Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1919-01-01

LudendOrff was aSsailed north o.
the Somme by Byng, who turned his
| flank, retook Bapaume and forced a
retirement upon the old Hindenburg
line. Horne, with the First British
army, struck astride the Scarpe and
broke through portion of the Hin
denburg line, approaching Cambria
and Douai.
Americans Become Active.
Foch threw Pershing with the First
American army against the German
salient at ST. Mihiel, and the Ameri
cans won a swift victory. Allenby
| in Palestine, destroyed two Turkish
armies and eliminated Turkey from
the war.
D'Esperey, in Macedonia, destroyed
the Bulgarian power, thus isolating
way to the allied alterations of Ser
bia and Roumania and the eventual
invasion of Hungary from the DAN
ube.
! Foch moved to a general attack
designed to turn the Germans out of
their system of defense from the sea
to the Meuse. On Sept. 26 he threw
the First American army against the
Germans north of Verdun, GOuraud's
army against them north of ChalOns
| in Champagne, and in the following
| days he loosed one army after another
all the way to the sea. In the Ar
come the Americans broke the first
system of German defenses and
streamed north toward the final line
covering Sedan and the Metz-M Maui
/ beuge railway In Flanders the Bel
ginas and British retook all the lost
ground about Ypres, pressed over the
hills and descended to the plain, driv-
/ ing a wedge between the Germans
and the Belgian seacoast and threat
ening eventual isolation
About Sept. 20 the main mass of
British troops, with several American
divisions pounded through the de-
lenses between Cambria and St.
Qunetin. BY Oct the line had been
left far behind, the last complete bar
rier to the allied advance was gone.
/ while northward the French, British
and Belgians were sweeping through
western Belgium, clearing the sea-
coast and approaching the Scheldt.
Lille and Roubaix, with Bruges and
Ostend, had fallen or were about to
fall. Laon to the south had gone
The Italians destroyed Austrian re-
s:stance. Austria ceased to have an
army Hundreds o. thousands Of men
flung down their arms, Triest md
4 Trent opened their gates and Austria
Hungary surrendered. Serbia was
liberated, I:oumania rising against
her German masters.
Tho British forced the line of the
Scheldt and advanced upon Mau.
beuge and Mons. The French swept
all before them from Guise to Rethel
and the Americans streamed forward
TO Sedan
Such is the story of the campaign
If 1918 1t has two distinct phases
that Of 44udendorf from March 81 to
July IS; that Of Foch from July Is to
Nov II
FOch's Strategy Wins.
The first German blow was ore OF
} the most perfectly planned thrusts in
: military history 1t surprised and al
| most destroyed an enemy. The sec
ond German blow, that above the
| Aisne, was less heavy Again the fl
nal blow could not be delivered.
Of Foch's strategy it is too early
J to speak with eXactness. His method
: was the exact opposite of the Ger
: man. He did not seek to gather W
all his energies and resources and
deliver single colossal blow, which
is successful would win the war His
; method was one of swift blows, each
light but each followed promptly by
; another at a new point. From the
momel., that Ludendorff lost the Sec
, ond Marine to the end he was never
: able to reconstruct his own armies or
J escape from the mastery of Fochs
plans.
The last blow, July Is, of Luden-
, dorff was as great d gamble as Ma
: poleon's use of the old guard in the
! closing hour of Waterloo. Had Lu-
dendorff retired rather than advanced
in July, regained strategic freedom by
retreating to as Hindenburg had done
in 1917, he might have escaped dis
aster in 1915
i In March the British were beaten,
beaten as they have never been beat
Ell in 500 years of history. In May
the French We're beaten, although a
far smaller fraction of their main
masses was affected, but had there
been no rush of American troops to
Europe, the allied defeats might have
given Germany victory on the contin-
ent. Before we gave military aid our
troops supplied a moral stimulus, we
became a vast balance in the bank
soon to become available, at the mo-
nlent when despair was abroad.
History will reckon that this war
was lost on the day the Germans de-
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