RECORD OF POLITICAL EVENTS

[From August 1, 1918, to July 31, 1919]

I. THE WORLD WAR

THE WESTERN FRONT. - The great counteroffensive on the German flank between the Aisne and the Marne, which had been launched by General Foch on July 18, 1918, proved to be one of the most important military operations of the war. It not only resulted in the elimination of the menacing salients directed at Paris and Amiens, but it broke the German offensive, which had been waged at a staggering cost, and led ultimately to the inevitable retirement of the German army eastward. This stupendous task was accomplished by means of a series of brilliantly executed manoeuvers which had for their immediate purpose the cutting off of enemy communications at Soissons, La Fère and Fismes (see last RECORD, p. 4). By August 1 General Mangin had advanced into the territory just south of Soissons and on August 2 his army drove the enemy five miles beyond the Crise. To the north, detachments of his troops entered Soissons, where the Germans offered little resistance. On the evening of August 2 French cavalry and tanks advanced to the Aisne near Venizel. Meanwhile de Goutte, after taking Grand Rozoy, had begun an encircling movement on Fère by advancing his left across the hills to the north of the town and sending his American divisions to attack Coulonges on the east. By July 28 the Germans had been squeezed out of Fère. On August I de Goutte's left reached Bengneux and, driving the enemy rear guards rapidly ahead, advanced toward Braisne and Fismes on the Vesle. The Americans took Coulonges on August 2 and pushed on to Fismes, the last of the German bases in the salient under attack. Meanwhile the British and French divisions on the east side of the salient around Ville-en-Tardenois likewise advanced on August 2, passing through that village, taking Goussaincourt and Villers-Agran and pushing on to the Ardres river. In the meantime other troops moved west from near Rheims along the north bank of the Ardres reaching the south bank of the upper Vesle on August 1. By August 3 the allied line had been advanced to the Vesle. The Marne salient had been flattened for an average distance of two miles; 35,000 prisoners, 700 guns and 200 villages had been taken; and the front had been contracted from 80 miles on July 18 to 45 miles on August 3. The allied troops were now in possession of the entire southern bank except at the junction of the Vesle and the Aisne, where the Germans made a feverish and formidable effort to delay the

allied advance. Small allied detachments thrown across the Vesle on August 4 met with determined resistance but held their ground until August 7 when additional troops crossed and advanced the line on a four-mile front from Fismes to the highway and railroad on the north, west of Braches. Two days later American troops captured Fismette and quickly consolidated the new position with those already gained across the river. The Germans, in their anxiety to hold the SoissonsRheims salient and to prevent the troops of the German crown prince from being cut off, drew heavily upon the reserves of the armies of the Bavarian crown prince, in Picardy and Flanders. Thus weakened and fearing attack, the Germans, during the first week of August, withdrew from their positions west of the Ancre and the Avre to safer defensive positions behind these rivers.-On the morning of August 8 the Allies launched a drive against the German salient near Amiens, northwest of the one just eliminated. The British in conjunction with French and American troops opened a heavy attack on a thirty-mile front from Montdidier to Albert. After a very brief artillery preparation a large force of both heavy and light whippet tanks quickly advanced under protection of the heavy mist which shrouded the river valleys. The enemy, surprised and disconcerted, was forced back, leaving behind him an immense quantity of supplies. Within twentyfour hours the advance patrols of the allied armies had penetrated in some instances to a depth of seven miles behind the enemy lines and had taken 7,000 prisoners and 100 guns. The British advance was well-nigh irresistible; within a week the number of German prisoners had increased to more than 40,000, and guns captured numbered 700, while the Amiens salient had been converted by the Anglo-French offensive into a reëntering angle with the apex pointing toward the important railroad center of Chaulnes, twelve miles inside the old line. The Germans, in their endeavor to safeguard Chaulnes, rushed up all their available reserves, and while they were thus engaged the French uncovered their principal attack by regaining Montdidier and taking the heights north of the Oise, overlooking Lassigny and Noyon, with more than 25,000 prisoners and vast quantities of supplies. Along the entire Picardy front the allied troops kept the enemy busy; British and American troops stormed Morlancourt and Chipilly ridge and moved on Bray. South of the Somme they captured Bouchoir, Meharicourt and Lihons, repulsing bloody counterattacks near Lihons on August II and 12. The French, taking advantage of the situation in the north, continued their advance along the front east of Montdidier. By August 18 the enemy had been forced to retire at Bucquoy, six miles northwest of the important railway junction of Bapaume. Rawlinson with the British was only a mile from Roye, while the French were in close proximity to Lassigny and Noyon. In less than a month the masterly strategy of Foch had netted the Allies approximately

75,000 unwounded prisoners, 1,800 large guns and 10,000 machine guns. Foch was made a Marshal of France on August 5.-On August 17 the French moved to the east by launching a new offensive on a fifteenmile front along the Oise and the Aisne toward Laon and La Fère; by the evening of August 20 they had advanced from two to three miles on the entire front and had taken from 8,000 to 10,000 prisoners and many villages. Lassigny, now untenable, was captured without opposition on the 21st. The following day the French advanced seven miles to the north of Soissons, took several villages and crossed the Ailette river. In the meantime the British began to hammer the enemy at Armentières and Arras; on the 18th they forced him back on a four-mile front between Bailleul and Vieux Berquin and the following day took Merville, thus flattening out the salient directed at Hazebrouck. Farther south, on the Ancre, the British under General Byng and the Americans under Major-General Read, on August 21, drove a wedge into the enemy line in the direction of Bapaume. On the 22nd the British captured Albert in a drive which netted two miles on a six-mile front; by the 27th they had entered Bapaume and were threatening Combles and Péronne. Meanwhile to the north the British, despite bitter resistance, had advanced eastward from Arras down the Scarpe and by the 27th they were beyond the farthest line of advance which they had made in 1917 (see last RECORD, p. 1). While these operations were in progress another British force took Bray on August 24. A week later the Australians, advancing to Péronne, stormed its commanding height, Mont St. Quentin, and captured the city on September 1, taking about 3,500 prisoners and forcing the enemy to retire toward St. Quentin. — During the month of August, 1918, the British regained their losses of the previous March (see last RECORD, pp. 2-3) and were rapidly approaching the old Hindenburg line of 1917. Following the capture of Montdidier, French troops were sent to relieve the British before Roye; this replacement was successfully effected on August 25, and on the 27th the French in a two-mile advance on a twelve-mile front captured the town and more than a thousand prisoners. - On the 28th the French in an eight-mile drive took Chaulnes, recaptured forty villages and reached the Somme. Following the advance from Lassigny the French, by approaching Noyon from the north, west and south forced its evacuation on August 29 and the next day pushed on to Ham and Guiscard. At every point along the entire seventy-five mile line stretching from Soissons to Lens the Allies continued to sweep the Germans back. South of the Oise the French and Americans pushed eastward, the Americans taking Juvigny on August 30 and the French storming Mt. St. Simon, east of Noyon, on the same day. Within two weeks the Allies, in spite of desperate resistance, had practically driven the enemy out of the angle between the Oise and the Aisne and were in a position to attack