Usher Hall, Edinburgh, on Feb ruary 15 on "The Strategy of the War."
Mr. Belloc confined himself almost exclusively to the events in the western theatre of war, his reason for this being, as he explained, that it was upon the fate of the cam-Paign in the west that everything depended. Furthermore, in the west, we had the clearest strategical problem to deal with. He outlined the proportionate strength of the opposing forces when the war opened and in its varying stages, and declared that before we began to understand the campaign we must grasp the elementary fact that there was still a numerical preponderance on the side of the enemy.
If they asked him when that preponderance would turn—when the scale would begin to tip—he thought about the middle of April, provided that before then nothing untoward occurred. The practical object was attempting was to impress public opinion with this truth, as he believed it to be, that we wanted to have a little more patience—we wanted to understand that affairs in the west were not at a deadlock—that what was going on was part of a matured plan.
How the Situation was Saved, Assisted by a remarkably clear series of diagrams, Mr. Belloc discussed at length the problems raised at the very threshold of the campaign in the West—how the immediate and smashing victory was to be obtained which was necessary to the success of Germany's plans, and how, on the part of the Allies, an invasion of proportionately sixteen men was to be held up by ten men. The German General Staff had to win in six months in the West.
He showed how the situation was saved by the "'open strategic square" disposition of the Allies, which was an elaboration of a Napoleonic idea, the principal of which was to divide the forces into four, so disposed as to make rapid and more concentrated mobiliza in one direction or another possi against the deployed if vastly perier strength of the enemy. treat, manceuvre, and hold the enemy," was the Napoleonic rule governing the movements of the army which stood the first shock of the enemy's advance, and which in thia instance was the exmy comprising the Bri Mons. ish contingent at It was no new strategic plan this, but one which had been discussed in Europe for thirty years; but the Germans gambled on the fact that no army could possibly stand the shock, and that a debacle would ensue contingent on which the "strategic square" must crumble up. It was worth while remembering, for the encouragement of one's own heart, remarked Mr. Belloc, that with the extreme left of the army, which was the most heavily tested, was the professional soldiery of the British contingent, and the man who handled the extreme position of all, and saved the situation, was General Smith-Dorrien.
When the history of the campaign came to be written, he advised them to read, not the English, but the French, account, in order to see the value which would be ascribed to the British contingent and, in particular, to the army corps which 5 Dorrien commanded in those critical days.
He reviewed other features of the retreat from the Sambre, "ten days of the most terrible ordeal," and showed how the "open strategic square" only worked "by the skin of its teeth" outside the gates of Paris. Then came the singular spectacle of the tea men forcing the sixteen to retreat—the Battle of the Marne—the tactics of the Allies endangering von Kluck's position and rendering to a large degree ineffective the supporting German corps by forcing them to undertake a time-wasting conversion of direction. He acknowledged the great skill with which von Kluck handled his 200,000 men during his hurried retreat from the Oureq to the Aisne, but while he only lost three per cent. of unwounded prisoners, he (Mr. Belloc) estimated that von Kluck's losses on that occasion must have been fifteen or sixteen per cent, of his force.
Germany a d Peace—A Warning.
Turning to the conditions of the present day fighting, Mr. Belloc said the whole of our strategy consisted in trying so to wear down the enemy (by "demonstrations which encouraged costly counterattacks on the part of the Germans) that he was either bound to leave a gap or was compelled to shorten his line. The shortening of the German line would be the beginning of the end. But before he shortened his line he would appeal for an inconclusive peace. He would appeal to civilization and uninstructed opinion in all countries in something like these terms:—" Here we have been for months at deadlock, killing each other with no apparent result. We may go on for ever. It is a great pity. Let us stop where we are." We must remember that when the enemy made that appeal for a draw, or when the financiers made it for him, it meant that he
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.