THE WAY OF THE WAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12406, 26 August 1918, Page 4

THE WAY OF THE WAR.

THE N9M MILtSBE

niere is fighting in Prance niw along a front of roughly eighty mile Prom Mercatel, south of Arran, to Ahons, west of •Chaulnes, the British ,rq err! gaged in a series of thrusts, ow on one sector, now on another. : ©tween Chaulnes and Lassigny the bait i isvirtually confined to the artillery 1 Between Lassigny and the Oise, £ though the messages give no details,' it) is evident that the French are pressing for* ward, for they have crossed /the Divetto. Last of the Oise one hhas-o ol the battle has come to an end,/ because the Germans have been drivei'n acres? the Oise from the south and across the Ailctte from the Oise to a point north of feoissons, and the French I are now devoting their attention to (the ex* posed German flank between ,iho Aisne and the Ailetto. The whol,® purpose of the Allied offensive, evidently, is to keep the. German front fluifl, -to discover its weaknesses and to exploit them. The possibility of ja heavier thrust at one point is kept in reserve, and the Germans are thuA prevented from throwing the whole of their weight into a counter-offensive. . At the moment the enemy’s reserves are dispersed, some facing the {British in front of Bapaume/ some eaiit of Albert, some at Ohaulries, and others facing tho French west of the Oise, jwhile others still must be at hand to nfieet the new threat involved in General Mangiu’s offensive. It is impossible to discuss the whole of the operations in detail, but on each sector there may b© one or two matters calling for elucidation. On the extreme left; General Byng has extended the front of his attack to - a point three or four miles south of Arras,, and he has advanced across the ' Arras-Bapaumo road to Oroisilles and; , to the neighbourhood of ' Sapignies, little more than two miles north of Ba- [ paume, the advance being carried L thus to a depth of five ; miles or more. > Achiet-le-Grand, which was won and - lost, has again beejt captured, and the New Zealanders, t>y a brilliant dash, have reached Avesnes, a suburb of 1 Bapaume. Tho advance has been made in spite of increased German re- } sistance, and it is important because . the enemy has been driven from his so- - called battle positions—the mam line of ■ defence—and has? been prevented from ■ consolidating new positions. Moreover, ’ reinforcements must have been poured into Bapaume, which is a key position, and in all probability a tremendous struggle,is now raging north and west i of tile city. [ The importance of Bapaume is ob- . vious. , Two rational highways lead : to it, one . from Cambrai and the l other from Peronne, and I there are at least six supt plementary roads. These must all j have been restored, and in all proba- ) bility the railway communications with Cambrai and ,S>& Quentin have been rebuilt. It. 'iyas ideally situated for an j advanced base, serving the whole Ger- , man front between Arras and tho J Somme. It is safe to say that if tho 5 Germans lose it now they lose their I hold on the high ground to the south ■ and south-west ana will have to come ■ back from their strong positions on the plateau behind Tniepval. And 1 they lose a great deal more than ; that. After the British surprise attack south of the Somme the enemy evi- ’ * dently made up his mind to make the ' Albert-Chaulnes-Nesle-Noyon line the ' basis of his defensive organisation, but the loss of Bapaume would produce i precisely the same kind of situation as , that which forced the retreat to the Hindenburg lino early last year. The actual situation is not the same, of course, because in’ 1917 the British and French had cut the Bapaume-Peronne road and the urgent need of the moment for the enemy was a shorter and stronger defensive line. But the general effect is similar, for the Germans must now either counter-attack in great force or accept the necessity for a retreat on a wide front. Between Bapaume and the Somme the position depends very largely on the result of the battle to .the north. It is true that the British have gained Albert and that .they liave crossed the Albert-Bray road, but so far the push on this sector does not appear to have had any great weight behind it. The German line is now being pulled back because of the threat to Bapaume. However, the battle has burst out again south of the Somme, for an attack between the river and Chaulnes has gained two or three miles, and the villages of Foucaucourt, Fontaine and Honipierre are all threatened. A weakness in the enemy’s defence on this sector might permit a British advance that would have nn immediate influence on the position north of the river. No immediate threat to Chaulnes seems to be involved, andns Chaulnes ia another of the. key positions it goes without saying .that the enemy has concentrated considerable forces to cover it. * No important developments have occurred on the French front between the Matz and tho Oise, except that the French have crossed the Divetto at Evricourt, about midway between Lassigny and Noyon. They are still facing formidable defensive positions, like Hill 165, just to the north of Evricourt, which guards the flank of Noyon j while north-east of Lassigny they have to fight their way up tho slopes of the ridge that culminates in Hill 170. The approaches to Noyon have therefore to be won by a continuation of the hard fighting that drove the Germans'from tho high ground south of Lassigny and then from Lassigny itself. There seemsto be an impression. in some quarters that the French may cross the Oise east of Noyon and turn tho position on that flank. But the line of the Oise is easily held by machine-guns and field artillery. The river can be bridged at various points, at Sempigny, south of Noyon, at Pontoise, at Varesnes, Bre- ‘ tigny and Quierzy. But these points - are well defined and are bound to bo guarded, and a failure on the part of the Germans to hold_ tho crossings would be emphatic evidence of weakness. The success of General Mangin’s operations in the angle of the Oise and the Aisne has been startlingly complete. Hie advance was apparently undertaken to clear the flank of General Humbert’s advance, but it speedily developed into a full offensive, with tho result that the whole of the ground between the ; Aisne and tiie Ailctte and between the Oise and a line from Soissons to Crecy-au-Mont has been cleared of the enemy. As it stands it is a ■very fine achievement, because the Germans were powerfully posted with all the advantage of position And the operations are obviously incomplete, for the Germans could not conceivably attempt to hold on with ten miles'of a flank exposed to attack. There may be a good deal of stiff fighting, cause Mangin’s advance has produced a crisis affecting ihe whole German front on the Aisne and the Yeslo, and the enemy will have to decide quickly whether to hold on or to quit. If hie elects to carry out a readjustment ha will have to fight to cover the with drawn! of guns and stores and the de' struction of dumps If he decides to hold on along the Vesle h 0 will have to clear tho threatened flank and reestablish it against any possible sanity