LAND 6? WATER 
August 29, 1918 
and the request ol the general opposite Mangin for rein- 
forcement was at first refused. Upon August igth Mangin 
and his loth Army went forward along the whole line of 
i6 miles, and picked up some 8,ooo prisoners and 200 guns. 
The enemy had already taken 44 divisions from his reserve 
of 60 to try to stop the gaps, first on the Marne salient, 
and then on the Somme. He was, too late, reluctantly 
spared another three* to try to stop Mangin. but he failed to 
do so. On August 20th Mangin reached the Ailette, and was 
posted upon that Hill of Cuts from which he overlooked the 
whole of the Oise Valley, could shell the road supplying Noyon 
at short range, and compelled the enemy to fall back from 
Lassigny behind the Divette. The 3rd French Army on 
Mangin's left was now fighting, with its right well in contact 
wTth Mangin, and when this third step in the counter-offen- 
sive came to an end (upon the evening of Tuesday, August 
2oth), you had the whole line now engaged from Rheims to 
Ville on the Ancre, a distance of well over no miles. For 
the third time the enemy might have imagined that these 
efforts had reached their term ; but he was yet to learn the 
meaning of that first phrase in that formula : he had himself 
abandoned "economy in men." "Economy in men while 
you nourish the battle, and await the chance of the final 
"blow." 
Mangin, I say, upon the Ailette, in front of Noyon, came 
to a halt upon the evening of Tuesday, August 20th. 
4.— THE BATTLE OF THE ANCRE 
Upon the morning of Wednesday, the 21st, Byng, with 
the British 3rd Army, 50 miles away to the North of the neareet 
point of Mangin's movement, struck — again upon a limited 
sector and, again with limited objectives — in front of Bapaume. 
This fourth blow was developed precisely as the others 
had been. Byng's attack at dawn involved only 7 miles of 
front. It was only later in the day extended to 10. It 
covered on the first day only some 2 or 3 miles of advance ; 
it counted but very few guns and less than 3,000 prisoners. 
In spite of their experience of now more than a month 
the enemy still spoke of this initial movement in the fourth step 
as a reverse for the Allies, because they had gone no further 
♦Including the Alpine Corps, excellent troops, last seen at Kemmel 
in April and since then rested. 
and had taken no more. "They had aimed at Bapaume 
and failed." The Times repeated that folly. But the next 
day and the next and the dav after, the lesson both Prussia 
and The Times should already have thoroughly learnt 
was rubbed in. On the night of Wednesday, August 21st 
there still remained on this long front between Arras and 
Rheims one quiescent sector, that of Albert. On Thursday, 
22nd, and Friday, the 23rd, General Byng's right, the right 
that is of tlie British 3rd Army, extended the sector of 
fighting southward. On Saturday there was a movement 
forward everywhere right down to the Somme, and by that 
night the development of the fourth step in the great Allied 
counter-offensive found the British immediately outside the 
ruins of Bapaume ; to the north of that town and east of 
it, as far forward as Croisilles ; in possession of .Albert in 
the south west ; and counting 14,000 prisoners in the three days. 
At this point the dispatches of Sunday come to an end, 
but they are sufficient. The plan is still proceeding ; the 
area of battle and of advance continues to increase. 
THE NET RESULTS 
Between 110,000 and 120,000 prisoners remain in Allied 
hands, to represent the operations for five weeks ; just on 
2,000 guns similarly mark their success. The guns can be 
replaced, and prisoners, even so numerous, represent but 
5 per cent, of the total infantry opposed to us between the 
Alps and the sea. Far more significant is the fact that in so 
short a time we have drawn all the enemy's available reserves 
— that is, fresh divisions— into the fight ; that the whole 
has been conducted with a carefully regulated limit in the 
numbers engaged, and that step after step and phase after 
phase the enemy has been compelled to our form of battle, 
and to see us retain the initiative. We can use it in future 
as we will. 
Nor is this all. Look at these sketches, and note how 
the line in its largest extent at the conclusion of last Sunday, 
when all the right of the 3rd Army was engaged, and when, 
from the very neighbourhood of Arras to the very neighbour- 
hood of Rheims, all the 150 miles of front were alive, there 
still remained those two quiescent but menacing flanks 
from Rheims to the Argonne, from Arras to Ypres and to 
the marshes of the Yser. 
3rd.7bne. 
4tk Jane, exf^nsion of 
Suxiday, Au^-2Sth \ \ 
S' \MU£6 10 
THE BRITISH ADVANCE BETWEEN THE SCARPE AND THE SOMME 
