ganizing a great offensive in the Champagne and desired the British
army to strike first and keep on striking in order to engage and exhaust
German divisions until he was ready to launch his own legions. The
"secret" of his preparations was known by every officer in the French
army and by Hindenburg and his staff, who prepared a new method
of defense to meet it. The French officers with whom I talked were
supremely confident of success. "We shall go through," they said. "It
is certain. Anybody who thinks otherwise is a traitor who betrays his
country by the poison of pessimism. Nivelle will deal the death--blow."
So spoke an officer of the Chasseurs Alpins, and a friend in the
infantry of the line, over a cup of coffee in an estaminet crammed with
other French soldiers who were on their way to the Champagne front.

Nivelle did not launch his offensive until April 16th, seven days after
the British had captured the heights of Vimy and gone far to the east of
Arras. Hindenburg was ready. He adopted his "elastic system of defense,"
which consisted in withdrawing the main body of his troops beyond
the range of the French barrage fire, leaving only a few outposts to
camouflage the withdrawal and be sacrificed for the sake of the others
(those German outposts must have disliked their martyrdom under orders,
and I doubt whether they, poor devils, were exhilarated by the thought
of their heroic service). He also withdrew the full power of his
artillery beyond the range of French counter-battery work and to such
a distance that when it was the German turn to fire the French infantry
would be beyond the effective protection of their own guns. They were
to be allowed an easy walk through to their death-trap. That is what
happened. The French infantry, advancing with masses of black troops
in the Colonial Corps in the front-line of assault, all exultant and
inspired by a belief in victory, swept through the forward zone of the
German defenses, astonished, and then disconcerted by the scarcity
of Germans, until an annihilating barrage fire dropped upon them and
smashed their human waves. From French officers and nurses I heard
appalling tales of this tragedy. The death--wail of the black troops
froze the blood of Frenchmen with horror. Their own losses were immense
in a bloody shambles. I was told by French officers that their losses on
the first day of battle were 150,000 casualties, and these figures
were generally believed. They w