THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 15, 17 July 1918, Page 6

THE WAR

Details concerning the new offensive are still scanty. The attack opened on Monday; at mid-day here to-day it was Tuesday midnight in England, so that the battle has run two days. Tho small amount of information available may bo disappointing, but it is not necessarily significant. There is no reason to suppose that news is being suppressed because it is bad; no hint of trouble' is given in the official messages; and the absence of long and enthusiastic despatches at this early stage of the struggle even has an advantage. At least there is no danger of public opinion being unnecessarily shocked because it has been encouraged, into unduly high expectations.

It is possible now to arrive approximately at the character of the new attack. It is probable, notwithstanding the contrary opinion expressed in today's cablegram, that it is not intended to be, and is not likely to become, "the great offensive" which is in everybody's mind as likely to come soon as the final effort of the enemy to secure victory. An American correspondent cabled yesterday that military people in Washington regard the drive as "Germany's last desperate attempt"; but that phrase has fortunately gone out of fashion. It has been woi-n out. That the battle is connected with the intention to deliver a finishing stroke is, of course, true, just as it is true that a boxer's "lead" at his opponent's head is intended to secure for him a better opportunity on another and more vulnerable point. The present offensive is nofc a "feint" ; it is too big for that; but it is in the nature of a "diversion." It employs a very large enemy force, but it is not, we may suppose, using up to any serious extent the forces upon which Ludendorff relies for his "knock-out." The Crown Prince, highly successful as he was in the Aisne-Marne-Oise-'-battles a month ago, was permitted to: draw only in the smallest degree upon "these precious reserves; and we may assume that they are being just as jealously hoarded now. •

As a general strategic scheme in an imaginary typical battle of the historic type, we may consider one' general as feeling his opponent's strength, finding a ■ weak spot, and delivering a heavy blow there. That blow may be decisive. It may result in a complete breach in his enemy's front, so that the strong parts, which he could not have smashed by direct attack, lose their strength by being thrown into sudden movement. They may be surrounded and crushed, or battered from the flanks and forced into a rout, or smashed up by frontal attacks, or dealt with by a combination of those methods. . Such a battle would last a day or two—perhaps only hours. In that form of warfare, of which the Napoleonic campaigns afforded any number of examples, and which in the preceding century was typified by the victories of Frederick the Great in the Seven Years' War, it was possible, provided the armies were of moderate dimensions, as frequently occurred, for one force to defeat another of much greater strength. But the bigger the army, the harder it is to carry out the scheme at all.

To complete such a victory depends upon the execution of the two stages— first the breaking of the front; second,, the smashing of the opposing force as a whole. In the campaigns on the West Front in this war, the line lias now been broken several times, but" the second stage has failed; indeed it has hardly been attempted yet. The case of the Marne still remains the best example of a "battle of dislocation." That victory jit was a full victory in the sense that it compelled the triumphant invaders to reverse their motion and blocked their whole plan for the speedy ruin of France) was due to the purely local and relatively small movement by which General Foch pierced a "thin" place in the enemy's front, near La Fere Champenoise. But it was not developed into the second stage because it was impossible for the Allies to bring their .force to bear in sufficient weight before the enemy, having retired speedily, had reorganised on the Aisne. In no subsequent case has it been possible since to ■do so. Even in the German offensives, in March, for instance, when a great breach was created, and when everything possible had been done to arrange for the pursuit of any advantage won, it was impossible. The enemy tried in March to apply to the millions of to-day what the strategists of the past applied to-their thousands, and found it impossible. Armies cannot move quickly enough to cover in time the enormous distances involved. Their increased 1 siife and the vast supplies, which make them so powerful, defeat the modern facilities for rapid transport. The Germans, therefore, appear ''to have abandoned! for the time being this fiorm of strategy in favour of one definitely framed upon the special condition of the Allied front, the central feature of which is that at does not need to be broken to ensure a very serious degree of defeat.

Ths safety of the Allies depends today upon the sound an:d unbroken defence of the comparatively short section which links the armies of Flanders to those of the Oise and the Aisne; that is, the front in Picardy, lying in* front of Amiens. All the German efforts since March and April show that the enemy believes that defence to be sound; believes that he cannot' hope to break it by direct attack at present; and, more, that if he attempts to do so, he will probably call down the thunderbolts of a counter-offensive, and the net results will be to his disadvantage. Hia whole object for the present, then, is to uncover Amiens. It was for that that he attacked across the Aisne, when the Crown Prince reached the Marne; and tried later to develop on a large scale an apparent menace to Paris. It is for that he is now attacking on both sides of lleims. Again it is a city which he tlireatens—E«ims instead of Piris; and his idea is that Foch will-be compelled by the agonised mind of France to save a city at the expense of risking the final issue of the war. Paris was not brought into immediate danger. The peril of Reims, however, is intense and instant; but against that must be set the fact that whereas Paris has not been in the war zone, Eeims has suffered that misery for nearly four years, and is but a symbol.

So far as the news of the battle goes, it is eminently satisfactory. Besides attacking in such a. way as to threaten tho encirclement of Reims, the Germans 7nade a heavy push over the Marrte. and endeavoured to extend to the east their grip on the bank of the river; and this attack was met in part at least by the Americans. It was on the Manio sector that the advance seems to have had its most picturesque effects; that is, the river was crossed, and somo villages wore captured. On tho other hand the Americans not only won- back some of the lost ground, but in one place drove the Germans ■ half-a-mile behind their starting point. On the Reims sector tho Germans seem to have suffered very severely. The situation is summedl up in the official statement that "the Germans are everywhere held."