New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-18
The Battle of the Somme.

mark the end of the seventh week. We
have now the assurance Of American cor
respondents, who have just visited the
German lines, that the attack has failed
ar is this an accurate statement,
bo. as to what has happened and as
reasonably credible forecast of the future!
The best answer is Verdun. = The attack
there began February q. 1t was asserted
by the correspondent Of The Tribune,
who visited the Verdun sector on April 9,
that the French had stopped the German
attack permanently, in so far as the at
tack was a piercing attack. Those French
officers whom he saw both in the Verdun
sector and in Paris were agreed IN the
first week of April that the danger of
German thrust through the French lines
had failed. Their words were made good
bv the very sharp check which came to the
Germans in their great effort of April 3.
We may say that on April 9, which was
forty-eight days after the opening OF the
German attack upon Verdun, its failure as
piercing operation was established. In
word. in seven weeks after they had been
menaced by deadly thrust the French re-
stored what they have since officially de-
scribed as "a delicate situation" what
tbev had been able to do, actually, was to
get the guns and the munitions as we'll as
the men needed to hold new lines; they had
constructed the new lines and hencetorth
there remained to the Germans the chance
- 70 h1acf their foot
by foot and yard by yard forward, at the
cost of large casualties and with the only
possible profit the exhaustion of French
reserves and the depression of French con-
fdence and courage.
In a very odd way the tables have now
turned. If you should take the trouble to
90 back to the official statements OF last
Anril. MAY and June you would find that
the Germans were then saying exactly
what the French and British are now say
ing and the French were then asserting as
TO their lines in the Verdun sector. what
the Germans are proclaiming as to their
front along the Somme.
We know now that the French were
right and the Germans were wrong. we
know now that the Germans did not, after
their April reverse, have any chance to
get through, and they have failed and
practically abandoned their attempt we
do not know whether the French were cor
rect when they said that the German loss
was colossal, but we do know that the Ger
mans are now declaring that the British
and French loss in the similar operation
at the Somme is colossal, and we read,
particularly in the French reports, that
owing TO French artillery preparation
French losses were slight, which is just
what the Germans were telling us about
Verdun few months ago.
We are bound to conclude, so far as 1t is
wise or fair to reason by analogy, that the
German statement that the Allied thrust IN
the Somme sector has failed is correct 1t
has failed as an effort to get through the
German lines as the Germans got through
the Russian lines at the Dunajec IN the
spring of 1915 and as the Russians have
GOT through the Austrian lines this sum-
mer. We are bound to believe that what
ever of progress the British and French
now make in taking trenches, the Germans
have had the time to get new lines down,
TO mass new batteries of artillery and can
reasonably hope to repeat the French sue
cess at Verdun in holding their lines.
Now all this has thrown the Allies back
upon a second line of argument This
again is familiar. When they failed to
get through to Verdun by their February
thrust. by their March efforts and by the
eliminating attack of April 8, the Ger
mans told the world that the operation had
become one Of siege, with slow, methodlcal
artillery preparation and small but steady
gain. This they did keep up from April
TO July, when the Somme operation COM
PEELED them to abandon the offensive at the
Meuse. Then the Germans asserted they
were using up the last French reserves
and behind these France was wearying OF
the war and longing for peace. About the
same arguments now come from London
and from Paris.
So far, then, the two great efforts stand
on all tours. The German attack upon
Verdun, which failed, followed exactly the
same course that has subsequently been
followed by the Somme attack; its phases
were almost identical and there is no rea-
son to doubt that the actual result, so far
as the Somme sector is concerned, is likely
to be the same. 1t remains possible that
the British will get Bapaume and the
French Peronne, just as every one recog-
nzed that the Germans might ultimately
get the remaining French forts on the east
bank of the Meuse above the town of YER
dun, but it has become excessively inrprob-
able that the Allies will get to st. Quentin
or Cambria, as it was similarly unlikely,
after April 9, that the Germans would get
10 Rar-le- Due.