The Change in the West.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16289, 13 August 1918, Page 6

The Change in the West.

In the official review of tho events of past week, some stress is laid upon the fact that if Foch's counter-offen-sive on the Marne had been unsuccessful, a very dangerous situation would have been created. By degrees there is growing a clearer realisation of the great peril in which the Allies stood on the Western Front during the first half of this year. Mr Lloyd George mentioned last week that the need for men was so groat that youths of eighteen had to bo serlt into the battle-line. Mr Bonar Law lifted-the curtain a little in his speech %f' Juno 18th last, when the German* offensive to the Marne had come to an end, and the ancillary thrust at Compfegne from the North had been stopped dead. Before the March offensive, the Allied High Commands were aware of the preparations being made by the Germans, but they were doubtful about the time and place of the blow. It was. a surprise, we gather, because the I

enormous strength of the enemy was not expected to develop for some weeks; and Mr Bonar Law admitted that the success attending the blow caused "the utmost anxiety." The enemy had not, however, had matters aIL his own way; all his offensives were riot successes, even where he gained ground. The big attack in March in the neighbourhood of St. Quentin, Mr Bonar Law described as an undoubted German success and he did not add any qualifying terms The first phase of the battle of the Lys was a similar success. But the intense attack made with great force on the British Third Army, in front of Amiens, was a British success, for the attack signally failed, and resulted in terrible losses to the enemy. Thi3 is true also of the second phase of the Battle of the Lys, and at this point of timo we can see that perhaps this was the most dangerous of all the German thrusts. The attack across the Aisne, at the end of May, was an undoubted Gerj man success, although the enemy failed in what must have been his main pur- ! pose, namely, an extension of liis posi- ! tion on his right. But the southern offensive, between Montdidier and Noyon, was a simple failure. By that timo, the middle of June, it was possible to take a cheerful view of the future, although it was felt that the comparative lull was a calm in the midst of the storm, preceding the next blast of the hurricane Another Ger-

man blow was expected, and within a month of Mr Bonar Law's spccch it was delivered, but with results ultimately disastrous to the enemy, to whom the Marne is now doubly a fatal name. There could hardly be a greater change than has taken place in tfie general situation since March last —a chango due, in part, to good leadership, and in part to the new strength received from America. The enemy is unable for the present to arrange a large blow at any profitable point, and if he should find the means of delivering a blow somewhere north of Albert, of Rheims, ho will find Foch strengthened and prepared. One of the English critics suggests that the German policy will now bo a defensive on the West and an offensive in the East. This would be a repetition of their policy after their Western failure in 1915. Then their Eastern offensive was against Russia; this time, it is supposed, it will be through Turkey. The "Easterners" havo for some time urged this theory, and recommended that the "wisest strategy on our part would be to press our advantages in the East, so as to paralyse the efforts that the enemy may make there next year. But the Western Front is the vital front, for Germany as for the Allies.