The Illusion of Victory

The fighting spirit of a nation feeds upon the conviction that it has a fighting chance to win. The enemy may be dangerous, obstructive, and Satanic, but if he is sure to win, the moral of many elements in the nation will begin to waver and crumble. The animosity of a discouraged nation may be diverted to a new object, and the nation may be so busy hating the ruling class of its own country or its own allies, that it simply ceases to hate the technical enemy, and military collapse ensues.

The illusion of victory must be nourished because of the close connection between the strong and the good. Primitive habits of thought persist in modern life, and battles become a trial to ascertain the true and the good. If we win, God is on our side. If we lose, God may have been on the other side. To bow to necessity is to bow to the right, unless the universe is itself evil, or unless this can be interpreted as a temporary tribulation meted out to punish us for past sins or to cleanse us for future glory. In any case, defeat wants a deal of explaining, while victory speaks for itself.

The state of public expectation about the issue of the War depends upon the answer to the query, what is the relative strength of our side, and the enemy’s side? From the propagandist point of view there are several striking examples of the way this question ought not to be answered. To insist upon the feebleness of the enemy, and to foster public expectation of his imminent collapse is to encourage hopes which may be indefinitely deferred, with the resulting danger of disenchantment, depression and defeat. During the first month of the late War Paris was left without exact news of the position of the struggling armies, and the most feverish rumours filled the void. Paris expected immediate victory. Had not von der Goltz admitted that the enervating life of the cities had already fostered the decadence of Germany ? Had not General Keim declared that Germany could never have won in 1870 but for the circumstance that she outnumbered the French by one- third, a disparity which the presence of the English and the Belgians had now overcome ? Were not Italy, Holland and Portugal on the verge of casting in their lot with the Entente ? Were not enemy prisoners begging bread for themselves and oats for their horses ? Were not strikes and riots breaking out in Berlin ? Were not the soldiers driven to battle by their Prussian officers at the point of the pistol ? Were not they deserting in droves, and had not a single French soldier on patrol frightened fifty Germans into surrender ? Were not our horses drinking at the brooks in Lorraine ?

After the report that Miilhausen had been captured on the 9th of August no more specific information was published until much later about the theatre of the War. Of what then did the newspapers write ? Dr. Graux, a physician, kept a diary of War rumours, which has been published in five volumes. He answers the question thus : Of German atrocities ? That, alas, was true. But also of the correspondence of soldiers, a religious ceremony at the Kremlin, the findings of a military commission of inquiry at Belfort, our manner of treating prisoners, the Crown Prince’s wound— a false report — war correspondents, the prohibition of Russian exports, Swiss neutrality, German bluff, a patriotic address by M. Clementel, the ambulance of Madame Messimy, of Swiss volunteers, les promenades de Paris, the conquest of Togo, Red Cross supplies, Americans maltreated in Germany !*

But where were the Germans ?

It was not until the 2oth that the Matin began to break the news. Its headline read :

ARE THEY AT BRUSSELS ?

As the truth began, in part, to filter through, wild rumours clouded the sky. Alarmists saw Germans in the Bois de Boulogne. On the 27th there appeared no official communique, and on the 28th the newspapers tried to plug the gap by prophesying that

THE TSAR SOON DICTATES CONDITIONS TO GERMANY.

On the 29th the front seemed to be on the Somme, and on the 30th the facts came out. Hopes were meanwhile nourished on the report that “ Turpinite,” a new and deadly explosive, would annihilate the invader.

In Berlin the first twenty-five days of the War were passed in a joyous delirium. The papers were congested with news of captured soldiers, captured guns, captured flags. More material of war was taken than in the whole campaign of 1870. The fall of Paris was but a matter of days.

^ Thtf record of the first few days is found in Graux, Les Fausses Nouvelles de la Grande Guerre, vol. i.

The exaggerated optimism of those days reverberated in an undertone of accusation all during the War. Had not the public been grossly misled by its leaders ? The proper way to manage the public, of course, is to insist upon the ultimate success of our cause. Both the French and the German commands were saved from complete loss of confidence by the thesis of “ surprise attack ” by the enemy, and this is an excellent theme for the propagandist to foster. If you win, you can afford to let the “ surprise attack ” slip out of mind, but if you are embarrassed, it is a very present help in time of trouble. The civilian population is ready to accept this thesis, because it knows perfectly well that it was plotting no war and, therefore, that the enemy must have been.

Among the Allied powers the official thesis was that Germany, armed to the teeth and crouched to spring, had suddenly, to the consternation of the peaceful and unprepared world, invaded Belgium and swept through Northern France before the pacific and astonished Allies could recover from the shock sufficiently to stem the attack.

So far as the truth is concerned, the fact seems to be that the talk about " surprise attack ” and “ unpreparedness ” was grossly exaggerated for the purpose of covering up the failure of French strategy and of preventing the total eclipse of civilian moral. Such, at least, is the thesis of Jean de Pierrefeu, who, as the maker of official communiques at General Headquarters during the War, was in a favourable position to ascertain the truth. After having connived at deception for the years of the War, he had undertaken to reveal the truth as he saw it in a book called Plutarch Lied {Plutarque a-t-il menti?). He says that the French General Staff had known for years that the German attack would be by way of Belgium, and that they had planned their strategy with this in mind, but that they were beaten in open combat, because their plan miscarried. The High Command kept indispensable reinforcements from the Left, which was crumpling before the Germans, on the supposition that a French attack through Alsace would enable them to imperil the communications of the German armies in the West. The French were hurled back in Alsace, swept aside in the West, their whole plan of campaign smashed into bits, and their very existence saved only by a boneheaded play on the part of the Germans.'

The thesis of surprise attack is rendered plausible to the civilian population by rumours of enemy spies. Spy hunts are due to great excitement in the presence of a huge, new danger, which is magnified by the sense of personal frustration produced by the sense of inability to do anything effective toward dispelling the menace. The peasants of Germany were excited by the wild tales of yellow automobiles which were supposed to be dashing from France across Germany, laden with gold for Russia. They stretched iron chains across the roads and made it unhappy for many a poor tourist. Military despatch riders in Great Britain were frequently stopped and lodged in gaol during the feverish days of the War. The spy mania is a great inconvenience to many people, but it helps to arouse the community to a deeper sense of the necessity for joint action in the crisis. Such books as that of William Le Queux, Britain's Deadly Peril (London, 1915) project the spy fear further into the conflict.

1 For the pre-war literature which forecasted and analysed the strategy of the War, see John Bakeless, The Origin of the Next War, ch. X. For another side of a controversial issue, see Philp Neames, German Strategy and the Great War.

The theory of surprise attack must be associated with the thesis of our brilliant resistance to temporarily overwhelming odds, if undue pessimism is to be averted. Our ultimate success is assured. Our reserves of men and material and foreign friendship are greater than those of the enemy. On these points, foreign testimony is particularly reassuring. The French encouraged themselves by publishing the Voix italiennes snr la guerre de 1914-15 and the Voix de VAmerique latine (Preface by Gomez Carillo) in 1916. The English collected Sixty American Opinions on the War (1915), and welcomed Roosevelt’s Why America should join the Allies (1915). Ramsey Muir wrote an introduction to the English edition of The War and the Settlement ^ by Rignano, the eminent Italian philosopher (1916). The Germans favoured the War correspondents of foreign countries before the Allies woke up to its importance, and they were usually sure of a rich harvest of clippings for reproduction in the home Press. Sven Hedin, a Swede, wrote With the German Armies in the West, which was widely translated. The Germans were assured of the active aid and sympathy of the Germans in the United States, according to the book by Karl Junger, called Deutsch-Amerika mobil . . , ! (Berlin, 1915). A Swiss neutral. Dr. J. Strebel, told the Germans about some encouraging signs of future collapse, which he had observed in Allied countries. His Reisebilder was put out at Lucerne and Berlin in 1915. A Swiss neutral, Paul Balmer, told the French about some encouraging signs of future collapse which he had observed in Germany. His Les AUemands chez eux was put out at Paris in 1915. An American pacifist had seen suffering in Germany at first hand, and wrote Short Rations (by Madeleine Z. Doty) which was published in New York in 1917.

Such cumulated fact and opinion may be supplemented by prophecy. The famous Almanack de Madame de Thhhes nourished the moral of certain classes of the French public in the critical days of 1914. The Figaro published a prophecy on the 19th of August, 1914, which was supposed to date from the year 1600. A certain Friar John foresaw that an Anti-Christ by the name of William the Second would succumb in the same territory where he forged his weapons. Essen and Westphalia were undoubtedly meant.

Occasionally, a prophecy will inadvertently work both ways. The Germans launched a prediction that victory would rest with three emperors and three kings, which clearly referred to Germany, Austria, Turkey, Bavaria, Saxony and Bulgaria. The Entente was able to match this array with Russia, India, Japan, Belgium, Itcdy and Serbia.*

Prophecies for the more sophisticated members of the community take on subtler forms. Thus Professor Lanessan took a hand in explaining Pourquoi les Germains seront vaincus, (Paris, 1915). In 1916 Lloyd George was said to have remarked to Emile Vandervelde of Belgium that — England declared war in 1914, began it in 1915, developed it in 1916 and will finish it in 1917.

^ I Graux, as cited, I ; 244.

It seems that in the main, however, the canny Welshman confined himself to the excellent formula:

We will finish the War when we have attained our objective.

There is a great advantage in having certain unofficial interpreters of the War to the public who can be relied upon to present matters in their most flattering light. Frank Symonds in the United States, Colonel Repington in England and Commander Rousset in France secured the confidence of the public and were of the greatest assistance to the authorities, for they were cogs in the machinery by which those interpretations least damaging to public moral were circulated. They were able to explain why retreats were strategic retirements,'' and how evacuations could be rectifications of the line."

One of the questions which rises in the conduct of the War is how to handle the news of losses. The possible policies vary all the way from complete suppression to immediate disclosure. When Winston Churchill was at the Admiralty he was characterized by the Chief Naval Censor as a bit of a gambler, i.e,, he would hold on to a bit of bad news for a time on the chance of getting a bit of good news to publish as an offset, and I must say that it not infrequently came off ! On the other hand, there were days when it did not, and then there was a sort of Black Monday '' atmosphere about — a bad “ settling day sort of look on all our faces.

After he left I always pleaded for the immediate publication of disasters or, at any rate, that they should be made known as soon as the number of casualties had been reported and the relatives informed ; and this soon became more or less the practice.*

The British followed the policy of complete silence when they lost the battleship Audacious on the 27th of October, 1914, by a mine off the Irish coast. It was never officially acknowledged while the War lasted, and was solemnly reported after the armistice. The Germans were able to make a great deal of capital out of the reticence of the British in the early days, and it was not until the Jutland affair that the British were able, by a daring stroke, to recapture confidence at home and abroad. The Germans announced by wireless on the 31st of May that they had won a great naval victory. Damaged ships and messages to relatives began to come along the east coast of England, and silence was no longer feasible. The official communique for the 2nd of June made a clean breast of the British losses as so far reported. The shock was stupendous. When the enemy losses began to come in later in the day, the general consternation was somewhat assuaged. The Germans were slowly constrained to admit the truth.

It is probably sound, on the whole, to reveal losses when they come, and to trust to the ingenious multiplication of favourable news to neutralize the effect. Special problems arise in connection with losses which are known only in a general way to the enemy. Brownrigg opposed the publication of British losses of merchant ships from enemy submarines and mines on the ground that the enemy would, in this way, be supplied with precise information that he would not otherwise get. The public demand for enlightenment on the progress of the submarine war was so insistent that a compromise was ultimately arrived at. At first, the number of ships lost per week was announced, with no further particulars, and later, the tonnage lost per week was substituted for the number of ships. This suggests a sound principle in dealing with such matters. When the losses are of such a character that the enemy cannot be entirely certain of them, the disclosure ought to take a summary and not a particularized form. A definite total is necessary in order to allay the wild exaggerations of alarmist whispers.

* Rear-Admiral Sir Douglas Brownrigg, Indiscretions of the Naval Censor, P- 13-

® Brownrigg tells the story from the British point of view in Chapter 4 of ttie book cited.

Another problem which arises in the conduct of war is how to treat new devices of warfare which it is proposed to introduce. Every new innovation by a belligerent is likely to be welcomed at home as a promise of victory, and to be condemned abroad as a crime against humanity. But there are exceptions to this rule, and for the sake of squeamish souls at home, who may deplore the introduction of particularly devastating measures, a careful campaign of preparation should be launched. If it is reported that the enemy has just adopted a new device, cries will arise instantly for its adoption as a measure of justifiable reprisal. Aerial bombardment and the use of gas were supposed by both the Allied and the German publics to be the product of the nefarious genius of the other side. The submarine was defended in Germany as a reply to the brutal British blockade which had so far disregarded the bounds of international law as to become a weapon of attack against the old and the very young, the women and the children, rather than against the fighting men. The Government defended the order to sink without warning, by telling how the Allies took advantage of the kind heart of a certain submarine commander. An English sailor, dressed in women’s clothes, and with a bundle which appeared to be a baby, stood on the deck of a boat which a submarine had just stopped. The submarine came up to take off the unfortunate woman before sinking the ship, when the disguised sailor suddenly dropped a bomb on the submarine, destroying it instantly.

For those very numerous members of the nation who visualize war as a battle of goliaths, the propaganda of confidence in leaders is indispensable. It is a reassuring experience to read a well-written biography of a public character. Otto Krack wrote a popular Life of Ludeniorff, and Harold Begbie glorified Kitchener in his book. Kitchener, Organiser of Victory. General Paul von Hindenburg was written up by Bernard von Hindenburg.

Reports of heroic achievement in routine or exceptional jobs strengthen the assurance of ultimate victory. To the tales from the trenches must be added the less dramatic tale of how the country is solidly behind the front in food saving, munition making, and relief work. Rudolf Hans Bartsch took a trip around Germany and described Das deutsche Volk in schwerer Zeit, a volume which was reassming to the men at the front and encouraging to the civilians.

The will to win is intimately related to a chance to win. The thesis of ultimate victory is indispensable to the conduct of war, if discouragement is not to^sap determination and to precipitate internal friction and strife.