Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1918-08-07
WILSON BEATS KAISER
IN MARINE SWEEPSTAKES
American Fighters Made Possible
General Foch's Great Victory
and Decide War.

When the Crown Prince sent his men
to clear the way to Paris he was absolute
ly sure of his ability TO overcome the
resistance of General Pctain He was
relying, as usual on a victory by sheer
weight of numbers, and this time he
imagined that he WAS starting from a
point sufficiently near the French capital
to take HIM within easy reach of it, first
for the purposes of bombardment and
second, for a final advance in force.
That he imagined that he had won the
initial stage when he reached Breezy is
certain. In the neighborhood of that
village he made at any rate two emplace-
ments for heavy guns, guns of the super
cannon type, with which he would easily
have been able to lombard the French
capital, seeing that he WAS only 45 miles
from it, whereas big Bertha" firing out
of the forest of st. Gobain, was 75 miles
away He was also convinced that he
had come to Breezy to stay, or he would
never have left behind him such con-
founding evidence of his defeat, to say
nothing of his lost labor.
Yet in spite of this the German retreat
has taken place, the Marne is cleared,
and the Crown Prince is now attempting
TO stand, with enormously REINFORCED
battalions, on the Ourcq. But what
drove the Crown Prince from the Marne
TO the Ourcq? To say that it was pressure
on the angles of his fianks anyone can
now see is ridiculous Owing to the huge
re-enforccments he has picked up from
other parts of the line, the Crown Princes
actual TANKS have never been III danger.
A whole new army, under General Won
Ebcn, has been sandwiched in between
Won Hutier and Won Boehm, at Soissons,
the line at Rheims has been made equally
secure, so that, with upwards of seventy
one battalions, or more than a million
men crowded into a salient with a forty
mile base, his fianks have never been
really in danger for moment. That is
seen from the fact that General Mangin
has made practically no impression at all
In his direct advance from Fontenoy,
on the west Of scissors, whilst General
Gouraud, who has recovered the lost
ground at Rheims, has not advanced
there either. The pressure, then, on the
Crown Princes front has come from the
south, and his line has beer driven in by
straight, dinect, frontal attack all along
the west front and the apex of the salient,
which last, by a succession Of terrific
blows, has been flattened down until the
Marne has been exchanged for the OurcQ.
In such circumstances II is perfectly
easy TO see where the Crown Princes
miscalculation again came in. The
Crown Prince intended, as the High
Command has been hoasting all along it
would, to strike before the American troops
could be got across, or at all events before
they could be got across and trained.
Now, that the Crown Prince did little
too much boasting and did that boasting
out loud, is probably true. General
kilbe, the critic OF the clerical Germania,
ntt tL,,H- l. IL y. ~ r
that the Crown Princes plans were
public property. Mr.. Lloyd George, in
now famous iigura of speech, has de-
clared that 1t was a race between Presi- |
dent Wilson and the Kaiser And posi- |
bly, the greatest surprise of the Crown |
Princes career has been to have discovered |
that the President has beaten the Kaiser |
all the way from the Marne to the Ourcq. |
Nevertheless, if General Pershing's troops |
had not been there, General Petain would |
have had very different problem to
solve, and 1t Is extremely doubtful |
whether he would have thought il safe TO
to General Foch that attack
In flank, which SO surprised the Germans
as to enable the direct attack by the
Franco-American forces to hammer the
nose of their salient right off, as well as
to press in their fianks. This WIS the
Crown Princes fifst surprise, and il any
body will carefully read the comunuRiques
of the last fortnight, he will discover
where the Crown Princes second surprise
came in. His first surprise was in finding
General Pershing in strength on the apex
and western flank of the salient His
second, and perhaps his greater surprise,
was in finding that General Pershings
troops were fully trained, and able to
take perfectly good care of the Germans
without help.
The Americans were fighting soiidiy |
oa their own account, and those officers
who saw their first rush through the
streams, on the opening night OF the
attack, when they waded up to their
shoulders III water, with their muskets
overhead, were perfectly prepared for
the way they helped to drive in the
German line on the Marne, and for their
latest victory when they crushed the
Prussian Guard, beautifully arrayed in
new uniforms, for spectacular victory
over them, heiter-skelter out Of Ciergus.
md up the slopes beyond 1t was this
sudden appearance OF the American
troops, as fighting unit In the Allied
lines, which upset every one of the Crown
Princes OK rather General Won Lueien-
dorf's calculations. And as g result no
man in the whole world today under |
stands more fully what this means than
von Ludendorff himself, for he knows II
zr,eliz ultimate defeat 4bo |