FRENCH VICTORY

A BRILLIANT BLOW

The important victory gained by the French troops on 23 Oct – the anniversary of their recapture of Douaumont, the key fort of the Verdun defences – came at a very important juncture. In Flanders, British troops, after accomplishing the impossible in the waterlogged crater-field before Poelcapelle and Passchendaele, had paused in their advance against the northern end of Passchendaele Ridge and the adjoining Forest of Houthoulst, into which both British and French infantry have driven their claws. On the Baltic coast the enemy, having captured Riga, seized the islands in the bay, and threatens to extend operations against the Russian arsenals, Reval, and possibly Petrograd. Simultaneously, large Austro-german forces appeared on the Isonzo front, with the intention of rolling up the outer flank of the Italians operating against Trieste. In the midst of these military events – in which the Germans have temporarily, at any rate, checked our advance in Flanders, though it will be but a brief delay in Haig’s triumphant progress through those sodden slopes, and in which the enemy is attempting a dangerous offensive against the most exposed parts of the Allied fronts on the Baltic and on the Isonzo – came the news of the great French victory. A blow struck at the very heart of the hostile system, which compels him to relax his grip on key positions between the Rivers Aisne and Ailette, and which menace to tear a gap in the centre of his line from the sea to the Vosges mountains. It is accurate to say that the battle transformed the situation, facilitates our further offensive, and paralyses the Germans’ further progress against our sorely straitened Russian allies.