By this time the whole of the Picardy salient had been
wiped out.
The preceding summary of this great movement gives little idea of the
tremendous struggle which had gone on during these two critical months,
and hardly does more than suggest the tremendous importance of the
British operations. The Hindenburg line was like a great fortification,
and for more than a year had been regarded as impregnable. At Bullecourt
there were two main lines. One hundred and twenty-five yards in front of
the first line was a belt of wire twenty-five feet broad, so thick that
it could not be seen through. The line itself contained double
machine-gun emplacements of ferro-concrete, one hundred and twenty-five
yards apart, with lesser emplacements between them. More belts of wire
protected the support line. Here a continuous tunnel had been
constructed at a depth of over forty feet. Every thirty-five yards there
were exits with flights of forty-five steps. The tunnels were roofed
and lined and bottomed with heavy timber, and numerous rooms branched
off. They were lighted by electricity. Large nine-inch trench mortars
stood at the traverses and strong machine-gun positions covered the line
from behind.
The Hindenburg line was really only one of a series of twenty lines,
each connected with the others by communicating trenches.
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