the front Werwicq-Warneton.’ Linsingen’s Army Group (five divisions) after the failure of von Fabeck was formed ‘to drive back and crush the enemy lying north of the (Comines-Ypres) canal ... and to break through there.’ Finally, however, it is admitted that ‘no break-through of the enemy’s lines had been accomplished.... We had not succeeded in making the decisive break-through, and the dream of ending the campaign in the west in our favour had to be consigned to its grave.’ In fact, the book is largely an apologia and a confession of failure which mere protestations of victory cannot alter.

The effects of a German victory on the course of the war, with the Channel ports in German hands, as compared with those of an Allied victory in Flanders, which at that period of the war and at that season of the year could have resulted in little more than pushing the enemy back into Belgium a few miles, may be easily imagined. If the battle was a tactical draw, at least we had a strategic balance in our favour.

The principal reasons advanced for the German ill-success are ‘the enemy’s numerical superiority, and the strength of his positions,’ and of course the drastic course taken by the Belgians of ‘calling in the sea to their aid.’

There is constant repetition of these pleas throughout the book. To those who were there and saw our ‘thin and straggling line’ and the hastily constructed and lightly wired defences: mere isolated posts and broken lengths of shallow holes with occasional thin belts of wire, and none of the communication trenches of a later date, they provoke only amazement. Even German myopia cannot be the cause of such statements.

As regards the superiority of numbers, the following appears to be the approximate state of the case as regards the infantry on the battle front from Armentières (inclusive) to the sea dealt with in the monograph. It is necessary to count in battalions, as the Germans had two or three with each cavalry division, and the British Commander-in-Chief enumerates the reinforcements sent up to Ypres from the II and Indian Corps by battalions, and two Territorial battalions, London Scottish and Hertfordshires, also took part. The total figures are:—

That is roughly a proportion of Allies to Germans of 13 to 21. Viscount French in his ‘1914’ says 7 to 12 Corps, which is much the same: 52 to 84 as against 49 to 84, and very different from the German claim of ‘40 divisions to 25.’ Actually in infantry divisions the Allies had only 22, even counting as complete the Belgian six, which had only the strength of German brigades. Any future correction of the figures, when actual bayonets present can be counted, will probably emphasise the German superiority in numbers still more, and the enemy indisputably had the advantage of united command, homogeneous formations and uniform material which were lacking in the Allied force.

As regards the cavalry the Western Allies had six divisions, including one of three brigades. The enemy had at least nine, possibly more (one, the Guard Cavalry Division, of three brigades), as it is not clear from the German account how much cavalry was transferred from the Sixth Army to the Fourth Army.[2] It may be noted that a German cavalry division included, with its two or three cavalry brigades, horse artillery batteries and the two or three Jäger battalions, three or more machine-gun batteries and two or more companies of cyclists; and was thus, unlike ours, a force of all arms.

The German General Staff reveal nothing about the exact strength of the artillery. In a footnote it is mentioned that in addition to infantry divisions the III Reserve Corps contained siege artillery, Pionier formations and other technical troops; and in the text that ‘all the available heavy artillery of the Sixth Army to be brought up (to assist the Fourth Army) for the break-through.’ The Germans had trench-mortars (Minenwerfer) which are several times mentioned, whilst our first ones were still in the process of improvisation by the Engineers of the Indian Corps at Bethune.

The statement that ‘the enemy’s’ (i.e. British, French and Belgian) ‘superiority in material, in guns, trench-mortars, machine-guns and aeroplanes, etc., was two, three, even fourfold’ is palpably nonsense when said of 1914, though true perhaps in 1917 when the monograph was written.

The fact seems to be that the Germans cannot understand defeat in war except on the premise that the victor had superiority of numbers. To show to what extent this creed obtains: in the late Dr. Wylie’s Henry V., vol. II. page 216, will be found an account of a German theory, accepted by the well-known historian Delbrück, that the English won at Agincourt on account of superior numbers, although contemporary history is practically unanimous that the French were ten to one. Dr. Wylie sums it up thus:

‘Starting with the belief that the defeat of the French is inexplicable on the assumption that they greatly outnumbered the English, and finding that all contemporary authorities, both French and English, are agreed that they did, the writer builds up a theory that all the known facts can be explained on the supposition that the French were really much inferior to us in numbers ... and concludes that he cannot be far wrong if he puts the total number of French (the English being 6000) at something between 4000 and 7000.’

It may not be out of place to add that a German Staff Officer captured during the Ypres fighting said to his escort as he was being taken away: ‘Now I am out of it, do tell me where your reserves are concealed; in what woods are they?’ and he refused to believe that we had none. Apparently it was inconceivable to the German General Staff that we should stand to fight unless we had superior numbers; and these not being visible in the field, they must be hidden away somewhere.

Further light on what the Germans imagined is thrown by prisoners, who definitely stated that their main attack was made south of Ypres, because it was thought that our main reserves were near St. Jean, north-east of that town. From others it was gathered that what could be seen of our army in that quarter was in such small and scattered parties that it was taken to be an outpost line covering important concentrations, and the Germans did not press on, fearing a trap.

It is, however, possible that the German miscalculation of the number of formations engaged may not be altogether due to imaginary reserves, as regards the British Army. Before the war the Great General Staff knew very little about us. The collection of ‘intelligence’ with regard to the British Empire was dealt with by a Section known in the Moltkestrasse as the ‘Demi-monde Section,’ because it was responsible for so many countries; and this Section admittedly had little time to devote to us. Our organisation was different from that of any of the great European armies. Their field artillery brigades contained seventy-two guns, whereas ours had only eighteen guns or