COAST ARTILLERY, JOURNAL - Air Defense Artillery

OPERATION OF NOVEMBER 14, 1918 541
front of about 275 kilometers, only twenty-three divisions were engaged.
But what rendered the situation particularly difficult in this
sector was the fact that reinforcements could only be dispatched to
this part of the front with extreme slowness, at a maximum rate of one
division per day.
The Allied High Command concluded therefrom that the Group of
Armies of the Duke of Wiirtemberg (XIX Army and Army Detach.
ments A and B) would rapidly find itself in a critical situation in case
of a formidable attack directed against it.
On September 7, the successes obtained from Rheims to Amiens by
the Group of Armies of the Center and the Group of Armies of Reserve
had led General Petain to inform General Castelnau, who commanded
the Group of Armies of the East, of the necessity of revising
the offensive plan on the Lorraine, because, in view of the favorable
development of operations, it was of a capital interest that the Allies
should be able to assume the offensive on the entire front as soon as
circumstances demanded it.
The general offensive had commenced on September 26, and by
October 14 the German defensive system had been completely broken
up. The famous Hindenburg position, which constituted its skeleton,
had been completely carried in the battle sector; and St. Gobain, one
of the pillars of the Western Front, had fallen into the Allies' hands.
From the sea to the Moselle, the Germans did not possess any more
organized defensive positions; and from 14 to 19 October, the entire
coast of Flanders, which constituted the support of the German's right,
had been completely liberated.
The importance of these successes permitted General Petain to
write to General Castelnau, on October 19, the following:
Due to the considerable superiority which we have acquired over our
enemy in the present battle. we can and should. on those parts of the
front that are stilI stabilized, be prepared to pass to the attack without any
other preparations than those necessary to the rapid and secret emplacement
of the supplementary means of action-munition;; and artillery, large units,
and air sen"ice.
The Group of Armies of the East, having only played a passive role
from the beginning of the Allied offensive, did not possess sufficient
means with which favorably to undertake an action of great radius.
Its two organic armies--the Eighth and the Seventh-comprised only
a small number of divisions that it was indispensable immediately to
reinforce. The concentration of the new units, necessary to this Group
of Armies in order to carry out the rOle which had been assigned to it
in the prospective battle,. commenced on October 15.