Before attacking the British again, Ludendorff attempted to draw the French reserves southwards, his plan being to wear them down and then settle with the British alone. Hence the attack of May 27 on the Aisne front, which was powerfully organised on the German side owing to the great advantage they possessed in being able to bring up rapidly their heavy artillery from the Somme. Moreover, the ground was familiar to the enemy, who likewise knew that this part of the Allies’ front was only weakly held. The Allies’ reserves being insufficient to cover the entire front, and considering that the German offensive might be launched against either the Lys, the Somme, the Oise, or the Aisne fronts, Foch had concentrated his forces at the vitally important points covering Paris, the channel ports, and other positions less easy to defend than the Chemin-des-Dames. THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE OF MAY 27, 1918. The Plan of Attack. On May 19, the enemy began their concentration, taking every conceivable care and precaution. Most of their divisions reached the front by night marches. The wheels of the gun-carriages and other vehicles, as also the hoofs of the horses, were muffled. Forty-two divisions under Generals von Boehn (7th Army) and Von Below (1st Army) were concentrated between Pontoise and Berry-au-Bac and between Berry-au-Bac and Rheims. In the centre, where their principal effort was to be made, the Germans massed twenty-eight divisions of picked storm-troops trained in the new methods of attack. Of these twenty-eight divisions twenty-three previously formed part of General Von Hutier’s famous “Army of Attack” which, in March, had broken through the front of the Fifth British Army on the Somme. Since the middle of April, all the picked divisions, except two, had been sent to the rear and intensively trained in view of the coming attack. All the first-line divisions, fifteen in number, knew the ground of the sector of attack, having fought there in 1917. The objective of some of them was the same as in the Battle of the Chemin-des-Dames in 1917. [Illustration: THE OPPOSING FORCES DURING THE] From June 5, five more divisions were engaged, making a total of forty-seven divisions, or the equivalent of about sixty French divisions (German regiments having three more companies than French regiments, and divisions one more regiment). The enemy order of battle between the Oise and Rheims on May 27, extended along three zones of attack--a central zone, from Leuilly to Berry-au-Bac, which was the principal sector of attack, and two secondary zones on the wings--between Pontoise and Leuilly to the west and between Berry-au-Bac and Rheims to the east. [Illustration: GERMAN ATTACK OF MAY 27, 1918.]