Eastern Front

“ If in these coming days and weeks every soldier on the Eastern Front fulfills his duty, Asia's last onslaught will collapse just as in the end our enemies' penetration in the west will despite everything, come to nought. Berlin remains German, Vienna will again be German and Europe will never be Russian. ”

“ Bremen was entered by force, after fighting; and the other towns opened negotiations. On the eastern frontier a front was formed against the Poles, who had occupied nearly all Posen province, and fighting continued until the Allies stopped it. Great efforts were made to get together some sort of effective force as a basis for government; and the resultant Frei-Corps, though at this early date still few and inferior, were already enough to give check to the "Bolshevist" menace within and without the frontier. ”

“ The most northern part of the eastern front is now the only one left for our consideration. We have already learned that when the German General Staff planned its second drive against Warsaw, it had been decided to restrict the German forces collected in East Prussia south of the Niemen and east and south of the Mazurian Lakes to defensive measures. ”

“ In spite of all the winter equipment prepared by the leadership of the Wehrmacht and its individual branches, every soldier deserves so much more! The homeland can help here! This will show the soldier at the eastern front that the Volksgemeinschaft for which he is fighting is not an empty phrase in National Socialist Germany. ”

“ Even the best weapon is worthless in the hands of a coward.
While you, my soldiers of the eastern front, paid a heavy toll in blood, and with you all the men and women deployed by the organizations helping you, who were so often forced to take up a rifle or machine gun themselves, the German soldier along all fronts has done his duty to the utmost.
From northern Norway to the Spanish border, the German divisions await our enemies’ attack. We can only guess whether they will come and when they will come. However, we know that they will be beaten no matter when or how they will come. ”

“ Germany with her fleet sunk, her merchant shipping confiscated, her colonies lost, her army disbanded, her war material surrendered, her railway system in ruins, her food shortage considerable, is hardly in a position at the moment to make an unprovoked attack on any one, and the said person hints darkly in reply at hidden divisions on the Eastern Frontier; at an alliance between the Bolshevists and the German Government; at a military menace little less serious than what existed in 1914. ”

“ The military results of the fighting of this year in the Eastern area is the fact that the fighting power of the Bolshevist army has not been broken yet. One must count on a prolonged duration of the war.
2. The size of the occupied territory results in a noticeable lack of security troops as well as fighting troops. The necessity of the military commitment of the Slav becomes apparent more and more, whether it be for the combatting of partisans and in the police service, or whether it is for use at the front even as will be necessitated by future developments. ”

“ Just as we could not foresee the utter collapse and failure of our great Eastern ally, so we could not discern the hidden forging of that sword of justice and retribution whose destined wielders were even then stirring from their fifty years of slumber and dreams of everlasting peace, to rise like some giant from the shores of the Western Atlantic and, with overwhelming force, to stride eastward and help lay low the German dragon once and for all time in the dust. ”

“ Let us be of as divergent opinions as we choose, but when in our eastern provinces the question arises: "German or Polish," then let the party feuds be laid aside until, as the Berliners say, "After nine o'clock." Now is the time to fight and to stand together. This is just as it is in military matters—and I am glad to see among you many who have experience in such things. Before joining an attack in war we do not ask: Shall we follow our progressive or our reactionary neighbor? ”

“ The war, however, compelled official Europe to take heed of the true condition, namely, that the zone from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic, the Aegean and Black Seas, which includes Prussia, Austria-Hungary, the Balkans and Western Russia, is a territory of unsettled national problems and struggles. The war is a bloody object-lesson for the world, teaching that the principal problem of the war and of the future peace is the political reconstruction of Eastern Europe on a national basis. ”

“ Far as the Western battlefield lies from the scene of our struggle, the report of a German defeat in France would reverberate Eastwards and would lend us a brave moral impetus. But the point I would raise is this:—did K., as representing a huge Eastern Empire, press firmly upon Millerand and Joffre the alternative,—if the push in the East is victorious the West will score?
What express strategical gain do they expect from pushing back the Germans? A blow which merely destroys a proportion of men and material without paralysing the resources of the enemy is a blow in the air. ”

“ While we have been thus engaged, the Russian Armies (p. 268) in the East, numbering some three to four millions of men, have had time to mobilise and concentrate their immense forces scattered over all parts of their vast Empire. Our Eastern Allies have already inflicted a series of crushing defeats on the Austro-German forces, and are now rapidly advancing on East Prussia and Silesia in great strength. ”

“ The war aim of the Allies in Eastern Europe is to create in the place of the present Austro-Hungarian Empire a larger synthesis of associated States, something in the nature of an 'East Central European League,' within the League of Nations, a confederation that might possibly reach from Poland to the Black and Adriatic Seas, and have also access to, if not a port upon, the Baltic at Danzig. ”

“ If the interest and sympathy of the great Western Powers lead us to hope that the Eastern [51] Question will be solved in our favour, we must confess that we are not yet ready to obtain advantage from the situation.... We must, therefore, expect everything from the support of our traditional protectors, and especially from the friendship of your Majesty. It appears to me, Sire, most desirable that France, England, and Prussia should from now come to an understanding on the matter of Eastern affairs. ”

“ Generally speaking, this form of war involved the subordination of Policy to Grand Tactics. Policy had148 for its object the protection of vital interests, more especially in the East, and aimed at securing the co-operation of neutral States with a view to strengthening the Alliance. Grand Tactics demanded the sacrifice of every consideration to ensuring victory on the Western Front. The failure of the expedition to the Dardanelles put statesmen, for a time at least, at the mercy of professional soldiers, of whom the vast majority, both French and British, were so-called “Westerners.” ”

“ These potential disturbances are so many dangers to France. For if war should break out in eastern Europe, is it to be supposed that the United States, the British colonies, or even Britain herself will send troops to take part in it? Hardly. Suppose, for instance, that the Austrians, who ardently desire to be merged in Germany, proclaim their union with her, as I am convinced they will one day, does any statesman believe that democratic America will despatch troops to coerce them back? ”

“ The war and the election together have revealed a growing separation between the ideas of the East and those of the West. This separation is largely the fault of the East, which prefers to do its thinking in terms of its own industrial welfare. ”

“ By attempting to show citizens that they have an opportunity for "true" participation in the governmental process, as opposed to the "sham" participation in the West, the regime is waging a battle for the loyalty of East Germans. ”

“ Already there are many of us who have a kindlier feeling and certainly more respect for a Boche who fights gamely, than for a Britisher or American who bickers and sulks in comfort. Only one doubt as to ultimate victory ever assails the Western Front: that it may be attacked in the rear by the premature peace negotiations of the civil populations it defends. ”

“ Summer of 1918—Never was so much silently suffered as in the moment when we depart once again for the front-line. Wild, tormenting rumours of an armistice and peace are in the air, they lay hold on our hearts and make the return to the front harder than ever. ”

“ It is true that the bulk of the German forces are massed against the British lines, and that in some parts of the centre and the east, owing to the nature of the ground, they are but thinly strung along the French front, which accounts partly for the disproportion in the number of kilometres covered by each Ally. But, also, we had to make our Army; the French, God be thanked, had theirs ready, and gloriously have they stood the brunt, as the defenders of civilisation, till we could take our full share. ”

“ The German blunder, under compelling destiny, having given us Victory, it is essential that we should focus our thought on the stable resettlement of the affairs of East Europe and the Heartland. If we accept anything less than a complete solution of the Eastern Question in its largest sense we shall merely have gained a respite, and our descendants will find themselves under the necessity of marshalling their power afresh for the siege of the Heartland. ”

“ At seven o’clock the following day war was declared and Russia took up her task of defending Slavdom from the Teuton menace, and incidentally saved western Europe from its direst peril since the days when Napoleon thought to crush its liberties.
15 The eastern campaign has been more or less overshadowed by the western, especially during the early days of the war. It was natural that it should be so. The western campaign was the more sensational. The Kaiser hurled his finest forces westwards; every day brought its vital news; doubts, joys, fears crowded one on the other ”

“ All along the Western Front we have begun to move forward, without haste or flurry, but in such wise that during the past twelve months no position, once fairly captured and consolidated, has ever been regained by the enemy. To-day you can stand upon certain recently won eminences—Wytchaete Ridge, Messines Ridge, Vimy Ridge, and Monchy—looking down into the enemy's lines, and looking forward to the territory which yet remains to be restored to France. ”

“ The decision to give priority to the Western Front, if one can take Hitler at his own word and waive a possible emotional reaction to the sudden Allied plunge through the German line at the base of the Cotentin peninsula, is something new and worthy of notice. The strategic and operational problem posed by a war in which Germany had to fight an enemy in the east while at the same time opposing an enemy in the west was at least as old as the unification of Germany. ”

“ Germany alone (here again I quote your English experts) , without reckoning Austria, has actually put into the field during the past five months 5,000,000 men. Of these it is stated by your newspapers that she has lost in round figures 1,500,000, who have either been killed, or taken prisoners, or are too severely wounded to return as yet to the fighting line. But in spite of this depletion, your military statisticians tell us that Germany and her ally, at New Year's Day, still outnumbered the Allies on both the Eastern and the Western frontier. ”

“ Therefore a nucleus must be maintained which shall be equal to European requirements. This cost can be met out of Russian resources that are unknown to other countries. We have war frontiers against China, against the countries on the Indian border, against Persia and against Turkey. We have received news that a coalition is being formed between Austria, England, and perhaps France. That points to a new conflict in the East. ”

“ Should the Russian Republic be betrayed into making a separate peace—and, at the moment of writing, the Russian prospect is anything but cheering—the Central Powers would have released for use upon the Western Front not less than two million veterans. ”

“ By liberating and organising the smaller nations of Central Europe against German aggression Germany will be weakened in the West also, and that is the only way.
Germany’s historical Drang nach Osten must be checked and stopped—that is the task of Russia and her Western Allies. Germany when driven out of the East, will not be strong in the West. It was Bismarck who proclaimed that the Polish East has a greater significance for Germany than Alsace-Lorraine. France, the principal west Continental country, claims a comparatively small rectification of her frontier. ”

“ As we walked through the station gates I understood why three million Socialists who had fought their Emperor in and out of the Reichstag, suddenly rallied to his side, agreeing "I know no parties, only Germans." I felt as I thought of the young faces of the soldiers, cheerfully starting down into the unknown hell of war, that undoubtedly among their number were Socialists. In this national crisis partizan allegiance counted for nothing, they had ceased dealing with the Fatherland in terms of the mind and gave to it only the heart. ”

“ In a general sort of way, there is no formula that covers the whole ground of all the phenomena of any great action. There is always an intersection of motives. As between Russia and Austria-Hungary, the present [Pg 279] war is a struggle of the East in its Russian form against the West, but two other forces are at work which, although they do not concern us in the least, combine with this one. These are the Anglo-German trade rivalry and the Franco-German race antipathy. ”

“ This is particularly necessary in the treatment of the workers from the East. In this instance the hitherto prevailing treatment of the Eastern workers has led not only to a diminished production, but has most disadvantageously influenced the political orientation of the people in the conquered Eastern territories and has resulted in the well-known difficulties for our troops. ”