On August 18, 1914, when the Belgian Retreat to Antwerp began.Allies.—A, Belgians; B, British; C, Lanrezac; D, Langle de Cary; E, Ruffey; F, Castelnau; G, Dubail; H, Pau.Germans.—I, Kluck; II Bülow; III Hausen; IV, Württemberg; V, Crown Prince; VI, Bavaria; VII, Heoringen; VIII, Deimling.
On August 18, 1914, when the Belgian Retreat to Antwerp began.
THE FRENCH OFFENSIVE
Meantime the French had mobilized with expected speed and before mobilization was completed had pushed a raid into southern Alsace, wholly comparable to the German raid on Liege. (Vol. II, 38.) This advance had taken, lost and retaken Mülhausen by August 15, 1914. (Vol. II, 41-45.) At this time the French were approaching the Rhine, in this sector, and had crossed the Vosges and come down the Rhine affluents for some distance.
But this was a minor operation. The main thrust of the French General Staff, the answer to the German drive through Belgium, had long been prepared. It was to be a swift and heavy advance through Lorraine, between Metz and Strassburg, rolling up the German forces here, cutting communications between these fortresses, and moving down the Rhine Valley and menacing the rear of the German armies which had invaded Belgium. (Vol. II, 43.)
While the German armies were beginning their main advance upon Brussels and Namur, the French thrust was pushed out, was very successful for several days until the French had reached the main Metz-Strassburg railroad, and from Delme to Saarburg stood far within the German boundary. But at this point came the first real disaster. (Vol. II, 44.)
Resting on the hills of Delme and the marshes of the Seille, the Germans had constructed strong fortified lines and furnished them with heavy artillery. When the French reached these positions they were assailed by artillery which was beyond the reach of their own guns, they suffered heavy losses, were thrown into confusion, and presently were flowing back upon Nancy and Lunéville in something approximating a rout, having lost flags, cannon, and many thousand prisoners. This was the Battle of Morhange, or of Metz—as the Germans name it—and it was over by August 22, 1914. (Vol. II, 44, 45.)
August 23, 1914, after the Allies had lost all the First Battles.Allies.—A, Belgians; B, British; C, Lanrezac; D, Langle de Cary; E, Ruffey; F, Castelnau; G, Dubail; H, Pau.Germans.—I, Kluck; II, Bülow; III, Hausen; IV, Württemberg; V, Crown Prince; VI, Bavaria; VII, Heeringen; VIII, Deimling.
August 23, 1914, after the Allies had lost all the First Battles.
At the same time another French army had pushed across the Meuse into Belgium from the district between Sedan and Montmédy, it had won minor initial successes, and about Neufchâteauit had suffered exactly the same sort of reverse that the French army to the south had met at Morhange, German heavy artillery had procured another French defeat, which again approximated a rout and this French army was also in rapid retreat, having lost flags and guns as well as many thousand prisoners.
Finally, still farther to the northeast, a French army had taken its stand in the angle between the Meuse and the Sambre, from Dinant, through Namur to Charleroi, and the British army prolonged the line to the east of Mons. Against this dike there now burst the full fury of the German advance made by the armies of Kluck and Bülow. (Vol. II, 46-49.) Again the French were defeated after a desperate battle about Charleroi (Vol. II, 54), this time without any rout and after having inflicted very heavy losses. But retreat was inevitable because the Germans succeeded in forcing the crossings of the Meuse at Dinant—that is, in the rear of the main army—while the fall of Namur (Vol. II, 55-59), another triumph for German heavy artillery and a complete surprise to the Allies, completed the ruin of their plans.
Meantime the British army about Mons, after a day of hard fighting which had compelled them to contract their lines somewhat, but left them unshaken, was thrown in the air by the French retreat from Charleroi (Vol. II, 60), tardily announced to it, and was compelled to begin its long and terrible retreat, which so nearly ended in destruction. (Vol. II, 66.)
By the middle of the third week in August, 1914, the Germans had then made good their way through Belgium, defeated the French counterthrust in Lorraine, routed two French armies and heavily defeated a third, together with its British supports. (Vol. II, 9-68.)
It was not yet clear whether the French armies could rally for another general battle, but it was clear that if this should happen, the Germans had still time, accepting their original time-table.
THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE
In the fourth week of August, 1914, Joffre, the French commander in chief, was compelled to make a momentous decision. All his first plans had failed, all his armies had been defeated. It very promptly turned out that none of the defeats had materially affected the fighting value of his armies. Thus the army defeated at Morhange was promptly reenforced by the troops drawn out of Mülhausen and in turn defeated and repulsed its conquerors before Nancy, in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. The army defeated at Neufchâteau made good its position behind the Meuse from Verdun to Charleville and inflicted grave losses upon the Germans endeavoring to pass the river. Even the army defeated at Charleroi was able, a few days later at Guise, to pass to the offensive and throw back the Prussian Guard into the Oise. (Vol. II, 90-92.)
Meantime two new armies, one under Foch, the other under Manoury, were in the making and there was reason to believe that it would be possible to renew the battle on the line of the Aisne, the Oise, and the Somme. But there was one grave peril. German plans had not only taken the French by surprise in making the main thrust through Belgium, but had prepared to send this way a far greater number of men than France had expected and had sent them much farther to the west. The result was that the weight of the blow had fallen upon the British. The British army had been compelled to make a night and day retreat and had narrowly escaped destruction at Cambrai on August 26, 1914, "the most critical day." (Vol. II, 77.) The British army was too heavily outnumbered to meet the German attack, its retreat had been so rapid that the line of the Somme was about to be lost before the British could be supported by Manoury's army, which came up on its western flank too late. There was, therefore, the real danger that Kluck might get between Paris and the main mass of the Allied armies, enveloping them and producing a Sedan ten times greater than that which had wrecked the Third Empire.
Joffre, accordingly, decided to continue the retreat and broughtall his forces that were west of the Meuse, in good order and no longer heavily pressed back behind the Marne and on a line from Paris, through Meaux, Sézanne, La Fère Champenoise, Vitry-le-François, Bar-le-Duc, and thence north to Verdun. He thus stood with his forces in a semicircle, the concave side toward the Germans and his flanks resting upon Paris and Verdun, whose forts covered these flanks. (Vol. II, 83.)
By September I, 1914, it was plain to the Germans that the French army had escaped its embrace and that no envelopment was longer possible. It remained possible to destroy them by main force, since German numbers were still superior, German artillery unchallenged, and the early successes productive of unbounded confidence. The German armies thus leaped forward for the final decisive battle, which had been just missed at the French frontier. (Vol. II, 84, 85.)
But the new situation imposed new strategy. It was no longer possible to envelop the Allies, and accordingly, Kluck, on the western flank, turned southeast and marched across the face of Paris, crossing the Marne near Meaux and leaving only one corps to guard his flank toward Paris. This was a sound maneuver, if the French troops in Paris were too few or too broken to strike; it was perilous in the extreme, if the opposite were the case. And it was the case, for Joffre had concentrated behind Paris a new army, Manoury's, which was now to attack.
On September 5, 1914, the Germans having now fallen into Joffre's trap, the French commander in chief issued his famous order, and the whole Anglo-French army suddenly passed from the defensive to the offensive. (Vol. II, 102.) The first shots of the conflict, the great Battle of the Marne, were fired by some German field pieces, at Monthyon, just north of the Marne and less than twenty miles from Paris. They greeted the advance of Manoury's army coming east out of Paris and striking at Kluck's open flank. (Vol. II, 103.)
September 6, 1914, the Battle of the Marne.Allies.—A, Belgians; B, Manoury; C, British; D, Franchet d'Esperey (Lanrezac); E, Foch; F, Langle de Cary; G, Sarrail (Ruffey); H, Castelnau; I, Dubail.Germans.—I, Kluck; II, Bülow; III, Hausen; IV, Württemberg; V, Crown Prince; VI, Bavaria; VII, Heeringen.
September 6, 1914, the Battle of the Marne.
The next day Manoury rolled up Kluck's flank, drove his troops in on the Ourcq River, and threatened his army with destruction. Kluck saved himself by extraordinary clever work, he drew his troops back from the front of the British south ofthe Marne, put them in against Manoury and by September 10, 1914, had driven Manoury back toward Paris and was threatening him. The first blow had failed, but it had brought a chain of consequences fatal to German plans. (Vol. II, 99-110.)
First of all the British, once Kluck had drawn his main masses from their front, began somewhat tardily to advance, threatening Kluck's other flank, and Franchet d'Espérey's army, to the east, about Montmirail, in turn, attacked Bülow's, whose position had been made dangerous by the retreat of Kluck. Bülow had to go back north of the Marne, suffering severe losses and his retirement uncovered the flank of Hausen's army fighting to the east from La Fère Champenoise to Vitry. (Vol. II, 107.)
Meantime things had been going badly on this line for the French, and their troops under Foch had been driven back many miles. The Germans, feeling the danger from the west, were making one final effort to break the French center and win the decisive contest. But Bülow's retreat opened the way for a supreme piece of strategy on the part of Foch, who descended from the heights, struck Hausen, almost routed him and sent him in quick retreat beyond the Marne. (Vol. II, 120, 121.)
This settled the battle. Kluck, Bülow, and Hausen were now forced to retreat, their retreat communicated itself all along the line and by September 13, 1914, the Germans were all withdrawing, Kluck was over seventy miles north of the Grand Morin, just taking root behind the Aisne, the Battle of the Marne was over, and the great German plan to deal with France in six weeks had been completely wrecked. Actually the first phase of the war was over, unless the Germans could regain the offensive and restore the conditions existing before the Marne. (Vol. II, 120-123.)
THE END OF THE FIRST WESTERN CAMPAIGN
In this the Germans failed. They did succeed in rallying and beating down the Anglo-French pursuit with great skill and promptitude. The Battle of the Aisne (Vol. II, 130-146) markedthe beginning of the deadlock and the Germans took the positions they were to hold for the next two years between the Oise and the Meuse.
September 20, 1914, the Deadlock.Solid lines show trench fronts. Dotted lines show extension toward Belgium—"the race to the sea" in September and October.
September 20, 1914, the Deadlock.
But the effort to renew the attack failed. It began with an effort, made by troops brought from before Nancy, where a new French defensive success had saved the Lorraine capital, to come south to Paris along the west bank of the Oise. It was continued in the so-called "race to the sea," when French and German commanders tried to outflank their opponents along the Oise, the Somme, and the Lys. But this resulted only in extending the lines of parallel trenches which now stretched to the Belgian frontier from Noyon.
Finally, having beaten down the Belgian resistance and taken Antwerp in the second week of October (Vol. II, 168-172), the Germans made a last attempt to interpose between the Allies and the sea, take Calais and Boulogne and come south through Artois and Picardy.
They were halted in the desperate battles along the Yser and the Lys. (Vol. II, 169-175.) The Belgian army, escaping from Antwerp, stood solidly behind the Yser, the British just managed to cling to Ypres (Vol. II, 171-172), and the French under Foch performed new miracles on the defensive. Two months after the German defeat at the Marne, the loss of the western campaign was made absolute by the unsuccessful termination of the Battle of Flanders and a war of movement had fallen to a war of trenches, a state of deadlock had succeeded to the operations in the open field and the German tide had been permanently checked. (Vol. II, 174-177.) But actually the check had been at the Marne and in this battle the original German plan had been decisively defeated. France had not been disposed of in two months, but had won the decisive battle that German strategy had prepared. But she had lacked the numbers and the artillery to turn the victory to best account and had failed wholly in the attempt to free her own territory as she was to continue to fail for two years.
November 15, 1914, the End of the Western Campaign.
November 15, 1914, the End of the Western Campaign.
THE RUSSIAN PHASE
We have seen that it was the plan of the German General Staff to hold the Russian armies while the great attack upon France was being made. To do this the Germans had left a very small force in East Prussia, but had practically assigned to Austria the task of holding up Russia. (Vol. II, 371.)
German calculations as to Russian mobilization proved sadly inaccurate. While the German troops were still in Belgium and the Battle of Charleroi unfought, Russian troops crossed the East Prussian boundary and began an invasion which produced something approximating a panic. (Vol. II, 434.) One Russian army came due west from the Niemen, another north from Warsaw, and all of Germany east of the Vistula seemed in grave peril. (Vol. II, 437.)
TANNENBERG AND LEMBERG
It was then that the kaiser summoned Hindenburg, gave him the task of defending East Prussia, and thus introduced one of the few famous and successful soldiers of the war. (Vol. II, 438.) Hindenburg cleverly concentrated his forces, leaving only a screen in front of the Russian army coming from the Niemen toward Königsberg, practically surrounded the other Russian army in the marshes about Tannenberg, brought into action great parks of German heavy artillery, and routed and destroyed the Russian army about September 1, 1914. (Vol. II, 438-441.)
On "Sedantag" Germany was able to celebrate one of the most decisive of all her many victories, and the Russian peril in East Prussia had been quickly abolished.
But the East Prussian incident was only a detail, due, it is still insisted, to the prompt yielding of Russian strategy to Allied appeals for some action in the east that might relieve the terrible pressure now being exerted upon the Anglo-French forces in the west. And if the East Prussian invasion did not, as was asserted at the time, compel the Germans to send troopsfrom Belgium to East Prussia, it did hold up new formations and seriously complicate the German problem, contributing materially to the French victory at the Marne thereby.
The real Russian blow was delivered against Austria. Faithful to her agreement, Austria had promptly undertaken the invasion of southern Poland and in the third week of August an Austrian army was approaching Lublin, while another stood in a wide circle about the Galician city of Lemberg. (Vol. II, 376-379.)
Ignoring the first army, the Russians sent their main masses westward on a front extending from the Rumanian boundary to the Kiev-Lemberg railroad. Before Lemberg the Austrian army was overwhelmed in a terrible rout, which ended in a wild flight, costing some 300,000 prisoners and almost destroying the Austrian military establishment. (Vol. II, 385, 386.)
The Austrian army, which had advanced into Poland was left in the air, and its retreat was transformed into a new disaster. Lemberg fell about September 1, 1914, and meantime a Serbian victory at the Jedar had destroyed still another Austrian army and emphasized the weakness of Hapsburg military power. (Vol. II, 329-335.)
At about the time the German blow at France was failing along the Marne, the Russian victories were mounting, Russian armies were sweeping through Galicia and approaching the San. (Vol. II, 398.) Serbian armies were across the Bosnia frontier, (Vol. II, 323), and the eastern situation was becoming perilous in the extreme for the Central Powers, despite the great victory of Tannenberg, which had cost the Russians an army of 100,000 men. (Vol. II, 438-450.) Thus in the first six weeks of the war the whole German conception had been defeated, France had not been destroyed by one great blow, and Russia had not been held up by Austria, pending the delivery of this blow and the return of the German troops who had delivered it.
October 24, 1914, The Battle of the Vistula.Arrows show Hindenburg's attack on Warsaw and Ivangorod.
October 24, 1914, The Battle of the Vistula.
WARSAW AND LODZ
October brought the plain necessity to the Germans of coming to the aid of their ally. While they were still endeavoring to reopen the decision in the west it was necessary to send troops to Hindenburg and to take pressure off Austria. The blow took the form of a rapid advance upon Warsaw through Central Poland, which was destitute of Russian troops. (Vol. II, 454-461.)
The thrust almost succeeded, German troops reached the suburbs of Warsaw, German guns were heard by the citizens of the town and Warsaw was in deadly peril, but Siberian troops arrived in the nick of time and Hindenburg was obliged to retire. (Vol. II, 462-466.) Still his main purpose was achieved. Russian armies in Galicia had been weakened to save Warsaw and were compelled to retire behind the San and the Vistula. (Vol. II, 420-427.)
Hindenburg's retreat was masterly, he flowed back upon Cracow and Breslau, pursued by a great Russian army. (Vol. II, 458-462.) Meantime the Russian armies in Galicia again took the offensive and November saw Russian armies at the outskirts of Cracow and approaching the boundary of Silesia. (Vol. II, 413-423.) Taken in connection with the German repulses all along the western front and the defeat in Flanders, which disclosed the final collapse of the original German plan, this moment marked the high-water stage of allied fortunes for many, many months.
Having led the Russian army after him to the German frontier, Hindenburg quickly moved his troops on strategic railroads to the north, invaded Poland again between the Vistula and the Warta (Vol. II, 462-481), almost succeeded in interposing between the Russian army and Warsaw, and won the great victory of Lodz. (Vol. II, 466, 467.) But Russian numbers saved the day. After terrific fighting and tremendous losses the Russians got back to the Bzura line, which they were to hold for nearly a year and the German advance was beaten down in fighting wholly similar to that in Flanders. (Vol. II, 471-478.)
THE GALICIAN CAMPAIGN
Once more the Russian advance in Galicia was resumed. (Vol. III, 264.) Russian armies never again approached Cracow, but they did come to the Dunajec line, while to the south they began the slow ascent of the Carpathians (Vol. III, 261-264), across which raiding forces of Cossacks had several times passed. They also concentrated against the fortress of Przemysl, the last Austrian stronghold along the San. This campaign endured throughout the winter. Finally Przemysl, with a garrison of 125,000 men, surrendered in early March (Vol. III, 249-257), and Russia was at last free to strike either at Cracow or through the Carpathians for the Hungarian Plain.
Her decision to go south was probably influenced by the great victory of the Serbs at Valievo. While German aid was taking pressure off the Austrians a new Hapsburg thrust had been delivered at Serbia, Austro-Hungarian troops had passed the Drina and penetrated deeply into Serbia, Belgrade had fallen, and the end of Serbia seemed in sight. But new Russian attacks having compelled Austria to recall many of her troops, the remaining Hapsburg forces in Serbia were almost destroyed in the bloody defeat of Valievo in December. (Vol. II, 325-357.)
To offset this the Germans soon won one more great victory in East Prussia, at the Mazurian Lakes, where another Russian army was well-nigh destroyed by the quick-marching, better-trained German troops. And this victory beat down another Russian invasion of East Prussia and, as it turned out, closed the period of immediate peril for the German territories in the east.
In March and April the Galician campaign reached its climax in the bloody battles of the Carpathians and Russian armies seemed slowly but surely pushing their way over the mountains and descending into the Hungarian Plain. (Vol. III, 235-276.) It was at this moment that Italy had chosen to enter the war on the allied side, and there was every reason to believe that Rumania would follow.
THE BATTLE OF THE DUNAJEC
Instead there came a sudden and tremendous German victory which was to prove the prelude to more victories and to a summer of unparalleled success for German arms. This victory was won at the Battle of the Dunajec—named Gorlice by the Germans—which may well rank with the Marne as the second great struggle of the war, since it saved Austria, brought Russia to the edge of ruin and wholly transformed the horizons of the conflict. (Vol. III, 264-276.)
It will be recalled that at the outset of the war the German General Staff had to choose between two possible operations, an offensive against France or an offensive against Russia. It had chosen to attack France and had lost the campaign. It had in addition failed measurably in its defensive against Russia and the result had been the loss of most of Galicia with the incidental Austrian disasters.
But the campaign in the west had resulted in the occupation of advantageous positions far within French territory and in the conquest of most of Belgium.
Now the German General Staff was again able to decide whether it would turn its entire energies for the summer of 1915 against France or against Russia. If it chose to attack Russia there was solid reason for believing that neither in munitions nor in numbers would the Allies in the west reach a point where they would become dangerous before autumn and between May and October Germany could hope to put Russia out of the war, particularly as Germany knew what the rest of the world did not, that Russia was at the end of her munitions, and her long and terrible campaigns in Galicia, together with her defeats in East Prussia, had temporarily much reduced the fighting value of her armies.
Accordingly Germany decided to get east and put Russia out of the war as she had undertaken nine months before to go west and had tried and failed to put France out of the war. But she was again faced with the fact that failure would expose her to new perils, this time on the west.
For her first attack Germany selected the point in the Russian line between the Vistula and the Carpathians, about Tarnow, where the Russian line stood behind the Dunajec River. If the Russian line should be suddenly broken here, the German General Staff might hope to sweep up all the Russian armies which were facing south and endeavoring to push through the Carpathians.
Just about May 1, 1915, the blow fell and Germany, massing hitherto unheard-of numbers of heavy guns on a narrow front, and using untold ammunition, not merely routed, but abolished Radko Dmitrieff's army (Vol. III, 267-276), and moved rapidly in on the rear of the Russian Carpathian armies. With difficulty these extricated themselves and retired behind the San. (Vol. III, 276.) But they were unable here to withstand Mackensen who had assumed command in all this field, and fell back first upon Lemberg and then upon the Volhynian triangle of fortresses within the Russian frontier. Przemysl fell, Lemberg was lost and Dubno and Lutsk, two of the three Volhynian fortresses, fell. (Vol. III, 276-312.)
Having thus disposed of the Galician armies, Mackensen turned northeast from the San, struck at Lublin and Cholm (Vol. III, 357-365), and through them at Brest-Litovsk, far in the rear of the Russian armies in Poland. At the same time Hindenburg in East Prussia moved south, aiming at Grodno and Vilna, also behind the Warsaw front (Vol. III, 256-361), while a third Germany army invaded the Courland and aimed at Riga. (Vol. III, 337.)
The Russian armies in Poland were thus threatened with complete envelopment; they were caught between the closing jaws of the pincers, which were Mackensen and Hindenburg. For a certain time it was not clear whether the gigantic double thrust might not result in the capture of the whole Russian army in Poland. But this did not happen. Warsaw was evacuated (Vol. III, 356), Ivangorod, Novo Georgievsk, the fortresses along the Bobr-Narew-Niemen barrier fell (Vol. IV, 176-181), but the Russian armies drew back upon Riga, Vilna, and Brest-Litovsk. (Vol. IV, 186-188.)
October 1, 1915, at the End of the Russian Retreat.Dotted line shows Russian front on April 1, 1915.
October 1, 1915, at the End of the Russian Retreat.
RUSSIA SURVIVES
At Brest-Litovsk there was only a brief halt and then the Russians resumed their retreat upon Pinsk and the Pripet Marshes. Behind the Dvina from Riga to Dvinsk the northern army stood fast. But the central armies, retiring upon Vilna, were nearly trapped and once were actually cut off by German cavalry. (Vol. IV, 193-223.)
By September the great campaign approached its end. The Russians at last took root on a line from Riga, through the Pripet Marshes to Rovno and thence to the Rumanian boundary. (Vol. IV, 184-255.) The czar sent the grand duke to the Caucasus and took command himself (Vol. IV, 188), an allied offensive in the west in Champagne and Artois (Vol. IV, 52-81) made sudden demands upon German man power, as the Russian advance in East Prussia and Galicia had taxed German man power in the days of the Marne, and so, by October, it was plain that the second great German effort had also failed. Russia had not been destroyed, she had not been put out of the war for any long period; Russian armies were to resume the offensive the following June.
As in the west, Germany had conquered wide territories, she had taken fortresses, provinces, vast numbers of prisoners and guns, but a decision had escaped her. She was still confronted by the certainty that at some future time all her foes, superior in numbers and munitions, would beat upon all her fronts at once. But she was no longer able to push eastward to follow the pathway of Napoleon and meet a Russian winter on the road; moreover the situation in the Balkans demanded attention and the Italian offensive along the Isonzo, as well as Anglo-French pressure in the west, also claimed notice.
THE BALKAN CAMPAIGN
Early in the spring the Anglo-French fleets had made a desperate and almost successful attempt to force the Dardanelles. (Vol. III, 423-437.) Their failure had been followed by a landexpedition, which took root at the southern tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula, made slight progress inward and was halted only a short distance south and west of the commanding hills. (Vol. III, 429-437.)
The Conquest of Serbia, December, 1915.Arrows show routes taken by Austrian, German, and Bulgar invaders.A—Route of retreating SerbsB—Route of Allies from Saloniki in their unsuccessful attempt to rescue the Serbs.
The Conquest of Serbia, December, 1915.
A new effort in August directed from the Gulf of Saros through Suvla Bay had also just missed supreme success, through failures in preparation and command which were beginning to show in all British operations. (Vol. IV, 344.)
For the moment Turkey had saved Constantinople, but the Turks' supplies of munitions were running short and there was reason to believe that the Gallipoli thrust might presently end in victory and open the straits to Russia, if Germany did not take a hand.
Thus spurred, Germany and Austria planned and executed the most successful single campaign of the war. German diplomacy succeeded in enlisting Bulgaria. (Vol. IV, 269-274.) Allied diplomacy chained Serbian action while there was yet time for Serbia to save herself, Greece deserted her old ally and in November a great Austro-German army under Mackensen suddenly burst into Serbia from the north and west (Vol. IV, 268-269), while a Bulgarian army entered from the east. (Vol. IV, 269-273.) The result was inevitable. Serbia was crushed. Her gallant army fled over the mountains after heroic resistance and reached the Adriatic, but as a mob rather than as an army. (Vol. IV, 263-307.)
Tardy Allied efforts to come to the rescue through Saloniki were blocked by the Bulgarians south of Uskub (Vol. IV, 308-316), all Macedonia was taken (Vol. IV, 267-334), and the Anglo-French expedition was driven south under the very shadow of the old walls of Saloniki, and the roads to Constantinople and to Albania were opened to Germany and Austria, the Balkans were conquered at a blow and Berlin began to forecast a German-led drive upon Egypt by Suez and even upon India by Bagdad.
As for the Gallipoli troops, December saw them hurriedly withdrawn after great losses and terrible suffering. (Vol. IV, 369-380.) Germany and Austria had now broken the iron circleabout them; for the moment Germany had realized the German dream of expansion to the Near East, the conception of a Central Empire, a Mittel-Europa, fronting the Baltic and the Adriatic, overflowing the Sea of Marmora into Asia Minor and bound by the German-built railroad uniting Berlin, Vienna, and Constantinople with Bagdad and Hamburg and Antwerp with Suez and the Persian Gulf. Here at last was a solid gain, a real victory after two great disappointments.
IN THE WEST
Meantime there had been a long trench struggle in the west. The German attack at the outset of the war had terminated in Flanders. It was not for several months that the Allies felt able to undertake any offensive. Then in rapid succession came French attacks in Alsace, in Champagne, and south of St. Mihiel (Vol. III, 151-169), while the British made a desperate drive about Neuve Chapelle. (Vol. III, 83-98.) All these were checked by the Germans who passed to the offensive themselves in April, and made a new attack about Ypres, marked by the first use of poison gas. (Vol. III, 99-115.)
German success was inconsiderable, but it did reveal the fact that the Allies were not yet dangerous and Germany turned her whole attention toward the great Russian campaign just beginning. In May and June the French made terrific attacks under Foch in Artois (Vol. III, 121-125), and won some ground north of Arras. (Vol. III, 155.) But the attacks had to be abandoned because they were too costly in men, while a British attempt to support the French failed dismally.
Not until late September, when Russia was just at the lowest ebb in her fortunes, did the western Allies try again. Then, starting on September 25, 1915, they launched terrific drives in Champagne and Artois, came within an ace of piercing the German lines, captured some 30,000 prisoners and many guns, but in the end failed to get through. (Vol. IV, 61-131.) German troops were recalled from Russia and Russia's escape was made certain, but this was the only considerable consequence of theAllied attack, preparation for which had consumed many months. Again it was demonstrated that England was not ready and France, alone, could not free her own territory.
ITALY
Italy had entered the war just as Russia was suffering her first terrible defeats in Galicia. (Vol. III, 382-392.) Had Italian decision been reached a few months earlier the effect might have been decisive. As it was, Italy came too late, her attack was halted south of Trent and along the Isonzo, after inconsiderable progress. A certain number of Austrian divisions, which conceivably might have been directed against Russia and contributed to making the outcome of that campaign decisive, were drawn off to the south. (Vol. III, 392-402.)
In September, and again when the Austro-German attack upon Serbia was at its height, Italy attacked along the Isonzo. (Vol. IV, 415-417.) Once more the result was limited to drawing off certain divisions, a useful but not highly important service. In opening another front Italy had contributed to the further consumption of the reserves of the Central Powers, she had begun an operation to be compared with that of Britain in Spain in the later days of the First Empire. She was taking off a portion of the weight that France and Russia were carrying, she was contributing to the exhaustion of Austria, but neither in the first nor the second year of the war was the contribution to be considerable and Italy was presently to require aid from Russia, when at last Austria decided to pass to the offensive in the Trentino.
VERDUN
With the coming of winter the German General Staff had to face a new situation, full of menace. Their first great conception, the destruction of the military power of France, had failed, although it had won much territory and provided an admirable defensive position far beyond their own frontiers. Their secondmajor conception, the elimination of Russia from the war, had failed, but it had also given them much territory and they were not overoptimistic in assuming that their victories would keep Russia on the defensive for many months; their actual mistake, it turned out, was in overestimating the length of time.
Again, then, there was offered the original choice: Should the next blow be postponed until spring and directed at Petrograd or Moscow, or should it be prepared and delivered before spring and in the west? The decision for the west was made. Apparently the German reasoning was this: Britain was not yet ready, winter and defeat had reduced the value of Russia so low that it was safe to turn the best of their troops from the east to the west. Actually the whole weight of the military machine could be exerted against France.
From this second blow at France the Germans expected to derive the benefits missed at the Marne. If the French lines were broken, as the Russian had been at the Dunajec, then a wide swinging advance would carry German troops deep into the French territory, end French hope and compel French surrender. This was the maximum of possibility.
On the other hand, if there were no actual and deep piercing of the French lines, the pressure upon the French would lead them to call upon the British for help. British attack, while the British force was still unready, would lead to great losses and would exhaust the reserves in men and munitions of both France and Britain. At the worst this would mean that neither France nor Britain would be ready to take the field in their long-promised general offensive in 1916.
There was, of course, the possibility that the German attack would be repulsed, that the French and British would not undertake a premature offensive, and that Russia would rally and be able to storm the eastern lines stripped of reserves to strengthen the western attack.
If all these things happened then Germany might herself lose the offensive and conceivably the war. But no German soldier could believe these things would happen and the remote possibility did not weigh against the apparent opportunity to win asweeping and decisive victory, while the British and Russians were still unready and France alone in the field.
THE FEBRUARY ATTACK
Accordingly Germany decided to attack in the west. She selected Verdun as the objective for reasons not at first clear but now well known. Verdun was in the public mind a great fortress, surrounded by impregnable works, the strongest point on the French front. In fact it was the weakest sector. The forts had been evacuated, the first line defenses some miles north of the town were strong, but the second and third had been neglected. The line was held by less than two army corps of territorials; there were other faults in preparation chargeable to the politicians. Worst of all of these was the lack of rail communications due to failure to build new lines to replace those cut by the Germans, who at St. Mihiel blocked the north and south line from the Paris-Nancy trunk line and at Montfaucon and Varennes interrupted the Paris-Verdun railroad by indirect fire.
There was every reason why the Germans could expect that a sudden and terrific blow would permit them to get to Verdun, take the forts on the east bank, and possibly cut clear through the French lines and break them into two parts. Not impossibly this would mean retirement as far as the old Marne battle field: certainly it would mean the extinction of French hope. So the Germans reasoned.
The first blow fell on February 21, 1916. The initial attack was made east of the Meuse on a very narrow front; it resulted in an immediate local success. The French trenches were abolished, the French line was threatened, and the German army overflowed south in great force. The possibility of a repetition of the Dunajec success was at this time plain.
Worst of all, from the allied point of view, there now came a difference in opinion between the French General Staff and the French Civil Government. The former wished to retire behind the Meuse and evacuate the eastern forts and trenches, thereby gaining a strong defensive line, but surrendering Verdun. TheGovernment felt that such a retreat would be accepted as a grave disaster, would depress the French people, and result in a political overturn.
At the outset the general staff seems to have adhered to its view, and for some days the German advance was steady. Even Fort Douaumont, on the outer rim of the old permanent fortifications, was lost, and the German press announced the fall of the city itself. But in the end the army listened to the Government, Castelnau and Pétain went to the front to organize the defense. By the middle of March the first crisis was about over and the French had restored their line, the most expensive detail in their defense. But they had not been able to retake Douaumont, and German possession was to prove a thorn in their side thenceforth.
With the great general attack of April 9, 1916, the first phase of the battle for Verdun was over. This check abolished all chance of a piercing of the French lines, of a second Dunajec. It assured to the French time to complete their second- and third-line defenses, and it gave ample evidence that the dangers of the first hours, due to failures and errors which cost many generals their positions, were at an end. Above all, it demonstrated that the wonderful motor-transport system which had been improvised had proved adequate to save a city deprived of all railroad communications.
LATER PHASES
Still the Germans kept on. Halted on the east bank, they transferred their attack to the west, and Hill 304 and Le Mort Homme became famous the world over. But their advances were slight and their losses were tremendous. French tactics were now disclosed. It was the purpose of the French to exact the very heaviest price for each piece of ground that they defended, but they held their lines with very small contingents, and, save in the case of a few vital points, surrendered the positions whenever the cost of holding them was too great.
German high command had seen its larger aims fail. Why did it continue to assail Verdun after the chance of piercing the French lines had passed and when the cost was so terrific? The answer is not wholly clear, but we do know that the concentration of artillery and men had taken months; these could not quickly be moved elsewhere. Such a change in plans would mean the loss of several months, which would be improved by the British and the Russians; it would give France the "lift" of a great victory.
Conversely it was clear that, while the French lines could not be pierced, Verdun might be taken and the moral value of the capture would be enormous in Germany, France, and the neutral world, although the military value would be just nothing. Again, there remained the fair chance that the continued pressure upon France would lead the French to ask the British to attack, and the premature attack would spoil the allied offensive, obviously preparing.
Against this chance the Germans had massed not less than 800,000 troops along the British front. Meantime they told the world that Verdun was exhausting France, that it was making an allied offensive impossible, and they used their slow but considerable advances, which resulted from the French policy of "selling" their positions at the maximum of cost to the Germans and minimum of loss to themselves, to convince the world that they were systematically approaching Verdun and would take it at the proper moment.
This phase lasted from April 9, 1916, down to the opening of July. During that time the Germans pushed out from Douaumont and captured Vaux; they crowded up and over Dead Man's Hill and up the slope of Hill 304; by July 1, 1916, they had pushed the French right back to the extreme edge of the hills, on the east bank of the Meuse, and the French were just holding the inside line of forts—Belleville, Souville, and Tavannes—with their backs to the river and with German trenches coming right up to the ditches of these three forts.
By July 1, 1915, the French were in their last ditch before Verdun—that is, on the east bank—but on July 1, 1916, therebegan that allied offensive at the Somme which changed the whole face of the western operations. Thus, by August 1, 1916, the Germans had been compelled to remove many troops from Verdun and the French were able to take the offensive here again, and by August 6, 1916, had made material progress in retaking portions of the ground they had "sold" the Germans for so great a price in previous weeks.
GETTYSBURG
After the German checks in April the French compared the Verdun fight to Gettysburg. General Delacroix used that example to me in March, but it was not until June that General Joffre was ready to adopt it. By this time it was well established in all minds. Gettysburg had been the final effort of the South to win a decision on the field while superior organization gave her advantage over a foe that had superiority in ultimate resources, both of money and men. The failure at Gettysburg was promptly followed by the loss of the initiative, the North passed to the attack, and the rest of the war consisted in the steady wearing out of the Confederacy.
A victory at Gettysburg would probably have won the Civil War for the South. A victory of the Dunajec style might have won the Great War for the Germans. But the victory did not come, the struggle went on for many months, and presently the consequence of stripping the eastern lines was disclosed in new Russian victories, while the absolute failure to provoke a premature offensive in the west, or prevent any offensive, was disclosed in the Battle of the Somme.
Verdun, then, was the third failure of Germany to win the war by a major thrust. It was a failure which was wholly similar to the failures at the Marne and in Russia. Relatively speaking, it was a far greater failure, because it brought no incidental profit as did the other campaigns: it won only a few square miles of storm-swept hills, it has cost not less than 250,000 casualties, and allied statements placed the cost at half a million. From the military, the moral, the political points of view,Verdun was a defeat for the Germans of the first magnitude. Conversely, the French victory filled the world with admiration. The French success at the Marne had been won in complete darkness, and after two years the world still has only a vague notion of the facts of this grandiose conflict. But there never was any possibility of concealment about Verdun. The fight was in the open, the issue was unmistakable, and French courage and skill, French steadiness and endurance, surprised the world once more.
THE AUSTRIAN OFFENSIVE
While the German attack upon Verdun was still in its more prosperous phase the Austrians delivered a wholly similar attack upon Italy. (Vol. V, 244-264.) Precisely as the Russian defeats had enabled Germany to turn many troops west, they had provided Austria for the first time with reserves that could be used against Italy. Conceivably, success would put Italy out of the war, for it was plain Italian sentiment was wearying of the long strain of sterile sacrifice.
For the attack the Austrians selected the Trentino district. If they could drive their masses through the Italian lines between the Adige and the Brenta, and enter the Venetian Plain, taking Verona and Vicenza, all the Italian forces to the eastward along the Isonzo would have to retreat and might be captured. At the least, Austria might hope to carry her front to the Po and the Adige, and thus stand on the defensive far within Italian frontiers, as Germany stood within French frontiers.
The same artillery preparation was made here as before Verdun, the battle opened in the same way (Vol. V, 244), and for many weeks, until June 1, 1916, the Austrian advance was steady, and finally passed the old frontier and actually approached the Venetian Plain about Vicenza. (Vol. V, 260.) For the first time Austria seemed within reach of a great victory, and Italian apprehension was great. As for the moral effect, an Italian ministry fell because of the reverses, and many Italian generals were retired.