Then, on June 9, with even a greater array of men and material, he attempted to invert the western bow-like side of the salient already formed by turning it outward. He made a fierce attack from a twenty-mile front between Montdidier and Noyon in the direction of Compiègne. With this objective attained, his Picardy front would have been sufficiently broadened to enable him to resume his journey down the Somme. Moreover, he would have been within striking distance of Paris. He gained seven miles, which was later reduced to less than six by French counterattacks. French counterattacks and a thrust of American marines on his flanks in the three succeeding days not only held him in a vise, but revealed his tremendous losses and the extraordinary means he had expended in preparations. By June 12 his failure, the ramifications of which actually demonstrated his defeat, was an established fact. Then, on the following Saturday, June 15, this failure was acknowledged by the sudden launching of an Austrian offensive in Italy. How this was an acknowledgment we shall see in the proper place. [Illustration: UPPER MAP: WHERE THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE BEGAN ON MAY 27, 1918] [Illustration: LOWER MAP: WHERE IT WAS STOPPED, MAY 31] SECOND MARNE BATTLE Held at the Ypres and Arras barriers in the north it was inevitable that Ludendorff's next move would be in the south. The railways freed by the expansion of the Picardy salient in March, the unhampered concentrations made possible at Péronne, St. Quentin, La Fère, and Hirson, and the admirable surface of the Laon Plateau for purposes of manoeuvring large bodies of troops--all pointed to the line northwest of Rheims as the probable point of attack. Then, when it came on May 27, consternation reigned among military critics as they observed the apparent ease with which the Germans carried, first, the mighty Chemin des Dames, protected on the east by Craonne and its three plateaux and on the west by the Ailette and the Oise, and then the south bank of the Aisne, with its formidable prepared fortifications at Soissons. The German feints in the Lys salient and before Amiens in the preceding week were said to have distracted Foch, who had thus been outgeneraled. And when the Marne was reached between Dormans and Château-Thierry, it was remembered how the Third German Army under General von Hausen had swept across the river at that identical spot on Aug. 25, 1914.