July 20, 1916 
way, the watershed between the Somme basin and that 
of the Scarpe. Indeed, a British body has already been 
upon the summit itself for, as the communiques have told 
us, the most advanced portion of the British forces got into 
and held Foureaux Wood (" The High Wood,") but as 
that position formed too sharp a salient for the moment 
they were brought back to the main line last Sunday night. 
The long drawn-out story of trench warfare has taught 
us not to exaggerate position and has quite corrected us of 
the error (to which my studies in these pages were at first 
particularly liable) of iudgi»Tg the results of a movement 
almost entirely by this factor of position. 
To* occupy, to master, higher land does not mean at all 
what it meant in former wars. For instance, there is no 
such thing as an exposed gun position to-day, and there 
will be hardly ever what may be called a dominating posi- 
tion. Nine-tenths of fire is indirect. But position still has a 
value of its own and that value is essentially the value of 
direct observation. With the Allied troops upon the line 
between A and B upon Map L, the country to the north 
up to the region of Bapaume and beyond, though retaining, 
of course, large areas concealed in depressions, is generally 
imder view. 
So much for the first point. The second point in con- 
nection with the present phase of the advance to which I 
would call attention is the echelon formation which seems 
to have underlain the general plan from the beginning. 
Look at the line as it at present stands and you have 
something which is diagrammatically the scheme of Sketch 
II., here appended with Peronne at P and Watrelot farm 
at W and deep rectangular indentations upon either side 
of W. If you will examine the lines in any stage of the 
advance from the ist of July onwards, you will find it to 
have presented a scheme of this sort at any given moment 
of its development. After the capture of Contalmaison, for 
instance, and before the recent capture of the Bazentins 
and of Longueval, it was very much like the second of the 
two hues upon Sketch II. ; the one marked A — B — C. 
Now this shape in the line, though largely of course due 
to the accidents of the fighting is not wholly capricious. 
It would seem to be part of a general scheme whereby the 
deliberate creation of salients in the enemy's sorely 
pressed front gives the AUies fields upon which they can 
converge their fire from either flank so that the whole 
process becomes a sort of biting into the enemy's lines in 
consecutive clutches ; each such clutch mastering a 
salient artificially created in the enemy's territory against 
his will. 
Lastly, and more important than either of these two 
points, is the nature of the resistance which the offensive 
has to meet. I mean the scheme of the German lines. 
Whenever one sees the tracings upon a large sc^le or 
the photographs of the: enemy's trench work, whether it 
be here in the West or copies of similar documents drawn 
up upon the Eastern front, one is struck by the extreme 
elaboration of what may be called " the crust," that is, 
the first line and its contiast with the far more elementary 
second and third lines. 
There is only so much energy to go round. All belli- 
gerents since trench warfare began, have, of course, 
devoted the greater part of their energy to their first line 
when they desired to take up a permanently defended 
position. But it would sesm that the enemy has devoted 
a still higher proportion of his available power to the 
advanced as compared with the retired parallels. It was a 
feature which we noted in Champagne ten months ago. 
