Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-10-05

Continued from rage Vne
Yesterdays battle gave us gairs all
along the army front. from the
vicinity of Blnarvilers to the Meuse
River, the gains being in some cases
as much as five kilometers.
Five Days to Pave way
Yesterdays attack is a continuation
Of the drive westward on September 26.
Modern warfare Is largely matter of
engineering, and it has taken five days
to rebuild the roads and FIJI up the
enemy mine holes, so as to get ur the
artillery and make sure that supplies
would reach our advance means an even
greater task for our engineers.
Now that the Germans under the pres
sure of the first American army are back
on the Kriemhilde line between the
Aisne and the Meuse, | am permitted to
discuss the significance Of the opera
tion which began on the morning of Sep
tember %. when the first American army
and the fourth French army attacked
on the Champagne -Argonne-Meus front
This successful attempt. made on field
already stained with the blood of hun
dredS of thousands Of brave men in the
last four years was perhaps spectacular,
but was also one Of the hardest Of all
the operations in Marshal Foch's gem
eral campaign against the German front.
German Front a Salient
To understand this fact one must pic
ture the German front as salient,
stretching from tho sea on the west to
the Moselle River on the east and pic
ture the Allies as engaged In reducing
this salient The wings Of this salient.
stretching across northern France. rest
in the west in the fortified position Of
Lille and on the east fortified as the
position of Metz.
Foch's plan of attacking the great
salient was, as every one knows. TO
strike the two wings. II is manifest
with what fury the Germans defended
the western wing. where stupcndous ef-
forts of the British and F'rencE are
needed to break the positions around
Cambria and st. Quentin.
American BLOW Counted
To the first American army and the
fourth French army was assigned the
task of striking the east wing in the
Champagne, the Argonnc ami the Meuse
Valley
To state that the effort of those two
armies was successful. one has only to
say that the Germans no longer hold the
Eindenburg line in the eastern Cham
pagne. in the Argornc, or between the
Argonnc and the MeuSe. They have lost
Montfaucon. they have lost their hold
on the Argonne Businesses and. instead
of standing behind the strongest
fortifCations which modern war has been
able to produce. have only the thin
kriemhlde line between them and the
vast stretch of county to the north, in
which they have no organized position
this side of the French border
But perhaps as important as this is
the fact that General Gourand and Cen
eral Pershint have kept occupied forty
German divisions, at least twenty-five of
which were rushed from other parts of
the line and from the Kaissr's rapidly
diminishing reserves
Viewed by Results
The importance of the advance of the
First American Army against The ter
rife resistance should be emphasized in
order that the American people may not
measure its advance by miles, but by Its
significance and its potentialties.
One may direct attention to the i'm
portance of our capture of Montfaucon.
which not only deprived the Germans of
valuable observation point from which
they could watch the Meuse valley
south of the city of Nerdun and as
far north as Grand-Pre, but with this
point in our hands, we have an adj
vantage such as the boche enjoyed from
Montsec in the late st. Mihiel salient
In company with an American gen.
eral. was standing atop of lie Mont
Homme. or dead mans hill. yesterday
afternoon, looking out over the scrag-
gy piles of stone that once were French
villages. over hilltops from which shells
were stripping stumps of what once
were forests, over land honeycombed
with dugouts and bearing all the million
marks which modern war can make,
when the general said:
How many men do you suppose have
died in the last four years on the
battlefelds you can now see?"
Where Million Men Fell
He said the number was easily a
million. Far off to the left we could
see the forest of the Argonne, where
so many brave Frenchmen died to save
France A bit nearer was the Bos de
Montfaucon. the charnel house of 1915.
To the right were the heights across the
Meuse on which died countless Germans
trying to carry out the Crown Prince $
desire to take Nerdun.