VERDUN THIRD FAILURE FOR GERMANS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLVII, Issue 13049, 11 January 1917, Page 6

VERDUN THIRD FAILURE FOR GERMANS.

By Frank H. Simonds

Three times in the present war the German high command has matched itself with the French. Three times in conflicts on which the issue of the war hung, the genius of two races has come into collision. The results of these three conflicts will remain forever

comprehended in three names, Paris, Calais, Verdun, and if the salvation of Paris, through the Battle of the Marne, was the greatest of the three victories, more important to our civilisation than anything that has happened in modern history, "the French defence of Verdun will take its place close . beside the earlier conflict.

And at Verdun as at the Maine, every physical circumstance. was against the French; they were outnumbered, they were outgunned, they were fighting with their backs to the wall, to retreat meant not alone, defeat, bur disaster. Joffre's memorable words on September sth, 1914, which bade those soldiers who could not advance to die in their tracks, were but repeated, by the phrase of the French soldiers themselves at Verdun, whose "They shall not pass," caught the echo and the spirit of the Spartans of Thermopylae. To-day, when the French troops have at last* taken the offensive and -.in a few. hours regained all but one of the important positions lost by them in the' defensive phase of the Verdun, campaign, it is possible to speak of Verdun in the past- tense. It is finished. After eight months the story of the German attack upon Verdun is-at last fairly well known to the world. It was * a supreme effort to dispose of | France. It was conceived sby Falkenhayn, Chief of the German Staff, for the purpose of the work that was begun in the opening days of the war, interrupted by the defeat of the Marne, postponed by the Tepulse at die Yser and the city of_ Ypres. It was a deliberate determination to crash. France by the greatest concentration of guns'ever seen on any battlefield and by a thrust backed 'by the best trained soldiers that Germany commanded. Less than ■ a year before Germany had struck exactly the same blow at Russia- along the Dunajee, and it had resulted in that disaster to the Slavs which at a single thrust undid months of Russian success and carried the victorious Germans beyond Warsaw and Brest-Litovsk, far into the provinces of Old Russia. In January, 1916, Germany ccsuld say to herself that Russia was out of the war for several months—for six months, at least. The Germans reckoned quite correctly. Tliey could also see that England would not be ready, iu the same time. The Balkan, campaign had abolished all danger frqni the south and put the Turk on his feet again. Even Austria was sufficiently reorganised to be able to undertake an aimed; at the Venetian Plain, and destined to. reach the very foothills that rise from the Adige and Brenta. Valleys. In January, 1916, there was only France ready and in the field. - If France could be crushed _ before the six months during which Britain and Rusr sia were ijnready and Italy occupied, Germanv had the certainty of victory before her. All the conditions that favored her before the Marne were, in her favor now, save only that the French were, conceivably, better prepared. This the Germans did not concede to themselves. Nor did they believe that "there were left to France the men and the spirit to fight alone, with the awful consciousness! that none of their allies was in condition to help or would be for many months to come. The great events of war are almost always dependent upon the estimate made 'by one of the contest-ants as to the condition of the other. Napoleon on the battlefield of Waterloo, rejoiced because at last lie had the British before him. He had ever under-estimat-ed them, and his under-estimation was the true explanation of his defeat. The German under-estimate of the spiritand the numbers of the French m January 1916, led them to a disaster only less than Waterloo in immediate consequences. We know now that there were voices in Germany, as there were voices in Napoleon's staff before Waterloo, which warned against this new trial in the West. We know that the grim old Hindenburg stormed at the abandonment of the Eastern field, in which lie had won so many victories. But the German General Staff, the German Tj-eople, saw an exhausted France as they had seen a, (lecadent France 18 months earlier, ancl stood firm in their decision, which won the support, of the Kaiser because it held out the promise that his son, commanding the victorious army, would establish . t-he Holienzollern fame on still® surer ground. ' When the struggle opened on February 21 the Germans had on a narrow front- north of Verdun not less than 3000 guns of every calibre . They had upwards of 300,000 troops, many of which had been enjoying a longperiod ol' rest and preparation. Theyhad before them, less- than 80,000 French troops," and these were not of -the- best. Behind the French- was no concentration of heavy artillery. The first line trenches were good, the second line scarcely- more than, a- trace,, for the French had relied upon the oldpermanent- forts as points of support.' In every essential the German attack was a surprise, and its immediate effect was terrific. Even now we do not know exactly what happened) in the next three days. The fragment si of the French troops hung on to portions of their positionsi and died about- them. The German wave did not come through with an immediate rush as at the Dunajee. There was some semblance of a- front duringthese three terrible days, but there was no organised front and the heroismi of the regimental officers who died with their men chiefly postponed the immediate disaster. • - 1 • -But the. postponement -was brief. By; February 25 .the Germans had come south more than four miles, they had come clean through all the French lines of trenches, arid .what'was worse, they had actually taken. Fort. Douaumont, Which was the most important of the old permanent forts in the outer circle of the Verdun defences. From this fort they could look straight down into theburning city of Verdun and 1 were not over-sanguine when they forecasted to the world' its- immediate fall. At thistime, too, they claimed, to have taken- j Vaux, mistaken clainij for it was four months later that Vaux fell, although Vaux is less than a mile from Douaumont.

In this time we have terrible anxiety in Paris and grave division of opinion .between statesmen. The. army Ilelieves that the policy of wisdom is to fall back, behind the flooded Mouse, not to attempt to restore a. line on a hillside, with the river out of its banks and just, behind, not to risk a great disaster and" .the loss of the whole army. In the view of the soldier Verdun is worthless, if tlie hills behind it can be held, and the soldier guarantees this. But tlje states-' .man sees'.more" clearly. He recognises that all France, all the whole world will read in the evacuation a confession of terrible defeat. •So-.at- last-we have the decision of 1

.the soldier to accept the will of the statesman, the personal victory of Bri--and over Joffre. Castelnau and Petain

■go -to Yerdun-r-Castelhau, who saved' Nancy in August and September, 1913,'. ;Petain, who all but pierced' the jGerman line.;in Champagne in the great battle of' Sept-ember, 1915. v "What follows immediately" is the most brilliant of all the phases-of Verdun.

:A new line must be formed, new: trenches and defences put in', and while this 'is 'done the Germans must be checked. For this there is, fortunately, available the best- corps in France, the Corps of Iron, the corps which will live with the Old Guard in French hist-orv, Balfourier's Twentieth Corps. When the blow 'fell'this- corps' was resting a t Camp de Mailly, nearly a- hundred miles south, and now it- arrives in automobiles and' throws itself into the furnace. In the next - few days its mission is to hold while a new army creates a new line.

And 1 the Twentieth does hold. It cannot get back Douaumont, but it dies in the Ravine of Death., it retakes the village of Douaumont, it clings to the slopes of Pepper-Hill, it clears the approaches to Vaux, but for the most part it stands and dies on the lines it takes up when it reaches the front. All through the last- days of February the

terrible struggle goo.-- on. • The losses «< on both sides are terrible, but the Ger- ' 1 man losses begin to be unparalleled as tlieir commanders feci the great moinents slipping bv. Actually this is the great crisis of Verdun; there will be no such critical hours again. ■ With the first days of March" there is a pause, then on March 9 comes the second 1 .great- convulsion; but the French, are ready, the new army with , Petain has arrived and taken its position, the work of the Twentieth Corps is completed and the Germans are this- j time unable to emerge from the batter- , •ed walls'of Douaumont. Now they try the west bank of the river, the Dead Man's Hill and Hill 304 come into the official reports, to linger over many months. But here the German advance is slow and insignificant. They had got south four miles in four days east- of the river; they never got three miles

south on the west. After March 9 the French High command is no longer troubled. I,t is satisfied that Verdun will hold. It recognises the remote possibility of further retirements, but the chance of a break in the whole line, and there was a very real chance in the first days, has disappeared. Germany will now have to buy each inch of French soil at a French price. All chance of a great success has gone, only a fight for moral values remains', but the moral values are great, for the whole world has fixed its eyes upon this corner of the earth and made the possession of the heap of ashes in-the valley beneath the hills the*test of victory and defeat. -October 21, exactly eight ftionths to the day ; after the first- German drive, "the French leave their trenches after having repaid the" Germane- for their great bombard'ment,: retake Douaumont fort and village, Thiaumont farm and work, Damlonp battery,the famous forests of La Cailette, Chenois, Fumin, the quarries of 'Haudromont, Vaux, retake all the ground inside the old entrenched camp of Verdun which Germany has taken in her months of advance. Germany is now back of tileposition she held on February 25. _ • This venture cost- the French in total casualties less than 4000 men; they took more than; 5000 German prisoners. All told the fighting lasted' three hours, the advance from Douaumont to Fleury, two short- miles, had' taken the Gjk - mans exactlv four months. ■ - What is the Secret of the French success Mainlv it. is to be found' in the fact that German artillery has been removed from before Verdun to meet* the Allies' thrust- in-the Battle of the Somme. Thither troops have also gone, all tile advantages the Germans possessed in February, the French had 1 in October; the one advantage they -always had, their unconquerable- spirit, they never lost audi the Germans never acquired!.' ' . . . On April 6, three' days before t-iie last general attack of the Gernjans, T saw a French'division filing through Verdun on ; its way to the firing line, I saw the- men as they moved' through the shell cursed town. I sat and' watched' the lines flow by marching to the, sound of the guns. ; And.'-having seen the men,-J came away convinced'.thai Verdun would not fall and' the Kaiser's army -would not pass: And; it is the faces-of these men that rise before- me now, when their vitory is established, when Verdun lias become as memorable a-French- victory over- the Prussian aa rValmy and' not less significant for mankind; ' : • : ' -i