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Show Battle of the Selle Ends Final Rally of Ludendorff's Forces Valqr and Sacrifice of American Troops in October Octo-ber Defeats Last Efforts of Germany in World War. By MAJOR GENERAL SIE FREDERICK MAURICE, Chief of Operations of the British Army. (Copyright, 1910, by tbo McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) ON none of the three fronts of attack, which made up Foch's great battle, was tt easy to gather the fruits of victory. In Flanders King Albert and Plumer, having crossed the ridges, had 'behind them ground over which the tide of war had ebbed and flowed for more than four years, and now that the tide had been finally turned back it had left a morass of stinking mud which had obliterated every road and track. Behind the main British battle lay the deepest zone of devastation on the whole long front. From Vlmy ridge to the eastern east-ern outskirts of Amiens, and thence through 6t. Quentin northward by Cam-bral Cam-bral to Douai. In an area of over 1000 square miles, there was hardly an Intact house to be found, no village which had not been gutted, the surface of the ground was torn and blasted by shell fire, the vegetation withered by poison gas, the roads had been destroyed, the railways torn up and all the bridges over the many rivers arid canals blown down. Behind Gouraud in Champagne lav a somewhat narrower, but equally horrible, belt of desolation. In the rear of the Americans were the battlefields of Verdun. Ver-dun. Therefore, on all the fronts the repair of the communications behind the armies was a stupendous undertaking, which not all the skill and tireless energy of the engineers en-gineers and working parties could complete com-plete quickly. Without food, ammunition and military stores the victorious troops could not get forward even against a badly shaken enemy, and these could not be brought up to them until the roads and railways had been to some extent restored. re-stored. So everywhere progress was for a time slow. Advance of Allies Slow and Costly. The Belgians were within two miles of Roulers by October 1, but it was not until October 14 that King' Albert, having hav-ing bridged the muddy gulf behind him, was able to advance and enter the town. Cambrai had been enveloped north and south by British troops on Septem ber SO, but the Germans were not completely com-pletely cleared out of the town until October Octo-ber 9. Debeney with the First French army had entered St. Quentin on October 1, but by the 10th lie was only eight miles east of the place. Gouraud had by September 29 advanced about six miles through the German lines, but by October 9 his men were only one and a half miles further forward. Neither his advance nor that of the Americans between the MeuSe and the Argonne had been sufficiently deep to force the Germans Ger-mans out of the Argonne forest. Now that forest runs roughly from northeast to southwest along a series of rough ridges which separate the valleys of the upper Aisne and the Oise. These forest-clad ridges gave the Germans splendid splen-did vantage ground from which to harass with artillery and machine gun fire the allied troops on either side of the Argonne, Ar-gonne, and if these troops were to get on there was nothing for It but to clear the forest. Americans Force Way Through Argonne. By September 28 the American left had penetrated some three miles into the Argonne. Ar-gonne. but on that date the center was nearly five miles ahead on the outskirts of Exermont and was being worried by the German guns firing from the Argonne heights into their flanks and rear. To clear these heights and enable the center to advance, the" American left had to force Its way foi-ward through nine miles of the most difficult country on the whole western front. Under modern shell fire wood3 became an almost impenetrable tangle of fallen timber, which afforded ideal nests for the enemy's machine guns. This tangle was made still more difficult by cunningly placed wire entanglements and stretches of rabbit netting. The forest Is cut up by deep ravines, with almost precipitous sides, which made It very hard for the infantry to keep touch, while tanks could be of no help to them, and even the most experienced artillery ar-tillery would have been put to it to give them support. It was a question of hard slogging infantry fighting and the American Ameri-can infantryman did slog hard; and after eleven days of continuous grim, slogged (Continued on Page 11, Column 1.) EBMB AT THE SELUE i !,r of American Troops Defeats Last Effort , i of Germany. i ! i, October 10 he had won his way U5 Simultaneously with the ad-P- , rconne which fell to the ISe'pfr; Amcncan corps, the right ' cons and the Fifth and Third f Ha their way forward to the the orthern edge of the for-lt for-lt 't east of the Meuse sufficient 1 " made In conjunction with Ttroops w safeguard the flank of pTwest of the river. jiiy Casualties i Unavoidable. ill this fightlns the casualties of the an First army were very heavy k hardships imposed on the troops fe n is l' (ilcuU to seo how this Vvf bfen avoided In the circum-J circum-J , tn which the battle was fought, r Us undoubtedly luck of fo-ope.-a-Uwoen the infantry and the artil-,nd artil-,nd between the aircratt and both e'mallv (rue that the eagerness of .n.er.cin infantry to get lorward j them in awkward salients in which .uttered very severely and that at-J at-J to rush machine-gun nests by.dl-'ttack by.dl-'ttack had to be paid for at a heavy 'ect the experience of the American In this "heir first great continuous il-e battle, were very similar to our utneriencis in the first battle of tho I, No one will maintain that the v 0( the Infantry of the British which in the summer of 1918 drove Jermans across the Somme battle-. battle-. into and through the Hindenburg can be compared with the quality ie infantry who, two years before, their wav up the Somme heights. n the pick of the manhood of the ill empire fought and fell, while In the ranks were filled with middlemen middle-men and bovs. Yet in 1H16 we gained aratively little at a great price and 18 va won much with far less sac-of sac-of life. The deterioration in the tv of the German troops in those two Tdoes not account for the change. ividual Soldier jrns Quickly. I essential difference in the two bat-B bat-B that the first was won by sheer in-'lenced in-'lenced valor, the second by valor lliid with skill. We have learned in war that it is possible to train the Idual aoldler and get him to meet errihle conditions of the modern bat-Id bat-Id in far less time than- had been ised to hi necessary. The clerk from jounting nouse, tho plowman from idy, and the hand from the faced fac-ed have shown that with a few hs' instructior they can acquit them-I, them-I, under conditions such as man has : lieen called upon before to face, rsthan thj best of the soldiers of old, ded they are sent to take their I in an organization which has been Cted and uf which all the parts are ng smoothly together. Contrary to al expectation, the great war has n that civilization and education, by DpfnR intelligence, have improved the lit,' jmwers of the race; that the Id will can triumph over the weak 1 of the ilesh. iy as a Whole it Be Trained. I the war has also shown conclusive-it conclusive-it the experiences of the past still tood In that the training of the in-lal in-lal Is a very small step toward the of an army. It is even a shorter today than It was in the past, for rpaiiifialion of the modern army Is tely mora complex than was that of runes of old. In 1918 all the parts I British army had learned by long filter experience to work together, eommon end. Imuiiilers of all prades had learned lobs, the ttalfs knew their business, jry. cavaay, artillery, engineers 1 mortars, machine gunmen, tanks ilrrrnft knew each what the other do mid what the other needed. Sir (is Hnlg has often been accused of I mnlnta net! an extravngant or-ll'On or-ll'On behind his front at the cost of lining ranks. He was looking for-;com,dently for-;com,dently to the day when he get his enemy on the move, and ln:it day cmc he w:is rendv ' the perfection of the organization I services hehlnd the British lines, te.Mon which was the outcome of Wl'fr i'nce, and the scale on which services were equipped, as much ncreascl skill of the fighting I "lilch enabled the British army to continuously Sncj victoriously for mor.ihs, and keep p that succession miner hmws to which Koch has tenuous tribute. of Experience fy to U. S. Army. 'ti'l'"-'''" arm' t'ad had none of l u.i'".Vl0stlv wnr training which iMit the ltrltish army the lesson. slil. , ,,lvi8iona which fought In tr,V ,,'K""no balUe went then Into u':'' hfi 'irst time. That being inevitable that there should J fl,r,-. ""I'cmtlon and that a high tty y ' os'-'rihed u,e difficulties of the ,r, oer which tho Amtrican troops lit',,'"1';1"1111" which confronted the -cX ,trf ""'vwcre not leas formidable. , of c!Kht?L'n n'lca between V s ,"",1' western e.lge of the Ar-ca Ar-ca , dK-M0' brlttle "'-'Pi by nine Tfll thn-5 1)ritlsh or French dlvl- IK In 1 1 "'y two miii ",a. tl n ,l'r'cticm of the advance, St tl'e ,n " H,c ,xtr'"c right flank. n'E:'rv fi i of 11,0 Isse. exposed to t " lL!i!iM lhc ''eights In the leys of the Selle and the Oise. On th front of the Fourth British army the Oer-nhans Oer-nhans held the eastern bank of the Selle And had occupied the lino of the railway which connects Le Cateau and Solesmes. This railway line runs through a series of embarfkments and cuttings, Which provided the German Infantry with excellent , cover and tholr machine gunner gun-ner with positions from which they could sweep the valley, while the rolling heights behind gave Uielr artillery splendid opportunities op-portunities for dominating the approaches (o tho river. In front of the railway line h tingle, and as compared with the entanglements en-tanglements of the Hindenburg line, not very formidable belt of barbed wire had been erected, but the Selle, ordinarily an insignificant stream, was in flood, and in iUelf constituted a serious obstacle to Infantry, which would have to force its way across in face of machine gun fire. The site for a strong trench system had ben marked out by digging down to a dopth of about one foot, but the German infantry Rnd engineers, weary and dispirited dispir-ited by their defeats, had not the energy to complete theso trenches In the time at their disposal. Nevertheless, the attack of such a position was a serious undertaking, undertak-ing, particularly as the enemy, knowing that it covered the direct road toMau-beuge, toMau-beuge, had occupied It in great strength and had numerous machine guns and a' powerful artillery. Battle of the Selle Lasts Three Days. The battle . of the Selle bepan In the early hours of the 17th of October with an attack by Debeny'g First French army n-nd the Ninth and Second American and Thirteenth corps of the Fourth British army against the German left, from Lie Cat(ju southward. The enemy fought the Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth American divisions having a particularly hard task ln their attack upon the railway rail-way line south or Cftteau, where it ran alotiff a commanding hill. It war only a;fter three days of strenuous effort that the Germans Routh of La Cateau ware forced back behind the Sambre and OIbq canal. . It was quite evident from this fijrht-Inp fijrht-Inp that the enemy was making a desperate des-perate effort to . hold tip our advance. Appeals Vero Ismied to the German troopB to remember the devastation which they had seen in BelffiUm and northern France, and to save their country from a like fate. But, though they foupht valiantly, they had lost confidence both in them-j selves and in their leaders, nnd they had ' none of the i?rit and staying power which' dlsttngulFhed the British soldier when he wad In like straits. However, it still remained to tackle the Herman main position alonar the Selle, and thl was done in a night attack bv seven divisions of the Fourth army and one of the First army. Foot Bridges Laid Under Cover of Mist. .A -mist in the yaJley Increased the cover afforded by night and enabled the Infantry Infan-try and engineers to lay foot bridges i across the Selle under the very noses of' th enemy's machino gunners, and tanks! to be brought down unseen Into the valley. val-ley. At 3 a. m. on October 20 the British Infantry advanced to the assault and, helped by the ubiquitous tanks, which ueoetded s'omohbw In getting across the river, the heiphtn on the east bank were stormed after' flerre fiffhtinp, for the Qer-mariB Qer-mariB again fougrht hard. lmnds of the Ofrmnns on the eust tank of the river, tha othr on the right flank alontr the oarttern edpe of the Arrofne, exposed to artillery fire from the forest. Hetweeu these on tho front of the main America n advance there were only narrow nar-row rrussrohIfl connecting the vUlaj;c. aiul these roads had been shelled to pieces. Progress Hindered By Rough Country. .The hilly and wooded nature of tha country made the task of corn trusting new roads, of repairing the existing: on" and of constructing railways very laborious, labor-ious, and consequently there was frraat contention of traffic, difficulty in relieving reliev-ing the troops in thfc front line and ln bringing up to them food and ammunition. ammuni-tion. WlUi greater experience, the American Amer-ican Infantry would have learned to overcome over-come the German machino puns with less loss of life and th services of supply would have worked more smoothly. Had the American army waited to fraln that experience tho war would certainly have been prolonged by at least ex months and the coat in life would certatn-ly certatn-ly have been tr greater than it was. Pershing" must have taken all these factors fac-tors into consideration when he threw In his vote for fighting the great battle which bcxan on September 25. He decided that the vl?or and valor of his troops would moro than counterbal anco their lack of battle experience, and his troops more than Justified his confidence confi-dence In them. From September 25 tmtil the KHemhllde nyatm was finally broken, Pershing, by making the fullest use1 of his manpower close on three-quarters of a million of American troops were eairBftd ln this battle continuously menaced the Meta-Mezieros railway and forced L.uden-dorff L.uden-dorff to employ forty divisions in an Ineffectual Inef-fectual effort to stem his advance. Without this contribution to the general gen-eral plan, Foch's scheme of victory could not have been realized. The slow, strenuous strutfRle on the American front, which lasted from September 28 to October Octo-ber 28, was Inevitable ln the circumstances circum-stances ln 'Which the First American army became engaged, and the American soldier sol-dier came triumphantly through the ordeal or-deal of that struggle, Germans Given Time to Reorganize Forces. This accumulation of difficulties along the allied battle front gave the Germans time to pull themselves together. It appears ap-pears from the altercations between Lti-dendorft Lti-dendorft and his government that after the breaking of the Hindenburg line on September 29 he conveyed to them the impression that all van lost, and it teems probable that that represented hia real feelings at the time. A week later, however, he besati to change his mind, for he began to eee a prospect of getting his army together on a new line and or holding out for reasonably rea-sonably favorable terms of peace. At the end of the first week of October he, had In front of the Americans and of Gqu-raud, Gqu-raud, just north of the Argonne and along the AiBne, the southern section of his Hindenburg line still intact, Between the Aisne and the Oise he had a line east of the St. Gobain massif and of Loon to which he could withdraw his center. Opposite tho main BxltjBh advance he had between tho Olse and the Scheldt, south of Valenciennes, a strong natural position along the river flelle, which had been partially prepared for defonaq. In the north, if he could come fight out of Flanders and get behind the Scheldt from Valenciennes through Ghent, and rest his northern flank oh the Dutch frontier, he would obtain a much shorter line and place in lYopt of hie troops water barrier, which would oheltor them from the attacks of the dreadsd tanks. This plan was attended with a crtain measure of success. Germans Withdraw in Orderly Manner. By the 14th of October, when King Albert was ready to attack again in Flanders, Flan-ders, the arrangements for the German retreat were well advanced, and that retreat re-treat was, on the whole, well conducted, though the enemy h'Sui to abandon rtiim hers of puns and great quantities of fltorts of all kinds. Roulers fell to French troops on the 16th, Thourout was Occupied Occu-pied by the Belgians on , the 18th, and the next day they entered Ostcnd. 1P1U-nier, 1P1U-nier, meanwhile, had occupied Menln and Courtral and . cronied the Lys. 6n th 18th of October tho Fifth pritlah army farther south had found I! lie evacuate by the enomy, and four days liter the whole of the Belgian coast was In our hands and the German's had reached the lino of the Scheldt from Valenoinnes to Ghent, along which they proposed to stand. " On the main British front the. German retreat was conelderwhlv buttled by the Third and Fourth British arnites; the tot-tor tot-tor of which had the Th(rtleth American division again in its front line. Throughout Through-out the Sth, Pth and 30th of October the Germans were driven back to and across tho battlefields of I,e Cateau,, where the Socond British corps had fought Von Kluck ln 1314, during thfc retrat from Mons. Enemy Loses Many Prisoners and Guns. In this fighting tho German lost .12, MO prisoners and 250 guns, but succeeded In establishing themselves in the Selle pec- tlon. The retreat of the German center from the St. Gobain masqif, Laon and the Chcrnln-des-Dnmes and the neighborhood of HheimB was carried through in fairly good order, though about Rhetms it wa hastened by the transfer to that neighborhood neighbor-hood of the Second and Thirty-sixth American divisions in succflsslon. On tho 13th of October the French entered Laon and two days later found themselves confronted con-fronted by the enemy ln his new poll tlons. Opposite Gouraud the German withdrew with-drew Into their strong lines along the Aisne, from the west of Rlthel through Attlpuy to Vouzlere, Just west of the northern edge of the Argonne. On the American front, however, there was no retreat, for tho Americans were now getting get-ting very near the Kriomhilde line and the Crown Prince William's object wart to keep them at a distance from it as long as possible. Therefore, here It was a. question still of slow pi-ogress and a dingtjong struggle In which the American? gained a little ground each day, Until by the lfith of October they were almost everywhere ln closo t(ich with the Kriemhilde position, and the'Thirty-Bocnnd division In the center cen-ter of the Fifth corps had forced its way through. Six- days before this Pershing had handed over command of the First American army to General Liggett, for the continued arrival of American troops had mndo Jt necessary to form a Second American army of the troops occupying the Wocuvre front east-of .the St. Mlhlei salient and opposite Metx. Lud end orffps Hope Revives in October. Up to Ortober 16 Ludondorff appears to have been fairly well satisfied with the progress of his retmat. His left and I center were by then back In their new positions, which were strong, and his leasts during the retreat, If heavy, had not boon overwhelming. His left had not yet completed the retreat from Flnnriors hehlnd the Scheldt, but he had good reason rea-son to believe that It would be able to do so. Accordingly, on October 17, he 90oke much moro boldly to the German cabinet than lie had done on September Ifl. Hfi then propoaed that necotlatlons should be continued with President Wilson, but solely with the object of obtaining favor-I favor-I able terms of peac. He expressed himself him-self willing to fight on if the conditions j of the nllles wero unfavorable nnd appears i to have had In mind a slow and ortW.y withdrawal to (he Mpum, where he hoped i to ho able to atand Tor the winter and re-! re-! organize his shattered forcer. Put whllo he was Actually pressing his views upon the German cabinet another blow had fallen upon him and his new front had been broken. The German position along the river Selle. which was tho connecting link between be-tween the river Scheldt and the enemy's linos south of the Olse, was formidable. His left f'-ank opposite Pebeney's army rested on a aeries of very defensible wooded heights which divided the val- The weather had broken, the ground was saturated, there was little shelter for the troops, tho roads churned up by shell fire and by the stream of traffic became rivers of mud, and both roads and railways, rail-ways, were constantly being cut by mines, which the enemy had burled beneath them and fitted with delay action fuses, so that they would explode at Irregular Intervals after our troops had passed beyond, but the enthusiasm of the British troops was not to be denied. On October 22, the Fourth, Third and First armies mud:-: ; general advance on a front of fifteen miles between the Sambre Sam-bre and Oise canal and the Scheldt. On the right the Germans were driven back into the Mormal fcrest. In the center our troops got within a mile of Le Quesnoy, and on tho left approached Valenciennes. Thus, in the bottle of the Selle. British, French and American troops had made a breach about thirty -five iilos wide and nearly six miles deep in .Ludendwl Vs rallying Hue. The twenty-four British and American divisions engrtged had defeated de-feated thirty-one German divisions and had captured 20,000 prisoners ami 4T:i guns. Aftsr this disaster the morale of the German troops on the Uritish front again collapsed, and this time it never recovered. They had nerved themselves for a fin il effort and when that- failed their spirit was broken. Ludendorfr" was endeavoring endeavor-ing to assure his government that- there was no cause ior despair when the news of the Selle bacclo reached them. It convinced con-vinced them that there was no line upon which the German arm v could be re! iod upon to stand, and it shattered what little faith they had left in their military adviser. ad-viser. Ludondorff tendered his resignation, bin wa:- ordered to remain at his post and to do what was possible to clean up the mess ha had made. The capitulation of Turkey, following upon that of Bulgaria, and the decisive del can of the Austrians on i he Piave, ecu pied with the never-endiny: never-endiny: tale of disaster on the western front and the mut t erings of revolution in Germany, '''it no glimmering of hope in ' Miiie.- of th-'1 kaiser and his ministers "While they were preparing to send in iie:uiniie.u iar.es to 1-oeh, he, in order to make assnranee ciouhly sure, was setting the stage for I he final advance, n the south, by the end of October, LtcgcK's center had made moro Imles in the Kriemhilde system, the village of !, the Gnuidpiv, north of the Argonne, was'- : captured, and lie A merien n fi out , now " .'. straightened out iiUn a rugh east and "' ! west line, from Grand pre to I'.rie'iiles "ii ; . the .Meuse. was mar-haled and ready, Goura ud was n oia !iy i ""e;;uvd to stun a the Gorman deienss en ;he Aisne. - ". The British had no a rt if icia ! '-t n-le- - between them and their goal, 3d aubt Hue. '. In ord.'r to li-'Ip Kiii,; Albert to loree too '; formidable SrV-Uit . F"ch had ordained . 'j two American divisions, the :iTth and thii ; 0 1 st, from i'or ling, and had railed them : tip to Ypres, w he nee they had mareh"d : 'i to join the French inxips, e.t-operat mg . With the Ir'.elgians, and witc ready in line ; '; by Oc toiler '.il. Tho next morning" the : curtain was rung up for the final act ut . t lie grea t d ra ma. |