LAND & WATER 
May 10, 1917 
The Mill 
iJy Hilairc Belloc 
T}i\: stcatly process ol sucking the German reserves 
into the mill and grinding them down has passed 
tliis week through its fourth turn. It luis proceeded 
this week after a fashion wliidi can he followetl 
more easily tlian is usually tlie case with this enormous busi- 
ness, because the alternative days of stroke and counter- 
attack and the alternative action of I'rench and Jinglish 
on the left and on the right of the long line, happen to fall, 
on this occasion, with great symmetry. 
We shall appreciate the character of the week's work if we 
tabulate it thus : 
riiiirsday. May ;rd, was the date of the fourth, the main 
Knglish blow upon the broken sector already driven into the 
llindenburg line, and marked the capture of further portions 
in that- now fractured line upon the extreme north and the ex- 
treme south of the sector attacked. The capture or loss of 
a position in the plain is, it must always ho remembered, of 
subsidiary interest. The real interest at this stage lies in the 
counter-attack provoked and its expense to the enemy. 
i'riday. May 4th, the morrow, was the date of the main 
re-action of the enem\-. 
Satiirdiiy and Similay, th(^ 5th and ()tli, were full of con- 
tinuing and still very expensive counter-attacks of the enemy, 
and the beginning of a return to the general bombardment 
which precedes and follows each of these successive blows. 
Monday, the 7th, still saw the process at work ; a last counter- 
et^ort, very expensi\e and wholly broken in the north near 
Lens. Beyond Monday the despatches received at the 
moment of writing do not carry us. 
Meanwhile', far away to the south the French action pur- 
sued exactly the same method, but was dated exactly 24 
liours later, that is, timed to synchronise with the worst 
pressure in the north. 
The great I'rench blow was delivered on the Friday, counter- 
attacks tilling up the Saturday and the Sunday But the 
I'rench action further included a very remarkable local piece 
of work upon the Saturday. The day was not spent merely 
•in receiving and massacring the German counter-attacks, 
but also (through one of tliose breakdowns inevitable at 
intervals in the German re-action), it was occupied in one 
l)lace — on the extreme French left — with an unexpectedly 
sharp advance, and a correspondingly large number of 
prisoners. 
Meanwhile, this steady process of (a) the stroke breaching 
the line further and provoking (b) the re-action which is 
smothered and massacred by the suj^erior weight of artillery, 
Jias been represented upon the enemy's side in what is now 
the routine fashion of " failure to break through." 
The enemy must say something of that kind, both for 
domestic and for foreign consumption, and he must, as a 
. mere matter of pohcv, represent the great struggle as liaving 
now degenerated to a futdity which may be continued almost 
indefinitely without results to either side. 
The only difference Ix^tween his despatches this week and 
tl'.e previous ones is, that he has evidently been reading the 
foreign comment made upon them, with the result that the 
last despatches are a little less rhetorical and tJiat lie also 
Ijrings in matter which he hopes will confirm his statements. 
F'or instance, he alludes to the concentrations of cavalry which 
are always made before these strokes, for the simple reason 
that, whenever the line shall happen to show a gap, the cavalry 
will have to act at once. But he talks as though such con- 
centrations of cavalry contradicted the Allied plan of " grind- 
ing." He al.so alludes \aguely, without quoting the words, 
to " orders captured on jjrisoners showing that .-i very distant 
objective was aimed at, " which simply means that whenever 
one of these blows is delivered commanders are instructed 
how to act in case there is an unexpected enemy breakdown 
over and above the set objectives of the day. 
It is necessary to spend a little time explaining this purely 
political action of the enemy's lest it should have even the 
slightest el'tect in deceiving general opinion. But intellec- 
tually it is hardly worth the effort, for the policy in question 
is very simple and transparent. Until the line wJiich is now 
being so battered by su])erior power begins to crumble its 
commanders can always ])oint out that the crumbling has not 
begun. So can the owner of a skating |X)nd point out during a 
thaw that the ice still bears. .Meanwhile, the real test of 
what is happening is the respective losses of the two sides 
coupled with a certitude of which side now exercises the 
initiative. Judged by this double test, there is no doubt. 
It is wholly the Allied initiative which gives its character to 
the battle, and the enemy los.ses are necessary and con- 
sistently - against such u superiority of metal- highly 
superior to those of the Allies. 
With this general scheme in mind, the British blcnv timed 
for Thursday with the countei'-attacks it provoked for three 
days, the l-rench blow timed for Friday with the counter- 
attack it provoked during two days, we may proceed to the 
details of either field. 
The British Blow 
Before the British Douai, some ten miles away, is vital to the 
German armies. To defend it the Hindenburg line existed. 
That line has been breached from near Bullecourt all the way 
to the Lens region. Still to defen<l Douai the Oue.-nit-Dro- 
court switch line — jierhaps not yet completed was less 
hurriedly designed. To hold on in front of that the fearful 
losses of the enemy are incurred, and as he pours men up 
to meet the pressure against him, all the roads by which 
they come and every ]X)int where they are found concen- 
trating for the counter-attacks are under British observation 
and oveiAvhelmingly superior British fire. • 
That is the ralson d'etre of ("Iiese successive blows. 
The British, after the special artillery ])reparati6n of last 
W'ednesday, Ma\- 2nd, attacked on Thursday the 3rd upon 
a front of 21 ,000 yards, or nearly thirteen miles. 'The infantry 
struck from the fields in the north between Acheville and 
Arleux to the village of Bullecourt and the fields immediately 
beyond it on the south. 'The line of battle showed an arrange- 
ment whereby on either flank Colonial troops were engaged, 
the Canadians in the north, the Australians in the south ; 
the British troops from these islands acting in the central 
portions, what may be called the field of the 'Three Rivers, 
the Scarpe, the Cojeul, and the Sensee. 
It was just at the end of the night, after the setting of the 
t^LENS 
I 
Drocourt 
ThotutxncL Yaj'ds 
! 3 1 
