Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-03-22

fall, but the positions in that the
ater of war are not to be compared
with those on the western front. The
nmassing of troops IN the west has
been such ever since the battle of
the Marne that all attempts to
make breach that would throw the
war into open fighting have proved
or no avail. Several times in 1916
and 1917 the British felt they were
near the goal of open warfare. Sew
eral times the long idle British cav
airy was ready to gallop through
the broken lines in q dashing attack
on gun positions and enemy COM
munications, but on every occasion
the difficulties of the long fought
over battletields proved 100 great to
be overcome. -
Believe Offensive Is On
There was a disposition and yet a
reluctance in army circles to believe
that yesterdays attack from Lagin-
court to Gouzeacourt was really the
beginning of the much discussed
German offensive. The War De-
partment announced on Monday
that there was every reason to be-
lieve the proposed offensive had been
abandoned, but the departmental re-
view has taken such conflicting views
of the situation during the last two
months that it's conclusions were re-
garded more as the result of specu-
lation than of known fact. 1t has
been expected, however, that the
main German assault would be pre-
ceded by more of an artillery pre-
paration than was suggested in The
meager dispatches that came
through from the battlefront yes
tnr6nV INF ia,,
wanted before any one would haz-
ard a guess as to whether the attack
upon the British was to be the main
thrust of the German offensive or
whether it was a feint to draw all
possible mobile reserves in that Gi-
rection so that the principal assault
might be delivered in an entirely
different sector.
Several reasons to doubt the at
tack south of Arras as the main arm
of any offensive the Germans may
have planned suggested themselves
to military critics. In the first place
it has been taken for granted that
the greatest drive would be directed
against the French, for the general
belief prevails that the French lines.
long drawn out, are not so heavily
held as the British. Secondly, the
strategists here have figured for q
long time that if the main trust was
to be against the British it would be
undertaken somewhere north of
1pres in an attempt to carry out
the frustrated German plans of
1914, which contemplated the cap
ture of Calais and possibly Boulogne,
the ports through which most of the
stalwart British army has poured so
easily into France.
On the other hand. the attack be-
tween Arras and st. Quentin was not
unexpected. AS a matter of fact. the
British announced some time ago that
they had information leading them
to expect a blow in that sector. The
thing that puzzles is that the coun-
try lying back of the front attacked
yesterday offers very poor compen-
sation for the losses that must be
entailed in taking it. The British
had purpose in attacking in the
Cambria sector last fall. The city of
Cambria, lying a few miles behind
the German lines, was prize worth
capturing. The German counterat-
tack which drove the British back
to their original positions was brill
liant stroke and easily understood.
But back of the British lines at
tackled yesterday lies a barren coun-
try. Stretching before the plunging
Germans, blindly driven against the
massed British guns, are the. dead
battletields of the Somme and the
devastated country laid waste during
the German retreat of just year
ago. The thrust between Lagnioourt
and Gouzeaucourt, if carried home,
would lead the Germans in the di-
rection of the ruined city of Ba-
paume which was the goal of the
British armies during the battle of
the Somme in 1916, when every inch
of ground was contested with a Bit
terness that took an appalling toll of
German, French and British lives.
Bapaume was not taken by as
sault. 1t was occupied only when the
Germans abandoned it on st. Pat
rick's Day year ago. The CHASTITY
story the German trenches flanking
this field Gibraltar told will never
be forgotten by those who had to
cross them in the wake of the re-
treating enemy. They were long
open graves, choked in places with
the piled-up dead of months of fight
ing. British artillery had never
ceased to pound the German posi-
tions day and night. 1t was easy to
see how the German troops had
been plagued by their own dead. The
incessant fire made decent burials
impossible.
1t was apparent the German SOL
diers would simply fling a fallen
comrade over the rear wall of the
forward trenches and there let him
lie until an exploding shell would
blow fragments of him back upon
them.
The Germans in retreating from
Bapaume to the Hindenburg line.
stretching from Queant to st. Quen-
tin. declared at the time that in de-
stroying every bit of shelter in the
evacuated country they We're pre-
pairing a battlefield for their own
operations in the future. Not a tree
was left standing that might screen
a squad of defending soldiers. Now
the Germans appear to be attempt
ing to make good their boast of corr
ing back over this terrain, but what
"a price they must pay for land so
freely yielded twelve short months
ago!
The report that Austro- Hungarian
guns We're participating in the bonn
bardments on the western front yes
terday was received with marked in
terest in Washington. This is the first
time that Austrian units have ap-
peared in the west. The Austrian
military authorities have protested
often against the proposition that
they should lend aid to the Germans
in France and Flanders. but at last
they seem to have yielded to the
pressure that constantly has been
brought upon them. Whether Aus
trian infantry regiments are to par
ticipate in the German campaign re-
mains to he seen 1t is evident how