"AS IN 1912"

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 86, 9 October 1915, Page 6

"AS IN 1912 "

A STUPID DELUSION GERMANS NOT TO BE CAUGHT IN A TRAP. The special correspondent of the London Daily Mail wrote on the 25th August :—: — The Russian victory in the Gulf of Riga proves one point of this article, which was written before the German naval operations had begun. Suddenly within the last few days everyone lias begun to discuss the question, ''Will the Germans try to get Perlograd ?" Until a few days ago the newspapers were forbidden to mention the German plan of advance against the capital. I'hen suddenly the cork was pulled out and a rush of surmise followed. But there has been no panic. The first point to be settled is, " Why should they want to come " The answer to that is, " They want to do every- ! thing which can harm and humiliate j Russia and force her to make peace." It is true they want most of all to defeat the Russian Army. But suppose the Russian Army declines to be broken up ; suppose that by skilful manoeuvring it escapes the giant pincers which the German General Staff hoped to be able to close around it — what can the enemy do then ? He must do something (1) To keep up the spirit of his armies, which have endured sucl' long- - continued and such painful exertions, losing horribly all, the time ; (2) In order to' be able to represent to the German nation that victory /'and the end of the " war have been brought nearer to them. If he could do this, and at the same time create a situation which would allow him to transfer a large number of troops to the west, he would certainly improve hie position for the moment, though he cannot in the long run avoid the disaster which is bound to overtake him if the Allies stand firm. TEST OF THE MAPv Well, can he do this? Is it within the bounds of reasonable hope and fear? Take a map and see. If you assume with the Germans that Russia, for want of equipment, may for some months be prevented from striking blows and compelled to continue parrying them, what is there to hinder the Germans, when they have finished driving her armies back, from fortifying a defensive front, as they have done in the west? "Impossible," you say. "The front is too long." The front is a long one, certainly. From the Gulf of Riga to the Rumanian frontier is a distance of 560 miles. But there 'is no impossibility about the holding of such a front by German means. "A machine-gun every 200 yards" is the lowest estimate I have seen of their fortified strength in France and Flanders. They themselves say they have twice as many, to wit, 95,000, which would give one to every hundred yard*. Their armament factories are turning^ out these weapons with rapid regularity. The part of wisdom is to suppose that they can do what they say they can do. It is better to take too many precautions than too few. Suppose, then, a deadlock established on this long front and a considerable force carried back to the west, would there remain enough Germans to be employed in an advance upon Petrograd? Remembering that there are still under arms at least two million Austrians and Hungarians, 1 think we had better admit this probability also. It is only upop a flank that any push forward could be made; 'and, further than this, only upon a flank which is protected by some natural barrier. The left flank of the German defensive front would be protected by the Baltic Sea. So long as the Russian Baltic fleet is "in being" it puts any advance on the capital along the coast almost out of the question. " But," say the Germans, " we will either defeat this fleet or drive it into a harbour where it will be frozen up. ■ Then we shall have a secure line of communications by water, which has immense advantages over a land line." - Do not dismiss this contemptuously as "bluff." The Germans have boasted, it is true, that they would do many things which they have not done. But they have done many things which they said they would do and at which we have laughed. THE STUPID 1812 PARALLEL. Do npt either press the " as in 1812 " comparison farther than it will fairly go, when everything is 1 taken into the account. , It is argued that Moscow must still be the most attractive magnet for a hostile force entering Russia. Whj'? On account of tradition? The Germans care little for that. They know, as Mr. Menschikoff points out in the Novoe Vremya, that conditions have altered since Napoleon's time. They do not suppose, as he did, that Moscow is the " real capital " and the key to the Empire. Petrograd is, as they " are well aware, the political centre, and it is only 260 miles from Riga. Moscow is twice as far. "Do not believe," continues Mr. Menschikoff, " that this war can be a repetition of 1812. It is something much more serious." "In 1812 there were no railways, no fortified fronts, no heavy artillery, no machine-gun^, no magazine rifles. As a war machine Napoleon's Army cannot be set against the - Prussian organisation. This is a more sinister slaughter-engine than Napoelon ever even conceived in his brisk Corsican imagination. Just because it is so efficient for its purpose, the purpose of death, we have got to go on until it has been destroyed and stamped into a mire of blood, so that it can never come to life 'again. We may in time defeat it utterly by a rain of blows, each heavier than the last, as a boxer who has kept "something to spare" all through the contest knocks out his opponent in the final round. Or we may, by wearing him down, conquer him in less spectacular fashion. But we need not hope that we shall lead him on into a situation from which there is no escaping save at the expense of a disaster such as befell Napoleon. There is no chance of that. Nobody who has read aright the lessons of the war can think there is. RUSSLVS UNSHAKEABLE SPTRIT. But although they are too wary to be caught in unconcealed traps, the German war-lords do make very foolish mistakes in their estimates of national character. They think that the capture of Petrograd would paralyse the Russian nation into surrender. That is a delusion no less stupid than that which made them believe the British nation would be terrorised by their futile submarine warfare. To Russians (I except "tchinovniks" — officials) Petrograd does not represent Russia any more than New York represents the United States. Russians would not be disheartened if the Germans took Petrograd. Nothing is capable of disheartening Russia now — unless it were a slipping back of the Government into its former sleepy, hidebound, red-tapey, incompetent waj's. And that is inconveivable. Men like Rodzianko, President of the Duma ; like Putchkoff , who is to be the new Munitions Minister; the Rabutchinski, the energetic Moscow business man ; like Count Robrinski, the Conservative whom the misdeeds of the War Office have transformed into a Radical Progressive — these men would not allow any slipping back, even if the officials were rash enough to attempt it. JTh.O making^ munitions on "» large

scale has begun. The country is working behind the Army. The Army knows this and has taken tresh heart. We hope it may be possible to keep the enemy where he is until the time conies to break him and throw the pieces back across his frontiers. But even if -that be not possible, even if the Germans should do what they have told their troops they intend to do, that is advance on Petrograd, Russia's spirit will not quail She will go on pr-naring for "The Day."