Land & Water 
August I, 19 1 8 
under Mangin. their line continued by the Amencans upon 
the south, struck suddenly and unexpectedly right behind 
the Marne crossings of the Germans. They struck from 
Cutry southwards towards Chateau-Thierry upon a front of 
20 miles, effected a complete surprise, and reversed the 
whole strategic position. 
Every German division west of Rheims was immcdiatelv 
thrown from the offensive to the defensive. The whole 
situation of that \-ast body of men west of Rheims— already 
more than 300,000 strong, and destined to grow rapidly as 
reinforcements were sent for — was now one of peril. 
They were not, indeed, condemned to decisive defeat. 
'Hieir 'communications were not cut. The issue by which 
they might retire was v,erv broad. They could even, if tlicy 
chose, hang on to their existing lines, or, at least, retire but 
slowly as long as they could pay the price in murderous 
counter-attacks. But the great German offensive was 
ruined at a blow. 
The tedium of so many years during which expectation 
had been disappointed ; the'enormous re,sults of the Russian 
collapse ; the heavv defeats of last autumn and spring, 
still mask from men the nature of the change which has 
taken place. No one can call that change final because no 
one can foretell the future ; but every one ought at least 
to see the change. It is as though in a wrestling match a 
man who had been made to touch ground with one shoulder 
and neariy to touch with the other, suddenly by an unex- 
pected movement put himself above his opponent and began 
to press him, in his turn, back down upon the earth. 
We have been told that the enemy can recover the initia- 
tive ; that he has sufficient forces for a great new offensive 
movement, and that he will attempt it. That he may 
attempt it is possible enough ; that he has forces for an 
offensive movement left is true ; that accident may give 
him some unexpected success and restore the initiative to 
him is just conceivable — for nearly all things are conceivable 
in war. 
Ml But let us at least appreciate the actual situation. Of 
more than 200 divisions which the enemy has upon the West, 
count, roughly, 100 as free for these great offensive opera- 
tions. Nearer 70 than 60 have been dragged into the vortex 
of the present astonishing battle with its first great bid for 
success, the complete breakdown of that effort, and the 
succeeding laborious and exceedingly painful staving off of 
defeat. There are some 30 fresh divisions in the north 
under the command of the Bavarian Prince, apart from those 
which have already been borrowed from him to save the 
Tardenois and to back up the shattered line east of Rheims. 
Those 30 divisions can act — indeed, they were equivalent 
to what was put aside for the Matz and for the Lys. But 
they cannot act upon the scale of St. Quentin, with its 60 
divisions, or of this last tremendous and now happily broken 
effort between Chateau-Thierry and the Argonne. And, 
meanwhile, the form of the battle (unless some unexpected 
diversion appears) is moulded more and more by Foch, and 
less and less by Ludendorff. Now, to mould the form of 
the battle is the very definition of the initiative ; and with 
every week that passes another bulk of this new trained 
American soldiery, the tactical quality of which has proved 
so high, appears in the line. 
That is the situation. It is, I repeat, to the date of writing, 
the greatest transformation we have seen since the first 
battle of the Marne four years ago. . It is like the turning 
inside out of a glove. 
Defence of the Tardenois 
The best practical test of what a change has come upon 
the war is the actual story of the enemy's congested and 
perilous defence during the last eleven days in the Tardenois. 
The Tardenois is the local name for the countryside over 
which stretches that bulge or salient created by the German 
advance at the end of last May. It is a pocket which has for 
its base the line of the Vesle River ; at its southernmost 
extremity the Marne, and on its contour the towns of Soissons, 
Chateau-Thierry, Dormans, and Rheims. 
In that bulge the enemy had accumulated for his great 
offensive of a fortnight ago vast stores of material and (count- 
ing the forces watching the Western side between Soissons 
and Chateau-Thierry) well over 30 divisions of men ; that is, 
more than a quarter of a miUion infantry alone. What the 
total number of men in that congested area may have 
been we can guess from the enormous auxiliary force 
required in transport and in artillery for the great effort of 
July 15th. 
So long as his work was offensive, designed for a crossing 
of the Marne, and for a violent and successful jnish forward 
and southward, the crowding (^ such a force into such an 
area, though difficult, was a matter feasible enough. The 
roads from north to south and the railways which served the 
host had a task simple and straightforward, though onerous. 
Great supplies were accumulated at such points as Ville and 
Kere immediately behind the front of attack ; nothing had 
to be organised save for a forward movement. The regular 
supply of material from north to south was not complicated, 
though it was heavy. The return of empty wagons and 
lorries northward and the evacuation of the wounded north- 
ward was no excessive strain. 
But this offensive movement, spreading outwards, was 
suddenly and unexpectedly turned into a defensive one, 
crushed inwards, and at the same time the means of communica- / 
tion were as suddenly diminished enormously. The railway 
was cut by the French, who had at a bound reached the 
neighbouriiood of Soissons and. dominated the junction just 
outside that town. The best roads, all of which converged 
upon two main points, Ville and Fere, were now under the 
fire of an advancing enemy ; and these roads had to supply 
not only the forces now with difficulty defending the salient, 
but the evacuation of a vast mass of material which it was 
attempting to save, the retirement of guns, and the advance 
iij a counter-stream of hurriedly summoned reinforcement 
which alone could prevent disaster. The main road from 
Soissons to Chateau-Thierry was lost. Everything depended 
upon local ways over hilly and wooded country. 
Under these circumstances it is explicable enough that 
the enemy should have gone through no less than four con- 
fused and contradictory stages of policy in the short space ■ 
of eleven days. The no\v manifest succession of such orders 
is the best proof of the revolution in the strategic situation 
created by the counter-stroke of July i8th. 
Let us examine those four stages in their order : 
The first stage was one of great hesitation, a sort of un- 
willingness to retire, wliicli would seem ample proof of dis- 
cussion at headquarters. The French were on the Hill of 
Paris above Soissons at half-past ten in the morning of Thurs- 
day, July i8th, and their first guns must have been trained 
on the vital railway junction below somewhere about noon. 
At that moment there were quite 106,000 men across the 
Marne fighting to extend the bridge-head. There was no 
reason why, seeing the imminence of the peril, the prepara- 
tions for retiring those 100,000 men should not have begun the 
moment the news was known, and the actual retirement 
proceeded during the Thursday night. As a matter of 
fact, it was postponed to Friday. Twenty-four hours were 
lost. In those twenty-four hours the Soissons-Chateau- 
Thierry road was approached. That would have meant the 
loss of Chateau-Tliierry to the Germans, the confining of 
their retreat to a few worse roads, and a much greater con-, 
gestion of men and of material, targets on the outskirts at 
least, for the AUied artillery. The losses in the eight divi- 
sions which had crossed the- Marne were exceedingly heavy, 
in any case, but they must have been severely increased by 
this hesitation of a whole day. It is difficult to see any 
explanation of such a pa,use save debate between those who 
could not bear the disappointment of abandoning the offen- 
sive and those who with a better instinct for war were for 
immediately cutting the loss. There was no need to build 
extra bridges. If the bridges were sufficient for supply they 
were sufficient for retirement. There was no special pressure 
upon this southern front before which it was difficult to fall 
back. On the contrary, it was the whole object of the 
I""rench to keep the Germans as far south as possible for as 
long as possible. Nothing can explain the delay but con- 
fusion in the enemy Higher Command, not to be wondered 
at when one thinks of,, the scale upon which this last great 
offensive has been staged and what its ruin would mean, 
certainly politically and possibly strategically as well. 
Then comes the second stage. After the determination to 
retire has once been arrived at, it is tlioroughly carried out. 
The enemy falls badk methodically ; he gives up Chateau- 
Thierry and a great belt of country behind it. He holds 
strongly the wide mouth of the pocket ; he can be seen 
destroying material in the belt he is determined to abandon, 
and he wthdraws his artillery, especially his heavy pieces, 
as the Allies discover by the lessening of the volume of fire. 
So far, so good. That is a normal proceeding which one 
would expect from the situation. The saHent he held was 
very wide. Though much of it was under fire, there were 
avenues of retirement open. The principal road junction 
of Fere was still at some ten thousand yards range from the 
nearest French or American gun, and meanwhile he had 
called in certain fresh divisions to hold his opponent off the 
flanks while his centre fell back. 
Little more than twenty-four hours after follows a third 
phase, which indicates further confusion in the enemy's 
councils. To see if this be true, let us notice the conditions : 
