d first-line German fortifications
had been broken on July 1st.

To think of Pozieres will be to think of the Australians as long as the
history of the Somme battle endures. I read an interview in a New York
paper with the Chief of Staff of the German Army opposite the British in
which he must have been correctly quoted, as his remarks passed the
censorship. He said that the loss of Pozieres was a blunder. I liked his
frankness in laying the blame on a subordinate who, if he also had
spoken, might have mentioned the presence of the Australians as an
excuse, which, personally, I think is an excellent one.

Difficult as it now becomes to keep any sequence in the operations when,
at best, chronology ceases to be illuminative of phases, it is well here
to explain that the attack of July 15th had not gained the whole Ridge
on the front ahead of the broad stretch of ruptured first line. Besides,
the Ridge is not like the roof of a house, but a most illusive series of
irregular knolls with small plateaus or valleys between, a sort of
miniature broken tableland. The foothold gained on July 15th meant no
broad command of vision down the slope to the main valley on the other
side. Even a shoulder five or ten feet higher than the neighboring
ground meant a barrier to artillery observation which shells would not
blast away; and the struggle for such positions was to go on for weeks.

Pozieres, then, was on the way to the Ridge and its possession would
put the formidable defenses of Thiepval in a salient, thus enabling the
British to strike it from the side as well as in front, which is the aim
of all strategy whether it works in mobile divisions in an open field or
is biting and tearing its way against field fortifications. Therefore,
the Germans had good reason to hold Pozieres, which protected first-line
trenches that had required twenty months of preparation. Wherever they
could keep the Briton or the Frenchman from forcing the fight into the
open which made the contest an even one in digging, they were saving
life and ammunition by nests of redoubts and dugouts.

The reason that the Australians wanted to take Pozieres was not so
tactical as human in their minds. It was the village assigned to them
and they wished to investigate it immediately and get established in the
property that was to be theirs, once they took it, to hold in trust for
the inhabitants. I had a fondness for watching them as they marched up
to the front lo