Strategic Moves of the War-May 17Th, 1917

522 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN May 26, 1917 Strategic Moves of the War-May 17th, 1917 By Our Military Expert M ARSHAL JOFFRE is said to have remarked that by forty or more divisions from the Russian front. Quentin. The famous Chemin-des-Dames or Road of all previous experience in warfare can now be This battle now raging is a frightfully costly affair to of the Ladies running over the Craonne plateau is the thrown into the scrap heap-and a more true saying could both sides engaged and the end is not yet. Since the key of this whole section; it is now for the greater part not be written if the accounts of the present fighting on battle of Arras began the Allies have captured 50,000 in the possession of the French. In several places, as at the Western front are correct. When Hindenburg can prisoners, and have taken 450 guns; granting the unusual Courte<;on, they have even gone beyond it. It was due throw forward part of his reserve, given at 160,000 men, proportion of one prisoner to five killed and wounded, to this road being in German hands that the latter were to assault one portion only of the British fighting line there would be 250,000 Germans placed hors de combat able to hold up so long the French advance. Its capture and when the artillery can pound opposing trenches night in a little more than one month. The Allied losses are therefore shows the value of the successes of the recent and day, and for days, the magnitude of the present probably not so high since the assaults that have been battles along its length. The strong positions the Ger conflict raging in front of Arras on the north, and east so costly in lives have been usually made by the Germans. mans hold northeast of Rheims are already threatened and west of Rheims on the south, can be imagined, but Even then it is likely that the Allied losses in the same by the continued French advance in the Champagne not realized. Nothing in former wars is comparable time will amount to 200,000 killed, wounded and prisoners regions between the town' of Beine and the village of to it. With floods of liquid fire, clouds of deadly poison -a frightful toll during so short a time. Moronvillers. Recently the French stormed and took O'!!l ,!rases, and streams of boiling oil thrown from their On the SOlssons-Rheims front, the Allied troops ten miles of trenches extending from a point northeast positions upon their adversaries the weapons of the dark struck a particularly heavy blow when they captured of Soissons all the way along the plateau to Craonne. ages of history have been adapted to modern warfare. the village of Craonne together with several fortified By this advance they have reached the hills overlooking The great battle of Arras began April 9th and has con positIOns north and east of the village and also German almost the entire valley of the Aillette River. Further tinued practically unceasingly ever since. Since that first line trenches on a front of two and a half miles to to the southeast between Berry-au-Bac where the lines time progress has been made for five and a half miles to the northwest of Rheims. The village of Craonne is cross the Aisne and Loire to the northwest of Rheims the northeast to Fresnoy in the direction of Douai; for about nine miles southeast of Laon and stands on a the French made gains that are seriously menacing Fort six miles due east to Cherisy and ten miles southeast height at the. eastern end of the Chemin-des-Dames, the Brimont. This together with an offensive northwest and to Bullecourt in the direction of Cambrai. It is slow road that runs parallel to and north of the Aisne along east of Rheims carried the French over several heights progress, but it is an advance after all and a great ad the plateau. This height commands and protects the and first line trenches. These victories may soon vance when the terrific opposition of the German troops plateau north of the Aisne and also the lower levels liberate Rheims as a target for the German heavy guns. is considered. And more than half has been gained by between this height and east to N euchatel. Its capture The Russians appear to have begun an offensive the steady push after the first rush was over. against the Germans in the Kovel district, heavy On April 9th when this first rush began on the artillery fire having destroyed munition depots at north, the British ended close to Vimy; since that points east of Kove!. Some slight actions are re time they have steadily gone forward through ported also on the Rumanian front. It must be Arleux-on-Gobelle to Fresnoy for a greater distance confessed that the quiet along all these fronts has, than the earlier gain. Fresnoy was taken by the however, an ominous significance. No one denies British early in May but was retaken by the that the Russian soldier is one of the best fighters Germans later. Its original capture opened the way in the world and his reputation fully agrees with the . for an advance of the British in the Drocourt So, .. old saying that it was "necessary first to kill the Queant line containing the only defensive works Russian soldier and then knock him down." between them and the Douai-Cambrai defensive However, to the military mind the strictest positions. The recapture of Fresnoy by the Ger discipline, consistent with justice, is always a sine mans and their hold on the town of Oppy held up qua non in an army. The recent decisions of the the advance of the British in this part of the battle powers in control in Russia to permit the election lines. The forward push of the British was then of officers, the throwing off of all the distinctions transferred once more to the valley of the Scarpe between officers and men, and the other measures and the recent capture of Roeux after bloody that have been proposed calculated to make a struggles opens a way along that stream. for an democracy of the army will introduce lines of weak advance on Douai; such a move will outflank the ness in the military organizations that will un Oppy line and must hasten the capture or abandon doubtedly diminish the fighting power in a marked ment of Lens-which city would be then practically degree unless the class distinctions of centuries of pocketed. However, a section of the Drocourt line oppression can still maintain order and discipline. is now held by them, east of Bullecourt running in If Russia is in any position soon to strike hard the direction of Queant. The Drocourt-Queant along part or all her lines on the eastern front, the line, representing as it does the work of thousands effect upon this year's campaign will be great, of prisoners and months of labor, is evidently a'stout because the strong Allied advance on the Western barrier especially strong under present conditions; front has drawn many German divisions [rom the the British are successfully hammering at it-it east to help a desperate condition in France. But seems to be only a question of time when it too will the present situation on the Russian front resem find its fate. Early in May the Germans made bles the description given of it-an unofficial armis heavy attacks on their right south of Bullecourt tice. To what this has been due cannot at present where the British have crossed the old Hindenburg be exactly determined. It may be the old question line just above the point where it joins the emer of arms, ammunition and guns, though Japan and gency line established on Queant. These attacks the United States should by this time have sent have been repulsed with enormous losses to the enough to relieve. any great stress. It may be a Germans and Bullecourt is now practically in the question of food supply; for, though Russia is a hands of the British. granary for some other parts of Europe, the lack of In order to understand the wide battle front as a an extended system of railroads and the rundown Theater of war, Lens to Rheims single engagement the physical objectives of the condition of existing roads throughout this enormous British front in solid black, French front broken British and French movements must be considered, Qll1pire may permit a feast in one part and a famine viz.: Douai and Laon, the two abutments on which the gives the French an open road up the valley of the Miette in another. It will be remembered that a scarcity of German commander has built his bridge for holding towards Laon. An advance up this valley would out food-which may have been artificial-was one of the nOJthern France. The fall of either city would destroy flank the whole German position of which Laon is the immediate causes of the revolution in Petrograd. At any the bridge and force a retreat to the Franco-Belgian center. Craonne itself is the southeastern bastion of rate, there is evidently something wrong, something that frontier. The moral objective of the commanders of Laon, the southern hinge on which the Hindenburg line an outsider cannot fathom. At present it looks as the French and British armies is the destruction of the swings; the fall of the latter town would, according to though Russia were in a chrysallis state and would not German armies; and, as they greatly outnumber their military critics, force a retreat of the Germans to the emerge with her fully developed strength this year.

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