Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 43, Number 250, 31 August 1918 — Page 6

PAGE SIX

THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM ANS SUN-TELEGRAM. SATURDAY, AUG. 31, 1918.

THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM Published Every Evening Except Sunday, bj Palladium Printing Co. Palladium Building, North Ninth and Sailor Streets. Entered at the Post Office at Richmond. Indiana, as Sec ond Class Mail Matter. MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Th Associated Press Is exclusively entitled to the use for republication of all news dispatches credited to It o et otherwise credited In this paper and also the locaa we published herein. All rljbts of republication of spselal dispatch herein are also reserved.

Another German Belief Shattered The Kansas City Star, commenting on the continues advance of the Allies, say3 : Much of the scaffolding that held up the German's sky has fallen on his head since he marchad forth on his present adventure, and some of the bumps raised thereby must have been painful. His beliefs were such settled beliefs, accepted by him with such unquestioning faith, that when the ceiling did begin to crack and fall he was too much surprised even to try to stand from under. That he is now trying to crawl out from under a new wreck of cherished belief is plain. That belief was that the French and British were too "war weary" to make another effort to stay his march to his goal. France was "bled white" and the British were too stale to do more than desperately cling on. This was proved by every test the -professors had made and was painstakingly set forth on all proper charts. There was the "peak" of French and British effort with the date marked and the figures (carried out to the last decimal point) showing the maximum of manpower. And there was the slide down hill with remarks. Nothing could be plainer. A child could understand it. But what a child could not understand, certainly not a German child brought up on professors' charts, was the way the French and British suddenly sailed in and smashed the Ludendorff offensive. Could it be that the French and British had not studied the German chart? Is it possible Ludendorff had forgotten to send it to

them? Or was it within the realm of human possibility that there was something the matter with the chart? Anyway, here were the war weary and bled white armies of Foch and Haig (not to mention the nonexistent Americans, who didn't show on the chart at all) coming on with the rush and vim of fresh troops, piercing the German lines, throwing them back, taking huge bags of prisoners and altogether acting just as if they didn't know they were spent troops and ought to be falling back. Is it any wonder the German armies are reported confused and bewildered? This is not the way they were told it was going to happen. If they had been told then perhaps they could understand it, but to have a lot of yelling enemies who were supposed to be resting in wheeled chairs suddenly burst out of the sanitarium and mop up a whole Ludendorff army is enough to confuse, not the confiding German soldier mind alone, but the whole professors' corps itself. If this latter recovers any time soon probably it will set its aching head to work on another chart. It has no time to lose, certainly, because there is likely to be a call for some more of its valuable information about the Americans any day.

In American Way

From the Hartford Times.

MERICAN drive, American push, American effectiveness for the accomplishment of the thing de

sired, have become proverbial in this country.

The American Government has not always been run in the American way. There has been waste not a little of time, of efficiency, especially of money. Those giants of business and captains of industry who command and accomplish in the business world have been too busy to do much more than criticize the ponderous, red-taped, wasteful ways of government. Asked to step in and remedy the evils, they have generally declined, with or without thanks. In the process of time we went to war a surpassingly colossal war. It did not take many months of that to convince the American people, from the least to the greatest of them, that here was a task demanding the best that is in American manhood and American ability. Our leaders sought out the best, and called them to command here at home, to direct our great endeavor in all its departments. They have come the Americans who do things.

Allies' Blows Prepare

For Final Great

Attack on Hun Lines

Way

Author of

By HILAIRE BELLOC 'Elements of the Great War" and Britain's Most Distinguished Military Critic

. The whole action now going forward on the Western front is in preparation for some main attack which has not been delivered, which may not be delivered for a long time, but of which the actions now being extended are the foundation. The situation on the

front at this moment Is as follows: The Germans had prepared for retirement in the first days of August. The organization of that retirement had already been made, and upon such a scale both as to size and complexity that it could not be easily abandoned.

It is probable that the general idea established on the enemy's side toward the end of July was something like this: "I am being beaten out of the Marne salient; my one great offensive, which was to decide the war, has broken down badly. I have suffered a surprise, and the initiative has passed to my opponents. Their numbers are growing rapidly with the arrival of the American contingents. I must, if I can, recover the initiative. "I cannot do that without accumulating a fresh army. For this purpose I must shorten my line and must retire from the big bulge between Arras and Noyon, thus saving them. Having thus saved men I will begin to accumulate a new army of attack, which I can recruit from the depots fed by the 1920 class, now practically ready for the field; and from the hospital returns of the early autumn." Continue Attacks. The essential character of the Allied reply to this plan has been to keep their attacks not only perpetually alive

THE FIRST FOUR HAMMER BLOWS The map shows the falsity of the German claims that Foch has attempted and failed to break their lines in the West. The heavy line marks the furthest German advance; the broken line the positions from which, they started on March 21, and the shaded area the territory recovered up to August 27. Along the heavy line are four brackets, each inclosing the front on which Foch launched one of his offensives. These havo spread until the whole line has been joined, and the Germans cannot now be sure of rest at any point. The narrow front attacked in each case proves that there has been no attempt at a break through

but also continually extending as the American recruiting pours in, and preventing the orderly retirement of the Germans from being accomplished. What is going on is not any attempt to break through the German line all talk of that sort at this staee is non-

I sense, and I sha!l show in a moment I why it is nonsense. The efforts are

confined for the moment to compelling the enemy to put in his reserves continually in order to save himself from disaster and to force him to retlra, not in his way, but ours, suffering perpetual loss in men and material and a perpetual weakening In organization. The process will continue for just bo long as the Allied Higher Command chooses, and it will be prolonged up to the moment when the main blow can be struck. What that moment will be, and where 4he blow will fall, no one outside the Higher Command itself knows, nor is it anything but harmful even to speculate upon it. Allies Grow Stronger. The enemy himself knows least of all. All he knows is that unless he can forestall us and strike himself, the blow will fall with decisive effect, for the Allies, his opponents, are daily growing in power, are possessed of the initiative and are now moulding the battle in their own form. In the meanwhile the most illuminating commentary in a long while on the course of affairs is the series of enemy communiques. It is, perhaps, to the interest of the German government politically, and perhaps to some extent it helps the morale of its armies also, to represent all successive movements of the Allied armies as so many attempts to break the line and so many failures in that attempt. Now, to show how completely false this view is, let us take the recent movements one by one and see how little they conform to any such plan and how exactly they conform to the plan I have just described. The First Surprise. First, you have the surprise of the counter offensive of July 18. This was struck between Chateau Thierry and Soissons, on a front of about twenty miles. It was struck on only one side of the salient, and in a place where there could be no question of rupture, because the strongest position on the

whole German front lay in the enemy's hands immediately ahead the Chemin-des-Dames. It was struck with a force of probably no more than twenty divisions, if so many, and it proceeded regularly from stage to stage, in the fashion demanded for the reduction of a salient only, for dragging as many of the enemy reserves as possible, and for preventing him from concentrating elsewhere, and for preserving the iniative. There was no massed atack; there was no simultaneous attack delivered along a very wide front, which is essential to any attempt at rupture; nothing was done east of Rheims, and between Rheims and Chateau Thierry, little was done besides holding the positions and exercising a steady pressure. All the work accomplished was the regular daily progress along the twenty-odd miles on the western side of the salient. This progress pivoted upon Soissons, or rather upon the Hiil of Paris, which overlooks the junction of Soissons, and thence paralyzed the enemy's main railway comunication. The action went on for a week, until Hill 205 was taken; it continued another five or six days in the enemy's precipitate retirement upon the Vesle Heights. When these heights were reached the salient had been completely reduced, the enemy front had been straightened out, and the battle was virtually at an end. During the progress of it something like twenty fresh divisions had been dragged in to save the enemy from disaster, out of a reserve of, say, sixty divisions. Feel Relieved. Then cam'e the lull, which was comparatively free from action, or at any rate with actions only on a small scale

along the Vesle river, though they included the occupation of the city of Soissons itself. That was the situation at the beginning of August. The enemy press and even the enemy communiques for that mater, began to breathe freely again, and they put their own construction on the affair. They told us that the Allies "tried to

break through, and failed," that "the retreat had been conducted according to plan," and with great success; and that Foch had lost his chance. Hardly was this completely false view digested by the German public, and, I am sorry to say, propagated to some extent among the Allied civilians, when we got the second step. The second step was exactly like the first. No very large forces were employed; there was no element of surprise and there were progressive additions to the battlefront as fighting developed; the whole action was limited in design, economical and steady. The Second Step. This secntrstep was initiated on August 8. It took the form of attacking the western side of the Amiens salient. The British fourth army, under General Rawlison, and the left of the French first army attacked upon a front of less" than twenty miles, with, let us say, a division or less to a mile. As in the case of the attack on July 18, there was an immediate initial surprise and advance, and the capture of many thousands of prisoners and hundreds of guns. But there was no atempt to break through, either by concentration of great masses or by a simultaneous attack upon a great length of front. On the contrary, the whole thing was deliberately restricted; it was designed to proceed step by step, grad-j ually enlarging, as the succeeding

phases show. For on the morrow of the original atack, that is, on August 9, the right of the French first army came into play beyond Montdidier, and on the evening of the next day tile French third army attacked the Lassigny Hills. Each blow was delivered not only with method but with

precision, and what is most important

to remark, with economy of effort and daily limited objectives. What was its effect? The enemy was compelled to draw in yet another great mass of reserves to meet the increasing pressure, after the pressure had been exercised all the way from the Oise to the Somme, for ten days. By that time the salient had gradually been reduced, with the French half way across the Lassigny Hills and the road junctions of Roye and Chaulnes under the Allied fire. Together the enemy brought in more than 120 divisions from the reserves, and thus there were involved more than forty out of the sixty German divisions, which on July 18 had been left fresh for action. ' We had now arrived at August 19,

exactly one month after the recovery of the initiative and the turning of the tide by the Franco-American surprise on July 18. The action slackened; there was no considerable advance anywhere between the Oise and the Somme for a day or two. The western half of the Lassigny Hills had been occupied; but the eastern half still stood firm and once more you began to get, though now less confidently, the tone I have referred to in German dispatches and in the German press once again with' an echo of it even on the Allied side among the civilian population. There had been no break through.,. The excitement of the. first few days of the second battle had died. The movement on the map appeared significant, etc., etc. The Third Blow; Then came the third blow. It wa3 struck on August IS, In the sector between Soissons and the Oise, against a front of about twenty miles, with a force strictly limited to the requirements of the plan laid down. For this local movement General Mangin, with the tenth French army made two comparatively small surprise attacks, took not much more than 3,000 prisoners, and advanced on the two short sectors not much more than a mile. There was no sort of an attempt at a rupture. It would have served no purpose to attempt it in such a locality, with the immensely strong positions of the St. Gobain hill and forest lying but a few miles ahead of the French army. Upon the 19th, however, to the surprise not only of the enemy, but of the less informed critics upon our own side. General Mangin's force moved suddenly right forward, captured at least 8,000 prisoners and 200 guns, and all the enemy force on that front was thrown into wild confusion. An urgent appeal was sent by the German general officer in command over this sector to General von Boehm, on his right, who was facing the French third army in the Lassigny district, begging for men. He was told that men could not be sent. He then asked for reserve divisions from the main army reserves, which were by this time reduced from sixty to sixteen divisions and he received two or three at the most. Keeps Up Blows. It was not enouglt. General Mangin went right forward, reached the line of the Ailette, got on top of the Cuts hills, from which one sees all over the Oise valley to Chauny, and went right up the Divette valley to Lassigny, and thus had the main road supplying Noyon under his guns. Mangin's advance rested there and we again got from the German press the nonsense of an attempt to break through had failed. There had been nothing of the sort. There was the same consistent, steady movement, "handling" the enemy as it willed, back to the Ailette with comparatively small losses on the side of the offensive, and a total loss to the enemy In three days of about 12,000 prisoners and 250 guns. Lassigny had been hopelessly outflanked. The French third army came down over the hills and occupied It. There the movement ended. At this stage, on the night of August 20, after General Mangin's three days' movement, there had been captured since the Allied recovery of the initiative just under 100,000 prisoners and just under 2,000 guns. In the meanwhile, the front which was put into movement that is, the front along which the enemy was kept on the jump, and into which he was compelled to draw into one section after another his reserves until those were nearly exhausted had been gradually extended all the way from a little south of Albert to the neighborhood of Rheims, a distance of 180 to 200 kilometres, or, say, about 100 to 120 miles. The enemy at this moment, after suffering so grievously and after so dan-

gerously exhausting his reserve power, might reasonably hope for a breathing space and a chance to reorganize and

to prepare a new line upon which to fall back in his own time. If this great Anglo-French-American attack had been developed all at once and had been recklessly pressed the enemy would have seen the danger in the situation and he would have been defeated, but with time to recover afterward. For if there had been any cf those grandiose theatrical ideas in the mind of the Allied Highed Command which the enemy gratuitously Imagined to be there our losses would have been so heavy and the fatigue of our forces would have been such that there would have had to be some cessation of movement. But, on the contrary, these carefully limited actions, each exactly defined for the fruits reaped from it and no more and supported by the perpetually increasing stream of American contingents, had left an ample margin of power. The Fourth Step. With the dawn of August 24 the fourth step in the great action was begun. This blow was delivered north of Alpert, between that town and Ar1 A 1 TfT i i 1. . . . ill ,

ma, vy uie unusu, ana is suu proceea-1

mg. It has gone on from step to step, just as the others have, and the front has been widened both to the north and south. This was not one great attack, exercising an immense pressure at great expense and in case of failure at the price of exhaustion. But it was like all the rest deliberately restricted assaults, increasing each day. On the first day, August 21, the attack was upon a front of no more than ten miles, beginning in the early morning with a front of seven and adding

an hour or two afterward, a further I

front of three miles. It advanced toward Bapaume, but with limited objectives, which it reached at noon of

the first day, taking only some 3,000 prisoners, and suffering itself only extremely light casualties. Indeed,, the totai casualtise are little more than the number of prisaners captured. On the second day, August 22, the developments were exactly as they had been in the other battles. There was a further extension of the front, and consequently there was further disorganization of the enemy's defenses, and further interference with any attempt on his part at a concentration. The British extended their front right down past Albert, which town they recovered, and they exercised pressure right up to the Somme, so that by Thursday. night the whole line was In action and there was no quiet sector within three miles of Arras right away down to Rheims. Continue' Movement. All day Friday, August 23, the movement continued, and by Saturday the English on the north wera at Croiselles, their line passing through St. Leger and they were outside Eapaume. They had taken Bray on the Somme; they had collected 14,000 prisoners

since the beginning of the operation, and the total line now engaged had been increased to not far short of 150 miles. That is the plan the successive fulfilment of which is proceeding before our eyes; it is preparation, and prep-, aration not one step of which has gone wrong during all the six weeks through which it has continued virtually without Interruption. In 1813, during the lull or truce between Napoleon's defeat in Russia and the great concentrated attack upon him which ruined him at Lepsic, the Prussian general staff spent its time studying the methods of the great Emperor, and they gathered from them certain rules of war. These they reduced to . a precis a sort of little summary for the use of their commanders. Among those rules of war, we find, at the end of the first clause (General Foch himself quoted the passage In his famous lectures on the art of war, which, before this campaign, were the chief examples of his gen-

! ius and of which an official transla

tion is about to appear in England and tie United States), the following: "We establish, then, this principle, which seems to be that of the French, to economize forces; but to nourish the action right up to the moment when one can pass to the principal attack." That is exactly what Is taking place today. The initative having been recovered, the action is being extended and nourished and never abandoned, but always with strict economy in men, and always with a preparation for

j some main attack, which, as I said,

may not be delivered for a long time.

Eighty-four nurses and aids from the American Red Cross at Paris have been lent for emergency military work in connection with the present offensive.

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8 Days AUG. 31--SEPT. 7-

6 Nights

THERE MAY BE NO BASEBALL AFTER SEPT. 1, BUT THE STATE FAIR WILL GIVE THE GREATEST SPEED MEETING IN ITS HISTORY A

SEVEN DAYS' RACING PROGRAM TWENTY RUNNING RACES, FIFTEEN HARNESS CONTESTS, SIX AUTO RACES. SINGLE G. vs. WSLLUIM THE WORLD'S FASTEST PACERS, IN A SPECIAL RACE FOR A X PURSE OF $4,000, ON 3" WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 4 Weak of Big Special Features Patriotic Day, Sunday, September 1, program in chargj of State Council of Defense; Auto, Truck and Tractor Shews; Airplane 5 Flights; U. S. Government War Exhibit and Moving Pictures; Thaviu's Band, Opera Singers and Ballst. 7 Night Hippodrome in Coliseum Brilliant program of twenty-five aerial and acrobatic specialties 1 and Auto Polo, makipf the richest night show the Fair ever gave. Vf , , A Everything Costs 'f&re Except State Fair Admissions. 4 Oid iPrevail and No War Tax. g