Evening star., 1918-03-31
WHAT GERMANS DID IN FIRST, WEEK.
OF DRIVE IS GREATER THAN ALLIES
DREAMED OF, Mr.. SIMONDS SAYS

! front; they have in week reSalneQ
| ground which cost the British and
| French a year of campaigning and eX-
| ceedingly heavy costs in casualties.
! They have restored war OF movement
/ and they have demonstrated that the
! war of position can, at least tempora-
rily, be interrupted, provided the as
! sailant is willing to spend the men ana
the munitions.
| Further than this, there is no blinking
the fact that at many moments the Ger
mans have been on the edge of a su-
preme success. which would follow
from breaking of the British lines and
| the driving of a wedge elthef between
portions of the British army or be-
| tween the British and French armies.
Maurice comedies that there was dead
| iy peril of this on Saturday and again
on Monday north of the Somme, while
south of the Somne the peril has been
! constant and is not yet quite abolished.
What Huns Have Not Done.
/, Now, the single thing the Germans
| have not yet succeeded in doing is
! breaking down the continuity of the
| enemy line or destroying the forces on
! his front by the weight of his blow.
| lust as the French troops who were
| holding the line il, front of Nerdun
! hung on until Petain arrived with his
reserve army, giving up ground, but
i holding back the flood. the British have
hung on, striking and retreating for
f; the first week. and the last half of the
week has seen slowing down of Ger
man pace due perhaps in part to the
difficulties of transport and the grow
! ing WEAKNESS of their men. but in part,
| too. to the arrival of local British re
serves and the stiffening of British re-
sistance.
The Germans have. then. won great
battle: there is still the possibility at
the end of the first week that they will
win a decisive battle. which has SO far
escaped them. But the chances of
! this are now beginning to diminish.
The allies have reserve armies. they
have not put these reserve armies in
yet and they would not put them in un
til a favorable moment had arrived or
the situation become so desperate that
they had no choice. The situation, al
though it has been desperate, has inn
proved and the absence of the counter
offensive would seem to indicate the
waiting for the best moment, for time
must now have been allowed for the
concentration of the armies. PetalnS s
first troops got to Nerdun and into ac-
tion on the sixth day on the Douau-
mont plateau.
We are, then. on the morning of the
eighth day Thursday. entering upon
the time in which an allied counter
offensive is to be looked for. The Ger
mans are now physically and tactical
ly in the condition of those other Ger
the Marine The rapidity of the push
of their center toward Roye and Chaul-
nes has exposed their tanks as hluck's
flank was exposed toward Paris. The
strain of the last days has told upon
the men and the difficulty of getting
heavy guns and munitions up across
the devastated district must be tre-
mendous.
A counter offensive of the allies is.
then, to be looked for. 1t may succeed
ND + ia Ger
mans will at least be halted, and they
may be compelled to make local or
general retirement. If it fails. then the
! chances are that a real wedge will be
driven between the French and the
British and the British flank rolled
back through Amiens and perhaps cut
off from the great sea bases a. Rouen
and at Havre. These are remoter possi-
bilities. but they are real possibilities.
German Achievements Very Great.
We must recognize that the decision
of the battle has not yet come. We
must concede the German achievement
passes anything that has been dreamed
of in allied quarters. But it is Vdually
fair to recognize that up to the end of
the first week there has been no disas-
ter, like the Dunojec or the more recent
Italian collapse; there has been steady
resistance and orderly retreat and that
there has been in the last two days
manifest Stiffening of allied resistance
and an unmistaka kable slowing down of
German advance. These are hopeful
signs, but nothing more The great
crisis is here and the allies have SO far
escaped disaster or fatal disorganiza-
ton. They have come about to the po-
sition of Joffre, when he ordered the
counter offensive of the Marne The
success or failure of the counter often
siye will decide the magnitude of the
toto hut no
mistaking the fact that in the first
week the victory has been stupendous,
even if it fails to prove a Waterloo or
Sedan, or more than a brief Interrupt
tion in a war of position.
It remains now to say word about
.. numbers Most of the information
which we have as yet about German
numbers actually engaged is untrust-
worthy and all figures supplied are sub
ject to revision downward in the flu
ture. Allied information. which is fair
ly accurate. indicated that the Germans
had around two hundred divisions on
the western front before the present at
tack. OF this number one hundred and
fifteen were occupied in holding the
line from the North sea to Switzerland.
There remain eighty-five divisions,
which constitute the total strategic re-
serve. OF this number seventy-hve
have already been reported as engaged
in the great battle between Arras and
the Disc.
1t would seem, then. that the Germans
have practically put in their entire re-
serve of seventy-five divisions; in any
event, they cannot have more than ten
divisions in reserve. Seventy-five divi-
sionS would be about nine hundred
thousand men. The maximum of nun-
bers engaged in the German thrust-or
at least available for it-would then he
between nine hundred thousand and a
million, but it is doubtful if even Iht.
smaller figure has yet been passed.
Allies Outnumb red, Two to One.
, On the other hand the allies are re-
ported to have used something oyar
thirty divisions of British troops and
something under ten divisions of French
troops during the first week and this
would mean approximately half "A mil
non We may assume. then that the
allies have been outnumbered at least
two to one on the whole line while they
nave been outnumbered much more
heaV1ly In some areas. Up to the end of
the nrst week. there is no indica tion
! that the allies have used anything but
| local reserves. The problem of con-
centrat1ng their strategic reserves at
the point of attack is a problem which
i involves the element of time The Ger
/ man knew where he was going to
strike, and had his reserves ready The
allies had to wait until the blow had
disclosed the German purpose fully be-
/ fore they made their counter-concen-
| tration. At Ferdun the French counter