The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, .1916. THE GREAT BATTLE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 51, 29 February 1916, Page 4

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

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, .1916. THE GREAT BATTLE.

For the cause that lacks attiatanee. For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that toe cam *•

The battle of Verdun is described' as the "fiercest battle of modern times'" which means the fiercest battle in history. Our readers, however, will have noticed 'how frequently such phrases have been applied to battles in. this war, and there ia no proof yet that this struggle is fiercer than the first battle of Ypres, ■when the thin Franco-British line held back a much stronger German army. But in concentration of troops and intensity of artillery fire this battle is certainly most remarkable. According to the military correspondent of the "Times," the Germans massed 500,000 men for the attack on the Verdun front, and it was stated a few days ago that tbere were 200,000 men on a seven-mile front. The Crerman artillery fire eeems to have been prodigious. We axe told that even the tremendous bombardment in the Champagne offensive was "mere fireworks" compared with this attack. This is doubtless a highly coloured statement, but even" if the German preparation was appreciably more thorough than the French, that would be . a remarkable thing. "It ie impossible to give any idea of the savagery .of this hurricane of shells," said a German, correspondent who witnessed the French offensive in September. "Kever has this old planet witnessed such an uproar. An officer who had witnessed in the summer the horrors of the Souchez and the Lorette heights, told mc they could not in any way be compared with this inconceivably appalling artillery onslaught. Night and day for fifty hours, and in. some places for seventy hours, the French guns vomited death ajid\ deߣruction w aga}nsg , the German the.,japrman-. batteries. Our ■strongly-built trienches- .were-filled in and J grpund to powder, their parapets and fire J platforms were razed into dust-heaps, ! and the men in them were buried, crushed, and suffocated." A German soldier calculated that in his limited field of vision 100,000 shells fell in fifty hours. If the German preparation at Verdun was much greater than this, it must have been inconceivably stupendous. But it was what might have been expected. In the previous winter the enemy massed enough shells to drive the Russians out of Galiciaj this time they are using their winter accumulation on the Western front. But «yen this appalling fire will be outdone when the- Allies' supplies reach the maximum.

The German generals continue to ba lavish with the lives of their men, and advances are still made in such close formation that the Allies' artillery and machine-guns have a solid and shining mark. The Germans have shown themselves highly adaptive in this war, but they cling to the mass attack, and we must conclude that they have good reason for doing so. It sometimes succeeds, but often it involves terrible losees. There ie no reason to doubt that the casualties in these Verdun assaults have b'6'en ghastly. If the tiiown Prince had '2bojooo on a seven-mile*front, he massed sixteen rifles to the'yard; a remarkable concentration, but-one greatly surpassed by Mackenscn, who, in a battle in Poland, massed forty to the yard, and sent them forward in successive waves, until the I dead were piled up in front of the I Russian positions. A most vivid account !is just to hand of the slaughter inflicted when the Germans made their massed counter-attack onr Loos last year. The enemy came on in four thick lines, shoulder to shoulder, and every officer and man in the British trenches, and every gunner in the artillery behind, furiously poured death into the mass. "Our men hitched themselves on to the parapets to get a good field of fire, and they flung out lead until their rifles grew almost too hot to hold. The machinegunners had. as targets solid blocks at three hundred yards and less distance. The gunners of the light field artillery made the paint on their pieces bubble, blister, and flake off by their rate of fire, and the men were half deaf for days after." Similar slaughter must have occurred at.points on the Verdun front during the last few days.

Is it worth it? A German military critic, we ere told to-day, "ecoffs at the French policy of prosecuting the war to exhaustion, with the highest possible saving of human material." If his views are genuine, he does not realise what are the relative resources of the Central Powers and the Allies. It has been the policy of the Allies, inferior at the beginning, but with the material for ultimate superiority, to gain time, and, while waiting, to inflict the maximum loes on' their opponents. The French losses at Verdun have probably been a good deal less than those of the enemy. German official statements of captures are quite unreliable. It is the policy of the Central Powers to force a decision, and in trying to do so they muet to some extent play into their opponents' hands. The Germans did so when they counter-attacked unsuccessfully at Loos and in Champagne, and unless they can break throngn they will do so at Verdun. Such a movement as this ie only justified by complete success. A mere advance towards Verdun will benefit them little, for the city and the Frenoh salient will be intact, and the contour of their line, which ie increasingly menaced by the Allies, will not have been-made less dangerous. It is said tjhey are willing to loee; 200,000 men to

take- —Verdun-, — but it is ~ more likely that they, wjll lose 200,000 men and c not take it, in,' which case they will be worse off than they were before. The situation to-day points to the recapture of Douaumont by the French, but it is tog soon to say whether Verdun ■is out of danger. Having gone thus far, the enemy ie not likely to slacken off just yet. We must always be prepared for developments in other places. Having drawn the French reserves to Verdxm, the enemy may suddenly strike hard elsewhere. But the Allies are in such strength in the West now that they should be able to meet a series of great attacks on their line with coolness and confidence.