TheCodeBreakers
But
the enciphered code, used only for trench communications, provided no
strategic insights. These would come, if they were to come at all, through
solution of the ADFGX, which direction-finding showed was carrying
messages between the higher German headquarters, chiefly those of
divisions and army corps. Painvin strained even harder.
At 4.30 a.m. March 21, 6,000 guns suddenly fired upon the Allied line
at the Somme in the most furious artillery cannonade of the war. Five
hours later, 62 German divisions rolled forward on a 40-mile front. The
surprise was complete and its success overwhelming. French and British
troops reeled back day after day in stunned confusion. The head of
intelligence at French G.H.Q. came into the cryp-tologic bureau three
days later and told Major E.-A. Soudart, the replacement for ex-chief
Marcel Givierge, and Soudart's assistant, Marcel Guitard: "By virtue of
annaabi.ee 
