hem in and destroyed
them within five hours. The British I told of that found it incredible.
Every day the French print special maps showing the guns, sham guns,
trenches, everything of significance behind the German lines, showing
everything that has happened in the last four-and-twenty hours. It is
pitiless. It is indecent. The map-making and printing goes on in the
room next and most convenient to the examination of the photographs.
And, as I say, the German army knows of this, and knows that it cannot
prevent it because of its aerial weakness. That knowledge is not the
last among the forces that is crumpling up the German resistance upon
the Somme.

I visited some French guns during the _tir de demolition_ phase. I
counted nine aeroplanes and twenty-six kite balloons in the air at the
same time. There was nothing German visible in the air at all.

It is a case of eyes and no eyes.

The French attack resolves itself into a triple system of gunfire. First
for a day or so, or two or three days, there is demolition fire to smash
up all the exactly located batteries, organisation, supports, behind the
front line enemy trenches; then comes barrage fire to cut off supplies
and reinforcements; then, before the advance, the hammering down
fire, "heads down," upon the trenches. When at last this stops and the
infantry goes forward to rout out the trenches and the dug-outs, they
go forward with a minimum of inconvenience. The first wave of attack
fights, destroys, or disarms the surviving Germans and sends them back
across the open to the French trenches. They run as fast as they can,
hands up, and are shepherded farther back. The French set to work to
turn over the captured trenches and organise themselves against any
counter attack that may face the barrage fire.

That is the formula of the present fighting, which the French have
developed. After an advance there is a pause, while the guns move up
nearer the Germans and fresh aeroplane reconnaissance goes on. Nowhere
on this present offensive has a German counter attack had more than the
most incidental success; and commonly they have had frightful losses.
Then after a few days of refreshment and accumulation, the Allied attack
resumes.

That is the perfected method of the French offensive. I had the pleasure
of learning its broad outlines in good company, in the company of M.
Joseph Reinach and Colonel Carence, the military writer. Their talk
together and with me in t