of bloodshed, horror, destruction, and woe—days which can never be forgotten while the memory of man endures.

CHAPTER II.

SOME GERMAN THEORIES OF WAR.

Before I proceed with my story, let me call your attention to certain theories of war with which the German General Staff began the campaign. By a theory of war I mean some plan or scheme which, in the judgment of those making it, is likely to prove of great advantage, but which can only be proved to be so by actual practice. Some of the German theories turned out to be right, others wrong, as we shall see.

If you were to witness a field day of British troops you would notice that the infantry make their attacks in long, thin skirmishing lines. The men are widely spread out, and as they advance they offer a small target to the guns of the enemy. Their losses are thus reduced to a minimum. The Germans, on the other hand, believe in making their attacks with their men massed together in close formation.

Troops attacking in close order have certain advantages over those attacking in open order. First, they can begin their attack with the least possible delay. Suppose a hundred men are marching forward in fours, and are about to make an attack. If they are to spread out widely time will be needed for them to deploy. (See Fig. 2, p. 19.) But if they go forward packed close together as in Fig. 1, p. 18, they can attack much more quickly. You can easily understand that the quicker a blow is delivered, the more likely it is to be successful, for the defenders are given little time in which to make preparations for resisting it.

Then, again, an attack delivered in mass formation brings much more weight to bear on the part of the enemy's line against which it is directed than an attack in open order. If, for example, a hundred men are hurled against a front of a hundred yards, the force with which they can assail it is much greater than it would be if the same hundred yards of front were attacked by fifty men. Where, as often happens, troops have to advance on a narrow front, say against a bridge, a causeway, a street, or a defile, they must attack in close order if they are to succeed.

Of course, when a massed attack is made, a very good target is offered to the enemy, especially in these days of magazine rifles, machine guns, and quick-firing field guns, and large numbers of the attackers are sure to fall. In former wars it has been found that troops so punished break or are brought to a standstill, and that their attack therefore fails. The Germans, however, believe that men can be so disciplined that, though large numbers of them are shot down, the rest will push on and carry the position. They believe that this great waste of life is worth while, because the campaign will be over all the sooner, and the total losses will probably be no greater than they would be in a long-drawn-out war carried on by attacks in open order.

Fig. 1. Column advancing to the Attack in Close Order.

Now let us see how this theory bore the test of actual practice. You will remember that at the Battle of Mons and on other occasions the Germans made massed attacks on the Allied positions, and though their men were shot down in droves, they came on again and again, almost shoulder to shoulder. The theory that men can be so disciplined as to continue to advance in massed formation, even though they know that large numbers of them will certainly be killed or wounded, proved correct. Where the theory broke down was in supposing that the men who survived the slaughter would be able to carry the position. On some occasions they succeeded, but in the majority of cases a swarm of Germans advancing against inferior numbers were reduced by one-fourth, or even by one-third, in the first few minutes of the rush, and the remainder were too few to drive out the defenders. So, as far as actual results were concerned, attacks in close formation proved to be a failure. The Germans, however, persisted in them, and this led to an immense wastage of life. They flung away life like water, but, as we have seen, they did not win that speedy victory on which they had staked so much.