almost on the out-
skirts of Cracow. But for the threat in his rear he might have held
his ground, for the action on the whole went in favour of the Rus-
sians. But two factors combined to make his position undesir-
able, apart from what was happening to Brussilov. His right
across the Vistula was being strongly attacked from the direction
of Czestochova, and on his left bodies of the enemy were working
their way through the higher glens of the mountains, and descend-
ing the Donajetz valley to threaten his left rear. Accordingly he
fell back to a line running from Novo Sandek, on the Donajetz,
north-west across the Vistula to a point on the river Nidzitsa.
On the 12th grave news reached him. The second Austrian army
had carried the Dukla Pass, and the Dukla, though it had no rail-
way, was the key of the western Carpathians. It is ten miles
across, broad and easy, and perfectly suited even in winter weather
for the passage of great armies. Whoever held it had turned all
the eastern passes against an invader from north or south. Its
capture by the Austrians meant that large forces could at once
be poured down upon the Galician plains, and the Russian army
would be cut off between them and the enemy advancing from
Cracow. To avoid that danger Dmitrieff fell back again. He was
compelled to shorten his line, and his right was, therefore, retired
from the Nidzitsa to behind the Nida. His front now ran from
just east of the Nida across the Vistula, up, but well east of, the
lower Donajetz, up and east of its tributary the Biala, past Tamow,
and thence by Jaslo to the Carpathian spurs south-east of Krosno.
This meant that the debouchment from the Dukla Pass was now
in front of his line.

To observers in the West at the time the news of the retirement

394 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.

was disquieting, but in reality it meant little except a check to
the Cracow advance. Unless the Russian left were pushed north
of Jaroslav, their main communications, the Lemberg railway,
would not be threatened. Przemysl, which was fifty miles from the
mouths of the passes, might indeed be relieved, and it was the
danger to Przemysl that was the main Russian preoccupation.
As had happened before its relief in October, a vigorous bombard-
ment was undertaken, but without effect. By this time the
numbers of the investing force had been seriously curtailed. Pres-
ently came news that the Austrians had occupied the crest of the
Lupkow Pass in Dmitrieff' s rear, and were fighting hard for the
Uzsok Pass, which carried the railway from the Hungarian plains
to Lemberg. But by this time the Russian retreat had reached
its farthest point, new troops had been brought from Kiev, and
the hour had come for a counter-attack. About 20th December
the advance began. The enemy was driven from the eastern bank
of the Nida, across the lower Donajetz, across the Biala, while
the Russian left, swinging south-west from Krosno, seized the
foot of the Dukla Pass, and succeeded in cutting off and capturing
a considerable Austrian force. Brussilov meantime undertook
operations against the Lupkow and Uzsok, and by Christmas Day
the Galician approaches to all the three great western passes were
in Russian hands. About the same time the mountains were
visited by violent snowstorms, and the weather further safe-
guarded the Russian flank. Even across low passes no great army
dared move in a Carpathian blizzard.

IV.

On irth November Mackensen moved with his IX. Army, and
about the 13th the Grand Duke first realized that Hindenburg
was preparing a counterstroke. The German advance was on
a comparatively narrow front, the forty miles between the Warta
and the lower Vistula ; though the extreme left was to operate
against Plock, on the right bank of the latter stream. Hinden-
burg's objective was once again Warsaw, to be secured by a sudden
blow at the right of the Russian centre. He argued, with justice,
that, with broken railways and ruined roads, that centre could
not be quickly reinforced or easily retire. If it were destroyed,
he would be in Warsaw long before Ivanov, who commanded
the left centre moving against the upper Warta, could come up

1914] SECOND GERMAN ADVANCE ON WARSAW. 395

from the south, and the fall of Warsaw would send Dmitrieff
back post-haste to the east. The Russian position was a bad
one, except on the assumption that the invader had been finally
broken. Against an unbeaten and reinforced foe their line offered
a dozen points of weakness. With forces which cannot be esti-
mated at more than two millions they were holding a front of
nearly a thousand miles. From the lower Niemen down through
the Masurian Lakes their line ran along the south frontier of East
Prussia by Mlawa to a point between Plock and Thorn on the
Vistula, then southward by Kolo and Sieradz to east of Czesto-
chova, striking the upper Vistula near the Nidzitsa, and continu-
ing by Tarnow to the Carpathians ; then along the crest of the
mountains to the Bukovina and the Rumanian frontier. From
Masurenland to Plock their communications were poor ; from
Plock to the Nidzitsa they were the worst conceivable. Against
Hindenburg's sudden thrust it may be doubted if the Russian
right centre had more than 200,000 men. The only hope of aid
was from behind Warsaw, and the Kutno-Lowicz lines were still
in disrepair. Help from the left centre must come by the Czesto-
chova-Petrikov line, and that had been most diligently destroyed
in the German retreat.

In late autumn in Poland there come heavy mists which cover
the landscape like a garment. From sunrise to sunset they never
break, and the traveller's vision is limited to a hundred yards
of sodden plain. Air reconnaissance is hopeless, and even light
cavalry give poor results, for an enemy's strength, even when
felt, can only be guessed at. In such weather the bolt was launched
against the Russian right centre. The Russian Staff, who had been
for some days aware of movements north of the Vistula, about
the 13th of November realized that something was happening on
the southern bank. Aided by the railway from Thorn, a strong
force was pressing in the Russian outposts, and Russki promptly
contracted his far-stretched front. Ivanov was eighty miles
away, facing the entrenched position of the German southern
force from Wielun to Czestochova, and between the two halves
of the battlefield lay fifty miles of unoccupied country. With a
large force of cavalry guarding his left flank, the Russian general
took up a line from the Vistula near Gombin to Uniejov on the
Warta, and waited to ascertain the enemy's strength.

He was not left long in doubt. The attack came in irresistible
force, and the much inferior Russian army slowly gave way.
By the 15th Russki had been driven back on Kutno, and his

396 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.

line ran from the Vistula through Leczyca, and well east of Unie-
jov. Reinforcements had been summoned from behind Warsaw,
but in the nature of things they could not arrive for several days,
and no immediate help could be looked for from Ivanov. Many
prisoners and guns were lost in the retirement, for the lines of
retreat were few and bad. In any other army the losses would
have been greater, but the Russians had a practice of marching
not in solid columns but in scattered groups, which seemed to
straggle indefinitely, but appeared with wonderful precision at the
appointed bivouac. The cavalry did great service as a rearguard,
and the orange and scarlet sheepskin coats of the Turcomans,
mounted on their incomparable horses, gleamed through the mist
on both flanks. The Russian aim was to fall back in good order
behind the river Bzura, which flows from south of Kutno east
to Lowicz, and then north to the Vistula. On the i8th the Ger-
mans were in Leczyca and Orlov, in the curve of the upper Bzura,
controlling the roads to Lodz and Lowicz. Russki retired his
whole left across the Bzura from Lodz for some forty miles west-
ward. His right still clung to the Vistula in the neighbourhood
of Ilov. The Bzura at this point is a stream about the size of
the Thames, running partly between high corroded banks in a
channel eaten out of the plain, and partly in open reaches with a
deep fringe of bog. There were no bridges left, but in its upper
course, where it bends southward, there were many fords. West
of Lowicz for some forty miles runs east and west a great belt
of marshes, partly on the Bzura, and partly west of it towards
Leczyca. There were crossing-places in these marshes, many of
them, for the country people had to find ways of movement, but
for the most part they were small paths wholly unfitted for the
movement of armies and impossible for guns. About Leczyca
there were, indeed, several better passages, and almost in the
centre of the belt, between the towns of Kutno and Piontek,
there was one famous causeway, engineered for heavy transport.
Twenty miles south of the marshes lay the large industrial city
of Lodz, which was the first German objective. To break down
the Russian position three courses were possible — a flanking
movement on the north by Ilov ; a flanking movement on the
south by Leczyca, where the crossings were easier ; and a frontal
attack which should force the Piontek causeway. Mackensen at
different times adopted all three.

The Bzura was a strong line of defence, but it had the serious
drawback that it could be turned on the south. The Russian

1914] THE FIGHT AT PIONTEK. 397

left rested on no natural obstacle, no deep river or mountain range,
but was in the air in that stretch of no man's land around the
upper Warta. Had Ivanov, farther south, been able to move
rapidly, a German flanking movement might have been caught
between hammer and anvil. But Hindenburg knew well how
thorough had been his campaign of destruction, especially on
the Czestochova-Petrikov-Lodz railway, and had no fear for
his own enveloping right wing. Perhaps he remembered the
lesson of the Polish insurrection of 1831, when Russia's aim was
Warsaw. Then the advance from east of the Vistula made no
progress, and Pashkevitch in the summer resolved upon an assault
from the west. In July he marched by the north bank of the
Vistula to the Prussian frontier at Thorn, where he crossed the
river, and advanced on Warsaw by the south bank. The Poles,
under Skrj^znecki, held the east side of the Bzura with an army
of 30,000 ; but, leaving Pahlen to attack in front, Pashkevitch
turned their flank by the upper Bzura, and drove them back upon
Warsaw. A month later the capital surrendered.

Time was the essence of Hindenburg's plan, for he knew that,
unless Lodz and Warsaw fell to him soon, the Russians could get
up reserves by their trans-Vistula railways. He must strike
finally while their force was small and much embarrassed by his
first blow. Accordingly he pressed hard with his right from
Leczyca, and won the western crossings of the marshes. At the
same time his extreme left moved towards Plock, on the north
bank of the Vistula, and a force from East Prussia, attacking from
Soldau, drove back the Russians south of Mlawa. He was clamour-
ing for more troops and getting them promptly. The southern
group at Czestochova was ordered to advance to keep Ivanov's
hands full, and to prevent any of the nearer reinforcements reach-
ing Russki, until he should have been thoroughly beaten, and the
way opened towards Warsaw. Meanwhile the main effort was on
Mackensen's centre against the causeway of Piontek.

WTiat followed was tactically one of the most extraordinary inci-
dents of the whole campaign. At first the Russians beat off the
attack on the causeway, and held the German army among the
villages north of the marshes. But on the 19th a desperate effort
of Mackensen's centre pushed across and drove the enemy well
south of Piontek. Over the causeway for four succeeding days
troops were rushed in huge quantities, and the Russian line fell
back and back, till there was a deep sag in it east of Lodz and
south of Strykov. Against that sag Mackensen on Monday, the

398 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.

23id, put forth all his strength. The Russian front broke, and
the Russian right centre was split into two parts — one l>ing
east of Brezin and Koluschky, across the Bzura at Lowicz and so
to the Vistula, and the other surrounding Lodz on east, north,
and west, running from Rzgov by Zgierz to Szadek, on the upper
Warta. The ragged edges of the gap were Rzgov and Koluschky.
It was a most perilous predicament, for at the same moment
the Germans were bringing strong bodies up from Lask on the
Kalisz-Lodz line, while the Wielun-Czestochova army was threat-
ening Petrikov on the south. This meant that the Russian left
around Lodz was assailed on front, flank, and rear — from Leczyca,
from Lask, and from east of Rzgov — while the Russian right
was apparently powerless to aid. For a moment it looked as if
Hindenburg had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

Suddenly at the supreme crisis the Russians were reinforced.
From the directions of Skiernievice and Petrikov troops arrived
from the Second and Fifth Armies. These fresh forces were flung
into the battle, and succeeded in cutting off the apex of the Ger-
man wedge, and re-establishing the Russian line. This was on
the 23rd, and no help was ever more timely. Another day, and
the Russian left would have been beyond human aid. The
point of the German wedge was destroyed. It cannot have been
more than a division, probably less, and, whatever it was, it dis-
appeared from the campaign. But a singular situation remained.
The German wedge had consisted of two corps, the 20th and the
25th Reserve — together with Richthofen's cavalry — and two-thirds
remained in a kind of sac, making a deep bulge in the Russian
line. Russki exerted himself desperately to close the mouth of
the sac, and he almost succeeded. Petrograd believed that a
unique Russian victory was preparing, and for two days from
Zgierz to Rzgov, and from Strykov to Koluschky, the sides of
the pocket pressed in on the trapped German corps. More troops
were needed, and these were summoned from the extreme Russian
right under Rennenkampf. But for some reason still obscure
Rennenkampf was a day late. He was promptly dismissed, and
replaced in the command of the Eighth Army by General Litvinov.

Mackensen took the only possible course. He brought up
reserves and broadened the mouth of the pocket, pushing back
the flanking Russians at Strykov and Zgierz. In the frantic
struggle, which lasted during the 24th and 25th, the Germans lost
terribly. Companies were reduced to a fifth of their strength,
whole battalions were so broken that they had to leave the fighting

I9I4J FALL OF LODZ. 399

line and yield place to the new troops which Mackensen poured
into the sac. The severest fighting was at night, but during two
days there was no cessation, the Germans battUng for freedom
and the Russians for victory. By the 26th the remnants of the
two corps had got out of the pocket at Strykov, and for a moment
there was a respite to the carnage.

But the fresh troops whicli Germany had brought up were not
allowed to remain long on the defensive. When an army is in
difficulties its staff falls back upon their favourite strategical
device — the device which has given them the best results in recent
fighting. With memories of Tannenberg and Mons behind them,
the Germans naturally thought kindly of the enveloping move-
ment. Reinforcements were still arriving for Hindenburg, and
he ordered Mackensen to fling his strength against the Lowicz-
Lodz front, while with his right wing he drove back the Russian
left towards Petrikov. The Russian northern front at this moment
ran from Ilov, in the north, crossing the Bzura west of Lowicz,
and continuing by Strykov and Zgierz to a point near Szadek, on
the upper Warta. In the crook formed by its left wing lay the
city of Lodz. Lodz, the second of Polish cities, was the industrial
capital of the country, the Manchester of Poland, with large textile
factories and machine shops. It contained a population of half
a million, of which 40 per cent, were German immigrants, since
the factories were mostly German-owned, and nearly a quarter
were Jews. Such a place in rear of the Russian lines was a post
of danger, a rendezvous for spies ; and, moreover, to hold it meant
that the Russian front bent forward in an ugly salient. Had a
retreat become necessary there, the seven miles of the Lodz streets
would have made it slow and difficult. Lodz in the East pla5^ed
much the same part as Ypres in the Western campaign. It was
the foundation of a salient, the relic of an unsuccessful offensive.
More cautious than the Western commanders, the Russian gen-
eralissimo determined to shorten the line and avoid the angle.
Accordingly when, on the 27th, there was a frontal attack on his
centre, and a heavy movement against his left, he deliberately
relinquished the city. The withdrawal was slow, and lasted more
than a week. On 5th December, shells were falling in the streets,
and several of the great hotels were damaged. On Sunday, 6th
December, the Germans entered Lodz without opposition, and
were welcomed by their numerous compatriots. The Russian front
now stretched in an almost straight line from just west of Petrikov
to the Bzura, west of Lowicz, and thence to Ilov and the Vistula.

400 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec.

Hindenburg now concentrated his forces for a blow at Warsaw,
and for this purpose struck at the apparently weak Russian right
wing. This wing, as we have seen, was north of the Bzura and
west of Lowicz. Against it Hindenburg hurled his left, which
was admirably served by the Thorn-Lowicz railway. At the
same time, he attempted a movement which, had it succeeded,
would have been fatal to the whole Russian position. The East
Prussian force, which for the past three weeks had been pressing
down from Mlawa, was reinforced, and a serious effort was made
to cut the main railway line between Warsaw and Petrograd.
Advancing on a sixteen-mile front, this new force occupied the
highroad which ran from Przasnysz to the railway south of Mlawa.
There, however, it was checked and decisively beaten by a Russian
advance from Novo Georgievsk. It was driven north of Mlawa
almost to the East Prussian frontier, and for the moment the
Russian right flank was secure. The movement against the Rus-
sian wing just south of the Vistula was more successful. When
it began, the Russian cavalry were in Gombin, and the infantry
held Ilov in force. The German pressure convinced the Grand
Duke that his present front had serious weaknesses. It lay awk-
wardly astride the Bzura, like M'Clellan on the Chickahominy,
and in the south it gave bad entrenching positions and worse
communications. In all the country from Lowicz to the Kielce-
Ivangorod railway there was no easy access to the east. Accord-
ingly he resolved to retire his left wing down the Pilitza to its
navigable waters, by which transport could come from Warsaw,
and in the north to get behind the Bzura and its tributary the
Rawka. The weather confirmed his decision. The winter frosts
still tarried, and no more than a thin coating of ice lay on the
Polish bogs. The Vistula and the Pilitza were open for river
traffic. Early in December came a spell of complete thaw, which
water-logged the whole countryside. Let the German offensive
break itself against a strong defensive position, and lose its ardour
in the bottomless mud.

What we may call the Second Battle of Warsaw raged for the
better part of three weeks, from yth December to Christmas Eve.
It was fought on the German side not for any indirect object
Hke the relief of Cracow, but for the definite possession of Warsaw
itself. For the first fortnight the Russians fell back slowly all
along their line. By the 15th Ilov was untenable ; by the 17th
Petrikov was taken. By the i8th the Russian line had been
formed from the Vistula along the east bank of the Bzura, up the

1914I A LULL IN THE EAST. 401

east bank of its tributary the Rawka, through the hilly country
south of Rava to Inov^olodz on the Pilitza, across the railway
line at Opoczno, and thence by the Nida to the Vistula. This
involved the surrender of towns like Lowicz, Petrikov, and
Tomasov, but it gave a position which in a Polish winter was
probably the best which could be found, both for natural strength
and communications. It had always been in the mind of the
Russian Staff, and had been carefully worked out in every detail ;
but there is reason to believe that at first it was regarded as
a place only for a temporary stand, and that the real Russian
defence was to be on what was called the " Blonie line," through
the town of that name eighteen miles west of Warsaw. It was
only when the strength of the Bzura-Opoczno line revealed itself
that it became for the Russians what the line Arras-Nieuport was
for the Allies in the West.

The situation in the East now corresponded exactly with the
position in the West. The Russians entrenched themselves on a
front against which the enemy's assault broke in vain.* As in
Flanders, the severest fighting was in the north, and along the
line of a little river. The Bzura and the Rawka were, indeed,
very different from the canalized Yser. The first-named flows
through a level plain, broken up with great patches of fir woods,
in which stand the white Polish country houses. It is a shallow
muddy stream, fifty yards wide, and in its lower course easily
forded, for there are no adjacent marshes. On the east bank there
is a gentle slope inland ; on the west side there is in some places,
about a hundred yards from the water, a sharp bank, marking the
rim of an old channel. The Russian trenches were dug close to
the stream, the Germans for the most part a little retired beyond
the small escarpment. The Russians had here for their communica-
tions the unfrozen Vistula and the two lines from Warsaw to
Sochaczev and to Lowicz. Farther south they had the Pilitza
and the Kielce-Radom railway. The Germans attacked the
lines of the little rivers between the 19th and the 25th, their main
efforts being against Sochaczev on the Bzura and Bolimov on the
Rawka. At night columns in close formation would crash through
the cat-ice along the shore, wade the stream which ran breast-
high, and, in spite of heavy losses, make good the farther bank.
Sometimes they took an advanced Russian trench, sometimes
they fell by the river's edge, but in no case did many return. The

* They were supplied in December with barbed wire — the first they h£Ki used iv
the campaign. — Gourko, Russia in 1914-1917, p. 73.

402 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec.

German attack on Warsaw was pressed with indomitable vigour,
for Hindenburg desired the PoHsh capital as a Christmas gift for
his Emperor. But no valour on earth could carry that line.
Warsaw was only thirty-five miles off, and the citizens heard daily
and nightly the clamour of the guns. They might have slept as
peacefully as if they had been a thousand miles away, for a barrier
is a barrier, at whatever distance it stands from the object of
desire. By Christmas Eve the German attack ebbed and died,
as it had ebbed six weeks earlier before Ypres. The winter
stalemate, long delayed in the East, had at last arrived.

We turn to the heroic war which Serbia, ringed round with
enemies and suspicious neutrals, short of ammunition, suppHes,
and everything but valour, was waging in the tangle of hills be-
tween the Drina and the Morava. At the battles of Shabatz and
the Jadar the Austrian army had been heavily defeated, and by
24th August there were few Austrians left on the Serbian side of
the Drina and the Save. Vienna announced that the campaign
had been merely a punitive expedition, which had achieved its
purpose, and that for the present her hands were full with weightier
matters in the north ; on which it may be observed that the
casualties of the punitive force were nearly 40,000 — eight thousand
of whom were dead — and that it lost some fifty guns. Serbia had
now to face a question of some difficulty. The enemy was gone,
but he would presently return. The wedge of her territory,
bounded by the Drina and the Save, jutted awkwardly into the
Dual Monarchy, and offered an intricate problem of defence.
Her forces were insufficient to maintain the whole of the long border
hne, and the nature of her internal communications did not allow
of rapid movement. Accordingly she decided that the wisest
defence was an offensive aimed against the Bosnian capital of Sera-
jevo. If that city were won there was every chance of a rising
among the Bosnian Slavs, which would keep Austria busy. Accord-
ingly, along with Montenegro, the invasion of Bosnia was resumed,
and on 14th September the important frontier post of Vishegrad,
which they had approached in August, was at length taken. Mean-
time the Austrian forces north of the Danube continued their
bombardment of Belgrade. To put an end to this annoyance,
rather than as a part of a serious advance, a Serbian detachment

1914] AUSTRIA'S THIRD ATTACK ON SERBIA. 403

crossed the Save in the darkness of the night of 6th September,
silenced the hostile batteries, and took the Syrmian town of
Semlin. These activities, especially the threat against Bosnia,
drove the Austrians to a fresh offensive, and during the first half
of September there was much inconclusive fighting on the line of
the Drina. October saw Serbia entrenched along the river, along
the heights of Jagodnia and Gouchevo, through Lesnitza to Racha,
and thence along the Save to Mitrovitza and Obrenovatz — a line
of nearly one hundred miles, and utterly beyond the power of her
small army to hold. Her hope was in the marching speed of her
men — the soldiers who two years before had made the famous
winter march across Albania to Durazzo. With such troops she
might be able quickly to reinforce a threatened point.

The third great Austrian offensive matured towards the end
of October. It was inevitable for a dozen reasons. The German
activity in Poland and the appearance of new German corps
enabled Austria to turn her attention to her enemy in the south-
east. The punishment of Serbia, which had been nominally the
reason of the war, was eagerly demanded by the Austrian people,
indignant at two humiliating defeats. Further, on 30th October,
Sir Louis Mallet at Constantinople had asked for his passports,
and Turkey had entered into the struggle. If Serbia could be
crushed and Bulgaria conciliated, a junction might be effected
with the Ottoman armies which would keep Rumania quiescent,
and, more important, would open up to the Teutonic Powers a
new way to the sea. In estimating the motives of Austria, and
those of Germany behind her, a chief place must be given to that
old hankering for an ^Egean outlet which had for a decade domi-
nated their Balkan policy.

To understand the campaign which followed we must ob-
serve the configuration of Serbia. On the west and north-west
it is bounded by the Drina and the Save. For thirty miles along
the right bank of the lower Drina there is something approach-
ing a plain, which becomes wider as it nears the Save, and extends
along the right bank of that river to the Danube. It is never
very broad, and it is much broken up with ridges, but it is possible
manoeuvring ground for modem armies. For the rest, the country
is a knot of hills, which descend steeply upon the upper Drina,
and stretch eastward to the Bulgarian frontier, where they join
the main Balkan range. They are broken up into many sub-
sidiary systems which it is needless to particularize ; but one main
ridge runs from the Drina in a semicircle south of Valjevo, where

404 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.-Nov.

it forms a watershed between the river Kolubara, which enters
the Save at Obrenovatz, and the Western Morava, which flows
from the Albanian border to the Great Morava. The principal
river is the Great Morava, running through eastern Serbia from
south to north. The railways are determined by the river valleys.
The trunk line to Constantinople runs up the Morava by Nish
to the Bulgarian frontier. Kragujevatz, the Serbian arsenal, is
on a branch line to the west of the Morava valley. One line runs
south from Obrenovatz up the Kolubara to Valjevo, and another
from Valjevo to the main trunk line, while from one of the stations
on this latter branch a short railway goes south up the valley of
the Lig.

The Austrian objective was Nish, whither the Serbian Court
had retired, and the main line to Bulgaria. But before these
could be reached there were various secondary objectives. The
obvious route to Nish was by an advance up the Morava from
Semendria on the Danube, but to this there were two insuperable
objections. The first was the Morava valley, which at two places
contracts to narrows, where the ground falls steeply and forms a
strong natural defence. The second was the lateral valleys enter-
ing the Morava from the west, which would enable a Serbian force
from the central hills to strike at the flank of any Austrian advance.
It was clearly the path of wisdom to occupy the central knot of
hills, and especially the upper valley of the Western Morava.
With these in their control, they could advance to Nish with an
easy mind, for their communications would be safe. The first
objective was therefore Valjevo on the Kolubara, the terminus
of two railways and the starting-point for the passes of the horse-
shoe range to the south, which was the way to the Western Morava.
The second was Kragujevatz, the Serbian arsenal, and a point
from which the main Morava route could be seriously menaced.

The Austrian forces under General Potiorek concentrated for
the movement reached a total of some 265 infantry battalions,
with a full complement of artillery. Against this great army Serbia
could not bring forward equal numbers. Though she called every
peasant from the plough and every shepherd from the hills, her
total force did not exceed a quarter of a million ; and of infantry
she had only some 200 weak battalions. Her army, indeed, was
largely composed of veterans — the men of Kumanovo and Monastir
and the Bregalnitsa. But her supplies, especially of ammunition,
were terribly depleted, and the arsenal at Kragujevatz was all
but empty. She was shut off from the outer world, for the

1914] THE BATTLE OF THE RIDGES. 405

one port by which ammunition could enter was the Montenegrin
Antivari, and only pack ponies could travel the hill roads that led
to it. The great port of Salonika was free for Serbian goods, but
to bring in munitions of war by that channel involved a breach of
Greek neutrality. But the Serbian army, for all its difficulties, was
in good heart, for it had already three victories to its credit, and
it had implicit faith in its generals. The Commander-in-Chief, as
in the wars with Turkey and Bulgaria, was the young Crown Prince
Alexander, and his Chief of Staff was Field-Marshal Putnik, a very
able, irascible old gentleman, who knew every detail in the topog-
raphy of his native land, and had a great eye for efficient
subordinates. One of these, Mishitch, who was presently to com-
mand the First Army, was to win one of the foremost reputations
of the war.

Before the wide sweep of the Austrian advance from Save and
Danube and Drina, the Crown Prince had no choice but to fall
back and look for his help to the hills. For a little he clung to
the foothills of the Tser range and a line running east to the Kolu-
bara, but he was too weak to hold it. Had he attempted to defend
Valjevo and the low country he would have been outflanked by
the movement from Semendria on the east and Liubovia on the
west. The Austrian advance began in the first week of November,
and by the loth they held the whole Kolubara valley up to Valjevo,
the main trunk railway up to Mladenovatz, and were pushing on
the west towards Ushitza, on the head-waters of the Western
Morava. The Crown Prince fell back to the summit of the range
south of Valjevo which forms the watershed. The main road
from Valjevo to Tchatchak in the Western Morava valley (with a
branch leading from Milanovatz to Kragujevatz) crosses a pass
about 2,000 feet high, which divides the range into two massifs.
That on the west is called Maljen, and rises to a little over 3,000
feet ; that on the east is called variously Suvobor and Rudnik,
and is some 500 feet higher and more precipitous. By the middle
of November the whole Serbian army was on these ridges, while
their left held the spurs running south to the Western Morava to
resist the turning movement of the Bosnian corps from Ushitza.
They covered Kragujevatz and Tchatchak, and their line of retreat
was open down the Western Morava towards Nish, save in the un-
likely event of the Austrian left making its way up the Great Morava.

Then followed an unaccountable delay. For a fortnight the
Austrians lay in Valjevo and along the skirts of the hills, and did
nothing. Apparently Potiorek regarded the precipitate retreat of

4o6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. Pec.

the Serbians into the mountains as the end of their serious resistance.
He was aware of their scarcity of ammunition, and beUeved that
it could not be remedied. So confident was he of success that he
dehberately weakened his army. By the beginning of December
the great Austro-German counter-offensive from Cracow was
maturing, and he sent three of his corps to assist in the attack
from the south against the Carpathian passes. During that fort-
night the Serbians had not been idle. King Peter, enfeebled by
illness, had left his capital as the Austrians advanced, and joined
the army on the ridges. Every man that could be brought up was
added to the strength, and with heroic efforts gun positions were
created on the rocky spurs. Most important of all, fresh supplies
of ammunition for artillery and small arms had arrived at last by
devious ways from the Western Allies, in spite of attempts by
Turkish and Bulgarian bands to wreck the convoys.

On the ist of December the Austrians had initiated their major
strategy, which was to sweep south-eastward with powerful wings,
from Mladenovatz on the left and from Ushitza on the right, and
enclose the Serbian army. Their centre was advancing against the
ridges, with its left moving up the Lig valley, where ran a single-
line railway, against the Serbian right on the Rudnik range, and
its right moving up the head-waters of the Kolubara against the
Maljen range. On the next day they were well up on the slopes of
the hills, and by the 3rd they had gained the western ridge of
Rudnik. The Serbians lay along the ridges, with the First Army
under Mishitch on the left, then the Third Army under General
Yourishitch Stiirm, and on the right the Second Army under
Field-Marshal Stepanovitch.

On the afternoon of the 3rd the moment came for the Serbians
to strike. It was a crisis of their national history, graver than any
they had yet met, and the whole army was inspired with a profound
seriousness. King Peter, old, deaf, and sick, rose to the great occa-
sion, and addressed his men almost in the words of Shakespeare's
King Harry before Agincourt, or of Robert Bruce before Bannock-
burn : —

"Heroes," he said, "you have taken two oaths — one to me, your
king, and the other to your country. I am an old, broken man, on
the edge of the grave, and I release you from your oath to me. From
your other oath no one can release you. If you feel you cannot go
on, go to your homes, and I pledge my word that after the war, if we
come out of it, nothing shall happen to you. But I and my sons
stay here.'

1914] SERBIA CLEARED OF THE ENEMY. 407

This noble appeal had its effect. Not a man left the ranks. The
calculated atrocities of Austria in September — calculated, for we
possess the Imperial and Royal instructions on the subject — had
made the war a crusade. The weary and ragged troops went into
battle with a new passion of sacrifice.

The ridges of Rudnik and Maljen are barren even in midsummer,
wide screes and sharp ridges of shale descending to stony glens.
No heav}^ snow had yet fallen, but a powdering of white lay on the
rocks. During the night of the 3rd and throughout the 4th the
whole Serbian right and centre were heavily engaged, while the
left at Ushitza fought a separate battle of its own. The gun posi-
tions had been skilfully selected, and the Serbian infantry charged
with fury and hurled the enemy from the slopes. Some time during
the 5th the Austrian left centre broke and streamed northwards
down the Lig valley. Presently came the turn of the centre,
which was forced off Maljen along the Valjevo road. That same
night the Serbian left at Ushitza won a great victory over the
Austrian 15th and i6th Corps, driving them north across the
western passes of Maljen towards the springs of the Kolubara. At
dawn on the 6th the Austrian line had everywhere given way. It
was not in retreat ; it was routed and broken till it had no longer
the semblance of an army.

The Serbians were as vigorous in pursuit as in battle. By the
7th their front was Ushitza-Valjevo-Lazarevatz. The enemy fled
by the roads from Valjevo to Shabatz and Obrenovatz, where
they had a clear path for retreat ; but their right, which was in
the Maljen and Povljen hills, came out no more. The extreme
left attempted a stand on the Kosmaj ridges and at Lissovitch,
but after some hard fighting was driven back by Stepanovitch
upon Belgrade. The Austrians could not halt short of their own
frontier. The Serbian left swept up the Drina and beyond. The
centre pushed towards the Save, picking up prisoners and guns
with every mile. The right moved swiftly towards Belgrade, and
with it went the king. On the 15th the capital was retaken, and
while the Austrian rearguard was fighting in the northern suburbs.
King Peter was on his knees in the cathedral giving thanks for
victory. A mere remnant of an army straggled over the Save,
while the Serbian guns rained shells on its crossing.

The victory was of a type not unknown to history — a well-
equipped army inveigled into a country where it could be caught
at a disadvantage by a weaker force operating under familiar con-
ditions. Of the 200,000 Austrians who crossed the Drina and the

4o8 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec.

Save, lot 100,000 returned. The disaster was indeed for Austria
what Tannenberg was for Russia : it virtually destroyed a field
army. Potiorek was removed from his command, and all talk
of the conquest of Serbia by Austria alone died away. The Uttle
Balkan state had done inestimable service to the Allied cause, for
it had put four corps out of action, and delayed for some weeks the
Austrian main offensive against eastern Galicia. Two of the most
decisive battles in the first six months of war were triumphs re-
spectively for age and youth. Tannenberg was won by a veteran
nearing seventy, and the Serbian Ridges by a young gentleman of
twenty-six.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC AND IN AFRICA.
10th August-Sth December.

Germany's Loss of her Pacific Colonies — Fall of Tsing-tau — Germany in Africa —
Conquest of Togoland — Beginning of the Cameroons Campaign — Skirmishing
in German South-West Africa — Maritz's Revolt — The Situation in German
East Africa — British Fdlure at Tanga — The South African Rebellion.

By the end of August the war had spread beyond Europe to every
quarter of the globe where Germany possessed a square mile of
territory. Britain's Australasian and African dominions were
engaged in defending or enlarging their borders, and, though the
fighting was on a small scale compared with the gigantic European
struggle, it had important strategical bearings, and for Britain
was scarcely less vital than the battlefields of France. The oversea
German dominions were so widely scattered that they could get
little aid from their fatherland or from one another. Each had to
fight its battle alone, with such resources as the oatbreak of war
found in its possession.

In the Pacific, Germany owned 100,000 square miles of territory,
mainly in New Guinea. Her possessions there, officially known as
Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, were in the northern part of the south-
eastern section of the island. A long straight line running south-
east and north-west divided them from Papua or British New Guinea,
while another straight line, running north and south, separated
them from the Dutch colony in the west. Kaiser Wilhelm's Land
had an area of 70,000 square miles, and a population of half a
million, three hundred of whom were Germans. The country had
been little developed, but exported from its chief ports, Friedrich
Wilhelmshafen and Constantinhafen, a fair amount of copra, cocoa,
and rubber. The German protectorate of New Guinea included
not only Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, but a large number of islands

410 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

lying off its coast, and its official headquarters were at Rabaul,
on the island of New Pomerania. Chief among these islands was
the group known as the Bismarck Archipelago, which lay to the
north-east of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, and included New Pomerania,
New Mecklenburg, New Lauenburg, New Hanover, Admiralty
Island, and two hundred httle isles. Their population consisted
of some 200,000 natives, and a few hundred Chinamen and Ger-
mans. The chief island was New Pomerania, with its two con-
siderable ports of Herbertshohe and Simpsonhafen. A little to
the east lay the Solomon Islands, that archipelago of high wooded
mountains and cannibal tribes which Germany shared with Britain,
owning the two chief western islands, Bougainville and Buka.
North of New Guinea, but still forming part of the protectorate,
were three groups midway between Australia and Japan — the
Carolines, the Pelew, and the Marianne or Ladrone Islands. They
had been bought from Spain in 1889, and consisted of some six
hundred coral reefs, divided into an eastern and a western group
for the purposes of administration, and yielding little but copra.
Detached to the east lay the Marshall Islands, twenty-four in
number, whose chief product was phosphates. Germany's remain-
ing possession in the South Seas was Samoa, and the tale of her
doings there may be read in Stevenson's A Footnote to History.
The group consisted of the two large islands, Savaii and Upolu, with
Apia, the chief port, on the latter. Some 500 Europeans, chiefly
British and German, resided there, about 1,500 Chinese, and a
dwindling native population of about 15,000. From Samoa came
copra in large quantities, and of late a fair amount of rubber.
Lastly, far to the north on the China coast, in the province of
Shantung, lay the important German possession of Kiao-chau,
the history of whose acquisition has already been told in these
pages. It was a district some 200 square miles in extent, situated
on a sheltered bay, and surrounded by a neutral zone. The town
of Tsing-tau was a naval station, and most of its 5,000 German
inhabitants were marines. The place was strongly fortified both
by land and sea — Germany had spent £20,000,000 on it — and was
connected by rail with the Chinese lines. Its importance was due
to its contiguity to the Japanese Port Arthur and the British
Wei-hai-wei, and to the excellence of its harbour, which made it
an ideal base for the German Pacific Squadron.

The German Pacific possessions had long been a source of
anxiety to the Australian Commonwealth, and the first bio iv against
them was struck by the adjacent British dominions. The initial

1914] GERMAN DOMINIONS IN THE PACIFIC. 411

attack was made on Samoa. On 15th August a New Zealand
expeditionary force, some 1,500 strong, left Wellington in troop-
ships, and sailed for Samoa under the escort of H.M.S. Australia,
H.M.S. Melbourne, and the French cruiser Montcalm. On 28th
August it reached Apia, and took possession of the islands without
resistance. The German officials came in and swore fealty, and
were confirmed in their posts. Then came the turn of New Pome-
rania, which had already been reconnoitred. On nth September
an expeditionary force arrived at Herbertshohe, the port at the
north-eastern extremity of the island. A party of sailors landed
at dawn, and proceeded through the bush towards the wireless
station. The advance was not unopposed, for the Germans seem
to have concentrated here most of the troops which they possessed
in their New Guinea Protectorate. In several places the road was
mined, while rifle-pits had been dug along the edge, and snipers
placed in the neighbouring trees. The sailors fought their way
for six miles to the wireless station, where the German defence
surrendered. Our casualties were ten officers and four seamen,
and the whole German force fell into our hands. At the same time
the ports of Herbertshohe and Simpsonhafen, and the capital,
Rabaul, were occupied without trouble. Two days later our troops
sailed for the Solomon Islands, and secured without difficulty the
surrender of Bougainville. They then turned their attention to
Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, where they expected a more serious oppo-
sition. But again they won a bloodless victory. The British
flag was hoisted in Friedrich Wilhelmshafen, and a garrison left
behind. The Australian navy had done its work with admirable
precision and dispatch, covering great distances in a very short
time. H.M.S. Melbourne, for example, sailed 11,000 miles in the
first six weeks of war. At the end of September one or two small
islands were still nominally German, but for all serious purposes
the Emperor's dominions in the Pacific had disappeared. The
important German wireless stations at Yap (Caroline Islands),
Namu (Gilbert Islands), and Rabaul (New Pomerania) had been
destroyed. Early in October the Japanese occupied the Marshall
Islands and the other northern groups, which they handed over
to Austraha.

The German Pacific Squadron, based on Kiao-chau, did not
attempt to defend the Pacific islands. The bulk of it, under
Admiral von Spee, sailed for the western shores of South America,
with what consequences we shall presently learn. Two smaller
cruisers, the Emden and the Konigsberg, betook themselves to the

412 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.-Nov.

Indian Ocean, and, as we have already recorded, did considerable
damage to our commerce. The Konigsberg, after her easy destruc-
tion of the Pegasus in Zanzibar roads, gave little more trouble,
and proved unable to play the part allotted to her in the attack
on Mombasa. Her end came about loth November, when she was
found by H.M.S. Chatham hiding in shoal water about six miles
up the Rufigi River, Here she was sealed up to be disposed of
at our leisure, the fairway being blocked by sunken colliers. The
Emden had also a short life, but, in the language of the turf, she
had a good run for her money. We last saw her off the Malabar
coast of India on the last day of September. Then she turned
south-eastward, and captured five merchantmen in the Indian
Ocean, of which she sank four and sent one into Colombo. She
was next heard of off the north end of Sumatra, where our cruisers
captured her collier and her attendant steamer. The loss of her
colliers made her task difficult, but it did not weaken her boldness.
On 30th October she entered the roadstead of Penang, flying a
neutral flag and rigging up a dummy funnel, with the result that
she succeeded in torpedoing a Russian cruiser and a French
destroyer. Once more this new " Flying Dutchman " vanished,
but her course was near its end. On gth November she ap-
peared off the Cocos (or Keeling) Islands with the intention of
destroying the wireless station and cutting the cable. A wireless
message was, however, dispatched, which was picked up by the
cruiser Sydney of the Australian navy about fifty miles to the east.
This message, which was much mutilated, ran, " Strange warship off
entrance," and the presence of the Emden was at once conjectured.
The Sydney sighted the feathery cocoanut trees on the Keeling
Islands about g.15 a.m. on the 9th, and shortly after saw the top
of the Emden's funnels. She was lying off Direction Island, where
she had landed a party to destroy the cable station. The Emden
opened fire at long range, and then steered a northerly course,
lighting all the while a running battle with the Sydney. One hour
and forty minutes later she ran ashore on North Keeling Island,
a burning wreck, with her funnels shot away and her decks a
shambles. It was an unequal contest. The Sydney's 6-inch guns
had an easy mastery over the 4.1-inch guns of the Emden, and
while the latter had 230 killed and wounded, the former had only
iS casualties. Captain Karl von Miiller was captured and his sword
returned to him, for he had proved a gallant enemy. He had
treated the crews of his captures with generosity, and no charge
of brutality was ever brought against him. The Emden was an

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1914] JAPAN JOINS THE ALLIES. 413

expensive ship to our commerce. In two months she captured
seventeen merchantmen, which made up about half the total loss
to that date of our mercantile marine. One way and another she
cost us rather more than the price of a Dreadnought. In her short
life she did far more damage proportionately than the Alabama,
which destroyed about sixty-eight ships, valued at some three
millions sterhng, but took two years to do it, as against the
Emden's two months. On the other hand, it should be said that
the Emden was more than three times the size of the Confederate
privateer.

We turn to the chief episode in the Eastern Seas, the siege and
capture of the fortress of Tsing-tau, the only German fortress to
be carried in the war. On 15th August Japan delivered an ulti-
matum to Germany, in order, as she put it, to safeguard general
interests as contemplated in the agreement of alliance between
herself and Great Britain. She asked for (i) an immediate with-
drawal from Japanese and Chinese waters of all German armed
vessels, and (2) the delivery at a date not later than 15th Sep-
tember of the leased territory of Kiao-chau, in order that it might
be restored to China. The wheel had come full circle. After the
war with China, Germany had interposed to rob Japan of the fruits
of her victory, and, on the plea of murdered missionaries, had forced
from China the Kiao-chau lease. Now the tables were turned on
the aggressor. Japan required an answer by noon on 23rd August,
and, not receiving it, promptly declared war, and proceeded to
the investment of the Tsing-tau peninsula.

Japan entered upon the war at the request of Britain, who, as
the Japanese Parliament was informed, asked her to free their
joint commerce from the German menace in Eastern waters.
Her army was largely modelled on the German ; it was from
German instructors that she had learned that art of war which
had given her the Manchurian victory ; and there was much in
the German military temperament with which she sympathized.
At the outbreak of war the best opinion in Japan believed that
Germany would win, but she saw clearly that the victory of Ger-
many spelt ruin to her national ambitions, and was resolved to
play the wiser and bolder game. Her policy was dictated by self-
interest, for she did not share the idealism of the Western Allies,
but it was self-interest in the highest degree enhghtened. She had
now twice the military and naval power which she had had when
she began the war with Russia. This is not the place to enlarge on
her armed strength ; suffice it to say that she had an army with a

414 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

peace strength of 250,000, which in war would be increased to
1,000,000 ; she had made a speciahty of artillery, especially the
heavier guns ; her navy comprised six Dreadnoughts, six other
battleships, four first-class battle cruisers, and large classes of
cruisers, destroyers, and coast-defence ships. In tonnage her fleet
was nearly double the size of that which she had possessed at the
date of the Treaty of Portsmouth. For the assault of Tsing-tau she
organized a special siege force, under the command of Lieutenant-
General Kamio. It embraced a division of infantry and three
additional brigades, a corps of siege artillery, a flying detachment,
and detachments of engineers and marine artillery. A squadron
from her fleet, under Vice-Admiral Kato, which was assisted by
several British warships belonging to the China station, co-operated
by sea.

The Tsing-tau fortress stood near the end of the Tsing-tau
peninsula, which formed the eastern containing shore of Kiao-
chau Bay. To the north-east of the town were a number of low
heights — Bismarck Hill, Moltke Hifl, litis Hill — which the Germans
had heavily fortified. Beyond the peninsula lay marshy coastland,
much liable to flooding, through which the railway ran west to
the town of Kiao-chau, within the German sphere of influence,
but outside the leased territory. The German governor, Admiral
Meyer Waldeck, and his garrison of 5,000 were bidden by the
Emperor to defend the fortress as long as breath remained in
their bodies. The German squadron, under Admiral von Spee,
had, as we have seen, very properly sailed away, for a besieged
harbour is not the place for a fleet in being ; but several of the
smaller warships remained behind.

On 27th August the Japanese took the first step by occupying
as a base some of the small islands which cluster around the mouth
of the harbour. From these they instituted a series of mine-
sweeping operations : a wise precaution, for the Germans had
relied much upon that peril of the seas. So thorough was the
Japanese work that only one vessel of their fleet was mined during
the siege. On 2nd September they landed troops at the northern
base of the peninsula, their object being to cut off the fortress by
a movement against it from the mainland. But the autumn rains,
very heavy in Shantung, put a bar to this enterprise. All the rivers,
which descended from the hills, rose in high flood, and spread out
in lagoons over the coastlands. General Kamio had to content
himself with sending airplanes over the fortress, which dropped
bombs successfully on the wireless station, the electric-power

1914] THE SIEGE OF TSING-TAU. 415

station, and on the ships in the harbour, and with an assault upon
the railway station of Kiao-chau, at the head of the bay, which
he took on 13th September. He was then some twenty-two
miles from Tsing-tau itself, and had the railway line to aid his
advance. By the 27th he had reached the chief of the outer
defences of the place, Prince Heinrich Hill, and next day captured
it without serious opposition. This gave him a gun position
from which he could dominate all the inner forts, much as the fall
of the trans-Nethe forts gave the Germans command over the
inner lines of Antwerp.

On the 23rd, a small British force arrived from Wei-hai-wei,
under Brigadier-General Bamardiston, who commanded the British
troops in North China. It landed at Laoshan Bay, on the seaward
side of the peninsula, and, having only a short way to march,
joined hands with the Japanese on 28th September, just after the
capture of Prince Heinrich Hill. Since the floods were now fall-
ing, advance was easier, and the invaders were soon only five miles
from Tsing-tau, and had drawn the cordon tight across the penin-
sula. German warships in the bay attempted to bombard the
Japanese right, but were driven off by Japanese airplanes, which
showed extraordinary boldness and skill during the whole opera-
tions. Meanwhile a vigorous bombardment was going on from the
Japanese squadron lying in the mouth of the harbour, and on 30th
September a German counter-attack both by sea and land was
quickly beaten off. Slowly General Kamio was coming to the
conclusion that the enemy either did not mean to obey their Em-
peror and fight to the last breath, or had very doubtful fighting
ability. They were enormously wasteful of shells, which did not
look as if they contemplated a long resistance. The Japanese gen-
eral was convinced that a fierce assault was more desirable than
a slow investment. But first he gave the non-combatants in
Tsing-tau a chance to leave, and on 15th October a party of women
and children and a number of Chinese were conducted through the
Japanese lines.

General Kamio had now his big guns in position, and the bom-
bardment began in earnest. He had practically no field artillery,
but he had a heavy siege train of 140 guns, including six ii-inch
howitzers and a large number of 6-inch and 8-inch pieces. The
Germans seem to have had nothing larger than 8-inch. The
first general bombardment was from the sea, when considerable
damage was done to the forts on Kaiser Hill and litis Hill. On
the 31st of October, the birthday of the Emperor of Japan, the

4i6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.

first land bombardment began. On that day most of the inner
forts were silenced, and, as at Antwerp, the skies were black with
the smoke of burning oil-tanks. On ist November, H.M.S. Tri-
angle silenced the forts on Bismarck Hill, and presently only one
fort, Huichuan, was left in action. Next day the Austrian vessel,
Kaiserin Elizabeth, was sunk in the harbour, and the floating dock
disappeared, having probably been blown up by the defenders.
Meantime the army was pushing its way down the peninsula,
driving back the German infantry, and making large captures of
guns and prisoners. By the night of 6th November the Allies
were through the inner forts, with their trenches up to the edge
of the last redoubts, and the outworks to east and west were taken
during the night. Early on the morning of the 7th the hour had
come for the final attack in mass. But that attack was never
delivered. At six o'clock white flags fluttered from the central
forts and from the tower of the Observatory. That day repre-
sentatives of the two armies met, and at 7.30 in the evening Admiral
Meyer Waldeck signed the terms of capitulation. At ten on the
morning of the loth, the Germans formally transferred Tsing-tau
to General Kamio, and Germany's much-debated foothold on the
continent of Asia had gone. The German casualties were heavy,
and the survivors, nearly 3,000 in number, were sent as prisoners
to Japan, Admiral Meyer Waldeck and his Staff being allowed to
retain their swords. The Japanese losses were about 6 per cent.,
and the British less than 5 per cent. In addition, Japan lost one
third-class cruiser, one third-class destroyer, a torpedo boat, and
three mine-sweepers.

The capture of Tsing-tau seventy-six days after the declaration
of war, and little more than a month after the investment was
complete, came as a surprise to Japan, who had made preparations
for a struggle till Christmas, and to Germany, who had not real-
ized that the fate which had befallen Namur and Maubeuge would,
under similar circumstances, befall her own fortresses. General
Kamio handled the expedition with perfect judgment, and pro-
vided brilliantly for co-operation between the sea and land forces.
It was an achievement of which Japan might well be proud, for
it was to her armies that Tsing-tau yielded, since, though the
British contingent had done well, it was only one-fourteenth of
the investing force. The German defence was not brilliant ;
though the place possessed an armament equal in range and supe-
rior in number of pieces to that of the besiegers, it capitulated after
a shorter bombardment than that of the French or Belgian for-

1914] GERMANY IN AFRICA. 417

tresses. When General Baraardiston reached Tokio, he was
given a popular reception, such as had never in the history of
Japan been accorded to any stranger. It was the one moment
in the campaign when Japan felt something of the enthusiasm of
brotherhood in arms, and her ordinary citizens remembered the
ties which bound them to the other great island people of the
world.

II.

The scene now changes to Africa, where Germany possessed
four colonies contiguous to those of France and Britain. Her
colonial ambitions had awakened with her great development
after her victory over France in 1870. She desired to emulate
Britain in finding an outlet under her flag for her surplus popula-
tion, which had hitherto emigrated to North and South America ;
she wished to have producing grounds of her own from which she
could draw raw material for her new factories ; she sought to
share in the glory of conquest and colonization, which had done
so much for France and Britain ; and, as a coming maritime
Power, she was anxious to have something for her Navy to defend.
Her thinkers as well as her statesmen fostered the new interest.
List and Friedel and Treitschke pointed out that trade followed
the flag, and that the flag might also follow trade ; while Bismarck
discerned in the movement a chance of getting fresh assets to
bargain with in that European game which he played with such
consummate skill. Especially Germany's eyes turned towards
Africa, and not without justification. Her travellers had been
among the greatest pioneers of that mysterious continent. In the
history of South African exploration honourable place must be
given to the names of Kolbe and Lichtenstein, Mohr and Mauch.
In West and Northern Africa the roll of honour contained such
great adventurers as Hornemann and Barth, Ziegler and Schwein-
furth, Rohlfs and Nachtigal. It was a German, Karl von der
Decken, who first surveyed Kilimanjaro, and the story of African
enterprise contains few more heroic figures than that of von Wiss-
mann. Germany was resolved to share in what has been called
the scramble for Africa, and she had admirable pathfinders in
her missionaries and explorers.

This is not the place to describe in detail the tortuous events
from 1880 onwards which led to the foundation of the four German
African colonies. It is a fascinating tale, for Germany made

4i8 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

adroit use of the suspicions and supineness of the Powers in pos-
session. So far as the British Governments of the day were con-
cerned, she might have had all she wanted for the asking ; and it
W3is only by the efforts of clear-sighted private citizens that her
bolder schemes were checkmated. Her first attempts were directed
towards the Portuguese colony of Delagoa Bay, which would bring
her in touch with what she believed to be the bitterly anti-British
people of the Transvaal, In Pondoland and at St. Lucia Bay, on
the Zululand coast, she endeavoured to get grants of land from
the native chiefs, and was only stopped by a tardy British interven-
tion, forced upon the mother-country by the people of Cape Colony.
Few at home realized the significance of the attempts, and Mr.
Gladstone in the House of Commons publicly thanked God for
them, and looked forward to an alliance, " in the execution of
the great purposes of Providence for the advantage of mankind."
In 1884 the work was fairly begun. Sir Bartle Frere from Cape
Town had warned Lord Carnarvon as early as 1878 that Britain
must be mistress up to the Portuguese frontier on both the east
and west coasts. " There is no escaping from the responsibility,"
he wrote, " which has been already incurred ever since the English
flag was planted on the castle here. All our difficulties have
arisen, and still arise, from attempting to evade or shift this
responsibility." But presently Herr Luderitz had founded his
settlement at Luderitz Bay, and on April 25, 1884, the German
flag was hoisted in Damaraland, and the colony of German South-
West Africa was constituted. Two months later Nachtigal landed
from a gunboat at Lome, the port of Togoland, and by arrangement
with the local chiefs declared the country a German protectorate.
A month after he did the same thing in the Cameroons, and the
British consul, sent to frustrate him, arrived five days too late.

Bismarck, desiring to regularize his acquisitions, summoned
the famous Berlin Conference, which met on 15th November of
the same year. Many of its phrases are still in common use —
" Occupation to be valid must be effective," " spheres of influence,"
and such like. Meanwhile German agents, including the notorious
Karl Peters, were busy in Zanzibar, intriguing with the Sultan,
and sending expeditions into the interior to secure concessions.
Some day the historj' will be written of the part played in that
contest by men like Sir Frederick Lugard, who, while they could
not prevent the creation of German East Africa, saved Uganda
and the East African Protectorate for Britain. In 1890 came the
Caprivi Agreement, as a consequence of which Heligoland was

19 14] GERMAN COLONIAL POLICY. 419

ceded to Germany. It settled the boundaries of German East
Africa, but it did more, for it gave to German South-West Africa
a strip of land running north-east to the Zambesi, which formed
a wedge separating the Bechuanaland Protectorate from Angola
and North-West Rhodesia.

There could be no objection in international law or ethics to
Germany's African activity, though there might be much to her
methods of conducting it. She had a right to get as much territory
as she could, and to profit by the blindness of her rivals. But by
1890 a new and more watchful spirit was appearing in British
Africa, and to some extent in the mother- country. Cecil Rhodes
was beginning his great struggle with Paul Kruger for the road to
the north, and the dream of a Cape to Cairo route seized upon the
popular imagination, British imperialists sighed for a Monroe
doctrine for Africa, but the day for that had long gone by, A
solid German fence had been built across that northern avenue
which might have joined up Nyassaland and North-East Rhodesia
with Uganda and the Sudan. Meanwhile Germany, having got
her colonies, did not handle them with great discretion. She was
much out of pocket over them, for she lavished money on the con-
struction of roads and railways, and especially on that cast-iron
type of administration which was the Prussian ideal. Her first
blunder was her treatment of her settlers, who found themselves
terribly swathed in red tape, and were apt to trek over the border
to more liberal British climes. Her second was her attitude
towards the native population. Unaccustomed to allow ancient
modes of life to continue side by side with the new — which is the
British plan — she attempted to make of the Bantu peoples decorous
citizens on the Prussian model ; and, when they objected, gave
them a taste of Prussian rigour. One of the allest of German
students of colonial policy. Dr. Moritz Bonn, has noted the
result so far as concerned South-West Africa : " We solved
the native problem by smashing tribal life and by creating a
scarcity of labour."

Beginning from the west, the first colony, Togoland, was about
the size of Ireland, and was bounded on one side by French
Dahomey, and on the other by the British Gold Coast. It was
shaped like a pyramid, with its narrow end on the sea, for its coast-
line was only thirty- two miles. About a million natives inhabited
it, chiefly Hausas, and the whites numbered about four hundred.
It was a thriving little colony, with a docile and industrious popula-
tion, and a large trade in palm oil, cocoa, rubber, and cotton.

420 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

while the natives were considerable ovmers of cattle, sheep, and
goats. One railway ran inland from Lome, and there was a net-
work of admirable roads, which were a credit to any tropical
country. Farther south the German Cameroons lay between
British Nigeria and French Congo, and extended from Lake Chad
in the north to the Ubangi and Congo rivers. Its area was about
one-third larger than the German Empire in Europe, and its
population of 3,500,000 contained 2,000 whites, and the rest Bantu
and Sudanese tribes. In the south lay the Spanish enclave of
Rio Muni, or Spanish Guinea, which was an enclave owing to
the arrangements which followed the trouble with France over
Morocco in 191 1, when Germany obtained a long, narrow strip
of French Congo to the south and east of the Cameroons. This
Naboth's vineyard was one of the pieces of territory which Bemhardi
had marked down for speedy German acquisition. The Came-
roons was a colony of great possibilities, for it contained a range
of high mountains, which might form a health station for white
residents, while the soil was rich and water abundant. Its products
were much the same as those of Togoland, but its forests provided
also valuable timber, and there was a certain mineral development.
Some roads had been made, and 150 miles of railwa3^ but trouble
with the native tribes had done much to handicap progress.

Following the western coast-line past the Congo mouth and the
Portuguese territory of Angola, a more important colony was
reached in German South- West Africa. Its area was some 320,000
square miles, considerably larger than the Cameroons, and it
stretched from the Angola border to its march with Cape Colony
on the Orange River. Its native population used to be 300,000,
but at the beginning of the war, owing to the Herero campaign,
it was little over 100,000 — chiefly Bushmen, Hottentots, and
Ovambo ; while the whites numbered 15,000 and included many
agricultural settlers. German South-West Africa was the only
German colony where the small farmer, as opposed to the planter,
seemed to flourish. In spite of the dryness of the climate the land
gave excellent pasturage, and there was considerable mineral
wealth in the shape of copper and diamonds. The latter were
discovered in 1906 near Luderitz Bay, and promised at one time
to become a serious competitor to the mines of Kimberley
and the Transvaal. The colony had two chief ports — Swakop)-
mund, half-way down the coast-line, and just north of the little
British enclave of Walfish Bay, and Luderitz Bay, or Angra
Pequena, nearer the southern border. The capital, Windhoek,

THE MAPFA CO, LTD . LONDON

GERMANY'S AFRICAN COLONIES.

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1914] GERMAN EAST AFRICA. 421

was 200 miles from the coast, in a direct line east from Swakop-
mund. Some note must be taken of the railways, which were
built with a strategical as well as a commercial purpose. A rail-
way quadrilateral had been formed, of which the northern side
was Swakopmund to Windhoek, the eastern Windhoek to Keet-
manshoop, and the southern Keetmanshoop to Luderitz Bay.
From Swakopmund an unfinished line ran for several hundred
miles north-east towards the Caprivi strip which abutted on the
Zambesi. But the most important strategical extension was in
the south, where a branch ran from Rietfontein to Warmbad,
which was within easy distance of the Orange River and the
frontier of the Cape Province.

The last and greatest of the German colonies was German
East Africa, which was twice the size of European Germany.
It had a population of 8,000,000, which included in normal times
about 5,000 white men. The wide variations of climate and land-
scape which it contained gave it endless possibilities. Its northern
frontier ran from the coast south of Mombasa, just north of the
great snow mass of Kilimanjaro, to the Victoria Nyanza, of which
two-thirds were in German territory. Going westward, it included
the eastern shores of Lakes Kivu and Tanganyika, as well as the
north-eastern shore of Lake Nyassa. It had Britain for its neigh-
bour on the north and part of the west borders, while the remainder
of the west marched with the Belgian Congo, and the whole of the
south with Portuguese Mozambique. The islands of Pemba
and Zanzibar, under British protection, dominated the northern
part of its coast-line of 620 miles. The vast lake region of the
west provided admirable means of transit, and was eminently suit-
able for tropical agriculture. Elsewhere water was a difficulty,
for the only river of any size was the Rufiji, and the snows of
Kilimanjaro largely drained towards British territory. Neverthe-
less it was a land of great potential agiicultitral and pastoral
wealth ; its forest riches were enormous ; gold was known to
exist in large quantities, as well as base metals and soda deposits.
On this colony Germany especially expended money and care.
She was resolved to make it a planter's country, and huge agri-
cultural estates were the rule. Four excellent ports, Lindi, Kilwa,
Tanga, and the capital, Dar-es-Salaam, made commerce easy, and
the colony was well served by the great German steamship lines.
Two railways ran into the interior, and competed with the Uganda
railway to Port Florence. One, running from Tanga to Moschi,
served the rich foothills of Kilimanjaro, and was destined to be

422 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

continued to Victoria Nyanza. A second, which was only completed
in 1914, ran from Dar-es-Salaam to Tabora, an important junction
of caravan routes, and was continued thence to Ujiji, on Tan-
ganyika. All such railways were intended under happier circum-
stances to be connected at their railheads by the great Cape to
Cairo route. It will be seen that, if in West Africa Germany had
acquired no more than ordinary tropical colonies, and in South-
West Africa something of a white elephant, in East Africa she
had won a territory which might some day be among the richest
of African possessions.

The first blow was struck in Togoland. That small colony
was in an impossible strategic position, with French and British
territory enveloping it on three sides, and a coast-line open to the
attack of British warships. Its military forces were at the outside
250 whites and 3,000 natives. In the early days of August a
British cruiser summoned Lome, and the town surrendered without
a blow. The German forces fell back one hundred miles inland
to Atakpame, where was situated Kamina, one of the chief Ger-
man overseas wireless stations. Meantime part of the Gold Coast
Regiment had crossed the western frontier in motor cars, while
the French in Dahomey had entered on the east. By Monday, the
loth of August, the whole of southern Togoland was in the hands
of the Allies, and the British and French advanced against the
Government station of Atakpame. On 25th August they crossed
the river Monu, and by 27th August, with very few casualties,
they occupied Atakpame, destroyed the wireless station, and
secured the unconditional surrender of the German troops. Togo-
land had become a colony of the AUies, normal trade was resumed,
and in two months' time there was nothing to distinguish it from
Dahomey and the Gold Coast.

A far more intricate problem was presented by the Cameroons.
Strategically this colony also was hemmed in by the Alhes, but
the great distances and the difficulty of communication made a
concerted scheme not easy to execute. It was arranged that two
French columns should move from French Congo, while the
British columns should enter at several points on the Nigerian
frontier. There is reason to beheve that both on the French and
British side the advance was made without adequate preparation.
It was the rainy season in West Africa, and any campaign in a
tangled and ill-mapped country was liable to awkward surprises.
A mounted infantry detachment of the West African Frontier

1914] CAPTURE OF DUALA. 423

Force left Kano on 8th August, crossed the frontier on 25th August
after a heavy march, and occupied the German post of Tepe, on
the Benue River. Next day it advanced along the Benue as far
as Saratse, and on the 29th attacked the river station of Garua.
One fort was captured, but on the 30th the Germans counter-at-
tacked in force, and drove back the British troops to Nigerian soil.
No better luck attended the other two expeditions which about the
same time entered from Nigeria at more westerly points on the
frontier. One entering from Ikom met with little resistance, and
about 30th August occupied the German station of Nsanakong,
five miles from the border. The other expedition, moving in
from Calabar close to the coast, occupied Archibong on 29th
August. A week later, at Nsanakong, as at Garua, the Germans
counter-attacked in force. They arrived about two in the morning,
and met with a stubborn resistance until the British ammunition
was exhausted, when the garrison endeavoured to cut its way out
with the bayonet. The bulk of them managed to retreat to Nigeria,
but three British officers and one hundred natives were killed, and
many were taken prisoners. Thereupon the Germans crossed the
frontier, and occupied the Nigerian station of Okuri, north-east
of Calabar, from which, however, they soon retired.

The land attack having failed, recourse was had to the sea.
For some time the British warships Cumberland and Dwarf had
been watching the mouth of the Cameroon River and the approaches
to the German port, Duala. On 14th September a bold attempt
was made to blow up the Dwarf by an infernal machine. Two
days later, a German merchantman, the Nachtigal, tried to ram
the British gunboat, but was wrecked, with the loss of thirty-six
men. A few days later two German launches made another
attempt with spar-torpedoes, but once again the attack miscarried.
On 27th September an Anglo-French force, under Brigadier-General
Dobell, appeared before Duala, and the bombardment resulted in
its unconditional surrender. Bonaberi, the neighbouring coast
town, fell also, and the Cumberland captured eight merchantmen
belonging to the Woermann and Hamburg-Amerika lines. At
the same time a German gunboat, the Soden, probably constructed
for river work, was seized, and put into commission in the British
navy. Meanwhile the French, operating from Libreville in French
Congo, and covered by the warship Surprise, attacked Ukoko on
Corisco Bay, and sank two armed vessels, the Khios and the Itolo.

With the chief port in their hands, and the coast as a base,
the Allies could now advance with better hopes of success. The

424 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

Germans retreated by the valley of the river Wuri, and by the two
interior railways. During October the half-circle of conquered
territory was rapidly widened, while isolated entries were made
from the northern and southern frontiers. Jabassi, on the Wuri, was
taken, and Japoma, the railway terminus. The Allies had now the
measure of the enemy, and could afford to advance at their leisure.
By 1st October the Cameroons, so far as it was of any value to
Germany in the struggle, was virtually captured. The wireless
stations had been destroyed, the coast was ours, and the German
troops were reduced to defensive warfare in a difficult hinterland.

In German South-West Africa the situation was different
from that in the other German colonies of the East and West.
There over the frontier lay not a British Crown possession, but a
self-governing dominion. Elsewhere a cable from the Colonial
Office could mobilize the British defence, but in South Africa
there was an independent Parliament and a miscellany of parties
to be persuaded. Further, the ground had been carefully baited.
Intrigues had been long afoot among the irreconcilable elements
in the Dutch population, and the highest of German authorities
had not thought it undignified to speak words in season, and to
hold out hopes of a new and greater Afrikander republic. Else-
where the German colonies had to fight their battles unaided,
but here there was every expectation of powerful assistance from
within the enemy's camp. Till the situation developed the cam-
paign on Germany's part must be defensive, and for this role
German South-West Africa had many advantages. Her capital
was far inland, and, since she could hope for no assistance by
sea, it mattered little if her ports were seized. Her railways on
the south ran down almost to the Cape frontier, but between
the Cape railheads and her border stretched the desert of the
Kalahari, and the dry and waterless plains of north-west Cape
Colony. At least two hundred miles separated the branch rail-
ways at Carnarvon and Prieska from the nearest German territory,
and the distance from Kimberley on the main northern line was
liitle less than four hundred. At one point only had the British
forces reasonable means of access by land. From Port Nolloth a
line ran inland to serve the copper lands of Namaqualand, and
from one station on it, Steinkopf, a sixty-mile track led to Raman's
Drift, on the Orange River, a point about fifty miles from the
terminus of the German railway at Warmbad.

On the declaration of war the German governor, Dr. Seitz,

1914I GENERAL BOTHA'S DECISION. 425

put at once into force the long-prepared scheme of defence. The
Germans, about loth August, abandoned their two principal
stations on the coast, Swakopmund and Ludcritz Bay, and retired
with all military stores to their inland capital of Windhoek. Before
leaving they destroyed the jetty, and dismantled and sank the
tugs in the harbour of Swakopmund. By 20th August they had
made small incursions into British territory, entrenching themselves
in certain places among the kopjes, and skirmishing with the
frontier farmers. When General Botha met the Union Parliament
on 8th September he was able to inform it that Germany had
begun hostilities. In a speech of great dignity and power, he
announced that after careful consideration he and his colleagues
had decided to carry the war into German territory, " in the in-
terests of South Africa as well as of the Empire." He had informa-
tion about German machinations which was denied to the ordinary
politician, and the great majority of the members of Parliament
were ready to trust his judgment. The sole opposition came from
General Hertzog, who succeeded in mustering only twelve votes
in the House of Assembly and five in the Senate. Yet it is clear
that his views were largely held in the country, and that many
burghers looked with alarm upon a policy of active operations.
These men lived chiefly in the districts bordering upon German
South- West Africa, in the Orange Free State and in the Western
Transvaal, and they argued that, as long as Germany left Union
territory alone, no offensive measures should be taken against
her. It did not require any great political acumen to foresee that
such an attitude was impossible. Sleeping dogs may be best
left alone, but when ninety-nine of the pack are tearing in full
cry across Europe it is folly to suppose that the hundredth will
continue its slumbers.

The beginning of September saw scattered fighting in the
south-eastern angle of the frontier. Information was received
that a considerable German force was advancing to Raman's
Drift, on the Orange, with the intention of entrenching themselves
and disputing the northward passage of British troops. The 4th
South African Rifles left the Port Nolloth railway at Steinkopf,
marched the sixty miles to the river, and surprised a German garri-
son at the drift on 15th September. After a fight in which only
one man was killed, they captured the German blockhouse, and
received the surrender of the garrison. They sent patrols up the
Orange, and ousted the enemy from the kopjes, while with a
larger force they compelled the Germans to evacuate an entrenched

426 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Sept.

position farther north. To set against this success, the Germans
on 17th September surprised a small British post at Nakob, a
point near the Orange just outside the south-eastern angle of the
frontier. The victors carried off some cattle and a number of
prisoners, and retired, leaving a small garrison. The next day
witnessed a British counterstroke by sea. On i8th September a
force saiUng to Luderitz Bay occupied the town, and hoisted the
Union Jack on the town hall. The Germans had destroyed the
wireless station, but otherwise the place was undamaged. While
this frontier fighting was taking place there was a widespread
martial enthusiasm throughout the Union. General Botha, who
had agreed to take command of the army, called for 7,000 men
— 5,000 foot and 2,000 mounted infantry — and to his appeal
there was an immediate and adequate response. Recruiting was
stimulated by the news of three unimportant German raids, two
across the Orange at Pella and Rietfontein, which they occupied,
and one upon Walfish Bay, which failed disastrously. Meantime
the Rhodesian Police had occupied the far north-western post of
Schuckmansburg, in the Caprivi strip, and had forestalled any
danger from that quarter. At this time the strategical idea seems
to have been a British advance simultaneously from Rhodesia,
down the Orange River and from the Port Nolloth railway, while
a movement would also be made inland from the coast ports.

With the end of September there came heavier fighting. Be-
tween Warmbad and Raman's Drift lies a place called Sandfon-
tein, important as one of the few spots where water can be got in
that arid desert. On 25th September a small force of South
African Mounted Rifles and Transvaal Horse Artillery pushed
forward to the water-hole, which lay in a cup-shaped hollow,
commanded by kopjes, and with the only retreat through an
awkward defile. Early on the 26th the Germans brought up guns
to the heights, and till noon bombarded the water-hole, while a
considerable force held the pass in the rear. The British troops
made a gallant fight till their ammunition was exhausted, and
then, having first rendered their guns useless, were forced to
surrender. Their total strength seems to have been no more than
200, and out of it they lost 16 killed, 43 wounded, and a large number
of prisoners and missing. The German commander, Lieutenant-
Colonel von Heydebreck, behaved like a good soldier, compli-
mented the survivors on their defence, and buried the British
dead with the honours of war. The affair at Sandfontein was in
many ways mysterious. It looked as if we had had false infor-

igi4] MARITZ'S REBELLION. 427

mation, or treacherous guides, to have been betrayed into so
hopeless a battle. A fcrtnight later came news which explained
much and revealed a very ugly state of things in the north-west
of the Cape Province. The British forces ther^^ were under the
command of a certain Lieutenant-Colonel S. G. Maritz, who had
fought on the Dutch side in the South African War, and had assisted
the Germans in their struggles with the Hereros. Maritz was
the ordinary type of soldier of fortune not uncommon in South
Africa, florid, braggart, gallant after his fashion, but with little
scientific knowledge of war. General Botha found reason to
suspect his loyalty, and dispatched Colonel Conrad Brits to take
over his command. Maritz refused to come in, and challenged
Brits to come himself and relieve him. The latter sent Major
Ben Bouwer as his deputy, who was made prisoner by Maritz,
but subsequently released, and sent back with an ultimatum to
the Union Government. This ultimatum declared that, unless
the Government guaranteed that before a certain date Generals
Hertzog, De Wet, Beyers, Kemp, and MuUer should be allowed
to come and meet him and give him their instructions, he would
forthwith invade the Union.

Major Bouwer had other interesting matters to report. To
quote the dispatch of the Governor-General : " Maritz was in
possession of some guns belonging to the Germans, and held the
rank of general commanding the German troops. He had a force
of Germans under him, in addition to his own rebel commando.
He had arrested all those of his oihcers and men who were un-
willing to join the Germans, and had then sent them forward as
prisoners to German South- West Africa. Major Bouwer saw an
agreement between Maritz and the Governor of German South-
West Africa, guaranteeing the independence of the Union as a
republic, ceding Walfish Bay and certain other portions of the
Union to the Germans, and undertaking that the Germans would
only invade the Union on the invitation of Maritz. Major Bouwer
was shown numerous telegrams and helio messages dating back
to the beginning of September. Maritz boasted that he had
ample guns, rifles, ammunition, and money from the Germans,
and that he would overrun the whole of South Africa."

The immediate result of this discovery was the proclamation
of martial law throughout the Union and a general strengthening
of the Union forces. The time had now come for every man in
South Africa to reveal where lay his true sympathies, and the
centre of action was soon to shift from the western borders to the

428 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

very theatre where for three years the British army had striven
against the present generaUssimo of the Union forces. Meantime
Maritz proved a broken reed to his new aUies. His one asset
was an intimate local knowledge of the waterless north-west.
He had small notion of serious warfare, and was incompetent to
control his ill-assorted forces. He fixed his base near Upington,
on the Orange, and dispatched a portion of his command of 2,000
to march southward up the Great Fish River against Kenhart
and Calvinia. Brits lost no time in harrying the Upington com-
mando, and on 15th October captured a part of it at Ratedrai,
many of the men voluntarily surrendering. On the 22nd Maritz
attacked Keimoes, a British station on the Orange, south-west
of Upington. But its small garrison of 150, after holding on till
reinforcements reached it, drove him back, and captured four of
his officers. Maritz then moved west down the Orange to Kakamas,
where Brits fell upon him so fiercely that he lost all his tents and
stores, and was compelled to withdraw, wounded, over the German
frontier. He made another sally on the 30th. but was conclusively
beaten by Brits at Schuit Drift, and driven finally out of the
colony. Meantime the commando which had marched up the
Great Fish River had no better success. It travelled fast, and
by 25th October had covered 200 miles and was close to Calvinia.
Here Colonel Van Deventer beat it heavily, taking ninety
prisoners and the two Maxim guns which Maritz had confiscated
from the Union army. The commando was hopelessly broken,
and " drives," organized by Van Deventer and Sir Duncan
Mackenzie, collected its remnants at their leisure. It was fortu-
nate for the British cause, for a far more formidable rebellion
under abler leaders than Maritz was now threatening in the very
heart of the Union.

The situation in East Africa in the first months of war was
the gravest which any British colony had to face. The German
province was rich, well-organized, and strategically well-situated,
for the Uganda railway, which formed the sole communications
between Uganda, the East African plateau, and the sea, ran
parallel with the northern frontier at a distance of from fifty to
one hundred miles, and offered a natural and easy object of attack.
The original German scheme of operations, while providing for
invasions of Nyassaland, North-East Rhodesia, and the British
shores of Victoria Nyanza, aimed especially at an advance by land
against Mombasa and the railway, which should be assisted by

1914] THE BRITISH FORCES IN EAST AFRICA. 429

the Konigsberg from the sea. The German general, von Lettow-
Vorbeck, was an officer of the General Staff, who had once been
Chief of Staff in the Posen district. He came to Africa in the spring
of 1914, and set himself at once to develop the local levies. For
the native troops he drew upon the best fighting races of Africa
— Sudanese, Somali, Zulu, and Wanyamwezi. He was a specialist
in machine guns, and he saw the advantage of this weapon for
bush fighting. His men were immune against tropical diseases ;
they knew the tangled country like their own hand ; and his trans-
port, being entirely by porters, was not incommoded by the bad
roads. Moreover, like most of his countrymen, he had little
conscience as to the treatment of natives, and could enforce
discipline by the lash and the chain. One way and another he
provided a fighting force of some 4,000 white and 25,000 native
troops. His instructions from Berlin were to maintain the defence
of the colony at all costs. His first tactics were offensive, but he
had no real hope of a campaign of conquest ; his aim was to pin
down to a difficult and unprofitable war the largest possible
number of British troops, while the fate of German Africa was
being decided on the battlefields of Europe.

The British forces at the start were preposterously small.
In British East Africa and Uganda they consisted of two battalions
of the King's African Rifles, mainly stationed on the northern
frontier and in Jubaland, where a punitive expedition had just
been dispatched against some of the Somali and Abyssinian tribes.
All companies were at once recalled, and police were obtained for
the defence of the railway line, by means of calHng out the reserves
and weakening police posts wherever possible. Two volunteer
corps were raised among the white settlers ; the existing Uganda
Railway Volunteers — less than 100 — were called out, and employed
in guarding bridges ; and as time went on further volunteer unit 5
were raised from Indian residents. A small body of Somali scouts
was created, and a number of Arabs were recruited by Captain
Wavell, one of the few Englishmen who had made the pilgrimage
to Mecca. In Nyassaland and North-East Rhodesia there were
small bodies of police, aided by white volunteers.

The total British defence force, therefore, in the first three
weeks of war may be put at under 1,200, much of it of doubtful
quality. The King's African Rifles were first-class fighting men,
and the new Mounted Rifles, recruited from young British settlers
of good blood and from the Boers of Uasin Gishu, were a force
whose members reached a remarkable standard of shooting and

430 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.-Sept.

veldcraft. But it was impossible that so small an army could have
made a serious stand if the Germans had pushed their northern
invasion with vigour. On 13th August the campaign began by
an attack of a British cruiser on the German capital, Dar-es-
Salaam. The port was bombarded, and landing parties made
their way into the harbour and destroyed the new wireless
installation, dismantled the German ships, and sank the floating
dock. On the same day, on Lake Nyassa, the British steamer
Gwendolen surprised the German steamer Von Wissmann at
Sphinxhaven on the eastern shore, took her crew and captain
prisoners, and rendered her helpless. Three weeks later two
vigorous attacks were made in the south-west. At Karongwa,
one of the chief British ports on Lake Nyassa, a small garrison of
fifty was attacked by a force of 400, but held on long enough for
supports to arrive. These supports decisively defeated the invaders,
and drove them over the border with the loss of half their white
officers. The second attack was made upon Abercorn in North-
East Rhodesia, just south of Lake Tanganyika. A body of
Rhodesian police drove it back, and captured a field gun. Fight-
ing continued intermittently all along this part of the frontier,
but the balance leaned heavily in the British favour. Germany
was keeping her best troops for her northern campaign.

On 3rd September reinforcements arrived for the British.
Brigadier-General J. M. Stewart reached Nairobi and assumed
command of all the British troops. He brought with him two
Indian battalions and three batteries. He had come only just
in time, for the Germans were beginning operations against the
Uganda railway. About 20th August they had seized the small
frontier post of Taveta under Kilimanjaro, which was in dangerous
proximity to their chief northern military post of Moschi. They
had also taken the frontier post of Vanga, on the coast, due south
from Mombasa. Early in September they sent a detachment to
blow up the Uganda railway at Maungu. The history of this
expedition is curious. It arrived comfortably within twenty
miles of the line, guided by the excellent German maps. There,
however, the maps stopped, and it was compelled to have
recourse to English ones. The result was that it missed the
water-holes, went eight miles out of its course, and was captured
to a man. Thus may the deficiencies of a Survey Department
prove an asset in war. A more serious advance was made on
6th September, when a force of Germans, about 600 strong,
marched down the Tsavo River. They were much delayed by a

1914] ARRIVAL OF REINFORCEMENTS. 431

mounted infantr3' company of King's African Rifles, who harassed
them da}/ and night, and gave time for a half-battaUon of Punjabis
and several companies of the King's African Rifles to come up.
An engagement was fought about five miles from the Tsavo rail-
way bridge, and the enemy was driven back in some confusion.
This success enabled us to establish advance posts at Mzima and
Campiya Marabu, which managed to maintain their position
against repeated German assaults. Three days later, on loth
September, the northern frontier was crossed at its extreme
western end. The Germ.ans occupied the frontier town of Kisi,
near the Victoria Nyanza. On the 12th two companies of King's
African Rifles, with two Maxims and some native police, surprised
this force, which retired in disorder upon the lake port of Karungu.
About the same time an action was fought on the lake itself. Two
German dhows were sunk, and the British steamer Winifred sailed
into Karungu Bay to relieve the town. At first it was driven off,
but it returned with a colleague, the Kavirondo, and in the face
of the British strength the Germans evacuated Karungu and fell
back over the border.

During September there were other attacks on the northern
frontier, making a total of seven in all, but much the most danger-
ous was the advance along the coast from Vanga towards Mombasa.
The expedition was to be supported by the Konigsberg, which
was to shell the town and occupy the island, while the land forces
were to destroy the bridge connecting Mombasa with the mainland.
Something prevented the Konigsberg from playing its part —
perhaps the presence of British warships — but the land attack
came very near succeeding. The Germans were 600 strong, with
six machine guns, and they were met at Gazi by Captain Wavell's
Arab company, strengthened by some King's African Rifles from
Jubaland. This little force held up the invaders for several days,
and on 2nd October was reinforced by Indian troops, Gazi was
a very fine performance, for practically all the European officers
were wounded before help arrived, and the command of the
King's African Rifles passed to a native colour-sergeant, who
handled his men with great coolness and skill, and headed the
charge which drove back the enemy.

Towards the end of October the German attacks slackened.
On 1st November a second Indian Expeditionary Force arrived
on the East African coast. It was commanded by Major-General
Aitken, and consisted of one British battalion— the ist Loyal
North Lancashires— and various units of the Indian army. On

432 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.

the morning of 2nd November this force, escorted by two gunboats,
lay off the German port of Tanga, the coast terminus of the Moschi
railway, and summoned it to surrender. The officer in charge
asked for some hours' grace in order that he might communicate
with the Governor, who was then absent. This was granted, and
the original time was largely extended, and used by the Germans
to hurry down every available soldier by the Moschi line. To-
wards evening the British general grew impatient, and landed
one and a half battalions, who advanced through the coast scrub
towards the town. There it was apparent that a strong defence
had been prepared, and the invaders had to fall back towards
the shore, where they could be covered by the gunboats. The
next day was occupied in landing the rest of the force, and the
attack was renewed on the morning of the 4th. It proved a com-
plete failure. The Germans had mastered the art of bush fighting.
Ropes were hidden under the sand of the paths, and, when stepped
on, brought down flags which gave the enemy the required range.
The attack left an open flank which von Lettow-Vorbeck promptly
enfiladed with machine guns. We reached and partly entered
the town of Tanga, only to be forced back with heavy losses.
There was nothing for it but to retire to the coast and re-embark.
Our casualties were nearly 800, and included 141 British officers and
men, so that the Tanga reverse was the most ccstly of the minor
African battles. General Aitken's force went north to the East
African Plateau, where it continued precariously during the next
months to act as a garrison and watch the borders. So far the
enemy had clearly won the honours. There was as yet no attempt
by the British Government, deeply engaged in Europe, to co-ordinate
military plans on the various frontiers of the German colony or
to furnish an adequate force for attack or even for defence.

III.

Meantime in South Africa there had broken out the only
rebellion, with the exception of the Irish affair of Easter, 1916,
which the campaign produced within the confines of the British
Empire. The grant of self-government to the Transvaal and
Orange Free State in 1906, four years after the conclusion of the
South African War, was a bold step, which occasioned much un-
easiness to those who were most familiar with the temper of the
back-veld. A strong people Uke the Boers do not surrender

1914I PARTIES IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN UNION. 433

readily their dreams, and their tenacity of purpose was kept aHve
by certain sections of the Dutch Church, and by the ignorance
and remoteness from modern hfe of the rural population. That
the venture did not end in disaster was due to two events which
could not have been foreseen. One was the movement towards
a Union of South Africa, the foundations of which had been
laid by Lord Milner's reconstruction after the war, and which
Lord Sclborne, aided by a brilliant band of young Englishmen,
brought to a successful conclusion. The second was the appear-
ance of two Dutch statesmen of the first quality. The old Afri-
kander leaders, like Mr. Hofmeyer, had often been men of great
ability and foresight, but they had lacked the accommodating
temper of statesmanship. General Botha, the first Prime Minister
of the Union, had been the ablest of the Boer generals, and his
subsequent work entitled him to a high place among Imperial
statesmen. He had the large simplicity of character and the
natural magnetism which makes the bom leader of men ; his
record in the field gave him the devoted allegiance of the old
commandos ; he was a sincere patriot, both of South Africa and
of the Empire, for, though abating nothing of his loyalty towards
the land of his birth, he saw that the fortunes of South Africa
were bound up inextricably with the fortunes of the Empire as a
whole ; while he had the noble opportunism, the wide practical
sagacity, which enabled him to move by slow degrees and to con-
ciliate divergent interests by sheer tact and goodwill. His lieu-
tenant. General J. C. Smuts, had won fame alike as a scholar,
a lawyer, and a commander in the field. With greater knowledge
and a keener intellect than his chief, he had not Botha's gift of
popularity and popular leadership ; but between them the two
showed a combination of talents which it would be hard to parallel
from any other part of the British dominions.

Botha had no easy part to play. The Unionist Party, led first
by Sir Starr Jameson and then by Sir Thomas Smartt, while re-
maining the official Opposition, might be trusted to co-operate
in all reasonable legislation. But among the Dutch there was
a section, led by General Hertzog, and drawing its support chiefly
from the Orange Free State, which was definitely anti-British,
and aimed not at racial union but at Dutch ascendancy. It
was a true party of reaction, narrow and sectional in its aims,
and bitter in its spirit. There was also growing up on the Rand
and in the industrial centres a Labour Party, largely officered by
professional agitators from overseas, which realized the delicacy

434 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Aug.

of South African economic conditions, and aimed at a " hold-up "
in the interests of a class. It will thus be seen that South African
politics showed few affinities with those of other British countries.
The party in power, Botha's, was a Conservative Party, composed
mainly of landowners and farmers, and representing landed
capital ; the Opposition, mainly British in blood, contained most
of the industrial capitalists, and was mildly progressive in char-
acter ; the Labour Party was not such as we are familiar with in
Britain, but in the main rigidly " class " in its aims and anarchical
in its methods ; while the Hertzogites were nakedly reactionary
and obscurantist. As usually happens, the two extremes tended
to form a working alliance, and the extraordinary spectacle
was seen of the Rand agitator and the takhaar from the wilds
meeting on the same platform. Botha before the war began
had cleared the air by two bold steps. He had dismissed Hertzog
from his Ministry, and definitely dissociated himself from his aims,
thereby driving the Hertzogites into violent opposition. Then
he had dealt faithfully with the Labour Party. The first great
strike on the Rand in 19 13 had been a success, for the Govern-
ment were unprepared, and the strike leaders dictated their own
terms. The second attempt was a fiasco. The Government
called out all its forces, the reign of terror was broken in three
days, and ten of the leaders were summarily deported under
martial law. The result was to bring the official Opposition much
closer to the Government, but to array against the Prime Minister
a dangerous faction made up of the Hertzogites and the defeated
and discredited Labour Party.

The advent of war made a new division. Hertzog found that
he could not collect a following, and became a trimmer. He
attacked the Government, but forbore to aid the rebels when the
insurrection broke out. The Labour Party, considering their
previous treatment, behaved with genuine patriotism ; many of
their leaders took service in the new army, the working men of
the Rand hastened to enlist, and General Botha's rescinding of
the deportation order was a fitting recognition of this loyalty.
But meantime a very serious falling away was becoming apparent
in the ranks of the Dutch. It cut across political parties, for
some of the Hertzogites supported Botha's policy, and intriguers
were busy among those who had never followed Plertzog. The
great mass of the Dutch people never wavered. Maritz's perform-
ance had offended many who would otherwise have been luke-
warm on the British side, for he had in effect invaded the Cape

1914] DEATH OF DELAREY. 435

province with foreign troops. But in certain districts a general
discontent with the trend of modern politics, and dark memories
of the South African War, combined with rehgious fanaticism to
produce a dangerous temper. Presently treason found its leaders.

In the war of 1899-1902 there was a certain predikant of
Lichtenburg, Van Rensburg by name, who acquired a reputation
for second sight. He used to be known to our Intelligence Depart-
ment as " Delarey's prophet," and was supposed to have much
influence over that distinguished general. After peace he went
on living in Lichtenburg, and that influence increased, while his
reputation spread far and wide through the back-veld. When
war with Germany broke out he discovered that the events fore-
told in the Book of Revelation were at hand, and that Germany
was the agent appointed of God to purify the world. If we dared
to draw the sword upon her he prophesied the blackest sorrows.
He had a number of visions, one of red and blue and black bulls,
and one of an angel perched on the Paardekraal monument, which
he interpreted on the same hues. The disaster at Hex River on
nth September to the troop-train carrying the Kaffrarian Rifles
seemed to the superstitious a vindication of his forecast. Four
days later came a second instalment. The prophet had an eye to
local politics, and had announced that Delarey, Beyers, and De
Wet were the leaders destined to restore the old Republic. On
the night of 15th September Delarey and Beyers were travelling
in a motor car westward from Johannesburg, and were challenged
by a police patrol which was on the look-out for a gang of des-
peradoes. Beyers bade the car drive on, probably fearing that
his plot had been betrayed, and a shot was fired which ricochetted
and killed Delarey. The true story of that night and of Delarey's
intentions will never be fully known. It seems probable that he
had been won over to rebellion, though it is difficult for those
who shared the friendship of that high-minded gentleman to
believe that he would have brought himself to violate the oath
of allegiance which he had taken to the British Crown.

About Beyers's disloyalty there was soon little doubt. Early
in September he had resigned his post as Commandant-General
of the Union Defence Force, in a letter which revealed more than
he intended, and to which General Smuts most effectively repUed.
He had done briUiant work in the Zoutpansberg during the South
African War, and probably ranked next after Botha, Delarey, and
Smuts among the Dutch commanders. But for some time German
agents had been working upon his vjinity, while the " Prophet "

436 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

played upon his sombre religion. He had visited German}', and
been received by the Emperor, and from that honour he had never
recovered. We need not judge him too hardly, for he paid the
penalty of his folly ; and it would be unreasonable to expect that
rebellion would seem a heinous crime to one who, twelve years
before, had been fighting against Britain. The real gravamen of
his offence was that he broke the military oath which he had sworn
as Commandant-General. Along with General Kemp, a former
lieutenant of Delarey's and a good soldier, he proceeded to stir
up disaffection in the Western Transvaal. With him was joined
the famous Christian de Wet, whose name was at one time a house-
hold word among us. De Wet was not a general of the calibre
of Botha, Smuts, and Delarey, and his chronic lack of discipline
spoiled more than one of the last-named's movements. But as
a guerilla fighter in his own countryside he had no equal. He had
not Delarey's moral dignity or Beyers's knowledge of modem
conditions, being a Boer of the old, stiff, narrow, back-veld type,
with a strong vein of religious fanaticism. But his name was one
to conjure with, and his accession to the ranks of the irreconcilables
vastly increased the difficulty of the Government's problem.
The main strength of the movement lay in the " bywoner," or
squatter class, the " poor whites " who had been created by the
Boer S3'stem of large farms and large families. For them the
future held no hope. In the old days they had staffed the various
treks into the wilderness, but outlets were closing, and Africa was
filhng up. They had little education or intelligence, but they had
enough to know that their economic position was growing desperate,
and they not unnaturally struck for revolution when the chance
came. They made up the bulk of De Wet's men ; the rest were
a few religious fanatics, a few republican theorists, some men
who still cherished bitter memories of the last war, and a number
of social declasses and unsuccessful politicians. Little pity need
be wasted on such, but it is not easy to withhold a certain
sympathy for the luckless " bywoner," for whom the world held
no longer a place.

The rebellion was not long in revealing itself. On 26th October
the Union Government announced that De Wet was busy com-
mandeering burghers in the north of the Orange Free State, while
Beyers was at the same task in the western Transvarl. On the
24th the former had seized Heilbron, a httle town in the north Free
State, on a branch of the main Hne from Cape Town to Pretoria.
Further, at Reitz, he had stopped a train and arrested some Union

1914] DEFEAT OF BEYERS. 437

soldiers who were travelling by it. Beyers, meantime, with a
commando formed chiefly of Delarey's old soldiers, was in Rustcn-
burg, threatening Pretoria. Botha at once summoned the burghers
to put down the revolt, and to their eternal honour they responded
willingly. It was no easy decision for many of them. They were
called on to fight against men of their own blood, some of whom
had been their comrades or their leaders in the last war. From
farm to farm went the summons, and many a farmer took down
his Mauser, which had shot nothing but buck since Diamond
Hill or Colesberg, and up-saddled his pony, as he had done before
the great Sand River concentration. The magic name of Botha
did not fail in its appeal, and in a few weeks he had over 30,000
under arms. He was now a man of fift57-two years of age, tired
with heavy years of office and a sedentary life, and not in the best
of health. The rebellion must have been peculiarly bitter to one
who had striven beyond all others for a united South African
people, and who was not likely to forget the friendships of the
old strenuous days.

He did not suffer the grass to grow under his feet. Resolving
to clear Beyers out of the neighbourhood of the capital before
he turned to deal with De Wet, he entrained for Rustenburg on
the 26th and fell in with the enemy next day to the south of that
town, about eighty miles from Pretoria, where the Zeerust road
goes through the northern foothills of the Magaliesberg. There
he smote Beyers and Kemp so fiercely that their commandos were
scattered, eighty prisoners were taken, and the leaders fled incon-
tinently to the south-west. Part of the rebel forces went north-
ward into the hills of Waterberg, but the bulk of them followed
their generals to Lichtenburg. In Lichtenburg Colonel Alberts
was waiting for them. His first encounter was unfortunate, for
no of his men were cut off from the rest, and captured at Treur-
fontein by the rebels. A day or two later he retrieved the disaster,
recovered the prisoners, and thoroughly beat Claasen, the rebel
leader. Meanwhile that portion of Beyers's force which had gone
north to Waterberg, and which seems to have been under the
command of Muller, was busied in raiding the line that runs north
from Pretoria, till Colonel Van Deventer, fresh from his success
in the Cape, hustled it back into the hills. On 8th November
he caught the raiders at Sandfontein, near Warmbaths, some
sixty miles from Pretoria, and dispersed them, with many killed,
wounded, and prisoners. The remnants fled back to Rustenburg
and the west.

438 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.

By this time Botha had news of the whereabouts of Beyers
and Kemp. Hunted by Colonel Lemmer, the former fled south-
west to the flats of Bloemhof, crossed the Vaal River, and entered
the Orange Free State. He had a sharp fight near the junction
of the Vaal and the Vet, and lost about 400, as well as most of
his transport, but succeeded himself in getting clear away. The
men whom Colonel Alberts had already beaten were now with
Kemp making for Bechuanaland and German territory. They
were safe enough in that direction, for the Kalahari Desert at the
end of the dry season might be trusted to take its toll of rash
adventurers. On 7th November General Smuts made a speech
in Johannesburg, in which, summing up the situation, he an-
nounced that the rebellion in the Cape was over, that the Trans-
vaal rebels were now only a few scattered bands, and that in the
Orange Free State alone, where De Wet was at work, had the
revolt assumed any serious proportions.

De Wet had only a month of freedom, but he made good
use of it so far as concerned the distance covered. Ten years
before he would have made a very different fight among those
fiats and kopjes of the northern Free State, where spring was
beginning to tinge with green the long umber and yellow distances.
But now the stars in their courses fought against him. His own
countrymen had become prudent, and did not see the admirable
humour of sjamboking a magistrate who had once fined him five
shillings for whipping a native. They gave information to the
Government, and grudged ammunition and stores to the good
cause. Once he had had fine sport in that district, sHpping
through blockhouse Hues and eluding the clumsy British columns,
but now he found himself being constantly brought up against
that accursed thing, modern science. So long as he could trust
to a good horse matters went well, but what was he to do when
his pursuers took to motor cars which covered twenty miles where
the British mounted infantry used to cover five ? The times were
out of joint for De Wet, and so he went sjamboking and com-
mandeering through the land, perpetually losing his temper, and
delivering bitter philippics against these latter days. General
Botha was " ungodly," the English were " pestilential," Maritz
was the only true man. Heresy, imperialism, and negrophilism
were jumbled together as the enemy. " King Edward," he cried,
with some pathos, " promised to protect us, but he did not keep
his promise, and allowed a magistrate to be put over us." There
we have the last cry of the ancien regime in South Africa, which

1914] THE CHASE OF DE WET. 439

saw patriarchalism and personal government vanishing from a
machine-made world.

De Wet was at Vrede on 28th October, when he had the famous
interview with the magistrate already referred to. Meanwhile
his lieutenant, Wessels, had looted Harrismith, near the Natal
border, and damaged the railway line. Thereafter De Wet turned
west, and found sanctuary in the neighbourhood of Winburg,
where, on 7th November, at a place called Doornberg, he defeated
a Union force under Commander Cronje, and lost his son David.
At the time his army seems to have numbered 2,000 men. Next
day a second rebel force was beaten at Kroonstad by Colonel
Manie Botha, who continued the pursuit for several days. By
this time Botha, having all but cleared the Transvaal, was on his
way south, and on the nth came in touch with De Wet at Mar-
quard, about twenty miles east of Winburg. The rebels were in
four bodies, one at Marquard, one at a place called Bantry, a
third at Hoenderkop, and a fourth, with which was De Wet him-
self, in the Mushroom Valley. Botha's plan was to surround the
whole rebel force, two Union armies, under Colonels Brits and
Lukin, working round its flanks. Something went wrong, however,
with the timing of the movement, and Lukin and Brits did not
reach their allotted posts in time. In spite of this accident, De
Wet was completely defeated. Botha took 282 prisoners, released
most of the loyahsts taken by the rebels, and captured a large
quantity of transport. On the 13th it was officially announced
that the interrupted train service between Bloemfontein and
Johannesburg would be resumed.

De Wet at first fled south, but presently doubled back, and on
the i6th was at Virginia, on the main line. Two armoured trains
on the railway managed to prevent a large part of the rebel force
from crossing, and to head it eastward. Presently some of its
commandants began to come in, and many who had taken up
arms, attracted by the clemency of Botha's proclamation, laid
them down again. De Wet was aiming at a junction with Beyers,
who was in the Hoopstad district at the time. Beyers, however,
was in trouble on his own account. On the 15th, Colonel Celliers
had fallen upon him at Bultfontein, and had beaten him thoroughly
and made large captures. Most of the 1,500 rebels were driven
northwards, many across the Vaal. Accordingly De Wet, fleeing
from Virginia down the Sand and Vet Rivers, found Celliers ahead
of him, and heard of Beyers's disaster. He saw that the game was
up, and halted his force near Boshof. There seems to have been

440 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.-Dec.

considerable disaffection in its ranks, and in a final address to
them he advised all who were tired of fighting to hide their rifles
and go home. Many took the advice, including two of his sons,
many yielded themselves to the Union forces, but De Wet himself,
with twenty-five men, made one last dash for liberty. On 2ist
November he tried to cross the Vaal, and was driven back by
Commandant Dutoit. In the evening, however, with a following
now reduced to six, he managed to slip over the river above
Bloemhof, and took the road for Vryburg and the north-west.
He now picked up some fugitives, and the small commando crossed
the railway line to Rhodesia, twenty miles north of Vryburg.
He had, apparently, conceived the bold scheme of going through
the Kalahari to German South- West Africa. But he had not
allowed for the motor cars of his pursuers. For a day or two
there was heavy rain, which made the roads bad, and gave the Boer
ponies of his party an advantage over any motor. But by the
27th the weather had cleared, the veld was hard and dry, and
Colonel Brits, who had taken up the chase, began to capture the
slower members of the commando. As the fugitives penetrated
into the western desert their case became more hopeless. De
W^et was forced by the motors behind him to cover fifty miles at
a stretch without off-saddling, a thing hateful to the Boer horse-
master. The end came on ist December, when, at a farm called
Waterburg, about a hundred miles west of Mafeking, De Wet
and his handful surrendered to Colonel Jordaan. He was taken
to Vryburg, and two days later entered Johannesburg a prisoner.
He had yielded at the end with a shaggy good humour. Having
decided that modem conditions were the devil, he was glad to
see his own Afrikanders such adepts at the use of the powers of
darkness.

With the capture of De Wet the rebellion was virtually at an
end. There was a good deal of skirmishing cilong the south and
north banks of the lower Vaal. Kemp, accompanied by the
Lichtenburg " Prophet," fled west after Treurfontein to the little
town of Schweizer Reneke, and thence towards Vryburg. He
had some fighting at Kuruman, from which he headed south-west
across the southern Kalahari. He was engaged again north of
Upington, and it was a very battered remnant which ultimately
crossed the border of German South-West Africa. Early in
December Botha organized a great sweeping movement from
Reitz, which ended in the surrender of Wessels with the only large
Dody of rebels still in the field. Beyers, with a small commando.

1914] END OF THE REBELLION. 441

after his defeat at Bultfontein had haunted the southern shore
of the Vaal between Hoopstad and Kroonstad. On the morning
of 8th December he fell in with a body of Union troops under
Captain Uys, and was driven towards the river. He and some
companions endeavoured to cross the Vaal, which was in high
flood, and midway in the stream he found his horse failing, and
flipped from its back to swim. His greatcoat hampered him, and
he tried in vain to get rid of it. A companion heard him cry,
" I can do no more ! " as he disappeared. His body was found
two days later. He had been drowned, for there was no bullet
mark on him.

By the end of December the last embers of disaffection had
been stamped out within the Union territory. Of the five leaders
whom Maritz had named, De Wet was captured, Muller was
wounded and a prisoner, Beyers was dead, Kemp was across
the German border, and Hertzog had never declared himself.
In less than two months Botha had harried the rebels round the
points of the compass, and had taken 7,000 of them prisoners,
with a total casualty list to the Union army of no more than 334.
He exhibited magnanimity and wisdom in his hour of triumph.
Rebels who had been members of the Defence Force and had
broken their military oath were very properly put on trial for
their life. But to the rank and file he showed no harshness, and,
in the interests of South Africa's future, this clemency was not
misplaced. Rebellion could not, for the country Boers, carry the
moral stigma which it would bear if dabbled in by an ordinary
Briton. The Empire had no sentimental claim upon them, and
the case for loyalty founded on material interests required a certain
level of education before it could be understood. Besides, so
far as the older race of Boers was concerned, insurrection was in
their bones ; it had always been a recognized pohtical expedient,
and, indeed, for more than a century had been the national
pastime.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE WAR AT SEA I CORONEL AND THE FALKLAND
ISLANDS.

i^th SeptemberSth December.

Cradock and von Spec — Battle of Coronel— Sturdee leaves England with the Battle
Cruisers — Battle of the Falkland Islands — Its Results,

On 2qth October, Prince Louis of Battenberg, who as First Sea
Lord had done good service to his adopted country, retired from
olhce, and Lord Fisher returned to the post which he had held
four years before. Lord Fisher was beyond doubt the greatest
Uving sailor, and the modern British navy was largely his
creation. Explosive, erratic, a dangerous enemy, a difhcult friend,
thi? " proud and rebellious creature of God " had the width
of imagination and the sudden lightning flashes of insight which
entitle him to rank as a man of genius. Behind a smoke screen
of vulgar rhodomontade, his powerful mind worked on the data
of a vast experience. Moreover, he had that rarest of gifts — cour-
age, as the French say, of the head as well as of the heart. His
policy in war might be too bold or too whimsical, but it would
never be timorous or supine.

The situation which he had to face in October did not differ
greatly from that of the preceding months. Jellicoe, without
adequate bases, was engaged in the difficult task of performing
a multitude of duties while keeping intact his capital ships. He
had to arrange for the convoying of the first contingent of Canadian
troops, and to meet and defeat the German campaign of sub-
marines and mines around the British coasts. On T6th October
an alarm of enemy submarines at Scapa compelled him to leave
that anchorage till its defences were complete, and, after moving
his whole cruiser system farther north, he chose as his battleship
bases the natural harbours of Skye and Mull, and Lough Swilly
in Ireland. The German liner Berlin, which had managed to

Sunset at Scapa Flow
From a drawing by Muirhead Bone

1914] VON SPEE'S SQUADRON. 443

slip through our North Sea patrols at the end of September, had
sown mines in the north Irish waters, and one of them was struck
on 27th October by the Audacious of the 2nd Battle Squadron,
which sank after a twelve hours' struggle to get to port. As a
protest and a protection against indiscriminate mine-laying in
the great highways of ocean trade the British Admiralty on 2nd
November notified to the world that the whole of the North Sea
would thenceforth be regarded as a military area, and that neutral
ships could only pass through it by conforming to Admiralty
instructions and keeping to certain predetermined routes. Pres-
ently the situation improved, the defences of Scapa were com-
pleted, and the German submarine attack languished, as if its
promoters were disappointed with its results and were casting
about for a new policy.

It was well that the Admiralty had an easier mind in home
waters, for they were faced with an urgent and intricate problem
in more distant seas. The existence of Admiral von Spec's
squadron left our overseas possessions and our great trade routes
at the mercy of enemy raids. Till it was hunted down no over-
seas port could feel security, and the Australian and New Zealand
Governments, busy with sending contingents to the fighting fronts,
demanded not unnaturally that this should be made the first
duty of the British Navy. Whether the squadron kept together
or split into raiding units it was no light task to bring it to book
when it had the oceans of the world for its hunting ground. Sooner
or later it was doomed, and von Spee, hampered with difficulties
of coaling and supplies, could only hope for a brief career. But
during that career a bold man might do incalculable damage to
the Allies and deflect and cripple all their strategic plans, and
the German admiral was a most bold and gallant commander.

About the middle of August two of his light cruisers, the
Dresden and the Karlsruhe, appeared in the mid-Atlantic, while
the Emden, as we have seen, harried the Indian Ocean. Rear-
Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, in command of the North
American station, took up the chase of the first two throughout
the West Indian islands and down the east coast of South America.
Meantime von Spee was somewhere in the Central Pacific, where
at the end of September he bombarded Tahiti, and presently
it became clear that the Dresden had joined him. His squadron
now comprised two armoured cruisers — the Gneisenau and the
Scharnhorst ; and three light cruisers — the Dresden, Leipzig, and
Niirnberg. The first two were sister ships, both launched in 1906,

444 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Seit.

with a tonnage of 11,400 and a speed of at least 23 knots. They
carried 6-inch armour, and mounted eight 8.2-inch, six 5.9-inch,
and eighteen 21-pounder guns. The Dresden was a sister ship
of the Emden — 3,592 tons, 24^ knots, and ten 4.1-inch guns.
The Nurnberg was sHghtly smaller — 3,400 tons— her armament was
the same, and her speed was about half a knot quicker. Smaller
still was the Leipzig — 3,200 tons— with the same armament as the
other two, and a speed of over 22 knots. This squadron set itself
to prey upon our commerce routes, remembering that the British
navy was short in cruisers of the class best fitted to patrol and
guard the great trade highways. Von Spec moved nearer the
western coast of South America, and found coaling and provision-
ing bases on the coast of Ecuador and Colombia, and in the Gala-
pagos Islands. The duties of neutrals were either imperfectly
understood or slackly observed by some of the South American
states at this stage, and the German admiral seems to have been
permitted the use of wireless stations, which gave him valuable
information as to his enemy's movements.

So soon as definite news came of von Spee's whereabouts,
Cradock sailed south to the Horn. He had in his squadron, when
formed, the twelve-year-old battleship, the Campus, two armoured
cruisers, the Good Hope and the Monmouth, the light cruiser
Glasgow, and an armed liner, the Otranto, belonging to the Orient
Steam Navigation Company. None of his vessels was strong
either in speed or armament. The Canopus belonged to a class
which had been long obsolete ; her tonnage was 12,950, her speed
under 19 knots, and her armament four 12-inch, twelve 6-inch, and
ten i2-pounder guns, all of an old-fashioned pattern. Her annour
belt was only six inches thick. The Good Hope was also twelve
years old ; her tonnage was 14,100, her speed 23 knots, and her
armament two 9.2-inch, sixteen 6-inch, and twelve 12-pounder
guns. The Monmouth was a smaller vessel of 9,800 tons, with
the same speed, and mounting fourteen 6-inch and eight T2-pounder
guns. The Glasgow was a much newer vessel, and had a speed
of 25 knots. Her tonnage was 4,800, and her armament two
6-inch and ten 4-inch guns.

Cradock's instructions, received on 14th September, were to
make the Falkland Islands his base and to concentrate there a
squadron strong enough to meet von Spee. A week later it appeared
as if von Spee had gone off north-west from Samoa to his original
station in the North Pacific, where the Japanese could deal with
him. It looked therefore as if Cradock were safe ; so he was

1914] ADMIRAL CRADOCK'S TASK. 445

ordered not to concentrate all his cruisers, but to attack German
trade west of the Magellan Straits, for which task two cruisers
and an armed liner would be sufficient. The news of the arrival
of the Dresden did not seem to alter the situation. But on 5th
October the Admiralty had information which suggested that
von Spee was making for Easter Island, and Cradock was warned
that he might have to meet the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, and
consequently was ordered to take the Canopus with him. Cradock
asked for reinforcements, and protested that his instructions were
impossible, for with his small squadron he could not watch both
coasts of South America. For some days, owing to bad weather
and the pressure of other duties, there came no reply from the
Admiralty. If von Spee escaped he might cripple our operations
in the Cameroons, and might work untold harm in the troubled
waters of South Africa. On 14th October Cradock was told to
concentrate the Good Hope, Canopus, Monmouth, Glasgow, and
Otranto for a combined operation on the west coast of South America,
and informed that a second squadron was being formed for the
Plate area. Cradock assumed that his former orders also held
good, and that he was expected to bring the enemy to action. His
difficulty was with the Canopus, which was hopelessly slow. On
22nd October he left the Falklands to make a sweep round the
Horn, leaving the Canopus to join him by way of the Magellan
Straits.

He had no illusions about the dangers of his task, for he knew
that if he met von Spee he would meet an enemy more than his
match. During these weeks weather conditions made communica-
tion with the Admiralty exceptionally difficult : he was not aware
that an Anglo-Japanese squadron was operating in the North
Pacific ; and he seems to have regarded the charge of all the western
coasts as resting on himself alone. In this spirit of devotion to a
desperate duty he left the slow Canopus behind him, and with his
two chief ships but newly commissioned and poor in gunnery, set
out on a task which might engage him with two of the best cruisers
in the German fleet. He may have argued further — for no height
of gallantry was impossible to such a man — that even if he perished
the special circumstances of the conqueror might turn his victory
into defeat. For, in Mr. Balfour's words, " the German admiral
in the Pacific was far from any front where he could have refitted.
No friendly bases were open to him. If, therefore, he suffered
damage, even though in suffering damage he inflicted apparently
greater damage than he received, yet his power, great for evil

446 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.

while he remained untouched, might suddenly, as by a stroke of
an enchanter's wand, be utterly destroyed." ♦

The opponents, Cradock from the south and von Spee from
the north, were moving towards a conflict hke one of the historic
naval battles, a fight without mines, submarines, or destroyers,
where the two squadrons were to draw into line ahead and each
ship select its antagonist as in the ancient days. The Glasgow,
which had been sent forward to scout, a little after 4 o'clock in
the afternoon of ist November sighted the enemy. She made
out the two big armoured cruisers leading, and the light cruisers
following in open order, and at once sent a wireless signal to the
flagship. By 5 o'clock the Good Hope came up, and the Monmouth
had already joined the Glasgow and the Otranto. Both squadrons
were now moving southwards, the Germans having the in-shore
course. The British were led by the Good Hope, with the Mon-
mouth, Glasgow, and Otranto following in order ; the Germans by
the Scharnhorst, with the Gneisenau, Dresden, and Nilrnberg
behind.

We can reconstruct something of the picture. To the east
was the land, with the snowy heights of the southern Andes fired
by the evening glow. To the west burned one of those flaming
sunsets which the Pacific knows, and silhouetted against its
crimson and orange were the British ships, like woodcuts in a
naval handbook. A high sea was running from the south, and
half a gale was blowing. At first some twelve miles separated the
two squadrons, but the distance rapidly shrank till it was eight miles
at 6.18 p.m. About 7 o'clock the squadrons were converging,
and the enemy's leading cruiser opened fire at seven miles. By
this time the sun had gone down behind the horizon, but the
lemon afterglow showed up the British ships, while the German
were shrouded in the in-shore twilight. Presently the enemy
got the range, and shell after shell hit the Good Hope and the
Monmouth, while the bad light and the spray from the head seas
made good gunnery for them almost impossible. At 7.50 there
was a great explosion on the Good Hope, which had already been
set on fire. The flames leaped to an enormous height in the air,
and the doomed vessel, which had been drifting towards the enemy's
lines, soon disappeared below the water. The Monmouth was
also on fire and down by the head, and turned away seaward in
her distress. Meantime the Glasgow had received only stray shots,
for the battle so far had been waged between the four armoured

* Speech at the uuveiling of Cradock's memorial in York Minster.

1914] CORONEL. 447

cruisers. But as the Good Hope sank and the Monmouth was
obviously near her end, the enemy cruisers fell back and began
to shell the Glasgow at a range of two and a half miles. That the
Glasgow escaped was something of a miracle. She was scarcely
armoured at all, and was struck by five shells at the water line,
but her coal seems to have saved her.

The moon was now rising, and the Glasgow, which had been
trying to stand by the Monmouth, saw the whole German squadron
bearing down upon her. The Monmouth, refusing to surrender, was
past hope, so she did the proper thing and fled. By ten minutes
to nine she was out of sight of the enemy, though she occasionally
saw flashes of gun-fire and the play of searchlights, for fortunately
a flurry of rain had hidden the unwelcome moon. She steered
at first W.N.W., but gradually worked round to south, for she
desired to warn the Canopus, which was coming up from the
direction of Cape Horn. Next day she found that battleship
two hundred miles off, and the two proceeded towards the Straits
of Magellan.

Cradock, out of touch with the Admiralty and perplexed by
contradictory telegrams, could only " take counsel from the
valour of his heart." He chose the heroic course, and he and his
1,650 officers and men went to their death in the spirit of Drake
and Grenville. The Germans had two light cruisers to his one,
for the Otranto was negligible ; but these vessels were never seriously
in action, and the battle was decided in the duel between the
armoured cruisers. The Good Hope mounted two 9.2 inch guns, but
these were old-fashioned, and were put out of action at the start.
The 6-inch guns which she and the Monmouth possessed were no
match for the broadsides of twelve 8.2-inch guns fired by the
Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. The German vessels were also far
more heavily armoured, and they had the inestimable advantage
of speed. They were able to get the requisite range first and
to cripple Cradock before he could reply, and they had a sujjerb
target in his hulls silhouetted against the afterglow of sunset.
The Battle of Coronel was fought with all conceivable odds
against us.

The defeat of Coronel played havoc with the British Admiralty's
plans and dispositions, and left a hundred vulnerable spots through-
out the Empire open to von Spec. Mr. Churchill and Lord Fisher
did not hesitate ; a blow must be struck and at once, and that
blow must be decisive. The Defence, Carnarvon, and Cornwall

448 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.-Dec.

were ordered to concentrate at Montevideo, where the remnant
of Cradock's squadron was instructed to join them. Jellicoe
was summoned to lend his two battle cruisers the Invincible and
the Inflexible, each with a tonnage of 17,250, a speed of from 25
to 28 knots, and eight 12-inch guns so placed that all eight could
be fired on either broadside. Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee,
the Chief of the War Staff at the Admiralty, was put in charge of
the expedition, with the post of Commander-in-Chief of the South
Atlantic and Pacific. His business was to take over the ships at
Montevideo and seek out von Spee should he attempt to break
into the Atlantic by the Horn. If, on the other hand, the German
admiral was aiming at the Panama Canal or the Canadian coasts,
he would be dealt with by the Anglo- Japanese squadron in the
North Pacific.

On nth November Sturdee sailed, and on the 26th reached
the rendezvous, where he found the Carnarvon, Cornwall, Kent,
and Bristol. Von Spee after Coronel lingered for some tune on
the coast of Chile, waiting on colliers, and apparently also in the
hope that the German battle cruisers might break out of the
North Sea and join him. Then, finding that the Anglo- Japanese
squadron was becoming troublesome in the Pacific, he steered
for the Horn, which he rounded at midnight on ist December.
He was aiming at the Falklands, where he expected to find a weak
British squadron coaling ; he meant to draw it out to sea and
destroy it, and then occupy the islands and demolish the wireless
installation. As a matter of fact only the Canopus was there,
and the little colony expected that at any moment the blow would
fall. But on the afternoon of 7th December, Sturdee appeared
with his squadron, intending to coal, and then go round the Horn
in search of the enemy. The Falklands with their bare brown moors
shining with quartz, their innumerable lochans, their prevailing
mists, their grey stone houses, and their population of Scots shep-
herds, look like a group of the Orkneys or Outer Hebrides set down
in the southern seas. Port Stanley lies at the eastern corner of
East Island. There is a deeply cut gulf leading to an inner harbour,
on the shores of which stands the little capital. The low shores
on the south side almost give a vessel in port a sight of the outer sea.
The night of 7th December was spent by the British squadron in
coaling. The Canopus, the Glasgow, and the Bristol were in the
inner harbour ; while the Invincible, Inflexible, Carnarvon, Kent, and
Cornwall lay in the outer gulf.

About daybreak on the morning of the 8th, von Spee arrived

1914] BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS. 449

from the direction of Cape Horn. The Gneisenau and the Niirnberg
were ahead, and reported the presence of two British ships, probably
the Macedonia and the Kent, which would be the first vessels visible
to a ship rounding the islands. Upon this von Spee gave the order
to prepare for battle, expecting to find only the remnants of
Cradock's squadron. At 8 o'clock the signal station announced to
Sturdee the presence of the enemy. It was a clear, fresh morning,
with a bright sun, and Hght breezes from the north-west. All
our vessels had finished coaling, except the battle cruisers, which
had begun only half an hour before. Orders were at once given
to get up steam for full speed. The battle cruisers raised steam
with oil fuel, and made so dense a smoke that the German look-outs
did not detect them. About 9 the Canopus had a shot at the
Gneisenau over the neck of land, directed by signal officers on
shore. At 9.30 von Spee came abreast the harbour mouth, and
saw the ominous tripod masts which revealed the strength of the
British squadron. He at once signalled to the Gneisenau and the
Niirnberg not to accept action, and altered his course to east, while
Sturdee's command streamed out in pursuit.

First went the Kent and then the Glasgow, followed by the
Carnarvon, the battle cruisers, and the Cornwall. The Gennans
had transports with them, the Baden and the Santa Isabel, and
these fell back to the south of the island, with the Bristol and the
Macedonia in pursuit. The Canopus remained in the harbour,
where she had been moored in the mud as a fort. At about 10
o'clock the two forces were some twelve miles apart, von Spee
steering almost due east. The Invincible and the Inflexible quickly
drew ahead, but had to slacken speed to 20 knots to allow the
cruisers to keep up with them. At 11 o'clock about eleven miles
separated the two forces. At five minutes to one we had drawn
closer, and opened fire upon the Leipzig, which was last of the
German line.

Von Spee, seeing that flight was impossible, prepared to give
battle. So far as the battle cruisers were concerned, it was a
foregone conclusion, for the British had the greater speed and the
longer range. Ever since Coronel he had had a sense of impending
doom, and had known that the time left to him was short. He
saw, hke the great sailor he was, that while his flagship and her
consort were in any case doomed their loss might enable his light
cruisers to escape, and that these could still do work for his country
by harrying British trade. About i o'clock he signalled to the
latter to disperse and make for the South American coast, while

450 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec.

he accepted battle with his armoured ships. His three light
cruisers turned therefore and made off to the south, followed by
the Kent, the Glasgow, and the Cornwall, while the Invincible, the.
Inflexible, and the Carnarvon engaged the Scharnhorst and the
Gneisenau. About 2 o'clock our battle cruisers had the range of
the German flagship, and a terrific artillery duel began. The
British armour-piercing shells from some defect in construction
burst on impact, and this explained the long-drawn agony of the
German ships, which remained afloat when their decks had become
places of torment. The smoke was getting in our way, and Sturdee
used his superior speed to reach the other side of the enemy. He
simply pounded the Scharnhorst to pieces, and just after 4 o'clock
she listed to port and then turned bottom upwards with her pro-
peller still going round. The battle cruisers and the Carnarvon
then concentrated on the Gneisenau, which was sheering off to the
south-east, and at 6 o'clock she too listed and went under.

Meanwhile the Kent, Glasgow, and Cornwall were hot in pursuit
of the three light cruisers, and here was a more equally matched
battle. The Dresden, which was farthest to the east, had, with her
pace and her long start, no difficulty in escaping. The other two
had slightly the advantage of speed of the British ships, but our
engineers and stokers worked magnificently, and managed to get
25 knots out of the Kent. It was now a thick misty afternoon,
with a drizzle of rain, and each duel had consequently the form of
a separate battle. The news of the sinking of the Scharnhorst and
the Gneisenau put new spirit into our men, and at 7.30 p.m. the
Niirnberg, which had been set on fire by the Kent, went down with
her guns still firing. The Leipzig, which had to face the Glasgow
and the Cornwall, kept afloat, fighting most gallantly, till close
upon 8 p.m., when she too heeled over and sank.

As the wet night closed in the battle died away. Only the
Dresden, battered and fleeing far out in the southern waters,
remained of the proud squadron which at dawn had sailed to what
it believed to be an easy victory. The defeat of Cradock in the
murky sunset off Coronel had been amply avenged.

The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a brilliant piece of
strategy, for a plan, initiated more than a month before, and
involving a journey across the world, was executed with complete
secrecy and precision. Tactically it was an easy victory owing
to Sturdee's huge preponderance in strength. The British gunnery
was good, and the battle might have been won in half the time
but for the British admiral's very proper desire to win without loss

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1914] THE END OF VON SPEE. 451

and return the battle cruisers intact to Jellicoe. Yet, when this
has been said, it was a workmanlike performance, doing honour
to all concerned. Technically, the sole blemish was the escape of
the Dresden, which could not, however, have been prevented ; for
the speediest of the available ships, the Glasgow, had only 25 knots
against the 27 which the German cruiser managed to achieve. The
result had a vital bearing on the position of Germany. It anni-
hilated the one squadron left to her outside the North Sea, and it
removed a formidable menace to our trade routes. After the 8th
of December, the Dresden * was the sole enemy cruiser left at large,
and she and the armoured merchantmen, the Kronprinz Wilhelm
and the Prince Eitel Friedrich, were the only privateers still at
work on the High Seas. The British losses were small considering
the magnitude of the victory. The Invincible was hit by eighteen
shells, but had no casualties. The Inflexible was hit thrice, and
had one man killed. The cruisers suffered more heavily, the Kent,
for example, having four men killed and twelve wounded, and the
Glasgow nine killed and four wounded. Every effort was made
by the British ships to save life, but in the circumstances most
of the efforts were vain. The only sign of a lost vessel was
at first the sHghtly discoloured water. Then the wreckage
floated up with men clinging to it, and boats were lowered
and sailors let down the sides on bow-lines in order to rescue the
survivors who floated past. The water was icy cold — about 40
degrees — and presently many of the swimmers grew numb and
went under. Albatrosses, too, attacked some of those clinging to
the wreckage, pecking at their eyes and forcing them to let go.
Altogether less than two hundred were saved, including the captain
of the Gneisenau. Admiral von Spee perished, with two of his sons.
The victory was of supreme importance in the naval campaign,
for it gave to Britain the command of the outer seas, and enabled
her to concentrate all her strength in the main European battle-
ground. Failure would have altered the whole course of the war
in Africa, and most gravely interfered with the passage of troops
and supplies to the Western front. It is worthy, too, to be held
in memory, along with Coronel, as an episode which maintained
the high chivalrous tradition of the sea. Let us do honour to a
gallant foe. The German admiral did his duty as Cradock had
done his, the German sailors died as Cradock's men had died, and

• The Dresden was caught off Juan Fernandez on March 14, 191 5, by the Kent
and the Glasgow, and sunk in five minutes. The Karlsruhe had mysteriously blowa
up in the West Indies on November 4, 1914.

452 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec.

there can be no higher praise. They went down with colours
flying, and at the last the men lined up on the decks of the doomed
ships. They continued to resist after their vessels had become
shambles. One captured officer reported that before the end his
ship had no upper deck left, every man there having been killed,
and one turret blown bodily overboard by a 12-inch shell. But
in all that hell of slaughter, which lasted for half a day, there was
never a thought of surrender. Von Spee and Cradock lie beneath
the same waters, in the final concord of those who have looked
unshaken upon death.

BOOK II.

THE BELEAGUERED FORTRESS.

CHAPTER XX.

THE FIRST WINTER IN THE WEST.

The Winter Stalemate — The "War of Attrition "—Nature of Trench Fighting—
The French Soldier— The British Soldier.

'Ve left the campaign in the West when the critical moment had
passed. The thin lines from Nieuport to Arras had done their
work, and by 20th November the tide of attack had recoiled and
lay grumbling and surging beyond our bastions. A number of
German corps were sent east to Hindenburg, and Joflfre was now
at leisure to rearrange his lines and give some rest to the sorely
tried defenders. The bulk of the British 2nd Corps and most of
the 7th Division were already in reserve, and the ist Corps fol-
lowed, so that at the end of November, except for the 3rd Corps
and the new 8th Division, portions of the cavalry, and the Indian
Corps, the front from Albert to the sea was held by the French
troops of d'Urbal's Eighth and Maud'huy's Tenth Army.

In those days, both in France and Britain, little was known
of the great crisis now happily past. The French official com-
muniques gave the barest information, and the Paris papers could
not supplement it. The English press continued to publish reas-
suring articles and victorious headlines ; indeed, it was officially
announced that our front had everywhere advanced on a day
when it had everywhere fallen back. Hence, since the duration
of the crisis had caused little anxiety, its end brought no special
relief or rejoicing to the ordinary man. Soldiers returning on
leave, solemnized by their desperate experience, were amazed at
the perfect calmness of the British people, till they discovered that
it was due to a perfect ignorance. There is a peculiarly exaspera-
ting type of optimism from which in those days our troops had to
suffer. " I suppose we are winning hands down," said the cheerful
civilian ; and the soldier, with Ypres raw in his memory, could
only call upon his gods and hold his peace. This conspiracy of

45d

456 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec-Mar.

silence may have served some purpose in keeping nerves quiet,
though the courage of the British people scarcely deserved to be
rated so low ; but in concealing from them the greatest military
performance in all our history, it prevented that glow and exalta-
tion of the national spirit which makes armies and wins battles.

Winter had now fairly come ; and though modern war may
affect to despise the seasons, the elements take their revenge, and
both armies were forced into that trench warfare which took the
place of the old winter quarters. The shallow shelter trenches of
mid-October, hasty lines scored in the mud by harried men, be-
came an elaborate series of excavations to which the most modem
engineering knowledge on both sides was applied. At the same
time, the enemy had to be kept occupied, and while the bulk of
the Allied troops were employed as navvies and carpenters, the
guns were rarely silent, and attacks and counter-attacks reminded
the armies that they were at war. It was a period of temporary
stalemate and quiescence, and therefore leisure was given to the
Allies to perfect defences, to elaborate fresh schemes of attack,
to train their raw levies, and to reconsider weapons and tactics
in the light of their new experience. Germany for the moment
had consented to a defensive war in the West, and even Falken-
hayn, who was convinced that the decisive victory could only be
gained on that front, bowed to an imperious necessity. The pop-
ular prestige of Hindenburg and the vigorous personality of Luden-
dorff focused German interests on the East. The absorption was
justified, for the Eastern problem was urgent. Austria must be
saved from final disaster, and the new allegiance of Turkey con-
firmed. Germany therefore resigned herself to holding the Western
line with numbers considerably inferior to those of her opponents,
trusting to her discipline and training, her greater skill in fortifi-
cation, and her unquestionable superiority in machine guns and
artillery.

The Allies were in no condition to institute an immediate
offensive. The French since August had lost a million men, and
were busy accumulating new reserves and labouring to increase
their munitionment. The British losses had also been high, and
were partly replaced by adding one Territorial battalion to each
brigade — battalions which were presently to be organized in special
Territorial divisions and to win fame not inferior to the proudest
records of the old regular army. Munitions were still scanty,
notably in the high-explosive class, and it was obvious that no
serious offensive could be contemplated till the new factories

1914-15] THE "WAR OF ATTRITION." 457

hastily improvised in Britain began to produce in bulk. But the
First Battle of Ypres was scarcely over before the optimistic spirit
of Sir John French set itself to devising plans for a new attack.
He wished to attempt a turning movement by the Belgian coast
which would gain possession of Zeebrugge. At first the British
Cabinet were inclined to favour the scheme. The Admiralty was
anxious to prevent the use of that coast as a submarine base, and
believed that the Navy could support any advance effectively
from the sea ; while it was clear that Russia was in no very com-
fortable position, and that an offensive which should check the
dispatch of further German troops to the East was desirable on
every ground of loyalty and sound strategy. Lord Kitchener
promised the regular 27th Division, and held out hopes of a great
increase in Territorial battalions. But Joffre rejected the pro-
posal. He was unwilling to put the British army in sole charge
of the Allied left ; he considered that a German offensive in the
near future was likely, and was anxious for the safety of his front,
especially in the neighbourhood of Roye and Montdidier ; and he
was developing a scheme of his own for a break through on the
south side of the German salient at Rheims and on the west
at Arras, for which he must accumulate aU possible reserves.
Presently the British Government also blew cold on the project.
The old foolish fears of invasion revived in their minds ; they did
not see their way to supply the necessary munitions ; they were
unwilling to dispute the view of the French Commander-in-Chief.
There was another motive : by the end of the year their thoughts
had begun to toy with the idea of relieving the stalemate in the
West by employing British forces in an altogether different theatre.
The various objections alleged by London and Paris may, as Sir
John French has argued, have been each capable of answer, but
there can be little doubt that the decision was substantially right.
Neither British nor French were as yet ready for a serious advance,
and we may be very certain that an attempt to free the Flanders
coast that winter would have been as costly and as futile as the
various offensives of 1915-

The winter fighting was commonly described as a " war of
attrition " — a guerre d'usure — but the phrase was a contradiction
in terms. It was more correctly a period of waiting, a marking
of time till further reserves in men and material were ready. But
there was a positive side also to the Allies' plan. By frequent
local attacks they kept the edge of their temper keen ; they pre-
vented the enemy from concentrating in force against any part of

458 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec-Mar.

their line ; they detained troops which might otherwise have been
sent to Hindenburg. Their purpose was to be ready for any Ger-
man attack, but to prevent it, if possible, by constantly worrying
portions of the German front. The five hundred miles of the Allied
line were held as to one-tenth by the British, and for the rest by
the Belgians and the French. It ran from Nieuport generally west
of the Yser, along the Ypres Canal, in a salient in front of Ypres,
behind Messines to just east of Armentieres ; then west of Neuve
Chapelle to Givenchy, across the La Bassee Canal, east of Vermelles,
west of Lens, to just east of Arras. From Arras it lay by Albert
and Noyon to Soissons, east along the Aisne to just north of Rheims,
from Rheims by Vienne to Varennes, thence, making a wide curve
round Verdun, to the west bank of the Meuse opposite St. Mihiel,
and so to Pont-a-Mousson on the Moselle. Thence it passed east
of Luneville to just east of St. Die, ten miles inside the frontier.
It reached the crest of the Vosges about the Col du Bonhomme,
and then ran in German territory to Belfort and the Swiss border.
In January a German comic paper published a cartoon in which
two French staff officers were depicted measuring the day's advance
with a footrule in order to make up their report. The jibe was not
unfair, for the winter's record was a chronicle of small things —
a sandhill won east of Nieuport, a trench or two at Ypres, a corner
of a brickfield at La Bassee, a few hundred yards near Arras, a
farm on the Oise, a mile in northern Champagne, a coppice in the
Argonne, a hillock on the Meuse, part of a wood on the Moselle,
some of the high glens in the Vosges, and a village or two in Alsace.
But these minute advances had their moral value for the troops
engaged, and even a certain strategical importance for the cam-
paign. The enemy, as it happened, was in no position for a seri-
ous attack ; but, had he been, Joffre's poHcy must have seriously
crippled his chances of success.

The tale of these months may be briefly told. In December
there were attacks by the British on the Wytschaete ridge and
at Givenchy, and by Maud 'buy at Vermelles ; there was consider-
able activity in the snow-laden wood of La Grurie in the Argonne
and on the crests of the Vosges. In January 1915 the Great Dune
near Lombartzyde was taken, and for several weeks there was
intermittent fighting around Cuinchy and Givenchy. At Soissons
there was a more serious affair. The French — Maunoury's right —
attacked and carried a hill north-west of Crouy, and three days
later suffered a crushing counterstroke, which compelled them to
fall back across the flooded Aisne, giving the enemy a mile of the

1914-15] TRENCH FIGHTING. 459

southern bank, and leaving a broad shallow wedge in their front.
In Champagne, in the end of February, Langle de Cary with the
French Fourth Army made a considerable advance, which pinned
down certain German reserves destined for the East, and cost the
enemy, on his own admission, greater losses than he had suffered
in Masurenland the previous September. In February and March
Sarrail made some small gains among the heights of the Woevre,
and a continuous struggle went on among the glens and ridges
of the Vosges, with the result that, except for Hartmannsweilerkopf,
every gun position on the slopes was held from Aspach to Geb-
weiler, and all the southern passes and crests were in French hands.
But the staple of the campaign was the day-to-day work of
making and manning entrenchments. There were many ob-
servers at the time who saw in the trenches a final reductio ad
absurdum of war, who, like Lord Nottingham in the campaigns of
Marlborough, declared that a decision was now impossible, and
that the Allies might fight to all eternity without result. Some
such feeling was not absent from the mind of the British Cabinet
when they began to hunt feverishly for possibilities of attack in
distant theatres. But trench fighting is the oldest and most
constant of the phases of war. One of the most critical of the
world's battles, Alesia, was a trench battle, and Pharsalia was a
consequence of the trenches of Durazzo. Napoleon knew that
period of standstill in a campaign, when troops are forced into
trenches, as at the Passarge in 1807, and before him Frederick the
Great had worked out the philosophy of such a condition.* In 1914
the trench-lines in the West represented the point at which the
battle of movement had come to an end from exhaustion. They
were different from those of Marlborough's day, because they were
continuous and continuously manned, so that a break through was
not possible without a fiercely contested battle. The trenches of
Villeroi and Villars were dug to enable large territories to be held
by relatively small forces ; those of 19 14 came into being because,
since outflanking was out of the question, the opposing forces were
too big for the battle ground. They were the natural refuge of
large armies to whom mobility was denied.

When the position was first taken up trenches were shallow
and rough, hastily dug with entrenching tools for a temporary
shelter. But as the campaign developed and the line held, they
were deepened, improved, and connected until they became a
vast ramification of ditches and earthworks, defended with barbed

* See his Politisches Testament votn Jahre 1768.

46o A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec-Mar.

wire entanglements and every contrivance that human ingenuity
could suggest. They were not a fixed position. Daily, like a
glacier, they endeavoured to creep farther forward by means of
sap and mine. Both sides burrowed towards their opponent's
lines,* and when successful a length of trench would leap into
the air in a great explosion, there would be a rush of infantry,
and a hundred yards of hostile trenches would be won, and, if the
gods were propitious, held. If a party succeeded in getting into
the enemy's trenches, their first task was to block the communica-
tion zigzags to prevent a counter-attack. Every night patrols
would creep out into the No Man's Land between the lines, and
occasionally fall in with an enemy patrol and rush it with the
bayonet, while magnesium flares Ht up the darkness, and the guns
of both armies awoke. Snipers on both sides were busy all day
from pits and prepared positions, and woe betide the unwary man
who lifted his head above the ground. The devices of the eighteenth
century campaigns returned. The Japanese had used hand grenades
at the siege of Port Arthur, and bombs and grenades, bombardiers
and grenadiers in the old sense took their places in our scheme of
war. The Germans had for this task the better equipment, and
the British soldier fought with bombs made out of jam pots, and
every manner of improvisation, till scientists and manufacturers
at home turned their attention to his new needs.

The true weapon against trenches was the artillery. There
were first the ordinary field guns — the British i8-pounder,t the
French 75 mm., and the German 77 mm. — with an effective radius
of a couple of miles. Without an artillery " preparation " an
infantry advance was foUy, and the guns were used to damage the
enemy's trenches, to keep down the fire of the enemy's field guns,
and occasionally to bombard positions of importance behind the
trenches. But field artillery was at some disadvantage in trench

♦ Our underground warfare was not yet as elaborate as that at Marlborough's
siege of Toumai. " Now as to our fighting underground, blowing up hke Idtes in
the air, not being sure of a foot of ground we stand on while in the trenches. Our
miners and the enemy very often meet each other, when they have sharp combats
till one side gives way. We have got into three or four of the enemy's great galleries,
which are thirty or forty feet underground and lead to several of their chambers ;
and in these we fight in armour and lanthorn and candle, they disputing every inch
of the gallery with us to hinder our finding out their great mines. Yesternight we
found one which was placed just under our bomb batteries, in which were eighteen
hundredweight of powder besides many bombs ; and if we had not been so lucl<y
as to find it, in a very few hours our batteries and some hundreds of men had takea
a flight into the air." {Daily Courant, August 20, 1709, quoted in Mr. Fortescues
History of the British Army, I., p. 514.) We were to repeat this kin(? of exploit two
years later at Messines and elsewhere,
t About 84 nmi.

1914-15] THE ARTILLERY. 461

warfare, as compared with its use in a manoeuvre battle against
advancing infantry. With its flat trajectory, the ordinary field
gun did extraordinarily little harm to men in trenches two feet
wide. Shrapnel proved nearly useless, and the Allied guns took to
firing, as far as their supplies permitted, high explosive shell with
a percussion fuse. More important were the heavy guns — the
60-pounders and especially the field howitzers. The immense
power of the shell and the fact that it fell from a high angle en-
abled them literally to destroy the trench which they succeeded
in hitting. Again, they had an ordinary range of four to five miles,
and this allowed them to be emplaced well to the rear out of any
danger from the enemy, unless one of his own howitzers got their
range. The heavy guns played a vital part in trench warfare,
and most of the advances were due to their preliminary bombard-
ment. That they did not play a greater part was owing to the
difficulties under which they were operated. With trenches close
up to each other — in many cases not forty yards off, in some cases
scarcely a dozen — it was a risky matter for artillery to bombard
the enemy, for the slightest shortage in the flight of a shell caused
devastation among their own men.

The discomforts of trench warfare can never be removed ;
at the best they can be mitigated. In the early days, before 20th
November, when regiments were cooped up with their dead for
a fortnight under constant fire in shallow mud-holes, the misery
of it beggared description. As the first violence of the attack
ebbed and the Allies were given leisure to revise their trenches,
many improvements were introduced, battalions were more fre-
quently relieved, and the whole system was regularized. The
strain and the ennui of the work remained, but the physical hard-
ships grew lighter, the trenches were lined and drained, and the
communication network was perfected. The British food supplies
were excellent : good feeding will go down to history as a tradition
of this army in Flanders, like hard swearing in the case of an
earlier expedition. Frequent reliefs and better provision for
billets and baths in the rear did much to ease their lot. A battalion
which came out of the trenches weary, lame, dishevelled, spiritless,
and indescribably dirty, would be restored in a couple of days to
a reasonable smartness and good humour. Perhaps the officers
in those months had the hardest task. For them war justified
its old definition : " Months of acute boredom punctuated by
moments of acute fear."

The worst part of the business was the wet, and this was chiefly

462 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec-Mar.

felt in the north. A dripping winter and the presence of a million
men churned West Flanders into a gigantic mud-hole. Some parts
of the Allied line were better than others. The Arras district was
fairly dry ; so was the Klein Zillebeke ridge and the country round
Messines and Wytschaete ; while in the Ploegsteert Wood — a
stretch about two miles long by one mile wide — a reasonably
comfortable forest colony was established, where men could move
about with a certain freedom. But all along the Lys and the
Ypres Canal the trenches were liable to constant flooding, and the
approaches were seas of mire. It was worse still between Dixmude
and the sea, where life became merely amphibious. Tons of wood
laid for pathways disappeared in the sloughs. A false step on a
dark night meant a descent into a quagmire, from which a man,
if happily rescued by his fellows, emerged, as Trinculo said of
Caliban, " No fish, but an islander that hath lately suffered by a
thunderbolt." The Lys overflowed its banks, and inundated our
trenches for eighty yards on each side. A brook at Festubert
came down in flood, and several men in the neighbouring trenches
were drowned. But far worse than any risk to life was the misery
of standing for hours up to the waist in icy water, of having every
pore of the skin impregnated with mud, of finding the walls of a
trench dissolving in slimy torrents while rifles jammed, clothes
rotted, and feet were frost-bitten. It was a lesson in the extremes
to which human endurance could go. But so efficient was the
commissariat work, and so ample the provision of comforts and
warm clothes, that the British sick rate was no more than 3 per
cent., lower than that of many garrison towns in peace, and in-
conceivably lower than that of any war of the past.

The winter was a period of excessive busyness both at the front
and at home. In Britain and in the rural areas of France new
levies were being trained with a speed which a year before would
have been considered impossible ; every factory and laboratory
was busy devising and manufacturing new weapons ; and, since to
most men the war was still an adventure full of hope and the
chance of glory, there was as yet little slackness and weariness.
Staffs were working out new tactical problems against an advance
in the spring ; and even the Governments, who had the chance to
appreciate more correctly the situation, were in a mood of irra-
tional optimism, rarely shot with misgivings. Such a mood did
not lend itself to that serious thinking ahead and that disentangle-
ment of the true guide-ropes of the problem which were the
clamorous needs of the hour. Few men gave thought to the

1914-15] THE FRENXH IN WAR. 463

real weakness of the Allied position — that a batch of governments
united in a loose alliance was confronted by an en^my whose
efforts were directed by a single brain and will. The problem at
the moment seemed to be how to develop the latent resources
of France and the British Empire, not how to use them, when
developed, to the best purpose. There was, therefore, greater
progress made in the creation of weapons and the development
of minor tactics than in working out the major conceptions of
strategy. Yet in the former sphere it is right to acknowledge
the magnitude and earnestness of the work. The foundations
were being laid for that immense munitionment and those new
armies which did not appear fully in the field till 1916. In the
dominion of the air the Allies were rapidly drawing ahead. France
had led the way in experiment, and her Government between
1909 and 1914 acquired the largest air fleet in the world. Germany
had at first preferred to interest herself rather in airships than in
airplanes, but her military advisers were well aware of the lattcr's
value, and had prepared a strong corps. The German aviator
was especially trained to reconnaissance work and the task of
range-finding for the guns, and abundantly proved his value in
the first weeks of war. The British Air Service, the last to be
started, had been so wisely and energetically developed by Sir
David Henderson and his colleagues that in many respects it was
the best equipped of all. It contained a military and a naval wing,
and to the latter fell most of the destructive work during the
winter, when Diisseldorf, Cologne, Friedrichshafen, and other
places were visited ; and on Christmas Day a raid was made on
the shore defences and Zeppelin sheds at Cuxhaven.

Meantime, the slow process went on of the growth of under-
standing and good feeling between the Allied armies. France and
Britain were given the chance of studying each other at close
quarters under the sternest of all trials, and respect sprang up
in the heart of each for the other's idiosyncrasies. The ordinary
Frenchman was avowedly bored with politics. In no country,
perhaps, is the politician, however sterling his virtues, very gener-
ally loved. His rewards are so large and immediate, the qualities
which lead to a popular success may be so trivial, that he gets
little sincere admiration except from those engaged, or desirous
of being engaged, in the same line of business. But in France
this aloofness from politics had led not only to a profound distrust
of all politicians, but to a certain callousness about the work of
government. If a hundred men in Britain, chosen at random.

464 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec-Mar.

had been asked to name the figures they admired in the past
half-century, ninety at least would have mentioned no politician ;
in France, probably the whole hundred would have produced a
list untainted by politics. But in war — war for dear life — all
was changed. The State was no longer a knot of bungling officials
with long tongues and deep pockets, but France, the lovely and
eternal. Forgotten tales and traditions, old fragments of nursery
rhymes, the dreams and emotions of boyhood, the memory of
kin and home and friends, were fused in a conception of France
as a mother to die for, a queen to strive for, a goddess whom the
humblest felt for " as a lover and a child." Such is the happy
gift of the French people. They maj' seem steeped in anti-nation-
alism, distracted with narrow class interests, sunk deep in matter,
when suddenly the guns speak, and there awakes a tempestuous
affection, as simple as Joan of Arc's, as splendid as the dream
of a crusader. It is another privilege of the race that they are
not afraid of heroics. They believe in doing fine things finely,
with the grand air. They have no self-consciousness. War is a
new world where familiar conventions do not apply, and they rise
to the height of its novelty. The Marseillaise becomes not an
ordinary marching tune but a psalm of battle ; the tricolour is
not a flag but the Ark of the Covenant ; war is a high adventure,
and the man who in normal times sold haberdashery in the Rue
de Rivoli trailed a rifle in the Argonne woods with a wild poetry
in his head. Again and again we find a touch of noble rhetoric
in their deeds and speeches. They were gay after the traditional
French manner, but it was not the stolid gaiety of good health
and spirits, but a sister to fierce anger and first cousin to tears.
For all the ranks of France the war was a crusade, and they moved
to it with a consciousness of destiny, and with the high seriousness
of Raymond before the walls of Jerusalem. Some day a poet will
arise to sing ol these new armies of the Republic. They were
different from any that had gone before, different from Napoleon's
troops intoxicated with dreams of glory, or the puzzled levies of
1870. They were an armed nation, with every class and condition
in their ranks. The easy camaraderie of peace time between man
and officer gave way to a stern self-imposed discipline and a pas-
sionate loyalty to their leaders. In these leaders we find republican
dignity at its best. The heroics of France were in the soul, and
world-famous army commanders were scarcely to be distinguished
in dress and mode of living from the ordinary man. The
land had found what Cromwell sought, the " plain russet-

1914-15] THE BRITISH SOLDIER. 465

coat captain who knows what he fights for, and loves what he
knows."

The British soldier was psychologically a world apart. In
normal times he was more political than the Frenchman, more in-
terested in his Government, and he had perhaps a more ready con-
sciousness of the nation as something above and beyond ordinary
things. He was always prepared to back his own side, as he would
do in a football match ; and " his own side," though he never
tried to define it, was in a dim way a conception of Britain. Hence
the war worked no very startling revolution in his point of view.
He was a professional man-at-arms, and war meant simply a busy
period for his profession and a good deal of overtime. He fought,
therefore, partly out of professional pride, partly from a natural
love of adventure, and partly from loyalty to his " side." I speak
of the British regular, and what I have written did not apply
in the same degree to the Territorials, or to the new service bat-
talions formed after the outbreak of war, in which many men
enlisted solely from motives of duty and patriotism, and which
had more affinities with a national army such as the French. The
British regular went to war as a matter of everyday business, and
he considered it his duty to turn the most desperate affair into
something homely and familiar. War was not to him a new world,
and he did not see why because of it he should forgo his ordinary
tastes and habits. So we find him under heavy fire discussing
hotly the merits of his favourite football team, and playing games
in his scanty leisure, and diffusing over the whole ghastly business
of slaughter the atmosphere of a placid English Saturday after-
noon. He declined to make much of anything. Wliile fifty miles
from the firing line his letters might enliven his relations with
accounts of horrors — how he had no candle, but was writing by
the light of bursting shells ; but when he got into the real busi-
ness, he wrote that he wanted a new pipe, and hoped " that all
are well, as this leaves me at present."

He was a hopeless puzzle to his enemies. Here was a being
who seemed without seriousness, who never talked about glory or
his country, who prided himself on professing a dislike for war,
who behaved, when he was allowed, as if he were in a garrison town
at home, and yet who proved resistless in attack and unshakable
in defence. Was he merely a capable hireling, an efficient mer-
cenary ? If so, how by all the laws of history should he be able
to stand against single-hearted patriots ? The answer is that he
was the best of patriots ; but he was a Briton, and had his own

466 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec-Mar.

way of showing it. He was naturally shy of heroics. The German
soldier went into battle with his songs about the Rhine and his
Fatherland, The British soldier could not do that to save his life
— he would have felt a fool or a play-actor ; so, when he sang, it
was a music-hall jingle or some doggerel of his own composition —
the kind of thing he would shout himself hoarse over in peace.
He was as fond of his home as any Rhinelander. The Highlander
had in his memory the " lone shieling of the misty island," the
Irishman some thatched cluster amid the brown mosses of the
west, the English countryman some village of the green south ;
but they did not talk about them, for talk would have spoiled
their sacredness. They had found out the best device for keeping
nerves steady in a nerve-racking war, and that was to pretend
that the whole affair was nothing out of the common. " Cheer
up, my lad," said the sergeant to the anxious recruit in the trenches.
" I've always 'eard as 'ow it's the first seven years of war as is the
worst." The British regular's fighting temper was set for seven
years — more if necessary.

A campaign fought in this sober, practical spirit must be
barren of legends. In Flanders, as they sang in the American
Civil War, we were " tenting again on the old camp ground," and
with a more susceptible race we should have heard tales of grey-
goose shafts in the air, and phantom knights on dim horses, and
periwigged captains leading ghostly cohorts. The Russians in the
East saw St. George with his great spear riding in their van. But
any tales that came to be told were invented at home, for our army
did not see visions. Scot and Irish and Welsh had alike come
under the spell of a common Britishness, which is chary of speech
and fancy. The British soldier is deeply humorous in war, and
his character therein is precisely his character in peace. It is no
high-strung gaiety, but ordinary good spirits and a talent for farce.
He is profoundly inventive in language, with a gift of ridiculous
nomenclature which takes the worst edge off his hardships. Humour
and soundness of heart make up sportsmanship, and he is nothing
if not a good sportsman. We see this in his attitude towards the
enemy. He had none of that childish venom of hate which was
officially regarded in Germany as the proper spirit in which to fight
battles. He respected his opponents, and would allow no one to cry
down their fighting value. " A bad, black lot, no doubt," said a
Scots soldier of the Germans, " but no the ones opposite us. They're
verra respectable men, and grand fighters." The dreary business
of trench warfare was relieved by practical jokes upon the enemy,

The British Household Brigade passing to the
Ypres Salient, Cassel

From a painting by Sir William Orpen, R.A.

1914-15] TWO TEMPERAMENTS IN ALLIANCE. 467

and much chaffing, to which he frequently replied in the same
spirit. A famous Berlin clown in the German trenches occasionally
went through performances amid the applause of both sides. A
certain German sniper with a completely bald head was preserved
by one battalion as a keeper preserves a rare hybrid, and when
they were moved to another part of the front they left instructions
to their successors that the old fellow was not to be killed. Out-
posts have always fraternized to some extent — they did it in the
Peninsula and in the Crimea — and the close contact of the lines
led to the extraordinary truce of Christmas Day. Possibly it was
connived at by the commanders on both sides, for some of our
trenches were nearly flooded out, and the Germans had much tim-
bering to do. In the French part of the field there was little of
this fraternizing. They had wrongs to avenge, too many and too
deep for these amenities of war. Had the British been holding
lines in the Midlands, with a wasted East Anglia before them,
there would have been little inclination to exchange courtesies
with the enemy.

The French and British tempers in war were the product of
national character. Each was fine in itself, each had merits which
the other lacked, each was omnipotent in certain forms of fighting,
and the combination of the two in one battle-front was fortunate
and formidable. In the essentials they were one, for behind the
exaltation of the French lay a profound practical talent, and
beneath the prose of the British attitude was a shining devotion.
It rarely found expression in words, but Sir Francis Doyle's
" drunken private of the Buffs," the troopers who went down
with the Birkenhead, the marines of the Victoria, and a hundred
deeds in this campaign were proof of its presence. From the letter
of a young officer who fell in the October battles I take some
sentences which put soberly, in the English fashion, this abiding
impulse : —

" Try not to worry too much about the war. Units and individuals
cannot count. Remember we are writing a new page of history. Future
generations cannot be allowed to read of the decline of the British
Empire and attribute it to us. We live our little lives and die. Some
are given chances of proving themselves men, and to others no chance
comes. Whatever our individual faults or virtues are matters Httle,
for when we are up against big things we must forget individuals.
Some will live and many will die. We cannot count the loss. It i8
far better to go out with honour than to survive with shame."

CHAPTER XXI.

RAIDS AND BLOCKADES.
November 2, igi4-March 31, 1915.

The Raid on Yarmouth — The Raids on Scarborough and the Hartlepools — Battle
of the Dogger Bank — Britain's Action as to Contraband — Germany declares
a Blockade of Britain — Britain closes the North Sea — The Blockade of Germany.

The war in northern waters now entered upon a phase which had
few parallels in the conflicts of the past. An old dread took bodily
form, and its embodiment proved farcical. Exasperated by failure,
Germany cast from her all the ancient etiquette of war, and the
result was that the law of the sea had to be largely rewritten.

The shores of Britain since the days of Paul Jones had been
immune from serious hostile attentions. Very properly she regarded
her navy as her defence, and paid little heed to coast fortifications,
except at important naval stations such as Portsmouth and Dover.
But the possibility of invasion remained in the popular mind, and
was used as a goad to stir us to activity in our spasmodic fits of
national stock-taking. Invasion on the grand scale was admittedly
out of the question so long as our fleets held the sea ; but a raid
in the fog of a winter's night was conceivable, and became a favour-
ite theme of romancers and propagandists. When the war broke
out the menace was seriously regarded by the Government, and
during October and November, when the German guns across the
Channel were within hearing of our southern ports, steps were
taken to protect our eastern coast-line. We needed every atom
of our strength for the great Flanders struggle, and if a raiding
party succeeded in occupying a stretch of shore, the necessity of
dislodging him might gravely handicap our major strategy. Accord-
ingly Yeomanry and Territorials entrenched themselves in the
eastern counties, and had the dullness of their days enlivened by
many rumours. Civilians were perturbed by the thought of how
they should conduct themselves if their homes were violated, and

16S

1914] THE YARMOUTH RAID. 469

there was much activity in the formation of national guards, and
a considerable increase in recruiting for the new service armies.

Late on the afternoon of 2nd November, eight German war-
ships sailed from the Elbe base. They were three battle cruisers —
the Seydliiz, the Moltke, and the Von dcr Tann ; two armoured
cruisers — the Bliicher and the Yorck ; and three light cruisers — the
Kolberg, the Graudenz, and the Strasshiirg. Except the Yorck,
they were fast vessels, making at least 25 knots, and the battle
cruisers carried ii-inch guns. Cleared for action, they started
for the coast of England, and early in the winter dawn ran through
the nets of a British fishing fleet eight miles east of Lowestoft.
An old mine-sweeping gunboat, the Halcyon, was next sighted, and
received a few shots, but the Germans had no time to waste on
her. About eight o'clock they were opposite Yarmouth, and pro-
ceeded to bombard the wireless station and the naval air station
from a distance of about ten miles. For some reason or other
they were afraid to venture faither inshore — probably they took
their range from a line of buoys marked on the chart, and did not
know that after the declaration of war these buoys had been moved
500 yards farther out to sea — so their shells only ploughed the sands
and plumped in the water. In a quarter of an hour they grew
tired of it, and moved away, dropping many floating mines, which
later in the day caused the loss of one of our submarines and two
fishing-boats. The enterprise was unlucky, for on the road back
the Yorck struck a mine and went to the bottom with most of
her crew. The raid was a reconnaissance, and a blow aimed at
the sang-froid of Britain. The latter purpose miscarried, for
nobody in Britain gave it a second thought. To bombard the
beach front of a watering-place seemed a paltry achievement,
when at the moment the opportunity was present to interfere
with Admiral Hood on the Belgian coast. It would have been
wiser had the authorities taken it more seriously, and issued in-
structions to civilians as to what to do in case of a repetition of
such attempts. For, having found the way, the invaders were
certain to return.

They came again on i6th December, when a thick, cold mist
lay low on our Eastern coasts. Von Spee and his squadron
had gone to their death at the Falkland Islands, and it be-
hoved the German navy to strike a blow in return. The raiding
force, which was under Rear-Admiral Hipper, commanding the
battle-cruiser squadron, included the Derfflinger, the newest of the
battle cruisers, and the Von der Tann. The Bliicher was there,

470 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec.

and the Seydlitz and the Graudenz, and there were also at least
two light cruisers present. Before daybreak on the i6th the
squadron arrived off the mouth of the Tees, and there divided its
forces. The Derfflinger, the Von der Tann, and the Bliicher went
north to raid the Hartlepools, and the other two went south against
Scarborough.

A few minutes before eight o'clock those citizens of Scarborough
who were out of bed saw approaching from the north four strange
ships. It was a still morning, with what is called in Scotland a
haar on the water, and something of a sea running, for the last
days had been stormy. Scarborough was entirely without de-
fences, except an old Russian 6o-pounder, a Crimean relic, which
was as useful as the flint arrowheads in the local museum. It
had once been a garrison artillery depot, and had a battery below
the Castle, but Lord Haldane had altered this and made it a cavalry
station. Some troops of the new service battalions were quartered
in the place, and there was a wireless station behind the town.
Otherwise it was an open seaside resort, as defenceless against an
attack from the sea as a seal against a killer-whale. The ships
poured shells into the coastguard station and the Castle grounds,
where they seemed to suspect the presence of hostile batteries.
Then they steamed in front of the town, approaching to some
five hundred yards from the shore. Here they proceeded to a
systematic bombardment, aiming at every large object within
sight, including the Grand Hotel and the gasworks, while many
shells were directed towards the waterworks and the wireless
station in the western suburbs. Churches, public buildings, ?nd
hospitals were hit, and some private houses were wrecked. For
forty minutes the bombardment continued, and it was calculated
that five hundred shells were fired. Midway in their course the
ships swung round and began to move northwards again, while the
light cruisers went out to sea and began the work of mine-dropping.
The streets were crowded with puzzled and scared inhabitants,
and, as in every watering-place, there was a large proportion of
old people, women, and invalids. At a quarter to nine all was
over, and the hulls of the invaders were disappearing round the
Castle promontory. They left behind them eighteen dead, mostly
women and children, and about seventy wounded.

About nine o'clock the coastguard at Whitby, the little town
on the cliffs north of Scarborough, saw two great ships steaming
up fast from the south. Ten minutes later the newcomers opened
fire on the signal station on the cliff head. Several dozen shells

1914] THE AITACK ON THE HARTLEPOOLS. 471

were fired in a few minutes, many striking the cliff, and others
going too high and falling behind the railway station. Some
actually went four miles inland, and awakened a sleepy little
village. The old Abbey of Hilda and Caedmon was struck but not
seriously damaged ; and on the whole, considering the number
of shells it received, Whitby suffered little. The casualties were
only five, three killed and two wounded. The invaders turned
north-eastward and disappeared into the haze, to join their other
division.

That other division had visited the Hartlepools, the only town
of the three which came near to fulfilling the definition of a " de-
fended " place. It had a fort, with a battery of antiquated guns.
It had important docks and large shipbuilding works, which were
busy at the time on Government orders, and some companies of the
new service battalions were billeted in the town. Off the shore
was lying a small British flotilla — a gunboat, the Patrol, carrying
4-inch guns, and two destroyers, the Doon and the Hardy. About
the same time as the bombardment of Scarborough began, the
Derfflinger, the Von der Tann, and the Blucher came out of the mist
upon the British flotilla and opened fire. The action took place
on the north side of the peninsula on which Old Hartlepool stands.
With great gallantry the small British craft tried to close and tor-
pedo the invaders, but they were driven back with half a dozen
killed and twenty-five wounded, and their only course was flight.
The German ships approached the shore and fired on the battery.
Then began the first fight on English soil with a foreign foe since
the French landed in Sussex in 1690 — the first on the soil of Great
Britain since the affair at Fishguard in 1797. The achievement
deserves to be remembered. The garrison of the battery consisted
of some Territorials of the Durham Royal Garrison Artillery and
some infantry of the Durhams. The 12-inch shells of the Derfflinger
burst in and around the battery, but the men stood to their out-
classed guns without wavering, and aimed with success at the
upper decks of the invaders. For more than half an hour a furious
cannonade continued, in which some 1,500 shells seem to have
been fired. One ship kept close to the battery, and gave it broad-
side after broadside ; the other two moved farther north, shelled
Old Hartlepool, and fired over the peninsula at West Hartle-
pool and the docks. The streets of the old town suffered
terribly, the gasworks were destroyed, and one of the big ship-
building yards was damaged, but the docks and the other yards were
not touched. Churches, hospitals, workhouses, and schools were

472 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec.

all struck. Little children going to school and babes in their
mothers' arms were killed. The total death-roll was 119, and the
wounded over 300 ; six hundred houses were damaged or destroyed,
and three steamers that night struck the mines which the invaders
had laid off the shore, and went down with much loss of life. The
spirit in which the inhabitants of the raided towns met the crisis
was worthy of the highest praise. There was dire confusion, for
nobody had been told what to do ; there was some panic — it
would have been a miracle if there had not been ; but on the
whole the situation was faced with admirable coolness and courage.
The authorities, as soon as the last shots were fired, turned to the
work of relief ; the Territorials in Hartlepool behaved like veterans
both during and after the bombardment ; the girls in the telephone
exchange worked steadily through the cannonade. It should be
remembered that we cannot compare this attack on the east coast
towns with the assaults in a land war on some city in the battle
front. In the latter case the mind of the inhabitants has been
attuned for weeks to danger, and preparations have been made
for defence. But here the bolt came from the blue — the narrow,
crowded streets of Old Hartlepool were a death-trap, and the
ordinary citizen was plunged in a second from profound peace
into the midst of a nerve-racking and unexpected war.

Somewhere between nine and ten on that December morning
the German vessels rendezvoused and started on their homeward
course. They escaped only by the skin of their teeth. Before the
first shell was fired word of the attempt had reached the British
Grand Fleet. Somewhere out in the haar Beatty with his battle-
cruisers was moving to intercept the raiders, and behind came
half a dozen of the great battleships. But for an accident of
weather the German battle-cruiser squadron would have gone to
the bottom of the North Sea, But the morning haar thickened,
till a series of blind fog-belts stretched for a hundred miles east
from our shores. This lamentable miscarriage was due solely to
the weather, and not to any lack of skill and enterprise on the part
of our admirals. Our destroyers had been in action with the
raiders before dawn ; as late as ir.30 p.m. one of our cruisers
was in contact with the German light force, and just after noon the
enemy was sighted by our battleships. But as the trap seemed
about to close the fog thickened, and Admiral Hipper slipped
through. The German battle-fleet, which had followed the battle-
cruisers, had turned for home early in the morning. The raiders
returned safely to the HeUgoland base, to be welcomed with Iron

1914] ITS CONSEQUENCES. 473

Crosses and newspaper eulogies on this new proof of German
valour.

On that same day the Admiralty issued a message pointing out
that " demonstrations of this character against unfortified towns
or commercial ports, though not difficult to accomplish, provided
that a certain amount of risk is accepted, are devoid of military
significance." " They must not," it was added, " be allowed to
modify the general naval policy which is being pursued." The
first was a pardonable over-statement, unless we interpret the word
" military " in a narrow sense. These raids had a very serious
military and naval purpose, which it would have been well to
recognize. The German aim was to create such a panic in civilian
England as would prevent the dispatch of the new armies to the
Continent, and to compel Jellicoe and the Grand Fleet to move
their base nearer the east coast, and undertake the duties of coast
protection. The first was defeated by the excellent spirit in
which England accepted the disaster. No voice was raised to clam-
our for the use of the new armies as a garrison for our seaboard.
The second, though at first there was some natural indignation on
the threatened coast, and a few foolish speeches and newspaper
articles, had no chance of succeeding. In vain is the net spread
in sight of the bird. The only result was that more stringent
measures were taken to prevent espionage, that civilians were at
last given some simple emergency directions, and that recruiting
received the best possible advertisement.

Germany made much of the exploit, till she discovered that
neutral nations, especially America, were seriously scandalized,
and then she had recourse to explanations. Scarborough had been
bombarded because it had a wireless station, Whitby because it
had a naval signal station, Hartlepool because it had a little fort.
Technically she could make out a kind of argument, and Hartlepool
might fairly be said to have come within the category of a defended
place. It was true that the fortifications were lamentably inade-
quate, but she could retort that that was Britain's business, not
hers. But the real answer is that she did not aim at the destruc-
tion of military and naval accessories, except as an afterthought.
The sea-front of Scarborough and the streets of Old Hartlepool
were bombarded not because they were in the line of fire against a
fort or a wireless station, but for their own sakes — because they
contained a multitude of people who could be killed or terrorized.
If Germany had the exact plans of the coast ports and of their
condition at the time, as she certainly had, she knew very well

474 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec.

how far they were from being fortified towns or military and naval
bases. She selected them just because they were open towns,
for " frightfulness " there would have far greater moral effects
upon the nation than if it had been directed against Harwich or
Dover, where it might be regarded as one of the natural risks of
war. Her performance was not a breach of a technicality, for it
was only a logical extension of an admitted principle ; but such
a barbarous extension was in itself a breach of the unwritten con-
ventions of honourable campaigning.* The slaughter of civiUans
to produce an impression was one of those things repellent to any
man trained in the etiquette of a great service. The German
navy had been justly admired, but it was beginning to show its
parvenu origin. Individual sailors might conduct themselves Hke
gentlemen, but there was no binding tradition of gentility in the
service, and, as in the army, those at the head disliked and repudi-
ated any such weakness. The last word was with the Mayor of
Scarborough. " Some newcomers," he wrote, " into honourable
professions learn the tricks before the traditions."

The British casualties by sea, apart from the losses in battle,
were not serious during the last months of the year, but on the
first day of 1915 there was a grave misfortune. On the 31st of
December eight vessels of the Channel Fleet left Sheemess, and
about three o'clock on the morning of ist January, in bright
moonlight, the eight were steering in single line at a moderate speed
near the Start Lighthouse. There was no screen of destroyers,
and the situation invited an attack from submarines, several of
which had been reported in these waters. The last of the line was
the Formidable, Captain Loxley, a pre-Dreadnought of 15,000 tons,
and a sister ship to the Bulwark, which had been blown up at
Sheemess on 26th November. Some time after three she was
struck by two torpedoes, and went down. Four boats were
launched, one of which capsized, and out of a crew of some 800
only 201 were saved. The rescue of part of the crew was due to
the courage and good seamanship of Captain William Pillar, of
the Brixham trawler Provident, who in heavy weather managed

• " Military proceedings are not regulated solely by the stipulations of inter-
national law. There are other factors — conscience, good sense. A sense of the
duties which the principles of humanity impose will be the surest guide for the con-
duct of seamen, and will constitute the most effectual safeguard against abuse. Th«
officers of the German navy — I say it with emphasis — will always fulfil in the strictest
manner duties which flow from the unwritten law of humanity and civilization."
—Baron Marschall von Bieberstein at the Hague Conference, 1907.

1914-15] ADMIRAL HIPPER'S RAID. 475

to take the inmates of the Formidable's cutter aboard his vessel.
The misfortune showed that the lesson of the loss of the Cressy,
Hogue, and Aboukir had been imperfectly learned. For eight
battleships to move slowly in line on a moonlit night in submarine-
infested waters without destroyers was simply to court destruction.
Early on the morning of Sunday, 24th January, Rear-Admiral
Hipper, who commanded the German Battle-Cruiser Squadron,
left Wilhelmshaven with a strong force to repeat his exploit of the
previous month. The Von der Tann was still undergoing repairs,
but he had with him the SeydUtz, in which he flew his flag, the
Moltke, the Derfflinger, the Bliicher, six light cruisers, one of which
was the Kolberg, and a destroyer flotilla. To recapitulate their
strengths : the Derfflinger had 26,200 tons, a speed of nearly 27
knots, an armour belt of 12 inches, and eight 12-inch guns ; the
SeydUtz had 24,600 tons, the same speed, and ten ii-inch guns ;
the Moltke had 22,640 tons, 25 knots, and ten ii-inch guns ; the
Bliicher had 15,550 tons, 24 knots, and twelve 8.2-inch guns. Be-
fore starting Admiral Hipper took certain precautions. He en-
larged the mine-field north of Heligoland, and north of it concen-
trated a submarine flotilla, while he arranged for Zeppelins and
seaplanes to come out from the island in certain contingencies.
His main motive, assuming that he encountered part of the
British fleet, was to retire and fight a running action, and entice
our vessels within reach of his submarines or the Heligoland mine-
field. The same morning the British battle-cruisers, under Vice-
Admiral Sir David Beatty, put to sea. A hint of the German
preparations had reached the Admiralty, and developments were
anticipated. He flew his flag in the Lion — Captain A. S. M. Chat-
field — a vessel of 26,350 tons, nearly 29 knots, and an armament
of eight 13.5-inch guns. With him sailed five other battle cruisers :
the Tiger — Captain Henry Pelly — 28,000 tons, 28 knots, eight
13.5-inch guns; the Princess Royal — Captain Osmond Brock — a
sister ship of the Lion ; the 'New Zealand — Captain Lionel Halsey
— 18,800 tons, 25 knots, and eight 12-inch guns ; the Indomitable
— Captain Francis Kennedy — a sister ship of the Invincible and
Inflexible, which were in the Battle of the Falkland Islands. With
the battle cruisers went four cruisers of the " town " class — the
Southampton, the Nottingham, the Birmingham, and the Lowestoft :
three light cruisers — the Arethusa, the Aurora, and the Undaunted ;
and destroyer flotillas, under Commander Reginald Tyrwhitt. Ad-
miral Beatty 's squadron completely outclassed Admiral Hipper's
alike in numbers, pace, and weight of fire, and the Germans were

476 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Jan.

heavily handicapped by the presence of the Bliicher, whose low
speed of only 24 knots marked her out as a predestined prey.

The night of Saturday, the 23rd, had been foggy, and the de-
stroyers, scouting east of the Dogger Bank, had a difficult time.
Sunday morning, however, dawned clear and sharp, for the wind
had changed to the north-east, and swept the mist from the seas.
About seven o'clock the Aurora, Captain Wilmot Nicholson, sighted
the Germans off the Dogger Bank, signalled the news to Beatty,
and presently opened fire. Beatty steered to the direction of the
flashes, and Hipper, who had been moving north-west, promptly
turned round and took a course to the south-east. This sudden
flight, when he could not have been informed of the enemy's
strength, made it plain that the German admiral's main purpose
was to lure our vessels to the dangerous Heligoland area. About
eight o'clock the situation was as follows : the Germans were mov-
ing south-east in line, with the Moltke leading, followed by the
Seydlitz, Derfflinger, and Bliicher, with the destroyers on their
starboard beam, and the light cruisers ahead. Close upon them
were the British destroyers and light cruisers, who presently crossed
on the port side to prevent their smoke from spoiling the marks-
manship of the larger vessels. Our battle cruisers did not follow
directly behind, but, in order to avoid the mines which the enemy
was certain to drop, kept on a parallel course to the westward.
The Lion led, followed by the Tiger, the Princess Royal, the New
Zealand, and the Indomitable. What followed was an extraordinary
tribute to the engineers. The first three ships could easily be
worked up to 30 knots, but the last two, which had normally only
25 knots, were so strenuously driven that they managed to keep
in line. Our leading ships had the pace of the Germans, and no
one of our squadron was seriously outclassed, while the unfortu-
nate Bliicher, on the other hand, was bound to drop behind.

Fourteen miles at first separated Beatty from the enemy, and
by nine o'clock he was within ii| miles of the last ship. The Lion
fired a ranging shot which fell short, but soon after nine, when the
squadrons were ten miles apart, she got her first blow home on
the Bliicher. As our line began to draw level the Tiger continued
to attack the Bliicher, while the Lion attended to the Derfflinger.
At 9.30 the Bliicher had fallen so much astern that she came within
range of the guns of the New Zealand, and the Lion and the Tiger
were busy with the leading German ship, the Seydlitz, while the
Princess Royal attacked the Derfflinger. The Moltke, first in the
line, got off hghtly, because of the smoke which obscured the target.

1915] THE BATTLE OF THE DOGGER BANK. 477

Our destroyers and light cruisers had dropped behind, but pres-
ently, when the German destroyers threatened, the Meteor and
" M " division, under Captain the Hon. Herbert Meade, went
ahead and took up a position of great danger in the very thick
of the firing. The British gunnery was precise, shell after shell
hitting a pin-point ten miles off — a pin-point, too, moving at over
thirty miles an hour. It was not a broadside action, for the ships
at which we aimed were stem-on. At first sight this looks like a
disadvantage, but, in practice, it had been found to give the best
results, and that for a simple reason. To get the line is an easy
matter ; the difficulty is to get the right elevation. In a broad-
side action a shell which is too high falls harmlessly beyond the
vessel, because the target is only the narrow width of the deck.
But in a stem-on fight the target is the whole length of the vessel,
600 feet or more, instead of 90.

By eleven o'clock the Scydlitz and the Derfflinger were on fire.
The Bliicher had fallen behind in flames, and was being battered
by the New Zealand and the Indomitable. An hour later the
Meteor torpedoed her, and she began to sink. The crew lined up
on deck, ready for death, and it was only the shouts of the Arethusa
that made them jump into the water. With a cheer they went
overboard, and none too soon, for presently the Bliicher turned
turtle and floated bottom upwards. Our boats rescued over 120
of the swimmers, and would have saved more had not some German
aircraft from Heligoland dropped bombs upon the rescue parties
and killed several German sailors. The airmen clearly thought
that the Bliicher was a sinking British cruiser, and this may have
been the basis of the preposterous tale of our losses which the
German Admiralty subsequently published.

We return to the doings of the three leading battle cruisers.
The German destroyers managed to get between them and the
enemy, and under cover of their smoke the Germans made a half
turn to the north, and increased the distance. Beatty promptly
altered his course to conform. The destroyers then attacked at
close quarters, hoping to torpedo, but the 4-inch guns amidships
in the battle cruisers drove them off. Presently submarines
were sighted, and Beatty himself saw a periscope on the starboard
bow of the Lion. The flagship at this time was much under fire,
but suffered remarkably little damage. Just before eleven, how-
ever, as her bow hfted from the water it was struck by a shell
which damaged the feed tank. She had to reduce her speed, and
fell out of the line. This accident had unfortunate effects on the

478 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Jan.

battle, which up to now had been going strongly in the British
favour. Beatty had to transfer his flag to the destroyer Attack,
and the charge of the pursuing battle cruisers passed to the next
senior offtcer, Rear-Admiral Moore, whose flag flew in the New
Zealand. The Lion moved away to the north-west, and in
the afternoon her engines began to give serious trouble. The
Indomitable, released by the sinking of the BlUcher, took her in
tow, and after some anxious hours she was brought safely into an
English port. The Attack, meantime, followed hard on the battle
cruisers, but it was not till twenty minutes past twelve that she
overtook the Princess Royal, to which Beatty transferred his flag.
He found that the squadron had broken off the fight and was
retiring. The reason which led Admiral Moore to this step was
fear of a German mine-field, but it would appear that the British
squadron at the moment of turning was seventy miles from Heli-
goland, and probably at least forty from the new mine-field which
Admiral Hipper had laid. The consequence was that what might
have been a crushing victory was changed to a disappointment.
The British losses were few — ten men killed on the Tiger, four on
the Meteor, and six wounded on the Lion ; no British vessel was
lost, and the hurt to the flagship was soon repaired. The Germans
lost the BlUcher ; the Derfflinger and the Seydlitz were seriously
damaged, and many of their crews must have perished. But such
minor successes were little better than a failure when we were
within an ace of destroying the whole German force of battle
cruisers.

The Battle of the Dogger Bank is chiefly of interest as the first
action where destroyers were employed to make torpedo attacks
on capital ships. To Germany the result was a grave annoyance,
which was covered by a cloud of inaccurate reports. Hipper
Was 'apparently not held responsible, but Ingenohl became the
target of criticism. He was shortly afterwards removed from the
command of the High Sea Fleet, and his place taken by Admiral
von Pohl. Three weeks later the British First Lord of the
Admiralty made a statement in the House of Commons which
summed up the recent work of the Navy, and drew the attention
of the nation to the lessons of the Dogger Bank action — the power
of the great guns, the excellence of British gunnery, the immense
advantage of speed. He pointed out that at five to four in repre-
sentative ships the enemy did not think it prudent to engage ;
that, should the great fleets join in battle, Britain could put into
line a preponderance both in quality and numbers far greater than

1915] GERMANY DECLARES A BLOCKADE. 479

five to four ; and that this extra margin might be regarded as an
additional insurance against unexpected prcHminary losses by mines
and submarines. The total naval losses, mainly by submarine, had
been 5,500 officers and men.

" For the loss of these British lives we have lived through six months
of this war safely and even prosperously. We have established for
the time being a command of the sea such as we had never expected,
such as we have never known, and such as our ancestors have never
known at any other period of our history."

In the concluding words of this speech Mr. Churchill fore-
shadowed the possibility of further naval pressure against an enemy
"who, as a matter of deliberate policy, places herself outside all
international obligations." He referred especially to the imports of
food, hitherto unhindered, and his prognostication was soon verified.

From the beginning of the struggle merchandise which was
not contraband of war had been allowed to pass into Germany in
neutral vessels. But on the 26th of January the German Govern-
ment announced their intention of seizing all stocks of corn and
flour, and forbade all private transactions as from that morning.
This meant that grain had become a munition of war, for it was
no longer possible to distinguish between imports for the civilian
population and for the army in the field. Accordingly the British
Government had to revise its practice. The American steamer
Wilhelmina, laden with a cargo of foodstuffs for Germany, was
stopped at Falmouth, and the case referred to the Prize Courts.
In this policy Britain did not depart from the traditional principles
of international practice. She did not as yet propose to seize non-
contraband goods in neutral vessels. All that happened was that
certain goods, which were normally non-contraband, were now made
contraband by the action of Germany. The economic and legal
bearing of these events will be discussed in the next chapter ; here
it is sufficient to note the actual consequences. Germany, much
perturbed by the unforeseen results of her declaration, attempted
to modify it by announcing that imports of food would not be
used for military purposes ; but such a declaration could not be
accepted by Britain, for it was not possible in practice. Then in
a fit of wrath Germany took the bold step of declaring war against
all British merchandise — war which would follow none of the old
rules, for it would be conducted by submarines, who had no facilities,
even if they had the disposition, to rescue the crews. She further
announced that from i8th February onward the waters around
the British Isles would be considered a war region, and that any

48o A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Feb.-Mar.

enemy merchant vessels found there " would be destroyed without
its always being possible to warn the crew or passengers of the
dangers threatening." The sea passage north of the Shetlands
and the costal waters of the Netherlands were declared to be
exempt from this menace.

The " blockade " of Britain was not a blockade in any technical
sense. Germany merely specified certain tracts of water in which
she proposed to commit acts which were forbidden by every code
of naval warfare. In 1806 Napoleon had issued an earlier Berlin
Decree, in which he proclaimed the British Isles to be in a state of
blockade. He could not enforce it, and British trade, so far from
suffering, actually increased in the ensuing years. But Napoleon,
though he used the word " blockade " improperly, sought his pur-
pose by means which were not repugnant to the ethics of civilized
war. Germany, utterly incapable of a real blockade, could only
succeed by jettisoning her last remnants of decency. An inferior
boxer may get an advantage over a strong opponent if he gouges
his eyes. The German announcement not unnaturally gave serious
concern to neutral nations, especially to America. Germany had
warned them that neutral ships might perish in the general holo-
caust, and their anxiety was increased by an incident which hap-
pened on 6th February. The Cunarder Lusitania, which had a
number of Americans on board, arrived at Liverpool flying the
American flag. Such a use in emergencies is a recognized practice
of war — one of Paul Jones's lieutenants passed successfully through
the British Channel Fle-st by hoisting British colours — and the
British Foreign Office was justified in defending the custom. But
clearly if it was made habitual it would greatly increase the risks
of neutrals, and America had some grounds for her request that it
should not be used " frequently and dehberately."

The next step of the British Government was to close absolutely
to all ships of all nations the greater part of the North Channel
leading from the Atlantic to the Irish Sea. Then on ist March
Mr. Asquith announced in the House of Commons that the Allies
held themselves free to detain and take into port all ships carry-
ing goods of presumed enemy origin, ownership, or destination.
No neutral vessel which sailed from a German port after ist March
would be allowed to proceed, and no vessel after that date would
be suffered to sail to any German port. It was not proposed to
confiscate such vessels or their contents, but they would be de-
tained. Thus tardily, in the eighth month of war, did Britain
make use of her chief asset in the struggle, and reveal the para-

1915] THE GERMAN SUBMARINES. 481

doxical spectacle of the greatest of the world's naval Powers
waiting to declare a blockade of her enemy till her enemy had
first proclaimed a blockade of her. Mr. Asquith's announce-
ment implied the strict blockade of Germany, and was defended
by him ivot as a fulfilment of, but as a departure from, inter-
national law upon the subject. It was, in his view, a legitimate
retaliation against a foe which had broken not only every inter-
national rule but every moral obligation. Clearly it could not
be an " effective " blockade in the strictest sense, but it may be
noted that it was at least as effective as the blockade proclaimed
by the North in the American Civil War, when a highly-indented
coast-line of 3,000 miles was watched by only twelve ships.

Before i8th February, the day of destiny, German submarines
had been busy against British merchantmen. They had succeeded
from the beginning of the year in sinking eight, and they had been
wholly unscrupulous in their proceedings, as was proved by the
attack off Havre upon the hospital ship Asturias. By 24th Feb-
ruary they had sunk seven more, by loth March another four,
by 17th March another eight, by 24th March another three, by
31st March another three. If we take the total arrivals and sail-
ings of oversea steamers of all nationalities above 300 tons to and
from ports in the United Kingdom during that period, we shall
find that the losses worked out at about three per thousand. It
was not a brilliant achievement. The mountain which had been
in travail with awesome possibilities brought forth an inconsider-
able mouse. The " blockade " hindered the sailing of scarcely
a British ship. It did not raise the price of any necessary by a
farthing. But it damaged what was left of Germany's reputation
in the eyes of the civilized world, and it increased, if increase were
needed, the determination of the Allies to make an end of this
crazy international anarchism. Some of the commanders of the
German submarines— notably Captain Weddigen, who lost his
life — went about the business as decently as their orders allowed.
Others, such as the miscreant who sank the Falaba, torpedoed the
vessel before the passengers were in the boats, and jeered at the
drowning. In the German navy, as in the German army, humanity
depended upon the idiosyncrasies of individual commanders, for
it had small place in the logic of her official traditions. It was
a curious comment upon Baron Marschall von Bieberstein's proud
boast at the Hague: "The officers of the German navy— I say
it with emphasis— will always fulfil in the strictest manner duties
which flow from the unwritten law of humanity and civilization."

CHAPTER XXII.

ECONOMICS AND LAW.

The Main Economic Problems — British Measures — Strikes — Economic Position of
France, Russia, and Germany — Problems of International Law — Rejection of
Declaration of Paris — Mr. Balfour's Defence.

If a great war is a packet of surprises for the strategist, it is not
less so for the economist and the jurist. It is proposed in the
present chapter to examine briefly some of the phenomena which
at the outset appeared in the provinces of the two latter ; and the
task can scarcely be neglected, for they were vital matters to the
civilian part of the nations concerned. War is fought with a
weapon of which the steel point is the armies, and the shaft which
gives weight to the blow the civilian masses pursuing their ordinary
avocations. The lustiest stroke will miscarry if the shaft be rotten.

For a generation economists had prophesied that in a world
war the dislocation of credit and the destruction of wealth would
be so stupendous that the whole machinery of modern life would
come to a standstill. Their prophecies were curiously wrong ;
not unnaturally, perhaps, for political economy is a bad ground
for forecasts ; it is not an exact science, except within the narrow-
est limits ; it selects and abstracts its data, and its rules work
strictly only in a rarefied and unnatural world. This war left the
economist, if he were pedantically inclined, in a state of bewilder-
ment. Wild heresies were appHed, and worked sufficiently well.
Deductions, mathematically exact, were falsified. Certain things
which by every law should happen were never heard of. The jtirist
had surprises also, but of a different kind. He saw a stock of laws
on which it seemed the world had agreed flung again into the
melting-pot. He began to realize the dependence of law upon
opinion, its malleability, the delicacy of its sanctions. For him
it was a bracing experience and highly educative ; for the more
rigid type of economist it was a penance and a confusion.

War both complicates and simplifies the economic situation.

482

1915] ECONOMICS IN WAR. 483

The ribs of the state show when the comfortable padding falls off.
In examining the economics of the struggle we must first of all
make a distinction between a country like Britain, where the normal
life still in essentials continued, and a country like Germany,
where everything, necessarily, was mobilized for war. Britain had
all the world open to her, except the belligerent countries. Her
factories were still working largely on private contracts; she was
still exporting and importing, and paying for imports by exports-
She was still the financial centre of the world, with relations with
foreign bourses and banks, financing her Allies and her oversea
dominions, with ships on every sea doing the carrying trade of
other nations besides herself. Britain's economic problem, there-
fore, was rather complicated than simplified. She had to keep
her ordinary life going, and adopt special measures to repair those
parts of the mechanism which had been crippled by war. The
same was true of France and Russia in a less degree. The one had
universal service and the enemy inside her frontiers ; the other
had no trade outlets to the west during most of the winter months ;
but both were in touch with the outer world. Germany and
Austria, on the other hand, were approaching the position of a
beleaguered garrison. They could do no trade except with or
through their adjacent neutrals, and every day the volume of this
must diminish. What imports they got must be paid for by gold
or foreign securities, for they had no exports. They must be
self-sufficing and self-sustaining, and revert to the economy of the
primitive state. Their problem was therefore greatly simplified.
All the machinery of foreign bills and foreign exchanges and
foreign debts or credits had stopped short. They had one great
occupation — to provide out of their existing resources sufficient
war material and sufficient food for army and people. So long
as the nation was agreed, internal payments could be easily reg-
ulated, and paper money could be indefinitely created. If Ger-
many were destined to win, the highest note circulation would be
redeemed with ease. External payments did not trouble her, for
there were none that mattered.

Let us imagine a case where a hundred men shut up fifty in a
castle, and sit down to invest it. The besiegers will get their food
from a wide neighbourhood, and must f)ay for it in cash, or get it
on credit. They must keep up good relations with the people
who sell bread and gunpowder, and be able to send to their homes
and fetch what they want. They will live, in short, the ordinary
economic life of the rest of the world. But the fifty in the fortress

484 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Feb.

are in a very different case. They cannot get out, and nothing
can come in ; so they must use the food in the castle larder and
the ammunition in the castle magazine, and make more if the
castle garden is large enough to grow potatoes, and there is any
stock of charcoal and saltpetre in the cellars. Their captain will
have to take charge of the stores, and dole them out carefully.
He will pay his men their wages from the gold he may happen
to have with him, or more Hkely in promissory notes, to be
redeemed when they are relieved or hack their way out to their
own land. The economic problem which he has to face may be
desperate and urgent, but it is simple.

The British situation represented the extreme antithesis to
that of Germany. It developed on Hnes mainly normal in a world
mainly abnormal. But at the beginning, when men's minds were
uneasy, certain emergency measures had to be adopted, and through-
out the war the State had to use, or promise the use of, its whole
credit — that is, every stick and stone in the land — to strengthen
weak spots in the line. Salus populi suprema lex was definitely the
maxim, and the State became Leviathan in a sense undreamed of
by Hobbes. The main tasks of the Government from the eco-
nomic point of view were three : To ensure an adequate supply of
food at reasonable prices ; to provide an adequate supply of cash
and credit — largely a psychological problem, for if people are
persuaded that all lawful obligations will be met as usual the battle
is more than half won ; and to finance the war, which meant not
only paying their own bills, but giving certain assistance to their
Allies,

The measures taken to preserve the food supply have been
already glanced at. Cargoes were insured at a rate which began
at five guineas per cent., and fell in a month to two guineas. After
the destruction of the Emden the rate fell back to little above
that of peace time, and business resumed its ordinary channels.
HuUs were insured through associations, the Government taking
80 per cent, of " King's enemy " risks. The report of one of the
largest of these, issued on February 12, 19 15, described the work
done. Up to that date the losses paid on vessels insured with this
association, during voyages started since the outbreak of war,
were over £800,000, and the premiums received, ;^i, 500,000. " From
November," said the report, " members have been able in many
instances to obtain in the open market rates below those fixed
by the State, and therefore the amount insured with the association
has been diminished." Again, a Cabinet Committee fixed maxi-

1915] BRITAIN'S ECONOMIC MEASURES. 485

mum prices for certain articles of food, which, after various re-
visions, were abandoned as business became normal. The cost
of living rose during the winter, and there were proposals for a
further official price scale, which the Government after considera-
tion rejected. In a speech in February 1915 the Prime Minister
pointed out that the prices of certain foodstuffs, such as wheat,
were fixed not in Britain but in America ; that prices had not
risen beyond the point attributable to the increased consumption
of food at home owing to the new armies, the closing of the Dar-
danelles to Russian grain, and the lateness of the Argentine crop.
A few minor steps were taken in this matter — such as a not very
fortunate Government purchase of sugar, and a half-hearted
attempt by the Board of Agriculture to increase and organize
home-grown supplies of foodstuffs.

The second task — to assist credit, and therefore employment —
involved a multiplicity of measures, only a few of which can be
chronicled here. Distress was anticipated, and the Local Gov-
ernment Board made elaborate preparations for every possible
contingency. Local relief committees were organized ; £4,000,000
was authorized to be spent on building houses ; the law of distress
was altered so that landlords could not without special permission
issue warrants for arrears of rent ; and debtors were put in a
favourable position. As it turned out, there was no distress to
speak of. In most industries there was some scarcity of labour,
and wages rose. In our ports, especially, the casual labourer
became a rare and much desired phenomenon. With several
millions withdrawn to the army from trade, the working classes
that remained were in a condition of comfort and privilege. An-
other class of measures was concerned with the actual conduct of
the war. The British railways were virtually taken over by the
Government, and directed by a committee of general managers,
wages being increased partly at Government expense. All arma-
ment firms worked exclusively for the Government and for the
Allies, and their numbers were largely augmented by enrolling
a variety of railway shops, motor-car factories, and engineering
works for the same purpose. Most textile factories were busy
on Government contracts, and in all areas where manufacturing
was done for war purposes recruiting was stopped or curtailed.
Squads of dock labourers had to be sent to the French ports to
assist in landing men and supplies. But the demand for war
munitions and the special measures taken for that end constituted
almost the sole direct interference with British tradp. Ordinary

486 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Jan.

manufacturers prepared goods for their ordinary markets with
little hindrance except an occasional cessation of railway facilities
and a great shortage of shipping.

The restoration of financial credit was undertaken with much
boldness and success, and a laudable disregard of shibboleths and
precedents. The moratorium and the measures to regulate bills
of exchange have been described in an earlier chapter. The ex-
travagant public finance of recent years had to some extent weak-
ened British credit, and heroic measures — to be paid for later
on the same heroic scale — were necessary. The Stock Exchange
reopened in January, after an arrangement had been arrived at
that the Banks should not call in their loans to stockbrokers till
a year after the declaration of peace. It opened in blinkers, for
severe restrictions were needed to prevent our enemies raising money
by selling stocks in London through neutral countries. Specula-
tion was made impossible, for a man could only sell stock which
he actually possessed ; minimum prices were fixed ; all trans-
actions were for cash, and there was no " carrying over." In
order to conserve our financial resources, the Treasury, in the
same month, announced that no fresh issues of capital would be
permitted except with its approval, and that this approval would
only be given when the undertaking was deemed desirable in the
national interest. For the rest, by January 1915 — apart from
the deadness of the Stock Exchange — our financial machinery,
while working at low power, was working naturally and normally.
There was some strain between America and Britain, owing to the
beginning of the war coinciding with the usual seasonal indebted-
ness of the New World to the Old. The New York bankers lodged
^^20,000,000 in gold at Ottawa on behalf of the Bank of England,
and this was used to finance the heavy purchases of war material
in the United States, and so redress the balance. In the same
way an attempt was made to restore the financial equilibrium
between Russia and Britain, and a credit for Russia was granted
in London by an issue by the Bank of England of £10,000,000
Russian Government bills.* Speaking generally, the winter
showed the great strength and soundness of the British banking
system, which had survived a stress which would have shattered

* The exchange began by being enormously against Petrograd, owing to the
difficulties of exporting goods from Russia. This made it practically impossible
for Russian houses to liquidate their indebtedness to London. In the same way
the exchange went heavily against Paris, owing to French purchases in Britain.
The exchange was generally in favour of London, except in the United States, where
the balance was considerably in favour of New York.

1915] WAR FINANCE. 4S7

the credit of most nations. Incidentally it revealed the enormous
power of the joint-stock banks, who had the right to call the tune.
Holding £600,000,000 of the people's money, they were the main
financiers of British trade.

The third task — to pay our bills and those of some of our
Allies — was only begun during the first eight months of war,
and it may haply be completed in the time of the grandson of
the youngest child in Britain to-day. The loan of £350,000,000
raised in November — issued at 95 with interest at 3^, and so vir-
tually a 4 per cent, security — included a loan of thirty millions
to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the loan to Belgium, and
a small advance to Serbia. At a conference of the Allied finance
ministers held in Paris in February, an arrangement was come to
for partially pooling the Allied resources. Britain, France, and
Russia agreed to take over in equal shares advances made to present
and future allies, and to make jointly all purchases from neutral
countries. It is needless to detail the various types of new taxa-
tion introduced in Britain and elsewhere. We were unfortunate
enough to enter upon war with our normal war taxes — the income
tax and the super-tax — already on a war basis. Britain was
spending at the rate of something over £2,000,000 a day. It
was estimated at this time by one statistician that a year of war
on this scale would cost the British Empire directly and indirectly
£1,258,000,000, which represented about one-fourteenth of the
national wealth of Britain, and about one-twentieth of the total
wealth of the British Empire.

Thus the economic position at the beginning of the spring of
1915 was that Britain continued her normal activities, slightly
depressed in some quarters and enormously increased in others.
Her commercial and financial mechanism was intact, but while
most of her private industries went on, a considerable section was
switched off to purposes directly connected with war. The one
serious difficulty appeared in this latter sphere. Germany had
calculated on various joints in her harness — civil war in Ireland,
an apathetic Government, a people unwilling to recruit, and labour
troubles. Only the last gave any colour of truth to her forecast.
During February, in various districts engaged in the manufacture
of war material, notably on the Clyde and the Mersey, strikes broke
out, in most cases against the wish of the leaders of the Trade
Unions concerned. For long discipline had been growing slack —
even the self-imposed discipline of the Unions — and employers
found too often that an arrangement with the men's representatives

488 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Feb.

was by no means an arrangement with the men. The British
labour troubles gave great joy to the enemy, and much concern
to the nation and its Allies ; for they hindered the manufacture
of munitions, especially shells, on which the life of our armies
depended. The troubles were an inevitable consequence of a system
of private armament firms working under the same conditions as
other businesses. At Creusot the men were soldiers, amenable to
military law, and a strike was a mutiny, punishable in time of
war with death. The British system allowed a workman, for the
sake of another penny an hour, to jeopardize the lives of thousands
of his countrymen, and to endanger the future of his country.

The blame for this preposterous state of affairs could not,
however, be laid only on the workman's shoulders ; he in turn was
a victim of national supineness, and his case was in some respects
a strong one. Often he had tried to enlist, and had been sent
back to make armaments. He had been compelled to work over-
time— an unwise step forced by the Government upon employers,
for protracted overtime weakens the efficiency of the workman,
so that he actually produces less than in a normal week. He was
tired, sulky, disappointed, and soon he grew overstrained. As
he was making high wages he had a certain amount of spare cash,
and it was unfortunately true that he often drank more than usual,
and his whole nervous system deteriorated. It was easy to find
grievances, and he had a certain prima facie case. Though he was
earning big wages, he had to work hard for them, and he found the
cost of living going up ; while he believed, with some reason,
that his masters were earning profits utterly disproportioned to
his increased pay. Again, he saw many of his Trade Union rules
infringed owing to the exigencies of war. It did not matter to
him that his Union leaders had consented to the change, for the
workman as a rule is as suspicious of his leaders as of other people ;
and he feared that presently he would be swamped with blackleg
labour. For years he had been taught by demagogues that he had
rights but no duties, and invited to embrace a policy based on
stark selfishness. He was so much better than his mentors that
when the crisis came he was ready as a rule to play his part, and
enlist with his brothers and cousins. But when he was compelled
to continue his ordinary work his sense of the gravity of things
seemed to slip away. How could it be otherwise ? Almost every
newspaper published flaming headhnes daily, announcing some
gigantic Allied success. He looked at the headlines, and did not
read the obscure message from Rome and Athens on which they

1915] FRANCE AND RUSSIA. 489

were founded. WTien his friends came back from the front and
shook their heads, he could only think that his friends had had
specially hard experiences. Did not every paper tell him that the
Allies were winning easily ? Did not the wise and good proclaim
" Business as usual " or " Victories as usual " ? He believed in
both, and business as usual naturally implied strikes as usual.

It was easy for the ordinary citizen to lose his temper with
the strikers ; but, in common fairness, it should be recognized
that part of their case was sound, and that what was not was mainly
the fault of their former teachers. Conscription and military law
would have probably been not unpopular in the armament areas,
for no sane man Ukes to be without discipline and leaders. The
various steps taken by the Government to meet the situation might
be described as tentatives towards this solution. The exceptional
nature of the time was emphasized, and guarantees were given
that the principles of the Trade Unions should not suffer. The
movement towards Government control was still in its rudiments.

The economic condition of France and Russia was akin to
Britain's, with reservations for the effect of a conscript army in
withdrawing men from trade, and for their temporary losses of
territory. Lille and Lodz in German hands were sections cut off
from their industrial life to which we in Britain had no parallel.
But for France all her foreign outlets remained, so far as they
could be used, and for Russia the East was still open. Both showed
astonishing recuperative power, their industries reacting to the
stimulus of war. Russia was more or less self-supporting, save in
respect of munitions, and her large gold reserve was for the moment
sufficient to pay for her foreign purchases of war material. She
financed the war by the issue of short loans. Treasury bills, and
a loan redeemable in forty-nine years. She considerably increased
taxation, for she had to make up a deficit in income of more than
£84,000,000, caused by the prohibition of the trade in spirits.
France after 15th December financed herself chiefly by Treasury
bonds, which on March 12, 1915, according to a statement by M.
Ribot, had reached a total of nearly ;{i55, 000,000, These bonds
were rapidly taken up and distributed through all classes, and for
them the peasant and the small tradesman brought out his store
of gold from the stocking-foot. The revenue, which had fallen
heavily down to October, began to recover with extraordinary
rapidity. History had shown that no enemy dared to reckon on
France's speedy exhaustion either in men or money.

Germany, as we have seen, was now in the widest sense a be-

490 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Feb.

leaguered city, and her economics were the economics of a fortress.
By the end of 19 14 she could not hope to receive any large quantity
of foodstuffs or war munitions from abroad, and by March of the
new year all imports ceased except from existing stocks held in
Scandinavia, Holland, and Italy. Her problem was simply to
organize the distribution of her domestic stocks, and to see that so
far as possible they were replenished from home sources. New
foodstuffs must be won from the soil, new supplies of chemicals
and ore from the mines, as far as was consistent with the pre-
occupations of war. Her task was one of internal production and
administration. The financial side was simple. So long as the
nation was confident, the credit of the State could be used in-
definitely.

The harvest of 1914 had been poor ; but at first the food
question was little considered, since the public expectation was
of an immediate and final victory. Apparently there was some
miscalculation as to the amount of corn available, and in the
autumn there was a good deal of careless waste. Early in the new
year the German Government suddenly realized that the national
supplies under this head were running short, and might vanish
before the harvest of 1915 reinforced them. Accordingly elaborate
provisions were made to husband the stores of flour. Munici-
palities were given the right to confiscate private stocks, the bakers
became Government servants, and bread cards were issued which
fixed the amount which the holder was entitled to buy. Bread
became dear and bad. All the industries depending on grain were
restricted, little beer was brewed, and pigs no longer could be
fattened. Millers were compelled by law to mix 30 per cent, of
rye flour with wheat flour before delivery, and the bakers were
compelled to sell as wheaten bread a compound of this already
blended flour and 20 per cent, of potato starch flour. Rye bread
might be 30 per cent, potato. Such a shortage, however, was a
long way removed from famine. Most foodstuffs in Germany
were still cheap and plentiful. A dinner in Berlin in January
did not cost more than a meal in London ; only the bread was
indifferent. Luxuries, as in all such cases, were more plentiful
and relatively cheaper than necessaries. The future, however,
was darkening. The harvest of 19 15 must be a bad one, and the
most meticulous thrift could not spread out supplies indefinitely.
What was felt in January as merely an inconvenien<;e might by
July be a pinch, and by the winter an agony.

Most industrial stocks ran short, but they mattered little.

1915] GERMANY'S FINANCES. 491

The grave question was that of materials which formed the bases
for the manufacture of war munitions. Before the war Germany
had consumed annually 785,000 tons of saltpetre, 16,000 tons of
rubber, 1,100,000 of petroleum, and 224,000 of copper. In the
last two cases there was some small local production — about 10
per cent, of the whole. She had also made large importations of
nitrates. The Allied blockade cut off much of the saltpetre, all
the rubber, and most of the copper, petroleum, and nitrates. War
such as Germany waged, with its immense use of artillery and motor
transport, was simply impossible without these materials. Some,
such as petroleum, could be replaced to a certain extent by sub-
stitutes ; nitrates could be chemically produced ; and the large
stocks of copper in private use could be drawn upon for a consider-
able time. But no substitute could be found for rubber, and this
commodity was Germany's sorest need during the early months
of 1915. The Allies at this time were inclined to exaggerate
Germany's shortage of war material, and to underestimate the
ingenuity of German scientists. But the pinch existed, as in
the case of food, and in time would become a menace.

German finances during the war did not present any great
difficulties to a well-disciplined State, provided — and the point
was vital — that the people were confident of the ultimate issue,
and that panic were avoided. Two credits for £250,000,000 each
were voted before Christmas, and early in the new year another
£500,000,000 was asked for. The money was raised by loan, and
there was no increase of taxation. The Spandau war chest was
early in the campaign added to the gold reserve of the Reichs-
bank, and it was maintained in Germany that these reserves, as
late as February 1915, were scarcely touched. This may have
been true, for Germany had had little reason, owing to the blockade,
to use her gold. At the beginning of the war she contemplated
the raising of a foreign loan, and an American firm was asked to
place bonds to the extent of £250,000,000. This was found im-
possible owing to the refusal of the other New York banks to co-
operate, and German war loans became wholly domestic matters.
Nominally they were highly successful. They were fully and
readily subscribed, and gave the Imperial Treasurer occasion for
dithyrambic speeches on the financial resources of his country.
By means of credit societies advances in notes were made on every
kind of property ; these notes were legal tender, and against them
the Reichsbank issued its own notes. The general result was
economically not very different from what would have been obtained

492 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Feb.

by a large increase of Government notes without gold security.
It was a perfectly justifiable policy for a country situated as Ger-
many was. She mobilized the internal credit of the nation as she
had mobilized her armies. So long as her people looked for vic-
tory, so long they were justified in believing that indemnities and
the spoils of conquest would readily liquidate all the obligations
which the State had incurred towards them.

To sum up, it may be said that the Alhes, owing to the com-
mand of the sea, conducted — under difficulties — their usual eco-
nomic life; while Germany was almost wholly on a war basis, in
spite of the fact that scarcely any German territory was in enemy
possession, and large areas of French and Russian soil were in
German occupation. Germany was short in some classes of food-
stuffs and badly crippled in several forms of war material, but
endeavoured to meet the first by a rigorous control of distribution
and the second by the use of substitutes. The war finance of all
the belligerents was a matter of gigantic loans, but the security
differed. With the Allies it was a weakened, but in its main lines
a normal, economic life ; with Germany it was solely the prospect
of victory and the fruits of victory. Defeat for Germany would
mean a colossal bankruptcy. She had made all her assets a pawn
m the game of war.

The questions of international law which arose in the early
months of 1915 were in themselves so curious, and their impor-
tance in our relations with America and other neutrals was so great,
that they demand some notice. In order to understand the situ-
ation we must realize the international practice at the outbreak
of war. We may leave out of account the Declaration of London,
for a coach and four had been driven through that unlucky arrange-
ment before August was gone, and a handle was thereby given
for Germany's charge that Britain had been the first to play fast
and loose with international arrangements. Under the ordinary
practice enemy's ships were liable to capture and enemy's goods
on board to confiscation, neutral goods going free. Neutral ships
could sail with impunity to and from enemy ports, and any enemy
goods which they carried were exempt from capture unless they
happened to be contraband of war. Contraband of war was any-
thing which was of direct use to the enemy's fleets and armies. It
included not only weapons and explosives, but materials which
were capable of a double use. the latter being known as conditional
contraband. In the Napoleonic wars conditional contraband was
usually things like tar, hemp, and timber ; later it became such

19 15] PROBLEMS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. 493

commodities as petroleum and copper. If conditional contraband
was destined for an enemy port it was liable to capture in a neutral
bottom. Food for the civilian population of the enemy was not
contraband ; it might become so if destined for the enemy's soldiers
or sailors, but this destination was obviously almost impossible
to prove. Contraband, conditional or otherwise, was liable to
seizure if it were assigned to a neutral port but could be shown to
be destined for the enemy. These principles were fairly clear,
but they involved a large number of questions of fact — such as
the real destination of a cargo, and the precise ownership of a hull.
Such questions of fact were decided by Prize Courts, which con-
demned or released the captured vessels submitted to them, and
arranged for compensation, sale, and the other consequences of
their verdicts. Prize Courts did not administer the domestic law
of the country which appointed them. They sat, in Lord Stowell's
famous words, " not to administer occasional and shifting opinion
to serve present purposes of particular national interests, but to
administer with indifference that justice which the law of nations
holds out without distinction to independent states, some happening
to be neutral and some to be beUigerent."

Unhappily, while there may be agreement in peace on the
main international principles, there is apt to be very little una-
nimity in war, for a Power puts the emphasis differently according
as it is a neutral or a belligerent. A great maritime Power like
Britain was subject to a special temptation. In her own wars she
was apt to ride belligerent rights hard, for she desired to use her
naval strength to destroy the enemy. If she was a neutral she
pressed neutral rights to the furthest point conceivable, for she
sought to get the benefit of her large mercantile marine. The
United States, in their Civil War, were rigid sticklers for belligerent
rights, while Britain pled the cause of neutrals. In this war Britain
stood for belligerents, and they were the advocates of neutrals.
If the situation had been reversed, and Britain had been neutral,
undoubtedly she would have done as America did. There is a
human nature in states as in individuals, and human nature is
rarely consistent.

The first difficulty arose in connection with conditional con-
traband, especially copper. Germany needed copper, and she
could only get it from foreign countries, notably America. Now,
copper if shipped to Hamburg would be clearly contraband, and
would be seized ; but what if it were shipped to Genoa or Bergen ?
Suddenly the exports of American copper to Europe began to

494 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Jan.

grow prodigiously. In 1913, from August to December, the im-
ports to Italy had been £15,000,000 ; in 1914 for these months they
were £26,000,000. Scandinavia and Holland for the same period in
1913 had imported £7,000,000 ; in 1914 the figures were £25,000,000.
This looked suspicious enough, for these countries were not in the
enjoyment of an industrial boom, and such high copper stocks could
only be meant for Germany. Britain's position was difficult. If
she allowed them to land, Germany would get them. If she arrested
them on the high seas, she had httle or no evidence of a German
destination to go on. She could only presume that, in the state
of the Dutch, Scandinavian, and Italian copper trade, they must
be destined for Germany. The consequence was that she adopted
the doctrine of " continuous voyage," against which she had often
made outcry in the past, and she pressed it very hard. That doc-
trine was first heard of in the Seven Years' War, and came to great
notoriety during the American Civil War. When the North was
blockading the South, Northern warships would discover a British
merchantman bound for Nassau in the Bahamas with a cargo of
rifles, or to Matamoros, just across the Rio Grande from Texas,
with shells. These were war stores, and of no use to the quiet
civilian ; and since Mexico and the Bahamas were not at war, the
presumption was that the cargoes were destined for the Confederacy.
Accordingly these innocent merchantmen were seized and con-
demned, after some highly interesting decisions by the United States
Prize Courts. Britain protested vigorously, especially the lawyers,
but the Government happily took no steps. When the Boer War
came she showed some disposition to accept the American view ;
for, since the Transvaal had no sea coast, contraband could only
come by a neutral port like Delagoa Bay, and she stopped
several vessels on this suspicion. Presently she had accepted
whole-heartedly the American doctrine, and it was for the United
States to repine at the consequences of their teaching. Indeed,
she greatly improved on it. The Northern cruisers took only
cargoes of absolute contraband where the presumption of enemy
destination was unrebuttable. Britain took cargoes of conditional
contraband, part of which might easily have been used by neutral
civilian industries, and she defined conditional contraband in a
way which played havoc with that Declaration of London which
in early August she had proudly declared to be her guide.

The United States made a temperate protest on 28th December
1914, and Sir Edward Grey replied on 7th January with some
friendly observations, pleading the force majeure of necessity, and

1915] THE BRITISH COUNTER-BLOCKADE. 493

on i8th February with a long statement, setting forth the whole
British case, referring to American usage in the past, and pointing
out that, whatever our restrictions, America was prospering over
the business. In this statement he outlined a far more startling
departure from international practice than the seizure of American
copper, and on ist March a Declaration of the British Government
expounded the new policy.

On 26th January, as we have seen, the German Government
had announced the future control of all foodstuffs, including im-
ports from overseas. This abolished the distinction between
food destined for the civil population and that for the armed forces.
" Experience shows," ran Sir Edward Grey's statement, " that
the power to requisition will be used to the fullest extent in order
to make sure that the wants of the military are supplied, and how-
ever much goods may be imported for civil use it is by the mili-
tary that they will be consumed if military exigencies require it,
especially now that the German Government have taken control
of all the foodstuffs in the country." In these circumstances it
was natural that Britain should treat as contraband of war all
food cargoes for Germany, and for a neutral port if their ultimate
destination was patent. Germany replied by announcing a block-
ade of Britain as from i8th February. British vessels or neutral
vessels in British waters would be sunk by submarines without
notice, and without any provision for the safety of crew and passen-
gers. This threat was put into action, and on ist March came the
Declaration of Britain of a counter-blockade. The chief sentences
of this Declaration may be quoted : —

" Germany has declared that the English Channel, the north and
west coasts of France, and the waters round the British Isles are a
' war area,' and has officially notified that ' all enemy ships found
in that area will be destroyed, and that neutral vessels may be exposed
to danger.' This is in effect a claim to torpedo at sight, without regard
to the safety of the crew or passengers, any merchant vessel under
any flag. As it is not in the power of the German Admiralty to main-
tain any surface craft in these waters, this attack can only be delivered
by submarine agency. ... A German submarine . . . enjoys no local
command of the waters in which she operates. She does not take her
captures within the jurisdiction of a prize court. She carries no prize
crew which she can put on board a prize. She uses no effective means
of discriminating between a neutral and an enemy vessel. She does
not receive on board for safety the crew of the vessel she sinks.
Her methods of warfare are therefore entirely outside the scope of
any of the international instruments regulating operations against

496 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Mar.

commerce in time of war. The German declaration substitutes indis-
criminate destruction for regulated capture.

" Germany is adopting these methods against peaceful traders
and non-combatant crews with the avowed object of preventing
commodities of all kinds (including food for the civil population)
from reaching or leaving the British Isles or northern France. Her
opponents are, therefore, driven to frame retaliatory measures in
order in their turn to prevent commodities of any kind from reaching
or leaving Germany. These measures will, however, be enforced by
the British and French Governments without risk to neutral ships
or to neutral or non-combatant life, and in strict observance of the
dictates of humanity. The British and French Governments will there-
fore hold themselves free to detain and take into port ships carrying
goods of presumed enemy destination, ownership, or origin. It is
not intended to confiscate such vessels or cargoes unless they would
otherwise be liable to condemnation. The treatment of vessels and
cargoes which have sailed before this date will not be affected."

Obviously this policy did not fulfil the conditions of a technical
blockade, and the Government did not claim it as such. A com-
plete effective blockade of Germany was impossible. Britain did not
control the Baltic, and Sweden and Norway would therefore be in a
different position from another neutral hke America. Further, most
of the German imports went through neutral ports, and to meet
this difficulty Britain had gone far beyond the ordinary blockade.
She had proclaimed the right to " detain and take into port ships
carrying goods of presumed enemy destination, ownership, or
origin." This was not the old " conditional contraband " and
" continuous voyage " question about which she had been arguing
with America before Christmas. It was a claim to capture enemy
merchandise of the most innocent kind, even when carried in
neutral bottoms — a wholesale rejection of the Declaration of Paris.
Further, instead of presuming cargoes of conditional contraband
to have an innocent destination unless a guilty were proved,
she was compelled to presume guilt unless innocence were clearly
made out, and the bias of presumption leaned heavily against
the possibility of innocence.

These measures, which involved a very comprehensive rewriting
of international law, were avowedly " reprisals " * against Ger-
many. Germany had crashed through the whole system like

* " Reprisals " is a technical term in international law, and has been defined
as "retaliation to force an enemy guilty of a certain act of illegitimate warfare
to comply with the laws of war " (Oppenheim, II., p. 41). The main rules connected
with them are : (i) that they should not be disproportionate to the offence cora-
mitted by the enemy ; and (2) they must respect the laws of humanity and morality.

1915] ITS JUSTIFICATION. 497

Alnaschar's basket. Her methods of waging war, her treatment
of civilian inhabitants in France and Belgium, her conduct to-
wards prisoners, her laying of mines on the high seas, her sinking
of merchant vessels and crews, her bombardment of undefended
towns — the roll was damning enough to justify any reprisals.
But the British measure bore heavily upon innocent neutrals,
and it is fair to recognize the very grave inconvenience to which
a Power like America was put. She did not know where she stood,
and it is greatly to her credit that she recognized the novel situation
created by German modes of warfare, and did not quibble about
the letter of the law. The Allied Governments admitted the
difficulty, and did not propose to confiscate the vessels and cargoes
detained, unless they were confiscable on the normal grounds of
contraband. Whether damages should be paid for detention, or
the goods bought by Britain, was left to the Prize Courts and the
executive officers. Germany in her blockade intended to sink
neutral ships and sacrifice non-combatant lives. The British
blockade involved no more than detention. The latter was there-
fore much less than a blockade, in which it is the custom of the
captor to confiscate any blockade runners. As our blockade was
technically incomplete, so the penalties we exacted were technically
inadequate.

It is difficult to see what other course was possible. The
British Government had the courage to frame a novel measure
to meet novel conditions, and declined, in the Prime Minister's
words, "to be strangled in a network of juridical niceties." Ger-
many was out of court, and apart from the justification afforded
by her recent conduct, the principles on which Britain acted had
been approved by Bismarck, Caprivi, and Bernhardi. To neutrals,
who had a real grievance, she defended her action on the ground
of sheer necessity — a necessity which may override the technical
provisions but not the eternal principles of international equity.
If your opponent breaks the rules of the game it is impossible to
remain bound by them without giving him an undue advantage,
but an honourable man will not lower himself by adopting the
baser kind of trick. She proclaimed a blockade which was not
formally perfect according to the text-books, though it was not
unlike that proclaimed by the United States in 1861 ; she justified
its formal imperfections by the fact that she was fighting with an
enemy who owned no allegiance to any law, Mr. Balfour, on 29th
March, published a defence of her action, to which it was hard to
see an answer. He asked what international moraUty required of

498 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Mar.

one belligerent when the other trampled mternational law in the
dust. Clearly the policy of the first must be modified, and those
who declared that the crimes of one party should in no way affect
the conduct of the other confounded international law and inter-
national morality. The obligation of the second was absolute ; that
of the first only conditional, and one of its conditions was reci-
procity. If a state lost all power to enforce obHgations or punish
the guilty, ought the community to submit tamely and behave as
if social conditions were normal ? Clearly not ; and in the same
way in the international world, where the law had no sanctions, if
rules were allowed to bind one belligerent and leave the other free
they would cease to mitigate suffering, and only load the dice in
favour of the unscrupulous. " Let them [neutrals] remember that
impotence, like power, has duties as well as privileges ; and if they
cannot enforce the law on those who violate both its spirit and its
letter, let them not make haste to criticize belligerents who may
thereby be compelled in self-defence to violate its letter while
carefully regarding its spirit."

CHAPTER XXIII.

TURKEY AT WAR.

October 29, iC)i4-February 8, 1915.

Turkey enters the War — The Turkish Army — The Question of the Persian Gulf-
Britain occupies the Delta — The Campaign in Transcaucasia — The Battle of
Sarikamish — Egypt — The Defeat of the Turkish Attack on the Suez Canal.

From the first day of war Germany had made certain of Turkey's
aUiance, and had treated it as a fait accompli in her negotiations
with the Balkan Powers, In August it seemed indeed a certainty,
but the German misfortunes of September had weakened Germany's
hold on the Porte, save in the case of Enver and the army chiefs.
Early in October it became clear that Enver and von Wangenheim
were making strenuous efforts to force Turkey over the border-
line, and on 29th October her many breaches of international
etiquette, of which her behaviour in regard to the Goehen and the
Breslau and her summary abolition of the Capitulations were the
chief, culminated in definite acts of war. A horde of Bedouins
invaded the Sinai Peninsula and occupied the wells of Magdala,
and the combined German-Turkish fleet raided Odessa, sank and
damaged several ships, and bombarded the town. On the 30th
the ambassadors of the Allies had fateful interviews with the
Grand Vizier. The Sultan, the Grand Vizier, Djemal, and Djavid
were in favour of peace, but Enver and his colleagues over-
ruled them. The Odessa incident was justified by a cock-and-
bull story of prior Russian hostilities, and that evening Sir Louis
Mallet, the British Ambassador, was instructed to present an
ultimatum, demanding that within twelve hours the Porte should
dissociate itself from those acts of hostility towards Russia, and
should remove the crews of the Goehen and the Breslau. It was
certain that the Porte would refuse the second demand ; but the
question was not put to the test, for suddenly the Russian Gov-
ernment, without consulting its allies, declared war upon Turkey.

499

500 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

Nothing remained for the French and British Ministers but to ask
for their passports ; and on ist November Sir Louis Mallet, who
had played a hopeless game with great skill and patience, left
Constantinople, and the century-old friendship of Britain and
Turkey was at an end.

The Turkish army was based nominally on a universal con-
scription, but in practice only the Mussulman population was
drawn upon ; not all of that, indeed, for many of the Arab peoples
were more usually opposed to than incorporated in the Turkish
ranks. The conscript served for twenty years — nine in the first
line (Nizam), nine in the active reserve (Redif), and two in the
territorial militia (Mustafiz). The major unit was the army corps
of three divisions, each division embracing ten battalions. The
artillery, which had suffered severely in the Balkan wars, was
patchy and largeW out of date, though in recent months Germany
and Austria had strengthened it with a number of heavy batteries.
The peace strength of the army was, rouglily, 17,000 officers and
250,000 men, and in war some total like 800,000 might have been
looked for, provided equipment were forthcoming. The Com-
mander-in-Chief was Enver, and the German Military Mission under
General Liman von Sanders had practically taken over the duties
of a General Staff. The German system of " inspections " had
been instituted — four in number, with headquarters at Constan-
tinople, Damascus, Erzhingian, and Bagdad. The fourteen army
corps were distributed in peace throughout the Empire at strategic
points. The ist, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th were nominally stationed in
Europe — at Constantinople, Adrianople, Kirk Kilisse, and Rodosto ;
but they drew most of their reserves from Asia Minor. The 5th,
6th, 7th, and 8th belonged to the Damascus " inspection " ; the
9th, loth, and nth were in Armenia and the Caucasus, the 12th at
Mosul, and the 13th at Bagdad, while the 14th Corps had no ter-
ritorial basis. On the outbreak of war these corps were reshuffled,
six being concentrated around the Sea of Marmora. The Turkish
infantryman had enjoyed for many years a high reputation as a
soldier — especially, as he showed at Plevna, in a stubborn defen-
sive. His physique was good, his nerves steady, and his power of
endurance incredible. But in recent wars his fame had suffered
a certain eclipse. He had been badly led and badly armed, the
commissariat and transport had been rudimentary, and successive
defeats were believed to have shaken his moral. Turkey's ill-
provided levies in the past had fought desperately under brilliant
officers, because they were inspired by a simple trust in their reli

1914] TURKEY'S MILITARY POLICY. 501

gion and their leaders and a genuine patriotic devotion. An at-
tempt had been made to engraft upon this tradition the mechanical
perfection of the German system. But the Turk was not meant
by nature to be a soldier of the German type, and the seed of
von der Goltz and Liman von Sanders was sown in barren soil.
The consequence was a machine without precision and without
motive power. The Turk had been at his best when he fought
for Islam and the Padishah ; but Islam was inconspicuous in the
ideals of the new Committee, the old Padishah was somewhere in
exile, and the new one too patently a cipher. A perfect machine
is a might)' thing, but an imperfect machine is so much scrap
iron. The Turkish soldier was now an incomplete German, which
was like a gun lacking the breech-block. It was impossible to
withhold sympathy from a brave race going out to battle in a
cause which they neither liked nor understood, from an army in
the grip of an unfamiliar and imperfect machine, from a nation
sacrificed to a muddled Weltpolitik. Disaster loomed large in its
horoscope, but courage never failed it ; and the time was to come
when the machine went to pieces, and, amid the snows of the
Caucasus or the sands of the desert, the children of Osman, fighting
once more in the old fashion, died without fear or complaint.

The beginning of war found Turkey with a curious strategical
problem before her. Europe was the chief interest of her leaders.
She hankered to recover the lost provinces of Thrace, and there
she looked for her reward when her allies emerged victorious.
But so long as Greece and Bulgaria remained neutral, there was
no room for an offensive in Europe and no need of a defensive.
Accordingly she was free to move the bulk of her corps to those
frontiers where she faced directly the belligerents. The chief
was Transcaucasia, where, in a wild cluster of mountains, she
looked across the gorges at Russia. An offensive in Transcaucasia
was what Germany and Austria urgently desired. Russia, they
knew, had none too many equipped men, and a diversion on her
flank would draw troops from that thin line, a thousand miles
long, which she held from the Niemen to the Dniester. Against
Britain, too, Turkey might use her armies with effect. An attack
upon the Suez Canal might precipitate the long-expected Egyptian
rebellion, and would at the least detain the Australian and Indian
troops now training there, and at the best compel Britain to send
out as reinforcements some of her still scanty reserves. Further,
it would bar the short road to India, and give the flame of Indian
insurrection time to kindle. A further chance of fomenting

502 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Oct.

Indian trouble, in the certainty of which Germany still firmly
believed, lay in the scheme now coming to a head on the Persian
Gulf. German agents had been busy among the Gulf traders,
and elaborate preparations had been made for undermining the
virtue of the Amir of Afghanistan, and for preaching a Jehad among
the Mussulman tribes of the Indian north-west. Turkey believed
that she had little to fear in the way of attack. The Russians
were too busily engaged elsewhere to penetrate far west from the
frosty Caucasus, while Britain had enough to do in Flanders with-
out attempting an advance into Syria or Mesopotamia. The one
serious danger-point in a war with a great naval Power was the
Dardanelles ; but Enver and his colleagues were confident that
the penetration of these straits, long ago pronounced by experts
a task of the utmost difficulty, had been rendered impossible
for all time by the heavy guns which Krupp and Skoda had dili-
gently provided.

The tale of the Dardanelles, the main episode in this section
of the campaign, ijiust be reserved for later chapters. For the
moment we are concerned with the preliminary stages, when
Turkey took the offensive in the Persian Gulf, in Transcaucasia,
and in Egypt. In the first theatre the Allies had anticipated the
events of ist November, and the Ottoman troops found their
attack forestalled by a British invasion. The Persian Gulf was
one of the oldest of Britain's fields of activity. Englishmen,
looking for trade, had visited it in the reign of Elizabeth ; in its
early days the East India Company established a factory at Bundar
Abbas, and fought stoutly with Dutch and Portuguese rivals for
the better part of two centuries. The Indian navy first began the
survey of the Gulf, and looked to its lighting. For fifty years
Britain had hunted down the pirates and cleared out their strong-
holds on the Pirate Coast. She protected Persia against those
who would have deprived her of a seaboard, she policed the waters,
she suppressed slavery and gun-running, she wrestled with the
plague, and introduced the rudiments of sanitation in the marshy
estuaries. For three hundred years she had done this work for
the benefit of the shipping of all nations, since she claimed no
monopoly and desired no perquisites. All she took in return was
a fraction of an island for a telegraph station. One thing, indeed,
she asked, and that was a matter of life and death, on which com-
promise was impossible. No other Power should be allowed to
seize territory, and no other flag should dominate those land-
locked waters. For with her prestige in the Persian Gulf was

1914] THE PERSIAN GULF. 503

bound up the future of India and of the Empire. Before ever the
Turkish crescent appeared in the Gulf, Britain had shown her flag
there. In the sixteenth century Suleiman the Magnificent had
captured Bagdad, but it was not till 1638 that the conquest was
confirmed, and not till 1668 that Turkey reached Basra and the
sea coast. For the next two centuries the writ of Constantinople
had run haltingly on the western shores or not at all. The rise of
the Wahabi threatened the Turkish power, and all through the
nineteenth century Eastern Arabia was the scene of a rivalry
between the great Wahabi houses of Ibn Saud and Ibn Rashid —
a rivalry in which the Khalif did not dare to interfere. At Kovveit
and at Bahrein lived independent sheikhs, and not all the efforts
of Midhat Pasha could turn that coast into a Turkish province.
The Gulf shores, baked and barren, and hot as a furnace, were a
museum of types of incomplete sovereignty and de facto rule. But
out on the waters lay British warships which kept the peace.

To this happy hunting-ground the eyes of Germany turned.
Persia was a decrepit state, Turkey was moribund, and in Meso-
potamia she saw a chance of finding a field for exploitation which
would make it for Germany what Egypt was to Britain and
Morocco to France. German professors told excited audiences that
a thousand years ago the land had supported six million people,
and that what had once been might be again. If Germany won
a foothold on the Gulf, not only would she have the exploiting
of Mesopotamia, but she would have weakened the British hold
upon India. To secure this end Turkey must be conciliated,
and the long tale of intrigue began which we have already noted.
Her trump card was the Bagdad railway. In 1899 a German
company, backed by the Deutsche Bank, had obtained a con-
cession from the Porte to build a railway from Konieh, then the
terminus of the little Anatolian railway, to Bagdad and Basra
on the Persian Gulf. The concession was made valuable by a
Turkish guarantee of the interest on the cost of construction at
the rate of ;f700 per kilometre per annum. Britain awoke somewhat
late in the day to the political purport of the new railway, and a
diplomatic conflict began which was all but definitely settled at the
outbreak of war. Germany had followed the practice of that Lord
of Breadalbane who built his castle on the extreme confines of his
land with the avowed intention of " birsing yont." Her " yont "
was Koweit. on the actual Gulf shores, and she persuaded Turkey
into various pretensions to suzerainty, which the watchful eyes
of the British agents detected in time and frustrated. Mean-

504 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.

time she was busy at the game of " peaceful penetration." A
certain firm, Wonckhaus by name, played here the part which
Woermann played in West Africa and Luderitz in Damaraland.
A simple, spectacled gentleman in white ducks and a topi ap-
peared on the beach in quest of pearl shells. From a modest
shanty on the foreshore he directed his operations, and spent
freely money which could not have come out of his profits. Pres-
ently arrived a German consul, and soon there were little tiffs
between the employees of the shell merchant and the natives,
which gave the consul something to do. Quickly the business
grew, but not on commercial lines. Then came the Hamburg-
Amerika line, playing national airs and dispensing sweet cham-
pagne, and the spectacled gentleman was revealed as its accredited
agent. Very soon the innocent traders went concession-hunting,
and called upon Turkey to ratify their claims under a pretence
of suzerainty. Then Britain interfered, revealed the hollowness
of the business, and put her veto on the game. But next week it
began all over again elsewhere. Sir Percy Cox, the British Agent
and Consul-General on the Gulf, had a task scarcely less difficult
than that of Lord Cromer in the early days in Egypt, and he
performed it with a patience, judgment, and resolution which
deserved well of his country.

By the beginning of November the British in the Gulf were
ready for the offensive. The Government of India had sent the
Poona Brigade, under Brigadier-General W. S. Delamain, to
Bahrein. On 7th November the force reached the bar of the
Shatt-el-Arab, where the village of Fao, with its Turkish fort, lay
among the flats and palm groves. The gunboat Odin bombarded
the fort, and troops landed and occupied the village. The brigade
then sailed thirty miles up the estuary, passing the refinery of
the Anglo-Persian Oil Company at Abadan, and disembarked at
Sanijeh, on the Turkish bank, where it prepared an entrenched
camp, and sat down to wait for the rest of the British force. On
the nth there was some fighting with the Turks from Basra,
and two days later Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Barrett arrived
with the rest of the Indian contingent — the Ahmednagar and
Belgaum Brigades, native troops with a stiffening of British regular
battalions. On the 15th the disembarkation of the remainder
began — no light task on the soft, muddy banks of the Shatt-el-
Arab. Meanwhile Delamain with the Poona Brigade was busy
with a force of 2,000 Turks, who held the viUage of Sahain, four
miles to the northward. The action was meant only as a recon-

19 14] CAPTURE OF BASRA. 505

naissance in force, and Sahain and the date plantation beyond it
were not entirely cleared. During that day the landing was com-
pleted, and on the i6th the British force rested. News arrived
that the Basra garrison was advancing to give battle ; and since
there were Europeans in the city whose fate might depend upon
a speedy British arrival, General Barrett ordered the advance for
the early morning of the 17th.

Sahain was found to be deserted, and he moved on for nine
miles to a place called Sahil, near the river, where was the main
Turkish force. The ground was open plain, and heavy rains in
the morning had turned the deep soil into a marsh. The fight
began with an artillery preparation, both from the British field
guns and from gunboats on the river. The Turkish fire was bad,
but they were screened by a date grove, and the country over
which the advance was made was as bare as a billiard table. The
enemy did not wait for the final bayonet charge, but broke and
fled. Pursuit was wellnigh impossible, partly because of the heavy
ground, and partly owing to a mirage which screened his flight.
The action decided the fate of Basra. On the 21st, while the
bulk of the British force lay at Sanijeh, news came that the Turks
had evacuated Basra, and that the Arabs had begun to loot the
place. Accordingly General Barrett embarked certain troops on
two river steamers, and ordered the rest of his forces to take
the direct road across the desert. The Turks had sunk three
steamers at one point in the Shatt-el-Arab, and had a battery to
command the place ; but after silencing the battery the river
expedition managed to pass the obstruction early on the morning
of the 22nd. About ten o'clock General Barrett reached Basra,
where the Turkish Custom House had been set on fire, and the
British flag was flown on the German consulate. The desert
column, after a thirty mile march, came in about midday. Next
day the British formally entered the city of Sindbad the Sailor.

During the remainder of the month Barrett was occupied in
preparing a base camp. His position was secure, but it was certain
that he would be subjected to further attack. The enemy had
fled at Sahil, but he would return, and the great military station
of Bagdad was little more than three hundred miles distant. Fifty
miles above Basra, at the point where the former channel of the
Euphrates joins the Tigris, lay the town of Kurna — a position now
of less strategical importance than in former days, for the old
Euphrates was of little use for traffic. Kurna was the point where
ocean-going steamers could no longer ascend the river. On 2nd

5o6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec.

December news came that the Turks had reassembled there, and
next day a small force of Indian troops, with a detachment of the
Norfolks, was sent upstream to deal with them, accompanied
by three gunboats, an armed yacht, and two armed launches.
Kurna proved to be a more difficult business than was ex-
pected. The British force landed on the eastern bank four
miles below the town early on the morning of the 4th, while the
gunboats went ahead, shelled Kurna, and engaged the Turkish
artillery on the east bank of the Tigris near Mezera. Meanwhile
the British column advanced, and about midday came abreast
of Kurna, which was clearly held in force. Our men were sub-
jected to a heavy fusilade, and since the Tigris was there three
hundred yards wide and Kurna was screened in trees, they could
do little in reply. Accordingly the commanding officer led his
troops back to the original camp, which he had strongly entrenched,
and sent a message to Basra for reinforcements. Nothing happened
on the 5th, but on the 6th General Fry appeared with help. On
the 7th he advanced against Mezera, which the Turks had again
occupied, took it, and drove the defenders across the water to
Kurna, while our naval flotilla was busy on the river. It was now
decided to take Kurna in the rear ; so, early on the 8th, two bat-
talions were marched some miles up the Tigris. A body of sappers
swam the stream with a line, and with the aid of a dhow a kind
of ferry was established, and our men crossed. By the evening the
force was close to Kurna, entrenched among the trees north of the
city. But there was to be no assault. That night Turkish officers
approached the British camp downstream and asked for terms.
General Fry insisted upon an unconditional surrender, and just
after midday on the 9th the Turkish garrison laid down their arms.
The British had now obtained complete control of the whole delta,
and constructed entrenched camps at Kurna and Mezera on each side
of the Tigris, to hold off any possible attack from the north. Turkish
troops from Bagdad hovered around, and in January there were
5,000 of them seven miles from Mezera ; but they offered no serious
attack. We nad achieved our purpose, and established a barricade
against any advance upon the Gulf which might threaten India.

Farther north on Turkey's eastern frontier the war was with
Russia alone. A glance at the map will show that the Russian
Caucasian border has on the south Persia for two-thirds of its
length and Turkey for one-third. Since Persia was a negligible
mihtary Power, this meant that her north-western territory gave

1914] THE SITUATION IN NORTH PERSIA. 507

each of the belligerents a chance of turning the flank of the otlier.
The Persian province of Azerbaijan had, therefore, during the
recent troubled years been occupied in parts by both Russian ai\d
Turkish troops, and when war broke out it was certain that this
locality would be a scene of fighting. South of Lake Urmia the
Turks took the offensive. A Kurdish force advanced by way of
Suj Balak upon Tabriz, and meeting with no resistance from the
Persian governor, took that city in the beginning of January, and
moved some way northwards towards the Russian frontier. Russia,
who had left no troops to speak of in Tabriz, soon repaired her
omission, and having heavily defeated the invaders at Sufian,
reoccupied Tabriz on 30th January 1915. In this unimportant
section of the campaign we have to chronicle two other movements
where Russia was the invader. Early in November a Russian
column crossed the Turkish frontier from the extreme north-west
corner of Persia, and occupied on 3rd November the ancient town
of Bayazid, which lies under the snows of Ararat, on the great
trade route between Persia and the Euxine. Other columns
entered Kurdistan from the east, and a movement was begun
against Van, Farther north, and fifty miles west from Bayazid,
another Russian column from Erivan crossed the frontier in the
neighbourhood of the Alashgird valley. The town of Kara Kilisse
was taken, but the Turks — part of the Bagdad 13th Corps — showed
a vigorous defensive, and held the invaders on the borders. The
struggle died away towards the beginning of January, when
the disaster in the Caucasus compelled a general retreat of the
Turkish frontier guards upon Erzerum.

We come now to the more vital part of the Eastern campaign —
the struggle in Transcaucasia, upon which Germany built high
hopes and Enver expended all his energy. The main features
of the district are sufficiently familiar. The great range of the
Caucasus, which contains the highest of European mountains,
runs from the Black Sea to the Caspian, blocking the isthmus much
as the Pyrenees block the neck between the Bay of Biscay and
the Mediterranean. South-west of the range is a huge trough
running nearly all the way to the two seas. Here stands Tiflis,
the ancient capital of Georgia, and through it runs the main rail-
way of those parts, from Batum on the Black Sea to Baku on the
Caspian. On the south-west side of the trough lies the moun-
tain tangle of Transcaucasia, midway in which comes the Russian
frontier. A railway ran from Tiflis past the fortress of Kars to a
terminus at Sarikamish, fifteen miles from the Turkish border,

5o8 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec.

while another Hne ran from Alexandropol by Erivan to the Persian
frontier, Erzerum, the Turkish fortress, stood about the same
distance from the frontier as Kars ; but it was on no railway, and
had none nearer than five hundred miles. The mountain ranges
extend north to the shores of the Black Sea, and south into Persia
and Kurdistan. The whole district is one vast upland, most of
the villages and towns standing at an altitude of 5,000 and 6,000
feet, and the hills rising as high again. All the passes are lofty,
and in winter wellnigh impassable ; none of the roads were good,
and, as we have seen, there was no railway on the Turkish side,
and but one that mattered on the Russian. Winter campaigning
there was likely to be as desperate as Xenophon's Ten Thousand
had found it. It was an old theatre of war since the days of
Cyrus and Alexander, and whenever Russia and Turkey had faced
each other it had been the cockpit of the struggle. There, in
1853, Shamyl led his mountaineers. There, two years later. Fen-
wick Williams held Kars against Muraviev in one of the greatest
stands in modem history. There, in 1877, Loris Melikov and
Mukhtar met, and Kars and Ardahan and Bayazid were the scenes
of desperate conflicts. If Kars could be seized, the way would be
open to Tiflis and the Caspian oil fields — perhaps even across the
great Caucasus itself to the levels of southern Russia. To the
leaders of a race which had always been famous as mountain fighters
the offensive in the Caucasus seemed the easiest way of effecting
that diversion which Germany had commissioned.

Enver's strategy was ambitious to the point of madness, but
it was skilful after a fashion. He resolved to entice the Russians
from Sarikamish across the frontier, and to hold them at some
point as far distant as possible from the railhead. Then, while
thus engaged, he would swing his left centre in a wide enveloping
movement against Sarikamish, and with his left push round by
Ardahan and take Kars in the rear. To succeed, two things were
necessary. The force facing the Russian front must be strong
enough to hold it while the envelopment was proceeding ; and
the operative part, the left wing, must be correctly timed in its
movements, for otherwise the Russians would be able to destroy
it piecemeal. It was this " timing " which formed the real diffi-
culty. The swing round of the left must be made by a variety
of mountain paths and over necks and valleys deep in snow, where
progress in winter must be tardy and precarious. To time such
a plan accurately was wellnigh beyond the skill of any mortal
general staff.

1914] THE TRANSCAUCASIAN CAMrAIGN. 509

For the Caucasian campaign Turkey had the 9th, loth, and nth
Corps — stationed in peace respectively at Erzerum, Erzhingian,
and Van — which had been concentrated at Er/xrum about the
middle of October. To reinforce the nth Corps, the 37th Arab
division had been brought up from the 13th Bagdad Corps. For
the movement on the extreme left two divisions of the ist Corps
had been sent by sea from Constantinople to Trebizond. Turkey
could obviously get no reserves in case of disaster. The nearest
corps, the 12th, at Mosul, had gone to Syria, and the remainder
of the Bagdad corps had its hands full with the British in the
Persian Gulf. The nominal commander of the Caucasian army
was Hassan Izzet, but Enver was present as the real generalis-
simo, and he had with him a large German staff. A German,
Posseld Pasha, was appointed governor of Erzerum. The total
Turkish strength was not less than 150,000, and they had against
them the army of General Woronzov, which cannot at the outside
have been more than three corps strong — say 100,000 men. Fight-
ing began in the first fortnight of November, when the Russians
crossed the frontier and reached Koprikeui on the Erzerum road,
which after some trouble they occupied on 20th November. The
time was now ripe for Enver's plan. The nth Corps was entrusted
with the duty of holding the Russian advance on Erzerum. The
loth Corps, at Id, was to advance in two columns over the passes
by Bardus against the road between Kars and Sarikamish, with the
9th Corps wheeling between it and the nth. At the same time
the 1st Corps, which had landed at Trebizond, was to move up the
Choruk valley, across a pass 8,000 feet high, take Ardahan, and
advance over somewhat easier country to the railway between
Kars and Alexandropol. The difficulty about the whole scheme
was the roads. The only real way for an army through the
Armenian heights was by the high trough in which lie Kars and
Sarikamish, and thence westwards to the upper valleys of the
Araxes and Euphrates. Everywhere else the paths were tracks,
now blind with snow, and hopeless for artillery.

The Turkish offensive began about the middle of December.
The nth Corps pushed the Russians out of Koprikeui and forced
them back a dozen miles to Khorasan, where, on Christmas Day,
the retreat halted. The Russian army was now strung out along
the thirty miles of the road from Khorasan to Sarikamish. Mean-
while, in desperate weather, the 9th and loth Corps, forty miles
north, had struggled over the high watersheds, and by Christmas
Day had descended upon Sarikamish and on the railway east of

510 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Jan.

it. The ist Corps, on the extreme Turkish left, was crossing in
a bUzzard the steeps at the head of the Choruk, and already look-
ing down through the pauses of the storm on where Ardahan lay
in its deep pocket of hills. If we take 28th December as a view-
point, we lind the Russian van held by the nth Turkish Corps at
Khorasan : the 9th Corps at Sarikamish : the loth Corps east along
the Kars railway, threatening to pierce the Russian front : and
sixty miles north-east the ist Corps descending upon Ardahan.
It looked as if Enver's ambitious project had succeeded. But the
attacking force was worn out, half starved, and short of guns and
ammunition, for no transport on earth could cope with such a break-
neck march. The Russian general dealt first with the loth Corps.
From 28th December to ist January there was a fierce struggle
on the railway, which, late on New Year's Day 1915, resulted in
the defeat of the Turks and their retreat into the hills to the north.
This withdrawal isolated the 9th Corps at Sarikamish, which was
now enclosed between the Russian right, flung well forward in
pursuit of the loth Corps, and the Russian vanguard at Khorasan.
That corps was utterly wiped out. Its general, Iskan Pasha, with
all his stafi, Turkish and German, surrendered after a gallant and
fruitless stand. The Turks fought with their old stolidity till
hunger and cold were too much for them, and they surrendered
as much to the Russian field kitchens as to the Russian steel. Mean-
while the 1st Corps, which had entered Ardahan on New Year's
Day, found that it could go no farther. On 3rd January a detached
Russian force drove it out of the town, back over the ridges to
the Choruk valley, whither the flight of the loth Corps was also
heading. The nth Corps at Khorasan did its best to redeem the
disaster. It could not save the 9th Corps, but it might cover the
retreat of the loth, and accordingly it pushed back the Russian van
from Khorasan, and advanced as far as Karai Urgan, some twenty
miles from Sarikamish. It achieved its purpose, for the pursuit of
the loth Corps was relaxed, and the bulk of the Russian army went
westwards to reinforce the van. At Karai Urgan a three days'
battle was fought among snowdrifts, and by the 17th the nth
Corps had been broken also, and, with heavy losses in men and
guns, was retreating upon Erzerum. Meanwhile the ist Corps
and the remnant of the loth were cleared from the Choruk valley
by the Russian right, and driven towards Trebizond. The Turkish
navy, which attempted to send stores and reinforcements by sea,
was no more fortunate, for the several transports and provision
boats were sunk along the coast by Russian warships.

1915] SARIKAMISH.

So ended Enver's bold diversion. It had failed signally be-
cause his reach exceeded his grasp, as has happened before witli
adventurers. The three weeks of desperate conflict aniid snow-
drifts and blizzards— for the battlefields were scarcely less than
8,000 feet high— must have accounted for not less than 50,000 of
Turkey's strength. Badly led and ill equipped, the starving
Turkish levies had fought like heroes, and their sufferings were
not the least terrible of the war. The Battle of Sarikaniish— to
localize the series of engage ments— made certain that Russia for
the present would not be menaced from the Caucasus. Turkey
must look elsewhere to find the joint in the armour of the Allies.
She sought it in Egypt and at the Suez Canal, which, as
Moltke had long before told his countrymen, was the vital artery
of Britain.

The story of Egypt is one of the romances of modern politics ;
and for its slow and varied drama the reader must consult the
works of Lord Cromer and Lord Milner, the men who were the
chief actors in the piece. In 1517, forty-eight years before the
Turkish invasion of Europe spent itself on the fortifications of Malta
and the gallantry of the Knights of St. John, the Sultan Selim
acquired Egypt by conquest ; and in spite of many vicissitudes, of
the weakness of Turkish rule, the ambitions of Napoleon, and the
boldness of Mchemet Ali, the suzerainty of Constantinople con-
tinued. The misgovemment of Ismail and the precarious position
of the Egyptian bondholders brought in the Western Powers
France and Britain, and a dual control was established over admin-
istration. Then came the deposition of Ismail, followed by the
nationalist rising under Arabi, the bombardment of Alexandria,
and the Battle of Tel-el-kebir. To Britain fell the task of restoring
order, and that British occupation began which was the making of
the country. There succeeded the menace from the Sudan, the
devastating advance of the Mahdi and his fanatical armies, the
loss of the southern provinces, and the death of Gordon, Quae
caret ora cruore nostra ? is more pertinent to Britain than to Rome,
and the sands of the Nile have had the best of British blood. From
1885 onwards the task of the de facto rulers of Egypt was twofold —
the reconquest of the Sudan, and the elevation of the Nile valley
from bankruptcy to prosperity. The first was accomplished in
1898, when Lord Kitchener, at the battles of the Atbara and
Omdurman, scattered the Dervish levies. The second, in the wise
hands of Lord Cromer, progressed yearly, in spite of international

512 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Dec.

bickerings, Court intrigues, and a preposterous dualism in finance.
In a multiplicity of problems there is usually, as Lord Cromer saw,
one master question, the settlement of which involves the others.
In the case of Egypt this was finance ; and with infinite patience
and perfect judgment the greatest of modem administrators first
of all reduced taxation, then from his scanty balances spent wisel}'
on reproductive works, till he had given Egypt the water which
was her life, and raised the peasants from a condition of economic
slavery to a comfort unknown in the Nile valley since the days of
the Pharaohs. In 1904 the British occupation was formally recog-
nized by the Powers of Europe, and the Egyptian finances were
released from the bondage of international control.

With prosperity came political activity, and with political
activity its degenerate offspring, the demagogue. Lord Cromer
handled the thing discreetly, providing means for the expression
of popular opinion, and giving to the Egyptians as large a share
in the administration of their land as was compatible with effi-
ciency. He devoted himself, too, to educational schemes, with
excellent results. His successor, Sir Eldon Gorst, came at a time
when, both in Turkey and in Persia, liberal movements were be-
ginning, and it fell to him to make a further experiment in meeting
the wishes of Egyptian nationalists. British control was reduced
to a minimum, and Egyptian ministers were given a large re-
sponsibility. The venture was not altogether successful, for the
Khedive was there to turn nationalism into a court intrigue, and
the attempt to " liberalize " Egypt resulted in the reappearance
of some of the old abuses. The advent of Lord Kitchener found
the nationalist movement a good deal discredited, and his brilliant
years of office represented a return to something like paternal
government. He knew the East as few living men knew it, and
he speedily acquired the confidence and admiration of all classes
of the population. Under him there was no sudden attempt to
westernize institutions, but a continuation of the patient and
gradual adjustment and remodelling which had been Lord Cromer's
policy. " The counsels to which Time hath not been called,
Time will not ratify."

Germany, as we have seen, looked on Egypt as a nursery of
sedition. She had considered carefully events like that at Den-
shawai and the wilder speeches of the demagogues ; and with
her curious inabihty to look below the surface of things, she had
jumped to the conclusion that democracy, Islam, and chauvinism
would combine to produce an explosion. But the truth was that

I9T4] DEPOSITION OF THE KHEDIVE. 513

the ordinary Egyptian was content, and had no grievance ; while
in the Sudan the war awoke an unsuspected enthusiasm for the
British cause, led by a descendant of the Prophet and the eldest
son of the Mahdi. Let Lord Cromer speak : —

" Why is it that the appeals to religious zeal and fanaticism made
by the Turkish militarists and their German fellow-conspirators have
been wholly unproductive of result, and have been answered both
in Egypt and in the Sudan by the most remarkable expressions of
loyalty and friendship towards the British Government ? The pres-
ence of British garrisons in Cairo, Alexandria, and Khartum unques-
tionably counts for much in explanation of these very singular political
phenomena. Something also may possibly be attributed to the fact
that the more educated classes may have recognized that the Turco-
Prussian regime with which they were threatened would assuredly
combine many of the worst features both of Western and Eastern
administration. But amongst contributory causes I have no hesitation
in assigning the foremost place to the fact that no general discontent
prevailed of which the agitator, the religious fanatic, or the political
intriguer could make use as the lever to further his own designs. In
spite of the most positive assurances that they were the victims of
ruthless tyranny and oppression, the population both of Egypt and
the Sudan refused to believe that they were misgoverned. And why
was it that no general discontent prevailed ? . . . The true reason . . .
is, I believe, that State expenditure has been carefully controlled,
and has been adapted to the financial resources of the two countries
concerned, with the result that taxation has been low. It was futile
to expect that the Egyptian fellah or the Sudanese tribesman would
believe that he was oppressed and maltreated when the demands
of the tax-gatherer not only ceased to be capricious, but were far
more moderate than either he or his immediate progenitors had ever
dreamed to be possible." *

On 17th December the Khedive Abbas II., having thrown in
his lot with Turkey, ceased to reign in Egypt, which, with the
assent of France, was formally proclaimed a British Protectorate.
Sir Arthur Henry M'Mahon, a distinguished Indian political
officer, was appointed High Commissioner. The title of Khe-
dive, first adopted by Ismail, disappeared ; and the throne of
Egypt, with the title of Sultan, was offered to Prince Hussein
Kamel Pasha, the second son of Ismail, and therefore the eldest
living prince of the house of Mehemet Ali — an able and enlightened
man, who had done great service to Egyptian agriculture. The
change thus made was the smallest which the circumstances per-

* Abbas II., p. 20. In the same work will be found an interesting study of the
late Khedive.

514 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Nov.

mitted. There was no annexation ; the shadowy suzerainty of
Turkey disappeared ; but otherwise things remained as before.
Nominally the tribute to Constantinople continued, since that
tribute had been earmarked for the interest on the Ottoman
debt, and was paid direct to the bondholders. Protectorate
is the vaguest of pohtical terms, and may involve anything from
virtual sovereignty to an almost complete detachment. In this
case it meant that Britain was now wholly responsible for the
defence of Egypt and for her foreign relations. The very vague-
ness of the arrangement had its merits, for nothing was laid down
as to the order of succession to the sultanate, and the hands of
the British Government were left free for some future revision
of the whole arrangement. In the meantime it regularized an
anomalous international status.

The first object of a belligerent Turkey would naturally be the
Suez Canal. The Turkish force in Syria in peace time consisted
of the 8th Corps of three divisions, whose headquarters were
Damascus. But during November there was a large concentra-
tion in Syria, which included the bulk of the 12th Corps from Mosul,
part of the 4th Corps from Adrianople, and the Anatolian reserve
division normally stationed at Smyrna. Out of this force, which
cannot have been less than 120,000, an expeditionary army was
created under Djemal Pasha, the Turkish Minister of Marine, a
vehement Pan-Islamist, a professed admirer of France, but an
inveterate enemy of Britain. The seizure of the two Ottoman
Dreadnoughts building in England had embittered his mind, and
he burned to wipe off the score by a blow at the Suez Canal, one
of the channels by which Britain exerted her naval supremacy.
He had been governor of Bagdad and of Basra, and had been at
the head of an army corps in the Balkan War. He had no particular
military reputation, as he had certainly no military gifts, having
won his power rather as an energetic leader of the Committee of
Union and Progress than as a general in the field. But as his
chief of staff he had a German officer, Kress von Kressenstein,
whose resource and ability more than atoned for the defects of
the nominal commander.

The advantages of a blow at the Suez Canal were obvious.
If the eastern bank could be held, the use of the canal by shipping
would be endangered, and Britain cut off from one of her most
vital sea routes. If the Canal could be crossed in force, there was
the chance of that Egyptian rising for which the faithful of Turkey
and Germany hoped. But the difficulties were no less conspicu-

1914] THE SUEZ CANAL. 515

ous. To reach the Canal from Syria an all but waterless desert
had to be traversed — a stretch varying from 120 to 150 miles in
width. Across this tract of rock and sand there were three routes,
all of them hard. The first, which we may call the northern,
touched the Mediterranean coast at El Arish, and ran across the
desert to El Kantara, on the Canal, twenty-five miles south of
Port Said. It was 120 miles long, and had on its course only a
few muddy wells, quite insufficient to water an army. The southfrn
road ran from Akaba, at the head of the gulf of that name on the
Red Sea, across the base of the peninsula of Sinai to a point on
the Canal a little north of Suez. This route was the old Pilgrims'
Road from Egypt to Mecca ; it was 150 miles long, and, like the
other, ill supplied with wells. Between the two was a possible
variant which may be called the central route. Leaving the
Mediterranean coast at El Arish, it ran up the dry valley called
the Wady el Arish, to where the upper part of that depression
touched the Pilgrims' Road. Now, from the Turkish bases of
Gaza and Beersheba there was no railway to assist an advance,
and no route for motor transport ; and since an army must carry
its own water, it seemed impossible for the invaders to move in
force unless they laid down some sort of light railway, or so im-
proved the roads as to make them possible for motors. The Mecca
Railway, which ran to the east of Akaba, gave them no help ;
for between it and the escarpment of the Sinai Peninsula lay two
rugged limestone ridges, enclosing a trench 3,000 feet deep. The
best route — indeed the only possible — for a light railway was up
the Wady el Arish, but this had the disadvantage that at its
debouchment on the coast it would come under fire from the sea.
The difficulties of Turkey's strategical problem were enhanced by
the nature of her object of attack. The Suez Canal was not only
the equivalent of a broad and deep river, but was navigable for
warships, and its banks provided superb opportunities for defence.
It could not be turned, for it ran from sea to sea. It had a width
of over two hundred feet, and the banks at many places rose
at an angle of thirty degrees to a height of forty feet. On its
western shore a lateral railway ran the whole way from Port Said
to Suez, connecting at Ismailia with the line to Cairo, and a fresh-
water canal followed the same bank for three-quarters of its length,
from Suez to opposite El Kantara. Again, most of the ground to
the east was flat, and offered a good field of fire to the defenders on
the west bank or to ships in the channel. In a few places there were
dunes on the east side which might give cover to an invader.

5i6 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Jan.-Feb.

Such a place lay just south of El Kantara, several others were to
be found south of Ismailia, and there was a small rise south of
the Bitter Lakes. Any Turkish attack might therefore be looked
for in the Ismailia-Bitter Lakes section. The British forces in
Egypt at the time included certain detachments of Indian cavalry
and infantry, the Australian and New Zealand contingents under
Major-General Bird wood, a number of British Territorials, among
them the East Lancashire Division, as well as the regular Egyptian
army. The whole force was under the command of Sir John
Maxwell, a soldier with a long experience of the Nile valley wars.

At the end of October it was reported that a force of 2,000
Bedouins was marching on Egypt, and on November 21st there was
a skirmish at Katia, east of the Canal, between this force and
part of the Bikanir Camel Corps. Previous to this the Anglo-
Egyptian posts had been withdrawn from El Arish and from the
Sinai Peninsula. Nothing more was heard of the invasion for
more than two months. There were many rumours that Djemal
was having difficulties with his command, and was impressing
for his expeditionary force a variety of unwarlike Syrians, from
peasants in the Jordan valley to cab drivers in Jerusalem. On
January 28, 1915, small advanced parties had crossed the desert.
One coming by the El Arish route reached Katia, and was
beaten back by a Gurkha post east of El Kantara. Another party
coming by the Akaba route was driven back at Kubri, just east
of Suez. The desert was well scouted by British airmen, and
about that time a party was landed at Alexandretta Bay, in North
Syria, and cut the telegraph wires. On the 29th it was announced
that the Turks had occupied Katiyeh, and had several posts to
the west of that place. Five days later, on 3rd February, came
the main attack, for which these proceedings had been recon-
naissances.

The Turks officially described the main attack as a recon-
naissance ; and the description may be accepted, for it could not
be regarded as a serious invasion. But it was a reconnaissance
not of design but by compulsion, for Djemal found, when he began
the attempt, that to transport even one army corps across the
desert was wholly beyond his power. The troops seem to have
numbered over 12,000, and to have advanced by the central route
up the Wady el Arish. Four hours' journey from the Canal they
split into two detachments. One moved against Ismailia, to the
south of which the east bank gives a certain cover. A second,
and much the stronger, advanced to a point opposite Toussum,

GENERAL MAP OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE.

1915] FAILURE OF THE TURKISH ATTACK. 517

just south of Lake Timsah, where the ground on the east is high and
broken. A small flanking attack was made from the northern
route against El Kantara. The troops were mainly from the 8th
Corps, with portions of the 3rd and 6th Corps, a few of the 4th
(Adrianople) Corps, a remnant of the old Tripoli field force, known
as the Champions of Islam, and a number of Bedouin irregulars.

The preliminaries of the movement began on the night of 2nd
February. A feint against Ismailia that evening had been spoiled
by a dust storm, but in the darkness the sentries on the Canal
saw and fired at shadowy figures on the side opposite Toussum.
The Turks had brought a number of pontoon boats in carts across
the desert, and these they attempted to launch, along with several
rafts made of kerosene tins. They never had a chance of succeed-
ing. Crowded on the shore, with a high, steep bank behind them,
our men mowed them down with rifle fire and Maxims. A few of
the vessels were launched, but they were soon riddled and sunk.
The enemy then lined the banks and tried to silence our fire, and
the duel went on till morning broke. With daylight the battle
became general all along the stretch from Ismaiha to the Bitter
Lakes. There was a small flotilla on the Canal — several torpedo
boats, the old Indian Marine transport Hardinge, and the French
guardships Requin and D'Entrecasteaux. The Turks had a number
of field batteries and two 6-inch guns, which one of the French
ships promptly silenced. The torpedo boats made short work
of the remaining pontoons, and the crew of one landed on the
eastern bank and raided a trench of the enemy. A few of the
invaders crossed in the night and sniped our men in the rear ; but
they were speedily disposed of, and those who swam over later
were deserters. In the afternoon British troops from Serapeum
and Toussum took the offensive, and, admirably supported by
artillery, drove the enemy from a large part of the eastern bank.
Meanwhile the Ismailian garrison also moved forward, and cleared
their front. About the same time the half-hearted attacks on
our flank near El Kantara and Suez had also failed. By the even-
ing of the 3rd the fiasco was over, and early next morning the
British crossed the Canal in force and began the work of rounding
up the enemy. By 8th February there were no Turks within
twenty miles of the Canal, and beyond that only a few scattered
rearguards, the main force being in full retreat for the borders.
It is not clear why it was allowed to escape. With 130 waterless
miles to cover, there seemed no reason why a beaten and dispirited
force should ever have succeeded in reaching Beersheba.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE BATTLES ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT IN THE
SPRING OF 1915.

^rd January-22nd March.

The Year opens on the Eastern Front — German Attack on the Bzura and the Rawka
— The Attack in East Prussia — Destruction of Russian Tenth Army — Battle
of Przasnysz — The Fight for the Carpathian Passes — The Russians enter
Przemysl.

At the beginning of January the Russian front had found a position
in which it seemed that it could abide. Beginning on the lower
Niemen it ran through the Masurian Lakes inside the East Prussian
frontier, regained Russian territory north of the Narev, passed
just south of Mlawa, bent in a saUent towards Plock, and crossed
the Vistula just west of the mouth of the Bzura. Thence it re-
turned to the east bank of the Bzura and followed it, and that of
its tributary the Rawka, in a line making due south till it struck
the Nida. It ran down the west bank of the Nida to the upper
Vistula, followed the Donajetz and the Biala to the Carpathian
foothills, reached the watershed at the Dukla Pass, and then
bent northwards, holding the Galician entrances to the Lupkow
and the Uzsok. East from that it kept the northern side of the
range, close up to the foothills, till it reached the Rumanian frontier.
Its total length was just short of goo miles, the longest battle-
front in the history of the world. But it was no continuous
network of defence like the line in the West, being little more
than intermittent field trenches, only wired when bogs, forests,
and hillsides were not provided by nature. Like her Western
Allies, Russia adopted a system of army groups. These were
two in number — a southern under Ivanov, and a northern under
Russki. In Ivanov's command were the army of the Nida under
Evert ; the army of the Donajetz under Radko Dmitrieff ; the
force engaged in the investment of Przemysl under General Seli-
vanov ; Brussilov's army of the Carpathians ; and the small

518

1915] HINDENBURG'S NEW DISPOSITIONS. 519

Ninth Army in the Bukovina under Alexeiev, who had been Ivanov's
Chief of Staff. Russki's group embraced the army operating on
the Pihtza ; the forces defending Warsaw along the Rawka and
the Bzura ; the army of the Narev ; and the army operating
against Masurenland.

The immediate plan of investing Cracow had been reUnquished.
Russia had come to realize the weakness of numbers without
weapons, and had no hope yet awhile of receiving adequate sup-
plies either from home or from foreign factories. So far the cam-
paign had been terribly costly, and thousands of the best regular
officers and hundreds of thousands of the most seasoned troops
were dead or in captivity. What remained were short of artil-
lery and ammunition, of rifles and cartridges, of machine guns
— even of clothing. She realized, too, that she was likely for the
next months to be the chief target of the German attacks. She
was therefore compelled to forgo her dreams of Cracow and
Posen, and to limit her offensive to her flanks. An advance in
East Prussia would straighten and shorten her front, and a south-
ward movement through the Carpathians would secure Rumania's
allegiance, and might prove the last straw for a fainting Austria.
Such movements on the wings meant that the central part of the
front must be seriously weakened. The places were chosen because
it was towards East Prussia and Hungary that the Teutonic League
was most vulnerable. To outrage the sacred East Prussian soil
would bring Hindenburg hot on the invaders' trail, and Hungary
was Germany's chief remaining granary and the most sensitive
part of the Dual Monarchy. The Grand Duke did not contem-
plate any enveloping offensive ; for that he had not the men or
guns. AU he sought was to annoy and distract his enemy.

Germany in January 19 15 had reached the conclusion that
nothing could be done for the moment in the West, and that it be-
hoved her once for all to settle accounts with Russia. Only thus
would Austria be saved from dissolution. Hindenburg was due to
receive in February four new corps, and with them he hoped to reach
a decision in East Prussia which would at the same time relieve the
situation in the Carpathians. He created a new X. Army under
von Eichhorn, to take position between the VIII. and the IX.
Armies. With it and the VIII. he hoped to envelop the Russian
right. Meantime a new German Southern Army was formed
under von Linsingen, to be inserted in the Austrian front east of
the Uzsok Pass. It was a course from which he was strongly
averse, but he had no alternative. Austria's signals of distress

520 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Jan.-Feb.

were too urgent to be disregarded. In order to mislead the Rus-
sians the IX. Army was instructed to begin the operation by an
attack upon the Rawka and Bzura Hues, with the aid of eighteen
thousand rounds of gas shells, as if the German plan were still a
frontal assault on Warsaw.

The details of the valley of the Rawka must be noted. From
its confluence with the Bzura it runs mostly south till it is cut
by the railway line between Skiernievice and Warsaw. On both
sides the ground slopes gently down to the water's edge. The
town of Bolimov lies on its eastern bank about midway between
the railway and the Bzura. Opposite Bolimov, about two miles
from the stream, there is a roll of downs, with the castle and dis-
tillery of Borzymov at the northern end. South of these downs on
both sides of the Rawka are great belts of wood which extend for
some dozen miles eastward towards Warsaw. Bolimov is about
forty miles from the capital, and is connected with it by a fair
road. The Russian front was on the west bank of the Bzura for
two miles above its meeting with the Vistula. Then it changed
to the eastern bank, keeping close to the water's edge, and passing
through the town of Sochaczev, where it cut the Lowicz-Warsaw
line. On the Rawka it was more retired from the stream, and held
a line of trenches just in front of the crest of the downs opposite
Bolimov, while the Germans had theirs close to the water, and
on the east bank. Skiernie\ice was in German hands, and the
Russian front crossed the railway about two miles east of it in
a clearing of the larch forests.

On Sunday, 31st January, Mackensen had concentrated masses
of artillery all along the front of the Rawka, and down the Bzura
as far as Sochaczev. He made his great artillery bombardment
on a wide front in order to puzzle the enemy as to the direction
of the main attack. But in the meantime he was getting together
his strength of men and guns on a line of seven miles in front of
BoHmov. Here, on the evening of Monday, ist February, he
had not less than seven divisions — a strength of something like
ten rifles per yard. That night the artillery, working by the map,
began a " preparation " from the slopes west of the Rawka against
the Russian position on the Borzymov crest. It was snowing
heavily, and under cover of the guns and the weather the infantry

1915] THE FIGHT ON THE BZURA AND RAWKA. 521

advanced up the slopes. Their formation was massed, sometimes
ten and sometimes twenty-two men deep. They were mowed
down by Russian shrapnel and machine-gun fire, but the impetus
of numbers carried them into the first line of Russian trenches.
All along the front, from the castle of Borzymov past Vola
Szydlovska to Goumin among the woods and down to the
Skiernievice-Warsaw railway, the Germans gained ground. A
second and then a third line of trenches were captured on the
Tuesday, and by that evening the Russians had been pushed
back to the crest of the ridge, and in some places beyond it, where
the ground began to slope down to the little river Sucha.

Mackensen laid his plans well, and what was considered as a
feint almost resulted in a substantive victory. He did not propose
to repeat the mistakes he had made before Lodz, and drive into
the enemy's front a wedge too narrow to be effective. He realized
that a breach must be wide enough to move in and to permit him to
operate against the broken flanks. All through Wednesday, 3rd
February, he looked like succeeding. But the place he had chosen
for his assault happened to be the place of all others which the
Grand Duke could most readily reinforce. There were two rail-
ways and two good roads, and troops were hurried along them
from Warsaw, some divisions under orders for the north having
been hastily recalled. Through the driving snow the supports
came on, and on Thursday, 4th February, late in the afternoon,
the German advance was checked. It had done wonders. It was
over the crest of Borzymov, and it had advanced nearly five miles
along the Warsaw railway. Another day and the Rawka front
might have been fatally breached, though the Blonie hues would
still have lain between the enemy and the capital.

The counter-attack at Bolimov had scarcely begun to develop
when Hindenburg set in motion his great northern scheme. From
Darkehmen northward lay Eichhorn's X. Army, the enveloping
force to be directed south-east to the frontier ; south of it was
Otto von Below's VIII. Army moving on the Bobr and the Narev,
with a corps from the IX. Army echeloned on the right rear. For
those who love historical parallels the position in the East at the
beginning of February was full of interest. It resembled, as a
distinguished writer pointed out,* the situation in June 1812,
when Napoleon was mustering his forces for the invasion of Russia.
*' Then, as now, the front of the opposing armies was immense,
and extended from Galicia to the Niemen. Schwarzenberg and

* Colonel Repington in The Times, 17th February 1915.

522 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Feb.

his Austrians, issuing from Galicia, represent the armies under
the Archduke Eugene ; the King of Westphalia marching on War-
saw and Bialystok is paralleled by Mackensen's command; the
Viceroy of Italy, farther to the left, is reproduced by the German
force on the right bank of the Vistula ; the Emperor Napoleon,
Murat, and the dukes and princes who came from Thorn and
Marienwerder into East Prussia, stand for the new German forces
which Hindenburg is crowding into Masurenland ; while lastly,
Macdonald, with the Prussians in front of Tilsit, has his counter-
part in the German force which is already across the Memel, and
will act, no doubt, as Macdonald acted before."

II.

When, towards the end of January, the Grand Duke began his
forward movement in East Prussia, the force used was the Tenth
Army of four corps, commanded by General Baron Sievers. A
strong frost had set in with February, much snow had fallen,
and icy winds from the north piled up drifts on every highway.
But in spite of the weather, by the 6th of February the Tenth
Army had made astonishing progress. Its right was close upon
Tilsit, and thence it ran just east of Insterburg along the Angerapp
River, just east of Lotzen, which was the key of the main route
through the Lakes, well to the west of Lyck, till its left rested on
the town of Johannisburg, South of it, but separated by a big
gap, lay the scattered forces which constituted the Russian Army
of the Narev. It had two railways behind it, one from Insterburg
to Kovno, and one from Lyck to Ossovietz ; but two railways
were scarcely sufficient for a front of a hundred miles.

On 7th February the surprise which Hindenburg had prepared
was sprung upon the invaders. The German advance was pressed
along the whole line Tilsit-Johannisburg, and according to plan
the left wing — the 21st Corps under Fritz von Below — swept in an
enflanking movement east of Tilsit in the curve formed by the
lower Niemen. The Russian right, in front of Pilkallen and Gum-
binnen, was compelled to retire to avoid envelopment, and the
natural line of its retreat was along the railway to Kovno. In
so doing it turned a little to the north-east, and since the railway
helped its speed of movement, the corps just to the south of it
was left out of line. This corps was the 20th, commanded by
General Bulgakov, and composed of one first-line division and

1915] DISASTER TO RUSSIAN TENTH ARMY. 523

three regiments of reservists — in all some 30,000 men. On the
7th it had been lying along the Angerapp River from Gumbinnen
to south of Darkehmen. Eichhorn drove it back to the Iat«^ral
frontier railway, after which there was no good way through the
forests and marshes between the frontier and the Niemcn. Its
right wing was turned, and it was pressed down toward the south,
with the enemy on three sides of it. In the wide forests north of
Suwalki it speedily became a broken force, and companies and
regiments were left to make the best of their way home. The two
southern corps had to face the attack of Otto von Eelow's VIII.
Army between Lotzen and Johannisburg. They held a strong
position in the eastern narrows of the Lake region, and the pas-
sages were fiercely disputed. The extreme German right drove
the Russian left across the frontier to Kolno ; other corps farther
north occupied Johannisburg, and pressed back the Russians from
before Lotzen. The sternest struggle was for the narrows which
covered the approach to Lyck from the west, but by the night of
the 13th Lyck was abandoned, and the two southern Russian corps
were straggling over the border, retreating by the Suwalki-Seyny
causeway and by the Ossovietz railway. By the 12th Eichhorn
was over the Russian frontier, and had occupied Mariampol, and
Otto von Below was also on Russian soil, moving towards Grodno
and Ossovietz. By that time what was left of Sievers's Tenth
Army was on the Niemen and the Bobr.

A bare outline gives little idea of the difficulties of the opera-
tions on both sides. For an army to fall back seventy miles under
the pressure of a force greatly its superior, based on a good railway
system, is at all times a hard feat. WTien it is added that more
than half of Sievers's army had no railways to assist them, but
must struggle with their guns through blind forests choked with
snowdrifts, the task verged on the impossible. The Russian losses
were large, and the Tenth Army was all but annihilated. By the
20th the vigour of the German thrust had spent itself. The Rus-
sian remnant was entrenched, and the inevitable counter-attack
had begun. Once again the rival forces were on more equal terms,
for the zone of German railways had been left behind. Motor
transport was impossible, and the big Pomeranian horses were for
work in snow and slush far inferior to the little Russian ponies.

The Russian stand, which was virtually a counter-attack,
began about the 19th. The hue held was well to the west of the
Niemen. It ran from Kovno, covering Olita, Miroslav, Druss-
keniki, and Grodno ; then in front of Ossovietz down the line of

524 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Feb.-Mar.

the Bobr, and then north of the Narev. For the present we are
dealing only with the thrust of Eichhorn and Otto von Below on the
Niemen and the Bobr, and may neglect the operations developing
along the Narev. The German aim was clear. The map will
show that the main line from Warsaw to Petrograd crosses the
Niemen at Grodno, running about thirty miles south of Ossovietz,
and at an average distance of twenty miles from the upper Narev.
If this line could be cut, then one of Warsaw's chief communi-
cations would cease, and the road would be open for the capture
of the city by an advance from the northern flank. Obviously,
the most deadly movement against this line would be that made
nearest Warsaw ; but since the Germans had got so close to the
Niemen it was justifiable to attempt to cut it there, far as it was
from Warsaw, provided a great effort were also made against the
Narev section. The lighting on the Niemen and the Bobr there-
fore developed into the operations of the left wing and left centre
of the German armies. The extreme left wing did little. Turoggen,
on the right bank of the Niemen, was seized and held, but the
numbers were small, and no serious effort was made to force the
difficult line of the Niemen's tributaries, and take Kovno from the
north. The chief attacks were two. Eichhorn about 20th Feb-
ruary launched the veterans of the 21st Corps from Suwalki against
the Niemen a little north of Grodno. Dense forests on both sides
of the river made an effective screen, and the corps succeeded
in making the passage, and for the better part of a week maintained
themselves effectively on the eastern shore. They were unable
to move against the Warsaw-Petrograd railway, which was less
than ten miles off. The second attack was delivered against
Ossovietz, the fortress which Hindenburg had previously assaulted
in September. Then, it will be remembered, the Germans had
failed to find emplacements for their heavy guns in the wide marshes,
for Ossovietz stands on a strip of hard land, where run the railway
and the highroad, and on all sides the swamps creep up to its skirts,
while the only good gun positions for miles round are part of the
defences of the fortress. This second siege of Ossovietz was con-
ducted with great determination, and lasted for the better part
of a fortnight. It made no impression, for in those flat, snow-
clad wastes, where every knuckle of dry soil was known to the
defence, there were no opportunities for screening the big howitzers,
and the guns of the fort seem to have rapidly silenced them.

By the beginning of March the Russian counter-attack had
developed, and everywhere, from Kovno to the Narev, tlie invaders

1915] THE ATTACK ON THE NAREV. 525

were checked. The 21st Corps had to leave its perch across the
Niemen. On 5th March the serious attack on Ossovictz cndtHl,
and the big howitzers were shipped on their raihvay carriages.
By the middle of March Hindenburg had drawn back his left and
left centre to a position some ten miles inside Russian territory,
and covering his own frontiers. He had achieved one part of his
purpose. He had cleared away for good the Russian menace in
East Prussia, and had established an abiding threat to Warsaw
from the north.

We turn to the simultaneous campaign on the Narev, where
the right wing of the VHI. Army under von Scholtz was engaged,
presently reinforced by a detachment from the X. Army under von
Gallwitz. Here lay the crucial part of the operations, for here
lay the nearest flank road to Warsaw. Hindenburg, after the blow
to the Russian right, hoped to find the Narev so ill guarded
that he might cross it and take possession of the main railway
before Russia grasped his purpose. His winning card was the
East Prussian lines, which allowed him to move men speedily
and securely and far behind his front.

We must note the details of the Narev valley, from the point
where it receives the stream of the Bobr. It flows in a tortuous
course generally to the south-west in a marshy district, mostly
heavily forested, and with few ridges to break the monotony.
North of it and east of Przasnysz there are some hills of consider-
able height, with forests patching their sandy slopes. It had a
series of fortified towns commanding the chief crossings, which,
beginning from the east, were Lomza, Ostrolenka, Rozhan, Pul-
tusk, and Sierok, where it joins the Bug about fifteen miles from
Novo Georgievsk. The great Warsaw -Petrograd line ran from thirty
to forty miles south of it, and sent off several branches, which
met at Ostrolenka. These branches were the only railway connec-
tions of the Narev valley. Just west of it ran the important line
from Warsaw to East Prussia through Mlawa. The town of
Przasnysz lies about half-way between the East Prussian frontier
and Rozhan on the Narev. Eight roads converged upon it, and
gave it, therefore, some strategical value. To the east lay the
low, boggy valley of the river Orzyc, at that time deep in snow.
West was a ridge about two hundred feet high, which separated the
Orzyc system from the little valley of the river Lydynia, down which
ran the Mlawa-Warsaw railway. About the middle of February
the Russian Army of the Narev — the Twelfth Army commanded
by General Plehve — was very weak. The strongest part, its left,

526 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Feb.

had been in action towards Plock since January. In front of
Przasnysz there was an outpost of a single brigade, and between
Przasnysz and the railway was another outpost, a division strong,
holding the ridge between the two watersheds.

On Monday, the i8th, the Germans, now reinforced by Gallwitz's
detachment, began to concentrate on the line Mlawa-Chorzele,
being well served by the lateral frontier railway from Soldau to
Willenberg, and by the Mlawa-Warsaw line on their right. The
advance began on Monday, 22nd February. The right came
down the Mlawa railway, the centre from Chorzele down the main
highroad to Przasnysz, and the left down the Orzyc valley in a
flanking movement directed apparently against Ostrolenka and
the Narev. The single Russian brigade in front of Przasnysz
was driven back upon the town, and on the 24th the Germans
under von Morgen captured Przasnysz, taking a number of guns
and about half the isolated brigade. There remained only the
division which had taken its stand on the ridge which lies between
Przasnysz and Czechanov on the river Lydynia. On the 23rd
this force was assaulted by the German right from the Mlawa
railway, and by the centre from Przasnysz, which attacked by
way of the village of Vola Vierzbovska, to the south-east of the
ridge. Meantime the left wing was proceeding down the Orzyc,
and had taken the town of Krasnosielce, and was threatening
Ostrolenka and Rozhan. This most critical situation was saved
by the division on the ridge. Fighting a battle on two fronts, it
held out for more than thirty-six hours — till the evening of Wed-
nesday, the 24th, when the 4th Siberian Corps had begun to come
up. They came by Czechanov, where they strengthened the line
of the heroic division, and other supports arrived from Pultusk,
Rozhan, and Ostrolenka, against the German right and centre.
The enclosers had now become the enclosed, for the German centre
was hemmed in at Vola Vierzbovska, between the Russians on the
ridge and the corps coming from the valley of the Narev. The
Russian right meanwhile had attacked Krasnosielce, and driven
the German left off the Orzyc. The invaders were being pressed
in on three sides, and driven northward through Przasnysz.

This battle was fought under conditions which are scarcely
to be paralleled from the history of modern war. Russia, hard
put to it for munitions and arms, was unable to equip masses of
the trained men that she had ready, and it was the custom to have
unarmed troops in the rear of any action, who could be used to
fill gaps and take up the weapons of the dead. At Przasnysz men

1915] PRZASNYSZ. 527

were flung into the firing line without rifles, armed only with a
sword-bayonet in one hand and a bomb in the other. That meant
fighting, desperate fighting, at the closest quarters. The Russians
had to get at all costs within range to throw their bombs, and then
they charged with cold steel. This was berserker warfare, a defi-
ance of all modern rules, a return to the conditions of the primitive
combat. But it succeeded. The Germans gave ground before
numbers which were not their equal, and huddled into Przasnysz.
On Friday, the 26th, the Russians entered that town, and all
Saturday the battle raged among the snowy ridges towards
Stegna. By Sunday morning the enemy's strength was broken
and the retreat was ordered. The Battle of Przasnysz decided the
fate of Hindenburg's bid for Warsaw by a flank movement. It
was an action which had more affinity vdth. one of the struggles
of old days than with modern engagements. The stand on the
ridge with the enemy on both sides should have been impossible
by all the text-books. But with Russian armies impossibilities
happened, and the fight deserves to rank in the history of the
war with Foch's two-fronted battle at Fere-Champenoise and
Smith-Dorrien's at Le Cateau.

III.

The scene now changes to the Russian left, where the battles
of the spring were for the most part a long struggle for the moun-
tain passes. To capture a pass it is not sufficient to hold the crest
at the watershed. The debouchment into the enemy's country
must also be held, for it is precisely at the debouchment that the
point of danger lies. The invader, shut up in a strait mountain
valley, has no lateral communications ; but this is an advantage
to him till he has descended the farther slope, for he is immune
from flank attacks. But when he would issue from the pass into
the enemy's lowlands, he is at once exposed to assault from many
routes, and unless he can hold the foothills, which will allow him
to debouch and deploy, he can make little of his mountain vantage
points.

In examining the struggle for the Carpathians, which lasted
through December and January, and started with new force at the
close of the latter month, it must be kept in mind what it means
to hold the passes. Brussilov held all the main ones in October,
because he commanded all their outlets to the Hungarian plains.

528 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Jan.

Russia lost them all in December — lost in some cases her own
Galician approaches. By Christmas she had regained all the
Galician entrances, and was almost on the crest of the Dukla.
On the first day of January she had carried the watershed west
of the Uzsok, and had begun to pour down the Hungarian glens
towards Ungvar. Presently she was struggling for the Lupkow,
and word came of her cavalry at Meso Laborcz on the southern
side. In the mass of news of those operations in the hills it was
hard to find exact truth, for the simple reason that no distinction
was made in the communiques between the main position of an
army and the doings of a cavalry patrol. For example, a few
weeks later Russian successes were reported at Munkacs, thirty
miles south of the Carpathians, while on the same day a little
farther east there was a vigorous Austrian attack on Russian
positions fully twenty miles north of the range. This did not
mean that the Russian line was indented like a nightmare saw,
but only that a cavalry vanguard had shown exceptional boldness.
But during January and February 1915 Russia did not hold any
of the passes in the true sense. She could not have debouched
from any of them in safety. Her main position was still on the
north side of the Carpathians. Brussilov in his mountain campaign
was not yet inaugurating an offensive. He was endeavouring to
clear his flanks, to win back the ground he had held in October.
The real offensive of these months was farther east, in the Bukovina.
But Brussilov's advance was met by a vigorous Austrian concen-
tration, which was directed to one single object — the relief of
Przemysl. The enemy right wing had been reinforced by German
troops, and knowing well that the great fortress was in extremis,
they made one last effort to save it and drive Brussilov from the
Galician foothills.

In an earlier chapter the nature of the Carpathian range has
been sketched, but the time has come to look more closely at its
character. It bends in a semicircle round the Hungarian plain,
but it is not to be regarded as a single continuous ridge, like the
Pyrenees. At the north-western end is the mountain country of
North Hungary, a region more than a hundred miles wide from north
to south, which includes the bare volcanic range of the High Tatra
and the loftiest peaks of the system. At the south-eastern end is
a still broader mass, formed by the hilly country of the Bukovina,
which acts as a bastion, and, inside the loop of the chain, the great
mountain district of Transylvania, bounded on the south by the
Transylvanian Alps. The central part of the range, which was

igiS] THE CENTRAL CARPATHIANS. 529

the theatre of the campaigns, forms a kind of curtain between
the two flanking masses. Here he the chief passes, and here is
the main route from the north to the plain of Hungary — the road
traversed centuries ago by Tartar and Magyar invaders. Between
the valleys north and south of the watershed there is a notable
difference. In the north they are separated by long spurs of
hill, and run roughly parallel and some distance apart ; but in
the south — owing to the semicircular nature of the chain — they
converge rapidly on each other, and their streams unite to form
the Theiss. In general the distance from plain to plain over
the central range is not less than thirty miles. The rock is mainly
sandstone, with some few volcanic outcrops on the south which
form peaks and precipices. Sandstone means for the most part
easy slopes, rounded tops, and wide valleys. Unlike the High
Tatra, too, the section is heavily wooded, and as we go east the
woods increase till the range is one undulating forest. On the
lower lands the trees are beech, and as the ground rises fir and
pine clothe it till just short of the summits. The Bukovina means
the country of beech woods.

The central Carpathians, from the Dukla Pass to the Bukovina,
were, therefore, the easiest avenue between Hungary and the
north. There the summits were lowest and the range most narrow.
There were also good lines of lateral communication on both sides,
as well as five railways crossing the chain. On the Galician side
a line followed the foothills, and hnked up the mouths of the glens
from Sandek to Stryj. On the Hungarian side the branch lines
running into the hills were connected by a good main line from
Pressburg by Budapest and Miskolcz to Munkacs. So far as com-
munications went, both the combatants were reasonably well
served. But the danger was greater on one side than on the other.
From the nature of the topography, to conquer Hungary from
Galicia was easier than to conquer Galicia from Hungary. An
enemy once south of the passes must advance along valleys which
quickly converged, and whenever he approached the junction
point his advent would make the position of troops in the other
converging valleys untenable. On the Galician side, on the con-
trary, the long parallel valleys, which often in their earlier courses
run in the same direction as the range, gave the defence strong
positions, and enabled one part of the front to keep its ground in
one valley, though the invader had driven in the outposts in a
neighbouring glen. \Mien Austria made her effort to save Przemysl
there was a defensive as well as an offensive purpose in her move-

530 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Jan.

ment. Unless Brussilov were driven right away from the passes,
unless Austria held the Galician debouchments, there was no
security for those rich Hungarian cornlands in which the sowers
would soon be busy, and from which Germany looked to make good
the deficiencies of her coming harvest.

While Brussilov was endeavouring to push across the passes
from the Dukla to the Uzsok, the extreme Russian left moved
through the Bukovina towards the Carpathian watershed. Brus-
silov, it will be remembered, had seized Czernovitz, the capital,
and Kolomea in the first half of September, after the victory of
Lemberg, and ever since the northern Bukovina had been in Russian
hands. Very early in the new year a forward movement began
on the left by a small Russian force — not more than a division —
which was opposed by an Austrian force but little stronger. On
6th January the town of Kimpolung was captured, and the Russians
had fought their way for eighty miles to the mountain watershed.
Almost the whole of the Bukovina was now in their hands. On
17th January they took the pass of Kirlibaba, a low saddle between
wooded ranges, over which runs the road from Kimpolung to the
Hungarian town of Maramaros Sziget. The main pass of those
parts, the Borgo, which Hes in the angle where Transylvania, the
Bukovina, and Rumania meet, was not in their possession ; and
this was the most vital pass, for it gave access by the Szamos
River to the lateral communications of the Austrian front, and
by the Maros River to the heart of Transylvania.

A great army does not adopt a serious offensive with one divi-
sion. The Russian movement in the Bukovina was not strategical
but political in its import. Russia had not sufficient forces to
turn the enemy's flank, but she had enough for a pohtical diver-
sion. The Bukovina advance was directed to the address of
Rumania. That country was in a position of peculiar difficulty.
Strategically, she commanded the Austrian right rear ; com-
mercially, she was one of Germany's main supply grounds for
petrol and grain. She was intimately linked with Italy in her
foreign policy, and it was generally believed that the entry of the
one on the side of the Allies would soon involve the adhesion of
the other. But, at the same time, her situation was dangerous,
for on her flanks she had a hostile Turkey and a dubious Bulgaria.
Moreover, while she had little love for the Teutonic League, she
was still profoundly suspicious of Russia, and the loss of Bessa-
rabia rankled scarcely less than the loss of Transylvania. During
the month of January arrangements were made for the advance

1915] BRUSSILOV'S POSITION. 531

by the Bank of England of £5,000,000 against Rumanian Treasury
Bills — an arrangement which pointed to a considerable progress
in her negotiations with the Alhes. But to make her way clear
it was necessary to remove the menace of Turkey, and, as we shall
see later, the Allies took steps to achieve this result by their Dar-
danelles operations. Further, some pressure must be brought to
bear on popular opinion, and the presence of a Russian army on
the threshold of Transylvania might prove a potent influence.
The Bukovina and Transylvania contained a large population
Rumanian in blood and language. If Rumania allowed these
districts to be occupied by Russia and still remained neutral,
she would have little prospect of making a successful claim to the
annexation of any part of them at the close of the war. If she
hoped for Transylvania, she must play her part in winning it.
But if the Russian advance aimed at putting pressure upon Ru-
mania to join the Allies, it was also aimed at facilitating her co-
operation if she took the plunge. The map will show how the
Bukovina dominated the communications between Rumania and
the Russian front in Galicia. The main Rumanian line ran
north, and connected by Czernovitz and Kolomca with Lemberg
and the Galician system. If the Bukovina were held by Austria,
Rumania would be compelled, should she intervene, either to
attack Hungary by the Transylvanian passes — a difficult course,
which would turn her effort into an isolated campaign, cut off
from all direct communication with the Russian front — or she
would be forced to send her troops by a long circu;t through Bes-
sarabia and Podolia.

The position towards the end of the third week in January
was, therefore, as follows : Brussilov held the crests of the Car-
pathians at the Dukla Pass, and practically at the Lupkow, and
everywhere else the Russian line was close up to the northern
foothills. If the advance here was pushed with vigour the upper
valleys of the Theiss might be won, and converging columns would
descend on the Hungarian plains. In the east of the chain the
Russians had won the watershed at Kirlibaba, had occupied all
the Bukovina except the small south-western corner around the
Borgo Pass, and were threatening to bring about that political
result — the entrance of Rumania into the struggle — which Austria
especially dreaded. The situation called for a great effort, and,
with Germany's aid, Austria was ready. On 13th January Count
Berchtold, the Austrian minister of Foreign Affairs, resigned his
portfolio. A great nobleman and landed proprietor, he had foimd

532 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Jan.

politics an uncongenial task. His place was taken by Baron
Stephen Burian, a Hungarian diplomatist, who was of the party
of the Hungarian Premier, Count Tisza. We may regard Count
Tisza as now the one dominant influence in the policy of the Dual
Monarchy. It was his own Hungary that was threatened, and he
was resolved that no German preoccupation with East Prussia
and Warsaw should prevent him from holding the enemy in the
gates.

The Carpathian campaign was fought in deep snow — three
feet or more on the saddles, and far deeper in the glens. East-
ward, among the beech woods, the weather improved, but for the
most part the conditions were scarcely less rigorous than those
which Enver some weeks before had faced in the Caucasus. The
sufferings on both sides were terrible ; but it was worse for the
Austrians, who were of a less hardy breed than the Russian peasant
soldiers, and were less accustomed to a bitter winter. In the
last week of January the sun shone in the mountains and observers
described how the virgin white of the slopes, as the battles pro-
gressed, became a vivid scarlet with the blood of the fallen. In
February blizzards were the rule, and the fighting in the uplands
slackened perforce, though the struggle in the foothills continued.
The Austrian forces were grouped in three main armies. In
the section from the Dukla to the Uzsok was the army of
Boroevitch, charged with the relief of Przemysl. In the section
from the Uzsok to the Wyzkov Pass, directed along the Munkacs-
Lemberg railway, was the army of the German von Linsingen, which
contained various German formations, and which had for its Chief
of Staff Ludendorff, bitterly contemptuous of his allies, and com-
plaining that Germany had bound herself to a corpse. Farther
east was the army of von Pfianzer-Baltin, moving upon the
Bukovina, mainly by the Delatyn or Jablonitza Pass. The whole
offensive was skilfully stage-managed. Rumours were set about
that Austria meditated a great attack upon Serbia, and that four
German corps had been sent south for the purpose. A pretence
was made of bombarding Belgrade and occupying islands in the
Danube. But the troops never got farther south than the railway
junction of Miskolcz, whence they went eastward to the Mara-
maros valleys.

The Austrian left made Httle progress. It was held by Brus-
silov on the Dukla and Lupkow ; but it crossed the Rostoki and the
Uzsok, and forced the Russians back on the upper stream of the
San about Baligrod. The resistance of the Russian right at this

1915] THE AUSTRIAN COUNTERSTROKE. 533

point was much assisted by the work of Dmitrieff and the Army
of the Donajetz, who, on a front from the Vistula to Zniif,'rod,
checked the offensive of the Austrian II. Army, and inflicted on
it severe losses. East of the Lupkow, however, the Austrians
won all the passes, and poured their troops into Galicia. Lin-
singen, moving by the railway pass of the Beskid, and the two road
passes Vereczke and Wyzkov, advanced in the direction of Stryj
and Lembcrg. Farther east, Pilanzcr-Baltin crossed the range by
the old Magyar and Tartar ways, and advanced upon Stanislau
and Kolomea ; while on 23rd January his right wing pushed the
Russians off the Kirlibaba Pass, and three days later was close
upon Kimpolung.

The two points of danger were the advance of the Austrian
centre on Strj'j and of the Austrian right upon Stanislau. A
strategical blunder seems to have been committed in the first
region. The capture of Stryj and the upper valley of the Dniester
would be the first step to the relief of Przemysl, and the attack
was pushed here with a force which could have been used to more
purpose in the Bukovina. Przemysl showed once again the fatal
magnetism which a fortress can exercise both on the attack and
the defence. Linsingen's effort shipwrecked upon the difficulties
of the Galician foothills. The glens run long and straight towards
the Dniester. The pass, which is variously called the Vereczke
and the Tucholka, carries a road which crosses a minor ridge,
and descends by a tributary glen to the valley of the Opor.
The pass, called the Beskid or the Volocz, carries a railway which
continues down the Opor valley. Between the meeting-place
of these two roads — that is, between the Opor and the stream
which runs from the direction of the Vereczke Pass — is a ridge
which takes its name from the village of Koziova, and which is
marked in the map as 992 metres. It rises steeply, is forested
to its summit, and its roots are washed by foaming torrents.
There, during February and the first days of March, Brussilov's
centre withstood Linsingen's assault. The action of Kozio\-a
saved vStryj and Lemberg, prevented the relief of Przemysl, and
gave time for reinforcements to reach the Bukovina. The
Russians, so long as they held the heights, prevented the debouch-
ment of the Austrian columns, and in spite of desperate bayonet
attacks they could not be dislodged. The situation was an in-
structive commentary on the nature of mountain warfare. The
two Austrian forces, moving by two different passes, could not
co-operate because of the high land between them. If the forces

534 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Feb.-Mar.

on the left needed reinforcements from the right, they must be
taken back over the range to the point north of Munkacs where
the two routes diverged. The Russians, holding the valley mouths
and all the plains behind them, were in a far easier position. The
selection of Koziova for a stand showed good generalship, for it
was the main strategic point of the central range. So long as the
Lupkow and the Dukla were held, and so long as the openings
of the Rostoki and the Uzsok were stoutly guarded, the defence
of Koziova meant the safety of Galicia.

The Austrian right made better progress. About i8th February,
moving from the southern corner of the Bukovina at Kimpolung,
and also by way of the Jablonitza Pass down the valley of the
Pruth, it took Czernovitz, on the railway from Rumania, and
presently Kolomea, which is the junction between the Jablonitza
line and the railway from Czernovitz to Lemberg. Between 27th
February and 3rd March it advanced northward and took Stanislau,
from which ran the line which followed the foothills to Stryj and
Przemysl. It was a conspicuous success, for it threatened the
Russian main communications. From Stanislau, as the crow flies,
it was only some seventy miles to Lemberg and some fifty to
Tarnopol, through which ran the line to Kiev and Odessa. It
did not succeed, however, in forcing the Russians behind the
Dniester. The weak Russian left fell back rapidly, fighting small
delaying actions, till it reached a position where reinforcements
could join it. On the 3rd of March these reinforcements arrived,
and the enemy was driven out of Stanislau, and the menace to
the Stanislau-Stryj hne removed. During the next fortnight
the Austrian right was slowly pushed back almost to the Kolomea-
Czemovitz Hne. By 21st March the position in the Carpathians
was that the Russians held the Dukla, and were close on the crest
of the Lupkow. They did not hold the Rostoki or the Uzsok,
but held in strength the northern debouchments, so that they were
of no use to the enemy. All the passes to the east of the Uzsok
were in Austrian hands, but the true debouchments had not been
won till the Jablonitza was reached, from which point to the
Rumanian frontier the Austrian armies were from sixty to a
hundred miles north of the watershed. The main strategical
object of the offensive had failed, for Przemysl was no nearer to
relief or Lemberg to recapture.

On Monday, 22nd March, after an investment of nearly seven
months Przemysl fell. The city had been famous as a fortress
for nearly a thousand years. In the early ages it held the outlets

1915] THE SIEGE OF PRZEMYSL. 535

of the main passes between Hungary and the north — a Turin or
a Verona of the East. Often these old mountain citadels have
been hardly used by the modern world ; railways have shunned
them, the route which made their fame has been left to gypsies
and foot travellers, and the once famous fort stands like an empty
sentry-box at the gate of a dismantled palace. But Przemysl
had never lost its value. Its first modem forts were begun in
1871 ; it was enlarged in 1887, when there was a prospect of
trouble with Russia ; it was rebuilt in 1896 ; and was fully brought
up to date in 1909. It was the first of Austria's defensive schemes
against an eastern invader. The fortress owed its modem impor-
tance to its situation astride the railways. The main trunk line
between Cracow and Lemberg had been bent round so that it ran
through the enceinte. It was true that there were routes inde-
pendent of Przemysl. The armies of the Donajetz could draw
their supplies from Lemberg and Kiev either by way of Jaroslav
and Rava Russka on the north, or by the southern line which
skirted the Carpathians via Jaslo, Sanok, and Stryj. But these
were only makeshifts. The trunk line was by way of Tamow,
Jaroslav, Przemysl, and Lemberg, and with Przemysl in the
enemy's hands the trunk line was useless. Supplies had to make
a laborious detour to north or south, and such an encumbrance
meant much to Russia, when every hour and every man counted.
The situation of Przemysl did not make it an ideal ring fortress.
The heights were insufficiently isolated, and on the north-eastern
side there was the widening plain of the San. The city lay on
the right bank of that river, which was crossed by two road bridges
and one railway bridge. Round it, at a distance of about a thou-
sand yards, was a strong system of inner lines. Beyond this there
was an intermediate circle of forts, mostly small, and beyond
these again, at a distance of about six miles from the city, a circle
of outer forts, consisting of nine main works, with numerous
smaller connecting fortins. The distance between these forts
was not regular, but depended upon the nature of the ground.
Przemysl was defended, therefore, like Liege or Namur, its first
Hne being the great forts themselves, and not, like Verdun, the
far-flung trenches of a field army. Had Russia been well supplied
with siege artillery its fall would have been assured in the first
month.

When Lemberg fell in the beginning of September part of
Auffenberg's army took refuge in Przemysl, and the numbers
of the invested were increased by the debacle of Ra\ a Russka a

536 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Mar.

fortnight later. The place in normal times had some 50,000
inhabitants, mostly Jews, and this total must have been increased
by refugees from the surrounding country. The bulk of four
Austrian army corps were now inside, and the total must have
been over 200,000 souls. Provisions had not been collected on
any great scale, and by the middle of October starvation was
within sight. Then came the first assault of Hindenburg upon
Warsaw, when Ivanov retired behind the San, and by 15th
October the investment had been broken. All the west and
north of the city was open, and remained so until, Hindenburg
being in full retreat, the Austrian left had to retire westward to
conform. Przemysl, therefore, had leisure to prepare for the
second and grimmer blockade. It was known that large sup-
plies of food and ammunition had been brought in ; it was
believed that most of the Austrian population had been sent
out ; and when the ring closed round it about 12th November,
even the Russian General Staff assumed that whatever man could
foresee in the way of defence had been prepared. The astonishing
thing is that nothing had been done — nothing that touched the
heart of the question. Austrian strategy in all that concerned
Przemysl was bewildering in its incompetence. Why, to begin
with, was so great a point made of its defence ? Its possession
meant much to Russia, but more in the way of convenience than
stark necessity. It did not block completely her communications
or veto finally her movements against the passes. Nor did it
give Austria any conspicuous advantage worth the seclusion of so
large a force. Verdun was worth an army to France ; Przemysl
to Austria was not the equivalent of a corps. This was the view
of the Russian Staff, and the event proved them right. But if
Austria thought fit to hold it at all costs, why were not the means
proportioned to the end ? Kusmanek, the commandant of the
fortress, was a man just over fifty, a commander, apparently, of
fair ability, as the Austrian army went, but of a foresight even
lower than the Austrian average. He did not propose to hold the
place with a field army in outer entrenchments ; he guessed
rightly that Russia could not easily batter down the first line
of works ; and for the purpose which he set himself 50,000 men
were ample. Instead of that, he crowded inside the twenty-five
miles perimeter something like 150,000, and part of these were
cavalry ! In short, he kept the same garrison as had blown in
by accident in September after Autfenberg's misfortunes. Those
who had sought Przemysl for sanctuary were retained for its

=^0 ^AM JAH3H30

1915] FALL OF PRZEMYSL. 537

defence, in spite of their unwieldy numbers and inferior quality.
Moreover, he kept most of the civilian population. All that was
done in the days of respite was to bring in food and shells — as if
food or shells by themselves were a sufficient bulwark. Kusmanck,
with a personal staff of seventy-five, seems to have regarded
Przemysl as ideal winter quarters, and to have settled down to
the siege under the impression that long before the ample com-
missariat was curtailed relief would have come. The chance
given him in late October was neglected. The defence from the
first was at the mercy of its own mismanagement, and passed
from blunder to blunder. The Russian army of investment had
nothing to do but to wait on the certain consequences of their
opponents' folly.

Yet there was a moment when relief came very near. General
SeUvanov had never more than a small force, and little heavy
artillery. By the middle of December, it will be remembered,
Ivanov had to fall back from Cracow, as the Austrian attack
across the passes uncovered his left flank. On 15th December
the Austrians held the Galician debouchments of the Dukla
and Lupkow Passes, and were in Sanok itself, not thirty miles
from Przemysl. Selivanov's position was full of peril. The
Austrians coming through the passes were conversing by means
of searchlights with the Austrians in the fortress. The enemy's
guns sounded on both sides of the Russian lines. It was the
chance for a successful sortie, and on 15th December the sortie
came. Five Magyar infantry regiments broke through at the
south-west angle, and pushed fifteen miles beyond the outer lines
to Bireoza, on the Sanok road. For four days the issue hung in
the balance. SeHvanov brought reinforcements from another
segment, and drove back the sortie with a loss of 3,000 killed,
wounded, and prisoners. The more dangerous pressure from the
south was presently relieved by Brussilov, who cleared the mouth
of the passes, and by Christmas Day had restored the safety of
the Russian flank.

Thereafter stagnation set in. The Russians perfected their
position, and by means of light railways secured great mobility
round the whole circumference. There were no more sorties by
the garrison, but an enormous expenditure of ammunition, mainly
fruitless. The town itself was never shelled, and its streets
showed none of the ordinary siege casualties. But they showed
something worse, for famine began to stalk through them, since
the provisions laid in in October could not maintain the motley

538 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Mar.

multitude in the enceinte. The officers of the Przemysl defence
treated the siege as a business in which at all costs their health
and comfort must be protected, though it is hard to see what
purpose this protection served, for they were singularly supine.
They insisted on leading their ordinary lives of cafes and heavy
meals, while their men were fainting from starvation in the streets.
There were exceptions, of course, especially among the Hungarian
Honved regiments, who meant business ; but the conduct of
Kusmanek and his staff remains one of the ugly episodes of the
war.

On the night of 13th March the end began. The village of
Malkovice, in the north-west segment, on the line to Jaroslav,
was carried by a Russian assault. This meant that the outer
line of the defence had been successfully breached. The Russians
fortified the ground they had captured, and began a bombardment
of a section of the inner circle. Four days later, on the night
of the i8th, the garrison attempted a last sortie, which failed.
Very early on the morning of the 22nd, the Russian lines heard
the noise of many explosions. Kusmanek was busy at pur-
poses of destruction, and this he performed with an assiduity
unknown in his other methods of defence. About nine o'clock
the Austrian Chief of Staff arrived at Russian headquarters. He
brought a letter from Kusmanek, which ran : " In consequence
of the exhaustion of the provisions and stores, and in compHance
with instructions received from my supreme chief, I am compelled
to surrender the Imperial and Royal Fortress of Przemysl to the
Imperial Russian Army." A few Russian officers proceeded to
the Austrian headquarters and received the surrender, but there
was no formal and triumphal entry. The new Russian mihtary
governor took charge of the evacuation, sending off prisoners at
the rate of 10,000 a day, and making provision for the feeding of
those who remained.

The fall of Przemysl was not a Russian achievement so much
as an Austrian disgrace. It fell by its own momentum like an
overripe fruit. Selivanov had only to bide his time for Kusmanek
to do his work for him. We cannot, therefore, compare it with
any of the great sieges of history— with Lille, or Paris, or Port
Arthur ; for it was no case of a strife of inflexible wills and an issue
determined by overmastering skill or strength. Nor was its fall
a matter of prime strategical importance. Her success freed
Russia from a menace, improved her railway communications,
and gave her a good northern base against the central Carpathian

1915] HINDENBURG PLANS GREAT OFFENSIVE. 539

passes. But the real gain was the release of Sclivanov's army
for an active offensive. To observers in the West at the time it
appeared that Hindenburg had now shot his bolt, and that it
was Russia's turn to advance. They underestimated alike the
essential weakness of Russia and the boldness and efficiency of
the German Eastern Command. For at the moment Hindenburg
and his staff were devising a mighty stroke, destined to sweep
the Russian armies eastward like leaves in the wind, and to make
their recent hard-won victories seem a far-away, meaningless tale.

CHAPTER XXV.

NEUVE CHAPELLE.
Sth-i^th March.

The Purpose of Neuve Chapelle — The Use of Artillery — The Battle—
Its Consequences.

In the early stages of a campaign certain actions are fought which
seem at first sight of small importance. Their scale is such
that they would scarcely be noticed among the great battles of
the close. They are affairs of corps rather than of armies, of
divisions, even of battalions. But they are none the less epoch-
making, for they represent the first step in an experiment which
may control the future policy of the war. Of such a type was the
engagement at Neuve Chapelle, into which the British army
entered on loth March. It was intended by Sir John French
as a local enterprise to prepare the way for the great combined
assault of the summer. He had collected a modest reserve of
ammunition, and by dint of raking together every spare gun
from the whole of his front he hoped to explore the possibilities of
the new method of artillery " preparation " which the French had
already tried in Champagne. He did not expect to inflict a de-
cisive blow ; rather he wished to test the value of tactics which
seemed both to him and to Joffre the true ones to break down the
German defence, and to practise his troops and his Staff in the
type of action which promised to be the staple. The Dardanelles
expedition, from the policy of which he profoundly differed, was
beginning, and he was anxious for a success in the West which
should concentrate public attention on what he regarded as the
main battle-ground.

The Allied front in Flanders and northern France was by the
beginning of March little changed from its position in November.
On the Yser the floods were ebbing, for the German howitzers
had broken the dams near Nieuport which held them up, and by

510

I9I5] DISPOSITIONS ON THE WESTERN FRONT. 541

the middle of March troops could cross the meadows between the
railway line and the canal. South from Dixmude to the point
of the Ypres Salient lay French troops, relieved at intervals by
British cavalry. The southern re-entrant was held by the new
British corps, the 5th, under Major-Gcneral Sir Herbert Plumcr,
and south of them, behind Wytschacte and Messines, lay the
2nd Corps. Pulteney's 3rd Corps was in its old position astride
the Lys, in front of Armenti^res, and south of it from Estaires
to west of Neuve Chapelle was Sir Henry Rawlinson's 4th Corps.
The Indian Corps continued the line towards Givcnchy, where
the ist Corps carried it across the canal and linked up with Mau-
d'huy's Tenth Army. Maud'huy had greatly improved his position
by small successes on the ridge of Notre Dame de Lorettc, west
of Lens, but his line in its main features was that which he had so
stubbornly held in late October. But while the front remained
the same the Allied forces had been largely augmented. In
November Major-General Davies' 8th Division had arrived to
complete the 4th Corps. Early in January the 5th Corps had been
constituted under Sir Herbert Plumer, its two divisions being
numbered the 27th and 28th, to allow of the new service divi-
sions at home coming in between. These divisions were largely
composed of men brought back from tropical stations, who were
highly tried by the abrupt transition to a Flemish winter. In
February a Canadian di\'ision, under Major-General Alderson,
arrived, and by the beginning of March there were more Territorial
divisions with Sir John French than there had been Territorial
battalions in November. The British force had been organized
in two armies under the Commander-in-Chief : the First Army,
commanded by Sir Douglas Haig, embracing the ist, 4th, and
Indian Corps, and holding the line from La Bassee to Estaires ;
and the Second Army, commanded by General Sir Horace Smith-
Dorrien, continuing the front to the Ypres Salient, and including
the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Corps. It was still the day of comparatively
small things, but it is instructive to remember that the British
under Marlborough were rarely more than a division strong ; that
at Waterloo we had a division and a half ; that at our strongest
in the Peninsula we had no more than one modem army corps ;
that in the Crimea we had less than the strength of two divisions
of to-day ; and that at the full tide of the South African War
we had under a quarter of a million men. March saw a British
army assembled on the Flemish borders twelve times as large as
that which had triumphed under Wellington in the Peninsula, and

542 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Mar.

fifty-five times greater than the force which charged with King
Harry at Agincourt.

It had been decided as early as the middle of February that
an action should be staged to test a new theory of attack. If a
sufficiently powerful artillery fire were accumulated upon a section
of the front, parapet and barbed wire entanglements could be
blown to pieces, and if the artillery, lengthening its range, were
able to put a barrage of fire between the enemy and his supports,
the infantry could advance in comparative safety. To ensure
the success of such a plan complete secrecy was necessary, and for
a surprise the British were in an advantageous position. The
ascendancy in air work which they had exhibited made it difficult
for a German airplane to show its nose over their lines without
being promptly hunted back, while their own airmen were able
to make reconnaissances over the German front, and determine
where it was most weakly held.

The section chosen for the British attempt was the village of
Neuve Chapelle. It will be remembered that on i6th October
Smith-Dorrien's 2nd Corps took the village, and next day advanced
as far as Aubers and Herlies, and on the 19th took the hamlet of
Le Pilly, three and a half miles east of Neuve Chapelle, a position
which was the farthest won in this neighbourhood. The German
counter-attack pushed us back to just east of Neuve Chapelle,
and on 27th October they recaptured the place, so that by the
beginning of November we had fallen back to a line well to the west
of the village. There we remained during the winter months.
The German lines covered the village, and the British front ran
from Givenchy by Festubert, just east of Richebourg, just west
of Neuve Chapelle, and then north-east by Fauquissart and Bois-
Grenier to east of Armentieres. It will be seen that our line
between La Bassee and Neuve Chapelle represented a re-entrant
which might profitably be straightened. It was not so dangerous
an angle as that at St. Eloi, south of Ypres ; but in the Neuve
Chapelle section the war had long languished, and the enemy
was less on his guard than in the old cockpit of the Ypres ridges.

Looking eastward from the British front, Neuve Chapelle
showed a long, straggling line of houses among gardens, with a
tall white church standing conspicuous over the flats. As studied
in one of the photographs which airplanes obtained from above,
one main highroad was revealed running north from La Bassee to
Estaires. At Neuve Chapelle a second road left this, and went
by Fleurbaix to Armentieres, and a connecting road joined the

1915] THE LINES AT NEUVE CIIAPELLE. 543

two and formed a diamond-shaped figure, in the west an^'le of
which the village lay. The houses straggled round the road junc-
tion, those on the east being small and crowded together, and those
on the west larger and surrounded by gardens and orchards. At
the northern apex of the diamond was a small triangle, bounded
by roads and filled with plots and hedgerows. Between the
houses and the La Bassee road on the west were meadows and
ploughland, where lay the German trenches, our own being about
a hundred yards westward, close along the highway.

To appreciate the strategic importance of Neuve Chapclle, we
must continue our survey to the east. Two miles south-west of
Lille a low but clearly marked ridge began, which ran to the
village of Fournes, Smith-Dorrien's old October objective. At
Fournes it split into two, one following the main La Bassee road
to lilies, the other running west to Haut Pommereau and then
bending north-east to Aubers and Fromelles. The top of these
ridges was a low plateau, which, once won, would command the
approaches to Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing, and the cities of the plain
of the Scheldt. A small river, the Des Layes, flowed between
Neuve Chapelle and the ridges. This stream crossed the La Bassee
highway south of Neuve Chapelle at a place which we called Port
Arthur, and was crossed to the north-east by three roads, which
ran towards the ridges from the Neuve Chapelle-Armentieres
highway. Along the stream lay the German second line of de-
fence, with strong positions at the bridgeheads and a mile north-
east of the village at the Pietre Mill, whose tall chimney was one
of the landmarks of the place. A considerable wood, mainly of
saplings, the Bois du Biez, lay south-east of Neuve Chapelle, on
the left bank of the Des Layes, and another, the Bois de Pom-
mereau, clothed the ridge south of Aubers. Obviously if the
attack could be pushed so far as to carry the second German
position, the ridge would be won, the La Bassee-Lille line threat-
ened, and, if fortune were kind, Lille itself rendered untenable.

On 8th March Sir John French assembled his corps commanders
and expounded to them the plan of attack. The assault of Neuve
Chapelle was to be undertaken by the First Army, the 4th Corps
operating on the north and the Indian Corps on the south. In
order to keep the enemy occupied, and prevent him from sending
reinforcements, two supplementary attacks were arranged on
the flanks of the main movement — the ist Corps attacking from
Givenchy, and the 3rd Corps from the Second Army attacking
just south of Armentieres. The scheme, which had been worked

544 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Mar.

out by General John Gough, Haig's Chief of Staff, before his un-
timely death, was as prudent as it was bold ; but it made high
demands on our artillery, and it was to some extent at the mercy
of accident. It involved an artillery bombardment four times
greater than anything we had yet undertaken. First, the enemy's
trenches and entanglements must be destroyed ; then with a
lengthened range a curtain of fire must be hung between him and
his supports. To achieve this the staff work must be precise
and efficient. The infantry must advance at the right moment,
neither sooner nor later ; for if they were too soon they would run
into our own fire, or would find the enemy's defences unbroken,
and if they were too late the crushing effect of the bombardment
would be lost. No plan ever works out quite as it is intended,
and it might be necessary to modify some parts. Close communi-
cation must be kept up between the infantry and the gunners
far behind them. Dispatch-bearers were too slow, and telephonic
communication was apt to be destroyed in a bombardment, while
if there should be fog the difficulty would be increased. Every-
thing depended upon the artillery observers and upon the effective
co-ordination of the different units by the divisional staffs. So
far as surprise went, that could be made certain. We could catch
the enemy unawares, thanks to the brilhance of our air work.
But whether we should merely straighten our line, or drive a deep
wedge into the German front which would threaten Lille, depended
upon the thousand chances of battle which no human staff could
completely foresee.

Very quietly during the 8th and 9th our artillery was brought
together into a small area west of Neuve Chapelle. Every variety
of gun was there — field gun, field howitzer, 6o-pounder, coast
defence gun, and the new heavy howitzer, which was our answer
to Krupp and Skoda. The main field artillery positions were
just west of Richebourg, while the heavy guns were around La
Couture and Vieille Chapelle. From ten o'clock on the evening
of the 9th the infantry assembled in the March night. Every
trench and ditch was full of them, masses of expectant men wait-
ing on the order for the long-delayed advance. Hot meals were
served out along the line, and, like the soldiers of the Revolution,
they had hot coffee before sunrise. Then came a period of tense
silence. Waiting under arms is a nervous business at the best,
and doubly trying was such waiting as this, with the unconscious
enemy a hundred yards away, and all hell leashed in the great
guns behind. Down the line from Armentieres to La Bassee

1915] OPENING OF THE BATTLE.

545

there was the same eager anticipation. The men and the company
officers did not know when the main attack was to be hiunchcd.
All they knew was that they were on the eve of a great mox-cmcnt.

Dawn on the loth broke grey and sullen. The clouds hung low
in the sky, and there was mist in the distance. The first light
seems to have shown the Germans that something was astir in
the British Hne. The trenches were full of men, so ran the reports
of the outposts ; but the corps commander took no steps. Then
suddenly on the anxious ear of our troops fell the boom of
guns. It was our artillery firing " ranging " shots. Then all
was silent again, and from Armentieres to Givenchy battalion
commanders looked at their watches. At 7.30, punctually to a
second, the silence was torn by a pandemonium of sound, a new
thing in the experience of the British army. It split the ears and
rent the heavens, so that the troops, crouching under cover, were
dazed and maddened by the brain-racking concussions. Some-
times, when a gun trajectory was low, a shell passed close over
their heads. Sometimes, when the big howitzers fired, the shells
rose to the altitude of a high mountain before descending on the
doomed German trenches. The discharges were so rapid and in-
cessant that they sounded as if they came from some supernatural
machine gun. The earth vibrated as if struck by a great hammer.
The first shells that hit the German position raised a mighty cloud
of smoke and dust, and for the next thirty-five minutes we could
see nothing but a pall of green lyddite fumes and great mushrooms
of red earth. Barbed-wire entanglements were sliced through,
parapets — the work of months — were crumbled like sand castles,
and horrible fragments of mortality blew back upon us with the
lyddite wreaths. Four shells to the yard was our ration of fire,
and in this action there was more use of artillery than in a year
and a half of the South African War. The " preparation " lasted
thirty-five minutes, and at the end of it there were no German
front trenches — only a welter of earth and dust and mangled
bodies. At five minutes past eight our gunners lengthened their
range, and the houses of the village began to leap into the air.
Huge dust spouts went up to heaven ; trees were razed like grass
before a scythe ; and the cloud grew denser with the debris of
brick and mortar. Then the whistles blew along the line. The
time had come for the infantry to advance.

Due west of Neuve Chapelle lay two brigades of the Sth Divi-
sion— the 23rd to the left and the 25th on the right. South of
them, on a front a mile and a half long, was the Mccrut Di\ision,

546 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Mar.

with the Lahore Division behind in close support. On the left
was the Garhwal Brigade, with the Dehra Dun Brigade on its
right. The first attack was carried out by the 23rd against the
north-east corner of Neuve Chapelle, the 25th against the village,
and the Garhwal Brigade against the south-west corner. The
25th had no difficulty with the trenches opposite them. Dazed
and dying Germans were the only enemy left, though a machine
gun or two still kept up fire from concealed positions, and there
was much sniping. Our artillery bombardment continued, and
it was not till 8.35 that the range was again lengthened, in order
to interpose a curtain of fire between the village and the German
supports. Then the two battalions of the 25th Brigade swept
into the battered streets, in which every German was soon dead
or captured. WTiat had once been a village was now only a rubbish
heap. The church was a broken shard, and the churchyard,
horribly ploughed up with our fire, showed those long dead in their
graves. The ground was 3^ellow with lyddite, the fruit trees and
the oaks were torn up by the roots, and over the desolation in
the churchyard and at the cross-roads loomed two gaunt cruci-
fixes, which by some miracle had escaped destruction to point an
ironic moral.

The attack on the right by the Garhwal Brigade was at first
no less successful. It easily carried the first trenches, and swept
on to the Bois du Biez, past the heap of wayside ruins which was
once the hamlet of Port Arthur. But on the left of the attack
there was a different story. There the artillery preparation had
been insufficient, and in the northern corner of Neuve Chapelle,
where there was a slight hollow, the German trenches and barbed-
wire entanglements were still intact. Here the 23rd Brigade ad-
vanced, and the 2nd Scottish Rifles — the old Cameronians, who had
on their regimental rolls Lord Hill, Lord Wolseley, and Sir Evelyn
Wood — came up against unbroken wire and a storm of shot from
rifles and machine guns. The splendid battalion never wavered.
They tore at the wire with naked hands, but were compelled to
fall back and lie in the fire-swept open till one company got through
a gap and broke down the defence. They lost fifteen ofQcers,
including their gallant commander, and few regiments have
lived through a more dreadful hour. Scarcely less terrible was
the ordeal of the 2nd Middlesex on their right. They, too, were
mown down by machine guns in the open, and faced with wire.
A message was sent back to the gunners, and the Middlesex waited
in that zone of death till our shells had destroyed the entanglements.

1915] THE CHECK. 5^7

Meantime the success of the 25th Brigade to the south had turned
the flank of the Germans north of the village, and presently the
whole 23rd Brigade had struggled through to the orchard north-
east of Neuve Chapelle, where they joined hands with the 24th
Brigade, which had attacked on their left from the Neuve Chapelle-
Armentieres highway. By midday our artillery isolated the
village with a curtain of shrapnel fire. No German counter-attack
was possible, for no reinforcements could pierce that screen, and
our men had leisure to secure the ground they had won.

Now was the moment, while the enemy were still stupid with
surprise, and demoralized by the awful bombardment of the morn-
ing, and while our own men were hot with victory, to push on and
carry the ridge which dominated the road to Lille. But the
scheme had not gone as smoothly as was hoped. All telephonic
communications had been cut by our own and the enemy's fire,
and it was hard to get orders quickly to the first line. The check
of the 23rd Brigade had put the whole movement out of gear, and
our front needed serious adjustment. Mistakes had been made.
" I am of opinion," Sir John French wrote in his dispatch, " that
this delay would not have occurred had the clearly expressed orders
of the general officer commanding the First Army been more care-
fully observed." There was also an unaccountable delay in bring-
ing the reserve brigades of the 4th Corps into action. It was not
till 3.30 in the afternoon that on the left of the 24th Brigade there
formed up the three brigades of the 7th Division — the 20th, 21st,
and 22nd, who had won for themselves immortal glory in the
October battle round Ypres. The left of the attack now swung
south, moving towards Aubers by the hamlet of Pietre. Simul-
taneously from the south the Indian Corps — the Garhwal and
the Dehra Dun Brigades— pushed toward the ridge through the
Bois du Biez. But everywhere they met with difficulties. The
Garhwal Brigade, on the south, came upon a German position
unbroken by artillery, and carried it only with desperate losses.
While it established itself on this new line, the Dehra Dun Brigade,
supported by the Jullundur Brigade of the Lahore Division, at-
tacked farther to the south, but were held up on the line of the
river Des Layes by a German outpost at the bridge. Haig brought
up the ist Brigade from the ist Corps to support, but darkness
fell before they arrived. Farther to the left on our front another
fortified bridge over the stream held up the 25th Brigade, while
the 24th was checked by machine-gun fire from the cross-roads
north-west of Pietre village, and the 7th Division by the line of

548 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Mar.

the Des Layes and the defence of the Pietre Mill. Everywhere in
this neighbourhood were strong positions which our artillery had
not yet touched, and to push an infantry attack was needless
sacrifice. Accordingly, as the grey evening closed in, we devoted
ourselves to strengthening our line on the ground we had won.
Neuve Chapelle was ours ; we had advanced a mile ; and we had
fully straightened our line. But the wedge had still to be driven
into the enemy.

Nothing could be done without artillery, so early on the nth
our fire was directed towards the Bois du Biez and the positions
around Pietre. Here and there the Germans rallied and counter-
attacked, and here and there we won a few hundred yards. But
the enemy had now recovered himself, the asset of surprise had
been lost, and our great artillery effort was exhausted. Such a
" preparation " as was seen on the morning of the loth could not
be repeated. During the night of the nth Geiinan reserves came
up from Tourcoing, and early on the 12th the counter-attack
developed in force all along our front. The mist continued, and
our guns could do little, for in the absence of proper communica-
tions between observers and batteries they were just as likely
as not to be shelling our own men. The stubborn bridgeheads
of the Des Layes still prevented access through the Bois du Biez
to the ridges, and the Germans held the fort around the Pietre
Mill and the neighbouring cross-roads, and so covered the approach
to Aubers. The German counter-attacks were badly co-ordinated
and effected Httle, but our own thrust was now rapidly spending
itself.

Much was hoped from the attack on the 12th, and the 2nd Cav-
alry Division under General Hubert Gough and a brigade of the
North Midland Territorial Division were ordered to support the
infantry, in the hope that there might be a chance for the cavalry
to get through. But when Sir Philip Chetwode with the 5th
Cavalry Brigade reached the Rue Bacquerot at four o'clock in the
afternoon, he was informed by Sir Henry Rawlinson that the
German positions were still unbroken, and he had regretfully to
retire to Estaires. All that day the 7th Divi-ion on our left
struggled against the Pietre fort, while the rest of the line attacked
the Des Layes bridges and the German second trenches in the
Bois du Biez. The hardest task fell to the 20th Brigade around
Pietre Mill. They took position after position, but without the aid
of artillery their task was hopeless. Farther south the 2nd Rifle
Brigade from the 25th Brigade pushed forward in the after-

(Facing p. S4^-)

i^^-i. .\l»<,:>li\)

1915] THE GERMAN COUNTER-ATTACKS. S-jQ

noon, and managed to carry a section of the German second
trenches. But enfilading fire made their position untenable, and
they were compelled to fall back on their old lines.

By the evening of the 12th it was clear that a stalemate had
been reached. We could not win to the German position com-
manding the ridge, and they could not retake Neuve Chapelle.
" As most of the objects for which the operation had been under-
taken had been attained," Sir John French wrote, " and as there
were reasons why I considered it inadvisable to continue the attack
at that time, I directed Sir Douglas Haig on the night of the I2lh
to hold and consolidate the ground which had been gained by the
4th and Indian Corps, and to suspend further offensive operations
for the present." Many of the German trenches were destroyed
by shell fire, many had been turned in to make graves, so all the
13th was spent by our weary troops in digging themselves into
the wet meadows along the Des Layes. By the 14th the two
corps which had fought the action had been withdrawn into
reserve.

The most severe counter-attack was not at Neuve Chapelle
but fifteen miles north, where the village of St. Eloi stood on the
southern ridge of Ypres. On the 14th of March, when the mists
lay thick on the flats, the Germans concentrated a mass of artillery
against the section held by the 27th Division. The village, which
lay along the Ypres-Armentieres road, was the point of that dan-
gerous southern re-entrant to the Ypres Salient which had been
fought for so fiercely in the great October battle. At five in the
afternoon a heavy bombardment began, and at the same moment
two mines were exploded beneath a mound which was part of our
front, to the south-east of the village. A fierce infantry attack
followed, with the result that our men were forced out of their
trenches. This led to the enfilading of the troops to the right and
left, and the whole section of the British front fell back. Then
came darkness, and under its cover we prepared our counter-
stroke. It was delivered about 2 a.m. on the 15th by the 82nd
Brigade, with the 8oth Brigade in support. The former drove the
enemy out of the village of St. Eloi, and retook part of the trenches
to the east, while the latter completed the work, and by daybreak
we had recovered all the lost ground which was of material
importance. In this action Princess Patricia's Canadian Light
Infantry especially distinguished themselves, the first of the over-
seas troops to be engaged in an action of first-rate importance.
Their deeds were a pride to the whole Empire— a i;ride soon to be

550 A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Mar.

infinitely heightened by the glorious record of the Canadian Divi-
sion in the desperate battles of April.

The attack on Neuve Chapelle was supported by a variety of
movements along the British front to prevent any sudden massing
of reinforcements. On the morning of the loth the ist Corps
attacked from Givenchy ; but there had been too little artillery
preparation, the wire entanglements were largely uncut, and the
most they could do was to hold the enemy to his position. On
the I2th the 2nd Corps had arranged to advance south-west of
Wytschaete against that troublesome German position on the
ridge which we had assailed in December. It was timed for ten
in the morning, but the mists hung so low that it was not till four
in the afternoon that the 7th Brigade could move. The mist
thickened, darkness drew near, and the attack had to be relin-
quished. More successful was the attack the same day on the
hamlet of L'Epinette, south-east of Armentieres. At noon the
17th Brigade of the 4th Division of the 3rd Corps, with the i8th
Brigade in support, advanced 300 yards on a front of half a mile,
carried the village, and held it against all counter-attacks. Our
artillery also succeeded on the loth in shelling the railway station
of Quesnoy, east of Armentieres, where some German reinforce-
ments were entraining ; and the fire of our great howitzers pene-
trated as far as Aubers on the ridge, where a tall church tower
dissolved in a cloud of dust. But the chief success in these sub-
sidiary operations was won by our airmen. During the three days
from the loth to the 12th of March the weather was the worst
conceivable for air work, and aviators were compelled to fly at a
height of no more than 100 or 150 feet to make sure of their aim.
One dropped a bomb on the bridge at Menin which carried the
railway over the Lys, and destroyed one of the piers ; others
wrecked the railway stations at Courtrai, Don, and Douai ; and
bombs were dropped on Lille, hitting one of the German head-
quarters. This whole air campaign was brilliantly conceived and
executed. To destroy vital points in the enemy's communica-
tions was as effective as a shrapnel curtain to bar him from his
reserves.

One result of Neuve Chapelle was to convince the British
army that they were facing an unbeaten enemy. When the de-
fence rallied, it fought with desperate valour, aided by its many
machine guns — there were fifteen on one stretch of 250 yards.
It showed admirable discipline, and handled its reserves with bold-

1915] DEDUCTIONS FROM THE BATTLE. 551

ness and precision. In the mind of the Gorman people the affair
produced a curious exasperation. "It is not war, it is murder,"
was the verdict passed on the British use of artillery by the
nation which had accumulated gigantic reserves of shell and had
already used heavy guns to prepare an action in a way unknown
to history. Considered as a batlle by itself, it was for the British
a Pyrrhic victory. On a front of three miles they had advanced
more than a mile, and the former sag in their line was now replaced
by a pronounced sag in the enemy's. But the cost had been
high, and the losses of the defence were probably not greater than
those of the attack. The result, in CromwcH's words, was not
" answerable to the honesty and simplicity of the design," and the
British reach had notably exceeded its grasp. This was partly
due to accident — the sudden clouding of the weather from loth
to 12th March. But there were also many grave blunders, which
proved that our organization was still far from adequate for a
serious offensive. The artillery preparation was patchy ; the staff
work as a whole, and especially that of the 4th Corps, was imper-
fect ; and there was an unexplained delay in bringing up the bri-
gades of the 7th Division after the advance of the 8th on ihe
morning of loth March. The observation work of the artillery
was faulty, with the result that occasionally our own advancing
troops were shelled, and more often the enemy's position was
left unbroken. It was our first attempt at the new tactics, and
inevitably we fumbled. Sir John French laid the chief blame
for the result upon the lack of ammunition. But in making his
plans he must have foreseen this, for the new British factories
w^ere not yet producing at full power, and he had accumulated
a reserve which he thought sufficient for the experiment. He had
not unnaturally miscalculated the strength required to effect his
purpose.

Neuve Chapelle was a test action, and the deduction from it
was to have a sinister effect on the Allies' conduct of the war. For
both to the British themselves and to the French Staff, who looked
on with the HveHest interest, it appeared that, after making all
allowances for inexperience and blunders, the new plan was justi-
fied. Guns could blast a way for infantry through the stron-
gest defences. Clearly the attack must be on a broader front,
otherv\dse the avenue of advance would be too narrow and de-
generate into a salient ; but on a broad front, granted Umitless
supplies of guns and shell, it seemed that success was assured.
This view, as we shall see, dominated all the plans for 19 15,

552 A fflSTORY OF THE GREAT WAR. [Mar.

and its many weaknesses were left undiscovered in the obsession
which had fallen upon the AUied commands. More serious was
the fact that it ossified the study of tactics, and turned the war
for long into a contest less of brains than of blind material force.
A false step had been taken which for three years was to be left
unretrieved.

End of Volume L

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