STRUGGLE EXTENDING TO ANOTHER SECTOR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2715, 9 March 1916, Page 5

STRUGGLE EXTENDING TO ANOTHER SECTOR

THE BRITISH NAVY

STATEMENT BY FIRST LORD OF: THE ADMIRALTY

LORD FISHER 1 THE WAR COUNCIL

ANOTHER RUSSIAN SUCCESS IN ASIA MINOR

Very heavy fighting is reported in the area west of the Meuse, where the Germans are now concentrating the main weight of their assault on the Verdun salient. The French lines have been retired for a distance, though not yet to the samo extent as on the opposite side of the river. East of Verdun the French have lost the vilage of Fresnes, on the edge of the Woeuvre plain. Introducing the Navy Estimates in the House of Commons, Mr. Balfour declared that Great Britain's present superiority in fighting ships was enormous and incontestable. He indicated also that now construction was being pushed with all possible speed, the limit of shipbuilding bsing the limit of skilled labour available. A following speech by Major Churchill has been stigmatised as mischievous and needlessly alarmist. In it ho suggested that the Admiralty had failed to sufficiently expedite the construction of new ships, and demanded that Lord Fisher-should be recalled. It is recorded that the latter, who had been called to the War Council before Major Churchill spoke, sat in the Peers' Gallery grimly smiling as he listened to the speech.. The Russians havo made further progress along the Black Sea coast of Armenia, and are also striking west from Kermanshah, in Persia. "