The Project Gutenberg ebook of History of the World War, by

Among the German ships taken over by the United States at the outbreak of the war was the "Vaterland," the largest ship ever built. She was renamed the "Leviathan" and used as a transport, carrying 12,000 American soldiers past the submarines on each trip. She is shown here entering a French harbor at the end of a passage.
CHAPTER XLI
GERMANY'S DYING DESPERATE EFFORT
In the spring of 1918 it must have been plain to the German High Command that if the war was to be won it must be won at once. In spite of all their leaders said of the impossibility of bringing an American army to France they must have been well informed of what the Americans were doing. They knew that there were already more than two million men in active training in the American army, and while at that time only a small proportion of them were available on the battle front, yet every day that proportion was growing greater and by the middle of the summer the little American army would have become a tremendous fighting force.

Their own armies on their western front had been enormously increased in size by the removal to that front of troops from Russia. Hundreds of thousands of their best regiments were now withdrawn from the east and incorporated under the command of their great Generals, Hindenburg and Ludendorf, in the armies of the west. They must, therefore, take advantage of this increased force and win the war before the Americans could come.

The problem of the Allies was also simple. It was not nec­essary for them to plan a great offensive. All they had to do was to hold out until, through the American aid which was coming now in such numbers, their armies would be so increased that German resistance would be futile. Under such circumstances began the last great offensive of the German army.

At that time it seems probable that the armies of Great Britain and France numbered about three million five hundred thousand men, and that, of these, six hundred and seventy thousand were on the front lines when the German attack began, leaving an army of reserve of about two million eight hundred and fifty thousand men. A considerable number of these were probably in England on leave. The number of French soldiers must have been between four and five million, of whom about one million five hundred thousand were on the front line. Adding to these the American, Belgian, Portuguese, Russian and Polish troops the Allied forces could not have been short of eight million five hundred thousand men.

532 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR

HOW GERMANY ATTEMPTED TO DIVIDE THE ALLIED ARMIES

The map shows the ground covered by the Germans in the terrific Picardy drive of March, 1918, which had for its object the capture of Amiens and the push forward along the Somme to the channel, thus dividing the British army in the north from the French and Americans in the south.

GERMANY'S DYING DESPERATE EFFORT 533

In spite of this fact in nearly all the engagements in the early part of the great offensive the Allied forces were outnumbered in a ratio varying from three to one to five to three. This was possible, first, because in any offensive the attacking side naturally con­centrates as many troops as it can gather at the point from which the offense is to begin, and second, since the Allies were not under one command it was with great difficulty that arrangements could be made by which the forces of one nation could reinforce the armies of another.

The first difficulty of course could not be obviated, but the solution of the second difficulty was the appointment of General Foch as Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied forces.

The appointment was made on March 28th and all the influence of the United States had been exerted in its favor. General Pershing at once offered to General Foch the unrestricted use of the American force in France and it was agreed that a large part of the American army should be brigaded with the Allied troops wherever there were weak spots.

Foch was already famous as the greatest strategist in Europe. He comes of a Basque family and was born in the town of Tarbes, in the Department of the Hautes-Pyrenees, which is on the border of Spain, on October 2, 1851. Foch served as a subaltern in the Franco-Prussian War and at twenty-six was made captain in the artillery. Later he became Professor of Tactics in the Ecole de Guerre, where he remained for five years. He then returned to regi­mental work and won steady promotion until he became brigadier-­general. He was sent back to the War College as Director and wrote two books, "The Principles of War" and "Conduct of War," which have been translated into English, German and Italian and are considered standard works. He was now recognized as a man of unusual ability and was appointed to the command first, of the Thirteenth division, then of the Eighth corps at Bourges, and then to the command of the Twentieth corps at Nancy.

534 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR.

"Find out the weak point of your enemy and deliver your blow there," he said once at a staff banquet.

"But suppose, General," said an officer, "that the enemy has no weak point?"

"If the enemy has no weak point," replied the Commander, "make one."

It was he who telegraphed to Joffre during the first battle of the Marne: "The enemy is attacking my flank. My rear is threatened. I am therefore attacking in front."

Foch is a great student, an especial admirer of Napoleon, whose campaigns he had thoroughly studied. Even the campaigns of Caesar he had found valuable and had gathered from them practical suggestions for his own campaigns. He is the hero of the Marne, the man who on September 9th marched his army between Von Bulow and Von Hausen's Saxons, drove the Prussian Guards into the marshes of St. Gond and forced both Prussians and Saxons into their first great retreat. Later his armies fought on the Yser while the British were battling at Ypres. During the battle of the Somme he was on the English right pressing to Peronne.

For a time he became Chief of the French Staff, until he was called into the field again to his great command. Foch was one of those French officers who had felt that war was sure to come, and had constantly urged that France should be kept in a state of preparedness. The appointment of General Foch to the Supreme Command was largely the result of American urgency.

General March, the American Chief of Staff, in one of his weekly announcements, stated: "One of the most striking things noticeable in the situation as it is shown on the western front is the supreme importance of having a single command.

GERMANY'S DYING DESPERATE EFFORT 535
The acceptance of the principle of having a single command, which was advocated by the President of the United States and carried through under his constant pressure, is one of the most important single military things that has been done as far as the Allies are concerned. The unity of command which Germany has had from the start of the war has been a very important military asset, and we already see the supreme value of having that central command which now has been concentrated in General Foch."

General March, who had earlier been appointed Chief of Staff of the United States army, was sending a steady stream of American troops to Europe, a fact whose importance was well understood by the new Commander-in-Chief. On General March's promotion General Foch sent him the following message:

THE LAST DESPERATE DRIVES OF THE GERMANS