were drawn back in
obedience to a carefully conceived plan, were denied the opportunity
to fight, as they desired, until the exhaustion of German strength,
ammunition, and transport, and the increase in French numbers gave
the opportunity for a victory. The whole opening campaign was fought
on the French side with a very keen recollection of the mistakes of
1870, and the result justified the strategy.

But with the end of the Battle of the Marne both the Allied and the
German plans collapsed. Neither side had foreseen clearly the
possibility of a battle in which the French might win a decisive
victory, yet lack the numbers to enforce the decision absolutely.
But the Germans were able to meet the situation promptly and, by
preparing a position on the Aisne, to retain a considerable portion
of the ground they had occupied in their first rush. Thus in failing
to repeat their triumphs of the Franco-Prussian War and of the Seven
Weeks' War, they had escaped the disaster of Napoleon at Waterloo,
when he, too, had staked all on a single throw.

In the weeks and months that followed the German defeat at the
Marne, allied understanding of the actual nature of the war
developed only slowly. Until the coming of spring and the British
failure to get men or munitions, the French and the British public,
and probably their soldiers, believed that the Germans were shortly
to be turned out of France. But with the failure there was at last
established the real situation, the war had taken on the character
of our own Civil War, it had become a struggle in which the decision
would follow the exhaustion of one of the contending forces and the
incidental victories of either side could not contribute materially
to the ending of the war.

In the Civil War the North was exceedingly slow in learning this
lesson and it was not until General Grant at last assumed the
command of all the Northern armies that an intelligent policy was
adopted. This policy has been summarized as the policy of attrition
and it is now generally recognized as the policy on which the
enemies of the Central Powers rely for ultimate success. Grant's own
statement of this policy was as follows: "To hammer continuously
against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by
mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be left to him
nothing but submission." By this policy Grant won his war.

Now the allied policy, which it is necessary to recognize, to
und