New-York tribune., 1918-09-26

n N HIS address to the Main Com
mittee Of the Reichstag Cham
cellor Won Hertling on Tuesday
offered this "Ersatz" morsel Of con-
ISOLATION to the respondent German
public: "The iron wall of the West
crn front cannot be broken" Won
Hertling is a metaphysician, turned
statesman. And it is only in his pri-
mary capacity as a metaphysician,
unhampered by military realities,
that he is able to draw his magic
circle of impregnability about Ger
many.
Hindenburg and Ludendorff might
we'll wish that they, too, were meta
physicians. No one knows better
than they that "iron walls" on any
front are now only Pigments Of an
innocent rhetorical imagination
Such walls don't exist any longer.
The "iron wall" of a Hindenburg or
Wotan or Siegfried or Parsifal line
is no stronger nowadays than the
men who must defend it. It cannot
stand fast of itself. And the inter
dependence Of the many sectors on
an elongated front like that between
Switzerland and the North Sea
makes the weakest panels in the
present Hindenburg line the true
measure of it's suppostitious invinci-
bility.
Ludendorf last March scrapped
the old idea Of deadlock positional
warfare. Building on the enlarged
power Of the offensive, he reintro-
duced a warfare Of movement-at
least near approach to the old war
fare Of movement. Foch has elabo-
rated the Ludendorff conception.
And against his puzzling strategy of
infiltration on a gigantic scale all
the lines which the Germans have
tried to hold against him have devel-
cped surprisingly sieve-like qualities.
Is the Hindenburg line an "iron
wall"? Plainly it is not. 1t has
been pierced at many points 1t is
being eaten into daily. While at
tention has been turned in the last
few days to the dramatic and thrill
ing Allied operations in Macedonia
and Palestine, the British and
French armies in Picardy have been
steadily enveloping St. Quentin.
They are within couple of miles of
it .on the west and northwest and
have worked we'll in behind it on
the south. 1t has become a German
outpost. 1t has almost ceased to be
defensible. When Foch chooses he
can enter both st. Quentin and La
Fere.
And how about the iron walls"
on the Bulgarian and Palestine
fronts? They, too, existed only in
the metaphysical sense. Frederick
the Crafty and Talaat Pacha were
also victims Of the Won Hertling fall
lacy. The positions which the Bull
garlans held between the Cerna and
the Vardar were as impregnable as
nature could make them. Yet the
French and Serbians drove over
Jagged heights and trailless massifs
and routed the Bulgarians out of
Businesses they considered unassail-
able. No mountain wall or defile is
strong enough to resist the iron will
and patient preparation of an enemy
determined to take it. General
Franchet d'Esperey struck the Bull
gar armies where their line was
strongest. And it yielded like paste
board
Liman Pacha-General Liman Won
Sanders-had constructed Hert-
lingized 'iron wall' north of Jeru-
salem. His elaborate system of de-
fences, back as far as Nazareth. was
overrun in thirty-six hours by the
British, Australian and East Indian
troops, and he saved himself from
capture only by a hasty flight. He
IS refugee. His two Turkish arm