LAND & WATER 
December 21, 191G 
private soldier, it not only demands, but takes for f^anted, 
the subjirtion of initiative, and that is, in the new tactical 
method, a vit)- important jmint indeed. I he Uist 
l-'reniii advance, for in^tance, was imdeiiaken ii]>oni-u 
front of just over 10,000 yards and tlie infantr\ uf fo^ir 
divisions were thought sufficient for it. A correspondiog 
effort, a bis counter-attack launched by the tiennaas 
apainst tlic French upon the Somme a day or two after 
tile ncent ICngHsh effort on the Ancre, demanded, if I 
am not mistaken, the infantry of fivcor possibly six 
divisions upon a front of well under three miles. They 
liavc to w-ork deejaer and taking their operations as a 
v.'hole less extended. 
Witli so much generalisation upon the nature of the 
new method and its value— for it may very well deter- 
mine liic war— we may proceed to a short description of 
what was actually done by the French last Friday, 
December 15th, north of Verditti. 
The artillery bombardment apjx'ars to have been 
directed upon the whole belt from east of ^he river Meuse 
to the village of Damloup (which was the tine held 
after tlie last advance at the end of October. Part 
of tile long range fire, of course, was directed well beyond 
this linc^ (which may be called the Ornes limit from the 
large village through which it passes), but that was the 
l)elt wliich was covered very thoroughly in its nearer 
jiositiou and with rarer fire on the communications 
and batteries in the further portion. 
Tlie bombardment began at noon of Tuesday, Decem- 
1<cr 12th. It .was begun, therefore (I do not suggest 
any political significance, but only a coincidence) 
just when the Geiman offer for peace was first known in 
London and Paris. It was carried on for 70 hours until 
precisely lo a.m. on Friday, December 15th. At 10 a.m. 
])recisely it ceased and the infantry ad\'ancc marked by 
the white smoke lines of the grenade work was launched at 
the same moment. It extended from the neighbourhood 
of V'aux right round along the thick line of crosses in Map 
I. to the Meuse . and went forward uninterruptedly 
to about the line of dashes upon Map I. There is some 
doubt as to whether the whole of this line was held and 
consolidated upon that same day, for the (iennan com- 
munique of the same evening spoke of Bezonvaux as being 
still in Gcnnan hands. But, at any rate, upon the next 
day, the Saturday moming, the whole line up to the thick 
dashes on Map I. was held. At one point only had the 
artillery preparation failed to dominate the machine 
guns and that was in the ruins of Vachcrauvillc. There 
was here a sharp fight with corresponding F'rench loss, but 
elsewhere the loss of the assailants was slight and their 
movenient extremely rapid. They had carried the ruins 
of the village of Louvemont, the farm of Chambrettes 
and, as 1 have said, Bezonvaux village at the mouth of its 
ravine. I have roughly noted upon the accompanying 
Map I. the ground which is 300 feet above the River 
Meuse. It will be remarked that all of this ground was 
recovered with the corresponding advantages of observa- 
tion entailed s:ive the summit of the Talou Hill at B, 
wliicli, though 300 feet above the river, is below the 
ridge called Poivre or " Pepper " Hill, the main height 
carried in the advance. During these operations the 
enemy fought stubbornly, and, in spite of the terrific 
bombardment he had suffered, maintained himself upon 
his right near the river. But there appears to have been 
some breakdown in front of I.ouvcmont, and when the 
I'rench began coming down the hill, that is, the northern 
slopes of the Poivre Ridge past Louvemont, the Germans 
between that and the river lost their cohesion, and there 
was a momentary jianic in which a great many men were 
lost. It is characteristic of the present numerical 
situation of the (iermans that they were unable to react 
during the whole of that Saturday and apparently 
during the whole of the Sunday. I say " apparently," 
because it has been well suggested by the military 
critic of the Morning Post that the (ierman counter- 
attack on that Sunday evening may have been deliberately 
postponed until its results could be consolidated under 
the cover of darkness. At any rate, the counter-attack 
came, apparently just before dusk, between 4 and 
5 o'clock ; recovered the farm of Chambrettes at 
C and held it during the night. Next morning, that 
is upon the Monday mornin,,, the French turned them out 
again and the whole line was consolidated. When the 
prisoners were coimted and the captured guns, it was found 
that there were over ii.Ooo valid prisoners and over 
100 pieces, field and hea\y, without coiuiting, of course, 
the machine guns. 
I ha\-e alreatly spoken of tlie value, such as it is, of the 
observation ground thus occupied by the French. The 
only high grounds in front of them now are the two 
summits or Twins of Ornes as the\' are called, a curious 
double-peaked isolated hill in the Wneuvre, and the 
summit of the Talou Hill at B, botli of which are below 
the observation points now in the hands of the I'-rench 
upon Poivre Hill, and the plateau of Douaumont. But 
these local advantages and the belt of territory occupied 
are insignificant compared with the proof afforded of 
what this new method means. 
Lastly, there is a point of the very first significance 
which, if nothing else were known about the action, 
ought to be emphasised beyond any other throughout 
our Press. 
The five German divisions against which these four 
French divisions were so successfully launched were, 
save for any changes that may have been made since 
December ist, the last fi\e remaining of all the first- 
class divisions which alone the enemy can use in the 
active fighting of his Western front. All the others had 
appeared at some time or other upon the Somme. 
It is, I repeat, a point of the very first importance. 
If you except the divisions of inferior or older material 
which he cannot permanently put into such furnaces, he 
had for the purposes of Verdun and of the Somme loi 
divisions in the West. Ninety-five have been thrown into 
the whirlpool of the Somme before the ist of December. 
Another had been thrown in to relieve those shattered by 
the tremendous artillery fire in the first week of the 
jirescnt month. There remain five, and these five precisely 
on this northern sector of Verdun, betw-een Ornes and 
the ri\-er. It is these five which have just suffered the 
shock. They were not nearly at full strength, they have 
lost in prisoners alone something over a quarter of their 
infantry and altogether certainly over half of their 
infantry and they have suffered defeat. There is now 
no fresh division to put upon the West which has not 
been through the mill. They will appear, of course, and 
reappear after recruitment, but none of them can now 
reappear fresh. That was why the attack was launched 
where it was launched, and that is the main significance 
of its effect. 
THE ROUMANIAN POSITION 
On the Roumanian position we still have such very 
meagre information thai nothing definitive can be said. 
The line still runs rather more than a day's march south 
of those lines of the Sereth which were described last 
v\-eek, and upon which it is suggested that the Germans 
will stand, as being the shortest line available. They 
still cover the port and grain depot of Braila, and there 
are still in the wooded and hilly district in the extreme 
north of the Dobrudja a certain number of Russian and 
Roumanian troops —but beyond this we know nothing 
at the moment of writing. All speculation based upon 
the present position is valueless, except that which turns 
upon the corn and petrol which the enemy may ha\-e 
obtained in his advance through Wallachia, and e\-en 
upon that we have hardly any evidence at all. The one 
thing we have to go upon is that the enemy has not given, 
after nearly a month's delay, any account of the booty 
so seized, and this, coupled with the fact that the first 
hurried retirement was only to the line of the Alt and 
with the other fact that it was ob\ious military necessity 
to destroy all stores, suggests that what he has been able 
to capture hitherto in the way of corn will be an in- 
significant addition to his totalsupplies. This is further 
supported by the tone of the strictly censored Press in 
Germany and Austria, which is bidding people not to 
expect too much from the Roumanian resources. We 
have been told that our Allies destroyed the well-heads 
in the petroleum districts so thoroughly that it will be 
many months before the wells can be used. But there 
again we have not more than one brief statement and 
tliat from one side only to gttidc us. 
Answers to Correspondents 
I have continued to receive a very considerable amount 
of con-espondence with regard to the enemy figures 
