World War

The German fleet had already mutinied when their commanders sought to send them out on a forlorn hope against the British. On Nov. 6 the German delegates left Berlin to treat for an armistice. Their acceptance of the severe terms was hastened less by existing military events than by collapse of the "home, front," coupled with the imminence of a fresh blow. The Allied advance was still continuing, in some parts seeming to gather pace in the last days, but the main German forces had escaped from the perilous salient, and their complete destruction of roads and railways made it impossible for supplies to keep pace with the advancing troops. A pause must come while these communi cations were being repaired, and thus the Germans would have breathing space to rally their resistance. The advance reached the line Pont a Mousson-Sedan-Mezieres-Mons-Ghent by Nov.

II—the line of the opening battles in 1914—but strategically it had come to a standstill.

To meet this situation Foch had concentrated a large Franco American force, of 28 divisions and 600 tanks, to strike below Metz directly east into Lorraine. The general Allied advance had almost absorbed the enemy's reserves, and now this decisive manoeuvre was to fall on his bared flank. It promised the chance of turning the whole of his new line of defence and if rapidly successful might intercept his retreat. In addition Trenchard's Independent Air Force was about to bomb Berlin, on a scale hitherto unattempted in air warfare. And the number of American divisions in France had risen to 42. Whether this final thrust, intended for Nov. 14, would have solved the hitherto insoluble problem of maintaining the momentum of advance after an initial break-through can never be known. But the attempt was unnec essary. For with revolution at home and the gathering men ace on their frontier, the German delegates had no option but to accept the drastic terms of the Armistice, which was signed in Foch's railway-carriage in the Forest of Compiegne at 5 A.M. on Nov. 11, and at II o'clock that morning the World War came to an end.

Controversy has long raged as to what was the deciding act of the conflict, what were the causes of victory, and, even less profitably, which country won the war.

The truth is that no one act, still less one cause, was, or could be, decisive. The Western front, the Balkan front, the tank, the blockade and propaganda have all been claimed as the cause of victory. All claims are justified, none is wholly right. In this new warfare between nations victory is a cumu lative effect, to which all weapons—military, economic, and psychological—contribute. Victory comes, and can only come, through the utilization of all the resources existing in a modern nation.

Among the fundamental causes of Germany's surrender the blockade, wielded by the British navy, is seen to assume larger and larger proportions as the fog of war disperses in the clearer light of these post-war years. It was a constructive hold which the Germans were powerless to loosen. Helplessness induces hope lessness, and history attests that loss of hope and not loss of lives is what ultimately decides the issue of war. The intangible all pervading factor of the blockade intrudes into every consideration of the military situation.

The naval factor again intervenes in the question whether Germany could have avoided capitulation in Nov. 1918 and

whether, but for the revolution, her armies could have stood firm on their own frontiers. For even if the German people, roused to a supreme effort in visible defence of their own soil, could have held the Allied armies at bay the end could only have been postponed—because of the grip of sea-power.

But in hastening the surrender, in preventing a continuance of the war into 1919 military action ranks foremost. Hence the success of the Allied armies is chief among the immediate causes of victory. That conclusion does not necessarily, or even natu rally, imply that at the moment of the Armistice Germany's mili tary power was broken or her armies decisively beaten. Nor that the Armistice was a mistaken concession. Rather does the record of the last "hundred days," when sifted, confirm the immemorial lesson that the true aim in war is the mind of the hostile rulers, not the bodies of their troops; that the balance between victory and defeat turns on mental impressions and only indirectly on physical blows. It was the shock of being surprised and the feeling that he was powerless to counter potential strategic moves which shook Ludendorff's nerve more than the loss of prisoners, guns, and acreage.

It is even more futile to ask which country won the war; France did not win the war, but unless she had held the fort while the forces of Britain were preparing and those of America still a dream the release of civilization from this nightmare of militar ism would have been impossible. Britain did not win the war, but without her command of the sea, her financial support and her army to take over the main burden of the struggle from 1916 onwards, defeat would have been inevitable. The United States did not win the war, but without their economic aid to ease the strain, without the arrival of their troops to turn the numerical balance, and, above all, without the moral tonic which their com ing gave, victory would have been impossible. And let us not forget how many times Russia had sacrificed herself to save her Allies ; preparing the way for their ultimate victory as surely as for her downfall. Finally, whatever be the verdict of history on her policy, unstinted tribute is due to the incomparable endur ance and skill with which Germany more than held her own for four years against superior numbers, an epic of military and human achievement.

The development of the means and methods of warfare dur ing the struggle are described in the articles : STRATEGY ; TACTICS; TANKS; CAVALRY; ARTILLERY ; INFANTRY; AIR WARFARE.

The campaigns and battles have received separate and detailed treatment in articles such as the following: ANTWERP, SIEGE OF, 1914; ASIAGO, BATTLE OF, 1916; BELGIUM, INVASION OF, 1914; BREST-LITOVSK, BATTLES OF, 1915 ; CAMBRAI, BATTLE OF, 1917; CAMEROONS, OPERATIONS IN, 1914-16; CAPORETTO, BATTLE OF; CARPATHIANS, BATTLES OF THE; CAUCASUS, CAMPAIGN IN THE; DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN ; DUNAJEC-SAN, BATTLES OF THE; EAST AFRICA, OPERATIONS IN, 1914-18; FRONTIERS, BATTLES OF THE; JUTLAND, BATTLE OF ; LEMBERG, BATTLES OF; LODZ, BATTLE OF , 1914; LUCK (LUTSK), BATTLES OF, 1916; MARNE, BATTLE OF THE; MASURIAN LAKES, BATTLES OF THE; MESOPOTAMIA, OP ERATIONS IN ; NAREW, BATTLES OF THE, 1915; NAROCZ, BATTLE OF LAKE; WORLD WAR, NAVAL ; PRZEMYSL, SIEGES OF, 1914-15;