The Responsibility for March, 1918
Tuts volume displays all the vast learning and the luminous exposition of detail which we have come gratefully to expect from the author of this great undertaking.
He gives cogent reasons for publishing this instalment out of its chronological order. It is obviously not an ideal arrangement, for the events of 1918 can only be viewed in perspective in the full light of the frustrated hopes and unrequited sacrifices of its.• predecessor. During that year the burden and heat of the War had been borne by Great Britain for the •first time in a measure plainly greater than that . of any of her Allies.
Next spring she had to face the most formidable military ordeal in her history. This is the record of the preparations and counter-preparations for this tremendous drama of assault, and of the six days of its first act.
Now this great tactical defeat, by far the most spectacular which the British Army has ever suffered, requires much explanation. For three years ,.the Allies in a general superiority of five to three had hammered remorselessly at the enemy. Month-long battles had hardly succeeded in forcing an advance of seven or eight miles. The enemy had no better success in his one great offensive bid before Verdun. How was it then possible for the Germans, scarcely superior in numbers to the combined Allied forces in the West, with an equality of guns, with hardly any tanks (only nine were used on March 21st), with a transport which excited the derision of prisoners, with cavalry horses resembling " a col- lection of old cab horses," to drive the British clean through an elaborate, system of fortifications 40 miles back within a week ? In finding a solution General Edmonds seems to allow the partisan somewhat to obscure the impartiality of the historian. His explanation is one which is natural and gratifying to the soldier. His account of the relations between the British Government and G.H.Q. is flavoured with a restrained but intense acrimony against the former. He lays the blame for March 21st mainly on the Government for " consenting to the extension of the British front without providing the reinforcements necessary for the purpose," while Main was responsible for the prolongation of the retreat by " con- templating the separation of the French from the British Army " (p. 544).
However the very moderate extension of front actually assumed, by the B.E.F. was amicably arranged between Haig and Petain. It was far less than had been urged by Clemencean, or later recommended by the Versailles Confer- ence. Moreover, as late as January 24th, 1918, Haig remarked to Foch : " Give us back the troops from Salonika .(about '300,000 men) and we will commence offensives." If then so strengthened he could have envisaged a successful attack against the 171 German divisions then identified in 'France, it seems strange that he could not await an assault with his existing strength. This was on January 1st, 1918, only 70,000 less in fighting troops than a year previously (p. 50, note 1) ; while beforeattrch 21st an additional 134,000' had joined the B.E.F., or considerably more than sufficient to cover casualties and wastage during the interim.
It is true that perhaps 200,000 troops could have been collected without danger from home, Salonika and Palestine to reinforce Haig before March 21st, and in retrospect it is easy to see that this should have been done. During that spring the west could not be too heavily " over-insured." Moreover, the reorganization of divisions on a nine battalion basis ordered by the Cabinet during the winter seriously interfered with the British defensive preparations. But both the French and German armies had already taken this step, and the great casualties of 1917 made it inevitable that the British should follow.
Still there is no evidence that Haig considered his army as a defensive organization to be seriously endangered in 1918. Surely, if he had been so convinced, it would have been his duty, if his protests were neglected, to tender his resigna- tion. While G.H.Q. certainly anticipated that considerable ground might be lost, it expected that the enemy would at least be brought to a stand on the Somme (see Appendices
p. 51). So we must seek for the fundamental grounds of the failure elsewhere. It is hardly doubtful that they must primarily be found in the conditions of the Alliance. During the period of joint offensives the dual command functioned without danger or grave disadvantage. But for defence- against an overmastering blow,- it was fatal. Neither commander-in-chief, directly and solely responsible to his own government, could take an impartial view of the whole front, or run altruistic risks with his reserves. Petain had been so completely bamboozled by the elaborate German feints that on March 20th he had only four reserve divisions west of Soissons, while fifteen were uselessly isolated on his extreme right wing. Thus, the enemy was able to throw 88 divisions against the British right next day, secure against immediate reinforcements. The odds against the 5th Army were further increased by the Incredulity of G.H.Q. in any serious attack south of the Flesquieres salient. Conse- quently, Gough, who had correctly anticipated the onslaught, was left with little more than half the density of men held to be necessary for the entirely inactive front of the 2nd Army, which guarded the Channel ports.
- The B.E.F. had lacked any large-scale defensive experience since 1914. The scheme adopted was, in fact, a close adaptation of German principles, in which the rank and file, as General Edmonds tells us, felt little confidence. The course of the retreat fully bore out. Colonel Welzeles forectist that the British would prove " lacking in strategic flexibility and tactically rigid " ; as, indeed, General Edmonds admits (p. 370). No new light is thrown upon the vexed question as to whether the 5th Army defences, notoriously incomplete, could have been further improved.., It is difficult to believe that the energy which in the next few weeks erected 5,000 miles of trenches protected by 28,500 tons of barbed wire and 15,000,000 pickets was displayed before March 21st.
• The confidence of Byng and Gough in the resistance of their troops is shown by their placing about a third of either army in the forward zone.. They could not have expected that it would be overrun in a few hours, with the immediate loss of more than a quarter of their total forces. No provision had been made for the fog (p. 257), which materially assisted the swiftness of the penetration. Later on the mistake of dismounting the cavalry reserves made the retreat un- necessarily hard to co-ordinate.
Haig's arrangements for Mareh.21st were fur from faultless. On the other hand, his swift resolution and ungrudging self- subordination after the Dury interview were of priceless advantage to the Allied Cause. If the Doullens meeting had been delayed another day a broad void would haveoperied between the two armies, and Main might have seen fulfilled his gloomy prophecy to Clemenceau, " Les Allentands baftront lee Anglais en rase campagne ; apres gaol ils nous battroal
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