FATEFUL RAIN.
ENEMY PLANS UPSET.
OUR MEN NEAR RHEIMS.
From PHILIP GIBBS. WAR CORRESPONDENTS’ HEADQUARTERS, FRANCE, Tuesday. There is heavy rain to-day in the North of France, and each drop of it will alter a little perhaps the history of this war. That seems a fantastic thing to say, yet we out here, who know the effect of weather on the chances of victory – we learnt the lesson horribly last year – believe now that these recent storms will be very much to the discomfort of the enemy at a time when all his plans have gone awry. While the Allied armies are fighting victoriously between the Aisne and the Marne, so that the mainspring of the German campaign on the Western Front has already been smashed, Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria must be hoping that, in spite of the disaster to the Crown Prince, he may be left with his reserves to strike us in a vital part. His anxieties must grow apace, for the armies of the Crown Prince are becoming exhausted by great losses, so that he may send at any moment urgent demands for Rupprecht’s men. Even if that cry for help does not come, the Bavarian Prince, with his group of armies, is now isolated from the general scheme of things, and cannot rely for some time upon the co-operation of the General Headquarters Staff, which is otherwise engaged by the menace of Foch’s attack. If he launches a big offensive against us now it will be divorced from the main part of the German programme of this year, which was to be an advance on Paris at the same time as a drive to the Channel ports, keeping both the French and British armies desperately engaged. Prince Rupprecht’s part of the programme will be hindered by the rainstorms, for he holds the ground which is quickest spoilt by bad weather. Our old battlefields in Flanders, which are now German lines of communication, must be in all their old filth today, with waterlogged shell-holes merging into evil-smelling lakes where corruption floats. Further south the Valley of the Ancre and the Somme and all that wild waste of ground away to Bapaume will not be made pleasant tracks for German transport. So let it rain.
FAMOUS TROOPS GO EAST.
Between the Marne and the Aisne the enemy is fighting desperately, and French and American troops are forcing in the sides of the salient and crashing him into a narrowing space. Our British troops slipped quietly away from our own front just before Foch was ready to deliver his counterblow. They are men who have fought in many of our great battles, and have won the highest honours of war. It is too soon yet to name them, for the enemy desires to know whom he has against him, but these English and Scottish battalions have already shattered some of his best divisions and made many prisoners, I saw some of them just before they left our front.
HARD TASK FOR BRITISH.
Three days ago they went into battle on ground unknown to them in that rugged country below Rheims, and these boys have beaten back the strongest German troops. They were set a hard task. The English and Scottish battalions were ordered to attack on the eastern side of the salient below Rheims, where the enemy had massed a strong concentration of men and guns for a break through to Epernay, and at the time he was expecting French counter-attacks. The Germans there were on high ground on each side of the valley of the Ardre, very rugged and wild, so that they were in strong defensive positions. Dense woods in full foliage – the Bois de Rheims, north of the river, and the Bois de Courton and Bois du Roi, south of the river – screened their movement, and their guns to the south-west of Rheims. They had strong garrisons well forward in the towns of Marfaux, Bouilly, and St. Euphraise and other villages behind. After several hours’ bombardment of the German positions our battalions advanced upon the enemy. They were handicapped by a complete ignorance of the ground except by a hurried study of maps, but the officers led them towards their objectives, and they went forward with short, sharp rushes, with good discipline, and high courage. South of the River Ardre Scottish troops were rapid in advance, and swept round the Bois de Courton, and made a number of prisoners. North of the river, English battalions advanced along the Bois de Rheims to the small town of Marfaux, where they found themselves faced by heavy forces of Germans. They stormed the place with repeated efforts to capture it, in spite of very murderous gunfire whch was flung over by German batteries of field guns and heavies. They were unable to take the town that day (the 20th), though they inflicted an immense number of casualties upon the defending troops and took prisoners from three German divisions.