COSTLY REVERSE FOR THE GERMANS.

AMBITIOUS PLAN FAILS.

From G. H. PERRIS. WITH THE FRENCH ARMIES, Friday Afternoon.

The front has subsided into actions of no more than local importance. The five days’ battle on the west of the Oise has ended for the Germans, after an advance varying from two to six miles, in a very costly reverse, and for our Allies in a brilliant success of good generalship and indomitable spirit in the ranks. The first push towards Amiens ended in ten days, having entailed upon the Allies the sacrifice of a tract forty miles deep, and serious casualties. The following attack in the North lasted about as long, but with much slighter gains. The German success on the Chemin des Dames brought the Crown Prince’s foreguards to the Marne, twenty-five miles from their startingpoint, but that it touched much less vital ground is proved by the transfer of its centre of pressure to the Ourcq Valley near Villers-cotterets. From these results to those of the present week’s fighting there is a marked descent. And this failure occurs in what must be accounted one of the most critical directions the enemy can pursue. The ambitious character of his design is now clear. It is not merely to divide the British from the French armies and then to destroy one of them, but also by a single series of converging operations to destroy them both. The approach to Amiens is the centre of their joint communications and to Hazebrouck as the door to the Channel ports has been followed by the approach along four converging lines to the Parisian region, the centre of French administrative life. In fact, the attainment of all these objectives would not finish the war, for I am sure there is in France, and there probably is in the other countries concerned, a deadly resolution that it shall not be ended in any such wav, and that, if Paris should be destroyed – which heaven forfend – another capital shall be found, and that there shall be no surrender while there is an army on its legs. Happily these extremities are not in view. This offensive has had two aims – to reach a crescent north and east of Paris, whence a general attack could be launched, and to draw down, disperse, and harry the Allied reserves preparatory to a final onslaught along the whole line. Its relative failure is a great encouragement.