German commandant sat in our Intelligence hut with his head
bowed on his breast. Every now and then he said: "It is cold! It is
cold!" And our men lay out in the captured ground beyond Arras and on
the Vimy Ridge, under harassing fire and machine-gun fire, cold, too,
in that wild blizzard, with British dead and German dead in the mangled
earth about them.

Ludendorff admits the severity of that defeat.

"The battle near Arras on April 9th formed a bad beginning to the
capital fighting during this year.

"April 10th and the succeeding days were critical days. A breach twelve
thousand to fifteen thousand yards wide and as much as six thousand
yards and more in depth is not a thing to be mended without more ado.
It takes a good deal to repair the inordinate wastage of men and guns as
well as munitions that results from such a breach. It was the business
of the Supreme Command to provide reserves on a large scale. But in view
of the troops available, and of the war situation, it was simply not
possible to hold a second division in readiness behind each division
that might, perhaps, be about to drop out. A day like April 9th upset
all calculations. It was a matter of days before a new front could be
formed and consolidated. Even after the troops were ultimately in
line the issue of the crisis depended, as always in such cases, very
materially upon whether the enemy followed up his initial success with a
fresh attack and by fresh successes made it difficult for us to create
a firm front. In view of the weakening of the line that inevitably
resulted, such successes were only too easy to achieve.

"From April 10th onward the English attacked in the breach in great
strength, but after all not in the grand manner; they extended their
attack on both wings, especially to the southward as far as Bullecourt.
On April 11th they gained Monchy, while we during the night before the
12th evacuated the Vimy heights. April 23d and 28th, and also May 3d,
were again days of heavy, pitched battle. In between there was some
bitter local fighting. The struggle continued, we delivered minor
successful counter-attacks, and on the other hand lost ground slightly
at various points."

I remember many pictures of that fighting round Arras in the days that
followed the first day. I remember the sinister beauty of the city
itself, when there was a surging traffic of men and guns through its
ruined streets in spite of long-range shells which came c