PROGRESS OF THE ARMISTICE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 10136, 26 November 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE ARMISTICE

It is a fortnight since the armistico was signed—nearly half the time of its fixed duration: and that time has begun to reveal the full measure of the immenso victory won over the enemy, [fc is indeed a victory worthy of tho great cause for which. the conquerors took up arms. The armistice gives the first fruits. Of their gathering there is no sign of peradventure, treachery or no treachery. Before half the timo of the armistice has passed the German High Sea Fleet, has been surrendered, and the enemy's armies are more than half-way to the stipulated line of the fthine.

Tho commentators exhaust language in the attempt to express the greatness of the first of these events. The journalists, on the other hand, entrusted with the duty of describing it for us, have achieved the perfection of futility. Three times they have tried their hands, and yet the greatest pageant of the war—of any war —remains hidden under a perfunctory sketch. Wo have not even a full list of the names of the great battleships surrendered to the British Admiral. Sinco Trafalgar there has been no such tremendous event. Trafalgar has como down to us in a vast detail of tho remains of great fighting ships atrewn over the sea. The event of to-day is largely left to tho imagination, in spite of the magnificent, material for the employment of graphic power.

Wo must console ourselves by recalling what Thackeray said of tho work of illustrating the great masterpieces of fiction —that no artist can realise them for the readers who construct for themselves the pictures of what they read, condemning invariably as inadequate the efforts of the artists to realise them with the brush.

But this was not fiction. It was a splendid event, the result of the fightlfrg power, tenacity, vigilance, and skill of the createst naval force ever seen on the water. A great fleet which had carried the hopes of a great nation bent on the dominion of the world came out from its shelters and gave itself up to tho enemy. Its officers and men had for two decades toasted "The Day" on which it was to stand proudly erect amonir the wrecks of the beaitn naval power of the Mistress of tho Seas. "Tho Day" proved a day of bitter humiliation. One after another tho leviathans of Germany gave themselves up intact, with all their formidable equipment complete, filed before tho powerful, silent conaueror, submitted to the supremacy of his flag, and went under escort to moorings in his harbours, lost to their country for evermore. Of the naval maneouvres in the piping times of peace we have descriptions by enthusiastic writers who. having bankrupted vocabularies, fell back as exhausted as the language they had so prodigally proved to be inadequate. But this tremendous result of actual war has found them comparatively dumb. The event seems to havo been too stupendous for them to grasp.

When the Grand Fleet of Britain steamed off after manoeuvres in tho early days of August, 1014, for tho North Sea, we said, "This means war." \vhen that fleet comes back something over four years later with this vast prize of war. these chroniclers almost seem to say that it means nothing.

Tho meaning is, however, stupendous. No need to tell over again tho story of the great achivement of clearing the seas, of maintaining tho worldwide communications of great fighting forces, of frustrating tho submarine campaign of tho enemy. No need oven to refer to tho great battlo of Jutland, in which tho prowess of the Navy made such remarkable display. Tho surrender in the North Sea is an acknowledgment that proves the whole case from tho beginning to tho end, an acknowledgment at onco stately and convincing. After Jutland, tho enemy boasted that he was the real conqueror. Presently came tho time when every rule of war, every consideration for the safety of his armies, and every ono of tho last hopes of victory remaining to him, called imperatively on him to make good that bonst. Had ho boasted truly he would havo come forth to paralyse the British and American armios in France, at all events when the Allies, recovering from the opening blows of tho groat campaign of final decision, wero getting the tipper band. But tho ships remained in their shelters, and their men stood paralysed, watching tho growing defeat of their comrades on shore, not daring to strike a blow to savo their country from tho swiftlyapproaching doom. JQmpires fell in ruins, each in its overthrow leaving tho Fatherland weaker and moro certain of utter disastrr. Still not a ship of the g~oat fleet moved out, until tho armistice cut its cables and turned its heads seaward.

And then the German fleet went out to save tho German armies from annihilation, not by fighting, but by surrender. The admission of the

awfulncss of the German defeat at Jutland is complete, undeniable, beyond all possible doubt. The bolder spirits wanted, it is believed, and it seems with reason, to move- out and strike a blow at the last moment. But it was the despair of tho suicide, who seeks by self-slaughter to avoid humiliation; and seamen who had been through the Jutland fight declined to sacrifice themselves. Thus they illuminated the greatness of the British victory of Jutland.

The defeat of tho German armies was not less complete. They maintained throughout the last months of their desperate fortunes an appearance of united strength and determination. Therein tho tactics of the great master of war commanding against them favoured them. This because his strategy was of limited objectives according to a plan developing towards a final overwhelming crash, but not seeking to break up the enemy prematurely. The turning point of the great war had como during tho first battle of the So'mme. That battle proved that the newly-created armies of Britain possessed to tho full extent tho personal ascendancy asserted from the first clash of arms on the West front by tho French, British, and Belgian troops. It did more; it demonstrated that tho ascendancy of equipment, which, but for the personal inferiority of the German fighting power, would have given tho victory to Germany, had passed from tho German armies.

The collapse of Russia caused a halt in tho hammering which set in after the first battle of the Sommo (by giving the enemy decisive superiority of numbers), and was threatening- tho onemy with disaster. But, thanks to tho immensely increased activity of preparation with which America met the situation, the numerical superiority passed to tho Allies.

There was a memorable, most notable gap. The enemy prepared to strike overwhelmingly in that gap ot time, and did strike. The Allies reeled under tho blow, but the personal ascendancy held the enemy indecisive till the arrival of the American troops in increasing numbers —one of the most wonderful feats in military history—bridged the gap. Then the opportunity camo to the marshal commanding to take the initiative from the failing hands of liis opponent. He struck on July 18th, catching tho Gorman general in "flagrant del it " as his people put it.' The rest followed that most tolling blow. Bulgaria, Turkev, Austria were beaten to ruins, the German armies were driven from tho massifs of St. Gobain and the ridges of Flanders. Neither the Flankers mud nor tho enormously strong Gorman lines in Picardy or in Chamnagne, or in the Argonne or tno Woeuvre could stay the swift progress of the master's series of limited objectives, which allowed the enemy to keep un appearances while the nana of death was tightening on his armies. The enemy knew tho truth, asked for an armistice, and saved Ins shattered lemon* by adopting most sovere conditions.

No further' proof of utter defeat is required. But such is forthcoming every day. There is a mist of demoralisation about the German retreating armies which tells its own tale, lhe tale is supported by the demands ox the Allied Armistice Commissioners upon the enemy command to keep its men in order. These are treated by von Hindenburg—who has replaced tho fallen Ludendorff, who was so outgeneralled and so ground to powder—as B'rencih impertinences. It is the German way. 'But the big bully is under no delusion-and takes care that the Government ho serves —whatever that Government may be —shall not be deluded by the cursing roaring remnants of the military clique and its panGerman sensoless rabble, into any stupidities of resuming the war. While soothing the susceptibilities of Germany by declaring that the French want aii excuse for resuming the war, He tells them with complete frankness "that tho German army is unable to resume war even against the French alone." There we have tho full measure of ;tuo Gorman defeat from the hand of, tho strongest and the most hard-headed of all the Gorman generals, the general who, if there wore the least change of benefit by resumption of ihostilities, would act at once.

He knows the ascendancy of the Allied armies, personal and material; he understands the superiority of tho military genius c.t their head; he knows that the strategic positions given up are fatal to all hope of fighting; he is aware of tho depth of the disaster which compelled the surrender of all the units of the High S-ea Fleet that count. Add the abdication of the Kaisca- and the clean sweep of 278 members of reigning houses, the political turmoil, and the mutinous spirit of the soldiers, and not much doubt can remain of the completeness of the German defeat. This is the revelation of tho first half of the Armistice neriod. The revelation of the second half will probably be even more interesting.

IJooking , back, wo note that tho Battle of Ypres was fought and won before the close of 1914. It was tho culminating operation of Foch's groat strategy which secured to tho Allied armies the lino of the Yser and tho Lys. It was the greatest example in war of a defensive-offensive battle. A great feature of the operation was tho opening of tho dykes at the right moment, when tho gap in tho Allied line before Ypres had been closed by tho completion of the Allied concentration in Flanders. The details of the fighting, so glorious to the soldiery of Britain, France, and Belgium, aro familiar now to nil. Its result \\;as to finally lock the enemy's armies in the long crooked line from the North Sea to the Swiss border. From that moment towards the close of 1914 tho cnomy has never forced a way through that line. His greatest efforts havo been confined to that line, and his final defeat has occurred between that lino and the German border. Looking back, one can safely, therefore, say that ho was beaten before the end of 1914 hopelessly by the French strategy. Writing of this battle of Ypres, the distinguished critic, Do Souza, said, early in 1916, it "marked tho total collapso of tho German offensive in tho West." Chocked at Nancy and on tho Maine, ho further says, and finally defeated at Ypres, it was "the most formidable offensive ever attempted, for in it Germany employed nearly the whole of her best troops, troops of a quality that, onco lost, she could not replace." Ho added that "behind tho strategic barrier they had so successfully established, the Allies would

gather their reserves and their war material for the finish-of-the war." r *k • Of that finish lie had no doubt. In fact, apart. from-.outside, help, there was no hope for. Germany.; and whatever the subsequent course of developments—even including such outside help—the eventual fall .or dissolution of the Central Empires became as c?rtain, as inevitable, as the mathematical descent of the solar disc over the horizon at sunset. Compare this prediction of 1916 with the .facts of 1018—the facts -•■ crowded into the three months following .the first great stroke of Foch's counteroifensivo on July 18th; the victories of Allenby, D'Esperey, Diaz, and Foch; the Armistice, with its surrenders and abdications; and the collapse of Bulgaria, Turkey, and Austria. There was never prediction so clearly stated and so completely justified. * * * One more quotation from De Souza's "Germany in Defeat" is essential. Speaking of Lord Koberts and his visit to Foch's headquarters''in l Flanders; he says: '"' ■-■■•■•• "After studying on a map the battle of Ypres, the veteran could not restrain his admiration, and turning to some of General Foch's staff who were near him, exclaimed: Ton have a great General.'" The correctness of the. great'British, general's opinion is handsomely proved by the wonderful campaign whiah ended with the Armistice wo are discussing to-day; the event which has justified the optimism of four years.