New Britain herald., 1917-10-05
ARE HEROES
FROM LADIES' road
Anyone Who Was in This Battle
Sh0Wered With HOnOrS

French Front Oct 4.-To say IT
come from the battlefield of the
Chemin des Dames'-the Ladies' road
stamps French soldier in the pop
ular imagination owing to its posi-
ton as the door through which the
Germans hoped to break to reach the
heart of France. Even the battle of
Verdun, in which the French, by their
long-suffering determination to resist,
succeeded in thoroughly defeating the
Germans, Is considered by some OBJ
servers a lesser operation than that
of the Chemin des Danes, whose pos
session means the command Of the
great road to the north by which the
Germans must retreat.
The outcome of this great battle
has at the date OF writing not been
finally determined. All that the cor
respondent of The Associated Press.
who has followed the operations
closely, can affirm is that the French,
after their first capture of the famous
road with all it's observatories as a
result of their offensive begun on April
16. has been able to hold all their
gains, to inf1ict almost unbelievable
losses on the picked troops of the
Grown Princes army and to resist
SUCCESSFULLY I'LL Iu0 furious COunC6T-dt.
tacks of the Germans.
During the months Of April, May,
June. July and August the fighting
has been incessant In the first attack
by the French, when they started their
offensive on the Aisne, about 10000
German prisoners and 200 cannons
were captured. Since then attack has
followed attack, either from the
French or the Germans. and when
the total of these operations is sum-
med up the result Is shown that every
four days during four months there
has been a battle on a more or less
extensive scale. The net result of
these fights is that the French today
held all they gained at their first as
sault.
The Germans have utilized on this
battlefront forty nine divisions,
Which have been sent in to the COM
bat and withdrawn when exhausted
that is to say, when a. division has
lost in casualties at least 1000 men.
This gives roughly on the German
side 10000 casualties among the
front line troops, without taking into
account the killed and wounded c~used
by the extremely heavy artillery fire
directed on the lines Of communication
in the rear, in the period since the
first French assault on April 16. This
is almost double their losses before
Verdun during the similar period of
1916, when severe fighting was going
on there.
The character of the fighting on
the Chemin des Danes Is totally diff
ferent from that at Verdun. At Yer
dun 1T was always possible to retire
without great disadvantage for a cer-
tain distance-which may be called
the manoeuvring area-owing to the
nature of the ground with it's success
sive ranges Of hills and intervening
valleys. On the Chemin des Danes
it has been necessary to hold on, for
g. few feet the other side gained the
advantage of the observatories, per-
hitting a close watch over all that
went on in the adversarys lines. There
are here no definite lines of trenches,
no field Of barbed wire and no shelters,
and the two adversaries are always
open to sudden inroads and have to
fight hand to hand to hold their posi-
tons.
The crest on which the Chemin des
Danes runs is like a knifeblade at
many parts. over the edge Of which the
enemy may not be allowed to peep.
Till now the French have always been
able to retain their outlook over the
edge and full Of confidence in them
selves, they intend to keep it until the
time comes for a further advance.