World War

A Strategic Key.

The menace to Britain, if the Channel ports fell into German hands, was obvious. It is a strange reflection that the British command should have neglected to guard against the danger hitherto, although the first lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, had urged the necessity even before the battle of the Marne. When the German guns began the bombardment of Antwerp on Sept. 28 England awakened, and gave belated recog nition to Churchill's strategic insight. He was allowed to send a brigade of marines and two newly-formed brigades of naval volunteers to reinforce the defenders, while a regular division and cavalry division, under Rawlinson, were landed at Ostend and Zeebrugge for an overland move to raise the siege. Eleven Terri torial divisions were available in England, but, in contrast to the German attitude, Kitchener considered them still unfitted for an active role. The meagre reinforcement delayed, but could not prevent, the capitulation of Antwerp, Oct. Io, and Rawlinson's relieving force was too late to do more than cover the escape of the Belgian field army down the Flanders coast.

Yet, viewed in the perspective of history, this first and last effort in the West to make use of Britain's amphibious power applied a brake to the German advance down the coast which just stopped their second attempt to gain a decision in the West. It gained time for the arrival of the main British force, transferred from the Aisne to the new left of the Allied line, and if their heroic defence at Ypres, aided by the French and Belgians along the Yser to the sea, was the human barrier to the Germans, it succeeded by so narrow a margin that the Antwerp expedition must be adjudged the saving factor.

Second German Bid for Victory.

In the French theatre of operations, the month following the battle of the Marne was marked by an extremely obvious series of attempts by each side to turn the opponent's western flank. On the German side this pursuit of an opening was soon replaced by a subtler plan, but the French persevered with a straight forward obstinacy curiously akin to that of their original plan. By Sept. 24, de Castelnau's outflanking attempt had come to a stop on the Somme. Next a newly formed loth Army under de Maudhuy tried a little further north, beginning on Oct. 2, but instead of being able to pass round the German flank soon found itself struggling desperately to hold Arras. The British expeditionary force was then in course of transfer northwards from the Aisne, in order to shorten its com munications with England, and Joffre determined to use it as part of a third effort to turn the German flank. To co-ordinate this new manoeuvre he appointed Gen. Foch as his deputy in the north. Foch sought to induce the Belgians to form the left of this wheeling mass, but King Albert, with more caution, or more realism, declined to abandon the coastal district for an advance inland that he considered rash. It was. For on Oct. 14, four days after the fall of Antwerp, Falkenhayn planned a strategic trap for the next Allied outflanking manoeuvre which he foresaw would follow. One army, composed of troops transferred from Lorraine, was to hold the expected Allied offensive while another, composed of troops released by the fall of Antwerp and of four newly raised corps, was to sweep down the Belgian coast and crush in the flank of the attacking Allies. He even held back the troops pursuing the Belgians in order not to alarm the Allied command prematurely.

Meanwhile, the new Allied advance was developing piecemeal, as corps detrained from the south and swung eastwards to form a progressively extended "scythe." The British expeditionary force, now three corps strong, deployed in turn between La Bassee and Ypres, where it effected a junction with Rawlinson's force. Beyond it the embryo of a new French 8th Army was taking shape, and the Belgians continued the line along the Yser to the sea. Al though the British right and centre had already been held up, Sir John French, discounting even the underestimate of the Ger man strength furnished by his Intelligence, ordered his left to begin the offensive from Ypres towards Menin. The effort was still-born, for it coincided with the opening of the German offen sive, on Oct. 20, but for a day or two Sir John French persisted in the belief that he was attacking while his troops were barely hold ing their ground. With Foch the delusion persisted still longer, and this failure to grasp the situation was partly responsible for the fact that Ypres was essentially, like Inkerman, a "soldiers' battle." Already, since the 18th, the Belgians on the Yser had suffered growing pressure which threatened a disaster that was ultimately saved by the end of the month through the opening of the sluices and the flooding of the coastal area. At Ypres the crisis came later and was repeated, Oct. 31 and Nov. II marking the turning points of the struggle. That the Allied line, though battered and terribly strained, was in the end unbroken was due to the dogged resistance of the British and the timely arrival of French reinforcements. (See YPRES, BATTLE OF, This defence of Ypres is in a dual sense the supreme memorial to the British regular army, for here they showed the inestimable value of the disciplined morale and unique standard of musketry which were the fruit of long training, and here was their tomb stone. "From failing hands they threw the torch" to the new national armies rising in England to the call of patriotism. With the Continental Powers the merging of conventional armies into national armies was a hardly perceptible process, because of their system of universal service. But with Britain it was clearly stamped as revolution, not evolution. While the little professional army sacrificed itself as the advanced guard of the nation, the truth of the new warfare of peoples was beginning to come home to the civilian population. Lord Kitchener, a national symbol because of his imperial achievements, had been summoned to the post of war minister, and with a supreme flash of vision had grasped, in contrast to Governments and general staffs alike, the probable duration of the struggle. The people of Britain responded to his call to arms, and like an ever-rising flood the "New Armies" came into being. By the end of the year nearly 1,000,000 men had enlisted, and the British empire had altogether some 2,000,000 under arms. Perhaps Kitchener was wrong in not basing this expansion, from a professional to a national scale, on the existing Territorial foundation. It must be remembered, however, that the Territorial Force was enlisted for home defence and that initially its members' acceptance of a wider role was voluntary. Perhaps, also, he was tardy in recognizing their military value.