Once an Eagle

by Anton Myrer

You do not abandon a sound strategical concept for minor tactical gains. It’s like pawn-grabbing in chess: the results are usually disastrous. Ludendorff has allowed Von Boehn’s initial success in the Marne Salient to cause him to give up his crucial plan for driving the British into the sea—the Flanders plan.” The Colonel’s eyes had twinkled in the lamplight. “The old squarehead doesn’t know it yet, but he’s lost his chance to win the war. More than that, their advance has destroyed the big stalemate once and for all: they have turned it into a war of movement, which is the way it began and the way it should have been waged. Now the doors are all open. We can thrust and envelop and thrust again, until we have Metz and Thionville, and the road into Germany.”