The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1917-11-28
The Impossible Battle

Far OH IN flanuefS the 1gntln g
was going on, but along this quiet
! sector things had been for many
/ months almost as peaceful as home.
F.! A raid now and then, just to remove
! the impression any one might have
| gained that it was an armistic.
! There was a perfect galaxy of reasons
| why nothing was to be expected. For
! one thing, this was the strongest part
of the Hindenburg line; it was i'm
! pregnable. If the British were ever
to attack it, they would need all
| their strength; they could not be
slamming away in Flanders at the
| same time. They would need so
much preparation that all Hinden-
burgia would be- on notice weeks
ahead, and have time to get armies
there, if necessary. For another, this
war had demonstrated the fact that
no attack could be made without ex-
tensive notice by artillery, and very
little notice would be enough to
brace up the Hindenburg line at
Cambria.
Upon a line impregnable in itself,
impossible to attack without the
most formal sort of notice, and long
acknowledged to be invincible both
by British repose in front of it and
British activity elsewhere, fell the
eye of a German General considering
from what point it would be safest
to remove artillery. He wanted to
send guns to Italy. Of course he de-
cided that this was the point above
all others from which it would be
safest to take them. He took them.
That, doubtless, explains why the
German artillery fire was so weak
when the storm burst.
The Hindenburg line was protec-
ted by infinite barbed wire, which
cannot be removed except by artil-
lery. The whole situation bristled
with impossibiiities. The impregna
BILE line was broken, the barbed wire
was removed without artillery, the
British did not give the inevitable no
tive, the absolutely essential barrage
was not made, cavalry attacked ar
tillery and beat it, there was no air
reconnaissance. infantry rescued
tanks from cannon-in short, if
there was single impossibility that
did not become fact within the first
forenoon of the British advance, it
will take conjurer to produce it.
General Byng did not equip fleet
of submarines with stills and make
them walk at the head of his army,
but lovers of the impossible will have
to be satisfied with that; nearly ev-
cry other impossibility ceased to be.
The part the airplanes usually play
was omitted entirely. In place of a
barrage there was charge, but a
charge of masSed tanks. With all
the tanks have done, this massing of
them into an army to take the place
of artillery and almost of infantry
is something new under the sun.
The Tank Corps expects every tank
to do its damnedest' was the watch
word of it's commander at the out
set of what must be called the first
tank battle ever fought. They came
surging out of the mist at $40 am.
and although the Germans are used
to the sight of tanks, they never saw
tank army before. The correspon
dents record that in their bewilder
ment the Germans stood still and let
the tanks wadd1e over them and
crush them into the ground.
who ever saw a dead cavalry
man." The jeer of our infantrymen
in the great American war was new
er answered until Sheridan rose to
answer it. There has been the same
feeling in this war, but some British
Sheridan has spoiled the joke for all
time. 'Sabering the gunners at their
pieces"-there is something incredi-
bly, ancient and far off in the sound
of that phrase, and to find it in to-
days dispatches makes us rub our
eyes; it seems to belong back some
where in the Crimea, or in the War
of 1912. Finding their mission at
last, and liking it, the vavalrymen
exceed their instructions. like the in
fantry at Missionary Ridge, and go
dashing ahead with the work laid out
for the infantry; they conduct the
charge proper, and their greater
speed leaves the infantry in the rear
while the cavalry take villages all by
themselves.
Impossibility of impossibilities,t the
Hindenburg line is smashed. smashed
at it's strongest point, smashed at the
one place where friend and foe call
ed it not merely strong, but impreg-
nable. All the other impossibilities,
the tank army, the vanished barbed
wire that no shell had struck, the
cavalry at infantry work, all shrlvel
in size beside that. Not only is the
line itself smashed, but its support
ing line is smashed, and the British
army riots on in the rear of both, re-
deeming French territory that
France never expected to see except
after the sickening devastation of
another "stratagic retreat" In one
day Sir Julian Byng made nonsense
of all the military lessons of the war,
proved the continued existence of the
old-fashioned warrior, and establish
ed himself as the artisan of all that
can't be done.-N. Y. Times.