The Washington herald., 1918-07-17
Stopped.


Is the Boehe stoppeds Has he shot his bolt,
reeling from the impact of the defense that he fas
met along the Marne?
The evidence is not all in, but this much we
know-that in the first days fighting his attacking
Jnggernaut buekled and fell in heap before it had
fairly started. The failure is glaring. Prussian
sophistry throw cloak of lies over it. There
are certain things so bald and obvious that even
Teutonic falsehoods cannot camouflage-and this
latest offensive for which such elaborate prepara
tions had been made, which took more than a
month to organize, is one of them.
Ludendorf must be making some tall explana-
- tons to his imperial master today. The crown
pEinee will be thirsting for a change OF COM
mand. If this is the best that the militarists can
do, the world is as safe il the Hohenzoern al
ready were exiled to- some lepers isle and junker-
ism embalmed in museum of antiquities. 1t
is certainly much less than their enemies ex-
pected them do. The best military brains in the
allied forces anticipated blow which would make
the fate of Paris or the channel ports a gam
Jble to be determined in the end by eyelash per-
haps-by a handful of men who could add the final
ounce of energy either to the offensive or the de-
fensive. AS it appears the spearhead of the
new blow was shattered before it was poised
for lunge.
The reaction from anxiety is glorious thing. 1t
Yields new confidence in the magnificent fighting
units now being welded into unconquerable force
ander the hand OF Foch. Ii will be well not to let
the reaction carry us too far. We know that the
initial move in the fifth grand German offensive OF
1913 has been broken. But that is all We know
There may be a surprise, trap in store for the
allied forces. The enemy is goaded by the counsels
Of desperation, and will go any length in the sacri-
flee OF life to break through" the allied line. He
is cunning and resourceful and has highly cult-
waited powers OF ambuscade. The lesson OF last
March should never be forgotten. Ludendorf then
carried his cause within few inches of the coveted
mark. He came dangerously rupturing the
Franco-British line, which might not have meant
the end OF the war; but would have thrown the
whole allied cause into panic and chaos. 1t
scare which loosed the scales of easy, optimism
from our eyes, which awakened america
to her real duty. The Germans should not be given
the chance to repeat along the same lines.
The Berlin communique is crisp and curt Be-
tween the lines may be read the intense disappont
ment OF the German high command, and this dis
appointment inevitably spread wavelike over
the whole German nation. For within the past few
weeks the people have begun to suspect that some
thing wrong in the West. If this suspicion
could not be checked even before the blow de-
Ivered, it must expand into nesr-panic under the
present conditions. The blow has not merely fallen
short, as its predecessors did 1t has been spln-
tered and smashed in the very first day. The dra-
matic element in the defeat makes it spectacular
reading within the Iron ring
What will Vienna and Sophia and Stambou
Think There shrewd minds in those capitals
which cannot be deceived They were skeptical OF
the Prussian months ago. They will scent the un-
mistakable odor of decomposition in the German
army wsl the German nation in what is hap
penng along the Marine. For there appears to be
little doubt that German morale is waning The
"shock' troops, the pick of the highly trained
Prussian battaions have been employed in vain
They have met than their match. Their
tagonsts have fathomed the clever Ludendorff
formula OF attack, have found the antidote for
tard gas and all the other sharp tricks which the
German command has utilized heretofore with such
skill
Politically and militariy. are at a critical
ment- in the history OF the war. For the German
leaders soon must be driven to acknowledge that
they cannot bring the to close in 1915 as
they promised to do The pan-Germans are not so
blind and obtuse that they be forced to dis
cern the obvious fact If Hindenburg and Luden-
dorff must be fed TO the buzzards as the penalty
OF failure, which is the objectionable crime in
the code, OF German militarism, the end cannot be
fa@sWay. No political legerdemain stave it Off
After the War.
L