Bisbee daily review., 1918-08-25
Not Yet But Soon!

With Noyon in deep pocket and ex- posed to terrible fire from three angles, still the Germans hold the city. Their or. ders are to hold out at all costs Well, they are obeying orders all right, and the cost is plenty high. It would seem, even to the ordinary layman, that the longer the Germans hold the Noyon pocket, the better Foch would be pleased. His plan Is to kill Germans and not take ground. Hence he would surely prefer that they elect to stay and fight on this precarious and dangerous and half shattered line than to fall back to strongly prepared and nat urally impregnable positions on a shorter front.
 German pride and superciliousness and pig-headedness have cost them more than all other misfortunes put together in this war The Prussian will seldom give up a town or redOubt or farm or hill until every man in it is ground to powder. It IS true that occasionally the allies get them on the run and they rush out of village like rabbits, but generally they stay and make a stubborn fight and pay the extreme penalty.
 The war news today IS most disappoint- ing to all of us who hoped to read this morning of broken German line and the taking of Baupaume and Noyon and gen eral German withdrawal. This column free ly admits that Friday nights news of the great British push had led it to hope for the rush, rout and ruin of the German lines most of the way between Baupaume and Soissons. But httle.thoAght and contem- plation of the battle area and the forces on both sides should have made such fond hope impossible Only an accident of war or sudden break in German morale could make that possible. The Germans still have many fresh reserve divisions, and these have been thrown into the furnace and have doubtless stopped the allied drive for the time.
 Consider that just a little more than a month ago the Germans had the big bulge on all this front and were preparing i'm mense reserves to break the allied line and rush through to Paris and. Calais And now we are steadily driving them back and forcing them to use up all these reserve di- visions to hold their lines And they are playing right into Foch' hands, too. Only a Prussian would elect to hold Noyon at the present cost. Only Prussian would sacrifice thousands upon thousands of his best men to hold Chaulnes and Bau- paume for another week or two from the inevitable end that must result from the overwhelming British pressure. The Ger mans could have saved quarter of mil lion men if they had swallowed their pride and fallen back everywhere as soon as Foch developed his great strength and re- sources July 8 on the Marne And in the end they must fall back, just the same Outnumbered, outfought and outgeneraled they must give or break. The ceaseless pressure and the intending, lightning at tacks all the way along a hundred mile front can have but one final end.
 Just as we are beginning to feel disap- pointment at the failure to make big for ward push and rout the enemy; just as we feel that we have been stopped hairline short of the fruits of victory, Foch strikes again and fresh and greater peril arises al once for the harassed German line and the badly punished German armies. A little more patience, brethren, and they will crack.