title: Bubblegum music

text: Producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz claimed credit for coining "bubblegum", saying that when they discussed their target audience, they decided it was "teenagers, the young kids. And at the time we used to be chewing bubblegum, and my partner and I used to look at it and laugh and say, 'Ah, this is like bubblegum music'." The term was then popularized by their boss, Buddah Records label executive Neil Bogart.


title: Bubblegum music

text: Most bubblegum acts were one-hit wonders (notable exceptions included the Partridge Family and Tommy Roe) and the sound remained a significant commercial force until the early 1970s. Commentators often debate the scope of the genre and have variously argued for the exclusion or inclusion of dance-pop, disco, teen pop, boy bands, and especially the Monkees. During the 1970s, the original bubblegum sound was a formative influence on punk rock, new wave, and melodic metal.


title: Bubblegum music

text: Occasionally invoked as a pejorative, the "bubblegum" descriptor has several different applications. The 2001 book "Bubblegum Music Is the Naked Truth" rules out teen pop or boy bands as inherently bubblegum and defines the term as:


title: Bubblegum music

text: The artists were typically singles acts, with songs commonly featuring sing-along choruses, seemingly childlike themes and a contrived innocence, occasionally combined with an undercurrent of sexual double entendre. Comparing bubblegum to power pop, "Mojo" writer Dawn Eden said: "Power pop aims for your heart and your feet. Bubblegum aims for any part of your body it can get, as long as you buy the damn record." Music critic Lester Bangs described the style as "the basic sound of rock 'n' roll – minus the rage, fear, violence and anomie".


title: Bubblegum music

text: There is debate concerning which artists fit the genre, especially for cases such as the Monkees. In the opinion of music historian Bill Pitzonka: "The whole thing that really makes a record bubblegum is just an inherently contrived innocence that somehow transcends that. [...] It has to sound like they mean it." Music critic David Smay argued that disco is merely bubblegum by another name and that since bubblegum is "dance music for pre-teen girls", the genre's scope must therefore include dance-pop and such associated figures as Stock Aitken Waterman and Kylie Minogue, but "Not all dance-pop is aimed at kids and shouldn't be presumed to be disposable anymore than bubblegum."


title: Bubblegum music

text: According to music historian Carl Caferelli, "You could conceivably think of virtually every cute novelty hit, from pre-rock ditties like "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window" to transcendent rock-era staples like "Iko Iko," as a legitimate precursor to bubblegum's avowedly ephemeral themes." He went on to list such "important antecedents" as "I'm Henry VIII, I Am" (Herman's Hermits, 1965), "Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron" (Royal Guardsmen, 1966), "Ding, Dong! The Witch is Dead" (The Fifth Estate, 1967), and "Green Tambourine" (Lemon Pipers, 1967).


title: Bubblegum music

text: Bubblegum is generally traced to the success of the 1968 songs "Simon Says" by the 1910 Fruitgum Company and "Yummy Yummy Yummy" by the Ohio Express. Producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz have claimed credit for coining "bubblegum" for this music, saying that when they discussed their target audience, they decided it was "teenagers, the young kids. And at the time we used to be chewing bubblegum, and my partner and I used to look at it and laugh and say, 'Ah, this is like bubblegum music'." The term was seized upon by Buddah Records label executive Neil Bogart, as Pitzonka added: "Kasenetz and Katz really crystallized [the scene] when they came up with the term themselves and that nice little analogy. And Neil Bogart, being the marketing person he was, just crammed it down the throats of people. That's really the point at which bubblegum took off."


title: Bubblegum music

text: The Archies' "Sugar, Sugar" became the best-selling hit of 1969 and inspired a wave of artists to adopt the bubblegum style. The song's success led to "cartoon rock", a short-lived trend of Saturday morning cartoon series that heavily featured pop-rock songs in the bubblegum vein. However, none of these songs had showings on the pop charts when released as singles, except for a record early in the year, "The Banana Splits" theme song "The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)", which managed a number 96 peak on the "Billboard" Top 100.


title: Bubblegum music

text: Robin Carmody of "Freaky Trigger" writes that British bubblegum from 1968-1972 was distinct from the "more worldly and sophisticated American equivalent" by being "simplistic, childish, over-excited, innocent, full of absolute certainties and safe knowledges", while noting that it "essentially bridged the gap between the poppier end of the mid-60s beat boom and glam rock".


title: Bubblegum music

text: Most bubblegum acts were one hit wonders (notable exceptions included the Partridge Family and Tommy Roe) and the genre remained a significant commercial force until the early 1970s. Bubblegum failed to maintain its chart presence after the early 1970s due in part to changing trends in the industry. Producers such as Kasenetz and Katz subsequently pursued different musical avenues. Writing in "Bubblegum Music Is the Naked Truth", Chuck Eddy offered that bubblegum evolved to be "more an attitude than a genre" during the 1970s. In the UK, bubblegum caught on in the early 1970s and fell out of popular favor by the end of the decade. In 2010, author and musician Bob Stanley summarized:


title: Bubblegum music

text: Many musicians who grew up with the genre later incorporated bubblegum influences in their work. Although it is rarely acknowledged by music critics, who typically dismissed the genre, bubblegum's simple song structures, upbeat tempos, and catchy hooks were carried into punk rock. The Ramones were the most prominent of the bubblegum-influenced punk bands, adopting cartoon personae and later covering two bubblegum standards "Little Bit O' Soul" and "Indian Giver". Pitzonka stated of bubblegum's legacy:


title: Bubblegum music

text: The term "bubblegum dance" has sometimes been used to describe music that has characteristics of bubblegum pop and dance music, especially dance-pop. The 1971 Osmonds song "One Bad Apple" is an early example. Bubblegum dance also can refer to a Eurodance subgenre that emerged in the mid-90s.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The Hindenburg Line (German: , Siegfried Position) was a German defensive position built during the winter of 1916–1917 on the Western Front during the First World War. The line ran from Arras to Laffaux, near Soissons on the Aisne. In 1916, the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme left the German western armies () exhausted and on the Eastern Front, the Brusilov Offensive had inflicted huge losses on the Austro-Hungarian armies and forced the Germans to take over more of the front. The declaration of war by Romania had placed additional strain on the German army and war economy.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The Hindenburg Line, built behind the Noyon Salient, was to replace the old front line as a precaution against a resumption of the Battle of the Somme in 1917. By wasting the intervening ground, the Germans could delay a spring offensive in 1917. A shortened front could be held with fewer troops and with tactical dispersal, reverse-slope positions, defence in depth and camouflage, German infantry could be conserved. Unrestricted submarine warfare and strategic bombing would weaken the Anglo-French as the German armies in the west () recuperated. On 25 January 1917, the Germans had 133 divisions on the Western Front but this was insufficient to contemplate an offensive.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Greater output of explosives, ammunition and weapons by German industry against the Allied (battle of equipment) was attempted in the Hindenburg Programme of August 1916. Production did not sufficiently increase over the winter, with only 60 per cent of the programme expected to be fulfilled by the summer of 1917. The German (peace initiative) of December 1916 had been rejected by the Entente and the Auxiliary Service Law of December 1916, intended further to mobilise the civilian economy, had failed to supply the expected additional labour for war production.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The retirement to the Hindenburg Line (/Operation Alberich/Alberich Manoeuvre) took place from February to March 1917. News of the demolitions and the deplorable condition of French civilians left by the Germans were serious blows to German prestige in neutral countries. Labour was transferred south in February 1917 to work on the from La Fère to Rethel and on the forward positions on the Aisne front, which the Germans knew were due to be attacked by the French. Divisions released by the retirement and other reinforcements increased the number of divisions on the Aisne front to early April. The Hindenburg Line was attacked several times in 1917, notably at St Quentin, Bullecourt, the Aisne and Cambrai and was broken in September 1918 during the Hundred Days Offensive.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: In August 1916 the German armies on the Somme had been subjected to great strain; the IX Reserve Corps had been "shattered" in the defence of Pozières. Ten fresh divisions had been brought into the Somme front and an extra division had been put into the line opposite the British. Movement behind the German front was made difficult by constant Anglo-French artillery harassing-fire, which added to equipment shortages by delaying deliveries by rail and interrupting road maintenance. Destruction, capture, damage, wear and defective ammunition had caused guns and guns to be out of action by the end of August. The artillery deficit was only slowly improved by the plan of General Max von Gallwitz, to centralise the command of the remaining artillery for counter-battery fire and to use reinforcements of aircraft to increase the amount of observed artillery fire, which had little effect on Allied air superiority but did eventually increase the accuracy and efficiency of German bombardments. The 2nd Army had been starved of reinforcements in mid-August to replace exhausted divisions in the 1st Army and plans for a counter-stroke had been abandoned for lack of troops. The emergency in Russia caused by the Brusilov Offensive, the entry of Romania into the war and the French counter offensive at Verdun had already overstretched the German army.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: General Erich von Falkenhayn the German Chief of the General Staff was dismissed on 29 August 1916 and replaced by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, with First General Erich Ludendorff as his deputy. (Third OHL, the new supreme command) ordered an end to attacks at Verdun and the dispatch of troops from there to Romania and the Somme front. On 5 September, proposals for a new shorter defensive position to be built in France were requested from the commanders of the western armies, who met Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Cambrai on 8 September. The western front commanders were told that no reserves were available for offensive operations, except those planned for Romania. Georg Fuchs, one of the corps commanders, recommended that a defensive line be built from Arras to west of Laon, shortening the front by and releasing ten divisions which, with other troops, could be used for an offensive in Alsace or Lorraine. Ludendorff criticised the practice of holding ground regardless of its tactical value and advocated holding front-line positions with a minimum of troops and the recapture of lost positions by counter-attacks, a practice that had already been forced on the German armies on the Somme.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: On 15 September Crown Prince Rupprecht, commander of the northern group of armies, was ordered to prepare a rear defensive line and on 23 September work on the new (Siegfried Position/Hindenburg Line) began. On 21 September, after the battle of Flers–Courcelette (15–22 September), Hindenburg ordered that the Somme front would have priority in the west for troops and supplies. By the end of the Battle of Morval (25–28 September) Rupprecht had no reserves left on the Somme. During September, the Germans sent another thirteen fresh divisions to the British sector and scraped up troops wherever they could be found. The German artillery fired of field artillery shells and of heavy ammunition, yet the début of the tank, the defeat at the Battle of Thiepval (26–28 September) and the number of casualties (September was the costliest month of the battle for the German armies) were severe blows to German morale. On 7 October, Rupprecht anticipated a British attack north of the Ancre River in mid-October, anxiety about the situation at Verdun also increased. On 19 October, the dispatch of reinforcements from Verdun to the Somme was suspended. Defeats inflicted south of the Somme by the French Tenth Army (10–21 October) led to the sacking of Bronsart von Schellendorf, the 2nd Army chief of staff.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Hindenburg and Ludendorff demanded domestic changes to complement their new strategy. German workers were to be subjected to an Auxiliary Service Law () that from November 1916, subjected all Germans from old to compulsory service. The new programme was intended to create a trebling of artillery and machine-gun output and a doubling of munitions and trench mortar production. Expansion of the army and output of war materials caused increased competition for manpower between the army and industry. In early 1916, the German army had in recruit depots and another in March when the 1897 class of conscripts was called up. The army was so flush with men that plans were made to demobilise older classes and in the summer, Falkenhayn ordered the raising of another for an army of The costly battles at Verdun and the Somme had been much more demanding on German divisions and they had to be relieved after only a few days in the front line, lasting about 14 days on the Somme. A larger number of divisions might reduce the strain on the and realise a surplus for offensives on other fronts. Hindenburg and Ludendorff ordered the creation of another 22 divisions, to reach 179 divisions by early 1917.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The men for the divisions created by Falkenhayn had come from reducing square divisions with four infantry regiments to triangular divisions with three regiments, rather than a net increase in the number of men in the army. Troops for the extra divisions of the expansion ordered by Hindenburg and Ludendorff could be found by combing out rear-area units but most would have to be drawn from the pool of replacements, which had been depleted by the losses of 1916 and although new classes of conscripts would top up the pool, casualty replacement would become much more difficult once the pool had to maintain a larger number of divisions. By calling up the 1898 class of recruits early in November 1916, the pool was increased to men in February 1917 but the larger army would become a wasting asset. Ernst von Wrisberg () Deputy Minister of the Prussian Ministry of War, responsible for raising new units, had grave doubts about the wisdom of this increase in the army but was over-ruled by Ludendorff.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The German army had begun 1916 equally well-provided for in artillery and ammunition, massing field and heavy artillery shells for the beginning of the Battle of Verdun but four million rounds were fired in the first fortnight and the 5th Army needed about trains a day to continue the battle. The Battle of the Somme further reduced the German reserve of ammunition and when the infantry was forced out of the front position, the need for (defensive barrages), to compensate for the lack of obstacles, increased. Before the war, Germany had imported nitrates for propellant manufacture and only the discovery before the war of the Haber process for the synthesis of nitrates from atmospheric nitrogen, enabled Germany to produce explosives while blockaded. Developing the process and building factories to exploit it took time. Under Falkenhayn, the procurement of ammunition and the weapons to fire it, had been based on the output of propellants, since the manufacture of ammunition without sufficient propellant fillings was as wasteful of resources as it was pointless; Hindenburg and Ludendorff wanted firepower to replace manpower and ignored the principle.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: To meet existing demand and to feed new weapons, Hindenburg and Ludendorff wanted a big increase in propellant output to a month. In July 1916, the output target had been raised from , which was expected to cover existing demand and the extra of output demanded by Hindenburg and Ludendorff could never match the doubling and trebling of artillery, machine-guns and trench mortars. The industrial mobilisation needed to fulfil the Hindenburg Programme increased demand for skilled workers, (recalled from the army) or exempted from conscription. The number of increased from men, of whom deemed (kv, fit for front line service), at the end of 1916 to men in October 1917 and more than two million by November, being kv. The demands of the Hindenburg Programme exacerbated the manpower crisis and constraints on the availability of raw materials meant that targets were not met.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The German army returned workers to the war economy and exempted from conscription, from 1917. Steel production in February 1917 was short of expectations and explosives production was below the target, which added to the pressure on Ludendorff to retreat to the Hindenburg Line. Despite the shortfalls, by the summer of 1917, the artillery park had increased from guns and from guns, many being newer models of superior performance. Machine-gun output enabled each division to have and machine-guns and for the number of (MGA, machine-gun sharpshooter detachments) to be increased. The greater output was insufficient to equip the new divisions; existing divisions, which still had two artillery brigades with two regiments each, lost a regiment and the brigade headquarters, leaving three regiments. Against the new scales of equipment, British divisions in early 1917 had and machine-guns and the French and machine-guns.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Hindenburg and Ludendorff forced a return to the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare on 9 January 1917 and engineered the dismissal of the Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg and other opponents of the policy the next day. The policy was to resume on 1 February, to sink of shipping per month and knock Britain out of the war in five to twelve months. Optimistic claims by the navy were less important to the decision than the "desperate" position of the western armies and the decrepitude of Germany's allies. Another front in the west was to be opened by the resumption of air attacks on Britain. New aircraft had become available to replace airships, which had become too vulnerable to British counter-measures in 1916. Planning began in late 1916 and Operation Turk's Cross () began in May 1917.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: As part of the defensive strategy for the Western Front, five defensive positions were planned to form the basis of the (defensive battle) expected in 1917. A (Flanders Position) from the Belgian coast, along Passchendaele Ridge and behind the Messines salient, to the defences of Lille, the (Wotan Position, known as the Drocourt-Quéant Line to the British) from Lille to Sailly, was to be built behind the 1915 battlefields of Loos, Vimy and Arras and the 1916 battlefield of the Somme. The (Siegfried Position, known to the British as the Hindenburg Line) was to be built across the base of the Noyon Salient, from Neuville Vitasse near Arras, through St Quentin and Laon, the Aisne east of Soissons to Cerny en Laonnois on the Chemin des Dames ridge.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The (Hunding Position) was to run from Péronne to Etain, north-east of Verdun behind the Champagne battlefields of 1915. The (Michel Position) was to cover Etain to Pont-à-Mousson behind the St Mihiel Salient. The new fortified areas were intended to be precautionary measures () built to be used as rallying-positions (, similar to ones built on the Russian front) and to shorten the Western Front to economise on troops and create more reserves. The had the potential to release the greatest number of troops and was begun first; Hindenburg and Ludendorff decided its course on 19 September and construction began on 27 September.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Withdrawal to the was debated by Ludendorff and other senior German commanders over the winter of 1916–1917. An offensive in the new year with was discussed on 19 December but it was considered that such a force could not achieve a decisive result. An OHL memorandum of 5 January noted that offensive preparations by the French and British were being made all along the Western Front to keep the site of a spring offensive secret. It was considered that the Somme front, the area between Arras and Lille, the Aisne front, Lorraine and Flanders were particularly threatened. Prisoner interrogation, postal analysis, espionage and air reconnaissance were used to identify the probable sites of Anglo-French offensives. March was considered the earliest that the Anglo-French could attack, with a possible delay if a Russian offensive was also planned. The chief of staff of Army Group Rupprecht, Hermann von Kuhl issued a survey of offensive possibilities on 15 January. A German breakthrough attempt was rejected for lack of means and the consequences of failure. Limited-objective attacks at Loos, Arras, the Somme and the Aisne were considered but the manpower and equipment shortage meant that even smaller attacks risked using up reserves needed for defence against the expected Anglo-French spring offensives. Local attacks like those at Bouchavesnes and La Maisonette on the Somme in late 1916, which could be mounted without reinforcements, were all that could be considered. Ludendorff accepted the analysis that no offensive was possible.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: On a visit to Kuhl on 20 January, Fuchs concluded that Allied superiority was so great that the German army could not forestall the Anglo-French with an attack or stop them attacking elsewhere. The army could not withstand another battle like the Somme; work on defences there was futile and would exhaust the troops for nothing. On 29 January, Ludendorff ruled that a withdrawal could not be ordered on political as well as military grounds, then on 31 January, discussed withdrawal with Kuhl, while the 1st and 2nd Army commanders on the Somme front opposed a retirement. Resources continued to be directed to the Somme defences during January and February and on 6 February, the 1st Army HQ requested three divisions and to work on new positions, to implement the plan, a partial withdrawal to a line from Arras to Sailly. Even with the expansion of the German army over the winter and the transfer of divisions from Russia, divisions the Western Front were confronted by , British and Belgian divisions, many of which were bigger than the German equivalents. The plan would reduce the front by and need six fewer front-holding divisions, compared to a shortening of and a saving of 13 to 14 divisions, by withdrawing an average of to the (Hindenburg Line).


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The German army was far from defeat but in 1916 had been forced back on the Somme and at Verdun, as had the Austro-Hungarian army in southern Russia. At the Chantilly Conference of November 1916 the Allies agreed to mount another general offensive. The Anglo-French contribution was to be a resumption of the Somme offensive with much larger forces, extending the attack north to Arras and south to the Oise, followed by a French attack between Soissons and Rheims. The British were to attack the salient that had formed between Bapaume and Vimy Ridge with two armies and the French with three armies from the Somme to Noyon. The attacks were to be made on the broadest possible fronts and advance deep enough to threaten German artillery positions. When Marshal Joseph Joffre was superseded by General Robert Nivelle, the "Chantilly strategy" was altered. The French returned to a policy of decisive battle, with a breakthrough to be achieved within leading to the "total destruction of active enemy forces by manoeuvre and battle". Successive attacks in a methodical battle were dropped and continuous thrusts were substituted, to deprive the Germans of time to reinforce and strengthen their defences. A large amount of heavy artillery fire up to deep, to the rear edge of the German defences would achieve the breakthrough. The infantry advance was to reach the German heavy artillery in one attack and then widen the breach with lateral attacks. A strategic reserve would then move through the gap and destroy the German reserves in open warfare. The original French attacks between the Somme and Oise were reduced in size and the secondary attack between Soissons and Rheims was reinforced to become the main offensive. The Nivelle Offensive was planned to begin with a British attack on the Bapaume salient in early April 1917, to assist the main French attacks a week later by holding German troops on the Arras front and diverting reserves from the Aisne.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: German reconnaissance aircraft surveyed all of the Western Front over the winter of 1916–1917 to look for signs of Anglo-French offensive preparations. The design of the (Siegfried Position, later known by the Allied powers as the Hindenburg Line) was drawn up by Colonel Kraemer, an engineer from supreme headquarters (OHL) and General Lauter, the Inspector General of Artillery. Construction was organised by Rupprecht and Kuhl; when the plans were ready the line was divided into sectors and officers from the General Staff, gunners and engineers were appointed to oversee construction, which was expected to take five months. The defences were built by German construction companies, who brought skilled workmen to fabricate ferro concrete emplacements, while and labourers and Russian prisoners of war dug the trenches. The building works absorbed most of the cement, sand and gravel production of occupied France and Belgium plus that of west Germany. Transport of materials was conducted by canal barge and railway, which carried of engineering stores, although the building period from October 1916 to March 1917 meant that only about eight trains a day were added to normal traffic. Mass-production techniques were used to produce items for the position. Steel-reinforced concrete dug-outs for infantry squads and artillery-observation posts were standard designs and all woodwork was made to a pattern.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The line was long and built for a garrison of twenty divisions, one every . Telephone cables were deeply buried and light railways built to carry supplies to the defences. The position had two trenches about apart, with sentry garrisons to occupy the front trench. The main line of defence was the second line, which was equipped with dugouts for most of the front garrison. Fields of barbed wire up to deep, were fixed with screw pickets in three belts wide and apart, in a zig-zag so that machine-guns could sweep the sides, placed in front of the trench system. Artillery observation posts and machine-gun nests were built in front of and behind the trench lines. Where the lay of the land gave observation from behind the system, it was built on reverse slopes (a ), with a short field of fire for the infantry, according to the experience of the Western Front defensive battles of 1915 and 1916, when forward-slope positions had been smashed by observed Franco-British artillery-fire.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: In much of the new position, the new principle of reverse-slope positions with artillery-observation posts to the rear was not followed. Artillery observation posts were built in the front-trench system or in front of it. Trenches had been dug near a crest, on a forward slope or at the rear of a reverse slope, which replicated the obsolete positions being abandoned. The 1st Army commander, General Fritz von Below and his Chief of Staff Colonel Fritz von Loßberg rejected this layout since smoke and dust would make artillery observation from such positions impossible. They urged that the 1st Army section of the (Hindenburg Line) from Quéant, where it met the site of the (Wotan Line) to Bellicourt north of St Quentin, should have another position built in front of the new position, which would become the artillery protection position () behind the revised front system; the line already had to accommodate , which was sufficient to shelter local reserves. The new line would be similar but on reverse slopes, have dugouts for and be ready by 15 March. The existing artillery positions were scrapped and the artillery sited to dominate ground useful for the assembly of assault-troops, such as the La Vacquerie plateau. Rupprecht refused to delay implementation of Operation Alberich (the ) but having inspected the (Hindenburg Line) on 27 February, sanctioned the 1st Army proposal and provided three divisions and for the new construction, which turned the (Hindenburg Line) into the . Another two-trench system () was planned near the artillery reserve positions, which were about behind the existing battery positions, to be built as soon as labour became available. The extra position would ensure that an attack that captured the (Hindenburg Line), could not continue without a pause to move artillery into range of the . When complete the various positions had a depth of and the original Hindenburg Line had become an intermediate line (). Work began on another defensive position in the autumn of 1917, with the original Hindenburg Line as its front-trench system.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The practice of rigidly defending front-line trenches, regardless of casualties was abolished, in favour of a mobile defence of the fortified areas being built over the autumn and winter of 1916–1917. (Principles of Field Fortification) was published in January 1917, in which instructions were given for the construction of defences in depth, according to the principles of greater depth and of disguise by dispersal and camouflage. Trench-lines were mainly intended for accommodation, dumps of supplies and as decoys, rather than firing lines. Deep dug-outs in the front line were to be replaced by many more smaller, shallow (MEBU shelters) with most built towards the rear of the defensive areas. Within the new forward zones, battlezones and rearward battle zones, the chain of command was streamlined by making corps headquarters into (groups), responsible for the administrative tasks in an area into which divisions would be moved for periods, before being withdrawn to rest, train and be brought up to strength. Command of areas rather than units was also introduced in divisions, with command of regiments devolved to the front battalion commander (KTK ), which reduced the chain of command from five to two posts.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The value of ground was to be determined by its importance to a defensive position. Where the lay of the land gave the defender a tactical advantage, by which an attacker could be defeated with the minimum of casualties to the defenders, with small-arms fire from dispersed, disguised positions and observed artillery-fire, it was to be fought for by the garrison and local reserves, which would counter-attack to regain any ground lost The changes were codified in a training manual (The Conduct of the Defensive Battle in Position Warfare) issued on 1 December 1916, which made infantry sections () rather than the battalion the basic tactical unit. Small, advanced garrisons were to repulse attacks and penetrations were to be cut off and counter-attacked immediately, without waiting for orders. Front line troops were allowed to move away from fire, preferably by advancing into no man's land but moves to the flanks and rear were also allowed.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: When front-line garrisons and their supports were unable to hold or recapture the front-line, they were to defend positions even if surrounded, to give time for a counter-attack by reserve divisions. When an immediate counter-attack () from behind the defensive position was not possible, a deliberate counter-attack () was to be planned over several days. Two schools of thought emerged over the winter; the principal authors of the new training manual, Colonel Max Bauer and Captain Hermann Geyer of the General Staff, wanting front garrisons to have discretion to move forwards, sideways and to retire. General von Hoen and Colonel Fritz von Lossberg the 1st Army Chief of Staff issued a memorandum, (Experience of the German 1st Army in the Somme Battles) on 30 January 1917. The document advocated the rigid holding of the front line by its garrison, to keep the defence organised under the control of battalion commanders. Lossberg and Hoen doubted that relief divisions could arrive quickly enough to counter-attack before Allied infantry had consolidated. They predicted that (relief divisions) would not be ready in time for hasty counter-attacks to succeed and that they should make planned counter-attacks after with full artillery support. Both theories were incorporated by Ludendorff into the new (Training Manual for Foot troops in War) of March 1917. Training schools were established to prepare German commanders and courses began in February 1917.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: British and French plans for 1917 were agreed at an Allied conference at Chantilly from 1916. Existing operations were to continue over the winter, fresh troops arriving in front-line units were to be trained and in the spring the front of attack was to be broadened, from the Somme to Arras and the Oise. The front of attack was to be about long, with two French surprise attacks near Rheims and in Alsace, to begin after the main attacks, to exploit German disorganisation and lack of reserves. The Allies expected to have against divisions, for the co-ordinated offensives. A British operation in Flanders was also agreed, to begin several weeks after the main offensives further south. Joffre was replaced by Nivelle on 13 December, who proposed a much more ambitious strategy, in which the plan for a resumption of Anglo-French attacks either side of the Somme battlefield of 1916 was retained but the offensive on the Aisne was converted to a breakthrough offensive, to be followed by the commitment of a strategic reserve of to fight a "decisive" battle leading to the exploitation of the victory by all of the British and French armies. French troops south of the British Fourth Army were freed to join the strategic reserve by an extension of the British front, to just north Roye on the Avre facing St Quentin, which was complete by 26 February.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: During periods of fine weather in October 1916, British reconnaissance flights had reported new defences being built far behind the Somme front; on 9 November, reconnaissance aircraft found a new line of defences from Bourlon Wood to Quéant, Bullecourt, the river Sensée and Héninel, to the German third line near Arras. Next day, an escaped Russian prisoner of war, reported that were working on concrete dug-outs near St Quentin. Behind the Fifth and Fourth army fronts, the course of the Hindenburg Line was further away and the winter weather was exceptionally bad, which grounded aircraft and made air observation unreliable. On 11 December, a reconnaissance in the area of Marcoing reported nothing unusual, despite flying over the new diggings. German fighter opposition in the area became much worse, with more aircraft and the arrival in service of superior aircraft types in the late summer of 1916. Three intermediate defensive lines begun in late 1916, much closer to the Somme front, were observed by British reconnaissance aircraft, which made fragmentary reports of digging further back unexceptional.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: On 2 January, Nivelle instructed the to co-operate with the British to investigate German defensive systems that spies and repatriated civilians had reported. Not until 26 January, did a British intelligence summary report a new line of defence between Arras and Laon. In February, attempts to send more aircraft to reconnoitre the line were hampered by mist, snow, rain, low cloud and an extremely determined German air defence. British air reconnaissance discovered diggings between Drocourt and Vitry en Artois at the end of January and on 15 February, found a line between Quéant and Etaing. The British were able to trace the new line (named the Drocourt–Quéant Switch) south to Bellicourt on 15 February and St Quentin on 25 February, the day after the first German withdrawal on the Ancre. British aircraft losses on these flights were severe due to the presence of "Jagdstaffel" 11 (the Richthofen Circus) near Douai; six British reconnaissance aircraft were shot down on 15 April, along with two escorts.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Winter weather in mid-November 1916, stopped the Anglo-French attacks on the Somme, rather than the defensive efforts of the German army. On 1 January, a German attack took Hope Post near Beaumont Hamel, which was lost to a British attack on 5 January. On the night of a British attack captured the Triangle and Muck Trench, covering the flank of an attack on Munich Trench during the day; British troops edged forward over Redan Ridge for the rest of the month. A fall in temperature added to German difficulties, by freezing the mud in the Ancre valley, making it much easier for infantry to move. On 3 and 4 February, British attacks towards Puisieux and River trenches succeeded, despite German counter-attacks on 4 February. On 7 February, British attacks threatened the German hold on Grandcourt and Serre. Each small advance uncovered to British ground observers another part of the remaining German defences. A bigger British attack began on 17 February, to capture and gain observation over Miraumont and the German artillery positions behind Serre. Three divisions attacked after a three-day artillery bombardment using the new fuze 106. A thaw set in on 16 February, which, with the Germans alerted to the attack by a deserter, led to the attack on the south bank advancing only at most and to the capture Boom Ravine (). The attack on the north bank, to gain observation over Miraumont from the west, succeeded despite the weather and the Germans being forewarned.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: On the Fourth Army front, fewer attacks took place while the French line was being taken over in stages, southwards to the Amiens–Roye road. On 27 January, the 29th Division took in an advance of only and on 1 February, an Australian attack on Stormy Trench was repulsed by a German counter-attack. A second attack on 4 February succeeded. On 8 February, a battalion of the 17th Division took a trench overlooking Saillisel and held it, despite German counter-attacks that continued on 9 February. On 21 and 22 February, Australian troops captured more of Stormy Trench despite rain, which made the ground even more "appalling", than before the freeze in January and early February. On 23 February, British and Australian troops on the south side of the Ancre, sent patrols forward to investigate fires seen in German trenches and discovered the German withdrawal. Reports began to reach British commanders by on 24 February, who ordered intensive patrolling and advanced guards to be prepared, ready to move forward at dawn on 25 February. The German positions back to a reserve line, (Trench I Position) from Le Transloy to Serre were found to be empty; Gough ordered that strong patrols were to move forward and regain contact with the Germans. Behind the British front, the effect of the thaw on roads and supply routes caused acute supply difficulties.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Over the winter, German deception operations were conducted and indications of an offensive through Switzerland diverted French attention at the end of 1916. The British were occupied by reports of troops and heavy artillery moving into Flanders and increased numbers of agent reports of troop movements from Lille, Tourcoing and Courtrai. Until January 1917, the British took seriously a possible limited offensive towards the Channel ports and made Flanders the subject of most of their long-range reconnaissance flights. Rupprecht, the northern army group commander on the Western Front, was made responsible for planning the devastation of the infrastructure within the Noyon Salient and the retirement to new defensive positions along the (Hindenburg Line), codenamed the (Alberich Manoeuvre). The Germans prepared a timetable; infrastructure in the salient was to be destroyed and buildings demolished from


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Booby-traps were devised with delayed-action fuzes used a striker on a spring, held back by a wire. Acid ate through the wire, to release the striker and detonate the explosive. A number of devices with such fuzes were planted in bunkers but most booby-traps had simple pressure detonators. Wires were attached to useful items like stove chimneys and loot; trip-wires on the stairs of dugouts were connected to bundles of hand-grenades. On some roads, heavy-artillery shells were buried with contact-fuzes, which would only be triggered by the weight of a lorry. British engineers and tunnelling companies scoured areas as they were occupied and disabled many of the explosives. Roads were flooded by destroying drains and water-courses; wells sabotaged by drilling a shaft next to them and exploding a charge, permanently ruining the well. Much of the explosive used by the Germans (, and ) had the property of water-absorption so could be neutralised by dousing. Some British booby-trap patrols made German prisoners go first, who revealed traps rather than be blown up and British tunnellers removed of explosives. (In some areas no booby-traps were found, as German divisional commanders had been allowed to choose whether to mine their areas and some refused.)


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Trees were to be cut down, wells polluted and the civilian population forced to leave the area. Rupprecht objected to the scorched-earth policy on moral and practical grounds, that the destruction would be a propaganda disaster, provide enemy troops with shelter, material to repair the damage to roads and undermine the morale and discipline of the German soldiers involved in the destruction. The buildings of Nesle, Ham, Noyon and several villages were excluded from the plan and French civilians were to be left behind in them, while civilians were to be evacuated to work in the rest of occupied France and Belgium. A timetable for the demolition plan was prepared to be followed by two "marching days" for the troops on the flanks of the area, three for the troops between Nauroy and Coucy le Chateau and four marching days for those between St Quentin and La Fère.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Defensive positions held by the German army on the Somme after November 1916 were in poor condition, the garrisons were exhausted and postal censors reported tiredness and low morale, which left the German command doubtful that the army could withstand a resumption of the battle. The German defences on the Ancre began to collapse under British attacks in January 1917, which caused Rupprecht to urge on 28 January, that the retirement to the (Hindenburg Line) begin. Ludendorff rejected the proposal next day but British attacks on the 1st Army, particularly the action of Miraumont/Battle of Boom Ravine caused Rupprecht on the night of 22 February, to order a preliminary withdrawal of about between Essarts and Le Transloy to . On 24 February, the Germans withdrew to the protected by rear guards, over roads in relatively good condition, which they then destroyed. Next day, German rear guards inflicted on Australian troops near Loupart Wood and forced British troops back out of Irles with artillery-fire. A British attack on Puisieux on 26 February took all day and ended in hand-to-hand fighting. Next day troops of Prussian Foot Guard Regiment 5 withdrew from Thilloy, completing the retirement to the . The German withdrawal was helped by a thaw, which turned roads behind the British front into bogs and by disruption to the Allied railways that supplied the Somme front. On the night of 12 March, the Germans withdrew from the between Bapaume and Achiet le Petit, while small parties of troops sent up flares to mislead the British, who were preparing an attack. It took the British until 13 March to close up the (Trench II Position).


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The British opposite the 1st Army, received indications that a withdrawal was imminent on 20 and 21 February, when intercepted wireless messages were decoded, ordering German wireless stations at Achiet le Petit, Grévillers and the vicinity of Bapaume, to close and prepare to move back. After this period, information from prisoners and the evidence of German demolitions, indicated that a longer retirement was planned but the existence of three German reserve lines behind the front line, made a local German retirement seem more likely than a longer one. On 13 March, a document revealing the plan and the code-name dated 5 March, was found in Loupart Wood. On 24 February Lieutenant-General Hubert Gough defined the boundaries of the three corps making the advance and ordered them to regain contact with the German armies, using strong patrols supported by larger forces moving forward more deliberately behind them. The German front-line was being maintained along the rest of the front and the possibility of a sudden German counter-offensive was not discounted. On 25 February, the 2nd Australian Division advanced on Malt Trench, found it strongly held and was forced to retire with The Fifth Army divisions advanced with patrols until they met German resistance, then prepared deliberate attacks, some of which were forestalled by German withdrawals, which by 26 February, apart from some small detachments, had abandoned the ground west of the . British engineers improvised sleds to move guns and wagons, with pack-mules being used to carry food and ammunition and on 8 March, ammunition lorries were able to move forward in the V Corps area. Behind the old British front line, the thaw badly affected roads, which had been in a very poor condition at the end of 1916, many were closed and others were limited to horse-drawn traffic. Railway transport was even worse affected, with Boulogne harbour blocked, the number of trains and wagons on the northern French railways far short of British requirements, the lines being congested and subject to traffic restrictions. Supply difficulties had also begun to increase on the Third Army and Fourth Army fronts before the German withdrawals.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: On 10 March, the Fifth Army took Grévillers Trench and Irles in a methodical attack, which overwhelmed the German defence and took Fires could be seen behind Bapaume, with more visible behind the and British military intelligence reported that the headquarters of Rupprecht had been moved to Mons; civilians were known to have been evacuated along with supply dumps and artillery. The was found to be empty between Bapaume and Achiet le Petit on the night of 12 March but next day an attack on Bucquoy failed with The German document found in Loupart Wood dated 5 March, containing details of the (Operation Alberich), showed that Loupart Wood had been abandoned a day early. On the night of 14 March, patrols found that the Germans had withdrawn from part of the Fourth Army front and on 17 March, the Germans slipped away on all of the Third and Fifth Army fronts.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: On 4 February, the order was given to begin the (Alberich Manoeuvre), with 9 February to be the first day and 16 March the first marching day. The 1st Army from Arras to Péronne brought reserve divisions forward to the and outpost villages close to the (Hindenburg Line). The front-holding divisions, which had been worn down by British attacks, were withdrawn behind the (Hindenburg Line). On 17 March, the German troops at the north end of the Bapaume Salient withdrew swiftly, as there were no intermediate lines corresponding to the north of Achiet le Grand. was abandoned by 18 March and next day Boyelles and Boiry Becquerelle were evacuated. The withdrawal went straight back to the (Hindenburg Line) except for outposts at Hénin sur Cojeul, St Martin sur Cojeul and the west end of Neuville Vitasse. Numerous raids were mounted on British outposts during 20 and 21 March.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The was abandoned north of the Ancre, along with part of the near its junction with at Bapaume, which was also abandoned while many houses were still on fire. Next day, parties of Germans at Beugny in the fought until nightfall then slipped away. A party at Vaulx Vraucourt was surprised (while some were shaving) and driven back to Lagnicourt. On 20 March, an Australian attack on Noreuil failed with and an attack on Croisilles was repulsed. A German counter-attack to recover Beaumetz was mounted on 23 March and got into the village before being forced to withdraw; the attack was repeated next day but only one party reached the village. Lagnicourt was lost on 26 March and a counter-attack from Noreuil repulsed, then a British attack on Bucquoy was defeated.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The 2nd Army conducted the withdrawal with the line-holding divisions, which were fresher than the divisions of the 1st Army and assisted by several cavalry divisions and cyclist battalions. On 17 March, withdrawals began north of the Avre and by 18 March, the German 7th, 2nd, 1st and the southern wing of the 6th Army, began to withdraw from the old front-line ( in length, as the crow flies). Soissons was abandoned, roads leading out of Noyon were flooded, railway bridges were blown and the Somme River and canal crossings from Offoy to Péronne were destroyed. Roads built on causeways over marshy ground between the river and canal, caused water to form pools wide, making crossings practical only at the causeways. The bridges over the rivers Germaine, Omignon, Cologne, Tortille and the Canal du Nord were also destroyed and huge craters blown in crossroads, the damage being made worse by the spring thaw. German rear-guards made a stand in part of the from Nurlu to Péronne on 18 March, which was the third and final marching day of the retreat from Roye to St Quentin and the second and final day from Péronne to le Catelet, when the main body of German troops reached the (Hindenburg Line). Work was still being done to remedy defects in the original position and the rear-guards retired next day from Nurlu and Bertincourt as soon as British troops appeared, then counter-attacked British cavalry around Poeuilly on 22 March.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: A large counter-attack was mounted on the French front on 22 March, which forced French cavalry and cyclists back over the Crozat Canal with many casualties but began too soon to ambush a large force that included artillery, as had been intended. A Booby-trap exploded in Bapaume town hall on 25 March, killing Australian troops and two French Deputies; French civilians were left behind at Bouvincourt, Vraignes and Tincourt on 26 March and Villers Faucon, Saulcourt and Guyencourt were lost on 27 March, to attacks by British cavalry and armoured cars. Supplies of armour-piercing bullets had been sent forward by the Germans after Roisel was captured the day before, resulting in the armoured cars being peppered with bullet-holes. The armoured cars decoyed the German defenders, while cavalry got round the flanks and captured the villages. Outpost villages close to the (Hindenburg Line) south of Quéant had to be held by the Germans for longer than expected, because of the need to complete the additions to the defences being built to remedy defects in the original position. Heudicourt, Sorel and Fins were lost on 30 March. The northern outpost villages were lost on 2 April and Lempire fell on 5 April.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: In early March, instructions were given by the British Fourth Army corps commanders, for advanced guards to maintain contact should the Germans retreat, with larger forces to follow and dig in behind them on defensible ground, so that the advanced guards could fall back if attacked. The first sign of a German retreat was seen on 14 March when fires were seen in St Pierre Vaast Wood. Later in the day, the British entered Saillisel and by 16 March, most of the wood had been occupied. The British Fourth and Fifth armies organised all-arms forces of cavalry squadrons, infantry and cyclist battalions and artillery batteries, some of which had armoured-car units attached. On 15 March the French (GAN), south of the junction with the British Fourth Army at Roye, was ordered to follow up a German retirement. By 18 March the German 6th, 1st, 2nd and 7th armies were withdrawing and British and French cavalry patrols met in Nesle, behind the old front line. When French troops entered Lassigny they caused a traffic jam and vehicles that tried to skirt the jam bogged in mud. GAN had been on ten-day's notice to attack (about fourteen days before (GAC) attacked on the Aisne) between the Oise and Avre rivers. News of the first German retirements led the army group commander, General Franchet d'Espérey to advocate an attempt to surprise the Germans and force them to retreat prematurely. The suggestion was rejected and GAN began to prepare a limited attack for 17 March, by when the Germans had gone.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: On 17 March Haig and the British army commanders met and discussed the effect of the German retirement. The precedent of a German withdrawal to a prepared position followed by a counter-attack, which had occurred in 1914 was noted and that reserves, freed by the retirement, would give the Germans an opportunity to attack the flanks of the withdrawal area. Nivelle had already decided to use the French troops released by the shorter front to reinforce the line in Champagne. British preparations for the attack at Arras were to proceed, with a watch kept for a possible German attack in Flanders and preparations for the attack on Messines Ridge were to continue. The pursuit of the German army was to be made in the Fourth Army area with advanced guards covered by the cavalry and cyclists attached to each corps and the 5th Cavalry Division. Larger forces were not to move east of a line from the Canal du Nord to the Somme south of Péronne until roads, bridges and railways had been repaired. The boundary of the Fourth Army and French Third Army was set from south of Nesle, through Offroy to St Quentin. In the Fifth Army area from Bapaume to the north, the advance to the Hindenburg Line needed to be completed in time to conduct supporting operations for the Third Army attack, due at Arras in early April. All-arms columns of cavalry, infantry, artillery and engineers were organised to advance on the front of each division. The advanced guards of the 5th and 2nd Australian divisions had a detachment of the Australian Light Horse, a battery of 18-pounder field guns, part of an engineer field company, two infantry battalions and several machine-guns. The advance had fewer geographical obstacles than further south. On the left flank the country beyond was open and on the right the Germans made little effort to hold the ground west of , the ground inclining slightly to the north-east towards Bullecourt, away, with most of the rivers flowing in the direction of the British advance.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: After 18 March the main body of the Fifth Army was ordered to dig in temporarily from Bancourt to Bapaume, Achiet-le-Grand and Ablainzevelle and the advanced guards, which were large enough to be mobile columns, be reinforced to the strength of brigade groups. Some of the columns advanced boldly and others dug in temporarily as a precaution. Information that the Germans were burning villages behind the Hindenburg Line, led Gough to order II Corps and V Corps and the Lucknow Cavalry Brigade to advance vigorously on 19 March, with the support of the reinforced mobile columns to Ecoust St Mein, Croisilles, Lagnicourt and Hénin sur Cojeul. Next day the brigade groups were to support the cavalry drive the Germans back to the Hindenburg Line, which led the 2nd Australian Division force to attack Noreuil on 20 March. The attack was repulsed with and an advance on Ecoust and Croisilles by infantry of the 18th (Eastern) Division with cavalry and artillery on the flanks was repulsed by fire from about fifteen machine-guns and six field guns; Gough ordered that attacks on the German outpost line were to stop until more artillery was available.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The British advance in the Fourth Army area reached the Somme rapidly from 17 to 20 March, with a continuous pursuit by vanguards and the main body moving forward by bounds between lines of resistance, up to the Somme river and Canal du Nord, which ran north-to-south from Offoy to Péronne, then paused while the river was bridged, with a priority of light bridges for infantry first, pontoon or trestle bridges for wagons and field artillery and then heavy bridges for mechanical transport and heavy artillery. The heavy steel bridges could be transported from a Base Park at Le Havre with notice. A bridge over the canal near Péronne was built by surveying the ground on the night of 15 March, towing pontoons up river the next night, building beginning at dawn on 17 March and the pontoon being ready by noon. Infantry of the 1/8th Royal Warwicks crossed that evening and were then ferried over the river beyond on rafts, to become the first Allied troops into Péronne. On the right flank, IV Corps had to advance about over cratered and blocked roads to reach the Somme but Corps Mounted Troops and cyclists arrived on 18 March to find German rearguards also mounted on bicycles. Infantry crossed the river on 20 March by when the mounted troops had reached Germaine and the Fourth Army infantry outposts were established on high ground east of the Somme. "Ward's Force" was formed with corps cavalry, cyclists and two batteries of field artillery, two sections of engineers, a battalion of infantry from the 48th Division on 22 March as a precaution after cavalry was forced out of Poeuilly and neighbouring villages by a counter-attack and the corps cavalry relieved by the 5th Cavalry Division. The villages were reoccupied next day. The German retirement from the had begun on 19 March when Nurlu and Bertincourt were occupied by the British after slight pressure. British infantry and cavalry were finding greater German resistance.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: After a pause until 26 March, Ward's Force captured Roisel with an infantry company, two cavalry squadrons and two armoured cars; Canadian cavalry took Equancourt. The cavalry advanced again on 27 March and took Villers Faucon, Saulcourt and Guyencourt "with great dash". An attempt at a swifter pursuit by French cavalry and cyclists on 22 March failed, when they were forced back over the Crozat canal by a German counter-attack, with many casualties. On 28 March the British precautionary line of resistance was moved forward to a line Germaine–Caulaincourt–Bernes–Marquaix–Lieramont–Nurlu–Equancourt–Bertincourt while the outposts of cavalry, cyclists and some infantry mostly paused. On the army boundary with the French the 32nd Division kept two brigades in line and one in reserve. Each brigade in the line had two infantry companies in outposts held by platoons backed by their battalions and the artillery close enough to cover the outposts. By late March each British corps in the pursuit had diverted a minimum of one division to work on road repairs and bridging, the thaw making the effect of German demolitions far worse. In the Fifth Army area, repair work was concentrated on the railway up the Ancre valley, the Candas–Acheux line, two light railways and the Albert–Bapaume, Hamel–Achiet le Petit–Achiet le Grand and Serre–Puisieux–Bucquoy–Ablainzevelle roads, most of the labour coming from front-line divisions.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: By 1 April, the British and French were ready to begin operations against outpost villages, still occupied by the Germans, west of the Hindenburg Line. The French Third Army prepared to attack at St Quentin on 10 April, for which the preliminary bombardment began on 4 April. The British Fourth Army prepared to support the attack with artillery and such infantry attacks as could be attempted, while communications were being repaired. Information from captured documents and prisoners had disclosed the details of and that outpost villages had to be held for longer than planned, to enable work to continue on the Hindenburg Line (), where it was being rebuilt south of Quéant. Despite increased German resistance, Neuville Bourjonval, Ruyaulcourt, Sorel le Grand, Heudicourt, Fins, Dessart Wood, St Emilie, Vermand sur Omignon, Vendelles, Jeancourt, Herbecourt, Épehy and Pezières were captured between 28 March and 1 April. Deliberate attacks were mounted in early April to take Holnon Wood, Savy (where the German garrison had to be overwhelmed by house-to-house fighting), Holnon, Sélency (including six German field guns) and Francilly Sélency. A German counter-attack on 3 April by a storm troop, to recover a German artillery battery from Holnon Wood, coincided with a British attempt to do the same and failed. The French Third Army captured the Epine de Dallon on 3 April, bringing it up to the Hindenburg Line and on 4 April the British captured Metz en Couture in a snowstorm. Ronssoy, Basse Boulogne and Lempire were captured after house-to-house fighting but an attack on le Verguier failed. The villages still held by the Germans were found to be in a much better state of defence, with much more barbed wire around them. An attack on Fresnoy Le Petit, late on 5 April, was hampered by uncut wire and a second attack the next night was stopped halfway through the village, the defenders holding out until 7 April; an attack on Vadencourt also failed. On 9 April the Fourth Army began a bombardment of the Hindenburg Line, with such heavy artillery that was in range, as the Third and First armies began the offensive at Arras to the north. Fighting on the Fourth Army front, for the remaining outpost villages, went on until the end of April.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: German air operations over the winter concentrated on reconnaissance to look for signs of Anglo-French offensive preparations, which were found at Messines, Arras, Roye, the Aisne and the Champagne region. By March the outline of the Anglo-French spring offensive had been observed from the air. German air units were concentrated around Arras and the Aisne, which left few to operate over the Noyon Salient during the retirement. When the retirement began British squadrons in the area were instructed to keep German rearguards under constant observation, harass German troops by ground attacks and to make long-range reconnaissance to search the area east of the Hindenburg Line, for signs of more defensive positions and indications that a further retreat was contemplated. A policy on rapid movement had been devised in September 1916, in which the Army Wing and Corps Wings not attached to the corps moving forward, would move with army headquarters and the Corps Wings attached to the corps that were advancing, would keep as close to their associated corps headquarters as possible. Squadrons would not need to move every day and could arrange temporary landing-grounds. On 21 March 1917 the use of temporary facilities was ordered with portable hangars to be built near corps headquarters and aircraft flown back to their normal aerodromes at night. IV and V Brigades were involved in the advance, with their squadrons attached to divisions for contact-patrols. Two cavalry divisions were attached to the Fourth and Fifth armies for the advance, with aircraft for reconnaissance of the ground that the cavalry was to traverse and to help the cavalry maintain touch with the rear.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Suitable targets found by air observation were engaged systematically by artillery, using zone calls. The cavalry divisions were issued with wireless stations to keep in touch with their attached aircraft but in the event good ground communications made them redundant. The German retirement was so swift and the amount of artillery fire was so small, that telephone wires were cut far less frequently than expected. German troop movements were well concealed and rarely seen from the air and it was usually ground fire that alerted aircrew to their presence. Pilots flew low over villages and strong points to invite German ground fire for their observers to plot, although this practice gave no indication of the strength of rearguards. A few attacks were made on German cavalry and infantry caught in the open but this had little influence on ground operations. The artillery wireless organisation broke down at times, due to delays in setting up ground stations, which led to missed opportunities for the direction of artillery fire from the air. The main influence of air operations was exerted through message carrying and reconnaissance, particularly in observing ground conditions in front of the advance and intermittent co-operation with artillery. Distant reconnaissance, some by single-seat fighters, found no evidence of German defences beyond the Hindenburg Line but many new aerodromes and supply dumps, indicating the permanence of the new position.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The success of the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line has been explained as an Allied failure to anticipate the retirement and in being unable seriously to impede it. Another view is that the Anglo-French were not pursuing a broken enemy but an army making a deliberate withdrawal after months of preparation, which retained considerable powers of manoeuvre and counter-attack. Belated awareness of the significance of the building work along the base of the Noyon Salient, has also been given as a reason for a cautious pursuit deliberately chosen, rather than an inept and failed attempt to intercept the German retirement. In "Cavalry Studies: Strategical and Tactical" (1907) Haig had described the hasty retreat of a beaten enemy and an organised withdrawal by a formidable force, capable of rapidly returning to the attack, to defeat a disorganised pursuit.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: In the case of an organised withdrawal, Haig described a cautious follow up by advanced guards, in front of a main force moving periodically from defensive position to defensive position, always providing a firm base on which the advanced guards could retire. The conduct of the Anglo-French pursuit conformed to this model. General Franchet d'Espérey proposed an improvised offensive to Nivelle, who rejected the idea, in favour of strengthening the main French front on the Aisne. British heavy artillery had been moved north from the Fifth Army in January, ready for the offensive at Arras and had been partly replaced by inexperienced units from Britain. Divisions from the Fourth Army had been moved south, to take over former French positions and I Anzac Corps had been transferred to the Fifth Army to compensate for divisions sent north to the Third Army by 6 February, which left the Anglo-French forces in the area depleted.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Beach concluded that evidence of German intentions had been collected by air reconnaissance, spy reports and debriefings of refugees and escaped prisoners of war but that German deception measures made information gleaned from intermittent air reconnaissance during the frequent bad flying weather over the winter appear unremarkable. German digging behind existing fortifications had taken place several times during the Somme battle and led British Intelligence to interpret the evidence of fortification-building further back from the Somme front, as an extension of the construction already being watched. In late December 1916, reports from witnesses led to British and French air reconnaissance further to the south and in mid-January 1917 British intelligence concluded that a new line was being built from Arras to Laon. By February, the line was known to be near completion and by 25 February, the local withdrawals on the Fifth Army front and prisoner interrogations, led the Anglo-French to anticipate a gradual German withdrawal to the new line.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: When British patrols probing German outposts found them unoccupied, the Allies began a cautious advance, slowed by German destruction of the transport infrastructure. The troubled transport situation behind the British front, which had been caused by mounting difficulties on the Nord railways, overloading and the thaw on roads made British supply problems worse. The Germans had the advantage of falling back over good roads to prepared defences, protected by rearguards. The German armies made an efficient withdrawal, although the destruction accompanying led a considerable amount of indiscipline. Defending villages as outposts, with most of the rearguard posted at the western exits, left them vulnerable to encirclement and attacks from commanding ground and the predictability of such methods, provided French and British troops with obvious objectives.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Cyril Falls, a British official historian, criticised the British army for the failings it showed during the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, writing that the divisions were "bewildered and helpless", until they gained experience in the new form of warfare. The commander of the 8th Division, Major-General William Heneker wrote on 2 April, that it had taken three weeks for his division to become proficient in open-warfare techniques. In April 1917, an analysis by II Corps had found that patrols coming under fire had stopped to report, ground of tactical importance had been ignored by patrols that had returned to British lines, forfeiting opportunities to force German withdrawals and artillery had been reluctant to push forward. Liaison between divisional engineers and artillery had been poor, advanced guards had not known the importance of reporting on the condition of roads, ground and the accuracy of maps; the cavalry element of advanced guards was also criticised for hesitancy although in contrast, Charles Bean, the Australian official historian, concluded that the advanced troops of I Anzac Corps had been sent out on a limb.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Falls rejected claims that British methods were predictable, noting that attacks had been made at dawn, noon, afternoon and at night. Bombardments had been fired before some attacks, during attacks on other occasions, on call from the infantry or were dispensed with. Attacks had been made indirectly, using ground for cover and a number of outflanking moves had succeeded. Combined operations with infantry, cavalry, cyclists, armoured cars and aircraft had also occurred. The most successful divisions in the pursuit were those that had been on the Somme for a considerable time, rather than the newer divisions, which were fresh and had trained for open warfare in England. Many of the British attacks had substantial casualties, mostly from German machine-gun fire, although artillery casualties were also high. Attacks on similar objectives using different methods had similar casualties, which suggested that losses were determined by the German defence, rather than unsatisfactory British methods. British field artillery had been supplied with an adequate amount of ammunition, despite the transport difficulties but much heavy artillery was left behind.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The weather was also unusually severe, with snow in early April, which had less effect on German rearguards, who occupied billets and then blew them up when they retired. Allied troops in the pursuit suffered from exposure and shortages of supplies but had increased morale, better health (trench foot cases declined sharply) and adapted to open warfare. Draught animals suffered from the weather, short rations and overloading; the British artillery soon had a shortage of and several immobilised heavy artillery batteries. The length of the Western Front was reduced by , which needed German divisions to hold. The Allied spring offensive had been forestalled and the subsidiary French attack up the Oise valley negated. The main French breakthrough offensive on the Aisne (the Nivelle Offensive), forced the Germans to withdraw to the Hindenburg Line defences behind the existing front line on the Aisne. German counter-attacks became increasingly costly during the battle; after four days had been taken by the French armies and casualties were inflicted on German armies opposite the French and Belgian fronts between April and July. Most German casualties had been incurred during the Nivelle Offensive and were greater than any earlier Entente attack, against French casualties for the same period.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The French armies lost by 25 April and were also struck by a collapse of the medical services on the Aisne front, casualties being stranded close to the battlefield for several days; German losses have been estimated at for the same period. A wave of mutinies broke out in the French armies, which eventually affected . Between 16 April and 15 May the mutinies were isolated but then spread, with recorded by 31 May. From violent resistance increased, possibly six people being killed by mutineers, which threatened the battle-worthiness of the French armies, before order slowly returned by the end of June. The French strategy of breakthrough and decisive battle had failed disastrously and for the rest of 1917, the French armies resorted to a strategy of "healing and defence". Continuous and methodical battles were replaced by limited attacks followed by consolidation. A massive rearmament programme was begun to produce aircraft, heavy artillery, tanks and chemicals, which had similar goals to the Hindenburg Programme.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The parts of the Western Front where German defences were rebuilt on the new principles, or had naturally occurring features similar to the new principles, such as the Chemin des Dames, withstood the Franco-British attacks of the Nivelle Offensive in April 1917, although the cost in casualties was high. The "rate" of German infantry losses in these defences diminished, although this was also apparent in the "rate" of loss of the attackers, who were better organised and used more efficient methods, made possible by the increased flow of equipment and supplies to the Western Front, which had so concerned Ludendorff in September 1916 (In 1917 British artillery ammunition shortages ended and barrel-wear, from firing so many shells became a problem.) At Verdun in December 1916, Arras in April 1917 and at Messines in June, where the new German defensive principles of depth, camouflage and reverse-slope defences, dispersed methods of fortification and prompt reinforcement by divisions, were not possible or had not been adopted in time, the British and French armies inflicted costly defeats on the Germans.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The German defensive strategy on the Western Front in 1917, succeeded in resisting the increase in the offensive power of the Entente, without the loss of vital territory but the attrition of German manpower was slowed rather than reversed. Unrestricted submarine warfare caused the United States to declare war on 6 April and failed to isolate Britain from its overseas sources of supply. The bombing offensive against Britain, acted to divert Anglo-French air defence resources, which slowed the rate at which the German air service was outnumbered in France. By the end of the Third Battle of Ypres in November 1917, the effectiveness of the methods of defence introduced in 1917 had been eroded and continuation of a defensive strategy in the west was made impossible. The defeat of Russia gave the German leadership a final opportunity to avoid defeat, rather than the attempts to compete with Allied numerical and industrial superiority, through economic warfare in the Atlantic and the domestic initiatives of the Hindenburg Programme, the Auxiliary Service Law and temporary demobilisation of skilled workers from the army.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The accuracy of Great War casualty statistics is disputed. Casualty data available refer to Western Front totals as shown in Winston Churchill's "The World Crisis" (1923–29) and do not refer directly to the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line () or losses that would be considered "normal wastage", occurring as a consequence of the existence of the Western Front, rather than to particular military operations. British casualties in France from January to March 1917, were given as casualties given were German


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The first attack of the Nivelle Offensive by the British First and Third armies came at Arras, north of the Hindenburg Line on 9 April and inflicted a substantial defeat on the German 6th Army, which occupied obsolete defences on forward slopes. Vimy Ridge was captured and further south, the greatest depth of advance since trench-warfare began was achieved, surpassing the success of the French Sixth Army on 1 July 1916. German reinforcements were able to stabilise the front line, using both of the defensive methods endorsed in the new German training manual. The British continued the offensive, despite the difficulties of ground and German defensive tactics, in support of the French offensives on the Aisne to the south and then to keep German troops in the area while the Messines Ridge attack was being prepared. German casualties were British losses of the Third and First armies.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: During the Battle of Arras the British Fifth Army was intended to help the operations of the Third Army by pushing back German rear guards to the (Hindenburg Line) and then attacking the position from Bullecourt to Quéant, which was from the main Arras–Cambrai road. The German outpost villages from Doignies to Croisilles were captured on 2 April and an attack on a front, with Bullecourt in the centre was planned. The wire-cutting bombardment was delayed by transport difficulties behind the new British front line and the attack of the Third Army, which was originally intended to be simultaneous, took place on 9 April. A tank attack by the Fifth Army was improvised for 10 April on a front of to capture Riencourt and Hendecourt.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The attack was intended to begin before sunrise but the tanks were delayed by a blizzard and the attack was cancelled at the last minute; the 4th Australian Division withdrawal from its assembly positions was luckily obscured by a snowstorm. The cancellation did not reach the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division on the left in time and several patrols were already in the German barbed wire when the order arrived. The attack was postponed for but only four of the twelve tanks in the attack were in position on time. The tanks that attacked lost direction and were quickly knocked out, leaving no gaps in the barbed wire for the infantry. Australian troops took a portion of the front Hindenburg trench and false reports of success led to cavalry being sent forward, where they were forced back by machine-gun fire as were the Australians by a counter-attack at Total British casualties were from the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division suffered the 4th Australian Brigade of with prisoner and the 12th Australian Brigade had German casualties were


title: Hindenburg Line

text: At on 15 April, elements of four German divisions attacked from the (Hindenburg Line) from Havrincourt to Quéant to occupy Noreuil, Lagnicourt, Morchies, Boursies, Doignies, Demicourt and Hermies until nightfall, to inflict casualties, destroy British artillery to make a British attack in the area impossible and to attract British reserves from the Arras front further north. Lagnicourt was occupied for a short time and five British guns destroyed but the rest of the attack failed. Co-ordination between German infantry and artillery suffered from the hasty nature of the attack, for which planning had begun on 13 April. Several units were late and attacked on unfamiliar ground, with against losses.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Labour was transferred to work on the from La Fère to Rethel and labour battalions were sent to work on the forward positions on the Aisne front on 23 February. The German strategic reserve rose to by the end of March and the Aisne front was reinforced with the 1st Army, released by Operation Alberich and other divisions, which raised the number to line and reserve on the Aisne by early April. The French (GAN) attacked the Hindenburg Line at St Quentin on 13 April with no success and the "decisive" offensive by the French (GAR) began on 16 April between Vailly and Rheims. The French breakthrough attempt was defeated but forced the Germans to abandon the area between Braye, Condé and Laffaux and withdraw to the Hindenburg Line from Laffaux Mill, along the Chemin des Dames to Courtecon. The German armies in France were still short of reserves, despite the retirements to the Hindenburg Line and divisions depleted by during the Nivelle Offensive and then replaced by those in reserve, had to change places with the counter-attack divisions rather than be withdrawn altogether.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: Another British attack at Bullecourt was planned after the failure of 11 April but postponed several times until the Third Army further north had reached the river Sensée and there had been time for a thorough artillery preparation. By May the attack was intended to help the Third Army to advance, hold German troops in the area and assist the French army attacks on the Aisne. Two divisions were involved in the attack with the first objective at the second Hindenburg trench on a front of , a second objective at the Fontaine–Quéant road and the final objective at the villages of Riencourt and Hendecourt. Many of the British transport and supply difficulties had been remedied, with the extension of railways and roads into the "" area. The attack began on 3 May; part of the 2nd Australian Division reached the Hindenburg Line and established a foothold. Small parties of the 62nd Division reached the first objective and were cut off, the division having and an attack by the 7th Division was driven back.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: From the battle in the 2nd Australian Division sector continued and the foothold in the Hindenburg Line was extended. The 7th Division continued to try to reach British parties, which had got into Bullecourt and been isolated. A German counter-attack on 6 May was defeated but the engagement exhausted the 2nd Australian Division and the 62nd Division; serious losses had been inflicted on the 1st Australian and 7th divisions. The German 27th, 3rd Guard, 2nd Guard Reserve divisions and a regiment of the 207th Division had made six big counter-attacks and also had many casualties. The British attacked again on 7 May with the 7th Division towards Bullecourt and the 1st Australian Brigade west along the Hindenburg trenches, which met at the second objective. Next day the "Red Patch" was attacked again and a small part held after German counter-attacks. The 5th Australian Division relieved the 2nd Australian Division by 10 May, while the battle in Bullecourt continued to the west, the 7th Division capturing the village except for the Red Patch on 12 May, while the 62nd Division advance was pushed back. The 58th Division relieved the Australians and British attacks on 13 May failed. A final German counter-attack was made to recapture all of Bullecourt and the Hindenburg trenches on 15 May. The attack failed except at Bullecourt where the west of the village was regained. The 7th Division was relieved by part of the 58th Division, which attacked the Red Patch again on 17 May and captured the ruins, just before the Germans were able to withdraw, which ended the battle. The Fifth Army lost and German losses in two divisions were with casualties in the regiments of five other divisions engaged being a minimum. Total British losses for both Bullecourt operations were


title: Hindenburg Line

text: The Battle of Cambrai began with a secret deployment of British reinforcements for the attack. Instead of a long period of artillery registration (firing ranging shots before the attack) and wire-cutting, which would have warned the German defence that an assault was being prepared, massed artillery fire did not begin until the infantry–tank advance began on 20 November, using unregistered (predicted) fire. The British sent to roll through the (Hindenburg Line) barbed-wire fields, as a substitute for a long wire-cutting bombardment and the ground assault was accompanied by a large number of ground-attack aircraft. The British attack broke through the but was contained in the rear battlezone () by the , which had been built on the east side of the St Quentin canal on this part of the front. Preparations for a further advance were hampered by the obstacles of the Hindenburg defences, which had been crossed but which limited the routes by which the most advanced British forces could be supplied. The German defence quickly recovered and on 30 November began a counter-offensive, using a similar short bombardment, air attacks and storm troop infantry tactics, which was contained by the British, in some parts of the battlefield using the Hindenburg Line defences captured earlier.


title: Hindenburg Line

text: A sequence of Allied offensives began with attacks by American and French armies on 26 September 1918 from Rheims to the Meuse, two British armies at Cambrai on 27 September, British, Belgian and French armies in Flanders on 28 September; on 29 September the British Fourth Army (including the US II Corps) attacked the Hindenburg Line from Holnon north to Vendhuille while the French First Army attacked the area from St Quentin to the south. The British Third Army attacked further north and crossed the Canal du Nord at Masnières. In nine days British, French and US forces crossed the Canal du Nord, broke through the Hindenburg Line and took and German troops were short of food, had worn out clothes and boots and the retreat back to the Hindenburg Line had terminally undermined their morale. The Allies had attacked with overwhelming material superiority, using combined-arms tactics, with a unified operational method and achieved a high tempo. On 4 October, the German government requested an armistice and on 8 October, the German armies were ordered to retire from the rest of the (Hindenburg Line).


title: Thinner (film)

text: Thinner (marketed as Stephen King's Thinner) is a 1996 American body horror film directed by Tom Holland and written by Michael McDowell and Holland. The film is based on Stephen King's 1984 novel of the same name (which he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) and stars Robert John Burke, Joe Mantegna, Lucinda Jenney, Michael Constantine, Kari Wuhrer, and Bethany Joy Lenz.


title: Thinner (film)

text: Billy Halleck is an obese upper class lawyer who lives with his wife Heidi and their daughter Linda in Connecticut. Billy recently defended an underworld Mafia boss named Richie "The Hammer" Ginelli in court and is now celebrating his acquittal on a murder charge. Heidi, trying to persuade him to forget about his obsession with food, tries to give Billy oral sex as he is driving. Distracted, Billy accidentally runs over an elderly Romani woman named Suzanne Lempke, killing her. He is acquitted in the proceedings by his friend Judge Cary Rossington. The local police chief Duncan Hopley also obstructs the case by committing perjury for Billy.


title: Thinner (film)

text: Outraged by the injustice, Suzanne's father, Tadzu Lempke, places a curse on Billy on the steps of the courthouse by touching his face and uttering "Thinner". Soon afterward, Billy begins to lose weight rapidly despite not exercising or sticking to his diet. Heidi, fearing the weight loss may be due to cancer, calls Dr. Mike Houston, with whom Billy begins to suspect his wife is having an affair. Billy learns that Rossington and Hopley have also been cursed; Rossington has been metamorphosed into a lizard-like being, while Hopley develops purulent ulcers on his face and hands. Both Rossington and Hopley commit suicide. Billy tracks down the Romani camp and tries to reason with Tadzu; Tadzu threatens to make the curse worse if he doesn’t leave. Gina, Tadzu's great-granddaughter, uses her slingshot to shoot a large ball bearing which goes through Billy's hand, infuriating him into vowing revenge against Tadzu and the other Romani people who live there.


title: Thinner (film)

text: Billy enlists Ginelli to attack the Romani camp and persuade Tadzu to lift the curse. Chanting a spell, Tadzu mixes Billy's blood into a strawberry pie. Tadzu states that if someone else eats the pie, the curse will kill them quickly and Billy will be spared. He urges Billy to eat the pie himself and die with dignity but Billy refuses. Billy arrives home and gives Heidi the strawberry pie. She delightedly eats a piece. The next morning, Billy finds her desiccated corpse next to him. He is gleeful to be free of the curse and of what he believes is his disloyal wife. However, when he goes downstairs, he discovers that his daughter has eaten some of the pie for breakfast. Wracked with guilt, he prepares to eat the rest of the pie. However, he is interrupted by Mike at the door. Mike grows uncomfortable and struggles to explain his unannounced presence, seemingly confirming Billy's suspicions of an affair between Mike and Heidi. Billy invites Mike in for a piece of the pie and closes the door with a smirk.


title: Thinner (film)

text: In order to depict Billy Halleck as overweight, makeup effects artist Greg Cannom created a number of fatsuits for actor Robert John Burke to wear, along with latex pieces to make his face appear fatter. Cannom also designed a full-body suit with silicone breast implants, which Burke wore during a scene in which Billy is shown taking a shower.


title: Thinner (film)

text: "Thinner" received mostly negative reviews from critics. The film holds an approval rating of 14% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews, with an average rating of 3.6/10. The critical consensus reads: "A bland, weightless horror film that seems to want to mock itself as the proceedings drag on." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 33 out of 100 based on 14 critic reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Thinner (film)

text: James Berardinelli gave the film two stars out of four, writing: ""Thinner" could have been an opportunity to examine the ethics of a slick lawyer who refuses to accept responsibility for his actions. [...] Unfortunately, questions of morality are of secondary importance to a film that emphasizes its "Death Wish" aspects." Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "D" rating, writing: "Like too many Stephen King movies, "Thinner" is all (emaciated) concept and no follow-through." "The Austin Chronicle"s Marc Savlov gave the film a rating of one out of five stars, writing that, "Apart from its rushed pacing and occasionally stale dialogue, "Thinner" suffers even more from the fact that it has no redeemable characters."


title: Thinner (film)

text: "Variety"s Leonard Klady referred to the film as a "banally scripted and directed effort", as well as "one of the more pedestrian translations of the shockmeister's books". A more positive review came from Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle", who called "Thinner" "one of the better Stephen King-derived movies." Lawrence Van Gelder of "The New York Times", in his review of the film, wrote: "The production is slick, the Maine scenery is bracing, the characters are well-acted, and in a mumbo-jumbo movie with a few loose ends, the makeup central to the plot and applied by Greg Cannom and Bob Laden to Robert John Burke in the leading role is most admirable."


title: Thinner (film)

text: In a retrospective review, Nathan Rabin of "The A.V. Club" gave the film a "D−", writing that ""Thinner"s problems begin with a grotesquely unconvincing fat suit and makeup", and that Burke's "cartoonish performance matches the tone of a film that's broadly comic and often just plain broad without containing much in the way of jokes, let alone genuine wit or suspense."


title: Flag of Iraq

text: The flag of Iraq ( Kurdish languages: الله اكبر) includes the three equal horizontal red, white, and black stripes of the Arab Liberation flag, with the phrase “God is the greatest” in Arabic and "Allahu Akbar" written in Central Kurdish with Kufic script in the center"."


title: Flag of Iraq

text: This basic tricolor has been in use since its adoption on 31 July 1963, with several changes to the green symbols in the central white stripes; the most recent version adopted on 22 January 2008 bears the "takbīr" rendered in dark green and removes the three green stars present since 1963.


title: Flag of Iraq

text: The northern autonomous provinces of Kurdistan Region emerged as an autonomous entity inside Iraq with its own local government and parliament. The Kurdistan Regional Government uses a separate flag known as the flag of Kurdistan which was adopted in 1992.


title: Flag of Iraq

text: The first flag of modern Iraq was in Mandatory Iraq, and was adopted in 1921. It was a black-white-green horizontal flag, with a red triangle extending from the mast side, inspired by the flag of the Arab Revolt. It was soon changed to a new version with a red trapezoid replacing the triangle and two seven-point white stars on denoting the Tigris River, and the Euphrates River. Both designs also reflected the newly installed Hashemite Dynasty in Iraq (originally from Hejaz in the Arabian Peninsula), who had played a leading role in the Arab Revolt. As such, it was similar to the flags of Hashemite Jordan, and the short-lived Kingdom of Hejaz. The new flag continued to be used in the Kingdom of Iraq.


title: Flag of Iraq

text: In 1958, in response to the merger of Egypt and Syria in the United Arab Republic, the two Hashemite kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan established the Arab Federation, a confederation of the two states. The flag of the union was essentially that of Jordan but without seven pointed star in the red chevron. This flag is identical to the flag of Palestine adopted in 1964, and almost identical to the flag of the Ba'ath Party. The union lasted less than six months, being terminated by the Iraqi Revolution of 1958 in July.


title: Flag of Iraq

text: Following the Revolution of 14 July 1958, led by Abd al-Karim Qasim, which abolished the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq and turned the country into a republic, Iraq adopted a new flag (Law 102 of 1959) that consisted of a black-white-green vertical tricolour, with a red eight-pointed star with a yellow circle at its centre. The black, white, green, and red are the Pan-Arab colors, representing pan-Arabism, with the yellow Kurdish Sun in the middle to represent the Iraqi Kurds, surrounded by the red Star of Ishtar to represent ancient Mesopotamian history.


title: Flag of Iraq

text: After Qassim was overthrown by the Ba'ath Party in 1963, the new Ba'athist government adopted a modified version of the Arab Liberation flag as the new flag of Iraq on 31 July 1963 (Law 28 of 1963). This horizontal tricolour of red, white, and black bands (a subset of the Pan-Arab colors, first used in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952) formed the basis of the flag of the United Arab Republic (UAR). Though the UAR broke up in 1961, hopes for Arab unity persisted. As such, whereas the UAR flag had two green stars in the white band, signifying its two members (Egypt and Syria), the new Iraqi flag had three stars, symbolising the aspiration that Iraq would join with Egypt and Syria in a new union. Sharing this goal, Syria adopted the new Iraqi flag as its own later that same year. This remained the flag of Syria until 1971, when the green stars were replaced by the Hawk of Quraish as the Coat of arms of Syria.


title: Flag of Iraq

text: During the presidency of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Flag Law No. 28 of 1963 was replaced by Flag Law No. 33 of 1986, which did not alter the flag but changed the meaning of the three stars from their original geographic meaning to representations of the three tenets of the Ba'ath Party motto: "" (unity, freedom and socialism).


title: Flag of Iraq

text: On 13 January 1991, the flag was modified by Flag Law No. 6 of 1991. At the instigation of President Saddam Hussein, the ' (the phrase "Allahu akbar", meaning "God is the greatest" in Arabic) was added in green between the stars. The form of the ' was said to be Saddam's own handwriting. Many interpreted the addition of the sacred Islamic text as an attempt to garner wartime support from previously outlawed religious Iraqi leaders, to stop the disrespect of the Iraqi flag in Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, and to bolster the Iraqi government's Islamist credentials in the period immediately preceding the Arabian Gulf War.


title: Flag of Iraq

text: As with other flags inscribed with Arabic script, the hoist is to the right of the obverse (front) of the flag.


title: Flag of Iraq

text: Owing to differing views on a flag proposed by the United States-appointed administration, and the prevailing opposition to an outright abandonment of the current Iraqi flag, a compromise measure was adopted by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi interim administration in 2004. The basic form of the existing flag was retained; however, the "takbīr" was rendered in traditional stylized Kufic script, as opposed to the handwriting of Saddam Hussein.


title: Flag of Iraq

text: The modified flag was unveiled at the ceremony marking the technical "handover" of power from the Coalition Provisional Authority occupation forces to the U.S.-appointed administration on 28 July 2004.


title: Flag of Iraq

text: Despite this measure, the Kurdish population still opposed the flag, as it contained the three stars associated with the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein, and thus, the atrocities that were commited upon the Kurds by the Ba’athists. This eventually led to the removal of the three stars in 2008, which also provoked some criticism among non-Kurdish Iraqis, who flew it in protest.