could obtain immunity from our barrage, to reappear immediately it had passed and mow down our attacking Infantry if they lagged behind it. Never had it been more important for the success of our attack that the Infantry should keep up with the guns if casualties and perhaps repulse were to be avoided.
The weakness of the line, on the other hand, consisted in the fact that its construction had never been completed. Our success on the 29th September had been so wholly unexpected that work on the Fonsomme line had been restricted to the building of the concrete strong-points, the wiring of entanglements, and the tracing-out of the lines of trenches to a spade-depth only. “Surely”—the German Higher Command must have reflected—“the British cannot take the Hindenburg Line in their stride. They will attack, as on the Somme, after weeks of preliminary bombardment, and in the meantime we shall have plenty of time to complete the preparation of further lines behind.”
On the contrary, the whirlwind attack on the Canal proved irresistible and the assault on the Fonsomme line found the enemy to a certain extent unprepared, though the line as it was, with rifle pits three or four feet deep dug by individual defenders, was a sufficiently formidable obstacle to tender the success of an attack doubtful. One feature of the Fonsomme line as it appears at present is the small extent to which it has been damaged by artillery. Near the Canal the defences had been smashed into chaos by our heavy artillery, so that in places it was difficult to distinguish the original plan on which they were built. The Fonsomme line is, however, practically undamaged: there is not one single concrete emplacement on the whole of the Divisional front which has been damaged by artillery fire, while the
