Meanwhile, definitely checked on the south, and feeling all the time for the line of least resistance, the German host was gravitating rapidly westward between Roye and Chaulnes. Now that the danger has completely passed, it may be said that it came very near breaking through the allied front in this region on the 25th. The 26th and 27th saw an accentuation of pressure at the point of junction, but, while the front was pushed back on the first day to l'Echelle-St. Aurin on the Avre, and on the next to Montdidier, other French troops had been brought up to strengthen the British right, and yesterday, after several hard combats, it seemed that the offensive was definitely contained. BATTLE FOR MONTDIDIER April 1.--Montdidier, quaintly seated on a steep hill beside the Amiens-Clermont railway, is an important crossroads. On Friday the enemy had pulled himself together and delivered along twenty-five miles of broken country from Demuin to near Lassigny a new mass attack, supported with a considerable number of field guns. On the French left the British held Demuin, but were driven out of Mézières. The French bore the main shock heroically. Step by step they fell back, leaving masses of German dead and wounded before their lines. The combat continued throughout Sunday, spreading out a little at both ends, and it is impossible for me to piece together the fragmentary and often incoherent reports from the field so as adequately to represent its wild fluctuations. Savagely set upon breaking through to Amiens and the Amiens-Paris railway, von Hutier's columns succeeded in reaching the Avre at Moreuil. Between Montdidier and Lassigny, where the front curves to the southeast, the enemy put no less strength into his outward thrust. Hand-to-hand fighting continued for hours in the villages of Orvillers on the west and Plessis de Roye, near Lassigny, and the neighboring hamlet of Plémont, all of which repeatedly changed hands. The German troops which got into Plémont and part of Plessis were driven out by a magnificent charge of the French, some units flying in disorder. The slaughter of yesterday's fighting is said to exceed anything seen in the preceding days of the battle. On the ninth day a new chapter of the tragic story was opened. The Allies, their lines unbroken, were standing with clenched teeth on good positions and were hourly adding to their strength in men and guns. Amiens appeared to the enemy like a mirage on the western horizon, and the two Crown Princes may have reflected that there would be accounts to pay at home if this time, after sacrifices such as can only be paralleled in rare episodes of military history like the retreat from Moscow, they did not bring back a victorious peace. BLOW AT JUNCTION POINT