The Revolution in the Armies
siderable than those of the preceding years. It would obviously be necessary to make artillery preparations much more extensive than those of 1916 to destroy the first line of trenches and the barbed-wire entanglements before sending the infantry to the attack. They understood that necessity all the better since the soldiers who had taken part in the offensive of 1916 had never forgotten what it cost them to advance before the Austrian barbed-wire entanglements had been completely destroyed. General Nottbeck said to us: "This time the Russian infantry, before receiving the order to attack, must be freed from the least apprehension of finding the enemy barbed wire insufficiently demolished. When they ask us after the first day's bombardment of the enemy front if the moment for attack has come, we shall simply have to tell them to wait, and give them during the second day the sight of our bombardment reducing the enemy defences to naught. Then on the evening of the second day we shall tell them once more to wait, and it will only be after the third day's artillery
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