Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

106 HISTORY OF THE WAR.

hausted by a supreme effort, hurl them back, rob them of the fruits of their advance, and may even inflict a tactical defeat. The classic instance is Lee’s counter-stroke at Spottsylvania, when the Federals drove in the Confederate salient and captured a division, only to be brought up short against Lee’s second line, and to be forced back by Lee’s reserves to the position from which they had started.

In modern war the counter-attack is more difficult than before.* The power of the local defensive is stronger, and there are few instances in recent wars of the successful counter-stroke after the old pattern. It demands a body of fresh troops who can be flung in precisely at the point where the assailing force has drawn most heavily upon its strength. But it is clear that the Germans in the West had reckoned upon its possibility. They professed themselves ready to surrender their first line in a great bombardment, and to invite the enemy to an advance where every yard would thin out his effectiveness till a stage was reached when he would be at their mercy. The plan was sound in theory, but it demanded a mobile surplus of men which Germany did not possess. Had a serious counterattack been launched at any time between noon on Saturday, 25th September, and the following evening, there was every chance of all the ground gained at Loos being recaptured and the British being driven back with enormous losses to their old line. But the Germans had no such body of intact reserves. What they had were required for the ordinary work of resistance to prevent the whole

* On this point see Colonel Colin, Les Grandes Batailles de I’Hzistoire (Spencer Wilkinson's translation), p. 249.

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