Don Martin diary entry for Tuesday,
February 26, 1918:
Read the
papers (New York too). Wrote to Newton, Oliver and the Commodore about Hearst
getting permission to get English news, and that is about all, except to see
Colonel Buchan at 5 p.m. Was at the office most of the evening. Wrote a long story
on the war situation to date – an analysis of the developments etc. England is
by no means sure of being able to lick Germany as she hoped to lick her.
America seems to be the only optimist. Russia’s elimination has rather
staggered the Allies.
Weather sharp but
pleasant.
The following summary of the war situation was dated Thursday and published in the New York Herald on Friday, March 1, 1918. However, it reads like the analysis of war developments to date written on Tuesday, February 26, as he recorded in his diary above.
Germany’s Only Chance for Victory in the West Is Some New Invention
Object of Enemy Raids Along Entire Line Is to Find American Positions, Evidently with Idea of Subjecting Newcomers to “Tryout”
[Special to the Herald]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Thursday
“After the war.”
That phrase is heard constantly. Great Britain already is preparing for the commercial and industrial problems which will confront her after the war.
The end is in sight, many of the people of the empire believe. Many expect it to come with a suddenness which will startle as well as delight the world. How far the wish is father to the thought it is quite impossible to estimate. Official England wants peace as sincerely as do the men who are making the great sacrifice, but the confidence of an early peace is not so marked among government authorities as among the civil population. The government has practically no doubt that the Allies will present a united front from this time on and the officials of the British government intend to continue until the Allies can stand forth as the conqueror of Prussianism; until the Allies are assured of a peace which will be compatible with the idealistic aims of the allies nations.
Opinions Differ Widely
The military authorities fully realize that the achievement of their aims spells still a heroic task unless, as is quite possible, Germany and Austria experience social and economic uprisings.
Here is an opinion frequently heard:--
“Both sides intend to deal their most gigantic blows during 1918 so they may enter the peace conference with an assurance of liberal consideration of their demands.”
Here is another:--
“Germany, by her desperate assaults in 1918, hopes at once to frighten the Allies and to convince the German people that Germany is still virile enough to carry on the war indefinitely.”
And here is still another opinion:--
“The Allies will maintain their lines in 1918 and, with America’s powerful cooperation in 1919, will smash the German line, which, without reserve strength back home, will have to disintegrate and pave the way for an allied triumph and a victor’s peace.”
Pessimists Still Abroad
The old talk of a stalemate bobs up like a sore thumb. The gloomy intimation that Great Britain will chafe till she is intolerant over the curtailment of food and the inevitable inconvenience of war comes from quarters most unexpected. The suggestion that there will be a split among the Allies has a somewhat disquieting effect at times. In fact, if one permits himself to be affected by the atmosphere created by the class which is for peace almost at any price he will have sleepless nights and see bogies of a German peace and a world conquered and oppressed by Prussianism.
I have talked with persons who know as much as it is possible to know of the military and economic situations in Great Britain. Englishmen do not throw so optimistic a light upon anything as do the people of America. It isn’t their way. It never has been their way. If Great Britain knew positively that by June 1 she would be marching blithely and triumphantly up the Williamstrasse her official spokesman would insist that the outlook is “not so bad.”
Talk of Offensive Magnified
England was glutted with press agent talk of the great German offensive. It started late in December. In January observers on the western front reported that the Germans were bringing up vast reserve forces and making preparations apparently for a gigantic sweep against the Allies.
These preparations have been magnified a hundredfold since they first were discovered. As this despatch is written there are preliminary skirmishes of what may be the greatest battle not only of this war but of all time. Again there may not be a push to a final test. There are the most obvious reasons why Germany should hesitate to measure her military prowess with the Allies at this time. If she fails, her chances of winning the war are irrevocably lost. She is fighting at her maximum. The Allies will be fighting—are fighting, in fact—with their maximum gradually developing.
It is betraying no confidence to say that the only disquieting thought comes from the possibility that during the last ten months, German mechanical ingenuity--and no one minimizes this—has produced something new in warfare; something as new, for instance as was the tank in 1916. There is nothing to indicate that a new form of fiendishness has been devised and if the war from this time on is to be fought on the old lines and methods, there is not one chance in a hundred that the English, French, Belgian and American line will be broken.
Kaiser Faces a Storm
The military experts writing in the London newspapers have been bombarded with questions like this:--
“If the Allies couldn’t drive the Germans back last summer, when a quarter of the Hun army was on the Russian front, what chance is there now of driving the Germans back, especially when they have had almost ten months in which to perfect new fortifications?”
On the surface of things that question seems difficult to answer, say the military experts. But they have stated, without exception, that there are four fighting fronts now. Two are where the artillery and bayonets meet. The other two are back home among the civil populations. The war, it is asserted, may be decided with the opposing armies practically in the positions they now occupy. If the Germans fail to advance and suffer losses comparable with those at Verdun there will be a storm in the Central Empires and a very probable cessation of hostilities, the experts prophesy. On the other hand, if the Allies fall back and suffer heavy losses it will mean only that the line will be braced up with American divisions and prepared gradually for stolid resistance until next year, when, with a million fresh Americans, a titanic assault can be made on the constantly weakening Germans.
Ruin Threatens Germany
By the military men who combine their judgment also with the opinions of students of economics it is asserted that two years more of war will mean the almost irretrievable ruin of the German Empire, financially and economically. There is a strong element of the German population now which, it is known, fears the harvest it is sowing. This element wants peace. Translations from the German magazines and weekly publications show unmistakably that the manufacturers of Germany already are frightened at the spectre of world hatred which they know will stare down upon them when the war ends.
For the British government an analysis of the German mind has been made by a distinguished scholar who has taught both in British and German universities. His opinion is that Germany wants peace now and must have peace this year. He says that the German habit of thought is such that she cannot hold out an olive branch, but, with her Prussian braggadocio, holds out a bludgeon cunningly disguised as a peace emblem. This, the British analyst says, means that the Prussian clique is control of Germany wants peace and is willing to accept the Allies’ terms in their major portions, but must make the people of Germany believe that it is a militant, dictatorial Germany and not a cowed, chastened nation which is having peace forced upon it.
It is quite true that the people of England would welcome peace, but in talks with persons of all classes I have failed to discover the first indication that the people want to sacrifice the things they have been at war for. With the hospitals filled with wounded and the streets sprinkled with armless and legless soldiers, it is not to be wondered at that England should be somewhat saddened, but it is not true that she is discouraged. I have talked with more than one hundred soldiers home on leave, and they all say that Germany will be whipped, and that the only persons who doubt it are those who are so far back home that they don’t know what is going on in France.
Enemy on Alert for Americans
The determination of the United States has been a stimulant to England. It is fully realized that the United States always finishes anything she starts in to do, and it is further realized, with a feeling of profound joy, that the United States has “the brains, it has the men, it has the money, too.”
Soldiers returning from the front very recently say that the Germans are trying to locate the American points along the entire line. Their determination to learn just where the Americans can be found is responsible for the countless reports in the last three weeks of German raiding parties capturing a few prisoners here and there at night. The capture of prisoners is one of the Germans’ ways to finding out about the enemy. They use the third degree on them.
Just what is the Germans’ intention regarding the Americans is problematical. The general belief among the soldiers is that the Germans intend to “try them out” to see how well they can fight. This was done with the Canadians, and ever since the “try-outs” the Huns have been keeping as far away as possible from the Canadians.
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