FIELD-MARSHAL VON DER GOLTZ AND THE TURKS. T HE Nene Freie
Freese has published an article of peculiar interest by Field-Marshal von der Goltz on the Turkish defeats. The name of no foreigner is con- nected more closely with the modern Turkish army than that of this well-known German officer. He organized it between the years 1883 and 1895, and the easy victory which the Turks obtained over the Greeks in 1897 was put down to his credit. After the Turkish revolution of 1908 be returned to Turkey and again became the guiding spirit in the reorganization of the army. Since the de'bdcle of the Turks in the present war he has been the object of a good deal of contemptuous criticism. Now we have his apology for himself and for the Turks. It is only a partial apology, as he says that many facts must remain secrets for some time to come. However, there is quite enough for a general judgment, and the article contains the very important statement that the Turks did not carry out the strategy which bad been arranged for them—arranged apparently by himself. Why they did not do so is one of the secrets. We shall give the substance of the article as we find it partly translated and partly summarized in the Manchester Guardian.
When Field-Marshal von der Goltz left the Turkish service in 1895 the army, according to his account, was more like a police force than regular troops trained for war. The Sultan would never allow any manceuvres or rifle or artillery practice. The army, nevertheless, was quite good enough for the war of 1897. In 1908 the Committee of Union and Progress undertook the reorganization of the army and spent more thought and money on it than on any other object. As we all know, the Committee's authority was for some time entirely drawn from the army. The reorganization was interrupted by the counter-revolution of 1909, but soon proceeded as ardently as ever. Field- Marshal von der Goltz does not complain that the work was not done seriously. What he does say is that the time was not long enough.
"The Turkish army which went to war was only three years old. Such a brief period would not have sufficed to prepare an army for the field, even if all had been going on without the least disturbance. In three years only three annual contingents of troops can be trained, a simple fact which all seem to have overlooked who are now covering the defeated army with re- proaches and sneers. That the reserves and the redifs, even the garrison reserve, did not even know how to use the weapon which was given to them is due to the fact that they all belong to the Hamidian period."
Nor was even the insufficient period of three years a time of undisturbed industry. Over and over again the newly trained men who might have instructed the others had to leave the ranks to join the forces engaged in Albania and Yemen. Younger men had to take their places, and the officers had to begin the work afresh. Moreover a great many of the older officers retired. Field-Marshal von der Goltz says that this was due to the generous scheme of pensions. His explanation may be true as far as it goes, but we have heard it said that the Committee of Union and Progress compulsorily retired a large number of the officers who had risen from the ranks, and that it was impossible for the army to recover from the consequent shortage. Probably in the days which immediately followed the revolution, the Committee had an e contempt for the unintellectual fellows who had risen from the ranks. They wanted dashing young intellectuals equipped with a complete enthusiasm for constitutional practices. Yet we believe that a large part of the strength of the Turkish Army used to lie in its officers who had risen from the ranks; they may have been stupidly and grimly tenacious of old-fashioned customs, but they were fine regimental officers who knew and were understood by their men. Whatever the chief cause may have been, it is certain that the Turkish Army was under-officered both in the commissioned and non-commissioned ranks. Field-Marshal von der Goltz says :— "The Turkish army which was placed in the field against the Balkan States was but an army of recruits, or, if you please, a militia, which had still to be trained and made into an army. This is the first and most important cause of the defeats. Even in the Nizam battalions only one-fifth consisted of trained men. Two- fifths were the but little trained men of the redifs, and the other two-fifths were new recruits. Nobody could have altered this in a moment. There could have been no question of rot, decay, inertness, and stupidity, with which cheap criticism has charged the unfortunate men."
The plan of campaign, which apparently had been drawn up by Field-Marshal von der Goltz himself, was framed strictly in relation to the capacities of the army. The offensive was not to beattempted at first. The Thracian troops were to be gathered behind the upper line of the Ergeneh river; in other words, they were to be based on Tchorlu and extend from Muradli to Serai. That is a position of great natural strength, and is served by the railways in its rear. Although Tchorlu is a long way south-east of Adrianople, it was not, of course, intended that this important fortress should be spontaneously abandoned. It was to be strongly held, and it was hoped that its garrison and a certain number of advance troops outside the Tchorlu lines would sufficiently delay the Bulgarians till a strong Turkish army had been collected. A glance at the map will show how extraordinarily cautious and unambitious this scheme was. Theauthor of it can have had small faith indeed in the army. By far the greater part of Thrace was to be temporarily abandoned. No doubt it was hoped that if the Bulgarians attacked the strongly entrenched position at Tchorlu they would be repulsed again and again, and that ultimately, when their power was spent, the Turkish army would be able to emerge and take the offensive. Till the opportunity came they were to wait with the serenity of Wellington behind the lines of Torres Vedras. As for Macedonia, there again the plan was intensely cautious, and is surprising as coming from a soldier whose countrymen believe above all things in the offensive. It was arranged that there should be a concentration in the district of Ishtib, where there was to be a fortified camp. This plan was given up, as we know, and the Turks drew a line of defence much nearer to the frontier. Nothing is said about the plans for Albania and Epirus. The resistance offered by the Turks at the Tchatalja lines makes one think that they would have been able to offer a still better resistance at Tchorlu if they had adhered to their German plan of campaign. And yet one hesitates to say that the spirit engendered by voluntary retreat could. ever have been turned by an only partially disciplined army into the enthusiasm of a conquering army. The principle of reeuler pour mieux seater was indeed pressed to desperation. One feels that if the Turks were only, after all, to act upon their traditional capacity for holding trenches it did not need one of the ablest of German soldiers to teach them that. Every Turk knows what Osman did at Plevna. Moreover, strategy cannot operate entirely. in a vacuum. Abstract principles have to yield to the practical fact that some sacrifices are too great. Voluntarily to retire from the greater part of Turkey in Europe was to give away nearly everything to begin with. At the last moment the Turks evidently felt this acutely. And then they fell between two stools. They had no considered modified plan with which to replace the original one.
Finally Field-Marshal von der Goltz indicates some further causes of the Turkish disaster, though he regards them as trifling compared with the capital mistake of a change of plan and with the want of training. He men- tions, for instance, the political excitement among the officers which unsteadied them, the re-grading in the army rendered necessary by the old Hamidian system of favouritism, and the general desire for peace and rest after the long period of internal tumult. "This," he says, referring to the last point, "explains how it came about that three weeks before the outbreak of the war the Turkish Government dismissed from the colours a whole annual contingent of active-service troops, as well as the mobile redif divisions which liahmud Shevket in his wise foresight had kept under arms on the pretext of wanting them in order to repulse a possible Italian landing."
Previous page
