VOLUME XVI

Editorial Notes

Leading Editorials

Contents

Flanking Germany........

Mob Violence and War Psychology

1

3

5

T

HE significance and the probable consequences

of the German retirement from the Marne

have become increasingly clear during the

past week. The retirement is the result of a deliber-
ate choice by the German High Command. It could
have elected to fight on in the Marne salient and it
could doubtless have prevented the Allied army
from recovering anything like as much territory as
it has actually occupied. But by adopting such a
strategy it would have been obliged heavily to
reenforce the Crown Prince's army, to weaken some
other part of its line and to do so for the sake
of what would be, at best, negative results. It pre-
ferred, consequently, to retire, and the retirement
$ being carried out with a minimum of loss.
Doubtless the German Staff expects as a conse-
uence of so husbanding its resources to resume the
ttack under more favorable conditions on some

ther part of the line, but after the defeat of their
ttempt to squeeze out the Reims salient and to

Denetrate beyond the Marne, it does not look as if

uny further offensive could be made really danger-

Jus. The British army has been reenforced and

Number 196

has had abundant time to prepare both for attack

and counter-attack. It is a more dangerous army

to deal with than it was last March and April, and

the same is true of the French army with its Ameri-

can auxiliaries. It is wholly improbable that the

German Staff will be able to put its residue of of-

fensive power to any effective use. The retirement

from the Marne salient is none the less decisive be-

cause it has been a matter of deliberate choice and

it is being carried through without excessive loss.

The Germans, even if they keep the initiative, can-

not turn it to any better account than the French

and British did in 1917. It would look as if they

may soon be obliged once again to accept a defensive

strategy, fortify the strongest line which they can

lay out and defy the Allied army to disposses them.

Their colossal effort to obtain a decision on which

the prestige of the ruling class in Germany rests

would have failed.

I

T is as certain as anything can be in the neces-

sarily uncertain game of politics that the result

of a German defensive strategy will be disintegra-
tion both in Germany and among her Allies. As we
have frequently pointed out, the offensive, under-
taken expressly for the purpose of compelling the
western powers to accept the annexationist eastern
treaties, was in its domestic political significance a
coup d'état. It meant a triumph for the military
parties in the fight between it and the liberal forces
in Germany which had been going on throughout
1917. The German liberals have not hesitated
frankly to draw this conclusion. They have been
demanding through such papers as the Frankfurter
Zeitung either the frank assumption of political au-
thority in Germany by the Supreme Army Com-
mand or else an equally frank and complete resump-
tion of control by politicians. The falling back on
defensive military strategy in the west would neces-
sarily involve the second of these alternatives, and
the politicians who would come into power would be
men anxious to obtain a peace by understanding and
ready to sacrifice a great deal for such a peace.