January, 1916

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 17, 20 January 1940, Page 3 (Supplement)

January, 1916

By "TROOPER"

Ex-Servicemen's Corner

AS a winter of stalemate closes we see plans being made in an attempt to force a decision. With Germany such an attempt is an imperative necessity. Her failure in the previous seventeen months to achieve her much vaunted purpose has created the need now that proof be forthcoming to satisfy the people at home, grown impatient of claims and denied the hope of peace. The Allied strength in men and material was vastly superior to that of twelve months before. B r itain had. a potential force in home camps nearly twice the size of that which she had in the field. France had trained her 1910 and 1917 classes, but had not yet used them at the front. Italy had large numbers of men at her disposal, while the others of the group were in an equally favourable position. Germany was not. in such a happy position. Faced with dwindling manpower, economic stress that could not bo indefinitely endured, and the results of her ill-founded claim to victory she would have to take the initiative. "She was confronted with two alternatives. She might stand as before on the defensive in the West and look to the East for a decision; or she might attack in the West and then turn in triumph to take order in the East." Hindcnberg considered the Russian armies as virtually out of action and that it was little use to advance further into their country for the present. The Allies had withdrawn from Gallipoli. To Hum up: Germany calculated that the time was ripe to bring into piay

tho full resources of her great artillery machine. With this she felfc confident that she could force a decision in the west, or at least make a spectacular capture of a French city of importance. The capture of such a city would enhance the waning prestige of Germany, and might even end the war. The personal stock of the Crown Prince had fallen very low. He commanded in the Verdun area. Ypres and Arras were but heaps of rubble through German efforts in the preceding year to capture them. Verdun was intact, a prize worthy of the purpose, and that which the High Command decided its effort should be directed against. As a preliminary the enemy must be puzzled and distracted. So from the first week in January the Allied front was "felt" in all its length from Xieuport to tho Alps. In some sectors this developed into minor battles. But these were as nothing to that to which they were the prelude, the greatest battle of the war, Verdun, lasting in all some nine weeks, and which opened at 7.15 on the morning of February 21, 1910. Cape Helles On the night of January S-9, the final phase of the evacuation of Gallipoli was completed, from Cape Helles. The Turks were now in undisputed possession of the famous peninsula; the heroic venturehad all but failed. The campaign stands

as a monument to the endurance of the soldier and as a warning against lassitude and jealousy in the higher ranks of command. The recent death of Anthony Fokker, the famous 'plane designer, recalls the part his machines played in the German Air Force, with which they made their first appearance in January, 1010. Here they were used at a time when Germany needed such a defensive machine. Not built for long flights over the lines, they remained on the ground waiting to take toll of the invader, which their 100 miles an hour speed and ability to climb to 7500 feet in ten minutes —at that time an achievement —fitted tlienj for.

The British also needed such a machine, and it was provided very soon in no one type. In this connection it is interesting to recall that Fokker offered

his machine to the British Government, who, on the advice of its experts, turned it down as "badly built, and obviously difficult and dangerous to fly" He then took it to German}', where ho set up a factory, which lie later removed elsewhere.

On the Seas •■'The work of our Fleet was so quiet and so little advertised that the ordinary Briton dwelling in the southern towns felt more remote from it than from the Flanders' trenches." That, as ever, sums up the traditional character of our Navy and Mercantile Marine. Quietly and efficiently, whether in tropic seas, amidst the ice flows of the Arctic, or the stormy oceans, the British Navy was doing the same sort of job and as well as it docs it to-day. "Discipline, courage fo the point of madness, contempt for all that is pretentious and insincere, the teaching of the ocean and the elements" make it to he relied 011.

The New Zealand troops were concentrated here and in the course of reorganisation. The formation of the New Zealand Division was the outcome, later to sail for France, tho New Zealand Mounted Brigade remaining in Sinai and Palestine to play their part in the conquest of Turkey, denied them 011 Gallipoli.