Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-08-06
THE RETREAT IN FRANCE
What 1t Actually Means, at This Stage, to the
Allies and TO Germany

exutation which the most recent Allied
victories have inspired in the more i'm
pressionable minds here and abroad.
The Allies. say those whose technical
experience should enable them to per-
ceive the matter whole, have won impor-
tant victories. But we are assured in
the same breath that the German pur-
poses -emain mistaken. The soldier
writer's see the German system Of
strategy still secure, still operating with
a measure of success. The retirement of
Wilhelm's armies has been orderly and
efficient, despite the losses in men and
guns. The Hun commanders have merely
withdrawn impetuously from expert
mental positions and abandoned an en-
terprise upon which they had staked
nothing definite.
The drive which has just gone to
pieces appears to the eye Of the profess
sional strategist as a peace storm Of an
extraordinary sort. 1t was not meant to
acquire and hold new territory or new
spoils. It was merely a feint of terror
ism in the face Of civilization. Apprais-
ing the consequences upon this ground.
the military experts perceive even the
shadow of a new peril in the Allied vic
tories. They see Germany beaten back.
establishing herself in previously pre-
pared lines, behind impossible defenses
where for years she may defy the power
Of the rest of the world in the common
effort to batter way through to the
root of the trouble. Disintegration may
come about in Germany and Austria. it
is argued. But may not disintegration
also begin sooner or later among the
Allies if they are required to face an
interminable period of sacrifice and loss
for ends not yet clearly defined or un-
derstood?
To every one who looks not for the
fact, but for the truth behind the fact.
It must seem that this analysis shows
either undue bias on the side of caution
or a lack of the essential quality of
imaginative insight into swiftly chang
ing situation. The occasion is one upon
which laymar. with nothing but his
knowledge of human nature to guide
him, properly might pit his opinion
against that of the technical experts.
1t is true that the Germans might
withdraw to the Asne, or even to the
Rhine itself, and yet give up nothing that
they wish or hope to possess perma-
nently. The Huns heart, his interests.
his hopes are now in the East. His
arms are full of Russian loot He would
be glad enough to have his hands freed
elsewhere. But to presume, even with
this knowledge, that the German army
staff has not been dazed and stunned by
the recent reverses; to believe that the
recent events in France were not in the
nature of disaster for Germany or that
the failure would not have been averted
50 is to ignore the chief element in the
German line of offense. This element is
the state of mind of Germany
The Berlin Government has suffered
a dismal humiliation and a great mis-
fortune at the instant when it's need of
public confidence at home was bitterest.
The maneuver devised to encourage and
unity public opinion in Germany in an
hour of almost utter hopelessness has
had a result exactly opposite to the one
intended
There are cumulative evidences in Ger
many that the collective mind of the
population has been staggered by the
news from France. The burghers had
been assured that peace was near.
Peace, in Germany, meant food for the
hungry, medicine for the sick, clothing
for those almost naked, fuel for the win
ter. And in a day the delusions of
mightiness with which the existing Gov
ernment has fed and clothed and warmed
and sustained the people We're shot away.
Germany now can look forward only to
limitless periods of new suffering, to
more poignant years, to endless hunger
and cold and sacrifice beyond the place
where the mirage of peace arose.
The blows in France have struck most
terribly far behind the German lines.
The confidence of all the people has been
shaken. The civilian population is
clamorng to the Government for an ex-
planation of things that are unexplain-
able
And so, even though the war should
ultimately resolve itself into contest of
morale between the Allied nations and
an isolated and tortured Germany, there
can be no doubts whatever of the out
come. For it is rule of all life that in
every contest one adversary gains
strength and fresh determination as the
other shows signs of weakness. That is
the essential truth which the military
strategists who write seem for the mo-
ment to have overlooked.