Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1919-01-30

hdlSIlal TSIulHdHQ TOCIl, dld IL Has
tened the dispatch Of American troops
across the sea, so that by mid summer
We had more than million troops in
France-nearly half of whorl were
ready for service at the front. In those
! two things lay the seeds of the grear
victories that were to follow: unified
command under soldier Of genius
and continual reinforcements Of quail
ity beyond anything the exhausted Ger.
man army could furnish.
Whether or not Gen. LudenJo'f rea-
lized the difficulties into which his cost
ly and frustrated offensive were likely
to lead him, he had no choice but to 60
on. He must drive ahead, still in the
desperate hope of breaking through his
enemies line. According, on July is
he attacked again all the way from
.Soissons to Massiges, in Champagne.
He planned to take Reims, cross the
Marne and drive forward toward Paris.
Everywhere he failed. East of Reims
the French stopped him short; near
Chateau-Thierry he crossed the Marne
but the Americans threw MIN back
again. Then-on July 18-came the
first of Foch's counter-blows an at
tack on the flank of the great salient
between the Aisne and the Marnc
which Ludendorff had left inadequately
defended. From that moment the tide
Of war turned; the Germans began a
retreat that never stopped until under
the armstice their armies fell back
across the Rhine.
The battle that began on July rs
ended with the withdrawal of the Ger
mans to the Aisne; il was followed by
combined British and French attack
that gradually spread along the whole
front between Noyon AMI Ypres and
step o. step drove the enemy back to
the shelter of the famous Hindenburg
line, which he had left in March on the
offensive that was to win a victorious
peace. His success had left him with
an extended and Vulnerable line and
with depleted ranks. Foch played upon
his situation with the greatest skill, US
ing reserves to strike blow after blow,
now in Picardy, now in Champagne.
now in Flanders. He used the newly
formed American army to break down
the salient at st. Mihiel that the Ger
mans had held for four years; he threw
the British across the uppe- end Of the
Hindenburg line at QI2ant; and by
clever operations with his French
troops he outfanked the difficult posi-
tions between Laon and Rheims on
which the whole Carmal defensive
system hung.
At last, on Septembe: 20, he launch
ed the greatest battie Of all. The
Americans and the French attacked in
the Argonne, and the British and the
Belgians in the region Of Ypres. Then,
when Ludendotff was wholly coupled
on the fanks, came the deadly thrust at
the centre, when Byng and Rawlinson
attacked Cambria. The victory was
complete; the Hindenbu:g line feIl:
Lille and the Belgian coast, ST. Quentin
and Laon, all had to be given up. Ftr T
a time the Germans tried to hold on
their left wing, where the Americans
were pushing up the Meuse toward
Sedan; for defeat there would cut the
German front in two and result in a
military disaster. There was bloody
fighting there, and also at the other end
Of the battle line before Ea!eEciennts
but the German morale was Breaking
the civilian morale at home was already
broken. The revolution was at hand
and as the British took Va!encionnes
and the Americans reached Sedan, 'he
German chiefs came to Focn humbly
asking for an armistice, since to pro-
long the war would only make their
defeat more crushing. d.
The terms Of the armistice are vel
known. AS a result of its provisions
we have enjoyed the specTacle ci
French troops occupying again the
cities and the villages of he provinces
that Prussia took from France nearly
Fl fly years ago; We have see.1 American
and British and French troops march
ing unopposed across German sell ant
taking possession of the strong places
of the Rhine; u'e have sevr the Ger
man war fleet steam silently between
the marshaled lines Of the Allied flee
giving itself up in tame surrender
wonderful events that few of US wher
the year opened dared hope to see with.
in a twelvemortk