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 looking unreal in their steel helmets which they wore in place of the broad-brimmed hats. There was a sort of warlike intensity about them which may come from the sunlight of an island continent reflecting the histrionic adaptability of appearances to the task in hand. Their first objective was to be the main street. They had a "stiff job" ahead, as everybody agreed, and so had the British troops operating on their right. "This objective business has a highly educated sound, which might limit martial enthusiasm," said one Australian. "As I understand it, that's the line where we stop no matter how good the going and which we must reach no matter how hard the going." Precisely. An Australian battalion needed a warning in the first instance lest it might keep on advancing, which meant that commanders would not know where it was in the shell-smoke and it might get "squeezed" for want of support on the right and left, as I have explained elsewhere. Certainly, warning was unnecessary in the second instance about the hard going.