AND FRANCE STRIKE IN THE NORTH

Up to July 18, 1918, the Allied armies in France had been steadily on
the defensive, but on that date the tide turned. General Foch, who had
been yielding territory for several months in the great German drives,
now assumed the offensive himself and began the series of great drives
which was to crush the German power and drive the enemy in defeat
headlong from France.

The first of these great blows was the one which began with the
appearance of the Americans at Chateau-Thierry. The Germans had formed a
huge salient whose eastern extremity lay near Rheims, and its western
extremity west of Soissons. It was like a great pocket reaching down in
the direction of Paris from those two points. Against this salient the
French and Americans had directed a tremendous thrust. The Germans
resisted with desperation. It was the turning point of the war, but they
were compelled to yield. Town after town was regained by the French and
American troops, until, by August 5th, the Crown Prince had been driven
from the Marne to the Vesle, and the salient obliterated.

On August 7th General Foch delivered his second blow. During the
fighting on the Marne it had often been wondered by those who were
observing the great French general's strategy, why the British seemed to
make no move. Occasionally there had been reports of minor assaults,
either on the Lys salient, far north, or on the Somme and Montdidier
sectors, lying between. It had not been noticed that in these minor
assaults the English had been obtaining positions of strategic
importance, and that they were steadily getting ready for an English
offensive.

But their time had now come, and on August 7th the armies of Sir Douglas
Haig began an attack against the armies of Prince Rupprecht on the Lys
salient. This was followed, on August 8th, by another still greater
Allied advance in Picardy, between Albert and Montdidier.

Both of these attacks met with notable success. On the Lys salient the
English penetrated a distance of one thousand yards over a four-mile
front, and followed up this advance by persistent attacks which led to
the reoccupation, on August 19th, of Merville, and on August 31st, of
Mont Kemmel. On this front the Germans had weakened their strength by
withdrawing troops to aid other parts of their front, and the British
were constantly taking advantage of this weakening.

The Germans had found this salient a failure. It had failed