GERMAN COUNTER-TACTICS

Evening Post, Volume xciv, Issue 73, 24 September 1917, Page 6

GERMAN COUNTER-TACTICS

The relative importance of attack and •counter-attack is necessarily not a fixed quantity; but modern big-scale warfare, ■by protracting the former one-day battles into affairs lasting weeks or months, has emphasised the value of counter efforts, and has compelled the suspension of judgment till final phases of a big movement have shaped themselves. /For instance, ..the first chapter of a battle like Messines is often quite clearly defined; it may happen, as at Messines, that immediate objectives-are realised with small loss. Bat it remains for . subsequent phases-of'the conflict to reveal whether vthe captured ground can be-held sufficiently cheaply to make it worth while holding-jjrsndia valuation of'the operation ;caimot be arrived at till it has worked 'itself down to stable conditions, and ■until the cost of maintenance of gains -can be assessed' in terms of the value of those.gains. It is.now apparent that the Germans, in their present tactics, approach the problem especially from the point' of view of counter-attack. The front iine may be held even-lightly—in order to reduce casualties —but behind it are. massed great forces for the counterblow ; or, as Mr. Robinson puts it, " instead of a single strong line they now base their defence on great depth, and crowd their troops on very narrow fronts, supported, by strong, reserves .further back for immediate counter-attacks." So fa-r, our cabled hews indicates that" these "immediate counter-attacks " have almost entirely failed, because of the British Army's special measures to meet them —measures including great roading, wire-laying, and gun-concentration work. Mr. Robinson nlso speaks of massed guns extending on the German side to a great depth, and it remains to be seen whether these can make our tenure of the c«.p-

tured ground too costly. Every position has its value, and he is a spendthrift commander who pays too highly for it. All the reports, and all the probabilities lurking between the lines, suggest that the British .High Command has seized the problem at the right end, and that its system of tactics continually places the German at a disadvantage, both topographically and in the matter of relative losses. British superiority in morale and material is becoming more accentuated, and no counter-tactics yet devised by the enemy can reverse the position. The changed attitude of captured German officers, though it is a circumstance which should not be exaggerated, is indi-. cative of a gradual realisation by Germany that she is being defeated 1 at her own game, by a foe whose margin of superiority must, on the Western front, •inevitably increase.