PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3173, 25 August 1917, Page 6

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

News generally from all theatres to-day is good:> The Italians arc pursuing their victorious offensive with excellent prospects of expanding the great success already won. The French have come to a halt at Verdun, but with a brilliant achievement to their credit and more than .7000 prisoners in hand. Detail news from Rumania is good, and bears out the remark made by General Maurice that the Allies in that theatre are making a stancf without present signs of being forced back. In the Eastern theatre the enemy has won a local success on the Riga front, forcing the Russians to retire from ground gained in General Dimitrieff's offensive thrust at the beginning of the year. The affair meantime is chiefly important as involving the loss of a vantage point threatening the enemy's northern flank. There is no present indication that the Germans are -attempting to develop their advantage.

Different messages to-day bringout very clearly the essential chari acter of tho tremendous battle which lis under way in Flanders. As one correspondent points out, tho British successes reported yesterday are greater than an advance of a few hundred yards on a short front suggests. The British are fighting, he adds, for tho high ground dominating the whole tactical position in Northern Belgium, and have now bitten another slice out of the ridge cast of Ypres. That the correspondent is not exaggerating wh?n he says that the enemy is concentrating 'to his utmost to retain this commanding position appears from a statement by General Maurice, which appears to-day, that the enemy has lately been bringing up twice as many reinforcements as the British. Apparently this statement applies both to the Flanders front and to the Lens area, where an .appreciable advance has been made during the last few days, and it is a'.striking indication of tho efficiency and-suc-cess with which tho British are conducting their offensive. It means, obviously", that in developing their attack they are inflicting altogether disproportionate losses on _ the enemy. So far from having gained that freedom of movement which was the ostensible object of their retreat in tho spring, the Germans arc condemned to squander their reserves in a failing defence of positions which they evidently regard as vital 1 to the security of their defensive line. In spito of colossal saerificcs, their hold on these positions is weakening day by day. /Losing the positions they are defending ai such terrible cost, their hold on the Flanders coast will be endangered and Lille will be imminently threatened on north and south. The present battles impose an exhausting drain <upon the enemy's strength, 1 but it is distinctly possible that before long even the present rate of exhaustion may be greatly exceeded.

A somewhat astonishing report is transmitted to-day, on the authority of the Paris I'ctit Journal, to the effpet that the difficulties in the way of Japanese intervention in Europe havo been removad and that the Ja.paneso flag will appear on tlie .Russian front. Tho suggestion is that a considerable body of Japanese troops is about to enter tho Eastern theatre. The news must be received with doubt. The Russian Socialists are' hardly likely to favour the introduction of Japanese troops, and in any case a very serious obstacle to their introduction exists in the congested stato of the Siberian railway. It was reported long ago that Japanese artillerymen were fighting on the Eastern front, and specialised units of other rationalities have gone to tho assistance of Russia, but she stands in no need of reinforcements of ordinary troops.' Her difficulties, intensified by the disorders of the Revolution, arise from lack of organisation, and particularly from laok of efficient transport organisation, and from the' fact that her transport facilities aro at best far from adequate. It is quite possibly true, as one messago'declares' to-day, that the .Russian armies cannot bo expected to renew the offensive on a- large scale until they ha,ve rcccived help from tho Allies, but the nature of tho help needed is accurately indicated in tho statement that President Wilson is considering plans to assist m tho economic reconstruction of Russia, and thus ensure supplies for tho armies. When Prince Lvofk, the lato Premier, was asked by an American correspondent not long ago what was the most efiicient service the United States could render to Russia, he replied: "Give us railroad cars. Give us locomotives and tracks for them to run upon._ Give us transport managers. Give us your quick American methods. Give us railroad efficiency, and Russia will try and do the rest. ihis statement no doubt applies as exactly to existing conditions as to those which obtained when it was made.

The assertion of the Gorman "Chancellor that the U-boats in July accounted for 811,000 tons of shipping is modest in comparison with the sensational report published in America some weeks ago that shipping was being sunk at the rate of 1,600,000 tons a month, but, even so, must be set down as an exaggeration. According to figures giv-in by the French Minister of Marino in the Chamber of Deputies, the shipping of all nations sunk by tho submarines in April last aggregated 850,000 tons. This was the highwater mark of the underwater campaign to date. There has sines been a marked decline, and whatever the actual figures for July may be they are certainly considerably short of 811,000 tons.