New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-18


differences between the Verdun and Somme
operations. The Verdun operation was
single and comprehensive effort: it was the
one thing Germany was undertaking to do
elsewhere she simply tried to hold on. She
gambled that she could hold her Eastern
lines until she had won her victory at Yer
dun. She lost the throw and Austria
suffered one of the great disasters of the
war in consequence. Actually the 35S,ooo
prisoners the Russians report that they
have taken arc the price of Nerdun. And
Verdun did not fall.
Now the Allies are not simply attacking
on the Somme. This is not merely local
and desperate attack, designed to turn the
Germans out of France. 1t is only incl
dentally this. 1t is more important as a
campaign to hold German reserves IN
France and permit Russia to continue her
great attack. The success or failure OF
the Somme operation may be absolute In
its own area, but it is actually relative 10
the area of the war. All the bloody battles
of Grant from the Wilderness to Cold
Harbor and Petersburg were defeats on
the battlefield, because in all of them he
failed to accomplish his purpose IN the
actual field in which he was operating
they were failures on the battlefield and
they did not, in 1864, get him Richmond
But they are to be measured, and now they
are measured, by their effect upon the
whole war, and we see that they did eX-
haust Confederate numbers, prevent the
reinforcement of the armies before Thomas
and Sherman and ultimately make possible
those victories in the other fields which
actually settled the issue of the Civil War,
before AppomattoX.
All this the Somme offensive may not
do; no considerable part of the mission OF
the Army of the Potomac may be per-
formed by the armies of Foch and Haig.
We cannot Judge of this as yet, nor for
many months. But we can see where the
parallel is good, where it is impressive
We can see that if the Russians get Lem
berg and reach the San or the Hungarian
Plain, if the Italians get Trieste or Lai-
bach, if the army of Sarrail returns TO
the Danube, the total cause of the Allies
will have profited immeasurably, the con-
tribution of the French and British in the
West will have been tremendous, even If
they do not gain another mile or another
wrecked village.
10 NO cnpaEIpO with
truthfulness, and we are bound to listen to
what they say, as to the check to Allied
purpose in the West, so far as this purpose
was to pierce their lines. We are bound
to accept it because it is nothing more nor
less than what we all said about Verdun,
accepting the French statements and the
words of our own correspondents. But
we must all recognize the fundamental dis
tinction between the Verdun and the
Somme operations, which lies in the fact
that Verdun was an end in itself and the
single purpose on which all German effort
was concentrated, while the Somme is one
phase of a grandose and continent-wide
attack.
Whether this continent-wde attack is to
succeed or fail is a matter that we cannot
even guess about, because we lack con-
vincing evidence. 1t has so far succeeded
tremendously, measured by prisoners capt
ured, guns and munitions and forts taken ;
100000 prisoners alone in the ten weeks
of offensive is staggering blow, joined
to loss of men by wounds which cannot
be less and may be more. More than three
quarters of a million Germans and Aus
/ trians, mostly Austrians, have gone out OF
the battle line since June /. The Allied
losses are apportioned among four nations
not two, and no considerable number OF
Allied prisoners have been claimed by the
! Central Powers.
In the Verdun attack the Germans took
less than 10000 prisoners and an incon-
siderable amount of material; the Allied
bag at the Somme can hardly be much
smaller now. But Verdun was all; the
Somme is one department of the Allied
operations. When the Germans were
stopped at the Mouse they were at stand
still everywhere; the Russians and the
Italians have kept on for days after the
check at the Somme was announced from
Berlin. They are still moving, and the
Balkan situation grows daily more
threatening. Only by keeping the whole
field in mind now shall we be able to esti-
mate rightly the actual situation and
escape attaching too much Importance to
any one department. 1t is the Battle of
Europe, not the Battle of the Somme, that
| is to be considered.