Fields of Victory

ion to the officer from G.H.Q., who, as is always the case with Army visitors, accompanied us most courteously and efficiently throughout. Captain X took us by a by-road th

h shelters, dug-outs and gun-emplacements, rough defences that as the German Army retreated our men had taken over and altered to their

ge which looks over the Sensée valley; the shell-broken road in which the car-most complaisant of cars and most skilful of drivers!-finally stuck; and those hastily dug shelters on the road-side in one of which I suddenly noticed a soldier's coat and water-bottle lying just as they had been left two months before. There wer

the tanks; the triumphant progress of Sir Julian Byng; the evening papers with their telegrams, and those tragic joy-bells that began to ring; and then the flowing back of the German wave; the British withdrawal from that high wood yonder which had cost so much to win, and from much else; the bewilderment and disappointment at home. A tired Army, and an attack pushed too far?-is that the summing up of the first

sing and signal stations, machine-gun emplacements and observation posts; and, in front of it, great fields of wire, through which wide lanes have been flattened down. Now we have turned eastward, and we stand and gaze towards Cambrai, over the road we have come. The huge trench is before us, the waterless canal with its steep banks lies beyond, and on the further hill-side, trench beyond trench, as far as the eye can see, the lines still fairly clear, though in some places broken up and confused by bombardment. The officer beside me draws my attention to some marks on the ground near me-the track marks of two t

esult, bettered all that they had learned from Germany, and proved themselves the master minds of the war. For the tanks mean surprise-mobility-the power to break off any action when it has done its part, and rapidly to transfer the attack somewhere else. Behind them, indeed, stood all the immense resources of the British artillery-guns of all calibres, so numerous that in many a great attack they stood wheel to wheel in a continuous arc of fire. But it was the tanks which cleared the way, which flattened the wire, and beat down the skill and courage of the German machine gunners, who have taken such deadly toll of British life during the war. And behind the tanks, protected also by that creeping barrage of the great guns, w

hes, cut by the Canal du Nord, which fills the whole eastern scene to the horizon-remain in my mind as somehow representative of the two main

are tho

of the strategical genius, at once subtle and simple, of Marshal Fo

to the south-west over which the shades are gathering, to St. Quentin and St. Gobain. These miles of half-effaced and abandoned trenches, with all those scores of other miles to the north-west and the south-east which the horizon covers, represent, as I have said, the culminating effort of the war; the last effective stand of the German brought to bay; the

those who have never seen even a yard of it, come back to the subject presently, helped by a captured G

y feet, and those innumerable white lines on the far hill-side-let me recall the great story of the si

turesqueness of the place. But there must be a house and a room in Doullens, which ought already to be marked as national property, and will certainly be an object of travel in years to come for both English and French; no less than that factory to the west of Verdun where Castelnau and Pétain conferred at the sharpest crisis of the immortal siege. For there-so it is generally believed-the practical sense and generous temper of the British Commander brought about that change in the whole con

uld take the supreme control of the four Allied armies now fighting or gathering in France was made and pressed by Sir Douglas Haig. There was anxious debate, some opposition in unexpected quarters, and finally a unanimous decision. General Foch, waiting in an adjoining room, was called in and accepted the tas

s afterwards the German attack beat against the British front, bending and denting but never breaking it. Then at the end of April the atta

ts from England were being absorbed and trained under a Commander-in-Chief who, by the consent of all his subordinates, is a supreme manipulator and trainer of fighting men, while never forgetting the human reality which is the foundation of it all. Soon the number of effective infantry divisions on the British front had ris

dendorff struck again to the east and south-west of Rheims. General Gouraud, who was in command of the Fourth French Army to the east of Rheims, told me at Strasbourg the dramatic story of that attack and of its brilliant and

er-offensive on the Soissons-Chateau-Thierry front, which, in Sir Douglas Hai

ned to escape from the hounds on his track. He fought, as we all know, a skilful retreat to the Vesle, leaving prisoners and gu

h and American Armies-the American Army now in all men's mouths because of its gallant and distinguished share in the June and July fighting on the Marne-were to attack towards Mézières and Metz, while the British Armies struck towards

hic one-on the linked line of the Allies. On the British front four great battles, involving the capture of more than 100,000 prisoners and hundreds of guns, had to be fought before the Hindenburg line was

tricts to the south, where the French were on his heels. These were great days for the Canadian and Australian troops. Four Canadian divisions under Sir Arthur Currie, on the right of an eleven-mile front, four Australian divisions under Sir John Monash in the centre, with the Third British Corps under General Butler on the left, led the splendid advance. The Field Marshal in his dispatch speaks of the "brilliant and predominating part" played by

round lost in the spring, and took 34,000 prisoners and 270 guns. The enemy's morale was now failing; surrenders became frequent, and there were many signs of the exhaustion of the German reserves. And again, by the turning of his line, large t

lry and armoured cars, had captured "the whole of the elaborate system of wire, trenches, and strong points," which runs north-west from the Hindenburg line proper to the Lens defences at Drocourt; while the 17th Corps attacked the triangle of fortifications marking the junction of the Drocourt-Quéant line with the Hindenburg line proper, and cleared it

e carried before the line itself could be dealt with. Six days secured the positions wanted for the final attack, and in tho

help of the tanks-of which, in the Battle of Amiens, General Rawlinson had 400 under his command-the elements of surprise and mobility. The harassed enemy would find himself hard pressed in a particular section, driven to retreat, with heavy losses in ground, guns and prisoners; and then, as soon as he had discovered a line on which to stand and had thrown

d Army. To his right, on the south-east, was General Rawlinson, facing the strongest portion of the Hindenburg line, with two American divisions, led by Major-General

eneralissimo was content to leave it to the British Commander-in-Chief; and Sir Douglas Haig, confident "that the British attack was the essential part of the general scheme, and that the moment was favourable," had the decision to make, and made it as we know. It is evident also from the dispatch that Sir Douglas was quite aware, not only of the military,

ly two months, and their losses, though small in proportion to what

ions in mind, "I decided," says General

ourage. The whole was supported by artillery of all calibres. The defences were the result of long-trained thought and of huge work. They had been there unbroken for years; and they had been constantly improved and further organised." And the great canals-the Canal du Nord and the Scheldt Canal, but especially the latter, were worked into the system with great skill, and strongly fortified. It is evident indeed that the mere existence of this fortified line gave a certain high confidence to the German Army, and that when it was captured, that confidence, already severely shaken, finally crumbled and broke. Indeed, by the time the British Armies had captured the covering portions of the line, and stood in front of the line itself, the morale of the German Army as a whole was no longer equal to holding it. For our casualties in taking it, though severe, were far less than we had suffered in the battle of the Scarpe; and one detects in some of our reports, when the victory was won, a certain amazement that we had been let off-comparatively-so lightly. Nevertheless, if there had been any failure in attack, or preparation, or leadership, we should have paid dearly for it; and a rally on the Hindenburg line, had we allowed the enemy any chance of it, might have prolonged the war for months. But there was no failure, and there was no rally. Never had our tried Army leaders, General Horne, Genera

es were coming and going. Petrol must be accessible everywhere; breakdown gangs and repair lorries must be ready always to c

nted, and sent round-and quickly, since food and supplies depended on them. "One breakdown on a na

to experience and resource, how little in t

d that efficiency was never so sharply tested as by the exchange of a stationary war for a war of movement. The Army swept on "over new but largely devastated country,"

mmander and several members of his Staff. The talk turned largely on this point of training, Staff work, and general efficiency. There was no boasting whatever; but one read the pride of gal

troops holding the Canal, by a fan-shaped manoeuvre, brilliantly executed, which won reluctant praise from captured German officers, pushed on for Bourlon and Cambrai. The 11th Division, following close behind, turned northward, with our barrage from the heavy guns, far to the west, pro

rthern section) finally broken, the height before Cambrai captured, thousands of prisoners and great qu

f dawn, took trenches and villages from the fighting and retreating enemy. After the forward troops were over, the engineers rushed on, bridging the Canal, under the fire of the German guns, rapidly clearing a way for infantry and supplies. A map issued by the Tank Corps shows that close to this point on the Cambr

y's position made a prolonged bombardment necessary." So while the First and Third Armies were advancing, on the north, with a view to lightening the task of the Fourth Army, for forty-eight hours Gener

p banks clambered the men, flung themselves into the water, and with life-belts, and any other aid that came handy, crossed the Canal under fire, and clambered up the opposite bank. And the achievement is all the more welcome to British pride in British pluck, when it is remembered that, ac

00 of them by the end of the day, with 70 guns) and German batteries in action,

in machine-gun posts, tunnels, and dug-outs, were able to harass it seriously for a time. But the "Americans fought like lions"-how often I heard that phrase from our own men in France! The American losses were no doubt higher than would have been the case with more experienced troops, seasoned by long fighting,-so I have understood from officers present at the battle. It was perhaps partly because of "their eagerness to push on" without sufficiently clearing up the ground behind them that they lost so heavily, and that advanced elements of the two divisions were for a time cut off. But nothin

nt advance in Champagne. The Americans were pushing forward in the Argonne. Both movements were indispensable; but it was the capture of this great fortified system which really decided the war. "No attack in the history of the world, was ever better carried out," said Marshal Foch to Mr. Ward Price, in Paris, on April 16th last-"than the one made on the Hindenburg line near St. Quentin and Cambrai, by the Fourth, Third and First Brit

, Domine!

iven of the last phase of the British effort, the following paragraphs written last January by

e series of great successful battles opened on the 8th August, 1918. The question is not eas

sweeping success, such as that actually achieved, could have produced this result. The days preceding the attack, therefore, constituted a most anxious period. On the other hand, from the purely military point of view, our chances of success were exceedingly good. The attack was to be delivered by

d whether the attack of the 8th August was to be a single isolated victory comparable to the battle of Messines in June, 1917, or whether it was to develop into something very much greater. The decision was a grave one, and was in some sense a departure from previous

paume), during which progress was comparatively slow and the situation f

ritical period arrived on the 2nd September, when the powerful defences of the Drocourt-Quéant line were attacked and broken. The effect of t

defences shattered the most formidable series of field defences that military science has yet devised and drove the enemy into open country. These attacks, indeed, accomplished far more than this. They de

e been little, if anything, worse off, territorially at any rate, than he had been before he began his grea

ng immediate and decisive victory, by pressing our advantage, could scarcely be expected

r troops accomplished with comparative ease feats which earlier in the struggle it would have been madness to attempt; and in the final battle of the war, begun on the 4th November, the crossing