June 13, 19 1 8 
Land & Water 
June 8th, the 13th day of the battle, the fourth of the Allied 
re-action, and the eve of .the new attack along the Matz, 
north of Paris, was, running from north on the Oise near 
Noyon southward to the Marne, near Chateau-Thierry and 
then up north to Rheims, as follows : — 
An attempt to enlarge the corner near Noyon by crossing 
the Oise cast of Sempigny had failed. The dominating 
hill of Choisy overlooking the Oise Valley had been recovered 
by the French. The line thence ran in front of Moulin- 
sous-Tousvent to the Aisne at Port, just west of Fontenoy. 
It crosses the high table-land to the corner of the forest of 
Villers Cotterets, of which it forbade the entrance, ran down 
along the ravine of the Savieres all along the edge of the forest 
past Longpont and Corey, covering Faverolles and Troesnes 
where the Savieres joins the Ourcq. Thence it turned a' 
corner, recapturing the valley 'marked by the villages, Eloup, 
Torcy, Boureschcs, coming to the Marne at the recently 
conquered Hill 204 above Chateau-Thierry." It followed 
the Marne eastward for a distance of about 12 or 14 miles 
to Verneuil, going past the point of Jaulgonne where the 
second attempt to cross the river had failed five days before. 
At Verneuil the line went up east of the main road to Rheims, 
backward against the great forest and hill group known as 
the "Mountain of Rheims." It covered Champlat, against 
which the enemy's attack had broken with ver\' heavy loss, 
and, on the valley of the little river Ardre, it covered the domin- 
ating isolated promontory of Bligny, from which one over- 
looks all the Ardre valley, and the village below. Thence it 
carried on round Rheims, quite close to the town on every 
side, but still covering the ruins of that place. 
Nature of the Crisis 
THERE is some danger of public opinion misappre- 
hending the nature of the very grave crisis through 
which the Allied cause is now passing. I do not say 
that there is a danger of its gravity being under-estimated, 
but of its nature being misunderstood, with consequences 
that might lead either to an exaggeration of our danger, 
great as it is, or, what would be still more unwise, an under- 
estimate of it. It is essential now, as always, to get as 
e.xact a view as possible, and to be as much as possible in 
touch with reality. In order to do that, the very first thing 
for us to. appreciate is that the enemy's new tactics permit 
of surprise. 
How long this will be the case we do not know. We also 
may develop the element of surprise in some new form. All 
that is for the future. But for the moment the enemy has 
undoubtedly brought into the field this new factor. It has 
been reluctantly admitted, but now it must be admitted. 
The other thing which goes to make up our present strain is, 
of course, his numerical superiority. On that, I think, 
public opinion is quite clear, though perhaps its extent is not 
fully grasped. Monsieur Clemenceau spoke the other day 
publicly of an excess of 50 divisions. That was speaking in 
round numbers. There are probably upon the West to-day 
an excess of 46. But one can never be quite certain, because 
units on both sides are in movement, and there may still be 
some reinforcement for the enemy from the East. Since 
the enemy has presumably 206 divisions in the West, 
we are speaking, roughly, of his superiority over the Allies 
for the moment in a proportion of 25 per cent., the 
Allies are fighting in the proportion of rather more than 7 
against 10. 
But that is, I think, generally clear to the public mind. 
What it must also appreciate is this vital element of surprise. 
He used it fully on May 27th, the fore event in his last 
attack of Sunday, but he always has it ready. 
For the first j'ears of entrenched warfare after the Western 
line had become a siege hne in the late autumn of 1914, it 
was a commonplace that surprise was no longer possible. 
The concentration of great masses of men and material in 
amounts never before known, coupled with the wholly novel 
form of intelligence provided by aircraft, had eliminated 
this capital element of success. For years it reappeared 
upon neither side. 
In the East the enemy succeeded in piercing the Russian 
line at Gorlitz three years ago, not by surprise, but through 
his immense preponderance in material. He was highly 
industrialised, and the Russian State was not industrialised 
at all ; so that once the war was seen to require a vast 
mechanical output from modern factories the Central Empires 
could indefinitely out-weapon the Russians. 
But in the West, where industrial conditions grew more 
equal, there could be no such result ; each party attempting 
to break the line^ failed because it was never, possible to 
conceal concentration for attack. Neither the earlj' German 
effort on the Yser, and at Arras, and at Ypres, nor the succeed- 
ing French effort in the Artois, nor the twin blows at Loos 
and in Champagne of September, 1915, nor the tremendous 
attack on Verdun from February to July, 1916, nor the 
great Somme battle of the later summer, nor the spring 
offensives of 1917, French and English, nor the succeeding 
great British movement which bears the name of Passchen- 
daele succeeded in making a true breach by which rapid 
advance could pour through the opponent's lines, and (even 
though no decision was attained) could yet capture at one 
blow very great numbers of prisoners and guns, and compel 
a very deep^retirement. 
The first occasion on which a Western line was really 
broken in this sense was at Caporetto last autumn. Then 
came, as we know, the highly successful experiment with the 
tanks in front of Cambrai, but without the weight behind it 
to follow up. 
The enemy's new tactic of surprise — that is, of concentra- 
tion unobserved or not fully observed, or, at any rate, of 
massing very rapidly upon a particular point where there 
was an insufficient counter-concentration against him — 
appeared fully last March, and we then had a true breach in 
the Western line, which was only restored between 30 and 
40 miles back after an immense offensivfe salient had been 
produced with its front pointing at Amiens. The attempt to 
use the new tactic for the enlargement of this salient and for 
the breaking of one of its corners failed. But another use 
of.it on the north succeeded on the Lys, and produced the 
smaller pocket or salient east and south of Ypres. For 
both those enemy successes special causes could perhaps be 
discovered, but it was beginning to be clear that the element 
o^ surprise was the main feature. Now, since May 27th, on 
the front between Soissons and Rheims, it is clear to every 
one. 
We must bear that well in mind if we are to understand 
the position in the next few months. It is this new element 
of surprise that will have to be mastered and countered 
while the element of numbers is being slowly turned to our 
advantage by the increase of the American contingents. 
Comparative Losses 
There is, of course, another element, so far a very uncer- 
tain one, but ultimately determinant of the whole affair, 
which is the comparative rate of loss. I have already dealt 
with that as fully as the evidence admitted in the case of 
the first great offensive and in the case of the second battle 
that of the Lys. 
The third case, the battle of the Tardenois, is one upon 
which we have as yet hardly any evidence at all, but we 
must beware of estimating the difference between the losses 
of offence and defence at a projiortion as high as we could 
estimate it in.the former cases. It is clear first that the general 
attack succeeded almost at once and, secondly, that it was 
followed by so very rapid an advance as argued no immediate 
power of causing during that advance grave loss to theassailant. 
The numerous prisoners lost by the Allies are definitive 
losses, and meanwhile, in the first stages of the action the 
only places where there was apparently .serious excess of 
loss to the offensive were the two corners which held near 
Soissons and round Rheims. In the latter stages of the 
action it has been otherwise. The arrival of reinforcement, 
especially in machine-guns and artillery, the necessity under 
which the enemy was to attack in the open in order to defend 
and extend his flanks, the hampering of his communications 
after so rapid an advance, his use of perhaps 50 divisions, 
41 of which have been identified in the heat of the action—^ 
all these meant presumably, after the first four days, a higher 
and increasing rate of loss to the offensive as compared with 
the defensive. It is mere conjecture, but that is how the 
very slight evidence available shapes itself. 
As to the comparative rates of loss in the fourth attack, 
which is developing as we write, there is as yet (Monday^ 
June 10) no evidence at all. 
Another error against which we must guard ourselves 
is the error of false historical parallel, and in this case partic- 
ularly the false parallel of the Marne. 
Great errors have been committed by public opinion 
