Progress of the War.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16323, 21 September 1918, Page 8

Progress of the War.

The latest reports of the German coun>-ter-attack from Havrincourt to Gauche Wood, between Gouzeaucourt and Villers-Guislain show that it was the' most determined effort by the enemy since the opening of the offensive on August 8 th. There could be ho better testimony than the enemy's failure and heavy losses to the weight and firmness of Haig's armies, for the enemy attack was on such a scale that at any time earlier in the war it would have resulted in a long thrust forward. The net result of the offensive and the German reply is the taking of 10,000 German prisoners and the advance of the line over two miles eastward along an eighteen-mile front, the Hindenburg line being broken for a considerable distance. Between Bellicourt and Holnon Wood the resistance of the enemy is still strong, but the French south-west of St. Quentin are continuing to attack and extending their gains. There is nothing special to report of the operations on the line astride the Scarpe, or those in the Lys sector, although the enemy has attempted raids on the northern and southern wings of the Lys front. The advance in Macedonia is progressing very rapidly, but details are scanty. A brilliant offensive in the Sharon region is reported. The news from Russia is less favourable. The small British force at Baku, which was sent in the expectation that the Armenians there could be relied upon has had td evacuate the town. The tragic story of their disappointment is recorded to-day, and with regret for the losses sustained by the gallant British regiments there will be mingled, unless we are mistaken, some indignation that miscalculations of the kind recorded should still be possible. The Czecho-Slovaks, who overthrew the •Bolsheviks at Simbirsk towards the end of July, have had to give up that town, and also Kazan, and there are indications of increased German and Bolshevik vigour in the whole of the Eazan region. In a survey of the situation which is cabled to us to-day it is remarked that the Czecho-Slovak movement is having the desired result of keeping German armies engaged elsewhere than on the West front, but this is an advantage which will only have a large value so long as the weather permits the continuation of the offensive'in the West.

Mr W. M. Hughes, the Prime Minister of Australia, is no doubt a man of ; great ability, but it is becoming quite , apparent that he .is woefully deficient both in tact and even in good taste. No other Dominion Minister has ever * ventured to interfere in British poli- '■ tics as Mr Hughes has done, and we i sincerely hope no other oversea Minis- , ter will ever follow his bad example. , It is simply a case of a guest showing , bad manners, and the impropriety is j all the more flagrant because the host is too courteous and forbearing to * show any public resentment. > • Mr Hughes's -latest "faux pas" was l at the Australian and New Zealand . Club's luncheon to the Overseas Press Delegation, when he declared that if [ to-day Amiens or Paris were not "held or threatened by the enemy it was due to the heroism and 61an of the Dominion troops." Surely Mr Hughes > knows by this time that this kind of "skiting" is most offensive and that nobody dislikes it more than the Dominion troops themselves. Time after time we have heard New Zealand soldiers, returned from the war, expreps- » ing disgust at the flattery which some '> of the English newspaper correspoadi ents seem to think essential to keep s up the "moral" of the Dominion troops. Mr Hughes ought not to have forgotten the fact that when April ' 25th was first celobrated as Anznc Day, the "Anzacs" at once said that ' the honour belonged to the British ' troops as well as to themselves, and to i "the incomparable 29th Division" per- , haps even more so. We are not surj prised that after Mr Hughes's ill-ad- . vised boasting, Lord Beaverbrook felt compelled to tell the oversea journalists something of Britain's part in the ' war, and we are delighted that the • New Zealand representative, Mr • ! Hacket, bore testimony, not only to the i magnitude of Britain's effort but also i to the generosity of the British people

in giving every credit to the Dominions while taking little themselves. 1 « 1 It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that all the members of the French Mission at present visiting Aus- ' tralia have taken their part in the present war. General Pan, the chief of the Jlission, also distinguished himself m the war of 1870, and received the Cross of the Legion of Honour, not having then attained his 23rd year. He had attained the limit of age and relinquished active service a little less than a year before the present war broke out. He was, however, called again into active service on August 9th. 1914, after the check sustained by the PVench Army at Mulliausen—which, it is said, the Germans are row preparing to evacuate. Ho compelled the retreat of the German Army into Upper Alsace. It was he who organised the retreat from Belglum. Another distinguished soldier is Commandant Felix d'Andre, who comes with the French Mission as adjutant and A.T>.C. to General Pan. He is well-known among military men as the author of "Le Tir piur Vaincre" (Shooting to Win). His father was an officer in the Navy, whose last voyage was to Australia at the time when Tahiti became a French possession. Commandant d'Andre won the Legion of Honour in tho present war, but had the bad luck to be taken a prisoner, and spent two years in German prisons, after which ho was interned in Switzerland for a timo and then returned to Franco. When we learn that fifteen members of the Commandant's family have given their lives for Franco during this war, and that ho is now the only adult bearing the family name, it helps us to understand the heroic sncrifi os which France is making in this terrible war. - 4One expected General Pan to speak well of the work which the Australian soldiers are doing on tho Western front, and he did say they wore magnificent men, and tho French had tho warmest admiration for them. He specially referred to their kindness to the Fronch refugees, and the cordial relations that existed between tho Australian soldiers and the civilian population generally. "The Fronch people," he said, "will always have a warm corner in thoir hearts for tho Australians. How can they ever forget their great kindnesses?" It will perhaps come as a surprise to many of our • readers to learn that the general also warmly praised the Australians for their "splendid discipine." "As an illustration," he said, "I invited the Australian tiroop3 to give three cheers for Australia, but they would not do so because they were under arms. Now, discipline like this made one think more of them than if they had cheered." • General Pan is, of course, a good disciplinarian, otherwise he could never have been so successful as a commander. But judging from a little anecdote told in the "Sydney Morning Herald," he knew when to temper the rigours of discipline with a touch of human considera-. tion. In August, 1914, at a critical period of the war, passing a regiment in review he observed a soldier without his "kepi"; the unlucky "poilu" stood, there trembling, expecting the inevitable punishment; but the general, stopping in front of him, seized his own gold-banded ,( k6pi" and rammed it down over the culprit's ears. No other punishment followed, and tho men of the 20th Army Corps, it is added, still chuckle over their general's original method of preserving discipline and' order, while avoiding tho defects of the martinet.