MISTAKES OF 1918.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 27, 1 February 1940, Page 6

MISTAKES OF 1918.

NO SIMILAR ERRORS. < SURRENDER-NOT ARMISTICE. REALISTIC FRENCH VIEWS. Souvenir* of Armistice Day twentyone years ago and moralising on what was done and what should have been done then filled many columns of the French Press recently, reported P. J. Philip from Paris to the "New York Times." The main conclusion of all the comment was tliat it was a mistake to sign an armistice with a German army still on French soil and to allow that army to return home with arms and baggage to be welcomed with flowers as if victorious.

General Mordacq, Georges Clcnienceau's principal assistant, tells in the "Petit Parisien" how he, General John J. Pershing and General Tasker H. Bliss argued for a continuation of the war until it would he possible to impose a total surrender. At the same tinie they were preparing a Lorraine attack that would have coincided with the march on Munich of the Italian and castVn armies. M. Clenieneeau hesitated for many days between their advice and that of Marshal Foch (before he finally announced to General Mordacq that he felt himself obliged to take Marshal Foch's opinion because the responsibility was his. Without criticising the former Com-mander-in-Chief, General Mordacq concludes that the 'premature signing of the armistice was the first mistake on the part of the Allies, which was followed by the second in disregarding Marshal Petain's advice that the German army should be completely disarmed. As the third error he put the rejection of Marshal Foch's demand that France should take definite possession of the left bank of the Rhine. "Only Way to Peace." This argument that only in such a way will France ever have peace w beginning to appear again in the speeches and writings of those who

shared Marshal Foch's view 21 year* ago and his phrase: "Whosoever is master of the Rhine is master of everything; whoever is not on the Rhine has lost everything," is being requoted. Against that conception of how peace should have been made at the end of the last war and how it must be "made in this war may be opposed the conception expressed in Finance Minister Paul Reynaud's speech at the American Club when he seemed definitely to set aside any such territorial claims. He argued that peace could not be made except in justice and in recognition of every nation's right to live. Writing also in the "Petit Parisien,"General Eugene Debeney draws a somewhat different and less hypothetical picture of the situation. He finds that the word armistice was ill chosen, for armistice is a suspension of hostilities that connotes that the parties engaged may begin again. In reality the Germans were not in a position to fight longer and instead of an armistice there should have been capitulation. It was in the use of the word armistice that the possibility lay for the Germans to continue, through these 21 years, propaganda that they were not really defeated, although an admission of defeat wa* frankly made in the memoirs of Field-Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff. Disorder In The Ranks.

"When on November 8 the Genua l ! plenipotentiaries reached Haudroy, where my army was," General Debeney writes, "we could clearly see the utter disorder which reigned in the German ranks and the attitude of these ambassadors when I received them at my command post at Hombilieres near St. Quentin proved clearly that they had lost all illusion about the military situation of their country. During the previous weeks they had lost 400,000 prisoners and 6000 guns. It was that unprecedented defeat which launched the forces of revolution in Germany." General Debeney concludes with this reflection on the present situation: "In these days when the army and nation are so closely bound together the process of defeat is well known. As long as the nation believes in the strength of its army it will endure all the privations, griefs and difficulties imposed on it. But when p:oof lias been established on the field of battle that force is on the other side, doubt begins about the utility of sacrifice, internal discipline begins to relax, and elements of disorder begin to gain ground. The weakening of the rear has its effect on the forces at the front. Armies become discouraged and catastrophe results. "In dealing with a country which puts its faith in force, it is only force that can determine defeat. Privations caused by the blockade, the feeling of isolation from the civilised world, the hatred of conquered and oppressed populations, all have their effect. They form inflammable matter, but it will not burst into flame except under the shock of the test of force which reveals the superiority of the adversary. "We must not, therefore, waste time on the hope of an easy solution. "Whether the test of force comes on land, at sea, or in the air, whether it be long or short in coming, it will be only by it that a decision can be reached that will inscribe in history that other still imknown date which will be a replica of November 11, 1918."