TOPICS OF THE -.DAY.
THE FALL-- OF ' COMBLES AND THIEPVAL.
IR DOUGLAS IIAIG'S battle plans unrol themselves like ,117 some mighty piece of music. There. is a majestic development and rhythmic intention:about.them which remind , one of, the stately advance of a great orchestral symphony, "The first movement was long drawn out, but from its first not the world recognized . that it heard not mere aimless eddies of sound, but a vast scheme of co-ordinated harmony, a steady evQ1ution, full of a purpose austere and .irrevocable. The , second movement we have been watching during the past week, and it is .now finishing before our eyes, or rather, not • finishing, but about to . pass by a harmonious transition into a third movement. How many-movements there are or. where and when • the finale will' be played, who can tell ' Perhaps not even the great conductor who, Tasting his eye over his soul-shaking orchestra, calls now upon the -great-guns and -now upon the -small to play their dreadful--parts. -Here hd -beckons to- the -drums of the infantry, there• to the violins of the cavalry, now calls -in the clanging cymbals of his ".tanks." Each and all swell the volume of action and of sound as the -..master-hand directs.. It is no,saturnalia of furious bravery or of senseless rage which we are witnessing on the Somme; but a fully realized and fully intentioned. composition. Like Marl.; r. borough in Addison's poem, the' Commander-in-Chief " tells the doubtful battle where to rage," and the -battle conforms tO his will. It is we now who have the initiative, we who call the tune, we who attack. It is the Germans who must stand of -the defensive, or,. at the very- best, try by some hopeless and - half-hearted counter-attack to regain what they have lost.
The great event of the week has -been- the capture first • of Combles and then of Thiepval. Combles is. more important; both from its advanced position and its size, and from the fact that its 'capture by a combined force of French and British involved a loss to- the Germans of- some two thousand • seven hundred prisoners. C,ombles, too, was a place specially valued by the Germans. They were :proud of taking it in 1914, and they were still prouder of the work which their engineers had done there for the last two years intransforming it into the greatest of underground citadels. It stood., -indeed, a type of the fortress of-the future, -and was planned to play the part in- trench -warfare which the. submarine does in naval combat. It exemplified the greatest change since Vauban- -. the plunge underground. Though Thiepval was not so great a place of arms or so fine an achievement from the .; engineer's point of view as Combles, it held- a very strong position, and one in which Art had done .a great deal to help Nature. Lastly, both places were held and defended by. some . of the very best of Germany's troops. Now comes the most satisfactory part of our victory—for so we. must take leave to call it. Combles and Thiepval have fallen not to cold steel or to a great frontal attack, nor were they gained at a terrible sacrifice of human -life. They fell to the forethought, prepara- tion, and ,the skilful tactics of Sir Douglas Haig. He did not take them directly. He took, instead, places which rendered the two citadels ,untenable. He made the tide of battle sweep sound. them till they were cut off. And here we see once more. what we- may term the tragedy of the fortress. You may make .a particular , position absolutely impregnable, but when you have done so it is hardly too much to say that all is lost. You have given hostages not merely to fortune but to the enemy. The _trench—ugly, dirty, dull, untidy serpent of mud and sandbags—will always have the advantage of the most artful fortress. In the last resort, the reason for this seemina' miracle is the fact -that' the trench has something of mobility in it, and mobility is the vital essence of war. You can prolong a trench line to infinity, or to the sea or a neutral frontier, which is even better than infinity.. A fortress has a finality about it which is fatal. The moment mobility is abandoned, as in an invested fortress, putrefaction, physical and spiritual, seems to set in. 'Of great intrinsic importance as is the taking -of Combles and Thiepval and of -the country • around Les Bceufs, Morval, Gueudecourt, and Fregicourt, of still greater importance are the positions gained for the further developments which they afford. In the most literal sense they. are stepping-stones to greater things. By their capture and by the.battle- of this week Sir Douglas Haig: has immensely increased his power to accomplish his double purpose. His first aim is to drive the enemy backy.to gain ground, to eat— if we may .vary our metaphor—the. artichoke. -leaf by, leaf. His second aim is to wear down, and thus slowly but surely destroy, the German armies in the field, and to render them incapable alike of offence and defence. No doubt what we are about -to -say may bee describedas belonging to the .region of prophecy, but we will, say it none the less. It is that we shall -from now see :the pace in bath respects- and in both types of :victory gradually and progressively .aceentuated, until, at last, though we may suffer occasional delays, things will go. with a rush. Our appetite and our.capacity for eating, which are ever increasing; will be operating upon a prey that is for ever westiag—until _;at last „the happy •- moment comes when there shall be no more to eat, and therefore no more war.
It was 'impossible that results so far-reaching and so magnifi- cent could have been obtained except at a great cost. Though happily, . as the Commander4n-Chief points out, the- losses in the.battle of this week are.not great as losses are counted in this war, still they_ are ,large, and, when added to those -of the previous• eleven ;weeks, the number of :darkened homes is very great. But though the nation-,mourns its dead, no one must suppose, least of all our soldiers, and commanders in the field, that the -nation is losing heart or courage because of its wounds. Nothing could -be -further from the truth. When proud-hearted -men or- women mourn, their mood is one not .of weakness but of strength, of high purpose not -of vacillation. It is, indeed, because our losses have been so terrible, because they have struck home so deeply, that there has risen up in the country an iron and unbreakable determination .to see the thing through at all costs and to reap the fruits of -victory. Our losses are bitter, but they would be absolutely unbearable, they would drive the nation mad, if it were to -be told that they had been in vain. What thousands of fathers and mothers, of wives, sisters, and sweethearts, are saying and feeling at this hour may be con- densed in a • couple of sentences : " Our loved ones shall not have fallen in vain. At least we will have the consolation of knowing that from their graves shall spring the' flowera of security and human freedom, of honour and of peace." The soldiers at the front, and the Commander-in-Chief whose awful duty it is to call upon the fighting men of Britain to make the supreme •sacrifice, must be made to feel that there is no possibility of the nation ever flinching or cowering from its losses and refusing to endure them any longer. As we said at the beginning of the battle of the Somme, the nation has gone over the parapet as well as its much-loved soldiers, and there will be no flinching. Sorrow deep and poignant is felt, and must be felt, by all, from the Prime Minister to the poorest labourer in the land, but it will stimulate and inspire the British people to a greater and not a narrower resolve. What- ever trials destiny may have in store for them, our people will know how to meet the call. They are unconquerable, and they will conquer.
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