MARSHAL FOCH'S SECOND BLOW.
MILE Second Battle of the Somme, which began on Thursday week and virtually ended—in its opening phase at least—last Sunday, has yielded a second great victory to the Allied Armies under Marshal Foch's direction. It is particularly gratifying to know that this offensive was conducted by Sir Douglas Haig, in command of a British Army and a French Army, for no battle since the war began has been raore skilfully contrived or more completely successful. Marshal Foch's strategic idea, like most great ideas, is very simple. From the end of March till mid July -he had to remain on the defensive, awaiting British and American reinforcements, while the enemy by a succession of blows made three great bulges in the Allied line—towards
Amiens, towazds Calaie, and, on the Oise and Marne, towards
When the fifth German offensive of July 15th was foiled. in,Champagne and. checked in the Marne Valley, Marshal Foch knew that his opportunity had at last arrived. The British Armies had been brought up to full strength, and America, astonishing herself. .as well as her admiring Allies, had landed a million and a quarter men in Europe. The enemy, on the other hand, had used up the greater part of his new forces brought from the Eastern Front in the early spring. In deciding to take the offensive, Marshal Foch saw that his first task was to give himself freedom to manceuvre. So long as the Germans were menacing Paris, Amiens, and Calais any plans that he might form would be subject to their interference. From their salient on the Marne they blocked the main line from Paris through Epernay to Chalons, and might advance on the capital. On the Amiens front they had the main line from Paris through Amiens to Boulogne within range of their big guns, and might move down the Somme to Abbeville and separate the Allied Armies. In Flanders they had advanced so far westward that a stroke of luck, like their attack on the Lys in April, might enable them in a renewed offensive to outflank the Yser-Ypres line and reach the Channel ports, through which our Armies are supplied. Marshal Foch had to snatch from the enemy these potential advantages before he could begin to work out his own schemes. He dealt first with the threat to Paris. The Second Battle of the Marne, which began on July 18th, and in which the enemy was driven back to the Aisne and Vesle with the loss of thirty-four thousand prisoners and many guns, relieved the capital from the impending danger and freed the main line to Chalons. Next, Marshal Foch sought to drive the enemy far away from Amiens. The Second Battle of the Somme has achieved this result. In four days the enemy front, which had been within nine miles of Amiens, was thrust back more than ten miles. The whole salient which the enemy had extended to the Avre between Montdidier and Moreuil was wiped out. Amiens was freed from bombardment, except by a few of the enemy's heaviest guns, and the main Northern railway could once more be used to the full. The Germans found themselves perforce in their old trench-lines south of the Somme, seeking a temporary respite from disaster. The Flanders salient remains to be dealt with in due course. When that dis- appears, as it certainly will by a voluntary or enforced retreat of the enemy, Marshal Foch will have a secure front and full liberty of manoeuvre.
As a tactical achievement, last week's battle will long be remembered. The method of attack was wholly unlike the Hindenburg method, which depends solely on the momentum of an enormous mass, like a battering-ram or a bull at a gate. Sir Douglas Haig, General Rawlinson, and the French Generals Debeney and Humbert played with the enemy like expert fencers, taking him off his guard and pinking him neatly first in one vital spot and then in another till he turned and ran. The attack south of the Somme on General von der Marwitz, who held the line as far as Moreuil, was purposely directed south-eastward towards Roye, so that the further the enemy moved back the longer would be the line which he had to hold with his battered forces. Again, the French round Montdidicr abstained from attacking along General von Hutier's whole front. General Debeney on the first day did not move his right wing at all, but contented himself with advancing his centre across the Avre oix miles north of Montdidier. On the second morning he pushed his right centre nearer to Montdidier at Pierrepont, and then, by occupying Davenescourt, cut the most northerly of the three roads leading eastward from the threatened town. The same afternoon he suddenly advanced his right flank and seized Faverolles, on the most southerly of these three roads. The Montdidier garrison was thus left with one road by which to retire ; when that road, too, was blocked early last Saturday morning, Montdidicr was enveloped and easily captured. Now Montdidier was the cornerstone of the salient. As soon as it was shaken loose the whole of General von Hutier's southern front from the Avre to the Oise was placed in peril. Therefore when General Debeney's manoeuvre was completed on the Friday night, General Humbert followed it up at dawn last Saturday with a tremendous blow at the German flank, now left in the air. The effect was instantaneous. General von Hutier retired as fast as he could. But, unlike his colleague to the north, he had to narrow his front as he fell back towards Roye and Lassigny under pressure from the north, west, and south, and his loss and confusion must have been all the greater on that account, as the authors of the offensive foresaw. Like skilful banderillero8 at a bull-fight, they had worried the enemy with a succession of pin-pricks till he sought safety in flight. The admirable plans were carried out with the help of all the new weapons which Allied ingenuity has introduced and perfected. The enemy was again taken by surprise. There was a very brief and furious bombard- ment. The infantry advanced rapidly under the protection of a rolling barrage, with hundreds of tanks to clear away barbed wire and machine-gun posts. The Allied airmen swarmed overhead, spying out the land, ranging for the guns, and attacking on their own account. When the objectives assigned for the first advance had been reached and o - cupied, the cavalry, supported by numerous light tanks and motor machine-guns, took up the pursuit. The unofficial accounts show that they were most successful, and that, had not the Germans been retiring across an old battlefield seamed with trenches made by the opposing armies in and after 1914, the cavalry and their mechanical comrades might have pushed right up to the Somme above Peronne. As it was, the pursuit threw the enemy into hopeless confusion, and caused him heavy losses in men, guns, and transport. His efforts to reorganize his armies were greatly retarded, and the Allied infantry found it easier to resume their advance next day. In all our former offensives the chief difficulty was not so much to break the enemy's line as to take full advantage of the breach when it was made. Our cavalry did well at Cambrai, but they were helpless against resolute machine-gunners, and could not maintain their positions across the Escaut. The combination of cavalry with light tanks and motor machine-guns seems, however, to have solved this problem at last. In suitable country, none but a well-organized and well-entrenched force could stand against this new tactical arm, devised as usual by the British and French and not by the Germans.
To estimate the moral effect of the battle, we need only look at the comments of the German newspapers and the official and semi-official explanations put forward by the German General Staff. The Germans, as represented by their Press, appear to be a very unintelligent people, but they should know something about war, and they can hardly fail to understand what has happened to the German armies on the Marne and before Amiens. Two severe defeats within a month, with a loss, in prisoners if not perhaps in casualties, equal to the loss sustained in the five weary months on the Somme in 1916, constitute a fact which the rulers of Germany can neither deny nor explain away. Indeed, the fact is so obvious that the German Press has been permitted wholly exceptional freedom in commenting on what a Pan-German organ describes, absurdly enough, as " the first serious check" sus!ained by Germany in this war. It is significant that the papers have been instructed to admit the gravity of the defeat, and to urge their readers to take courage, since an occasional defeat must be expected. The Cologne People's Gazette pays involuntary tribute to the Allies by reminding its public of the fortitude with which the French and British peoples have endured repeated reverses and disappointments. It looks as if the German people must be very much alarmed at the prospect. The "Kaiser battle," which was to bring them a victorious peace this autumn, has proved as dis- appointing as the 'U '-boat campaign, which was to have brought them peace and victory last August, and they do not see any other method of enforcing their "will to conquer" on the triumphant Allies. The war is not yet over, but we have advanced another stage towards the goal by producing this impression on our enemies. Hitherto the German rulers have always been able to dissemble their defeats in the West by pointing to their conquests, by arms or by guile, in Russia and the Balkans. This year they have concentrated their whole available strength in the West, and they have failed to crush or break our armies. Their failure will revive all the old quarrels within the ruling circles, and it must also provoke doubt and despair among the people. We do not anticipate anything like a revolution in Germany, whose people have rarely shown the revolutionary temper at any period in their history. But the task of the Government will be rendered far more difficult if there is a widespread feeling, as the papers indirectly suggest, that Germany cannot now win the war, and. that her niers and Generals are incompetent. The German Emperor himself is very sensitive on this point. We recall Dr. Mfildon's statement that one of the Emperor's reasons for going to war on behalf of Austria was his fear of being ridiculed, behind his back, for rattling his sabre and not daring to draw it. We hould not be at all surprised to see the great General von Ludendorff retiring into private life after this second defeat. It is certain, at any rate, that the German Government will have to seek a new success somewhere, to counterbalance their reverses in France. We discuss in the following article the possibility of their seeking cheap glory in Russia. In any case, the half- starved German people, which has been artificially stimulated by endless bulletins of victory to endure the heavy burden of war, is in no condition to suffer defeat patiently. The Allies have been helped to endure by the glorious prospect of great American armies coming to their help. No such prospect can dawn on the Germans. Their armies reached their maximum strength last March, and are now rapidly declining. The young recruits between seventeen and eighteen, who are to be trained by the autumn, constitute Germany's sole reserve of force, and her General Staff must know as well as we do that ill-nurtured boys will not be of much service in so exacting a war as this. Germany's allies are a hindrance rather than a help to her ; if Austrian troops appear in any numbers on the Western Front, Italy alone will benefit by their transfer. The outlook, then, for Germany is gloomy, and it will soon, we trust, be gloomier still.
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