|
The Allied advance continued,
October 1918
|
 |
|
This week's chapter
examines the position at the beginning of OCtober 1918, the
Beaurevoir-Fonsomme line attacked, October 3, American progress in the
Argonne, Gouraud's success at Moronvillers, Reims freed, great British attack
of October 8 between Cambrai and St Quentin, the fall of Cambrai, Germans
evacuate the St Gobain Salient, German stand on the Selle, Le Cateau stormed,
the enemy defeated in Champagne, La Fere and Laon taken, Americans reach
Grand Pre, Allied offensive in Flanders under King Albert, Roulers taken, the
Lys crossed, war in the air
|
|
The enemy's discipline was fast deteriorating, as had been
revealed by an intercepted order from the Kaiser's Adjutant General to the
German Army: "His Majesty the Kaiser," it ran, "is displeased
to note that when he is passing through villages, along roads, by a railway
crossing, and so forth, the troops fail to pay him the necessary respect, and
the inhabitants fail to greet him in the proper way by removing their
headgear. This must be seen to."
|
|
The right
answer to Germany
|
 |
|
Let it never be said
again that the British Army is admirable only in defence and has not the
spirit of attack
|
|
The news from France is the best of all answers to the German Note. Both on the western and on the eastern battle-fronts the Allied attacks were renewed yesterday morning. On the western front the attack covered the space of nearly twenty miles between Cambrai and St Quentin, and made a further progress of between two and three miles - greater in the centre than on the flanks - on a part of the enemy’s line where his defences had already been ruptured. The centre of our advance is now approaching Le Cateau, the scene of General Smith Dorriens severe, and perhaps unnecessary, engagement on the third day of the retreat from Mons. French, American, and British troops all took part in this new advance. On the east the French and Americans attacked down the right bank of the Meuse, and, though details are still lacking, made good progress towards the north. In addition, General Gouraud, continuing his advance in Champagne, crossed the Arnes and turned the enemy’s positions along the Suippe River from the eastern end. One cannot but marvel at the energy of these repeated attacks and the magnificent scope of the strategic plan that they unfold. And one may be pardoned for expressing especial admiration for the vigour and endurance of our own Army, which has been engaged in practically continuous fighting on this Western front ever since the opening of the Somme offensive in July, 1916. Except for the retreat in the spring of this year, the whole of this fighting has been in the attack. Let it never be said again that the British Army is admirable only in defence and has not the spirit of attack. On the contrary, though the record of the French Army is in some respects even more wonderful, there is no Army - not even the German - that has achieved so long and so sustained an offensive. For an Army that really did not exist on a Continental scale until the year before last this is an achievement that is still not appreciated here at its full value. It is not altogether out of French politeness that our Allies rute it higher than we sometimes seem to do.
|
But even more remarkable than the duration of the offensive is the strategic splendour of its plan. Nothing that the Germans did even in their first campaign in France or on the Russian front later can approach it. The metaphor of the pincers is familiar and intelligible, but never was there anything in war to compare with the strategic mechanism, elaborate but never complicated, of Marshal Foch’s pincers. You have enveloping movements one within the other. Inside you have the envelopment of the German centre in progress in the combined operations north of St Quentin on the one hand and on the Chemin des Dames on the other. Then you have on the western arm of the pincers the enveloping movement against Lille, and on the eastern arm the combined movements of French and Americans in Champagne and the Argonne against Vouziers and the Defile of Grand Pre. Lastly, still farther out, you have the great enveloping movements, still rudimentary, out from Ypres and down the Meuse. The bigness of the design is now apparent. How big it is may be gathered from the reflection that the great offensives reported today - the movements that threaten the German centre in the Laon-Le Fere hills, and the movement in that eastern section north of Verdun which perhaps promises the most decisive results of all - are only three out of many cogwheels in this vast machinery of constriction.
These renewed attacks, then, are our reply to the German request for an armistice, and a reply that expresses the sentiment of armies and civilians alike. But, however successful our attacks, they cannot in one respect be a complete answer to the German peace offensive. The enemy’s retreat will be through the country of our Allies, and if we may judge by what has happened at Douai, at Lens, and at Laon, hie means to go out with arson as he came in with assault and battery. Even that does not quite plumb the depravity of the enemy’s conduct, for he has made this policy of unmilitary destruction and devastation a part of his peace propaganda - as who should say, Give me the advantages of a truce, or I will burn and destroy everything in my retreat. It is a species of blackmail, both cruel and mean. Now, no military success can quite combat the enemy’s power if he wishes to commit outrage of this kind; and (unless indeed we were able to prevent the enemy from retreating at all, and to accomplish some comprehensive Sedan in the heart of’ the territories that he at present occupies) we are faced with the prospect of marching to victory over the blackened ruin of all that civilization has achieved in beauty or utility.
For special crimes special punishments have to be devised. This barbarous destruction must be made demonstrably unprofitable, and that in a currency of punishment that even the coarsest minds cannot fail to understand. If the enemy destroys cities in France and Belgium, then cities in Germany must suffer the penalty. Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, town for town.
The Allies must protect themselves from the purely wanton forms of wickedness. General threats of reprisals do not seem to us to meet the situation. They should be specific in their nature, and should be relentlessly carried out should the enemy’s malpractices continue after notice has been given. If Bruges is destroyed, either by the enemy’s arson or as the result of a hopeless defence, then Hamburg must pay; if Lille, then Frankfurt. The payment need not necessarily take the same form as the crime, but the Germans quite understand the practice of taking hostages for good behaviour. German towns must be marked down for ransom for French and Belgian towns destroyed apart from military necessity.
|
Retreat
towards Le Cateau
|
 |
|
The poor people are
almost beside themselves with delight at being rescued, for deliverance at
the end has come very rapidly, and they are eager to embrace and shake hands
with everybody in khaki or pour out their story to anyone who will listen
|
|
The success of our attack yesterday was as complete as could be imagined or desired, and today we are garnering the fruits. The prisoners altogether will be not less than 10,000. Cambrai has been ours since daylight this morning, and on all the front of the attack the Germans have fallen back across the first stages of what we can only assume to be a retirement to the Le Cateau line. By noon today some of our troops, pressing on the enemy’s heels, had already reached the village of Bertry, some nine miles east of the line from which they attacked by Lesdain yesterday morning.
|
Bertry is roughly four miles from Le Cateau. Just east of Bertry, and thence north-westward to Cambrai, runs the railway line along which at some places the Germans seem disposed to make a stand. At other places he has been blowing up the railway and burning stores at various depots on the line. At one place south of Bertry, towards Busigny, we are reported to have crossed the railway. Whether, therefore, he makes, or hopes to make, a temporary stand on that line, it certainly cannot hold. There appears to be no likely resting place this side of Le Cateau, and at Le Cateau, it is needless to say, we shall not only have left the battlefields of 1917 behind us, but we shall have reached the fields, with all their glorious memories, of 1914.
GERMAN YOKE LIFTED.
That the Germans had planned, under our pressure of these last few weeks, to fall back here makes little difference. It is probable that if we had not struck yesterday, they would soon have been slipping away. But we did strike, caught 10,000 of the enemy’s men, killed many more, and drove him back before his preparations were complete. At many villages fires are burning today, and he is doing what destructive work he can; but in the country which we have this morning overrun, he has had no time to destroy, and hamlets have fallen into our hands intact, and we have released many hundreds, and probably some thousands, of French civilians. Five hundred have been rescued from the village of Serain, three miles east of Villers-Outreaux, alone. Large numbers have been found at Selvigny and Caullery, farther north, and it is believed that still larger numbers will have received deliverance by tonight from places farther east.
As for Cambrai, it is already a place of pilgrimage, and all sorts of minor souvenirs from the town, such as food tickets issued by the International Relief Commission, are passing from hand to hand far behind our lines. It was still dark this morning when, soon after 4 o’clock, Canadians entered the town from the north, while English troops worked in from the southern side. No civilians were left in the place, as we knew would be the case, but a certain number of German soldiers were found hiding and making no attempt to fight. We have never shelled Cambrai, except very slightly, and, though thoroughly looted by the flying Germans, the town is not badly wrecked, and far from being destroyed.
The Cathedral has been knocked about and scarred, but is not structurally injured. Other churches stand with no injury beyond the breakage of glass. Though whatever had value and was easily portable has been carried off the houses, with some windows still unbroken, yet contain chairs and crockery and cheap prints on the walls, and there are gardens which are sweet and restful and well tended. One large area in the town, apparently the Place du Theatre, has been utterly destroyed, seemingly by fires and explosions, and fires are still burning in several houses now. It is, of course, impossible to say what mines may yet blow up, either where these fires are burning or elsewhere, but at present Cambrai is an easily repairable town, withal that it has waste areas.
ORDERS TO CIVILIANS
The Germans had blown up bridges across the Canal, but our men had no difficulty in crossing, and since then there has been no resistance to the passage of our troops through the town; nor has the enemy shelled it. On the walls rnay still be read the orders for the evacuation of the place by civilians which was ordered to take place on September 6, 7, and 8, and be completed by midnight on the last-named date. People could go either by train or by boat on the canal, and on the railway three trains a day, each with a capacity of 1,500 persons. would be run. The order is signed “Gloss, Colonel (Oberst) and Kommandant.” Presumably it was carried out as planned. Civilians from Serain say that eight days ago the Germans told them that those who wished to go eastward could do so. Some went from fear of shelling, but large numbers stayed, and have lived in cellars, though there was no need for it so far as shelling went. The German commander fastened a large white flag to the church tower, and we have refrained from shelling the village, but it is characteristic that after the Germans had gone they threw shells back into the place this morning.
The poor people are almost beside themselves with delight at being rescued, for deliverance at the end has come very rapidly, and they are eager to embrace and shake hands with everybody in khaki or pour out their story to anyone who will listen. The curé of Serain, whose word can hardly be questioned, says that in January last about 1,000 people, including 400 women, were taken from towns and villages in thc department of the Nord, nominally as hostages, though for what or why no one knows. Among them are said to have been five magistrates from Douai and the President of the Court of Appeals of that place, as well as many other persons of substance and women of gentle families. Probably their removal was only in order to make the looting of their properties easier.
THE PRISONERS
Of prisoners, every one of our Army Corps engaged has taken from 800 to 2,000, our overrunning of the enemy positions being equally successful in all parts of the line. The largest party I have seen myself is about 900, chiefly from the 8th, 30th, and 201st Divisions, and they were not a bad looking lot of men, though having, as always, a certain proportion of hopelessly undersized and weazened individuals. All seem to have been informed of the request for an armistice, and generally assume that it means the approaching termination of the war, but they are rather apathetic on the subject now that they themselves are most thankfully out of it.
Prisoners from the 201st Division complain bitterly of their treatment. In former dispatches I have more than once mentioned the large numbers of prisoners taken from this division. Apparently the division has been kept in line long overtime, in spite of promises of withdrawal, and though palpably reduced to the point of inefficiency. When these last prisoners were taken yesterday they say that each regiment had been reduced to one battalion, the remnants of all three battalions being telescoped together, and even then companies in the battalions could not muster over 40 men. Some officer prisoners hint that, whether an armistice comes or not, this is the beginning of a big retreat on the German part.
Another Corps took 1,200 prisoners, being representatives of nine divisions, among them two battalion commanders and almost the whole of a cyclist brigade, Who were made to leave their cycles in Solesmes and go in assordinary infantry, which they did, only to be mopped up practically complete. With one lot of prisoners I saw a battalion mascot in the shape of a large dog of no especial breed, as few German dogs are, but powerful and very friendly, seeming as glad to be a prisoner as any human captive. With the same party, on the other hand, was one of the most unfriendly prisoners I have seen, being a Prussian Army doctor, gorgeously arrayed even to new gloves and shiny buttons and a lavender blue overcoat. He is so important that, while he answers questions of the British officer in command briefly and superciliously, he declines to say one word to, or have any contact with his fellow officer prisoners, though of equal rank. Our officers are wondering whether the name he has given is false, and whether he is really a Royal Prince in disguise, or merely a typical Prussian Junker fool.
A NIGHT RETREAT
On a great part of the front the Germans had evacuated their positions during the night, and there was no resistance when we advanced, while it was yet dark, without any shelling. In the sector where our line ran between Malincourt and Malincourt, however, the enemy did not altogether retire during the night. He shelled us heavily with gas, and this morning we attacked behind a barrage and had some fighting, both in front of Malincourt, where a good number of prisoners was taken, and in the neighbourhood of Clary, where the Germans were in strong positions in the town and in a line of rifle pits along the road to Montigny. Progress here was slower, therefore, than elsewhere, but resistance was only offered by delaying rearguards, and by the time troops on the right were at Bertry these troops had entered Montigny.
|
A triumph
of British arms
|
 |
|
The greatest single blow
that the Germans have had in the war is the discovery that their Hindenburg
line is not impregnable
|
|
The British Army yesterday, continuing its advance, captured Le Cateau and retrod one of the most famous of the battlefields of the retreat from Mons. That fact gives us the clue to the military design of our advance. Mons was the western end of a battlefront which stretched through Charleroi (where the French were) to Namur, held by the Belgians. At that time neither Lille nor Belgian Flanders was occupied by the enemy, so that what our Army is now doing is to cut at right angles across the line of our first retreat.
|
The longitude of Le Cateau is east of Lille and almost the same as that of Valenciennes, and as we advance east we are thus outflanking Douai and Lille from the southern side. Among the minor movements reported yesterday is a small but important advance between Lens and Douai, and this advance carries the outflanking of Lille nearer home. At the same time the French on our right nearer St Quentin maintain their alinement with us. They now command the valley of the Lower Oise, block this, the main, line of retreat for the enemy in the La Fere region, and with every mile of advance farther east make the position of the German centre more perilous. The Germans in the centre at Laon and LaFere are cutting the margins of retreat very fine.
The only weakness of the enveloping scheme is on the right of the Allied line. Owing to the enormous natural strength of the old German positions in Champagne and in the Argonne, and to the lateness of our reconquest of the Suippe valley, this right wing is not so far forward as would be ideally desirable. The main body of the German Army in France still has room for manoeuvre and delay. It may find another temporary line of resistance along the Serre and the Upper Aisne; and, though this cannot be held for long, owing to the break-through on the west, it may jam the closing of our-strategic pincers. But the prospects are amazingly good. Obstinate as the German resistance continues to be, especially on the east, where the recent American gains must have alarmed him, the enemy is now committed to a big retreat. Even if he escape crushing disaster he will suffer such losses as four months ago would have seemed incredible.
It is an inspiriting thought that so much of this revolution in the prospects of the war should have been the work of the British Army, officers and men. All armies have their characteristic military virtues, but in the great qualities of endurance and high spirits, and in the power to rise to an emergency, the British Army has been pre-eminent. Other armies excel it in brilliancy, but in enterprises requiring long and deep breath it has no superior, perhaps no equal. And to the physical and moral qualities of the British Army must also be added, if not the brilliant intellectual equipment of the French Army, at any rate an immense wealth of experience.
Other nations attain distinction by elaboration of general principles; it is characteristic of our nation and of the first national Army that it has ever had to have attained its splendid efficiency by the patient assimilation of the multitudinous lessons of a war. This combination between the higher strategy of the French mind and the executive ability and gifts of extemporization that have always distinguished the British soldier has been unique and irresistible. It is no secret that Marshal Foch has been unbounded in his admiration of the quality of the British Army, especially as revealed in the events of the last two months. Nor is the achievement solely that of the rank and file. The minor tactics of the British Army are exceptionally good; and the Higher Command, working at last to a single coherent, strategical plan, richly deserves the recompense that its labours have received.
The tasks of the British generals have been harder perhaps than that of other armies, unless it be the American. Like the American Army, our Army had no accumulated stores of experience of Continental warfare on which to draw; our traditions, great as they were, related to warfare wholly different in character from that of France. It is a splendid achievement to have converted in so short a time what was after all a glorified colonial army, into an army of the Continental pattern, and with this newly-forged instrument to have cracked the hardest problem ever set an army in the whole of military history.
The greatest single blow that the Germans have had in the war is the discovery that their Hindenburg line is not impregnable. It has been reserved for British arms to drive that discovery home. The devastation of Cambrai seems happily to be less complete than was at first supposed, though the great Place d’Armes has been systematically and wantonly destroyed. But our Special Correspondent tells us this morning of a new and peculiarly mean piece of “frightulness” in some of the deserted villages, where the Germans have deliberately broken up the embroidery machines, the only means of livelihood of the people of the district. It is all part and parcel of the same policy. No valour can defeat malice of this kind; it can only be defeated, if at all, by an act of policy, fully conceived and formally notified to the enemy. General threats of reprisals do not meet the case; to be effective they must be specific. We do not mean that if the Germans burn a French town, we must necessarily burn a German town. We do mean that our reprisals should be of such a character as will deter the enemy, or, if not, punish him, and if possible compensate the sufferers for their losses. It may be that German towns could be more appropriately punished in other ways than by destruction. Ransom may take more forms than one. But in one form or another a German town should be held to ransom for the wanton destruction without military necessity of a French or Belgian town. And delay in the formulation of a policy is dangerous with events moving so rapidly, for, if nothing is done, the milestones of victory in the occupied districts of France and Belgium will be marred by heaps of smouldering ashes. We must defeat this policy of peace with arson.
No comments:
Post a Comment