Courage and Endurance.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16228, 3 June 1918, Page 6

Courage and Endurance.

The war news this morning telling of further advances of tho Germans will bo depressing to those who look only to tho extent of territory gained or lost, and who fail to take tho long views which axe absolutely necessary if we are to arrive at a sane judgment regarding tho prospects of this war. For our part we have unabated confidence in tho strategy of General Foch. The hero of tho former battlo of theMarne, 'we think, can be trusted to havo made his dispositions to meet the present menace in his own time and in his own way. During the last offensive, when people were asking for nows of Foch's reserves, Cblonel' Hepington, who has been a severe critic of the war strategy of the Allies, admitted that sound tactics required Foch to hold his reserves until the time came for using them. To use them prematurely, he said, would be perilous. It is, of course, exceedingly disagreeable to see the enemy advancing liis battle-front in France, but unless he can destroy the French and British Armies he is as far off as ever from being able to enforce a German peace. Even then he would still have the British Navy to cope with, and nothing but wresting from us tho command of the sea—which he can never do—would enable him to impose his terms on us. As soon as the momentum of the present attack begins to slow down, a counter-attack by tho Allies should | have a most important effect on the course of events. When the enemy's immense efforts are frustrated and his immense losses are in vain, he must, as tho "Manchester Guardian" pointed out a few weeks ago, "either make up '•his mind to an indefinite continuance " of the war, almost unbearably costly "in life and in the suffering of the "civil population, from which h© has " no longer anything of consequence to " gain, or he must prepare to make "peace and mtfft face the sacrifices "which peace in such conditions —that "is, a peace having regard to the " fundamental principle of national and "human liberty—would carry with it."

For the Allies in the meantime the supreme duty is to hold out, and to cling steadfastly to their resolve that peace shall not be made until those terms can he made -which have over aild over again been stated as the Entente policy. Germany can win this war only if the spirit of the Entente peoples gives way, and this for a reason well stated by the Ijondon "Nation," a paper which is generally considered pacifist in temper. Germany wants world-victory, and where, the "Nation" asks, is she to get it? "Only in the " complete domination of the will of " four great States, including two of " the greatest, in the confusion of their "politics, no less than of their military "organisation, and in the mastery of " their sea-power and moral forco. She " is hardly nearer these ends than sho " was on August 4th, 1914; in fact, she "is further off than she seemed to be "within six weeks of the outbreak of " the war. The little more or the little "less that she can get out of the " battles gives her no sensible approach "to the vast and distant ends she must " compass if she is to set them before " her people in any plausible compari- " son with the means she has taken to "obtain them." If for the moment the sky seems dark, there is comfort in the thought that endurance promises everything to the Allies, and nothing to the enemy.