re only following in the footsteps of Napoleon when they
taught that the offensive should be the first thought of every
soldier.

The offensive naturally seeks to flank its adversary. Lieutenant
General Winfield Scott once stated that if two lines of men, without
any officers, were placed in a field, one line would inevitably try
to get around the end of the other. The immensity of the forces, the
power and precision of modern armies in defense has lengthened the
battle fronts from a mile or a mile and a half in Napoleon's time to
hundreds of miles.

It is an old rule, that you cannot break through a battle front,
which means that you are thrusting in a wedge which will draw fire
on both sides. Pickett tried to break a battle front at Gettysburg.
A frontal attack which was no less pitiful in its results was that
of the Federals at Fredericksburg. Grant's hammering tactics against
Lee succeeded only by the flanking operations of superior numbers.

Strategically, the situation of the Central Powers was extremely
strong. Aside from the fact that their preparedness in numbers of
trained men, in arms and material, is too well known for mention
here, their excellent network of railways enabled them to make
rapid concentration. They had what is known as the interior line,
which gave Meade his advantage at Gettysburg. Whether the interior
line is three miles or a thousand miles long does not affect the
principle involved. Interior lines mean quick transportation of
reserves from point to point in concentration. It does not matter
whether their numbers are hundreds or hundreds of thousands; the
advantage is intrinsically the same. Joffre had probably fifteen
hundred thousand on the interior line of the Marne. Meade had
seventy thousand at Gettysburg.

In keeping with all great plans that of the Central Powers was
extremely simple. Austria was to look after Russia. She could
mobilize more rapidly than Russia, and her army was counted upon to
take the offensive into Russia and deliver a hard blow before the
Russian was ready to receive her. Indeed, the Austrian was to
attempt in the east what the German attempted in the west. The
German army was confident that in any event the slowness of Russian
mobilization would give it time for its daring venture in the west.
As the French, too, had excellent railroad systems, they also would
mobilize rapidly. The full strength of the German army, therefore,
was thrown against the French