Land & Water 
August H, 1918 
Retreat to the Vesle 
THIS week's issue dealing mainly as it does witli the 
fimrtli year. of the war, and coming in holiday week, 
both restricts the space available for a survey of 
current operations, and causes that sur\'ey to be belated. 
This page is written twenty-four hours earlier than usual, 
and is based upon the dispatches of Saturday, August 3rd. 
The great event of the week was the capture of Hill 205, 
above Kozoj', and of the oi)en land to the right and left of 
this position by I-Yench and I-tritish troops ujion Thursday, 
August 1st, coupled with the capture of Cierges at the bottom 
of tiie salient by the Americans twenty-four hours earlier. 
The seizing of Hill 205 was an excellent example of the way 
in which the initiative can work now that it has passed to the 
Allies ; and upon that capture followed, as a necessary result, 
the retirement of the enemy towards the Vesle and the 
re-entry of the Krench into Sois.sons. 
The enemy for no\v exactly a fortnight since the success 
of the counter-offensive of July iSth has been holding a 
series of positions, temporars' in each ease and successively 
abandoned. His retirement has been slow ; it has not been 
methodical ; it has been constrained. Having been forced 
f)ack to one set of positions, he has not, as some commentaries 
have suggested, defended himself there by rearguard actions 
while organising his further retirement : Such an operation 
could perfectly well have been conducted with the troops 
already present. What he has done has been to call in 
masses of new fresh troops, principally from the north, and 
thrown them into the already heavily congested salient, in 
the attempt for some reason or another to prolong the affair as 
much as possible, and never to retire until he was compelled. 
Why he has acted thus we cannot tell. A number of 
motives has been suggested ; the discussion has its academic 
interest, but it is not very practical. His' roads both for 
supply and for evacuation were insufificiciTt, and so congested 
that we have one authentic case of no less than eleven hours 
of block along the main road to Fismes. But then he only 
added to the congestion by sending for fresh troops. His 
losses have been continuous and heavy, the moral of his 
troops may have been shaken ; he nfay have feared the 
results of too precipitate a retreat. Upon the other hand, 
the moral of the troops opposed upon the covering front has 
been excellent ; they have fought vigorously and suffered 
very heavy losses without breaking. They have continually 
counter-attacked with success, and they have held on to the 
last. No one can read, for instance, the work of the Prussian 
Guards in their defeat by the Americans without seeing that 
this is true. 
It has been suggested tlmt the main reason for this singular 
policy of hanging on at so enormous an expense in men was 
political. That may be true, and probabl3' 's. But we must 
also remember that their Higher Command must have known 
that the whole fight was a losing fight and that ultimate 
retirement was inevitable. Another suggestion is that there 
was a conflict between political and military direction. That 
is perhaps the most probable solution of all. But the prac- 
tical point for us to note is that, whether this or that were 
the motive, the actual happening has been the forcing of 
the enemy back, in spite of himself, and his loss of positions ; 
not by a plan o* retreat to which we had to conform, but by 
a i)lan of defence which we compelled him step by' step to 
abandon. Each- phase in the retirement has been the direct 
and open consequence of a special Allied success, of the 
capture one after another of key points bv the Allies' in spite 
of the most desperate resistance. 
It is in this connection that the work of Thursda\- 
August 1st, may be seen in all its importance. By the' 
evenmg of Wednesday, July 31st, the gradual retirement of 
the enemy had put him in the following posftion : He held a 
high, bare plateau, about three hundred feet above water 
level, vvhi<h stands east of the steep ravine through which 
follows the brook called Crise. The Allies stood on the 
further western side of this ravine, which terminates in the 
neighbourhood of Soissons. So long as he held the plateau 
he covered Soissons on the south-eastern flank of that position 
and prevented our seeing further northwards towards the 
Vesle and the Aisne. This plateau merges at the sources of 
the Crise m high, bare, rolling country, which is the water-shed 
l)etween the Vesle and the (Jurcq. and therefore also between 
the basins o the Oise and the Marne. All along this water- 
shed he held the crest in such a fasiiion that the Allies were 
denied all chrert observation to the north. The roads by 
which he was supplied and by which he could retreat the 
roads to Braine, to Bazobhes, and to Fismes, the three river 
crossings, CDuld be observed from the air, but there was no 
direct observation from the ground. What he held further 
east matters less because on tliese western positions depended 
the whole hi his line. 
Now, Hill 203. just north of Kozoy, stands precisely at the 
place where the plateau beyond the Crise joins the main ' 
watershed. It is perfectly open country, and the lump is so 
situated that you have from it the following advahtages : 
F'irst, you enfilade the. Crise Valley ; next, you overlook the 
plateau beyond ; lastly, and most important, you look right 
down a gradual descent eastward and northward, which slope 
■carries all the roads of the retreat. You can see the Vesle 
Valley five or six miles away at its nearest point, and in clear 
• weather even the higher buildings of Fismes, twelve miles 
away. Great sections of the road northward are right under 
your gaze. It is an exceedingly important point ; in fact, 
the key point of the whole region, and when it was carried 
there went with it all the German scheme for defending the 
watershed which has hitherto been maintained at great 
expense for nearly a week. Dispositions for further retreat 
were at once undertaken and carried out that same night, so 
that by Friday the .\llied line found in front of it nothing but 
weak rearguards which fell back conforming to the general 
movement, and all the first higher part of the slope down 
towards the Vesle — a belt from two to three miles broad 
was occupied by the French. I^ritish. and Americans, and 
the Italian contingents. 
Further Retirement 
One of the most important effects of this operation was the 
uncovering of Soissons. 
The near recovery of the ruins of the town, though striking 
as a piece of news, would mean nothing in ^lie meclianics of 
the Allied victor}' were it not fon its position at the head of 
the Aisne Valley. Once the plateau beyond the Crise was 
abandoned, Soissons could no longer be held by the enemy. 
But with Soissons gone, there was no line -for him to hold, 
even with temporary success, save the heights of the Vesle! 
Now, there is here an interesting point. The heights of the 
Vesle as a permanent position have two weaknesses : In the 
first place, they arc not continuous with the high limestone 
ridge north of Soissons, which bears the Chemin-des-Dames 
and to the escarpment in front of which the enemy has fallen 
back. There is between that limestone ridge and the heights 
of the Vesle the broad valley of the Aisne, right under observti- 
tion and fire from the west. Next, the heights of the Vesle 
at the other end, towards Rheims, cannot be held withimt 
presenting a dangerous flank at their eastern extremity. 
1 hat IS why general opinion upon the Continent inclines to 
the belief that the enemy retirement will be continued on to 
the unbroken ridge beyond the Aisne, which is perhaps the 
strongest position upon the Western front, and from which 
the enemy started in his last great success of May 27th 
which took him to Chateau-Thierry, when he seemed in a 
fair way to getting a decision this year. 
But the interest of the present position is not so much 
where he will stop as when, if ever, he can put a stop to this 
perpetual " handling of him '■ by the Allies. Their forces are 
perpetually, though if slowly, increasing. It is they who are 
givmg Its form to the battle. No matter what position the 
enemy takes up, they are still able to move upon his flanks 
If he would recover freedom of action he must re-arrange his 
troops, rest a large proportion of them, secretly concentrate 
velsewhere, and all the rest of it. It is the whole object of the 
Allied command to give him no respite for such a change to 
be elfected, but to continue to "handle him " 
In other words, what we are watcliing just now is a problem 
rather in time than i^j space, and rather in sequence of action 
than in ground. We perceive the enemy continually com- 
pelled at intervals of about three days to act in a fashion 
unfavourable t« himself because of some blow delivered 
against him through the Allied initiative. The pressure is ' 
continuous, and has hitherto been for now sixteen days 
successful without interruption. As the enemy retires his 
hne shortens, and any prepared position he" may have 
especially i.pon the Chemin-des-Dames, would halt direct 
manoeuvre there But it w-ould not prevent turning move- 
ment against such a position. 
The whole thing is on a smaller scale something like the 
position of late September and early October, loi/when we 
had hmi moving and when after he had taken up the lines of 
davs he'hn^ ^^^'V" ''y ^° '"■■" '"^ l^ft. But in those 
days he had an intnense superiority, large in men over- 
whelming in material. It is not so now 
