Rain fell heavily in
the middle of October, autumn mists prevented airplane activity and
artillery-work, and the ground became a quagmire, so that the British
troops found it difficult to get up their supplies for a new advance.
The Germans were able in this respite to bring up new divisions, fresh
and strong enough to make heavy counter--attacks in the Stuff and
Schwaben and Regina trenches, and to hold the lines more securely for
a time, while great digging was done farther back at Bapaume and the
next line of defense. Successive weeks of bad weather and our own
tragic losses checked the impetus of the British and French driving
power, and the Germans were able to reorganize and reform.
As I have said, the shock of our offensive reached as far as Germany,
and caused a complete reorganization in the system of obtaining
reserves of man-power. The process of "combing out," as we call it,
was pursued with astounding ruthlessness, and German mothers, already
stricken with the loss of their elder sons, raised cries of despair
when the youngest born were also seized--boys of eighteen belonging to
the 1918 class.
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