Land & Water 
June 13, 1918 
been exactly the same. A broken front : A rapid advance 
through the gap straight ahead : The rushing up of Alhed 
troops to stop the movement upon either side, tlius pro- 
ducing the triangle : Violent efforts by the enemy to enlarge 
himself, wlflch result in the pusliing back of one of the corners 
at the base of the triangle. At the end of the affair stabil- 
isation. 
In each case there have been very vigorous efforts made 
after stabilisation upon the part of the enemy to drive back 
one side of the triangle, or both. In thi^ last great business 
all the weight of the enemy has been put into trying to push 
back the Western side of the salient he has, created. It is 
in this effort he has lost most men, and it is here that the re- 
action agciinst him has been most violent and successful. 
It is important for an understanding of the battle to appre- 
ciate that the enemy has not, especially in the last of these 
three efforts, a pre-determined plan. That was a point which 
we insisted upon last week. The more he came to see that 
his new tactical method gave him the power to break a front, 
the more he trusted to merely breaking the chosen sector, 
and then following such fortunes as very rapid advance 
through the breach might give him. 
Thus it is perfectly clear that he intended, if possible, to 
force the obstacle of the Mame, and that only on the failure 
to do so did he put'his full weight against the West. The idea 
that he went up as far as the Mame, and then dehberately 
used it like the Oise in a former case as a flank guard for an 
advance west, will not hold water. .He made the most de- 
termined efforts on June ist, June 2nd, and June 3rd, to 
cross the river, and was fairly beaten. What is true in regard 
to the whole great business from April 4th onwards, is that 
he has a general thesis before him of reducing the Allied 
Armies by repeated blows all along the line, but of a particu- 
lar strategic conception following after each success in creat- 
ing a rupture of the Allied line there is no trace. There is no 
reason from his point of view why he should draw up any 
such particular plans. The great achievement is to break 
an organised froni. That done, the fortunes of the masses 
pouring through afterwards must necessarily be left to develop- 
ments upon the field. 
If we follow in detail all round the new salient the gradually 
increasing counter pressure of the AlUes from Monday, 
June 3rd, to Saturday, June 8th, inclusive, we shall discover 
that upon Tuesday, June 41)1, came the lull or check to the 
enemy's general advance, which was followed by either his 
being held in most places, or actually pushed back. Tuesday,' 
June 4th, was the end of the first great phase. It was after 
this date, Tuesday, June 4th, that he haei to make up his mind 
whether he would pursue his advantage by throwing in fur- 
ther forces beyond the fifty divisions already used, or limit 
himself to the lines he had already established- and use his 
dispensible margin elsewhere. He has decided, as we have 
seen, for the sccoikI policy, a 
between Montdidier and Noydn. 
On Monday, June 3rd, his 
Marne had failed, as we shall 
id has launched a fourth blow 
second attempt to cross the 
see in a later description of it. 
It was the attempt of Jaulgo ine, following upon the failure 
of the previous day at Chateau-Thierry. But on that day 
he had taken the dominating hill just west of Chateau- 
Thierry, which was so conspicuous an object above the valley 
of the Marne, and which is known to the French soldiers as 
Hill 204. He had pushed on past Monthiers to the vaUey of 
the Chgnon Stream, in which lie Torcy and Bouresches. 
He had thrown the French back to the heights on the South 
of the Valley, and had got right forward to Veuilly La Poterie, 
in his furthest extension westward. At the same time he had 
enlarged his corner at Soissons, got right up on to the hills 
which dominate the town from the West, taken Chaudun, 
and approached the Villers Cotterets Forest, which is the 
great obstacle against him in this neighbourhood. During 
all that Monday the French just held him at Faverolles and, 
on the extreme north near Noyon, recovered the wooded hill 
called Choisy, which overlooks the crossing of the Oise. 
Taking it all in all, this Monday, June 3rd, was a rapid 
and successful extension of the German effort westward, but 
was also the end of the first phase in the battle. For on 
June 4th, Tuesday, the re-action began to tell. A lull was 
noticed in the German infant rj' efforts, and with Wednesday, 
the 5th, everything changed. The offensive was halted and 
the enemy was beginning his plans for the new attack on 
the other side of the Noyon corner. The delay was precisely 
that of last April. In that month he broke, on the 4th, against 
the reorganised defence. He struck before Lille on the 
9th, the same dates as mark this smaller June battle. 
There was on that day a very violent etiemy effort to cross 
the Oise just south of Noyon, but the French recovery of 
the Choisy Hill 48 hours before ^caused that effort to fail 
at some expense. The French re-acted and gained a certain 
amount of ground north of the Aisne, and the last enemy 
thrust into the edge of the Forest of Villers-Cotterets failed. 
The edges of the wood were occupied for a moment, but 
afterwards completely cleared. 
The enemy further marked the end of the first phase 
by summing up, as has been his habit after each of these 
great efforts of his, the toll in prisoners and guns. He claimed 
55,000 prisoners and 650 pieces. 
On Thursday the 6th, the Allied re-action became more 
marked, or the enemy cessation more clear, whichever way 
one cares to put it. On the east of the salient, Bligny village, 
which the enemy had carried, was partly re-occupied by the 
British, and the enemy attempt against Champlat' was 
completely broken, while the French on the other side of the 
salient, that is on the west, advanced their line nearly 1000 
yards, in the neighbourhood of Veuilly La Poterie. 
On Friday the 7th, the full weight of the re-action appeared. 
Bligny was entirely re-occupied ; the French advanced 
right past Veuilly La Poterie ; American forces to their 
right got up to Torcy, and, mixed with the French, as far 
as and even beyond Bouresches. Most important of all, 
the great dominating hill known as Hill 204 above Chateau- 
Thierry, was recovered by the French upon that dav. On 
the 8th, Saturday, a further French advance from Veuilly 
La Poterie reached Eloup. 
The position upon the evening of that day, Saturday. 
