THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 41, 17 August 1917, Page 6

THE WAR

Lens is the prize sought by the new British offensive^ which was launched upon the sector between that town and Loos, two miles north-west of it. The "cites" (cities) which figure prominently in the official reports are a number of small semi-detached suburbs grouped round tho large town, and are of importance only so far as each represents a more or less effective stronghold. The most important stage in the offensive was the storming of Hill 70, the summit of which is about a mile east of Loos, and which is extended eastward in a ridge about three miles long as far as the village of Harnes. The battle-line rested, before the attack, on the western slope o£ Hill 70, where the British advance was completely held up in .the offensive of September, 1915. The hill iteelf was specially well protected, as Sir Douglas Haig reports, by "every device," but the experience of recent offensives has clearly shown that a position of this sort is bound to succumb to a sufficient artillery attack. Each such incident proves, in fact, that if time was not so vital a factor in a war exhausting to the resources of both sides, the elaborate fortification of terrain cannot prevent defeat by an enemy with superior armament.

After the conquest of the hill fortress, the British troops (who were Canadians) continued their advance as far as the western side of Cite St. Auguste, which is due east of the summit, and stands on the northern slope of the ridge, and on the west side of the Lens-Lille railway. They cleared up various suburbs as they went, and took possession of certain small wooded areas. The effect of the advance is that the Brtish troops are now in positions north-east of Lens, and hay« gun-positions of great power due north of the town. They have visual observation and gun-command of the only roads entering Lens from the north-east, on the north side of the Souchez river. This has to be added to the fact that by the earlier operations of the Canadians south of Lens the heights south of the Souchez, looking down upon Lens and upon aIL the roads entering it south of the river, were mastered. As far as it is possible to judge from the maps, there is no longer a, single road by which the enemy can victual and munition and reinforce a garrison in Lens itself which cannot be kept under effective fire. As a correspondent remarks, the town has become a death-trap for the enemy.

A direct attack upon such a. place as liens would mean running into a deathtrap for the attackers, and it has been obvious from the. first that if the placa was to be taken it could only be done by flanking attacks. There has been so long a period of inactivity on the Lena sector that it might easily have been supposed that for tile time at least tiro project of attacking it had been given np. But it is reasonable now to sup*pose that the battles at Ypres which have intervened have played- no smallpart in the British scheme for Lens. The enemy's attention has been strongly concentrated irpon. Flanders, and to some extent at least he may have been persuaded that the danger at Lens had been reduced, even though ' the guns were still busy pounding his works. But while Lens is not the key to Flanders, it is one of the chief strongholds defending the Lille area; and its loss will enable the British to swing eastward towards the rising ground protecting what may he called the capital of occupied France, and to threaten its southern flank. La. Bassee, a few miles further north, and already partly outflanked by the position of the front immediately to the south, will then take the main, strain as a pivot between the old line and the new. A number, as yet not announced, of German, prisoners lias been taken, and the reports allege that the enemy suffered heavy losses, while the British casualties were light. Up to the time of writing, the German, communiques deal only with the period when the infantry attack* began, and we have still to learn how far, from the enemy's viewpoint, -tho offensive was a failure.

During the .periods -which have been devoid of marked offensive action and winch, contrary to all expectation at Hid beginning of the year, ha-ve been so m/irkad v- /«».tur<J of (ho summer's work, jfclie i»aatiYity ■ iisfi foeon only apparent,,

GotTcapondente' references to the artillery 'bombardiments have occasionally been transmitted in the cable news, but the steady and effective work of the British guns as an enormous power in the gradual crushing of the enemy cannot bo 100 clearly realised. The following interesting statement on this aspect of the fighting is extracted from a recent article by Mr. Hilaare Belloo:—"Every one at homo ought to understand clearly that these apparent lulls ... look very different indeed at the front from, what they _do at home. The Allied bombardment is continuous; ithe shells that strike at once the moral and the numbers of the enemy are delivered against him in overwhelmingly greafer numbers than his against our Hne3. There are many now writing in Ithe English Press who have seen the sight for themselves —I saw it last wook—and it is conclusive. All day and all night this terrible shelling continues, and the pressure in mere weight of metal is wholly against the enomy. But more important even than this preponderance in -weight of metal is the accuracy with which it is handled, and that we owe to tho continued, and let us hope, invincible superiority of tho air which has long been attained by the Allies.. To take couniterbatteiy work alone, that is, the work nl the guns occupied in destroying or silencing the grins of the other side, it would not be an exceptional day in which twice as many shell* soTisfct the enemy batteries from the British side as sought the British Batteries from, the onemy's side. It -would noit be an exceptional day in which the twofold' effort of the British counted 50 per cent, successful hits, that is, the striking of the gun-pits aimed ait, or, a,t any rate, the silencing of their pieces^ as compared with a 25 per cent, measure of success on the part of itho enemy. And that sort of superiority is cumulative m its effort and is .going on day after day, though there is no appreciable movement upon the map, and the despatches leave us hardly anything to record."