The Germans had completed, without appreciable loss, the withdrawal of part of their line from a dangerous salient to a new and stronger position. During the entire war no Allied plan was ever attempted under such conditions that did not result in dismal failure.īut the situation in the late spring of 1917 was even worse. It was like a battle line held by twenty independent division commanders trying to work to a general result in unison, but none having any responsibility for anything but what is in front of him. On that front lay the essential objective of the nation behind it. There, it was hoped, the war would be won. Naturally, their perspective of the war was largely limited by that front. But their real responsibility was limited to their own front. These sometimes met together and thought that they had formed broad, comprehensive plans. Their attitude was reflected in that of the commanders in the field. The main efforts of the governments were individual, meeting the insatiable requirements of their commanders for munitions and men.
Otherwise, instead of basing all their hopes for three years on consistent, continuous efforts of Russia-made impossible by the inertness of her mass, her lack of industrial organization, her inconceivable corruption-they might have saved that country from collapse they might have prevented the entry of Rumania into the war just in time to help the enemy at his crisis nor is it inconceivable that they might, later, have pushed the Italians through the Alps and thrown Austria out of the central combination. The governments apparently had no conception that a war of such magnitude required political as well as military strategy. They were allied little more than in the sense that each found itself fighting, at the same time with the others, its own war against one enemy, and too largely for separate ultimate ends. In a nutshell, the cause of this failure-for failure it was-was the manifest absence of unity of purpose on the part of the Entente Powers. The German dream of a Mittel-Europa seemed about to be realized. All these campaigns had cost the Allies enormous sacrifices in money, material and men, against adversaries who, in spite of their admitted mistakes, were far more unified in their purpose and efforts.
The time had not yet come when a radical and anti-clericalist government was to appoint generals not for their boastful republicanism and ardent anti-clericalism but solely for their ability to win battles. In France, Marshal Joffre had been relieved from the command of her armies and General Foch had been retired in unmerited disgrace to an insignificant duty. Asquith in England had fallen, succeeded by that of Mr. On the cry that it was necessary to save the war, the government of Mr. At the beginning of the year ended the disastrous adventure of Gallipoli while the end of it found Rumania, which had entered the war in August, with her army destroyed, with her territory and all its resources in the hands of the Central Powers. By October of that year the last Russian efforts had worn themselves out, with no fruitful results unless that country could remain in the war for another campaign-which was not to be. The Italian campaign had come to an end on the Isonzo, with the Austrian main defense still intact. They had not broken the enemy line and, perhaps, the most that can be said of it is that it led to the withdrawal of the Germans in the following spring to a stronger position than they had held before. At its close the Allies had gained, over a few miles front in the hundreds of miles of line from the North Sea to the Alps, a depth of not much more than half the width of the District of Columbia.
The battle of the Somme paralleled the weary, bloody months of the battle of Verdun. Events on the Western Front were marked by the magnificent defense of Verdun, but it had left the victors too exhausted to follow their negative success with an important offensive. The campaigns of the third year had resulted in no decision. It was at the beginning of the campaign in the fourth year of the war. SHORTLY after April 6, 1917, there began to arrive and to establish themselves in Washington military, naval and financial missions from the Allied governments in Europe with whom we had, from that date, associated ourselves in the war against the Central Powers.
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