The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1917-06-13

Remarkable Mobility Of Britain's
Army Defeats Strategy
........ Of Hindenburg. :,
TRACTORS THE Big FACTOR
German General staff Failed to Cal.
culate Quick Repair Of Roads and
=, Immediate Advance Of Light
+. iS>yf and Heavy Artillery. <,%
py Jupsok c..WELLIvER,

Dy JUDSok c.3WELLWE6,
Correspondent of the New York Sun.
LondOn.-All the world wondered
and nobody more than Marshal Hin
denburg-that the British We're able to
keep instantly and constantly right on
the heels of the relreYting Germans
after the recent evacuation of the ter
ritory back Of :. the .Elpaume-Peronne
line. The thing didn't fall out at all
as the German general staff had fore
seen. Those masters of the art OF
war had carefully calculated that when
they yielded very little ground after
having first destroyed villages, blown
up roads and furrowed the terrain with
trenches and shellholes it would take
at least a series of weeks for the British
to bring up their forces and prepare
for a new attack. THIS was the whole
strategy OF the establishment Of the
new Hindenburg line. IN. -. Fl
The weakness of Hindenburg's cal,
culatiOn was that he knew too much
about the established and accepted
rules Of war and too little about Eng,
lish and American ingenuity in pro-
ducing the new types of war machine
which make it possible for an army
nowadays to move faster than it ever
could before. -. =. e. ..
Caterpillar tractors, as big as a re.
spectacle locomotive, make it possible
to do things with even the biggest
howitzers that were undreamed Of
even when this war began. .s...
8, Tractors the Big Factors.
have seen couple Of these levia.
thans taking q ten-inch hOwitzer over
q road that had been theoretically "de-
stroyed" three days earlier, almost un.
der, the fire of the enemy and actually
within their own range Of the nearest
enemy positions, at the rate of seven
or eight miles an hour. All the horses
that ever We're Communicated couldn't
have been harnessed to do that job,
simply because they couldn't have got
themselves through the mud, to say
nothing of pulling something after
them. III. u Z -, n -.-..-.
-, !. studied for several days the meth
DDS by which one army was fairly leap
ing on the trail of another, and it
seemed to me the greatest wonder that
the war had developed. The steel
works Of Birmingham and Bethlehem
and Pittsburgh were doing it. But even
before their. giant contraptions could
perform. the road must be ready for
them. This reconstruction of roads is
just =, plain, back-breaking, awful
drudgery; but what lnagnifcently or
ganized and predigested drudgery!
One would imagine that there must
have been tens of thousands of huge
motortrucks just back Of the British
line, everyone of them loaded to the
last ounce of capacity with rock In
graduated sizes, with massive timbers,
piles, steel bolts and nuts and spikes
and hammers and sledges and every
thing else requisite for the road build
ing to the front. Nothing had been
forgotten, and although the evacuated
region was horror Of mud and utter
desolation, the evidence of absolute
organization, Of perfect arrangement.
Of precise and yet thoroughly elastic
and adaptable plans was to be. seen
everywhere.
The emergency engineers who man
age these things are wonders in their
way. They seem to know by instinct
what will be required Of them. But
it isn't instinct SO much as it is the
complete knowledge of the terrain
that has been brought back to them in
the photographs taken by the flying
corps observers. Everything is on
hand, everything is in its right place,
every man understands just what is
expected of him. and when they move
forward there is seldom a hitch. In
evitably, it is fearfully expensive busi-
ness, and sometimes there is over
preparation for the sake Of certainty.
LIGHT Guns Move Quickly.
The lighter and more mobile guns of
course go forward earliest. They are
built especially for this kind of ex-
perience and can get over half-built
roads with an agility and safety that
could not possibly be believed II one
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