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Show Drives on Western Front Are Discussed by Expert Great Success of the Allies Recently Is Attributed to Their Wonderful Morale; Supremacy in -Air Also Has Aided. By HENRY G. WALES, Universal Service Staff Correspondent. WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY, Oct. 9 (by mail). Increased element of surprise sur-prise In attack, greater elasticity in defense, de-fense, and development in barbed wire cutting appliances are responsible for the shifting back and forth for greater distances dis-tances of the battleline In the campaign of 1918. Local attacks this year penetrate deeper than carefully plannea offensives were carried in 1916 and 1917, and the great German and allied drives have swept forward for-ward to a depth that one would have dared believe impossible heretofore. During the first three years of the war both sides alike regarded the western front as unbreakable, and, accepting that theorv, did not try to develop means ot attack, which, while not rupturing the front, might at least so strain it that wholesale reLreais on both sides of the salient thus formed would be imperative. impera-tive. General Francis Nivelle, who succeeded Marshal Joffre in command of the French armies, believed he could smash through the German center, and he tried to do it in April, 1917. But while he adopted the new idea of breaking through he tried to carry it out with the old practice prac-tice of sustained preliminary artillery preparation, battering the Soissons-Rheims Soissons-Rheims and Champagne frpnts with guns of all calibers for eight days before sending send-ing the infantry to the attack. Those eight days of warning gave the crown prince Lime to rush up reserves to the bombarded sectors and to prepare new defense lines behind those in front which were being battered to pieces. Another Plan Tested. In October. 1917. General Sir Julian Byng obtained permission to try out his plan to test the possibility of smashing through. He formulated the newer process proc-ess of passing to the attack practically without artillery preparation. a four hours' bombardment instead of one lasting last-ing a week, and he relied on tanks to crush lanes through the barbed wire entanglements en-tanglements that the infantry might follow fol-low and come to grips with the enemy. ' His plan was tried out at Cambrai and reaped astonishing results, which, if exploited, ex-ploited, might have changed the course of the whole war. But the successes were not foreseen and so could not be planned for and much of the fruits of the victory vic-tory were lost. The enemy was quick to adopt the two principles proven by the allies in 1917 that of Nivelle, which showed that a deep advance could be driven through the most elaborately defended system of intreneh-mentsj intreneh-mentsj provided It were made over a large front, and that of Byng. which demonstrated demon-strated that a short, intense artillery preparation outweighed the longer battering bat-tering tactics, which Mackensen had introduced in-troduced on the Dunajec against the Russians Rus-sians in the spring of 1915. Partly Successful. So when Von der Marwitz and Von Hutier launched the first great German offensive of 191 S on the Somme, the first phase of the kaiser's battle which was to win the war in this campaign, they passed to the attack after a three-hour three-hour artillery preparation. The enemy was loth to adopt, the British Brit-ish system of opening up barbed wire for the infantry by using tanks. Instead they relied on thousands of minenwerfer throwing- highly perfected contact exploding ex-ploding shells, wnich burst on touching a strand of wire or a post. They breached the British wire defenses in. half a dozen places on March 21 by this means, although al-though they also used some British tanks captured and repaired at Cambrai the autumn before and a few of their own manufacture. The initial German drive- bit forty-five miles deep In allied terrain before it was finally arrested before Amiens, more through .the fact that it had lost its impetus im-petus and momentum through outstripping outstrip-ping its communications and supplies than lor anything else. Finding French and British and American Ameri-can reinforcements in line offering a stubborn resistance before Amiens, Luden-dorf? Luden-dorf? allowed himself to be diverted to the northward and on June 9 opened up against the British and Portuguese on the Lys the night before the latter were to be relieved. He achieved initial successes there, too, but reserves arrived quicker than they had in Picardy and the enemy drive did not bite so deeply, although fifteen fif-teen or sixteen miles was realized. General Foch Attacks. Then, on May 27, when the world was watching Amiens and Flanders, the enemy en-emy effected his surprise on the Chemin-des-Dames and drove straight southward to the Marne, more than thirty miles in three or four days. His later attempts against Compiegne and Villers Cotterets were smashed in their incipiency and his final drive south of the -Marne and in Champagne, launched on July 15, collapsed col-lapsed from the start under the indomitable indomita-ble defense of the French ana Americans. Ameri-cans. But in three of these attacks Hinden-burg Hinden-burg realized important progress, whereas at Verdun, in the first half of 1916, the crown prince had been unable to achelve more than three kilometers' advance on his most successful day. During the remainder re-mainder of the battle he bit off a small trench system here and there, usually losing los-ing it back again within a few hours, and advancing only step by step at heavy cost. On July IS General Foch attacked between be-tween the Aisne and Marne, the result being the entire evacuation of the German Ger-man line south of the Vesle and the practical prac-tical nullification of the May 27 offensive. offen-sive. On August S began the series of operations opera-tions against the salient thrusting toward to-ward Amiens, which resulted in the fall of Montdidier and the gradual absorption absorp-tion of practically the whole ground. In these operations the allies frequently advanced ad-vanced almost as fast as the enemy had swept against them in his rushes of earlier ear-lier in the year. Six, eigrht, ten, even twelve kilometers a day was covered by French, British and American troops at various times. Not a. single blow struck by either side during 191S was heralded by a long drawn out artillery preparation, however. On July 18 the French and British attacked southwest of Soissons without any artillery ar-tillery preparation at all. Elsewhere the attacks were preceded by bombardments of two to three hours. Thus the attacking attack-ing troops went over before the enemy had time lo rush up reinforcements and usually killed or captured the garrisons in front of them, then continued sweeping sweep-ing forward and meeting the reinforcements reinforce-ments as they were coming up. Old Idea Abandoned. The old idea of desperately defended trenches has also been superseded by the tactics of giving way before the enemy to save man -power and of falling back to a defensive position chosen in advance. This has been forced upon both sides to a certain extent, owing to the fact that the field of battle iias swayed back and forth so far and so often that neither the enemy nor the allies have the old style complete systems of wired intrenchments. passing- in continuous lines along tho front. Thus, with the passing- of barbed wire as an integral part of defense systems there has sprung up in its place a greater profusion of machine-gun nests than were ever before employed. These are not the old concrete and steel strong points of 1916. affording protection for three or tour heavw machine guns. They aro simply little h5les dug in a field beside a road on a hill top, and containing .lust one light machine gun. which, after all, is little more than an automatic rifle. The enemy emplaced many of his light weapons In trees. Thus the old difficulty of cutting through wire entanglements,- which was a serious problem prob-lem up to the early summer months of this year, is gradually disposing of itself through tho absence of wire. In these days of maneuvering, with posit po-sit ions merely defined by sheilholes, and the consequent increase in machine-gun firing- and sniping, it is impossible to wire positions as it was When the war was one of position. Barbed Wire Still Used. Barbed wire is usually emplaced for short -stretches a hundred yards or so. flanking: roads and protecting: tho heavy machine-g-un emplacements in the rear of the advanced system of strong- points. This wire is what the tanks ride down and level when they operate with the infantry. But the attacking- troops can usually find a way to work between these barbed wire belts and enfilade the enemy machine-gun posts. Behind these advanced battle positions, both sides, but particularly the enemy, maintain continuous barbed wire lines, not the usual heavy Interlacement of giant wire entanglements, but Just three or four strands on posts, to hinder the operation of eavalry if it ehould break through. And everywhere through the country wher the fighting- Is now eroing-on eroing-on there is the pd wire of former campaigns, cam-paigns, of the Somme battle of 1916, of the Hindenburg- line of that winter, and of the Vimy and Chemln-des-Dames battles bat-tles of 1917. However, this old wire Is In bad shape, brittle and broken, and set up on rotten stakes, so that a few well directed shots can breach It. Morale Is Wonderful. The deep advances made by the enemy this year were due to his secret concentration concen-tration of overwhelming- forces opposite the points of attack and to surprise, to the reluctance of the allied command to sacrifice men in established positions, when a retirement could save them and at the same time let the impetus of the enemy's rush forward wear Itself out, and to his intensive use of trench mortars mor-tars in blasting to pieces the allied barbed wire and trenches. The speedy successes of the allied troops are due to their wonderful morale since they found ihe enemy could not advance when Marshal Foch ordered him held on July 15, to the absolute surprise of their various operations since July 18. to the necessity of Htndenburgr's withdrawing when menaced with direct heavv attacks, at-tacks, owiny to his dwindling: man-power, and to the new fast tanks which have operated so successfully In the various phases of the counter-offensive. Supremacy of the air, accentuated In the theaters of operations, has also had a great deal to do with the success olSthe allied attack |
