If this project showed his practical belief in this theory of freedom of action, it is also evidence that he had no idea of luring the Germans into vast salients which he could cut off in flank— as was the conception subsequently extolled by popular propa• gandists. Similarly, the truth of the great counter-stroke of July 18 is that it was not conceived, by Foch at least, as a counter stroke. But the refrain "attaquez" was chanted so continually that sooner or later it was bound to coincide with a "psychologi cal moment"—as on July 18.
In the meantime Ludendorff's keenness in pursuing a similar pol!cy and the wariness of Petain and Haig helped to prevent the Allied forces becoming seriously involved in a premature offensive before the balance of numbers changed. It was Petain who had conceived the plan of the defensive-offensive battle as it was actually waged—first a parry to the enemy's thrust and then a riposte when he was off his balance. On June 4 he had asked Foch to assemble two groups of reserves at Beauvais and Eper nay respectively with a view to a counter-stroke against the flank of any fresh German advance. The first group, under Mangin, had been used to break the German attack of June 9, and was then switched a little further east to a position on the west flank of the German salient between Soissons and Rheims which bulged towards the Marne.
Foch, however, planned to use it for the strictly offensive pur pose of a push against the rail centre of Soissons. While this was being prepared, the intelligence service made it clear that the Germans were about to launch a fresh attack near Rheims. Foch thereupon determined to anticipate it, not retort to it, by launching his offensive on July 12. Petain, however, had the con trary idea of first stopping and then smiting the enemy when the latter had entangled himself. And, perchance curiously, the French troops were not ready on July 12, so that the battle was fought rather according to Petain's than to Foch's conception. But not altogether. For Petain's plan had comprised three phases —first, to hold up the German attack; second, to launch counter strokes against the flanks of the fresh pockets it was likely to make on either side of Rheims; third, and only third, when the German reserves had been fully drawn towards those pockets, to unleash Mangin's army in a big counter-offensive eastward along the baseline of the main bulge—the enemy's rear—and so close the neck of the vast sack in which the German forces south of the Aisne would be enclosed.
Events and Foch combined to modify this conception. When the Germans on July 15 and 16 pressed across the Marne west of Rheims, to avert the danger Petain was driven to use most of the reserves he had intended for the second phase of the counter stroke. And to replace them he decided to draw from Mangin's army, and postpone the latter's counter-offensive—already or dered by Foch for July 18.
When Foch—full of eagerness and with his spirit still more fortified, if that was possible, by Haig's promise to send British reserves—heard of Petain's action he promptly countermanded it. Hence on July 18 Mangin and the French left wing launched
their counter-offensive while the defensive battle was still in progress in the centre and on the right wing. This meant that the second phase of Petain's plan had to be dropped out, and instead of the right wing attracting the Germans' reserves in order to enable the left wing to fall on their naked back, the left wing's offensive eased the pressure on the right wing.
To compensate as far as possible the initial passivity of the right wing the British reserves (51st and 62nd Divisions), which were sent thither, were used to relieve the defending troops "on the move," passing direct to an attack. In the centre Ameri can reserves were similarly used, and thus a general pressure began along the whole face of the great salient. But this conver gent pressure did not begin until July 2o, and by that time the opening surprise—due to the sudden release of a mass of tanks without any preparatory bombardment—of the left wing's attack was over and its impetus slackening. Thus the Germans, fighting hard for breathing space, gained the time they required to draw the bulk of their forces out of the sack, even though they left 30,00o prisoners and much material behind. And once they were safely back on a straight and much shortened line the Vesle, Ludendorff felt able, on Aug. 2, to order preparations for fresh attacks in Flanders and east of Montdidier.
Six days later his offensive dreams were finally dissipated—but it is historically important to realise that it was not the Battle of the Marne—"Foch's great counter-stroke"—which dis sipated them. This July 18 counter-stroke, conceived as such by Petain and amended by Foch, was by no means decisive in its result. It may be that Foch's impetuosity robbed him of such results; that Petain's oft-derided "caution" would have reaped a larger harvest.
Nevertheless, if the battle had no clearly decisive material or even moral effect on the Germans, this first taste of victory after such deep and bitter draughts of defeat was an incalculable moral stimulant to the Allies, and perchance its depressing effect on the German morale was more insidiously damaging than was at first visible. So that Foch, who was ever concerned only with moral factors, which cannot be mathematically calculated, may well have been content. He had gained the initiative, and he kept it— that was enough ; results mattered little. For his strategy was simple, not the complex masterpiece of art which legend has ascribed to him. It was best expressed in his own vivid illustra tion : "War is like this. Here is an inclined plane. An attack is like this ball rolling down it. It goes on gaining momentum and getting faster and faster on condition that you do not stop it. If you check it artificially you lose your momentum and have to begin all over again." (B. H. L. H.)