BATTLE OF THE MARNE

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21041, 17 February 1940, Page 11 (Supplement)

BATTLE OF THE MARNE

Defeat of Germany :: People Kept in Ignorance

Ex-Editor of Berliner Tageblatt (Now a Refugee in France)

QN NO OTHER BATTLE in the history of the world, not even on Waterloo, have so many books and articles been written as on the Battle of the Marne. For two decades military critics and historians have been discussing what mistakes on one side and what forces on the other brought to grief the “lightning war” planned by the German Army leaders—the dream of a rapid and crushing attack, which is being dreamed once more at the present time. Enough has probably been written in German to stack a large room to the ceiling on the question whether or not old Von Kluck. in his reckless determination to get ahead of the other Army commanders, marched forward too hastily and incautiously with his forces. Would he have reached Paris and crushed the enemy if Lieutenant-Colonel Hentsch had not brought instructions to withdraw all along the line? What a contrast between this mass of subsequent research and the scanty and indefinite communications published at the time in those days of September, 1914, communications which told the German nation no more than that the impending capture oft Paris had been delayed by a little by unforeseen impediments. Battle of the Marne?—There Was None. Announcements of victories had come, unceasingly from G.H.Q. since the first day of the war. On August 27 and 28, after the march through Belgium, the military bulletin reported “complete defeat of the British Army.” and “victorious penetration of the German Western Army into French territory.” On September 4. “General von Kluck’s cavalry has reached the outskirts of Paris. The Western Army has crossed the line of the Aisne and is continuing the advance to the Marne. . . . Rheims has been occupied without a blow.” On September 8 : “Maubeuge capitulated yesterday.” In between these came the news from the east of Hindenburg’s victory at Tannenberg. The German public had fresh reasons every morning for hanging out the flags: without the slightest doubt, as many had prophesiscd, in the Foreign Ministry and the War Ministry among other places, it would all be gloriously ended by Christmas. No wonder there was popular enthusiasm with this continuous series ot reports of success. On one of these days a long convoy of captured guns was brought into Berlin. We watched it from the windows of the great painter. Max Liebermann's flat, close to the Brandenburg Gate. There was a vast hurrahing crowd: it was a regular 'triumphal procession already. At that time the military censorship, in spite of its excellent organisation, did not maintain so keen a watch over public opinion as is done by its successors of today, and in these first months of the war >not every channel was closed against the possible infiltration of disturbing news. Occasional copies of foreign newspapers, especially from neutral countries, found their way into the country, and the editorial offices of the great German newspapers received telegrams from Holland, Scandinavia and Switzerland. These had to be placed before the censor, but various things slipped through. Thus on the evening of September 8, the day on which the German Army Command had confined itself to reporting the capitulation of Maubeuge and the capture of 40.000 prisoners, there came into various newspaper offices the surprising news that a Battle Was Raging Outside Paris; the French left wing had come into conflict with the German right wing and the British Army was joining in the attack. On the following day private telegrams told of a German withdrawal, a defeat on the Marne, a great victory for the French and British armies. Inquiries at the War Ministry, at the command offices in Berlin, and of other authorities, met with the simple reply that nothing was known of all this; obviously the alleged withdrawal was merely a carefully calculated strategic operation. Not until September 10 did a further bulletin come from G.H.Q. The German Army units that had advanced beyond the Marne, it announced, had been attacked by superior forces, and when the advance of strong enemy reinforcements was reDorted the Army Command had “recalled the wing.” Cautiously worded as it was, and preceded and followed by splendid news from

the East and by descriptions of the entry into Rheims, there was still a danger that it might tend to damp the enthusiasm of the public; accordingly, on September 12 and 14 the Supreme Command announced that the battle in the West was continuing and pursuing a favourable course; “the news unfavourable to us which the enemy are spreading by all possible methods is false.” Thereafter there was no further mention of any fighting on the Marne. Even so well-informed a person as Count Mcnts wrote to me on that very September 14 that “things are going unexpectedly well in the field,” and that Moltke, the Chief of Staff, was distinguishing himself. On that day he had indeed distinguished himself—by a complete nervous breakdown. On the 19th Count Monts had learnt that there had been a “critical moment.” but he did not take the news tragically: “It seems that the Critical Moment Outside Paris has been overcome, and that the battle there is the beginning of the end of the French Army in the field.” Such was the view of the former German Ambassador at Rome, a man with a military training and in the opinion of many people the future Chancellor of the Reich. The event was apparently taken far less lightly at G.H.Q. This was evident from a letter which I received at about the same time as Count Monts’s optimistic prophecy, from a high official of the Foreign Ministry, whose name I will not give as he is still living. He was in attendance on the Kaiser, with Chancellor von BethmannHollweg, as representative of the Foreign Ministry. " His letter also showed that G.H.Q. were discussing a war policy of a radically different nature from that which had so far been declared. “Under the impression of the events between the Aisne and Marne,” he wrote, rather dejectedly, it would be necessary when victory came (“but we have not got so far as that yet”) to impose on France conditions which should make her harmless for a long time to come. For it would scarcely be likely to be possible “to get at Russia decisively.” I could have reminded my correspondent that at the end of July he had said to me that the Russians had “no guns and no munitions.” Now, “under the impression of events,” the idea had emerged of letting the Russians off lightly, since there was no getting at them, seeking an early reconciliation with the Tsar, and forcing a decision only in the West. This was clearly the idea of General von Falkenhayn, the new Chief of Staff. It had no chance, however, of being carried out. either then or in the years that followed, because Hindenburg and Ludendorff, Falkenhayn’s greater and more popular rivals, reaped victory after victory in the East, and had n~» inclination to forego the results of their tre.nendous successes at arms. Amid all the horrors of the war there was one fact which was a complete surprise to me, as, no doubt, to many others. Diplomatists might cultivate the art of the language that conceals thought, but the Army was expected to speak candidly, clearly, courageously. It was painful to note how the Army bulletins were Glossing Over Every Setback or writing of it in such a way that the reader could make nothing out of them. “The wing had been ‘withdrawn,’ or the front ‘rectified,’ and the troops ‘regrouped’ for strategic reasons.” For four years unpleasant news was strenuously kept from the people; gradually every loophole for its entry was stopped, and Germany walled off from the outer world. The Battle of the Marne had had no existence, and news of other things that happened beyond the encircling wall was similarly suppressed. In January, 1916, Prince Bulow, returning from a journey to Switzerland, voiced his disgust at this suppression, which was giving the German people a completely false idea of their situation, concealing from them the temper and the opinions of the rest of the world and allowing no suspicion to arise of the nation’s immense peril. The inevitable final awakening to the truth resulted at once in a breakdown of the national morale and will to resist. No encirclement is as dangerous as the selfcreated encirclement resulting from the sending out of hundreds of thousands of spies and the stationing of a legion of frontier guards. A nation thus encircled will always be likely to lose its balance and collapse when the exaltation has vanished and the truth reveals itself.