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The British offensive at Arras was only the precursor of the major French offensive between Reims and Soissons under Robert Nivelle, and due to the new German defensive systems the offensive failed with extremely high casualty figures. The British fared no better in Flanders. While their attack on the Messines Ridge could be considered as one of the most successful Allied offensives, the ensuing engagements during the Third Battle of Ypres ended again in a bloody disaster, the price for just a few miles of terrain gained in a gruesome attritional battle.

24 Once the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act had passed, Haldane devoted much of his remaining time at the War Office to the execution of his scheme and, in particular, to the daunting task of inducing large numbers of his countrymen to support the new organization. In the course of doing this, he managed to convince some of the County Associations to make modest preparations for a possible expansion of the Territorial Force in the course of a general war. 26 The greatest obstacle to the implementation of Haldane’s concept of a locally based ‘nation-in-arms’ was the rule that neither the officers nor the men of the Territorial Force could be sent beyond the borders of the United Kingdom without their explicit consent.

If we refer to that narrow context and place emphasis on the limitations on operational thinking at that time we can conclude that the general staff was rigid and inflexible. But if we extend our view and acknowledge that the German military leadership acted within a complex construct and adapted to continuously changing situations we see that the German High Command was able to engage in a wide range of different operations. The battle of Tannenberg in 1914, the Romania campaign in 1916, the amphibious landings on the Baltic islands and in Finland in 1917, and, in particular, the flexibly led defensive battles on the Western Front are clear examples of this.