THE ALLIES’ STRATEGY

New Zealand Tablet, 15 April 1915, Page 29

THE ALLIES’ STRATEGY

Mr. Hilaire Belloc, whose journalistic writings on the war have aroused general interest, gave two lectures dealing with the present conflict at the Philharmonic Flail, Liverpool, on February'lß, the event being under the auspices of the Liverpool Geographical Society. The subject of the afternoon address centred around the strategy of the war. It was upon the decision in the western campaign ultimately that the result of the war would turn, said the lecturer. The first rule underlying all military operations was that in any particular field, other things being equal, numbers were the decisive factor, but only when used in a decisive time and place. Merely to have more men than the enemy did not mean victory. At the beginning of the war in the west the Germans had a numerical superiority in trained and equipped men of sixteen to ten. (Even to the present clay the numerical preponderance lay with the enemy of 81 to 72). Of that ten the British force might be reckoned as .5 and the Belgian army as an equally small decimal. The only thing the French could hope to do was to pin the enemy down, destroy his initiative, and contain him. It was the only success the Allies could reasonably expect, and that fact had not been sufficiently appreciated by public opinion in this country. The French rightly expected growth in both their own and the British forces (the English contingent now was five times the size of lie original Expeditionary Force), and if they could pin the enemy, in six or eight months the numbers of the combatants would be more equal. The chance of success rested ujion a device not unknown to Napoleon, and a favorite one with the French military school, known as the open strategic square, which Mr. Belloc proceeded to describe by means of diagrams. It was part of the scheme to hold a large force in reserve, and to rely on the capacity of another force to receive the full pressure of the enemy’s blow and to carry out a pre-arranged retreat without being annihilated. It was the German opinion that modern conscript short service troops could not stand the strain of such pressure as would fall upon what Mr. Belloc called ‘the operating square.’ This ‘square’ at Mons, however, consisted of the British troops' and the Fifth French Army, and its superb fighting quality justified the French theory. Had the operative or sacrificial square been pierced, then all was lost. At the best the scheme was a gamble, and it only just succeeded. The next problem of the Allies’ strategy in the west was to wear down the enemy until ho could no longer hold with the men available so long a line as that from the Swiss mountains to the North Sea, and on that task they were still engaged. What the issue would be, whether we could get a. shorter line or not, nobody could tell. ' ‘lt is my conviction,’ declared Mr. Belloc, ‘that when -the enemy finds he has to shorten his line he will appeal for an inconclusive peace.. It will be made to look .as flattering for the Allies as possible. He will appeal for that peace, relying upon the ignorance of a civilian population which cannot be expected to judge, on the ignorance or partiality of neutrals. A great

r • deal will be made in the press and in political speeches about the position being a deadlock, that he cannot win and wq cannot win, and that it was no use going on merely wasting young lives day after day. He will depend on a radically false conception that our’task is to push him back, and he. will appeal' to that very fallacious method of argument which thinks of ■ the progress made and the distance to the Rhine. .He will have behind him powerful financial interests, who will ask that the war be called a draw. • It is essential that public opinion in this -country shall understand that when the enemy makes that appeal the thing is no longer a deadlock, because he knows, and hopes we shall not know, he is in danger of shortening his line, and that is the moment for public opinion here to answer him No.” When he asks for an inconclusive peace, at that moment we are in sight of a conclusive peace.’ . ' .