LAND 6? WATER 
September 19, 1918 
resistance of the Allies, and even their occasional concentra- 
tion for attack ; it was the presence of this great lateral 
communication. We also understand why the enemy, when 
he turned his main forces back westwards from Russia early 
in 1916, chose the corner of Verdun as the sector upon whicli 
he proposed to break the French line. It was not cfnly that 
Verdun was the nearest jumping-off place for an Allied 
offensive whenever the tables should be turned, nor only 
that this corner most nearly threatened — as we shall see in 
a moment — the German communications. It was also that 
Verdun was strategically the weakest point of the line, because 
its avenues of supplies were, the one wounded, the other cut. 
As we now know, what saved the sector at Verdun (but only 
just saved it) was the rushing up of supplies by a vast fleet 
of motor lorries in the first days of the attack. But the 
absence of complete railway communication very nearly did 
the trick ; it very nearly brought about the result on which 
the Germans had calculated : by hampering and delayirg 
concentration the lack of railway communication imperilled 
for some days the French line at this point. By the time 
new roads had been built and transports thoroughly organised, 
the sector was safe. 
From that moment onwards the St. Miliiel salient lost 
strategical importance. It was held simply upon the general 
principle that as little of French or Belgian territory as 
possible should be surrendered. 
When the moment came, early in this spring of 191H, for 
the last great enemy offensive (which was meant to conclude 
the war before the United States could develop formidable 
strength in Europe), the strategical plan of the enemy was 
again concerned with this main element of lateral communi- 
cation. 
His first thrust, though it failed to separate the French 
and British armies, put the main line out of action at, and 
for some miles above, .■\miens, from April 4th onwards. His 
attack of May 27th between Soissons and Rheims cut the fur- 
ther eastern limb of this great line of communication at 
Chateau Thierry. During those anxious months of the spring 
and early summer the peril of the Allied armies lay not only 
in the approach to Paris, with its vast political effect ; nor 
only in the heavy lo.ss in men and material ; nor only in the 
enemy's possession of the initiative and of superiority in 
numbers and in tactical method. It lay also in its haniper- 
•ing of lateral communication, which crippled I fie Allies' poiaer 
of mcincBuvre. That state of things continued until the 
eastern Chateau Thierry line was relieved by the counter- 
offensive in July, and the Amiens northern line by the great 
advance of the ,8th August. 
Now let us turn to the corresponding situation of the 
enemy. His .main communications are conditioned by one 
great natural feature which will canalise the remainder of 
the war, and which has already begun to make its effect 
felt. That natural feature is the great mass of ill-populated, 
densely-wooded, high and steeply broken country of which 
the nucleus is called the Ardennes forest, but which stretches 
f^r southwards and to the east of the Ardenne region proper. 
We will call it, however, for the sake of brevity, Ardennes. 
The presence of this difficult piece of country separates ' 
the communications of any German armies operating in 
northern Belgium and eastern France into two. They have 
first a sheaf of communications which use the Belgian plain 
north of Ardennes ; they lead from the country in front of 
Ypres, and- from Lille, from Douai, from Cambrai, from 
St. Ouentin up north-eastwards through the Belgian plain 
by way of Namur and of Brussels, and meet at Liege, at which 
point all these railways (and main roads) using the Belgian 
plain converge. Another separate sheaf of commimications 
runs south of the Ardennes ; one from the Rhine through 
Treves and Luxemburg to the Laon-Rheims front ; another 
through Mayenceand Metz to the Lorraine frf)nt, with n^imer- 
ous lines branching out from and supporting these main lines. 
So long as the German armies stood well forward into 
Franoe away from the Ardennes country, this division of the 
main communications between the German armies and their 
bases at home into separate sheafs was not an inconvenience, 
because, once the Ardenne was passed, they were joined u]5 
by numerous cross railways to the west of the Ardennes in 
France ; and these cross railways linked up Bruges with 
Lille, Lille with Valencie'nnes and Mezieres, Mezieres with 
Luxemburg and Metz, and then Metz with Strasburg and 
Mulhouse. They formed the great lateral conununication 
of our enemies just as the Calais- Parrs-Nancy line formed 
the lateral communications of the Allied armies. 
There was this great difference between the enemy's 
situation and ours : that our line was threatened from its 
proximity to the front, and his was not. A small movement 
cut our line. Hks was far behind and safe. On the other 
hand, the moment he should become weaker than us, the 
