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Rh of Neufchateau against, the " southern " enemy group (formerly presumed to be the " main " one) advancing from Luxemburg on the front Sedan-Damvillers; and the offensive portion of the III. by Etain and Jametz, was to be ready to march on Longwy, to break into the rear of this force. But this manoeuvre was merely sketched out by preparations, and next day the veil descended again. The supposed movement of German masses over the Belgian Meuse was unconfirmed, and indeed denied; and without for the moment devoting more attention to the details of the cooperation to be obtained between the three distinct and independent commands W. of the Meuse (especially as Sir John French indicated Aug. 21 as the earliest date at which the British could come into action), Joffre's headquarters merely sent the cavalry corps withdrawn from the Ardennes to get into touch with the right of the Belgian posi- tions on the Geete and as a precaution against minor inroads through the Belgian plain into the industrial region of Lille began the transfer to Arras of some ill-equipped territorial divisions, which, under General D'Amade, had hitherto watched the Italian frontier. It was to the proposed offensive of the IV. and especially of the II. Army that Joffre devoted his principal attention. For, on the estimate which had been formed of the German strength which, however, was radically incorrect because it ignored the presence of reserve corps in immediate proximity to active corps it seemed to certain of the directing brains at Vitry-le-Francois that the more forces the Germans placed west of the Belgian Meuse the slighter would be the resistance to be expected about Neufch&teau and Longwy and the better the chances of cutting the enemy in two by the offensive directed on these points.

From day to day the situation developed without becoming quite clear (for the Germans veiled their dispositions with the utmost success), and Joffre held stubbornly to the conception of his Neuf- chateau-Longwy offensive. Lanrezac's anxieties and those of the Belgians increased, but they served only to confirm the impression that the drive into the Ardennes would, if properly timed and directed, reap a great harvest; and the declaration of Sir John French that he would not be able to begin operations till Aug. 23, instead of Aug. 21, caused the scheme of a combined operation N. of the Sambre to recede still farther into the background. On Aug. 20, Joffre, estimating that all the German forces destined for the Meuse had by that time passed out of the region Audun-le- Roman, Arlon, Luxemburg, gave the orders which launched the IV. Army into the Ardennes and the III. on Virton and Longwy.

The period of nuances was at an end. On that very day, on the one flank, Dubail's and Castelnau's offensive, which had penetrated to Morhange, Saarburg and the Donon, met defeat (see FRONTIERS, BATTLES OF THE: section Lorraine). Castelnau drew back hastily towards Nancy-Luneville; Dubail, in spite of the exposure of his long right flank in the Vosges (which Pau's methodical advance from Belfort had done little to shorten), took down his left more steadily; but almost in a moment both were back in their concen- tration areas, followed by the eager enemy. On the other flank, the German masses facing the Belgian army front, hitherto screened by their cavalry, had at last declared themselves on Aug. 18, and the Belgian army, threatened with separation from Antwerp, yet most unwilling to give up the expectation of British or French support on its S. flank, was falling back from one position to another. Its decision to close up northward and fall out of the main opera- tions was, it must be recognized, put off to the last possible moment, but the disconnectedness of the Allied movements left no alternative. For at that date Sir John French was not ready; and in the angle of Sambre and Meuse, Lanrezac, a prey to new and not ill-founded anxieties regarding his liaison with de Langle de Gary, was, with Joffre's approval, standing fast till Aug. 23, the date British coopera- tion should arrive.

In spite of the anxieties and disappointments caused by these vents, Joffre held firmly to his intention. On the morning of Aug. 2 1 he executive order for which the IV. and III. Armies were waiting was sent. For the situation was now clear, and the plan of breaking through between the German manoeuvre-masses and their fixed pivot, which in one form or another had been consistently followed in the period of obscurity, seemed destined now to have its reward. But there was one fundamental miscalculation. The old error which had led the professional soldiers of Napoleon III.'s day to regard the Prussian citizen-army as a " sort of militia," had reappeared in the form of a contempt for " reserve " formations. It was a mere matter of calculation that Germany's resources permitted her to create such formations; but that they should figure in the masse de choc was regarded as incredible. Yet it was true; and thus, instead of meeting a battle-army of 42 to 50 divisions with an array of 73 French, 6 Belgian and 4 British, as anticipated, the Allies encoun- tered in reality one of 77 divisions, i.e. an equivalent instead of a much inferior force. This was especially important as bearing on the prospects of success in the Neufchateau and Arlon directions. Strength was encountered where weakness was expected, and the relatively small numerical superiority of the attack did not suffice.

The story of the battles of Longwy and the Ardennes, of Charleroi, and Mons, will be found in detail in the article FRONTIERS, BATTLES OF THE. Here it must suffice to say that the French offensive into the Ardennes and towards Virton-Longwy-Audun-le-Roman met with general failure, and in some places with disaster; that the

German II. and I. Armies, swinging on Huy as a pivot, swept down upon the French V. Army at Charleroi and the British Expedi- tionary Force at Mons, and bore them back; and that on Aug. 25 at 22 :oo hours (10 P.M.) Joffre's orders were issued for a general retreat. The German plan of campaign had prevailed, and the German Command had the initiative in its hands.

At this point, then, the story of the operations is most conveniently told from the point of view of that side which dictated their course.

The German Plan of Campaign. For the Germans, a war against France was essentially part of a two-front war. The resources of the country not being equal to simultaneous offen- sives against France and Russia, the choice had to be made between (a) standing on the defensive against France while seeking a decision in battle in the East, (b) waging a defensive war on both fronts, and (c) striving to crush France while stand- ing on the defensive in the East. Of these (b) was held to be excluded by the presumed impossibility, for an industrial state, of enduring a long war, as well as by obvious military objections; (a) was never completely excluded, and had until some ten years before the war been the fundamental war-plan of the German General Staff; while (c) had in those last years obtained general acceptance, owing to the difficulty, for Germany, of waiting till the slow-moving Russians could be brought to action and de- feated in a battle of the first magnitude. Whether, in view of the increased strength of the defensive on the one hand and the increased war-readiness of Russia on the other, the adoption, once more, of alternative (a) was not the best policy for Ger- many in the circumstances of 1914, is an open question; but, in fact, (c) was maintained and carried into effect.

But this increased readiness of Russia made it imperative for the Germans to protect East Prussia by a force at least sufficient to offer a step-by-step defence of that province and also, with their main armies reduced to that extent, to obtain a decision of the war in the West at the earliest possible moment, so as to re- lease the greater part of the forces which had gained it for service in the East. The proportioning of means to the two theatres, therefore, was a very difficult problem, admitting of many a priori solutions, which might bring either victory or ruin.

The solution that found most adherents was that of Count von Schlieffen, chief-of-staff of the German army, in the first years of the present century. 'On assuming office, he had both restudied the draft plans of campaign and the tactical doctrines in vogue, and he had come to these conclusions: (a) that an offensive of maximum power, carried so far as to put France out of action definitively, was the only way to secure freedom of action in the East; (b) that this offensive, to secure the result aimed at nothing less would suffice must be developed on so broad a front as to grip and out-wing the most northerly and the most westerly points of France's defensive dispositions; (c) that a maximum density must be sought for on the right wing, even at the cost of exposing Lorraine and the Rhine lands to invasion.

The first of these considerations led to the acceptance con- trary to all the traditions of the German army of the principle that not only active, but reserve, Ersatz and every other cate- gory of soldier must be effectively used. Schlieffen even pro- posed an intimate mixture, practically an amalgamation, of active and other elements, and aimed at putting into the field in case of a single-front war, it is true no less than 114 divisions against France. The second consideration led to" the idea of a swing through Belgium and northern France far wider than that which was actually carried out. The route of the outer flank, which in spite of its extension beyond all probable French de- fences was to have a defensive echelon following on, was to touch Dunkirk, Abbeville, Rouen and pass round by Chartres, far to the W. of Paris which would be invested automatically so as to march in upon Auxerre and Troyes from the east. The line Ghent-Maubeuge-Thionville was to be reached on the 22d and the line Amiens-Rethel-Thionville on the 3ist day of mo- bilization; that is, not hurry but certainty and power were to be the executive rules.

The third consideration, however, led to an even more remark- able result than the second. Of the 114 divisions no fewer than 101 were to operate N. and W. of the Thionville pivot, Lorraine,