Marcn 29, 191 7 
LAND & WATER 
21 
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and they had failed because their munitionnient 
had not yet reached the superiority required. The 
attack along the transversal of the Somme was 
more successful. It produced a dent which kept on 
increasing and made the remainder of the salient more 
and more perilous vmtil, at last, the enemy had to 
make his plans for evacuating the salient as best he could 
before the weather should j)crmit a renewal of the 
pressure. 
He had intended to retire under the protection of a 
strong Hank position along the Bapaume Ridge and the 
heights continuing it beyond Peronnc at R-R-R. He 
had prepared a sort of intermediate line involving but a 
short retirement and no appreciable shortening of his 
defences or saving in men, which line covered Cambrai. 
St. Quentin and La Fere, and came down to the original 
Une near Soissons (i-i-i upon Map I.) But he failed 
to hold the Bapaume Hidge :is long ;is he intended : a fact 
of which we have addiiional proof afforded every day by 
the descriptions coming in of the immense preparations he 
had made to hold this Bapaume Kidge : works which the 
British hold. He therefore had to retire under con- 
ditions different from .and somewhat less advantageous 
than those of his original plan, and on that account there 
has been produced the very interesting situation which 
we are now watching — the struggle round St. Quentin. 
Struggle for St. Quentin 
St. Quentin, as will be seen by looking at i\Iap I, is 
the very centre of this new intermediate line, which 
does not solve the problem of the salient at all (for it 
runs from Arras at A only to the neighbourhood of 
Soi.ssons at B, leaving B still the head of a sharp salient 
subject to great peril, if or when an offensive shall develop 
to the north or to the east of it), and if St. Quentin is 
lost the power of continuing a manoeuvre of movement re- 
mains with the Allies. Moreover, the peril to St. Quentin 
is emphasised by a feature whicli was intended in the 
original scheme to give strength to the new line : the 
little bastion or jutting out projection at (i. This little 
bastion is a high group of hills covered by the dense 
forests of St. (iobain and Coney. The ]X)sition is im- 
])rcgnab]e to direct assault with e<pial forces, and was 
certainlv intended by the enemy to flank and protect 
the centre in front of SI. Quentin, supposing that centre 
