RETREAT AND ADVANCE.
SIR DOUGLAS HAIG continues to pour towns and villages as if they were cherries or greengages into the outspread apron of Madame La Republique. Meanwhile her own gallant sons do the same with equal assiduity. It would be useless here to attempt to estimate the numbers of recap- tured villages, or to calculate at the time when we write exactly how many miles the enemy have retreated on a sixty- mile front, or, again, to state how many hundred square miles of French soil have been liberated. We can only mark the big events. The news that Bapaume had been entered came last Sunday, and hard upon it the fall of the bigger though strategically not so important town of Monne. Next, we heard that Chaulnes and Nesle had also been taken, and that the French were in Roye and Noyon. On Tuesday, owing to an improvement in the weather, the pursuers got closer to the pursued, and England heard with delight that the cavalry—it loves its troopers, and has always shared their disappointment that of late they have so seldom had " a. look in "—were going forward and pressing hard on the German mounted force acting as a screen for the retiring troops. It was altogether a fine mixed rearguard action, and one hears of contests which a few years ago would have read like stories of magic. For example, an aeroplane engaged a troop of Uhlans. Our intrepid knight errant, of the air hovered like some glorious eagle over his prey, who defied him, thinking that he would never dare to come within reach of their rifles. But like a thunderbolt from the highest heaven he swooped down and threw a bomb in their midst, killing two or three and scattering the rest in panic. Though we cannot chronicle all the noble deeds or all the gains, we may state that more than two departments have already been freed from the enemy, and that, in spite of the awful harryings and deportations, burnings and slaughterings by the Germans, there must by this time be some forty or fifty thousand inhabitants, broken, half-starved people, old men, women and children, liberated and once more allowed to enter their homes as owners and not as slaves. But alas ! in many, probably in most, cases those homes went up in flames as the Germans turned their backs to the foe and set their faces to the north. They had come in as conquerors drunk with victory and burning, ravishing, and killing in the bloody delirium of success. But conquered or conquering, the apostles of Kultur are just the same. The German Army behaved as badly in the hour of retreat as in that of victory. With one last kick at the corpse of the unfortunate towns and villages that had mown them for nearly three years, they lurched away, destined for the place which Hindenburg, • or some higher authority, has assigned to them. We do not, however, wish to dwell upon these horrors, or to lift the cloth from the faces of the dead and mutilated towns and villages. The war correspondents are quite right to record the horrors in general outline, and to indicate what the women have suffered for two and a half years at the hands of the brutal and drunken soldiery and their more brutal and, strangely enough, even more drunken officers. These crimes, already entered on the register of hell, must now be entered on that of man for purposes of punish- ment, though not for reprisal, not for imitation but for warning, not as a call for vengeance but as a reminder lest mankind should fall into the hateful and untrue belief that war cannot be waged without wickedness so appalling. A very delightful sidelight on the German retreat and our advance may be noticed in this context. All who have seen anything of patients in our military hospitals during the past week must have been struck by the state of delight, almost ecstasy, into which the men have been thrown by the good news. In a hospital for which the present writer has the honour to have provided house-room the atmosphere was charged with joy, though joy without any boasting or " tall talk." It was interesting to note the way in which racial characteristics came out. The Celt, with his wonderful instinct for words, liberated his soul in a sentence : " I'm glad to be a soldier." The more practical Englishman laconieally implored his nurse to hurry up with his treatment : " I want to get back." Even the men who had talked little before about the front suddenly woke up and showed their intimate geographical knowledge of it. They bubbled over with information as to this or that village upon which their thoughts had been so long engaged, and their eyes had occasionally alighted when they had had a chance to look over the parapet at that line of blasted and skeleton trees or dishevelled earth which marked the German line—so near and yet so far off.
All our strategists, amateur as well as professional, are asking, very naturally : " What is Fritz's little game I What are the Germans going to do next ? " The obvious answer, and probably the true one, is that the Germans retired for the reason which is always at the bottom of any great retirement. Their positions were fast becoming un- tenable, and on a review of the situation it was not considered wise or even safe to hold them any longer. But though this is the cardinal fact, it is also sure to be a fact that the Germans, when they laid their plans for the retreat, combined them with an elaborate plan for striking a terrific blow at us, either while we are following them up, or at some other point on our line, or on the Eastern line. The German strategist, we may be quite sure, will die or surrender military text-book in hand. But the military text-book tells him that he must never lose the initiative, never fail to remember that attack is the essence of war. Therefore we may be sure that very soon the thunder- bolt will fall somewhere, and that the Germans will do their very best to prevent it proving a " dud." On the whole, our guess is that it will fall on the Salient. We may add that we devoutly hope it will. It is, however, quite as likely to come on the Somme. The Germans apparently are not falling back at Lille or to the north of Verdun—i.e., Metz. But if these two places are really fixed points, they may have a plan for luring us and the French on in the deadly space between until they have, as they would say, " decoyed " us into a position where we are " encircled." Then the nippers will close from the points just mentioned. This view, on a closer investigation, may prove to be fantastic ; but upon one point our readers and the public generally may be fully reassured. Sir William Robertson and Sir Douglas Haig are quite as well aware as is `, our military correspondent," or even as the man in the street, that Fritz is up to some little game. They are watching him closely, and canvassing every probable and possible scheme. Of that we may be certain. What is- more, they are taking all measures, compatible with that boldness and rapidity which are the essence of war, to give the German a warm reception when he does strike. For the Chief of Staff here and the Commander-in-Chief in France are both very cautious as well as very enterprising men. We hazard the guess that the first note struck by the full orchestra of Mars when the symphony opens will be on a naval instrument.
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