Part 10 (2/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: The First and Last Advances on Paris: map showing approximately (by the shaded area) the limit of the German gains in the final phase of Ludendorff's offensive in 1918, and (by the dotted line) the limit reached in the 1914 advance]

On 15th July Ludendorff launched his final effort on a 50-mile front on each side of Rheims. This time the Allies were warned of its direction in time. On the left, where immediate success was vital to the whole plan, the attack was flung into disorder at the very beginning by a deluge of sh.e.l.ls from Gouraud's guns before even the German bombardment started; and when, this over, the attacking divisions of von Einem and von Mudra advanced, they found that Gouraud's army, save for volunteer garrisons in concrete forts, had returned undamaged to its main battle positions, to reach which they had to face a concentrated fire that tore their ranks to pieces. Some 50,000 German troops were admitted to have fallen that day before Gouraud's army. With the failure of the advance in Champagne the German attack on the right, where Italian as well as British and American troops were now fighting side by side with the French, was unavailing, though the line south-west of Rheims was pressed back some 3 or 4 miles, and eight divisions under von Bohn succeeded by 17th July in crossing the Marne at a number of points between Fossoy and Dormans.

_Foch's Counter-stroke_

They were only allowed to remain south of the Marne long enough for Foch to convert these river crossings into a death-trap. For Foch had now decided that the moment had come when the Germans, exhausted by their advance, were least in a condition to resist a counter-stroke aimed at their flank. The flank which Foch selected for attack was that on the western side of the salient created, from its most northerly point on the Aisne near Soissons, to its southern extremity, Chateau-Thierry on the Marne, where the symptoms of the exhaustion of the German momentum had been furnished by the ability of American and other contingents to resist further advance. In the earlier half of July a ceaseless stream of men and guns had flowed up from the French side to take cover in the forest of Villers-Cotterets on their flank, in preparation for the blow to come; and by 18th July two French armies were a.s.sembled along the 27-mile flank, that of General Mangin aligned between the Aisne and the Ourcq, which bisected the salient, and that of General Degoutte from the Ourcq to the Marne. Mangin's army contained some of the finest French shock divisions as well as two famous British ones, the 34th and the 15th, and a number of keen American troops.

Degoutte's army had the more awkward task, judged by the country over which it had to travel, but Foch's plan here, as elsewhere, was to put his best fighting material where it would pierce farthest, and hold the enemy elsewhere. By the same token the army of General Berthelot, with two other supporting British divisions, was entrusted with the task on the other side of the salient, from Rheims to epernay, not of thrusting at the Germans but of holding them hard.

Mangin's army was ordered to strike with all its force. It was equipped with new and speedier 'whippet' tanks, and its immediate onset was masked by the accident of a July thunderstorm on the eve of the fighting. On the morning of 18th July it went forward with nothing but a barrage, but with the effect of a thunderbolt, and its average advance on that day was 5 miles, with Fontenoy and the plateau of Pernay on the Aisne firmly secured.

Degoutte's army went forward for 2 miles over difficult country. A blow of immense significance had been struck along the whole length of the salient's vulnerable side. Next day Mangin's movement continued; he tightened his hold on the Aisne and swung his right wing farther along the Ourcq so as to bring the whole line of the one good north-and-south road in the salient under the fire of his guns, and thus to hamper the German movements terribly. That alone would have forced the enemy to begin a retreat from the Marne, while it might yet be possible. Meanwhile Degoutte was advancing also, and was forcing the Germans away from the neighbourhood of Chateau-Thierry. The German commander, von Bohn, was not slow to recognize the implications of the situation into which Foch had forced him, and gave orders to recross the Marne. He was in time, but his retreating troops were roughly handled at the crossings, and despite all his attempts to hold up the attack on his western flank by counter-attack, the pressure of Mangin and Degoutte, added to that of de Mitry's army, which was now following him back over the Marne, became every hour more dangerous. By 20th July not only was the Marne itself in process of being abandoned by von Bohn but Chateau-Thierry had fallen. Degoutte's army was 3 miles north of it. De Mitry's divisions had secured ample crossings for future movement and Berthelot's mixed forces of French, British, and Italians had begun a disconcerting attack on the eastern side of the salient. In three days the Germans lost 20,000 prisoners, and, what was more significant, 450 guns.

The first _riposte_ of the French Generalissimo had been delivered. It was to be followed in unending succession by others.

The German Commander-in-Chief had to gain time. It was no easy thing to withdraw his 600,000 men crowded between the Aisne and the Marne, but he was obliged to support them lest the salient should collapse too suddenly.

He aimed a counter-stroke at Gouraud's army east of Rheims, but the blow spent itself in the air, and Foch replied by setting in motion the army of General Debeney, where it stood opposite to that of General von Hutier, between Montdidier and Noyon. But he had not yet gathered the full fruits of the strength of his positional a.s.sault between the Aisne and the Marne, and did not in the least allow pressure here to relax. Mangin seized Oulchy-le-Chateau on the Ourcq (25th July); and on 26th July Gouraud, on the other side of Rheims, recovered the ground he had ceded under the German pressure. By Sunday (28th July) the Allied attack in the Aisne-Marne salient had swept convergingly on to the line of the Ourcq, and with that achievement the most important episode in the opening of Foch's campaign was consummated. Soissons fell to Mangin on 1st and 2nd Aug., a signal that the work was done, and Foch was now free to prosecute his larger plan of delivering successive blows at points where they would disperse and use up the German reinforcements most effectively.

_The Allies' Victorious Offensive, 1918_

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Freeing of Amiens: Map ill.u.s.trating the recapture of the city's outer defence line on the opening day of the Battle of Amiens, 8th Aug., 1918.]

Marshal Foch, after consultation with the British Commander-in-Chief, had desired the commanders of all armies, British and French, to prepare plans of action and to be ready to put them into operation at short notice. He now more particularly addressed inquiry to Sir Douglas Haig as to his willingness to undertake a continuous offensive towards the German centre.

Sir Douglas Haig a.s.sented to Marshal Foch's representations as to the superior advantages to be gained from an attack there, and, while continuing a show of preparation in the Ypres area, where Ludendorff, on an estimate of the psychology of the British commander, would expect the counter-attack to come, and was already taking steps to reduce its effectiveness by masked withdrawals, transferred forces steadily to Rawlinson's Fourth Army on the Somme. This army, and the First French Army under Debeney on the right, both directed by Haig, were set in motion on 8th Aug. on a 16-mile front from Morlancourt to Moreuil. The thrust was successful beyond expectation. The British Fourth Army, on the right wing, went through the German divisions of von Marwitz (Second Army) like paper, regaining the old outer-line defences of Amiens; and Debeney's men crus.h.i.+ng the resistance of von Hutier's Eighteenth German Army, and reaching Fresnoy and Plessier, where they linked up with General Humbert's Third French Army on the road to Roye. The captures of the day amounted to 17,000 prisoners and 500 guns, an unmistakeable symptom that the German power of resistance was shaking.

On 9th Aug. Rawlinson pushed on still farther; on 10th Aug. General Humbert prolonged Debeney's still attacking line and took Montdidier, and a number of villages. These three armies continued to eat into the enemy's positions and to pin a number of German divisions down till 20th Aug., while Mangin's army at Soissons moved _en echelon_ to take up contact with Humbert's right. Meanwhile Ludendorff, fully aware now that the initiative had pa.s.sed out of his hands, and that the best course that lay open before him was a 'strategic retirement', began to effect one stage of it in the Ypres and Lys district under the direction of General Sixt von Armin, whose withdrawal was followed vigilantly by the British forces; and another stage in the German salient on the Ancre, where General von Below's Seventeenth Army was stationed. Von Below withdrew on the Bapaume line from Serre, Beaumont-Hamel, and Bucquoy to the shelter of the sector of the Hindenburg line behind it (13th, 14th, and 15th Aug.).

But whereas in 1917 Ludendorff had disconcerted both British and French Commanders-in-Chief by a sudden withdrawal on the Bapaume-Peronne line of the Somme, he was not now allowed to withdraw without injury. Haig's battle of Bapaume (21st Aug. and following days) was designed in two stages, the first of which brought up Byng's Third Army to a position in which it was aligned with Rawlinson's Fourth Army, and the second of which saw the Third and Fourth Army attack von Below in combination. The combined pressure of these two armies was continuously successful, though the Germans fell back stubbornly in many places. By 30th Aug. Bapaume was once again in British hands, and the line of attack was threatening the strongholds of the Hindenburg line, while its extension ran through Heudecourt and Fremiecourt to Clery. Peronne fell to the Australian Corps by a most gallant feat of arms on 1st Sept. A more strategically significant victory was gained on the same day when the capture of Bullecourt, followed by that of Riencourt and Cagnicourt, opened up the first crevice in the ramifications of the Hindenburg defences known as the Drocourt-Queant switch line. The battle of Bapaume drove thirty-five German divisions from the old Somme battlefield, and captured 34,000 men and 27 guns.

The crevice in the Drocourt-Queant defences was still further widened on 1st Sept., when six British divisions of Horne's First Army, including two Canadian, attacked behind tanks a 5-mile front occupied by eleven German divisions and captured Dury Ridge and Queant, together with 16,000 men and 200 guns. So far, therefore, from Ludendorff's strategic retreat being conducted 'according to plan', it cost the Germans, between 21st Aug. and 9th Sept., some 53,000 men and 470 guns; the French had been able to occupy Ham and Chauny, while the British were going forward; and General Sixt von Armin was forced cautiously to retire from the Ypres salient.

During these operations by the British armies Foch had never relaxed pressure with the three armies of Debeney, Humbert, and Mangin, while still threatening an advance beyond the Vesle in the deflating Aisne salient, west of Rheims, and preparing new blows elsewhere. At the beginning of September the position of the French armies of the centre, won by continuous fighting, was as follows: Debeney had crossed the Somme, taken Ham, and was threatening St. Quentin; Humbert was close to Tergnier and was pointing towards La Fere: Mangin was back in Coucy-le-Chateau and held the railway thence to Soissons; Degoutte was spreading from Soissons along the Aisne. These threats left General Ludendorff no choice but to shorten his line where he could do so with least risk. He decided on the Vesle front, where General de Mitry, with French and Americans, had been engaging his Seventh and Ninth Armies, and began to retire thence on 4th and 5th Sept.

on a 19-mile front. The Americans occupied the Aisne thereupon from Conde to Viel-Arcy, and on 7th Sept. General Mangin crowned his long campaign at the Chemin-des-Dames by taking the ruined Fort de Conde. A week later Allemant and Laffaux Mill fell, and once again the French troops came in sight of Laon. Humbert and Debeney, both pus.h.i.+ng forward, embarra.s.sed Ludendorff in his intention of moving divisions to meet a new British movement known thereafter as the battle of Epehy.

This battle was the preliminary movement in that great attack on the Hindenburg line which, more than any other single action, was the decisive 'blow at the heart' of the German defensive plan. The British advance, viewed as one movement, was made towards Cambrai, which was the northern bastion of the German defensive lines, as La Fere and Laon were the twin southern pillars. On 2nd Sept. the Third Army began a local attack on a 5-mile front which captured Havrincourt and Trescault, while on the extreme right of the Fourth Army the 9th Army Corps and the Australian Corps began a movement which by 17th Sept. placed them in Maissemy, where the Fifth Army in March had been pierced. These preliminary positions having been secured, the Third and Fourth Armies set in motion their important combined attack (18th Sept.) on a 17-mile front from Gouzeaucourt, through Havrincourt to Holnon Wood, where Debeney's First Army lent a.s.sistance. The hardest fighting was at Epehy, which gives its name to the battle, on the left centre, but by nightfall the German defences had been pierced on a 3-mile front, 12,000 prisoners had been taken, and the British forces brought within striking distance of the main Hindenburg lines.

During the weeks in September while the plans for the battle of Epehy were ripening, Foch had struck hard at another point in the German line, which had appeared invulnerable while the Germans were strong, but was now a menace to Ludendorff's own plans for retirement because it absorbed divisions which he badly needed elsewhere, namely the long-standing salient of St. Mihiel. It was held by seven German and two Austro-Hungarian divisions in September, and Ludendorff had been withdrawing its heavy artillery; but before his plans for withdrawal could be consummated, Foch sent in General Pers.h.i.+ng with his young American divisions, aided by two French divisions, at the salient's apex. The Americans attacked on the two faces of the salient, west and south, the strongest thrust being made by two corps of seven divisions apiece on the southern face. The attack began on 12th Sept., and in thirty hours the salient had disappeared; while in spite of the haste with which the Germans had left it--the firmest resistance was offered by the two Austro-Hungarian divisions on the western face--10,000 prisoners and 450 guns were left behind. This victory, as symptomatic as others of German disorder, freed the Verdun-Commercy railway, and completed the attenuation of Ludendorff's reserves. The 207 German divisions which Ludendorff had commanded at the period of the greatest German strength had fallen to 185, and only 21 reserve divisions remained.

The second stage of Foch's plan now had been reached. The German armies had again been brought back to the line which they had chosen in 1914, after their first rush had recoiled. It was less threatening by the loss of the St. Mihiel salient, but it had been enormously strengthened by four years of engineering. North of the defence line was the railway which, running through Brussels, Mons, Maubeuge, Mezieres, Sedan, and Metz, was the chief artery of German communications, and Foch's plan was to cut this artery on either side of the great curve which the German line made when, after coming north to south from the coast, it turned west to east at La Fere.

The right half of the thrust was to be made by Gouraud's army at Rheims and the Americans on the Argonne, where they were being steadily acc.u.mulated.

The more deadly attack was to be made by the First, Third, and Fourth British, and the First French Armies, which should break through Cambrai and St. Quentin towards Maubeuge.

Complementary operations were designed for the armies of Humbert and Mangin at the nose of the curve, and it was expected that, under this comprehensive pressure, Ludendorff would be compelled to withdraw divisions from the coastal sector, where an attack by the British Second Army (Plumer) and the Belgian Army might then be successful against a weakened front. A portion of Degoutte's army was sent northward in readiness for such a blow, and to the Fifth British Army (now commanded by Birdwood) was a.s.signed a task at Lille and Lens similar to that of Humbert and Mangin at St. Gobain.

There was a pause of nearly a week, in which the Germans awaited, and the Allies prepared the new move; and then, on 27th Sept., Haig's armies struck what Foch declared to be the blow from which there was no recovery. The battle of Epehy had given the requisite positions for the attack on that section of the Hindenburg defences which the Germans named the Siegfried line. The plan was to send forward the First (Horne) and Third (Byng) British Armies to clear the way on a line from Sauchy-Lestree to Gouzeaucourt, seizing the crossings of the Ca.n.a.l du Nord, and so preparing the way for an attack by the Fourth Army. The dangerous movement was accomplished (27th Sept.): the crossings seized, the ca.n.a.l held, and Cambrai threatened. On 29th Sept. the Fourth Army took up the combat, and in a tremendous action along a front of 20 miles, supported by attacks from the other British armies and the First French Army, got across the vital defences of the St. Quentin Ca.n.a.l in the Siegfried zone. The next day the fighting spread furiously along the front of all four armies: the breach was widened; a portion of the Scheldt Ca.n.a.l taken; and by 3rd Oct. the Fourth Army had pierced the Siegfried line vitally. By 9th Oct. the German defences were no longer defences, and in this decisive encounter they had lost 36,000 prisoners and 380 guns.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Liberation of the Belgian Coast, 1918: map showing approximately the Allies' line on 28th Sept.--represented by the solid line--and on 25th Oct.--represented by the broken line]

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