PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3062, 25 April 1917, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

The British offensive has entered another. active phase, and a great battle is under way on a lroui ui eight or ten miles north ana suiun ol the Eiver Scarce, which, runs east of Arras, iiven at the early stago of the battle to which reports, in nand at time of writing apply important results had been achieved. The initial attack was directed against a range of enemy deienccs extending almost duo south from the village, of Gavrelle, five miles north-ease of Arras, to the vicinity of Fontaine lez Oroisilles, eight miles to the south. These positions 'constituted an-advanced line covering the main "Hindcnburg" mile or two further back, and in view of the 1 progress made it should not- be long betore the British are in direct touch 1 with this obstacle. As reports stand, the , village of Gavrelle has been captured, together with enemy defensive positions, to a point two and a half miles further south. Guemappe village, on the Arras-Cambrai road, a little over five miles south of Gavrelle, has scared the same fate, and the southern extremity of the line, in the vicinity of Fontaine lez Oroisilles, is named by Me.. Philip Gibbs :as an area in which the enemy suffered disaster. In its total effect the news means that the greater part of the line attacked has been captured. The occupation of Gavrelle will probably compel the enemy to evacua,te . positions further north. It will, at all events, facilitate the reduction of these positions, and ultimately of the salient which has Lens at its apex. Meantime at Gavrelle the British are little more than eight miles distant from Douai junction, a vital centre in the railway network south of Lille.

It is mentioned by Sir Douglas Haig" that the enemy suffered very heavy losses in frequent and violent counter-attacks, which wore a marked feature of the operations. Here, as on the front on which tho French "lately developed their offensive with signal success, indications aro afforded that the enemy is staking his hopes, not upon a withdrawal to a shorter line in order to economise his resources, and perhaps release strength for an offensive stroke, but upon an obstinately maintained defensive, with a minimum sacrifice of ground. This means desperately hard fighting for the time being, and for some time to come, but it

means also that the enemy is fighting with a limited outlook and with dark prospects. Tho Germans have learned to their cost. that their strongest positions are vulnerable to attack. Generally \speaking, the offensive on the northern ■ front is driving into easier country, offering poorer facilities for defence than the area from which the Germans "have lately been dislodged. Similar remarks apply to tho Aisne front. Apart from' factors of position and observation, the' Germans have now on a wide extent of front been thrown back on lines much weaker in tho matter of artificial fortification than those which they spent two years in fortifying, and hoped they had made impregnable. Yet they arc to-day pursuing in the main the tactics they might have been expected to adoM if the idea of an impregnable front had been nrovod sound instead of fallacious. It certainly does not improve the outlook from the enemy's '. standpoint that Tie is constrained 'to resort to ruinously costly counter-attacks, which gain him at most temporary relief, and very often entirely fail." Discussing some time ago the enemy's prospects of turning round a

[system designed for offence into one designed for defence, an English correspondent remarked that the change meant chiefly a greater relative reliance on the infantry arm. "In the earlier part of the war," he added, "the Allies were able to. offer an efficient defence because they had an admirable body of infantry to withstandlhe shock. The enemy can offer an efficient defence now only on the same terms'. But we touch here his weak spot. He has squandered his, infantry. In that arm he ought a't the very least to bo the equal of his opponents. He is not their equal. He never was their superior at any time. On every front he is now their inferior. The task, then, of converting the German army into a great machine of defence is analogous to making, bricks without straw. It cannot too often be insisted upon that in defensive tactics guns play a secondary part, important though it may be. And, if guns are made the backbone, of the resistance, as apparently the Germans intend to make them, the resistance will be ■broken for a certainty. It is. simply a question of how long—a question dependent upon the magnitude of the operations. If guns had formed the backbone of the defence of Verdun, Verdun must have fallen. The enemy's defence is vitiated by a radical fault, and that fault is beyond remedy." The events of the Allied offensive as far as it_ has gone tend to justify this estimate of the position. The enemy, it is true, is making free use of his infantry, but he is doing so in a fashion which bears not the faintest resemblance to the economical and skilfully planned defensive tactics pursued by the French at Verdun. The Germans, in their vain attempts to maintain a failing .'line, arei squandering lives with the same reckless prodigality as marked their efforts to force a decision in earlier stages' of the war. It is a policy which, of course, must rapidly intensity the weakness in their organisation to which the correspondent alludes. 9 • * ' *''■'■

Offensive operations against; the Turks in Mesopotamia continue to develop with excellent promise. Tho Istabulat position, 65 miles north of Bagdad, which the enemy was yesterday reported to be defending, has been" evacuated, and the British are now attacking a position half a dozen miles further north. The capture of a six-inch howitzer suggests that the Turks made a disorderly retreat.