One consequence was that, when the German infantry advanced yesterday
morning, it had to meet a volume of fire very different from that
which had answered the surprises of St. Quentin and the Aisne Heights.
French gunners had thoroughly studied the ground before them and were
all ready to deluge every path of approach directly that graycoat
waves appeared. From the beginning, therefore, the German losses have
been heavier than on the earlier occasions, and this must affect the
development of the action.
In other respects the now familiar von Hutier manoeuvre appears to
have been repeated, shock battalions carrying light machine guns
and machine rifles concentrating upon local breaches in our line and
leaving the task of cleaning up islands of resistance to the support
troops while they pressed on rapidly to exploit the first success. It
will probably be found that the operation was begun with about fifteen
divisions in the line, approximately 150,000 men, giving a density of
one division to a mile and a third.
Faced with a force superior in all arms, long resistance of the first
line is impossible, but it is significant that at 8 o'clock yesterday
morning, that is after four hours of a terrible storm of gas and
explosive shells, followed by four hours of hand-to-hand struggle, our
allies were still in a large part of the field fighting within what
is called the zone of advanced posts, and only the centre had fallen
back on the zone of principal resistance. Plemont Hill, overlooking
Lassigny, was still holding out at that hour, although the front had
lain immediately beneath it. The villages of Le Fretoy and Courcelles
were lost during the morning, but were recovered by counterattacks, in
which the French troops showed the highest spirit.
Up to late last night the only result that von Hutier could regard as
in any degree justifying the effort made and the losses suffered was
the capture of the villages of Ressons-sur-Matz and Mareuil-la-Motte,
whereas on the French left before Ribecourt, by Le Tretoy to
Courcelles, and on the right from Belval to Cannectancourt, the advance
varied from one to two miles. At the centre it rather exceeded three.
This is a poor gain, judged by precedent, and was bought at an
exorbitant price, but it has a certain tactical and perhaps superior
consequence.
_Later on June 10 Mr. Perris gave this further description of the
progress of the fighting:_
"This is the real battle," said a French staff officer, meaning to
contrast today's fierce fighting between forces unequal indeed, but
not crushingly so, with the attack on the Chemin des Dames. Here the
French had a stronger line, their reserves were nearer, and they
had sufficient notice to bring their batteries at every point into
effective action. Effective, do I say? At many points it was a massacre
of the columns of assault, and there is unanimity as well among the
prisoners as among our own combatants that the ranks of the enemy have
been torn and plowed with shot and shell. Never, perhaps, has the
German Army paid so dearly for an advance which nowhere exceeds five
miles.
This is the essential fact which governs all that follows; for if, as
the German official press says with a measure of truth, the German
objective is not a city or a port, but the complete destruction of the
allied armies, so our objective is not to hold a certain geographical
area, but to punish the advance so that the enemy forces will be
exhausted, while ours are being constantly recruited from oversea for
the last stroke that will give us the victory.
The smallness of the enemy's gains in this fourth phase of the grand
battle is merely the sign that von Hutier found across his path an
adversary prepared as far as was humanly possible, determined and able
to contest every yard of ground.
Thus the village of Courcelles, only two miles from the old front, was
lost, retaken, lost again, recovered, and remains in the hands of the
French. Thus Plemont, a position insignificant as compared with the
Aisne Heights, although encircled and covered with fire, was being
defended till last evening. Since then no carrier pigeon has come in,
and it must be presumed that the heroic handful of men who held this
point of the front have been overcome. Their countrymen will not forget
them.