HUN ATTACKS ON THE CAMBRAI FRONT.

GERMAN BATTLE LOSSES.

There has been one of those lulls beyond the Hindenburg Line round Cambrai, which must always take place in modern warfare, as we saw so often in the Flanders fighting when forces, spent by fighting, must be reorganised for the next blow, if there is to be one. For the past twenty-four hours the enemy has made no further attack on a big scale, but it is certain that he has not yet called off his storm troops, satisfied with what he has gained back in the ground we took from him on Nov. 20. No doubt his pressure will be maintained on this front from Marcoing down to La Vacquerie, and from Bourlon Wood to Moeuvres, and as soon as he has fresh troops available – many of them are in line now – he will probably try to follow up his previous thrusts, and drive us back to a further line of defence. There are reports of two new divisions against us, and there were rumours that the enemy decided to make a new attack on a grand scale yesterday in order to encircle Marcoing and Neuf, or New Wood, and cut off some of our men and guns. It was a good plan if it had succeeded, but it did not, and will not succeed. If any attack was intended it was postponed, owing probably to the heavy casualties suffered by the German storm troops in their fighting round La Vacquerie, extraordinarily great losses, as is admitted by some of the survivors who are now in our hands. The German losses in these recent attacks are beyond exaggeration. They are sufficient to satisfy the heart of vengeance itself. I have already told how the advancing waves to the west of Bourlon Wood were mown down by our machine-gun and rifle fire, but what I did not know at the time was that our heavy guns and field guns caught these masses of men in enfilade fire and tore gaps in their ranks. “The ground is stiff with them,” said an officer today. So the enemy has paid a frightful price for his recovery of a strip of that French soil which we took from him so suddenly and so swiftly. But now that he has come back part of the way he will, I dare say, want to come farther, and will pour more of his living men after the dead. I hear that our flying men, very low, as usual, over his lines, reported a concentration and movement of large numbers of men round about Marcoing and Masnières yesterday. When the German High Command gives its final order they and others will come forward in their waves. Our troops have held back this weight of the offensive strongly after the first shock. In doing so they they have fought sometimes heroic rearguard actions when only a few men stood unwounded as the enemy closed around them. This courage of theirs broke the first onrush of the German battalions and delayed the whole scheme of attack. Owing to our withdrawal from Masnières and the enemy’s capture of Marcoing Copse and La Vacquerie, our line is not everywhere a perfect one for defence, and the enemy will make the most of his advantage at these points. He is still a long way off his Hindenburg Line, except on the southern end of our right wing in this battle, and we have behind us those well-dug trenches almost untouched by shell-fire. Our front is maintained by the stern resistance of our troops, and behind that front is a strong defensive line from which we drove the enemy on the day of Sir Julian Byng’s victory.