The fourth drive started a few days later, on June 9, in a region where an attack was expected. It resulted in heavy losses to the Germans, who succeeded in pushing only six miles toward Paris in the region between Soissons and Montdidier (mawn-dee-dy[=a]´). The advantages of a single command had begun to appear. General Foch could use all the Allied forces where they were most needed.
The fifth drive opened on July 15 and spread over a front of one hundred miles east of Soissons. The Allies were fully prepared, and while falling back a little at first, the American and French troops soon won back some of the abandoned territory.
THE TURNING OF THE TIDE.--A glance at a map of the battle front of July 18 will show that the Germans had driven three blunt wedges into the Allied lines. These positions would prove dangerous to the Germans if ever the Allies were strong enough to assume the offensive. And just now the moment came for Foch to strike a great counter-blow. During the spring and early summer American troops had been speeded across the Atlantic until by the Fourth of July over a million men were in France. On July 18 fresh American and French troops attacked the Germans in the narrowest of the wedges along the Marne River and within a few days compelled the enemy to retreat from this wedge. On August 8 a British army began a surprise attack on the middle wedge, and by the use of large numbers of light, swift tanks succeeded in driving the Germans back for a distance of over ten miles on a wide front.
The offensive had now passed from the Germans to the Allies. Under Foch's repeated attacks the enemy was driven back first at one point and then at another. He had no time to prepare a counter-drive; he did not know where the next blow would fall. By the end of September he had given up nearly all his recent conquests, devastating much of the country as he retired. In several places also he was forced still farther back, across the old Hindenburg line. In two days (September 12-13) the Americans and French under the direction of General Pershing wiped out an old German salient near Metz, taking 200 square miles of territory and 15,000 prisoners. Altogether, by the end of September, Foch had taken over a quarter of a million prisoners, with 3,669 cannon and 23,000 machine guns.