Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/251/1 - 1915 - 1936 - Part 3

The Times
Literary
Supplement
30/7/1931
CLEMENCEAU'S MINISTRY
LE MINISTÈRE CLEMENCEAU Journal d'un
témoin. Par le GÉNÉRAL MORDACQ. Three
volumes. (Paris: Plon. 45f.)
These three volumes give a full account, in
diary form, of the doings and sayings of Monsieur
Clemenceau during his Ministry, from
November, 1917 to June, 1919, when he was
not only Président du Conseil but Minister of
War. The writer of them was chief of his
Cabinet in his capacity of Minister of War, and
is an ardent partisan; he was a well-known
writer on strategy before the war, commanded
a Zouave brigade alongside the British at the
Second Battle of Ypres, and had been commanding
a division for two years when
Clemenceau summoned him to his assistance.
General Mordacq presents the picture of a
man of astonishing mental and physical
energy. How Clemenceau at once tackled the
traitors and defeatists, arresting even M.
Caillaux and having Bolo shot, is common
knowledge; but it is less well known that one
of the first acts of this man of seventy-six was
to set about "le rajeunissement des cadres."
His circular of December, 1917, ordered that
"all divisional commanders, brigadiers and
colonels who were, respectively, sixty, fifty-eight
and fifty-six years of age and did not
possess, in the opinion of their chiefs, all the
physical and intellectual vigour necessary,
should be placed at the disposal of the Minister
to be employed 'in the interior.' " He reorganized
the Ministry of War and the services
behind the front supplying men, material and
munitions, and in the minor theatres of war
and the colonies put "the right men in the
right places." He stopped temporary rank and
decorations being given to officers not employed
at the front, and insisted that special
promotion should go to the fighting commanders
rather than to staff officers with a
Staff College brevet: "Tout pour le front" and
"Je fais le guerre" were his watchwords. He
combed out "indispensables" and "embusqués,"
of whom no fewer than 110,000
were discovered and sent to the front in 1918.
And he saw to it that those who were employed
"in the interior" were still capable of
work. Perhaps he interfered more than he
should have done with purely military
matters, but the Constitution provided him
with several advisers; the commander of the
French armies, the Chief of the Staff and the
Chief of his Military Cabinet; and they did
not agree, Foch and Pétain, before the
Doullens Conference, holding completely opposite
views as regards both strategy and
tactics. The Minister of War therefore felt
it his business to conduct the War. He
actually made visits to the whole front,
British as well as French, in order to see for
himself which were the weak parts.
One of Clemenceau's normal days is described.
He rose early, between 5 and 6 a.m.,
and got to work at once. About 7.30 he did
physical exercises, which he never neglected.
At 8.45 a.m., or earlier, he arrived at the
Ministry of War; in the course of the morning
he held a meeting of the Cabinet or attended
the War Committee or conferences, returning
to the Ministry about noon. He generally
lunched about 1, received visits from 2 to 3,
and the went to the Chamber or the Senate.
Towards 5.30 or 6 he signed papers and received
more visits. At 8 p.m. he saw his immediate
subordinates and the Ministers, and
representatives of the Press. He dined at 9
and went to bed early. He never slept very
well. The second volume is full of clear-cut
opinions on the conduct of operations and the
strategic conceptions of both belligerents.
Clemenceau's remarks on the surprise at the
Chemin des Dames, May 27, 1918, are very
lengthy. He has excuses for Foch: there were
no strategic dangers from such an attack;
he has no reproaches in general for the fighting
troops, but "cannot say the same thing
for the higher commanders, from the corps
commanders to the commander of the Group
of Armies, who all had the prime duty of foreseeing
(that is the business of command) and
had the means of foreseeing." He goes into
details as regards the failure to destroy
bridges, the absence of counter-preparation
fire and the misuse of divisions in reserve.
There was some idea of removing General
Pétain, and General Guillaumat was bought
home from Salonika to be at hand to replace
him. The third volume (November, 1918 -
June, 1919) is taken up with the peace
negotiations.
In reviewing Clemanceau's work the author
claims that in a war of such dimensions "la
politique commande la strategie," that he
really conducted the war, and that, with
justice, he has been called "l'animateur de la
victoire."

The Times
Literary Supplement
6/3/30
GERMAN STRATEGY
LA STRATÉGIE ALLEMANDE PENDANT LA GUERRE
DE 1914-1918. Par le LIEUTENANT-COLONEL
WOLFGANG FOERSTER. Traduction du
COMMANDANT KOELTZ. Préface du
GÉNÉRAL WEYGAND. (Paris: Payot. 50frs.)
The original German work, "Graf Schlieffen
und der Weltkrieg," was reviewed in the
Literary Supplement some eight years ago.
The title of the French translation gives a
better idea of the contents than the
German one; for the author, who is now
Chief Archivist of the War records in
the Riechsarchiv, merely uses the teaching
of Field-Marshall Graf Schlieffen as
the guide by which to criticize the strategy
of the War as conducted by the three successive
Chiefs of the General Staff of the Field
Army, Moltke, Falkenhayn and Ludendorff.
It was Colonel Foerster's book which first
divulged the plan of the great offensive of
March 21, 1918, with its "Michael's I., II. and
III.," "St. George I. and II.," "Archangel,"
&c.: and the review of 1921 was devoted
almost entirely to a summary of this. General
Weygand recommends the book to French
readers as
une œuvre de grand valeur par le niveau élevé
auquel il se place, l'ampleur des questions étudiées,
la liberté d'ésprit avec laquelle il les aborde.
He adds, however, that "Commandant Koeltz
nous procure. . . l'occasion de mieux penetrer
la pensée des Chefs allemands." And
therein, indeed, lies the value of the book.
In general, Colonel Foerster finds that
Schlieffen's strategy of envelopment and annihilation,
with Hannibal's Cannae as model,
was right; and if it was not crowned with
success, that was solely because the Chiefs
of the General Staff who were entrusted with
the conduct of operations did not know how
to apply it, or were not able to do so. Ludendorff,
a "true child of Schlieffen," did his
best to follow his master's line of thought.
Much has been divulged in Germany in the
last eight years, since Foerster wrote, as
readers of the Literary Supplement know—
there have been reports of the Reichstag
Inquiry into the Loss of the War,
and the commentaries written on the
evidence by General von Kuhl, Colonel
Schwertfeger and Professor Delbrück.
Among other things we have learnt that
Colonel Wetzel, Ludendorff's strategic adviser,
proposed for March, 1918, a better plan than
the one which the First Quartermaster-General
adopted; it was in two separate
acts, not an attempt at one act with
a series of hurriedly improvised scenes
when this had failed. We know, too,
that Schlieffen meant to abandon East
Prussia to the enemy, and to march
through Holland. In the light of this new
knowledge, Schlieffen and Ludendorff do not
seem to deserve the eulogies showered upon
them by the author, and to be exponents of
the use of overwhelming numbers and brute
force rather than strategists.

The Times Literary Supplement
17/4/1931
CLEMENCEAU'S APOLOGIA
GRANDEUR AND MISERY OF VICTORY. By
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU. (Harrap. 21s.
net.)
It was not until after Foch's death that his
criticism of Clemenceau saw the light of day.
Fate has willed it that Clemenceau's reply
should also be published posthumously.
There is a real pathos in the fact that two men
whose collaboration once meant so much to
the world should raise angry voices against
one another from their graves. Clemenceau
feels it, and in one passage near the end of his
book questions his wisdom in writing it. But
something stronger than the need of answering
Foch drove him on. He is satisfied not
merely that what he did during the War and
at the Peace Conference was well done, but
that much of the best of it has since been
most wrongly undone, not only by Foch but
by many others, Poincaré at their head. His
book is therefore a justification of his whole
policy, and if the thrust of his reply is directed
against Foch it is because Foch gave the lead
in breaking up the unity of Frenchmen formed
to meet a danger which will certainly recur.
The enemy was there to make us friends. Foch,
the enemy is still there. And that is why I bear
you a grudge for laying your belated petard at the
gates of history to wound me in the back—an insult
to the days that are gone.
For Clemenceau Germany is still the Germany
of Bernhardi; and the greatest pathos of all
is that the old man could never see that the
world had moved beyond 1919, that he should
work again and again round the circle of
thoughts no longer cogent, that he should
labour almost to the last at his manuscript
in order to rally his countrymen once more
against the Boche.
This book has little fresh light to throw on
the preliminaries to Foch's appointment to
the Supreme Command, though it notes that
Lord Milner favoured Sir Henry Wilson's idea
that Clemenceau himself should be given
general powers of co-ordination with Foch as
his chief of staff—a position which, he adds in
a footnote, he would not have accepted had
it been offered him. He agrees that when the
crisis came Foch was the only man; that he
had already shown at the Marne and the Yser
his power to effect such "miracles of resistance"
as the situation demanded; and that
by his dauntless bearing at the Doullens Conference
he had really laid hold of control
before it was formally bestowed on him.
But he doubts whether Foch was was wholly successful
as Generalissimo. He suggest that his
faulty strategy was ultimately responsible for
the German break-through on the Chemin des
Dames; that he was not sufficiently resolute
in imposing his conceptions on Haig and
Pétain; and, above all, that he ought to have
insisted on Pershing giving him whatever support
he could, instead of waiting till an
American army could go into battle as a
whole.
It was, however, after the Armistice that
disagreements became acute. In Clemenceau's
view Foch was an insubordinate officer.
Foch's claim was that, as Commander-in-Chief
of the Allied Forces, he was entitled to advise
the Allied Governments directly. Clemenceau
held that, whatever his position, he remained
a French General and, as such, was under the
orders of the French Government.
When the Marshall asked me to assign to him an
official from the Quai d'Orsay to enable him to
discuss the question of peace direct with the
Germans, I could only take this request as an invitation
to relinquish in his favour the authority
vested in my office, which would then have been
reduced to communicating to the Allies (who, by
the way, would certainly not put up with it)
the decisions of the soldier put into proper terms
by a diplomat subordinate to him. Not for one
moment was I disposed to submit to being thus
despoiled of my prerogatives.
Moreover, Foch was not simply disobedient;
he was wrongheaded. Clemenceau's main contention
is that for Foch's peace of force he
himself substituted a peace of justice. He is
satisfied that such a peace is actually
brought into being by the Treaty of Versailles.
Under its terms the nations of Europe were
indeed set free; their aggressor was rendered
incapable of further mischief; and the new
order found its guarantee in the French
alliance with Britain and America. Here was
security infinitely greater than any strategic
annexation could give, and it had been
achieved without exposing France to the
charge of herself violating her cardinal principle
of national freedom.
Clemenceau takes it very hard that the provisions
of this treaty have been whittled
away. For him Locarno is but another scrap
of paper to be torn up when the occasion serves.
What is real is that Germany is again arming,
and that her undertaking to make reparations
has been scaled down at successive conferences
culminating in those Hague meetings "to
which Mr. Snowden knows how to impart a
tone of such peculiar courtesy." It irks
Clemenceau that he should have lived to see
Germany a Great Power again and America
turning her back on the Europe for which
she had once fought. His tribute to Wilson
is wholehearted; he found in him his own
desire to build up the peace on the eternal
principles of justice and liberty. But he cannot
forgive him the stiff-necked refusal of
concessions which might have saved a treaty
lost in the Senate by only six votes, and as
he broods over all the subsequent evil developments
he rounds on the American people.
You are still in the bloom and heyday of a young
civilization. You make us act the part of those
graybeards that are the laughing-stocks of the
stage, but who had their great days—without
which you would never have been what you are.
Do not despise Europe. Your judgements might
prove double-edged. Do not treat us too badly.
No one knows what fate history has in store for
you. A weaker brother is often useful in time of
need.
That time of need will come, possibly to
America, certainly to France, is Clemenceau's
deepest conviction.

The Times Literary Supplement
21/5/1931
THE BIDASSOA AND NIVELLE
WELLINGTON: THE BIDASSOA AND NIVELLE,
By MAJOR-GENERAL F. C. BEATSON.
(Edward Arnold 15s. net.)
General Beatson, once the instructor at
the Staff College, Camberley, of Field-Marshall
Lord Haig and many of the higher
commanders and Staff officers of the War,
is already known to the reading public
as the author of three monographs on Wellington's
operations in the Pyreneean area. His
latest volume, dealing with the forcing of the
Bidassoa and the Nivelle, is of more than usual
interest. First, because the fighting described
took place within easy reach of St. Jean de
Luz, and his work, handy to carry in the
pocket, will be of interest to British visitors to
that part of the world. Secondly, Wellington's
problem, in face of Soult's positions
covering the passages of the two rivers, was
similar, on a small scale, to that which confronted
the Allies in Palestine and on the
sea flank on the Western front; and we are
shown how he tackled his problem, on one
occasion turning and on the other breaking
the enemy's front. Surprise, dawn attacks,
and engagement of the enemy along the whole
line, but more strongly at some places than
others, were the Duke's main weapons;
artillery fire is only mentioned to be called
"slight."
In September, 1813, the Allied Army, commanded
by Wellington—both Spain and
Portugal had confided their troops to him
and there was "unity of command"—
stood on the frontier of France. It was the
desire of the British Government that he
should advance into France in the hope that
such a move would spur the other Allied
Powers in Central Europe to greater activity,
prevent Napoleon from sending reinforcements
against them from the large force of
veteran soldiers still in Southern France,
and bring a large and wealthy area under
British control. The Government were good
enough to forward the Duke extracts from
a scheme for the proposed advance prepared
by a French émigré officer, probably General
Dumouriez. In acknowledging the receipt of
this Wellington commented:—
It is like all those I have received from French
officers, and might answer well enough if I could
afford, or the British Government or nation would
allow my being as prodigal of men as every French
general is.
The forcing of the Bidassoa is curiously
like Lord Allenby's opening operations in
Palestine. Wellington began by showing
troops to persuade Soult that he meant to
attack the French left, and then threw his
own left across the Lower Bidassoa and
turned the enemy's right. He did not,
however, trust to the flank attack alone,
assailing simultaneously, but not uniformly,
every sector of the French front, sending
overwhelming force against certain points
and little against others. By this method
several breaches were made in the twelve-mile
long French line, and the successful
troops were in a position to render flanking
assistance to others who were in need of it.
The surprise was complete, and the French
first position broken; all that the French
reserves could do was to hold rallying points,
and they managed to do this only because
Wellington ceased to advance: he had forced
the gateway, but was unwilling to make any
further forward movement until the surrender
Pamplona, behind him, had taken place.
For a month the two armies faced each
other and dug themselves in, the French
front covering a line of redoubts, batteries,
defended houses and trenches already constructed.
From lack of men Soult, at any
rate in Reille's sector, decided to make the
main defence in the rear line, turning this
into the "battle zone," as it was called in
France in 1918, the two in front being held
as the "forward zone" by outposts only.
After constant reconnaissances made personally
and by his Staff, and the regular receipt of
information of enemy movements from the
divisions, Wellington felt certain that he
knew the strong and weak points of the
Nivelle position. The weakest point was the
gap of Amots, in the centre, five miles inland
of St. Jean de Luz; it was weak in its physical
features, and was moreover the point of junction
of the commands of Clausel and d'Erlon.
By his plan Wellington concentrated on this
gap; but, as before, he attacked all important
points; and he put every available
man into battle, keeping only a Portuguese
brigade as general reserve. The whole of
the enemy's position attacked by the centre
corps under Beresford was in British possession
by 10.30 a.m., and the Light Division
on the left, under Hope, and the 6th division
and Hill's corps on the right, carried their
points of attack shortly after, so that by
noon the enemy was everywhere completely
beaten and in full retreat. Wellington himself
considered the battle of the Nivelle his
"best work."
Who shall we say, after reading only the outlines
of the operations, that there is nothing
to be learnt from the study of military
history? In relating the fighting of General
Beatson has used both French and English
sources and quotes the stories of eye-witnesses;
for military leaders he adds operation
orders and orders of battle. He also
provides a number of panorama photographs,
so that those who study the campaign
at home may have a good idea of the
country. The two maps (one general and the
other of the two Rhones) are thoughtfully
printed on tough paper; but to make this
excellent little book quite perfect the two
battle plans given by Napier, or something
like them, should have been added.

The Times Literary Supplement
20/3/1924
DIARY OF OTTO BRAUN.
THE DIARY OF OTTO BRAUN. With selections
from his letters and poems. Edited by
JULIE VOGELSTEIN. With an introduction
by HAVELOCK ELLIS. (Heinemann.
10s. 6d. net.)
Otto Braun was born in Berlin on June 27,
1897. His father, Dr. Heinrich Braun,
was a Socialist of distinction, an Austrian by
birth who had become domiciled in Prussia.
Dr. Braun's sister was the wife of Victor
Adler, the Austrian socialist leader, whose
son murdered Herr Stügh in 1916. Otto's
mother, herself a feminist of European
celebrity, was the daughter of a general
officer in the Prussian services whose grandmother
was the daughter of Jerome Bonaparte,
King of Westphalia, by an Alsatian
countess said to have been both witty and
beautiful. Thus Otto Braun's unusual attributes
may well have been the satisfaction
of an hereditary claim. Mr. Havelock Ellis
denies he was a prodigy, and says that
he was "the natural and normal child of
some titanic race the world has never known."
But none can deny his precocity; and one
may doubt whether he had at any time a
normal period of childhood in which simple
pleasures and an induced belief in fairies
had a part. At the age of nine he wrote
in his diary ".... I feel I am not
made to follow. I am made to lead." A
few months later he learnt Middle High
German in order to read the Nibelungen in
the original. He was, apparently, preparing
a History of Literature, and for that purpose
was reading extensively early German
works. His letters would have been proper
for a man of mature age, and he is solemn
in his philosophic outlook. Shortly before
his eleventh birthday he said in a letter to
his mother:—
...The great difference between a youth
and a man is that a man has to go through all
the struggle while the youth enjoys its fruits.
Oh, if only I could take part in the battle, if only
I could make my living. I should build you
golden palaces in gratitude to you for bearing
me and bringing me up; I should lay the world
at your feet for you to mould according to your
will and God's. Work is my delight, my seventh
heaven.
He did not believe himself to be a prodigy
and resented the accusation apparently made
by a contemporary of equal age, to whom he
wrote in 1910 (at the age of thirteen) :—
...You seem to assume as axiomatic that
we are prodigies. This is not at all true. Prodigies
are creatures brought up in the unnatural air of
hot-houses, who spring up quickly, decay more
quickly still, and then are justly forgotten.
He reads incessantly, and at twelve years
of age is at one time studying Hoffmann,
Zarathustra, The Plaint of the Virgin—of
which he says, "This play with the Ten
Virgins and Theophilus (only in the Turin
manuscript) seem to be the most significant
dramatic poems of the Middle Ages"—van
Gogh's letters (these with deep admiration)
and Jacob Burkhardt's "Renaissance Civilisation."
And one notes without wonder a
phrase in his diary in April, 1911. "Youth!!
It seems to me the 'old' people are much
younger." He went to Florence, and there
visited all the places which the tourists and
the learned alike make their own. To the
historic buildings, pictures, and books he
referred with a wealth of allusion and a
judgement which sounds oddly experienced.
One searches a little regretfully for a childish
break, one thought which would show his
ideas to be in keeping with his age; but in
vain. The note is sustained throughout.
Thus in a swift widening of interest and of
experience—none however based on the facts
of life itself—writing, be is said, strangely
beautiful things, his life passed until the
beginning of the war changed all things. His
parents' political views and his own manner
of life had not served to kill in him the
soldierly and patriotic spirit of his ancestors.
He was no pacifist. On August 2, 1914, he
enrolled himself as a volunteer, and on
August 18 wrote in his diary:—" I believe
this war has come in our time and to every
individual as a fiery test to make men of us
all, men prepared for the terrific events of
the years to come." A little later he joined
the army. "I am gradually learning what
a marvellous educational institution the
Prussian Army is!" He was enthusiastic
about it all, and was uncomplaining even when
unpleasant incident came to try him. But
the trials and sacrifices of war did not alter
greatly the course of his self-education.
He continued to read with undiminished
fervour. At the front he read Hölderlin's
poems, Faust, and Merejkovsky's Peter the
Great, dreamt of reading the Iliad again,
and felt that "being able to say the names
Hölderlin and Nietzsche amidst the dirt of
these villages is like looking at the sun."
His search for beauty continued, and he had
something of the Greek perception of things
worthy to be seen. On June 9th, 1915, he
...rode along the Bzura to bathe. At
the old bullet-ridden mill we suddenly came upon
a gleaming medley of naked, glittering bodies of
men and horses; there were shouts and cries, a
gorgeous game of mirth and laughter. Quickly
we undressed and rode our horses into the water.
A glorious blue sky, a thronging mass of naked
people, all around munching cows and champing
horses, the beautiful stream flowing between
willows and birches, opposite us the ruined walls of
Krepitulum—you can imagine how wonderful it
was.
A few days later he showed that the war had
attraction for him. "I shall now get to know
all there is to know of the war, the danger
and the terror it had to be. My dreams this
morning were glorious, glowing; may the
gods to whom I pray, the spirit of my fore-fathers
that floats over me, my strength that
I feel within me, grant I be successful." He
was awarded the Iron Cross in August for a
gallant action. After a period of service
in the Foreign Office at Berlin while he was
recovering from a severe wound, he was
posted to the Western Front, and in April,
1918, was in the Villers-Bretonneux sector.
On the 28th of the month he wrote his last
letter in a deep cellar at Marcelaeve. In
it towards the end he said, "That feeling
I had when I came out to the front this time
—of a great change awaiting me—thrills
me again now. It is a wonderful feeling;
the future laying ahead, impenetrable; and I
weave into it brilliant colours, landscapes
of magic, enchantment..." He was
killed on the following morning. "We laid
him on a bed of blossoming flowers till the
carriage came for the funeral. His face was
peaceful and unharmed."

The Times Literary Supplement
26/6/1924
CONRAD VON HÖTZENDORF'S
SUCCESSOR.
ZUR GESCHICHTE DES GROSSEN KRIEGES
1914-1918. Aufzeichnungen von GENERAL-OBERST
ARZ. (Vienna: Rikola Verlag.
8 gold marks.)
The reminiscences of General Baron Arz,
who from February, 1917, to the end of the
war was the Chief of the General Staff of the
Austro-Hungarian Army, are a striking contrast
to those of his predecessor in that office.
While Field-Marshall Conrad van Hötzendorf
in four stout volumes has only reached September,
1914, Arz, in a plain, soldierly
narrative that certainly will not lead to any
diminution of his reputation, tells us practically
all that is essential in 380 pages.
The account of his early career shows him
as by no means the courtier soldier that
his selection to be Chief of the General Staff by
his young Sovereign caused many people to
imagine. A Staff College graduate, he had in
peace-time held numerous staff appointments,
had commanded both a brigade and a division,
and at the outbreak of war was in charge
of the most important department of the
Ministry of War, that which dealt with organization,
preparation for war, and mobilization.
His work in this accomplished, he was
on August 29, 1914, given command of his
old division in the Sixth corps of the Fourth
Army. This Army defeated the Russians at
Komarow, helped to rescue the southern
Armies after Lemberg, and, with great honour
to itself, covered the flank of the retreat to the
San. Arz was quickly promoted to
the command of the Sixth Corps, and
retained it for over two years. With
Plettenberg's and Francois's German corps,
Arz's men formed Mackensen's Eleventh
Army, the spearhead in the breakthrough
at Gorlice-Tarnow and following
operations, in May-August, 1915. In
August, 1916, when war with Rumania began
to threaten, Arz was sent to organize the defence
of Transylvania; and with only two
divisions and three infantry brigades he skilfully
delayed the advance of three Rumanian
Armies until German and other assistance
could be sent. For his services he was promoted
to the command of the Austrian First
Army, and took part with it in the further
operations against Rumania in the group of
armies under the Archduke Karl, who a few
weeks later became Emperor. Thus the appointment
of Arz to be his chief adviser seems
on military grounds to be a sound one; and
it was in consonance with Karl's expressed
policy to clear out the old gang which clung to
G.H.Q. and replace them by men of experience
at the front.
Part of the book, after the author became
Chief of the General Staff, deals with politics,
the Polish question, the internal condition of
the Empire, lack of food supplies, the Brest-Litovsk
peace, the occupation of the Ukraine,
Germany's failure to keep her word about the
division of the spoil, and Karl's unfortunate
manifesto to his peoples; but it contributes
little not already known. The military sections
on the other hand are of considerable interest,
and Arz tells the real story of the initiation of
the Caporetto offensive. When he proposed
the operation to the Germans and asked for
the loan of six divisions, Ludendorff (who in
his book takes credit for the whole affair) was
inclined to use any forces available for an
offensive in Moldavia, between Sereth and
Pruth, to finish off the Rumanians and
the Russians supporting them; but he finally
promised what was asked for if the attack on
Riga was successful, as it proved to be. The
pursuit of the Italians after the break-through
was perforce stopped at the Piave, as the
roads were in a hopeless state and many
bridges destroyed, and the Austrians could not
therefore get up guns and cover the forcing of
a passage. The Emperor Karl ordered a continuation
of the operations; but it was found
that the preparations would take a long time,
and the Germans gradually withdrew
their contingent.
During the German offensive of 1918 the
Austrians were merely asked to lend a number
of heavy batteries and hold the enemy
on their front and prevent him from sending
assistance to France. Arz conceived that the
best way to carry out this was by attack. His
plan was to make a frontal attack on the
central section of the Piave front, and at the
same time to advance from the mountain
sector between the Piave and the Brenta, so
as to come down in the rear of the Piave defences.
Conrad, now commanding the forces
in Tirol, was for a wider operation, and
persuaded the Emperor to let him attack west
of the Brenta on the Asiago plateau, so as
to aim well in the rear of the Italians. This
offensive, unfortunately for Conrad, struck the
British 14th Corps and failed. On the Piave
front some ground was won on the western
bank, but was subsequently relinquished. The
effect of the failure on the Austrian troops
and nation, who expected another Caporetto,
was far-reaching, and, coupled with the defeats
of the Germans in August and their request
for help, made Karl determined to have
peace at any price.
General Arz says nothing directly about his
official relations with the Emperor, but the
text shows that the military suggestions made
by Karl were generally rejected as impracticable;
he emphatically states that the
Empress did not interfere with military
matters. He describes at considerable length
the pitiable scenes with Karl, and the long
delays when the Italian conditions for an
armistice were referred to him. The Emperor
would not take the responsibility of
accepting them and summoned an Austrian
State Council, which told him plainly that, as
the Emperor had declared war, so he must
bring it to an end. He then allowed Arz to
telegraph a notification of the cessation of
hostilities to the troops, counter-ordered the
telegrams when they had already reached half
the armies, telling Arz to get Parliamentary
authority for acceptance next day. Finally,
at three in the morning, he came to Arz's room
and handed him a scrap of paper appointing
him Commander-in-Chief, so that he should
make the surrender.
The author expresses the opinion that, had
the Hungarians remained in the line, an
orderly retirement could have been made. But
in Austria's misfortunes they tried to assert
their complete independence. The Hungarian
Minister of War demanded first that half the
staff appointments should go to his nationals;
then that the Hungarian divisions should be
grouped together as a separate army; and during
the armistice negotiations he ordered
them to leave the line and return home, and
finally to lay down their arms.

The Times Literary Supplement
7/11/1929
MARSHAL FOCH
THE BIOGRAPHY OF THE LATE MARSHAL FOCH.
By MAJOR-GENERAL SIR GEORGE ASTON,
K.C.B. (Hutchinson. 24s. net.)
MARSHAL FOCH: HIS OWN WORDS ON MANY
SUBJECTS. BY RAYMOND RECOULY.
Translated by JOYCE DAVIS. Butterworth.
12s. 6d. net.)
Will the world in general ever grasp the secret
of Marshal Foch? It is doubtful. In his character
and ideas there is a great deal that is
perplexing. His own explanations are often
striking and memorable, but on many occasions
they do not appear to plumb the depths
of his thought. Books like that of Commandant
Bugnet and that now before us by
M. Recouly are useful, because we can set ourselves
to search among the Marshal's own
phrases for the basis of his philosophy; but the
task requires some knowledge of military
affairs and military history, and perhaps even
some metaphysical training. It seems that
one great principle, bed-rock of all, can be discovered.
It is neither the love of attack nor
the oft-quoted theory that a beaten army is
an army which believes itself to be beaten,
though these may both be said to be founded
upon it. It is that the plan is worthless without
the execution. Reduced to this nudity,
the statement appears to be a truism; but
when retained in the mind as the gauge by
which every individual problem is to be tested
it is of immense value. Again and again we
find Foch returning to this idea: Gallipoli,
Nivelle's Champagne offensive of 1917, the
conduct of the German High Command during
the march on Paris after the frontier battles
of August, 1914, all these are submitted to
this philosophical test, and all fail. Sometimes
he even suggests that the execution is far
more than the plan, in which he follows Napoleon.
If one were to seek for a very great
modern soldier of the opposite school, that is
to say, in whose conceptions plan seems to out-weigh
execution, one would find him in
Moltke. There are, of course, among great
soldiers only shades of difference in their outlook
upon these two sides of the question, and,
as we have suggested, the whole theory may
seem to be more nearly related to philosophy
than to warfare; but it is worth the soldier's
consideration.
The conversations recorded by M. Recouly
are extremely interesting. They contain short
summaries of all the great problems with
which Foch was faced, short accounts of certain
critical situations, as the Battle of the
Marne, and the views of the Marshall on Joffre
and Ludendorff in the late war and Napoleon
and Gambetta in former wars. One of the
most important chapters concerns the granting
of the Armistice. Foch defends himself
without difficulty against criticism directed
against him in France for not having secured
more from the Armistice, and also for not
having routed, as well as decisively defeated,
the German armies before he granted it. He
points out that an armistice is purely a military
affair, and that he ensured Germany's
being in such a situation that it was absolutely
impossible for her to renew activities. That
was all he, as a soldier, could do; nor would
the sacrifice of some thousands more lives,
though it would have turned the German
armies into a mob, have given the victors anything
more. The chapters concerning the discussions
prior to the Peace Treaty, which give
information not before published upon the
attitude of Foch and his differences with
Clemenceau, are also well worth reading. It
is perhaps salutary that we in this country
should learn from the mouth of the best friend
we had in France how our laying hands upon
the German fleet and the German colonies,
while refusing France's suggestions for her
own security, appeared to French critics.
Sir George Aston's book is a complete biography
of Foch. It is written with imagination
and insight, and though a popular work
would be a valuable one had it been done more
carefully. As it is, it has the air of having been
"slung together." There are, for example, four
sketches at the end taken from the official
history of the Western Front. They all belong
to the year 1914, which is of less interest where
Foch is concerned than 1918. It was perhaps
a temptation to put in these excellent
sketches because they were ready-made and
authoritative, whereas considerable research
would have been required to produce others
for the Somme and 1918 of anything like
equal detail and accuracy; but something
should have been attempted, even if the result
were inferior. There are also for too many
minor errors and misprints. General Aston
that there were French Colonial as
well as French Territorial troops on the
British left during the first gas attack at
Ypres. He speaks of the fighting at Hangard
as if it were part of the Battle of the Lys.
He represents Foch as suggesting in April,
1918, that the British divisions should be reduced
from twelve to nine battalions, whereas
the reduction had been completed in February
before the German offensive. He makes
extraordinary mistakes in the spelling of
French names for persons and places. Even
British names are not exempt from error, the
worst coming at the most solemn moment,
when Field-Marshall Sir George Milner appears
as a pall-bearer at Foch's funeral.
General Aston brings out very well the qualities
of greatness of intellect and spirit which
were the Marshal's contribution to victory in
1918. Haig thought himself ill used because of
the terrible burden that was placed upon his
troops on the Lys; but Foch was as niggardly
of reserves when his own countrymen were
attacked. He resolutely refused to bow to
the enemy's will by completely absorbing
these reserves. If he had, many troops would
have been saved from an almost unbearable
experience, but the Allies would almost certainly
have lost the war. Unfortunately,
General Aston nowhere gives a clear sketch
of the strategical plan, but on the personal
side at least he gives us a very good picture
of the man, especially in the last furious weeks
when he was crying "Tout le monde à la
bataille!" We can only trust that if this
book goes to a second edition it will be
thoroughly revised, for at least as a portrait
for the general public of the great soldier it
is worth it. 

The Times
Literary
Supplement
19/3/1931
FOCH'S MEMOIRS
MARÉCHAL FOCH. Mémoires pour servir à
l'Histoire de la Guerre de 1914-1918. Two
volumes. (Paris: Plon. 60f.)
THE MEMOIRS OF MARSHALL FOCH. Translated
by COLONEL T. BENTLEY MOTT. (Heinemann.
25s. net.)
Fifty years ago the nephews of Field-Marshal
Graf Moltke suggested to him that he should
write a true account of the Franco-German
War of 1870-1871. He raised objections; the
nephews, who were his heirs, were persistent;
at last the old man said "Put the Official
History on my table." Thenceforward nearly
every morning he was seen writing; but he
locked up the manuscript carefully in his
desk. On his death his nephews found that
he had merely compiled a careful précis—
now long forgotten—of the official work.
M. le Maréchal Foch was not so wise. A
note tells us:—
In the course of the year 1920 Marshal Foch,
yielding to the insistence of those about him,
decided to write his reminiscences of the War. He
directed his staff officers to collect the necessary
documents and draw up a strictly objective
recital of the events in which he had taken part.
Between 1921 and 1928 the Marshal used
this recital "as a framework, which he considerably
altered and enlarged," for his narrative,
adding his personal reflections and
recollections; and we are informed that the
reader has before him "the thoughts of the
War's great victor exactly as he set them
down." The insistence of those about the
Marshal has at any rate resulted in his composing
a foreword of nineteen pages summarizing
his life and education, and a shorter
preface dealing with the outbreak of War
and the fallacies of the French General Staff
doctrine, "limited...for all ranks to one
magnificent formula: the offensive." Both
foreword and preface are deserving of close
attention. The body of the book is not,
however, the memorial one would like to see
of this great French soldier. He was obviously
little interested in, perhaps would gladly have
forgotten, the earlier part of the War, before
he received the strategic command; for his
share in it was far from brilliant. The narrative
of it is in many places inaccurate and
remarkable for what it leaves out. The
account even of the later period, which properly
takes up more than half the book,
betrays an old man's vanity, an inclination to
attribute too large a share of the final success
to the French and a desire to exhibit M.
Clemenceau in an unfavourable light.
It is necessary to go into some detail in
order to show the character of the memoirs.
The first chapter, concerned with his command
of the XX. Corps, is a bald military
précis, and, no map having been provided, it
is, as it stands, most unintelligible. By the
aid of the excellent French and Bavarian
Official Histories, we can, however, follow what
happened. Deceived by the planned German
withdrawal, the XX. Corps on the northern
flank of the Second Army (Castelnau) was
hurried forward by its commander into the
trap of Morhange; held in front and attacked
heavily on its carelessly guarded flank, its
divisions retired with precipitance. The
Marshal is inclined most unfairly to lay the
blame for the disaster on the Army commander,
but also on the Germans for having
marked the ranges by putting up posts!
The account of the share of his command,
the Ninth Army, in the Battle of the Marne
is a remarkable exposure of his failure, both
at the time and afterwards, to realize the
situation. His conception of the way to carry
out Joffre's instruction "to cover the right of
the Fifth Army [Franchet d'Esperey, the
flank of the offensive left wing]" was to
advance. He was, as at Morhange, surprised;
as he puts it, the enemy
succeeded in massing his infantry only a few
hundred yards from our position ... suddenly
...without any artillery preparation, these masses
were launched to the attack....I asked for aid
from the armies on my flanks.
So vehement were his appeals for help that
Franchet d'Esperey, whom he should have
protected, lent him whole corps. Thus the
French Fifth Army was crippled, and
stretched to the East instead of the West; this
probably accounted for its not getting in touch
with the B.E.F. on its left. It had at any rate
the consequence that Sir John French, his
right flank thereby exposed, went forward
across the Marne with hesitation—and Kluck
escaped. Further, Foch missed the chance of
smashing Bülow, who as trying to wheel to
face Paris. There is the wheel reported in
Foch's own words although he could not see
it:—The [French] left ... had broken
up the enemy's advance [Bülow had swung
his right back]; the centre had held its own;
the right had again given way." Foch's reply
was not to fall on the flank of the German
Second Army which was being presented to
him, but only to fill a gap in the centre and
order a general advance. Although the
German retirement, due to the British having
pushed across the Marne, began at 2 p.m.,
Foch describes the battle as still raging on
his front at 6 p.m., when he hoped that "by
spending the last drop of our energy we might
break the unstable nervous equilibrium and
incline the balance in our favour." He then
relates the advance to the attack of the 42nd
Division and the IX. Corps. The commanders
of these formations, Generals Grossetti and
Dubois, years ago destroyed this legend: the
42nd Division arrived too late to do more
than fire a few shells at the retiring enemy,
and the IX. Corps did not advance. The
Germans, too, have told us they retired
unhindered, their rearguards of the right
holding the causeways of the St. Gond
marshes until 7 a.m. next day.
The account of the fighting in Flanders has
been given in full in the British Official
History. Foch, who was sent to the north as
the representative of General Joffre to coordinate
the operation of the Allies, appears
to know even less about the battles of the
Yser, and of the First and Second Battles of
Ypres, than he did of the Marne. The
Belgians may be left to discuss the Yser.
What he says of the First Ypres, October 31,
1914, cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged.
He states that the British were "unable to
hold Gheluvelt ... the line was broken and
in the middle of the afternoon flowed back
upon the woods of Hooge and Vedhoek [sic.,
it is elsewhere spelt Velehoek; perhaps this and
other mistakes are the fault of the editor],"
and that when Sir John French met him at
Elverdinghe in the afternoon they discussed
"the proposed decision to retreat, which was
on the point of being executed ... the
troops were in full retreat towards Ypres ...
it was the beginning of a defeat."  To put it
shortly, Gheluvelt was certainly lost, and a
small gap made in the British front for a time;
the rest of the front held, the 1st South Wales
Borderers still hanging on to Gheluvelt
Château and grounds. The local counterattacks
of portions of four battalions of the
1st Division, under General Landon, and of the
2nd Worcestershire recovered Gheluvelt and
filled the gap again. This had all happened
and Sir John French had been informed of it
before he saw Foch. Yet the latter claims
that orders he issued during the visit restored
the situation. The fact is that on this occasion,
as on others, the Marshal issued orders
after the fair—"pour l'histoire" as a French
general said of one of his own; at no
time was much attention paid to him or them
by the fighting commanders near Ypres, least
of all by the French commanders.
This was notoriously the case at Second
Ypres, when in spite of Foch's promises to
retake the half of the Salient which the French
had lost, and his orders to that effect, no
serious attempt was made to do so. Again in
this battle he has to admit that his troops
were surprised, but he omits to mention that
this was due to his own neglect to take notice
of the three separate warnings—also ignored
by G.H.Q.— of the impending gas attack which
the French Intelligence received. It is mere
untruth to state that when the French fled
before the gas attack " the British left
(Canadian Division) retreated to St. Julien,"
and ludicrous to claim that General Putz,
with "aid furnished by the British and
Belgian," saved Ypres.
The two years of trench warfare, 1914-16,
with the two battles of Artois and the Somme,
so uncongenial to his offensive spirit, are
passed over very quickly without much
comment; in fact, it would appear from
the "Note" at the beginning of the
book that, as for events in 1917, the
text is only the "recital" of his staff;
the Marshal, we are told, "was able to
finish only the account of events in which he
participated during 1914 and 1918." There is
no explanation of his insistence on there
being one French corps north of the Somme
in July, 1916, which not only embarrassed Sir
Douglas Haig by its presence, but refused on
more than one critical occasion to cooperate.
Foch was blamed for his methods of attack in
1916 by the French Government, and superseded.
Powers then passed to the heroes of
Verdun.
The account of 1918 does not add much
which is new to our knowledge of that period,
about which so much has been written, except
as regards the personal movements of
the Marshal. We learn that it was Sir Douglas
Haig who first proposed—to the C.I.G.S and
before the Doullens conference—that Foch
should be made Commander-in-Chief. The
Field-Marshal himself, in referring to this, said
that he did so because Foch would fight and
Pétain would not. The share of the British
commander in modifying Foch's plans is
generously admitted. Foch judged that Haig
was wrong in suggesting that easy terms
should be offered to Germany, overlooking
that the best German divisions, and the largest
number of them, were concentrated in front
of the British. The important new item
is a superbly patriotic letter from M.
Clemenceau to Foch, dated October 21,
1918, on the situation, with special reference
to the "marking time" of the American
Army. In this the President of the Council
says: "Nobody can maintain that those
fine troops are unusable; they are merely unused."
Foch's comment is that the letter
"had in view nothing less than to effect a
change in the Chief Command of the
American Army." It seems almost possible
that the appreciation of Marshal
Foch by his contemporary at the Ecole
Polytechnique, the military publicist, Colonel
Mayer, is not very wide of the mark.
The chief command suited him because
he was not precise and it only required
the formulation of general ideas, of
which after his experienced as a professor at
the Staff College he had plenty. He could
not work out plans in detail, any more that
he could finish his sentences. Foch was in
his right place as commander at the close, just
as Joffre was at the beginning.
Colonel Mott, who was American liaison
officer at Foch's headquarters, has made a
somewhat free translation, which does not
always do justice to the original French; he
does not seem to know the exact equivalent
of French military terms and his footnotes are
not always accurate. We learn that Sir John
Robertson was our C.I.G.S., and Foch at the
end of 1917 "Chief of the War Department
Staff." The book, except for its binding, is
not so well got up as the French original.
The photographs are fewer and not so well
selected; the maps fewer and less well reproduced
(the French version contains a
Morhange map, of the absence of which in the
English translation we have complained); and
the descriptive page headlines of the original
are missing.

The Times Literary Supplement 5/2/31
1915 THROUGH GERMAN EYES
DER WELTKRIEG 1914 BIS 1918. Bearbeitet
im Reichsarchiv. Die militärische Operationen
zu Lande. Siebenter Band. Die
Operationen des Jahres 1915. Die Ereignisse
im Winter und Frühjahr. (Berlin:
Mittler. 30 r.m.)
The sight of this large and heavy volume of
the German Official History of the War on
land, and the thought (as the book is the
seventh of the series and reaches only April,
1915) of the long row of succcessors it must
inevitably have, did not encourage us to open
it. The period, too, which it covers, January
to April, 1915, is in our recollection a dull
and unimportant one—except for the initiation
of the Dardenelles expedition and the
beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres,
matters not dealt with in the volume. There
remain only the incidents of the French being
pushed off the old British position across the
Aisne, the featureless winter battle in Champagne,
the costly little fight of Neuve
Chapelle; and, on the Eastern Front, the
sweeping up of a few Russians in the winter
battle in Masuria, the failure of the Austrians,
even with a German spear-point, to dislodge
the Russians from their holding in the Carpathians,
and the fall of Przemysl.
Those, however, who have the strength of
mind to read the volume will be amply rewarded
by finding much new and highly
interesting matter, and a story very different
from that in Falkenhayn's smooth narrative
"The Supreme Command and Its Critical
Decisions." We learn for the first time that
all through the early part of 1915 until April
Falkenhayn was determined to make the
offensive of the year on the Western Front,
and was forced only by circumstances to
abandon this programme. When the operations
of 1914 died down Falkenhayn's first
care was the assembly of some sort of reserve.
The formation of four-and-a-half new so-called
reserve corps was nearly complete; he hoped
to be able to incrase this total by one-and-a-half
more. The question was where to employ
this striking force of six corps to obtain
a success as decisive as possible. Conrad von
Hötzendorf, the Austrian, and Hindenburg-Lundendorff
("Obost," short for "Commander-in-Chief
East") clamoured for them, each
promising success, at his end of the line.
Bethmann-Hollweg, the Chancellor, wanted a
startling victory, somewhere, in order to impress
Italy and Rumania and at least keep
them neutral, and he thought that it could
be most easily obtained in Russia. In spite
of this heavy pressure Falkenhayn decided to
employ his reserve in the West. But on
January 7 Hindenburg confronted the C.G.S.
with the "astonishing fact" that, in response
to Conrad's entreaties, "Obost" was lending
to the Austrians for the Carpathian front two-and-a-half
divisions and a cavalry division.
His own forces, he said, would still be strong
enough to resist attack. His message ended
"I have issued the necessary orders." Thus,
with a few Austrian divisions added, was
formed the German "Südarmee," which remained
long in the centre of the Austro-Hungarian
line.
Falkenhayn at once went to the Eastern
Front in person, and held a conference with
Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Hoffman, who
promised him great results from a double
offensive; their forces from the north, Conrad's
across the Carpathians from the south. The
C.G.S. rightly pointed out that the twin
operations would be too far apart to produce
a strategic result, and he was not disposed
to approve. The Chancellor and Hindenburg
then both proposed to the Kaiser that he
should be removed from his post. Finally, on
January 20, the Supreme War Lord ordered
that the new formations available, four corps,
should be sent to the East. Thus the German
Tenth Army came into existence and was
placed at Hindenburg's disposal. The official
historians feel it necessary to say that the
failure of Falkenhayn
to get his way in the important question of the
employment of the reserves and in the conduct of
the war in the East, whilst he was nevertheless
retained in his appointment of Chief of the General
Staff of the Field Army, had fatal significance for
his further activities.
It was certainly a turning-point in the War,
and the course taken proved at least of immeasurable
assistance to the British, giving
them time to organize troops and manufacture
munitions. At the same time the employment
of the four corps in the East brought
little profit except 90,000 prisoners
in Masuria—including dead, wounded and
overcoats, say the Russians—a tactical but
not a strategic success, more than a counterbalanced
by the surrender of Przemysl with
115,000 Austrian prisoners, the Carpathian
offensive failing to relieve the fortress. In
spite of his judgment having been overruled
Falkenhayn stuck to his plan for a great blow
in the West; the problem was where to find
a striking force for the purpose. On February
22, however, Colonel von Wrisburg, the
Head of the organizing department of the
Ministry of War, came to his assistance and
laid before him a proposal for the building
up of a new reserve. New nine-battalion
divisions were to be formed by taking three
battalions from each of the divisions on
the Western Front, providing them in
compensation with 2,400 trained recruits and
six machine-guns. The divisional troops
required were to be obtained by reducing the
number of guns in a battery from six to four,
and so on. It was suggested that the greater
part of the transformation could be carried out
in one-and-a-half to two months. The scheme
should have provided twenty-four divisions,
but from lack of equipment and other causes
it actually produced only fourteen by the
beginning of April. Falkenhayn directed that
an Eleventh Army should be formed from
them, and appointed Colonel von Seeckt its
Chief of Staff—the commander did not
matter. Then he set von Seeckt, von Kuhl
(then still Chief of the Staff of the First Army)
and the head of the Operations Section,
Colonel Tappen, to work, allotting them
different parts of the line, to consider where
best the blow could be struct. He had already
before him proposals made by his deputy,
later War Minister, Major-General Wild von
Hohenborn, and Crown Prince Rupprecht's
Chief of the Staff, Krafft von Dellmensingen.
Both these strategists selected as objective
"the northern wing of the enemy front in the
first place, that is the British Forces, which
should be broken and crushed." The method
to be pursued was practically identical with
Ludendorff's plan for March 21, 1918, and had
better chance of success, as the front line was
in 1915 much nearer the coast than in 1918.
The right flank of the British, then near Arras,
was to be struck, and they were to be pushed
north-westwards towards Boulogne and
Calais, while the French were held off and
prevented from rendering assistance. A
diversion attack was simultaneously to be
made near Kemmel. The advantage of
attacking father south, so as to have the
Somme as flank protection, as was done in
1918, was pointed out; but the flank guard
was first to get the line Albert-Doullens-course
of the Authie, as it was anticipated that it
would be difficult to reach the Somme line.
Von Kuhl, in the First Army area, considered
there were good chances of success cast of
Soissons—Ludendorff struck here in the
Chemin des Dames offensive of May, 1918.
Tappen appears to have agreed with von
Kuhl. Von Seeckt selected the front Arras
(exclusive)-Somme, as Ludendorff did later.
All the schemes put forward went into details
of time and space and the number of divisions,
guns, and so on required.
Troubles on the Eastern Front and the
political situation prevented any of them from
being put into execution: we do not even
know which would have been selected. The
disturbing factors were the attack on the
Dardanelles and the attitude of Italy. On
February 19 the first bombardment of the
Dardanelles outer defences took place. A
successful defence "was a question of munitions,"
and on March 10 Admiral von Usedom
telegraphed: —
In spite of the relatively slender success of the
enemy, the overwhelming of all the Dardanelles
works cannot be prevented indefinitely, unless the
munitions and mines, now on order for months,
arrive soon or the defence is supported by submarines
from home waters.
The Turkish winter offensive in the Caucasus
under Enver himself had collapsed with
immense losses; the attack on the Suez
Canal, long and carefully planned under
German leadership, had failed dismally
"owing to British watchfulness." Something
had to be done or Turkey would
be out of the War, and there would be
no chance of Bulgaria coming in. King
Ferdinand had actually declined to admit
Field-Marshal von der Goltz to his presence.
Rumania, still undecided, refused to allow
the passage of munitions through her
territory to Turkey. Falkenhayn came to the
conclusion after the Allied attack on the
Gallipoli Narros on March 18, that
he must "carry out the Serbian campaign
with all available forces, and, further, before
the great offensive planned in the west," so
as to get munitions through to Turkey. On 
March 22 Przemsyl fell, releasing large
Russian forces for the Carpathian front, and
Conrad not only declined to provide any
troops for the Serbian campaign, but begged
for assistance.
The demands of Italy for territorial concessions
as the price of her neutrality at first
had been vague, but they had gradually
become definite. Austria actually offered
South Tirol with Trent, but Baron Sonnino
declared this "very insufficient" and asked
for more, including Pola and part of the
Dalmatian coast. In vain Bethmann-Hollweg
wrote to Vienna that the terms should be
accepted—"they are at any rate somewhat
less fatal than the otherwise unavoidable
collapse of the Monarchy." Vienna, however,
declared it would rathe rmake a separate
peace with Russia at the price of ceding
Galicia, and Conrad demanded from the
Germans seven division to take the place of
those he must now detach against Italy. The
German Government were in a difficult position:
if they did not do something to help
Austria to continue resistance, she would
rather make terms with Russia than yield
territory to Italy; if they did promise help,
then Austria would be stiffened to refuse
Sonnino's demands, and Italy, having promise
of what she wanted from the Allies, would
enter the War on their side.
As Russia was by far the more formidable
antagonist,
Falkenhayn, after a long inward struggle, clearly
recognizing the desperate military and political
situation of the Danube Monarchy, came to the
final resolve to employ in the East the reserves at
the disposal of the Supreme Command, in order to
Obtain a decisive success against the Russians on
the Carpathian front, if possible before Italy
entered the War.
This decision meant abandoning for a time
the great offensive in the West and also the
operations against Serbia. On April 10
Falkenhayn laid before the Kaiser for the first
time the plan for the new operation since
known as Gorlice-Tarnow. It was founded
on the fact that, although the Russians in
the Carpathians were strong, their line at the
angle where it turned north between the
western extremity of that front and the
Vistula was weak and thinly held. A break-through
there would bring the Germans in
rear of the Russians armies in the Carpathians
and force them to withdraw. The volume
closes with an account of this most successful
operation, which began on May 2, leaving the
abortive poison gas attack at Ypres, although
eleven days earlier in point of date, to
be described no doubt in the next volume. 

The Time Literary Supplement
10/4/1930
THE CHEMIN DES DAMES
SCHLACHTEN DES WELTKRIEGES. Herausgegeben
im Auftrage des Reichsarchivs: (1)
DEUTSCHE SIEGE, 1918. Das Vordringen
der 8. Armee über Ailette, Aisne, Vesle
und Ourcq bis zur Marne 27 Mai bis 13
Juni. (2) WACHSENDE SCHWIERIGKEITEN,
1918. Vergebliches Ringen vor Compiègne,
Villers-Cotterets und Reims. (Oldenburg:
Stalling, 4.50 and 3.50 marks.)
These two German official monographs tell the
story of the third, and last, successful German
offensive of 1918, known to us as the Chemin
des Dames offensive. It resulted in the formation
of the great Château Thierry salient,
forty-five miles across the base and thirty
miles from base to apex. Three weeks before
it took place there had been sent for rest by
Marshal Foch to the right sector of the front
attacked four tired British divisions. They
were told by a French commander from
whom they took over that they were
"rats in a trap," and this proved to be
the case; for the French position was on
the front slope of the Chemin des Dames,
with the Ailette stream and great woods,
untouched almost by the war in front,
and the Aisne, with its canal, and the Vesle
behind it. The foliage of the woods in
the month of May allowed the German preparations
to be made unseen and unnoticed
from the air or the ground, while the marshy
bottom of the Ailette in No Man's Land prevented
probing raids from being made to
ascertain if anything was afoot. As the Allied
defences were good and elaborate, all, says the
German account, depended on surprise. The
minute precautions ordered to ensure secrecy
are given at length, and are interesting as
summing up four years' war experience.
Special area officers were appointed to watch,
and balloons sent up to observe, whether the
measures ordered were sufficient and were
obeyed. No fires or smoke were allowed during
the assembly period, no parades or parking
of vehicles in the open, no crowding at
issue of stores, rations and postal matter; no
lights, noise, singing or bands. Wheels were
muffled, horses' hoofs, chains and similar parts
of vehicles were wrapped in straw and rags.
Troops marched only at night, and then only
in small columns at intervals; a special
watch was kept on conversation in messes
and institutes, and for spies. No fewer than
1,023 batteries, besides hundreds of trench
mortars, were brought up in nine days, hidden
in the woods, villages and gardens, and got
into their positions by man-handling at night.
Six days' supply of gun ammunition was
dumped near them, also by night. The twenty
attacking divisions were brought up in seven
days. They came in fighting kit without
heavy baggage, and not until three days before
the attack did they begin to move forward
to their assembly positions behind the
front line.
The German precautions were successful.
Not a hint of these immense preparations
reached the French Army commander, General
Duchêne, until May 26, the day before the
assault, when two prisoners were taken. After
lengthy interrogation about 4 p.m. they divulged
that a great attack would take place
next morning. The information was too late
to be of much value, for orders could not
reach the troops for several hours. As the
front had been quiet for a year, the French
had no plan ready which could be notified to
the troops by telephoning a couple of
words like "case Havrincourt," as the Germans
had done the night before the Tank
attack at Cambrai. The best course was obviously
to retire to a second position behind
the Aisne, but General Duchêne could not
bring himself to adopt this, and the eight
French and three British divisions in the front
line merely stood to arms to meet the attack.
It began at 1 a.m. with ten minutes' gas
shelling at the highest possible rate. Then,
leaving the trapped divisions to contend with
gas and darkness, for sixty-five minutes all
guns and trench mortars turned to the destructions
of defences and important centres in
rear. Under cover of their fire the German
engineers crept forward to throw foot-bridges
over the Ailette stream. Then came
eighty-five minutes more gun fire on the Allied
batteries and defences, and at 3.35 a.m., following
a barrage with gas at the head of it, the
German infantry advanced. Some few French
and British parties put up a good fight, but
in general they were swept away, and the Germans
rushed on without much opposition or
loss of time. They found most of the bridges
over the three watercourses intact, passed beyond
the first objective, the heights between
the Aisne and Vesle, and arrived at the Vesle;
some even crossed it. During the next
three days they reached the Marne.
Now, according to the second monograph,
the German troubles began. The offensive
was only intended to draw the Allied reserves
from Flanders, and, as Foch had ordered
twelve divisions down, it had accomplished
its purpose. The surprising success, however,
of a thirty-mile advance had created a narrow
salient with two long weak flanks. Orders
were therefore given to flatten it out by gain
of ground on the east towards Rheims, and on
the west between Château Thierry and Noyon.
"The success attained was far below expectation."
On the Rheims side the attempt
entirely failed. On the western side a slice of
ground, some eight to nine miles wide on a
forty-miles front, was gained. But security
had not been attained; for the salient was left
with Rheims pocked in it on the east and
a very weak western flank, which Mangin was
soon to assail (July 18). Worse than this, the
Germans had lost 4,581 officers and 125,789
men; the Allies had certainly suffered heavier
casualties, 5,046 officers and 167,373 men, it is
claimed, but American troops were beginning
to arrive to replace them, and the German
losses could not be made good, "Thus," say
the concluding words of the second monograph,
"in the victory of the Chemin des
Dames the seeds of our later defeats lay
hidden."