THE BATTLE AND ITS LESSONS.
Tstatements issued in France by General Foch, by M. Clemenceau, and by others who are in close touch with the Generalissimo, assure us that the German onrush, which is continuing at the time when we write, will be checked just as other attacks have been checked ever since the begin- ning of the war—at the Marne, at Verdun, at St. Quentin, in Flanders, and so on. The coolness of the French, even in the gravest circumstances, is wonderful. It proves them to have the true military mind. It could never be doubted, however, that they had that ; even the disorganization of 1870 could not disguise the fighting instinct and valour which make the French the truest military nation on earth. And all the military virtues of the French are gathered up in the person of General Foch. It is unquestionably a great con- venience to have a single command for the conduct of a single battle. The operations that are now raging along the whole Western Front are, of course, nothing but a single battle, and no commander could have been chosen to preside over the Allied fortunes in this area with such general assent and confidence as General Foch has earned. There seems, how- ever, to be some confusion of thought about what is loosely called unity of control. General Foci's control of this single battle is a very different thing from the unity of control of Allied strategy in all the different theatres of war. This is a very much larger and more difficult problem, and the creation of the Versailles Council was nominally an attempt to solve it. Personally, we think that the Supreme War Council at Ver- sailles was created to serve other purposes ; but however that may be, we hear little of its doings at present, if it is doing anything. It is a mistake for people to run off with the idea that the much-discussed unity of control has been achieved because General Foch is now commanding the British as well as the French forces.
An article in the New Europe of April 25th says that the place which General Foch occupies in the development of modern strategy is best understood by comparing his opinions with those held by the French General Staff after the Franco- German War. Moltke succeeded in imposing on the defeated French Staff a Prussianized version of the doctrines of war. When General Foch took up the subject twenty years later, he showed that, though the general principles of war are the same at all times and in all places, there should be a special development of ideas appropriate to the genius, traditiOns, and temperament of France. He renounced the slavish imitation of Prussia. 'As a military teacher at the Ecole de Guerre he enjoyed the devotion of faithful and enthusiastic disciples. His sayings are well remembered by his pupils. " The battle lost," he used to exclaim, " is the battle which you think you cannot win—tine bataille ne se perd pas waliriellement.' Again, " C'ese l'dme qui gape la baiaille." He would quote also from Bugeaud, " Moral force, thou art the queen of armies I " and from Hamlet, "For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." These are only glimpses into the character of the leader in whom we may all implicitly trust. We have only one word of caution to offer. The man who has so brilliantly preached the necessity of cultivating the peculiar French military temperament would be the last man to deny that the peculiar British temperament must also be indulged. If ever Mr. Lloyd George's favourite doctrine of unity of control should be pressed to a too logical conclusion, the blame, we are sure, would be with our own statesmen and officers and not with General Foch. Imagine the difficulties and dangers—for these undoubtedly exist. The French are a notoriously logical people, and having agreed with Mr. Lloyd George about the principle of unity, they might wish to pursue it so far as to ignore the fact that the British fight best when they have preserved their own sense of identity. It is upon their own sense of identity, their idiosyncrasies, their self-dependence and individual initiative, that the British thrive in the field. Fresh French proposals for unity which might conceivably be made would be framed, of course, with the utmost sincerity, and yet through a very natural ignorance of our national habits they might be undesirable. The British democracy is a wayward thing, and will not be suppressed when it wishes to express its thoughts. The blame for any dangerous misunderstanding or friction that might result would lie in that case not on the French but on our British leaders who had failed to represent the truth about the British soldier.
There is some evidence for thinking that the Germans intended their latest advance as a preparation for a bigger movement elsewhere. But like the clever soldiers they are, they are never hidebound ; they are not tied to any particular plan if unexpected developments suddenly offer them a great opportunity. For this reason it is still uncertain whether the Germans will revert to the plan which was put into oper- ation at the end of March of advancing westwards to Amiens, or whether they will expand the scale of their present south- ward operations, make them the main movement, and try to cut the railway between Paris and Reims. General Foch may safely be counted on not to use reserves unnecessarily, and the really critical time will come when either party decides upon the employment of its reserves.
It is enormously important for the nation to recognize that in the last analysis all our difficulties can be met by the raising of more men, and by that means alone. We recognize that it is an unpopular line just now to say anything in criti- cism of what we regard as the Prime Minister's dangerous strategy ; but after all, a sense of duty is an urgent thing even when it is satisfied at the cost of offending many suscepti• bilities. Last summer, or at all events last autumn, it was quite clear that the Russians could help us no further in the war. Sir William Robertson, as Chief of the Staff, preached incessantly that the Germans would deliver a tremendous onslaught on the Western Front, and that we must make ready by raising every available man. The Prime Minister, we regret to say, did not meet this demand. He believed (tide the Paris speech) that we were knocking our heads against an impenetrable barrier in the West, and he contrasted with Sir William Robertson's strategy glowing images of possible adventures on the Italian front and elsewhere. Sir William Robertson was ultimately got rid of, and the British initiative on the Western Front was abandoned. Now, if we had deliberately retained the initiative on the Western Front, we should have been absolutely compelled to face the problem of Man-Power. We could not have continued to attack without more men ; and by attacking we might well have anticipated the present German offensive in accordance with a well-known rule of strategy. There would have been more combings-out last autumn and winter, Conscription might even have been applied to Ireland, and everything would have been done that was necessary on the assumption that a tremendous struggle in France and Flanders was certain. When the heavy reverse of last March came the blame was by inference put upon the Army. That was the meaning of the speech of April 9th. We do not look into the past with any pleasure. Our sole purpose is to utter a waning against a repetition of error. The men must be raised now. And Ireland is th6 first field for Compulsion.
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