Britain's trouble was rather an excess of fertility, or rather an absence of concentration in choosing and bringing to fruition these mental seeds. Yet in great measure this failing was due to the obscurantism of professional opinion, whose attitude was that of blank opposition rather than expert guidance.
British-inspired solutions to the deadlock crystallized into two main groups, one tactical, the other strategical. The first was to unlock the trench barrier by producing a machine invulnerable to machine-guns and capable of crossing trenches, which would restore the tactical balance upset by the new preponderance of defensive over offensive power. The idea of such a machine was conceived by Col. Swinton in October 1914, was nourished and tended in infancy by Winston Churchill, then first lord of the Admiralty, and ultimately, after months of experiment hampered by official opposition, came to maturity in the tank of 1916.
The strategical solution was to go round the trench barrier. Its advocates—who became known as the "Eastern" in contrast to the "Western" school—argued that the enemy alliance should be viewed as a whole, and that modern developments had so changed conceptions of distance and powers of mobility, that a blow in some other theatre of war would correspond to the historic attack on an enemy's strategic flank. Further, such an operation would be in accordance with the traditional amphibious strategy of Britain, and would enable it to exploit the advantage of sea-power which had hitherto been neglected. In October 1914, Lord Fisher, recalled to the office of first sea lord, had urged a plan for a landing on the German coast. In Jan. 1915, Lord Kitchener ad vocated another, for severing Turkey's main line of eastward communication by a landing in the Gulf of Alexandretta. The post-war comments of Hindenburg and Enver show how this would have paralysed Turkey. It could not, however, have exer cised a wider influence, and it was anticipated by another project —partly the result of Churchill's strategic insight and partly due to the pressure of circumstances.
This was the Dardanelles expedition, about which controversy has raged so hotly that the term just applied to Churchill may be disputed by some critics. This is answered by the verdict of Falkenhayn himself : "If the straits between the Mediterranean and the Black sea were not permanently closed to Entente traffic, all hopes of a successful course of the war would be very consider ably diminished. Russia would have been freed from her signifi cant isolation . . . which offered a safer guarantee than military successes . . . that sooner or later a crippling of the forces of this Titan must take place . . . automatically." The fault was not in the conception, but in the execution. Had the British used at the outset even a fair proportion of the forces they ultimately expended in driblets, it is clear from Turkish accounts that vic tory would have crowned their undertaking.
The cause of this piecemeal application of force and dissipa tion of opportunity lay in the opposition of Joffre and the French general staff, supported by Sir John French. Despite the evi dence of the sequel to the Marne, of the German failure at Ypres, and subsequently of his own still more ineffectual attacks in December, Joffre was still confident of his power to achieve an early and decisive victory in France. His plan was that of con verging blows from Artois and Champagne upon the great salient formed by the entrenched German front, to be followed by an offensive in Lorraine against the rear of the enemy armies. The idea was similar to that of Foch in 1918 but the vital difference lay in the conditions existing and the methods employed. A study of the documents conveys the impression that there has rarely been such a trinity of optimists in whom faith was divorced from reason as Joffre, Foch, his deputy in Flanders, and French —albeit the latter's outlook oscillated violently. In contrast the British Government considered that the trench-front in France was impregnable to frontal attacks, had strong objection to wast ing the man-power of the new armies in a vain effort, and at the same time felt increasing concern over the danger of a Russian collapse. These views were common alike to Churchill, Lloyd George and Lord Kitchener, who on Jan. 2, 1915, wrote to Sir John French : "The German lines in France may be looked upon as a fortress that cannot be carried by assault and also that cannot be completely invested, with the result that the lines may be held by an investing force while operations proceed elsewhere." Lloyd George advocated the transfer of the bulk of the Brit ish forces to the Balkans both to succour Serbia and to develop an attack on the rear of the hostile alliance. This view was shared by a section of French opinion and, in particular, by Gallieni, who proposed a landing at Salonika as a starting point for a march on Constantinople with an army strong enough to encourage Greece and Bulgaria to combine with the Entente. The capture of Constantinople was to be followed by an advance up the Danube into Austria-Hungary in conjunction with the Ru manians. But the commanders on the Western front, obsessed with the dream of an early break-through, argued vehemently against any alternative strategy, stressing the difficulties of trans port and supply and insisting on the ease with which Germany could switch troops to meet the threat. If there was force in their contention, it tended to ignore the experience of military history that "the longest way round is often the shortest way there," and that the acceptance of topographical difficulties has constantly proved preferable to that of a direct attack on an opponent firmly posted and prepared to meet it.