TOPICS OF THE DAY.
HOW WE STAND.
f iRE moment is one well suited for asking how the Allies stand, for there can be little doubt that we are approaching, if we have not actually reached, the crisis of the war. All the signs point to that—the naval battle, the frenzied character of the fighting at Verdun, the equally frenzied attempt of the Austrians to break through into the Venetian Plain, the glorious rush forward of the Russians in Galicia and their smashing blows against the Austrians, and finally and most suggestive of all, the mutterings of the coming storm on the line in Flanders. We can best enderstand the situation there by considering what able men with the Teutonic habit of mind, men trained in the arts of military ratiocination, would be likely to think and do in the circumstances in which they now find themselves. How do matters look from the point of view of the Imperial Ceneral Staff ? They see week by week how much stronger we are getting in men, and still more in munitions. We are freed from our embarrassments in Egypt ; we have had our losses in Mesopotamia cauterized by a cruel operation, but ine which in the end may prove salutary ; in Salonika the position is consolidated ; we have no anxieties in regard to any of those other " small packets " or minor fronts which at one time, whatever might be their future prospects, were immediate sources of weakness. Not only is our position strong at the moment, but it is safe to predict that in another few weeks, say on the second anniversary of the declaration of war, it will bo very much stronger. We experience a development of power which is literally manifesting itself daily.
The Germans would not be Germans if they did not argue from these premisses that before long we are certain to attack them in force. " The British are not arraying their whole people under a compulsory system, and working with furious energy at the production of great guns, of machine guns, and of munitions, merely for the pleasure of looking at their new soldiers and counting their projectiles. Both men and muni- tions are for use, and the use to which they will be put is clivious." The German General Staff would be certain to proceed from such a conclusion as this to draw the inference that the time has come when they must attack us. They are whole-hearted believers in the doctrine of attack, whether the ultimate purpose is offensive or defensive. It is impossible to believe that they are not arguing : " Don't let us wait till the British are quite ready and have everything comfortably arranged. Let us anticipate their tactics, and assault their line before they assault ours. Let us bring off the great struggle prematurely from their point of view. We are still ahead of them in the way of men and material, but the relative positions grow daily less favourable to us. It would be a capital blunder to wait any longer." There may be internal circumstances unknown to us but known to them which would militate against these conclusions. All we can say is that, assuming that the position is what we have represented it to be, the Germans must at this moment he contemplating an attack, not because they want it per se— they have got all the fighting they want for the sake of fighting at Verdun—but because they realize that if they delay much longer the tide will have turned against them.
We hope most sincerely that our view will prove to be the true one, for, in spite of the moral advantages which now go with the attacker, we hold that in the special circum- stances of the moment we should gain by the Germans beginning. " Messieurs les Allemands, tires les premiers," is a motto which will suit us exactly. We know nothing, or less than nothing, as to the plans of our own General Staff ; but if we could have the ordering of the battle we should like to see it begin by a furious attack from the enemy at whatever point of our line they may think convenient, and to see that attack pressed home with the utmost vigour, and led, let us say, by the Prussian Guards, in that nook of the line in which they are now concealed, but which, though they must know it a great deal better than we do, had perhaps better be left undescribed. We should like the Germans to maintain their attack with as much resolution as possible. To see them battering their heads against our trench-line for, say, five weeks would suit us admirably. Though no doubt there would be plenty of taking and retaking of trenches, we are not in the least afraid of our line not holding, of the t;ermans obliging us to alter our main dispositions, or of our having to break up our formations or shift our artillery in order to meet them. After incessant hard pounding of our line by the Germans, and the losses, exhaustion, and dislocation in which it would involve them, the German Army would be just in the condition which we should like them to be in before beginning our attack. Our only fear is that the German General Staff may have carried their process of ratiocination somewhat further than we carried it at the beginning of this article, and may have come to the rueful conclusion that what is happening at Verdun prevents them from doing what they would like to do now. The truth is that, whether they ultimately take Verdun or not, the attack there has been a gruesome failure. The Verdun plan of campaign could only have justified itself if it had been a quick and overwhelming success ; but who can say it has been that But if this is the right view, and the Germans, though they would like to attack us, dare not in view of all the circumstances, what then ? Our answer must be to remind our readers that our own General Staff is anything but con- temptible, and now controls anything but a contemptible little army. And because we have every confidence in our own military leaders, in Sir William Robertson on this side of the water and in General Haig on the other, we do nob for a moment imagine that they are going to act in isola- tion. That which is coming, whatever it may be, is an affair not of the British Army alone but of the Allies as a whole. Principles will be decided by the General Staffs of all the Allies acting in consultation, and will be executed on the Eastern Front by the Russians and on the Western by the French and English commanders—the supreme control there being in the hands of General Joffre, as the General who controls not only by far the longest part of the line but the largest number of troops. Happily, there is here no occasion for us to step warily even in words. It is a matter of common knowledge that no punctilios stand between the French High Command and our own, and that it is recognized that in cases of common action the French Generalissimo says the final word. It is a most happy circumstance that public opinion here has the utmost confidence in the wise and steadfast French soldier. He has won the respect and admiration of the British as well as of the French people.
We have dealt elsewhere with the details of the Russian dtivance, but must say something here as to the feeling which the Russian victory, or rather series of victories, has produced in England. The British people have never faltered in their sympathy with Russia, and have been profoundly touched by the way in which the Russian people and their Sovereign took with heads unbent the bludgeonings of Fate. We sorrowed with their sorrows, and we knew that their second spring would be terrible in its force and fury ; but we did not think it possible that the Russians could be in a position to take the offensive so early as the beginning of June. It was the common opinion here that it would not be fair to look for a Russian offensive before the middle of July or the beginning of August. So convinced, indeed, were the British publio that they must not let their hopes outrun their discretion that it was with something which might almost be described as stupefaction that men heard that Russia was on the move and her armies driving the Austrians before them. When, however, what people here at first thought was a piece of military gallantry, almost of bravado, turned into a great and serious military operation, we found it difficult to express our delight. Our Russian Allies must remember this if it should chance that some of them may be inclined to imagine that we have not recognized to the full what they have already accomplished. They have relieved the pressure upon the Italians in the Trentino, and who knows but that their action may not prevent the local triumph which the Germans thought they had at last within their grasp at Verdun They may even upset those schemes for anticipating events on the Western Front of which we have written above.
The truth is that, after nearly two years of advantage drawn from the possession of interior lines, the Germans are beginning to find that, though interior lines may be all very well while you are winning, when an unfavourable end draws near they often spell the dreadful word " envelopment." Further, they are probably discovering how powerful may be the interaction of campaigns on a number of fronts if only they be properly co-ordinated. Take, for example, the way that the Russians are helping us now, and how we, by the great sea action off Jutland, have been able to help Russia. We have little doubt that at this moment the Russian Generals on their Northern Front—around Riga—. are able to feel far happier about the general situation than they were before the defeat of the High Sea Fleet. The dread of Germany using the Baltic against them has suffered eclipse. It may be, indeed, that German supremacy in the Baltic has gone altogether. At any rate, it has gone till the Germans, in the hushed sea seraglios of Wilhelmshaven and Cuxhaven, have repaired their shattered ships and equally shattered moral. At this moment, as the small naval action in the Baltic reported in Thursday's papers shows, it is the Russians, not the Germans, who have free movement in the mare clausum of the North.
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