NEW SYSTEM OF DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 14, 16 July 1918, Page 7

NEW SYSTEM OF DEFENCE

"ECHELONMENT IN DEPTH"

(Received July 16, 8.40 a.m.) '> LONDON, 15th July. jTbe Daily Chronicle's correspondent at Paris states.that there is a deep ihange in the character of the fighting on the Western front. Both side's enjoy the shelter of the old trench systems in the front line, but the pro3igious fieWjworks which typified the' Hindsnburg line have been abandoned by both sides; Instead of the old ditches and dugouts, which the aviators easily mapped and ■which the massed batteries of heavy guns wiped out, both sides have introduced a method of defence called "echelonment in depth." ■ The defensive front has become an area ten miles in depth, of which the most advanced positions are held lightly by scattered machine-gun posts and little forts, the middle parts by the main bodies, and the rear by the reserves. We have learnt much from the enemy in the last'three months, but Yon Ludendorff's latest invention has this weakness, that it proceeds by spasms. While the best German divisions arg being trained for the next onset, inferior units are placed in the front line, of iwhich we are easily masters. . ,■■ .