ACTION OF THE SECOND LINE OF ATTACK.
With the enemy all is disorder, the batteries flee at a gallop before the tide which has carried away all the obstacles prepared long ago and judged impregnable; all confidence disappears; the adversary, feeling his resistance giving way around him, no longer dares to hold out desperately, from now on the least thing induces him to turn tail. However, at some points reserves have come up, have manned their positions of the second line, and have attempted some timid offensive returns. Machine guns, rapidly brought up, are installed and fire with utmost rapidity to prevent access to the undefended zones and to gain time. The tottering resistance tries to hold on; now, one more great brutal push along the whole front like the attack of the first line, and then will come a total rout.
It is then that the second line appears; starting out in its turn from the parallel, it advances by immense and successive waves of thin lines, calm and unshakable among the rafales of shells and random bullets.
Already numerous detachments of machine guns and light cannon have preceded it. Creeping through, following up the first line, they have been able to unravel the situation and to discern the points where the resistance tries to hold out and which must be immediately swept. The light cannon orient themselves directly on the rattling of the machine guns, which they endeavor to overwhelm with a shower of their small shells.
The “accompanying batteries” have started as soon as the first trenches are taken and are soon oriented by the signals of the special agents de liaison, artillerists who follow the infantry. The remainder of the artillery cuts off the approaches by a barrier of asphyxiating shells and carries its fire on to the second line, marked out according to the directing plan.
Thus the second line arrives close up to the advanced elements of the first line under cover of sufficient fire. The second line pushes straight to the front on the objectives fixed long before and which should claim its whole attention.
Certain of the units have a mission to blind the centers of resistance by finishing up the conquest of their exterior borders, while the great majority are absorbed in the intervals, instead of halting and exhausting themselves by playing the enemy’s game in his inextricable points of support.
To quote an expression of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” modifying it slightly: a center of resistance is a filter into which one can pour battalions and regiments, and it will yield only a few drops.
The organizations passing through the intervals arrive in front of the second line of defense, which is not generally occupied continuously. They run against lively and sudden resistances, or else encounter empty spaces through which they boldly penetrate, pushing straight on always to the front without being intimidated by the silence or distracted by the resistance on the right or left. The units stopped rapidly organize the assault and attack by main force like the first waves of the attack without trying to maneuver, a temptation of weakness and indecision. Here again there is hesitation: units held up by only a semblance of resistance or trying to avoid it; others, having approached to assaulting distance, dig in and dare not go forward openly into a supreme charge; others are turned away from their objective to get into another combat, which absorbs them.
However, the second line of hostile defense finds itself in its turn disabled; broken in and considerably passed by in certain localities, vigorously assailed on all points where a resistance is hastily improvized, it is soon split up into islands and surrounded on all sides.
The points of support, as in the case of the first trench, are left to one side and merely isolated by the capture of their borders.