PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 59, 7 September 1914, Page 8

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

GERMAN WHEELING MOVEMENT AUSTRIA'S GALICIAN COLLAPSE. The Press Bureau's .survey of last week's operations is both interesting and reassuring, and there is no rea-son to doubt that it is maintaining its reputation for impartiality and correctness. A survey like this is worth far more than bits of picture-writing about isolated engagements. So many men are in action that xvhat used to bo considered battles are now skirmishes, and what, used to be skirmishes hardly count, nowadays, at all. Half the nexvs picked up by correspondents concerns small adventures by cavalry patrols, and these are quite out of line with the general perspective of the strategic position as a whole. TACTICS IN FRANCE. Without attempting to follow in, too much detail the German movements in France, it may be stated that after the Allies took up the line of the Seine and its important tributary the Marne, the German march from 'the north, which had been pointing due south to Paris,' turned south-eastward. That is to sayj the army which has led the invaders' right wing did not at this stage engage the Paris forts, but marched between Paris and the La Fere-Laon-Rheims line of fortresses. This army thus threxv itself between Paris and the French line of the Marne (o.i the south) and La Fere-Laort-Rheims (on the north) ; and its objective may have been to turn the flank of the Allies' centre' armies and thus open, for the purposes of the German centre, the previously-described gap between the forts of Uheims and those of Vctdun. That 'gap is stated to be strongly held by the French centre. A fexv clays ago the military correspondent of Le Temps suggested that the hard fighting of tho German _ right against the French left xvas designed to draw troops away from tho French centre, so as to open the Rheims- Verdun gap for a direct advance of the German centre via Stenay and Vouziers. In this design the German right, it appear?, did not succeed, but it fought its way through the inferior forces of the Franco-BriflMi left and now is reported to be in a position to threaten the French centre opposite the gap. This is probably the object of the sudden wheeling south-eastward towards the Marne. It is also possible that a direct attack upon the French lines along the Marne somewhere east of Paris is intended, but it is more like the usual German strategy to have a, more direct co-ordination between right and centre. A DARING ADVANCE. As it is, the German right army appears to have been considerably venturesome in turning the La Fere-Laon-Rheims line and exposing itself to a hostile front and a. hostile rear. Unless it is heavy in humbers and well supplied, it may be put in an awkward position before the German central armies can come to its aid. A good deal depends on whether the French are intact on the La Fere-Laou-Rheims line. If they are, the maintenance of communications by tho German right would seem to be a matter of no small difficulty. Important German movements, co-ordinat-ing with the right, are noxv announced. One thing made clear in the message of the Press Bureau is that the offensive taken on 29th August by the French Fifth Army, "supporting the British right, was really effective xvithin the section of front that it covered. As part of the general retirement, thp victorious French subsequently fell back. British training and superior personnel are the subject of a satisfactory report by General French, The German Generals constantly search for the small but effective British army, The German troops don't. IN GALICIA. The Russians have made a great haul at Lemberg. They have since extended their conquest in south-eastern Galicia, but the principal work before them is in western Galicia. If they move rapidly westward and secured fortified Przemysl, the Austrian out-flanking column that xvas repulsed at Lublin xvill have no retreat except on Cracow, By the time Cracow is reached German troops, noxv hurrying forward fromßreslau, will be strengthening the Austrian lines, and a great battle may be expected here if the Germans can giii up in time to fight the advantage. If victorious at Cracoxv, the Russians xvill be able to strike both at Austria and Hungary (inside the Carpathians) and at Germany. This diversion of German troops to their south-eastern danger point is valuable to the Allies. Possibly the Russian troops in Poland and the bulk of those in Galicia xvill converge in a colossal blow at the meeting pjace of ■the German and Austrian Empires.