TOPICS OF THE DAY.
VERDUN.
HONOUR to France ! Honour to her Army and her Generals, who have withstood unconquered the greatest, the bloodiest, the most carefully planned attack in the course of the war 1 Honour to her statesmen, who in her hour of agony have shown not only high courage— that was but natural to their race—but a steadfastness and ca mness that are the usual attributes of more phlegmatic nations ! Honour to the French people, who have stood behind their soldiers and their rulers a wall of finely tempered steel ! They have shown a heart for every fate, willing to submit to any loss and any sacrifice if only the honour and the life of the nation were secured. A nobler and more inspiring page was never written in the book of history. Whatever is the destiny of France, it is a destiny worthy of her past. Nothing can ever obliterate the record of the days of February, 1916. They are written with a pen of iron upon a rock of adamant.
Think what the battle has been. No one can say yet what were the exact numbers of the German troops engaged. It is probable, however, that not less than half-a-million were in action or in immediate reserve. The enemy had collected material of war beyond all previous records. The guns were reckoned not by the hundred but by the thousand, and it is calculated that in the da:•s of the preparatory bombardment, days in which the earth and air trembled, some two million shells were discharged. Not only were the assailants commanded by the heir to the Imperial Throne, but the Kaiser himself was present, to view the expected triumph of his son and of the flower of the German Army. The Imperial Guard were there, and the famous Brandenburg Corps, and an anthology of brigades and divisions culled throughout the millions of Prussia and her satellite kingdoms. It was an open secret that the Ger- mans were prepared to lose two hundred thousand men to take Verdun, and to deliver a blow which would send the French armies reeling back on Paris blind and helpless. The world was to see the final triumph of the German military policy of intensive attack, the policy of hammer- blows, of hacking through. The French, it was argued, might be daring in a charge, but they could never stand against the German phalanx if it were once put in motion, and if the German commanders had hardened their hearts to see army corps wiped out like companies so long as they achieved their aim. And what has been the result ? A few miles of ground drenched with Teuton blood and strewn with Teuton corpses, a few thousand prisoners, and the shattering by shell-fire of the concrete masonry of a deserted fortress ! The obsolete triumphs of a dis- credited system of military architecture have been injured or destroyed. But what does that avail the German commander as he stands among the swathes of bodies in the gloom of the Deathstead ? All the world now knows that the fortress of Verdun was evacuated months ago, and its great guns transferred to positions which con- form, not to the ideas of the " seventies " and " eighties," but to the lessons of modern war. Some of our readers will no doubt recall the Indian parody of a famous hymn :— "Hold the fort, there's no one in it;
Some one's been to see."
That was the position at Verdun. If the Germans had taken it, they would only have secured an empty shell. But they did not even achieve that worthless triumph. The French hold the shell, and the French flag still flies over its citadel.
Though the great German attack has failed, and the German Army knows that extremity of soreness and disappointment which is the dreadful heritage of troops who have assaulted but assaulted in vain, it must not be supposed that France or her Generals and statesmen imagine that the great drama is played out. The very great ness of the Germans' disappointment makes it certain that they must renew their attack very soon, and renew it with even greater desperation than before. The Germans are too deeply involved in their effort at Verdun to make it possible for them to treat the affair as if it were nothing but a colossal reconnaissance. To leave off now would be to court utter defeat, to deal the moral of their forces a blow from which it could not recover. Either at Verdun or at some other point in the line, the Germans must continue the attack, and press it with demoniac energy. They must try all they know to drown their first failure in success. Whether the new effort will be at Verdun or lower down the line, and so nearer to Paris, or, again, still higher up, remains to be seen. Something must be attempted which will enable them to represent the great effort at Verdun as a huge feint to cover the real assault. Very possibly before these pages are in our readers' hands we shall have had indications which will show the aim of the Imperial General Staff. Meanwhile we are free to indulge in a strategic guessing game. Let us canvass the possibilities from West to East. We can understand a case being made out for another furious thrust across the Yser at the point nearest the sea—a giant offensive against Calais. But there are great obstacles. Not only does the inundation made by the Belgians sixteen months ago still bar the way, but even outside its limits the ground is at present hopelessly waterlogged, and is likely to remain so for another month or six weeks. There is also the British Army. The next place which seems at first sight to invite a great effort is, as we have said already, the point nearest Paris—roughly, somewhere between Reims and Soissons. But here the Germans are confronted with the fact that their opponents have guarded the line with special care, and that if they broke through they would find themselves menaced by the British on their flank as well as by the French on their front. Next, moving eastward, we come back to Verdun and the pos- sibilities of a renewal of the efforts that began a fortnight ago. We can well understand the General Staff arguing that there is a great difference between an assault being held up and an actual defeat, and therefore coming to the conclusion that a second effort might very well prove successful.
Finally, there is the possibility which, though it has been little talked of, has no doubt been very much in the minds both of the Germans and the French—the possibility of the Germans making a sudden attack on the eastern extremity of the French line, and making it not through France but through Switzerland. While things were going fairly well with the Germans it would no doubt have been madness on their part to violate the neutrality of Switzerland. Now to break through somewhere between Basle and Delle, and carry first Besancon and then Dijon by a headlong rush, wears a very different aspect. We can understand the Germans arguing on the following lines : " If we violate Swiss neutrality, we shall no doubt make enemies of a country with three hundred thousand peasant soldiers, soldiers fairly formidable for defensive warfare. But that is from the military point of view no great obstacle. Three hundred thousand men, who in all probability would neither be willing nor able to move far out of their own country, are not going to turn the balance of military strength against us. It might well be, indeed, that it would be better to increase our enemy's forces by three hundred thousand men of doubtful military value than to lose three hundred thousand of our very best troops by hurling our divisions once again on the French line at Verdun, or by making a great assault in the region of Ypres or Reims. If we obtain possession of the railway lines between Basle and the French frontier, that is all we want. It is not a very long line to guard, and we should of course not dream of engaging in an offensive campaign in Switzerland. In a word, we should take a corner of Switzerland, and let the Swiss try whether they can turn us out. If the plan succeeds, all trouble with Switzerland will be swallowed up in victory. If we fail, it will be through the inherent difficulties of our task, and not through the little Swiss Army having turned the balance against us. The Swiss forces may count for a good deal in defending their own snowfields and glaciers. For any other work they are an entirely negligible quantity." We began on a note of congratulation, which, as we hold, is fully justified by the course of events up to now. We must end on a note of warning. In the first place, we must never forget that we arc at this moment in the middle of the great crisis of the war. There is no doubt that the Germans have taken the bridle off, and are making their last great offensive effort—their " win-or-lose " attack. If it fails, the game will be up, though of course they may fight for many months longer in order to wear down our resolve or to get better peace terms. Next, we must remember that the Germans are by no means beaten yet, and that the greater their risks of failure the greater their desperation, and the greater their determination to make one more struggle for victory, this time a successful one. At this moment a voice is whispering in every German ear : " Screw your courage up to the sticking-point. Make one more gigantic effort and all will be well. You cannot afford to lose. You must win. Even if in the effort you lose a million men, it will be well worth while. If you win, and you can win even now if you try hard enough, the world will still be a bright and glorious place for you. If you lose, God help you ! The world will be for all time but a dreary prison-house for you and yours. You dare not lose. You cannot even think of it." Such a mood—and be sure that is the German mood—is a very formidable one. To beat a strong and brave people inspired by such desperate thoughts is no child's-play. If we and our Allies meet the German effort with a will-power as relentless and as ruthless as theirs, we shall win. If we do not, if we fail to understand the true nature of the crisis, we, France, and Russia may yet be undone, and our fate made unendurable by the awful thought : " We could have won had we been men enough. We nearly did win, but we threw it all away by underestimating the frenzied energy which despair had brought to our foes."
The supreme agony, the final moment, is still to come. The fate of the world is still undecided. The scales quiver in the balance. If we can match the German frenzy with a courage and a fortitude even more intense, victory will be ours. We too must take the bridle off. Such thoughts as : "After all, even if things come to the worst upon the Continent, we may yet save ourselves," are traitor thoughts which must be ruthlessly suppressed. They are liars, and if indulged in will ruin us. We have reached the supreme point. Unless we and our Allies can hold Germany, and thus prevent the mad tiger from breaking through, we are lost.
That we shall prevent her is our unshaken, our un- shakable belief. That belief is in the last resort based upon our knowledge of the British people. They do not mean to go under. They mean to win.
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