THE GERMAN RETREAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16971, 3 October 1918, Page 4

THE GERMAN RETREAT.

The entry of the French into St. Quentin means the end of the Hindenburg line. For almost the only time during the whole war a town has acquired a true strategic importance, because St. Quentin is the centre of the Hindenburg system, and with the breaking down of the centre the whole front has become untenable.- It would have- been possible for the Germans to surrender the i Laon hinge, and retrace their line behind it, but the loss of St. Quentin condemns the whole defensive zone. It was apparently a race whether the French would enter St. Quentin or the British would enter Cambrai first. The capture of one of these towns carries the other with it, and retreat upon a very extensive front appears to be the only solution of the enemy's difficulties. St. Quentin lies in a shallow cup near the head waters of the Somme River. It is a large manufacturing town and the meeting-place of seven main roads and a great number of smaller ones. It serves at the sarie time as the junction where several railways meet the great trunk line between Paris and Berlin. The Hindenburg line just covered Cambrai and St. Quentin and joined the old line east of Soissons. It was constructed to repair the breach made in the German front by the battle of the Somme, but it did not remove the strategic weakness which has always characterised the German position on the western front. The great angle of the line remained, although the apex was somewhat blunted by the retirement in the spring of 1917. The salient can be eliminated only by going farther back, to a line leaving the Meuse near Verdun, covering Mezieres and Manbeuge, and running to the Belgian .coast somewhere near the extremity of the present line.' Such a retirement would uncover almost the whole of Northern France, but it is the shortest • that will give a safe front.. Any stand the Germans may

make before reaching what is known as the line of the Meuse will be temporary. It may' be the German army will never the Metjse. It is about to retire; from a vast salient, both sides of . which have been severely shaken,' not at one point, but at several. It is an ordeal which would try the 'most resolute army, and may prove beyond the capacity of the enemy m his present condition. The time has arrived for Marshal Foch to throw in all his resources, and the world may confidently expect great events, The German front will naturally swing between Lille and Verdun, but the British and Belgian advance in Flanders already threatens the northern pivot, and the Americans are pressing against the southern pivot The Germans will certainly sustain heavy losses in men and material, and they will be fortunate if they escape final disaster.