8 
Land & Water 
March 28, i'1918 
hands. Behind these front lines, rolling open conntry, with 
one or two small copses, rises very slowly to a height shghtly 
superior to all its surroundings and bearing the ruins of 
Holnon village. Immediately behind Holnon Village its 
highest part ujion a level with the ruins, but sloping slightly 
down from them to the west, lies the large wood of Holnon, 
througii which passes as a green lane the Roman road from 
St. Quentin to Vermand. This wood is nearly two miles 
long and in places a mile across. It was here that the main 
British defensive position lay from 5,000 to ,6,000 yards 
behind the original front line, and it was here, according to 
The German dispatch, that the local breach was made in the 
British main line. Thence the successful attack poured fan- 
shape, increasing the breach, to the valley of the little Omi,gnon 
River, a mile to a mile and a half below. This successful 
movement rendered Saw and Rupy, to the south, untenable, 
and compelled a rearrangement of the whole, line, which was 
reformed from Tincourt to the neighbourhood of the junction 
of fhe Crozat Canal with the Somtne and thence along. the 
bank dominating that canal from the west to the Oise. 
Meanwhile, as the Britisli line thus slowly fell back and in 
good order, continuing its very heavy slaughter of the advanc- 
ing enemy masses upon the south, the north, upon which it 
pivotted, held. The enemy would seem to have reached 
no further here than the foot of the St. Leger height and 
just beyond Vraucourt and Vaulx ; during the night he had 
penetrated into Mory, but was thrown out again. 
The conclusion, therefore, of this first phase of the assault 
showed the hne standing, on the Saturday morning, roughly, 
paraUel to, and east of, the great road Arras, Bapaume, 
Peronne, Ham. This line upon the map defines in a 
general fashion the belt upon which the first phase of the 
battle came to an end. We should remark that all the 
northern portion of it, from Arras nearly to Peronne, lies 
along heights up to which the land rises from the Scarpe 
basin, and during this first half of its course the battle position 
arrived at by Saturday last enjoys a corresponding advantage. 
South of Peronne, and between that town and the Oise, 
things are different. The battle zone here has immediately 
behind it and from 60 to 100 feet below it the very marshy 
valley of the Upper Somme. It will be easier to stand for 
the moment behind such an obstacle. The last portion south 
of Ham is composed of confused- high land, the last half of 
which again, as one approaches the Oise, is densely wooded 
and rises to over 400 feet above that river. It would, there- 
fore, seem to be the section between Peronne and Ham 
which is the critical section at the moment of writing, but 
we note that the British dispatch of Saturday evening speaks 
of very heavy fighring in the North upon the day ; the pres- 
sure, therefore, was continued as much as the enemy could 
bring it to bear after the moment upon Saturday noon or 
thereabouts, when he had himself announced that the first 
stage of the battle was ended. He was also engaged, some 
hours earlier in the night, in making vigorous efforts to force 
the British back on their extreme right from the posidons 
which they held behind the Crozat Canal, and his action at 
that, point is instructive. 
There runs from St. Quentin to the Crozat Canal one 
main road through Essigny. It had a bridge, destroyed, of 
course, in the Gennan retreat, restored again by the AlUes, 
and we may make certain destroyed once more when the 
British recrossed it last Friday, which passed the canal at 
about a third of its course between the Somme and the Oise. 
Immediately upon the western or British side of the obstacle 
stood the village of Jussy, and it was here that repeated 
attempts were made all night long by the enemy to dislodge 
the British force which held this point. Their efforts had, up 
to the dispatch received upon Sunday morning last, failed, 
but it was clear that the positions to which the British had 
retired, and which they were holding at the end of what the 
enemy calls the first phase of the battle, on Saturday, were 
temporary only, for they stood far forward of the general line. 
We may, before concluding this account of the action as a 
whole cite the very brief couple of sentences in whicli the 
enemy makes his confession of loss. They were dispatched 
apparently towards the end of Saturday, and they run as 
follows : 'V 
"The first stage of the great battle in France is ended. A 
considerable part of the English Army is beaten." 
Of these two sentences, the first only has any significance. 
The second is rhetoric. To bteat an army— that is, to obtain 
a decision against it— is to put it out of action, which in 
this case would mean the rupture of the line, and either the 
'ompulsion of a forced and precipitate retreat or rolhng 
it up along the flank thus formed. Nothing of this sort 
had happened bv the night of Saturday last, and we must 
therefore turn to" the first phrase to learn the meaning of the 
<>ftemy's statement. That meaning is simple enough. By 
Friday night the energy of the original assaulting'force, as 
a whole, was partly spent. It continued to exercise pressure 
as best it could, especially in the north and on the extreme 
south at Jussy. But it attained no appreciable results in the 
first district, and none at all in the second. There was, 
therefore, a necessity for the Germans to bring up a great 
number of reserve divisions although they had already put 
in over fifty. How long such a rate of loss and reinforcement can 
last, the energy with which he can return to the assault, 
the consoUdation of the new line effected during the interval, 
these are the factors upon wliich the next phase of the battle 
will repose, upon which alone a judgment of it could be 
based, and of which we are necessarily ignorant. By the 
time these lines are in the hands of the pubUc — four days 
after they are written — most or all of these questions may 
have been answered by the event. 
Summary of Results 
We are now in a position to sum up the great two days' 
action and to estimate the situation upon the third day, 
the Saturday, when the enemy admitted his losses and 
spoke of the f^rst phase of the battle as ended. 
The original front line had run, as will be seen upon the 
sketch map i, from Cherisy to Vendeuil, as follows ; 
Passing just behind Cherisy and through the outer ruins 
of Fontaine, it covered BuUecourt with a shallow salient, 
passed rather less than half-way between Noreuil and Oueant., 
formed another slight salient beyond Lagnicourt, covered 
the ruins of Boursies, with Louverval hamlet and chateau 
behind them, and from this point on the Bapaume high road 
began what is called the Cambrai salient. This salient just 
covered Flesquieres and Ribecourt, climbed to the summits 
of the La Vacqiierie heights, which the British call "Welsh 
Ridge" ; left the ruins of La Vacquerie hamlet in the hands 
of the enemy or in No Man's Land ; bent back to pass half- 
way between Gouzeaucourt and Gonnelieu, and tenninated 
about half-way between Epehy and Honnecourt ; thence 
the line ran eastward to the neighbourhood of Vendhuille, 
and then roughly southward to the point half-way between 
Pontru and Pontruet, where begins the section immediately 
north of St. Ouefitin just described. South of St. Quentin 
the line, running only just outside the suburbs of that town, 
just missed the ruins of Gauchy, covered those of Urvillers, 
ran through those of Moy, and so through those of Vendeuil 
to the Oise near La F^re. When the new line was estab- 
lished by Saturday morning its trace, though if can only be 
given approximately (for parts of it were still fluctuating) 
would seem to have uncovered Croi>illes ; but still to cover 
the height of St. Leger to have run behind Vraucourt and 
Vaulx, through the neighbourhood of Bertincourt towards 
Fins ; thence nearly due south behind Hancourt, and, 
probably after some deflection westward, south-eastward 
again towards the junction of the Somme and the Crozat 
Canal. Its last section would seem to have followed the 
canal, as I have said, along the heights of the western bank. 
In mere measurement of ground — for what that is worth — 
this gives a maximum depth of nearly nine miles just where 
we should have expected it behind Holnon ; another depth 
of perliaps over six miles behind the Cambrai salient, and 
an average width of perhaps some three filing down to nothing 
in the north, in the Scarpe Valley ; the whole movement 
being, as we have seen, a pivotting b^ck upon the fixed 
northern extremity of this long front. 
Such are the results upon the map of the action up to the 
moment of writing. We have no further news save that 
no change was to be reported on the Sunday morning, but 
that during the night between Saturday and Sunday the 
enemv had begun to renew his vigorous efforts, concentrating 
especially upon the high ground covering Peronne. 
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The daily Press, which has the advantage of following 
every stage in the action more closely than can be hoped 
for in this weekly paper, has everywhere enjoined the same 
duty. It is an obvious one, and too much repetition of it 
would be tedious or futile. 
The moment in which these lines are. written is clearly 
the most critical for this country and for the whole AUiance ' 
since the mastership of Foch in open manoeuvre decided 
44 months ago the Battle of the Marne. The fresh and 
eager mood in which the civihan public could then meet 
the perils of the war has necessarily disappeared under the 
long strain ; the full measure of the national danger is appre- 
ciated, as it 'certainly was not in 1914 ; and, meanwhile, the 
whole face of the Alliance has cfianged. The war, which 
was for more than 2\ years a great and calculable siege, 
became, through the dissolution of the Russian State, a duel, 
and a duel in which until the force of the United States could 
