May 22.
It is inevitable that there should be considerable fluctuation in the titanic struggle which is proceeding in France, and the fact. that the Germans have again' been' able to make some headway should cause no dismay. The initial momentum with which the enemy commenced the invasion of the Low Countries and France has been very considerably ye-duced, and the probabilities are that in the near future there will even be a further re~ duction, The further the Germans yet away from their supply bases, the longer their Hines of communication grow, the more vul-norable do they become, while the ability to deliver severe and disrupting blows to the enemy's rear calculated to hamper the bring~ ing up of supplies, is something which must always be kept in mind. What the world is seeing is the putting into operation for the second time of the plan formulated by Count von Schlieffen in 1905 for the invasion of France. That is modified to the extent that whereas the von Schlieffen plan contemplated Germany having to fight on two fronts, Germany is now fighting on one. Roughly speaking von Schlieffen's plan was to seek a decision against France by a great enveloping movement across the Meuse, through Belgium and beyond the zone of French frontier defences. From this it will be plain that the invasion of the Low Countries for the purpose of "protection" as. claimed by the enemy, is in fact just the same assault on the neutrality of the Low Countries as was contemplated by the German strategist thirty-five years ago. Von Schlieffen's successor, the younger von Moltke, accepted the plan in principle, but as years passed after 1905, and the offensive spirit developed so strongly in the French army, it was modified to the extent of strengthening the German left wing in Alsace-Lorraine. 'To this von Scblieffen was to the end of his life bitterly opposed, always insisting that risks should be run' in that area in order that the right should be made as strong as possible, Nevertheless, the plan, as it deve-Toped in August, 1914, involved the throwing into Belgium and France of seven armies consisting of ten cavalry, seventy-two active and reserve divisions, six Ersatz divisions and fourteen Landwehr brigades.
Germany at the time was ahead of the rest! of the world in the provision, and tactical employment of machine guns, and heavy artillery, and her plan of campaign was in fact a judicious combination of offensive, and defensive methods. 'The story of how' that scheme was eventually brought to naught and the Germans defeated after more than four years of bitter warfare, is already well Known, The Allies passed through weeks, and even months of anxiety as the various German offensives were worn down, and the initiative finally wrested from German hands. The position in this war is somewhat different from that in the early days of the last. The perfection of solid defences by both sides in the shape of the Maginot Line and the: 'Western Wall has, to the greatest extent possible, removed those risks which von Sehlieffen was prepared to run. 'There is also the absence of German preoccupation in the East which existed in 1914, and the sweeping movement contemplated' by von Schlieffen is. being undertaken with even greater forces than he provided for. Hence the severity of the enemy blows in' the early days of the present battle. The employment of large forees, of mechanized troops, and the acroplane, has imported new considerations into present day concepts of war, in almost the same manner as twenty-six years ago. Then what was expected to be a war of move~ ment was eventually reduced to a positional struggle in which trenches and stabilized positions played their important part. Nowadays all that has been reversed, and at any rate for the time being the war has turned out to be one of movement, and that at a speed which has never before been contemplated. The struggle in the "Battle of the Bulge" has been described as an enormous melee, with speedy tanks behind each other's lines, and rapid changes from the offensive to the defensive and vice versa as the temporary fortunes of the struggle dictate, Swift thrusts of tanks and armoured cars tare being made and advances claimed which may never be consolidated. They in turn are being met with similar moves of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.