GERMAN WAR PLANS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 1066, 12 July 1917, Page 6

GERMAN WAR PLANS.

SECRET OF THE RETREAT. CONCENTRATING MAN-POWER. AN ILLUMINATING EXPLANATION. I The Gcrnjin War Lords have drastically and dramatically reviewed and revised (heir original war plans. Conquest has given place to concentration, "i or warts" to "hold fast." The reason for these vital changes is revealed in a wonderfully informative article by Colonel Repinsrton, the military correspondent of "The Times."] Some authorities, while admitting the gravity of Germany's position, do not think that it is desperate. They say that although want stalks through German lands it is only want and not famine. They believe that the Germans will be able to pull through till the next harvest, and they further conceive it to be probable that as Germany still has coal and steel, and can utilise aluminium for some purposes instead of copper, which is notoriously short, we must expect this year a considerable augmentation of the German artillery. The same authorities are disposed to question the reports of a great new mass of German troops in the interior, and believe that the enemy is seriously hampered for want of men. While not excluding the possibility of an oversea attack upon us, and still less excluding that of an attack upon Italy, towards which "Power Germany, they think may have left Austria a free hand, they arc inclined to heiieve that the action of Germany this year will be governed, in the main, by political expediency, though strategy, necessarily, has its part in the decision. A Supposed German View. Germany, the argument goes, has already gained more than sbe needs, and more than she ever proposed to keep. The Allies have refused negotiations, and therefore there is no further need for Germany to mainlain the intolerably long fronts which exhaust her man-power and resources, or to keep hold of territory which she only intended to use for the purposes of ulterior bargaining. Germany has Poland, and admits eventual Polish autonomy in one form or another, at all events as far as Russian Poland is concernled. Germany has the road to the East, the Balkans at her feet, Turkey [and Bulgaria are Prussian provinces, and the exploitation of Asia Minor • offers a great field for German activities. Why not, therefore, give up 'what Germany never meant to hold? Why keep Courland? Why not withdraw from Northern France and Belgium with certain reservations, notably respecting Antwerp, land even from part of Alsace, in ]order to satisfy French aspirations, 'or at least some of them? In this conception Russia is to be placated by the evacuation of Courland and a free hand in Armenia. Italy is to keep what she can win from Austria. England is to be satisfied with Mesopotamia—or, rather, Irak, to he precise-—with Palestine if she can take it, and with the German colonies, East Africa excepted. The Bospborus and Dardanelles are to be open to the world, but on no account is a Russian occupation of the Straits to he admitted. It is supposed that France will disinterest herself in the fate of Antwerp, and will be satisfied with the redemption of her territory, with the re-occupation of Alsace, and with the possession of German territories in West Africa. In short, while the fate of Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro is left in doubt, the poor dupe Turkey and ihe German colonics are to pay the price "of peace, and. if more has to be paid, then it must be Austria who pays it, and not Germany'. Military Consequences. Volumes, of course, might he written round this brief epitome of the supposed German view of the general situation, but the writer will not dwell upon it, and will pass on to consider the military changes which jare possible in the near future should these conceptions be at the back of the German mind. In the East a gradual withdrawal from the Dvina to the Niemen and the Rug is indicated, hut farther to the south the present line will continue to be held, including the Sereth and the lower Danube, because it is the shortest open to Germany in the circumstances. Tn Syria and Mesopotamia, as well as on the Armenian front, Turkey will be helped as much as possible to retrieve her losses, but Germany will not waste her resources in th ; s quarter. A generally defensive attitude will be taken up against Russia, and if the latter Power breaks in at any point the German centred reserves will be used to drive her hack. A retirement to the Niemen and the Rug will greatly shorten the German lines in the East, and is advisable in principle, in order to economise strength; but as the underlying idea is to hold out till the autumn, when Germany hopes that all Powers will be sick to death of the war, the retirement in the East will only take place gradually and under pressure, with the idea of standing on the Niemen at that date in the autumn when grand operations cease by stress of climate, and the nations, it is imagined, will be more disposed to talk. In the West the plan attributed to Germany in this conception is similarly, a gradual wttreat, under pressure, but not otherwise, to the Meuse. The Lys, the Scheldt, and the Dendre in Flanders; Lille and a line of works to the southward connecting up with the so-called Hindenburg line; and successive positions on the front of the French armies in Champagne, will be some of the stages of the retreat, which, as on the Eastern front, will be gradual, and will carry the Germans back to the Meuse by October. Verdun is the pivot of tins wheel back, and it is of moment to [lindenburg to possess it, but, failing Verdun itself, the German position to the northward of it can serve, and the front in Champagne must he stiffly held in order-to cover the retreat in the north. The idea lent to the enemy is to stand eventually on ihe line Antwerp-Brussels-Namur-Mezieresi- Verdun - Melz - Strassburg, and by repeating in each successive position this year's German tactics of the Somme, with occasional battles of greater severity and longer duration, to play out time till the autumn, and to exhaust the Allies in the West by perpetual combats fought to their disadvantage in front of well-pre-pared German positions, strongly armed.

The idea attributed to the Germans is to exhaust England during the summer, and to lire her of the war, by ruthless submarine warfare which enters naturally into the cadre of this plan, and it is supposed that l Russia, Italy, and France, owing to i their losses and the strain of the con-1 test, wiii be satisfied to enter into negotiations for peace and not to' face another winter in the trenches. The German troops will be economised as much as possible. The new formations will he retained throughout as strategic reserves destined to retrieve any failure that may ensue in the retreats from successive positions, and on the Mouse at least it is supposed that the German defence will he so powerful that Hindenburg may stand upon it until terms are arranged. But how can the enemy expect France to he disposed for peace when her evacuated territory is brutally ravaged and how is England likely to regard German savagery at sea? These outrages, far from disposing us to peace, are sure to have a precisely contrary result, but Prussian mentality is notoriously incapable of understanding the point of view of other people, and a great part of German woes is due to this failing. German Press Confirmation. To some extent this new conception is supported by statements in the German Press. When Hindenhurg was appointed to the chief command the writer mentioned a retirement in the West as a probability, and stated that Hindenburg alone had the authority to reconcile the Germans to such a disagreeable necessity. The German Press, and the old Marshal as well, exclaimed vehemently against the suggestion, and the Germans protested with all their might, and of course unanimously, that no such thoughts were in their minds. This was six months ago. Now comes out the “Zurcher Post” of March 20 with the statement that “over six months ago the initiated knew that in the spring of 1917 the German lines in the West were to he withdrawn,” and the Kaiser writes a letter, ostensibly to vaunt Ihe retreat, but in effect to place upon Hindenburg and Ludendorlf the entire responsibility for it. The ‘Frankfurter Zcitung” also points out that only a Hindenburg could undertake the dangerous operation of withdrawing the fro'nt without injuring German prestige at home and abroad. There are also numerous veiled hints, and something more, apart from evidence at the front, that the retreat on the Somme is only a beginning. The “Bund,” for example, writes that “the German re-grouping is as yet far from finished,” and that there is “plenty of ground between the Somme and the Rhine which the Germans can afford to give up now that they have freed themselves from the idea of holding territory for peace negotiations.” The “Norddeutsche Allgemcine Zeitung” of March 1 (5, though official, is quite as illuminating. “If it is possible,” it says, “for us already to foresee so clearly the advantages of even this slight retirement, involuntarily the question is raised: How would the situation be affected if use were made of these new tactics on a grander scale? Would not our enemies’ difficulties he vastly increased, and our own situation be improved? . . . The man who meaevery little alteration of our Western front' with compasses, and forgets in this rigid state of trench warfare to take a wide view of the last and highest aim of the war, must remember the days when Hindenburg, disregarding scruples and misgivings, led the retreat of our army from Poland in a masterly manner.” A Warning. Let us not, however, make the mistake of supposing, even should these suppositions be confirmed, that the Germans are beaten men. That they did not like their hammering on the Somme last year, and that their men regard a repetition of it with terror, we are well assured is the case. But the Germans have now 138 divisions on the Western front, besides 88 in the East, and the writer, at all events, credits them with the strategic reserves which he has mentioned in -previous articles. Almost any line of country suffices in these days for a defensible position, and, with nice new trenches, acres of barbed wire, and a formidable artillery, no liberties can be taken with it. A very large diminution of the number of troops holding the front lines can be made after the retreats indicated, and on the great rivers particularly the positions may be difficult to force. Our fronts, it is true, will also be diminished, but the main advantage of the shorter line accrues to the defence, and everything that the defender saves in troops goes to his reserve and increases his power of counterattack, for which we must be prepared on a new and important scale. How great, then, a chameleon is war! Certainly in this last conception of the German plan which has mystified everybody we may not he near the truth, for conjecture pbu s even greater part in it than in other hypotheses which have been mentioned. But at least this suggested plan explains matters as nothing else completely explains them, and all the different characters of the niece fit into the cast of Ihe drama. We must make no pictures in our minds, all the same, and must reca’t that the plan formed, whatever it may prove to he,.was settled before the Russian Revolution, which has brought not only the customary dim twilight of war upon the third act. hid even Cimmerian darkness from which a new grouping may emerge and surprise us all.