Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-09-15
BY FRANK H. sIMoNDs.

On MONDAY, september - WHICH, ILLS
article was written, Foch's offensive
had reached its supreme crisis.
Within a relatively brief time. per-
haps before this article Is In the
readers hands, there will be answered
the question Of utmost interest and
importance-Can Ludendorn regain
the offensive? If he can, even briefly,
the lines will stabilize themselves on
the front familiar throughout the
campaign Of 1917 ana the end Of the
fighting season will arrive before the
Germans can be pushed to the Belgian
frontier.
On the other hand, If the cost Of the
retreat has been SO great that Luden-
dorff has consumed his reserves, then
he cannot wrest the initiative from
Foch and he will have to continue to
conform to the strategica1 movements
conform to them for the past two
months, ever since July IS, when the
thrust of Mangin toward scissors
defnitively deprived the Germans OF
their advantage gained at the battle
of Picardy on March 81 and retained
second battle of the Marne from
German to a French operation.
Cannot Remain Passive.
Now the essential thing to recog-
nize at the outset Is that 1t will be
impossible for Ludendorn merely to
retire to the Hindenburg line and
there conduct a passive or even an
active defense This would only be
used up by their offensive of tho past
weeks, a thing which may be re-
garded as utterly unlikely. The
change in the methods Of combat in
the past summer has brought back
something of the old-fashioned tacti-
temporarily ended at the first Marine.
Looking back at that campaign of
1914 we can derive valuable informa-
ton as to the campaign now in prog
ress. In the opening phase of the
war Joffre took the offensive. just as
year. In the latter half of August
Joffre pushed armies into Alsace,
Lorraine. Belgium. Luxembourg and
up to Charleroi. But toward the end
heavily beaten. all of them compelled
to retreat, and the initiative passed
from the French to the Germans.
In this situation Joffre had two
courses open to him. He might have
| sought to regroup his armies and
conduct an operation of a purely de-
fensive nature from the Somme to the
Moselle, covering Amiens. Rheims and
Nancy. But such an operation would
condemn him to a permanent defen-
sive, and in the view of all modern
strategy, which has returned to the
Napoleonfc conception, the defensive
spells defeat. You may possibly hold
your enemy for a certain period of
time, but you can. never destroy him,
you will have always to conform to
h VI
war, of all war and Of modern war
beyond all other wars, is to destroy
the armies of your foe.
Makes Fighting Retreat.
| Accordingly, Joffre adopted the
| principle of a wide swinging retreat,
fighting retreat behind which he
undertook to regroup his armies with
| the deliberate intent to regain the Of
! fensive when this reorganization was
| complete. While the defeated armies
slowly retird from the Belgian from
| tier into France he created two new
! armies, those of Foch and Maunoury,
| created he was ready, while the enc
| my had by this time advanced into
a perilous position. Joffre accordingly
| retook the offensive, defeated the
! tire to the Aisne. More than this,
once the Germans were at the Aisne
and preparing to renew their ad-
vance upon Paris. Joffre opened a
! turning movement east of Amiens
which compelled the Germans to
abandon their own plans to meet the
new danger. The result was that the
campaign of 1914 ended before Ypres,
with the initiative still escaping the
Germans. And they never fully re-
covered this initiative on the western
front until the present year.
! On fha other hand owing 70 the
| superior preparations of the Ger
mans, their greater numbers and the
unreadiness of the ,British-an un-
| readiness wholly comparable with
able to exploit his various successes.
| He had broken the German strategy,
| but his own was not to be carried to
its logical conclusion because he
! lacked men, munitions and guns. Not
until the recent fighting in July was
the mechanical equipment of the
French and British equal to the Ger
| man, although numerically allied su-
periority in the west was fairly steady
from May. 1915, up to the beginning
| of the present year.
| Positions Are Similar.
| Now, when Ludendorf was beaten
| at the second Marine his position was
similar to that of Joffre after the
failure of tho French offensive in
| 1914. His own strategy was tempo
| rarily wrecked. He recognized that
| he must retire out Of untenable posi-
| lions taken only as detail in his own
| effort to bring the French and British
| forces to battle under unfavorable
! conditions and destroy them. He
realized that retreat was necessary
in order that, while parrying the
blows of the enemy. delivered under
| advantageous conditions, as a result
of their Marine victory, he might re-
| pirate moment, following Joffres ex-
ample. take the offensive again and
| accomplish what Joffre had accom-
| plished at the Marine.
| It is in this light we must view all
that has happened since July lS. The
! retreat of the Germans. important for
the French and British, as it released
valuable and necessary lines of COM
munication and greatly improved the
general physical situation of the
allies, was of relatively minor i'm
portance in the larger sense. unless
it's consequence should be the demor-
alization Of the German army and the
| elimination OF all chances that when
| It had effected q retirement 1t could
pass to the offensive and not merely
| pursuers to conform to its will for the
| balance Of the year.
The essential thing in all war is not
| the occupation of territory. save as
| the occupation Of that territory forces
your enemy to fight under unfavor-
fable conditions. and, thus fighting. to
| meet utter defeat. We all Of us look
| at the map and see there, as 1t may
| happen. causes for hope Of for fear.
| Yet it is not on the map that Foch or
| Ludendorn seek the answer to their
| questions. The whole object of both
strategies. for both German and