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Clearly, if Von Buelow succeeded in breaking through towards Doullens or Béthune there was little to stop his reaching Boulogne or Abbeville, and the British Army would be first isolated and then driven into the sea. The struggle for Arras began on the 20th, after the Germans had secured an initial advantage by seizing Lens, and Von Buelow was given the Prussian Guard to achieve its capture.
The French had forced the Germans to leave the Oise after Noyon, and while their advance continued it did so with a lengthening flank no longer protected by the river. Unless Von Hutier to the south or Von Buelow to the north could break these containing and solidifying barriers, the front of the German attack would be reduced to a hopeless point before it got to Amiens.
The blow was struck at Friedrichstadt, where the river is crossed by the only practicable road between Riga and Jacobstadt, but the design was to turn the whole front as far as Dvinsk; and Von Buelow held out to his troops the alluring prospect of winter quarters in Riga and a march on Petrograd in the spring.
Through that remarkable friend and Christian, the Reverend William H. Hechler, he met the Grand Duke of Baden; he made the rounds of German statesmen, Count zu Eulenburg, Foreign Minister, Von Buelow and Reichschancellor Hohenlohe; then he met the favorites who encircled Sultan Abdul Hamid and the Sultan himself. He placed the dramatic personae of his drama on the stage.
Finally he was sent to the dressing-station with only his shirt on. We stayed about sixteen days in the line, and during the last five or six days I retired to P.C. Buelow to assist in the Intelligence Work. This part of the line was quiet and our stay uneventful; but two things of interest might be noted.
Noisy Rome these days might very well give rise to pessimistic reflections on the folly of popular government to politicians like Giolitti and the Prince von Buelow, whose obviously prudent policies were thus being upset by the "voice of the piazza" led by a very literary poet!
As I have said in a previous chapter, the "demonstrations" did not begin in any perceptible form until the bungling hand of Prince von Buelow betrayed his intrigue with Giolitti and the politician's intention of defeating the Salandra Government in its preparations for war became evident.
Five corps, each with its extra division, were massed under von Kluck, and called the 1st German Army. Four more, including the Guards, were present with von Buelow, and stretched up to and against the first defences of Namur.
Von Kluck now received considerable reinforcements which Von Buelow needed more, and the latter's rapid retreat made even reinforcements useless for holding the Ourcq. It was equally fatal to success against Langle and Sarrail, and on the 10th the German retreat became general.
The Prince von Buelow, able diplomat though they call him, could not look upon the world through Italian eyes in spite of his Italian wife, his long residence in Rome, his professed love for Italy. It must have been with his consent if not by his suggestion that Erzburger, the leader of the Catholic party in the Reichstag, was sent to Rome at this critical juncture.
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