July iH, 1918 
Land & Water 
is the high Malakastra Ridge, and behind it the natural base 
for all that district, Berat. So long as the Austrians were 
upon the Vojusa and the Malakastra behind that stream, 
with Berat for headquarters, Valona was unsafe. Circum- 
stances have compelled the toleration of such a peril for more 
than two years. The present operation was designed to 
remove that peril, and has removed it. 
French Attack on the Avre 
The only other local movement of importance of which 
we have received news during the week is that undertaken 
bv the French upon the morning of Wednesday, July loth. 
and terminated early upon the same day. Strictly limited 
as was the front and the objective, it is worth studying as 
a typical e.Kample of these ceaseless Allied attacks upon the 
German line, all of which have been successful for many 
weeks past, and each of which has the triple object of obtain- 
ing; information, compelling the enemy to garnish his line, 
and depriving him of some local advantage either of obser- 
vation or of 'jumping oft place." The sector upon which 
the I'r'^nch attacked in this case was that of Moreuil, a few 
n1) :£ north of Montdidier. Let me explain the situation 
The little River Avre runs from Montdidier north-west- 
watd, is joined at Boves by the River Noye, and falls into 
the Soir.me just above Amiens. Its valley is followed by 
a bca! railway now quite out of use, but its lower reaches 
?nd nearlv allthe course of the Noye is followed by the great 
n ain line leading north from Paris. 
The last great German attack in this quarter, that of 
April 4th, was designed to (Jo two things, a lesser and a larger 
thing. The lesser thing was to force the plateau between 
the Avre'^nd the Noye, known from the principal place 
upon it as the Plateau of Rouvrel, come down the far side, 
and cut the main line in the valley of the Noye. 
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The larger object was no less than the turning of Amiens 
by the south, that is, the crossing of the N«ye valley and the 
pushing on westward a day's march. There was no reason 
why both objects, the lesser and the greater, should not have 
been obtained if the French front had broken. As a fact^, 
all that the Germans effected on that day which was so 
terribly costly to them in numbers, and which put an end 
to the first great battle of the offensive, was to cross the 
Avre and to push up the slopes of the plateau, leaving the 
French in possession of the watershed, but depriving them of 
the eastern escarpment overlooking the Avre. 
The French Objective 
The loss of this eastern escarpment involved two things : 
First, the loss of observation posts over the' Avre valley, a 
great advantage t(j the enemy in his further attacks against 
the plateau, and secondly, the presence of valleys leading up 
to the plateau like saps against a fortification, most of which 
were valleys, after the attack, in German hands. Such a 
valley runs up, for instance, from Castel, and two others on 
cither side of Moris(;l opposite Moreuil. The object of the 
French move of July loth was to recover these observation 
posts and to recover also their hold upon the valleys. There 
was a very short, though intense, artillery preparation of 
half an hour, beginning at half-past seven, and extending 
from the point where the Luce brook joins the Avre to the 
neighbourhood of Mailly, a distance of just under 8,000 
yards, or rather less than five miles. The most serious obstacle 
was the group of little woods in the centre. The infantry 
moved at eight o'clock ; by half-past ten the affair was over. 
All the objectives were reached. The observation posts on 
the crest of the escarpment (rather more than 200 feet above 
the water level of the valley) and the valleys between them 
were in French hands, with rather over 500 prisoners. At one 
point it looks as though the FVench troops had been per- 
mitted to go somewhat beyond their original objective. 
For on the left centre of the line, the advance went down the 
slope of the escarpment, overran the whole of the ruins of 
Castel village, and apparently established a small bridgehead 
on the other side of the valley near the railway : but on 
this point I am not certain. The attack had another advan- 
tage, which was to deprive the enemy of views southward 
which he commanded from the edge of the escarpment, as 
well as to give the French observation eastward over the 
Avre valley. 
The Murman Expedition 
In the course of the week permission has been given to 
mention the presence of allied troops in support of the 
National Party at Kola Bay. 
Though the geographical position is very simple, there is 
some danger of its being misunderstood in the midst of all 
the recent discussion upon intervention in 'Russia to which 
I allude elsewhere. The support of the victorious National 
Party in the small settlement at the head of Kola Bay is 
principally concerned not with a political but with a mari- 
time and military policy. 
The position is this : The White Sea 
with its port at Archangel and the Murman coast far to the 
west, is ice-bound during many months of the year. On the 
same latitude upon the coast of Norway you have open water 
all the year round because that coast is swept by the warm 
current coming up from the south. This warm current 
curls round the North Cape, is carried by its momentum 
somewhat past this projection and down towards the Murman 
coast. But shortly after passing Kola Bay, which lies just 
west of the boundary between Norway and Russia, the warm 
water turns up northward, so that everything to the east 
of it is frozen in winter. After discussing the matter for more 
than a generation (he Russian Government was persuaded 
in the course of the war to construct hurriedly and somewhat 
imperfectly a single line from the capital to this deep ice-free 
bay on the Murman coast. If such terms as frontiers 
meant anything in the chaos of Russia, it is remarkable 
that the Finnish frontier runs close to this new line, 
which, therefore, might be occupied at any moment. 
There is no point in reaching and oCtupying the line 
unless Kola Bay can be seized. Happily for the allied 
cause, the National Party in the newly sprung up port estab- 
lished upon Kola Bay defeated the Anarchists (or Bolsheviks 
as they are called), and received the allied troops. It is 
conceivable that in some later phase of the war such a point 
of departure from the sea, open all the year round, would be 
of advantage in supplying any reaction which may raise the 
Russian nation again against its conquerors. 
