September 19, 1918 
LAND 6? WAFER 
THE WAR: By HILAIRE BELLOC 
The Two Threats to Enemy Communications 
The Significance of Ardennes 
THE Americans have reduced the St. Mihiel sahent 
in a brilliant and extraordinarily sharp and clean 
operation. That operation has not been effected 
for itself alone. It is a preliminary, and has a 
meaning for the future. It is local, but has a 
general meaning. What is that meaning ? To answer that 
question we must go back a long way and study the com- 
munications of the Germans and the" Allies. 
When the trench line in the West was established four 
irregularity known during these four years as the salient of 
St. Mihiel. It thrust forward a point which, though it did 
not reach and cut the main eastern railway, brought it under 
gun-fire ; its double track and most speedy service was out 
of action between Bar le Due and Commercv. The interrup- 
tion compelled a considerable detour of traffic in support of 
the eastern frontier and of the region of Nancy by small 
Unes which had to be doubled, and by the loss of time due 
to such a diversion. 
years ago, the strategical elements of the situation on the 
largest lines were these. There was a double front, enemy 
and Allied. It ran in the shape which so prolonged and 
stationary a campaign has- rendered familiar from the North 
Sea to the Alps. 
On the Allied side the backbone of the position was a great 
line of lateral communication, formed by the main double- 
track railway Calais-Boulogne-Amiens-Paris and thence 
onwards by the main double-track railway Paris-Chateau 
Thierry- Chalons-Mtry-Bar-Ie-Duc to Nancy-Epinal. 
This great lateral railway communication, with its full 
equipment of sidings, stock, ships, etc., was the prime neces- 
sity of the Allies' resistance. It guaranteed rapidity of 
movement up and down the line, and power of concentration 
whether for attack or for defensive. 
At one point, however, this essential feature of the strategic 
situation was weakened. This was the point of St. Mihiel. 
Here appeared a strange irregularity on the front (the object 
and feature of which will be discussed in a moment), an 
But this cutting of the main railway by bringing it under 
close gun-fire was not the chief effect of the St. Mihiel saHent. 
Its chief effect was the isolation of the Verdun corner. The 
Verdun corner, where the front turned roimd southwards 
after having run east and west, was served by two railways : 
one branch of the main line from Vitry, and another branch 
running from Verdun up the Meuse Valley past St. Mihiel 
and joining the main line again above Commercy, at the 
junction of Lerouville. The Germans by their presence at 
St. Mihiel cut this second line and actually occupied nearly 
a mile of it, including a small bridge-head beyond it on the 
left bank of the Meuse. All rapid transport, therefore, from 
the south up to the Verdun corner was interrupted. The 
other line, feeding the Verdun corner from the junction at 
Chalons, would be brought under enemy giui-fire at close range 
by a comparatively small advance of the line, and was already 
under it at long range. 
When we have grasped these main elements in the situation 
we understand what it was which permitted the general 
