Generally speaking, this form of war involved the subordination of Policy to Grand Tactics. Policy had for its object the protection of vital interests, more especially in the East, and aimed at securing the co-operation of neutral States with a view to strengthening the Alliance. Grand Tactics demanded the sacrifice of every consideration to ensuring victory on the Western Front. The failure of the expedition to the Dardanelles put statesmen, for a time at least, at the mercy of professional soldiers, of whom the vast majority, both French and British, were so-called “Westerners.”

The ideas of these men were simple. If pursued to their logical conclusion they would have required the concentration of all Allied forces (including Serbs and Russians) somewhere in France and Flanders. The more rabid Westerners did desire this, as they honestly believed that on their front there was no middle course between a decisive victory and a crushing defeat. Others admitted a Russian, and later an Italian Front with its appendage at Salonika, but, in their eyes, the only object of these two fronts was to hold as many enemy troops as possible and facilitate a victory in the West. That victory was to be preceded by a war of attrition, which would culminate in a final battle on classic lines—the infantry and artillery would make a gap through which massed cavalry would pour.

The French Staff was characteristically optimistic, the British less so. Many senior British officers had a profound respect for the German Military System, it was to them the embodiment of excellence from every point of view, and had to be imitated before it could be beaten.

In the autumn of 1915, the era of Allied counter-offensives began. The slaughter on both sides was immense, but no appreciable results were achieved. While these operations were being carried out, Bulgaria joined the Central Empires, the greater part of Servia and Albania was over-run, and, according to an official report on the operations against the Dardanelles, “the flow of munitions and drafts fell away.”

Throughout the whole of 1916, the war of attrition was waged in deadly earnest and exacted a ghastly toll. By the end of the year no decision had been reached on the three main fronts, but the richest part of Rumania had fallen into the hands of the enemy.

Public opinion in both France and Great Britain seemed to approve the methods of the Westerners. The French naturally desired above everything to drive the invaders out of France, and the British people had become resigned to a war of workshops, which was lucrative to those who stayed at home.

From a purely military point of view, the attitude of the Westerners was comprehensible. The Western Front was close to the Allied bases of supply, it had good communications, the climate was healthy, on this front the Germans were encountered, and they formed the backbone of the hostile combination. Undoubtedly a victory in the West was the ideal way to win the war. No one disputed that, but at the end of 1916 that victory was still remote. Germany’s position on the Western Front was very strong, her army was homogeneous, her communications were superior to ours, and her recent conquests in the East had mitigated the effects of two years of blockade.

Since September, 1914, both sets of belligerents had made offensives, but these had failed, though in each case an initial success had raised the highest hopes. Stupendous preparations had been made, artillery had been employed on an unprecedented scale, lives had been sacrificed ruthlessly, but, invariably, the forward movement had been arrested, had ebbed a little and immobility had ensued. Some law appeared to operate in this most modern form of warfare. Killing without manœuvre had become an exact science, but battles are not merely battues, the armies must advance, and this they could not do—their mass and the enormous assemblage of destructive appliances, necessary for the preliminary process of annihilation, produced a congestion which brought the best organized offensive to a standstill. In such circumstances it seemed that final victory might be postponed for months and even years.

In 1917. The Central Empires held the land routes of South-Eastern Europe and Turkey was their vassal State, whereas the Allies disposed of precarious sea communications, which linked them with no more than the periphery of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans at three widely separated points. In these regions the populations were being Germanized, inevitably and in spite of themselves. The Germans were on the spot, they might be arrogant and unsympathetic, but they were efficient, and suffering, unsophisticated people could justifiably argue that these intruders were better as friends than enemies, and that it paid to be on their side. To neglect this situation, until we had won a victory in the West, exposed the Allies to the risk of letting German influence become predominant throughout the Middle East. For the British Empire such a state of affairs would have spelled disaster; after untold sacrifices in the Allied cause, Great Britain would have lost the war.

These weighty considerations had influenced certain British statesmen ever since the intervention of Turkey on the side of the Central Empires, but their plans had been frustrated by official inertia and mismanagement. At last, a serious effort was made to restore our prestige in the East by operations in the direction of Palestine and in Mesopotamia. These operations were against the same enemy and were carried out almost exclusively by British forces, but were independent of each other and not part of a concerted plan. The British War Office had undertaken the supply and maintenance of three “side-shows” (including Salonika), but had neither the time nor the inclination to prepare a scheme for the co-ordination of operations in the Eastern theatres. Perhaps it was feared that such a scheme would involve the dispatch of reinforcements.

The Eastern situation demanded, in the first place, statesmanship. A military policy was needed which, while recognizing the preponderating importance of securing the Western Front, would aim at bringing pressure to bear on every part of the enemy combination; which would not be content with local successes, but would attack Pan-Germanism, the real menace to the British Empire, where its activities were centred; which would strike at Germany through her Near Eastern allies, complete the circle of blockade on land and retrieve the sources of supply which had been taken from Rumania.

Military operations alone would not suffice; the co-operation of the navy was essential to reduce the risks from submarines which infested the Eastern Mediterranean. The shipping problem presented many difficulties. These could be overcome only by Governmental action based on policy. If dealt with by subordinate officials, the distribution of available tonnage would follow the line of least resistance in the form of short trips to France.

If the broad lines of an Eastern policy had been laid down and insisted on by the Allied Governments, a plan could have been put into execution which, while offensive operations were in progress in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Macedonia, would have directed against the heart of the Ottoman Empire a strategic reserve, concentrated with that objective in view at one or more of the Eastern Mediterranean ports. The force required would not have been considerable. The Turkish and Bulgarian armies were held on three widely separated fronts, leaving weak and scattered garrisons in Thrace for the protection of the Dardanelles.

The difficulties were many, but the stakes were big. The fall of Constantinople would have revolutionized the Near Eastern situation. It would have forced Turkey to make a separate peace, and would, thereby, have freed a large proportion of our forces in Palestine and Macedonia for employment in other theatres. It would have had an immediate effect in Bulgaria, where the resentment against Germany, on account of the partitioning of the Dobrudja, was bitter and widespread. It would have opened up communications by sea with the Rumanian and Russian armies in Moldavia, and made it possible to maintain and quicken the Southern Russian front. An opportunity would have presented itself for settling the Macedonian question on its merits, the Western Powers would have been the arbiters, and their decisions would have been respected as those of all-powerful allies or potential conquerors. A just settlement of this question could not have failed to secure a separate peace with Bulgaria.

Any Balkan settlement, which fulfilled our treaty and moral obligations to Rumania and Servia respectively, involved the partial dismemberment of Austria-Hungary. An invasion of the Eastern and South-Western provinces of the Dual Monarchy was the natural corollary of an Eastern military policy. This invasion could have been effected by national armies advancing towards their ethnological frontiers. The Rumanians, after the reconquest of Wallachia, could have operated in Transylvania and along the Danube Valley towards the Banat. The Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina towards the Dalmatian Coast. In all these provinces the populations were awaiting with impatience the arrival of the Allies to throw off the hated yoke of Austria-Hungary.

Operations of this nature would have had a repercussion in Croatia and Bohemia, where the inhabitants were disaffected and ready to revolt. Their attitude would have facilitated an extension of the invasion in the direction of Trieste. The occupation of Trieste would have completed the encirclement of German Austria and Germany. The German Western front would have been turned strategically, policy and strategy, working in harmony, could have undertaken the task of isolating Prussia, the centre of militarism and the birthplace of Pan-Germanism. Munich and Dresden are closer to Trieste than to any point in France or Flanders.

Such, in brief outline, was an Eastern military policy which had been submitted repeatedly since the early stages of the war. It was first proposed as a complement to the operations on the Western and Eastern fronts. With the intervention of Italy, the possibility of its extension towards Croatia and Istria was perceived. At the beginning of 1917 it did not involve the detachment of many additional divisions from other theatres. The aggregate casualties in one of the big offensives would have more than met requirements. This detachment could have been justified on strategical grounds, since it would have forced the enemy to conform to at least an equal extent. It was an attempt to harmonize strategy with policy, and on the principle of solvitur ambulando to deal, during the progress of the war, with a mass of vexed racial problems which, during an armistice or in time of peace, are surrounded by intrigue.

The advocates of an Eastern policy were described as “Easterners,” a term which was susceptible of various interpretations. It meant, at best, a visionary, at worst, a traitor, according to the degree of indignation aroused in “Westerners.”

Notwithstanding the failure of their previous efforts, the “Westerners” still claimed in 1917 that a decisive victory could and would be won on the Western front, if the Russo-Rumanian offensive came up to expectations. They had organized the British nation for a special form of war. Thanks to a highly developed Intelligence Department, they knew exactly what they had to deal with. Hundreds of able-bodied officers had worked with all the ardour of stamp collectors at identifying enemy units, and had produced catalogues which in the judgment of archivists were impeccable, though at the time of issue they may have been out of date. The French Armies were commanded by the hero of Verdun,40 and were full of the offensive spirit. The Italians were holding their own on the Carso and the Isonzo. The framework of the war was set, the far-flung buckler of the Central Empires would be pierced, where they were strongest, the Germans would be beaten by their own methods, and at any cost.

Once more the “Westerners” had their way. Once more their hopes were disappointed. At the end of 1917, in spite of local tactical successes, the Western front remained unbroken, the Italians had retreated to the line of the Piave, and the Eastern front had dissolved in the throes of revolution. In Palestine and Mesopotamia, the Allies had struck two heavy blows at Turkey, and the Ottoman Empire was drifting into chaos. A direct blow at Constantinople would have encountered slight opposition, it would have been welcomed by the masses of the people as a deliverance. In Macedonia the Bulgars were showing signs of disaffection, but here inaction, both military and diplomatic, continued the stalemate. The alliance of America had saved the financial situation, but no effective military support could be expected from this quarter for many months to come.

Fortunately for the British Empire and for civilization, German policy was also controlled by “Westerners.” These men were essentially experts, past masters of technique, but indifferent exponents of the military art when applied to a world-wide war. They had failed to seize their opportunity in 1914, when Paris and the Channel Ports were at their mercy. During 1915 and 1916, they had squandered lives and ammunition in costly offensives on the Western front, when they might have taken Petrograd. In 1917, they lacked the insight to perceive that their conquests on the Eastern front more than compensated the check to overweening aspirations in the West, which, owing to their past mistakes, could not be gratified. If at the end of 1917 the German Government had offered terms of peace, based on the evacuation of France and Belgium and including the cession of Alsace and Lorraine, and had during the winter months withdrawn their troops to the right bank of the Meuse, the Allied Governments could hardly have refused.

In France the drain on man-power had been appalling. A continuance of hostilities involving further losses would have aroused opposition in influential circles, and would have been denounced as illogical and quixotic, as a sacrifice of French interests on the altar of Great Britain, when peace could be had on advantageous terms. The position of the other Allies would have been difficult in the extreme. To continue the war in the West, without France as a base, would have been impossible. The only alternative would have been an intensification of the blockade and the operations in the Eastern theatres. These operations would no longer have been confined to Turks and Bulgars, and new bases would have been required to mount them on a proper scale; further, the non-existence of a comprehensive Eastern policy would have been a cause of much delay. America had not declared war against either Turkey or Bulgaria. The Italians had interests in the East; but, under these altered circumstances, their position on the Piave front would have been critical, and might have forced them to make peace. The Allied peoples were war weary, peace talk would have aroused their hopes, and have been more convincing than the arguments of Imperialists.

By proposing peace, the German Government might have lost prestige, but would have gained something more substantial—a secure position in the East. Instead, at the beginning of 1918, everything was sacrificed to a renewal of offensives on the Western front. The reinforcements asked for by Bulgaria were not sent, and Turkey was abandoned to her fate. Ominous mutterings from the working classes in Germany were disregarded. By a rigorous application of the military system and by promises of victory, a clique of ambitious generals kept the German people well in hand.

If a frontal attack against a sector of an immense entrenched position could lead to decisive results, the German offensive of March, 1918, should have had the desired effect. It penetrated to within ten miles of Amiens, a vital point on the Allied communications, and there, in spite of the most prodigious efforts, it petered out. The ratio between the front of attack and the depth of advance had exceeded all previous records, but just as success seemed certain, human endurance reached its limits, and proved once more its subjugation to an inhuman and automatic law. The British front had not been broken, though it had been badly bent.

Undeterred by this dreadful and unavailing slaughter, the German leaders persisted in their efforts, and staked the destiny of their country on one last gambler’s throw. Four offensives had been repulsed, a fifth was now attempted with Paris as its goal. It was dictated by political, and possibly dynastic, considerations, and was not executed with customary German skill.

To close observers, it had for some time been apparent that German strategy was weakening. There had been less coherence in the operations, and symptoms of indecision on the part of the High Command. Field-Marshal Foch was undoubtedly a better strategist than any of his adversaries, and the war of movement, resulting from the German offensives, gave him an opportunity which he was not slow to seize. A series of hammer blows along the whole Western front deprived Ludendorff of the initiative which he had hitherto possessed, and forced the German armies to evacuate the salients in the direction of Paris and Amiens.

Other and more fundamental factors, however, had already undermined Germany’s powers of resistance. The discontent among the masses of the German population had assumed menacing proportions; it affected the troops on the lines of communication directly, and through them the soldiers on the front. During the last offensives the number of men who surrendered voluntarily had been above the average, and when the retirement began, when all hopes of taking Paris in 1918 had disappeared, when American soldiers had been encountered, proving the failure of the submarine campaign, the spirit of the German Armies changed. Certain units still fought well, but the majority of the German soldiers became untrustworthy, though not yet mutinous. An eye-witness relates that on their arrival at Château-Thierry, the German officers were in the highest spirits, and the words “Nach Paris”41 were continually on their lips. The men, on the other hand, seemed depressed and moody, but when the order was issued for withdrawal, their demeanour brightened, they found a slogan full of portents, the words were “Nach Berlin”42 and were uttered with a smile. This incident is authentic, it took place in July.

History was repeating itself, misgovernment by a selfish upper class had produced in Germany the same conditions which had driven the Russian people into revolution. In both countries a state of war had accentuated pre-existent evils, by giving a freer rein to those who exploit patriotism, courage and devotion for their personal ends. Germany had outlasted Russia because, in her military system, she had an almost perfect organization from an administrative point of view. This system, by concentrating all the resources of the nation on a single purpose and putting them at the disposal of a few resolute, all-powerful men, had enabled the German people to make incredible efforts. Had it been controlled by statesmen, total disruption might have been averted; directed by infatuated and homicidal militarists, its very excellence enabled it to hold the Empire in its grip until disaster was complete.

From June, 1918, onwards, all hope of a German victory on the Western Front had disappeared. Germany was seething with discontent, her industrial life was paralised, the supply of munitions had seriously decreased; yet Ludendorff persevered, he drove the armies with remorseless energy, a kind of madness possessed him and his acolytes, imposing desperate courses and blinding them to facts. Their whole political existence was at stake, failure meant loss of place and power, of all that made life sweet, so they conceived a sinister design—if they failed “all else should go to ruin and become a prey.”

When the crash came, it came from within. For months, the German armies on the front had been a facade screening a welter of misery and starvation. The machine had functioned soullessly, causing the useless massacre of thousands of soldiers, while women and children died by tens of thousands in the midst of fictitious opulence. During these last days, the rank and file fought without hope, for an Emperor who was to save himself by flight, for leaders who treated them like pawns, for the defence of hearths and homes where famine and disease were rife. Long years of discipline had made these men automatons, they were parts of a great projectile whose momentum was not yet exhausted, and they had long ceased to reason why.

Unreasoning docility is held by some to be a civic virtue: that was the German doctrine and the basis of their Military System, which, though at its inception a defensive system, became an instrument of conquest, pride and insolence, a menace to the world. The form of war which Germany initiated and perfected has degraded war itself, it has organized slaughter with mechanical devices, has made tanks of more account than brains, and has crowned the triumph of matter over mind. There was a redeeming glamour about war as made by Alexander and Napoleon, today it is a hideous butchery, which can be directed by comparatively mediocre men. It has ceased to be an art and has become an occupation inextricably interwoven with a nation’s industrial life.

The downfall of the German Military System is a stern reminder of the vicissitude of things, and has removed a brooding shadow which darkened civilization. If calamitous experience serves as a guide to statesmen in the future, its rehabilitation will be prevented—in any form, however specious, in any land.