PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2579, 29 September 1915, Page 6

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

* —"— ® -■ ■ j Whether it is the aim and purpose of the tremendous assault which the Allies in France and Flanders have opened so auspiciously to drive tie Germans back to the Rhino ' remains to be seen, but all the news available at the moment warrants a hope that the enemy is on the eve of such a smashing defeat as he has not previously suffered in this war. Current German communiques would have it that the Allied offensive is already losing momentum and glowing down. More reliable news attests the contrary. Aliko in Northern France and on the long attacking 'front in the Champagne district the Allies are pressing the assault and extending the area .of their conquests. At a low estimate the en<?rny has lost forty, square miles, not of ordinary territory, but of territory covered with formidable field fortifications designed to'stand imprcgnably against all possible assaults. With the shattering of his front the enemy has lost heavily in men, artillery, and military equipment, and all this, as a London message remarks to-day, in the opening moves of- a game which will continuo for days and weeks. Victory is never to be taken for granted, but it is established fi\ll'y and amply that the Allies are engaged in an enterprise' of unexampled magnitude and importance, 1 and. are making, free and prodigal use of the re-" sources they have accumulated 3urjng the long months in which their inactivity has sometimes been made the subject of reproachful comment.

' There 1 is no possible reason to suppose that the . concentrated driving power of the Allied offensive will be confined to the two areas in which thus far its weight has told most heavily upon the enemy. Battering _ their way into the- German front in Northern Prance and into the defensive lines in the Champagne district which cow the flank of the invading armies, the Allies have simultaneously wrapped the whole Western front' from the sea to the Swiss frontier in a blaze of more or less stationary battle which may at any 'time and in any of>, a dozen places_ prove the prelude to further smashing strokes at the enemy's line. Two gres&t moyes are meantime manifest, in Northern France and in the Champagne, and for the rest a storm of battle not less formidable and menacing' because it has yet to take as definite shape as the assaults which have already made suoh splendid headway. It is to be expected that the Allies will spread ahd alternate " their assaults as the conflict develops, and it is only so that the German line will be put to a final and searching test. • * * *

Taking it that the battle of land, air, and sea now raging in enormous and rising volume in the Western theatre represents in all likelihood a supreme effort of the Allies in tho war, there are a number of vital considerations apart from the actual details of tho fighting whioh warrant a hopeful estimate of possibilities. Tho measure and rate of sucoess achieved by the Allies will depend upon a. number of factors not all of which are visible. Time and the test of battle alone will show whether the resources of. the Allies in men and material are sufficient to outweigh those the Germans have at present available or may be able to provide by draining other theatres. .There are immensely important factors however which make definitely.and absolutely for an Allied victory and a German defeat. The greatest of all is the situation of tho German line in France and Flanders. Unless the Allied assault belies its early promise the time is now at hand when the Germans will pay a bitter price ' for their criminal invasion of Belgium. They invaded Belgium because they hoped to pass through that country to a rapid and decisive viotory over the French. Having failed to realise that hope in more than a year of war, they are now called upon to defend a line of battlo immensely longer than if they were arrayed along their own frontier, and it is very probable that the fact may prove their undoing. » # • »

Disregarding that section 'of their front which runs east and south of Yerchm and the stretch of Belgian coast where Allied warships aro thundering against their fortificathe Germans, in their area of invasion in Belgium and France, hold a front which' coincides approximately with two sides of a great square, one side 'extending south from the Flanders coast to the Aisne near Soissons, and the other leaving it at a right angle and running east along the Aisne to north, of Verdun/ The two sides of the square have an aggregate length of about, three hundred miles., If instead they were ranged along a lino running 'south ■ from Holland and still in advance of their own. frontier, the Germane would be holding

a front in the area north of Verdun less than' half as long as the one on which fchcy are now being assailed. They would be holding one side of a square instead of two, and that one shorter than either of the two they hold at present.^ In a- war in which everything de-' pends on effective concentration of men and artillery, this factor of length of front is vital. > The Germans may be in possession of resources which would enable them to hold out indefinitely on the shortest practicable front in the Western theatre, but v ast)y greater resources would be necessary to enable them to ■ hold their present front. Possibilities of retreating tp a shorter line— which they miglit find along the Meusc without falling back as far as their ovyn frontier—can hardly be said to materially improve the enemy prospects. A German retreat •now might not mean military disaster, but it would have ,a great moral effect. Except as regards East Prussia and a small but very important area in Alsace, the Germans have fought hitherto as invaders, and in itself the moral effect of a retreat in the Western, theatre might be expected to tell in a marked degree upon the German nation, and possibly also upon the efficiency of their great war machine. On this account, and in view of the, loss of prestige with neutral nations which would lie entailed if they retreated, it is not altogether surprising that the Germans have apparently determined to court a decisive conflict on their present elongated front. Nevertheless the decision to do so handicaps them heavily, and, as it mav prove, fatally. * * « * a

A German communique which arrived too late for comment yesterday came somewhat disconcertingly on the heels of reports telling, of ■ a steadily improving Russian position. The enemy ' message averred that Marshal von Hindenburg's troops had successfully pierced the Russian line on the Beresina, about a hundred miles 'north of MinsH, and therefore north-east of the area east of Vilna in which the Russians have lately rolled back the' enemy after foiling a great enveloping attack. The position is not yet thoroughly cleared up, but the essential facts' appear to be that the Germans have thrust forward a long narrow wedge from the point, about midway between Vilna and Dvinsk, at which they first got astride the Pctrograd railway in this region, that the troops occupying the wedge are seriously imperilled, and that the Germans have so far completely failed to remove ithe peril by dislodging the Russians from Dvinsk, i and so converting .a dangerously narrow salient into "a bi'oad arid easily defended projection of their line. Generally speaking, reports .from Russia breathe a spirit of confidence. The offensive against the AustroGermans in Galicia and Southern Russia is being vigorously and successfully pressed, and the results are held 'to have foiled General von Mackensen's efforts to penetrate the Russian line further north. The outlook is thus hopeful both for the Russians and'for their Allies in the West, to whom it is immensely important that the Austrb-G.erinans should be kept as fully as possiblo engaged on the opposite front.

A late message tells of. an important Russian .victory in tho Dvinsk region'and of further pronounced successes in. Southern-Rus-sia. ...

Official reports relating to Gallipoli tell of no big development in the campaign, but indicate a stato o£ feverish unrest which pay at any, time give place to decisive conflict. The reappearance of enemy aeroplanes seems to have given the signal for an Allied air attack on a Turkish hangar at BergaZj on the Asiatic shore, of tho Dardanelles. The hangar, it is stated, was blotted out and damage was done also to Turkish shipping. * * * #

The keynote of tho changed Balkan situation is perhaps to be found in 'the German newspaper reports, quoted to-day, whioh speak of the progress of Aiistro-German fortifications, preparatory :to a fresh offensive against Serbia. /The construction of fortifications would. Eeera to imply apprehension of an attack instead of an intention to deliver one. An unofficial but interesting report states that the Allies have undertaken to land a fully equipped force (presumably in_ Greece) if either Greece or Serbia, is attacked, and also to render financial assistance'. It is obvious that the Balkan situation has very greatly improved. Bulgaria seems to bo held in check, and there is little chance of matters ieverting to .their recent threatening aspect unless the Allies in the V'csfc or the Russians meet with a serious set-back. Of this there is not,at present any sign. The indications arc all the other way.