Page:At the Eleventh Hour by T. G. Masaryk (1916).pdf/16

 Science. Germany has an effective journalistic service in neutral countries. The Germans have a more effective and much more extensive agitation abroad.

(7) The Germans are strong by their pénétration pacifique, not only in the neutral countries (the United States and America in general, Switzerland, Holland, &c.), but even in the belligerent countries themselves the Germans even to-day exert a very appreciable influence, sometimes amounting to pressure.

(8) The Germans have made a good strategical use of the railways. They sent their troops by fast trains from West to East or vice versa. That enabled them to have their soldiers in masses, though inferior in numbers. Russia, as well as Austria, and apparently the French and English also, transport their soldiers in very slow trains.

(9) Germans have made a good strategical use of automobiles (e.g., capture of Liège).

(10) The Germans made use of heavy guns at a very early stage, if not from the very beginning, especially for destroying the trenches.

(11) The Germans have a great number of mitrailleuses. As one mitrailleuse equals in its shooting power fifty foot-soldiers, the great number of mitrailleuses serves as a substitute for soldiers.

(12) In this connection the German submarines may be mentioned. On the Continent they made a great impression not only on the civilian public; the Germans appeared as inventors and innovators even in naval strategy. The British public, of course, knows more about the real situation.

(13) The Germans derived from their offensive and offensivity all the benefit usually ascribed to these tactics; the Allies proceeded more passively, allowing themselves to be moved by the governing will of the advancing enemy.

(14) The Germans have so far displayed a great assurance of final victory; neither the army nor the general public were weakened by doubts and disquieting reflections. Only in the latest phase some scepticism is arising, but so far it is not victory that is in doubt; it is only the attainment of the full aim, as proposed at the beginning of the war, that is questioned.

The German strategists do not in any way strike me as men of genius. But they are conscientious, energetic, well-trained generals. The glorification of Hindenburg was facilitated by the treachery of Massoiedoff. But that’s just it—Germany has no such traitors in high places!

The German officer is a good soldier, and the men are very good and well trained. For instance, Germany spent a relatively much higher proportion of her War Budget upon rifle practice than other countries did. On the whole, Germany’s secret is assiduous thinking, the employment of Science and its practical consequences, being prepared and looking ahead; above all, enforcing the co-ordination, organisation, and centralisation of all their forces.