Evening star., 1918-08-31
BY FRANK n. sIMoNDs.

! Regard being had for that long
period Of anxiety which extended
from March 81 to July IS. 1t is not
too much to say that the past seven
days have been for us and our allies.
and on the spectacular side. the best
| week of the whole war. To be sure.
the fact of victory was established on
August by Rawlinson's offensive
along the Somme, just as the fact Of
salvation from the graver perils was
| disploced by Mangin's triumphant
thrust on July s.
But neither the one blow nor the
sequences. The German retirement
| to the vesle was deliberate. and after
q precipitate dash out of the Mont
didier salient Ludendorn was able
to make a long halt at the old
Somme lines. Strategically, on the
were already enormous, but they
were not revealed on the map. and
it is to the map that the mass of peo-
pie look for the meaning Of military
events.
Toward the close of last week. how
| uation. The German could no longer
escape the consequences of his great
defeat. He had to retreat to escape
disaster. and his retreat had neces-
sarily to be accomplished under heavy
pressure. He could not evade the
watchful Foch; he had to pay a price
for retirement. price measured on
the British front by 10000 prisoners
and $50 guns in seven days and by
$4,000 prisoners and many more guns
in the full period from August to
August 80.
When Retreat Became Inevitable.
The start of the retreat was rem
dered inevitable when Byng began his
thrust outward toward Bapaume last
week, although that thrust was not
Immediately successful in gaining Ba-
paume. Away of to the south the
French followed the British example
by taking Roye. With Roye gone and
Bapaume reached. the whole German
edifice was crumbling. To take Ba-
paume and Roye the British and
French fought from July 1 to the end
of the year in 1916, and they did not
get either. But once Roye had gone,
battlefield south of the Somme and
the British objectives north in that
terrible summer and autumn of 1915
were doomed-fe1l like ripe apples to
the French and British.
And now, at last, the map shows the
consequences. The seed was the sue
cess Of August 8; the harvest is the
retreat now swinging backward and
bound to continue, whatever the tenn
porary halts, until the old linden
burg line is reached. We have
liquidated all the gains of Ludendorff
in his great offensives of the spring.
We have disposed of one more Ger
man chance to win the war, the
chance supplied by the collapse of
Russia. The German had six weeks
to win the war in the Marne cam
paign of 1914 before Russia could in
teryene effectively, and he lost. He
had four months in the Verdun
episode Of 1916, and he lost: he had
from March 81 to July IS, this year,
before America could get its first di-
necessary strategic reserve. And
again he lost
Some time within the next few days,
probably by the end of the next week,
the German will be back at the linden
burg line; he will have before him that
preparing in all the time since he was
defeated by Rawlinson; he will have
from the Scarpe to the Disc that bull
wark which is the desert Hindenburg
created in 1917, desert without roads,
railways, villages or even shade trees.
Supreme Test in Next Two Weeks.
Then will come the third great crisis
Of the campaign. Then will come the
test as to whether Foch can promptly
carry on his victory to the next and
greater step, to the point where the ex-
pulsion Of the German from France be-
comes possible in the present year. All
else is now of minor consequence before
this great possibility The supreme test
between Foch and Ludendorff for this
year must come within the next fort
night, and the test may settle the war
declsiyely, for II the Germans have
promptly to quit the Hindenburg barrier
they will reach the Belgian frontier in
ribbons. Another long retreat imme-
! diately after the pEesent would be too
demoralizing to permit the German ma
chine to retain its organization. The
consequence would be q supreme mill
tary disaster, and 1t Is consequence
now possible for the first time In this
war on the allied side.
It is emphatically not q time for ex-
ltravagant expectations. On the whole
the German retreat is developing
with reasonable success. Boehn Is
paying very high price, indeed. for
getting Hutier's army out of the
mess. but he is getting it out. The