The New Gresham Encyclopedia Part 9

_The Russian Campaign._--On the Eastern front fighting on the grand scale had died down by the beginning of 1917, the Germans having exhausted the momentum of their advance under Mackensen, and accomplished their main purpose of putting Roumania out of account as a serious adversary. Along the line of the Sereth, and in the Bukovina, deadlock was reached in the spring of 1917. By that time the creeping paralysis which was seizing the Russian armies was making itself felt in this, their most distant tendon.

Throughout April, May, and June the daily record of occurrences on the Eastern front is blank except for one attack by the Germans on the Stokhod (3rd April).

For the explanation of their quiescence the record of political events has to be scanned. It was well known on the Continent, though it was kept hidden from the British public during the winter of 1916-7, that the integrity of the Russian armies was crumbling, that soldiers were fraternizing with the enemy, and that a general revolution was being prepared by those forces of socialism and anarchy which had been thrust under, but had never lacked exponents, since the abortive revolution of 1905. The mismanagement, the corruption, and the bitter hardships of the war had given them their opportunity, and these were the 'Dark Forces', more than the rogue Rasputin, the parasite of the Russian Court, which undermined the influence of the monarchy, and extinguished Tsar and Court, bureaucracy, aristocracy, and army in a common ruin. It was said in Europe during the winter of 1916-7 that the Allies would have to choose between the Russian monarchy and the Russian people; but neither the inertia of the Russian army nor the postponement of the re-opening of the Russian Duma acquainted the British public with the depth of the mischief that was working. The first inkling came on 12th March, 1917, when, following food riots in Petrograd, the Tsar ordered the suspension of the Duma. The Russian Revolution was the reply. Three Guard Regiments joined the people--the army had failed the monarchy. A Provisional Government was formed. Petrograd, Moscow, Kharkov, and Odessa joined it; and on 15th March the Tsar abdicated under compulsion. Several figures emerged from the crisis. M. Miliukoff, of the Const.i.tutional Party, and Kerensky, a link with the Socialists, but the real forces at work did not at first show themselves.

On 24th March the army declared its loyalty to the Provisional Government, which two days before had been recognized by the Allies. For a time hopes were entertained that under this Provisional Government Russia would carry out her obligations to the Allies, and that her armies would fight; and every sort of device, including interchange of visits with representatives of British Labour and French Socialism, was employed to foster cordiality.

The first sign of the essential futility of such hopes appeared on 4th May, when it was evident that the Russian Provisional Government was failing. A new coalition was formed, with Kerensky at its head, and loyalty to the Allies was urged and a.s.serted. French and American missions visited Petrograd and Moscow, but no real consolidation was effected, though in the latter end of May and the beginning of June there was a remarkably deceptive appearance of it.

Under the spur of great efforts by M. Kerensky the army was stimulated into action once more, and a new offensive prepared. On such an offensive the Allies had placed high hopes, for the Russian armies in the spring of 1917 were better equipped and better provided with guns and ammunition than ever before. At first some of these hopes seemed destined to be realized.

General Brussiloff, who had succeeded General Alexieff as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armies, consented rather reluctantly, under the insistence of Kerensky--at that time engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the forces of the Bolshevik party led by Lenin and Trotsky--to organize an attack on the Austro-Hungarian front south of the Pripet. It was believed that the soldiers of these southern armies were less tainted by Bolshevism than those in the northern armies, and that a success here might rally the country to its older standards of patriotism.

Brussiloff entrusted the offensive to General Gutor, who had in his favour the facts that the Austro-Hungarian armies were as war-weary as the Russian, and that the German Head-quarters Staff, who were well acquainted with the extent of Russian disaffection, and had indeed been instrumental in inspiring and organizing it, were sceptical about the possibility of such an attack. Furthermore, in the sectors from Brody to the Dniester and beyond, where Lechitsky had halted in 1916, the Russians had a considerable numerical superiority--54 divisions to 30 composite Austro-Hungarian, Turkish, and German divisions, and were well equipped, well posted, and well supplied.

General Gutor directed three armies. The Eleventh, under General Erdelli, was to act along an 11-mile front from a point north-west of Tarnopol, and to get astride the railway which leads from Tarnopol through Zloczow to Lemberg. The Seventh Army, under General Belkovitch, facing Brzezany, was to cross the Zlota Lipa River, where von Bothmer had made his stand, and was then to wheel north-eastward in the same direction as Erdelli's army, with which it was to get in touch. If this movement succeeded, the combined armies were to advance towards Bobrka and the railway from Halicz to Lemberg. The whole of this task was through difficult country. Far to the south General Korniloff, with the Eighth Army, was entrusted with the turning movement. He was to overrun the Halicz region and to obtain control of the railway thence to Lemberg. If this wide turning movement succeeded, and if Belkovitch also did well, the Austro-Hungarian armies would be outflanked and in danger of being rolled up, while pinned down in the north by Erdelli.

The venture was audacious, and the Russian commanders scarce dare trust their men. The Seventh Army's task in a.s.saulting the Zlota Lipa line was such as would have tried the bravest and most loyal troops. The attack began on 1st July, and Belkovitch's men advanced bravely enough, protected by good artillery. In the first a.s.sault they took the river line and 2000 prisoners. But between the Zlota Lipa and its tributary Tseniow was a death-trap, and the Russians were caught in a murderous cross-fire. The day was not lost; but at this critical moment occurred an incident which was symptomatic of Russia's disorders, and was the death sentence of Russia's continuance as a combatant. A division which might have turned the scale refused to advance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Russia's Last Effort in 1917: map showing approximately the farthest line reached by the attacking armies, and the Russian positions after the retreat]

The ground won was with difficulty held, and in the days that followed, the Germans, awakened to an unexpected danger, steadily reinforced the weak point, while Russian battalions were refusing to stay in the front line.

The situation reacted on Erdelli's troops farther north, where the Eleventh Army had done well at very little cost, and had captured 6000 prisoners by 3rd July. It became less difficult each day for the German directing staff to hold this attack in check, and it was stopped by 6th July. On the Dniester, Korniloff's army began to advance on this day--on which, according to plan, the enemy should have had all their attention concentrated on Erdelli and Belkovitch. Korniloff did very well. On 6th to 7th July he felt his way forward from Stanislau to Dolina, and on 8th July, joining battle with von Bothmer, broke down resistance at Jezupol with ease, and sent forward his best arm, his cavalry, to the River Lukwa, 8 miles behind von Bothmer's first-line defences. Realizing his danger, von Bothmer counter-attacked, but was again borne down, and Korniloff's van reached the Lukwa. In two days' fighting Korniloff had broken through on a 30-mile front, and his main body, in the wake of General Chermiroff's fighting division, poured into the plains of the Dniester. Theoretically a decisive victory had been won. It was in fact indecisive, because the leader's shock troops had been used up, and the situation was crumbling from within. His troops got intoxicated, mutinied, and he could use them no further.

But the rot now became dangerous to the point of mortality in the Eleventh Army of Erdelli. On 20th July, following a strong German counter-attack between Pienaki and Batkow, which was nearly the most northerly point of the advance, the 607th Mlynoff Regiment left the trenches voluntarily. They ran away, leaving the other regiments to bear the brunt of the attack. The breach widened as the Russians opened the gate. The German-Austrian attack, spreading to Zborow, found a Russian division ready to throw down its arms, and in a day the German-Austrian wedge was thrust in between the Eleventh and Seventh Russian Armies. The disaster was complete and irreparable. The command of the army group was hastily transferred from Gutor to Korniloff, but neither Korniloff's ruthless discipline nor Brussiloff's genius could alter the essentials of the situation, which were that the Russian armies would not fight, and were fleeing in panic.

All attempts to stop the flight were useless. On the night of 20th July the breach was 20 miles wide; on 21st July German guns were sh.e.l.ling Brussiloff's head-quarters at Tarnopol; on 23rd July the remnants of the Russian armies were retreating to the Sereth amid scenes of drunken brutality as disgraceful as any that the war has recorded, and only to be compared with those that were to become common in Russia and Siberia in the struggle to establish Bolshevism. Farther north the Russian front imitated the cowardice and treachery at Tarnopol. On 25th July whole Russian army corps deserted the Dvinsk front, on which depended the safety of Riga. On the same day Korniloff was compelled to begin the relinquishment of the ground he had won with the Eighth Army. Stanislau was abandoned; Kolomea followed on 27th July; Czernowitz went on 31st July; and the loss of the Bukovina followed that of Galicia.

For a time Korniloff seemed to have a chance of restoring coherence to some part of the Russian armies. He succeeded in wringing permission from Kerensky to enforce discipline. But the military-political understanding between these two, though it appeared to fail because of Kerensky's suspicions of Korniloff, whose arrest he ordered (on the 11th Sept.), was never a possibility. Russia was sick unto death. Her soldiers demanded peace; her peasants and townspeople asked for bread, and turned to Lenin and Trotsky, who promised both. During the summer there were many attacks by the Germans on the Riga front, which they used as a training-ground for their troops; and fighting of a similar character took place on the Russo-Roumanian front. But on 16th Oct. the Germans, capturing Oesel Island in the Dvina, took the first step to the subjugation of the northern armies, and continued to take numbers of willing prisoners on the Riga front during the rest of that month. The bulletins of the fighting are contradictory and obscure, but by 3rd Nov. Russians and Germans were fraternizing on the Riga front, and on 20th Nov. hostilities ceased. Lenin demanded (1st Dec.) the surrender of General Dukhonin, the then Commander-in-Chief, who was murdered two days later--the day after the negotiations between the Bolsheviks and the German peace delegation began at Brest-Litovsk.

_British Front in the West, 1917_

On the Western front it had been expected that the heavy hammering to which the Germans had been subjected during the battle of the Somme would be carried on in concert under the direction of Sir Douglas Haig and General Foch. But a change was made in the French High Command, General Joffre retiring, and his place being taken by General Nivelle, who had done so well at Verdun, while Foch was relegated to the task of preparing against a possible thrust of the Germans through Switzerland. Unity of command was not achieved, except in appearance. Nivelle's plan was to strike at the German centre; Haig was to aid him by simultaneous attack, though Haig's own prepossessions were in favour of freeing the Channel ports by a burst from the Ypres salient. In the result, neither plan succeeded. Nivelle failed because neither the French Government nor a section of the French soldiery would bear a repet.i.tion of the losses incurred in his thrust at the Chemin-des-Dames; Haig failed because he had neither the time nor the weather in which to drive his last blows home in the autumn of the year.

A contributory cause of the comparative failure of the Franco-British plan of campaign in 1917 was the want of perception of the intention of the Germans to withdraw from the positions in the Somme area which they had defended so stubbornly in 1916, and which the Allies were preparing to render untenable or to batter down. The want of perception was not complete, but both British and French plans were upset by the suddenness and extent of the withdrawal, which the Germans effected with much less loss than they should have been forced to sustain. The first symptom of the general withdrawal was discovered in March, when portions of St. Pierre Vaast Wood, near the junction of the French and British lines, were found to be evacuated. By 17th March the German voluntary retirement was in full swing, and their forces ruined everything as they retreated. By 17th March, also, the British front from Roye to Arras was moving forward, and on 2nd April the Fifth Army was within two miles of St. Quentin, while the Fourth Army on 5th and 6th April was at Ronssoy and Lempire. While the British armies were pushing towards the Cambrai-St. Quentin line the French were pushing on a 30-mile front from the north of the Upper Somme, towards the new German line from St. Quentin, behind Soissons, in front of the St.

Gobain plateau, the Forest of Coucy, and the Chemin-des-Dames. Behind the new line Nivelle matured reconstructed plans for the great French attack towards Laon.

Of the new fortress line (the Hindenburg and Drocourt-Queant line) which the Germans had constructed and continued to improve, the La Fere-Laon position and the Chemin-des-Dames were the southern bastion, and the Vimy Ridge the north-western pillar. Sir Douglas Haig's preconcerted plan had been to attack the Arras front, not in order to a.s.sault this line, but as preliminary to the Ypres salient thrust farther north. Nevertheless, the plan could be adapted and it was prosecuted. Preparations on a large scale, equivalent to building a counter-fortress front, had been made for the Arras operations, and the greatest precautions were taken to lend the attack all the support which mines and artillery could give. Two armies, the First (General Horne) and Third (General Allenby), were prepared for this action. Horne's army made its attack on the Vimy Ridge, with the Canadian Corps as shock troops, on 9th April, and the attack was extended on a 12-mile front from Henin-sur-Cojeul, south-east of Arras, to Givenchy-en-Goh.e.l.le, north of Arras. The Canadians took the whole of Vimy Ridge, except its northern end, the conquest of which was completed next day. Five villages fell into British hands and 6000 prisoners. Subsequent days saw the extension of the victory, but though Vimy village, Givenchy-en-Goh.e.l.le, and other important points were taken, the fortified villages of Heninel and Wancourt held out by dint of machine-guns, and prevented the possibility of the Third Army's joining hands with the Fifth Army beyond the third line of the German defences until it was too late.

The whole of the expected gains were therefore not realized, but the possession of the Vimy Ridge was invaluable, and became a most important factor in stemming Ludendorff's rush in 1918, when he attacked the Third Army after destroying the Fifth.

The British attacks did not end on 11th April, as they should have done, but were continued here, as well as at other portions of the British line to its junction with the French armies, in order to lend a.s.sistance to Nivelle while his attack in Champagne was in progress. It was a very costly procedure, and its scope may be inferred from the statement that on 23rd April a "second phase of the battle of Arras" began; another 12-mile front east of Arras was launched on 3rd May; and there were b.l.o.o.d.y encounters about Bullecourt or Fontaine-les-Croiselles on 7th and 12th, 15th and 16th, and 21st May. Some 20,000 German prisoners were captured in these preliminary spring operations, but the drainage in casualties to the British armies was heavy, and more damaging still was the loss of time by the postponement of Field-Marshal Haig's major plan farther north.

This, however, was at last begun on 7th June by the a.s.sault on the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge, which, under the name of the 'Battle of Messines' denotes one of the most completely successful actions fought in that year. It was undertaken by the Second Army (General Plumer), and the preparation for it, including the mining of the ridge, had been as near perfection as possible. The attack was launched; the mines which blew the German front line to pieces were exploded on the morning of 7th June at ten minutes past three. Nine miles of front were stormed and 6400 prisoners taken. In the next week the number of prisoners was considerably augmented; German counter-attacks were beaten off; and the captured position enlarged and firmly consolidated.

From this time forward the operations of the British armies may be envisaged as an attempt to enlarge the great bulge of the Ypres salient by fighting their way up to and along the ridges which enclosed it, so as to force the Germans to relinquish their hold on the coast near Nieuport, Zeebrugge, and Ostend. One very awkward spoke was put in the British wheel by an attack (10th July) on the extreme coastal sector of Lombaertzyde and the mouth of the Yser, by which any combined sea and land attack that might have been projected by the British was discounted. Most of the positions were recovered, but the amphibious plan had perforce to be postponed.

The putting into effect of Sir Douglas Haig's major plan, after the preliminary step of the capture of the Messines Ridge had been taken, did not operate till 31st July, when the 'Third Battle of Ypres' began, with a combined British and French attack on a 15-mile front beyond Boesinghe, on the Yser-Ypres Ca.n.a.l, to Zillebeke. The attack was conducted by the First French Army (General Anthoine); the bulk of the fighting fell on the Fifth British Army (General Gough). Twelve villages were taken and 5000 prisoners. There was, and could be, no break-through. The Germans rallied to a counter-attack, and were able to do so because their defences, their concrete pill-boxes, and their machine-gun effectiveness could, and did, hold up attacks before they progressed too far.

The rest of the British campaign in 1917 till it was arrested by the torrential rains of a wet October, and by the mud of the impossible declivities, may be summed up as a series of desperate forward thrusts which exacted each its toll of prisoners, ground, and positions, but none of which succeeded in its object of inflicting a lethal injury on the German resistance. In the end these attacks had to cease while the last fragment of coveted ridge, the Pa.s.schendaele spur, was still not won, because on that ridge, as elsewhere, though blood had been poured out like water, and losses endured with unflinching fort.i.tude, flesh and blood could do no more. The chief actions were as follows:

15th Aug.--British attack on wide front from north-west of Lens to Bois Hugo, north-east of Loos. Enemy's position penetrated to 1 mile depth.

16th Aug.--Franco-British attack on 9-mile front north of Ypres-Menin road. British carry Langemarck.

15th to 21st Sept.--Second phase of third battle of Ypres. 3000 Germans captured.

4th Oct.--British advance on 8-mile front, antic.i.p.ating German attack east of Ypres. 3000 German prisoners.

9th Oct.--Third phase of third battle of Ypres. One mile advance on Pa.s.schendaele Ridge. 2000 prisoners.

6th Nov.--British attack on Ypres Ridges. Canadians capture Pa.s.schendaele.

These attacks were interspersed with costly minor encounters, and by the repulse or endurance of counter-attacks. The battle may be said to have closed by stress of weather in mid-November.

It was followed on 20th Nov. by a British attack of an altogether different kind, in an unexpected quarter--at Cambrai. Here the Third Army, under General Byng, made an attack on a 10-mile front between St. Quentin and the River Scarpe--tanks being employed for the first time in large numbers to lead the advance without a preliminary bombardment. It was a complete surprise, and all but a complete success. The 'Hindenburg Line' was broken, numerous villages and 8000 prisoners were taken. If the cavalry had been up, as they ought to have been, a first-cla.s.s disaster might have been inflicted on the Germans, and their railway communications at this point broken. But the cavalry were late; the next few days were spent in consolidation by peculiarly hard fighting; and on 30th Nov. the Germans counter-attacked and subjected the British defences of the newly-created salient at Bourlon Wood and Moeuvres to almost as severe a surprise as they had sustained ten days before. The British lost a number of prisoners, and had eventually to evacuate most of their hard-won positions.

_French Front in the West, 1917_

The history of the French armies in 1917 is largely the history of Nivelle's frustrated attempt to pierce the German centre between Soissons and Rheims in April; the pause necessitated by the fact that it was felt impossible to press the French armies too hard or too soon after the disappointment of the attenuated success at the Chemin-des-Dames, where the chief sacrifices of the attack took place; and the efforts on a more moderate scale by General Petain, who succeeded Nivelle, to win tactical victories at a moderate cost on the terrain acquired in the April adventure. The second battle of the Aisne, as Nivelle's offensive was called, was planned over a length of 50 miles from La Fere, on the Oise, round the edges of the Forest of Gobain and Coucy, to Laffaux, thence below the line of the Chemin-des-Dames ridge and behind the Aisne to the crossing of the river at Berry-au-Bac, and Brimont, near Nogent-l'Abbesse, to the Moronvilliers heights on the other side of Rheims.

The attack on the larger part of this line began on 16th April; that on the Moronvilliers sector on 17th April. The attack on the 16th was extremely costly; it succeeded in only part of its objectives, but it captured 11,000 prisoners. The next day, one of pouring rain, improved on the positions won, especially at the western end of the Chemin-des-Dames, and on the 18th and 19th Nivelle so far enlarged his successes as almost to give them the appearance of a great victory. But the French bolt had been shot, and, to put it plainly, Nivelle was not encouraged to go on. By the 28th he had taken 28,000 prisoners, 175 guns, and some of the strongest points on the heights of the Aisne; but everywhere the positions had been only half-won, and the temper of the French army as a whole had suffered too severe a test. Nivelle was succeeded by Petain and his plan was abandoned. The rest of the year was occupied by General Petain in very skilled attempts, named limited offensives, to repel the Germans from disputing some of the positions won and to enlarge the French gains at other points. The chief engagements were as follows:

5th May.--The French, co-operating with the British on a 20-mile front north of the Aisne, take Craonne and 6000 prisoners.

20th Aug.--French carry enemy defences north of Verdun on 11-mile front; 6000 prisoners. By 28th Aug. the French were back at their original Verdun positions.

23rd Oct.--French advance on the Aisne north-east of Soissons on e-mile front; 8000 prisoners. By 25th Oct. further 3000 prisoners and 160 guns were taken.

_The Balkans, 1917_

In the Balkans the military situation during 1917 remained much as the end of 1916 had left it, the Germans, as already mentioned, completing their conquest of Roumania, and the Allies remaining comparatively inactive in the field while they cleared up the extremely unsatisfactory situation in Greece. The chief operations consisted of a Franco-Serbian attack north of Monastir, and attacks by General Milne on the British front in the Struma valley; but though the situation remained in the field virtually unchanged, the political situation was vitally affected in 1917 by the deposition of King Constantine in favour of his second son, Alexander--the king being induced to abdicate on 12th June--and the formation of a new Government under M. Venizelos. From 30th June, Greece, having formally severed diplomatic relations with Germany, was at length added to the list of countries fighting on the Allies' side.

_Italian Campaign, 1917_

Italy, who, meantime, had proclaimed Albania an independent state under Italian protection, and occupied Yanina in June, 1917, had committed herself wholly to the Allies' cause in 1916 by declaring war on Germany on 28th Aug. It was in Aug., 1917 that Ludendorff began his preparations for the terrific blow which was to lead to the Italian disaster at Caporetto in October. During the earlier months of the year the initiative had remained with the Italians, and Cadorna had used it in a series of offensives which, while carrying him farther across the Carso towards Trieste, and winning seemingly impregnable positions in the Trentino, together with upwards of 30,000 prisoners and 140 guns, were indecisive, and left his exhausted troops--reduced by some 150,000 casualties--ripe for the blow which Ludendorff had prepared for them. The Russian Revolution and the collapse of Roumania freed Austria-Hungary at the same time from any anxieties on her Galicia front, so that she could concentrate all her energies and the bulk of her armies against the Italians. When the enemy's great counter-stroke was delivered on 24th Oct., the control of the campaign was taken over by the German High Command. Ludendorff had been training picked troops in special tactics--to be developed at their full strength on the Western front in the following year--and von Below was transferred from the French front to take command. Following an intense bombardment, the Austro-German troops were launched against the Second Italian Army between Zaga and Auzza, in deep formations so closely packed that the way could not be lost amid the prevailing snow and rain. Taken by surprise, and seriously demoralized in parts by Bolshevist propaganda and enemy intrigue, the Second Italian Army, which had hitherto distinguished itself by its splendid courage, found the whole of its left wing giving way before the impact, thus opening a gap for the enemy 20 miles wide over the Julian and Carnic Pa.s.ses. Having shattered both the first and second Italian lines at Caporetto and Vodil Vrh, the Germans and Austrians surged forward from the Tolmino bridge-head until the retreating Italians, becoming entangled with their own reserves, broke in disorder. Although the right wing of the Second Army held, and many heroic efforts were made by isolated units, General Cadorna decided that it was impossible to save the situation from irretrievable disaster except by a general retreat to the Piave line. This was ordered on 26th Oct., when the broken fragments of the Second Army, as well as the Italian Third Army, began the great retreat which will be remembered as one of the finest achievements in Italian military history.

The territorial gains of over two years' fighting had already been lost, and the conquering invaders reached within 15 miles of Venice, but they never succeeded in making the disaster irremediable. General Cadorna's scathing Order of the Day denouncing the units of the Second Army which had let the enemy through, and the new sense of national unity inspired by the military crisis, did their work. By 8th Nov. the bulk of the Italian armies, now in orderly retreat, were across the Piave, and two days later were ready to turn on their pursuers. The danger was not yet over; the enemy succeeded in carrying several further heights dominating the Venetian plain between the Piave and the Brenta; but by 21st Nov., when a last German attack was made on the Monfenara Ridge, and defeated, the invaders were for the time being held. They claimed some 250,000 prisoners and 1800 guns of every calibre, besides immense quant.i.ties of munitions. They had also succeeded in diverting French and British divisions from the Western front, the Allies sending what a.s.sistance they could to stave off the defeat of Italy. The French and British troops arrived in time for the winter struggle, which began on 4th Dec., by which time General von Below had returned to France--being succeeded in command of the Austro-German operations by General Krobatin--and General Cadorna had been transferred to the Allied War Council, his place as Italian Commander-in-Chief being taken by General Diaz. Two British divisions, under Cavan, took up their positions in the Italian line at Montella; the French divisions at Monte Tomba; and they served to relieve the pressure while the enemy was making his last efforts to break through before the long-delayed snows put an end to the struggle for the year.

_Naval War in 1917_

At sea, where the British Grand Fleet was now commanded by Sir David Beatty in place of Sir John Jellicoe, who had succeeded Sir Henry Jackson as First Sea Lord in the previous November, the year 1917 pa.s.sed without a single outstanding engagement. Since Jutland, the German High Seas Fleet had run no risk above water of again seriously challenging Britain's sovereignty of the sea, though her submarine campaign was pursued with ever-increasing vindictiveness. Risking rupture with the United States and other neutrals whose shipping and subjects were thus exposed to wanton attack, she inaugurated 'unrestricted' U-boat war on 1st Feb. "Give us two months of this", said the German Foreign Secretary to the American Amba.s.sador in Berlin, "and we shall end the war and make peace." The argument was that the Allies' losses in tonnage, already more than they could bear, would increase to such an extent that they would be starved into submission. The United States, with President Wilson as spokesman, replied by severing diplomatic relations with Germany, but it was not until 5th April that she formally declared war against her. Cuba followed suit on 5th April; Panama three days later; Brazil on 2nd June. Germany could afford the risk of offending the smaller American republics, but her defiance of the United States was a fatal blunder. She relied on her submarines to prevent the transport of American troops across the Atlantic--at least until they were too late to affect the issue. The first American contingents crossed unharmed and arrived in France on 26th June. It was not until the following year, however, that the new American army was ready to throw its weight into the scales on the Western front. The naval resources of the United States were at once placed at the Allies' disposal, the American destroyer squadron in particular being of great service in helping in the protection of trade off the Irish coast. Proof of the closeness of co-operation between the British and United States navies was afforded in June, 1917, when Vice-Admiral Sims, commanding the United States Naval Forces in European Waters, was given the command of the Irish station during the absence of Vice-Admiral Bayley on sick leave. No foreign naval officer had ever previously held the command of British ships, as well as his own, off the British coast.

Apart from the relentless submarine campaign, which every week exacted heavy toll yet never brought the Allies within measurable distance of the starvation-point to which the Germans had been so sure of reducing them, the enemy's operations at sea were restricted to destroyer and torpedo-boat raids in the Channel from Zeebrugge. Some of these did a certain amount of damage to patrol boats, and bombarded Ramsgate, Broadstairs, and Margate (27th Feb. and 26th April) with little effect save the death of women and children. One memorable incident in these minor operations in 1917 was the raid on Dover on the night of 20th-21st April, when 6 German destroyers, after firing a number of rounds inland, were caught on their way back by the British destroyers _Broke_ (Commander R. G. E. Evans) and _Swift_ (Commander A. M. Peck)--the advance ships of the British destroyer guard in the Straits of Dover. The _Swift_, which was leading, dashed between two of the retreating destroyers and, turning, sent one of them to the bottom with a torpedo. The _Broke_ rammed the third vessel, and while the two ships were locked, an old-fashioned hand-to-hand fight took place on the _Broke's_ forecastle, in which the German crew were beaten back. Two minutes later the _Broke_ wrenched herself free and the German destroyer sank. Ten German officers and 108 men were rescued at the close of this dashing affair.

_1918 on the European Fronts_

_First Phase of Ludendorff's Offensive._--The Bolshevist betrayal of the Allies at Brest-Litovsk, the treaty of which took Russia irrevocably out of the conflict, and released Germany's Eastern forces for a concentrated a.s.sault in the West, gave the Central Powers their greatest opportunity of winning the war since their first hopes were shattered on the Marne in 1914. The crushing defeat of Italy at Caporetto afforded them further grounds for confidence. America, it was true, had thrown in her lot on the side of the Allies, but Germany counted on striking her decisive blow before the American troops could arrive in sufficient numbers to matter; and she had not yet lost faith in her submarines. All through the winter of 1917-8 Ludendorff, the German Commander-in-Chief, was secretly training his troops in the new tactics which were to bring open warfare into full play again, equipping them with Teutonic completeness, and ma.s.sing guns and ammunition proportionate to the task in view.

The Allies on the Western front were meantime forced to remain on the defensive until such time as the American reinforcements should arrive in sufficient numbers to enable them to regain the initiative. Since April, 1917, the British army had borne the chief burden of the war in the West, and "the b.l.o.o.d.y struggles to conquer the Flanders ridges"--the words are those of Sir Douglas Haig himself--as well as the prolonged fight at Cambrai, "had left the army at low ebb in regard both to training and numbers". In view of the expected German offensive, it became imperative to fill up the ranks as rapidly as possible, and place the line in a sound state of defence. Late in Jan., 1918, Sir Douglas Haig took over a new stretch of French line, extending the front of the Fifth Army to cover the village of Barisis, 7 miles south of the Oise. The additional line, taken over somewhat against Haig's judgment, and giving the Fifth Army, which stretched on the left as far as Gouzeaucourt, no less than 42 miles to guard, extended the British front, all told, to 125 miles. The whole of this had to be greatly strengthened and supported by prepared positions to which the troops could retreat when the expected German drive took place, for it was regarded as inevitable that some dent must result in the Allies'

line where the colossal blow was dealt. This constructional work called for every man who could be spared for the task, and seriously interfered with the necessary training of the troops in new tactics of defence.

The months preceding the 'hammer blow' were marked by intense raiding activity on both sides, chiefly undertaken to procure information, but sometimes to secure useful positions for subsequent events. The most important of these included the sanguinary struggles for Bullecourt in the early days of January, in which the Australians greatly distinguished themselves, and Germans attacks at Dixmude (6th March), and in the region of Houthulst Forest and the Menin road (8th March), for positions destined to play their part in the new attempt to reach the Channel ports. By the middle of February, when 28 additional German divisions had arrived from the Russian front, and 6 from Italy, and great supply dumps were springing up in all directions behind the German lines--but particularly opposite the British Third Army at Cambrai and the British Fifth Army to the south of it--Sir Douglas Haig had no doubt as to what was to come. The only questions were "Where?" and "When?"

All strategical considerations pointed to an attack on the Fifth Army south of Arras, with the object of separating the British and French armies and seizing the centre of communications at Amiens. Neither the British nor the French Head-quarters Staff, therefore, was taken unawares when the great offensive began on 21st March. Both had worked out plans to meet it. More than half Sir Douglas Haig's infantry and the whole of his cavalry were allocated to this sector's defence, and General Petain had arranged to send a French army corps to their a.s.sistance in case of need. The final dispositions of the Germans were carried out with the utmost secrecy: sunken roads, bivouacs, and every device of camouflage being employed to conceal their last stages of concentration. Even so, Sir Douglas Haig learnt from his Intelligence Department on 19th March that the enemy was putting the finishing touches to his impending attack, and that it would be launched by the 21st, if not before.