PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 263, 26 July 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

No great change is disclosed at tiino of writing in the position on the Aisnc-Marne battlefront. It is a fact to bear in mind, however, that while these conditions continue the Allies are steadily, approaching their essential object, which is to build up a decisive superiority in fighting strength, while the enemy is denied an opportunity of reconstructing his organisation with a view to. another desperate bid for victory. This view of the matter seems, at all events, to be warranted hy the continued passivity of the Gorman northern armies. Existing conditions strongly suggest, if they do not actually demonstrate, that the enemy is incapable of striking elsewhere ur.tii he has effected some sort of restoration south of the Aisnc.

It is still by no means certain that the Germans will succeed in safely extricating the whole of their armies from the salient. No doubt they aro bringing preiit skill and a wealth of staff experience to bear

upon the problem, but its solution may nevertheless bo difficult even if the Allies abstain to the end from taking any serious risk with a view to rounding off what they have already accomplished. To-day's reports show that tho Germans are still fighting hard, not only on the flanks of the salient, but in its southern area towards the Manic, and they still hold a short front along the northern bank of that river. It seems at least possible that a stage may bo readied at which the necessity of withdrawing troops from the salient by the limited exits available will conflict hopelessly with the equally imperative necessity of maintaining a free (low of supplies to the armies oil the flanks, where resistance must at all costs bo maintained. If the Allies intend to strike another big blow they will no doubt choose the moment when the enemy's transport problems are at their' worst, and it seems distinctly possible that this moment lias not yet arrived.

I'iiE later official reports dealing with the I 1 rench attack north-west of Montdidier show that it was a bigger operation and a bigger success than at first appeared. Tho fact that more than eighteen hundred prisoners were cipt'ured speaks ,for itself. The possibility of adding to the enemy's embarrassments by repeating such attacks arc obviously very important. There are many areas in which he is liable to he attacked locally with damaging effect unless he masses .strong forces in defenoe, and if he is compelled to adont the latter course generally in likely areas of attack the aggregate effect upon his broad dispositions will, of course, he serious.

The submarine figures for last month arc sot out in the cable news m comparative relation to those of earlier periods, anc! tteir immediate import is obvious. The drop in losses shown, though pronounced, is perhaps not as great as might have been hoped for in view of the Navy's success in blocking Zcebruggc, the enemy's best base on the 'Belgian coast, and partly blocking Ostend. It is safe to assume, however, that Germany has not attained even the- diminished level of destruction now shown without incurring very heavy losses in the underwater craft devoted to the work. A maximum submarine effort has no doubt coincided with the enemy's maximum effort on land, and as the result of a maximum effort the destruction of Allied and neutral shipping' effected in Juno and preceding months must be extremely disappointing to the German naval chicfs. Shipping losses arc. for from having fallen to a level at which they could be regarded with comparative indifference, but the total failure of the submarine to play a decisive part is now, as Captain Pkrsius is constrained to admit, fully demonstrated. Other things apart, the failure appears quite plainly in th© almost unimpeded transportation of the American armies. The American transports have been the grand target offered to the enemy submarines for many months past,' but the position tei-day is that there are something like a million and a quarter American troops in France: others are being transported at the rate of three hundred thousand men a month, and of these liosts little more than two hundred men have been lost at sea-