THE WESTERN FRONT.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 185, 5 August 1918, Page 4

THE WESTERN FRONT.

The great strategic movement planned with such skin by General Foch, and carried out with such energy and valour by the Allied troops, has now progressed * stage further in its development. Designed in the first instance to check the German drive " across the Marne, and to take off the pressure from tho German offensir* cast of Rheims, Foch's flanking attack has already been a magnificent success; but its full effects have not yet been manifested. Even when it was known that the Germans had been forced hack across the Marne, and were retiring northward to avoid being caught in the salient, on both flanks of which the Allies were exercising an almost intolerable pressure, it was generally assumed that the enemy would be able to make a stand along the Ardre and the Vesle, maintaining alignment with the divisions further west on the Crisc, and thus holding a front extending roughly parallel to the course of the Aisne from Soissons to Rheims. Even this would have meant a very serious repulse for the enemy, and would have effectually put it beyond bis power to menace Paris or to threaten any serious danger to the vitally important communications between Paris and Verdun. But so skilful were Foch's dispositions, and so irresistible has been the onslaught of the Allies, that the Germans are now clearly unable to consolidate or hold the Bne along which they originally contem- j plated making a definite stand. Driven 1 j -back over the Ourcq, they made a desperate effort to hold the broken country south of Soissons along the Crisc But the heroic valour of the French armies has robbed them again of their vantage j ground. Soissons is ours once more, the strong ridge between the Ourcq and the Crise has been carried, and the French now threaten to turn from the west the whole line which the Germans are now holding; while at the same time the French, British and Anzae divisions, which were thrown into the struggle south and west of Rheims, have forced their way along the Ardre toward the Vesle till tbe eastern flank of the German position is seriously menaced as well.

?Pnt briefly, this means that the Germans will be, from the strategic standpoint, very little safer on a line running from Soiseonß to Rheims than they were in the Marne salient itself. As a matter of fact, the line of the Vesle, on which they seem to have prepared tor a resolute stand, is now practically untenable; and the logical inference is that the enemy mnst in all probability continue to fall back till he reaches the Aisne and

re-establishes himself on ite northern bank and along the Chemin dcs Dames once more. Quite apart from the possibility of large captures, and the inevitable heavy losses entailed by eruch a retirement, with the only available roads and railways under heavy artillery fire, I the strategic and moral effects of this success for the Allies must be almost ! incaJonlable. For the. time being Foch tias completely wrested the initiative [from LudeudorfT. and, what is more ! important still, he- hai* gained this tre- | mendous advantage against an enemy j greatly superior in numbers at vital strategic points. Xo wonder that French and British and American military experts are elated, and are already confidently predicting that this will prove to be the decisive tar in the cam-)—i-ui and tile war. Eveu the official

German Press is forced to admit the reality of the Allied successes, and it is a noteworthy fact that the "Frankfurter Zeitung," in its comments on the situation, emphasises the very 'point on which -. Sir Douglas Haig ta-ys stress in his order to the British armies issued on the anniversary of the outbreak of the war—that the most critical moment of the conflict has passed, because the Allies have succeeded in holding and defeating the enemy even before the American armies were ready to make good the lasses caused by Russia's defection. And now that the Americans have begun to reach the front in large numbers continuously, this ever rising tide of reinforcements of the highest fighting value will render the task of the Central Powers more hopeless and impossible with every passing week. It is. indeed, a happy omen that the opening days of the. fifth year of the war should be marked by so decisive and far-reaching a succcsb as Foch's genius, and tbe splendid conrage and endurance of the French and British armies have secured for tlve Allies. Once more the Germans, routed on the Marne, are falling back toward the Aisne, just as they retreated four years ago before the onslaught of the Allies, guided by Foch and Joffre. And just as the first Allied victory on the Marne changed the whole character of the war and baffled the first overwhelming rush of the enemy, so we may expect to find that the second German defeat on the Marne will mark the definite close and failure of their desperate effort to seir-e Paris and destroy out armies before the full strength of our Allies could be placed in the field against them.