OCTOBER 11, 1918
A triumph of British arms
The British Army yesterday captured Le Cateau and retrod one of the most famous battlefields of the retreat from Mons. The Germans in the centre at Laon, and La Fère 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 the Argonne, and to the lateness of our reconquest of the Suippe valley, this right wing is not so far forward as would be 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 breakthrough on the west, it may jam the closing of our strategic pincers.
The devastation of Cambrai seems 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 “frightfulness” 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. 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 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.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/retreat-towards-le-cateau-7bj0fc9j3
OCTOBER 10, 1918
Retreat towards Le Cateau
Cambrai has been ours since daylight this morning, and on all the front of the attack the Germans have fallen back. There appears to be no likely resting place this side of Le Cateau, and at Le Cateau 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.
Cambrai is already a place of pilgrimage, and all sorts of minor souvenirs, 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 Canadians entered the town from the north, while English troops worked in from the southern side. No civilians were left, but a number of German soldiers were found hiding and making no attempt to fight. Though thoroughly looted, the town is not badly wrecked. The Cathedral has been knocked about, but is not structurally injured. Whatever was easily portable has been carried off but houses yet contain chairs and crockery and cheap prints on the walls, and there are gardens which are sweet and restful and well tended.
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. The poor people are beside themselves with delight at being rescued, and eager to shake hands with everybody in khaki.
Of prisoners, 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. With one lot I saw a battalion mascot in the shape of a large dog of no especial breed, as few German dogs are, but very friendly, seeming as glad to be a prisoner as any human captive. With the same party was one of the most unfriendly prisoners I have seen, a Prussian Army doctor, gorgeously arrayed even to new gloves and shiny buttons and a lavender blue overcoat. He is so important that he declines to have any contact with his fellow officer prisoners. 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 Junker fool.
OCTOBER 9, 1918
The right answer
The news from France is the best of all answers to the German Note. Both on the western and on the eastern battlefronts the Allied attacks were renewed yesterday. In the west the attack covered nearly 20 miles between Cambrai and St Quentin, and made further progress of between two and three miles. French, American, and British troops all took part in this new advance.
One cannot but marvel at the energy of these repeated attacks and the scope of the strategic plan. 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.
These renewed attacks, then, are our reply to the German request for an armistice. But however successful, they cannot be a complete answer. 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, he means to go out with arson as he came in with assault and battery. The enemy has made this policy of unmilitary destruction a part of his peace propaganda — Give me the advantages of a truce, or I will burn and destroy everything in my retreat. It is blackmail, both cruel and mean. No military success can combat the enemy’s power if he wishes to commit outrage of this kind, and we are faced with the prospect of marching to victory over the blackened ruin of civilization.
For special crimes special punishments have to be devised. This barbarous destruction must be made demonstrably unprofitable. 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.
General threats of reprisals do not meet the situation. They should be specific, and relentlessly carried out should the enemy’s malpractices continue. If Bruges is destroyed, either by arson or as the result of a hopeless defence, then Hamburg must pay; if Lille, then Frankfurt. The payment need not take the same form as the crime, but the Germans understand the practice of taking hostages for good behaviour.
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