UNIFIED COMMAND

Timaru Herald, Volume CLI, Issue 22202, 20 February 1942, Page 8

UNIFIED COMMAND

Proved In 1918 Results Came Quickly Intimation from the Russian Ambassador, Maxim Litvinoft, from Chungking, and other sources that close co-operation between the Governments engaged in war against the Axis was under way give some reassurance that the worst mistakes of the World War I may be avoided, says a writer in the '‘Christian Science Monitor.” When Britain faced the Hitler forces practically alone after the collapse of France, she had the full advantage of a unified command. When Hitler attacked Russia last June, the democratic peoples began to get uneasy at the want of integration in the anti-Axis forces, which kept British forces Inactive while Hitler was enabled to devote all his attention to Russia without hindrance from the West.

With the united States adding another great military force to the antiAxis group, the question becomes still more insistent —will the anti-Axis confront the unified command of the Axis with a unified command of their own? It is generally conceded that tremendous losses occurred unnecessarily in the first World War because fighting which, with a unified command on the part of the Allies might have ended in 1916, dragged on until late in 1918. During all this time, from August, 1911, to April 3, 1918, Britain and France and their associates were each running their own wars behind their various fronts in Belgium, France, Italy, and Russia while the Central Powers, all confronted by the German High Command, could out-general every Allied move. Co-ordinated Plan Vital To attempt any such unco-ordinated strategy to-day against an Axis which times every thrust, whether in the West, in Russia, Africa, or the Pacific, according to a properly integrated plan is recognised by even the man m the street as suicidal. Throughout the greater part of the World War, the Allies were all competing against each other in the American market and putting up prices against each other. Britain, Russia, and the rest were all competing for TNT; France was forcing up the price of picric acid, while the whole metal and machinery market was dislocated by the activities of Russian agents. At the opening of the war, the Allied countries not only had an enormous superiority to the Central Powers !n wealth but they out-numbered them bv millions in men. The first to feel the full force of the disorganised front was Russia which, having called up 14,000,000 men to arms with no possibility of adequately equipping them, began to crumble rapidly through 1915. In December, 1914. General Yanushkevitch. Chief of Staff of the Grand Duke Nicholas, was writing to the War Minister: “My hair stands on end at the thought that, owing to shortage of cartridges and rifles, we shall have to submit to the enemy.” Russian Case Cited He even appealed for shells without fuses as something to enhearten his troops: “Would it not be possible,” he implored, “in addition to everything else to increase the quantity of shells (fuses are not necessary, but there will be shots). At any rate the spirits of the troops will be kept up.” “If it were possible,” he went on, “to throw in 150,000 to 250,000 men at once, it would be possible in one to one and half weeks to hurl back the enemy.” The Western Allies had cartridges and rifles to send, but, with each carrying on its own war, they were never sent, although Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George used all his eloquence to urge them to do so. In the West the Allies failed to break the German line for three years, although they had a 50 per cent, superiority in troops, because the Germans, within a day or two of any new allied offensive were always able to bring up a' litional troops to block it. The ruinous attack between Soissom and Rheims under the French General Nivelle in April, 1916, which practically knocked the French out of the war for a twelvemonth, failed because agreement could not be reached with the British Commander, General Haig, to release necessary French detachments and the delay in timing the attack enabled the Germans to bring up reserves from Rumania and the East. Defence Gave Way When a corresponding big German offensive was planned on the West front in March, 1918, French and British knew it was pending and knew they had large reserves in Italy and Mesopotamia—in the last-named field they had a superiority of six to one against the Turks. But no arrangements could be made to call upon these reserves and when the blow fell on March 21. 1918 the superiority of the German forces was three to one on the Fifth Army front and two to one against the Third Army, with the result that the defence gave way before the avalanche and at one time threatened to break down the resistance of all the Allied Armies in the West. Moreover, the obvious expedient to alleviate the full force of the German attack —to organise an attack against the relatively weak Austrian forces in Itjily —could not be carried out through failures in co-ordination. In the previous August, the Allied Governments were almost on the point of sending reinforcements to Italy to break up the Austrian defence on the Carso. Then they hesitated, Ger"- rl

Haig being anxious to have all the men possible for the Passchendaele offensive in Belgium, which gained him two miles in ten weeks of fighting in the mud at a cost of 400,000 men lost. When opinion seemed for a time co swing toward the Italian venture, the Italian commander began to think it too late for fighting in the mountains , and nothing was done. American Army Autonomous The arrival of American troops in ; 1917 added one more to the nations fighting a war of its own. Talk of a united command was then in the air, but General Pershing is quoted as stipulating: “On the day when an offensive action is required of the American troops, the American army will have to be autonomous.” Reluctance among the generals to sacrifice their autonomous commands proved one of the insuperable obstacles to such a move, while the civilian statesmen, who saw the need, such as | Lloyd George and Briand, had difficulty in getting their views accepted. Only when the 1918 German offensive threatened the whole Allied defence in the West did the Allied generals begin to make concessions. There had been a complete deadlock between Foch, who insisted on the necessity for a counter-attack with all available reserves, and the Haig-Petain combination, which urged delay for the offensive until 1919, when the full weight of American reinforcements would be available. The supreme confidence of Foch finally decided the day for unity, and after a preliminary arrangement effected on March 26, 1918, giving Foch command of a general reserve force of all available Allied forces, but leaving the commands separate, the Allied leaders a week later, on April 3, finally agreed to a completely unified command under Foch. Results Came Quickly The change in the fortunes of war was almost instantaneous. Reinforcements were moved quickly about the whole front, reaching from Flanders, through France, Northern Italy, Greece, and Palestine to Mesopotamia. British and French divisions were sent to bolster Italy against the Austrians —the weakest section of the German front. A unified plan, adopted by Italy as rn the rest of the front, interfered with ill enemy concentrations for attack. The Austrian front began to crumble when an Italian attack came in June, while Foch and Haig worried the Germans by continually nibbling at their whole front in ,the West. Reinforcements were supplied from India and Mesopotamia, and on September 14 an attack was started from I Salonika against another weak sector— j Bulgaria. In the attack were Greeks, i British, French, Serbians, and Italians —all moving in harmony through the’ single united command. In two weeks Bulgaria collapsed. On September 13, Allenby, in Palestine, with a few reinforcements from France and Mesopotamia, attacked the Turks, who collapsed on October 31. In the West, Foch, now reinforced by 12 American divisions under Pershing, and by the famous American “Rainbow" Division under command of the French General Gouraud, had organised his offensive, which began on July 18. And when it began, it was carried out with lightning speed. The Germans were taken by surprise, while minor attacks elsewhere prevented them bringing up reinforcements as they had done before. Foch had superior numbers at the main point in incessant punishment from the Allies, which forced them to give way steadily all along the western front, and disheartened by seeing all their dreams of a Mittel-Europa vanishing in the collapse of Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey, the Germans submitted on November 11 to the unified Allied command. It is probably no exaggeration to say

that the future of civilisation will turn on the willingness of the great powers to make sacrifices for the unity and the general welfare of the whole, not only in the immediate war. but also in the peace that must be established in its tram.