THE GERMAN RETREAT CONTINUES—THE FRENCH VICTORIOUS BETWEEN THE OISE AND THE AISNE—THE BRITISH WIN MILES OF TERRITORY DAILY

With almost monotonous regularity the daily record was now of continued Allied advancements and enemy defeats. The Germans at times offered stout resistance and launched desperate counterattacks, but they were unable to delay more than temporarily the mighty forward sweep of the Allies, while their losses in men and material reached enormous figures.

The French forces continued to fight with a dash and ardor that carried everything before them. Day and night with few chances for repose they fought on over the most difficult ground that was constantly flooded with poisonous gases.

On April 16-17, 1918, Foch's men carried out a successful attack northwest of Soissons in the AutrÈches region, and operating on a three-mile front smashed through enemy positions to the depth of a mile. They won in this advance the important plateau to the north of the village of AutrÈches, which gave them command of the country extending northward, south of the Oise River. Further local actions at other points on the front greatly strengthened the grip of the Allies on the approaches to Roye to the west, north, and south. The Germans in that region maintained an incessant artillery fire, but the only effect it had was to delay for a time the Allies' advance. The French were now within a mile of Roye on two sides. British troops under Marshal Haig meanwhile were not idle. Good progress was made on the 17th to the north of Proyart, just south of the Somme. Farther to the south, troops operating north of Lihons, which lies about two miles to the west of Chaulnes, pushed their line forward to the depth of a mile. More progress was also made in the Amiens-Roye road region and to the north of the Ancre River.

West of ArmentiÈres British troops drove the Germans back on a front of four miles between Bailleul and Vieux Berquin in the Lys sector. They also captured the village of Outersteene, a mile east of Merris and took 400 prisoners. The German positions around Roye continued to be threatened by the British pressure, and on August 18, 1918, Marshal Haig's men pushed their line forward to the north of that place between Chilly and Fransart.

To the south of the Avre River the French, as they fought their way forward, captured over 400 Germans, overcoming some important enemy strongholds.

From the positions captured by the French north of the Aisne River the Allies could now dominate the German batteries of big guns at Chavigny and Juvigny, north of Soissons. These batteries were formidable, commanding not only the city of Soissons, but a wide region around. The Allies were now able to exert such pressure on the Germans here that they must soon be forced to retire and the city of Soissons would be relieved of the danger of bombardment.

Allied operations on two widely separated fronts—the British on the north of the Lys salient, and the French between the Aisne and the Oise—had increased the difficulties of the Germans in these areas. Lassigny was seriously threatened by the capture of FresmiÈres (on the Roye highroad two and a half miles to the north) by the advance of Foch's troops to the western outskirts of the town, and the occupation of the Thiescourt Wood.

On the night of August 18, 1918, the French launched an attack on a front of about fifteen miles east of RibÉcourt and across the Oise to Fontenoy, six miles west of Soissons. The fighting, vigorously pushed on the following day, resulted in notable gains for the Allied arms. The capture of the village of Rimprez, on the west bank of the Oise on the Noyon-CompiÈgne road, was followed by an advance of two miles northward to the southern edge of Dressincourt. Equally important gains were made at other points in the line of attack. The plateau west of Nampcel and Morsain and several other villages were carried by storm. In the course of the fighting the French captured over 2,000 prisoners, including several battalion commanders.

In the Lys salient the British continued the irresistible drive forward. Marshal Haig's advance was on a front of nearly six miles. His line was carried up to the town of Merville and to the north-and-south road through the town from Les Purebecques on the north to Paradis to the south.

The victories of the French troops between the Oise and the Aisne gave them possession of the Oise Valley as far as Mont Renaud. General Mangin, who carried out these successful operations, was now in a position to force the enemy to resort to desperate measures to escape a serious defeat. His artillery now commanded all roads of importance, and the only exit available for the Germans from the region of Noyon and Lassigny was a narrow-gauge line running north to Ham by way of Guiscard and the highroad running in the same direction. Von Hutier had either to check Mangin's advance, or choose this narrow outlet for extricating his troops and material. Rather than face this alternative, the Germans were offering a desperate resistance in an endeavor to hold on to their present lines, hoping against hope that something might occur that would enable them to shake off the Allies' strangle hold. General Debeney's advance on Lassigny and Roye had slackened up owing to the stout opposition offered by the enemy, but he continued to make steady progress.

In the early morning of August 20, 1918, General Mangin began an operation between the Aisne and the Oise southeast of Noyon and northwest of Soissons that achieved a splendid success. Striking on a fifteen-and-a-half-mile front he smashed into the German line to an average depth of two and a half miles, capturing seven towns and over 8,000 prisoners.

By these operations General Mangin wrested from the Germans at Cuts and Mont de Choissy all the heights remaining south of the Oise in that region. The French batteries now commanded a wide sweep of territory and most of the important roads. General Mangin's right, firmly established on the heights around Fontenoy, now began to drive the enemy from the elevated ground south of the Oise, leaving them no option but to cross the river, or retreat toward the east. The Germans fought desperately to hold their ground, relying principally on their vast number of machine guns. During the night, in anticipation of General Mangin's attacks, they had received reenforcements brought up from the Soissons front in motor lorries to help meet the shock of the French troops. They fought with dogged determination, but from the start their position was hopeless. Their artillery fire was of the feeblest and they had practically no help from airplanes.

Continuing their attacks in the region northwest of Soissons, General Mangin's troops captured Lassigny. The advance, made over a front of fifteen miles, smashed the German lines at some points to the depth of five miles. To the southeast of Lassigny, by winning a foothold in Plemont, the French menaced the Germans' grip on the valley of Divette. Across the Oise and farther east, Mangin's men had reached the river from the south between Sempigny and Pontoise. In the conquered territory, won in less than twenty-four hours, the Germans were driven from twenty villages.

While the French were driving the Germans before them and winning wide stretches of territory, the Third British Army under General Sir Julian Byng was adding to the glory of British arms. Under cover of a heavy fog, General Byng attacked on a ten-mile front from the Ancre River to the neighborhood of Moyenville, driving back the enemy along the whole line and gaining at some points ground to the depth of two miles. General von Below's Seventeenth Army, which the British fought against, was badly cut up; their losses in guns and men were so heavy as to suggest that the German morale was crumbling, and that their fighting power was rapidly disintegrating.

It was just at daybreak that the British big guns began the overture that preceded the attack. The fog was so dense that the men in the tanks could not see more than a hundred feet ahead, but it was favorable to the assaulting formations as it served to shield their movements from the enemy observers. The German guns replied only feebly, showing that they were short of heavy cannon, a fact that had been noted before in recent fighting in this region. Their chief dependence on this occasion was in machine guns, with which they seemed to be exceedingly supplied. Situated in isolated posts, these did effective work, and there was sharp fighting at various points. The German garrison occupying the shell-shattered ruins of what had been the village of Courcelles, near the center of the battle front, made a stubborn resistance, and for a time the advance of the British infantry was held up at this point. With the arrival on the scene of a drove of tanks, German resistance broke down. The machine-gun nests were quickly smashed, and the gunners killed or made prisoners; and wherever there was resistance the tanks quickly crushed out all desire of the enemy to continue the fight.

Engaged in this advance were tanks of various types, and all found their work cut out for them. The big tanks smashed in the enemy defenses, dipped in and out of shell holes and performed all the heavy work, while the small whippet tanks and armored cars dashed around at high speed attacking gun nests from the rear and clearing the way for the advance of the infantry. Despite the vigorous resistance offered by the Germans at some points, the British losses in casualties were comparatively small, and some formations met with none at all. The village of Beaucourt was won with only three casualties.

When the fog lifted about noon, and the sun shone out, the Germans attempted several counterattacks, but were unable to force the British to relinquish a foot of the territory they had gained.

In the morning of August 22, 1918, the British delivered a new attack on a six-mile front between Albert and Bray on the Somme, which was entirely successful, all objectives being won and an advance made of two miles. The important town of Albert was captured and 1,400 prisoners and a large number of cannon. North of the Ancre the battle raged throughout the day, and the Germans were forced to fall back all along the line. Isolated counterattacks were attempted, but they crumbled beneath the hammer blows of the British armies. There was hard fighting along the Arras-Albert railway embankment for the valuable positions that overlook the flat country around. To the south from Achiet-le-Grand to the Ancre the opposing armies swept back and forth in attacks and counterattacks again and again renewed. At Achiet-le-Grand and Miraumont, where the Germans launched their most ambitious counterattacks, they employed fresh troops that had been rushed forward from other sectors to relieve Von Below's hard-pressed Seventeenth Army.

During August 21-22, 1918, the French Third and Fourth Armies under General Mangin continued to press their advance night and day along the front from Lassigny to the north of Soissons. At some points an advance of seven miles was made, and there was evidence that the Germans were so badly mauled that their retreat amounted practically to a rout.

The French push toward the roads leading to Chauny menaced the enemy's line of retirement and explained his hurried retreat. By the capture of Bouguignon, St. Paul-aux-Bois, and Quincy the French had won command of the valley of the Ailette from the region of Coucy-le-ChÂteau to the Oise. General Humbert's troops also made notable gains and wrested important positions from the enemy. By the occupation of the height of Plemont and the capture of Thiescourt the French now held all the hills known as the Thiescourt Massif, thus giving them the strongest points overlooking the region around.

It was evident in different parts of the fighting area that the Germans were in a confused and even panic-stricken state of mind. The French advance guard was so close to them when they crossed the Oise that they had not time to destroy the bridges over the river. Allied observers noted streams of enemy transports in wild confusion back of the fighting front, and all discipline and order seemed to have been lost. Upon the Ailette front the sudden attack of the French caused the hasty retreat of a division of German reserves which had been brought forward to launch a counterattack. Falling back, this division precipitated a panic in the ranks of another division which had intended to support the first division's attack, and the result was a confused and disorderly retreat.

Marshal Foch's plan to give the enemy no rest day or night, and to follow up each blow by another, a plan which had resulted in great victories for the Allies and constant demoralization of the forces of the enemy, continued to be the order of the day. The British, operating on a thirty-mile front, unceasingly hammered Crown Prince Rupprecht's armies, striking suddenly at different points, and always advancing in spite of the most determined opposition. The Third and Fourth British Armies under Generals Byng and Rawlinson made important gains on August 22-23, 1918. It was a day of disaster for the Germans, whose desperate attempts to check the British advance resulted only in frightful losses of men and accomplished nothing. Prince Rupprecht sacrificed his troops recklessly in an effort to stave off the inevitable. The British guns swept the Germans from the field, or crushed them as they tried to force their way forward. One entire German battalion was annihilated during the fighting. General Byng made an advance of two miles to the neighborhood of Grandcourt, east of the Ancre. Gomiecourt and four other villages were carried by storm. To the north the British captured Achiet-le-Grand, which is on the Arras-Albert railroad, and for the possession of which Germans and British had been fighting for some days past.

Field Marshal Haig's armies continued to deal the German forces staggering blows as they drove forward. Bray, on the northern bank of the Somme, was captured on August 23, 1918. Thiepval, a strong position on high ground and which dominated miles of territory, was occupied by British forces after a hard struggle and against the concentrated fire of countless machine guns. Miraumont, in the center of the battle front and to which the Germans clung with desperate energy, was now surrounded on all sides and its fall was only a question of a few hours. The British were now driving ahead in the direction of Bapaume, and on the 23d occupied a small town on the outskirts. Croisilles, north of Mory, some miles east of the Arras-Bapaume road, was also won, marking the extreme point of the British advance for the day in the northern battle zone.

North of the river Scarpe the fighting was intense. The British, despite stiff opposition, penetrated the old German line and made important gains when they attacked Givenchy. The Germans fought bravely, contesting every yard of ground, but it was a losing battle, and the field was littered thickly with their dead. They had brought up new divisions that were thrown into the fight, but the reenforcements were unable to check, except temporarily, the Allies' continuous push forward.

On the French front General Mangin's troops had crossed the Oise and reached the outskirts of the village of Morlincourt, a mile and a quarter from the railway station of Noyon. The fall of that place within a short time was inevitable.

The French advance on the Soissons end of the battle front proceeded more slowly, but the forward movement was not arrested. Their operations in this region threatened the turning of both the Chemin-des-Dames and the German positions on the Vesle. On August 23, 1918, General Mangin's troops had won the greater part of the Juvigny Plateau, which brought them to the edge of the battle field of 1917. To the north lay the Ailette Valley. Eight miles eastward was Laffaux Mill and the beginning of the Chemin-des-Dames, familiar landmarks and the scene of intense fighting in the previous year.

On the battle front north of the Somme the British armies continued to advance in the face of heavy resistance from the Germans, who had been strongly reenforced in the course of the past twenty-four hours (August 24-25, 1918). Haig's troops had captured a dozen villages and carried their new front within a thousand yards of the old Hindenburg Line. From Albert to Bapaume, the whole length of the highroad was now in British hands. East of Bray Australian troops carried important heights in possession of the enemy. North of Bapaume the villages of Sapignies and Behagnies, which formed part of the defenses of the town, were taken by British troops. The Germans, as they retired, left great quantities of stores, equipment and military supplies on the field. They destroyed what they could, but a vast amount fell to the victors.

Since August 21, 1918, the British had captured over 17,000 prisoners and a great number of cannon and machine guns.

The British advance owed much of its success to the wonderful service performed by the motor cars, which did scout work far in advance of the infantry. They continued throughout the fighting to harass the enemy and strike confusion in his ranks, falling upon transport columns and inflicting terrible damage. They attacked retreating bodies of Germans and mowed them down with machine guns, and were everywhere active factors in the demoralization of the enemy. The tanks cooperating with the armored cars were no less effective. Breaking the way for the advancing troops they rolled into the towns and cleaned out the strong points under floods of fire. The Germans never lost their fear of the tanks and it was not unusual during the British advance for large bodies to surrender as soon as one of the grim-looking monsters lumbered into view.

An interesting incident in connection with the capture of Thiepval Ridge is related, when a British detachment was saved by an aeroplane. This detachment, pressing forward too fast, found itself out of touch with the main body and was suddenly surrounded by Germans. An observer in the air noted their predicament and dropped a message "Stick it out." He then notified the British command and troops were rushed to the rescue, and the Germans were driven off.

German prisoners captured when Miraumont fell said that they had been three days without food. All seemed happy that they were out of the war, especially the Alsatians who had been placed in German regiments.

"If any of us are caught deserting," said an Alsatian prisoner, "his family is punished, and even his female relatives are sent to dig in the front-line and other trenches."

In the course of this British drive forty-two German divisions had suffered heavy losses; 40,000 soldiers and several hundred officers in prisoners alone.

On August 25, 1918, the troops of the Third French Army, fighting in water up to their waists in the marshes along the Avre, captured two of the strongest defenses of Roye. The first attack was made on the village of Fresnoy, two and a half miles to the north of Roye, where the Germans had restored their old fortifications of 1914-17, and had filled the neighborhood with machine-gun nests. After a brief artillery preparation the French stormed the concrete blockhouses and killed the gunners serving their pieces. Fresnoy was a notable stronghold and one of the centers of German resistance around Roye from which they had launched their counterattacks in attempts to check the advance. The Germans had orders to hold the place at any cost, but the French attacking from the north and south simultaneously bore down all resistance. Four hundred prisoners, including sixteen officers, were captured in the town. Another strong outpost of Roye, the village of St. Mard in the marshes of the Avre, was won by General Debeney's men in the afternoon after a violent struggle. The Germans had surrounded their concrete blockhouses with water let in from the Avre and through the floods in the face of intense machine-gun fire the French had to force their way to capture the position.

Roye was now invested from the north, west and south, and the German hold on the place was slowly weakened. North of Soissons, on the far right of the French line, the Germans renewed their efforts against the line from Pont-St. Mard to Juvigny. They were thrown back everywhere, the French making new gains and occupying Domaine Wood.

On the same day, while the French were making progress against heavy odds, British troops were in battle on a thirty-mile front, from the river Scarpe at a point east of Arras to Lihons south of the Somme, crossing the Hindenburg line on the northern sector of their attack. Canadians captured the villages of Wancourt and Monchy-le-Preux which formed part of the famous German defense, and they continued to make progress in an easterly direction. Scottish troops, driving forward on the north bank of the Scarpe, reached the outskirts of Roeux, north of Monchy-le-Preux.

General Debeney's First Army, after crushing the Germans in their battle positions around Roye, captured the town and continued pursuing the enemy who were retreating on a line from Hallu to the region south of Roye. The French advance was made on a twelve-mile front, and territory was gained to a depth of two and a half miles, the Germans being forced back on both sides of the Avre River.

By encircling tactics the French smashed the numerous machine-gun nests that were the backbone of the defense. One after another heavily fortified positions were turned and the Germans were forced to surrender the first and then the second line of defenses of 1914, to which they had retreated after being driven out of Montdidier.

The second German line was broken in the morning of August 26, 1918, when the French infantry, after repulsing a counterattack at St. Mard, encircled Roye and drove the enemy back some miles east of the town.

The British continued their attacks eastward along the southern bank of the Scarpe, occupying a considerable portion of the Hindenburg line and ChÉrisy, Vis-en-Artois, and the Bois du Sart, an advance of nearly four miles. In the night Canadians and Scottish troops carried Roeux and Fontaine-les-Croisilles, and the slopes around. North of the Scarpe, Gavrelle was occupied, and farther south between Croisilles and Bapaume New Zealanders and English, crushing heavy attacks by German reenforcements, continued to make good progress.

Bapaume was now farther threatened by this extension of the British attack to the north. The Germans had been forced back to the north of the city and their counterattacks on the south had utterly broken down. The capture of Montauban by the British marked an advance of two miles in twenty-four hours. Bazentin-le-Grand, southwest of Bapaume, was also occupied by Marshal Haig's men. This place lies a little to the west of the highroad from Bapaume to the Somme and its capture made the German hold in the region increasingly difficult. Bapaume was now being gradually surrounded by the Allies, and its fall was only a question of time.

During August 27-28, 1918, the French continued to drive the Germans before them on the whole front from Chaulnes to the Oise. In less than twenty-four hours General Humbert's troops made an advance of eight miles through a difficult country of woods, hills, and ravines west of Noyon. Mont Renaud, a famous stronghold commanding the Oise Valley, was carried by storm. Pushing on to the gates of Noyon the French surrounded the last bastion, Poqueri-Court Hill.

The capture of Chaulnes further precipitated the German retreat north of the Avre River. The French engaged in close pursuit of the foe, whom they continued to harass with mustard-gas shells the Germans left behind, and which were being fired from German guns by French gunners. In the course of the night General Debeney's troops advanced four and a half miles, and by morning were on the outskirts of Nesle, close on the heels of the retreating foe.

After the fall of Chaulnes, Gomiecourt to the north and Sept Fours and a score of other villages were captured.

The territory abandoned by the Germans in the retreat presented scenes of desolation and ruin unsurpassed since the war began. The names of towns had no longer any significance but as geographical designations. As places of habitation they had ceased to exist, and even their sites were difficult to recognize. The cemeteries were blown up and ruined and the contents of the graves scattered. At Roye and other towns the Germans had carefully filled the ruins with mustard gas which for a time prevented the Allies from occupying these places.

Croisilles, the strong German position to the north of Bapaume, which had long held out against British attacks, was captured by a flanking movement by Haig's men on August 27, 1918. Further gains were made at all points on the battle line between Bapaume and the river Scarpe. North of the Arras-Cambrai road the Canadians captured the villages of Boiry and Pelves. On the north bank of the Somme British troops occupied Curly and Hardecourt, and drove forward in the direction of Maurepas. South of the river, Australians in an advance of between four and five miles were on their way to the crossings of the Somme at PÉronne and Brie, encountering hard resistance from the Germans as they pushed on.

A large German force was brought up to attack the British positions east of Monchy. According to the statements of prisoners, some of the German companies at the last moment refused to fight, and the others were forced to go ahead without them. For tactical reasons the British withdrew a few hundred yards and then organized an attack that drove the Germans from the field, and they were seen no more that day. According to an eyewitness the ground in this region was in parts literally carpeted with bodies in field gray.

The total captures of the Allies on the western front since July 18, 1918, were now over 120,000 prisoners and over 2,000 guns. The British captured between August 21, 1918, and August 26, 1918, more than 21,000 prisoners of all ranks, and their own losses in killed, wounded, and missing during this period was only slightly in excess of this number. Since August 8, 1918, the British captures exceeded 47,000 officers and men, and over 600 guns.

It was evidently the purpose of the Germans at this stage to retire to a shorter line on the western front where they could obtain better defensive positions against the Allies' blows, and so economize their forces. The rapid advance of the British on both sides of the Scarpe, which threatened to flank the entire Hindenburg position, was a serious obstacle in the way of the Germans carrying out their plan.