A Short History of the Great War

Chapter 6

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The Battle Of The Somme

This was officially described as a subsidiary operation, yet upon the a.s.sistance it rendered to the main attack farther south depended the whole nature and course of the campaign. Had that thrust eastward towards Bapaume been successful, the Germans facing the Somme would have been taken in the rear, and the painful and costly climb up the slopes to Bapaume, which lasted throughout the summer and autumn, would have been achieved in a couple of days. Places like Pozieres, well towards the goal, were indeed given as our objectives for the first day of the battle of the Somme. It began on 1 July. Since the middle of June there had been an intermittent bombardment of the German lines which grew in intensity and extent from the 24th. The attack had been entrusted to the British Fourth Army, under Sir Henry Rawlinson and the French Sixth under Fayolle. It was expected by the Germans between Albert and Arras, though not along the Somme, and their artillery preparation took off some of the edge of our attack. The troops advanced with the utmost dash and determination, and detachments got far ahead of the line into Pendant copse, Thiepval, the Schwaben redoubt, and even the outskirts of Grandcourt. But few of them got back when they found that the line as a whole had held, and the losses of these troops in the fire to the left and the right and in front of them made up the bulk of the British casualties on that day.

Farther south they fared better. The outskirts of La Boisselle and Fricourt were reached; Mametz was taken, and also Montauban by the most striking advance of the day. On our right the French, whose attack had been planned by Foch, had the advantage of a surprise. North of the Somme they reached the edge of Hardecourt and Curlu; south of it they captured Dompierre, Becquincourt, Bussu, and Fay, and with these villages 6000 prisoners. The advance was greatest the farthest it was removed from where the Germans had prepared their resistance; complete success south of the Somme dwindled away to complete failure at Serre. That northern attack was not renewed, but from Ovillers south and eastwards the advantage was stubbornly pressed on the 2nd. Fricourt fell and its surrounding defences, while the French took Frise, Curlu, and Herbecourt. It was clear, however, that the German line had not, and could not be broken in the sense which the public at least attached to the word. A first or even a second and third line of trenches might be taken, but there was an indefinite series behind, and the progress was so slow that anything like a thrust right through the German defences and rout of the German forces was out of the question. It was not until the 5th that La Boiselle in the first German line was mastered, and farther east the initial success of the British was checked by a line of woods which required weeks to clear. On the 7th we took Contalmaison, but were driven out of most of it by a counter-attack. It finally fell on the 10th, but Ovillers held out till the 16th. The woods to the right offered a no less stubborn resistance. Bernafay wood was, indeed, gained on the 4th, but the German flanks in Mametz wood to the west and Trones wood to the east were only driven in at the cost of five days" ferocious fighting from the 8th to the 13th. The French encountered similar opposition north of the Somme, but south of it they were more fortunate. On the 4th and 5th they extended their gains on their right by the capture of most of Estrees and Belloy, and after disposing of German counter-attacks leapt forward on the 9th past Flaucourt to Biaches, a mile from Peronne.

On 14 July the second stage of the battle of the Somme began with an attack before dawn. It was the national fete-day of France, but the attack was made on the British front from Contalmaison to Trones wood. The objectives were the wood and two villages of Bazentin, High wood (the Bois des Foureaux), Longueval, and Delville wood, while Trones wood still remained to be completely cleared. The day was one of the most successful in the four and a half months" battle, and the dash of the British troops carried them as far as all their objectives. Bazentin-le-Grand and le Pet.i.t and the wood were taken; aided by an unwonted cavalry charge which raised delusive hopes of breaking through, a great advance was made to High wood; and the Germans were driven out of most of Longueval and the Delville wood. But it was more difficult to retain these conquests; the advanced positions were exposed to enfilading German fire, and counter-attacks drove us back at various points and made the retention of others a matter of desperate conflict for weeks. High wood had to be completely evacuated; for Delville wood the South Africans, and the troops which relieved them on the 20th, had to struggle for thirteen days, and it was not wholly cleared for another month. Much of what was credited to the 14th of July had to be retaken in detailed fighting spread over many days.

On the 16th, however, the fall of Ovillers prepared the way for an attack on Pozieres, which was finally captured with the help of the Australians on the 26th, and the taking of Waterlot farm on our right opened up an advance on Guillemont. Much of High wood was recovered on the 20th. On that day the French pushed east of Hardecourt and seized a section of the Combles-Clery railway, while farther south they secured the German defences from Barleux to Vermandovillers. On the 27th the last German outpost in Longueval was taken, and on 4 August the Australians began their advance from Pozieres to Mouquet farm and the windmill which commanded the summit of the Bapaume ridge. The ground was contested inch by inch, and it took many weary days to win. Villages and woods all along the front were only captured by fragments, and most of the fragments were lost again more than once before they finally pa.s.sed into our hands. Well into September there were bits of Delville wood and High wood still in German possession, and a concerted attack of 18 August was a failure except for the seizure of Leipzig redoubt. On the 12th, however, and again on the 16th, the French improved their position north of the Somme and got close to Maurepas, of which they completed the capture on the 24th.

September was a better month for both the Allies. There was a general attack on the 3rd, when Guillemont, which had been disputed for six weeks, was carried at length, and the French rushed Le Forest, Clery, and the German lines up to the outskirts of Combles. Two days later the British got into Leuze wood between Guillemont and Combles, and captured Falfemont farm to the south, while a new French army extended the line of battle below Chaulnes and took Chilly and Soyecourt; on the 6th they pushed their advance both north and south of the Somme, taking above the river L"Hopital farm and Anderlu and Marrieres woods, and below it parts of Vermandovillers and Berny. The German counter-attacks were unusually unsuccessful, and on 9 September Ginchy was carried by the Irish regiments which had helped to take Guillemont. It looked as though the Allies were at least getting into their stride, or the wasting struggle was beginning to tell on the German reserves and resistance. Over two months had been spent in securing objectives marked down for the first day or two of the battle; but with the fall of Guillemont the last fragment of the German second position had fallen into our hands, their third was more or less improvised, we had a new weapon in reserve, and were half-way from our original lines to Bapaume. Farther afield Rumania had declared war, and Brussilov was still drawing German troops from West to East.

The third stage of the battle therefore opened with hopes which even the experience of the second had not been able to quench. Gough"s Fifth Army had since early in July been formed as an independent command to the left of Rawlinson"s Fourth, and its right comprised the 1st Canadian Corps which was to attack Courcelette. The other points of the German third line of defence were Martinpuich, Flers, Lesboeufs, and Morval. Martinpuich was the objective of a Scottish division of the New Army, Flers that of the New Zealanders, Lesboeufs and Morval those of the Guards and another division of the old Regulars. Behind the British lines were collected twenty-four "Tanks," which were to precede them in the attack and prove by this first experiment their value as a weapon of war. On the 14th a brigade of Gough"s army stormed the Hohenzollern trench and a redoubt called by the Germans a wunderwerk; apart from this success, the attack diverted German attention from the real offensive, which began on the 15th with an intense bombardment. The Tanks spread terror and devastation among the German lines and the results of the day for once exceeded all expectations. Courcelette fell to the Canadians, Martinpuich to the Scots, Flers to the New Zealanders. High wood was at last enveloped in this advance, and Delville wood pa.s.sed by the division of the New Army which pushed from Ginchy towards Lesboeufs. That effort on our right was, however, hampered by the Germans in the Quadrilateral and Bouleaux wood to the east of Ginchy, and the Guards were unable to carry out the most important tactical part of the day"s work by carrying Lesboeufs and Morval.

The French had no such acc.u.mulation of gains on the 15th, but they conquered a larger area between the 13th and 18th. They began on the 13th with the bold capture of Bouchavesnes right across the great road from Peronne to Bapaume, and supplemented it by taking Le Priez farm on the flank of Combles. On the 17th they completed their work in Berny and Vermandovillers south of the Somme, and on the 18th added Deniecourt. On that day the British at last mastered the Quadrilateral east of Ginchy, and thus prepared for the great success which attended the next general attack on the 25th. It was the best day of the whole campaign. Lesboeufs and Morval fell on the north of Combles, while the French took Rancourt on the south-east, and away to the west Gough"s army made the surprising seizure of Thiepval. Further fruits were gathered on the morrow; Gueudecourt, which had been taken but abandoned on the 25th, was recovered; the French who had then failed against Fregicourt now took it; and Combles was the prize of their joint success. Then the weather broke; and the Germans, who had already begun to prepare their Hindenburg lines far away in their rear, were enabled to cling to the Bapaume salient until they had taken all the precautions for an orderly and inexpensive retreat.

The rest of the Somme campaign was an affair of local details until Gough"s Fifth Army intervened on a larger scale. Eaucourt l"Abbaye was taken on 1 October, lost on the 2nd, and retaken on the 3rd. Le Sars was captured on the 7th, the Stuff and Regina redoubts, between it and Thiepval, on the 21st; and progress was made north towards the b.u.t.te de Warlencourt and north-east towards Le Transloy. The French captured Sailly and Saillisel to the east of Morval and pushed far into the St. Pierre Vaast wood and towards Moislains, while south of the Somme they took Ablaincourt, Le Pressoir, Fresnes, Villers-Carbonnel, and Barleux, and seized the west bank of the river opposite Eterpigny above Peronne. On 9 November the weather improved, and though the October rains had made transport almost impossible across the mangled soil of the battlefield on the Somme, the conditions were not so bad north of Thiepval, where our advance had been stayed on 1 July. The situation at Beaumont-Hamel was also changed for the better by the fact that the German stronghold was now a p.r.o.nounced salient enfiladed by our fire from the captured Hohenzollern, Schwaben, Stuff, and Regina redoubts. But that advantage was less felt farther north at Serre, and there the left wing of our attack on 13 November was no more successful than it had been on 1 July. Better fortune attended our effort between Serre and Beaumont-Hamel, but the farthest advance of the day was that of a New Army division on the extreme right of the attacking line. St. Pierre Divion fell almost at once, and our troops advanced on the southern heights of the Ancre to the Hansa trench half-way to Grandcourt.

The task of the centre was to take the fortress of Beaumont-Hamel, including the forked ravine to the south which required a prolonged and desperate struggle. The work was done by Highland Territorials before the early November sunset; and meanwhile the Naval Division on their right drove the Germans out of their first two lines on the northern bank of the Ancre towards Beaucourt. One battalion penetrated almost to the village, but was held up in a perilous position owing to the resistance of a strong German redoubt on its flank and almost in its rear. It stood its ground throughout the day, and at night the surrender of the German redoubt to a couple of tanks opened the way for a general attack on Beaucourt on the 14th. It was stormed by the battalion which had been waiting outside it since the previous morning. German counter-attacks on the 15th were repulsed, and on the 17th a further advance was made to the Bois d"Hollande north of Grandcourt, while Canadians from the Regina trench established themselves near its western outskirts. Another avenue towards Bapaume had been opened up, but winter postponed any further advance, and the Somme campaign had come to an end.

It had proved a sort of inverted Verdun, and the comfort we had derived from that successful defence was now extracted by the Germans from their defence of Bapaume. The parallel was not exact, because while the German gains at Verdun narrowed down to a point, ours on the Somme expanded in a circle. Yet the arguments were substantially the same: the French at Verdun were willing to sell any number of acres for armies, and the Germans professed an equal content on the Somme. Each side contended in turn that the offensive was the more costly form of warfare, and then repudiated the contention when it came to attack itself; and there was not a great deal to choose between them so far as logic was concerned. It is also clear that the Germans would have been at least as successful at Verdun as we were on the Somme but for the relief afforded by counter-offensives elsewhere, and that we should have profited no more from the Somme than the Germans did from Verdun had our Somme campaign been interrupted by German offensives on other fronts. Nor was there much to choose in the way of casualties: our estimate of the German losses as approximating 600,000 was a reasonable guess, but our own casualties were well over 400,000. The French losses were lighter, but the two together cannot have been less than the German. The Germans on the Somme, like the French at Verdun, withdrew divisions to refit before they were hopelessly broken; but what was considered wisdom in the French was reckoned weakness in the Germans and the Prussian Guards, whose return to Berlin, concealed in furniture-vans to hide their pitiable plight, was graphically described in the English press by an imaginative American journalist, were really sent as a contribution to that immense effort in the East by which, in spite of the Somme campaign, Germany first closed the gaps in the crumbling Austrian front and then overran Rumania.

There was thus a good deal of justice in the German comparison between Verdun and the Somme. The fallacy lay in the facts that our offensive was not brought to a stand by a German counter-attack but by the advent of winter, that the moves elsewhere in the West were the French ripostes at Verdun in October and December and not German counter-offensives, and that their campaign in Rumania, in spite of its painful success, had no effect upon the vital situation in the West. That episode was against us, but the tendencies were in our favour; our losses might equal the German, but equal attrition would leave us paramount in the end, barring collapse on the part of a princ.i.p.al ally. It was the fundamental situation which led to the German proposals for peace at Christmas, and the superficial impression which provoked the simultaneous fall of the Asquith Government.

So, too, there was something superficial and unjust in the lay criticism of Sir Douglas Haig"s generalship. "Tactics of the Stone Age," was Mr. Lloyd George"s later comment, which should not have been made in public at the expense of a general for whose retention in the command he was himself responsible. Even Foch controlled the group of French armies which co-operated with us on the Somme without producing results of a different character; and it is idle to compare the achievements of the generalissimo of 1918 with those of the British commander on the Somme in 1916. Haig controlled the British forces in France and Flanders, but he had no jurisdiction beyond a mere fragment of the thousands of miles of front on which the war was waged. Neither he nor any other Entente general therefore enjoyed the strategical opportunities of a Falkenhayn, Hindenburg, or Ludendorff, who could direct their blows east or west as they pleased; and responsibility for the strategical conduct of the war rested not with the Entente generals but with the heterogeneous Governments which employed them. Each commander had to work in his own compartment and could not escape its limitations. Nor was the diversity merely one of military commands; there was also the Navy, upon which the whole Allied strategy hung, to be considered; and not only in the Entente, but in each of its several Governments there was, and there could be, no such unity of direction as was possible in the militarist Central Empires.

There was also something naive in the popular clamour for a general as a Deus ex machina. For, in spite of apparent exceptions, the tendency of the transition from heroic to democratic ages is to transfer both in war and in politics the decisive influence from the individual to the ma.s.s, from the protagonist to the private; and modern warfare, with its complexity and its science, has become mainly a matter of mechanics. Its hero is the mob, and its generals fight far away in the rear of the line of battle; even the telescope has given place to the telephone. Individual valour counts for little compared with accurate range-tests and spotting by waves of sound. Man has mastered nature only to become more dependent upon his servants, and the vast machinery which the modern general controls envelops him in its toils. He reaches his goal in a motor, and the race is won by the best machine. Generalship was but one of a vast number of factors which gave us control of the Bapaume Ridge but also prevented the Somme campaign from saving Rumania or spoiling the German defence against Russia.

The battle of the Somme did not, however, quite exhaust the Entente offensive for 1916. As it died down amid the autumn rains, the French struck back at Verdun on 24 October. Here Nivelle, who had taken over the command from Petain in April, entrusted the attack to Mangin. The Germans were not taken by surprise, but they were unprepared for the strength of the blow, and from Fleury to Fort Douaumont positions which had taken the Germans months to win were recovered within a few hours. On the right the struggle was more protracted, but on 2 November Fort Vaux and on the 3rd the villages of Vaux and Damloup were regained. A greater success followed on 15 December. The attack extended from Vacherauville on the Meuse to Bezonvaux on the east, and all along the line the French won their objectives. Besides Vacherauville they retook Poivre hill, Haudromont wood, and Louvemont on the left, captured Chambrettes farm and Caurieres wood in the centre, and seized Hardaumont wood and Bezonvaux on their right. Towards the north-east the Germans had almost been thrust back to the line from which they started in February, though to the north they still retained some ground, and the French counter-offensive did not extend to the west of the Meuse. It was a characteristic exaggeration of the press to represent these gains as a complete reconquest of all that the Germans had won in the spring; but enough had been done to give the Germans unpleasant antic.i.p.ations for 1917 and to counsel them to draw in their horns in the material sense of retreat from their threatened position on the Somme and in the metaphorical sense of seeking peace (see Map, p. 194).

Italy, too, had been making her contribution to the Allied offensive during these months. Brussilov"s onslaught in June had trod on the tail on* the Austrian invasion from the Trentino, and it was patriotic pride which led an Italian journal to describe Cadorna"s recovery as the quickest and greatest reaction of the war. Italy"s allies at least were not surprised when during the latter half of June her armies regained the ground evacuated by the Austrians in a skilful retreat, including Posina, Monte Cimone, Arsiero, Asiago, and the whole of the Sette Communi. Having thus protected his flank, Cadorna reverted to his frontal attack along the Isonzo and on the Carso. The Austrians still held nearly the whole of the east bank of the river and Oslavia and Podgora on the west bank in front of Gorizia. Gorizia itself was protected by two mountain strongholds, Sabatino to the north and San Michele to the south. Early in August Cadorna had completed his transfer of guns and troops from the Trentino front, and on the 4th he feinted an attack across the Isonzo at Monfalcone. On the 6th a heavy bombardment battered the whole front from Mount Sabatino to Mount San Michele; both the key-positions were taken by a.s.sault in a battle which lasted two days, and on the 9th Gorizia fell. During the next few days the advance was pushed across the Doberdo plateau, south of Gorizia, and beyond the Vallone on to the western end of the forbidding and formidable Carso. By the 15th the Italian line ran from Tivoli, north-east of Gorizia, down the river Vertoibizza, across the Vippacco and along the Carso east of Nad Logem, Opacchiasella, and Villanova. No such victory had yet been won by unaided Italian troops against their hereditary foes, and it did much to stimulate Italian confidence and enthusiasm for the war. Some further progress on the Carso was made during the autumn, and great Italian victories were announced in September, October, and November; but the Italians were never within measurable distance of capturing the key of the Carso at the Hermada, and Trieste was a very distant prospect until other causes had brought about the collapse of the Hapsburg Empire. When at the end of August Italy at last declared war on Germany, the course of the war remained unaffected, and greater store was set on the simultaneous intervention of the kindred Latin people of Rumanias (see Map, p. 298).

CHAPTER XIII

THE BALKANS AND POLITICAL REACTIONS

The combined offensive of the Allies in 1916 was not limited to the Russian, French, and Italian fronts, and there is a diplomatic story that when the battle of the Somme seemed unlikely to produce the fruits expected from it, pressure was put by one or more Western Powers upon Rumania to intervene. The story was denied in the interests of those Powers, and an alternative tale was told of a sinister plot, engineered by the Russian Prime Minister, Stuermer, by which Rumania was lured into the war in order that her defeat might pave the way for her part.i.tion between the Hapsburg and Russian Empires, Wallachia going to the one and Moldavia to the other. Both explanations were relics of the suspicion engendered by the diplomacy of the old regime rather than serious contributions to historical truth; and, while the conduct of the masters and tyros of political strategy was not calculated to render these fables incredible, there were other circ.u.mstances more intimately connected with Rumania to account for her action. After all, neither side was in August 1916 in a position to dictate to neutrals; and the Rumanian Army counted for too much in the delicate balance for any belligerent Power to invite its hostility by undue pressure. The decision was Rumania"s own, and it was not unnatural. She had been on the eve of intervention more than a year before, but German successes in 1915 had constrained her to caution. By August 1916 it was clear that the Central Empires could hope for no more than a negotiated peace, and Rumania had claims which would only enter into the negotiation if she took part in the war.

Natural affinities left no doubt as to the side she would choose. Her old king Carol, who had died on 10 October 1914, was a Hohenzollern, though of the elder and Catholic line; but his successor was bred a Rumanian and a const.i.tutional monarch. There was also a pro-German and anti-democratic party, led by Carp and Marghiloman and supported by the landlords, which harped upon Rumania"s grievances against Russia and placed Bessarabia in the scales against Transylvania. But the Rumanes across the Pruth were few compared with the four millions across the Carpathians, and the hardships they shared with the Russians at the hands of the Tsardom irked them less than those injuries which the Magyars knew so well how to inflict on subject nationalities under the cloak of equal rights and liberties. The claims which Rumania might hope to enforce against a defeated Hapsburg Empire would increase her population by more than 50 per cent and make her territorially compact, while the gains she could get from Russia would be less extensive and less h.o.m.ogeneous, and would leave her with still more straggling frontiers. The cause was fairly clear; the occasion was provided by the failure of the Germans at Verdun, the success of Brussilov, the apparent likelihood of Turkey"s collapse before the Russian advance in Asia Minor, and the promise of an Entente offensive from Salonika.

Turkey, indeed, had exhausted the credit she had won at Gallipoli and Kut. She had not been able to convert the capture of Kut into an advance down the Tigris; and on 19-20 May Gorringe had taken the key to the Es Sinn position and cleared the south bank by an advance towards the Shatt-el-Hai which would a month earlier have effected Townshend"s relief. Summer, indeed, procured a respite from British attacks, but not from Russian progress in Asia Minor. On 15 July Yudenitch captured Baiburt, and Erzinghian on the 25th (see Map, p. 182). A counter-offensive, which led to the temporary loss of Bitlis and Mush, was nullified by a Russian thrust at Rayat on 25 August, and Bitlis and Mush were recovered. Asia Minor seemed to be slipping from Turkey"s grasp, and her hold on Arabia was still more precarious. The Arabs had never been patient subjects of the Sultan, and the progressive vagaries of Young Turk infidels shocked the fidelity of the orthodox people of Mecca. On 9 June its Grand Sherif proclaimed Arab independence, occupied Jeddah, took Yambo, laid siege to Medina, cut the Hedjaz railway, and was joined by tribes farther south who captured Kandifah. An ineffectual Turkish effort to cope with this rebellion postponed another projected attack on Egypt, and when it was made in August it was crushed at Romani on the 3rd and 4th and the Turkish retreat was turned into a rout.

Greece remained the most dubious factor in the Balkan situation. There was no doubt where her interests lay, for the only two allies of the Central Empires were Turkey and Bulgaria, one the ancient tyrant, and the other the modern rival, of the Greeks. But Greece was divided in mind between her faith in a brilliant future and her fear of German success. Her king, with his Prussian queen and marshal"s baton, was interested in the success of the German Army and of the principle of royal autocracy; and his wishes made him doubt the prospects of her foes. Apart from the Court and official influence, he was given a hold on his people by the fame which had been fathered on him in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 and the fable that he was another Constantine the Great. So far his doubts seemed to have more justification than the faith of Venizelos; and Greece had in return for her security put up with an unconst.i.tutional government and the shame of her broken Serbian treaty. But the strain which Constantine put upon the patience of his people reached the breaking-point in 1916. In May, acting under his orders, Greek troops admitted the Bulgars into Forts Rupel and Dragotin, the keys of the Struma Valley. Popular protests were made at Salonika, where Constantine"s writ did not run; and the Entente retorted with a pacific blockade in June. But in spite of a shuffle of ministers, the Court held on its pro-German way and did whatever it could, by secret communications with Berlin and facilities for German submarines, to hamper the Entente preparations for an offensive from Salonika.

Early in August Sarrail, who was now commander-in-chief, ordered a French attack on Doiran, and Doldjeli was taken. Probably this was no more than a feint, for the real design was farther west, where the Serbians under Prince Alexander were looking forward to Monastir. Their offensive was antic.i.p.ated by the Bulgars, who after some pourparlers with Rumania, were induced or constrained by their German masters to attack on the 17th. In the west Florina and Banitza were seized on Greek territory, and on the east the whole of new Greece, including Seres, Kavalla, and Demirhissar, as far as the Struma; the Greek garrisons surrendered and were sent to Germany as the Kaiser"s guests (see Map, p. 151).

This was the last straw for the better part of Greece. Venizelos addressed a ma.s.s meeting of protest at Athens on the 27th, and on the 30th a revolution broke out at Salonika under Colonel Zimbrakakis, the Venizelist deputy for Seres. Regiments were enrolled for service against Bulgaria, and one of them set out for the front on 22 September. On the 24th a similar movement swept over Crete; Mytilene, Samos, and Chios and smaller Greek islands followed suit; and Venizelos left Athens to form with Admiral Condouriotes and General Danglis a provisional government of insurgent Greece at Salonika. It was grudgingly recognized by the Entente and at once declared war on Bulgaria. The mainland, south-west of Salonika, however, remained under Constantine"s control, and added to its hostility to the Entente a murderous vendetta against the Venizelists. The militarist party engaged in the curious campaign of forming leagues of reservists to oppose a war which would involve their call to the colours, and a succession of embarra.s.sed phantoms was established in office to enable the king to evade the demands of the Allies. They increased in severity from the surrender of the fleet to that of the army"s batteries and then to its disbandment; but they were backed by inadequate force and bungling diplomacy. On 1 December detachments of Allied troops, landed at the Piraeus, were driven back with bloodshed, and well into the new year the King continued to defy the Entente and push Greece deeper into anarchy. On its side the Entente wished to avoid a civil war, which would be almost worse than united enmity, because it would preclude a naval blockade; but the princ.i.p.al cause of its blunders was its own divided counsels. France and Great Britain were stoutly Venizelist; but the Tsar had personal reasons for dreading revolutions, particularly one against his cousin, and Italy had no liking for that greater Greece which was represented by Venizelos, might become a rival in the eastern Mediterranean, and would certainly reclaim the Dodecanese from its Italian masters.

The Rumanian Campaign

Amid these scenes of h.e.l.lenic turmoil Sarrail strove to prosecute his offensive in aid of Rumania. The die had been cast by the northern kingdom on 27 August, and on the 28th Rumanian troops poured over the Carpathian pa.s.ses into Transylvania. This direction of Rumanian strategy was severely criticized because it did not suit our Balkan plans. Bulgaria was the foe we had in view, and Rumania, it was said, should have launched her armies across the Danube in an effort to cut the corridor and join hands with Sarrail. The criticism was unjust for other reasons than the fact that in the treaty signed on 16 August it was stipulated that the princ.i.p.al aim of Rumanian action should be in the direction of Buda-Pesth. Sarrail"s objective was Monastir, an eccentric route to Sofia or the Danube, and the British troops along the Struma were not cast for the part of an advance towards Rumania. Bulgaria, moreover, was not yet Rumania"s enemy, and had shown signs of remaining neutral. Nor is a strategical motive ever an adequate reason for making war; there must be a political justification, and the grounds for Rumania"s intervention was the injury suffered by the Rumanian population in Hungary and Transylvania. She had no quarrel with Bulgaria on the score of national rights; indeed, it was rather she who ruled over Bulgars in the Dobrudja, and a Rumanian war could only be defended in principle as a crusade to redeem the Rumania irredenta north of the Carpathians. Even had it been her business to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the Entente, it might be urged that she did her part in opening the door for a Russian attack on Bulgaria. In 1915 the Russian reason for non-fulfilment of the threats of punishment for Bulgarian treason to the Slav cause had been the obstacle of Rumanian territory. That was now removed; and a Russian advance through the Dobrudja would not only have saved Rumania from Mackensen"s envelopment, but have given effect to Russia"s menace against Bulgaria, facilitated Sarrail"s operations, cut the corridor, and isolated Turkey. Of all the strategic failures in the war none was more tragic than this which was imposed upon Russia, partly by her internal weakness and partly by her divergent ambitions in Asia Minor. The Rumanian advance across the Carpathians would have been sound enough strategically as well as politically, had it been properly supported by her huge but unreliable neighbour.

The Central Empires were preparing but unprepared, and the Rumanian attack prospered brilliantly at first. Apart from the political object, there was the strategic purpose of improving Rumania"s defences. Her own frontier-over 700 miles in length-was even worse than Italy"s because of its circular configuration; the enemy, with the interior lines, military railways, and easier approaches to the pa.s.ses, could strike from the centre at any one or more of a dozen alternative points and could shift his attack from one to another flank in a fraction of the time it would take Rumania to transport her forces to meet it. She had no lateral lines for her northern frontier, and of the vertical lines only two went up to the pa.s.ses. If, however, she could reach the Maros, she would not only straighten her line and shorten it by half, but deprive her enemies of their railway and other strategic advantages. On that line she might hope to resist the Teutonic counter-offensive and protect her territory, which would have been left defenceless if her armies had gone south to invade Bulgaria. For a fortnight all went well; the enemy troops in Transylvania were few, inferior, and unreliable, and one Czech battalion went over to the invaders. By 10 September Kronstadt and Orsova had been taken, Hermannstadt evacuated, and Hatszeg was in danger; at points the Rumanians had advanced some fifty miles, and the Maros line seemed almost in their grasp.

The appearance was delusive. Germany declared war on 28 August, Turkey on the 30th, and Bulgaria on 1 September. But the real danger did not come from Bulgaria, and it would have been at least as serious if Rumania had invited attack by declaring war on Bulgaria herself, and thus exceeding the requirements of the treaty of 16 August. It came from Germany, and was as little foreseen by Rumania"s critics as by her Government. That Germany should have divisions to spare for another Balkan campaign after Verdun, and while the battle of the Somme and Brussilov"s offensive were at their height, amazed the Entente Powers, and was, indeed, quite inconsistent with the versions of those campaigns to which they had given currency. Yet it was true: besides an Alpine corps of Bavarians, Germany sent no fewer than eight divisions to the Carpathians, and put Von Falkenhayn at their head. She also sent a lavish supply of guns, munitions, and aeroplanes to which Rumania had not the wherewithal to reply. The promised Russian supplies fell short, eaten up perhaps by Brussilov"s requirements, and partly, it was said, surrept.i.tiously withheld in the interest of Stuermer"s treacherous design of a separate peace with Germany at Rumania"s expense. The first blow was struck by Mackensen, whose rapid concentration of the German forces south of the Danube had not been disturbed by the promised offensive from Salonika. The treaty had fixed it for 20 August, but Sarrail"s plans were betrayed by two of his officers and conveyed through a Spanish diplomatist to the enemy; possibly this was the cause of the Bulgar attack on the 17th, and Sarrail did not move until 7 September. He did, however, detain the three Bulgarian armies on the Salonika front, and Mackensen only had the help of the fourth, which had all along watched the Rumanian frontier.

On 1 September his forces invaded the Dobrudja and seized Dobritch, Balchik, and Kavarna on the coast. On the 5th they captured Turtukai on the Danube with an infantry division and a hundred guns. Silistria farther down the river was thereupon evacuated, and on the 16th Mackensen stood on the line Rasova-Kobadinu-Tuzla, a dozen miles from the important railway running from Bukarest across the Tchernavoda bridge to Constanza; Tchernavoda was the only bridge across the Danube in the Balkans, and Constanza was Rumania"s only Black Sea port. Here the stipulated Russian three divisions, composed partly of Serbs who had escaped into Rumania in 1915 and of Jugo-Slavs taken prisoners by the Russians from the Austrian forces, came to Rumania"s a.s.sistance; and Mackensen was not only held, but driven back some fifteen miles. Falkenhayn, north of the Carpathians, disposed of greater strength, and during the latter half of September the Rumanians were steadily driven out of their conquests. A great feat of the Bavarian Alpine Corps was the capture on the 26th of the Roterturm Pa.s.s in the rear of the First Rumanian Army; elsewhere the retreat was carried out with skill, valour, and comparatively slight losses, and Falkenhayn found it no easy task to break the Carpathian barrier despite the advantages he possessed in every kind of equipment and in the experience of his men. But for the paralysis which overcame the Russian effort in the Carpathians he would have had the tables turned upon him, for no advance would have been possible against the Rumanian frontier had his flank been seriously threatened by the Russians from Jablonitza to the Borgo. Indeed, with a little more energy on the part of the Russian Government the Central Empires might have encountered in Transylvania a greater disaster than had yet befallen them. The Russian excuse was that their liabilities to Rumania involved an awkward extension of their front, yet it was Russia which had put most pressure on Rumania to intervene; and no account was taken of the huge extension of the Teutonic front achieved by that intervention, nor of the fate which Russia might have suffered if Falkenhayn and Mackensen had concentrated in the north the forces they led against Rumania. The relief which Russia secured thereby almost seems to support the sinister view of Stuermer"s policy.

It was not until 10 October that the northern Rumanian armies were forced back to the Moldavian border; and all Falkenhayn"s efforts to debouch from the central pa.s.ses towards Bukarest were defeated by Rumanian valour. Nor was he more successful against Moldavia, and November arrived with its promise of snow to block the mountain-routes before he had advanced more than four miles into Rumanian territory. Mackensen, too, was held up in the Dobrudja, and a month"s inactivity was only relieved by rival raids across the Danube. But by 20 October he had received reinforcements in the shape of two Turkish divisions and one German. The Russo-Rumanian line was broken, and on the 21st the railway between Constanza and Tchernavoda. Constanza was abandoned on the 22nd, its stores of oil and wheat being burned, and on the 25th a span of the great bridge at Tchernavoda was blown up by the retreating Rumanians, while the Russians hastily withdrew thirty-five miles to Babadagh. Here on 1 November Sakharov arrived to take the command with several new divisions, for Alexeiev did his best to redeem the failings of his Government, and a counter-offensive was begun. On the 9th Sakharov recaptured Hirsova, and by the 15th he had advanced to within seven miles of Mackensen"s lines defending the Constanza railway. But he was too late, for the Rumanian defence which had held north and south in the central zone was crumbling fast in the western salient.

Having failed along the direct route to Bukarest, Falkenhayn now concentrated his efforts on the pa.s.ses west of the Torzburg; but he had little success in October. Two columns which crossed the mountains east of the Roterturm Pa.s.s and made for Salatrucul were flung back with heavy losses on the 18th, and Falkenhayn transferred his main attack to the Vulcan Pa.s.s still farther west. But he kept up his pressure from the Roterturm down the Aluta valley in order to detain there the Rumanian reinforcements which the extension of Lechitsky"s line into Moldavia had released for service in the West; and in the first week of November his troops were threatening Rymnik. But south of the Vulcan they had come to grief at Targul Jiu, where on 27 October General Dragalina, with inferior numbers and artillery, won the most brilliant success of the campaign. Unfortunately he died of his wounds on 9 November, and with fresh reinforcements and guns the Germans under Falkenhayn"s eyes resumed their advance on the 10th. Their progress was stubbornly contested, but on the 21st they entered Craiova on the main Rumanian railway, thus cutting off the western part of Rumania from the capital and isolating the army defending Orsova and Turnu Severin. Presently it was surrounded, but for nearly three weeks of gallant effort and romantic adventure it eluded its fate and only surrendered at Caracalu on 7 December after the fall of Bukarest.

Craiova was bad enough, but almost worse was to follow; for on 23 November Mackensen succeeded in forcing the pa.s.sage of the Danube beween Samovit and Sistovo, and by the 27th he effected a junction with Falkenhayn"s armies which had swung east and were now across the Aluta advancing on Bukarest. The Rumanians" flanks were thus both turned by the crossing of the mountain pa.s.ses and of the Danube, and they had no option but a rapid retreat to a line where those flanks held firm. That line did not cover the capital, and its elaborate forts would have been merely a trap for the Rumanian army. Nevertheless, a brave and skilful attempt was made to save it by a manoeuvre battle, and hopes were entertained in allied countries that Rumania was about to repeat the success of the Marne. The success could only come later when Averescu had flanks as secure as Joffre"s. Still a wedge was for the moment driven between Mackensen and Falkenhayn"s centre, and the movement might have succeeded had the reserves been up to time. Bukarest fell on the 5th, and for the rest of the year the Germans continued their progress eastwards until the Russo-Rumanian forces were able to stand on a line formed by the Danube, the Sereth, and the Putna ascending to the Oitos Pa.s.s. Sakharov had been forced to withdraw from the Dobrudja, and all that was left of Rumania was its Moldavian province, less than one-third of the kingdom, with its capital near the Russian frontier at Ja.s.sy.

Sarrail"s campaign in the south provided inadequate compensation. The part a.s.signed to the British contingents under General Milne, which had taken over the front from the Vardar eastwards past Doiran and down the Struma to the sea, was the somewhat thankless one of pinning the Bulgars to that sector and preventing them from reinforcing the threatened line in the west. The various British attacks on villages east of the Struma, such as Nevolien, Jenikoi, Prosenik, and Barakli-Djuma, were thus merely raids, and the ground gained was soon evacuated for tactical or sanitary reasons. The serious offensive was towards Monastir, and the lion"s part was played by the Serbian army with a.s.sistance from the French and a moderate Russian contingent; Italians from Avlona also fought occasionally. The Bulgarian offensive from Monastir in August had penetrated far into Greek territory, patrols even reaching Kailar, and it threatened, indeed, to turn Sarrail"s left wing by an advance to the sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of Salonika when Sarrail began his attack on 7 September. The first serious fighting took place to the west of Lake Ostrovo, where on the 14th the Serbians captured Ekshisu. On the 20th they stormed Mount Kaymakchalan and recovered a footing on Serbian territory, while the French and Russians drove the Bulgars out of Florina. On the 29th, after furious Bulgarian counter-attacks, the Serbian general Mis.h.i.tch descended the mountains towards the bend of the Tcherna river, and turning the left flank of the Bulgar-Germanic army forced it back to the lines at Kenali beyond the Greek frontier. These had been selected by Mackensen and strongly fortified, and a frontal attack by the French and Russians on 14 October broke down (see Map, p. 151).

Better success attended the Serbian efforts to turn the enemy flank. By 5 October they had secured the crossing of the Tcherna at Brod, and slowly they pushed across it. Bad weather delayed them for a month, but by 15 November Mis.h.i.tch had mastered the river bend from Iven to Bukri; and, thus outflanked on their left, the enemy yielded to the Franco-Russian attacks on Kenali and retreated to the Bistritza, four miles from Monastir. On the 16th and 17th the Serbians again attacked on the mountains in the Tcherna bend, carried the Bulgar positions, and by the 19th had reached Dobromir and Makovo whence they threatened the line of retreat from Monastir to Prilep. On that day the Germans and Bulgars moved out of and the Allies into Monastir. Their position was further improved before the end of the year, and it is said that had Mis.h.i.tch been allowed the use of reserves, Prilep would also have fallen and Monastir been spared the annoying bombardment which it suffered at intervals for nearly two years. For its capture marked the limit of Entente success in that sphere until the closing months of the war. The campaign had not been fruitless, for Greece had been saved as a brand from the burning, and presently did her part in the Allied cause. But the Balkan corridor had been expanded by the Rumanian disaster into a solid block, and revolution in Russia soon put an end to all threats from the north. The hopes that were built on Salonika were destined to remain in abeyance until events in September 1918 justified the faith of those who refused to abandon the Balkans.

The Rumanian disaster was, however, a severe trial to the confidence and the patience of public opinion. Some critics held that the war had been lost in that campaign; but it was a worthier sentiment than pessimism that gave edge to popular feeling against the Government. Official optimism had not concealed the indecisiveness of the Somme, and few had the vision to discern the deferred dividends which accrued as a bonus to other ministers in the spring. But disappointment with the achievements on the Somme was not so bitter as resentment at the failure in Rumania. Was friendship with the Entente doomed always to be fatal to little peoples? One more trusting nation had gone the way of Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro, and the blow to our self-respect was keenly felt. The public had little knowledge of the real responsibility, but where knowledge is rare suspicion is rife; and a vicarious victim is always required when the actual culprit is out of reach. Englishmen could exact no responsibility for whatever befell in the war except from their own responsible Government; and few paused to reflect that if Russia could not protect her immediate neighbour, England and France could not save a State from which they were completely cut off both by land and sea. Nor was it open for those who knew the facts to make public comment on the conduct of an ally, and compulsory silence on the part of truth made all the more audible the malicious tongue of slander. Belgium may have been our affair, but the Balkans were that of Russia; and not the wildest of Jingoes before the war had dreamt of British forces protecting Rumania. It was indeed the very distance of the danger that induced and enabled us to indulge in recrimination against the Government; for when eighteen months later a greater and far more preventable disaster threatened us nearer home, public sense rose superior to the temptation and temper of 1916, and instead of attacking ministers the nation bent its undivided and uncomplaining energies to the task of supporting and helping them out of their dilemma.

In the autumn of the Rumanian reverse there was no peril so imminent in the West as to impose unity upon public opinion, the press, or aspiring politicians. The advance on the Somme had been slow, but it was the Germans who were in retreat; the German Navy had been demoralized at Jutland; and Germany"s only retaliation had been the judicial murder of Captain Fryatt on 27 July on a charge of having defended himself against a submarine. Nine-tenths of Germany"s last and greatest colony had been overrun, and German forces oversea reduced to hiding in unhealthy swamps in a corner of East Africa; while across the Sinai desert and up the banks of the Tigris were creeping those railways which were to lead to the conquest of Syria and Mesopotamia. Two German raids in the dark on the Channel flotilla and the recrudescence of German submarine activity had, indeed, provoked some criticism of the Admiralty, and the subst.i.tution of Jellicoe for Sir Henry Jackson as First Sea Lord had been already decided. But the menace of the Zeppelins, which had earlier stirred indignation in b.r.e.a.s.t.s unmoved by dangers at the front, had been met when on 2 and 23 September, 1 October, and 27 November successive raiders were destroyed with all their crews by incendiary bullets from aeroplanes; and the Zeppelin had ceased to worry the public mind. The aircraft policy of the Government had been vindicated by a judicial committee in the summer, and the German mechanical superiority in the air which was foreshadowed by the advent of the Fokker had not survived the subsequent improvements in British construction; while the exploits of Captain Ball put those of every German airman into the shade.

Impatience and pinp.r.i.c.ks were, indeed, the causes of popular irritation, rather than any such crisis as those of the autumn of 1914 or the spring of 1918. Such irritants are, however, apt to provoke more resentment and provide more scope for recrimination than the stunning blows of national disaster; and in the autumn of 1916 the people felt less need of restraint than in the more perilous moments of the war. The discontent was not due to any particular causes, nor was it confined to any particular country. It was a malaise produced by the fact that the war was lasting longer and costing more than people had expected, and by popular reluctance to believe that Britons could not have beaten the Germans sooner but for the feebleness of their leaders. The public needed a stimulant other than that which mere prudence could provide; and catch-penny journals, having hunted in vain for a dictator, found at least a victim in the Cabinet of twenty-three. It was not an ideal body for prompt decision, and its chief seemed almost as slow at times to take action that was necessary as he was to commit the irretrievable blunders urged on him by his journalistic mentors, who thought the wisdom of a step immaterial provided it was taken at once. He had other qualities which disqualified him for popular favour in a time of popular pa.s.sion. He was not emotional, and did not respond to the varying moods of the hour with the versatility demanded by the experts in daily sensation. He belonged to an older school of politicians who suffered, like our armies in the field, from the newer and possibly more scientific methods of their foes. He was scrupulous in his observance of accepted rules of conduct, and the charge which was pressed against him most was that of excessive loyalty. He did not intrigue against his colleagues for newspaper support, nor publicly criticize his Government"s commanders in the field. He put what success his Cabinet achieved to its common credit, and took the chief responsibility for its failures himself. He was staid in adversity but slow in advertis.e.m.e.nt, and he did not figure in the cinema.

Mr. Lloyd George was the ant.i.thesis of his former leader, a Celt of the Celts, with all their amazing emotion, versatility, and intuition. There is a true story, which has even found its way into French literature, of how the Welshmen were stirred to defeat an all-conquering New Zealand football team by the strains of the "Land of my Fathers." That was the sort of tonic the British public found in Mr. Lloyd George, and it would not have been so much to their taste at a less emotional time. He was the very embodiment of an emotion that was not overburdened with scruples, and of an impulse which hardly troubled to think. He imported the temperament and the methods of the religious revivalist into the practice of politics, and he enlisted strange allies when he found a vehicle for his patriotic fervour in the language of the prize-ring. He prided himself on his apt.i.tude for political strategy, and professed a sympathy with the mind of the man in the street which was keener even than that of Lord Northcliffe. His views were always short-sighted, and he had the most superficial knowledge of the deeper problems of war and politics. Before the war broke out he had complained that we were building Dreadnoughts against a phantom; in August 1914 he estimated our daily expenditure of three-quarters of a million as a diminishing figure; in the following April he was as much in the dark as Mr. Asquith himself about munitions, and denied that conscription would a.s.sist our success in the war. According to one of his colleagues, he was the only member of his Cabinet who favoured British partic.i.p.ation in the Pacifist Conference of Stockholm; in the November before the great German offensive in the West he quoted with approval a plea for concentration at Laibach; and the views he expressed on the Salonika expedition varied with the fortunes of war and the fluctuations of popular favour. His remark after the armistice that we had achieved nothing in the time of his predecessor except two defeats at the hands of the Turks, was an epitome of his own intellectual limitations; and the intensity of his convictions was discounted by the infirmity of his principles.

There were, however, substantial reasons for the supplanting of Mr. Asquith by Mr. Lloyd George. Political failings like these and lapses like the Marconi scandal might well be forgiven the man who could get on with the war, or at least persuade the people of its progress. The man in the street really believed that after the change of government the war would soon be won, and subscribed with enthusiasm to a "victory" loan calculated to finance a triumph in eight months. Cooler observers discerned a solid advantage in a Prime Minister who could minister at once to the public demands in the rival spheres of speech and action, who could appease with words the popular clamour for the moon and yet be guided by others into the mundane paths of practical common sense. There was at the moment an abnormal dislocation between public opinion and actual possibilities. The harsh amalgam of democratic politics and war seemed to demand an adaptable Premier; he was ex-officio and par excellence the pivotal man, and circ.u.mstances required a liberal amount of lubrication and elasticity to ease the friction and avert a fracture.

The genesis of the movement which led to the Cabinet crisis of the first week in December remains obscure, and the transference of power was effected within the camarilla itself without so much as a reference to the House of Commons and still less to the electorate. The old system of Cabinet Government and collective responsibility disappeared, and while ministers multiplied until they numbered ninety, there was little connexion or cohesion between the endless departments. They were all subject, however, to the control of the new War Cabinet, which soon consisted, like the old War Committee, of seven members. The old body of twenty-three was reduced to less than a third its size for the purposes of supreme direction and deliberation, and increased to twice its numbers for those of departmental execution. The higher functions were still reserved for the much-abused politicians; three of them had been members of the old War Committee, and all of them, with the exception of General s.m.u.ts who was recruited in June, had been members of the old Cabinet. So-called business men were, however, admitted to departmental duties, though the most striking successes were achieved by two ministers of academic training, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, President of the Board of Education, and Mr. R. E. Prothero, President of the Board of Agriculture. Both Navy and Army were entrusted to civilians for political reasons, though one retired in July 1917, when the submarine campaign had reached its zenith, and the other as a result of the German offensive in March 1918. Deliberation had been the foible of the Asquith regime; the characteristic of his successor"s was the speed of its versatility. The War Cabinet"s agenda resembled nothing so much as a railway time-table with ten minutes allowed on an average for the decision of each supremely important question reserved for its discussion; and departmental changes recurred with a rapidity which was reminiscent of French governments in times of peace.

These bureaucratic revolutions were, however, faithful reflections of the restlessness which overcame peoples in all belligerent countries as the war lengthened and produced its logical trend towards anarchy; for civilization cannot resist an unlimited strain put on it by its negation, and there were symptoms of social dissolution throughout the world in the later stages of the war. In Germany they were suppressed for the time by a powerful government and delusions fostered by the success of the Rumanian campaign; and the nation was stirred to a levee-en-ma.s.se for national service, supplemented by labour or slave raids in the occupied territories. But even in Germany the Chancellor spoke of the need of peace, and was tottering to his fall. A greater ruin was creeping towards the Russian Government, and in France a series of stormy secret sessions in the Chamber left M. Briand with the task of reconstructing his Government and reorganizing the high command. Joffre was succeeded by Nivelle, and Briand himself was driven from office four months later. In Austria a more violent fate overtook the Premier, Count Sturgkh, who was murdered on 27 October, and his successor Koerber was compelled to resign on 13 December. Three weeks earlier the old Emperor Francis Joseph, who had ascended the throne in the midst of the revolutions of 1848, pa.s.sed away in time to escape the greater desolation which threatened his empire. His successor and great-nephew Charles could give no better security to his ministries. Koerber was followed by Spitzmueller, and he, after a few days by Clam-Martinitz, a Bohemian n.o.ble. Tisza"s henchman Count Burian gave way as Foreign Minister to the anti-Magyar Czernin, though Tisza himself maintained his despotic sway in Hungary until his murder in 1918.

This holocaust of European reputations did not extend across the Atlantic to the neutral United States, where President Wilson, who had only been chosen by a minority vote owing to the split between Taft and Roosevelt in 1912, secured re-election by a narrow majority in a straight fight with Mr. Hughes, the Republican candidate. Discerning critics rejoiced at the issue of the contest; for apart from the merits of the candidates, nothing could have been worse than a practical interregnum during the coming crisis in the history of the United States and of the world. Yet an interregnum there would have been, if Mr. Wilson had been defeated; for he would still by the American Const.i.tution have remained in office till March, and as the head of a vanquished party he would have had no moral authority to deal with the German pleas for peace or their unrestricted campaign of submarine war. The peace manoeuvre began with a letter which the Kaiser wrote to his Chancellor at the end of October; it was made public by the latter"s speech in the Reichstag on 12 December. The Allies were simply invited in the interests of humanity to discuss terms at a conference with their conquering but magnanimous foe. On the 18th President Wilson addressed an independent inquiry about their aims to both groups of belligerents. The Allies replied to Germany on the 30th and to President Wilson on 10 January, intimating that there could be no peace without the reparation, rest.i.tution, and guarantees which Germany was as yet determined to refuse.

The att.i.tude of the Allies astonished no one but the Germans. On 11 January their Government issued a note to neutrals, and on the 12th the Kaiser a proclamation to his people. Mr. Balfour also discussed the situation in a persuasive dispatch to the United States. But the most illuminating comment was made in private and came from humbler quarters. A party of interned German officers in the Engadine were eagerly awaiting the news of the Allied reply to the German offer. When it arrived they could not conceal their amazement and chagrin; some of them even burst into tears, and one remarked jetzt ist alles verloren. While the Government of Great Britain was being dismissed for having accomplished nothing in the war, intelligent Germans were bemoaning that all was lost.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

The German presentiment of disaster was justified by events in the spring of 1917, and the new British Government seemed to have come in on a flowing tide. In spite of the gloomy picture of the situation which Mr. Lloyd George had drawn for his chief in December, confidence in a speedy victory animated the appeal of his ministry for further financial support; and in most of the spheres of war the first quarter of 1917 saw the reaping of harvests sown by other hands. The deferred dividends on the Somme campaign were paid, and the Germans fell back from hundreds of square miles of French territory. Mesopotamia was conquered as the result of the patient labours of Sir Charles Monro and the brilliant strategy of Sir Stanley Maude, who had been appointed in August 1916. The meagre German holding in East Africa was further reduced; and even distressful Rumania put a stop to the German advance.

Security for the Rumanian forces could not, however, be found short of the Sereth, which would give them a straight line with the Russian frontier protected by the impa.s.sable delta of the Danube on their left, and a flank in the Carpathians on their right; and from the fall of Bukarest to the end of December Averescu the Rumanian commander, and Presan his chief of staff, retreated to this line fighting rearguard battles on the way. The most stubborn of these was a four days" conflict at Rimnic Sarat in the centre on 22-26 December, after which Mackensen entered the town on the 27th. Sakharov conformed to this retreat in the Dobrudja; on 4 January Macin, the last place east and south of the Danube, was evacuated, and on the 5th Braila on the opposite bank south of the Sereth and Danube confluence. On the 23rd the Bulgarians, taking advantage of the unprecedented frost, crossed the marshes at Tulcea, but were annihilated by the Rumanians on the northern bank, and remained content for the rest with the defensive. The same wintry conditions put an end to fighting at the other extremity of the line in the Carpathian pa.s.ses, but in the c

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