THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER, 16, 1914. THE VICTORY IN FRANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15715, 16 September 1914, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER, 16, 1914. THE VICTORY IN FRANCE.

A wise reluctance to form too hasty a conclusion upon the result of the great battle on the Marne has delayed adequate recognition of the tremendous victory there achieved by the Allies. As to this there is now no possible doubt. The AngloFrench forces have fought and won what is asserted to be the greatest battle in history, and the routed Germans are being driven homewards as fast as they can travel. We must leave to military experts the future task of analysing and criticising the strategy of the opposing comj manders, and of explaining for the benefit of unborn students of military science the lessons to be drawn from this desperately-contested field. Of more interest to the general public, and possibly of more real importance even to military students than strategy itself, are the commonplace causes which have actually led to the collapse of the German invasion, and to the headlong flight of a host that deemed itself invincible. These causes can be understood and appreciated without technical knowledge or special information. They are being more hotly discussed and canvassed among the German people than among ourselves, for they reveal the feet of clay in the brazen image which the Germans have been taught to worship, and may excite either a passionate reaction against | aggressive militarism or a vicious determination to re-establish the national idolatry upon a less fragile j basis. For it is not to be expected I that this crushing defeat of Ger- ! man invasion in Franco will bring J peace to Europe- Germany has set j herself too long and too stubbornly I to become the over-lord of Europe I to relinquish that evil dream withi out repeated and prolonged defeat. I As Pharaoh hardened his heart, so j all despots and all aggressive ! peoples harden their hearts against the acceptance of the inevitable— i the, most bitter thing to those who 1 thought themselves able to enslave ■ others being the realisation that ; they are helpless in the. face of the divinely-inspired impulses which preserve liberty, truth, and justice I among the nations of the earth.

The clearly-visible cause of the German collapse in France is that ingrained quality of German policy which assumes that diplomatists without scruples or conscience can forecast what nations and governments will do under any given circumstances, and that military campaigns can be planned as confidently and as completely as games of chess. This policy obviously overlooks the existence in men 'and nations of unfathomed and incalculable, moral qualities, and as obviously ignores the influence of these moral qualities not only upon the determinations of governments, but upon the fighting capacity of armies.

Prussia was long successful in her freebooting career because the ; European world— has its outposts in New Zealand and South Africa, as it has its centres in London, Paris, and Antwerp—did not grasp the meaning of her steady rise to the control of the old German federation. As long as the Brandenburgs confined their exploits to the south-eastern corner of the Baltic they were ignored by the rest of Europe; and when Prussia, renewed her activity under Bismarck the western nations were too torn by mutual suspicions and jealousies to organise against her. During the whole period, however, Europe has been developing an international conscience ; this development has been fostered and quickened by the modern inventions which have so greatly facilitated intercommunication, and brought nations with kindred aspirations into closer sympathy with one another. From this growing international sympathy Germany has held herself aloof. Dominated by Prussia, and saturated with the heathenish Prussian ideas, she has become utterly self-centred and selfsat istied. By sheer brute strength, gradually and systematically in- , creased, the whole world was to be ' conquered. Her diplomatists were to seize the opportune moment ; , her army was to work like a 1 machine ; her neighbours were to be attacked and plundered one after I the other without any regard to the foolish international conscience which was leading other states to respect treaties, to keep agreements, to shrink from war, and to confine their military efforts to defensive preparations. Germany became a purely military modern state, in which a thin veneer of pretentious culture overlay a national spirit that had been designed, made I barbaric, heathenish, and ferocious.

Thus came* this Great War. Germany imagined the moment opportune to crush the life out of France at a blow, and, swinging round, to shatter the sluggish strength of Russia. This would leave her supreme in Europe and free to devote herself to the overthrow- of Britain. Belgium would yield a passage to German hosts. France would be caught unprepared. Britain would look on. There was evidently not the slightest doubt in the German mind that this would be the position, and to provide for this position was' the task of her military authorities. They worked on this assumption. Two million men were to be hurled at France, to march resistlessly to Paris, to crash through all opposition and demoralise French resistance. Then the majority of these millions were to be swiftly drawn back to meet Russia, leaving a few corps to root out the remaining vestiges of French national organisation, while the superior German navy swept French commerce from the seas. This German scheme, long planned, long prepared for, assumed everything and only allowed a margin for eventualities on this assumption. Overwhelming numbers were its main reliance, swiftness its assurance, reckless indifference to loss of life its great strength, the terrorising of civilian populations its immunity from the drain of guarding lines of communication. So many guns, so much ammunition, so many horses, so many motor-cars, so many aeroplanes, so much food and so much fodder, were integral parts of the scheme, which could be accomplished in so many days with so much loss of life and so much exhaustion of the invading forces. On paper a pretty plan! It is easy to imagine the satisfied smirk of the egotistical Kaiser when he deigned at last to approve of the I plans of his council. The difficulty 1 was that no allowance was made for the moral factor that is unknown to Prussian calculations. Belgium fought and cost Germany precious days. A British army was rushed into the German path to Paris, and made, a fighting retreat that ranks among the great deeds of the Empire. The march to Paris cost in time, in men, in horses, in ammunition, in all the necessary and essential material of war incalculably more than the Germans' anticipated, and when Paris was finally reached an unbroken Anglo-1 French army still held the field. Provisioned and equipped, horsed and ammunitioned only for a swift raid, this vast German host, itß j edge dulled by the matchless rei sistai. of a comparative handful Jof British, could not endure an j exhausting battle which lasted five j days, but which the Allies could I have maintained for five weeks. i The Germans exhausted their energies, exhausted their supplies, exhausted their self-confidence— and fled from an untenable position, with Allied flank movements southward and northward threatening them with still worse disaster if they lingered.