New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-08-13
Unknown back into the desert Gre
ated by Hindenburg in the great


ated by Hindenburg in the great
retre-t of 1917, the Germans are
now desperately struggling to organize
defence along the old Somme line from
which they were driven in the summer
campaign Of 1916. With their TANKS still
holding firm above the Disc and between
the Somme and the Ancre, the Germans
have been temporarily successful in
holding up the Anglo-French advance all
the way from Chaulnes southwark to
Lassigny and Ribecourt.
In this effort the Germans have OBJ
vlously been able to turn to advantage
the intricate systems of defence, Allied
and German alike, created before the
Somme fighting, and in more or less
dilapidated condition, surviving from
1916. So far the French and British
have not been able to make any real
progress beyond the old German line,
and all the villages and towns men
toned in the later communicates are on
this old front from which Haig and Foch
advanced in July, 1916.
But despite the temporary pause there
is little reason to believe that Luden-
dorff can permanently check his retreat
west of the line of the upper Somme on
a front from Bapaume through Peronne
and Ham to the high ground north of
the Disc and about Noyon. His present
reaction compares with the stand on the
hills north of the Ourcq, which were de-
Tended as an intermediate line between
the Marine and the Vesle. A few DAYS
ago we were specializing as to whether
the Marine retreat would stop at the
Vesle or at the Aisne. To-day the ques-
ton is whether the Somme retirement
will stop on the upper Somme or at the
Hindenburg line.
1t is essential now to recognize that
the strategic profit Of the Picardy often
sive has already been largely harvested.
The British and French are bound to
push their success as far as it. can he
cheaply pushed, but the desert before
them now has little or no Immediate
value and is decidedly not worth anv
great expense in men or munitions.
Whether Ludepdorff halts permanently
on the old Somme line, the line of the
upper Somme or the Hindenburp. he
has lost all Of the ground of any real
value gained in his spring offensive.
Foch struck primarily to abolish the
German threat to Paris by the Disc
route, to free the communications be-
tween Paris and the Channel, which pass
through Amiens, and to eliminate the
German wedge thrust between French
and British armies as far west as the
Avre and the Ancre. He has accom-
pllshed all of these things. He has in
addition inflicted upon the Germans
their worst defeat of the war and gath
cred the greatest Allied bag of prisoners
and guns of any operation.
Beyond this lies the possibility of ex.
plotting his victory by a further ad-
vance, which will compel a general Ger
man retirement between the Aisne and
the Oise-that is, between scissors and
Noyon. If he can produce such re-
tirement the Germans will also have to
quit the Vesle and fall back north of the
Aisne between Scissors and Rheims. But
this last possibility is worth striv;nc
for only provided German resistance is
still weak and the disorganization fol-
lowing the initial defeat continues.
1t is we'll to abolish all notion that
there is at present any chance Of re-
turn to the old style war of movement
Nothing OF that sort can happen. The
Germans forced out of the Marne salient
presently stood, and are still standing at