Finding the New Zealand Field Artillery again, three months after my last post, I find we are at the final decisive stages of the war. 'The Turning Point' chapter in New Zealand Artillery in the Field, 1914-18 begins noting the slow recovery of the British Armies (presumably including New Zealand) from the "smashing blows" the Germans had dealt in March and April but they had been completed, and the situation had changed:
The military situation on the Western Front at the beginning of August wore an outlook very different from the sombre uncertainty in which the future had been shrouded during those terrible days when the German divisions were sweeping forward with apparently irresistible impetus towards Amiens, and towards the Channel ports. .... The Franco-British Armies remained intact, and still barred the way to the coast. But the Germans still retained the initiative after the battles of the Somme and the Lys, despite their heavy commitments and heavy losses. The peril which menaced the Allied cause could not be said to have been effectually dispelled until after the definite collapse of the ambitious offensive launched by the enemy east and south-west of Rheims on July 15th, and the striking success of Marshal Foch's deliberately planned counter attack three days later on the front between Chateau Thierry and Soissons. That was the decisive turning point in the dramatic rush of events. The German army had made its great effort in the springtide of its strength, and the effort had failed. Thereafter the future of the Allied cause was no longer uncertain.
