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Show Great iiii n! rih NEW YORK The ending of tlic 3 war has boon so different from all ex- H pectatlon and the problems of peace Bj are so complex and so compelling that, K almost without realization, the military aspects of the great struggle have been II dismissed. We have been dimly con - scious of the achievements of the n French commanders, as each in turn f entered a lost city at the head of a L victorious army and the batons of I French marshals were bestowed upon I Petain and Castclnau, as they had al j ready been bestowed upon Joffre and 3 Foch. Pershing has had his gencr- IJ ous share of praise, and his country M will continue to demonstrate its satis - I ""action in his achievement. 1 But, on the whole, probably with f! absolute justice, the honors of the cel- j ebration of victory have been divided between the French army and the Bri- tish fleet, and while French troops J reoccupied Metz and Strasbourg amid the acclaim of the world, the same audience has witnessed the incredible spectacle of the German battle fleet approaching the British coasts and I t surrendering without a shot, giving it self up still undamaged by battle a I spectacle that has no parallel in mod- l ?rn historv. IHalg Endangers Line And so, between these two wonderful wonder-ful and contemporaneous events, men have forgotten almost completely the achievements and the individual claims upon our praise of the men who made and led the British army to ultimate victory after a period equal in length to that of our own Civil War, . and filled with the same disappointments which the North suffered through that long and terrible time. Yot for Haig and his subordinate army commanders there is clue some mention in the present pres-ent moment, even when the achieve- J mcnts of Foch, Petain, Castelnau,: Mangin and Gouraud are still too re- j cent to be dull memories. And in this article I mean to review briefly the achievements of the most conspicuous of the British- generals. Of Haig it is perhaps hardest, to write, because all the burden was his and no man knows now exactly how great thai burden was. Politicians interfered in-terfered with him. Last spring, when the heavy blow fell upon his armies,' bringing temporary disaster, it was political dictation which had compelled him to stretch his line. to such an ex-, lent that it was thinly held at vital! I which had deprived him of necessary reserves. So much we know. Aside from contraversial points, however, certain facts are obvious. Of all allied commanders Haig is the oldest, old-est, in point of service as chief, as he is, I believe, the youngest in years. He came to command in 1915. when French went home after Loos, when the new British army had only begun to come to France and the real organization or-ganization of victory was still to be made. The army that fought at the First Somme in 1910, in Artols, Pi-cardy Pi-cardy and Flanders in 1917, at the Somme and in Flanders in defeat and ihen in victory, in supreme victory in the present year, was of his making. British Campaign Fails Before he commanded armies the reputation of Sir Douglas Haig was made in battle. He was the outstand-ing outstand-ing figure of the First Ypres, which was fought mainly under his immediate immed-iate direction. When French went home there was no one else thought of to succeed the Boer veteran! In the great Somme campaign of 191G, the British army, under Haig's direction, direc-tion, learned its business. It was a costly lesson, the mistakes wore many, but at the end of the campaign the army believed itself superior to the Germans; it felt that it had learned its job. The next year the opening victory was complete", Arras was a real achievement, Vimy Ridge a genuine! military triumph. But afterward Haig's campaign was manifestly impeded im-peded as he loyally endeavored to aid Nivellc. who had failed and was fall -' ing. The British campaign was sacrificed, sac-rificed, delayed; the blow in Flanders came too late, although it began with the great success of Plumer. About this Flanders campaign men talk as j they talked about Grant's campaign; from the Rapidan to Cold Harbor. It' was terribly costly; it did not bring J immediate success. , Immortal Seventh Division. j l Among Plumcr's achievements was the clearing of the Messlnes ridge in j June, 1917, which -was a preliminary step in the Flanders campaign. It was one of the finest examples of a scion- j tific local offensive, comparaable only with Petain's two thrusts at Verdun in velous co-ordination of varioua arms and marked by such a clear evidence of accurate intelligence work that i Plumer's chief intelligence officer, Harrington, won immediate promotion. As a result of the preparation, Plumer's Plum-er's troops advanced over the famous Messines-"Whitcshcct" ridge with incredibly in-credibly small losses and abolished for the time the old Ypres salient. Later, when Gough had maded a mess of the Paschondaelo offensive, Plumer took over and brought order out of chaos. When Italy was overwhelmed at Capo-retto Capo-retto Plumer was sent to command i the British reserves, which were hur-iriod hur-iriod south and .did admirable work. His is a record that has no trace of failure, even temporary. Only less conspicuous is the record of Rawlinson. It begins with the command com-mand of the immortal Seventh division, divi-sion, which arrived in Flanders In October Oc-tober and in less than a month was I reduced from 12,000 to 2000. Its share I ot Ypres is forever memorablo At ! Loos Rawlinson was less happy, but J he reappears in command of the Fourth army at the First Somme and holds this post of great importance throughout the battle. After that he ! j disappears for a time, to reapper, after j Cough's defeat in March, commanding , the Fourth army again. He deals the j great stroke on August 8 -which was the beginning of the long series of blows, leading to the final scene at j Mons - j He was Haig's personal friend and i choice; he shares with Haig criticism in certain phases, but he shares equally equal-ly with his chief the credit for the ultimate ulti-mate success, in which his victory of August S and his share in the breaking of the Hindenburg line on October S j are brilliant details. Home Breaks German Line. Another general whose fortunes have been steadier is Home, who commanded com-manded the First army from 191G onward. on-ward. An artillery officer, his contribution contribu-tion to the First Somme was very great. He was a rising soldier from that moment and his army was always held highly. Against him fell the second sec-ond German blow in April of this year and his front was temporarily pierced, owing to the unexpected and complete collapse of the Portuguese. But lie held on, managed to hold GIvenchy ind the high ground west of La Bassce unti the great danger was past Even more conspicuous was his sue ces sin late August, when he attacked north of the Scarpe and broke the Pro court-Queant line, insuring the ultimate ulti-mate fall both of Douai and of Cam brai. The extent of the succosis was totally unexpected. It was the flrni sure promise that the I-IinGcnDurg lim would not stand and It was a succes: which held out the first hopes of a do cision in 191S. Rather more brilliant is the record of Byng. He was a distinguished of fi cor before he won Cambral in 1917 but this victory gave him a place which ho has held ever since. In a sense, this victory marks a turning point in the war. It was not properly followed up, which means thai Byng did not receive the support which ho needed to make- his first success permanent. per-manent. This was because the success outran all expectations and tho British Brit-ish army had not the necessary reserves. re-serves. But Cambrai proved that by restoring the element of suprise it vas possible to break through and that by use of tanks surprise could be had, siiilu uiu ytuuiu uikc uic piacc oi long sustained bombardment in clcarinc the way for the infantry. Arras and Vimy Ridge Held in Face of Bitter Attack. It was by the use of the lessons of First Cambrai that the allies won the campaign of 191S and the war. Man-gin's Man-gin's great counter-offensive at the Second Marne was founded upon tho use of tanks. Each successive Britisi1 and French thrust thereafter employed tho same method. The German used a variation of the surprise tactics in his earlier successes, but without the tank, relying upon street concentration and great numbers. But it was Byns who abolished the long standing boliof that trench lines could not bo broken, and his discovery was one of the very greatest of the conflicL In the spring, at a critical moment, when Gough's army had fallen, Byng j broke the German effort to extend the dislocation of the British front. Hp i held Arras and Vimy ridge in tho laco of a tremendous attack, which the Ger-jmans Ger-jmans abandoned after 48 hours. Still (later, in August, he made a successful drive from the old Somme line eastward east-ward to Bapaume, which terminated .uerman nopes of Holding the allies j west of the Hindenburg line for the j balance of the campaign, j Plumer, Home, Rawlinson and Byng, these-are the outstanding figures un-de un-de Haig. They bear the'same relation ! 'to their commander that Gouraud, ! Mangin, Debeney and Berthelot bear J to Petain; for Castelnau and Fayolles, who commanded groups of armies brilliantly, bril-liantly, the British army supplies no counterpart, since authority was not thus delegated i Outside of the European field there are two British generals who claim 'attention, Maude, of Bagdad, and AI-lenby AI-lenby of Jerusalem and Samaria. Of the former it is to be said that taking the Mesopotamlan command after the surrender of Kut-el-Amara and following follow-ing a shocking and scandalous failure, he rivaled the best achievements of Kitchener in the Khartum campaign and conducted a colonial campaign in a fashion which must remain a model for all the future. Unhappily, he died just after he had taken Bagdad and before he could enjoy (he full frutis of his great labors. But he remains one of the great figures of that lang and splendid succession of British colonial leaders. He gave Britain Mesopotamia Mesopota-mia and he ended all apprehension as to India. His warfare has always led the world, and. apart from Kitchener, ; he can have no rival. I Tommies Made Record. Then Russia collapsed and the Germans Ger-mans came west to Picardy, with the road made easy for them by political interference. Haig was defeated and I Foch camo to command. One day we heard the memorable appeal of Haig to his army, fighting with their backs to the Avail; the appeal of a general to his men heard and obeyed. The German wave was halted. Men said then that Haig should come home, but the politicians, perhaps per-haps aware with whom the burden of blame rested, permitted him to stay; and after that came, on August S, the 1 victor' which started the Germans back from Amiens; next the success . of Byng, which forbade to the Germans Ger-mans a stand behind the upper Somme. Then (he blow or Home which j broke a portion of the Hindenburg line. Finally, the great success of October, S, one of ihe farshining achievements of the whole war, which smashed tho ! Hindenburg line forever and began the I last phase of (he war, the rapid col-1 col-1 lapse of German resistance. If you take the achievement of tho British army between August 8 and November 11, when It forced its way from the outskirts of Amiens to Mons, i you will find upon .examination it is one of the most splendid records in all military history. I am not seeking to apportion praise, 1 do not pretend to know what Foch did and what Haig did, but under Foch's .supreme command the British army, rallying from terrfic losses and heavy defeat in March and April, in three glorious months smashed its way forward over innumerable obstacles, (Which Included the far-famed Hindenburg Hinden-burg line. It Is clear that if Haig had not loyally co-operated with Foch the' victorj' would not have been possible." It is clear that however brilliant the' strategy of Foch, if it had not been intelligently and efficiently interpret-ed interpret-ed no such success would have followed, fol-lowed, j Diif r i i ifi.i . , Therefore, if the great glory is to Foch, as it was in our Civil War to Grant In the north and Lee in the South, It seems to me that Haig must deserve the praise which we of the North gavo to Sherman which France gives to Pctain in the present hour. , That the British will reckon their commander-in-chief with Wellington and Marlborough seems likely; certainly cer-tainly they have no othor names which permit comparison. But by comparison compari-son Haig's task was gigantic; he took the huge British volunteer army when It was little more than a mob and fashioned out of It an effective instru-iuent; instru-iuent; he suffered severe defeats and 1 even severer disappointments in hla I use of it, but he ultimately led it lb complete victor', which would have been totally impossible had the British Brit-ish army been unable to do all that it did accomplish. Haig's problems wore far different than those, of Joffre or , Petain; they had armies at their hands organized for contemporary warfare and provided with staffs trained in tho tasks before them. Haig had nothing; two -thirds of his work was construction construc-tion and it had jto be done in the heat of battle and under tho stress of great campaigns. In the face of all obstacles, obsta-cles, he brought a victorious army back to Mons on November 11, and I believe his achievement will grow rather than diminish in the eyes of men as his task is more clearly perceived. per-ceived. Of Haig's subordinates 1 suppose common consent would award to Plumer the first place. His army held tho old Ypres salient all the lime for the cl6se of the Second Battle in 101 J to the moment when it broke all the restraining barriers and swept down Into Flanders plain In October, in-, suring the recovery of Lille and the liberation of the Belgian seacoast. At all times his professional attainments were acknowledged by the severest! critics, and I remember an acqualn-tance acqualn-tance of mine heard Joffre .assert that he was one of the two great generals j of the war. j Of Allenby there is a record in the i west as well as in the east. He com- manded a cavalry brigade in the MonsJ campaign He held the Messines Hidges with a thin facade of horsemen horse-men in the critical days of Ypres, before be-fore the French aid came. After that he commanded the Third British army. afterward to go to Byng in the battle ! of Arras, in which he took Vimy Ridge cleared Arras and pushed down into the Flanders Plain. The success of., the spring of 1917 was the greatest ' achievement of the British in the war j up to that time. J Later, when the British commander : in Egypt failed at Gaza, and tho Pal -: estinc campaign was in danger, Allen- by went east He restored the situa tion and presently the world heard of him In Jerusalem. This was a ray of light in a dark period. But Allen -,by's great triumph was to come, when last September he crushed two Turkish Turk-ish armies in Samaria, captured the bulk of their forces and made the surrender sur-render of the Turk inevitable. This was one of the most complete victories! in history. It resulted in the clearing! of Palestine and Syria, the fall of Da-j mascus. Aleppo and Beirut and the . I 1 1 II JIUIILf HIJ. , I I hi I J.I m f- - . - . L ., - elimination of Turkey from the- war It will .stand side by side with D'Es-Percy's D'Es-Percy's success in Macedonia, won al the same moment and resulting in the surrender of Bulgaria. Such, in brief, is the roster of the more conspicuous British generals who finished the war commanding armies and still holding tho confidence of their nation and Iho loyalty of their troops. Their place in British and imperial history is assured and I be lievc thoy will gain rather than lose as I 11 i.iiu,.,-,nir,Ti ..i, u un m , i uij gggBaaBBBBgga . time removes certain misapprehen- sions and gives more complete evi : denco of their achievements It remains ! to say a word of the armies which : they commanded. In certain things the British army was easily first. It sur-i sur-i passed its allies and its enemies in ' air service. British master' of the y air was one of the essential and potent po-tent elements in ultimate victory. Again, without the tank, which was (Continued on page- 3.) oo I Great Fighting by British in Last Days of the War (Continued FromPago" 2)" a British contribution, the campaign of 1918 might have finished at the I-Iin- denburg line, if, indeed, it had not closed even nearer to the positions held by the Germans in tho summer. The French borrowed the idea and elaborated upon it. but the credit for the invention belongs to tho British. Just as to Byng goes the very great praise due to the man who first saw tho possibilities of tho new Instrument and turned them to account at First Cambrai. It Is unquestionably true that the British army Huffernd by comparison with the French and German armies throughout the war. It did not suffer more than our young armies would have suffered had they come on the field while the German was still what ho was in 1916 and 1917. or in March and April and May of the present year. But all comparison wilh the German army is even more unfair. If there is to be comparison it must be between be-tween the French army and the British Brit-ish fleet, for as France put her reli-ance'upon reli-ance'upon her army and concentrated upon it her best effort, Britain did likewise with her fleet. And surely such comparison will not be' to tho disadvantage dis-advantage of the British. As to the British army the great thing we all have to remember is that it was created after tjie war began and after the best of the officers and men of the British regular army had been, in the main, killed in the opening open-ing battle. It was thus 'deprived of exactly the elements that it most needed for its own training. Facts Misunderstood In tho face of these handicaps, in tho faco of the still further obstacle due to the fact that the enemy was in the field and that ho hod to be held, a task requiring all that was left oi British officers and regulars and demanding de-manding new troops before they were even partially trained, the British managed to build a great army, without with-out which victory is ever iraposslblo. XT.i nnlnnn flnnrl U'linn tVtn vntoratic hfi had inherited from tho wars of tho Revolution were gone, he could not win victories of tu sort which ho had won in tho earlier campaigns. But ho never nev-er had to improvise an army or a system. sys-tem. The British had to do both. It was always imposslblo in four years to fashion an instrument as perfect as that machine built by the Germans as tho result of a full century cen-tury of patient and uninterrupted effort. ef-fort. We also misunderstood the facts In the early period of the war, when the greatness of the danger inevitably provoked impatience and invited unjust un-just comparisons. But it is not by comparison that we can fairly measure tho British achievement in their army building. They started with next to nothing, when the structures of their allies and enemies were practically complete. With all their handicaps, with all the limitations imposed by the situation, situa-tion, they built a great army, frequently fre-quently suffering the same disappointments disappoint-ments which came to Grant's army in 1S6-1 after it had at last bocomo convinced con-vinced of its superiority, sharing this disappointment with a nation equally blind to certain truths, but gaining in power and efficiency up to the hour when it broke the strongest lines of the enemy, manned by tho best of the surviving troops of the foe, and began a inarch to victory, which was only hnitori hv the white flag of the Kai ser's generals. Transform Civilian Hordes l think tho fair mcasuro of British military achievements is a contrast between what Britain has done and what military men, Germans, for example, ex-ample, believed she could do four years ago, when the Kaiser challenged challeng-ed England as woll as France and Russia. Rus-sia. And nothing is more certain than that, had the German comprehended that the British army would play the role it has played, they would never have risked British entrance into the struggle. You got tho full measure of German amazement in all the official German comments on British operation opera-tion from tho First Sommo onward. For them the British, despite manifest and recognized limitations were steadily stead-ily doing the impossible. We seo things far more calmly now than In the heat of the tcrrtble years that have gone by. Comparisons which were inevitable then seem at once meaningless and incquitablo now. The future will see even more clearly. clear-ly. It will perceive that Britain transformed trans-formed a civilian population into a vast military forco which kept the field, held the well organized and well trained foe when "it was still lacking in training and In machinery and finally fin-ally shared in the complete triumph of French and American troops, a triumph tri-umph to" which tho Americans were only just beginning to contribute. 1 Ferhaps there is no bettor summary of what the British army achieved than Is supplied In the bald statement that the British army occupied Mons 1 on August 21. 191-1, and reoccupied it on November 10, 191S. In the time that separate the two dates the German Ger-man army wore out, it broke itself against British and French defense . and it was Incapable of meeting French, British and American attac !lfl And In all tho time from French's ro- jjj treat to Haig's last advance British Oil military contribution to the sum total jm of allied resources increased steadil. J I think we shall some day have tho Jill final measure of British military J! achievement when tho archives of the jjutj Great General Staff in Berlin are' mi thrown open and we arc able to seo jjlj exactly what British mjlltary contribu- gill tion was estimated at by those who jMjji risked the world war Meantime, tho Jj British army hardly needs praise, and, Mil being British, will unquestionably re- ml sent it. I |
