Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-09-16
No Wonder Germany Quit
By MAJOR FRANK O. MAHIN
OF the Army Recruiting Station
By BRIGGS

zone reason why we all felt so
absolutely certain we were going to
lick the everlasting tar out of the
Boche was that we all knew the
Boche to be systematic fighters and
systematic fighters are bound to get
! beaten in the long run. System is
all right and proper, but 1T can be
carried to such an extreme that all
| initiative is destroyed and that was
what the Boche did. Back about 1904
| the Prussians and Austrians began to
systematic the handling of Armies
while Napoleon kept on doing it all
himself. The one man command
worked and still works all right for
comparatively small armies but early
In the 10th century the size of
armies grew rapidly. Remember
| how disasterously Napoleon was de-
| feated at Dresden, at Leipzig, and in
| his Russian campaign. The reason
was that he was trying to handle an
army of several hundred thousand
men by his own individual genius and
he failed; the job was too big. The
Prussians at Dresden and Leipzig
and at Waterloo had fairly efficient
General Staff which divided up the
work, gave it system and won out.
The same thing applied to the
Franco -Prussian war. The General
Staff worked out all possible details
and then turned the plan over to
the General in the field. The Cen
eral used the plans as worked out
up to a point where circumstances
! began to change and then he used
his initiative, while the Staff work
\ ed on new plans according to the
altered conditions. The result of
this cooperation was the overthrow
of France. But the Boche couldn't
] let well enough alone and had to
go on and on perfecting the General
stan, perfecting system until along
In 1915 1t got so that a German
commander hardly dared take a
breath unless the General Staff had
directed the time he was to take it
and the amount of air he was to
lnhale, Take for instance the great
attack on Verdun in 1916. The Staff
worked out perfect plan for the
attack, step by step, to the fall of
Herdun. But on the fourth day the
trench were routed and the way
into the city was open. Did the
Soche seize advantage of their
cnance! They did not! The Staff
hadn't counted on any such a thing
happening and by the time thew had
round it out and had made new plans
1T was too late. French troops had
arrived; new lines of trenches had
oeen dug and they were ready for
the attack. For six months the
Boche kept up the battle, but never
once did they have any chance of
success. Opportunity had opened the
door, but too much system had for
bade the seizing of the elusive dame
10y the .forelock. Again in the first
great drive in 1918, the one with
Amiens for an objective the Roche
broke through, broke clear through.
so that nothing lay between them
ana their objective but some scat
tered, exhausted groups, which
could have been easily brushed
aside. But again the plans did NOT
call for such thing at that time
and the Boche kindly waited till re-
tnforcements came up for both
French and English. and Amiens
was saved. I am sorry to say our
own American Staff was inclined to
follow the German system and place
too much stress on their own care
fully prepared plans, but the thing
that saved us and licked the Boche
was our temperament. When an
American commander sees an OPEN
Ing. especially one which the Staff
hadn't foreseen, he will simply think
To He'll with the Staff and will
| drive on into the opening for all
he is worth. This spirit Of Initiative
of daring to take chance per-
meated out forces, consequently the
Boche said we were crazy unframed
mobs. because we would fight ac-
cording to plan or to precedent. If
the Boch were foolish enough to
drop their guard we didn't wait a
couple of days to get permission
from Washington to slug them on
the point of the jaw: not so YOU
could notice it, we slugged and then
slugged couple of times more as
quick as we could to make good and
sure. You may possibly remember
the result of our AZ days OF slugging
them around the Argonne Forest
The nice little document they signed
on November 18th was the count
of down and OUT"