Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-05-18

with their quarry in the twitcl
German Attack Was About Due. d
A picked patrol it was on this
night-picked from the best because
its mission must not fail. The Ger
man attack was at hand. Gouraud
had said it, and Gouraud knew. He
had felt before the first of July that
it was coming; by the 5th he had
known it for certainty. And the
18th was French independence day,
and Gouraud knew the German
logic.
one-armed hero of the Dardanelles
and commander of the Fourth
French army guessed the German
estimate of Frances readiness.
They will ali be drunk with cele-
brating and we will kill them where
they lie"
Surprise, complete unreadiness-
that was the Germans desperate
hope; their highest card-and their
last. General Gouraud's troops in
the Champagne, before Chalons-sur-
Marine, could expect to drink deep to
Bastile day with perfect safety, for
a German attack there, they might
we'll think. would be madness. The
opposing lines had been virtually
stationary there since 1914. Before
Chalons, from the Argonne to
Rheims, the allies trench systems
were five miles deep, with great
dugouts and vast wire fields. 1t
was. perhaps, the most perfectly Or
ganized defensive position on the
whole western front.
"Yes." thought Won Hindenburg,
"tke French will expect to be safe
there on the 18th day of July, 1918
safe and drunkp
Reasons for Attack.
They had failed at Chateau Thier-
ry. The Marine salient at that
point did not afford maneuvering
room for another major German Of
fensive. Wave after wave of
smashing attack the Hun had hurl
ed against Verdun, on the right. and
Rheims, on the left, and they had
all been futile. They had tried to
widen on their right in the direction
of Compiegne and Montdidier, but
there the allied armies were known
to have concentrated their reserves.
What, then, beside these things, and
the probability of surprise, moved
the German high command to plan
4 drive on Chalons through FIVE
miles of defenses?
This: That their lines of COM
munication were shorter and super
Tor; that they could operate on a
straight line, while the allied re-
serves could come from north of
Paris to Chalons only around the
Marine salient via Vitre-le-Francois,
and that, Chalons once taken, a
jumping-off point for the next drive
on Paris could be chosen at will.
But, above all, surprise.
The candles in the dugout flick
cred with the vital intensity Of the
moment. it seemed, but probably it
was only with the throb Of a gun
beginning the ordinary night
harassing.
Got His Information.
The intelligence officer put his
question bluntly, almost carelessly.
When. he wanted to know, would
this attack come. ~.
Tonight" answered the German
sergeant.
'Eh bien"-and at what hour
would the barrage begin?
"At IL o'clock" the German ser
geant answered. They took him off
toward Chalons to prison pen to
paint "P, G." on his back. And the
intelligence officer whispered over
the wires a word and number
Francois one-four-O." Men in deep
holes in the ground throughout
miles of the Champagne's chalky
desert caught it up and passed it
on-"Francois one-four- O"-and it
went out farther and farther toward
the German lines and stopped where
things it heralded would begin-ih
the dugouts of the French sacrifice
companies.