New-York tribune., 1918-09-12

Military Comment
By William l.. Mcpherson

made of the great German
offensive Of 1913 comes from
Lieutenant General Baron Won Frey
tag Loringhoven, the deputy chief
of the German General Staff. He
calls it an "abortivc offensive" Who
could have said anything more in
furious to German military prestige
or more destructive of the omniscient
tradition Of the German High Com
mand?
Post-mortems are generally mat
ters of morbid curiosity. But Lieu
tenant General Baron Won Freytag-
Loringhoven's remark will make
many Germans wonder if, after all,
the great Hindenburg Ludendorff
gamble of 1913 was really worth
while. 1t was gamble against time
a bid for a decision in advance of
the arrival of the American armies
! Ludendortf's influence forced the
throw out of the dice box. There
| 10 IIlOIC CflcI SuoDlIlOl tfttI lllC
Kaiser, backed by minority of the
German inner military clique, OPP
posed it.
There are many Allied military
experts who still maintain that the
! Ludendortf offensive was Justified
that but for blunders in execution
it would have severed the British
and French armies and carried the
( Germans both to Paris and to the
Channel ports. But such specuIa-
ton gets nowhere. 1t ignores the
most important result of the often
sive from the Allied point of view
the immediate unifcation of Allied
command.
The selection Of Foch as general
issimo, forced by Ludendorff's great
initial success, gave the Allies the
power to hold fast before Paris and
the Channel ports. Ludendorff
grossly misjudged the defensive
strength of the Allied armies under
single competent head He went
on misjudging it, as we'll as the
value of the American contribution
to the fighting front, until he fell
into the fatal trap in the Marine
salient.
History will condemn the Luden-
dorff gamble as great Illusion
Germany is now condemned to
defensive war, in which, Won Frey
tagLoringhoven still claims, she
will show her "invincibility" But
in what a vastly more fortunate
position would the Germans now be
for defensive operations if they had
elected last March to stand fast on
the Hindenburg line and to devote
their surplus strength to stabilizing
their position in Russia Without
Allied unity of command and with
out a speeding up Of the American
overseas movement Allied opera
tions in the summer of 1913 would
probably simply have paralleled
those Of the summer Of 1877.
Now the German shock troops
have been depleted, German morale
has been immensely lowered by a
series of humiliating defeats and
the whole German position in France
has been imperlled. The Hinden-
burg line has been smashed and is
passing into history. The chief con-
Germ of the German High Command
is now to find shorter and safer
line and to escape the effects of the
dilution of defensive strength ne
cessitated by Foch's strategy Of
varied attack and grand scale in
1iltratio
Yesterday the French reached
Travecy, village in the Disc Val
ley two miles directly north of La
Fere. It lies on the railroad
from La Fere up the Disc and is
close to the Disc Canal and to the
river bank. So far as it protected
La Fere the old Hndenburg line
has therefore ceased to exist. 1t is
still held further up the west bank
Of the Disc to Moy But this posi-
tion can be threatened by a French
advance past La Fere up the east
bank of the Disc, as we'll as from
the new French front just west of
Moy.
The British, in spite of recent
rains and strong German counter
attacks. advanced yesterday north
of Epehy-to the west of LIE Cateet
lie Catelet is covered by the linden
burg line They also made progress
near Nermand, three miles north
west of st. Quentin. On most of
the battle line there has been a nee
essary halt since Sunday from new
{ offensive preparations.
! Germany weakened her Eastern
front to pursue her offensive in
France. Now she is reaping the
consequences in the East. Commune
! cation was reestablished a few davs