THE "CENTRE OF GRAVITY."

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 7, 8 January 1916, Page 8

THE "CENTRE OF GRAVITY."

TJIiTIMATE DECISION OP THE WAS. WHERE WILL IT BE? There is a growing number of military experts who are losing no opportunity of asserting that this war must ultimately be decided on the western front, and that the campaign in the Balkans, to say nothing of the Expeditionary Forces which have been dispatched to conquer Germany's colonial possessions, are btit secondary adventures wliioh prolong t£ie main issue by dissipating the strength of the British Empire, which should be Hung into the west. These critics do not go so far as to assert that the conquest of Germany's colonial possessions should not have been undertaken, but they <lo say that they dragged on too long, and that they ' should have been prosecuted ■with such vigour as to have ibeen brought to a conclusion -within three or four months after the outbreak of ■wax. In the opinion of some of these critics the Dardanelles expedition should never have heen undertaken, and they think that the Balkans expedition was decid-cd ofl too late to be of any use. The arguments of this eehool of military criticism may be formulated in the following words: "The principal military operation upon which, the British. Empire is engaged is the defeat of the main ■German army in- Belgium and France. ""There are now 6ome 110 German divisions in the western theatre, 50 in the eastern theatre, with 40 Austro-Hun-garian, and some 10 in Serbia, with an -equal force of Austrians. The centre ot gravity of the German power is now, and has always 'been, in the west. T&e Tight way to proceed in order to succeed in war is to ascertain the centres of gravity of the enemy's power, and it possiWe to reduce them to one; to act offensively against this centre of gravity without rest and reprieve, and with aU the forces that the Allies can command; Tto preserve the defensive at all other -'(points, and on no account whatsoever ito make the principal attack dependent on and still less subordinate to, any -secondary or auxilliary operation wnica ipolicy may impose upon us. • II our enemy, from lack of resolution -or men. fails to act up to this principle in east and Test, why should we emulate ihim in his error? If policy imposes upon •strategy the weakening or, still worse, the abandonment of the principal operation for the cake of some knighterrantry elsewhere, it performs a remarkably poor service. We involve ourleLs * a contradiction of pnnciple and by so much, is injury done at the vital point where failure is made more probable. The new War Committee best fulfil the hopes ot the JBntofc Empire if it ■ concentrates its attention upon the western theatre, and seeks for vfctory -where victory can alone be found." We oni absolutely wUin to ,et defensively, with as few troop. .£ others advocate carrying out the millCmtoSly enough, German military crft es are also reviewing the strategy of the Allies very critically just now, and ■particularly British strategy. Some of Ihes critii are bold enough to tell the German people that Germany owes her Buperior military position to-day not so much to her " war machine as to her enemies', mistakes. They consider that the first mistake was the failure to force the Dardanelles before the German cruisers Goeben and the Breslau made their ■wav to the Black Sea. This would have disposed of Turkey, but England was afraid of Mohammedan opinion. The second mistake was "the Gallipoli adventure" This had been Germanys greatest assetin the East, because the successful resistance by the Turks had earned far neater weight in. the Balkans than oveiTthe retreat ottho Russians from Galicia. The third mistake was the failure to supply immediately the 100,000 men required by Greece in order tha. she should be faithful to her treaty with Serbia. And these German critich more or less side With the English critics referred to at the outset of this article, though, of course, they look at the events from a different viewpoint, when they declare:—"A last and great mistake was that our enemies drew Italy into the war. The immediate result was the expression of strong Italian claims upon "the other side of the Adriatic, •Wlere Play territory was to be made Italian, and not only Greece, but also Serbia and all the Southern Slavs, wore made uneasy. If. when she made war on Austria, Italy had also had the courage to fi"ht Germany, and had sent from ei"ht to ten corps to Joffre, the situation jnMit have become very dangerous for our brethren in the west. To-day we see how greatly we. in our blindness, exaggerated the Italian danger." . Those who hold fast to the belief that the final and vital theatre of operations in this war is France and Flanders may take comfort from tb» undoubted fact tliat the situation on the western frontier is steadily improving. Th'jre has as yet been no spectacular advance, and a *Teat deal too much was made of certain local succesßes by a public anxious for a big advance. There lias been a reaction, and the British public has been depressed by the fact that these local successes have not been followed by a smashing Wow. But it cannot be too strongly pointed out that each of the British and French "local successes" is not only of great importance in itself, but is part of a great plan, the key of ■which is in the hands of one man. and that man a strong man—General Joffre.

Furthermore, a very significant feii■fcure of recent operations has been the display of the Allies' growing moral ascendancy over the enemy. The Allies have been, shaking up the previous confidence of the Germans in the impregna4>iEty <rf the-defences they ttad con-

structed in France, a confidence which has hitherto been apparent in all the German transactions. Of course, one must not overlook the fact that the Allies are faced by a siege warfare, with all the delays and disappointments that such involves. A peculiarly difficult siege, too, where trenches succeed trenches, and the real kernel of the great positions seems still out of grasp. Something colossal in the way of an investment of fortified positions of this undreamed of vastness and complication has been demanded of the Allies, and they are supplying that effort as quickly as possible.