ST. QUENTIN AFTER THE GERMAN EVACUATION In the center is shown the beautiful Hotel de Ville, and in the forefront of the center what is left of the statue commemorating the siege of 1557 by the Spaniards in the time of Philip II VII ST. QUENTIN FALLS, BOTH GERMAN FLANKS ARE M September 17, 1918-October 3, 1918 EANWHILE, following the American success in the St. Mihiel salient, British and French veterans on September 17 began another drive in the north against the Hindenburg line in the St. Quentin sector. Sweeping forward on a front of twenty-two miles, they advanced from one and one-third to three miles. The most important aspect of the advance was that it made more certain the eventual capture of St. Quentin which the Germans had been ordered to hold at all costs. As that city had been virtually surrounded on three sides, its fall seemed now only a matter of several days or a few weeks at most. A British assault on a front of sixteen miles from Holnon, west of St. Quentin, to Gouzeaucourt, reached a depth of more than three miles at some points and secured 6,000 prisoners. The blow went far toward wiping out the only remaining bulge that resembled a salient. The French advance was less spectacular, but equally successful in gaining objectives on a front of six miles, reaching an average depth of one and one-third miles, and adding several hundred prisoners to the record. The French were now less than three miles from the suburbs of St. Quentin. This city, where German troops in 1871 under General Goeben had scored a great victory, was one of the buttresses of the Douai-St. Quentin-Laon line. With the French on the outskirts of La Fère, St. Quentin invested, and with the British battling doggedly for Cambrai, the great Hindenburg system was in danger of being breached at three of its strongest points. Once ousted from it, the Teutons would have back of them no strong fortifications until they reached Maubeuge. Next day the British made further gains around Gouzeaucourt-scene of the engagement in which, late in the autumn of 1917, Col. William Barclay Parsons and his engineers and road-builders, helped to stay the counter-offensive against Byng-and east of Epéhy, while the French, striking southeast of St. Quentin, brought the southern part of their nippers into a still better position for the squeeze. More than 10,000 prisoners and in excess of sixty large guns had fallen into the hands of the British in three days. Northeast of Soissons the Germans at this time were counterattacking viciously against Allied forces holding strategic positions threatening the Chemin-des-Dames. Ludendorff was giving no evidence that he could much longer hold the Hindenburg line, but Foch had produced ample evidence that he could smash it. Allied infantry had become more than a match in quantity and quality for German infantry. Practically all direct connection between St. Quentin and La Fére on the west side of the Oise had now been severed. In the British advance the Australians had had the hardest fighting. Villages and woods that came in their path had been reduced by encirclement and without great trouble, but trench-lines had to be cleared by direct attack. They took 3,600 prisoners, while their own casualties, including all the wounded, did not number one-half that. As the Australians had been engaged without interruption for four and a half months, their performance stood out as one of the great feats of the offensive. In the first week in May they had begun chipping off bits of the front in the Morlancourt area and continued to do so until the British offensive in the Montdidier salient, on August 8, gave them an opportunity for an advance on a larger scale. Other Australians at that time were eating their way into German positions at Merris, in the Lys salient. Since then the Australians as one army had been fighting on the southern front. Their drive on September 18 was a worthy climax to their earlier advances.1 The work being done at this time by Mangin's army in the Aisne country, owing to more striking operations else1 Cable dispatch from Perry Robinson to The Sun (New York). where, was little chronicled. His soldiers, however, had been making advances after desperate fighting. Skilful maneuver was the secret of his success, German positions being turned from the southwest. The operations ran parallel to those on the equally difficult massif of Thiaucourt, where Humbert's men were pushing steadily toward Lassigny, "nibbling" their way forward by infiltration. Resistance to Mangin was helped greatly by the fact that the Germans were close to the Hindenburg defenses. Counter-stroke after counter-stroke followed every French advance. On the night of September 10 Prussian Guards attacked six times in a vain attempt to win back Laffaux and on the 19th another crack division broke five times against a French unit that |