The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1915. LAST CHRISTMAS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 307, 27 December 1915, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1915. LAST CHRISTMAS.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that too can do.

j The general aspects of the war, especially _o far as the British are con-J ccrned, were on the whole similar last year to those that prevail this yea:, although at certain points there have been unexpected developments. Brie/ly, what has happened between the two dates is this:—Corman.v, pent in on the West by the French and British, and shut out from tho surface of the sea, and brought to a stand in her threatened march into the capital of Russia, has forced her wa.c Eastward and is spread out now between the North and Baltic Sea<s, to the shores of the Bosphorus, and from her present Farthest East she threatens to extend still further until she reaches Egypt and bestrides the canal. At her instigation the same attempt was made by her Turkish allies, or rather subjects, in this month last year, and proved utterly abortive, only a score or so of Turks succeeding in crossing the canal under British Ore.

La_it Christmas season, like this, was spent by British and allied French and Belgians in their trench dug-outs, which had recently been improved, lined and drained. Along the British lino in Sir John French's army there wa9 a lull after the great battle of Yprcs and the fierce fighting around La Bassee, where Indian regiments were beset and resI cued by Sir Douglas BLaig (since then made Commander-in-Chief). Supplies of Christmas provisions were sent to the British soldiers from London by regular services of steamers and trains, and the

an abniiiiaiice of Christmas fare as no army on active service has done bciore them. The extraordinary event in this quarter was the soldiers' truce on Christmas Day. Without any opposition from their officers, the British and the German soldiers facing each other ceased fighting for the whole twenty-four honrs. In several places they fraternised and exchanged gifts of tobacco and Chris_ma_ dainties senti them from their homes. On the following day they fell to shooting each other again. They appear to have shared the opinion one of them expressed about the Germans: "A bad, black lot, no doubt, but not those opposite to us. They're verra respectable men and grand fighters." But where Germans and Belgians or Frenchmen met there were memories of an invaded country, and Christma_ morning brought no truce. In the JLrgonne ibills and woods of fir and chestnut, instead of winter parties of pleasure, there were man hunts by scouting p_,rtie_, sensational exploits and adventures and encounters in the frc_.ts and starlight of night. In Lorraine, where the snow lay deep on the Vosges peaks and precipices, the Chasseurs Alpins of France had a still more thrilling December. For Serbia last Christinas was an interval of victorious peace. Nine days before Christmas Eve their army had broken and routed the great Austrian army of invasion as gallantly as in past centuries the Swiss had routed it at Morgarten and Sempach. Not an enemy remained on their 6oil. To-day their Government is in exile and their army struggling across the Black Mountain, but not without proepecfc of rescue and revanche. Next Christmas, by one of the swift turns Fate takes in the Balkans, they may once again be free and triumphant.

One of the memorable events of last Christmafi was a British raid, from the air. Early in the obscure wintry dawn of December 2o last seven British seaplanes flew from different quarters towards Heligoland, and there were met by British submarines and cruisers which accompanied them to Cuxhaven and waited three hours for their return. The seaplanes dropped bombs on some German warships and Zeppelin sheds, but thick mist hid everything from their eyes except the rising smoke of an explosion. Three of the aviators were picked up by the British ships and three more later on, but it was not until a day or two had passed that Flight-Cor-n• mander Hewlett appeared again,

On the same day, far eastward in Transcaucasia, Enver Pasha's great plan for surrounding the Russians was drawing towards its disastrous finale. On Christmas Day two Turkish corps, half starved and short of ammunition, had struggled in a blizzard across the steep ridges and descended upon Sarikamish, while another corps had driven the Russians back upon Khorassan, and yet another was looking down in the pauses of the storm upon Ardahau. Those heights were a few days later to be the grave of all but a remnant of the Turkish army, and to mark the end of the German hope of an invasion of Russia from the Caucasus. To-day Turkish forces again are mustering in that region, and once again great preparations are making for the descent upon Egypt. But on the great Western lines of trenches the Teuton is weaker than he was this day twelve months ago.