The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1918-09-21

The American victory last Thurs
day, September Il, has two great
items of interest attached to ft-a
fact and a question The fact is the
extreme precision of the operation;
the question is how quickly and on
what scale the enemy will be able to
bring men down south from his con-
gestion in the north between Rheims
and Arras.
The extreme precision Of the Amer
lean work was unexpected by the en-
envy and must rank as a new asset
against him. The enemy certainly ex-
pected that the new army raised from
the smallest possible nucleus of pro-
fessionals. rapidly trained and Tin
their eyes, little more than militia,
would be necessarily deficient in staff
work. So long as the American units
were only fighting brigaded with the
British or French. or even later, when
they acted in isolated divisions under
French command, the enemy could
cherish this illusion
Now that the first general action
undertaken by force mainly Ameri-
can and under American command
has proved more exact and rapid than
any other of the war he must com
pletely revise his view. He, and the
Allies, too. for that matter. are in pos
session of a new fact, which gravely
alters the chances of the campaign
against the Central Powers and in our
own favor.
The guns opened at 1 a. m. the
morning of Thursday, September IL.
The zero hour was $50 o'clock in the
morning of Friday. September 10, just
over twenty-fours hours from the mo-
ment when the first American troops
left their trenches. Two forces, acting
on either side of the st. Mihiel salient
met at ST. Benoit, and the enemy
front had receded over a segment fif-
teen miles in its maximum depth and
forty miles in the total front and near
ly two hundred square miles in area.
Over 10000 prisoners already had
been counted and sixty guns captured.
The operation was so exact and, there
fore, so brief that the first details can
be rapidly told.
There was no surprise. The enemy
newspapers had discussed for weeks
the imminence of an attack between
the Mouse and the Moselle. The
greater credit, therefore, is due to the
success of the enterprise. AS no eff
fort at surprise was intended, a pre-.
liminary bombardment of no less than
four hours was delivered along the
whole southern front of the salient
A little after daybreak Thursday last
the right central half of this front
from point south of the isolated land
to the Germans essentially observation
point OF the high Montsec to a point
just west of the famous Bots lie Pre-
ire was the scene of a sudden assault
by the American infantry. 1t was the
first operation on such scale attempt
ed by them since their entry into this
campaign. They attacked along a
front OF eleven miles out of total of
twenty-five between the Moselle and
the Meuse.
There was no continuous water OBJ
stacle here, only an isolated pond far
behind the line The tanks could do
their work. The German line broke
hopelessly. BY the middle of the
morning the advanced units were al.
ready near Thiaucourt, and shortly af-
terward they held that town. between
FIVE and six miles from their point of
departure four to six hours before.
Here let me describe the salient
which has been reduced.
In shape it was right-angled tri-
angle, the angle of the apex was some
what under 80 degrees and its longer
side ran due east and west for twenty
five miles, as l have said, from the
Moselle just below Pont-a Mousson to
the Mouse at the Camp des Romans
(fort and hilD and st. Mihiel, and
even for few hundred yards beyond
that river. Thence it turned sharply