8 
LAiND & WATER 
October 26, 1916 
two divisions of the i8th corps, the 21st, and the 23th. 
J'"inally. the more oasily defended sector beliind tlie lor- 
tille and soutli (if the Sommc up to the neighbourhood of 
Barleux itself, was held by only two divisions, the 212th, 
which is one of the so-called " new " divisions, hastily 
improvised by withclrawing fragments from other units, 
and the old 28th division of the 14th corps which in time 
of peace was in garrison I belie\e at Karlsruhe. It is 
the presence of this 28th division which explains the 
capture of letters which have been published in the Conti- 
nental Press in which the soldiers complain of the I'rench 
air raids upon Karlsruhe, and gi\e us some impression 
oi«the tremendous effect produced by those reprisals. 
At the end of the first week of the present month all 
this organisation was changed, and the units whi( h have 
been forced back in the successful French ad\:uict' upon 
Sailly and beyond Bouchavesnes, are comparati\ely fresh 
forces brought up in relief. The enemy apparently com- 
mitted the error of belie\-ing that the Sailly sector was 
fairly safe, for when he withdrew the three divisions 
holding it (the 51st, 213th and 214th) he replaced them by 
only two divisions, the 17th of Reserve, and the 13th of 
the 8th corps, which in time of peace has its head<iuarters 
at Cologne. He correspondingly strengthened the sector 
south of the wood of St. Pierre, that is, the sector in 
front of Bouchavesnes and beyond, probably because he 
thought that this being nearer to the Mont St. Ouentin 
the principal French effort would be deli\ered there. In 
the place of the two divisions which had stood here (the 
2ist and 25th of the i8th corps) he put in three : The loth 
division of Rescr\e, the 9th of Rescrxe aitd the iijth. 
The line was prolonged to the Somme and beyond it, 
to the neighbourhood of Barleux by the 44th of Reserve 
and by the 29th. The 29th division being the second 
division of the 14th corps, which was thus moved up to 
relieve its fellow, the 28th. 
These last two divisions of relief were not fully moved 
up when the main French stroke was delivered in this 
region, and that is what accounts for the comparative 
ease with which our Allies seized the trenches imme- 
diately to the north of Barleux some ten days ago. 
We happen to have peculiarly full details with regard 
to one of these divisions of relief, the loth of Reserve, 
which has just been mentioned above as being moved up 
in front of Bouchavesnes. One of its regiments which was 
holding the trenches along the edge of the wood of St.. 
Pierre has a history which can be followed in detail. It 
was put into the first great attack upon Verdun last 
February. Its first battalion lost upon that occasion at 
least nine-tenths of its effectives. It was reduced to less 
than 80 men. It was withdrawn and reconstructed with 
drafts of convalescents, of class 1916 and later with not a 
few drafts from 1917 (a class which, it will be remembered, 
the p-rench have not yet had to use at all, but of which the 
Germans have already put into the field a large portion 
and probably the greater part). Then in the early 
summer it was put upon a quiet sector in Champagne. 
It was not moved until the 21st of September. It was 
brought up at the end of the month behind the Somme 
hnes, and first appeared in action at the end of the first 
week of the prese^it month. It immediately began to 
suffer very severely indeed. Two companies, of which 
we have j^recise details (the loth and the nth) lost, the 
one more than four-fifths, the other more than half th(>ir 
complement within the first three days, and it is worth 
remarking that this complement was already reduced 
to not much more than half the full establishment before 
the trenches in front of the wood were taken over. 
It is only a detail, but it happens to be one on which 
we have very full knowledge, and it may fairly bf taken 
as a specimen of what is going on everywhere along that 
front. 
The loss of Sailly immediately led to a very sharp 
reinforcement of the insufliciently held line in the neigh- 
bourhood of that village. This reinforcement consisted 
of portions of three divisions. The ist Bavarian, the 
2nd Bavarian, and the i6th, the 2nd Bavarian having 
been brought up the last of the three. It was with these 
troops that the effort to re-take the village, which failed 
on Wednesday last, was made. But upon the' rest of 
the line the units appear to be much what they %*ere ten 
days ago. Thus the nth Reser\'e divisioh meiitioned 
above was again in operation on this same dav. the i8th, 
and the Saxons in front of Chaulnes (not mentioned in 
the above analysis, which only applies to the country 
north of Barleux), are still there, according to the last 
comnuuiique di-scribing the capture of the wood. 
The reader may be interested to follow in connection 
with this detailed (lisposition of the tierman forc(;s in 
front of the French sector certain very instructive notes, 
the publication of which has been permitted (?) They 
refer to units identified recently upon this front, and to 
their dispositions, and help us to understand the enormous 
congestion of men which the enemy has been compelled 
to gather for his defence, and the mechanical difficulties 
imposed upon this congestion by the superiority of the 
Allied fire. 
Generally speaking, as the reader is aware from the 
previous articles in these columns, the reduced German 
division of the present phase of the war consists of only 
three regiments, and each regiment now of only three 
battalions. Generally speaking, again, the method of 
relieving the strain upon the immediate front is and has 
been for a long time past the arrangement of the three 
battalions with each regiment, one behind the other. 
That furthest away and supposed to be " in repose " re- 
places the existing battalion upon the front, or the central 
one replaces this exhausted battalion. In any case a cir- 
culation is kept up so that at any one moment only a third 
of the effectives present are under the heavy strain of the 
immediate front, and the other two-thirds are, one of them 
supposed to be in fair security, though near enough to 
support its comrade, the other in complete security at 
some distance behind. 
Problem of Effective Support 
Now it is remarkable that under the effect of the Allied 
superiority in the air, and in gun fire, and especially with 
the very large number of long range pieces which the 
Allies have gathered upon this front, a dilemma, already 
difiicult and yx-rhaps to become insoluble, has appeared 
before the (ierman Command. The three battalions are 
separated now by very wide distances indeed. The 
heavy gun fire of the Allies spots the points where the 
enemy's forces are gathered with such accuracy through 
the superiority of its aviation arm, that you have in a 
particular case which has been carefully examined, the 
third battalion as much as five miles behind the first. 
The distance is even greater when the reserves of the 
division as a whole are in question. The system of 
rotation includes not only the relief of one battalion by 
another within the same regiment, but the relief of one 
regiment by another. Of the three regiments, of which 
the present depleted German divisions are usually com- 
posed, two Mill be at the front and one in reserve at any 
one moment. 
Now this regiment in reserve will be as far back as ten 
miles from the front line. That is, nearly 18,000 yards 
range. 
If the only thing of which a Commander had to think 
was the keeping of his men safe from gun fire, these very 
great distances would serve their purpose, but, as always 
happens in any problem, the whole thing is a balance of 
advantages and di.sadvantages. By putting the supports, 
reserves or reliefs, very far back, you save them pro- 
i:)ortionately from the long range fire of your opponent, 
but you expose them when they have to come up in 
relief, especially if they are hurriedly summoned, as 
has been more and more the case latterly upon the Somme, 
to a \'ery long march through the open under the eyes of a 
superior service, which spots tiie moxcment exactly for 
the artillery which it directs. And e\en the very great 
distances which have hitherto bi>en favoured do not com- 
pletely shelter the units withdrawn to them. 
As far back as Lieramont, according to the official 
French news of last week, a battalion came under fire and 
lost, before it could take cover, 43 men, and Lieramont is 
quite 10,000 yards range from the front trenches. 
You have then, in this attempt to save men by very 
great depth of formation, first of all no complete guarantee 
of security even for the most distant posts, and secondly, 
such heavy losses in bringing the men up that you undo 
all the good you might have done by their distant with- 
drawal. 
An Order of General von Hugel has been captured, 
about a month old, pointing out that " given superiority 
m f^uns and aviation of the encmv, this disposition only 
