World War

These were the defensive benefits; the offensive were at least as great. No longer was the grip of the naval blockade ham pered by neutral quibbles, but instead, America's co-operation converted it into a strangle-hold under which the enemy must soon grow limp, since military power is based on economic en durance. As a party to the war, the United States, indeed, wielded the economic weapon with a determination, regardless of the re maining neutrals, far exceeding Britain's boldest claims in the past years of controversy over neutral rights. The submarine menace, crippled in 1917, was ended to all intents during the early months of 1918. To this conclusion the greatest single con tribution was the laying of a mine-barrage by the American navy across the 25o m. wide passage between Norway and Scot land. This was a direct counter to the main submarine operations against the ocean-brought supplies of Great Britain. For the small submarines which carried out the shorter range operations the ports on the Belgian coast had afforded a base unpleasantly close to English shores, but these also were now closed by the daring attacks of Sir Roger Keyes's force on Zeebrugge and Ostend. Yet the removal of the menace should not lead to an underestimate of its powers for the future. The 1917 cam paign was launched with only 148 submarines and from the most unfavourable strategic position. Great Britain lay like a huge breakwater across the sea approaches to northern Europe and the submarines had to get outside through narrow and closely watched outlets before they could operate against the arteries of supply. And despite these handicaps they almost stopped the beat of England's heart.

The Air Offensive.

Another new form of action reached its crest at the same time as the submarine campaign. As the submarine was primarily an economic weapon, so was the aero plane primarily a psychological weapon. The explosive bullet had virtually ended the Zeppelin raids in 1916, but from early in 1917 aeroplane raids on London grew in intensity until, by May 1918, the air defences were so thoroughly organized that the raiders thereafter abandoned London, as a target, for Paris. If the stoicism of the civil population took much of the sting from a weapon then in its infancy, the indirect effect was serious, interrupting business and checking output in industrial centres, as well as drawing off, for defence, many aircraft from the front. In reply the British formed an Independent Air Force, which carried out extensive raids into Germany during the closing months of the war, with marked effect on the declining morale of the "home front." To relate the action of aircraft in the military sphere is not possible, for it formed a thread running through and vitally influencing the whole course of operations, rather than a separate strategic feature.

The beginning of 1918 witnessed the development and thor ough organization of another psychological weapon, when Lord Northcliffe was appointed director of propaganda in enemy coun tries, and for the first time the full scope of such a weapon was understood and exploited.

On the Threshold of 1918.

The middle years of the World War had been, in a military sense, a tussle between a lean Hercules and a bulky Cerberus. The Germanic alliance was weaker in numbers but directed by a single head, the Entente stronger in numbers but with too many heads. Owing to their own excessive losses, diffusion of effort and the collapse of Rus sia, the Entente, at the end of 1917, were faced with the grim fact that the numerical balance had been reversed, and months must elapse before the prospective stream of America's new divisions came to tilt the scales once more in their favour.

The emergency paved the way for the creation of a unified com mand, but it still needed disaster to bring it into being.

At the conference at Rapallo in November, the formation of a Supreme War Council was decided upon, to be composed of the principal ministers of the Allies, with military representatives, and to sit permanently at Versailles. If the fundamental de fect was that it merely substituted a formal for an informal committee, a further flaw was that the military representatives had no executive status. In the economic sphere, where delibera tion rather than instant action was necessary, it led to a real improvement in the combination of shipping, food and munition resources. Militarily, it was futile, for it set up a dual ad visorship—the Versailles representatives on the one hand and the chiefs of the national general staffs on the other. As the menace of the German attack grew closer and with it the need for common action, this advisory body was converted into a mili tary executive committee to handle an inter-Allied general reserve, a fresh compromise which set up a dual control—the commanders in-chief and the Versailles committee.

If concentration of control was lacking, so also was concen tration of force. Since early in November the stream of German troop-trains from East to West had been steadily swelling. When the 1917 campaign opened there had been a proportion of nearly three Allies to two Germans—actually, in March 178 British, French and Belgian divisions against 129 German divisions. But now the Germans had a slight balance and the likelihood of bringing still more. But the Allied statesmen, recalling how often their own offensive had failed with equal or greater superiority of force, were slow to appreciate the gravity of the menace or to respond to the sudden fall in the temperature of military opinion. Nor could they agree to draw reinforcements from the other fronts. The Italians strove against any withdrawal of the Allied contingents from their front, and the French opposed any reduction of the Salonika force. Lloyd George went further and urged an offensive in Palestine, a scheme which was sanctioned on the understanding that no reinforcements went there from France, but which also meant that none came from there to France. Robertson, the chief of the imperial general staff, dis agreed both with this Palestine plan and the creation of the Ver sailles executive committee, and resigned, being succeeded by Sir Henry Wilson. The position was still further weakened by the insistence of Clemenceau, the new French premier, that the British should extend their front south to the Oise. This meant that Gough's 5th Army was dangerously stretched out and took over ill-prepared defences on the very front that Ludendorff was about to strike. Meantime, the German strength had increased to 177 divisions by the end of January, with 3o more to come. The Allied strength, owing to the despatch of divisions to Italy and the breaking up of others owing to the French shortage of drafts, had fallen to the equivalent of 173—counting as double the four and one-half large size American divisions which had arrived. For the French and British had been constrained to follow the Germans in reducing their divisions from 12 to 9 battalions each.