The Washington times., 1916-11-02
TIE ALLIES EFFORT FOR A
SUpER.SEDAN

the German lines and win on the
western front the victory that should
decide the war, they knew how diff
cult that task would be. The near
approach of the entente lines to
Bapaume has a significance that per-
haps is not widely appreciated. With
Peronne and Bapaume in their
hands, the western powers will be in
position to attempt, before long, the
great climactic effort for which they
have prepared during many months
past. It is worth while to UNDER
stand the general plan by which they
hope to achieve a great success.
When the Germans retired from
the Marine front to the present line,
roughly described as the line of the
Aisne, they dug themselves in and
prepared for campaign of defense.
The Verdun campaign was indeed Of
fensive; If it succeeded, they would
expect to break through the French
lines, and roll up the allied forces
by enfilading them.
The entente strategy was exactly
similar. They would smash through
on front wide enough to avoid be-
ing enfiladed, and try to catch the
Germans in the rear, cut their COM
munications, roll up and surround
them.
The Germans, when they realized
that Britain was raising a tremen-
dous army and that, barring a spec
tacular success at Verdun for the
crown princes army, they must con-
tinue the defensive policy, set about
to fortify the line from the sea to
Switzerland so powerfully that it
should be utterly impregnable. To
this end they laid out series of
fortresses at intervals, all along this
line, of about twenty-five miles. 1t
was purposed to connect these
fortresses by lines of trenches, so
constructed that, while they should
not be impregnable, they would re-
quire that a tremendously superior
force be brought against any par
ticular section in order to break
through. The impregnable fortresses
at twenty-fve-mile intervals were
presumed to be secure against any
possible attack. So, if the British
and French should crash through the
trench lines, they would not break
the main line, but merely bend back
the section between these fortresses.
The twenty-five-mile interval was
made so narrow, that if the fort
resses held firm the Anglo-French
forces would not dare force their
way through and into the rear Of
the German lines. They would be
enfiladed by the artillery of the
fortresses, and cut off from their
own communications.
If this calculation proved good, the
entente forces would be compelled to
take two or three of these supposedly
impregnable fortresses, and the in
tervening lines. in order to open up
sufficiently wide gap to push
through force large enough to
carry out their enfilading and flank
ing movement. They must, in short,
begin their operation by accomplish
ing the thing that the Germans be-
lieved and tried to make impossible.
After accomplishing this piece of
the impossible, the next step of the
[ tilIcHIS BcISIdio Woulu NC W hui
through the gap, thus opened, a
force of cavalry and mounted in
fantry big enough to carry itself
past the last line of trenches and
into the region of German communi-
cations; to resist and bear down the
reserves that. the Germans pre-
sumably have held out to cope with
just such a movement.
At the time of their great often
sive in the Champagne last year, the
French had gathered a great force OF
cavalry, accoutered with every de-
vice that ingenuity and foresight
gould contemplate, for the purposes
of this grand rush through the
breach. 1t is now known that
though they failed to make the
breach, they came within hours Of
winning. German orders were is
sued, for withdrawal of forces in
certain sections at a fixed hour
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