Evening Post. TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1915. THE BRITISH AND THE GERMAN WAY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 57, 9 March 1915, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1915. THE BRITISH AND THE GERMAN WAY

Many interesting side-lights have been thrown upon the differences between the characters of the British and the German nations by the differences in their methods of warfare which have been revealed during the la.it seven months. "Muddling through" is a term which the British people have learnt to apply with a. feeling perilously like complacency to the process that has carried them through so many perils and enabled them to survive so many rivals. It has been well pointed out that the English language, having no word for "welt-p'olitik" (world-politics), has had to borrow it from the Germans. We are the greatest practitioners in the art of "weltpolitik" that the world has ever seen, yet our practice has been so unscientific, and to a large extent so unconscious, that we are compelled to borrow the term, if not the idea, from a nation which has hitherto failed in the art as. egregiously as we have succeeded, a.nd seems to be threatened by irretrievable disaster now that it has given free rein to its ambition to take our place. Whether the German language has any convenient equivalent for "muddling through," or whether it is as defective in this respect as in regard to equivalents for "home" and "comfort" and "gentleman," we cannot say. But it is certainly true that the process of muddling" through is alien to the German character and intellect. Whatever systematic thinking and elaborate preparation can provide, whether in national or in municipal life, whether in civil or in military administration, that the Germans may be expected to produce with the precision of a machine. Though Germany was pledged to observe the neutrality of BelCtiuin, »h.6 had WDJ"ked nui. avrav sLett in

the process of destroying the little State in the event of finding it convenient to break her oath. Sites for her big siege guns had been prepared months and years in advance in the neighbourhood of cities whose hospitality German subjects were enjoying, and even such a detail as kerosene-spraying machines for the purposes of arson after the cities had been captured had not been overlooked. If taking thought would have added a cubit to the stature of the Prussian Guards, we may be sure that it would have been added before now. But the German character and methods inevitably have the defects of their qualities. The accuracy of a machine is an admirable thing, but mechanical methods have serious drawbacks in their application to persons. They lead to the sapping of individual initiative, to the subordination of individual freeSom and responsibility to the will of an oligarchy of experts who feed and direct the machine. Mr. Price Collier, who brought a genuine familiarity and sympathy with the Germans to hie interpretation of their character, notes their " stodgy, plodding way of working," their unacquaintanoe with sport and with games " where boys and men hustle one another about, as in football and polo/ and their long hours of application. The general result, says Mr. Collier, is "a physical lack of alertness, vivacity, and audacity in the men of practically all classes." An interesting lesson of the p/esent war is the extent to which these defects have counteracted the patience, the discipline, and the courage with which the German armies are so well endowed. The fondness for attacks en masse, which have exposed them to such terrible losses, are the result, not merely of ruthlessness in the command, but of that gregariousness in the national character which has both fostered the growth of an autocratic militarism and in turn been intensified by it. Even the new and huxriedjy-trained troops are being subjected to the same treatment. These troops, says the military correspondent of The Times, "have attacked bravely but stupidly, suffering immense losses, and the new formations are being dissolved rapidly." The new levies are being treated just like the first-class troops, though far less fitted than they for hammer-and-tongs treatment. We were, indeed, told when they first began to make their appearance that they were being sent to certain death on enterprises which it would have been hard to get experienced troops to face.' The British method is more reasonable. "The British are not hurrying their troops," says The Times' military correspondent, " but are bringing them to the front slowly in small numbers." They are thus enabled to complete their training behind the lines, and so gradually to replace the regulars. The great Prussian machine must go straight ahead, not shrinking from the wholesale sacrifice of its own men in the interests of a system. The gradual, piecemeal method of the British authorities, -which allows for the human nature of the recruit, is plainly not only the moro humane and sensible, but in this case also the more scientific of the two.