Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1916.

Nelson Evening Mail, 20 July 1916, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1916.

IT is interesting to note the lie of the country on and around the battlefield on the Western front. It should be noted that the area of the conflict is between two great plains, those of trie Scheldt to the north, and of the Sorrane to nhesou th. As described- by JMr E. F. Allan the -great- plain of the Scheldt covers all Western Belgium and the adjacent districts of Northern France, down to a lino drawn from the south of Calais by way of St. Omer and Bethune, to Arras, and thence to Camibra.i. This line is marked by a> chain of ilow hi Ms and plateaus, which, about Albert and Pennine, extend nearly to the north bank of the Soniime. From the Somme to the Oise stretches the plain of the Somme. The Somme is elf rises to the north of it. Quentin, and, after flowing south-west for about' 20 miles, bends to the northwest for another 15 miles to Peronne, whence its course is a z'g-zag west to Amiens, arid from that place it proceeds, to its mouth on the channel. A little west of Anniens it receives its small northern tributary, the An ere, whose source is near B-a'pamnc. That town is on the high road' from Amiens to Cambrai, and is connected by ail as well as road with Arras, as well as with Cambrai and Amiens. Roads also join it, with Albert and Peronne. ?eronne and Bapaume may .be regarded as the keys to full comm'and ot the plateau east of the German, front between the plains of the Scheldt and the Somme. Possession' of them' would enable the Allies to drive a wedge into the 'ateval •lines of communication between the German troops on the front opposite Arras and the iGerman troops on the Oise and A'sne, besides openings n.p possibilities of attatk on Cambra.i and Douai. Bapauiiwe is, seemingly, the objective for which the British would make if they succeeded in breaking right through the German three lines, while Peronne is clearly the immediate objective of the- French. There they have penetrated the second, as .veil as the first 'Gorman line. On the left the British, between the Autre and the Somme, have also made a considerable advance, piercing in some places the German second line, in addition to carrying the whole of the first line. They nave had no more difficult go-uiud to deal with than the French, wh'.le, west of the Ancre to the north of Albert, especially in the neighbourhood of -'Jommecourt, on the extreme left of the Allied battle lino, they had to meet a particularly heavy enemy gunfire, the Germans having massed- artillery there ~i read ness \for use against attack either from Albert or from Amis.