A FRENCH APPRECIATION

Evening Star, Issue 16234, 2 October 1916, Page 7

A FRENCH APPRECIATION

Writing in the 'Weekly Dispatch' of July 23, it. Marcel Hutin, "the famous war expert of the 'Echo de Paris,' extols the tenacity and valor of the British troops in the Somme offensive. He says:

The third week of the British offensive between the Ancre and the Somme has, in my opinion, marked the essential phaie of operations. It has powerfully demonstrated what a high co-efficiency of 'value has been attained by tho British Army. The Germans well knew since Neuve Chapelle what audacity and what tenacitv characterised our Allies. They might, however, have imagined that after the I would even say brutal, effort the British, in liaison w'ith the French army of the Somme, had realised up to July 14, our Allies were exhausted and hardly in a position to resist the probable reaction. But the whole of the week of combats which we have just witnessed has for the entire world the gravest, the highest signification. The British troops have, in my view, won two victories. After long weeks of preparation, and the utilisation _ as seemed best to them at chosen points of an immense amount of material for the destruction of the adverse' trenches, our Allies had every chance of succeeding in the task of taking Ihe first, _ and sometimes the second, enemy positions. But to maintain their gains, to organise them, then to go-off to the victorious aasavlt of new positions, as we •have seen them do at Longueval, Delville Wood, Foureaux Wood, and Ovillers, aw! to render unavoidable the capture of Pozieres on the left flank and of Guillemont on the right flank—that is a reeult surpassing all that the Germans could have dreaded. The enterprise of a second operation, when the first has been successful, and when this second operation has to be undertaken on conquered territory; and when, in addition, on this conquered territory it must be executed against an adversary who, numerous before, has received considerable- reinforcements and reacted powerfully—that is a task that can only be taken in hand by an army formidable in determination, method, and means.. That task, , among the most difficult of all, the English Army has accomplished in a fashion so splendid as to give one the impression that nothing can henceforth arrest its progress'' on the road to final victory. In thus covering a glorious lap of history the great Franco-British offensive of July, 1916, has in its third week consecrated for future historians "a great continental army," the ex-contemptible little army of Marshal French. And yet the Germans had many things in their favor. The deplorable atmospheric conditions, uninterrupted rain, and a persistent fog could not but serve the enemy. The presence of the Kaiser on the front, facing the armies of General Sir Douglas Haig, his exhortations to the troops to resist to the end, must have been a precious encouragement for the forces of Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria and General Von Einem. But that would not have been sufficient. The Germans, past masters in the art of profiting by all sorts of weather, utilised these wretched days to reinforce all their line" and accumulate on the sectors attacked an equipment of heavy batteries of all calibres, which were brought up and placed in position behind a curtain' of fog, safe from the marvellous aerial surveillance of the English. With "shock" troops composed of specially trained battalions, infantry,' and pioneers of proved bravery and skill, they counted, by retaking Delville Wood and the village of Longueval, on reducing the English operations to impotency, and, benefiting by this advantage, undertaking a counter-offensive which would nullify all the gains realised by our Allies in a fortnight of victorious combats. What the heroic English contingents who held Delville Wood and Longueval had to put up with from lachrymatory shells we are well able to understand, we who know that our soldiers at Verdun never cease to oppose to them a superhuman reaction. Notwithstanding these, Longueval was energetically retaken and left behind. While I write Delville Wood is the theatre of the most admirable struggle wo have seen. It demonstrates the formal ascendancy acquired by the young British Army ever the oldest and best organised army in the world. Before Pozieres there still exists a pronounced German salient. No doubt is possible; it will not be long before it is re-duced. The British Progression continues. After having ceded ,400 yds of trenches between Gontalmaison and Bezentin-le-Petit Wood, the Germans were forced to clear out of the big Waterlot Farm, 700 yds north-west of Tfones Wood. It should be noted, in passing, that, either from discouragement or inability, they have made no further attempts against this wood. I am persuaded that, in liaison with the French offensive, the British troops, with a tenacity to' which I have,heard General De Gastelnau render the most enthusiastic homage, will again this week realise considerable progress.