The Washington herald., 1919-04-27
CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE.


two years they sacrificed vast num-
bers of their finest troops to put their
weight against that Russian mass and
to roll II back through blood and
mud. gaining spectacular and high
sounding victories which set the Joy
bells ringing in Germany. and led to-
Bolshevism. That anarchy was the
revolt Of men who had seen their sons
and brothers sent forward in masses,
without support of guns. and often
without rifles. against German armies
with the most powerful artillery in
the world and machine-gun fire which
killed men In swaths.
1t was the mad and fierce ven
eeance of mobs against leaders who
had governed by bribery, corrup-
tion and treachery. and had sold
the bodies Of their countrymen to
the torturers for roubles paid by
Germany, or robbed by imperial
taxation. In spite of its later
cruelties. worse than those of
beasts. il there Is any truth in re-
ports from Russia. the first instinct
behind the movement of the Boil
sheviki was an agonized cry for
brotherhood I'm place of human
cruelty of castles and war lords. The
spirit Of that cry caught hold of
the German troops in Russia, and
before the war ended weakened
them as defenders of German castles
and war lords. From a military
standpoint the German obsession in
Russia divided their armies, and
our western front. heavily pressed
as IL was. did not recover the full
weight of German attack. in all
available strength, until March 81.
1918. Again and again-it is almost
certain-the enemy would have bro
ken the western front and rolled
up the French and British armies
If he had just put in that extra bit
of weight needed at the exact mo-
ment of great success. That he did
not do so was partly lack of men.
owing to the adventures in Russia.
and partly a military hesitation due
to ignorance of our extreme weak
ness.
Her First Colossal Blunder.
The first colossal blunder of the
enemy was in August of 1914, when
through France in five columns. Gen.
Won Kluck was commanding the right
wing of the German armies and the
little British army-the old Con
temptibles"-were fighting back from
Mons with a French army on their
right largely composed of old Ter
ritorials." who were not reckoned
upon as first lipe troops. and battal-
ions OF Senegalese and Moroccans.
who had not the same striking
power as the French OF British. Won
Kluck's army passed through Amiens
in a great tide. after the retreat of the
French from Bapaume which / saw
on a tragic night, and then bore down
past Reauvais ard Meaux to Creil and
Chantilly. not far from Paris. The
game seemed easy to him, but In his
confidence he did not trouble to take
advantage Of one supreme chance
which was his, and that was the
capture OF the channel ports. For 4
little while they We're at his mercy
Could Have Had Channel Ports.
l saw the last uniformed men-cus-
tom officers, firemen and policemen
leave Boulogne, which lay open to the
enemy. Calais and Dieppe were unde-
Tended. The British army had moved
Is base from Boulogne to st. Nazaire,
away down south.
At that time Germany could have
seized the coast for nothing, which
afterwards they fought desperately
and in vain to get. With that coast
in her hands her submarine warfare
would have been a more terrible and
deadly menace to England. and there
fore to France and all of us. But Won
Kluck. acting under the orders of his
general staff, drove steadily down,
leaving the coast as fruit to be pluck
ed later, and intending to drive a
wedge past Paris, which would then
fall into his hands as the best fruit Of
all. Three things upset his reckoning
and spoilt his plan. The first was the
survival of the little British army as
a fighting force when he thought it
was annihilated: and the second land
more importantly was the genius of n
certain French general named Foch,
not then famous in the world: and
the third was the spiritual exalta ton
Of the French troops which lifted
them suddenly from the despair of
their first tragedies and made them
certain, with fine. wonderful faith,
that they would turn back the Ger
man tide
Foch Speaks Memorable Words.
On a day when it seemed possible
that the whole French line might
have to fall back in further retreat,
so that Paris herself would be aban-
doned to the orgies of a conquerinG
army. Foch in the center of the
French line said. in spirit. If not in
those exact words q was told then
by the son of the French Chief-of-
StafD: Il am not going to retreat. I
am going to attack" He attacked late
in the evening when the. Germans had
lii their bivouac fires. believing that
the fighting of the day was over, and
he sent the Crown Princes army reel
Ing back from the Marine. The whole
German line had to fall back to the
Aisne to conform with the retreat in
the center, and Won Kluck's army on
the German right. nearest to Paris,
had to retreat in disorder. fighting
bloody rear-guard actions.
Troops Go Forward In Tnxicabs.
Marshal Joffre, quick to realize the
wonderful chance. ordered General
Manoury to attack Won Kluck on the
flank with the A rray of d. -ybi,h