‘A long step forward,’ not necessarily in the eyes of the old men and children who stuck pins in their wall-maps at home; and yet not a short step either, even when measured by this exacting standard. Let us look at the map once more and stick in some imaginary pins on our own account. First, take the straight, white road from Albert to Bapaume, and divide it into eleven equal parts, representing its length of, approximately, eleven miles. Just before the second milestone (or mile-pin) from Albert, mark the point where the Allied line crossed the road on July 1st, 1916, and just beyond the eight milestone mark the point where the Allied line crossed the road on December 31st. They had devoured (or ‘nibbled’ was the word) six miles in six months, including the villages of Pozières and Le Sars, and were less than three miles distant from Bapaume. Next, observe the effect of this protrusion on the reach, or embrace, of the Allied arms. Take the Ancre and the Somme as frontiers, and prick out from the point by the second milestone a line running northwards to the left of Thiepval and across the Ancre to Beaumont-Hamel, and southwards to the left of Fricourt and Mametz, then to the right of Maricourt, then left of Curlu to the Somme. This was the Allied line on July 1st. Take the same boundaries again, and prick out from the point by the eighth milestone a line running northwards to the left of Warlencourt and Grandcourt, then to the right of Thiepval, Beaucourt and Beaumont-Hamel, and southwards to the right of Flers, Lesbœufs, Sailly, Rancourt, Bouchavesnes and Clèry to the Somme. This, roughly, was the Allied line on December 31st. The pricked-in area, rhombic in shape, which means neither round nor square, encloses a large number of square miles re-captured from reluctant Germans. It did not include Bapaume itself, nor Péronne, nor St. Quentin, nor Brussels; the time for these had not arrived. But it took in many towns and hamlets which had known the foot of the invader, it broke huge masses of fortified works which had been designed to shoe the invader’s foot, and, consequently, it seriously shook the moral power of German resistance. We shall not measure the acres of French territory released, for we have no standard by which to calculate the effect of Verdun relieved on the German armies driven homewards between the Ancre and the Somme. Nor is a yard by yard advance properly expressed in terms of mileage. Take any one of the positions re-captured: Mametz, Trônes, Combles, Thiepval itself, and review it for a moment in the series of defences, artificial and natural and natural-artificial, which the tenacious attackers had to overcome. Thus, between Fricourt and Mametz Wood were Lonely Copse, the Crucifix, Shelter Wood, Railway Copse, Bottom Wood, the Quadrangle, etc.: every name a miniature Waterloo to the gallant men who fought and fell there. Nowhere in all that area could a sixteenth of a mile be gained without