July I 8, 1918 
Land & Water 
The Second Battle of the Marne: By H. Belloc 
AFTER a misty night, a little before five o'clock 
in the morning, on last Monday, July 15th, the 
German armies attacked upon a front equivalent 
to that upon which the great oftensive opened 
four months ago. The total length of this front 
was fifty-five miles, and was therefore slightly in excess of 
the front between the Scarpe and the Oise upon which the 
first great attack was delivered, but as the sector of Rheims 
itself was left untouched the actual front engaged was no 
longer on this second occasion than on the first. 
How many divisions have been engaged by the enemy is 
as yet uncertain. These lines are written as we go to press, 
when only the first dispatch has come in, and by the time 
they are in my readers' hands far more will be known than 
can even be guessed now, but upon the surface of things it 
would appear that the operation is of the same sort as the other 
phases of the main enemy offensive of igi8, conducted with 
the same weight of men per mile, with the same tactic, and 
with the same general objective, which, since the failure to 
separate the two armies four months ago, has been first and 
primarily to disintegrate a hitherto numerically inferior 
allied offensive, and secondly, to menace Paris ; with the 
expected political result of bringing theFrench, at last.toterms. 
The front of the attack stretched from Massiges in the 
heart of Champagne upon the east, to Chateau Thierry upon 
the west, and had, therefore, for its geographical centre, the 
town of Rheims itself. 
But we must appreciate the nature of the ground. 
It is very clearlv divided into two districts, of which 
Rheims is the point of junction. That half which lies to 
the east of Rheims runs over open country, wide rolling 
fields, with no steep banks of any kind, much of it, especially 
as one goes eastward, too poor for cultivation and affording 
no obstacles of any kind, save a few small plantations of firs. 
There are no rivers that could opp<jse even a momentary 
check, and no hills worthy of the name. 
On the other hand, the greater part of this eastern limb 
is the highly-organised ground of two great former battles 
conducted offensively by the French. It is thoroughly 
supplied with railways and communications of every 
kind, and has been minutely studied for four years. 
While the defensive has the disadvantage of enjoying 
no natural obstacles, it has the advantage of fairly good 
observation, but that advantage is shared by the enemy, 
for superiority in the air does not ever mean — at any rate, 
not yet — the blinding of the enemy. He can always put 
over enough to observe. 
The second or wo'^tern limb, from Rheims to Chateau 
Thierry, is of a totally different nature. The first point we 
note with regard to it is its highly-wooded character. You 
can walk from Chateau Thierry to Rheims and spend more 
than half your time in the depths of great woods and forests, 
the chief of which is that vast forest of Rheims, which covers 
a group of hills to be mentioned later. Everywhere along 
the battle front, from Rheims to Chateau Thierry, you find 
t^ese woods present. The gaps between them are the oppor- 
tunities for an enemy's advance, but the woods themselves 
are formidable obstacles. The last eleven miles, however, 
from a little above Dormans to Chateau Thierry itself, he 
right upon the Marne river, the Germans everywhere occupy- 
ing the right bank of the hills overlooking it. The ground 
of this western limb is exceedingly hilly, with sharp escarp- 
ments on the southern side, that is, on the side looking 
towards the alHed positions. You have there slopes as steep 
as Boxhill, or the fall of the Cotswold on to the vale of the 
Severn, and in height varying from'3,000 to 5,000 feet above 
the water level. | 
During this last eleven miles, therefore, the enemy com- 
pletelj' dominates the Marne, where a serious effort could 
effect crossings anywhere, and has, as we know, effected 
them at the very outset of his attack. It is in this sector 
that the main weight of his effort will fall if he is indeed now 
making an attack upon the same scale — that is, a main 
attack — as that of four months ago. This is the door which 
he has best chances of forcing. By the last accounts before 
going to press, he had here estabhshed beyond the river an 
advance of from 3,000 to 5,000 yards. It will be his obvious 
policy- — always supposing that he is making his main effort 
— to enlarge that advantage and to break through, if possible, 
in this region. ' 
But we must examine the ultimate effects of such a poHcy. 
In the very centre of the front engaged, behind the town 
of Rheims, there stands above the Marne a great hill-mass 
covered with wood, which is called "The Mountain and Forest 
of Rheims." It is a sort of pillar upon which the defence- 
can rest, flanking the western line to the right and the eastern 
to the left. It plays much the same role in the front at 
present attacked as did the hill group of Lassigny in the front 
attacked a month ago, when was fought what we call the 
battle of the Matz. It will be remembered that in the case 
of the Lassigny hills it proved impossible for the enemy 
to take them by direct attack, but he mastered them through 
a flank move down the Matz valley. But it will be also 
remembered that after this flank move had succeeded in 
capturing the hills, the battle concluded in favour of the 
defence. The enemy could get no further, and suffered a 
serious counter-blow on the fourth day of the action, which 
compelled him to the long pause of a month which has' just 
closed. 
In connection with this it is worthy of remark that the 
length of time which has elapsed since the enemy's defeat 
upon June 12th is almost exactly the same as the length 
of time* which was allowed to elapse between his defeat of 
April 29th in Flanders and the resumption of his attack 
on the Chemin des Dames at the end of May. It is this, 
among other indications, which lends colour to the idea that 
the present battle is his main effort. 
If it is his main effort, he is attacking, we presume, with 
about sixty divisions ; that would be the figure correspond- 
ing to the front engaged, as measured by the other actions 
he has fought during this season. 
Should he succeed in enlarging the positions he has occu- 
pied south of the Marne between Chateau Thierry and 
Dormans, the following situation arises. First, he begins 
to turn the Mountain of Rheims. Secondly, he increases to 
danger point the narrowness of the Rheims salient held by 
the Allies and would compel its evacuation. Thirdly, he 
more nearly approaches Paris. But all these points are quite 
subsidiary to the main point, which is the breaking, if possible, 
of the allied resistance in the place where he puts in his 
chief effort. That is his object here, exactly as was his 
object of April 4th south-east of Amiens, of April 29th west 
of Ypres, of June gth against Bessons-sur-Matz, and of every 
other stroke of the last four m6nths, small and great. 
It is, unfortunately, customary in the Press to discuss the 
chances of such an action even in its first phases, the natural 
anxiety attached to them has bred this habit. I must 
repeat to-day what has always been said in these columns, 
that such a habit is unreasonable. We have not the elements 
for a judgment. We do not know with what forces the 
enemy is attacking. Still less do we know (nor, happily, 
he either) the dispositions of the defence. The most impor- 
tant point, perhaps, is the depth of organisation upon which 
the defensive is relying. It is clear from all the actions of 
OLdGerman line 1 
