8 
LAND &' WATER 
Aplil 5, 1917 
They had come up to the edge of the high and large Wood 
of Holnoii. They had carried the ruuis of Saw village 
in its hollow ; and immediately to the south of this they 
joined on with the French, fh^, advance of the British 
ifp to this first line of dots which marks their positions 
of Sunday last had been remarkably rapid- At first the 
British advance was' necessarily behind the French, 
because its first steps had tn. be taken over the com- 
pletely ruined battleheld of th* Somnie. All roads had 
to be re-made, lines to be laid and a»» indescribable outpilt 
of energy was required fo niakc movement beyond that 
wilderness of mud and craters 'possible at all. But the 
moment communication was established the rate of 
progress, especially at this end of the British line, was 
unexpectedly accelerated. The French, for instance. 
had been in Roupy many days before the British had 
reached Vermand. But the Briti«li. once in the neigh- 
bourhood of Vermand. mastered the district to the 
south of that little town very qijjckly and, as wejiave 
seen, on Sunday came up tt* the edges of the \\'ood of 
Holnon and occupied Savy. 1, 
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Somme, the French 
had, about a wqek before, come up as far as the German 
positions upon Ridge 3, the Ridge of Essigny. They had 
first reconnoitred, then atti^cked. the German prepared 
line here, which ran from Castres in the valley and up 
through Essigny. They then >^ttacked this line' and 
established themselves upon the crest, the Germans 
retiring to a second prepared line aldng Ridge 2 running 
through l'r\-illers. . ' 
When, therefore, the despatciies which reached London 
upon Sunday night were received, tiiey described the 
combined positions of the Allies upon that Sunday to be 
somewhat as follows : -i 
ITie British in front of Vermand just skirting, the 
Wood of Hulnon. occupying Savy, and there making 
their junction with the French who were close to Dalon. 
The French from this point .4jf junction carrying on 
thi'ough Castres (which they occupied just in front, of 
the hamlet of Giffecourt) , largely co\ering Essigny and 
Crest 3, and having in front of them on Crest 2, strong 
German lines. 
With the Monday the British made a further and very 
notable advance which may prove decisive in the fate of 
St. Ouentin. Seizing Bihuoourt and Villechelles, they 
began outflanking the great Wood of Holnon on its height, 
and in the course of the day that wood fell into their 
hands. By the evening the Germans had evacuated the 
whole of the wood and had even fallen back behind 
Holnon and Selency. The British line had therefore 
occupied a belt in that one day which, in its widest point, 
was fully three miles across. They had reached the 
edge of the plateau and St. Quentin was before them in 
its hollow. From the ruins of Francilly, which they 
also occupied, the heart of the town was only three miles 
away and its outskirts only two miles away. Where the 
southern end of this British line stood on Monday evening 
the despatches sent on Monday night did not inform us. 
Nor is it of any very great importance. For the menace 
to St. Quentin which the British are now delivering is 
defined by this considerable advance upon the north- 
west of which Selency is the foremost point. Meanwhile 
the French still stand in front of the prepared positions 
of Ridge 2, between the Soranie and the Oise, holding 
the enemy here while the British are steadily turning 
him by his right, and the next French action mvist be 
agains"t the Urvilliers ridge. 
^ riiat is the stage which the Battle of St. Quentin has 
reached at the moment of )Writing, which moment 'is a 
little handicapped by the way in which the iightiiig is 
falling in the week ; for by the time the^e lines are before 
the public the struggle will quite probably liave reached 
its decisive stage. 
The Fight for the Pivot 
Meanwhile, from 25 to 27 miles awa>- to the soutlj of 
St. Quentin, another critical struggle is in progress which 
is the French attack upon the pivot of the new and ^ery 
precarious line the Gernfans hope to hold ; the positions 
all round and ui front uf Laoii. 
When the Germans planned out this pis allcr of a new 
intermediate hne, they reHed for the strength of its 
1 pivot " upon tfcc topographical character of the district 
all roimd Laon to the soath and west of that town. Ihis 
ground is a mass of wooded hijls w hich he in two great 
main groups divided by a continuous depression, the 
valley of Anizy, through the western part of which runs 
the c>nd of the railway hom Soissons to Laon, while its 
lower W^f'rh part is occupied by the litffc river Aillette. 
North of this depression you get, in three great lumps, 
the high isolated liill on which Laon itself stands, the 
steep island of hill which is the group of.l^ontbaviu. and 
the verv much larger and more densely' wooded hills of 
Coucy slild'St. (lobain. This last is an' v^stacle not only 
from the steep nature of its sides, but froip the extension 
of its woods which spread out far to the west and north 
of the hills and also coyer nearly the whole' of them. 
The ground south of the depression forms a limestone 
plateau with very steep sides nosing from the River Aisne ; 
that plateau is one with which we are all familiar, because 
it was the ridge upon which the (lermans dug themselves 
in after their defeat at the Marne. 
The French had already pushed their uidvance through 
the lower part of the Coucy woods and across the extreme 
■ westcrd^^ge of the Coucy hills a week ago. Their posts 
ran through Servais and Parisis— a very beautiful little 
village ia the old time of peace, lying in a sort of clearing, 
in the midst of high and majestic woods which clothe 
what were here called " The Seven Combesi." The French 
advanctrincluded just to the south of this the spur upon 
which the ruins of the great castle of Coucy stood, and 
further on, in front of Soissons, it had cUmbed up to the 
edge of the limestone plateau just mentioned. 
The task of the French here was to master the water- 
shed and highest level of this limestone plateau, pushing 
up the very steep ravines which bite into it northward 
from the Banks of the Aisne. They had, last week almost 
reached in this way the crest of this liftiestone plateau. 
On Sunday last they made a bound forward over the 
crest and on to the edge of the further side, driving the 
Germans out of Vauxaillon and thus for the first time 
overlooking the valley of Anizy — the compression which 
cuts through the heart of this " pivot *'"; country for the 
possesaiqn of which th e struggle is proceeding. 
'MiUs. 
LAON 
5assaNS 
Here again, as in the case of the fight, for St. Ouentin, 
the despatches stop just in the middle of the debate and 
the position is still uncertain, though, as in the case, of 
St. Quentin. it may be much more decided by the time 
this article is iu print. 
If one *may venture a suggestion, it hardly seems 
possible that the decision should arrive at the point whert 
the " pivot " is menaced, that is, at the Laon end. The 
menace is there so glaring and obvious that the enemv 
could not commit the fault of neglecting it. Nor is it 
