LITMIR.BIZ

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holding up the enemy by revolver fire from the inner compartment."

      Next day, 10th April, a new German army attacked north of the Lys, captured Messines, and was pouring over the Wytschaete crest. But at Wytschaete stood the 9th Division, which we have previously seen in action on the Somme at Marrières Wood. There its South African Brigade had been completely destroyed, but a new one had been got together, and this second showed all the heroism of the first. That night they retook Messines, and during the evening cleared the Wytschaete Ridge. That stand saved the British northern flank and gave its commander time to adjust his front. For thirty hours the Germans were held up on that ridge, and when they finally advanced the worst danger was past.

      The situation was still most critical. The French were sending troops, but with all possible resources utilized we were still gravely outnumbered, and the majority of the men were desperately weary from the Somme battle. On the 11th Sir Douglas Haig issued an Order of the Day, in which he appealed to his men to endure to the last. "There is no other course open to us than to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man; there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end." Not less solemn was Sir Arthur Currie's charge to the Canadian Corps before they entered the battle. "Under the orders of your devoted officers in the coming battle you will advance or fall where you stand, facing the enemy. To those who fall I say, 'You will not die, but will step into immortality. Your mothers will not lament your fate, but will be proud to have borne such sons. Your names will be revered for ever and ever by your grateful country, and God will take you unto Himself.'" It is a charge which has the noble eloquence of Cromwell or Lincoln.

      Within a week it seemed as if the enemy had succeeded. On the evening of 15th April the Germans entered Bailleul, and the next day we withdrew from the ground won in the Third Battle of Ypres to a position a mile east of that town. By the 17th the enemy was in both Meteren and Wytschaete, and this meant that the northern pillar of our defence had gone. The next step for the Germans was to seize Mont Kemmel, the highest ground between them and the Channel, and a position which would presently give them Hazebrouck.

      The 17th and 18th of April were perhaps the most critical days of the whole battle. The enemy had reached his greatest strength, and the British troops were not yet reinforced at any point within sight of security. On the 17th the Germans had failed in an attack on the Belgians north of Ypres, and next day they failed no less conclusively in a movement on Béthune. This gave us a breathing space, and by the morning of Sunday, the 21st, French troops had taken over the defence of Mont Kemmel, and we had been able to relieve some of the divisions which had suffered most heavily.

That day saw the end of the main crisis of the battle. Mont Kemmel was lost and regained more than once, but the enemy was quickly becoming exhausted, and his gains, even when he made them, had no longer any strategic value. By the end of April he had employed in that one area of the line thirty-five fresh divisions, and nine which had been already in action. These troops were the cream of his army, and could not be replaced. Moreover, an odd feature had appeared in the last stages of the Lys battle. In March the enemy had succeeded in piercing and dislocating the British front by a new tactical method applied with masterly boldness and precision, the method which has been described as "infiltration."¹ But as the Lys battle dragged on the Germans seemed to have forgotten these new tactics, and to have fallen back upon their old methods of mass and shock. The reason was that the new tactics could only be used with specially trained troops, and with fresh troops; they put too great a strain on weary divisions and raw levies; therefore, as the enemy's losses grew, his tactics would deteriorate in the same proportion.

      If we take 5th May as marking the close of the Battle of the Lys, we may pause to reflect upon the marvels of the forty-five preceding days, since the enemy torrent first broke west of St. Quentin. More history had been crowded into their span than into many a year of campaigning. They had seen the great German thrust for Amiens checked in the very moment of success. They had seen the last bold push for the Channel Ports held up for days by weak divisions which bent but did not break, and finally die away with its purpose still far from achievement. In those forty-five days divisions and brigades had been more than once destroyed as units, and always their sacrifice had been the salvation of the British front. The survivors had behind them such a record of fruitful service as the whole history of the war could scarcely parallel.

1. See p. 36.

      CHAPTER XII.

       THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE MARNE.

       Table of Contents

      The First Battle of the Marne meant the frustration of Germany's main battle purpose, and the disappearance for ever of her hope of a complete and decisive victory. The Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918 was the beginning of Germany's defeat. In both battles the armies of Britain contributed to victory, but in both battles, as was right and proper, the main work was done by the French, and with them lies the chief glory.

      In March Haig had been forced back to the gate of Amiens, and Foch, at last appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the Allies, had for nearly a month looked into the eyes of defeat. But slowly the tide ebbed. Foch was able not only to repel the German assaults but to nurse and strengthen his own reserves. In spite of the desperate crises on the Lys and the Aisne midsummer found him rapidly growing in strength. And as the Allies grew, so the enemy declined.

      MARSHAL FOCH.

      For the first time Foch had the advantage of numbers, and by June there were more than half a million Americans in France. Moreover, he had devised an answer to the German tactics, and in his new light tanks he had a weapon which would give him the advantage of surprise. But like a great and wary commander, he waited till the enemy had struck yet again, so that he might catch him on the rebound. Germany still maintained her confidence. Her press announced that unless the American army could swim or fly it would never arrive in Europe—that at the best the men of the United States were like the soldiers of a child's game, made of paper cuttings. The battle staged for July was to bring the Germans to Paris. One army was to strike east of Rheims and cut the railway from Paris to Nancy. Another was to press across the Marne. When Foch had hurried all his forces to the danger points a third army would break through at Amiens and descend on the capital from the north. Then the British would be finally cut off from the French, the French would be broken in two, and victory, complete and indubitable, would follow.

      The enemy was so confident that he made no secret of his plans, and from deserters and prisoners Foch learned the main details long before the assault was launched. The French general resolved to play a bold game. He borrowed a British corps from Haig, and he thinned the Amiens section so that it was dangerously weak. His aim was to entice the enemy south of the Marne, and then in the moment of his weakness to strike at his undefended flank.

      At midnight on Sunday, 14th July, Paris was awakened by the sound of great guns, and knew that the battle had begun. At 4 a.m. on the 15th the Germans crossed their parapets. The thrust beyond the Marne was at once successful, for it was no part of Foch's plan to resist too doggedly at the apex of the salient. On a front of 22 miles the Germans advanced nearly three. But the attack east of Rheims was an utter failure. Gouraud's counter-bombardment dislocated the attack before it began, and with trifling losses to himself he held the advance in his battle zone, not losing a single gun. In the west the Americans stood firm, so that the enemy salient could not be widened. These were the troops which, according to the German belief, could not land in Europe unless they became fishes or birds. The inconceivable had been brought to pass—"Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane."

      In two days the German advance had reached its limit—a long narrow salient south of the Marne, representing a progress at the most of 6 miles from the old battle-front. The time had now come for Foch's counterstroke. He had resolved

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