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Updated: May 15, 2025
Far different were the aim and scope of the British air offensives into Germany and into country occupied by German troops. Railway junctions, ammunition dumps, enemy billets, submarine bases, aerodromes these were the targets for our airmen, who scored hits by the simple but dangerous plan of flying so low that misses were almost out of the question.
For the present purpose, therefore, the military efforts of the R.N.A.S. can be included with those of the R.F.C., after a tribute has been paid to the bombing offensives for which the Naval Air Service has always been famous, from early exploits with distant objectives such as Cuxhaven and Friedrichshafen to this year's successful attacks on German munition works, in conjunction with the French, and the countless trips from Dunkirk that are making the Zeebrugge-Ostend-Bruges sector such an unhappy home-from-home for U-boats, destroyers, and raiding aircraft.
By far the largest and most important developments in the whole world-wide strategic picture of 1942 were the events of the long fronts in Russia: first, the implacable defense of Stalingrad; and, second, the offensives by the Russian armies at various points that started in the latter part of November and which still roll on with great force and effectiveness.
Foch had an inexhaustible reservoir which enabled him to take risks which Ludendorff could not afford, and gave him a freedom of action which no Entente general had yet possessed. The extent of his command and his resources released him from the bonds of limited offensives.
My special work was on the military side, and consisted in making quarterly reports on the general dispositions of large bodies of troops, the massing of corps for spring offensives, and big pushes and hammer blows. Then you came into my life!
After having been pushed back many miles by the German hordes, the French now braced suddenly and gave as good as they received. Instead of waiting for the German attacks, General Petain launched offensives of his own. At first these broke down easily under the German shells, but as they continued, the drives began to meet with more and more success.
It was a mere accident that the gas attack north-east of the city followed upon strenuous fighting for Hill 60 at the south-east re-entrant, and the choice of locality was due to the German knowledge of the facts that the French regulars had been removed from the Yser and our own heavy guns from Ypres in order to take part in offensives farther south.
They had borne the burden from the very first; they had been on the Marne and the Yser in 1914, at the numberless and costly offensives of 1915 in Artois, Champagne, Lorraine and Alsace; and in 1916, after the Verdun epic, they had had to fight on the Somme. Indeed, they had only ceased repelling the enemy's attacks in order to attack in their turn.
Through that bloody series of offensives the Italians slowly but steadily gained ground, and drew ever nearer to Trento and Trieste. Only those who went out to the Italian Front before Caporetto, and saw with their own eyes what the Italian Army had accomplished on the Carso and among the Julian Alps, can fully realise the greatness of the Italian effort.
"Your peace offensives will avail nothing to you, nobody will speak with you again. Even the Austrian peoples refuse to negotiate with you, knowing the value of your words. We have no intention of saving you from destruction. Your aim is still the German-Magyar hegemony and the oppression of Slavs and Latins. You must look elsewhere for support.
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