Thursday 8 November 2018

Is the Advance Too Fast?


Friday 8th November 1918

Today the advance has continued along a broad front, it is reckoned about three or four miles on average. Some are shaking their heads, worrying that, with the atrocious state of the roads, our armies are outrunning their supplies. Others fear that the enemy is not so beaten as he seems and that he has some secret line of incredible strength from which he will launch a devastating counter-attack.

In truth it is difficult to know precisely what it happening. We have all been conditioned to think along trench lines for so long, where an advance of a hundred yards is cause for celebration, that we cannot quite believe the huge strides we are now making. In some areas today it was, we have been told, hard going, with stiff resistance and counter-attacks. In other places defensive positions of great strength have been left unoccupied. 

 4th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, unemployed for what seems a long time, today made their re-appearance on the battlefield. This afternoon, as the light was beginning to fade, they attacked and took a village called Blaugies a few miles north-west of Maubeuge and in Belgium.

Tonight British troops lie about seven miles from Mons.

Source: X550/5/3


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