The Washington herald., 1919-03-30

German unit moved without their
knowledge within a week or two of
Its departure. BY espionage in Ger
man territory, by aerial reconnaiss-
ances. and information obtained from
prisoners, they learnt every detail of
the German decision to concentrate
their full military weight in last ef-
fort to smash their way to victory.
They mapped out the enormous in
crease in the number of ammunition
dumps, batteries, areo dromes. light
railways. and field hospitals behind
the German lines, and they gained
knowledge of the intensive training
which was being practiced by German
storm troops for a new method OF
attack. As one of our Intelligence
officers said to me in February of last
year: England ought to be saying
her prayers because in another month
her fate and the fate of the world.
will be at stake" The evidence for
this was overwhelming. Yet in spite
of thousands of small facts collected
by our Intelligence. all bearing out
the same deduction, there was a
strange unbelief in the reality of the
peril that threatened US among men
of responsibility. Mr.. Bonar Law
said: "I am skeptical of the
great German offensive" and the
army itself shared his scepticism.
During the week preceding the Ger
man onslaught March 81 / was about
the lines from Arpas to the south OF
st. Quentin, against which the enc
my's' assault was delivered and had
the opportunity of talking to many
generals and officers about the proba-
bility of a huge German offensive.
Out of thirteen of these generals,
commanding divisions upon which the
attack would fall II 1t came, there
were only two who believed in its
likelihood. The other said: ut is all
blufY." or &c. H. Q. has the wind up"
Some of them standing as we talked
in sight of the German lines, where
there seemed to be utter solitude, and
nothing doing except the usual har-
assing fire from Isolated batteries,
were iogmatic in explaining to me
why the Germans would not risk their
remaining man power in such a gam
BILE which was bound to fail. A
few days later the tide OF the Ger
man army had rolled over the posi-
tons which these generals had held.
The British troops were just as opti-
mistic as their leaders. What will
happen" l asked one of them, III
Fritz tries to come across?" "He will
catch a cold in the head said the
man, and this answer was typical OF
all those received. A week or so be-
fore the opening of the German offen-
sive l had an interview with Gen.
Cough, commanding the Fifth Army,
on the right of our line, through
which the enemy afterwards broke.
He was not one of those who disbe-
lieved in the impending attack and
he was very frank in facing its pos
sibilities. He showed me maps of his
Fifth Army front, pointed out how he
had adopted a system of defense by a
series of machine gun redoubts in ad-
vance of the main battle positions and
how behind that main battle line were
three other lines upon which our men
could fall back If hard pressed. Then
he said: "If the enemy attacks in
great strength we shall have to give
ground, and the public must be pre-
pared for this. But the giving up OF
ground will not matter very much so
long as we fall back to other good po-
sitions and keep our line intact. 1t
will be in no sense OF the word a dis
aster. After all our natural line OF
defense is the River Somme. If we
had to lose that the situation would
certainly be serious, but not even
then a great disaster. 1t would
be a disaster only if we lost our hold
on Amiens."
am bound to say that these
words made me feel rather cold
The mere possibility of losing the
Somme crossings so far behind our
front at that time was an awful
thought, and the mention of
Amiens. forty miles back from the
line sent a shiver through ones
body. We waited with
dreadful apprehension for the roll
ing up of the curtain which hid
the mystery behind the German
lines, and we did not have long to
wait.
The French on our
right were as fully aware
Mile of the monstrous concen-
British tration behind the en-
Front. emy's front as our own
Intelligence officers, but
they were convinced that at least
half this weight would fall against
themselves in the opening stage of
the Dattle. 1t was a miscalcula-
tion. The full weight of the Ger
man blow was hurled against the
British lines on a forty-five mile
front, between Bullecourt, north of
Bapaume, and La Fere, south of st.
quentin. That ground was held on
the north by the Third British
Army, under Gen. Sir Julian Byny
and by the Fifth Army on the
south. under Gen. Sir Hubert
Cough and forty-eight British di-
visions were attacked in the course
of this offense by ia German di-
visions of picked and specially
trained storm troops. They were
overwhelming odds and the luck of
war was on their side at the be-
ginning of the battles. Our new
system of defence on the Fifth
Army front by which our front line
was held by a series of machine
gun redoubts in advance of the
main battle positions played into
the hands of the Germans new
method of attack, owing to the
fOggy weather in which the ofren-
sive opened. The enemys new
form of assault. which they hal
first tried against the Italians with
startling success. was by what is
now known as "infiltration." That.
is to say while they were attack
ing frontally under the cover of
storms of high explosives and gas
shells and feeling for weaknesses
in their enemy's line they widened
any gap they might make and drib-
bled through machine gunners of
high skill and courage with orders
to penetrate as deeply as they
could and with the assurance that
they would be followed and
supported by a continuous chain