SECOND MARNE BATTLE

UPPER MAP:WHERE THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE BEGAN ON MAY 27, 1918LOWER MAP: WHERE IT WAS STOPPED, MAY 31

Held at the Ypres and Arras barriers in the north it was inevitable that Ludendorff's next move would be in the south. The railways freed by the expansion of the Picardy salient in March, the unhampered concentrations made possible at Péronne, St. Quentin, La Fère, and Hirson, and the admirable surface of the Laon Plateau for purposes of manoeuvring large bodies of troops—all pointed to the line northwest of Rheims as the probable point of attack. Then, when it came on May 27, consternation reigned among military critics as they observed the apparent ease with which the Germans carried, first, the mighty Chemin des Dames, protected on the east by Craonne and its three plateaux and on the west by the Ailette and the Oise, and then the south bank of the Aisne, with its formidable prepared fortifications at Soissons. The German feints in the Lys salient and before Amiens in the preceding week were said to have distracted Foch, who had thus been outgeneraled. And when the Marne was reached between Dormans and Château-Thierry, it was remembered how the Third German Army under General von Hausen had swept across the river at that identical spot on Aug. 25, 1914.

In the first three days of the drive the Germans with the greatest auxiliary force of tanks, machine guns, and poison gas projectors they had ever mobilized employed twenty-five divisions, or 325,000 men. When they doubled their base line and had reached the Marne and were trying to deploy they were using forty divisions containing over 400,000 of their best troops. When the offensive quieted down in the first days of June it was estimated that they had lost fully 30 per cent. of the total in casualties. Onthe other hand, they claimed to have captured over 45,000 prisoners and taken 400 guns. They had come thirty miles and had occupied 650 square miles of territory. But they were held.

What is the explanation of this seeming paradox? Foch could by calling on a certain number of reserves easily have held the Chemin des Dames until—he had been flanked and enfiladed out, between Neufchatel and Rheims on the east and from the Oise where it enters the Aisne on the west. He might have held out longer on the southern bank of the Aisne, but the result would have been the same—losses equaling if not surpassing those of the enemy and the surrender of thousands of guns and large quantities of war material. Finally, he would have gained nothing and might even have been unable to hold the Marne.

It is obvious that he did none of these things. But what did he do? He left his front protected by only sufficient men and guns to produce the greatest possible losses among the enemy as he slowly advanced south and concentrated heavily on the enemy's flanks. It was he and not Ludendorff who decreed that the Germans should reach the Marne between Dormans and Château-Thierry, and nowhere else. But it was Pétain who executed the plans of Foch.

The German attack under the personal command of the Crown Prince launched on the morning of May 27 was mainly directed against the British 8th, 50th, 25th, and 21st Divisions and the French 6th Army, which occupied the front from Vauxaillon eastward to the Brimont region—from north of Soissons to the north and a little west of Rheims. Certain sectors at once gave way under the strong pressure—particularly in the Chambrettes. There was no mistaking this for the main offensive, although in the Lys salient, between Ypres and Arras in the north, and on both sides of the Somme and the Ardre in the centre, there were simultaneous artillery preparations of great violence. Toward the end of the day the weight of the enemy's attacks carried his troops across both the River Aisne and the Chemin des Dames. The line, however, remained unbroken, as the Allies retreated across the Aisne between Vailly and Berry-au-Bac, which are eighteen miles apart, and then gave way across the Vesle near Fismes.

On the 28th Franco-British troops proved the assault in the north to be abortive by quickly re-establishing their lines east of Dickebusch Lake and capturing a few prisoners. On the main field of battle in the south the Franco-British right deployed to the east covering the Brouillet-Savigny-Thillois line protecting Rheims. On the west they did the same, but with more elasticity, while the centre continued to give. On the 29th the acute angle of the German penetration, with its vertex covering Fismes, suddenly sprung to the shape of a bow. The line still held covering the Cathedral City, but on the west the defenders of Soissons were killing their last Germans, and in the south Savigny on the Ardre had been reached. At Savigny the line of advance was diverted westward until it embraced Fère-en-Tardennois and Vezilly. And still the retreating but unbroken Allies were deploying east and west as its pressure increased, or were taken prisoner when retreat became impossible.

On the 30th the enemy attempted to broaden his front northwest of Rheims and failed, but he succeeded in obliterating the salient south of Noyon, from the Oise Canal to Soissons, and on the 31st by an advance from a twenty-five-mile curved front he reached the Marne between Château-Thierry and Dormans on a contracted six-mile front. Here he met on the south bank the prepared defenses, and has been kept on the north bank ever since.

In the enemy's attempts to broaden his front on the Marne salient, June 1 and 2, he managed to rectify the eastern side by reaching Sarcy and Olizy and by working along up the Marne a couple of miles east of Dormans. He also measurably consolidated his positions between the Oise Canal and Soissons, and south ofthe latter stretched the line into a segment with a five mile vertical as far south as, but not including, Château-Thierry on the Marne. This swing to the westward appears to have been a deliberate attempt to force Foch to meet shock with shock by throwing in his reserves, as the German advance had reached a point only forty miles from Paris.

OFFENSIVE OF JUNE 9, AIMED AT COMPIEGNE, AND BLOCKED BY THE FRENCH AFTER FIVE DAYS. LIGHT SHADED AREA WON BY GERMANS; DARK SHADED AREA AT BOTTOM WON BACK BY AMERICANS NEAR CHATEAU-THIERRY

This was unnecessary, however, for here, north of Château-Thierry, the enemy was to meet a new foe—the American marines. It is doubtful whether the extraordinary performance of this corps and its French supports between June 6 and June 12, when they bent back the lower part of the bow between La Feste-Milon and Château-Thierry—from Grandeles, Champillon, and Clerembant Wood to Bussiares and Bouresches—can beincluded in the second battle of the Marne or serves as a diversion to the later battle of the Oise, directed against Compiègne. At any rate, the ardor of the marines had the desired effect, for on the very day they began their work the inspired Berlin Vossische Zeitung said: "The German Supreme Command cannot well proceed now against the newly consolidated French front, which is richly provided with reserves, and bear the great losses which experience shows are entailed by such operations." Thus ended the second battle of the Marne, sometimes called the Aisne-Marne battle.

The flanking lines between which the Germans were directed to the Marne made the battle of the Oise inevitable as far as the Marne salient was concerned. For the salient, there was only this alternative,if its front could not be broadened: it must be "dug in" or be abandoned. But, being necessary, if it could be waged beyond a certain point, it would also become ambitious. It would supplement the Picardy front by continuing its line down to the Marne. Reaching the Oise at Montmacq, it would flank the French salient north of the Oise. Utilizing the Oise and Ourcq Valleys, it would envelop the defensive forests of Aigue, Compiègne, and Villers-Cotterets. This would mean Compiègne. From Compiègne the investment of Paris was possible.

The battle, as far as the Germans are concerned, was probably their most disastrous effort of the war within the given time. Between thirty and thirty-four divisions were completely used up—a cost of over 400,000 effectives. Not only did their advance lack the element of surprise, but it entered a veritable trap. Their front was enfiladed with a destructive fire from impregnable flanks.

The battle was also a revelation; it demonstrated as nothing else the waning man power of the enemy—the desperate mobilization of 16-year-old boys, of old men, of convicts, even.

The artillery preparation, rich in gas shells, began at midnight on June 8-9. On the following morning at 4:30 the attack was launched over the twenty miles from Montdidier to Noyon. And, as usual, there was the northern diversion—the pounding of the British lines by gunfire from Villers-Bretonneux to Arras. Even on the first day of the assault, when the German centre advanced two and a half miles, the French made a spirited counterattack near Hautebraye, between the Aisne and the Oise. On the second day the enemy took at tremendous cost the villages of Mery, Belloy, and St. Maur and debouched from Thiescourt Wood. On the third day, with the aid of four fresh divisions, he managed to reach the Aronde, on the west; to descend a mile astride the Matz and to occupy its northern bank almost to the Oise, in the centre; and to envelop the forest of Ourscamps, on the east. Before the sun set the French, by a counterattack, had entirely won back the gains on the west, with over 1,000 prisoners captured. On the fourth and fifth days (June 13 and 14) the French heavily attacked on the flanks of the centre—at Courcelles and at Croix Ricard. Then came two final kicks from the foe; on June 16 he attempted to cross the Matz near its junction with the Oise and was driven back with heavy losses. The next day he drenched the south bank of the Marne with gas shells, but did not attempt to cross the stream.

All this time abortive diversions had been going on in the north, in the Lys salient, where on June 15 the British and Scottish troops took the initiative and captured two miles of enemy positions seven miles west of La Bassée and just north of Béthune.

Just as the German defeat on the Marne and Oise was beginning to be realized abroad—its losses calculated, its meaning interpreted—the Austrians, on June 15, suddenly launched an offensive in the mountain region of Veneto and from the left bank of the Piave. So far the enemy has been firmly held in the mountains, but has crossed the river at two places without, however, being able to bring over any effective artillery—on the middle reaches he has gained the Plateau of Montello, defended by the intrenchments prepared there by the British under Plumer last December, and near the mouth he has succeeded in establishing one or two bridgeheads in the vicinity of Capo Sile.

As a military proposition the offensive has lacked the so far inevitable successes of a prepared initiative; in the mountains the first attacks were almost instantly broken up by simultaneous counterattacks. Along the river, especially in the vicinity of the crossings, the battle is developing in scope and intensity.

Aside from the military paradox already noted, this offensive possesses several characteristics, some military, some political, which seem well worth while dwelling upon.

In the first place, the location of the active front east of the Lago di Garda, from the Asiago Plateau to the sea, offersa certain indication of the German military situation in France. Its abortive character may also indicate the political situation in Austria-Hungary. With the lines in the mountains held, the operations on the Piave present no formidable danger to Italy.

It was well known by the Italian General Staff that the Austro-German High Command intended to make the attempt to confirm the Italian disaster of Caporetto as soon as the melting of the snows permitted the transportation of men and supplies through the Alps. In the first place, the material and man power lost by the Italians in the retreat to the Piave, which included the actual elimination of the 2d Army, were replaced. In the second, it was absolutely necessary to rectify, even in the Winter, the northern mountain line east of the Lago di Garda. West of the lake up to the Tonale Pass, over the great glacier of the Adamello, it was practically invulnerable, save through the Giudicaria Valley.

From west to east there were three doors, as it were, which had only been partly shut—the Vallarsa south of Rovereto, the path of the Frenzela Torrent and the angle it forms with the Brenta just above Valstagna, and the approach down the Piave in the region of Monte Monfenera from the Calcina Torrent. There were also other minor openings—the passes of Monte Asolone, between the Brenta and the Piave, covering the path south along the Val San Lorenzo, the Nos and Campo Mulo Valleys between Asiago and the Brenta. All these were closed in December and January, with a total loss to the enemy of over 10,000 men and 100 guns, save the domination of the Vallarsa, that was taken from the Austrians by the capture of Monte Corno on May 15. Meanwhile, the British and French armies had been transferred, the former from Il Montello on the Piave to the Asiago Plateau, and the latter from the Monfenera region to that of Monte Grappa. Between 200,000 and 300,000 Italian troops had been sent to the aid of France.

Thus the Italian General Staff awaited the inevitable with confidence—a confidence fully seconded by people and press, for if the mass of the Italians had fought in ignorance before the catastrophe of Caporetto, since then they had learned the objects of the war—national as well as allied.

But the General Staff had also learned something else. This was most important. If Ludendorff in France should be successful—if he should succeed in isolating the allied armies north of the Somme, or force the French back upon the defenses of Paris, or both—then the Austrian Commander in Chief with his million men would be aided by German generalship and German divisions, and, together, they would strike down the Giudicaria to the west of the Lago di Garda, with all strength and disregarding all sacrifices in order to reach the metallurgic centre of Italy in Lombardia and Emilia, thereby forcing Italy out of the war and gaining access to the back door of France. If, however, Ludendorff should be blocked in France, the offensive must still be made at the propitious moment, but its plan of attack would be to the east of the Lago di Garda, from the Astico to the sea. It would be entirely an Austrian affair, and would naturally be limited by the political and military situation in the Dual Monarchy.

It is of significance, therefore, that the offensive has been launched to the east and not to the west of the Lago di Garda. Its locality reveals Ludendorff's conviction that he is at least blocked in France, if nothing else, whatever light its development may later throw upon the parlous internal conditions of the Hapsburg Empire.

This admitted, the Austrian plan of campaign becomes a simple problem—simple because there could be no other. At the beginning of the war Italy attempted to neutralize the Trentino and the Carnic region by sealing the passes and then made her attack across the Isonzo. But she could never be certain that the passes had been effectually sealed. A successful Austrian invasion through them would jeopardize her armies on the Isonzo, isolate them by cutting their lines of communication. That was the danger which threatened those armies when the Austrians made their drive upon the Asiago Plateau in May, 1916, which was ultimately outflanked and forced back. That was also the disaster when last October the Austro-German armies, having penetrated the Isonzo line from the north, forced it to retire westward, forced a withdrawal from the passes in the Carnic and the Dolomite Alps, and again reached the Asiago Plateau, this time free from the danger of being flanked.

Major Gen. H. A. Greene(Press Illus. Service)

Major Gen. Leonard Wood(©Clinedinst)

Major Gen. H. S. Hale

Major Gen. J. T. Dickman

Senator G. M. HitchcockChairman Foreign Relations Committee(Harris & Ewing)

Congressman Claude KitchinChairman House Ways and Means Committee(Harris & Ewing)

Senator L. S. Overman

Senator F. M. Simmons

SCENE OF THE NEW AUSTRIAN OFFENSIVE

It is thus of most vital influence upon the operations going on along the Piave that the British on the Asiago Plateau, on June 15, and the French on Monte Grappa, the next day, and the Italians elsewhere even covering a diversion at the Tonale Pass, should have hurled back with severe losses the initial assaults of the enemy in the mountain regions. On June 18 the Austrians claimed to have taken 30,000 prisoners and 120 guns since the 15th; the Italians and their allies claimed 2,500 prisoners.

That the Greeks are certainly in the war was revealed on May 31, when the news was published that they had, with the aid of French artillery, captured some 1,500 Bulgar-German troops on the Struma front in Macedonia. Meanwhile, however, General Guillaumat, who succeeded General Sarrail as commander of the allied armies there in December, has returned to France to take charge of the defenses of Paris.

Advices from Constantinople, via Moscow and London, indicate that theTurks, having reached an agreement with the Caucasus peoples, are assembling troops across the Armenian-Persian frontier, so as to block the advance of General Marshall with the Anglo-Indian forces up the Tigris. The left wing of the Turks, on June 14, reached Tabriz and Lake Urumiah, in Persia, 200 miles northeast of Mosul on the Tigris. Marshall is 60 miles south of that place.

Captain Rizzo of the Italian Navy, who on the night of Dec. 9-10 sank the Austrian pre-dreadnought Wien in the Harbor of Trieste and put another ship of the 5,000-ton class, now known to be the Budapest, out of commission, again distinguished himself on June 10, when with two torpedo boats he cut through the destroyer convoy of two dreadnoughts of the Viribus Unitis class (20,000 tons) and sent certainly one and probably both to the bottom off Dalmatia—one being seen to sink before his eyes and the wreckage of the other being subsequently picked up. This exploit leaves only one of these mighty ships afloat, the first having been torpedoed in the Harbor of Pola on May 15.

The April issue ofCurrent History Magazinecontained the text of a German order for undermining the morale of Russian troops by fraternization. Early in May a similar order was found on a German prisoner captured by French troops on the Italian front. The order is as follows:

281st Division, First Section, No. 226.—Confidential.Not to be communicated to troops in the first line.First—Following the telephone order, Geroch No. 2,080, you are asked to intensify with efficacy the propaganda with the enemy army.Second—The object of this propaganda is to disorganize the enemy army and to obtain information regarding it. The propaganda must be carried out in the following manner: (a) By throwing into the enemy's trenches newspapers and proclamations destined for the more intelligent elements; (b) by persuading the troops by oral propaganda. For that it will be necessary to utilize officers, under-officers, and soldiers who appear to be most adapted. The posts for making contacts with the enemy must be placed under the direction of the company commander, who must be in the first-line positions. These officers must ascertain the points where it will be the easiest to throw into the enemy trenches newspapers, proclamations, &c. At these points you must seek to gain contact with the enemy by means of our interpreters, and if the enemy consents then fix an hour for future conversations. You must then advise immediately by telephone the chief of the Information Bureau of the division of every contact with the enemy.

281st Division, First Section, No. 226.—Confidential.

Not to be communicated to troops in the first line.

First—Following the telephone order, Geroch No. 2,080, you are asked to intensify with efficacy the propaganda with the enemy army.

Second—The object of this propaganda is to disorganize the enemy army and to obtain information regarding it. The propaganda must be carried out in the following manner: (a) By throwing into the enemy's trenches newspapers and proclamations destined for the more intelligent elements; (b) by persuading the troops by oral propaganda. For that it will be necessary to utilize officers, under-officers, and soldiers who appear to be most adapted. The posts for making contacts with the enemy must be placed under the direction of the company commander, who must be in the first-line positions. These officers must ascertain the points where it will be the easiest to throw into the enemy trenches newspapers, proclamations, &c. At these points you must seek to gain contact with the enemy by means of our interpreters, and if the enemy consents then fix an hour for future conversations. You must then advise immediately by telephone the chief of the Information Bureau of the division of every contact with the enemy.

Only the chief of the Information Bureau will have the right to direct the conversations according to the instructions he has received. It is rigorously prohibited for any of our soldiers to enter into relation with the enemy except those who have received the mission to do so, for fear that the enemy may seek to profit by their ingenuousness. All letters and printed matter which the enemy may have on his person must be taken from him, and transmitted to the chief of the Information Bureau. Company commanders, above all, must seek to establish the points where the enemy's soldiers have received newspapers, the points where the newspapers were taken openly, and without precaution. There are posts of observation for the artillery, as it may happen that French officers or foreign army instructors are in these posts.In these enterprises for obtaining contact with the enemy, success depends on the ability with which you operate. Good results can be obtained by calling in a friendly tone and indicating sentiments of comradeship or by reiterated promises not to fire and offers of tobacco. The tobacco for this purpose will be furnished by the company commanders.Every evening, at 8 o'clock, the company commander must transmit directly to the information officer a report of the propaganda accomplished during the day. This report must contain the following indications: (a) Has the enemy picked up our newspapers and proclamations? (b) Have you endeavored to enter into relations with the enemy? (c) With whom have you had contact—officers, under-officers, soldiers? (d) Where and when were our newspapers and proclamations thrown into the enemy's trenches? (e) All other information of the enemy's conduct. At the same time, our interpreters will send to the chief of the Information Bureau a detailed report on all conversations they have had with the enemy. The enemy's positions where propaganda is under way must not be shelled by our artillery; they must indicate to the batteries the positions of these points to be spared. The enemy is perfidious and without honor, and it is necessary as a consequence to be careful that they neither take our propagandists prisoners nor kill them. Those of our soldiers who leave our lines for the purpose of carrying newspapers and pamphlets to the enemy must be advised. To protect them it will be necessary to constitute with care special detachments, who will mount guard in the trenches, and who will fire only on the order of the company commander who is directing relations with the enemy.—Signed, on behalf of the temporary commander of the division, the Major General commanding the 62d Brigade.

In these enterprises for obtaining contact with the enemy, success depends on the ability with which you operate. Good results can be obtained by calling in a friendly tone and indicating sentiments of comradeship or by reiterated promises not to fire and offers of tobacco. The tobacco for this purpose will be furnished by the company commanders.

Every evening, at 8 o'clock, the company commander must transmit directly to the information officer a report of the propaganda accomplished during the day. This report must contain the following indications: (a) Has the enemy picked up our newspapers and proclamations? (b) Have you endeavored to enter into relations with the enemy? (c) With whom have you had contact—officers, under-officers, soldiers? (d) Where and when were our newspapers and proclamations thrown into the enemy's trenches? (e) All other information of the enemy's conduct. At the same time, our interpreters will send to the chief of the Information Bureau a detailed report on all conversations they have had with the enemy. The enemy's positions where propaganda is under way must not be shelled by our artillery; they must indicate to the batteries the positions of these points to be spared. The enemy is perfidious and without honor, and it is necessary as a consequence to be careful that they neither take our propagandists prisoners nor kill them. Those of our soldiers who leave our lines for the purpose of carrying newspapers and pamphlets to the enemy must be advised. To protect them it will be necessary to constitute with care special detachments, who will mount guard in the trenches, and who will fire only on the order of the company commander who is directing relations with the enemy.—Signed, on behalf of the temporary commander of the division, the Major General commanding the 62d Brigade.

Third Month of Desperate Effort to Break the French and British Lines in France

By GEORGE H. PERRIS

Special Correspondent with the French Armies

[Copyrighted in the United States of America]

The May and June issue of Current History Magazine contained detailed descriptions of the first and second months of the great German offensive in France, which began with a terrific blow in Picardy, apparently with the object of driving a wedge between the French and British, and then shifted to a deadly attack on the British in Flanders, aiming to break through to the Channel ports. These phases of the great battle were described by Philip Gibbs. The new phases, sometimes called the third and fourth offensives, began May 27 and June 9, respectively, and are known as the battle for Paris and the battle of the Oise. The blow of May 27 was delivered between Rheims and Montdidier, with the evident purpose of breaking the French lines and clearing the way for a drive to Paris. The descriptions which follow are written by George H. Perris, a special correspondent with the French armies.

[This dispatch was written before the drive toward Paris was launched, and indicates that Mr. Perris had a clear and correct idea of the German plan]

May 26, 1918.—The delay of the third act of the German offensive was abnormal. The first was perhaps, in design and execution, the most powerful operation in the history of warfare. The second, the attack in Flanders in the middle week of April, almost certainly began as a diversion intended to draw the British reserves from the Amiens front and to fill the interval needed for the reorganization of forces.

Up to the middle of April the German armies not occupied in fighting could do little but commence the strengthening of their new fronts, as lines of defense and departure. Their staffs, high and low, must, however, have been already engaged upon plans for the next push. Six or seven weeks then have passed in constituting a new mass of attack, with its armament and transport, in constructing roads and railways, dumps and supply centres, in bringing forward batteries, airdromes, hospitals, and so on.

True, this is not as long as the time of preparation for the first phase of the battle, which may be broadly counted as from New Year's to March 21. But there should be a vast difference between the mounting of a wholly fresh offensive and its pursuit into the later stages. A relentless continuity of pressure is evidently of very great importance after the advantage of the initial surprise. It is the thing which a commander will most aim at.

If the Germans did not keep going on the main line of their attack north and south of the Somme after the middle of April, it was because they could not do so; and the partial success of their ex-temporized campaign in Flanders should not disguise from us this significant fact.

It would be useless at this period of the war, when all Germany demands a decision and nothing less, if the new offensive did not lead to the capture at least of some place of symbolic importance, such as Rheims, Verdun, or Nancy. But that would require a force so large as to cripple the major effort in the northwest. All the military virtue of the German strategy is against such a dispersal of effort.

May 28—The opening of the attack and the first day's results are thus described by Mr. Perris:

Hindenburg has scored another spectacular success. At dawn yesterday, after three hours' bombardment, composed largely of gas shells, a new German mass attack was thrown upon a twenty-five-mile front, extending from the Ailette near Vauxaillon to the Aisne-Marne Canal near Brimont.

It was four or five times as numerous as the defenders, and in other regards correspondingly stronger. In these circumstances, an attempt to retain the line of the Chemin des Dames would have meant that the French troops would have been massacred before reserves could reach them, and there was nothing for it but to fall back steadily and in good order, using successive lines of trenches and deep folds of ground to punish the enemy for every forward step he made.

As I anticipated in my last message, the method of the first phase of the German offensive was again employed with some improvements. This method rests upon two main elements—the prodigal expenditure of the large reserves obtained by the collapse of Russia and Rumania, and the skillful use of the great advantage of what are called interior lines of communication to throw a mass attack suddenly upon the chosen sector, and so to gain the further advantage of surprise.

The front now chosen was held till a day or two ago by parts of two armies belonging to the group of which the Prussian Crown Prince is the titular chief. General von Boehm's army, extending from the Oise at Noyon to east of Craonne, numbered nine divisions. In the sector of General Fritz von Below, extending across the Rheims front to Suippe, near Auberive, there were eight divisions. The whole twenty-five miles attacked yesterday had therefore been held till the eve of battle by only seven or eight divisions. The exact number of divisions engaged yesterday is not yet known, but it seems to have been about twenty-five, or over a quarter of a million combatants.

There is here a curious difference and likeness as compared with the first phase of the offensive on March 21. To the seventeen divisions already holding the sector of attack there were added another seventeen. This time the same number has been added where there were only eight. Two months ago the front of attack was about forty miles long. This time a rather denser force was employed, perhaps because the Aisne height constituted a formidable position, and it was intended to carry it at a single rush.

While the front keeps its present shape the German staff has necessarily a great advantage over that of the Allies in that it is acting from the centre of a crescent, and they are around and outside of it. If enough time can be given to preparations—and as my last message showed the pause had been abnormal—they must gain a certain benefit of surprise, and with this benefit such a mass of shock must win a certain depth of ground.

Our only notions of the Chemin des Dames were obtained in a time very different from the present emergency, the time of fixed fronts and of methods defensive and offensive that are already old-fashioned to those of us who have watched these blood-soaked hills and gullies for nearly four years through heartrending vicissitudes, who remember Haig's and Smith-Dorrien's first attempts to scale what seemed an impregnable fortress, who saw the French bluecoats rush forward last Summer till at length they stood firm on the cliffs of Craonne and Heurtebise, who explored the Dragon's Cave at Malmaison Fort and the vast Montparnasse quarry when they still stank from rotting flesh.

It is not a light thing that ground so full of tragic memories should be lost. It seems only the other day that I was adventuring along the Ailette by Anizyle-Château, sleeping in a dugout in Pinon Forest, and examining the outposts that then held the northern edge of the hills.

War pays little regard to sentiment, and it is not any spectacular stroke or sentimental score that will restore the falling fortunes of the Hohenzollerns.

Total Gains of German Drive

SHADED PORTIONS SHOW TOTAL GAINS OF THE GREAT GERMAN OFFENSIVE. THE NUMERALS INDICATE THE SEQUENCE OF THE FOUR BATTLES OR PHASES. THE DRIVE ON THE SOMME WAS LAUNCHED MARCH 21, THAT IN FLANDERS APRIL 9, THE CHAMPAGNE DRIVE MAY 27, AND THE OFFENSIVE ON THE OISE JUNE 9

No doubt the French command found it grievous yesterday to order a retreat to the Aisne. Feebler men might have temporized and lost in doing so many good lives which are, after all, more sacred than the most sacred earth.

The attack could not be anticipated. It was far beyond the powers of the small defending forces to ward it off. With sound tactical sense the heaviest assault was directed toward the eastern end of the Aisne Hills at Craonne as soon as it became evident that this corner could not be held, and that from here the whole line was in danger of being turned.

The German forces included some of the specially trained units that fought in von Hutier's army in the March attack—two divisions of the Prussian Guard and other crack formations. It was only at heavy cost that they got forward so quickly. The French retired from position to position without confusion, firing continuously. The fact that their losses are small in comparison with those of the enemy is an essential point.

May 29—There has been very severe fighting today, with results necessarily favorable on the whole to the enemy because the allied reserves are only just beginning to reach the front. A strong thrust toward Soissons and the road and railway from Soissons to Coucy-le-Château at the moment when the head of the columns of the offensive were striking south of the Vesle from Braisne, Bazoches, and Fismes suggests that the armies engaged have already been reinforced. [See maps in preceding pages.]

So far an almost insolent boldness has won through, but the French resistance is steadily increasing, and more prudence will soon be necessary. For instance, the River Aisne is a most awkward obstacle to have on your line of communications. The enemy was able to prevent the Allies from destroying all the bridges during the withdrawal, but it is not too late, and the bombarding squadrons of the Allies will doubtless find telling work to do in the early future.

Last evening when the enemy had got across the Aisne near Pontavert part of the British brigade was falling back. A group of French territorials, firing continuously upon the swarming graycoats, were taking refuge in Germicourt Wood and being gradually surrounded. Some Englishmen and older Frenchmen decided to make their last stand, to die there together or to beat the enemy off. A handful of territorials got away to tell the tale. The Englishmen fell to a man.

The French officer who told me of this episode of the battle spoke also of the gallant work of a British cyclist battalion fighting with the French before Fismes, and of the fate of some British officers who lost their lives in blowing up Aisne bridges near Craonne. There was no time to take the usual precautions, but the thing had to be done, and they did it. My informant showed that he felt all the nobility and pathos of these sacrifices, and he wished, as much as I, that the folk at home should hear of them.

The first reports seemed to indicate that the success of the German assault on the British sector led the defenders by a threat of envelopment to retreat from the Aisne heights. This was not so. The Germans first crossed the river further west, and the British left was therefore obliged to fall back.

It was the left, and particularly the 50th Division, that had to bear the heaviest of the shock. The bombardment, which lasted three hours, was of indescribable intensity, the chill night air being soon saturated with poison gas, and when at dawn the German infantry, hideous in their masks, broke like a tidal wave upon the thin British line it was overwhelmed. The 50th is a territorial division.

A counterattack toward Craonne failed under a flank fire from tanks and machine guns, and step by step the heroic line was withdrawn through wooded and marshy ground to the Aisne.

The French on the left were resisting like masses with the same bravery; contact was lost with them for a short time,as also with the British 25th and 8th Divisions further east, and as the men fell back a front could be preserved only by a converging retreat toward the south by night. When the hills north of Vosle were reached the 50th Division had lost a number of its officers and other ranks.

The British centre, consisting of part of the 25th and 8th Divisions, was more fortunate. The 25th had been in reserve, and its support in the low and difficult ground at the east end of the Aisne Valley was most important. It and the 8th maintained their second positions till late in the afternoon.

On the right the 21st Division, together with the neighboring French division, had to defend the line of the canal from Berry-au-Bac to Bermericourt against the onset of four German divisions, aided by the strongest fleet of tanks the enemy has yet put into the field. This northwestern edge of the great plain of Champagne is very favorable ground for the use of cars of assault, and it was here that the French made their first experiments with indifferent results that have since been greatly bettered.

These two British and French divisions had the advantage of a line of heights with batteries and perfect observation behind them. They held out obstinately till the retreat of the left made it necessary to move southward.

May 30.—During last night the enemy took Fère-en-Tardenois and drove the allied rearguards back to Vesilly, whence the line ran this morning northeast to the outskirts of Rheims. As the Marne is thus brought into the picture, it is pertinent to point out that in the famous battle of September, 1914, the Germans reached to more than thirty miles south of the river in this region.

This is at present their strongest push. The road from Soissons to Compiègne is closed to them, but further south they have got to the road Soissons-Hartennes.

Lest it be thought that the allied reserves are slow in coming into play, I may point out that the front of the offensive has been nearly doubled in length in the last three days. At the outset it was about thirty-five miles. It is now sixty. Merely to make good losses and to provide a screen of troops along this greater extent, with everything in movement, has required effort.

At midnight on May 26 the battlefront was ten miles away from Soissons. The few civilian inhabitants and the many hospital patients had settled down to sleep, the usual hour for airplane raids having passed.

An hour later they and the few army bureaus in the neighborhood were aroused by a sudden outbreak of bombardment, such as they had never heard before, and soon afterward shells began to crash upon the town.

With the wounds of four years of war upon it, the northern quarter completely destroyed and the cathedral grievously damaged, Soissons still possessed something of its old-time grace and air of substantial well being. It would be an exaggeration to compare it with Richmond, for the Aisne is not the Thames and the French woods are not English parks; but after the victory of Malmaison had put the boche back beyond the Ailette we hoped to see the great mansions repaired and the happy life of the shopping quarters gradually revived. Today the Germans are camped in the smoking ruins of Soissons.

On May 27 at least 1,200 explosive and incendiary shells were fired into the place. The hospitals, including a special hospital for poison gas cases, were hurriedly evacuated, American ambulance cars doing good service in carrying away the wounded.

On Tuesday, the 28th, the bombardment continued, its purpose being, no doubt, to put out of service the most important bridgehead of the Aisne Valley and one of the most important lines of communication between the regions to the south and north, the town being a railway centre of some local consequence. That afternoon a good many houses were in flames, and during the night a large part of the town was involved in fire.

The enemy had now shouldered his way on the north of the Aisne westward from Pinon, Laffaux, and Vregny, and had reached the highroad running from Coucy-le-Château to Soissons. Yesterday he pressed still further west, and the road being thus covered, as well as the roads from Laffaux and Vailly, made a powerful direct attack upon the town.

It looked at first like being an easy success. The French, wearied with thirty hours of unceasing combat and impossibly outnumbered, fell back, and the Germans reached the centre of the town. In the narrow streets, however, the effect of superior numbers largely disappeared. The French fought fiercely from corner to corner, and at last, gathering themselves together, swept theenemy back to the northern and eastern suburbs. In the afternoon new German contingents were brought up and in a few hours gained complete possession of the place.

Soissons was, of course, in no sense fortified, and, the northern and eastern roads having been lost, it had no military value. The highway down the valley to Compiègne is bordered by the old French trench and wire systems and dominated by hills on either side of the river. The range on the south bank is covered for miles by the great forests of Villers-Cotterets and Compiègne.

[Another correspondent stated that 1,200 shells fell in Soissons on May 27. The Bishop of Soissons stated in Paris on June 7 that 100 churches had been razed to the ground by the Germans, and that at least 100 others had been pillaged and partially demolished. The famous cathedral in Soissons suffered severely. The Bishop added that the Germans knew neither faith nor law. They knew nothing but war and pillage. The Germans, he said, were stripping and carrying everything away methodically.

The Bishop also asserted that women, children, and old men had been brutally murdered by German aviators, who flew over and fired with their machine guns upon long lines of refugees on country roads.]

Something like forty divisions, most of them the best troops available, have now been thrown across the Aisne—400,000 men who might possibly have reached some vital part of the allied defenses in the north.

The von Hutier method is a prodigious invention, but it is as costly in fire and blood as it is impressive for force and speed. In the last week of March it was, in a purely military sense, properly employed, even though it failed, because the objective could be said to be of a vital or decisive character.

What vital objective is there in the present operation? The central part of the German line has been pressed a little further in the last twenty-four hours in the obscure region of scattered hamlets, large farms, and deep tortuous valleys, midway between the Aisne and the Marne. It now comes nearly down to the small market towns of Fère-en-Tardenois and Ville-en-Tardenois, thence running east-northeast to the Vesle just outside of Rheims.

The advance is meeting everincreasing resistance, and by the time the first week is out it will perhaps be definitely arrested. But suppose that it goes much further and reaches the Marne Valley, or even still further to the Montmirail Valley. Two useful highroads, with some country towns, would be lost to the Allies in these altogether unlikely contingencies, but nothing vital would be lost. The German Army would be no nearer than it now is to winning the war.

In an evacuation station, where a number of British were waiting for the hospital train, the ragged fellows told me of adventures that only their scarlet, honest faces made credible. There was a young Lieutenant who was on a train that was sent up north yesterday toward Fismes. The exact whereabouts of the enemy was unknown. They ran right into the German lines.

The outposts received them with a volley of rifle shots and then came on with grenades. The engine driver stopped the train, jumped down, and took refuge in a ditch. While the fight waxed hotter he was induced to return, and they managed to steam backward just in time, carrying some wounded and three German prisoners with them. The Lieutenant's satisfaction in this last item seemed, however, to be marred by the impression that the Germans were not forcibly captured, but wished to surrender.

The civilian refugees are going south in processions of farm carts, high-ended wagons, and ancient traps, or footing it behind barrows and perambulators. I would not speak lightly of the temporary loss of their lands and homes, but in their ranks there was no sign of panic or fear for the final result.

Most of them were women and children, with a few gaffers, heading a family group or driving cows and big white oxen. Girls with umbrellas up against the hot sun and dust clouds, little children in their Sunday best, and old ladies in Scotch caps sat on piles of straw, amid bedding and furniture, on high wagons. Many of the younger folks had bicycles and many walked, with dogs and goats frisking about them.

On May 31 Mr. Perris described the extension of the battlefront during the preceding twenty-four hours. He wrote:

The battlefront now forms a vast triangle, the apex pointing markedly toward Château-Thierry and less markedly toward Dormans. The west side runs for about fifty miles from the Oise opposite Noyon to the Marne. The east side runs back thirty miles to Rheims.

The enemy goes on multiplying his objective and distending his lines. The military worth of this strategy is perhaps in inverse ratio to its shown appearance on the map.

On the opposite flanks of the battlefield the allied forces have here been drawn slightly back from the acute salient, marked by the two trivial points named in a previous message, Betheny and Laneuvillette. The ruins of Rheims thus become the corner of the allied defenses on this line. I have explained that the city lies exposed in a saucer at the southwestern corner of the Champagne and is completely dominated by the allied crescentof high positions on the mountains of Rheims.

In contrast with the further advance of the German centre, the French and British forces on the wings are holding firm. The great highroad from Soissons to Château-Thierry marks broadly the western limit of the offensive.

On the northern stretch of it there was hard fighting yesterday. In the morning the enemy crossed the road at Hartennes and attacked westward with a number of tanks, but was checked near the hamlet of Tigny.

Further north a well known French division made, with its traditional spirit, a thrust westward across the road and the little River Crise and reached the village of Noyant. It had to fall back, but here, too, the German advance was arrested. The Compiègne road is firmly held, and the disparity of forces is being rapidly reduced.

On the other flank of the battlefield the French and British divisions stand across the hills on the other bank of the Ardre, a small tributary of the Vesle, from Brouillet to Thillois, on the northern foothills of the mountain of Rheims, whence the front runs around the ruined city.

This French division struck out from Le Neuvillette along the canal and captured two hummocks, called Castalliers and De Courcy. It was a bold effort, intended to check the enemy rather than in the hope of retaining the position. This indeed proved impossible, but the French were slow to retire, and the lesson will not be lost upon their adversaries.

The news is gradually coming in of what happened on the front, submerged by the assault of Monday morning, (May 27.) Its most northerly part was the low ground beside the Ailette called the Forest of Pinon, which I described fully last Christmas, when I spent several days with the outposts by which it was held, in conditions somewhat reminiscent of Wild West warfare. The nearest trenches were on the hills a mile or two behind, this ground being too marshy to dig in. In the forest blockhouses were then being built, and were laid out while each side raided the other across the frontier on the stream and canal. Nothing then seemed less likely than an attack across such ground, but preparations were being pushed forward with the idea that a few groups of defenders would gather in and around the blockhouses and fight a delaying action, and then, if possible, escape back to the hill trenches.

The event turned out otherwise. When the surviving groups and outposts, amounting in all to three battalions, got together on Monday morning they decided to intrench themselves and to fight to the death. Carrier pigeons brought notes from them to this effect. The last note received was dated 2 P. M. on Tuesday. The best that can be hoped is that some survive as prisoners.

I think it may be said that there is now no danger of a break through toward any vital objective.

Mr. Perris on June 2 gave the first hint of improved aspects of the battle in the following dispatch:

On Friday afternoon, May 31, General von Boehm's troops opened a new pocket beyond Oulchy of a depth of about five miles and on either side of the Ourcq Valley yesterday. In the course of stubborn fighting this salient was slightly extended, and at the same time a narrow bend was added to their gains between the Oise about Pont Eveque and the Aisne west of Soissons.

The main line of pressure was thus changed from south to southwest, and while the rest of the new front is relatively quiet, there have developed two bulges, which represent the acutest stress of the battle.

The first of these is between the Oise and the Aisne, directed toward the angle of the two rivers at Compiègne; the second, midway between the Aisne and the Marne, points westward along the Ourcq, toward the ancient town of Laferte-Milon.

In both these fields there has been a series of violent struggles this morning, with a notable increase of the power of resistance of the Allies. North of the Aisne the German assaults have been nearly everywhere broken. A slight advance by the Germans on the Ourcq has been won at the cost of very heavy losses, and the French are standing with splendid resolution along its small tributary, the Savieres, which marks the border of the forest region of Villers-Cotterets.

As the enemy has reached the heights northwest of Château-Thierry, where we watch them from the south side of the river, an attempt to push westward along the north bank of the Marne is to be expected.

On June 3 Mr Perris was more optimistic than at any time since the battle began. He wrote as follows:

There is a slackening in the violence of the battle. Yesterday's fighting was the most equal I have seen in this stage of the offensive. We lost Faverolles again—this village has since been recaptured—but regained Hill 163, just west of the village of Passy, and broke attacks against Corcy, Troesnes, and Torcy. It is to be expected that the enemy will make new efforts to destroy the French bastion on the bare plateaus between the Aisne and the Ourcq.

Local currents of fortune are also in the nature of things, according as one side or the other decides to throw its local reservesupon this or that point. So far as the intentions of the German command have been revealed, however, it may now be said that the position is in hand at the end of the first week of this third act of the German offensive.

What is the outlook? By lengthy preparation aimed at an unlikely sector the enemy gained ground to nearly as large an extent as in the first act. In the last week of March von Hutier pierced from St. Quentin to Montdidier, say, thirty-five miles. In the last week von Boehm advanced from the Ailette to Château-Thierry, about thirty miles, on a similar length of front. It is too early to attempt comparison of the cost of the two enterprises in losses and exhaustion.

The German staff seems to have counted on employing forty-five divisions in the Aisne offensive. Before the end of last week this figure had been exceeded. No essential objective has been attained, and none has been approached as nearly as in the two northern phases of the offensive. Concentration, not dispersal, of effort is the means to a quick decision. If Germany were not pressed for time and could be content with partial victories, she might be satisfied, but Germany is decidedly pressed for time, and only decisive actions now count.

The Americans are coming into the battlefront, and will presently be there in force. This front now extends over 200 miles. The superiority of aggressive force given by the collapse of Russia and Rumania is ebbing away.

The question will have arisen in some minds why, if the defenses of the Chemin des Dames were as strong as I had represented them to be, last Monday's attack should have so quickly overcome them. Detailed narratives are being accumulated which throw light on this subject. I take the case of the division holding the French left a week ago. We all remember its front, which was naturally and artificially of the strongest. It had nearly twelve hours' notice of what was afoot.

In the first place, the German artillery preparation, though short, was of infernal violence. The rolling barrage was two miles deep. It destroyed the French telephone wires and filled the battery emplacements and machine-gun posts with various kinds of poison gas. Dust and artificial smoke clouds isolated groups of defenders and hid the waves of assault till they broke with a four-fold superiority of force. Many groups were thus surrounded, but fought on for a couple of hours, causing the enemy heavy losses. Many short counterattacks delayed advances and every line of trench wire was used.

But the next most important thing, since reinforcements could not arrive immediately, was that the mass of the division should be held together and drawn back gradually for the defense of more essential positions. These lay beyond the Soissons bridgehead. Reinforced last Tuesday night, the division defended the plateau southeast of Soissons for four days with obstinate heroism.

It may now be said that the allied airmen have established decided supremacy in the new battlefield. The Germans had a week ago, in this as in other respects, the advantage of their preparations and initiative, and they used it boldly, flying low in numbers, and machine-gunning our retreating ranks.

The balance could not be instantly redressed. The airplane seems to be the very type of mobility, but it devours petrol, demands repairs, and, in brief, must carry its camp with it.

Every day of this critical week has seen a larger concentration between the Oise and the Marne, and an increasing number of combats and expeditions. The first essential was to have constant information of the enemy's movements; and this scouting work, though less sensational than some other parts of the air program, remains perhaps the most important of all.

Then followed with growing vigor the development of the aggressive functions of the air service in which it became a sort of extension of artillery and cavalry and even of infantry. A single group in one day brought down six boche planes and three sausages, dropped seventeen tons of bombs in the region of Rheims, and tons on marching columns of the enemy in the neighborhood of Ville-en-Tardenois.

"Our pilots," said a group commander, "had orders not to come back with a single cartridge or bomb, and you may take it from me that they do not waste their munitions on clouds."

On Thursday another group commander, receiving news that an enemy column was stretched over three miles of a certain road, sent about fifty machines to deal with it. They charged as a squadron of cavalry would do, coming down to within twenty and even ten yards of the earth, and with bombs and machine guns effectually dispersing and demoralizing the graycoats.

Many enemy planes and sausage balloons have been brought down, but that is in the circumstances a secondary effort. Lines of communication and rear camps and centres of the enemy also have been harried. On Friday no less than seventy tons and on Saturday sixty-two tons of explosives were dropped by airmen on German bivouac troops.

I went down to the Marne Valley yesterday afternoon and from the edge of a wooded hill looked across over part of the north bank where the Germans are established.Established is hardly the word, for everything is floating and provisional in this phase of the war, and it is more than ever invisible except where infantry actions are in course, because there are no fixed intrenched lines. I could not find any trace of the enemy on the opposite amphitheatre of hills, but an observer hanging above at the tail of a sausage balloon may have seen something, for from time to time the French guns blazed angrily over my head and buildings were on fire in the villages.

In this winding stretch of the valley crests rise 500 feet above the broad, strong stream, and there are five or six miles between the two ridges. The French have guns and machine guns in position, and any considerable attempt to cross will be very costly.

Two hundred Germans came over yesterday morning and are now more or less contented guests of the French Republic. But the enemy does not seem to contemplate an immediate passage, if at all. It would probably be tried further west at some point where the northern hills are more dominant. The section of the important objectives appears to lie in this direction.

Immediately behind the zone of mutual observation, all the humming activities of arms are proceeding with a freedom unknown in the days of trench warfare, partly because this is the nature of the war of movement and partly because, like other services, the air squadrons are dispersed and the German airmen cannot obtain more than local and momentary equality. And amid all the flow of troops and guns, the pitching of camps, the laying of field telegraphs, shifting of hospitals and hangars, bringing up of munitions and supplies, there is an air of calm over the whole scene that would astonish those who see the offensive only as it is concentrated in a newspaper sheet.

In his dispatch dated June 4 Mr. Perris described the fighting on the 3d, which was the last desperate attempt of the Germans to advance in that phase. He wrote:

The battle blazed out afresh last night along and south of the upper Ourcq, and the struggle is raging with violence, due, in part, to the fact that both sides have brought up many guns and in part to the desperation of the Germans as once more they see victory slipping out of their hands.

Tactically, the chief feature today is the attempt of the enemy to support the attack on the Ourcq by a thrust further south along its tributary, the Clignon, a small stream following a marshy valley westward to the middle course of the Ourcq. There the most bitter combats have taken place and continue about the villages of Bouresches, Torcy, and Veuilly-la-Poterie. At the latter point the Germans tried to get around to the southward, but were effectually stopped in the Veuilly Wood, a mile south of the village, by Americans. In all this fighting the enemy's losses have been very severe, for in every case we had the best defensive positions, well supported by machine guns and 75s.

I spoke yesterday of the importance of the French stand to the southwest of Soissons, both as limiting the enemy's access to the Aisne Valley and as narrowing his approach to the Ourcq Valley. A slight withdrawal to the line of the villages of Pernant, Saconin, Missy, and Vaucastille yesterday did not materially weaken this buttress of the front. Nor is it seriously weakened by another short withdrawal this morning between Pernant and Missy, for which the enemy has had to pay dearly. We still hold Tresnes and Faverolles, and the prospects of von Boehm reaching Villers-Cotterets are not bright enough to cheer the drooping spirits of Berlin.

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