BATTLE OF DESTINY.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 May 1918, Page 7

BATTLE OF DESTINY.

STAVING THE GERMAN TORRENT. . HEROIC WORK OF THE ALLIES. THE GLORY OF OUR THIRD ARMY. London, March 31. The countless episodes and aspects related by the war correspondents suggest material for a hundred volumes. For the story of those days—if right were done to unnumbered heroes whose names will never be known—ought to be a story of hour by hour with countless different dramas going on simultaneously for half one week and half tho next before the worst of the crisis was over. Hore we can only indicate by 'barest summary. On the eve the Hermans had, of course, extended their bombardments towards Ypres on one side, Verdun on the other, and issued i'alse advertisements of their intentions. Tile Allies were not surprised by the general direction of the enemy's effort. .Hut its breadth, weight, and continuity were clearly beyond everything anticipated as almost immeasurably beyond nil precedent. On Thursday, March 21, the first day, and through the frightful fighting of the two following days the

situation —and we may almost say the cause of the Allies in the war —were saved by the Third Army under Sir Julian ljyng, with divisions like the 3rd, t: ■? 51st Highland, and others, now more than ever tenowned.

That performance is the greatest in British military annate up to date- The troops of the Third Army were the left of our defence. They were attacked eight to one at the most critical points. They held- Their cohesion was never shaken for a moment. Slowly they gave ground. They Bold it at the deadliest- price for which ground in war was ever Mirehayed liy ah enemy. Had tin; Third Army failed the British Empire and the cause of the Allies would have gone to the ground. TJie Germans under Otto voh Bulow counted on sweeping during the first day round northward from Bapaume to Aehiet-le-Petit, and then getting behind the Anefe and Albert on the shorter road to Bapaume. The enemy cnlne on in crowds, like various things n wording to I'lic eye-wit-nesses Like ants when a patch i> black with them, like the crowd coming away from the match for the Football Cup in those prehistoric days, or that other erowd bursting in on the course after the decision of the Der<by, or tiko the Day of -ludgment with everybody in Gferrtlan uniform. How that part of the flood-Juirst of assault was dammed iKU'k let the men tell who held Henin Hill and the cellars of Slorv or other men whose work was as stubborn and good in places too many to mention. The harrier held until every German hope of. a clean sweep was ruined. Papfiume, instead of being lost on the tirst day. was held to the fifth in continuous battles round three sides of it. Had all gone as well elsewhere Hindenbnra's attempt would have been a total failure.

HACK TO THE, OLD SOMME RATTL* FIELDS.

Meanwhile, more in the centre, von tier Marwitz was driving hard southwest of Cambrai on the roads to Peronno. Well was he met (by the English, Scottish, and wemoraible South African troop? —repeating in Gauche Wood the undying record of D*lville Wood—to whom Sir Douglas llaig has given their due meed. Von dor Marwitz also was in overbearing numbers. He forced our first positions; our second. He master. i;d the high ground looking over to thu j great angle of the Somme. Even he would have been stopped fa'rlv short but for untoward events elsewhere. As it was. oven lie was delayed in his programme. Xot. .however, heforo lie had made hi»iself almost acutely dangerous On Saturday week he was across the little, but important, Tortille river, just north of I'eronnc. Another breach of cur front, and a more fatal, was threatened. It would have enabled the Germans to push along just north of the Somme, undoing from lllat side the. Third Army. This was still resisting impregiiablv nearer Arras. By pushin;; in the wedge so as to split the cohesion of the British forces dividing all those 011 the north of the Somme from those on the swiMi of that river, von der Marwitz might have wrecked all the Allies' defence. But somehow the 'gup was closed solidly. The deadly rupture was prevented. Peronne itself fell last Sunday. Then on Monday peril was again at its height Otto von Below and von der Marw.tz had joined forces. The Germans now swept through Bapaume. They bore beyond down through the old Somme battlefields towards Coitrcelette and Martinpuieh. Once more the let-tering-ram threatened to shutter through our defences, and to open a breach by which the enemy might drive 011 at once to Albert or Amiens. Nothing ever known or imagined of war seemed otranger, more uncanny, to our men than the sudden return of all the swarming and clamor of war to the desolation of those Somme chirnel-grounds which for twelve months and more had I en dreary and lonely as the desert. Once more the gap was closed. The enemy did not take Albert, with all its red-'br'.ck ruins, overlooked by the leaning Madonna, until Tuesday afternoon. Even then he could not debouch. We held and still hold the railway embankment just outside. Nay, we were settling down again, more or less, in the old style on a familiar line northward along the Anere ar.d all the way to Arras, corresponding with variations to the old line of .July 1, lftlfl By Tuesday the worst of the crisis north of the Somme was over, and well over. From the river to Arras we were set again and as solid as ever But the fighit in retreat had been the fight, that saved. Generals von Below and von der Marwitz had missed their co.up. TH'E BREAK N T EAR ST. QOENTIK. It was very different elsewhere. We must now turn our attention to the right. There the operations of the armies under the nominal leadership of tiie Crown Prince, promised for some days to have most of the success expected. Looking from the heights of St. Gdbain over the whole expanse of fiver, marsh, rolling ground, and wooded plain, the Germans could follow every movement in that critical country westward from £t Quentin and from La Fere Hen. as we have shown, the enemy hoped by on irmi»tibi» eonosn-

traiion of mnnlwiv, to break through between tlit* ciimiliswl Upper Soinme and tho Oise, as it wore, the hinge of (he Allied armies, driving our extreme rij;'ht buck ou t:he French, oiitHiinkimi tho re.M of Hit: devoted Fifth .Armv, sweeping round by Ham S o an to outstrip Iliat Army's retreat to the Somme, and dooming it before it could get across. For inany reasons this region, where we linked up with the French, ought to have been (lie strongest bastion of our dispositions. It proved their weakest point. Xowherc was more tenacity flnd heroism unto death shown than by our machine-gunners in redoubts, our pwkets ni riflemen, our isolated detachments. who held on and checked long- after thev were surrounded. Every one of these efforts helped to gam time and to prevent the total catastrophe which Hindenburs and l.udei'.dnrlV had planned, nolhin* now could avert the local disaster. The Germans were six to one. The first <la.v they captured south of St. Quentin places like Urvilllers, Essigny, Contest court, and other high key-ground commanding from that other side of the canalised Somme our flank on the other bank. On Friday, in bloody engagements, they drove onward, cleared the field up to the Crozat Canal, erossed it, drove in on a wide front towards JHain, still lmdestfoyed, and towards Uiaimy, which is a scene of mere debris as ghastly as anything on earth.' l'roni Friday we were withdrawing west of St. Quentin. On the afternoon of that day came in that quarter the enemy's clear break through. This was the tense moment of crisis R "d danger. Our fifth army hoped to stand in positions already prepared in the rear.. The pursuit was too heavy and hot. The whole strategical position with tin; Somme behind was too perilous. That side had to be evacuated unless we were to be trapped and to suffer a Sedan within its bend. The enemy were in Ham on Saturday. They marched hard night and day to intercept masses of our retreating forces, with many of our guns, slipped the toils.

On Sunday the enemy were swarming on the fiastetn bank all along from Ham to Perbttne, and were trying to ferce crossings. We had destroyed all the bridgts but the one at St. Christ, some seven miles up -stream from Peronne. We had broken down the causeways across the wide marshes. German rafts and pontoons were upset or sunk by our fire. Advanced German contingents straggling across wore flung back. But by Monday Brandenburgers and others had bridged the river, mastered all this part of its course, and were pouring over. THE SOUTHERN' THRUST BETWEEN AMIENS AND PARIS. By now, though the situation nortl: of the lower Somme was saved, that south of the Somme seemed as gravely threatened. The general cause was still in extreme jeopardy. Since Tuesday last, indeed, the mass of the German thrust has been pushing ceaselessly in this quarter. But time had now been gained. Tuesday was the sixth day. Two tilings have opposed a retiring hnt so far an unbreakable obstacle to continued German weight ahd fury. Frem Saturday General Potain was in full action upon ovir right. Contact between the French and British was saved. Soine of our divisions were fighting under Ffrhch generalship. And now, day after day, I* Tench and British reserve divisions were hurrying up to the forces of action.

On the right the bronzed I'oilus swung their blue battalions into the fight with their unsurpassable skill and prowess. Like our own men on the extreme left they fought like tigers. They evacuated again old Noyon with its grev cathedral and quaint tower in the hollow, but they solidly held near heights and others 011 towards Ijhrsisnv, barring the roads to 'Paris. With all the more desperate impetus the German battering-ram, seeming to gain rather than lose its ponderous mass day by day, swinging forward south of the Somme. The enemy multiplied on all the roads through Santerre, towards the well-marked line of the river Avre, and the approaches to Amiens from the south. The Allies had to forfeit ground they had held for three years. The Germans took Chaulnes and Boye, then Proyart and llnsieres, even Montdidier. There little more than twenty miles south-west of Amiens they were held on the westward heights, by the French in fighting of unknown desperation, of unheard of ferocity. They were even driven back at points as in last Wednesday's brilliant counter-attack. THE ENEMY'S FIXED OBJECTIVE. This brings us up to the last few days. 011 Thursday the enemy in heavy force attacked 011 both sides of the Scarpe with full intention to storm Arras and the southern part of Vimv Ridge. He failed utterly in this big purpose, though as at Telegraph Hill, Orange Hill, Roeux, he carried some positions which had been in our hands since last year's Easter battle. The enemy s main purpose from Tuesday night to yesterday seemed to be to drive us in along the Somme by all manner of savage thrusts and enterprising tactics. Along the south bank wo have retired almost from day to day or from night to night, and are now westward of Hamel. Yesterday and Friday the enemy made some progress against the French round Montdidier and against ourselves at Mezieres. But yesterday our troops recaptured Deniuin, a desirable bridge-head on a tributary of the Avre. The nearest enemy south of the Solnme is but a dozen miles from the city containing that cathedral—more austere in beauty than Rheims, by some even more beloved—which Rnskin called the Parthenon of Christian architecture. Let us keep main purposes steadily in mind. Amiens is in itself very important. As the principal link in the communications between Flanders and the heart of France it is on the whole more important to the Allies than any other city near to Paris. But its loss if very grave far the Allies, would not be fatal. Less commodious connection across the Somme oould be maintained lower down. But if the Germans got into Aimens it would only mean striking further with redoubled energy. Tliev would either concentrate 011 their left, striving to fling back the French on the road to 'Paris, or would fight to break through' the 50 miles which would still divide them from the Somme estuary or the English Channel. The ona fixed German aim is still to smash, if they can, the links between the British and French armies, arid then to crush in the one atid roll up the other. This is the thing at stake: all else is incidental. Hindenburg pnd Lv.dendorff, as wo began by showing ara re*

organising their power, bringing up their guns, calling up divisions right and left to form a new army of assault, studying their plans, summoning up their whole energies for the next blow from the north or south, or simultaneously on both sides of the Sommo at the Franco-British links. The enemy can try no harder than on Spring Day and after, when he had been piling up ammunition and other material for months, when his divisions were fresh, his communications better, and before he had suffered appalling losses. THE ALLIES' CONFIDENCE. But our reasons for confidence are increased indeed when we turn to our own side of the picture, and consider thj relative position of the Allie?. They are now about equal in total strength. And with the bringing lip of their reserves the equality "will be available for action. This was far from the ease before when the enemy's immediate preponderance was out of all proportion to his total relative force. Further, the Germans have now had to show their hand. We know where we lf&ve them. Next, both the British and the French armies have had full opportunity to digest the fact that as much is at stake as at the Battle of the Marne, perhaps more, and that as then they must fight in the spirit sworn utterly to conquer or die. Finally there is the full unity of command under General Focli. On the Allies' side wary tenacity, vigilant judgment of the moment are required as well as inexorable resolve and bold strength of plan. Pushing out the salient above Montdidier, the enemy's flank seems to be singularly exposed, while the Allies in many ways have the better facilities for movement and mahoeuvre. These are such reckonings as may be read on the open hand. They are not discouraging. Let us not vaunt nor prophecy. It is for us at home to watch and pray in our hearts, but above all to put every fibre of our energy into all such helping work as is prayer in action. Elsewhere we dwell upon tile duties immediately to be confronted which will absorb the nation for months to come. Wo have not. only to provide for the present mid-grapple of Armageddon. We have to provide for the whole needs of this campaign up to autumn and after. A week ago we ventured to hope much from the call of this crisis to Britain. We are more than satisfied. Never Was our country worthier of faith and hope than she appears now to the vision of thoughtful milids in the temper which meets this climax after nearly four years' strain. We have explained our belief thai; on an even showing of reasons and chances, a sequel as good as that of Verdun or even of the Marne is the probable, and should even be the normal, issue of this struggle. Leipzig and Waterloo were both "Emperor's battles."—Garvin', in the London Observer.