XXII.1 August 8
Our troops had taken up their new line on the Aisne. The last waves of the enemy attack flowed in and flowed out. In places there was desultory fighting from time to time.
Several of our divisions which had been exhausted in the recent fighting and required rest, were in billets behind our lines. Among other areas they were quartered in the region of Avesnes. I was thus able to see how quickly our soldiers recovered. When they had a day or two of good sleep, regular meals, and rest, they seemed quickly to forget all they had suffered, even their mental torture. Of course, for this purpose the rest had to be real rest, undisturbed by enemy shells and bombs, and if possible somewhere where the thunder of the guns could not be heard. But how seldom and how few of our troops had a rest of that kind in the long years of fighting! Swept from one theater of war to another, from battlefield to battlefield, they were practically subjected to an uninterrupted physical and moral strain. Herein lay the principal difference between the achievements of our men and those of all our opponents.
The roar of battle in the Marne salient had reached us at Avesnes like the rolling thunder of a heavy storm, now sharp and clear, now sullen. For the moment it had practically died down.
On the morning of August 8th this comparative peace was abruptly interrupted. In the southwest the noise of battle could clearly be heard. The first reports, which came from Army Headquarters in the neighborhood of Péronne, were serious. The enemy, employing large squadrons of tanks, had broken into our lines on both sides of the Amiens—St. Quentin road. Further details could not be given.
The veil of uncertainty was lifted during the next few hours, though our telephone lines had been broken in many places. There was no doubt that the enemy had penetrated deeply into our positions and that batteries had been lost. We issued an order that they were to be recovered and that the situation must everywhere be restored by an immediate counterattack. We sent officers to ascertain precisely how matters stood, to secure perfect harmony between our plans and the dispositions of the various staffs on the shaken front. What had happened?
In a very thick haze, a strong English tank attack had met with immediate success. In their career the tanks had met no special obstacles, natural or — unfortunately — artificial. The troops on this front had certainly been thinking too much about continuing the offensive and not enough of defense.
In any case, it would have cost us heavy losses to dig trenches and construct obstacles when we were in direct contact with the enemy, for as soon as the hostile observers noticed any movement, even if it were a matter of a few individuals, their artillery immediately opened fire. It seemed our best plan to lie quietly in the high corn, without cover against enemy shells it is true, but at the same time safe from enemy telescopes. In this way we were spared losses for the time being but ran the risk of suffering even greater losses if the enemy attacked. It was not only that little work had been done on the first line. Even less had been done on the support and rear lines. There was nothing available but isolated sections of trenches and scattered strong points. On these so-called quiet fronts the troops were not numerous enough for trench-digging on any large scale.
On this August 8th we had to act as we had so often acted in equally menacing situations. Initial successes of the enemy were no new experience for us. We had seen them in 1916 and 1917, at Verdun, Arras, Wytschaete, and Cambrai. We had only quite recently experienced and mastered another at Soissons. But in the present case the situation was particularly serious. The great tank attack of the enemy had penetrated to a surprising depth. The tanks, which were faster than hitherto, had surprised divisional staffs in their headquarters and torn up the telephone lines which communicated with the battlefront. The higher command posts were thus isolated, and orders could not reach the front line. That was peculiarly unfortunate on this occasion, because the thick mist made supervision and control very difficult. Of course our anti-tank guns fired in the direction from which the sound of motors and the rattle of chains seemed to come, but they were frequently surprised by the sight of these steel colossi suddenly emerging from some totally different quarter. The wildest rumors began to spread in our lines. It was said that masses of English cavalry were already far in rear of the foremost German infantry lines. Some of the men lost their nerve, left positions from which they had only just beaten off strong enemy attacks and tried to get in touch with the rear again. Imagination conjured up all kinds of phantoms and translated them into real dangers.
Everything that occurred, and was destined to prove our first great disaster, is comprehensible enough from the human point of view. In situations such as these the old war-hardened soldier does not lose his self-possession. He does not imagine, he thinks! Unfortunately these old soldiers were in a fast vanishing minority, and, moreover, their influence did not always and everywhere prevail. Other influences made themselves felt. Ill-humor and disappointment that the war seemed to have no end, in spite of all our victories, had ruined the character of many of our brave men. Dangers and hardships in the field, battle and turmoil, on top of which came the complaints from home about many real and some imaginary privations! All this gradually had a demoralizing effect, especially as no end seemed to be in sight. In the shower of pamphlets which was scattered by enemy airmen our adversaries said and wrote that they did not think so badly of us. That we must only be reasonable and perhaps here and there renounce something we had conquered. Then everything would soon be right again and we could live together in peace, in perpetual international peace. As regards peace within our own borders, new men and new governments would see to that. What a blessing peace would be after all the fighting! There was, therefore, no point in continuing the struggle.
Such was the purport of what our men read and said. The soldier thought it could not be all enemy lies, allowed it to poison his mind, and proceeded to poison the minds of others.
On this August 8th our order to counterattack could no longer be carried out. We had not the men, and more particularly the guns, to prepare such an attack, for most of the batteries had been lost on the part of the front which was broken through. Fresh infantry and new artillery units must first be brought up — by rail and motor transport. The enemy realized the outstanding importance which our railways had in this situation. His heavy and heaviest guns fired far into our back areas. Various railway junctions, such as Péronne, received a perfect hail of bombs from enemy aircraft, which swarmed over the town and station in numbers never seen before. But if our foe exploited the difficulties of the situation in our rear, as luck would have it he did not realize the scale of his initial tactical success. He did not thrust forward to the Somme this day, although we should not have been able to put any troops worth mentioning in his way.
A relatively quiet afternoon and an even more quiet night followed the fateful morning of August 8th. During these hours our first reinforcements were on their way.
The position was already too unfavorable for us to be able to expect that the counterattack we had originally ordered would enable us to regain the old battlefront. Our counterthrust would have involved longer preparation and required stronger reserves than we had at our disposal on August 9th. In any case we must not act precipitately. On the battlefront itself impatience made men reluctant to wait. They thought that favorable opportunities were being allowed to slip, and proceeded to rush at unsurmountable difficulties. Thus some of the precious fresh infantry units we had brought up were wasted on local successes without advantaging the general situation.
The attack on August 8th had been carried out by the right wing of the English armies. The French troops in touch with them on the south had only taken a small part in the battle. We had to expect, however, that the great British success would now set the French lines also in motion. If the French pushed forward rapidly in the direction of Nesle our position in the great salient projecting far out to the southwest would become critical. We therefore ordered the evacuation of our first lines southwest of Roye, and retired to the neighborhood of that town.
XXII.2 The Consequences of August 8 and Further Battles in the West up to the End of September
I had no illusions about the political effects of our defeat on August 8th. Our battles from July 15th to August 4th could be regarded, both abroad and at home, as the consequence of an unsuccessful but bold stroke, such as may happen in any war. On the other hand the failure of August 8th was revealed to all eyes as the consequences of an open weakness. To fail in an attack was a very different matter from being vanquished on the defense. The amount of booty which our enemy could publish to the world spoke a clear language. Both the public at home and our allies could only listen in great anxiety. All the more urgent was it that we should keep our presence of mind and face the situation without illusions, but also without exaggerated pessimism.
The military situation had certainly become serious. Of course the position on the part of our front which had been attacked could be restored, the lost war material made good, and fresh reserves brought up. But all this did not exhaust the effects of our defeat. We could only expect that, encouraged by his great victory, our enemy would now open similar attacks at other points. He had now found out that, in comparison with 1917, our present defense lines had many defects. In the first place, from a technical point of view. Generally speaking, our troops had done little work on the trenches we had won in the spring of 1918. In the sector east of Amiens, as on other parts of the front, too much had been said about continuing our offensive and too little about the requirements of defense. Moreover, the behavior of very many of our troops in the battle must have convinced the enemy that on our defensive fronts the stubborn resolution of 1917 was no longer present at all points. Further, the enemy had learned a good deal from us since the spring. In the last operation, he had employed against us those tactics with which we had soundly beaten him time after time. He had fallen upon us suddenly, and not after months of preparation, and had no longer tried to force a decision by driving a wedge into our defenses. He had surprised us in an attack on a broad front. He was able to venture on such tactics now because he realized the weaknesses of our lines. If the enemy repeated these attacks with the same fury, in view of the present constitution of our army, there was at any rate some prospect of our powers of resistance being gradually paralyzed. On the other hand, the fact that the enemy had once more failed to extract all possible advantages from his great initial successes gave me the hope that we should overcome further crises.
This line of reasoning enabled me, when I was summoned on August 13th to a political conference at Spa with the members of the government to discuss the military situation, to affirm that this was certainly serious, but that it must not be forgotten that we were still standing deep in the enemy's country. I emphasized this point of view to my Emperor also on the following day, when I summarized affairs after a pretty lengthy conference. I agreed with the views of the Imperial Chancellor, Count Hertling, that no official steps in the direction of peace should be taken on our side until there had been some improvement in the existing military situation. This fact alone shows to what an extent we had had to renounce our former political goals.
In the middle of August, I did not consider that the time had come for us to despair of a successful conclusion of the war. In spite of certain distressing but isolated occurrences in the last battle, I certainly hoped that the army would be in a position to continue to hold out. I also believed that our public at home would be strong enough to survive even the present crisis. I fully realized what the homeland had already borne in the way of sacrifices and privations and what they would possibly still have to bear. Had not France, on whose soil the war had now been raging for four years, had to suffer and endure far more? Had that country ever been cast down by failure during the whole of that time? Did she despair when our shells fell into her capital? I believed that our own public would keep this in mind even in this serious crisis, and stand firm if only we at the front continued to stand firm too. As long as we did so I felt sure that it would have its effect on our allies. Their military tasks, at any rate those of Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, were simple enough.
In this process of reasoning, mere anxiety to uphold the honor of our arms played no predominant part. In the four years of war our army had laid the foundations of that honor so deeply that the enemy could never remove them, come what might. The main motive for my decisions and proposals was regard for the welfare of my country and that alone. If we could not by victory on the battlefield force our enemies to a peace which gave us everything which once and for all secured Germany's future, we could at any rate make certain that the strength and resolution of our enemies would be paralyzed during the campaign. It was to be assumed that even this would mean a tolerable political existence for the state.
After the battle in the Marne salient came to an end, General Foch had certainly realized that the success he had gained would be wasted if our troops were given time to recover. I felt convinced that the enemy High Command now believed that it must stake everything on one card.
On August 20th the French attacked between the Oise and the Aisne in the direction of Chauny. In three days of fighting, they threw us back on that town. On August 21st and the following days the English extended their front of attack of August 8th to the north as far as northwest of Bapaume. The enemy broke through at several points and compelled us gradually to withdraw our line in this quarter. On August 26th the English hurled themselves at our line in the direction of Cambrai. They broke through, but were finally held. On September 2nd a fresh hostile attack overran our lines once and for all on the great Arras—Cambrai road and compelled us to bring the whole front back to the Siegfried Line. For the sake of economizing men we simultaneously evacuated the salient north of the Lys which bulged out beyond Mount Kemmel and Merville. All these were disagreeable decisions which had been carried out by the end of the first week of September. These movements did not ease the situation, as we had hoped. The enemy pressed forward at all points and the crisis continued.
On September 12th fighting flamed up on the hitherto inactive front southeast of Verdun and at Pont-Ã -Mousson. At this point, we were holding lines which had solidified after our attacks in the autumn of 1914. They were a tactical abortion which invited the enemy to attempt a great blow. It is not easy to understand why the French left us alone for years in this great triangle which projected into their front. If they had made a mighty thrust along the line of the base, a serious crisis for us would have been inevitable. It may possibly be made a matter of reproach to us that we had not evacuated this position long before, certainly as soon as our attack on Verdun was broken off. The only point was that it was the very conformation of our lines at this point which had had the most serious effect on the enemy's freedom of movement at Verdun and barred the valley of the Meuse, so important to him, south of the fortress. It was only at the beginning of September, when there seemed to be a certain liveliness on the part of the enemy between the Meuse and the Moselle, that we decided to evacuate this salient and withdraw to the lines we had long prepared along its base. Before the movement had been carried out in its entirety the French and Americans attacked and inflicted a serious defeat upon us.
Generally speaking, however, we managed more or less to hold up the enemy attacks upon our front. The extension of the enemy's attacks to Champagne on September 26th affected the general situation from the coast to the Argonne but little at first. On the other hand, the Americans this day penetrated our line between the Argonne and the Meuse. This was the first occasion on which the power of America, expressed through an independent army, made itself decisively felt on the battlefields of the last phase.
Although as a result of the enemy irruptions our Western Front had to be repeatedly withdrawn, it had not been broken through. It was shaking, but it did not fall. But at this moment a great gap was torn in our common front. Bulgaria collapsed.