_May 28_--_The opening of the attack and the first day's results are
thus described by Mr. Perris:_
Hindenburg has scored another spectacular success. At dawn yesterday,
after three hours' bombardment, composed largely of gas shells, a new
German mass attack was thrown upon a twenty-five-mile front, extending
from the Ailette near Vauxaillon to the Aisne-Marne Canal near Brimont.
It was four or five times as numerous as the defenders, and in other
regards correspondingly stronger. In these circumstances, an attempt
to retain the line of the Chemin des Dames would have meant that the
French troops would have been massacred before reserves could reach
them, and there was nothing for it but to fall back steadily and in
good order, using successive lines of trenches and deep folds of ground
to punish the enemy for every forward step he made.
As I anticipated in my last message, the method of the first phase of
the German offensive was again employed with some improvements. This
method rests upon two main elements--the prodigal expenditure of the
large reserves obtained by the collapse of Russia and Rumania, and
the skillful use of the great advantage of what are called interior
lines of communication to throw a mass attack suddenly upon the chosen
sector, and so to gain the further advantage of surprise.
The front now chosen was held till a day or two ago by parts of two
armies belonging to the group of which the Prussian Crown Prince is
the titular chief. General von Boehm's army, extending from the Oise
at Noyon to east of Craonne, numbered nine divisions. In the sector of
General Fritz von Below, extending across the Rheims front to Suippe,
near Auberive, there were eight divisions. The whole twenty-five
miles attacked yesterday had therefore been held till the eve of
battle by only seven or eight divisions. The exact number of divisions
engaged yesterday is not yet known, but it seems to have been about
twenty-five, or over a quarter of a million combatants.
There is here a curious difference and likeness as compared with the
first phase of the offensive on March 21. To the seventeen divisions
already holding the sector of attack there were added another
seventeen. This time the same number has been added where there were
only eight. Two months ago the front of attack was about forty miles
long. This time a rather denser force was employed, perhaps because the
Aisne height constituted a formidable position, and it was intended to
carry it at a single rush.
While the front keeps its present shape the German staff has
necessarily a great advantage over that of the Allies in that it is
acting from the centre of a crescent, and they are around and outside
of it. If enough time can be given to preparations--and as my last
message showed the pause had been abnormal--they must gain a certain
benefit of surprise, and with this benefit such a mass of shock must
win a certain depth of ground.
Our only notions of the Chemin des Dames were obtained in a time very
different from the present emergency, the time of fixed fronts and of
methods defensive and offensive that are already old-fashioned to those
of us who have watched these blood-soaked hills and gullies for nearly
four years through heartrending vicissitudes, who remember Haig's and
Smith-Dorrien's first attempts to scale what seemed an impregnable
fortress, who saw the French bluecoats rush forward last Summer till
at length they stood firm on the cliffs of Craonne and Heurtebise, who
explored the Dragon's Cave at Malmaison Fort and the vast Montparnasse
quarry when they still stank from rotting flesh.