“submersion.”
Outside the chapel of Plan 17 there were still military critics who argued strongly for the defensive. Colonel Grouard, in his book
La Guerre eventuelle,
published in 1913, wrote: “It is above all the German offensive through Belgium on which we ought to fix our attention. As far as one can foresee the logical consequences of the opening of our campaign, we can say without hesitation that if we take the offensive at the outset we shall be beaten.” But if France prepared a riposte against the German right wing, “all the chances are in our favor.”
In 1913 the Deuxième Bureau collected enough information on the German use of reserves as active troops as to make it impossible for the French General Staff to be ignorant of this crucial factor. A critique by Moltke on German maneuvers of 1913 indicating that the reserves would be so used came into French possession. Major Melotte, Belgian military attaché in Berlin, noticed and reported the Germans calling up an unusual number of reserves in 1913 from which he concluded that they were forming a reserve corps for every active corps. But the authors of Plan 17 did not want to be convinced. They rejected evidence that argued in favor of their staying on the defensive because their hearts and hopes, as well as their training and strategy, were fixed on the offensive. They persuaded themselves that the Germans intended to use reserve units only to guard communication lines and “passive fronts” and as siege and occupation troops. They enabled themselves to reject defense of the Belgian frontier by insisting that if the Germans extended their right wing as far as Flanders, they would leave their center so thinned that the French, as Castelnau said, could “cut them in half.” A strong German right wing would give the French advantage of superior numbers against the German center and left. This was the meaning of Castelnau’s classic phrase, “So much the better for us!”
When General Lebas on that occasion left the Rue St. Dominique, he said to the deputy from Lille who had accompanied him, “I have two stars on my sleeve and he has three. How can I argue?”
4
“A Single British Soldier …”
B RITAIN’S JOINT MILITARY PLANS with France were begotten in 1905 when Russia’s far-off defeats at the hands of the Japanese, revealing her military impotence, unhinged the equilibrium of Europe. Suddenly and simultaneously the government of every nation became aware that if any one of them chose that moment to precipitate a war, France would have to fight without an ally. The German government put the moment to an immediate test. Within three weeks of the Russian defeat at Mukden in 1905, a challenge was flung at France in the form of the Kaiser’s sensational appearance at Tangier on March 31. To Frenchmen it meant that Germany was probing for the moment of “Again” and would find it, if not now, then soon. “Like everyone else I had come to Paris at nine o’clock on that morning,” wrote Charles Péguy, the poet, editor, mystic, Socialist-against-his-party and Catholic-against-his-church, who spoke, as nearly as one person could, for the conscience of France. “Like everyone else I knew at half-past eleven that, in the space of those two hours, a new period had begun in the history of my life, in the history of this country, in the history of the world.”
Of his own life Péguy was not speaking vainly. In August 1914 he was to volunteer at forty-one for military service and be killed in action at the Marne on September 7.
Britain, too, reacted to the challenge of Tangier. Her military establishment was just then being thoroughly overhauledby Lord Esher’s Committee. It included, besides himself, the turbulent First Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher, who had been reforming the navy by a series of explosions, and an army officer, Sir George Clarke, known for his modern ideas on imperial strategy. The “Esher triumvirate” had created a
Outside the chapel of Plan 17 there were still military critics who argued strongly for the defensive. Colonel Grouard, in his book
La Guerre eventuelle,
published in 1913, wrote: “It is above all the German offensive through Belgium on which we ought to fix our attention. As far as one can foresee the logical consequences of the opening of our campaign, we can say without hesitation that if we take the offensive at the outset we shall be beaten.” But if France prepared a riposte against the German right wing, “all the chances are in our favor.”
In 1913 the Deuxième Bureau collected enough information on the German use of reserves as active troops as to make it impossible for the French General Staff to be ignorant of this crucial factor. A critique by Moltke on German maneuvers of 1913 indicating that the reserves would be so used came into French possession. Major Melotte, Belgian military attaché in Berlin, noticed and reported the Germans calling up an unusual number of reserves in 1913 from which he concluded that they were forming a reserve corps for every active corps. But the authors of Plan 17 did not want to be convinced. They rejected evidence that argued in favor of their staying on the defensive because their hearts and hopes, as well as their training and strategy, were fixed on the offensive. They persuaded themselves that the Germans intended to use reserve units only to guard communication lines and “passive fronts” and as siege and occupation troops. They enabled themselves to reject defense of the Belgian frontier by insisting that if the Germans extended their right wing as far as Flanders, they would leave their center so thinned that the French, as Castelnau said, could “cut them in half.” A strong German right wing would give the French advantage of superior numbers against the German center and left. This was the meaning of Castelnau’s classic phrase, “So much the better for us!”
When General Lebas on that occasion left the Rue St. Dominique, he said to the deputy from Lille who had accompanied him, “I have two stars on my sleeve and he has three. How can I argue?”
4
“A Single British Soldier …”
B RITAIN’S JOINT MILITARY PLANS with France were begotten in 1905 when Russia’s far-off defeats at the hands of the Japanese, revealing her military impotence, unhinged the equilibrium of Europe. Suddenly and simultaneously the government of every nation became aware that if any one of them chose that moment to precipitate a war, France would have to fight without an ally. The German government put the moment to an immediate test. Within three weeks of the Russian defeat at Mukden in 1905, a challenge was flung at France in the form of the Kaiser’s sensational appearance at Tangier on March 31. To Frenchmen it meant that Germany was probing for the moment of “Again” and would find it, if not now, then soon. “Like everyone else I had come to Paris at nine o’clock on that morning,” wrote Charles Péguy, the poet, editor, mystic, Socialist-against-his-party and Catholic-against-his-church, who spoke, as nearly as one person could, for the conscience of France. “Like everyone else I knew at half-past eleven that, in the space of those two hours, a new period had begun in the history of my life, in the history of this country, in the history of the world.”
Of his own life Péguy was not speaking vainly. In August 1914 he was to volunteer at forty-one for military service and be killed in action at the Marne on September 7.
Britain, too, reacted to the challenge of Tangier. Her military establishment was just then being thoroughly overhauledby Lord Esher’s Committee. It included, besides himself, the turbulent First Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher, who had been reforming the navy by a series of explosions, and an army officer, Sir George Clarke, known for his modern ideas on imperial strategy. The “Esher triumvirate” had created a
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