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QUEANT AND LENS Queant was the military key of the German situa ¬ tion in the west Lens the economic key The loss of both these positions by the kaisers army is a fore ¬ runner of military and economic disaster to Ger ¬ many manyCapture Capture of Queant was no easy matter The Ger ¬ mans fought hard to retain it throwing in all the divisions they could spare and even Bringing troops from Lens evacuating that city in the vain effort to save the lower hinge of the Wotan line lineWith With the loss of that formidable front the kaisers infantry became an undisciplined mob hold ¬ ing up their hands as the British advanced and being sent in thousands to the prisoners cages in the rear Percival Phillips in his special cable des ¬ patches to the Herald describes the scene showing how the German machine gunners alone made any effective resistance and how speedily they were overcome Douai and Cambrai are the next ob ¬ jectives and then the Belgian frontier from which the British in this sector are only twentytwo miles away Capture of Lens means the loss to the Germans of a coal region which has been of immense value to the Germans Indeed its possession is said to have been one of life objects ttf German greed that prompted the war Beginning little west of Lens the coal belt runs eastward around Douai to Mons where tln finest coal in Belgium is mined and then along the Bel ¬ gian frontier to Briey Luxemburg and the Gerriian mines across the Iwrder lien the British reached the outskirts of Lens more than a year ago they immediately began to take from the few pits which they recovered coal mined under the enemys fire This area undoubtedly will be enlarged as the allied armies progress and when peace comes the coal belt will be again a source of great prosperity for the whole of northern France as it was before the war New York Herald
