Semi-weekly herald., 1917-08-06
BRITAIN IN THE FIELD
AT END OF THIRD YEAR
(By William Philip simms.)

THE FIELD, Aug. To-day Britain
is on top. At the close of the third
year of the war the British bulldog
is no longer on the bottom. The
"contemptible little army" which the
kaiser sneered at in 1914 has taken
its medicine and, despite the hammer
ing it has received, row has Crown
XpIince Rupprecht's men rather more
than matched.
The first year of the fight the
small new army recruited by Lord
Kitchener to take the place of the
first hundred thousand of the reg
ular army, simply caught hail Column
bia, but tho their heads were blood
led, they held their own. The sec
ond year saw more troops, more guns
more ammunition, but even as late as
Loos the Prussian was too strong
for the new British army, still lack
ing as it was in all the machinery of
war.
But, at the beginning of the third
year, England had caught up. For
the first time since Armageddon be-
gan the British army faced the en-
emy on fairly equal footing. There
were plenty of men and plenty of
machinery and with these in hand
Sir Douglas Haig, in July, 1916, be-
gan the battle of the Somme.
For two years the Prussians had
been preparing the Somme positions
and, at the time Sir Douglas Haig
began the great adventure Field
Marshal Hindenburg considered the
line impregnable. History has never
seen anything approaching it. Behind
first line trenches, deep and reinforc-
ed with concrete and steel, were re
serve lines just as deep and just as
strong. Machine guns, in betoned
emplacements fairly bristled along the
fire-trenches and many more were
in hidden pits further back, while
every wood and thicket had been
turned into impossible entanglements
made of special barbed wire as thick
as child's finger with wicked barbs
every inch. Concealed turrets of ar
NOR plate steel had been sunk in the
ground at stragetic points leaving
only their revolving tops and gun
muzzles above the level of the earth
and in between were redoubts and
strong points, labyrinths, tunnels,
quadrilaterals and every other device
cunning Hindenburg could put into
play.
The French and British struck to-
gether, the French below the Somme
River, the British north of it, towards
Bapaume, Combles and Peronne.
British artillery for the first time in
the war showed superiority over the
herman and it's continual roll rum
bled day and night. Prussian airmen
tried to give Prussian gunners the
range as they had always done in
the past, but now British airmen
swooped upon them like enraged
hawks and drove them down, or back
beyond the lines completely dominat-
ing the air. German observation bal
looms were sent blazing to the earth
by British planes, out in sufficient
numbers at last. So the enemy's guns
were blind.
But the fight was anything but a
walk-over for the British and their
allies. The Germans, accustomed to
winning, always with every advan-
tage on their side, could not realize
that the tide had turned in this, the
third year of the war, and from their
miraculously strong and well-chose
positions, fought like tigers.
All thru August the British Tom
mics kept doggedly at the enemy,
bombing him, bayoneting him, driv-
ing him back inch by inch up the
slopes toward Thiepval, from Mouquet
farm to Pozieres. DEVILS wood as
the South Africans called Delville
wood, was taken literally a foot at
time and held despite internal shell
fire. The British would not let go.
In September they got their re-
ward. They had gained the crest of
the deadly ridge and then, with one
swoop almost, they captured village
aften village-Guilemont, Ginchy,
Flers, Martinpuich, Courcelette, Cue
decourt, Lesboeufs, Morval and THE
pval.
On the 18th of this month the tanks
went into action for the first time.
On that day the famous official mes
sage of an airman read: "A tank
is walking up the High street of
Flers with the British army cheering
behind it."
And it was a fact. A complete