World War

The Grand Duke Nicholas formed a huge phalanx of seven armies—three in the van and two protecting either flank. A further army, the loth, had invaded the eastern corner of East Prussia and was engaging the weak German forces there. Allied hopes rose high as the much-heralded Russian "steam-roller" began its ponderous advance. To counter it the German eastern front was placed under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who devised yet an other master-stroke, based on the system of lateral railways inside the German frontier. The 9th Army, retreating before the advancing Russians, slowed them down by a systematic destruc tion of the scanty communications in Poland. On reaching its own frontier, unpressed, it was first switched northward to the Posen-Thorn area, and then thrust south-east on Nov. II, with its left flank on the Vistula, against the joint between the two armies guarding the Russian right flank. The wedge, driven in by Ludendorff's mallet, sundered the two armies, forced the ist back on Warsaw and almost effected another Tannenberg against the 2nd, which was nearly surrounded at Lodz (q.v.), when the 5th Army from the van turned back to its rescue. As a result, part of the German enveloping force almost suffered the fate planned for the Russians, but managed to cut its way through to the main body. If the Germans were baulked of decisive tactical success, this manoeuvre had been a classic example of how a relatively small force, by using its mobility to strike at a vital point, can paralyse the advance of an enemy several times its strength. The Russian "steam-roller" was thrown out of gear, and never again did it threaten German soil.

Within a week, four new German army corps arrived from the Western front, where the Ypres attack had now ended in failure, and although too late to clinch the missed chance of a decisive victory, Ludendorff was able to use them in pressing the Russians back by Dec. 15 to the Bzura-Ravka river line in front of War saw. This set-back and the drying up of his munition supplies decided the Grand Duke Nicholas to break off the see-saw fighting still in progress near Cracow and fall back on winter trench lines along the Nida and Dunajec rivers, leaving the end of the Polish "tongue" in the hands of the enemy. Thus, on the East as on the West, the trench stalemate had settled in, but the crust was less firm and the Russians had drained their stock of munitions to an extent that their poorly industrialized country could not make good.

The Beginning of Air Attack.

The same period witnessed the dawn of another new form of war which helped to drive home the new reality that the war of armies had become the war of peoples. From Jan. 1915, Zeppelin raids began on the English coast and reached their peak in the following winter, to be suc ceeded by aeroplane raids. The difficulty of distinguishing from the air between military and civil objectives, smoothed the path for a development which, beginning with excuses, ended in a frank avowal that in a war for existence the will of the enemy nation, not merely the bodies of their soldiers, is the inevitable target.

The Psychological Situation.

The first psychological symp tom of the World War, as it seemed to many, was an immeasurable sigh of relief. Had the peoples of Europe sat on the safety-valve too long? The war-weary mind of to-day cannot reconstruct the tension and anxiety, the strain and stress of hope and fear of the long years of the peace that was no peace and yet was not war. It may be read as a revolt of the spirit against the monotony and triviality of the everyday round, the completion of a psychological cycle when the memories of past war have faded, and paved the way for the emergence and revival of the primal "hunting" instinct in man.

This first phase of enthusiasm was succeeded by one of passion, the natural ferocity of war accentuated by a form of mob spirit which is developed by a "nation in arms." The British army was relatively immune because of its professional character, whereas in the German army, the most essentially "citizen," it gained scope because of the cold-blooded logic of the general staff theory of war. With the coming of autumn 1914, a third phase became manifest, more particularly among the combatants. This was a momentary growth of a spirit of tolerance, symbolized by the fraternization which took place on Christmas Day, but this in turn was to wane as the strain of the war became felt and the reality of the struggle for existence came home to the warring sides.

The Deadlock on Land.

Well before the end of 1914, the reality of the deadlock on the Western front was clear to the Governments and general staffs of the warring countries, and each was seeking a solution. The reaction varied in form and in nature according to the mental power and predisposition of the different authorities. With the Central Powers the opinion of Falkenhayn was the decisive factor, and the impression derived not merely from his critics but from his own account is that neither the opinion nor the direction was really clear as to its ob ject. He was too obsessed with the principle of security at the expense of the principle of concentration, and in his failure to fulfil the second he undermined the foundations of the first.

On his appointment after the Marne reverse, he still adhered to the Schlieffen plan of seeking a decision in the West, but he did not follow the Schlieffen method of weakening his left wing in order to mass on the vital right wing. The October–November attack round Ypres was made largely with raw formations, while war-experienced troops lay almost idle between the Aisne and the Vosges. Col. Groner, chief of the field railways, even went so far as to submit a detailed plan to Falkenhayn for transferring six army corps to the right wing, but it was rejected. When we remember how close to breaking point was the Allied line at Ypres, it can only be said that for a second time the German supreme command saved the Allies. At this juncture, too, Luden dorff was pleading for reinforcements to make his wedge-blow at the Russian flank near Lodz decisive, but Falkenhayn missed the chance by delaying until the Ypres failure had passed from assur ance to fact.