BY MAJOR-GENERAL MAURICE

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 48, 25 August 1917, Page 7

BY MAJOR-GENERAL MAURICE

PROSPECT ALTOGETHER MORE HOPEFUL

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(AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 23rd August. General F. B. Maurice, Director of Military Operations, states that the recent British advances were all carried out according to programme. Mud rendered the Langemarck advance unexpectedly difficult. The recent German reinforcements had been twice as heavy as ours, but, owing to their losses and exhaustion, we are now right into Lens on the south-west and north-west. The Italian great battle is proceeding satisfactorily, and there, is, a possibility of very great and important consequences. Russia is making a stand in the south-west, without any present signs of being forced back The prospect altogether is more hopeful

The Germans claim that between 19th July and 18th August they captured 41,000 prisoners is not surprising, for the Russians were withdrawing in a state of mutiny, only half of them fighting. Against those figures the Allies in three days have taken 25,000 prisoners, and in the past twenty days have captured 32,500. To maintain the people's confidence the German communiques contain more and more fiction. Their "railway traffic rolling stock is breaking down, and coal is getting short. The public are beginning to feel the pinch, and the tone of their papers shows many anxieties. :