Was Britain " Unprepared " in 1914?
Colossal Blunders of the War. By William Seaver Woods. (Allen and Unwin. 10s. 6d.) Ma. WOODS hands out to his own country a liberal share of blame for Great War blunders, and for the lives thrown away by American officers' ignorance and incompetence" due to lack of training. When he tells the American nation (for this is an American book) that the disastrous Allied start in 1914 was a result of British "unpreparedness," he must be convicted either of faulty investigation or of judgment unsound. For Britain was prepared to do what she had promised. Our Navy was ready in every technical re- spect. At the very beginning it took up its position, equipped for action in all that officers and men could control. True, it lacked an alert general staff and a plan of campaign, but that was a delinquency higher up. It was in every other sense prepared.
So were the divisions which Sir Henry Wilson had agreed to land in France. They were at a very high degree of efficiency, so high that it is common ground now among military writers to treat them as the best trained fighting men of the whole War. The arrangements for their transport were complete also. After Baron Marschall von Bieberstein. German Ambas•sador before Prince Lichnowski, had declined the ingenuous suggestion made to him by General Seely, a member of the Government, that Germany should accept the world as it was, Mr. Asquith grew alarmed and asked several shipping magnates to make plans for landing an expeditionary force on the other side of the Channel. These plans worked like a charm. Without any fuss, hitch or publicity the troops awaited by the French were put ashore, marched up and took the place assigned to them by General Joffre. If his scheme had fallen out more happily, the War might have been, as he believed it would be, ended very quickly. It was because everything went wrong at the beginning that Britain was obliged to raise and train an enormous number of soldiers. But no part of the cata- strophe in the last days of August and the first days of September, 1914, was due to Britain being in any way particularly "unprepared," as Mr: Woods supposes.
This point is worth insisting upon because there are still a great many people even in this country who do not appreciate it. Further, there are a great many who rightly think, as Mr. Woods thinks, that it was the invasion of Belgium which brought us in. They cannot yet understand why General Joffre's scheme left that invasion out of the picture and caused the bulk of the French armies to mobilize in the wrong place. Mr. Woods is clearly unaware that it was "thrift, thrift, Horatio" which prevented the mobilization plans in the French War Office from being altered. It was well known to every student of war that the Germans must attack through Belgium. Mr. Woods quotes General Michel's opinion to this effect, expressed in 1911. But much earlier than that General Maitrot had pointed out the impossibility of breaking through what he called the "Chinese Wall" of French forts in Alsace and Lorraine. Six years before the War, too, M. Clemeneeau told King Edward (and Mr. Wickham Steed, who chronicles the conversation) that Germany would have to strike through Belgium. Lord Roberts in 1910 was told the same thing by the Chief of the French General Staff. This was common talk among soldiers and politicians. When General Joffre, whose scheme assumed an advance in the south, was asked what would happen if
the Germans took the northern alternative, he used to say slyly: "Ah, s'ils ford cela, je lea tiens." • What he meant nobody ever knew.
In justice to him, it must be admitted that he was almost compelled to make his scheme fit in with the mobilization plans in the French War Office. He could, he ought to have refused. He ought to have offered to resign rather than take such an appalling risk. This might have forced the War Office to go to the Chamber and declare that the plans must be altered, whatever the expense might be. Joffre decided, however, that he would go on with the old plans— and suffered one of the most terrible defeats in history. He wiped out the smarting memory of this by the skill with which the victory at the Marne was organized, but that was only possible because of the German error which deflected the march of von Muck's Army. On balance, posterity will probably estimate the Marshal whom we mourn as a bungler. It may be that this same judgment will be passed on the British soldiers and statesmen who tied their country up with France and Russia so securely that it could not have escaped honouring its engagement, even if Belgium had not been invaded. Had Britain failed to keep the promises made—not in writing, perhaps not in so many words, but unquestionably made beyond possibility of repudiation without loss of credit and self-respect—had we failed to march in line with the French, we should have been guilty of the lowest ignominy. No one who was in Paris or in Petersburg during the early part of the War can have any doubt about this.
Mr. Woods imagines that the British line in France before the offensive of March, 1918, "seemed impregnable" (when everyone behind the scenes knew it was bound to be broken) ; he supposes de Robeck to have been a French admiral (because of his name !) ; he does not know that the Oisaster of Tannen- berg was the result of deliberate disobedience on General Rennenkampf's part. However, there are many points where the knowledge of all of us falls short. If Mr. Woods' book helps to convince people that wars on an immense scale are bound to be a mere series of blunders, some lucky, most of them catastrophic, it will do good.
HAMILTON FYI:E.
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