CURRENT HISTORY

A Monthly Magazine of The New York Times

Published by The New York Times Company, Times Square, New York, N. Y.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ROTOGRAVURE ILLUSTRATIONS

CURRENT HISTORY CHRONICLED

[Period Ended April 19, 1918.]

An Epoch-making Month

The month covered by this issue of Current History Magazine was the most fateful in a military way since the beginning of the war. The most desperate and sanguinary battle in history, begun with the great German offensive in France March 21, 1918, was at its most furious phase when these pages were printed. No less than 4,000,000 men were engaged in deadly combat on a front of 150 miles.

General Foch, by agreement of the Allies, was made Commander in Chief of the allied armies in France, March 28. This decision, long regarded as of supreme importance, was hastened by the new emergency. The United States on April 16 officially approved the appointment. The result of the change was to co-ordinate all the allied forces in France into one army. Early fruits of this new unity were apparent in the news of April 19, when it was announced that heavy French reinforcements had come that day to the relief of the hard-pressed and weary British troops in Flanders, and had halted the Germans; the same day the French counterattacked in the Amiens region and thrust the Germans back, thus giving a brighter aspect to the entire situation in France. The story of the battle of Picardy up to April 18 is told elsewhere in detail.

The separation of Russian provinces from the old Russian Empire continued during the month; the resistance of the Bolsheviki in Finland, the Ukraine, Lithuania, the Caucasus, and other provinces that had been alienated either by secession or by German acquisition grew feebler as the weeks elapsed, and the stability of the new republics under German suzerainty was correspondingly strengthened.

The chief political events were the exposure by France of Austria's duplicity in seeking a separate peace, which caused the downfall of the Austrian Premier, and the application of conscription to Ireland, to be followed by home rule. On April 18 Lord Derby was appointed British Ambassador to France, succeeding Lord Bertie, and was succeeded as Secretary of State for War by Viscount Milner. Austen Chamberlain, son of the late Joseph Chamberlain, was made a member of the War Cabinet.

Secretary of War Baker, who had left for England, France, and Italy early in March, returned on April 17 and spoke in enthusiastic terms of the American forces abroad. He expressed firm confidence in the ultimate defeat of Germany.

General Pershing offered all his available forces to General Foch when the storm of the German offensive broke, and many American units were at once brigaded with British and French forces. The appeals of France and Great Britain for man power met with instant response on this side of the Atlantic, and every ton of available shipping was employed in the transport of American troops. Developments in this regard gave promise of fulfilling the War Department's expressed intention of having an American Army of 1,500,000 in France by the end of 1918.

All American war preparations were visibly speeded up as the situation grew more serious for the Allies, and the spirit of the nation became one of widespread determination to win, even though it should require years of warfare and the entire physical and financial resources of the United States.

Execution of Bolo Pacha

Bolo Pacha, who was convicted by a French court-martial of treason, was executed at Vincennes April 17 by a firing squad. The chaplain, after the execution, found lying over Bolo's heart two embroidered handkerchiefs, which had been pierced by the bullets. One was given to Bolo's brother and the other to his widow.

A few days before the execution the condemned man sent for the public prosecutor, and, it is stated, made important revelations regarding former Premier Caillaux and Senator Humbert, against whom similar charges are pending.

It was proved that Bolo Pacha, whose real name was Paul Bolo, was a poor man before the war, a pensioner of his brother, Mgr. Bolo, a prominent French prelate. The testimony revealed that $1,683,000 had been transferred by the Deutsche Bank at Berlin on the recommendation of Ambassador Bernstorff to Bolo's credit in New York for the purchase of Senator Humbert's newspaper, the Paris Journal; Bolo made an offer of $400,000 for Le Figaro, bought 1,500 shares in Le Rappel for $34,000, and even approached Clemenceau's Homme Enchainé. Papers he got control over included Paris-Midi, Le Cri de Paris, a satirical weekly, and La Revue, of which Jean Finot is editor. The curious thing about the method employed to make these newspapers serve German interests was that under Bolo's control they became exponents of "defeatism" carried to the extreme of ultra-French militarism. The explanation is that the German war party could use quotations from the Bolo papers to persuade the German people that their existence was threatened by the French, thereby justifying the German Government and rekindling in the people the war fervor which was fast oozing out of them. Then, when the opportune moment came, the same ultra-patriotic papers, so it was expected, would suddenly turn pacifist and thereby stir up dissension in the nation and destroy the efficiency of its war measures.

The Numbers in the World's Greatest Battles

THE stupendous character of the battle of Picardy is realized when the numbers engaged in previous noted battles of history are considered. Setting aside the mythical five millions of the army of Xerxes and the ten thousand of Xenophon, accurate figures in Greece are recorded for the campaigns of Philip of Macedon and his more famous son. At Cheronaea, fought in B. C. 338, Philip had 30,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, the latter led by Alexander, then 18 years old. Alexander's cavalry attack on the flank won the battle, driving back the Athenians and Thebans, who were slightly outnumbered. At Arbela, in October, 331, Alexander the Great, with 47,000 Macedonians, defeated a Persian force three or four times as great, piercing between the Persian left and centre. Pyrrhus of Epirus had, at Asculum, in the year 279, 45,000 infantry against an equal number of Romans, but he had elephants, practically equivalent to artillery.

Hannibal at Cannae, in 216, had 50,000 veterans against Varro's 50,000 Romans, who were drawn up with their backs to the sea, and were thus unable to withdraw before Hannibal's overwhelming onslaught. Julius Caesar at Alesia had 50,000 Romans against 80,000 Gallic infantry and 15,000 cavalry. At Pharsalus, in the civil war, the Pompeians, with 60,000, were routed by the Caesareans with 25,000, losing 15,000, while Julius Caesar lost only 200. Augustus Caesar formed a standing army of 300,000, his legions consisting of 3,000 heavy infantry, 1,200 light infantry, and 300 cavalry each.

Genghiz Khan began with a small force of 6,000, with which he fought and conquered his father-in-law, who had 10,000. At the Battle of the Indus, Genghiz Khan commanded a huge army of 300,000 Tartars. At the battle of Karakin, in 1218, he led 700,000 Tartars against 400,000 Kharismians, completely defeating them. Oliver Cromwell's army, in its most complete form, numbered about 80,000. The army of Frederick the Great, at its highest point of efficiency, numbered 200,000, while the army of Louis XIV. numbered 240,000 men.

In 1793, when Republican France was threatened with invasion, and Carnot was "organizing victory," the effective French forces probably numbered 300,000, though the total number available under the newly introduced system of conscription was four times as many, about a million and a quarter. At the battle of Auerstadt-Jena, on Oct. 14, 1806, Napoleon had a French Army of 160,000, against some 140,000 Prussians. About this time Napoleon made the army corps the practical unit instead of the division, as formerly. The Grand Army, which invaded Russia in 1812, totaled 467,000, but this included 280,000 foreign troops. At the battle of Leipsic, a year after the retreat from Moscow, Napoleon, with 155,000, faced 160,000 Austrians, 60,000 Prussians, and 60,000 Swedes under the recreant Frenchman Bernadotte, the ancestor of the present King of Sweden.

At Waterloo, the French Army is said to have numbered 72,000, against whom were drawn up, at the beginning of the battle, 24,000 British and 43,500 Dutch and Belgian troops. The Dutch and Belgians withdrew before the end of the battle, their place being taken by Blücher's contingent.

The forces commanded by George Washington were always numerically small, a few thousand only, and were in ceaseless flux. In 1790, the American Army consisted of 1,216 men. In the war of 1812, the invading force, which burned the national capital, numbered 3,500 men. At the beginning of the American civil war, the regular army numbered 15,300. Between April, 1861, and April, 1865, the total Federal forces enrolled amounted to 2,759,049, while the Confederates enrolled about 1,100,000, making a total of practically 4,000,000 from a population of 32,000,000; this would be equivalent to an army of from 12,000,000 to 15,000,000 with the present population of the United States. The total furnished for the war with Spain was 10,017 officers and 213,218 men.

The Austrian Army at Sadowa numbered 200,000; the French Army at Sedan some 120,000. At the battle of Mukden, Russians and Japanese each had a force of about 300,000, the largest number in any modern battle up to that time, though greatly outnumbered by Genghiz Khan.

Emperor Charles's Separate Peace Plan

The disclosures regarding Austria's efforts to make a separate peace with France, which are dealt with elsewhere in this issue of Current History Magazine, took a more sensational turn April 11, 1918, when the following official note was issued by the French Government:

Once caught in the cogwheels of lying, there is no means of stopping. Emperor Charles, under Berlin's eye, is taking on himself the lying denials of Count Czernin, and thus compels the French Government to supply the proof. Herewith is the text of an autograph letter communicated on March 31, 1917, by Prince Sixtus de Bourbon, the Emperor of Austria's brother-in-law, to President Poincaré, and communicated immediately, with the Prince's consent, to the French Premier:

My Dear Sixtus: The end of the third year of this war, which has brought so much mourning and grief into the world, approaches. All the peoples of my empire are more closely united than ever in the common determination to safeguard the integrity of the monarchy at the cost even of the heaviest sacrifices.

Thanks to their union, with the generous co-operation of all nationalities, my empire and monarchy have succeeded in resisting the gravest assaults for nearly three years. Nobody can question the military advantages secured by my troops, particularly in the Balkans.

France, on her side, has shown force, resistance, and dashing courage which are magnificent. We all unreservedly admire the admirable bravery, which is traditional to her army, and the spirit of sacrifice of the entire French people.

Therefore it is a special pleasure to me to note that, although for the moment adversaries, no real divergence of views or aspirations separates many of my empire from France, and that I am justified in hoping that my keen sympathy for France, joined to that which prevails in the whole monarchy, will forever avoid a return of the state of war, for which no responsibility can fall on me.

With this in mind, and to show in a definite manner the reality of these feelings, I beg you to convey privately and unofficially to President Poincaré that I will support by every means, and by exerting all my personal influence with my allies, France's just claims regarding Alsace-Lorraine.

Belgium should be entirely re-established in her sovereignty, retaining entirely her African possessions without prejudice to the compensations she should receive for the losses she has undergone.

Serbia should be re-established in her sovereignty, and, as a pledge of our good-will, we are ready to assure her equitable natural access to the Adriatic, and also wide economic concessions in Austria-Hungary. On her side, we will demand, as primordial and essential conditions, that Serbia cease in the future all relation with and suppress every association or group whose political object aims at the disintegration of the monarchy, particularly the Serbian political society, Narodni Ochrana; that Serbia loyally and by every means in her power prevent any kind of political agitation, either in Serbia or beyond her frontiers, in the foregoing direction, and give assurances thereof under the guarantee of the Entente Powers.

The events in Russia compel me to reserve my ideas with regard to that country until a legal definite Government is established there.

Having thus laid my ideas clearly before you, I would ask you in turn, after consulting with these two powers, to lay before me the opinion first of France and England, with a view thus to preparing the ground for an understanding on the basis of which official preliminary negotiations could be taken up and reach a result satisfactory to all.

Hoping that thus we will soon be able together to put a limit to the sufferings of so many millions of men and families now plunged in sadness and anxiety, I beg to assure you of my warmest and most brotherly affection.

CHARLES.

The reply of Emperor Charles to the foregoing letter was in the form of the following telegram to Emperor William:

Clemenceau's accusations against me are so low that I have no intention to discuss longer this affair with France. My cannon in the west is our last reply.

In faithful friendship,

CHARLES.

As a result of the publication of the letter, whose existence it is claimed was unknown to him, Count Czernin on April 15 resigned his portfolio as Foreign Minister and Premier, and accepted appointment as a Major General in the Austrian Army. He was succeeded by Baron Burian, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs from Sept. 15, 1914, to Dec. 23, 1916, when he was succeeded by Count Czernin.

It was authoritatively announced that the letter was communicated to the British, French, and Italian Premiers at a meeting which took place at St. Jean de Maurienne, April 19, 1917, and unanimously judged as insincere and intended to mask some subtle manoeuvre for stirring up friction between the Allies.

The day before the letter was published Emperor Charles sent a telegram to Emperor William, in which he said:

I accuse M. Clemenceau of piling up lies to escape the web of lies in which he is involved, making the false assertion that I in some manner recognized France's claim to Alsace-Lorraine as just. I indignantly repel the assertion.

To this the German Emperor replied as follows:

Accept my heartiest thanks for the letter in which you repudiate the assertion of the French Premier regarding your attitude toward the French claims on Alsace-Lorraine as entirely baseless and once again accentuate the solidarity of the interests which exist between us and our empires. I hasten to tell you that in my eyes there is no need whatever for such assurance on your part, for I have not for a moment been in doubt. You have made our cause your own; in like measure we stand for the rights of your monarchy.

The heavy battles in these years clearly demonstrate this for every one who will see. They have only drawn the bond closer. Our enemies, who are unable to do anything against us in honorable battle, do not recoil from the most sordid and lowest means. We must put up with that, but all the more it is our duty ruthlessly to grapple with and beat the enemy in all the war theatres.

After the publication of the letter the Austrian Government announced that it was "garbled" and intimated that portions of it were forged before it reached Prince Sixtus. The German press accepted the letter as genuine with caustic and hostile criticism. It was announced April 18 that the original letter of the Emperor was in the possession of Prince Sixtus, who sent a copy of it to President Poincaré.

When Austria Ruled Prussia

Emperor Karl's effort to make a separate peace recalls the period, beginning with the Summer of 1849, when Austria and Prussia were literally at daggers drawn. Twenty-eight North German States had just formed a Prussian League, under the leadership of Friedrich Wilhelm IV. of Prussia. Austria, under the leadership of Franz Josef, organized a counterleague of South German States, and had the support of Nicholas I. of Russia, who had helped Austria to subdue Hungary. Schwarzenberg, the fighting man of the Austrian Confederation, announced his policy: "First humiliate Prussia, then destroy her." The practical collision between Prussian North Germany and Austrian South Germany came when the Elector of Hesse quarreled with his people. The Hessians appealed to the Council of the Prussian League, of which Hesse was a member, while the Elector of Hesse appealed to the Emperor of Austria. Austria and Prussia both set armies in movement, the Austrian force being mainly composed of Bavarian troops, and a kind of half-battle was fought on the frontier of Bavaria. But the Prussian Army was weak and inefficient, while Nicholas I. of Russia was open in his support of Austria. Friedrich Wilhelm IV. of Prussia met Schwarzenberg in a conference at Olmütz on Nov. 28, 1850, and offered Prussia's submission to Austria. Austria then restored the old Diet and reorganized the German Confederation upon the basis of 1815, the Federal act creating this confederation having actually antedated the battle of Waterloo by a week. In this confederation, which was composed of sovereigns, not of peoples, (thirty-four sovereign Princes and the four "free cities" of Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, and Frankfort,) and which met in the Federal Diet at Frankfort, the Austrian representatives presided, and Austria's pre-eminence lasted until the battle of Sadowa, in 1866, when the simultaneous attacks of Prussia and Italy brought about Austria's defeat.

A Union of the Jugo-Slavs

A public meeting held at Rome March 14, 1918, was addressed by Professor Salvemini, a distinguished historian, who advocated the policy of Mazzini that the Italians should ally themselves with the Balkan peoples in order to free them from Austrian and Turkish domination. The speaker opposed the teaching of Cesare Balbo, who advocated a free hand for Austria in the Balkans in return for the cession of the Italian provinces. The leading Serbians and numerous influential Jugo-Slav exiles from Austria-Hungary have indorsed Professor Salvemini's proposition, and a number of Italian Deputies and publicists have joined the movement.

A conference under the auspices of the Serbian Society of Great Britain was held in London March 13, 1918, which was attended by the Executive Committees of the British-Italian League, the Anglo-Hellenic Society, and the Anglo-Rumanian Society. The following resolutions were unanimously passed:

1. This conference learns with gratification of the present understanding between representative Italians and the Jugo-Slavs, convinced as it is that it is in the vital interest of both races that they should unite on the basis, as far as practicable, of the principle of self-determination and in a spirit of mutual toleration and friendliness as allies against German and Austro-Magyar military domination.

2. The conference confidently hopes that such an understanding will not weaken but strengthen the bonds of alliance which exist between Serbia and Greece, and that it will be followed by a similar amicable settlement of all outstanding questions between Italy and Greece, so that the Eastern Mediterranean may present a solid bulwark against the German Drang nach Osten.

3. The conference sends fraternal greetings to Rumania and assures the Rumanian people that, whatever terms Rumania is forced to accept from the enemy by the cruel exigencies of the war, the British people will not cease to regard her as an ally in spirit, and will not cease to strive for the attainment of her national unity as one of the essential factors of a lasting peace.

A convention of Bohemians, Slavs, Jugo-Slavs, Rumanians, Serbians, Italians, and Poles met at Rome on April 10 under the Presidency of former Senator Ruffini, with prominent Italians and Frenchmen present, among them former Ministers Martini, Barzilai, Franklin, Bouillon, and Albert Thomas. Dr. Trumbitch, President of the Jugo-Slav Committee in Great Britain, also attended. It was the first assemblage of representatives of the nationalities that are opposed to Austrian dominion. The Mayor of Rome was a participant. The Italian and Polish representatives for the first time gave their adhesion to the Jugo-Slav aspiration. The following declaration was adopted:

1. Every people proclaims it to be its right to determine its own nationality and national unity and complete independence.

2. Every people knows that the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy is an instrument of German domination and a fundamental obstacle to the realization of its rights to free development and self-government.

3. The Congress recognizes the necessity of fighting against the common oppressors.

The representatives of the Jugo-Slavs agree:

That the unity and independence of the Jugo-Slav Nation is considered of vital importance by Italy.

That the deliverance of the Adriatic Sea and its defense from any enemy is of capital interest to the two peoples.

That territorial controversies will be amicably settled on the principle of nationality and in such a manner as not to injure the vital interests of the two nations; interests which will be taken into account at the peace conferences.

The Polish delegates added their declaration that they consider Germany as the principal enemy of Poland, and that they believe that the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is the only way through which they can obtain their independence from Germany.

Can a Nation Be Wiped Out?

If we pass by the ancient epoch when it was the custom of the conqueror to "take the city, and slay the people therein, and beat down the city, and sow it with salt," and come to more modern times, we shall find cause to question whether any people has been actually exterminated by war.

Probably the worst devastation in modern Europe was that caused by the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) when the Germans were fighting among themselves. Season by season, says the historian, armies of ruthless freebooters harried the land with fire and sword. The peasant, who found that he toiled only to feed robbers and to draw them to outrage and torture his family, ceased to labor and became himself robber and camp follower. Half the population and two-thirds of the movable property of Germany were swept away. In many large districts the facts were worse than this average. The Duchy of Württemberg had 50,000 people left out of 500,000. Populous cities had become hamlets; and for miles upon miles, former hamlets were the lairs of wolf packs. Not until 1850 did some sections of Germany again contain as many homesteads and cattle as in 1618. So there is justification for the belief that Montenegro, Serbia, and Armenia will come back again to health and strength.

On March 21 an order was issued, applying to all of Great Britain, requiring all entertainments, including theatres, to close at 10:30 P. M., and forbidding any shop window lighting. No public meals were allowed after 9:30 P. M. at hotels, restaurants, clubs, and boarding houses, and the tube and train services were reduced; also, by one-sixth, the amount of gas or electricity allowance.

British Man-power Bill.

The British Man-Power bill, which provides for conscription in Ireland and was described in the important address by Premier Lloyd George, (Page [263],) passed its third reading in the House of Commons April 16 by a vote of 301 to 103. The Government announced that a bill giving home rule to Ireland would be introduced, and if it failed of passage the Government would resign. The Man-Power bill was passed in record time by the House of Lords and became a law by the King's signature April 19. Meetings of protest were held by Nationalists, who joined with Sinn Feiners, O'Brienites, Laborites, and Clericals in denouncing the measure.

An increase of 1,426,000 in the number of women employed since 1914 is shown in figures announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The greatest increase was in industries, which took in 530,000 more women, but the largest proportionate increase was 214,000 additional women taken into Government service. Women have replaced 1,413,000 men since 1914. Industrial and Government work has taken 400,000 women formerly employed in domestic service or in dressmaking.

THE BATTLE OF PICARDY

Military Review of the Greatest Battle in History From March 21 to April 17, 1918

On March 21 the Germans began the great battle which military experts of both sides believe may decide the war. What was indicated in broad lines was that they wished to reach the Channel by way of the Somme and thereby isolate most of the British Army and the entire Belgian and Portuguese Armies in the north. A corollary to such an isolation would have been a movement south on Paris.

As to the narrower lines of the German military plan, however, they became clear. The Germans struck from points where their railways allowed them the greatest possible concentration of troops and at points where the lines of the Allies, owing to the uncompleted battles of Flanders and Cambrai and the failures at Lens, St. Quentin, and La Fère last year, were relatively weak or could be out-manoeuvred with superior force of men and material.

In the first phase of the battle, which carried the enemy down the Somme and its southern tributary, the Avre, to within six miles of Amiens, and to within forty-six miles of the Channel, they first eliminated the Cambrai salient so as to protect their northern flank and then concentrated their attack between St. Quentin and La Fère, near the point where the French and the British Armies joined. The flanks of the great salient thereby developed, however, made dangerous further progress down the Somme. On the north it was threatened by the Arras salient with its protecting ridge of Vimy; on the south by the watershed of the Oise and Aisne.

Frontal attacks to eliminate the Arras salient and the, Oise-Aisne watershed having failed, a flanking movement against the former, which should also have strategic ramifications further north, followed as a matter of military expediency. Thus on April 9 the second phase began. Again they sought the line of cleavage between two armies, where differences of language and tactics made military cohesion difficult—between the British and the Portuguese on the Lille front. A successful penetration of this front for a distance of ten miles would have placed the enemy on the left-rear of Vimy Ridge in the south, and in the north on the right-rear of Messines Ridge, which protects Ypres, the capture of which by the British a year ago had made the subsequent battle of Flanders and their occupation of Passchendaele in the direction of Roulers possible.

In other words, Vimy Ridge bears the same relation to Arras that Messines and its contiguous hills do to Ypres, but while the former ridge also flanks the great German salient stretching down to the Oise, the latter ridge flanks from the southeast the British salient at Ypres developed by the battle of Flanders.

In this second phase of the great battle the German penetration, through military design or expediency, has so far been developed in the direction of Ypres; not in the direction of Arras.

NUMBER OF MEN ENGAGED

As to the number of men engaged on each side, experts at the front have been wide apart. It has been understood that Great Britain has in France 3,500,000 rifles, and that of these 675,000 were on the front when the attack began, thus (if these figures are correct) leaving an army of reserve and manoeuvre of 2,850,000, minus 150,000 men on leave in England. It was understood that the number of French rifles available on the Continent is between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000, of which 1,575,000 were at the front on March 21, leaving 2,425,000 for reserve and manoeuvre, which to the extent of 500,000 may have been available in the present battle, with the constant deploying of the French line in the south and the taking over of ten miles of the British line.

The potential strength of the Germans in the western theatre before the Russian revolution was estimated at 4,500,000 rifles, more than half of which were on the front. According to Sir Aukland Geddes, the British Minister of National Service, the secession of Russia added to the enemy's potential strength on the western front possibly as many as 1,600,000 men, of whom 950,000 were Germans. If we add 1,000,000 to the 4,500,000 German rifles in the west we have the 5,500,000 thus produced opposing, at least, 8,500,000 Allies, consisting of French, British, American, Belgian, Portuguese, Russian, and Polish troops. [The British official estimates on April 17 appear on Page [207].]

Nevertheless, in nearly all the engagements of the battle thus far, the Allies appear to have been measurably outnumbered in a ratio varying from three to one to five to three. Up to March 26, aside from the French being constantly forced to augment their forces in the south, only the British 3d, 4th, and 5th Armies had been engaged, approximately numbering 600,000 rifles. Against these, up to the same date, the Germans had been able to concentrate ninety-seven divisions, or 1,164,000 rifles, with special concentrations of 120,000 rifles against Bucquoy, on April 6, and 180,000 against the French between Lassigny and Noyon, on March 27 and April 3. On the subsequent development of the Lille front the Germans seemed to have been able to concentrate their forces, where they outnumber the British and Portuguese three to two.

ENORMOUS GERMAN LOSSES

It was inevitable, in the retreat forced on the British from their static positions, that a large number of men and guns should have been captured by the enemy—during the first rush the Germans claimed 75,000 and 600 respectively. But the German casualties, owing to their massed formation, must, according to all accounts, be staggering, having probably already reached the Verdun maximum of 600,000. The attrition of their war material must also be enormous. And just as the entire armies of the Allies outnumber the enemy eight to five, it may be estimated that their material, actual and immediately available, is 30 per cent. greater.

The most useful guide to the development of the plans of the enemy, their modification, transformation, and failure, either transitory or permanent, is physical geography. The initial impetus of the assault carried the Germans with "shock" and alternating forces beyond a hypothetical straight line of fifty miles extending from the Scarpe on the north to the junction of the Ailette and the Oise on the south. This was done without their moving their heavy guns, probably not even their mid-calibre guns, from their emplacements.

FIRST DAYS' RESULTS

By March 25 they had covered an area of about 500 square miles and had penetrated beyond Croisilles, Bapaume, Péronne, Brie, Nesle, and the forest northeast of Noyon. In the two following days they recovered the entire battlefield of the Somme, occupied the British railway junction and supply depot at Albert, drove the British four miles down the Somme, and took Roye and Noyon from the French, driving the latter across the Oise. On the 29th the French counterattacked and recovered eight square miles between Lassigny and Noyon, but west of this position the enemy, on a twelve-mile front with a penetration of seven miles, enveloped Montdidier. The next day the Germans gained some ground north of the Scarpe before Vimy Ridge and obliterated an ally salient with its vertex at Vrely by straightening their line between the Somme and Montdidier.

From March 29 until April 8 the enemy consolidated his positions on a front which had been expanded from seventy-five miles, including two large salients, to 125 miles, including innumerable small ones, embracing a terrain of about 800 square miles west of the front as it was on March 20.

On April 3 the enemy was strongly counterattacked by the British at Ayette and by the French at Plémont, near Lassigny. Similar counterattacks recovered Hébuterne for the British and Cantigny for the French on April 5; Beaumont Hamel and a strong position west of Albert for the British and a flanking position north of Aubvillers for the French on April 7.

Meanwhile, April 4, the Germans had occupied Hamel and two villages near Grivesnes, driving out the French, and had made a furious assault upon the positions of the latter between the Luce rivulet and the Avre River, but without success. On the 5th they had made similar attacks at five points: they were successful against the British at Dernancourt, against the French at Casel; they were driven back with heavy losses by the British at Moyenneville and Villers-Bertonneux and by the French at Cantigny. On the 6th the enemy had made concentrated attacks at six points: south of Albert, beyond the Vaire Wood, between Hailles and Rouvrel, and on the Oise east of Chauny he gained ground, but his attempt to take Mesnil beyond Montdidier and Mount Rénaud beyond Noyon were costly failures. On the 7th he attacked the British strategic position at Eucquoy and the French position east of Chauny. At the former place he was repulsed with heavy loss; at the latter his official chronicler asserted that he gained ground.

ON THE LILLE FRONT

Then north of the great salient just occupied, the Germans struck, on April 9, between the important British depots of Arras and Ypres, forty miles apart, concentrating on a twelve-mile front between Givenchy and Fleurbaix. During the two following days the concentration moved north five miles, penetrating between Armentières and Messines. On the 11th it had developed as far north as Hollebeke, four miles southeast of Ypres, had partly enveloped Messines Ridge and entirely Armentières and the town of Estaires on the Lys River. By the 12th it had swelled beyond Merville and Lestrem in the south, was threatening the railway junction of Bailleul in the middle ground, had gained a footing on Messines Ridge, and was investing the neighboring heights of Neuve Eglise and Kemmel in the north. By the morning of the 17th the German penetration had reached Locon in the south, the Nieppe Forest in the middle ground, and had occupied Bailleul and the eastern heights of the ridge in the north and threatened the western and more elevated heights of Mont Rouge and Mont Kemmel. Thus in eight days the Germans had developed a sector on the Lille front of originally twenty-two miles, a salient embracing an area of about 825 square miles with a new front of about thirty-five miles.

SUMMARY OF THE FIGHTING

The initial bombardment which preceded the first infantry advance against the Cambrai salient, at 8 o'clock on the morning of March 21, was widely distributed—as far north as Ypres and as far south as the Oise. It consisted mainly of gas and high explosive shells. The first infantry attack, which penetrated the first and second lines on a sixteen-mile front extending from Lagnicourt to Gauche Wood just south of Gouseaucourt, caused a retreat from the salient which had been left exposed to any superior attack since last December. In rapid succession the British positions, now indefinitely exposed on the north, were then attacked between Arras and La Fère, with tremendous concentration between the latter and St. Quentin. According to the German report of the 22d: "After powerful fire by our artillery and mine throwers our infantry stormed in broad sectors and everywhere captured the first enemy line."

From the 22d until the 25th the Germans kept up a heavy fire upon the French front, mingled with raids, both land and air, evidently with the intention of preventing a movement of the French behind the lines as long as the German intentions remained uncertain.

By the 24th, however, these intentions had been measurably revealed, both by documents found on prisoners and by the general tendency of the battle. On that day the enemy succeeded in crossing the Somme south of Péronne, while north of it he forced the British to retire from the line of the River Torille. On the same day Chauny and Ham were captured, the British 3d and 4th Armies were pressed behind Péronne and Ham, and the 5th Army almost lost contact with the French. Here began that wonderful feat which has made the name of General Carey famous. On the 25th the enemy, by a series of drives en masse, managed to envelop Bapaume, while south of Péronne he made still further progress, "west of the Somme."

Nesle was lost and recovered several times by the French troops, who had already begun to relieve certain portions of the British right, with its unlucky 5th Army, as early as the 23d. In the engagements between Bapaume and Péronne the German armies of von Below, who had just returned from Italy, and von der Marwitz were personally directed by Crown Prince Rupprecht, and outnumbered the British three to two.

THE STRUGGLE FOR ALBERT

From the 25th to the 27th there was a lull in the north, evidently conceived by the Germans for bringing their heavier guns up to new emplacements, but in the south during this time the enemy heavily concentrated against the new French troops that were appearing upon the lengthening line and forced them to give up Lihons and Noyon. When the German pressure was renewed in the north Albert became the obvious objective, on account of the massed attacks made upon Ablainville near by. In the battle of the Somme, Albert, as a junction and depot, performed for the British in a minor degree what Cambrai later performed for the Germans in the present battle. On March 27 the British began a retreat on a wide front on both sides of the Somme, and in the evening Albert was evacuated. The next day came the great French counterattack between Lassigny and Noyon, already mentioned in connection with the geographical development of the battle.

On the 28th the German attack was renewed on the Somme, where it pressed back the British near the Chippily crossing, and before Arras, where a frontal attack was repulsed with great enemy loss. This attack was renewed for three successive days. Then on April 3 the French again won near Lassigny and repulsed heavy German attacks around Moreuil.

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

The British Reverses and Their Causes

By a Military Observer

Premier Lloyd George in his speech of April 9 [printed on Page [263]] compared the operations in Picardy with the battle of Cambrai. In fact, the best way to understand what happened in the initial stage of the great German drive is to remember the sequence of events in the German attacks on the positions near Cambrai in 1917. At Cambrai there was a mistaken confidence in the ability to hold the terrain, although German attacks were expected. When these German assaults came, one was a surprise, because there had been an unexpected concentration of German troops; and this attack broke through the defense to such an extent that it forced the abandonment of other positions, with losses of prisoners and guns. All these tactical elements were present at the beginning of the German drive in March, but on a much larger scale, because in this case the German assaults were made on a front of some fifty miles.

The difficult problem for the Allies, in preparing to defend their long front against the expected German offensive, was to provide against the well-known German tactics of assembling superior numbers at the place of battle. In this war the German "massed attacks" have not been so much a matter of formation as of delivering streams of troops at the chosen point of contact to overwhelm their opponents with superior numbers at that point. These German tactics were again used in the attacks, begun on March 21, against the British front from southeast of Arras as far as La Fère.

FIFTH ARMY'S DISASTER

Here were in position the 3d British Army (General Byng) in the section toward Arras, and, on the right to the south, the 5th British Army (General Gough) in the region west of St. Quentin. On March 21 there was a tremendous bombardment followed by infantry attacks all along the line, which resulted in winning many first-line positions. This was nothing more than had been expected, and provision had been made against it; but, unfortunately, as at Cambrai, the Germans had been enabled to make an unexpected concentration of superior numbers against positions of the 5th British Army.[1] The assault of this overwhelming force broke through the British lines, even to the extent of involving engineers and laborers behind the lines, as at Cambrai, with the same disastrous results. This breakdown of the defense forced a retreat from the British positions far different from the retirement that had been planned—and it brought about the withdrawal of the whole 5th Army, resulting in what the British Premier called "crippling one of our great armies."

After such a disaster, it was found necessary to abandon a great amount of terrain to maintain a junction between the two British armies. Péronne and Bapaume were soon captured by the Germans, and on March 27 the Germans reported the occupation of Albert. On the same day Roye and Noyon were taken. On the next day the Germans had pushed as far west as Pierrepont and taken possession of Montdidier. As was to be expected in such a retreat, there soon was a large toll of British guns and prisoners. On March 29 the Germans claimed 1,100 guns and 70,000 prisoners. They had also captured great quantities of material and 100 tanks.

These were heavy losses, but such losses were not the really serious element in the situation. A study of the map will show that, as the 5th Army retreated toward the west, there was left an increasingly long sector south of Noyon and curving north, west of Montdidier to the Avre River—and it was necessary that this dangerous opening should be protected by the French reserves. With extraordinary rapidity and efficiency French troops were rushed to this region, and the almost impossible task was accomplished of repairing the defense. But the drain on the French reserves had been heavy, and the necessity to use them for this purpose had neutralized a force that had been prepared for a different object against such a German drive.

That these reserves were being held as a mobile army was so generally known that, it will be remembered, there was daily expectation of a counterattack by this force. There is no need to point out how great might have been the results of an assault upon an enemy exhausted by days of fighting; but any such plan was rendered impossible at the time by the need to use these troops to defend the new line, which was nearly as long as the original battle line at the time of the attacks on March 21.

FOCH MADE GENERALISSIMO

Yet, on the other hand, from this battle's costly object lesson in the weakness of divided commands, came at last the appointment of the French General, Foch, (March 28,) to absolute command over all the armies of the Allies on the western front. For a long time a single command has been the one great need to insure military efficiency, and obtaining this is an offset against the losses in the battle which brought such a command into being.

Throughout the war the great outstanding element of failure for the Allies has been lack of co-ordination. The varying aims of the different nations in the war have accounted for this to a great degree, but on the battlefields of France there should have been no delay in giving the command to the chosen General of the nation which had everything at stake. All the influence of the United States had been exerted for a long time in favor of a single command, and at once the unrestricted use of the American force in France was offered to General Foch.

From what has been said of the course of the battle of Picardy, it can readily be seen that the task of the new Commander in Chief was one of the hardest ever given to a General on taking command of an army. After a disaster that had greatly impaired the availability of the troops of the Allies, General Foch was obliged to face the culminating effort of the greatest military machine in all history with a force placed under his command made up of armies that had never been in co-ordination—and after the collapse of one of these armies.

Another serious element in the battle in Flanders is the fact that it has been necessary to send to this front also French troops from General Foch's reserves, making another drain upon these forces. The appointment of General Foch to the chief command literally on the battlefield was formally confirmed by the British and French Governments in the following notice which appeared in Le Temps April 14:

The British Government and the French Government have agreed to give General Foch the title of Commander in Chief of the allied armies operating in France.

The United States, after having greatly helped to bring about General Foch's command, has given a large part of the American force in France to be brigaded with the allied troops wherever there are weak spots. These factors in the military situation may make it possible for General Foch again to assemble a mobile army for a counterstroke against the German offensive.

PHASES OF THE BATTLE

The first days of April saw the end of the initial phase of the great drive. There were other gains that brought the Germans uncomfortably near Amiens, but the character of the fighting was similar to that of the last three years on the western front. The new line of battle extended southwest from Arras, beyond Albert, to the west of Moreuil, about nine miles south of Amiens. It lay to the west of Pierrepont and Montdidier, curving to the south of Noyon and to the region of the Oise. The greatest penetration into the terrain of the Allies had been about thirty-five miles. The Berlin War Office announced the capture of 90,000 prisoners and 1,300 guns in this first phase of the German offensive.

Through the first week of April there was sharp fighting at different points in the line, north of Albert, east of Amiens, and on the River Oise. In this last region the French, in rectifying their new defense, lost 2,000 prisoners, but there was nothing accomplished in any combat that meant a tactical change in the general situation. Suddenly, on April 8, there were heavy bombardments in the region of La Bassée and Armentières, which were followed by strong attacks on this front; and on April 9 General Haig reported: "Favored by a thick mist which made observation impossible, the enemy succeeded in forcing his way into the Allies' positions in the neighborhood of Neuve Chapelle." These attacks developed into a second stage of the great German offensive, and, as before, the shock of the initial surprise attack seriously impaired the British positions. Portuguese troops were reported as fighting with the British troops on this sector. On April 10 General Haig reported that the Germans had also forced back his line north of Armentières. These reverses resulted in the capture of Armentières on April 11 by the Germans, as the city was encircled from the north and south. The Germans claimed the capture of the garrison of 3,000 and forty-five guns. The battle had spread to a front of about twenty-five miles on April 12, with the Germans penetrating to Merville, eleven miles southwest of Armentières. On this day the German official report claimed 20,000 prisoners and 200 guns.

A HISTORIC ORDER

General Haig issued the following proclamation to his troops on April 12:

Three weeks ago today the enemy began his terrific attacks against us on a fifty-mile front. His objects are to separate us from the French, to take the Channel ports, and to destroy the British Army.

In spite of throwing already 106 divisions into the battle, and enduring the most reckless sacrifice of human life, he has yet made little progress toward his goals.

We owe this to the determined fighting and self-sacrifice of our troops. Words fail me to express the admiration which I feel for the splendid resistance offered by all ranks of our army under the most trying circumstances.

Many among us now are tired. To those I would say that victory will belong to the side which holds out the longest. The French Army is moving rapidly and in great force to our support. There is no other course open to us but to fight it out.

Every position must be held to the last man. There must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment.

The situation on April 17 was summed up by General Maurice, Director of War Operations in the British War Office, in these words:

The British Army is playing the rôle which it often has played before. It is fighting a Waterloo while Blücher is marching to the battlefield.

The British Army is under a terrible hammering, but, providing we stand that hammering without breaking down, and providing Blücher is marching to the battlefield, there is no reason for discouragement.

The enormous task which the British Army has performed and still is performing may be shown by a few figures. In this battle of Armentières the Germans thus far have engaged twenty-eight divisions (392,000 men) and since March 21 they have engaged 126 divisions, (1,764,000 men.)

Of these the British Army alone has engaged seventy-nine, (1,106,000 men,) the French alone have engaged twenty-four, (336,000 men,) and the remainder, twenty-three, (322,000 men,) have been engaged by the British and French together.

Of the German divisions which the British engaged, twenty-eight have been fought twice and one thrice. Of the German divisions which the French engaged, four have fought twice. Of the German divisions which the French and British engaged together, fifteen have been fought twice and one thrice.

It is unpleasant business standing the hammering, but so long as we can stand it the only question to be asked is, What is happening to Blücher—what has become of the reserves?

Thus the perilous situation stood at the time when this magazine went to press—April 19—with the British fighting fiercely in Flanders and waiting for Foch to strike with his reserve forces and relieve the strain.

The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps

By JOHN OXENHAM

Great work! State work!—willingly done and well,
For the men who are doing so much for us
Ay—more than words can tell!
Right work! White work! faithfully, skillfully done,
But the whole of the soul of it will not be known
Till the war is properly won.
They mend the men; they tend the men;
They help them carry on;
They drop a little veil upon
The woes they've undergone.
They feed the men; they speed the men;
They make their daily bread;
They mend them while they're living,
And they tend them when they're dead.
There's many a lonely man out there
They've saved from black despair;
There's many a lowly grave out there
Made gracious by their care.
They toil for them; they moil for them;
Help lame dogs over stiles,
And do their best to buck them up
With cheery words and smiles.
They're just a little bit of home,
Come out to lend a hand.
They're gleams of warm bright sunshine
In a dreary, weary land.
They are sweet as pinks and daisies,
Just the sight of them is good,
When you've lived for eighteen months or so
In a sink of Flanders mud.
New work, true work, gallantly, patiently done,
For the men who are giving their all for us—
Your brother, your lover, your son.
High work! Thy work, if truly to Thee it's done!—
But we never shall know all the debt we owe
Till the war is really won.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] "And the Germans were actually in some parts within a few yards of our front line before any one knew of their approach."—Lloyd George.

Four Epic Weeks of Carnage

By Philip Gibbs

Special Correspondent with the British Armies

[Copyrighted in U. S. A.]

The first phase of the battle of Picardy, which began March 21, 1918, was a vain attempt of the German forces to drive a wedge between the French and British Armies at their point of juncture; the second was an equally unsuccessful attempt to wrest Arras and Vimy Ridge from the British; the third sought to annihilate the British armies in Flanders and break through to the English Channel. The last-named phase was still undecided when this magazine went to press, (April 19.) All three phases were vividly described from day to day by Philip Gibbs. The following narrative is compiled from his dispatches to The New York Times, which are available for Current History Magazine as an affiliated publication of the Times:

Thursday, March 21.—A German offensive against the British front has begun. At about 5 o'clock this morning the enemy began an intense bombardment of the lines and batteries on a very wide front—something like sixty miles, from the country south of the Scarpe and to the west of Bullecourt in the neighborhood of Croisilles, as far south as the positions between St. Quentin and the British right flank.

After several hours of this hurricane shelling, in which a great deal of gas was used, the German infantry advanced and developed attacks against a number of strategical points on a very wide front.

Among the places against which they have directed their chief efforts are Bullecourt, Lagnecourt, and Noreuil, both west of Cambrai, where they once before penetrated the British lines and were slaughtered in great numbers; the St. Quentin Ridge, which was on the right of the Cambrai fighting, and the villages of Roussoy and Hargicourt, south of the Cambrai salient.

Friday, March 22.—The enemy flung the full weight of his great army against the British yesterday. Nearly forty divisions are identified, and it is certain that as many as fifty must be engaged. In proportions of men, the British are much outnumbered, therefore the obstinacy of the resistance of the troops is wonderful. Nine German divisions were hurled against three British at one part of the line, and eight against two at another. All the storm troops, including the guards, were in brand-new uniforms. They advanced in dense masses, and never faltered until shattered by the machine-gun fire.

The enemy introduced no new frightfulness, no tanks and no specially invented gas, but relied on the power of his artillery and the weight of the infantry assault. The supporting waves advanced over the bodies of the dead and wounded. The German commanders were ruthless in the sacrifice of life, in the hope of overwhelming the defense by the sheer weight of numbers.

They had exceeding power in guns. Opposite three of the British divisions they had a thousand, and at most parts of the line one to every twelve or fifteen yards. They had brought a number of long-range guns, probably naval, and their shellfire was scattered as far back as twenty-eight miles behind the lines. During the last hour of the bombardment they poured out gas shells, and continued to send concentrated gas about the British batteries and reserve trenches. The atmosphere was filled with poisonous clouds.

Saturday, March 23.—The enemy has been continuing his attacks all day along the whole battlefront and has made further progress at various points in spite of the heroic resistance of the British troops, greatly outnumbered owing to the enormous concentration of the enemy divisions, which are constantly reinforced and passing through one another, so that fresh regiments may pursue the assaults.

ATTACK AT ST. QUENTIN

The St. Quentin attack began along the whole sweep of the front with six hours' bombardment and intense gas shelling of the British batteries, and afterward an attack was launched by overwhelming numbers of German storm troops. The British battleline was held by some three divisions, from a point south of Pontruet to Itancourt, south of the St. Quentin Canal. Along this sector the enemy line had been held before the attack by three divisions also, but the night before the battle they were reinforced until eight German divisions [upward of 100,000 men] were massed for assault on a front of some 2,000 yards. I believe this is a greater strength than has ever been brought into battle on such a narrow front during the whole of this war.

On this sector, the front north and south of St. Quentin, and opposite the British line further south, the enemy's intention, as is known from prisoners, was to reach the line of the St. Quentin Canal—or the Crozat Canal, as it is sometimes called—on the first day, and then advance in quick stages westward. The rate of progress was to be eight miles on the first day, twelve on the second, and twenty on the third.

In spite of their intense gunfire of massed batteries, supported by Austrian howitzers and large numbers of heavy trench mortars, the Germans' plans were thwarted so far as this rapidity of progress was concerned.

The heavy fog of the early morning on Thursday threw their assault troops at some points into wild confusion. The first line of assault, each division apparently advancing with two regiments in line, with two battalions in line, with the other strength of the divisions following in depth, with light machine-gun companies at intervals of 100 yards, and then heavy machine guns and field artillery, sometimes became hopelessly mixed up with the third and fourth lines, while right battalions were confused with left battalions.

This fog and the British machine-gun fire, which caught the German waves, checked the pace of their onslaught and caused heavy losses.

The German high command relied entirely on weight of guns and man power to break the British resistance, and the driving power of the whole monstrous machine was set in movement. The British line was not strong enough to hold all the old positions against such a tide of brute force. The men served their guns and rifles, but as attack followed attack and column followed column, and their own losses increased as the hours passed, they were ordered at certain points to give ground and fall back, fighting heroic rearguard actions from one position to another.

BRITISH LINE BENDS

The main attack, just south of St. Quentin, was directed against Urvillers and Essigny, and the enemy forced his way through these places by great drives. The British garrison there was partly destroyed by his stupendous gunfire. He gained possession of Essigny before midday, March 21, and captured Contescourt, on the edge of the canal. This gave him important high ground, of which he made full use.

He succeeded by this movement in bending in the British line at the right flank of the Ulster division, north of the canal, which he crossed hereabout, and by advancing his field artillery was able to bombard the line to which the main body of the British troops had been withdrawn. Down from Maissemy and Holnon Wood to Savy and Roupy he pressed forward against this line.

The enemy was so densely massed that there was a division on about a kilometer of front. None of them spread out on more than two kilometers for a division, with a battalion for every 500 yards.

German storm troops were able to force their way to Vendeuil, Lyfontaine, and Benay, south of Essigny, and to strike against Jussy and Tergnier, on the St. Quentin Canal, on the evening of the first day.

They brought up two more divisions, and that night, owing to the pressure of their attacks, it was decided that the British withdraw to a prepared line further west, which was the best defense. This was done during the darkness, the retirement being covered by gallant rearguards.

This morning the Germans followed up our withdrawal by clearing up all the ground in the bend formed by the acute angle of the St. Quentin Canal, which has its apex at Ugny, six kilometers east of Ham, and it was reported that their patrols had entered the town of Ham itself.

CROSSING THE SOMME

Monday, March 25.—The enemy fought fiercely yesterday to gain a crossing over the Somme south of Péronne. He flung across a pontoon bridge and rafts, and his men tried to cross, but the British field artillery, firing at short range, smashed up many of these bridges and killed his engineers and infantry. Gallant counterattacks by some of the British flung him back across the river at several points, but elsewhere he held his crossing long enough to put over some of his forces.

All the fighting in this part of the country since March 21 has been a continuous battle, in which the British divisions holding the front line below Gouzeaucourt to Maissemy have shown magnificent powers of endurance, as indeed have all the others engaged, and have only yielded ground under pressure of overwhelming numbers and great gunfire.

There was a bloody struggle in some old chalk quarries, where many German dead now lie, and after the enemy had come some way forward ten British tanks drove into him and shattered some of his battalions with their machine-gun fire, dispersing groups of his advancing units. The tanks manoeuvred about, firing continually on each flank and causing terror among the enemy's foremost assault troops. The British fought a number of rearguard actions and made many counterattacks in the neighborhood of Roisel, and fell back to the line of the Somme only when new masses of Germans passed through those battalions which they had met and beaten.

SLAUGHTER OF GERMANS

The British gunners were firing hour after hour at large bodies of Germans moving so close to them that the guns were laid directly on to their targets, and caused deadly losses in these ranks of field-gray men who never ceased to come forward in a living tide at whatever cost of life and bore down on the defensive lines. Under this ceaseless tide some of the British guns had to be abandoned, but many of them were withdrawn to the other side of the Somme, and the gunners were wonderful in the skill and courage with which they made this passage, took up new positions, and went into action again like exhibition batteries at Earls Court.

By Saturday morning the German troops were exhausted and spent, and in some parts of the line made no further effort for a time, but halted to gain some sleep and await fresh rations. On Saturday and Sunday the British, who had had no rest from fighting, were reinforced and given some relief, though many of them were again engaged, and, weary as they were, put up gallant fights against the enemy, who also had been reinforced by great numbers and came on again in an unending onslaught.

FIGHTING AGAINST ODDS

Tuesday, March 26.—Since yesterday morning the enemy has continued his violent thrusts against the British line westward from Bapaume and Péronne, and his massed troops, mostly Brandenburgers and picked troops, are now advancing in the direction of Roye and Nesle, where French troops are heavily engaged.

At the same time he is passing on over the old Somme battlefields down from Delville Wood, High Wood, and Maurepas toward the old lines the British held before the beginning of the Somme battles in 1916.

The enemy has paused since he began the great offensive, on Thursday last, only to bring up new divisions and pass them through and beyond those divisions exhausted by attack or shattered under the British fire while they reform and rest and then come on again, relieved once more by reserves and continually crowding over the captured ground. By this means, and owing to the enormous forces at the disposal of the German command, they are able to pursue any advantage gained with fresh troops against the hard-pressed British, who have been fighting without respite since the beginning of the battle, six days ago, except where on the right some of them have now been replaced in the front line by French battalions.

In spite of the gravity of these hours and the progress made by the enemy, there never has been a more glorious spirit shown by British troops throughout history, and when one day all the details of this battle may be written it will be an epic of heroism more wonderful than the world now realizes, for the British troops and their officers have withstood an onslaught of enormous forces which have never been less than two to one, and in most parts of the line have been four to one and six to one and eight to one, nine divisions against three around Croisilles, eight divisions against two from the Cambrai sector westward, and in many places one division against one battalion.

WEARIED BY ENDLESS BATTLE

Our men have been fighting for six days and nights like this, after the first storm of shells and gas, until their beards have grown long and their faces haggard and worn for lack of sleep, and their clothes have become torn on wire and covered with dust of mud and chalk. I saw a small party of them today so weary with this endless battle they could hardly walk, and they were holding hands like tired children and leaning against each other like drunken men, but for the most part they hold their heads up gamely, because so far luck has been against them.

The whole movement of the army under the necessity of withdrawal from fixed positions is as orderly as though on manoeuvres in England. I can say honestly I have seen no officer show sign of being flurried.

It is all an amazing drama, because this open warfare is a new thing to the army, and the menace of the enemy is strong and serious, and retirement under the terrific pressure of the human avalanche now hurled against the defenders is by no means pleasant. But in the inevitable turmoil of this situation, in roads crowded with traffic of men and guns, in villages seething with troops rushed up toward the battle line, on the field of battle itself, the British Army retains its self-control, its will power, and its supreme, inspired courage.

THE ATTACK AT ALBERT

Wednesday, March 27.—The enemy has not made further advances on a big scale between the Arras-Bapaume road on the left of the battlefront and the village of Bray, on the Somme, but has paused in his massed attacks in order to reorganize his line and bring up artillery.

There are heavy concentrations of German storm troops behind Maurepas, Ginchy, and Beugnatre, and the roads around Bapaume have been crowded with men and guns and transport passing down through Le Sars, with German cavalry along the Bapaume-Gudecourt road and a steady drift downward to the town of Albert.

That poor, stricken city of the golden Virgin, head downward, with her babe in her outstretched arms, which I described so often in accounts of the battles of the Somme in 1916, when that falling statue was lit up by shellfire, was yesterday in the centre of the fighting north of the Somme. [The golden Virgin and tower were destroyed later.] The night before their assault yesterday they bombed it heavily from the air, using the brilliant moonlight, which lay white over all the battlefields and these roofs, to fly low and pick their targets wherever they saw men moving or horses tethered.

In several cases it was not men they hit, but women and children who, when the war seemed to have passed from this place a year ago, crept back to their homes and built little wooden booths in which they sold papers and picture postcards to the troops. Now suddenly the war has flamed over them again and they were caught, before they could escape, by thunderbolts out of the shining moonlight, terribly clear and revealing dead horses about the ruined streets.

TRYING TO TAKE ARRAS

Friday, March 29.—The enemy's pressure has for the time being relaxed a little across the Somme, east of Corbie, and whatever effort he has made during the last day and night has been repulsed with the most heavy losses.

Yesterday the most exciting situation and the fiercest struggle was on the left of the British battleline, from Gavrelle southward to below the Scarpe. It was a deliberate, resolute effort by the enemy to capture Arras. Three divisions of special storm troops, the 184th, 12th, and 27th Reserve, had been brought up for this purpose, though one of them had been engaged before and roughly handled. They were ordered to take Arras yesterday at all costs, and before their advance very heavy bombardment was flung over the British lines from about 5 o'clock in the morning for several hours.

Their main thrust was toward Roeux, that frightful little village, with its chemical works, which I used to write about so much in April and May last. Once again yesterday it became a shambles. The British had machine guns well placed with a wide field of fire, and as the Germans came down the slopes they were swept with streams of bullets, which cut swaths in their formations, but once again, as on March 21, the enemy was reckless of life, theirs as well as the British, and always his tide of men flowed forward, passing over dead and wounded, and creeping forward like flowing water. The British field guns raked them while the heavies pulled further back to avoid being blown up or captured.

FIGHT FOR ORANGE HILL

On and about Orange Hill and Telegraph Hill British battalions who know this ground of old fought tenaciously under murderous machine-gun fire, the enemy's screen of infantry covering machine-gun batteries which were rushed forward very quickly and took up positions in shell holes and behind bits of broken wall and any kind of cover, in ditches and sunken roads.

A footing gained by the enemy on part of Orange Hill and Infantry Hill rendered it necessary to fall back yesterday toward the old German support lines before that battle in April, 1917. The British fought like tigers, and would not retire until the pressure on them made it impossible to resist the continual thrust of new attacks by fresh troops. There were heroic actions by small groups of men struggling to hold up the front line, and some of them stayed so long after the enemy had broken beyond them that they were cut off.

Frightful fighting was happening not far from Neuville, Vitasse, and Mercatel and in this neighborhood the British held out with wonderful determination until exhausted by battle and until only a poor remnant of men had strength to stand against these massed attacks.

By the end of the day the enemy's assaults weakened, and then died out because his losses were enormous and the spirit of his attack was broken by such stubborn resistance.

ENEMY FAILS AT ARRAS

Sunday, March 31.—We now have knowledge that the attack on Arras was prepared on a scale of enormous strength by divisions arranged in depth, preceded by a bombardment as great as that which fell upon any part of the British line on the morning of March 21, and that the enemy had determined to capture not only Arras itself but Vimy Ridge.

It was the heroic resistance of the British troops that defeated this furious onslaught and destroyed by enormous losses to the German troops this dark scheme of their high command. Seven German divisions were in position north of the Scarpe and twelve south, in an arc around the defenses of Arras.

The brunt of this attack, preceded by colossal gunfire, fell upon London troops, and against these the German tides dashed and broke. By artillery fire, machine-gun fire, and rifle fire, the enemy's advancing waves of men were swept to pieces, and though they came on again and again this massacre continued until at last it must have sickened even the high German officers directing the operations from behind. The attacks died out and the night was quiet around Arras while the enemy collected his wounded. It was an utter defeat which will at least check German efforts around Arras.

On this Easter Sunday, under bright sunshine which is breaking through the storm clouds, the fields of France are strewn with death. A year ago it was the same around the old City of Artois, for it was on Easter Sunday, April 2, that we began the battle of Arras and fought over that ground which is again our battlefield, and it was a great anthem of gunfire which rose up to the sky on Easter morn.

Apart from all regrets at having had to fall back at all and at having suffered losses for which there is mourning in our hearts, because so many splendid men have fallen on the field of honor—that terrible field of honor which will be watered with tears for all time—we may at least rejoice that by the skill of our fighting officers and the steady courage of our men our line was brought back unbroken.

Heroic Cavalry Charge

Monday, April 1.—The battle of which I have been trying to give a daily narrative has been on so vast a scale, filled with so many episodes of terrific adventure and with so many hundreds of thousands of men moving along its lines of fire that I find it impossible to give a picture of the emotion and spirit of it. We out here, who knew this thing was coming upon us, creeping nearer every day with its monstrous menace, held our breath and waited. When at last the thing broke it was more frightful in its loosing of overwhelming powers than even we had guessed. Since then all our armies have lived with an intense understanding of the greatness of these days, of their meaning to the destiny of the world, and every private soldier, or transport driver, or linesman, or laborer, has been exalted by an emotion stronger than the effect of drugs.

In the wood of Moreuil this morning British cavalry performed a feat as fine as the Balaklava charge, and this also should be made into a ballad and learned by heart.

Twelve hundred men who had been riding through the night went forward in three waves and charged that dark wood next morning at a hard gallop. The first wave rode to the edge of the wood, and the second to the centre, and the third wave went right through to the other side, riding through the enemy and over his machine guns and in the face of a hail of bullets from hidden machines. They cleared the wood of Moreuil and brought back prisoners and thirteen machine guns, but there were many empty saddles, and many men and horses fell.

That was the finest exploit of the British 'Cavalry, but elsewhere it did splendid work, and everywhere the men were gallant and cool, as when some of the dragoons came under a heavy shrapnel fire near Gentille, and many men had to shoot their wounded horses to put them out of their agony.

Dashing Canadians

Away from Arras and down on the south of the line a certain body of Canadians have been having some of the most astounding adventures in all this battle, and fighting with valor and heroic audacity. They are officers and men of a machine gun detachment organized in the early days of the war by a French Canadian officer.

For ten days these Canadians have fought running fights with the German artillery, have engaged German cavalry and smashed them, have checked enemy columns crossing bridges and pouring onward, have scattered large bodies of men surrounding British troops, and in ten days of crowded life have destroyed many German storm troops and helped to hold up the tide of their advance. Their own losses have not been light, for these Canadians have been filled with a grim passion of determination, and when the supreme test came they fought and died.

Sometimes they fought in long gray open cars, and sometimes they fought dismounted, with machine guns on the ground; but always they fought through the ten days and nights, with less than twenty hours' sleep all that time. These cars near Maricourt gathered together 150 men who had been cut off and held the enemy at bay, covering the withdrawal of some of the British heavy guns and tanks. At that time they fought dismounted, with Vickers guns, in front of the barbed wire. The Canadians had many casualties, and a Captain's arm was torn away by an explosive bullet, and at last only a Sergeant and two men of the battery were left unwounded. One of them mounted a motor cycle and brought back cars and took back the wounded. Two cars found the enemy massing up a road, and their machine guns enfiladed the field-gray men and killed them in large numbers.

Near La Motte they fought heavy bodies of German cavalry, killed a number, and put the rest to flight. They have not been seen since. At Cerisy a battalion of Germans, 600 strong, was encountered at a crossroads by one car, which brought them to a standstill and dispersed them with heavy losses. Everywhere they have been these Canadian armored cars have helped to steady the line and give confidence to the infantry.

British Airmen at Work

Thursday, April 4.—It has been raining hard these two nights past and this morning. For the German gunners trying to drag up field artillery or long-range guns there is now sticky bog and slime to come through. It is hard work for the German field companies, pressed furiously, to lay narrow-gauge lines over these deserts. All that spells delay in their plans and loss of life.

There is terror for the enemy over these fields in daylight and darkness, for the British flying men have gone out in squadrons to scatter death and destruction among them. This work has reached fantastic heights of horror for the German troops under the menace of it. There have been times when, I believe, the British have had as many as 300 airplanes up at one time. One squadron alone on one night dropped six tons of bombs over enemy concentrations, and each man went out six times. Another squadron went out four times in one night, and was bombing for eleven hours.

When the enemy was advancing in masses the British flying men flew as low as 100 feet, dropping bombs among them and firing into them with machine guns. They attacked German patrols of cavalry and scattered them and machine-gunned trenches full of men, batteries in action and transport crowding down narrow roads. They fought German scouts and crushed them, and there are several cases in which they fought German airplanes at night, so that it was like a fight between vampire bats up there where the clouds were touched by moonlight.

North of the Somme

Friday, April 5.—Heavy attacks by the enemy are in progress north of the Somme, from Albert to Aveluy Wood. Further north there is separate fighting in progress round about the village of Ayette—such a wretched little place of brickdust and broken walls when I saw it last on the way from Arras to Bapaume—and the enemy is trying to recapture this, his fire reaching to villages several thousand yards behind the British front.

The British troops in this district are defending their positions resolutely, and the first reports indicate that the German storm troops are suffering under their machine-gun fire, after being shelled in their assembly places by heavy and field artillery.

A Valley of Death

Sunday, April 7.—Since the heavy fights on Friday, when the enemy made a series of vain attacks against the British north of Albert, there has been no battle. The Germans are still struggling hard to get their guns, especially the heavy guns, further forward and to reorganize their divisions.

They have no peace or quiet, for they are under a harassing fire, and along the valley of the Ancre, above Albert, in that stinking ditch between Bouzeincourt and Aveluy and Mesnil and Thiepval, where foul water lies stagnant below rows of dead, lopped trees and frightful smells arise from the relics of battles two weeks ago, their men are very wretched. Here in this valley of death, for it was that, and behind in the old fields of the Somme, the German troops have no cover from storms or shellfire.

Battle of Armentières

Tuesday, April 9.—A heavy and determined attack was begun against us this morning a considerable distance north of our recent battles on about eleven miles of front between Armentières and La Bassée Canal. This new attack was preceded by a long, concentrated bombardment, which had gradually been increasing during the last day or two, until it reached great heights of fury last night and early this morning. The enemy used poison gas in immense quantities; during the night he flung over 60,000 gas shells in order to create a wide zone of this evil vapor and stupefy the gunners, transport, and infantry.

His gunfire reached out to many towns and villages behind the allied lines, like Béthune and Armentières, Vermelles and Philosophe, Merville and Estaires, and this did not cease around Armentières until 11:30 this morning, though further south from Fleurbaix his infantry attack was in progress at an early hour, certainly by 8 o'clock, and his barrage lifted in order to let his troops advance.

Part of the line was held by Portuguese troops, who for a long time have been between Laventie and Neuve Chapelle, holding positions which were subject to severe raids from time to time. They are now in the thick of this battle, most fiercely beset and fighting gallantly.

Formidable New Offensive

Wednesday, April 10.—It is now clear that the attack between Armentières and Givenchy is a new and formidable offensive. It also is made certain by this new thrust that the German high command have decided to throw the full weight of their armies against the British in an endeavor to destroy their forces in Northern France instead of dividing their efforts by striking also at the French. It is a menace which calls for a supreme effort of the armies of Great Britain and her allies.

Yesterday the enemy struck north on the British left, beginning in the flat grounds opposite Neuve Chapelle as the centre of the thrust, with Fleurbaix to the north and Givenchy to the south, and extending this morning further north still above Armentières, and including the ridge of Messines.

An enormous gunfire was directed against the British positions along all this line last night again after yesterday morning's bombardment, and continued without pause through a very unquiet night, when all through the hours this tumult of great guns beat upon one's ears with continued drumfire, and all the sky was full of flame and light.

This morning again when I went up into French Flanders and through the villages which the enemy had been shelling regardless of the women and children there, this frightful, unceasing thunder was as loud as ever and told one without further news that the battle was still going on and that the Germans were extending its zone.

Portuguese Are Hard Hit

It was a tragedy for the Portuguese that the heaviest bombardment in the storm of gunfire, as terrible in its fury as anything of the kind since March 21, was directed against the centre, which they held. It was annihilating to their outposts and smashed their front-line defenses, which were stoutly held. It beat backward and forward in waves of high explosives from the trench line opposite Neuve Chapelle to the second line, opposite Fauquissart and Richebourg St. Vaast. Large numbers of heavy guns also searched behind these defense systems for crossroads, ammunition dumps, railways, villages, and headquarters or units, while the Portuguese batteries were assailed with gas shells and flying steel.

The Portuguese front line was overwhelmed by the intensity of the bombardment, and, although some of their outposts held on, fighting gallantly to the last man, their line had to fall back to the second system. This was attacked by enemy assault troops and between 6 and 7 in the morning they had reached Fauquissart. The barrage lifted at 7 o'clock for a general attack on the second line. Here the strongest body of Portuguese troops fought stubbornly, but by 11 o'clock the Germans forced their way through to Laventie and the position round Fleurbaix was threatened.

The Portuguese field artillery served their guns as long as possible and destroyed the breechblocks whenever it became inevitable that they would have to leave a gun behind. The Portuguese gunners were attached to the British heavy batteries and behaved with special courage.

Bloody Valley of the Lys

Thursday, April 11.—Yesterday afternoon and today the enemy exerted all his strength in men and guns in the battle now raging from the River Lys to Wytschaete. Once again the British are outnumbered, and it is only by the courage and stubborn will of battalions weakened by losses and of individual soldiers animating their comrades by acts of brave example that the enemy has been unable to make rapid progress and, as at Wytschaete and Messines, has been flung back with most bloody losses.

The British had to give ground along the Lys Canal south of Armentières, blowing bridges behind them and the railway bridge at Armentières, and the enemy is now trying to thrust forward south of Merville by bending back the British line from Lestrem and getting his guns across the Lys.

This morning there was a ceaseless tumult of gunfire, loud and terrible, over all this countryside. There were strange and terrible scenes on all the roads leading to the battle zone where British infantry and gunners were going forward to stem the tide. Masses of transport moved and civilians passed them in retreat to villages outside the wide area of shell range, and wounded men came staggering down afoot, if they could walk, or were brought down by ambulances, threading their way through all this surge and swell of war.

Here and there stretcher bearers waited with their burdens on the roadsides. Among them were men of the Black Watch, with the red hackle in their bonnets, calm and grave like statues beside their wounded comrades lying there with white, upturned faces and never a murmur or groan. They were the heroes who yesterday, with gallant hearts, came up at a great pace when the enemy was in Wytschaete and Messines, and in a fierce counterattack drove him off the crest of the ridge and dealt him a deadly blow there on that high ground, which was won in the battle of last June, when English, Irish, and New Zealand troops stormed the ridge and captured thousands of prisoners.

The enemy yesterday fell in great numbers and his dead lie thick, and though he came on wave after wave, after all his day's agony and struggle he had not gained a yard of the crest, but was beaten back.

English in Death Struggle

Friday, April 12.—The enemy is playing a great game in which he is flinging all he has into the hazard of war. He has, of course, a stupendous number of men, and, while holding his lines across the Somme after his drive down from St. Quentin and playing a defensive part against the French on the British right, he has moved up to the north with secrecy and rapidity a large concentration of troops and guns for new and tremendous blows against Haig's forces. This is continuing his now determined policy to crush England before either France or America is able to draw off his divisions by counteroffensives.

So now the British troops in the north are faced by enormous forces. Nearly thirty German divisions are against them from Wytschaete to La Bassée Canal, and with those troops are innumerable machine guns, trench mortars, and massed batteries of field guns, very quick to get forward in support of their infantry.

This northern offensive is as menacing as that which began to the southward on March 21, and the gallant men among these little red brick villages in French Flanders and in the flat fields between Bailleul and Béthune are greatly outnumbered and can hold back the enemy only by fighting with supreme courage.

Horrors Amid Beauty

The scene today along the line of this hostile invasion was most tragic, because all the cruelty of war was surrounded by beauty so intense that the contrast was horrible. The sky was of Summer blue, with sunshine glittering on the red-tiled roofs of the cottages and on their whitewashed walls and little windowpanes. All the hedges were clothed with green and flaked by snow-white thorn blossoms.

In a night, as it seems, all the orchards of France have flowered, and cherry and apple trees are in full splendor of bloom, fields are powdered with close-growing daisies, and the shadows of trees are long across the grass as the sun is setting. But over all this and in the midst of all this is agony and blood. On the roads are fugitives, wounded soldiers, dead horses, guns, and transports.

There are fires burning on the hillsides. I saw their flames and their great, rolling clouds of smoke rise this morning from places where the day before I had seen French peasants plowing as though no war were near, and young girls scattering grain over the fields harrowed by their small brothers, and old women bending to the soil in the small farmsteads where all their life was centred, until suddenly the frightful truth touched them and they had to leave their homes.

Sometimes today I wished to God the sun would not shine like this nor nature mock at me with its thrilling-beauty of life. However, the British are full of confidence. If they were forced back they are glad to know that they made the enemy pay heavy prices and that their line is still unbroken. They are full of faith that against all odds they shall hold their own in the last battle of all.

Men Utterly Weary

Sunday, April 14.—The Commander in Chief's order of the day should reveal to the British people and to the world what is happening out here in France—the enemy's object to seize the Channel ports and destroy the British Army, and the frightful forces he has brought against it to achieve that plan, and the call that has come to the troops to hold every position to the last man. "Many among us now are tired. * * * With our back to the wall each one of us must fight to the end."

Yes, the men are tired, so tired after weeks of fighting, after these last days and nights, that they can hardly stagger up to resist another attack, yet they do so because their spirit wakes again above their bodily fatigue; so tired that they go on fighting like sleep-walkers, and in any respite lie in ditches and under hedges and in open fields under fire in deep slumber until the shouts of their Sergeants stir them again. Some of these men have been fighting since March 21 with only a few days' rest.

To people living in the villages of Flanders, from which one can see the whole sweep of the battleline, Friday night was full of terror, and from the windows they watched the burning of places from which they had escaped and the bonfires of their homes, and these refugees while sleeping with children at their breast wept.

Yesterday it was a drama of noise, beating against one's ears and against one's heart, and it was a strange, terrible thing to stand there, blind, as it were, listening to the infernal tumult of gunfire south of Bailleul, with knockings and sledgehammer strokes, loud and shocking, above the incessant drumfire of field artillery.

The German shells came howling over into fields and villages beyond Bailleul, bursting with gruff coughs, and there was an evil snarl of shrapnel in the mist. It was the noise of the greatest battle in history.