SITUATION IN FRANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16847, 11 May 1918, Page 1 (Supplement)

SITUATION IN FRANCE.

LUDENDORFF'S NEXT MOVE.

BY LIEET.-COL. A. A. GBACU, N.Z.F.A. RES. The. question which all the world is asking is: What will Ludendorff do next? It has been gradually dawning on the mind of the world that if Ludendorff is not a fool, then, he is very unfortunate. He planned this great offensive in a spirit of desperation. He would sever the British from the French, and then he would drive the British into the sea, capture Calais and the Channel ports, bombard Dover with his new, patent long-range guns, and probably invade England. It was a splendid programme—on paper. But it was impospossible. It, was mad. By and by, I suppose, the Kaiser or his wretched son will look for a scapegoat. It may be Ludendorffjust, as it was Moltke, after the disaster on the Marne—but it may be Hindenburg. That fat-headed old Prussian, glorified as the victor of TannenJjorg, is in reality merely a nigger-driver. He won at Tannenborg, not by reason of his own prowess, but byreason of the folly of the Russian generals opposed to him. Samsonoff possessed no more military acumen than a drill-instruc-tor, and Bennenkamf was probably a traitor to his country. To defeat two such generals was no great honour. However, the possibility is that Hindenburg will have to pay the price of Ludendorff's stupendous failure in Northern France and Flanders. Somebody will have to pay for it. In no case can the blame rest with the Kaiser or his cretinic son. The Next Move. Of course, it doesn't matter to us who is disgraced over the business, but we may be sure that Ludendorff, with the forces still at his command, will try to retrieve his defeat and so save his reputation and that of Hindenburg. The question is : What will be his next move? It must be remembered that he has failed altogether to carry out any part of his original plan of campaign. He was to have forced his way between the British and French by means of his terrible thrust towards Amiens. He was to have broken the British Army. It -was to be isolated and cut off from the French, as he fondly hoped, by means of the tremendous blow he struck in the Valley of the Lys. But in both cases, in the Somme Valley and in the low-lying country west of Armentieres, he has entirely failed to attain his object. What will he do next? It doesn't look as if he can do anything very remarkable. He can repeat his blunders of the Somme and the Lys. He can go on hammering at the armies between him and Amiens, and at the armies opposed to him on the heights of the Lys Valley. But he will thereby merely repeat his previous defeats. What LudendorS needs to do, in order to retrieve a situation which is rapidly becoming desperate, is to evolve by a stroke of genius some such master-scheme as Marlborough consummated when he marched to, and fought at, Blenheim. • But is such genius in Ludendorff? I don't think so. He appears to be little better than a military gambler, a general who risks his country's fate on a, throw of the dice. Therein he demonstrates his foolishness and warrants our dabbing him a fooL ■ ; „ - The Methodical German. The average German brain is not imaginative: it is merely methodical. Throw it off its balance by some sudden and unexpected movement, and divert it- from the course which it has marked out for itself, and it will take quite a long time to recover its equilibrium and to find its bearings. It is not the master-mind it thinks it is. It is desperately careful, it is slow, it is methodical to a fault, it reaches its goal by groping along, by painful methods of deduction. But when once it has evolved its cumbersome theory, wild horses will not be able to drag it from its intention of putting that theory into practice. With the German the theory is its achievement. The German who is wedded to his theory will refuse to abandon it, though 50,000 fiends bar his way to the desired end. There is much stupidity about him, and much of what appears to be his bravery, is, in reality, only stupidity. Nothing very remarkable may bo expected of Ludendorff. He has very nearly shot his bolt. I am very much of the opinion that he is at his wits' end to know what to do. Of course he will go on fighting, but he will be fighting merely to delude the German nation into the belief that he is doing some great thing. I am very mUch inclined to think that presently his mind will be occupied with thoughts, not of what he can do but of what can be done to him. It is quite certain that sooner or later Foch will strike at him with all the strength at his command. _

Allied Possibilities. That Foch will hit back goes without saying, but as to how and when he will strike, nobody should know but himself. But there are quite a number of things which he might do. He might lure Ludendorff into concentrating vast armies at the apex of the Somme salient, and then he might strike with his great armies of reserve at the southern flank of that salient. If he were successful in carrying out such a manoeuvre he would catch all the Germans concentrated in the salient, like rats in a trap. We will wait and see. But there are other 'things that Foch may do. A man who has mopey can always get something for what he spends, and a general who possesses reserve armies can always use them to some purpose. Foch might strike over the Chemin des Dames, or he might strike from Pont-a-Mousson, down the valley of the Moselle, behind Metz. There are quite a number of things lie might do. But it is very hard indeed. to see any way in which Ludendorff can retrieve his failures. I am not writing on strategy. I am only trying to gauge the effect of the recent great defeat of the Germans, south of Ypres. By all the rules of the awful game of war, the Germans should have taken Ypres. It is, as they say, of no strategical or tactical value, and Foch would certainly have been justified in letting it go, but, for reasons which are, no doubt, "in conformity with his plan of campaign, he decided to make a stand, south and east of Ypres. The event justifies the decision. He gave the Germans some staggering blows, but this is nothing to the blow he is preparing to deliver, First of all he wishes to tire them out, to exhaust them ; then, when he strikes there will be more likelihood of his blow being decisive. It well may be that Ludendorff, unable to solve the problem which confronts him, may dig in on the lines which he at present holds. But that won't help him very much, because the two dangerous salients, which he has created in the Somme and Lys Valleys, will form tempting and vulnerable points of attack for the French and British Armies.. I cannot conclude without saying something of the extraordinary valour 61 the British troops under Sir Douglas Haig. When I say British, I include the English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Armies fighting in France. History shows nothing finer or more admirable than the resistance which they have opposed to Ludendorff Ludendorff who imagined in his delusion i that the British could be smashed, because they were but newly-formed armies! But his decision proved conclusively the length and breadth and height of his , folly. I Max. 6.J