Saturday 7th April 1917
The 2nd
Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment have left Blairville and gone into the front
line at Hénin-sur-Cojeul, a place they probed on 20th March during
the German retreat, but found occupied.
Now that the
enemy seems to have ended his retreat by occupying pre-prepared positions,
which the army is calling the Hindenburg Line, he will have to be evicted from
them. No one here doubts that a “big push” is coming soon, perhaps within the
next few days.
This would be
a daunting task but everyone here is buoyed by the fact that the United States
of America has declared war on Germany.
Those who think this will mean an instant flood of fresh allied forces
into France are, however, mistaken. It appears that the American army is tiny,
smaller than ours was in 1914. Readers will remember that it took the British
Army just over a year to launch its first large-scale offensive, at Loos in
September 1915. So it seems inevitable that we will not seeany American units
in France and Belgium for about the same length of time. When they do arrive
they will be in their millions whicxh must give the Kaiser and his cronies
nightmares.
