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's! msassssa THE SUN, SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 1920. - Painleve's Version of French Drive That Failed and Caused a Scandal Minister of War Denies Government Halted 1917 Offen- sive .When Decisive Victory Was in Gen. Nivelle's Grasp, but That German Ma- chine Guns Were too Strong Amer- ican Story Attacked By. PAUL PAINLEVE. ON Monday, April 1G, 1017, the great offensive to break through tho German lines, which had been pre- pared for four months, was launched. On the Rheiins, Soissons, Coucy front, it was to break through in a stroke tho three and four' successive positions of the enemy, cacli formed of three lines of trenches; submerge Brimont in tho morning, in eight hours advance from 8 to 10 kilo- meters, reach Laon at dawn next day; then in a few days throw tho enemy across tho Meuse, free tho territory, wipe out or capture'tho great part of the Ger- man armies shut up between the point north of the Ardennes and tho southern point of Holland. Now the week had not ended when the offensive died without even having any- where broken the second (and in many a place the first) enemy position. All idea of breaking through was definitely aban- doned. And though thereafter the at- tacks were resumed at the beginning of May, they were but partial operations of limited objectives, without future aims. Before April 10 the greatest hopes filled the hearts at the front as well aa those in the rear; on April 23 deception and anger were manifest among the combat- ant officers, discouragement reigned among the soldiers and from the front readied to tho country. A Critical Period. It is therefore with reason that public opinion attaches to the period of April ' 10 to 22 a considerable importance in the history of the war. If truly the at- tempt to break through had'been stopped while in complete success, those who should have given such an order would have incurred a serious responsibility. How,then, and through whom was the offensive of April 16 stopped? That is a question upon which no obscurity must exist. To tell the truth this question arose neither in April nor in May, 1917. At this period the memories of the battle were still too fresh. There was hardly a family which' had not received from some fighter; officer or private, touching de- tails of what the day of April 16 had been. The criticism which then was made of the Government was not the imaginary reproach for having stopped the offensive, but much rather for having authorized it. Everybody knew that the marvellous spirit of our troops had been broken on the whole front of attack by the German machino guns. Everybody knew that on the evening of April 16 even the most optimistic executives considered the affair ns having failed. It was much later, toward tho end o the year, when tho situation became gloomy that perfidious stories began to be circulated in the country, the more boldly as became ag- gravated. These stories are manifold, like the monsters with several heads. They have, however, one point in common : tho breaking through had failed because on April 16 twelve parliamentarians, reach- ing the front, frightened by tho battle, had telephoned the Minister of War insisting that tho slaughter be stopped; and the latter, weakening, gave the order at tho very moment when our armies were breaking through the enemy front. It was on December 10, 1916, that Gen. Nivelle took effective command of the armies of the North and Northeast. In reiterated instructions he immediately defined the tactique of the future offen- sive: a brutal, uninterrupted attack which, in twenty-fou- r hours, forty-eig- hours at the most, was to break through the successive positions of the enemy and capture his heavy artillery. If at the end of forty-eig- ht hours this result was not obtained, it would have to be given up; for they would thereafter bo attacking the enemy from fort to fort without any other result than useless losses. He read- ily repeated that under no pretext would he recommence the Battle of the Somme. The battle between Rheims and Soissons was conducted by the G. A. R. not for the profane army reserve group, but for the initiated (how numerous) army rupture group, commanded by Gen. Micheler, it was composed of three armies the. Sixth (army Mangin), the Fifth (array Mazcl), the Tenth (army Duchene). The Sixth was to attack iu the direction of the north, tho ifth army in the direction of tho north and northeast. From the first evening the Tenth army grouped between the Fifth and Sixth and would be linked to them. In tho third day they were to line the Serre (at thirty kilometers to the north of our line of departure) and tho Suippc, where they would again como in touch with tho Fourth army (Gen. Anthoine), which, on tho morning of the second day, was to seize the plateau of Moronvilliers. In touch with the armies of tho north which, previously, were to attack Saint Quentin, the great strategic march of the four armies would then be- gin without respite toward Guise, Yer-vin-s, Hirson, Vouziers. An order had been given to exalt to the highest degree, the enthusiasm of tho troops: the infantry was going to move forward \cane in hand\ (sic) ; there was to be no serious battle bafore reaching tho Serre, perhaps even before tho Oise. The Day of April 16. Aroused by these grandiose hopes, on tho 10th of April, at 6 o'clock in the morn- ing, between Reims and Soupir, the French army rushed to the attack of the enemy positions in one of the most mag- nificent spirits of which it had given an example to the world. An hour after, on the plateaux of Craonno and Vauclerc, our march toward Laon and Soissons was irremediably broken at 500 meters from tho trench of depar- ture by tho German machino guns. A secondary attack, launched at 9 o'clock in the morning on the Vauxillon-Laffau- x sector, had the same fortune. Our at- tacks toward Brimont were as murderous as sterile; and if. toward the northeast we made progress at first in the Plain of Juvincourt, it seems that we had run into a trap: for ten days the Germans had in hand the plan of attack of a great part of the Fifth Army; hidden batteries were ly- ing in wait, as well as columns of counter attack, powerfully grouped. In a few hours tho Plain of Juvincourt became the cemetery of our tanks and some magnifi- cent regiments of the Fifth Army. If we wish to know what this day of the lfith of April was it is not necessary to read tho indignant letters of the combatant officers. It is sufficient to consult a report which will not be accused of taking sides against Gen. Nivelle, for it is tho tfork of one of his determined defenders, Senator Henry Bcrenger. The following is ait extract (p. 26-2- 7) : \For tho days of April 16 and 17 your reporter has compiled all the orders of command and tho two journals of mar.ch and operations of tho Fifth and the Sixth armies. There results from this reading, with a monotony truly tragic, tho fact that the sudden stop of our regiments of attack was due everywhere to tho multiple employment of tho enemy machine guns. \Thus the enemy machine guns had no- where been destroyed by our artillery preparation !\ And he concludes: \The lesson must be considered by the Entente army leaders, for it suffices at the present hour that somo few thousands of machino gun3 vcll utilized are able to stop in its impulse an offensive of several millions of infantry even remarkably in artillery and aviation. \Thus the primordial operation of breaking through had not been accom- plished. The whole subsequent plan of exploitation crumbled.\ On the 16th, in the evening, all the at- tacks were stopped. That was the end of the brutal, uninterrupted, frantic at- tack to break through. However, the operations were resumed the next day: tho Fourth Army, conformably to the programme, at G o'clock in the morning reached tho plateau of Moronvilliers. Re- sults very honorablo but very inferior to tho objectives indicated and which did r.oc give us even the first uertmin posi- tion. At 10:30 o'clock the order was given by tho General in chief to tho Sixth Army to no longer follow up tho drive but to limit itself to consolidating its po- sitions by occup-in- the heights south-o- f the Ailetto;\bn tho contrary, the Fifth Army was to continue its drivo to the end, but only toward tho northeast, in correlation with tho Fourth Army. What happened then? In face of the Sixth Army the enemy on tho 17th abandoned tho advance posi- tion of the fort of Conde (which we threatened on the flanks without attack- ing it) and from thorc fell back on its second position minutely prepared as a prolongation .of the Hindenburg line. Gen. Mangin put himself in pursuit, overwhelmed its rearguards, brilliantly attacked around. s, tho pivot of its retreat. It has been said that the Sixth Army had reached its ob- jectives; that is a complete error. On the plateau of Vauclere the enemy had not fallen back an inch since the 10th, and to the west of the plateau we had nowhere cut into hi3 second position. At the end of the week, however interesting the progress of the Sixth Army, we did not even completely occupy the Chemin des Barnes nor much less the heights south of tho Ailette. And according to the plan of April 16 we should have been at Laon on the 17th at dawn. As to tho Fifth and Fourth armies, they encountered a stubborn resistance. Our attacks on the line Brimoiit-ino- nt Spin-mo- Snpigncul were repeated, al- ways sterilo and bloody. On the 10th our offensive had lost nil vigor. On tho 21st it died completely, as a wuvo expire on the shore, without any order to cease having been given. It wa3 then, on April 21, that Gen. Micheler, commanding the G. A. R,, wrote to tho General in chief a letter whjch officially marks tho end of the great enterprise. All idea of breaking through, much less of intensive exploitation, was henceforth nbandoned. Tho new operations were to be only partial operations of limited ob- jectives; all our offensives were suspended from April 21 to the end of the month. Such were the decisions taken on April 22 by the general in chief, without at any moment under any form, during the week of the 16th to tho 22d of April, the in- tervention of tho Government or the Min- ister of War in the evolution of tho mili- tary operations. On the English side the great offensivo of Douglas Haig on April 8, energetically, and methodically conducted, had encoun- tered before Vimy a not less furious re- sistance of the enemy. AH hope of break- ing, through there also was abandoned; tho operntidns resumed on tho Ancro on April 20 aimed merely at usury. On May 4 a protocol which Marshal Haig and Gen. Robertson for England, Gen. Nivelle and Gen. Pctain for Frnnce, signed in complete independence verified the definitive failure of the plan of break- ing through. The unanimous opinion of the leaders is summed up in this double conclusion : 1. It is indispensable to pursuo the of- fensivo operations on tho western front. 2. The situation has changed sinco the FIELD MARSHAL period when tho plan of the offensive com- menced in April was approved by the two Governments, and this plan has hecomo imperative. The rupture of the enemy front is no longer to be considered and it is no longer a question of aiming at dis- tant objectives. This simplo exposition, m which not a fact, not a dato can be contested, suffices to do justice to all the stories at once puerile and calumniating, according to which tho offensive of April 16 had been stopped in complete victory at the very moment when the enemy was about to re- treat across the Meuse. That they may have prepared n retreat (hut not as far as tho Meuso) in case their front should bo broken, who then, knowing tho Germans, would doubt- it 7 But their front was not forced nor on tho point of being so. On the essential points of the field of battle they still held tho third and often the sec- ond line of their first position, and their second, third and fourth positions, each formed of several lines, were intact. That is what tho protocol of May 4 verifies. On this point also tho most extravagant stories have been given wings. They sopko of losses doubled, tripled by tho Government. Then, in wouldbc docu- mented articles, it was claimed that the President of the council and tho Minister of War, that tho President of the re- public himself had knowingly furnished tho Allies and the Parliament figures con \ nwJum SIR DOUGLAS HAIG. siderably exaggerated. Tho ollieial statist- ics,, verified incontestable, give for the five first days of the offensivo (April 16-2- about 26,000 killed on the battlefield. And for the ten first days 28,000 to 20,000. To this number must be added 5,000 wounded who died from their wounds in tho sanitary formations of tho front and 4,000 prisoners. Thus, 34,000 dead for the ten first days of the battle. That is the sad and true balance sheet. Why henceforth the audacious story, let us use the word, the audacious lie of the 15,000 killed! The Lies and the Truth. I have said that rolative to the offensive of April, 1917, were mani- fold nnd contradictory. All these stories, which exclude and destroy one another, havo, however, as we have said, a com- mon foundation : it was through weakness in presence of tho deputies that tho Gov- ernment, in April, 1917, had stopped the victory nnd disgraced tho Generals who had won it. Tho most complete is found in an article a veritable tissue of im- postures manufactured in Paris and published in an illustrated review of tho United States under the signature of a war correspondent. The article, which appeared on Janu- ary 6 i Comer's, the National Weekly, is feigned Wytho Williams, war corre- spondent. M. Wytho Williams wu3 at tlrat : , No military movement of the French armies during the great war has been the subject of such bitter controversy as what is known as the \Offen- sive of April 16, rgi7,\ undertaken by Gen. Nivelle, and as a asult of which he was relieved cf his high command by the French Minister of War, Paul Fainleve. In that offensive, which lasted ten days, 34,000 French soldiers were killed and France was filled with rumors. Defeatism was in the aii and there was discontent among the French troops. It was whispered thai the end of the war had been in Nivelle's grasp, but that the Paris Govern- ment interfered and called off the offensive, allowing the Germans to escape. Correspondents in France, were at a loss to explain the hopes that had been raised and the strange lack of success; the censor also was busy. On January 5, 1918, an article appeared in ''Collier's Weekly\ purporting to give \the facts that have never been published facts that hre now vital to every American.\ That article was written by Wythe Williams, the for- mer war correspendet.t. It was translated into French and circulated jW France. It told that the German defence had been crushed by Nivelle's at- tack and that two allied armies were waiting to plunge t'irough to the great victory, but that French politicals had interfered \to stop the slaughter\ and so the Germans escaped. The French Government tobk steps to deny the implication of the arti- cle in \Collier's\ and now that peace has come and brought a b'tter perspec- tive of events THE SUN is glad to publish the reply by M. Paul Painlcve, Minister of War during those tragic days, dedicated by him' to Marshals Foch and Petain. The French War Minister relates the appointment of Gen. Nivelle in December, 1916 discloses the General's plan of campaign, \a brutal con- tinuous attack, which in twenty-fou- r hours, forty-eig- at the most. was to break through the successive positions of the enemy and capture his heavy artillery.\ The attack was set for April 16, 1517. M. Painlcve is blunt in his assertion that the offensive was not called off that the Germans had learned all about Nivelle's plan and that the French troops found- they could make no headway against German machine guns. He characterizes the \Collier's\ article as a tissue of impostures an example of insidious propaganda, and ends by quoting Marshal 'Foch to the effect that the offensive of April, 1917, convinced that great leader there and then that the Allies could never undertake a victory offensive until they hid at least 1,000,000 American troops in the field. Wythe Williams, who is in America for the Committee to Aid Devastated France, will have an opportunity of restating the case from the point of view .of the information he gathered in France, and of replying in detail to the War Minister's statement. His story will appear in THE SUN next Sunday. time correspondent in Paris of the New York 7'i'mw. Reintroduced to France, after having thus lost is origin, this article was translated, circulated during the spring of 191S everywhere to the ex- tent of several hundreds of thousands of copies; then, when Paris was threatened, reproduced in many journals. Let us analyze tho article rapidly. M. Wythe AVilliams recalls in the first place that he wrote, bcvernl months e, that the offensive of 1917 was really great French victor-- , \although its principal result had been the revocation of Gen. Robert Georges Nivelle.\ He then states that he is going to prove that the possibilities of this .battle in 1917 were such that the war could have been terminated by the military victory of tho Allies before Christmas! It is through that affirmation that a historic inquiry is opened of which the following are the principal points: . 1. \On January 15, 1917, a Council of tho Allies was held in London, at which Lloyd George, Konar Law, Gens. Haig nnd Nivelle, Premier Ribot nnd the French Minister of AVar Painlcve. \After a long discussion tho Nivcllo plan was adopted, but without its details having been completely divulged. The session was dramatic. Ribot iusisted on the rights of the Government to know in detail the plans elaborated by the High Command. Nivelle protested against this claim by demonstrating that it was im- portant to the success of the operations that the detail of the plan be known only by the smallest number of persons pos- sible. Ribot, insisting, the French Gen- eral's point of view was1 very energet- ically supported by Bonar Law. Tho latter, addressing Haig, asked him if the two Generals were agreed on the plan, and upon the reply of the English Gen- eral: 'We are perfectly agreed,' Ronnr Law suddenly put an end to all discis- sion by this declaration: 'Very well, from the moment that our Generals are agreed s r i : and desire to keep their plans secret we have but to bow, and we have neither tho right to know them nor to ask them for them.\ This passage contains gross errors: it mixes, as to the date, a meeting held at Rome in January, 1917, and the meeting held at London on .March 13. At this latter meeting indeed M. Ribot was pres- ent, replacing M. BriumI, then president of the council; but the Minister of War at that tinie was Geo. Lyautcy. The error (involuntary or inspired) is ex- plained by the very tendency of the ar- ticle. It is concerned with confirming the story circulated in England, accord- ing to which JIM. Ribot and Painlcve had not ceased mixing in the military op- erations. If it is Gen. Lyautcy who is at stake and not I, the story no longer stands up. But there is one thing to remember: that is, that the recital of M. Wytho AVil- liams reproduces tcxtunlly a recital of Gen. Nivelle, as it appears in a memoir of the hitter, as we find it again in tho book of M. do Civrieux. How did M. Wythe AVilliams come into possession of this text 7 How, in possession of it, coul.d ho accompany it with the gross errors which I have just indicated, when thO dates of the text are exact ' These are questions which it would bo very inter- esting to have him answer. I strongly doubt; moreover, whether tho memoirs of M. Ribot on this inter- allied session of the 13t!i of March agree with 1 the recital of Gen. Nivelle. M. Ribot had no need of n new exposition of Gen. Nivelle's plan; for he had heard its integral reading in the War Commit- tee of January 14, 1917. Gen. Nivelle, moreover, had shown himself singularly less reserved fifteen days earlier with MM. A'iolette and Fnr 2. The ruthor explain.-:- - I have repro- duced above the passage that the plan of Gen. Neville was bringing us with a single (Continued on Following Page)
