PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2492, 19 June 1915, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

If enemy reports are to be trusted the Russians defending Lemberg are in desperate plight, so far as tho immediate object of the great Galician battle' is concerned. The statement comes from Berlin that General von Maokensen has compelled the Russians to retire to Tarnogrod, a Russian town a few miles north of the Galician border and 18 miles east of the Ban. 1 If this report is true the Russians have now been dislodged from the San at every point, and are being thrust back towards Lemberg, even in Northern Galicia, where they lately had the upper hand. An Austrian report declares that Russians have been dislodged from the western part of Grodek, which is only 15 miles west of Lemberg, and have also been dofeated further south. In the absence of an official denial from Petrograd these reports receive a measure of confirmation from a Reutek message, which states that the Russians are retiring _ to prepared positions on a line, including Grodek, where they will have the advantage of being posted in lake country, leading itself to defence. The principal lakes extend in a chain between two railways running east to meet at Lemberg, and Grodek is on the northern line. It is possible that the country in north and south may offer less serious obstacles to the German advance than the chain of lakes between the railways. At all events the German assault is being pressed more fiercely than ever —it is even stated that the great conflicts, costing tens of thousands of lives, which were waged between Western Galicia and tho. San were insignificant compared to the battle in its present phase—and the fate of Lemborg trembles in the balance. - * * * * While matters are in this shape in the Eastern theatre a corresponding blaze of battle has appeared in the West. The broad feature is that the Germans are straining every nerve to burst the tightening bo fids imposed by the Anglo-French offensive, and reading their own reports side by side with those of the Allies it is possible to say, with some confidence, that as yet they have completely failed. A Berlin report doss indeed lay some general claim to victory, but it seems to be based on little more than a rehash of the story of their recovery of a trench at Festubert, which had been wrested from them by 4 British assault. With armies rocking in such a fury of battle as now obtains on tho Western battle-lino tall talk -about the bravery and imperturbable endurance of German troops suggests only a dearth of better material. French reports upon the position deal in facts. They state that tho whole of the ground taken from the Germans has been retained with the 1 exception of one small wood, and! they have again advanced at other points. On one section of the front three hundred thousand shells were used in repelling Gorman counterattacks. The details of the developing blaze of battle, as they aro related, speak for themselves. Quito evidently the armies are locked in such an encounter as cannot ofton bo attempted or long maintained even in modern war.- ' It is rather soon to talk about results, but there seems somo reason to hope that substantial relief is about to bo afforded to tho hard-pressed Russians in tho East. •# * * » Another succcssful ai'Praid is roportod on tho Bolgian coast, Zeebruggo and other places further cast being bombarded by a squadron of aeroplanes. Considerable damage, was done, and the aeroplanes all re- 1 turned unharmed. As demonstrating the offensive power of tho acroplane and its superiority in this re-, spcct over tho mammoth _ Zeppelin, theso raids ou tho Belgian coast havo'a conspicuous value. The coast has been converted by tho Germans into an almost continuous fortress, not only equipped with great, guns designed to ward oft attack from the sea, but amply provided with anti-aircraft 'guns. Anti-aircraft guns, assisted by shrapnel and riflelire, have proved quite inadequate, howover, to discourage the aeroplane w'hich bisY?. .svapt down umn tho coast at {aii'U k'eaufltttl

intervals, and inflicted such damage as blowing great gaps in the molo at Zeebrugge and destroying, submarines under construction, and railway stations and other establishments adjacent to the ports. The -Germans are still left in possession of their coastal depots, though sorely pestered, but tho great lesson of these raids seems to be that if enough aeroplanes were available the damage done could be multiplied indefinitely. Limited squadrons of aeroplanes arc able to defy the enemy defences and inflict a certain amount of damage. They have done it repeatedly, after the enemy has been so often warned by experience that ho has had ample time and incentive to raise his defences to tho highest possible efficiency. Itrnust, therefore, bo supposed that if tho attacking squadrons were sufficiently increased their fugitive raids could bo converted into devastating attacks, which would make theenemy strongholds untenable. That the Allied air squadrons have not been so increased must be ascribed to problems of manufacture and upkeep and of the training ' of men anct to the demand that exists for the services of aeroplanes on t&O timmediate battle-fronts, in scouting, directing artillery, and bombarding the enemy's lines of communication. These enterprises absorb verv largo air forces, but; as the war develops much is to be expected of air squadrons acting independently ana attacking tho enemy at his homo dopots and bases of supply. * .* * * One reason for the pre-eminence of the aeroplane as an instrument of attack is that aviators using it take risks which are quite impossible to the Zeppelin and other bulky airships. Bomb-dropping from great heights *ls a speculative pursuit. .Allowance has to be made for the speed at which an aircraft is travelling, and a side wind, of course, causes deviation in the flight of the bomb. There may be different side winds at different heights from the ground. Leavinu air-resistance out of consideration it is found, according to calculations published in Flight, that in order to hit an object from a machine flying at 70 miles an hour at a height of 5000 feet, one must drop one's bomb at a point 600 yards in front of the target. _ Even from a' height of 200 feet it must be dropped at a point about 350 feet, ahead of tho mark. The aneroid barometer and other instruments, including an accurate sighting device, assist in the solution of these problems, but the problems themselves are very greatly in the practice of French apd British aviators by the intrepidity with which they swoop down upon the object of attack. Frequently they drop their bombs from a height of a couple of hundred feet, and as a result have bombarded, with accuracy and effect, bridges, airship sheds, and many other targets. Such tactics are impossible to a Zeppelin. It cannot swoop in this' fashion, and if it descended to a height which makes accurate bombdropping possible it could be easily blown out of existence. Zeppelins may continue to do a great deal of indiscriminate damage and to slaughter- innocent-people, but aocurate bomb-dropping upon defended military depots and establishments is probably beyond their powers.' At. any rate they are not in the same c-la-ss where work of this kind is concerned as the swift and handy aeroplanes. » # # » | An official report from Ca-iro discloses no important change in the situation at the Dardanelles. It deals only with .the temporary success and final crushing defeat of a Turkish attack on the British southern line. Unofficial reports indicate that one or more_ submarines are again actively raiding the enemy transport lines in the strait and r-ight up to the Golden Horn. * # » » On the reports received, the Lusitania Inquiry has brought no very important new facts to light. . It has confirmed the view that - the sinking of the ship was one of the most criminal outrages ever perpetrated in the name of naval war, but .the confirmation was scarcely needed. America, for example, has been negotiating with Germany throughout from the standpoint that the Lusitania was in no sense a ship of war, liable to be attacked without warning. Although the destruction of the ship followed immediately upon German threats that she would be attacked and sunk, it is difficult to avoid an opinion that an element of blind chance favoured the attacking submarine. The Lusitania was travelling at a speed of IS knots when she was torpedoed, and her course had been changed four times within a few hours. No German submarine has a speed of anything like 18 knots, except when running on the surface, ana if she had been chased bv a submarine running on the surface the big liner had a knot or two in reserve which should -have enabled her to escape. Apparently after all her change? of course, which with ordinary good fortune should have ensured her evading the enemy, the Lusitania met a submarine lying in her track, or near enough to her track to make a successful attack easy. Such an event can hardly bo ascribed solely, or even mainly, to the skill and judgment of the submarine commander, who has been honoured and acclaimed by his grateful country for as foul a- deed as ever a sailor was guiltv of. It came out at the inquiry that the Lusitcinia' on her last voyage was'running, for reasons of economy, at three or four knots less than her maximum speed of 24 knots, but the contention of the owners that thoy had reason to consider 20 or 21 knots a safe speed is scarcely open to objection. Thoy had the fact to proceed upon that no steamer running at a speed of over 14 knots had previously been torpedoed. * * * * The idea that an element of luck attended tho destruction of the Lusitania gains support from the fact that it was an isolated achievment, and also from tho general development of the so-called snbmarmo blockade. No other merchant ship comparable in size or speed with the Lusitania has figured in the list of submarino victims, and it is also truo that, subjcct to occasional fluctuations, the submarine campaign has shown a tendency to degenerate as regards tho power and size of the ships attacked. ' It is possible to divide it roughly into three periods. In tho first, warships wero almost tho sole- victims. In the second j (from February onwards when the j "blockade" was declared), coastal! and ovovsca cargo steamers were! chiefly attacked, and in the third - : period, which still tho j majority of the submarine, victims j have beon trawlers and fishing boats, j Xhs rule h aubjcot to som\'

r „ .. exceptions, notably in the case of the Lusitania and the battleship lately sunk Wb the Dardanelles. But it ' is still broadly true that the German submarine flotillas which began by attacking warships—their legitimate prey—have passed downward by gradations into less honourable enterprises uutil they how spend a. good deal 01 th«ir energy in sinking trawlers and not unfrequently murdering their crevs. Neither the declaration of the submarine block; ado nor any other voluntary act or decision on Germany's part will ' account for this degeneration. The fact that British warships in Homo waters, with the exception of a few torpedoers, liavo for .many weeks gone scatheless so fur submarine attack is concerned, can .-only mean that tho submarines liavij been unable to got at them. And it is equally certain that the submarine commanders who have expended so many torpedoes and shells on humble trawlers would gladly have; engaged instead in the destruction t.f bigger ' ships if these had been witijin their reach. A submarine, broperly handled, is capable of destroying a battleship; it is poor economy to use so powerful an instrument ijj destroying a trawler. and Gernian submarines during the last mciith or two have destroyed dozens of trawlers. Allowance being made f<> r occasional, and sometimes atartliqg r exceptions to the ruling tendency' the degeneration of the German 3ub' j marine campaign points to growing efficiency in British anti-submarine s tactics, efficiency which mates toj tho safety of warships and large, merchant'vessels, though "trawlers' * and other small craft are of necessity still loft to face a considerable risk. . , * # » * » Anothee factor in the operation* may ba a- shortage of skilled officers to command the German submarines, Germany started the war with about 30 submarines, and has lost perhaps 20, losing incidentally a considerable proportion of her best and most enterprising submarine commanders,Her flotillas by this time are probably stronger than ever, but it is easier to build /submarines than to procure officefs fit to command and use them with effect. It. is likely that Germany has been able to complete new submarines in about nine months from the day on whicS they were laid down, but as to,the training of submarine officers it is the practice in the British Navy to put . them through special course extending over a period of two years, and even .then a careful selection is made. As Mr. F. T. Jane remarked, in a recent lecture, 4he successful commander of a submarine is* born, not made. It is unlikely that Germany has at command any better material for submarine offioers than Britain, and' if she dispenses withany part of the necessary training in'officering her new craft it is bound to tell adversely upon her submarine campaign. Possibly the results are seen in the destruction of trawlers instead of bigger ships, the sinking of which would involve a greater loss to Britain and be of . more benefit to Germany. * * * * The reported sinking of an Italian submarine by an Austrian vessel of the same type is an event without precedent. It has become axiomatic that submarine cannot fight' submarine, but this instance-is perhaps the exception which proves the rule. Possibly, however, there was no fight. A submarine submerged and spying with her periscope, would presumably have at her mercy another submarine which; rose to the surface within effective torpedo range, and it is likely that the Italian Medusa met her fate in this-, way. If so, however, it must, have been a lucky shot travelling very near the surface.