LAND & WATER 
September 21, iqi6 
The New Success on the Somme 
By Hilaire Belloc 
THE advance of the British force upon the Somme 
towards the end of last week whicli ciihninated 
upon Friday last, has naturally fixed the atten- 
tion of the public in this country beyond any 
event elsewhere. 
The appearance of a new tactical instrument, the heavy 
armoured cars, has added greatly to the interest of the 
news ; the number of ])risoners taken, o\er 4,000, and the 
\ery considerable belt of territory occupied—all these 
between them have given last week's operation between 
the Combles \'alley and Thiepval the character of a 
decided and victorious blow. Its autlior has justly 
characterised it as the heaviest stroke yet delivered bv 
the British anny. It is impossible," without some 
measure of repetition, to insist again upon the features 
which an ad\ance of this sort presents, but that 
repetition must be borne with because it is essential 
to our general comprehension of the war to appreciate 
the character of the offensive upon the Somme ; and this 
week's news particulariy lends itself to the illustration of 
certain separate points which determine that character. 
In the hrst place let us contrast the mere territorial 
ad\ance made by the Allied armies upon this sector 
in the course of two months and a half with the corres- 
))onding advance of the enemy upon the imrallcl sector of 
Verdun in hve. This point is capable of graphic 
illustration. If we superimpose the effect of the Allied 
blows in mere occupation of ground upon the corres- 
ponding effect of the (lerman blows before Verdun we 
get the following diagram : 
The tierman Army at the beginning of its fi\'e months' 
effort .stood in front of Verdun in a great concave arc 
which ran from Vauquois through Brabant on the Meuse, 
round by Ornes just East of Dieppe and so down to a point 
almost due east of Verdun and about seven to seven and 
a half miles away from the heart of that town. I have 
expressed that arc in the accompanying map 4 by the 
dotted line i-i-i-i. The chord of 'that arc was some 
twenty-seven miles across. After about the same ex- 
penditure of time as that hitherto devoted to the Somme 
offensive this arc had taken the shape corresponding to 
the line 2-2-2, and the territory won by the enemy 
corresponded to the shaded belt "upon Map I. In the 
second half of the time, the next two and a half months. 
his total gains gave him nothing more than the extra belt 
represented hy the cross hatching between the line 2-2-2 and 
the line 3-3-3. 
Now superimpose upon this the Allied-advance upon 
the Somme. It proceeds the other way because the 
Allies began from a convex line and instead of flattening 
the line gradually as the German offensive did at Verdun 
the Allied advance on the Somme has increased the 
boldness of the curve. If we take the starting point of 
the Allied offensive, from in front of Thiepval to 
Maucourt beyond Lihons to the south of Chaulnes to be 
represented by the line A-A, the total advance upon the 
same scale over the ' livo and a half months alone is re- 
presented by something like the Ijne B-B. . 
So much ior the mere contrast in space. 
But there is something far more significant, and that is 
the steadiness of the progression : Its constant poten- 
tial. *^ 
The great German offensive against Verdun was under- 
taken at a maximum potential, as it were, which rapidly 
declined. The notes of that decline were two : First 
the general assault was succeeded by local assault, the 
fronts of each local assault getting less and less, 'sec- 
ondly, the belt of territory occupied m each successive 
wave grew less and less. There was a law of diminish- 
ing returns at work. An equal expenditure of effort did 
not, as time proceeded, produce an equal result, and all 
the last efforts spread over more than three months 
failed to produce a general shifting of the line and only 
bit into It here and there. The enemy reached the Cote 
du Poivre, for instance, in the first week of the attack 
onFebiuary 27th. He is still there. He got into the 
ruined work of Douaumont upon the 26th of February 
He is not a thousand yards in front of it to-day. 
But the Allied offensive upon the Somme has step by 
step shifted the line as a whole, and further has at eac'h 
general offensive had a success always comparable to the 
last, and lately superior to the last. 
There is here a most significant contrast between tiie 
two operations that nobody should miss. The first may 
be compared to a more and more futile effort a.gainst a 
more and mor(< resisting material, or to a rising tide which 
after the first flood rapidly loses energy. The second 
may rather be compared to some normal operation in 
engineering or commerce in which each step is upon the 
same scale as those preceding it, and in which there is even 
a certain gathering of momentum as the effort proceeds 
The reason of the contrast is clear enough. 
Verdun was undertaken when the enemy was still at 
the height of his power but knew that he must soon 
