Evening Post. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1918. A COMPARISON WITH 1916

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 77, 27 September 1918, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1918. A COMPARISON WITH 1916

■ Count yon Hertling speaks truly when he describes the German situation in 1916 as bad. That was the year when— having devoted 1915 to blows at RussiaGermany turned again to crush France, and met with colossal defeat at Verdun. Notwithstanding the counterbalancing "brilliance" of the victory over Rumania in the closing months of the year, 1916 left the enomy at a big disadvantage in what may be called the solid elements of the war. The lesson of 1916 was that, if Russia remained entirely belligerent, 1917 would see the German situation pass from bad to worse, and 1918—as Brusiloff promised—would probably bring it to the stage of the impossible. Unfortunately, Russia, though militarily undefeated, dropped out of the wa*r through Germanmanipulated treachery; and .the present -year, instead of witnessing the culmination of the Allies' original converging movement from West and East, sees instead a growing ' concentration in the West alone. This concentration is rendered possible only by America's marvellous attempt to replace Russia. Already it is proved that the enemy's estimates of tEe available American strength (that is, the strength available in the front line) have been shattered. Already it is certain that the submarine's potency has been reduced from the decisive sphere of prevention to the important one of attrition. But, admitting all these things, is the Allied military situation in 1918—with a battle-winning superiority on one front—equal to what it was in 1916, when the prospect of the overwhelming West-and-East convergence seemed destined to be fulfilled? That is the question which is raised by the German Chancellor when he declares, that the enemy position " is not so bad as it was during the summer of 1916." What he means is that a defensive Germany, freed from the two-front danger of two years ago, is capable of holding indefinitely a shorter Western line; that tho Russian threat of 1916 is removed ("the former menace has. disappeared "); and that, therefore, the land armaments of Germany, aided by sea-attrition by submarines, can permanently resist the Allies—or, at any rate, that their prospect of doing so is better than it was in 1916.

One significant feature is the German official admission of the degeneration of the submarine campaign. . The submarines, says the Chancellor, "are, above all, restricting the American reinforcements of men and material." The gap between restriction and the preventive •theory of Yon Tirpitz is too enormous to be worth measuring. Secondly, the Chancellor builds .upon the non-renewal of the Eastern front, and a yoar ago his opinion might have found little challenge. But to-day it is open to serious argument; and there is, indeed, a fair prospect that the whole basis of his case —the removal of the Eastern "menace" —may be undermined, and that the strategy of the two fronts is not dead, but only sleeping. Thirdly, the German principle of an impregnable single front, tsaMid-jm-ijp i ao-»feorter-iiaa*in-!th«-'sy««tk.j

is not sound, oven if the other circumstances should develop in the way that the Chanceifcs proposes. We believe that the genius of Foch, .pros the American millions, plus the unequalled machinery equipment which the Western world is throwing into the struggle, are capable of triumphing over even the ideal defensive policy which Germany projects, and are capable of doing so at no impossible price in human blood. Therefore, whether the two-front warfare, in the fullest sense, is to return or not, we are convinced that the Chancellor, when he says that Germany's position is not so bad as it was in 1916, is militarily and morally, wrong. He is snatching at a technical argument that is plausible yet unsound, in order to preserve among his own people the diminishing mana of the Warlords.

With the rest of Count Hertling's political hypocrisy, now sadly hackneyed, we'have neither time nor inclination to deal. It is merely the same old assumption of rectitude in the face of historical facts. It remained for the.henchman of the Pan-Germans, Dr. Yon Payer, to supplement as Vice-Chancellor the effort of the Chancellor, and to re-infuse into the Government policy those aggressive features which his chief had been endeavouring to keep in the background. Yon Payer's defence of the Brest Litovsk treaty, and his frank . repudiation of "complete" independence for the Russian. Borderland States, finished up the Reichstag debate with a flourish consoling to the Pan-Germans, and thereforo -illuminating to the world at large. Even the pacifists can hardly deny the unrepentant hardness of the Junker heart. The plagues afflicting the Prussian Pharaoh are various and potent, but their work is still fay from the issue that the safety of civilisation demands.