June 13, 191 8 
Land & Water 
Battle of the Matz: By Hilaire Belloc 
ON Sunday morning, June 9th, at 4.30 a.m., the 
fourth attack of the great German offensive was 
launched upon a front of 22 miles between 
Montdidier and Noyon. The' action was com- 
plementary to that which had broken the front 
between Soissons and Rheims, and was intended, so far as 
mere ground is concerned, to eliminate the salient of Noyon, 
but much more to continue the general task of destroj'ing 
the Allied front and diminishing it to the point of decisive 
inferiority in numbers of men and material. 
In the course of this first day the battle developed not as 
in the case of Armentieres and Soissons, by a clean break, but 
on the model of the first thrust of March 21st, in the shape of 
very stubborn resistance by the defenders and correspondingly 
exaggerated loss for the attack. 
In order to understand the nature of the line and of the 
attempt to force it, we must study the ground and especially 
observe its main feature, which is the mass of wooded hills 
known as the Heights of Lassigny, the turning and conse- 
quent evacuation of which will be the immediate purpose 
of the enemy. 
The line from Montdidier to Noyon is divided into two 
almost equal halves by the valley of a Uttle river called the 
Matz. On the west or left of this stream there is a sector 
about 10 or ir miles long nmning up from the neighbourhood 
of the village called Haut Matz to Mesnil St. George, opposite 
Montdidier. This sector runs through open country with 
no very pronounced heights on rolling fields or arable land 
and a very few small woods. ' 
The other, or western, sector, from the Matz to the neigh- 
bourhood of Noyon, is sUghtly shorter — not quite 10 miles — 
and of a totally different character. It consists in a great 
body of high land rising to nearly 600 feet above the sea 
and 400 above the water levels, known, as I have said, as the 
Hills of Lassigny, from the little town now in German hands 
which lies to the north. These hills are everywhere wooded, 
especially upon their northern slopes looking towards the 
enemy, and they form a strong defensive position. Through- 
out much the greater part of their length they form one 
united ridge, which gets Higher as one goes from east to west ; 
but at their extreme western end, near the Matz Valley, they 
break off into an isolated lump covered with wood about 
100 feet below the neighbouring summit of the Lassigny 
Hills, and separated from them by a sharply marked valley 
150 feet in depth. At the mouth of this valley is the village 
of Gury. At the far or southern end of the lump, where it 
falls down on to the Matz, is the large village of Ressons. 
As is clear from the map, a successful thrust not only up to 
Ressons, but right round down the valley of the Matz 
would turn all the obstacle of the Lassigny Hills. It 
would give the enemy Bellinglise Plateau and Thiescourt 
Wood and possession of the chief natural obstacle be- 
tween him and the Oise. 
Position on Sunday 
When night fell, upon Sunday, what had happened upon 
the line as a whole was this : 
All the main positions of the first sector down to the neigh- 
bourhood of the Matz were held, which everywhere stood 
the shock. But in the centre, along the valley of the Matz 
itself, the enemy had got as far as Ressons, and had therefore 
begun to turn the heights of Lassigny. His direct attack 
upon those heights had led to nothing. He was held all 
round the southern base of them from Ville to Belval. He 
had got Gury and the isolated heights above it. The danger- 
point, therefore, at this moment, was his thrust up the valley 
of the Matz and his appearance at Ressons. 
It is worthy of remark that in this the fourth of the blows 
delivered by the Germans for a decision upon the Western 
front, the element of surprise, which he has certainly found 
himself capable of restoring to war, was hardly present. 
There was a very strong contrast here between the attack 
of May 27th and that of June gth. The attack of May 27th 
between Soissons and Rheims used the factor of surprise 
more completely than any other attack in the course of the 
whole war in the West. Seven divisions— four, at least, of 
which were fatigued — found themselves opposed to 25 at a 
' moment's notice, and it is clear from the further development 
of the battle that such a blow upon this sector was not 
expected. But the Noyon-Montdidier frdnt was, after the 
battle of the Tardenois, so obviously the front that would 
give the best results that even the prophets, who for some 
inscrutable reason stiU cpntinue to prophesy, had remarked it. 
It is clear that the enemy deliberately sacrificed the advan- 
tage of surprise to the greater advantage of the results that 
would be reaped by success upon this hne. 
There is at the moment of writing — that is, upon the 
dispatches of Sunday night and Monday morning, when the 
battle had been in progress only 30 hours — no criterion at aU 
of the two main points upon which a judgment of results 
would be formed, the extent of the pressure in the Matz 
Valley, and the comparative rate of losses of offence and 
defence along the whole 22 miles. We have not yet even 
an estimate of the numbers of the attacking -force in the 
first shock {see postscript on page 7). 
The Tardenois Battle , 
On the Tardenois battlefield the characteristic of the week 
has been the temporary stabiUsation of the new front by the 
German success in the department of the Aisne : That is, 
the front running from Noyon to the west of Soissons, so 
round to the Mame at Chateau-Thierry, up that river beyond 
Dormans to near Verneuil and then up from Vemeuil round 
Rheims : a perimeter of altogether about 90 miles without 
counting smaller sinuosities. 
This stabiUsation of the front means bringing up Allied 
forces in sufficient amount to counter enemy pressure. It 
does not mean that the Allied forces thus brought up are 
equivalent to the 50 German divisions within the great 
salient Soissons-Chateau-Thierry-Rheims. There would be 
no meaning in countering an offensive thrust by a weight 
equal to that thrust. What it means is that from 
the eighth day of the offensive onwards the advance was 
held. In other words there has taken place here exactly 
what took place on a larger scale after the stroke of March 
22nd, between Arras and St. Quentin, and after the second 
attack on April 9th, between La Bass^e and Armentieres. 
As one might expect, this third great German effort 
has features closely comparable to the other two. For 
instance, the first great German thrust, running its course 
in about ten days, was held upon a triangle, the two comers 
of the base of which were strongly defended at Arras and 
between St. Quentin and Noyon, but one of these comers 
by vigorous effort was enlarged down to Noyon. In the 
same way the second thmst, which was on a smaller scale, 
produced a triangular sahent of almost exactly the same 
shape, firmly held at the La Bassee comer, but enlarged 
at the Armentieres comer. This last has produced its triangle 
firmly held at the Rheims comer but enlarged at the Soissons 
comer. The plan and its development have in each case 
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