The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 1916. THE WAR AND THE OUTLOOK.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 64, 15 March 1916, Page 4

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

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 1916. THE WAR AND THE OUTLOOK.

For the cause that lacks assistance. for the wrong that needs resistance. Tut the future in the d/Uitance, And the good that we caw U

One of the most perplexing features of the war is the constant shifting of what psychologists term "the focus of attention" from one quarter of the vaet field of operations to another. Ever since that fateful first of August, nearly two yeare ago, momentous events hare followed one upon the other with sue>. "startling rapidity, that it has been impossible to concentrate one's interest for long upon any single sphere of activity. Following the course of the war from aia.r off, with strained and eager eyes, we have had to turn from the Marne and the Aisne to the Vistula, from Paris to Warsaw, from the North ?ea to the Suez Canal, from Ypres to Gallipoli; and with every recurrent 6wing of the pendulum we have been tempted to feel that now "at last the. critical moment in the struggle haa been reached and the decisive victory is coon to be lost, or won. But after more than eighteen months of warfare we should have learned that impressions 1 gained from such casual and partial surveys of this gigantic conflict are altogether inaccurate and misleading. It is only by taking into account ali the factors °.n the problem at once that we can hope to form any accurate estimate of the situation; and at this particular juncture it is especially desirable tha„ we should keep steadily in view the plans and purposes of the Allies ratner than allow our attention to be diverted by irrelevant accidents, and our judgment warped by the. .contemplation of spectacular sidc-issucS.,

It seems to us that everybody needs to take these considerations to heart just now, because the true position of affairs has been largely obscured during the past few months by various dramatic developments, which have tended to produce an impression unduly favourable to the prospects of the Central Powers, j Germany and Austria arc still holding up tho Allies along many hundreds of miles of apparently impregnable field defences; they arc still in occupation of large areas of foreign country; they have gained striking diplomatic and military successes in the Balkans; they arc at least temporarily holding at hay the revived strength of Russia, on the one hand, and tho constantly increasing weight of the Anglo-French armies on the other; and in spite of many predictions to the contrary their economic and financial capacity for maintaining the struggle ia not yet exhausted. It is impossible to deny that Germany, by virtue of her long and careful preparations, and her remarkable organising powera, has achieved great successes, and that if, as she earnestly desires, the war were to close now, it would end in a veritable triumph for her, and a disastrous defeat for the ' Allies. But what we have to keep steadily in view is that there is not the slightest: indication on the. side of the iAllies; of.any weakening of their resolve to varry the war to a final and decisive j victory, and that behind the appearance !of success which Germany has been able to maintain so long there lies concealed the certainty of complete and inevitable failure and collapse.

We have always to remember that, granting the facts of the case, Germany's long previous preparations fir the war, her central position, and her superior organisation and equipment at the outset—the only practicable course for the Allies to follow was to wear dclvn her powers of resistance by slo>\ degrees. The events of the past eignteen months have proved that when Germany and Austria challenged the rest of Europe to ba<ttle, they were not so insane as they 6eemed. So enormous are the advantages they had secure! by their foreknowledge of their own monstrous intentions, that their plan of a war of aggression against France and Russia had a remarkably good- chance cf succeeding, even if Britain intervened; and as we know now, it was only by a very narrow margin that they fell short of a measure of success that might have daunted even the strength i

and courage of the Grand Alliance. Under these circumstances the struggle necessarily resolved itself into a "war of attrition," and it is only because to many people continually forget the true significance of that hard-workol phrase that they allow themselves to drift into a more or less pessimistte phase of mind about our prospects. The Allies from the first were wise enough to realise that they could win only by exhausting the Central Powers, and this they deliberately set themselves to do. The military genius of Joffre manoeuvred the German armies on th.i west into a position in which they can neither advance nor retire, but em only waste away; the leaders of the Russian armies have bent all their energies to the same task of wearing' out the resources of the enemy and exhausting his supply, of ..men; and et the-present momeni it can be affirmed 'without' fear of contradiction that on the eastern and .western fronts alike, and throughout the whole vast theatre of the war, the plans of the Allies are developing steadily and surely towards

the attainment of that final and overwhelming victory without which the" war would have been fought in vain."

It is loiprty rby keeping these. facts steadily in view that we can liope ta comprehend the true significance of any or all of the countless tragic episodes that in widely separated fields have made up the history of this stupendous conflict. The fighting round Verdun, on which' the attention of the wortd has been concentrated with such painful eagerness during the past few weeks, derives its real interest not from the dramatic nature of the struggle, but from our knowledge that here once more the wisdom of the policy that the Allies have adopted is being decisively confirmed. To hold the Germans back, to encourage them to renew the offensive again and again, to inflict the heaviest possible losses upon them in exchange for the least possible concessions—this is the only general plan of campaign "iat the Allies have ever attempted to follow ; and the frightful 'sacrifices that the Crown Prince and his colleagues have made around VerdUn to gain a few

miles of relatively worthless country are a proof arid" a measure of its success On the eastern front the great plan, in spite of many vicissitudes, and in defiance of accidents and disasters that no human prescience could have foreseen or guarded against, has justified itself a< completely as in the west. After inflicting incalculable and irreparable losses upon the enemy in the retreat from Galicia and Poland, Russia has now recovered more than her original strength, and the relentless pressure that she i« bringing to bear along the whole eastern front from the Baltic to Bukowina means as much to the Allies now as the splendid valour of the French armies holding the barrior fortresses and the heights of the Meusc with such indomitable tenacity. Even in the Balkans, in spite of our failures at Gallipoli, in Serbia and in Montenegro, the boasts and threats ot the Central Powers have come to nothing. The wonderful achievements of the Russians in Asia Minor have already involved the utter collapse of the Turkish menace in Egypt, Persia and Mesopotamia, whilst the waste of military resources that the Balkan expedition has. entailed upon Germany and Austria : more than outweighs whatever diplo matic gains they have made in the Near East. Meantime the pressure of Britain's naval strength upon Gcrmany'3 economic resources is incerasing

in intensity, and the " creeping paralysis" of her trade and industries keeps pace with the ncver-ceasinj waste of her men and munitions of war. All these things point surely and unmistakably to the one inevitable end, and even tbtjugto 1 'the hour of victory' has not yet 6tfdck',^tiiere'" , heVe'F I ''tiiif' tftM" I * moment since the war began when we could look to the future with greater confidence or a stronger assurance of the ultimate and decisive triumph of the gTcat cause for which we are fighting.