United States or Saudi Arabia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Street of the Three Pebbles la rue des Trois Cailloux which goes up from the station through the heart of Amiens, was the crowded highway. She had been in Amiens, as I was, on a dreadful night of August of 1914, when the French army passed through in retreat from Bapaume, and she and the people of her city knew for the first time that the Germans were close upon them.
So at last, I turned back toward the road, and very slowly, with bowed head and shoulders that felt very old, all at once, I walked back toward the Bapaume highway. I was still silent, and when we reached the road again, and the waiting cars, I turned, and looked back, long and sorrowfully, at that tiny hill, and the grave it sheltered.
Granted the great pressure has not been kept up, but in proportion to the weather conditions the push has been driven home relentlessly and ground won foot by foot, yard by yard, until, in February, 1917, the Germans retired behind their Bapaume defences. Just how far they are going back one cannot decide.
Despite weather conditions, which hampered military operations, the British troops made good progress, and on the 20th held the line of the Somme in strength from Péronne southward to Canizy. British patrols were active as far east as Mons-en-Chaussée, and in several sectors between Bapaume and Arras British cavalry were engaged in skirmishes with the enemy.
But early in 1917 the Germans, seeing they had come to the end of their tether there, retreated, and gave the town up. But what a town they left! Bapaume was nearly as complete a ruin as Arras and Albert. But it had not been wrecked by shell-fire. The Hun had done the work in cold blood. The houses had been wrecked by human hands. Pictures still hung crazily upon the walls.
"No," said the Chevalier; "but I see very well that they are some of the enemy's troopers." Upon which, observing to him that they were mounting, he ordered the horsemen that escorted him to prepare themselves to make a diversion, and he himself set off full speed towards Bapaume.
History will have it to say that England was the good Samaritan who helped the Belgians who had fallen among thieves, while Americans were among those who passed by on the other side. "This War Will End Within Forty Years" A New Zealand officer was giving directions to a group of his soldiers. They were in the field at the foot of Bapaume.
The breach was narrow, the field of action for horses limited; but word came back that over the plateau which looked away to Bapaume between Delville and High Woods there were few shell-craters and no German trenches or many Germans in sight as day dawned.
In my thoughts I shall never be far away from the little cemetery hard by the Bapaume road. And life would not be worth the living for me did I not believe that each day brings me nearer to seeing him again. I found a belief among the soldiers in France that was almost universal.
In the course of the action the French captured about 100 prisoners and a considerable number of machine guns. On March 12, 1917, the British advance was resumed on a front of nearly four miles to the west of Bapaume. The Germans, retreating, left only a strong screen of rear guards to oppose, but they avoided contact with British patrols as far as possible.
Word Of The Day