Are the Enemy Beginning to Falter?

Saturday 10th August 1918

Are the enemy beginning to falter? This is the question everyone here is asking. Rumour, our ever-unreliable friend, has it that the Royal Air Force reconnaissance machines have noticed that the enemy are beginning to fall back from the gains they made in their great Spring Offensive.

Militarily this makes sense. The enemy had, to an extent, outrun his lines of communication, which helped to stall his attack. Even now, three months on, those lines will be less effective because they are up to fifty miles longer than before. They also occupy hastily dug defences or old British and Imperial defences that have had to "turn round" so to speak and re-use. If they are falling back to the old defences, built up over years, which they occupied before their offensive it will certainly be a great fillip for our men but will also allow them to lurk in positions of great strength, with better supplies. Those with long memories will recall that such a retreat was precisely what the Germans carried out in the Spring of 1917 after the great Somme offensive, and led to stronger positions for our forces to attack that year around Arras and elsewhere.