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Show BIG OFFENSIVE HAS BECOME A CONTEST OF THE ENGINEERS Allies Must Repair Soissons-Chateau Thierry Railway to Handle Supplies and Reserves; Huns Must Find Way Out of Trap. (By Universal Service.) WASHINGTON, July 26. The extent of the allied victory on the Marne rests no longer upon the courage and daring dar-ing of the combat troops it is now a battle of the engineers, and upon the skill and resource of the Franco-American road builders depends the fate of the army of the crown prince, according to military experts here. The belief grows with the receipt of every dispatch that General Foch is concentrating every energy of his staff corps to problems of consolidating consoli-dating and securing the gains made to date. The restrained movements of his various attacking forces clearly clear-ly indicate that the time has not yet arrived when it is necessary to throw into the battle the best troop-s. When the moment comes for the supreme su-preme drive against the roadways left open to the retreating Germans, the allied forces will bo fresh. Battle Enters on a New Phase. The general opinion held here supports sup-ports the theory that the battle of j the Marne has entered upon Its second sec-ond phase. No great gains are an- j ticipated in the next twenty-four hours. If any point of great value is ! seized in that time it will be on the flank held by the British, who late today were reported within a mile and a half of the narrow gauge railway rail-way which is being used by the Germans Ger-mans in getting supplies, munitions and wounded from the region just north of Bligny to the line of the Vesle river. j Contest of Wits and Energy. Allied military attaches today showed even greater interest in tho j reported movements of the allied i forces. A prominent officer who saw ! duty at the battle of Ypres said: "In many ways the battle now has reached its most interesting and ex- citing stage. On each side it lias I become, for the time being, a battle of the engineers. And each side ! knows it. ! "Any soldier who has ever been at-I at-I tached to the engineers or who has been on a battlefield two or three days after the opening of a major at- tack appreciates tho tension with which the air must be charged about j the headquarters of the engineers on j each side tonight. "On the Franco-American side the soldiers, by surprise-and by downright down-right sheer courage and dogged deter- j mination, have smashed back the Ger- j mans and forced them to break their , hold upon the great highway from Soissons to Chateau Thierry. Needless Need-less 'to say, the Germans have done their utmost to ruin this line. But the foundations are there and t he-engineers he-engineers have been urned loose on the job. For it will be over this line that the reserves will be speeded and the heavy cannon moved in the days to come just how soon these days will come depends upon the slull and driving force of the men of the engineers. en-gineers. Coolies at Work on Railway. "At the same time great crews of tracklayers, with thousands of coolies and other ' hardened workmen are working day and night repairing the rail .line from Troesnes to Armen-tleres, Armen-tleres, for it is over that line that the supplies must go up and the reserves re-serves pushed that a constant stream of supports may be ready to go north or south on the Soissons-Chateau Thierry railway to meet any requirement require-ment forced by sudden changes in the tide of battle. "On the other side of the pillbox Pitted lines, where the best German machine gunners and riflemen are strongly intrenched, fighting the most desperate of all style of engagements a rear guard actionthe German Icad-. Icad-. ers also aro eagerly awaiting reports of the progress made by the engineers In keeping the roads clear and in repair. re-pair. "Tho task of (he Germans appears enormous. Jt is true that the Germans' Ger-mans' chances of getting most of their men out of the encircling allied move appear better than ever. However, ! the airmen and the lighter howitzers are raining shells on Fere-en-Tarde- nols. the great rail and road center on the sphere in which the German troops are battling. The Germans are (Continued oil Pago Five.) BIG OFFENSIVE HAS " BECOME CONTEST (Cntinucd from Page One.) working almost continuously to get their lieavj' cannon out of the damper zone. Great streams of wounded also must be sent out. To handle this traffic and to keep the roads in repair, working for the most part under a steadily increasing shell fire, is undoubtedly a hen rl-breaking rl-breaking task for the Germans. The j job is made far more desperal e by ! the fact that there is no time to attempt at-tempt counter-artillery activity. "It appoais from the latest information infor-mation at hand that the Germans in this district must depend upon seven second -class roads, a section of tirHt-class tirHt-class railway and a narrow gauge line i to get out Homethins? like 622,000 rm-n, who are believed to be south of t he Vrln. "Jt is perhaps disappointing to some laymen that the allied troops do not push forward Ht once and attempt to rut off the entire German force. Such a move would he most unwise. Troops must always have supports; they must move over rouh ground and they must have plenty of machine guns, litrht cannon and ammunition. f(;n-er;il f(;n-er;il Foch will strike again, make no mistake about that. And when he strikes be will do so with the post-t post-t ill It y of failure reduced to the very 1 lowest minimum." |