PAGE 4—HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
Continuing the remarkable BANSE Revelations
BELOW is a further chapter from the German muitary text-book by Pro- fessor Ewald Banse, who changed Germany's famous Schliffen plan to meet modern conditions.
Events in France and Belgium this week were planned in accordance
with the Banse formula, and previous chapters in this absorbing series have already told why Holland and Belgium have been in. vaded and how the Nazis intend to drive through France.
In the chapter below, Professor Banse tells Ger- many what pitfalls she must avoid if she is not to meet with disaster in the
war.
WHEN one examines the German plan of compaign in the last war from the point of view of military 120- graphy it was all settled as early as 1898 and not al- tered in the manner here to be indicated-one feels that it took no, or too little, ac- count of England..
It reckoned with the French army and even with England's little expeditionary force, but not with England as the mainstay of a protracted war, the organizer of the blockade, which starved us out,
· fountain head of supplies.
the
This was hardly to be expected
of Schlieffen himself considering the situation in his time, but his successor ought to have been awake to these things.
Our right flank ought not only to have besleged Antwerp-we had plenty of mert in Alsace Lorraine, where they were falling over each other, in fact-but should have made straight for the caust and -occupied the Belgian and still more. the Channel ports, the bases' of the British expeditionary force, as far as Boulogne or better sill Abbe- ville which would have been quite easy to
the
to do. Nobody thought of this, because purely land minded Germans took no account of the sen and sea power. Indeed, it is a question whether it was not a bad mistake in military geography to content ourselves with marching through Belgium instead of occupying Holland, also, equally a neutral and our kinsman to hout.
The disadvantage of this pro- ceeding, namely, the fact that t second violation of
involved neutrality, was as nothing com- pared with the first violation; but the advantage was incalculable, for it would have put the whole opposite coast of England within our range; given our feel a much longer and stronger base, which would certainly have preserved it from inactivity.
Finally, It would have made the possiblilty of an invasion of the south-eastern Ovart of England so immediate that the Englisti with practically army, would probably have con- cluded a reasonable peace with all speed rather than have their country OVETTUN by German soldiers.
of.
The military occupation Holland, the home of a mee of German traders and peasants thinking entirely in terms of commercial advantage, not mull- tary honour, would have present. ed no difficulties.
Made Mess Of
Pre-War Plan
It is not too much to say that the world war became an economic war, a war of starvation, and fost the heroic character of earlier war, because the Germans felled to grasp the strategic significance of the coast of Holland, Deglum and northern France, and made a mess of the Schlieffen plan. We can only hope that more comprehensive thinking will some day lead to wiser decisions,
With Hindenburg and Luden- dorff at the head of affairs, posi- donal warfare, would never have started.
The establishment of the western front meant, the probabililly of slow and lingering defeat for us, while it dangled visions of u gradually approaching victory be- fore, the eyes of the enemy.
Trench warfare meant the abandonment or renunciation of the war of faction,”and therewlik of the hope of a rapid," "fighting finish; and the declalon became a matter of gradual attrition.
Trench warfare has a different effect from open wa on the mind of the soldier; it gives hlm ilme.to collect his thoughts and reflect, make him wonder about -all-motta aduinge-and-rofsca-double. In his mind which would never have time to grow up in open war- fare, with its constant rush of new events,
vory warfore
In this chapter Professor Banse frankly
admits Germany will lose if Blitzkrieg fails
NAZI CHOICE:
TOTAL WAR
OR DEFEAT.
In addition to that, destroys an army's inobility, it turns the soldier into a householder,who- ends by being unwilling to leave a neighbourhood to which he has grown accustomed, and even deve- loped a
for certain attachment, fear of exchanging it for a worse. The warrior becomes bourgeois- 、 Ised. the active spirit becomes pussive, the conqueror turns~pro- perty owner.
war,
An immobilised army is forced Into lines of thought which have no connection with its real func- tlon: i begins to think of peace
than
anci finally rather of insubordination rather than obedience; or it feels the incom- pelence of its commanders from the fact that operations have come to a standstill
For us the worst thing about the entrenched war was flst a well- fortified, and well defended front like the French and the English was practically imprenable with the offensive weapons then avali- able.
ut
From this point of view it made no difference whether I consisted of strong trenches hastily construct- ed for each occasion or, as we dis- covered to our great surprise Arrns, merely a deep totwork of eraters and machine-gun posts.
Massed Tanks
Best Weapon
A small number of highly trained, resolute and strong nerved men, machine guns and gun emplacements, well hidden from the observation of bal- loons and aeroplanes, could hold up whole armies.
as
Massed tanks were the only things for which this form of defence, was, apparently, inadequate,
the English break through near Cam- brai in November 1917 showed.
The oldest and most elementary procedure for dislodging the enemy was prolonged artillery bombard- ment; this did destroy the
warning position, but it gave him enemy's
and enabled him to bring up cleat
with which to meet die onslaught and counter attacks himself; the most obvious examples are the Somme in 1915 and Flan- ders in 1017.
It was the results of position warfare —— prolongation of the struggle, morati disintegration. In- feriority in material resources. hunger, decrease of nisa power, the growth of revolutionary senti- ment-combined with the lack of bnterprise which caused us to alt tight from the autumn of 1914 to the, spridať ́of' ID18' without at- tempting an offensive in the west, that finnfly lost is the' War, on the western front.
Mistakes In
Sea Warfare
It
was a grave mistake that ourselves immediately
ruined a safe position in the Kattegat, from which We could have threatened the left flank of the English battle fleet, by strewing mines all over the Belts.
to point to the similar be- Baviour of the English naval. authorities as an excuse.
England also kept her high seas Jeet back; but in the first place, as her entire political and economic existence depended on her navy, there was no point in her risking It an the always doubtful issue of a
The advantageousness of the Eng- lish coast extends to the smallest -details:-thus.e.straightness-makes-big-naval battle; and secondly, the.
it much easier to determine the whereabouts of a wirelessing Ger- TRELK ship by listeuing 30
from several points on it than it is to listen in to English ships from the re-entrant Germar coust.
The English Admiralty was thus always excellently informed regard- Ing the position our warships, quite apart from the fact that the great god Chance, in the guise of a dead signaller from the sunk Magdeburg washed up on the Baltic coast of Russia in Sep- tember 1014, put the secret code and slanaliing manuals of the German ravy in the way of the English, who henceforth
deciphered every wire- less message frem German naval headquarters and were able to take steps accordingly-a terrible blow which showed that fate was do- finitely against us; wherever the Gerning fleet showed itself it was immediately confronted with supe- rlor British forces.
and directions of
Unfortunately Germany took the -same-sert of-lac-on-sen-as-on-land;
or even a worse one.
The reasons were: (1) the desire of the Chancellor not to annoy England, which showed his ignor- unce of national psychology; for nothing makes any impression on the English except the mailed flat; (2) luck of confidence in our navy in certain responsible naval circles, where it
Qu
suited really
security of her trade did not de- mond that she should use her fleet but merely that the German fleet should be shut up.
backwardness thus England's book and playing her game.
The English principle of the "fleet being" was as completely sound for England as it was wrong for
ES.
Was
Our Admiralty failed to realise this till at least the spring of 1918 and thus deprived us of the service of one of our most effective arms, When it was finally gingered up, I was too late to try to heat the British navy, for by then the Eng- lah had strewn the whole North Sea with mines, increased and im- proved their fleet and, in short, overhauled their whole naval de- ¡ences.
raw
The crippling of the German fleet the responsible for: -(1) Kas British blockade, which so curtalled our supplies of food, and materials that we were unable to meet the increased demands of the War; (2) in contrast to that, the undisturbed continuation of British trade, which supplied England and France with everything they need. ed; (3) England's undisturbed com~ munications with her army in France; (4) the almost complete submission of the neutrals to
to Eng dictation; (0) America's In- treasingly open support of the then by Allies, first by economie diplomatic and finally by military support; and (0) the infection of the personnel of our navy with the result of their en- ited bacillus on
Jish was considered no match for the British: It was the battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916, which Best showed that Tirpitz and his suppor- ters who considered it at least equal to the British, to the
right; (3) in- were which trigues shouldering of
forced inactivity of the creator and only
The great god Chance gave us proper commander of the Beet,
opportunity High Admiral von Tirpliz; (4) the
U-boats, which had proved their idea of emerging from the War with the fleet intact.
asefulness, to the great surprise
cold
In consequence of these things the high seas fleet was kept in its har bours and every avenue of approach to us from the North Sen was closed by_mines.
But mine warfare on the sea means exactly the same as trench warfare on land, namely, the bank- ruptcy of all strategy and the end of all mobility.
The fact that U-boats from the ' beginning showed good results in certain cases 'does not come into the account It was an unexpect- edly agreeable extra; and even so, ¡lla vast possiblitties · were · not understood, 'or at any rate not ex- iptolted.
Germany Played “England's" "Game
In judging these appalling mistakes it la not permissible
ong
more
in
the
of everyone, at the very beginning
of the
of
THIS photograph (just re- coived by air mail from Lon- don) of a hospital in Elverum. Norway, shows what total warfaro, ex- pounded by Professor Banse ar Germany's only hope of victory, really moans.
exceeded the estimate),. for completely overlooked national psychology
England saw that she was on the brink of the abyss and at once acted in the most energetle man- nor; she ruthlessly requisitioned neutral shipping, and even German shipping in neutral harbours, de- veloped an increasingly effective syslem of defence
the U-boats and had the unique plea-
and ce against
sure, which was at the same time
long deterred victory for
her,
diplomacy, of seeing America abandon her reserve and declare war on the German Empire, which 报复 once put many tons of German shipping at the disposal of the Allies.
Even though U-boat warfare con- sidered in itselt was in no sense a failure, the building of new ton- nage, together with the requisi- tioned neutral and German ships, kept pace with the losses, which in 1917 amounted to 0,000,000 tons by-mines
mines and submarines.
whole conduct of the Wor once
OUT
on sea
contention truth of Tirpitz's', proves the that the_German_people had not Unutra700 the sen-If it is really
of a small
to attribute the defects,
the whale nority in power to
A more resolute and better con- sidered use of the fleet against the British-if possible hand in hund with the occupation.of Holland. and the landing of troops in the south east of England-before they had leaint the lessons of
of the War and
Over their naval policy, was
If not to bring England to her knees, at any rate to make the question of suppiles an acute one for her and to render blockade impossible.
Tuesday,
MAY 21, 1940.
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In those circumstances the whole War would have taken a different
In tury
which heroism
would have counted for more than eco- nomics.
Germany's Chief
Military Mistakes
Our were
chlof military mistakes
-Failure to develop our poten- tialities fully before the War, and even during it, with the result that we could not make good our heavy initial losses quickly enough, and were trom the beginning unequal to the enormous demands of n war on two fronts.
2 The baneful Influence of the Cabinet on the choice of the commander-in-chief of the army and of the navy, resulting in the loss of the battle of the
Marne
(van Moltke) and subsequently in the scheme, fatal to us in our isola tion, of a slow war of attrition which culminated in the blood-bath of Verdun, was persisted in for two years (von Falkenhayn) and anally
the fleet (von Mulier). paralysed
In consequence of Falkenhayn's ideas the year 1915 especially was Jost very largely wasted; having the initiative in the west, we ought at least to have undertaken a big offensive in the cast which would crush Russia's war spirit, so that we might have both hands free 1910 for the struggle with England
3-Our
to failure and and Invade
War.. But even of this op-and France, portunity full advantage was not
faken by our Admiralty. We ought
at once to have built U-boat after
-boat, not battleships.
Then, too the Admiralty's fore- chat for the unrestricted submarine warlare which was finally resolved
WA51917,
under upon in February pressure from Hindenbrug and Ludendroff ut GQ, was farcical. This forecast; drawn up on De- cember 22, 1918, reckoned that England would give in after a mere lve months of unrestricted U-boat warfare, sinking 600,000 tons per month, directed against hee mer- chant shipping and that two-fifths of neutral chloping would be frightened on coming to Engla
Considered from the point; view of milliary science it was a grosa_mlacsienialion, fin alla of fuo fack, that the sinkings sresily
occupy
Hol- the south-east const of England, at the same time making an aggressive use of the high seas fleet and building up our U-boat: fleet.
The fact that no attempt was made to raise the English blockade and so shorten the War.
-Allowing Allied troops to re- main at Salónika, when they ought to have been driven off the Bal- kans in 1914-16;they were respon- sible for the defection of Bulgaria In Autumn 1910 and,, to some ex- tent, of Austria-Hungary, which left Germany's rent, ullcovered.
unrestricted · U-best.
Starting and ona baxis-
of totally inadequate estimates.
7--Leaving too many German troops (a million)-in-Russia” dur- ing the 1918 offensive in France
ST
59
60
63
64
166
57
69
10
and hot using them, and Austro- Hungarians one too, on the west- ern front (the latter if possible only as labour battalions).
Under estimation of tanks, although they have proved their value at Cambral in 1917.
13
In the latter part of the Wor admit this fronicly--the fear in the minds of many of our soldiers that they would be killed at the last moment and riot Hyg to see the longed-for dawn peace; this, however, meant the beginning of the break up of the army, which was completed by the polon of Marxism.
· of
10-The absence of a single supreme command, vested in Ger- German. man G.H.Q...over the
Turkish and Avro-Hungarian, Bulgarian armley, which made it whole Impossible to bring the
reducing
forces of the Central Powers into simultaneous action, thus reduc their striking power.
The
e obstacle here was the use and Austro-Hungarian
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