On April 4 a frightful battle developed, where on a narrow ten-mile front, between Grivesnes, near the vertex of the Montdidier salient, and the Roye-Amiens road, the Germans sacrificed thousands of men in a vain attempt to drive a wedge between the newly discovered junction of the French and British Armies.
From the 4th until the 7th, with the exception of the check the enemy met with at Bucquoy on the latter date, he made a reconsolidation of his lines, partially digging in on the sector before Amiens. The British positions around Arras, to the north of the great salient, which had again and again repelled frontal attacks, and the French positions on the Montdidier salient and the Oise-Aisne watershed on the south, now warned him of the danger of further progress west without augmented protection of his flanks.
Hence, on April 9, the reason for his sudden concentration and attack on the Lille front, and particularly upon the junction of the British and Portuguese lines near La Bassée Canal to a point east of Armentières, which is still in progress. The geographical as well as the strategic features of this phase of the battle have already been described. Complete success had marked the German efforts on this sector up to April 17.
During the entire period covered the airplanes employed on the battlefront were in the ratio of seven to five in favor of the Allies, whose killings have been in the ratio of five to two. This, taken in connection with the destruction of a great German plant and airdrome at Friedrichshafen on April 15, is believed to place the dominance of the air with all it includes as to observation and the bombing of transport and arsenal in the hands of the Allies.
AMERICAN ARMY CHIEFS AND EXPERTS
