PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 141, 4 March 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Though the official communiques do not stress in any way the happenings on the West front recorded to-day, it is obvious that tho enemy is displaying a greater activity than has been evidenced for many months past. It will bo noted that raiding, artillery engagements, and in one or two instances attacks in force have been carried out at points along practically the whole of the West front. It is significant that probably for the first time we have the forces of the whole of the Allies on this front participating simultaneously in tho repelling of enemy attacks. The Belgians in the' north, the British, the Portuguese, the French, and the_ American forces are all mentioned in to-day's news as having been subjected to attacks along the various sectors of the line they hold; and it is satisfying to note that in all cases the enemy thrusts failed to gain any_ material results. The greatest activity appears to be in the region to the-north-east of Keims, and it would seem that our French Allies are likely to be called on to bear the first heavy brunt of the anticipated big German offensive. An Italian message to-day states that all the Gorman divisions which were operating with the Austro-Hungarian forces against Italy have now been withdrawn and transferred to France to swell the enemy forces there for the coming spring campaign. If we' are to believe the accounts of the Aus-tro-German drive into Italy this will not mean any material addition to Hindenburg's armies in France.

If, as has been frequently asserted, the German General Staff for the campaign of 1918 is committed to a programme involving a grand offensive in the West, it may safely be assumed that their main point of attack has already been selected. The initial advantage conferred on the side which is about to take tho offensive is that it can choose, and conceal under cover of strong but subsidiary blows at other points, the direction of its main thrust. A knowledge of the enemy's temperament, his methods of thinking as shown in previous engagements, tho disposition of his elite troops, and a mass of material data collected by tho defenders' air and land reconnaissance, have often enabled a clever adversary to deduce tho direction-of his enemy's thrust, and mako provision to meet it. This involves a close scrutiny of the enemy's preliminary operations, and a skilful diagnosis of his offensive activities all along the line. Bearing these elementary principles of strategy in mind, tho student of the war news will no doubt find much interest in a close examination of the events on the Western front from now on. There is a very strong probability that the Germans will attack the French. Tho fact that the latter wore recently relieved by the British of a portion of their line—

from St. Quentin to the Cise—lends colour to this probability. The additional fact that the Americans are on the French section of the Western line strengthens the.probability. But nothing more than that can be said of the situation at the present juncture. The enemy's greatest disadvantage on the eve of his grand offensive—if he really means to attack—is the absolute and unquestioned superiority of the Allies in the air. Labouring under this disadvantage, the enemy v/ill only be able to mask his main attack for a limited period. Once committed to the attack he will be ceaselessly spied upon from above, the deployments of his main forces and the movements of his reserves constantly unmasked, while his batteries will be groping in tho dark for the want of the necessary information from his own air service.

Thk German Socialist organ Yorwaerts, remarking that tho Socialists in the Fatherland are impotent, observes that there is not now in Germany any party willing to act to the country's'disadvantage.■ It might have added that if the German plan's go wrong this year there will hardly be in the country a party unwilling to act to the disadvantage of the Kaiser. It'is as well to remember, however, that the German Government probably allowed tho leading Socialist n'ewspapor in Germany to publish tho statement referred to—and more than Hkely inspired it—because it was just the sort of statement, coming from a Socialist newspaper, that would be calculated to depress the spirits of the Bolßheviki. The soul of tho German Socialist is haunted by selfinterest. If Socialism comes, says he in effect,, let it come to the German Socialists as the ruling discipline of thte new order. There is not the slightest doubt that the German Socialists do not love the war, of which they are heartily sick, but they realise that only a German peace will enable them to plan for a Socialist world order "made in Germany." Herr Scheidemann, the German Socialist leader, meant exactly . that when he said in the Reichstag one day last week that the fruits of the German advance in Russia showed that the best method to sccuro peace was not by negotiation, Reichstag resolutions or Papal Notes, but by an unbroken advance. Then ho added that Belgium must be held by Germany as security for tho return of the lost colonies, and concluded with the declaration that not the slightest consideration should be: shown to Russia, from whom a heavy indemnity must be exacted, with a German army in occupation, till it is paid. As soon as the German Socialists are convinced that their leaders cannot possibly win the war the Kaiser will be called to his reckoning—not before. One thing, and one thing only, will establish that conviction and make it permanent—the complete defeat of the Germans on the field of battle.

Indications continue to appear in the war dispatches of the possibilities of serious friction between Austria and Germany. The latest reference is to the rival interests of these two nations as regards food supplies from the Ukraine. Each is in most desperate straits for food. Each has a strong incentive for placating its disaffected people by tendering some material and personal proof of their vaunted military conquests. What more material than the arrival of food trains from the territory of a former enemy 1 With Austria the uccd for soothinfc her motley aggregation of races in this manner is much greater than with the more highly disciplined Germans. It has previously been stated that Austria had declined to intervene in the Ukraine after the peace settlement with that portion of Russia. In a dispatch to-day the Amsterdnm correspondent of the D'ti'u Ike press states that there has been a change of policy—Austria has entered the Ukraine for the purpose of preventing the Germans from seizing food supplies that rightfully were hers. According to the German official report, the Austrian movement into the Ukraine is in the nature of military co-operation, the ostensible purpose being to assist the Ukraine jada to maintain its authority against the Bolsheviki. The idea of an official breach between the two Teutonic allies at this stage of the war is unthinkable, but the prevailing distrust which is felt amongst the people of the Dual Monarchy fo" their unscrupulous allies may ' develop an intensity of feeling that might conceivably force the hand 3 of the Austrian Government.